SATURDAY NIGHT STARSAILOR, THE KINKS.

Starsailor with Four to the Floor. A UK alternative rock band from Wigan, they released this hit in 2004, the third one from the album Silence is Easy.





Front man is James Walsh.


The Stranglers with All day and all of the night. It's 1988.





Which, of course, is a cover from the 1964 hit by The Kinks. Would you believe The Stranglers, originally from Guildford, are still around? Hugh Cornwell, their archetypical first singer, is long gone now (in 1990 that was), but some of the original band members are still there, a.o. drummer Jet Black, who's over seventy now.


Good night. Sorry for the light blogging the last week, completely wrecked each day.



MFBB.

HIS MASTER'S VOICE: THOMAS SOWELL ON PUBLIC SERVICE.

Thomas Sowell blasts the fallacy of public service's soi-disant "noble character":





Upon hearing Dr. Sowell, I was reminded of a series currently run on Belgian's "top" newspaper, De Standaard. For some time now it has had a chapter called "My wage" which every week sports an active person, working age, who sheds light on what he/she does and how much he/she earns. Those people are seemingly chosen at random, but De Standaard wouldn't be De Standaard if there wouldn't be a curious overrepresentation of people "in public service". Recently, one of these was Bob D'Haeseleer, a "wereldambtenaar" (litterally "world public servant" in the town of Merelbeke:

BOB D'HAESELEER: WORLD PUBLIC SERVANT. WAGE: 1,400 EUR [ABOUT 1,852 US $].

Q: Can you describe your job?

A: 'I am World Public Servant in Merelbeke. It's my task to guide the world inside town. Make people aware that behind the church steeple's shadow there's also a world you won't find in the traditional holiday magazines, and which most of us therefore hardly get to see. I must make it clear to people that we all share a responsibility for the water, food, waste and climate problems where millions of others are confronted with.'

Q: Do you like your job?

A: 'Yes, otherwise I wouldn't do it. Letting people find themselves the link between their airliner holidays and oil disasters, between Coca-Cola and water dearth, between their cell phone and rapes in the Congo is not easy. But the more you see and the more you learn, the more motivated you wake up every day.'


Q: How would you rate your income?

A: 'I come by. Until bigger costs appear like a mortgage or a family, it will stay like that.'


Q: Would you swap your job for a better paying one?

A: "No, right now I've got enough to come by. My wage's perhaps not so spectacular, but the feeling that you do your part [to save the world - MFBB] instead of simply working for yourself abundantly makes the difference."

It would be hard to find a better example of Dr Sowell's brash young public servants kidding themselves they are actually making a sacrifice by going into public service. To be sure, Outlaw Mike's no libertarian. I don't believe in a skeleton state. Public servants are absolutely necessary. But their numbers should be kept reasonably low, they should be capable, and they should take an example from the private sector's labor ethic. Last Friday, I called a Ministry of Finance guy at a tax collector's office in Denderleeuw. In september, following their invitation, I had wired my so-called 'Bedrijfsvoorheffing' (tax on the wage my own Ltd. corporation "pays" me) for the year's second semester, onto their account, using the proper coded sequence of numbers. Earlier this week, they wrote ME to ask what it was for!!! Anyways, I placed my call around 2.45 pm but alas silly me, on an early Friday afternoon you should just NEVER call a public servant. Guy was probably off skiing in the High Fenns in Belgium's east, where Global Warming has deposited around 40 centimeters snow over the past few weeks.

And a Big Fat FUCK YOU to the town of Merelbeke which is wasting people's tax euros by paying around 3,000 EUR plus (the net wage of our World Public Servant plus Social Security, insurance etc) for a good for nothing doofus who's convinced his calling is far more noble and far more necessary than all the activities of Heating Expert Borremans, Electrician Michiels, Baker Bossiroy, Gardener De Stercke, Garage Mechanic Antoine or Nurse Vincke combined.

Oh yeah, if you happen to be an employee working your ass off at the Coca Cola plant in Wakkachakkamakka, Swaziland, SHAME ON YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You too are responsible for rapes in the Congo!!! What do you say??? You need your 2 dollars a day to sustain you family??? Tough luck dude. Sorry, but the Planet is going bust and you are part of the problem, so you should quit. You know what, come to Belgium, and become a World Public Servant!



MFBB.


P.S.: hat tip for Dr. Sowell's exposé Larry over at Warm 'n Fuzzy Conservapuppies.

SATURDAY NIGHT SUPERTRAMP, ANDREAS JOHNSON.

For today it's Supertramp with Crime of the Century, a brilliant song with an interesting dynamic. It's 1974.





The video was made by anticapitalist morons who flunked kindergarten, and it's also anti-Bush, which normally is VERBOTEN on DowneastBlog. But you can always close yer eyes.



On a lighter note, here's Swedish wussie heartthrob Andreas Johnson. Single 'Glorious', 1999.





Goedenacht, fijn weekend nog.



MFBB.

GRUESOME RACIST MURDERS AGAINST WHITES IN SOUTH AFRICA CONTINUE. WORLD LOOKS THE OTHER WAY.

Chilling news over at Sarah's Albion Blog, who has a story about yet another racist murder case against Afrikaners (White South Africans, numbering about three million in a population of 50m).





First there's the case of Marthie Erasmus, a 63-year old farmer's wife from Koster, Moedwil District, in South Africa's North West Province. On 2 December, she was tied to her bed by black attackers and bludgeoned to death with a 16-pound sledgehammer. Her man, Chris Erasmus, also 63, was tied to a stool and severely beaten. As by wonder he survived however, and managed to free himself after the murderers left the house.

I don't want to imagine the scene of Mr. Erasmus going to his bedroom and finding the wreckage of what was once his wife.





Marthie Erasmus was an utterly decent farmer's wife and mother. She had her share of difficulties - she was a cancer survivor - and deserved, after a lifetime of hard work, to have a pleasant and joyful old day with her husband Chris, her children and grandchildren. That won't be no more.


No less horrifying is the fate of the Potgieter family of the Free State (Oranje Vrijstaat, SA). Attie Potgieter, a fortyish farmer, was either hacked to death with a machete or shot. As for the fate of his wife Wilna and their three year old daughter Willemien there's less ambiguity. They were dispatched, execution style, with a bullet in the head.





Look at the lovely Willemien, and ask yourself what kind of a mind the animal who could shoot this little girl through the head must have.


The biggest mistake white South Africans ever made was abolishing Apartheid. Or, more precisely, to abolish it far too soon. I have never been able to comprehend why it was so cool in western countries to lambast the Apartheid regime, while all across Africa the overwhelming majority of blacks had it far worse under their own rulers. The education budget per capita for white children in Apartheid South Africa may have been ten times more than for black children, but I would be willing to see how that amount compared to the education budget per capita in black Africa - I bet it was still far more.

I want to repeat again that a perpetually continuing Apartheid was not justified or even desired. It was not. It should have disappeared but ... in time.

In time, when a sufficiently big black population could be trusted to provide the country with a critical mass of sufficiently educated citizens. Giving power to hordes of illiterate half-crazed bushmen who defecated in ditches and fucked like rats was NEVER going to work... and South Africa pays the price now.

The complicity of the Left is enormous, like in basically everything that goes wrong in this world. Black African nations that followed the good path, like Botswana under President Seretse Khama (later Sir Seretse Khama) and Cote d'Ivoire, under President Felix Houphouet-Boigny, were never taken as an example. The former's stewardship of Botswana's economy made it something of an African tiger, its economic growth outpacing any country in the world between 1966 and 1980. Instead communist motherfuckers like Mugabe and Mandela were given an almost angelic status and got away with just about everything.

My father visited Zimbabwe in the early nineties - inertia had not yet washed away the accomplishments of White Rhodesians - and he was really impressed at finding a modern prosperous state in the heart of what we have forever known as the Dark Continent.

You don't want to look at Zimbabwe's state today. And the White Rhodesians are pretty much extinct.

I still hope that South Africa will escape the fate of its northern neihbor. But I fear it won't.



MFBB.

SERGEI PROKOFIEV'S MONTAGUES AND CAPULETS.

Probably the best known score of Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet is the one known as Montagues and Capulets. It is the fifth score in Scene II, Act I of the ballet (which is composed of three acts in all). It is perhaps better known as the Dance of the Knights. The following video shows a performance in the Opéra National de Paris.





Magnificent.


Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) was one of those rare individuals who, by sheer talent, managed to evade the plight and the mayhem of the overwhelming majority of Russians in the communist era. To be sure, he had his share of worries - the producer of his first Opera for a by then firmly established USSR, was shot by the NKVD, and he himself was forced to compose a cantata hailing Stalin - but taking it all together he coasted relatively unscathed thru three decades of massive suffering for the ordinary folk in the Soviet Union. Luckily so, otherwise the world would never have known his Romeo and Juliet, Peter and the Wolf, Alexander Nevsky or Scythian Suite. He died on the very same day as Stalin, 5 March 1953, and the mass murderer's farewell gesture was a so excessive demand of genuine flowers that poor old Prokofiev's funeral had to make do with paper flowers.





Dead White Male.



MFBB.

ISLAMIZATION IN FRANCE SPEEDING FORWARD.

Last Monday, December 6, the City Council of Strasbourg, France, allowed the building promotors of the Strasbourg mosque to add a 30-meter high minaret to the mosque currently under construction, and scheduled to open in 2011. Below you see the dome, which at the time of writing is finished.





Gien is a town of about 16,000 one hundred kilometers south of Paris, on the Loire river. A beautiful bridge spans the river, and Gien is famous for its porcelain, "Faience de Gien", which finds its origin in a factory founded there in 1821 by an Englishman, Thomas Hall.

Very soon, Gien will be 'famous' for something entirely different:





Giens Moroccan mosque is scheduled to be ready in 2011. It's indeed called the 'moroccan mosque' - the builders insist on naming it like that.

It should be noted that Morocco forbids the moroccan nationality to Christians, that a moroccan woman has no right to marry a Christian, that every moroccan emigrant (even those of the third generation and born outside of Morocco) is considered a subject of the king of morocco. Double nationality does not exist in Morocco. Article 220 of the moroccan penal code stipulates that proselytizing christianity in the kingdom is strictly forbidden.


I have very little hope left for France. The country seems not so much to submit to islam as well as to embrace it, and this despite the ongoing harrassment committed each and every day by muslim youths against the indigenous population at large, and despite the now close to 300,000 cars torched by them since 2005.

France is paralysed, dazed, seemingly completely unable to make a stand anymore. The right in France, or what passes for it, is com-ple-te-ly fragmentized and powerless.

The curious, or perhaps not so curious conclusion to be reached with regards to indigenous European resistance to islamization is that it is strongest in Germanic countries. Not in Scandinavian countries (with the exception of Denmark) where the individual, because of the omnipresent semi-totalitarian state, is both kept subdued by the grip of the state, and left in the dark by the extreme leftist media.

Certainly not in southern Europe which is displaying even less resistance than France. Spain e.g. has even less to show than the token resistance of a few isolated Frenchmen and -women.

It is in the Germanic countries, to which we, for the sake of the argument, can count the UK, that resistance will be strongest, and most bloody. At international counterjihad events the delegates invariably come from these countries, with a surprising number of them from the smaller states: The Netherlands, Denmark, and my own Belgium. The distinction Germanic determination/Latin passivity is even apparent in the latter, since French-speaking Wallonia has no counterpart to a Filip Dewinter of the Vlaams Belang. Indeed, what passes there for anti-islamization forces is a weak shadow of the fragmentized semi-rightist resistance in the bigger francophone mother country, France itself.

Of those Germanic countries, it's actually Belgium, The Netherlands, the UK and Denmark that are most often in the spotlights with regards to resistance to islamization. Germany, not so much. This has probably a lot to do with the fact that of all muslim populations in Europe, if you got to have them, it's probably best to have Turks, and indeed, where the UK has Pakis, France, Belgium and The Netherlands moroccans, Germany has Turks more than anything else. Their labor ethic, while small compared to indigenous Germans themselves, is still far bigger than that of moroccans. They also show a tad more respect for the law than their co-religionists from the Rif.

But Germans should not be underestimated. Even though by and large they still have less trouble inflicted upon their society than in neighboring countries, the average German has a clearer understanding of the muslim problem than his fellow Europeans. Indeed, two in five Germans see islam as a threat, as they should.

This is why I think that when the shooting begins, it will be the bloodiest and most merciless in Germany. And may their Allah help the muslims then.



MFBB.

FILIP DEWINTER (VLAAMS BELANG) RECEIVED IN THE KNESSET, MEETS LIKUD MINISTER.

Currently, in Israel a summit is taking place on islamic terrorism and the strategy, or srategies, to combat it. A delegation of the EFA (European Freedom Alliance, an organization of European rightwing and nationalistic parties) is present. Among them participants from Germany, Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark. The conference started on Sunday, December 5, with a press meeting in Ashkelon and a colloquium in that city's Academic College. For Austria, there was, amongst others, Heinz-Christian Strache, Chairman of the FPO. For Germany, there was René Stadtkewitz (Die Freiheit). And for Belgium, the Vlaams Belang's Filip Dewinter and Frank Creyelmans.





Between 10 and 12, the colloquium took place, and the rather cumbersome title of the subject was "legal aspects of military retaliation, as ordered by a sovereign state against terrorist acts by islamic fundamentalists." Among those present were Ashkelon's mayor Benny Vaknin as well as a representative of Manhigut-Yehudit, a Likud faction. Between 13.30h and 14.30h, the group visited Ashkelon city. From 14.30h to 16.30h, the delegation visited the border region between Israel and the Gaza Strip, paid a visit to Israeli troops there, and was briefed by a high-ranking officer. Between 17h and 18h, the delegation was received by the mayor of Sderot David Buskila and walked thereafter through the town center, site of the most numerous rocket attacks launched from the Gaza Strip.

In the two subsequent days, contrary to what most of the Belgian press reported, Filip Dewinter, in Belgium since decades on the receiving end of intense smear and hate campaigns by the politically correct elites and their lackeys in the press, was received in the Knesset.

This is very important, for it shows that in Israel itself, the nazi allegations are now considered baseless - which is what they have always been. In Belgium, Dewinter is still treated like filth - but in Israel they now better by now.


Nothing illustrates this better than the following photos:




Filip Dewinter with an MK (Member of Knesset) for Shas, an ultra-orthodox government party.




Filip Dewinter and Ayoob Kara, Likud MK and Deputy Minister for the Development of the Negev and Galilee.


During either the colloquium or the Knesset visit, Dewinter had this to say:

"Israel finds itself on the frontline of the battle between the Free West and radical islam. Israel is partly fighting our battle against islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. Given that Israel is the vanguard of the Free West, we must unite our forces and fight together against islamism here and at home."

Now contrast this with the attitude of most European, and especially British politicians these days. Britain, where soldiers and officers who participated in Operation Cast Lead risk to be arrested for "war crimes".

Hat tip François Desouche.



MFBB.

NOBEL LAUREATE V.S. NAIPAUL FORCED OUT OF LITERARY EVENT IN TURKEY BY RADICAL MUSLIMS.

Yes, it has come this far. Via The Telegraph, November 25:

(By Adrian Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent 5:36PM GMT 25 Nov 2010)
"... Naipaul had been due to give the opening address at the European Writers' Parliament, a gathering of prominent authors who are meeting in Istanbul to discuss the future of literature.

But he made what was described as "a mutual decision", taken with the conference's organisers, to withdraw at the last moment following a concerted campaign against him in Turkey's religious press.

A number of Turkish writers had threatened not to attend the event in protest at Naipaul's portrayal of Islam in two of his 30 books as a religion that sought to enslave and eliminate other cultures.

Calls for a boycott were led by Hilmi Yavuz, a columnist for the Zaman newspaper, who wrote: "How can our writers bear to sit by the same table with Naipul, who has seen Muslims worthy of so many insults?"

Born in Trinidad of Indian ancestry, Naipaul, 78, has condemned the manner in which Islam established itself in the non-Arab world.

Converts in countries such as Iran and Indonesia had been forced "to strip themselves of their past" in order to submit to the Muslim faith, he wrote.

"It is the most uncompromising kind of imperialism," he wrote in Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples.

Naipaul has also courted controversy by attacking Pakistan while voicing support for the Indian nationalist party the BJP and other right-wing Hindu parties. Most notably he defended the destruction in 1992 of a mosque in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, by a mob of BJP supporters as an act of "historical balancing" – even though nearly 2,000 Muslims were killed in the ensuing riots.

The campaign to keep Naipaul out of Turkey threatens to tarnish Istanbul's credentials as this year's "European Capital of Culture" and other writers at the conference insisted that he had the right to be heard.

"I feel that we would be stronger and more credible if we were to deal with divergent views within this meeting rather than excluding someone because of fear that offence might be given," Hari Kunzru, the British novelist, told delegates as the event got under way..."

Naipauls remark of "historical balancing" may seem crude... until you learn a bit of history on muslim imperialism in India...

THE PROVINCIAL MUSLIM SATRAPS

In 1391 AD the Muslims of Gujarat complained to Nasiruddin Muhammad, the Tughlak Sultan of Delhi, that the local governor, Farhat-ul-Mulk, was practising tolerance towards the Hindus. The Sultan immediately appointed Muzaffar Khan as the new governor. He became independent after the death of the Delhi Sultan and assumed the title of Muzaffar Shah in 1392 AD. Next year he led an expedition to Somnath and sacked the temple which the Hindus had built once again. He killed many Hindus to chastise them for this “impudence”, and raised a mosque on the site of the ancient temple. The Hindus, however, restarted restoring the temple soon after. In 1401 AD Muzaffar came back with a huge army. He again killed many Hindus, demolished the temple once more, and erected another mosque. Muzaffar was succeeded by his grandson, Ahmad Shah, in 1411 AD. Three years later Ahmad appointed a special dãrogah to destroy all temples throughout Gujarat. In 1415 AD Ahmad invaded Sidhpur where he destroyed the images in Rudramahalaya, and converted the grand temple into a mosque. Sidhpur was renamed Sayyadpur.


Mahmud Begrha who became the Sultan of Gujarat in 1458 AD was the worst fanatic of this dynasty. One of his vassals was the Mandalika of Junagadh who had never withheld the regular tribute. Yet in 1469 AD Mahmud invaded Junagadh. In reply to the Mandalika’s protests, Mahmud said that he was not interested in money as much as in the spread of Islam. The Mandalika was forcibly converted to Islam and Junagadh was renamed Mustafabad. In 1472 AD Mahmud attacked Dwarka, destroyed the local temples, and plundered the city. Raja Jayasingh, the ruler of Champaner, and his minister were murdered by Mahmud in cold blood for refusing to embrace Islam after they had been defeated and their country pillaged and plundered. Champaner was renamed Mahmudabad.


Mahmud Khalji of Malwa (1436-69 AD) also destroyed Hindu temples and built mosques on their sites. He heaped many more insults on the Hindus. Ilyas Shah of Bengal (1339-1379 AD) invaded Nepal and destroyed the temple of Svayambhunath at Kathmandu. He also invaded Orissa, demolished many temples, and plundered many places. The Bahmani sultans of Gulbarga and Bidar considered it meritorious to kill a hundred thousand Hindu men, women, and children every year. They demolished and desecrated temples all over South India.



BABUR

The scene shifted once mere to Delhi after Babur came out victorious against the Lodis and the Rajputs. The founder of the Mughal empire has received much acclaim from Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru for his fortitude in adversity, his daring against heavy odds, his swimming across many rivers, his love of flowers and fruits, and so on so forth. But his face, presented by himself in his Tuzuk-i-Bãburî, suffers irreparable damage if it is denuded of the rich hues of horrible cruelties in which he habitually indulged. The lurid details he provides of his repeated massacres of the infidels, leave no doubt that he was mighty proud of his performance. He was particularly fond of raising higher and higher towers of Hindu heads cut off during and after every battle he fought with them. He loved to sit in his royal tent to watch this spectacle. The prisoners were brought before him and butchered by his “brave” swordsmen. On one occasion, the ground flowed with so much blood and became so full of quivering carcases that his tent had to be moved thrice to a higher level. He lost no opportunity of capturing prisoners of war and amassing plunder. In the dynasty founded by him it was incumbent upon every king that he should style himself a Ghãzî, that is, slayer of infidels. When he broke vessels of wine on the eve of his battle with Rana Sangram Singh, he proclaimed that he would smash idols in a similar manner. And he destroyed temples wherever he saw them..."

But if you thought all that stopped after the decline of the Moghuls, you'd be mistaken. In India, muslims continue to wreak havoc on the non-muslim part of the population every day.



MFBB.

INSANITY IN SWEDEN: SWEDISH PARTIES CHANGE CONSTITUTION SO THAT NON-SWEDISH NATIONAL PROSECUTOR CAN CONDEMN SWEDISH CITIZENS THEMSELVES.

A couple of years ago, not yet fully aware how insanely politically correct practically all Swedish parties are and how far advanced the evolution toward soft totalitarianism, I hailed the arrival of the new so-called rightwing PM Fredrik Reinfeldt. While I still think a Reinfeldt is better than a Goran Persson or, God forbid, the criminally insane Mona Sahlin, I have now come to think of the choice between a Reinfeldt and a Persson/Sahlin as equivalent to the choice between drinking a glass of hobo urine and eating a plate of chicken poop.

The latest calamity emerging from Europes foremost bastion of multicultural lunacy is an upcoming change in the Swedish Constitution that will allow non-citizens to fulfill high-ranking government functions. Buried between a lot of blather including the groundbreaking revelation of Election Day to be held on the second sunday of September instead of on the third, and Sweden's commitment to the EUSSR, one change in particular stands out. Read and shiver:

"The current requirement regarding Swedish citizenship for some higher state positions is removed. One such position is the national prosecutor (riksåklagare) which might be held by non-citizens in the future. The requirement on Ministers to have been Swedish citizens for at least ten years is removed."

The constitutional change is the work of the Social Democrats and the ruling Moderate Party, the party of PM Reinfeldt. The changes themselves are in fact unconstitutional, but what can you expect from a machination authored by the Social Democrats, who are being led by Mona Sahlin. This completely crazy whore has in the past on more than one occasion made it abundantly clear that she, in fact, hates her own country. Some memorable quotes:

"If two equally-qualified persons apply for a job at a workplace with few immigrants, the one called Muhammad should get the job."


“I hate everything that is genuine, typical Swedish.”

Well, Pat Condell can do a far better job of blasting this kind of insane treason, so I will let him fume on it:





Hey, if you are a Swede - I know you are out there, I can see it, there's not many of you but I know you're there - and you did not vote Sverigedemokraterna...

... you should be ashamed of yourself. Sucker.



MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT CROSBY, STILLS, NASH AND YOUNG, BLINK.

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. And of course, it's...





... Our house. 1970.


Blink with Happy Day. Guys are from Ireland. It's 1994.





I hope it was one for you. Good night.



MFBB.

AUSTRIAN MP EWALD STADLER BLASTS TURKISH AMBASSADOR KADRI ECVET TEZCAN.

With so much going on in the world today, it was easy to miss the rant delivered by Turkey's ambassador to Austria a couple of weeks ago. The man, a certain Kadri Ecvet Tezcan, offended his host nation repeatedly in terms not to be misunderstood. Despite the Austrian government having thrown untold millions of taxpayer euros at integration programmes to "reach out" to the muslim minority in Switzerland's Alpine sister land, Tezcan had the heart to blame the failure of muslim integration on... Austrians.

Commenting on the Austrian Freedom Party' electoral succes, he even went as far as to say that "...almost 30 per cent support a far-right party in a city which regards itself as the cultural centre of Europe. I would not stay here as head of the UN, the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) or the OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries)."

Just a few days ago, this turkish muslim stinker got the reply he so richly deserved. Watch the following video wherein Austrian MP Ewald Stadler blasts the scumbag... and in passing the leftist and green islamization enablers:





Shocked and awed. Got a blog, pass this on.

Hat tip our pals over at Gates of Vienna.



MFBB.

RICHARD WAGNER: PRELUDE TO ACT 1 OF PARSIFAL.

Richard Wagner worked intermittently on his famous opera Parsifal, from its first conception in 1857 to its final draft in 1877. The opera is loosely based on a famous thirteenth century poem by Wolfram von Eschenbach, about Parzival, a Knight of King Arthur's Round Table. But there are also elements from Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the story of the Holy Grail. Wagner's Parsifal consists of three acts, and this is the Prelude to the first act.





I find the music simply overwhelming. Of course, you may need a few listens, as did I when I discovered this jewel. Naturally, the tunes must have lingered in my head for about twenty-five years, since there's a whiff of the Prelude in Boorman's movie Excalibur, more precisely when Arthur kneels at dusk between the menhirs and calls out for Merlin.

Anyway - breathtaking beauty. Like if your ears thought that you had died and gone to heaven. At least for me.



MFBB.

BELGIAN 'TOP' NEWSPAPER 'DE STANDAARD' SHILLS FOR BRADLEY MANNING.

It is crystal clear that the 'prime' Belgian newspaper, De Standaard


The Belgian journal De Standaard seems rather sympathetic towards private Bradley Manning, who allegedly leaked thousands of classified documents to Assange's Wikileaks:

'THE REVENGE OF THE LONELY SOLDIER BRADLEY MANNING.

....

But why would Menning have done it?

The chat sessions he held with Lamo [a hacker who once broke into the NYT's computers, befriended Manning online, but finally fingerpointed him - MFBB] and which served as material for The Washington Post in June already, give a beginning of the answer. In any case, they sketch a desillusioned soldier who looks down at the army with contempt.

Military intelligence is an oxymoron, he writes on his Facebook page. The diplomatic telexes he sees, 'are for him proof how the First World exploits the Third World'. It is also clear that Manning feels totally isolated. 'I am a wreck' he tells Lamo. 'I look for escape routes to survive. I am smart enough to realize what's going on, but helpless to do something about it.'

I wonder how sensitive, caring and smart nerd Bradley Manning would have reacted if he had been a military intelligence analyst in the army of Sudan. Or in that of Myanmar. Or in that of Iran. "Dispatch three gunships tomorrow to wipe out villages north of Kabkabiya". "Top KNLA commander lifted off his bed in the Myawaddy District, executed the day after". " 'Zahra Kazemi beaten to death in Evin Prison. Good riddance!!!'

Just why is it that all these econutters - woollen sock wearers - leftozoid LBGT aficionados are always prepared to see and believe the worst of the western society that has sheltered them and provided them with a lifestyle to be encountered nowhere else, while they curiously remain deaf and blind to the havoc that so many regimes out there inflict on their own people and their neighbors, while more often than not absolutely and unapologetically ruining their ecology?


Apart from Manning, there is of course Assange. Fellow commenter on LVB had the following link from American Thinker. It's an interesting POV:

Ask yourself this: Who is the greater threat to America? Is it an Australian programmer or Barack Obama? Assange is merely a website operator. He has no backing or powers to inflict harm on this country. Obama, on the other hand, has been using the powers of his office to systematically destroy the American economy, the dollar, our standard of living, and our standing in the world. He has been stoking racial tensions. He has been taking private property of American citizens and giving it to his friends. He and his people have been destroying the values and fabric of American society faster than you can say "bam."

In reality, it is this regime that is a menace to America. What Julian Assange is doing is merely helping to reveal the duplicity and incompetence. And it could not be more ironic that he is doing so with documents which have been forwarded to him by leakers who themselves are part of the Obama administration.

I tend to agree with the author, Vasko Kohlmayer. Assange merely published the information that was made available to him. Since he is in no way involved with the US or its institutions, it seems hard to charge him for what he did. I therefore think that the outburst from Republican lawmakers to designate WikiLeaks a terrorist organization is not one, but two bridges too far. If any lesson should be drawn from it, it is that the information now made public should be made less available, and less visible.

With Manning it's another matter though. Manning was a soldier of the US Army and therefore sworn to loyalty to that institution. When he signed up, he also signed up to oblige to its professional and ethics standards. Assange in all likelihood is just a narcissist, eager to be in the spotlights. He is also a self-hating narcissist, because he is a Westerner, and somewhere in the back of my mind I know with mathematical certainty that we will not hear anything soon from WikiLeaks with regards to human rights violations in Tibet, although you can bet your sweet ass that there are Chinese government cables about that and that he could lay his hands on 'em if he wanted.

But Manning.... Manning leaked info that could endanger, and in all likelihood has endangered, the lives of American and allied soldiers. Not soldiers sitting on their safe warm asses like Manning. But soldiers out there in the field. In AF's Korengal valley, or in a dangerous Bagdad suburb.

I wrote I tended to agree with Mr. Kohlamyer on Assange.

And I found another author I agree with on Manning:

First of all, the soldier as the source should be given to the military to take care of. The Army needs its best prosecution team on him and should punish him as much as possible in a very public way. Make an example of him. He is and will be drenched in blood. No quarter or mercy should be given to him. Whatever the max is; make is so.

CDR Salamander.

De Standaard will shed crocodile tears for their darling when the verdict comes. I couldn't care less.


MFBB.

RARE VIDEO FOOTAGE FROM INSIDE NORTH KOREA.

Via The Telegraph, in my opinion the best UK journal:





I am currently reading David Halberstam's The Coldest Winter, on the origins of the Korean conflict. It's extremely good and, following a lengthy introductory phase presenting the grounds of the conflict and the key players on both sides, deals primarily with military operations in the first year, summer 1950 to summer 1951. The war would last two more years but after July 1951 warfare on the Korean peninsula eerily began to resemble World War I trench warfare.

The involvement of the US military and the troops provided by a number of UN countries was more often than not received not very well by the citizenry back at home. People simply did not understand what the sacrifices their loved ones brought in an unknown country far, far away were for. This was especially true for the American troops since they bore the brunt of the fighting. The sentiment was not confined to civilians alone, for among the enlisted men too there was great scepticism as to the meaning of their engagement. Few things illustrate this better than a quote by the actor William Holden, playing Harry Brubaker, a US Navy F9F fighter bomber pilot in the 1954 movie The bridges at Toko-Ri. Towards the end, when he has been forced to crash-land his jet and is in a doomed firefight with North Korean or Chinese infantry, he is asked by a rescuing helicopter pilot who himself is now grounded (played by Mickey Rooney) "what the hell he's doing in a smelly ditch in Korea". To which Brubaker responds: "yeah, I'm asking myself that question too". A few moments later both are dead.

It is damn easy for armchair generals - to which I have to count myself too, I fear - to say that today it's clear what US and UN troops were doing in smelly ditches in Korea. Nevertheless, the fact that I can state it from the warmth and safety of my house does not detract from the truthfulness of it. In 1953, at least South Korea was free from the horrors of communism. From there it would go on to become, in time, a model democracy with one of the highest standards of living in the whole of Asia, with a proud and well equipped workforce that would give the world the products of Daewoo, Kia, Ssangyong and Hyundai, to name but a few. Tens of millions of South Koreans have had the opportunity, or are taking that opportunity each and every day - to live happy and healthy lives. There are no young women there eating grass.

There are in North Korea though - and I'm pretty sure the truth is even far more uglier than what can be seen in that Telegraph video.

The war in Korea is sometimes called The Forgotten War. It shouldn't be forgotten, and it's a good thing that currently there seem finally to be a couple of decent volumes around dealing with the war. I hope they find their way to the broader public - people will understand better then that the evil regime which unleashed terror and sowed misery and death on that fateful June day in 1950 - is still there, essentially unaltered. Still as evil as it was then, and not caring a jolt for its own people - the late nineties famine in NK possibly claimed a million lives.

Only now do they have nukes.




MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT TOM PETTY, BROKEN BELLS, THE DOOBIE BROTHERS.

Tom Petty, without the Heartbreakers, in 1994 with You wreck me, from the album Wildflowers.




Because a.) I am SUCH a nice, deeply caring personality and b.) to stifle rumours that I am some kind of dinosaur who still hasn't gotten the news I should be dead 65 million years, here's Broken Balls with The High Road, from their 2009 debut album. To be honest, I liked Danger Mouse more in a previous career.





The Doobie Brothers with China Grove.





Goedenacht.


MFBB.

A BELATED HAPPY THANKSGIVING.

It is now official, Outlaw Mike just participated in his very first Thanksgiving Dinner.





Blurred but atmospheric snapshot of people helping themselves - or getting helped to - abundant decent food. Location: a "parochiaal centrum" in Gentbrugge, a suburb of Ghent. Just like idiots call Xmas "Winterval" nowadays, they would call a "parochiaal centrum" a "community center". Not bibi of course.


The guy with the blue sweater on the left, between the woman and the bearded guy serving food, was the fella who was nuts enough to invite me. Craig B. has been organizing Thanksgiving in Gentbrugge for eleven years. In a grey past, he was a sailor on the USS Mahan (guided missile destroyer DDG 42). Thanks to his efforts, and the efforts of a few acolytes - around 50 people had a very enjoyable evening. The food was ab-so-lu-te-ly delicious and if I say there was plenty of it, it's the understatement of the year.






Shot taken just before the attack. Guaranteed haram. Yum.


Hopping in at such an event often leads to interesting encounters. I happened to sit across an ex-Marine (1st Division, recon), who ended up in the Magical Kingdom of Belgium and now has his own welding enterprise here. Wish we had more immigrants like that.

I was a good boy. I did not once talk about politics. Or religion. Nor did I burp.

Nite all.



MFBB.

THE PRACTICE OF STONING IN THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN.

Via Dutch website GeenStijl, infosheets from an Amnesty International Report (from time to time, AI does something good still) on stoning in Iran.








It is true that Iran was just recently rebuffed when it tried to secure itself a seat on the executive board of (yet another) UN superagency, UN Women. But it should be remembered that Saudi Arabia, a big funder of UN Women, but barely more women-friendly than Iran, does have a seat. As a sidenote, Saudi Arabia's interest in this proliferation of UN agencies is probably yet one more sign that muslim countries seek to dominate the UN, which they do already to a large extent through the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

Be that as it may, even if Iran is not represented in the Board of UN Women, it does have a seat in the Commission on the Status of Women - it obtained it in rather murky circumstances in April of this year, and it will retain this seat till 2014.

If you check out the website of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, you will find that its homepage boasts that it is "dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women."

Nice. Not. What a hoot.

We truly live in a mad world.


MFBB.

SINT-NIKLAAS, BELGIUM. SYRIAN REFUSES TO LISTEN TO FEMALE COP, BLOCKS ENTIRE TOWN CENTER AS A RESULT.

From the You GOT To Be Kidding Me Department: Syrian refuses to obey female police officer.

"Syrian ignores female agent's orders
Saturday 20 November 2010

On Thursday Mahmoud D. (40) from Sint-Niklaas had to give way on the busy crossroads of Bread Street and Van Britsomstreet in Sint-Niklaas to another car and this he refused. He drove onto the crossroads and stopped his car there. It was quarter past four: soon not only the crossroads was completely jammed, but also the entire town center.

'Because we did not even manage to get there with a patrol car, we sent an officer on foot' says Corps Chief Jack Van Peer. 'To be clear, that was a male officer, followed by a female one. The man [Mahmoud D. - MFBB] made it then abundantly clear that he did not follow instructions issued by females.'

For the police nothing else remained but to haul away the car, with Mahmoud D. still in it. 'But a truck too did not get to the crossroads' [of course you idiots, if even the smaller patrol car couldn't make it - MFBB]. 'So we sent backup to pull the man out of his car.'

The police busted a sidewindow, whereupon Mahmoud D. jumped out of the car and immediately wounded a female officer. The other officers overpowered the man and brought him, handcuffed, to the police precinct. 'Suddenly he had forgotten how to speak Flemish and he demanded an interpreter', says Jack Van Peer. He got one [! - MFBB] but that turned out to be a woman, 'against whom he refused to talk too.'

Mahmoud D. had a bad luck day. Police briefed the serving prosecutor of the Dendermonde Court. This turned out to be Marianne Bovyn, a woman, whom he refused to talk to just as well. She decided to confront the Syrian right away with an investigator and ordered his arrest. And so Mahmoud D. appeared before investigator Sabine De Leenheer, again a woman he deemed not worthy to look at. Madam De Leenheer applied Lady Justice's Law and had the Syrian locked up in Dendermonde jail."

Prepare for civil war.



MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT MULU, PORNO FOR PYROS, SIMPLE MINDS.

Mulu with Pussycat.





From the album Smiles like a shark, 1997. Singer's Laura Campbell.


Porno for Pyros. 100 Ways.




I know, Perry Farrell is a...

... oh, never mind.


Simple Minds. Theme for Great Cities.





1981, would you believe it?


Nite.


MFBB.

THE SAD FATE OF CHRISTIANS IN EGYPT (UPDATE).

Regular reader and commenter Joanne linked to this appalling story of the burning alive of a Coptic man at the hands of muslim thugs in Egypt:

"... Muslim Burns a Young Copt Alive and Murders His Father Because of a Rumor Voice of the Copts

A Muslim man set fire to a Coptic young man, murdered his father and wounded his younger brother, after it was rumored that the young Copt allegedly had a relationship with the Muslim man's sister!!

The events took place in the small village of "Dmas" Meet-Ghamr, after a rumor spread around of a relationship between the 25-year-old Copt Shihata Sabri, and the sister of a Muslim man named Yasser Ahmed Qasim.





Yasser went to Coptic Shehata, holding a gasoline canister, poured it over him and set him on fire, as bystanders looked on in horror. The young Copt threw himself into the adjacent canal to try to put out the flames from his burning body. The fire left burns all over his body, leading to his death.

Following this incident, people in the village rallied and when the 60-years-old Sabri Shehata, father of the Coptic victim arrived, he was attacked by a group of Muslims stabbing him with knives and daggers; one stab penetrated his back to come out of his abdomen below the rib cage, resulting in his death, after being transferred to hospital.

A Coptic witness said that Yasser Ahmed, who is reputed to be a thug, and others have also beaten the Coptic victim's younger brother, 22-year old Rami Sabri Shehata, causing a deep injury to his head.

The security forces moved into the village of Dmas, which has a population of 60,000 people, including over 1000 Copts, surrounded the victims' house and deployed extra forces throughout the village.

The offenders were arrested together with the accused Yasser Ahmed Kassem and his friend, as well as the Copt Shehata Sabry who was held in custody in Dmas Hospital. The offenders were charged with deliberate homicide.

The body of Coptic victim Sabri Shehata was released for burial after prayers took place at the Church of Our Lady in the village of Dakados, which lies 20 kilometers from Dmas, amid a tight security siege."

The photo I used to illustrate this umpteenth article on the subject of rising violence against Egypt's Christians, is not of Mr. Sabri Shehata. It being quite obvious that there's, in all likelihood, no photographic evidence of the incident, since it all happened so quickly, I had to resort to using this photograph. And why? Because it will all the better make people realize that this is a COMMON OCCURENCE to non-muslims living in muslim-dominated countries.

A couple of weeks ago there was an outrage - AN OUTRAGE! - in Belgian newspapers about Israeli soldiers teasing and humiliating Paleostinians. In one case an Israeli trooper was dancing around a Pali prisoner, in another they rummage around in an Pali house and harass the inhabitants:




"Israeli soldiers tease Palestinians." Now THAT is worth covering for Belgian MSM!!!


These ridiculous non-items made the news.

What do you think the chances are the burning alive of Mr Shehata and the stabbing to death of his father will make it to Belgium's "top" newspapers?

To ask the question is to answer it.

On the other hand, try to imagine what the reaction would be if the boot were on the other foot.

Pray for these poor sods.

(update ends here)

---------------------------

If you thought Egypt was a liberal muslim country, think again. From our pals at Gates of Vienna.





Link to this video as much as possible. Post it on your blog. GET-THE-WORD-OUT.


Islam is CANCER.



MFBB.