TEENAGE GIRL STABBED TO DEATH IN CROYDON.

Another day, another sign that multiculturalism is a big, fucking LIE.

A schoolgirl aged 15 has been brutally stabbed to death on a route 60 bus in #Croydon.

Emergency services rushed to Wellesley Road at 08:30. Sadly, the teenager was pronounced dead at the scene at 09:21.

A teenage boy has been arrested by Police at 09:45, in the Croydon area. pic.twitter.com/uwF532Baiw

— 999 London (@999London) September 27, 2023

The Daily Mail:

A teenage boy knifed a 15-year-old girl to death 'with a machete after an argument that began with him trying to give her flowers' while she was getting a bus to her £19,350-a-year private school in south London today.

The victim, a pupil at Old Palace of John Whitgift School in Croydon, was attacked at 8.30am - less than a mile away from the school gates.

Chevanice Thomas, whose friend claims to have witnessed the stabbing, said the girl had rejected flowers from the boy moments before he attacked her with a knife that resembled 'a sword'. Another witness claimed she heard the girl saying she 'didn't want to go out with him any more'.

The bus driver and a passenger tried desperately to save the girl's life but she died at the scene at 9.21am. Officers arrested a 17-year-old boy in nearby New Addington at 9.45am.

Via The Evening Standard:






Aha. Silly me. I should have known. Yet more blessings from the black community. Luckily more are on their way, landing in Dover and surroundings by the hundreds every day! And of course the sole white in the picture is 'clueless' and 'shocked'. "We remain in the early stages of our investigation". Pardon me if I read that as "We enter the last stages of our civilization."


Anyway, so the future rocket engineer cum neurosurgeon tried to give her flowers and when she didn't want them he knifed her to death. The boundary between love and hate is razor thin with this particular brand of Culture Enrichers. So far, this is the SIXTEENTH teenager who gets murdered in London this year, the thirteenth with a knife or machete. Trust me, there's not too many - if any - cream white boys or girls among either perps or victims. And trust me on this too: if and when it happened in the London of my youth, it was an absolute rarity. In the New and Improved Britain, it's daily bread.


I'm sorry for the girl, but the problem is the black community's 'culture', or what passes for it. F*cking and screwing around from a very young age, and deadly violence that spills over in the blink of an eye when their demands aren't met. No fathers to speak of: once they have squirted their stuff in yet another vagina and it appears a baby will be the result, off they are like rabbits, looking for another hole. The behaviour of the mothers, heavily promiscuous, is simply the other side of the evil coin.


Our continent is being torn apart by islamization and africanization. It won't end well. I'm SO tired of reading and hearing about this shit. Our politicians, who happily facilitate the catastrophic Umvolkung for G*d knows what dark reasons, deserve to be LYNCHED.



MFBB.

BLACKS TRULY CLAMORING TO BE JUDGED BY THE COLOR OF THEIR SKIN.

Every g*dforsaken city where democrats, socialists, greens, 'progressives' rule, or anyhow you want to call that rabble, becomes a shithole.

Scruffy, entitled arseholes.
Martin Luther King said he wants black people “not to be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character”
Good one guys, you’re getting the judgement you deserve. 😡 pic.twitter.com/olhDsqjLXA

— Ashlea Simon (@AshleaSimonBF) September 27, 2023

Apple Store security can’t hold door shut from crowd. One of posted videos ⁦@PhillyPolice⁩ gathering. Just stolen iPads & iPhones from ⁦⁦@Apple⁩ store have alarms going off on them & message “It’s been disabled & is being tracked” so looters start smashing them. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/goI2sY81JN

— Steve Keeley (@KeeleyFox29) September 27, 2023

Alas, there's more to it than that. Even with a starved, understaffed PD, you won't see Asians do this - real Asians that is, not the newspeak code for Paki muslims grooming underage White girls e.g.. I'm talking Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Filipinos...


Blacks do have a problem of their own. A very serious one. And it's the same whether they live in the US, Europe or in their own continent.


More here.


I'm getting tired of this shit.



MFBB.

POEM OF THE DAY: "STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING" - ROBERT FROST.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.



My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.



He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.



The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost (1874-1963)



MFBB.

DOUGLAS MURRAY'S 'THE STRANGE DEATH OF EUROPE' IN IMAGES.

I actually HATE it to post this. I really do. I'd rather post more stuff on science and technology, aviation, new novels I have discovered, history...


...yet looking the other side is no option. This goes on day after day, without pause or slacking off - on the contrary.

Iedere dag zien we dit soort beelden verschijnen. Het is niets meer dan een invasie waarbij Europa - ons huis, ons thuis en onze identiteit - bewust wordt vernietigd. Dus trap niet in hun leugens: dit wordt gefaciliteerd en gestimuleerd door “onze” elite.
pic.twitter.com/l2YHe9qogr

— Raisa Blommestijn (@rblommestijn) September 24, 2023

The boats are getting bigger. Migrants have seen how the West is not sending back any invaders. On the contrary, soft-touch nations governed by traitors have rolled out the red carpet…
This has inspired others back home to make the same journey.
We say send them all back now. pic.twitter.com/qMIoO27kni

— Britain First (@BFirstParty) September 24, 2023

Just look at these migrants crossing the Mediterranean.
Do they look like destitute, vulnerable refugees fleeing a war-zone? pic.twitter.com/myNcfzUGbB

— Paul Golding (@GoldingBF) September 24, 2023

Ook voor Engeland ziet het er niet best uit...... pic.twitter.com/UmQZSagPDF

— Don Pelayo I 🇳🇱🇮🇨🇮🇱 (@DonPelayo1988) September 22, 2023

How I miss the England of my youth... cycling through Kent and East Sussex through sun-drenched fields in SEP 1984, coming across the Runnymede Memorial by chance, cycling back smack through London, when there was no risk whatsoever of getting stabbed...


... that's all over now. In summer 2021 I drove back from Whitby, which I had visited for a day, to my hotel in Borrowdale, the Lake District. I had decided to take secondary roads through the Yorkshire Dales because that's another Brit piece of real estate that enamors me. Must have been 8pm when I passed through Keld, yes, KELD, and about the only living souls on the street I saw were some 8 or 10 Pakistanis in djellabas or some such. In KELD! But dare to have reservations about this group and you are labeled, you guess it, a racist.



Our politicians deserve to be lynched.



MFBB.

OSIRIS-REX RETURNS WITH BENNU SAMPLE.

Almost three years ago, on OCT 24, 2020, I had this post up re the successful touchdown and sample taking of the OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft on asteroid Bennu, at that time at a distance of a whopping 320 million kilometers from Earth, or more than twice the distance of our planet to the Sun!


Today, OSIRIS-Rex (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer) came back and delivered that sample:





More info here.


This is the only part of OSIRIS-Rex that made it back to Earth: the Sample Return Capsule:





The SRC’s structure consists of a graphite-epoxy material covered with a Thermal Protection System making use of NASA’s PICA (Phenolic-Impregnated Carbon Ablator) heat shield technology.
PICA is a lightweight material designed to withstand high temperatures and mechanical stress. The technology was developed at NASA’s Ames Research Center. Interstingly, SpaceX modified the PICA technology for its Dragon and Dragon 2 spacecraft, enabling the re-use of heat shields.
The principle behind ablative heat shield technology is that a boundary layer is created between the shield’s outer wall and the extremely hot shock layer gas by allowing the heat shield material to slowly burn away and, in the process, generate gaseous reaction products that flow out of the heat shield, keeping the shock layer at a separation distanceand reducing the overall heat flux experienced by the outer shell of the spacecraft.

The processes occurring at the heat shield material include a charring, melting and sublimation on the one hand and pyrolysis on the other.

Pyrolysis creates the product gases that are blowing outward and create the desired blockage of convective and catalytic heat flux. Radiative heat flux is reduced by introducing carbon compounds into the boundary layer gas which make it optically opaque.




There's charring indeed, that's for sure:





For the next two years, about 30% of the sample will be analyzed at a dedicated clean room inside Johnson Space Center as well as in labs around the globe, including OSIRIS-REx mission partners at the Canadian Space Agency and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (the latter of which has already an asteroid sample, obtained from Asteroid Ryugu by its Hayabusa 2 mission, which came back with it in 2020). About 70% of the Bennu sample will remain in storage, anticipating the arrival of better technology to investigate it.



MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT AZTEC CAMERA, FOREIGNER.

Aztec Camera with All I Need Is Everything. From the album Knife (1984).





Scottish new wave band founded in 1980 by Roddy Frame, singer and only consistent member.



Foreigner with That Was Yesterday. Album Agent Provocateur (1984).





Except it wasn't. More like, almost 40 years. Jesus, how time flies!!!


Gute Nacht.



MFBB.

GRATUITOUS CROCHETED BIKINI COMMERCIAL.

The Becca bikini for only 59US$, available in white and sand colour.





For those more interested in content instead of superficial things, the damsel is Grace Boor.



MFBB.

THE INVASION OF WESTERN COUNTRIES BY THIRD WORLD WRECKAGE CONTINUES UNABATED.

In my own country, Vlaams Belang in 2018 warned against the appalling consequences of the Marrakesh Pact. Five years later it is crystal clear VB was absolutely right. Via François Desouche:





"The arrivals of illegals in Italy continue: 14,000 last week, and close to 3,000 since Monday; 132,857 since the beginning of the year."


And: « C’est l’apocalypse » : en Italie, plus de 10.000 migrants ont débarqué sur l’île de Lampedusa en trois jours ; Depuis, 4.000 nouveaux clandestins ont débarqué en Italie ; 14.000 en une semaine :

Translated: "It's the apocalypse": in Italy, more than 10,000 migrants have arrived on the Isle of Lampedusa in three days; since then, there were 4,000 new illegals who set foot on the Italian mainland; 14,000 in a week."


This is what an invasion looks like:

This is a regular occurrence in northern France.

There are gangs of young fighting aged illegals and they are always parading through the streets, lurking around the camps, or marching on their way to the coast to cross to the UK. pic.twitter.com/rwtZU9FNrq

— Steve Laws (@Steve_Laws_) September 22, 2023

Not that it's any better in the US of A. There, too, insane leftist politicians are craving to replace the original population with new arrivals whom they think - not without reason - will never vote for Republicans. This is what comes out of a deadly cocktail of completely irrational White Guilt, hatred towards the own culture, and an insane belief in the 'makeability' of a society wherein Third World wreckage espousing archaic views on the role of women and the place of homosexuals in society will live peacefully and to mutual benefit with the autochton population. Perhaps there's another element in the feverish desire of leftist politicians to make the 'Umvolkung' a reality: they may indeed full well realize it's never going to work, but they keep nevertheless the sluices for illegals wide open as they are of the opinion that it is time for atonement of Whites for the sins of colonialism and racism.

This is what border security in the United States of America now looks like. Unvetted illegal immigrants from around the world just simply walk across now unimpeded at virtually every crossing point. pic.twitter.com/mejJVdqZSD

— UK Justice Forum 🇬🇧 Latest Video News Updates! (@Justice_forum) September 21, 2023

As Martin Schulz, EU bigshot AND a socialist (who would have thunk it?), once said: "Was sie uns bringen, ist wertvoller als Gold". "What they are bringing us, has more value than gold".

The ‘new normal" on a street in "modern Germany" yesterday…🙄

Coming to a street near you #DiversityIsOurStrength pic.twitter.com/SPVBzuBac1

— Paul B 🇬🇧 🔴 (@pauldbowen) September 22, 2023

Indeed.


Not.



MFBB.

LIFE INSIDE AND ON THE USS NIMITZ (CVN-68).

Or on anyone of the nine other carriers in this class!





Nimitz class carriers are powered by two A4W nuclear reactors, the designation standing for:


A = Aircraft carrier platform
4 = Contractor's fourth core design generation
W = Westinghouse, the contracted designer


A4W reactors are pressurized water reactors (PWRs), jointly designed by Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory and Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory and built by Westinghouse Electric Company. Their reactor cores are expected to operate for about 25 years before refueling is required. The Nimitz class supercarriers (all ten of them, although there are three subclasses) are thus far - and will remain so - the only ships to use them, boasting two A4Ws rated at 550 MWth each. These generate enough steam to produce 140,000 shaft horsepower (104 MW) for each pair of the ship's four shafts – two per propulsion plant – plus approximately 100 MW of electricity for all of the carriers' other electrical needs. While the two A4W reactors were a tremendous improvement over the USS Enterprise's 8 (eight) Westinghouse A2W powerplants, the successor of the Nimitz class, the Gerald Ford class, boasts even more impressive reactors in the form of two A1Bs (for Bechtel), with an approximately 25% higher output yet.


Very interesting info on marine nuclear powerplants here.



MFBB.

POEM OF THE DAY: "THE ROMAN CENTURION'S SONG" - RUDYARD KIPLING.

Legate, I had the news last night - my cohort ordered home
By ships to Portus Itius and thence by road to Rome.
I've marched the companies aboard, the arms are stowed below:
Now let another take my sword. Command me not to go!



I've served in Britain forty years, from Vectis to the Wall,
I have none other home than this, nor any life at all.
Last night I did not understand, but, now the hour draws near
That calls me to my native land, I feel that land is here.



Here where men say my name was made, here where my work was done;
Here where my dearest dead are laid - my wife - my wife and son;
Here where time, custom, grief and toil, age, memory, service, love,
Have rooted me in British soil. Ah, how can I remove?



For me this land, that sea, these airs, those folk and fields suffice.
What purple Southern pomp can match our changeful Northern skies,
Black with December snows unshed or pearled with August haze -
The clanging arch of steel-grey March, or June's long-lighted days?



You'll follow widening Rhodanus till vine and olive lean
Aslant before the sunny breeze that sweeps Nemausus clean
To Arelate's triple gate; but let me linger on,
Here where our stiff-necked British oaks confront Euroclydon!



You'll take the old Aurelian Road through shore-descending pines
Where, blue as any peacock's neck, the Tyrrhene Ocean shines.
You'll go where laurel crowns are won, but -will you e'er forget
The scent of hawthorn in the sun, or bracken in the wet?



Let me work here for Britain's sake - at any task you will -
A marsh to drain, a road to make or native troops to drill.
Some Western camp (I know the Pict) or granite Border keep,
Mid seas of heather derelict, where our old messmates sleep.



Legate, I come to you in tears - My cohort ordered home!
I've served in Britain forty years. What should I do in Rome?
Here is my heart, my soul, my mind - the only life I know.
I cannot leave it all behind. Command me not to go!

There's so much that this poem conveys: the anguish experienced by an exemplary soldier who for the first time in his life feels that he cannot obey orders; the homage paid by Kipling to that other, earlier Empire - in shaping that which came later; the challenges life throws at us, poor mortals, for we soon learn that our Centurion had to bid farewell to his wife and son yet had to move on; the striking images of natural beauty Kipling paints on the canvas of our subconscious, not only of Britain's breathtaking scenery, but also of sun-drenched Mediterranean...


...and through it all, underneath, but present nevertheless, the inescapable truth of a dying Roman Empire... as it is withdrawing its resources from far flung outposts and territories to bolster the defenses of the heartland, Rome... if only to stave off the inevitable defeat for yet a couple more years.



Not many pens other than Kipling's could have crafted such a powerful plea.



MFBB.

WEEKEND MOVIE TIP: SHADOWLANDS.

Starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger, Shadowlands is an intimate portrait of an unlikely couple, lifelong batchelor C.S. Lewis, best known for his Narnia series of children's books but also the author of many more fiction and non-fiction tomes, and Joy Davidman, herself a literary prodigy who won several poetry awards.





Shadowlands is one of those movies for which the term Britishness seems to have been invented, as it offers many glimpses into a bygone era of stiff upper lip and frequently saying sorry England. The story is set in the 50s, when Lewis was an Oxford, and later, Cambridge don. One of the most memorable scenes is when Davidman, of US stock, enters the bar of the hotel where she has a rendez-vous with Lewis for the first time and, upon finding no one willing to point her to the famous writer, calls out loud 'Anybody called Lewis here??!' Priceless, the clash between hypothermic British mores and American flamboyance!


Shadowlands is delicate, it is elegant, and it will make you ponder the fragility of human happiness, because the time together allotted to Jack and Joy was limited, she dying of cancer in 1960 already, barely eight years after they had met, and four years after they married. Notice, also, a young Joseph Mazzello as Davidman's son Douglas - years later he played Eugene Sledge in the HBO miniseries The Pacific.



MFBB.

VOICE OF EUROPE INTERVIEWS FILIP DEWINTER, MP VLAAMS BELANG.

Those few (I suppose) who follow DowneastBlog from the very beginning know that Mr Dewinter, MP for Vlaams Belang in the Flemish AND the national (Belgian) parliament, has been warning against the dangers of islamization, multiculturalism, unchecked immigration and Omvolking for decades...





And as we speak, over the past week the drug wars, mainly in the hands of 'Belgian' Moroccans are getting totally out of hand with a.o. 31 yo drug operative Khalid gunned down in Anderlecht with 17 rounds from an AK47 and yet another heavy bomb explosion in Antwerp, muslim parents have tried to set fire to at least SIX schools in Charleroi and Liège because they reject sex education as defined by the Walloon Ministry of Education's EVRAS programme (Education à la vie relationelle, affective et sexuelle), and the chairman of the youth chapter of the Flemish Liberal party OVLD, openly gay Jef Druyts (22) was knocked into hospital in Kortrijk with a fractured skull because he had the misfortune to come across 'youths' (Newspeak for mostly Moroccan or Turkish adolescents AND children) who did not approve of Mr Druyts' lifestyle.


What do all these lovely anecdotes of life in the New, Improved Belgium have in common?


Simple.


Islam.



MFBB.

THE NAPIER NOMAD: THE MOST COMPLEX AIRCRAFT ENGINE EVER BUILT?

As if Napier's Sabre of WW2 fame wasn't complex enough, the Acton/West London based British engineering company post-war produced the fascinating Napier Nomad, essentially a combination of a piston engine and a turbine. There were actually two versions, rather vastly differing: the Nomad 1 and 2. The Nomads were brilliant feats of engineering - and yet they lost to the turboprop in the mid-fifties. This is their story:





The Nomad was so immensely powerful that it could hold a modified Avro Lincoln (with the compound engine mounted in the nose) aloft when all four piston engines were shut down and their props feathered:





Detailed info here.



MFBB.

THE LUNACY CONTINUES: NETFLIX TRANSGENDERS VIKING WARRIOR INTO BLACK WOMAN.

In a world where normals start to think, 'Now I've seen it all re transgender lunacy' Netflix says 'Hold my soya latte':

Haakon Jarl was a Viking warrior who ruled Norway from 975-995. He earned the title Hakon the Powerful.

So naturally, Netflix made him a black woman. pic.twitter.com/XPQSsjUFMS

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) September 8, 2023

Checked it out, it's true:

"In the new series Vikings: Valhalla, the diverse city of Kattegat might seem like an outlier to those who aren’t familiar with Viking history. But fact is closer than fiction. In the show, a war rages between the Vikings and the English over political indifferences rooted in intolerance of religious worship and other cultural practices. In the midst of the fray is a seaside province ruled by Jarl Estrid Haakon, a Black Scandinavian ruler who manages to strike a balance between the tense intermingling of religions and the vibrant intercultural exchanges in the port city's open-air marketplace. In real life, and as depicted on the show, Vikings often traveled and settled down all around the globe in the Middle Ages, stretching across Constantinople, Russia, North Africa, Spain and even Canada. While other characters are based on real people, Estrid Haakon is an invented character, whose Viking grandfather met her royal African grandmother while in the great trading city of Alexandria, Egypt. They fell in love and returned to Kattegat, eventually passing on ruling duties to her..."

"Diverse". Check.
"intolerance of religious worship and other cultural practices" Check.
"vibrant intercultural exchanges" Check.


Netflix. You STINK.



MFBB.

WEEKEND MOVIE TIP: SCREAMERS.

If you are looking for a decent sci-fi flick that sites like 101 Science Fiction Movies You Must See Before You Die won't ever list, watch Screamers, from 1995. Directed by Christian Duguay, it's based on the 1953 short story Second Variety by acclaimed author Philip K. Dick, whose prodigious output also inspired movies like Total Recall, Minority Report, Blade Runner etc, so that's saying something.





The protagonist is played by the underrated Peter Weller (Robocop, Robocop 2, Naked Lunch). Jennifer Rubin also stars. I'm aware Rotten Tomatoes gives it 29% approval, but that's bullcrap. Screamers is OK. Grand cinema it is not, but it is worth your time.


Only recently did I learn that in 2009 a sequel was made, Screamers: The Hunting, but I haven't seen it yet, can't comment. If one of you gents or ladies have, you can always leave a review in the comments. Nite.



MFBB.

PRAGER UNIVERSITY CONTENT BECOMING AVAILABLE IN OKLAHOMA PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

This is actually GREAT news:

BREAKING: Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, @RyanWaltersSupt, welcomes PragerU Kids to schools! 🙌 Together we will offer students the opportunity to learn from our wholesome, patriotic, and age-appropriate supplementary content. You can help get PragerU in more… pic.twitter.com/g6Z7Lw943d

— PragerU (@prageru) September 5, 2023

Big Announcement: PragerU Kids is Partnering with Oklahoma!https://t.co/09uRibvmm0

— PragerU (@prageru) September 5, 2023

Over here in Europe we could use a healthy dose of Prager U in our universities and high schools too, but the mere mention of a rightwing politician ballsy, original and creative enough to propose it would unleash hell!



MFBB.

THE REAL HATE CRIMES.

It goes further than a hate crime. If as a parent you allow THIS to happen to your child, you deserve to be put behind bars.


Some people who may indeed feel like they were born a male in a female body and vice versa, face a callous, genuine struggle. I'm convinced it's not a fad. They need a listening ear, compassion, good advice...

Historians will study pictures like this in horror & wonder how people did nothing pic.twitter.com/EG0omX9E86

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) September 5, 2023

...Children however cannot reasonably be trusted when they claim their supposed inclination is strong enough to allow this most drastic of 'solutions' to go through. Genital mutilation depraves them for the rest of their lives of the possibility to procreate. Lunatics who allow this to happen are responsible for ruined lives and worse - I'm thinking of these poor kids growing up, realizing the enormity of what has been done to them, and somewhere down the line flipping - possibly murdering others. In this insane time and age, count on things like that to happen more and more.



I never once gave Charlize Theron the benefit of the doubt...

Imagine adopting 2 little black boys and dressing them up as girls.

It’s the ultimate hate crime. pic.twitter.com/h1DlapkaR2

— Dr. Anastasia Maria Loupis (@DrLoupis) September 5, 2023

...to me, she was an obnoxious, annoying twat from the very beginning.



MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB, BON JOVI.

Two Door Cinema Club with What you know. From their 2011 debut album Tourist History.





Blokes from Bangor, Northern Ireland. Formed in 2007, still around, which is quite a feat for the generation involved. They are Alex Trimble (vocals, rhythm guitar, beats, synths), Sam Halliday (lead guitar, backing vocals), and Kevin Baird (bass, synths, backing vocals).



Bon Jovi with Livin' on a Prayer. Album Slippery When Wet (1986).





Formed in Sayreville, New Jersey, in 1983. That's... 40 years ago this year. Really.


Slaap wel.



MFBB.

DENMARK CAVES IN FOR ISLAMIC HATEBEARDS, PROPOSES JAIL TERM FOR BURNING QURAN.

Tweep Unpleasant Truths, like yours truly a Fleming:


"The Islamization of the West accelerates. 5 years ago this was still unthinkable, now one caves in out of fear for terrorists and violence from radical muslims. In a couple of years, kuffars in Belgium will also be lynched for blasphemy.

De islamisering van het westen versnelt.
5 jaar geleden was dit nog ondenkbaar, nu gaat men overstag uit angst voor terroristen en geweld door radicale moslims.
Binnen enkele jaren worden ook bij ons 'ongelovigen' gelyncht wegens blasfemische uitspraken.https://t.co/8miHLUohYy

— Unpleasant Truths (@UnpleasantTrut2) September 1, 2023

That's a very real predicament. I myself was thrown off Twitter some 2 months ago after responding to a muslim woman who had posted a photo of an IDF soldier and a Palestinian boy, aged perhaps 8 or 9. Her tweet? The accompanying text was "Unimaginable horror" or some such. Which was ridiculous, because the boy was smiling at the soldier and the soldier himself clearly didn't strike a threatening pose and indeed seemed to smile back. I remarked to the muslim woman that I failed to see what exactly was so 'horrible' about the scene and, it is true, used the expletive 'Paleostinians' - imho not too far off the mark since Palestinians still haven't evolved much beyond ineffectively toting Kalashnikovs just as they did in 1970, while Israel is now sending spacecraft to the Moon. Moreover, I added that the *real* danger for the boy wasn't so much the Israeli military but Hamas, which deliberately fires crude Qassam rockets from civilian areas in the hope that Israeli retaliatory fire will make Palestinian victims: it's good propaganda.


Next thing you know, that muslim woman reported me to Twitter and I got thrown off it. There was no attempt to engage me with arguments, no sir, I said something she didn't like, BAM, shut up you! Twitter complied, claiming that I had broken the twitter rules. I thought Musk had weedled out the leftwing crazies but apparently I was mistaken:





There is a very real danger that, as our own demographic death spiral continues - and it does, more than ever - and the demographic consequences of Europes islamization manifest themselves in our executive, legislative and judicial areas, laws will be applied more and more to stifle any opposition to said islamization. Muslims worldwide have made it abundantly clear, time and again, that Allahs laws are above those made by humans. Yet they will embrace those very same human-made laws, in particular if they come from kuffars, if they can help them to silence those criticizing their evil 'faith'.


The Danish Minister of Justice proposing the ban - and jail term - for those burning the Quran is one Peter Hummelgaard.


He's a socialist.


But, I suspect you suspected that already.



MFBB.

THE DELIBERATE DESTRUCTION OF OUR SOCIETIES GOES ON DAY AFTER DAY...

And on both sides of the Atlantic. In Western Europe as in North America, "progressives" - can someone tell me why they aren't called "regressives"??? - are feverishly importing Third World wreckage with the deliberate intention of watering down, over time, the authochton vote.


Filip Dewinter, Vlaams Belang: "Paris was once a city of culture, civilization, fashion, exquisite dining, elegance and refinement... now it is mostly this... the great levelling thanks to mass immigration and multiculturalism!"

#Parijs was ooit een stad van cultuur, beschaving, mode, gastronomie, elegantie en verfijning… Nu is het vooral dit… de nivellering naar beneden dankzij de massa-immigratie en de multicultuur! pic.twitter.com/n0Mv3R0rWh

— Filip Dewinter (@FDW_VB) August 30, 2023

I might add a comment made by my daughter last Spring, after visiting Paris for a couple of days with several of her co-students: "Paris stinks."



And via James Woods, here's a "sanctuary city", read, a vehicle invented by leftists to keep our usurpers here so that they can continue their destructive handiwork.

Sanctuary city. And there is no end in sight.

The globalists destroyed western civilization before we even knew it was happening. pic.twitter.com/BzRC2BpKHK

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 31, 2023

Next year there's parliamentary elections in Belgium. If by some miracle we are able to boot the socialists and greens out of office, I contend that the electoral punishment is NOT ENOUGH ANYMORE. They should face trial. For treason and the deliberate destruction of prosperity.



MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT THE ALAN PARSONS PROJECT, ENNIO MORRICONE.

The Alan Parsons Project with Don't Answer Me. Album Ammonia Avenue (1984).





The band's last big hit.



Ennio Morricone's Deborah's Theme. From the soundtrack of Once Upon A Time in America (1984).





Sergio Leone's last movie. Deborah's Theme was actually written for another movie in the 70s, but it was rejected for that one.



Dobranoc.



MFBB.

THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH LEFTISTS' GOOD INTENTIONS.

It should be a no brainer.

These people in California are robbing in a free-for-all because of this law: 🚨🚨🚨

🔊

Proposition 47 changed the law so that theft of $950 and below is a misdemeanor. In reality, nobody is prosecuted even if caught. This has created a free for all in California with no… pic.twitter.com/BanDQd8nmH

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) August 21, 2023

Scary scenes coming out of Philadelphia.

Drug epidemic is spreading throughout the United States. These new cheap drugs put people into a zombie like trance. 🚨🚨🚨

🔊 pic.twitter.com/3HhoWsODEl

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) August 22, 2023

MFBB.

SUNDAY NIGHT ART SNACK: JAMES PROUDFOOT, SAMUEL JOHN LAMORNA BIRCH, ROCKWELL KENT.

Sunlight on a building (1937), by the Scottish artist James Proudfoot.



Morning Sun, by Samuel Birch.



Monhegan Island, by Rockwell Kent.



All three paintings courtesy of Richard Morris, art historian and art journalist. His knowledge about precious late 19th Century/early 20th Century paintings which have thus far escaped attention of the broader public - and even many people rather knowledgeable in art - is encyclopedic. If you are on twitter, follow him: https://twitter.com/ahistoryinart.

If you are not yet on twitter, making an account for the sole purpose of reading only his tweets is worthwhile!


Good night. Oh yes, I think I should tell you... August 20, 2023 is an historic date for this here humble blog...


...since today we passed the magical treshold of 2,000,000 pageviews. Since 2003! Which means that on average, DowneastBlog attracted over the years some 100,000 PVs per year, or about 273 a day. Very modest of course, but still... it means that I do not intend to stop just yet!


MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT ELTON JOHN, GENESIS.

Elton John with Song for Guy. From the 1978 album A Single Man.





The guy in question was a certain Guy Burchett, a 17-yo messenger boy who worked for Elton John's Rocket Records label and who was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident on the day John wrote the song. The artist was so moved by this that he named the song in Burchett's honor.



Genesis with It. From their concept album The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (1974).





Many moons ago, while still an engineering student in Ghent, I bought it in one of the two foremost LP/CD shops in that city, either Bilbo or Music Man, can't remember anymore which one. TLLDOB had been recommmened to me - feverishly, if I may say so - by a colleague by the name of Marnix B. He was completely smitten by it. Discovering it was a weird experience, to say the least. But here we are, almost half a century after release, and it still sounds good.



Goede nacht.



MFBB.

RECOMMENDED READS: NOEL S. WILLIAMS' "TOXIC BARBIE TAKES A ROAD TRIP."

Over at American Thinker, an excellent take by Noel S. Williams on the ludicrous Barbie movie now wreaking havoc in theaters across the planet:

"I weep for our youth — confoundingly, the movie Barbie did well at the box office. Apparently, the little pink lady goes on a journey of self-discovery, a road trip to the real world. Since Barbie likes road trips, let's help her exit an existential crisis. Let's help her escape Barbie-Land toxicity by chaperoning her on a coast-to-coast trip that will enlighten her about the benefits of so-called toxic masculinity.


There are many routes for this toxic lady to take, and they all represent astonishing achievements of men with a can-do spirit who surmounted forbidding challenges as they wrestled comfort from nature's grip.


She is mostly going to take the iconic Lincoln Highway from New York to San Francisco, about 80% of which is part of the old route. The historic trans-continental highway predates Route 66 and runs approximately 3,142 miles From New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco. It was overwhelmingly conceived, engineered, and built by industrious men. Women may have done some time-keeping paperwork as the men shed blood, toil, tears and sweat to forge this continent-taming artery.


Barbie passes Times Square and chooses the Lincoln Tunnel, critical to the free flow of goods and people. It hasn't dawned on her, yet, but the tunnel she takes for granted was very dangerous to build; in fact, 15 men died constructing the first two tunnels, though Newsweek describes them as "workers." Please! By that contorted lexicography, I suppose the Saturn V rocket that launched men toward the moon was "crewed."


After a slight detour, Barbie transits from New Jersey into Pennsylvania via the Ben Franklin Bridge, the engineers and architects of which were men. Tragically, 15 workers-cum-men died building the thing. However, she remains Pretty-in-Pink clueless.



Pushing onward, if not upward, Barbie crosses the mighty Mississippi on Mark Morris Memorial Bridge, which replaced the iconic Lyons-Fulton Bridge. The ironwork for the original started in March 1891, employing 50 workers-cum-men manipulating around 1,200,000 pounds of iron. Not toxicity, but a lot of testosterone-fueled energy and strength was exerted to cast, shape, deploy, and weld that much iron.


On to Nebraska — as quickly as she can pass through what she considers to be dreary Iowa — Barbie drives under the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument, which memorializes the adventurers who helped to build America. The 300-foot span above interstate 80 wasn't built by those with a Lazy Girl Job, work-from-home ethic. Nope. It required testosterone-induced manpower.


Not at home in the hinterlands, Barbie is now speeding through Telephone Canyon in Wyoming. Here's another consideration the pampered pink lady should entertain: it took industrious men, not "Lazy Boy" job-seekers, to run that telephone line that facilitated development between Cheyenne and Laramie.


Too bad her self-discovery is proving elusive, because Barbie is now approaching the Lincoln Highway Terminus in Lincoln Park, San Francisco. The park overlooks the iconic, International Orange–adorned Golden Gate Bridge. San Francisco is surrounded on three sides by water, so this bridge is critical in connecting to Marin County in the north.


The awe-inspiring suspension bridge spans turbulent waters. Its towers rise an impressive 746 feet into the gusty, fog-laden troposphere — over twice the height of the Statue of Liberty, and higher than the Washington Monument. Though a net was erected to catch men of the "Halfway-to-Hell Club," eleven workers-cum-men died during construction. Their sacrifices are unbeknownst to self-absorbed Barbie..."

Read it all.



MFBB.

IMPORT THE THIRD WORLD, BECOME THE THIRD WORLD.

From Filip Dewinter's twitter account, images from Brussels South, which is Brussels most important railway station since most lines from around the country and the most important international railway connections (including the Eurostar to and from London) converge here:

Een marginale sloppenwijk in een Afrikaanse derde wereldstad? Nee gewoon het station #Brussel-Zuid in de hoofdstad van #Europa… pic.twitter.com/5ZiJYwlSVw

— Filip Dewinter (@FDW_VB) August 13, 2023

Cursed be our politicians.



MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT GEORGE HARRISON, JUDY COLLINS.

George Harrison with the Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp. From his 1970 album All Things Must Pass.





Harrison wrote it as a tribute to Frank Crisp, a nineteenth-century lawyer and microscopologist as well as the original owner of Friar Park, the Victorian Gothic residence in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, that Harrison bought in early 1970.



Judy Collins with Both Sides Now. From her 1967 album Wildflowers.





American singer/songwriter from Seattle, Washington. "Both Sides, Now" was actually written by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, but it was Collins who recorded it first. It appeared on the US singles chart during the fall of 1968.


Hat tip for both OutlawDaugher, 21!


Goede nacht.



MFBB.

RECOMMENDED READS: GINA LOUDON'S "THE DARK, UNTOLD TRUTH OF TRANSGENDERISM".

Over at Townhall, a must read by Gina Loudon:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” — Quote commonly attributed to Joseph Goebbels

There is a new stock-in-trade in the American domain today – human beings.
Even children are being used in Mengelian experimentations that might have given Hitler pause.
The tragedy of sexual-reassignment surgery has a terrifying history.
The popularization of medically sanctioned sexual mutilation began with well-known sexual perversion advocate, Alfred Kinsey.
Kinsey contended that people are “sexual from birth” and experimented on babies in the 1940s and 50s. His legacy stands largely unchallenged today by the American Medical Association, despite his advocacy of bestiality, pedophilia, sadomasochism, and incest.
His experiments largely led to the so-called Sexual Revolution.
In 1967, a student of Kinsey named John Money was asked by a set of desperate parents to repair a botched circumcision on their baby boy, David, who was a twin. Rather than repair the damage, Money advised the couple to raise the baby as a girl and remove his genitalia.
By age 12, David was struggling mentally in addition to his physical malformities. By 14, he begged to be made male again. Throughout his teens, he became severely depressed. Ultimately, both brothers ended their own lives.

It was later reported that Money sexually molested both boys, and forced them to have incestuous relations with one another at age 7.
This tragic case prompted further study, and the not-yet-corrupted medical establishment opted to largely end sanctions of the mutilation experiments, for a time.
So if we, as a nation, researched this and even the left agreed to end such studies because the outcomes were so grim, why have the powers that be reinvented this cause at this point in time?
The American Medical Association stands to gain millions of dollars between surgeries and medicines from each transition. The American Psychological Association will have its membership explode when all of these children and their parents and families need a lifetime of therapy and drugs for what they have done. Big Pharma can’t even calculate the money that will rush to them. And the Democrats have taken up their cause calling it “gender affirming care,” (as if there were anything “caring” about it, considering the real data). The Democrats will be richly rewarded by all of those profiting off of these children, and the cycle will continue.
They will hire their own corporate “scientists” to conduct “research” to confirm their propaganda, and just like that – a total fraud will be imposed on the American people.

Those imposing this horror will clutch their pearls and deny their collusion or a profit motive, and sadly many Americans and others who stand to be bilked (or worse) will overlook the undeniable truth of this. But data exposes their profit motive.
Vanderbilt University and London’s Portman Clinic tracked those who forewent gender reassignment, and found that 70-80% of those who face gender confusion but do not have transition surgery, lost their feelings of confusion over time and ultimately were considered “recovered.”
Johns Hopkins ended their sexual reassignment surgery in 1970 for that reason. Their chief psychiatrist called sex change “biologically impossible” in the Wall Street Journal.
He cited a 2011 study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden that followed 324 sex reassignment patients for decades. After 10 years, patients had increased mental difficulties. Suicide mortality rose to almost 20 times the rate of those who did not transition.
Why aren’t we reading this or hearing it from the “experts” on our televisions?
Many sober-minded professionals point to the reality that in no other dysmorphic disorder, do professionals advise that we “equip” the disorder by prescribing diets to anorexics, or sharp knives to Borderline Personality “cutting” patients, for example.

If the real concern is suicide, why is the AMA/APA/Democrat party not studying the use of gender affirming hormones rather than prescribing hormones and mutilation contrary to their natural birth gender?
It certainly cannot be the multi-million dollar price tag on the head of every child they transition. Surely not. Because “the truth is the greatest enemy of the state.”


These are dark times, indeed.



MFBB.

AIR DEFENDER 2023 OVER SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN!

A yearly NATO exercise involving 10,000 personnel and some 250 aircraft. Magnificent images of, a.o., the venerable MRCA Tornado, still in service with the Luftwaffe.





Notice, at the 16:09 mark, the Luftwaffe Typhoon with the stylized portrait of General Johannes Steinhoff on its vertical stabilizer. Steinhoff was a famous ace in WW2's Luftwaffe. In the last weeks of the war, he was a member of the famous, albeit small, JV (Jagdverband) 44, an ad hoc Gruppe of Me262 jets raised and commanded by Adolf Galland and grouping together 'Experten' as well as promising novices. Sometime in mid-April 1945, Galland took off in a Kette (a 3-aircraft formation) from JV44's base at Muenchen-Riem, and burst a tire. His Me262 crashed and, choke full of jet fuel, immediately took fire. Somehow Steinhoff managed to get out of the jet, but engulfed in flames as it was, he suffered severe burns all over his body. Although he maintained his sight, his eyelids, severely singed, died off, and it wasn't until some 20 years later that Steinhoff (by then a General in the postwar Luftwaffe) was operated so that finally he could close his eyes again!


Hat tip Kuruki (twitter handle @Kuruki23882260 ).


Nite.



MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, DEPECHE MODE.

Bruce Springsteen with Brilliant Disguise. From the 1987 album Tunnel of Love.





Single is about his doubts about his marriage to actress and model Julianne Phillips. They divorced in 1989.




Depeche Mode with Policy of Truth. Album Violator (1990).





You wouldn't believe it, but after 43 years the band, though now reduced to Gahan and Gore, is still around (DM formed in Basildon, Essex UK in 1980).



Good night.



MFBB.

FASCINATING VIDEO OF THE CONVAIR B-36 PEACEMAKER'S INTERIOR!

A legendary intercontinental bomber caught between two eras.





We've shown this clip from the movie Strategic Air Command, starring James Stewart, before:





Nite.



MFBB.

LEGENDARY ENGINES: THE NAPIER DELTIC.

A magnificent video on yet another brilliant Napier product, the Deltic:





As you heard, before Napier, Junkers too found out there were problems with the correct phasing of the three cilinder banks. Where Junkers abandoned the triangular design and developed a 'square' variant with four banks, which apparently gave no problems, Napier found the solution. Or rather, a senior draftsman at Napier found it: simply making one of the three crankshafts run in the opposite direction to the other two!



MFBB.

BRILLIANT VIDEO: WHAT HAPPENS IF A STAR EXPLODES NEAR EARTH?

A must watch, even if physics is not right away your strong suit:





Good night.



MFBB.

MAY 2ND, 2023.

It's been twelve years since my father died:

On Monday, May 2nd, 2011, at about 22.05, my father passed away after almost one month on Intensive Care.

He was 77. He had some little troubles typically connected with his age, but was otherwise a healthy person. Four days before he was admitted to the hospital, towards the end of March 2011, he participated in the annual dinner event of his old schoolmates from the Institut Technique at Ath (Hainaut Province), and he was by all accounts the healthiest and ablest of the group. Four days later he was on Intensive Care. A month later he was dead.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me." ~ Psalm 23:4 ~

It's been twelve years father, but we think of you every single day.


Rest in Peace. You are not forgotten.


MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT ALANIS MORISSETTE, LIVE.

Alanis Morissette with Thank U. Album Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (1998).





Canadian-American singer/songwriter from Ottawa, who debuted with Jagged Little Pill (1995).



Live with Lightning Crashes. Album Throwing Copper (1994).





American rock band from York, Pennsylvania. Frontman and only constant member is Ed Kowalczyk.


Nite.



MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT DIRE STRAITS, ROXY MUSIC.

Dire Straits with You and your friend. Album On Every Street (1991).





Once called the greatest British rock band of the 80s by the magazine Classic Rock.



Roxy Music with Dance Away. From the 1979 album Manifesto.





For me at least, it's hard to come up with a more iconic English rock band of the 70s. Roxy Music was formed in late 1970 by Bryan Ferry, who had just been fired from a teaching job, and bassist Graham Simpson.


Good night.



MFBB.

HAPPY EASTER 2023!

Like every year, DowneastBlog wishes all its readers of good will a Happy and Blessed Easter!





If I am allowed to make a special recommendation this year - please pray for the people of Ukraine, who have had their world turned upside down, lost their belongings, and many their loved ones. Pray, even, for the Russian soldiers, for most of them have been thrown into this senseless undertaking against their will and have had their lives shattered too - and many have already paid the ultimate price for nothing other than the megalomaniac dreams of their leader.



MFBB.

DRUG WARS IN ANTWERP ESCALATING.

For the umpteenth time a bomb attack near the center of Antwerp. Serious damage in 4 streets. The house against which the explosive was used would belong to the parents of a suspect in the Sky ECC-dossier.

Buurtbewoners explosie Antwerpen: “Uit bed getrild en dan uren buiten wachten in pyjama” https://t.co/xBUNbgVFI3

— Nieuwsblad.be (@Nieuwsblad_be) April 2, 2023

The drug trade in Antwerp - main European entrance port for Colombian narcotics - is mainly in the hands of Moroccan gangs. Oh blessed Multiculturalism - the gift that keeps on giving.

Na de handgranaten en het cobra-vuurwerk is de drugmaffia in @Antwerpen toe aan op afstand gedetoneerde 🧨 explosieven… Na 65 aanslagen op 3 jaar tijd: nog altijd geen tijd om het leger in te zetten en te laten patrouilleren op de hotspots waar 90% v/d aanslagen plaatsvinden? pic.twitter.com/3edwhFMLWA

— Filip Dewinter (@FDW_VB) April 2, 2023

65 explosions over the past three years. Several dead and wounded. The genie is out of the bottle. These are the bad fruits of 30+ years of cordon sanitaire, effectively the political neutralization of Vlaams Belang, the ONLY party which is serious about organized crime.



MFBB.

THILO SARRAZIN: "DEUTSCHLAND SCHAFFT SICH BESCHLEUNIGT AB."

Thilo Sarrazin is a former high ranking German public servant, a.o. Finance Senator to the Senate of Berlin. He is also a (former) socialist (SPD) politician who has seen the light. In 2010, he made international headlines because of the publication of his book "Deutschland schafft sich ab", "Germany abolishes itself". Before that, he had already severely criticized the horrible effects of limitless immigration in his country by people who are not even willing to integrate and look upon Germany merely as a provider of free welfare:


"Integration requires effort from those that are to be integrated. I will not show respect for anyone who is not making that effort. I do not have to acknowledge anyone who lives by welfare, denies the legitimacy of the very state that provides that welfare, refuses to care for the education of his children and constantly produces new little headscarf-girls. This holds true for 70 percent of the Turkish and 90 percent of the Arab population in Berlin."


In this video clip, which unfortunately has only German subtitles, he makes the case that his prognosis for the ongoing Population Replacement was actually too modest, since it was made years before Merkel first opened the borders wide for mostly islamic Third World wreckage and the subsequent intakes in the years were rather affairs of "200,000, 350,000 or even 500,000 people", not 100,000/year as he originally envisaged.





Unfortunately, what holds true for Germany is also the case in almost all of Western Europe, where politicians by and large seem to be curiously possessed by a frantic, unhealthy desire to import as many foreign population groups as possible, preferably those from backgrounds diametrically opposed to our western cultural and moral underpinnings. It's highly bizarre, since there is not a single rational argument in favor of these Open Borders policies.


We are litterally witnessing the death of Europe as we know it. Only fools can doubt that what will replace it will be worse.



MFBB.

DISPATCHES FROM THE FRONT.

Rob Lee always has incomparable footage.

Video from Ukraine’s 72nd Mechanized Brigade in Vuhledar. It shows a Russian T-72B-series tank hitting a mine where a T-80BV, two BMP-3, and a BTR were apparently previously damaged/abandoned by mines. Two BMPs then turn around. https://t.co/qMDgNdhH3D pic.twitter.com/TEmEgiOkqy

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) February 26, 2023

It's curious, the brazenness - or stupidity - of the tank crew to approach the crossing, which obviously is a killing ground - without precautions. The T72 could have reconnoitred cross country, avoiding lurking danger.


One of many Russian blunders, not neutralizing the Ukrainian Air Force on Day 1, which certainly could have been achieved with proper planning and smart, massive deployments.

And how is your weekend? pic.twitter.com/PTE3usrTvl

— Ukrainian Air Force (@KpsZSU) February 12, 2023

How was my weekend? Rather boring. No sales this weekend, albeit progress was made in a dossier. Just trying to keep the company afloat.

Naturally, it's better than being at the front. Seeing the hardships of the Ukrainian military and population helps to put it all in perspective.


Nite.



MFBB.

REX'S HANGAR: THE HANDLEY PAGE HEYFORD.

Spending more time on Twitter has, through getting acquainted there with aviation enthusiasts, rekindled the fascination of my youth for anything that flies. This evening's topic is the Handley Page Heyford, a curious early thirties bomber design:





Nite.



MFBB.

STALEMATE IN UKRAINE.

One year into the war, the military of supposed superpower Russia has essentially confined itself to areas which even before the conflict were no longer fully under Ukrainian control. It can safely be said that the performance of the Russian armed forces - all three branches of it - is dismal.


The following video is curious since Russian mobile targets - Msta howitzers - are taken out by Excalibur rounds. I was under the impression that the GPS-controlled Excalibur shells are only used against fixed targets, what with a mobile target starting to move after the shot has been fired and some time elapses before the shell enters the target zone?

#Ukraine: Today, three Russian 2S19 Msta-S self-propelled 152mm howitzers were damaged/destroyed by Ukrainian M982 Excalibur strikes on the left bank of the Dnipro River, #Kherson Oblast. pic.twitter.com/KsoCCIFgrH

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) February 10, 2023

Still, the sheer quantity of videos showing devastating Russian losses should not lead one to believe that only one side is taking losses:

#Ukraine: A Ukrainian 2S19 Msta-S 152mm self-propelled howitzer was destroyed by a Russian Lancet loitering munition in #Luhansk Oblast. pic.twitter.com/SCulQVdAfv

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) February 10, 2023

MFBB.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2023!!!

To all my followers and all people of good will, a very happy New Year!!!





Sorry for the far too light blogging but I really don't intend to quit yet. It's just that 2022 has been an exceptionally difficult year, what with my condition (multiple myeloma aka Kahler's Disease), the troubles in the company (especially personnel, but biz has been very tough also), the lingering difficulties due to covid (now luckily receding...).


Anyway, all the best and stay tuned!



MFBB.

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2022!

To all my fellow Christians and to all people of good will a heartfelt Merry Christmas!



This is the Adoration of the Kings by Gerard de Laresse (1641-1711), a Dutch Golden Age painter and art theorist.


Sorry for the almost nonexistent blogging lately, but this has been an excruciating year in more than one aspect. Hopefully 2023 will be somewhat better.



MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT ALTERED IMAGES, BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE.

Altered Images with Don't talk me about love. Album Bite (1983).





Scottish new wave/postpunk band from Glasgow. Founded in 1979 and, despite a couple of breakups, still around! Singer's Clare Grogan.



Big Audio Dynamite with E=mc2. From the album This is Big Audio Dynamite (1985).





Formed in London in 1984 by Mick Jones, singer and guitarist. Also ex The Clash, from which he was fired in 1983.



Hat tip for both OutlawDaughter. Would you believe it!


Slaap wel.



MFBB.

SUNDAY NIGHT ART SNACK: PEDER MORK MONSTED (1859-1941).

Peder Mørk Mønsted (10 December 1859 – 20 June 1941) was a talented Danish landscape painter in the realistic style, although some works show impressionist influences.



Green spring landscape with a sitting child at the edge of the beach (1887)



An ardent traveller, especially in the Mediterranean (Algeria, Greece, Egypt...), he produced countless sketches during these travels which he later developed into paintings. He was especially popular in Germany, where he displayed several times in Munichs Glaspalast (destroyed in a fire in 1931).



Wooded river landscape (1929)



Good night.



MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT THE ALAN PARSONS PROJECT, MAC DEMARCO.

The Alan Parsons Project with Silence and I. From the album Eye in the Sky (1982).





English multi-instrumentalist rock band around Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson, active between 1975 and 1990.



Mac DeMarco with Chamber of Reflection. From the album Salad Days (2014).





Canadian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist (often vintage) and producer.


Slaap wel.



MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT METRONOMY, OUTKAST.

Metronomy with Corinne. Album The English Riviera (2011)





English electronic music band, founded by Joseph Mount in 1999. Hat tip OutlawDaughter.



Outkast with Hey Ya!. Released as a single in 2003.





American hiphop duo which formed in East Point, Georgia, in 1992. Hat tip OutlawDaughter again.



Nite.



MFBB.

SUNDAY NIGHT ART SNACK: LEONARD CAMPBELL TAYLOR (1874-1969).

Leonard Campbell Taylor RA (12 December 1874 – 1 July 1969) was a British painter, mainly of portraits and interiors in a traditional style. During World War 1, he served as an official war artist.


Women playing chess


Exquisite! More on Taylor here.



MFBB.

MAY 2ND, 2022.

It's been eleven years already since my father died.





For many of my in memoriams I've been using Bachs beautiful "Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ" (BWV 639). And I would have done it again this time, were it not for a conversation on Twitter I had with a friend of mine whose father, too, passed away, just one week ago. That friend was asking for suggestions for musical accompaniments during the church service.


I did suggest BWV 639, but then my friend himself wondered whether Bedrich Smetana's Ma Vlast would be okay as the final musical piece, when the coffin is carried outside...


...and it suddenly sounded like a good idea to me! Not for its length, because it's a full twelve minutes, too long for this intended purpose, although you could truncate it at the 5th minute or thereabouts...


... but for its inherent optimism, and why not? For Christians, Death is not the end.


On this humble blog of mine I do not face the same constraints as the pastor who may suspect - rightfully - that many churchgoers would not be, ah, at ease with a twelve minute composition at the end of the service. So... this In Memoriam will, for once, have Ma Vlast as an homage to the excellent human being my father was:





Rest in Peace, father. You are not forgotten.



MFBB.

THE DISMAL PERFORMANCE OF THE RUSSIAN ARMED FORCES IN UKRAINE.

I can't make any sense of it. The Russians are failing on all counts. What's most obvious is that they are failing on the operational level, what with the ubiquitous footage of T-72s with their turrets blown of, charred hulks of APC's, dead bodies of Russian soldiers... and Ukrainian tractors towing away Putins tanks and mobile artillery.


Less obvious, but even more damning for the way Russia is waging this war, is the absolute failure on the strategic level. For over 60 days on end now, the Russian war machine has tried to engage the UA Army on a half-ring front beginning just west of Kiev and extending clockwise around Ukraine's eastern portion until Kherson. In the process, numerous Russian units have broken their teeth trying to neutralize city centers. During all of this, they allowed the free flow of all that is necessary for a modern army to fight from west to east - which doubtlessly happened during the night.

But if they had not wasted all those efforts in absurd and costly battles and instead staged two strong attacks, one towards the south from their foothold just West of Kiev and the other northwards from Kherson, they would have cut off that lifeline and bagged not only all of the UA Army in the east, but in the process strangled the defenses of Kiev and the other big cities as well. They don't know their own history anymore, for this area was once the scene of another big encirclement which cost them 600,000 troops with all their equipment.


Other failures presented themselves in not taking out all of the UA Air Force on Day 1, which, given the Russian Air Force's far bigger size, should have been possible to achieve. Then there is attacking just prior to the onset of Rasputista, turning Ukraines famous Black Earth, frozen until half February, into an impassable quagmire and confining even tanks to roads.


Let Michael Kofman weigh in now:

I’ve been traveling and not writing much these past two weeks. Some brief thoughts about the second phase of the war, Russia’s offensive to retake the Donbas, and implications. Thread. (map from Nathan below). 1/ pic.twitter.com/CLGRZimeLx

— Michael Kofman (@KofmanMichael) April 23, 2022

I don't know how this will turn out, but I hope the lines of communication between the West and Russia remain open, because barring a miracle, I fail to see how Russia can extricate itself from its self-inflicted disaster and still pretend it has 'achieved' its goals. Mounting losses and getting nowhere may lead the Russian top brass to employ tactical nukes, and when that happens... the road to Nuclear Armageddon lies wide open.


In light of all this, the EU's pathetic rushing of the process to accept UA's membership is utterly foolish. Instead, it should shut up now and keep quiet... while, instead of raking the fires of discontent and frustration n Moscow even higher, working quietly on a diplomatic way out of this mess for Putin so that he can save his sorry face - although the bastard by no means deserves it.



MFBB.

HAPPY EASTER 2022!

DowneastBlog wishes all its readers of good will a Happy Easter!





The painting, oil on wood, is part of a tableau in a chapel in the main church, Saint Bartholomew, of my birthplace.



MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT KACEY MUSGRAVES, PERTURBATOR.

Kacey Musgraves with Oh, what a world. Album Golden Hour (2018).





"Modern Country" singer/songwriter from Golden, Texas. Hat tip OutlawDaughter.



Death Squad van Perturbator. From the 2016 album The Uncanny Valley.





Despite his real name, James Kent, Perturbator is a frog. Synthwaver from Paris. Hat tip OutlawSon.



Good night.



MFBB.

SUNDAY NIGHT ARCHITECTURE SNACK: LOUIS SULLIVAN BUILDINGS.

Louis Henry Sullivan (September 3, 1856 – April 14, 1924), one of the torchbearers of the Chicago School, has been called both a "father of skyscrapers" and the "father of modernism". He coined the phrase "Form Follows Function". Some projects:


First, the Prudential (Guaranty) Building in Buffalo, New York. Completed in 1896. Sullivan designed it together with Dankmar Adler.





The Wainwright Building, St Louis, Missouri (completed 1891). Also with Adler. Steel skeleton, brick walls, terracotta ornaments:





The Sullivan Center, formerly the Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Store (1899), a solo project by Sullivan.





Good night.



MFBB.

ONE MONTH OF WAR IN EUROPE...

By now it's been over one month since Russia's invasion of Ukraine started, and the fact that Europe now lives through its second biggest war since World War Two is no less real than on Day One. Here are some exerpts, courtesy The Washington Post, from an account by "Alex", a 38-year old volunteer with humanitarian aid in Chernihiv, a north Ukrainian town under siege by the Russian Army:

"From what I understand, they hit the water pipes and cut them off. Almost the whole city was without water for almost two days. Just this evening, the water began to flow slowly, at least in some areas. There is also no heating or electricity in most of the city. The Hotel Ukraine building was completely destroyed by an airstrike. Just last night, three Russian bomber planes hit the city and one was shot down. The humanitarian corridor is still not there. There is no passage via the Kyiv-Chernihiv highway. People who try to leave drive through a very strange and scary route on mud roads toward Anysiv. Many people do not have gas. In the courtyards of houses, people are gathering and lighting fires, cooking some kind of soup in large pots. Because there is no electricity, no gas, no heating. The grocery stores are running out of supplies. Finding meat or dairy is unrealistic. It’s a catastrophic situation with baby food. People bring some things into the city but it is in very small quantities and brought by desperate drivers under shelling along the road. So they bring medicine, baby food and diapers. But pharmacies are empty. The lines are so long, so even if you manage to get to the counter it doesn’t mean you’re going to get what you need there, because it may not just be there. The military still seems to think the city will not be taken. Multiple rocket launchers continue to shell the city. There are many unexploded shells — they are sticking out from the gardens, roofs and in the yards of houses. But on the positive side, since yesterday, our connection and the Internet are getting a little better..."

More troubling testimonies here, again per The Washington Post:





Possibly no Ukrainian city exemplifies wanton and senseless destruction more than Mariupol in the south:

3/https://t.co/wcsvqyspuJ

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) March 26, 2022

But one month of a horrible, unnecessary war has brought us, apart from the upheaval, death and destruction also knowledge...


...it doesn't take professionally trained analysts to conclude that, as happened so often in the past, the mighty Russian War Machine is prone to serious flaws and gross inefficiency. Huge errors have been made, and massive flaws emerged, and this both on the strategic and tactival levels. Russia may still win this brutal contest on account of its superior numbers. But those in the Kremlin cannot fail to fear that the West will conclude that in a war with a peer adversary, the Russian Army would get its balls handed to it on a silver platter.



MFBB.

SUNDAY NIGHT ART SNACK: JOHN LAVERY, CECIL OSBORNE.

Sir John Lavery RA RSA RHA (20 March 1856 – 10 January 1941) was an Irish painter from Belfast, best known for his portraits and wartime depictions.



The Bridge at Grès (1901)



Influenced by Whistler. In 1924 elected to the Royal Academy.



Cecil Osborne (1909–1996) was a self-taught natural painter from Poplar, East London.



Sunday Morning, Farringdon Road (1929)



An echo of Hopper here. Osborne studied in the evenings at John Cooper’s Bow and Bromley Evening Institute classes, and exhibited with the East London Group at Lefevre Gallery, also with NEAC, RA and Civil Defence Artists’ Association at Cooling’s Gallery.



Click on the images to get an unobstructed view please. Good night.



MFBB.