HIS MASTER'S VOICE.

Our favorite rightwing extremist in the USN, CDRSalamander, linked to a magnificent Thomas Sowell column. Very appropriate nowadays:

"...Sometimes, when I hear about "disparities" and "inequities," I think of a disparity that applied directly to me-- the disparity in basketball ability between myself and Michael Jordan.

Most discussions of "disparities" and "inequities" are a prelude to coming up with some "solution" that the government can impose, winning politicians some votes in the process. How could the disparity between Michael Jordan and me be solved?

We could change the rules of basketball, in order to try to equalize the outcomes. Michael Jordan could be required to make all his two-point shots from beyond the three-point line, with five players opposing him and no one on his side. A three-point shot could require him to stand under the basket on the opposite side of the court and shoot from there.

Meanwhile, I could make two-point shots from a spot half the distance from the foul line to the basket, and of course without any other players on the court to distract me. Any shots I might make from back at the foul line would count as three-pointers.

Even under these conditions, you would be better off betting your money on Michael Jordan. But, conceivably at least, we might change the rules some more to make the results come out less lopsided, in order to create "social justice."



The problem with trying to equalize is that you can usually only equalize downward. If the government were to spend some of its stimulus money trying to raise my basketball ability level to that of Michael Jordan, it would be an even bigger waste of money than most of the other things that Washington does.

So the only way to try to equalize that has any chance at all would be to try to bring Michael Jordan down to my level, whether by drastic rule changes or by making him play with one hand tied behind his back, or whatever.

The problem with this approach, as with many other attempts at equalization, is that it undermines the very activity involved. Basketball would be a much less interesting game if it was played under rules designed to produce equality of outcomes.

Attendance would fall off to the point where neither Michael Jordan nor anyone else could make a living playing the game.

The same principle applies elsewhere. If you are going to try to equalize the chances of women getting jobs as firefighters, for example, then you are going to have to lower the physical requirements of height, weight and upper body strength.

That means that you are going to have more firefighters who are not capable of carrying an unconscious person out of a burning building..."

Thomas, you're a God.


MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT BELGIAN ROCK.

Belgian band Soulwax, in a later life known as the Flying Dewaele Brothers. Much against everyone's advice, from the 1998 album of the same name. Soulwax's key members are the brothers David and Stephen Dewaele, from Ghent, in the province of East Flanders.




Conversation Intercom, from the same album:




I have always felt that if The Scabs, who originated in 1982 in Diest (central Belgian province of Flemish Brabant), had had just somewhat more balls, just somewhat more talent, and a good marketing machine behind 'em, they could have made it beyond Belgium. Hard Times from the album Royalty in Exile (1990), possibly their best album, is a good song, easy to the ear:




Hey, nite all.



MFBB.

FRANCE'S NOT SO QUIET ENTRANCE INTO THE DAR-AL-ISLAM.

In France since at least 2004, muslim youths living predominantly in the now 800 or so ZUS [Zones Urbaines Sensibles, or sensitive urban zones, an euphemism for no-go zones - MFBB] torch an estimated 30,000 cars a year. Since France is a big country, at least for European standards, since there is a deliberate government policy to make no fuss about it, and since the no go zones are spread rather evenly across country from a geographical point of view, this abomination which has until now resulted in at least 120,000 destroyed cars (this kind of carbon pollution is apparently less dangeroussssss for Mother Earth) has attracted surprisingly little of global media attention. Only when particularly bad local events happen, something registers on the European MSM radars. Such an instance occurred around July 8th and three subsequent nights, when a 21-year old muslim thug, Mohammed Benmouna, apparently hanged himself in his cell in Firminy near Saint-Etienne, in France's western Loire region. As per usual, the UK's Guardian manages to dodge the key issue and has pinpointed the reason for the seemingly neverending turmoil. Fasten your seatbelts: it's "the dire relations between police and youths of immigrant descent on suburban estates." (!) Talk about spanning the torched cart before the fried horse:

"For three nights, youths have taken to the streets of Firminy to riot over the death, burning local shops, torching dozens of cars and stoning police, despite repeated pleas for calm from the family. Last night the family and 200 locals staged a peaceful sit-down protest outside their block of flats. But later groups of youths began torching buildings and cars and stoning police. The local bakers, chemist, tobacconist and hairdressing salon were razed. Two hundred riot police were brought in to control rioters with teargas and plastic bullets. Six arrests were made. The Benmouna case has reopened France's festering sore - the dire relations between police and youths of immigrant descent on suburban estates..."

It's not that I like to say it - believe it or not - but in Europe muslims almost invariably turn out to do jobs requiring neither big intellectual capabilities neither craftmanship, being handy neither with the gray cells nor with their hands. There is one métier in which they excel though:








And then came Bastille Day, July 14th, the French national holiday. On the eve of that day, those pesky "youths" burned another 500 cars nationwide:




Check out this video and you will see some rather pathetic specimens of the homo frenchiscus, a species well on its way to extinction and in dire need of affordable car insurance premiums:





Truth to be told, that leftist rag Le Monde did some scant reporting on the events, unlike Le Figaro, which considered Carla Bruni's July 14 outfit swap of white Dior to black Chanel of far greater importance:





So what this article says is that basically during the night of 13 to 14 July more than 500 cars were set ablaze. By whom? No one knows. Everyone's clueless. Must be Greys from Zeta Reticuli, pissed off by all that Blue, White and Red. Or US Marines. Belgians. Whatever. Anyway, the first estimation made at 6 o'clock in the morning came to 317 vehicles, 6.7% up from the previous year, when there were only 297. Police nevertheless qualified the night as "relatively calm", although "serious" incidents took place in Val d'Oise, Gonesse, Arnouville, Seine-Saint-Denis, Aulnay-sous-Bois, Tremblay-en-France, and in l'Essonne, in Grigny. The newspaper La Provence signaled incidents in Marseille, more precisely shooting at the police. Etc etc etc. Bon Dieu.

And what do the powers that be think of this all? Special Counselor to French president Sarkozy Henri Guaino decided to take a look himself inside a police van in Montfermeil and subsequently came under attack from a 40-strong gang of those famous "youths". Interviewed later by the blog Rue89, Guaino commented: "that police used plastic bullets to disengage, but not too much, since lavish use would have been suicidal".





And Mr. Guaino's conclusion?

Sit down first.

"Il y a dans nos banlieues une jeunesse formidable que nous sommes en train de perdre."

"We have in our suburbs a formidable youth that we are losing."

Am I crazy or are they crazy? I may be many things. Grumpy? You bet. Bigoted? For sure. Boring? Absolutely. Long-winded? Jawohl. Hateful? Hmmm, I guess I may have become so. But crazy? I didn't think so.

Therefore they must be.


MFBB.

OBAMA'S CZARS: PICKING AMERICA-HATERS.

Over at Townhall, Salena Zito sheds some light on the Obama Administrations 'czaring' phenomenon:

"... Czars have been used since FDR persuaded Jimmy Byrnes to leave the U.S. Supreme Court to become head of the Office of Economic Stabilization. It’s just that most administrations haven’t used as many as Obama has so far.

Right now, 21 or so “special assistants” have been hand-picked by the president and don’t need Senate approval.

We have a car czar, an energy czar, an urban czar, a TARP czar. We also have a drug czar, a stimulus-accountability czar, a regulatory czar, a terrorism czar – and, yes, even a Guantanamo Bay-closure czar. There are about 12 more, but you get the picture..."

Now, if 'czaring' meant appointing advisors with a proven record of non-partisanship and unquestionable competence in the relevant field for which a 'czar' is the presidents' advisor, that would be one thing.

It's a totally different thing if one after another, those 'czars' appear to be the worst radicals imaginable.

And while I am adverse of conspracy theories, and have until now mostly attributed the incessant blunders of the Obama Administration to, simply, sheer and unparallelled incompetence, I must now admit that Obama's choice of one radical after another to serve as his 'czar' for this or that issue, seems to hint at some darker purpose.

Mind you, we are not even talking about the appointment of radicals for Minister posts and other high-profile government functions, like:


a.) the pro-abortion Kathleen Sebelius for Health and Human Services Secretary
b.) Eric Holder for Obama's Attorney General. Holder was the one who orchestrated the Clinton pardon for 16 terrorists of the FALN, a radical Puerto Rican nationalist group which set off 120 bombs in the US, which killed six and maimed dozens of others
c.) Sonia Sotomayor for Supreme Court Judge. Sotomayor is notorious for racist remarks vis-à-vis whites, poor judgment and low productivity.
d.) Janet Napolitano for head of the Deparment of Homeland Security. I don't have to tell Americans that Napolitano wants us all to label terror attacks committed by islamic extremists as 'man-caused disasters' and that she fingered returning vets as potential right wing extremists.


No, we are merely talking about Obama's czars:


We have had the appointment of Van Jones, Obama's 'Green Jobs' czar. Van Jones is an anarchist who as late as 2005 described himself as a 'rowdy black nationalist' and a 'communist'(!).

We have had the appointment of Cass Sunstein as Obama's Regulatory Czar. Sunstein is a radical animal rights activist who in 2004 wrote that 'animals should be able to bring suit, with human beings as their represenatives'.

We have had the appointment of Carol Browner as Obama's Climate Czar. Browner is a radical socialist in favor of global governance who sits on the board of a major Carbon Offset "company".

But perhaps no other appointment is as shocking as the one of John Holdren, Obama's Science Czar. The elusive blogger Zombie has an excellent piece on this creep. Read and shiver:

"Forced abortions. Mass sterilization. A "Planetary Regime" with the power of life and death over American citizens.

The tyrannical fantasies of a madman? Or merely the opinions of the person now in control of science policy in the United States? Or both?

These ideas (among many other equally horrifying recommendations) were put forth by John Holdren, whom Barack Obama has recently appointed Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology -- informally known as the United States' Science Czar. In a book Holdren co-authored in 1977, the man now firmly in control of science policy in this country wrote that:

• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation's drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who "contribute to social deterioration" (i.e. undesirables) "can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility" -- in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational "Planetary Regime" should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans' lives -- using an armed international police force.

Impossible, you say? That must be an exaggeration or a hoax. No one in their right mind would say such things.

Well, I hate to break the news to you, but it is no hoax, no exaggeration. John Holdren really did say those things, and this report contains the proof. Below you will find photographs, scans, and transcriptions of pages in the book Ecoscience, co-authored in 1977 by John Holdren and his close colleagues Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich. The scans and photos are provided to supply conclusive evidence that the words attributed to Holdren are unaltered and accurately transcribed...."

All of which leads you to the question:

WHAT THE HELL DOES OBAMA INTEND TO DO TO THE UNITED STATES?

Apart from ruining the economy, that is???


MFBB.

JULY 11. COMMEMORATION OF THE BATTLE OF THE GOLDEN SPURS.

Since Flanders is not an independent state, this day, the most famous of our history, is no celebration of our independence in the manner that July 4th is for the US, June 12th for the Philippines or May 17 for Norway. Flanders is, however, a region of the federal kingdom of Belgium and as such has a "Feestdag van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap", litterally a "Celebration Day of the Flemish Community" - and for this day the obvious date of July 11 was chosen. In earlier posts I have shed some light on this history-laden hot summer day in 1302, when an Army of Flemish citizens defeated the most brilliant Knight's Army France had ever assembled near the Flemish town of Kortrijk - Courtrai in English and French.

The Battle of the Golden Spurs was no event on its own. It was the first real battle between opposing armies of a three-year long war with France which ended with the Treaty of Athis-sur-Orge in 1305 at which France gave up its attempts to annex Flanders but Flanders in turn had to pay huge fines.

These were turbulent years.

In 1303, the Flemings launched a full-blown offensive against the French, first invading Hainaut, which currently is a Wallonian province, then northern France itself, ransacking Saint-Omer and Thérouanne. The French King, Philip The Fair, was because of financial reasons unable to assemble a force to meet this threat and asked, and got, a temporary armistice with Flancers in September 1303.

1304 was to see the culmination of the conflict. Flanders found itself fighting on two fronts, since in the complicated situation of changing alliances between its enemies, the Flemings not only found themselves at war with the French in the south, but also with the Dutch in the north. A Flemish Army invaded what are now the Dutch provinces of Zeeland and Holland, taking a.o. the city of Utrecht. The invasion was short-lived though, and after the Dutch resistance under Willima III stiffened, the battles on the northern front culminated in the Naval Battle of Zierikzee, 10-11 August 1304, during which a French-Spanish-Dutch fleet under the leadership of Admiral Grimaldi (yes, a forefather of Monaco's Grimaldi family) engaged the Flemish Fleet. In spite of initial success, the latter was ultimately defeated.

Only one week later came the decisive battle between Flanders and its principal enemy France took place, and again it was fought on land. This was the Battle of Mons-en-Pévèle in northern France. From Wikipedia:

The Battle of Mons-en-Pévèle was fought on 18 August 1304 between the French and the Flemish. The French were led by King Philip IV the Fair. Both sides claimed victory: (the rebels may have inflicted heavier casualties) but the French remained in possession of the battlefield and forced a Flemish retreat. After further minor battles, eventually the Treaty of Athis-sur-Orge was signed on 23 June 1305 which recognized Flemish independence, at the cost of the cities of Lille, Douai and Béthune, which were transferred to France, and the paying of exorbitant fines to King Philip IV.

With this battle, the golden spurs that were collected by Flemish militiamen from the bodies of French cavalry in the Battle of the Golden Spurs two years before were taken down and reclaimed by the French. The Flemish had hung them up in the Church of Our Lady in Kortrijk as a symbol of victory in battle.

This scant Wikipedia entry does not tell you that in the heat of the fight, the French King, Philip the Fair, was thrown off his horse and only survived because his armor was not explicitly identifying him as France's mightiest man. In autumn of that year, both parties licked their wounds. In 1305 an armistice was reached, and although Flanders had to pay a high price in taxes, France gave up its ambitions to annex our land. Unlike all other medieval regions at the periphery of "core-France", ... our land would never become a part of the French Kingdom.


MFBB.

MOROCCAN TAXI DRIVER KILLS PASSENGER IN AMSTERDAM; FANATICAL MUSLIM SCHOOLGIRLS IN ANTWERP; VIOLENT RIOTS, WIDESPREAD ARSON IN MALMO, SWEDEN.

The islamization of Europe is entering a new and even more frightening dynamic, and in all western countries (the Iron Curtain had one advantage) things are beginning to boil over in the big cities.


In Amsterdam, The netherlands, a Moroccan taxi driver named Sidi Mohamed Belghiti hit a passenger who refused to pay the scandalously high fee with such tremendous force in the face that the man died on the spot. This is the perpetrator:




Last Week, in Antwerp, Belgium, the director of the Koninklijk Atheneum (a high school), after having realized that unstoppable and ever mounting social pressure from veil-wearing schoolgirls was turning her school in some kind of madrassah, decided to ban the veil from September on. The unrest that followed was such - with a so-called "moderate" imam exhorting the girls to stay at home in September if they could not wear the veil - that strong police backup was needed to calm the crowds. When you need busloads of cops to calm 8-18 year old muslim schoolgirls you know you are in DEEP SHIT.





Violent riots between Swedish police and muslim youths in the Rosengard neighborhood, Malmo, Sweden. Ambulance personnel and firefighters attacked as they enter the neighborhood. Arson galore.





A nightmare is enveloping Europe. Islam is cancer. If cancer is not cut away before it spreads, the patient dies. He who points this out risks to be persecuted. And yet it is the fate of Europe if nothing is done to quell the muslim onslaught.

Sorry for the very sketchy post. No time or energy left. It's just so that you should know that Europe is being overrun by muslim barbarians.

The three topics are but an infinitesimal fragment of the total picture.

Islam is the enemy. There are no moderate muslims.



MFBB.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!!!

I wish all Americans of good will a superb 4th of July!

... and save a prayer for the soldier missing since June 30th in Paktika Province, Afghanistan...

... because your Happy 4th of July would not have been possible without the likes of him...


MFBB.

WHAT IF GEORGE W. BUSH HAD....

Via Grouchy Old Cripple:

What If George W. Bush Had ...

1.) made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?
2.) If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?
3.) If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky?
4.) If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved?
5.) If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?
6.) If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current on their income taxes, would you have approved?
7.) If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to “Cinco de Cuatro” in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the Fifth of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment?
8.) If George W. Bush had misspelled the word advice would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potato as “proof” of what a dunce he is?
9.) If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on “Earth Day”, would you have concluded he’s a hypocrite?
10.) If George W. Bush’s administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually “get” what happened on 9-11?
11.) If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how he is inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?
12.) If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans, would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence?
13.) If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?
14.) If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?
15.) If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?

So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 10 weeks -- so you'll have three years and nine-and-a-half months to come up with an answer.

When fellas like Colin Powell start having second thoughts, you know there is "stront aan de knikker" (Flemish saying, meaning literally "crap on the marble"):

"I'm concerned at the number of programs that are being presented, the bills associated with these programs and the additional government that will be needed to execute them," Mr. Powell said in an excerpt of an interview with CNN's John King, released by the network Friday morning. Mr. Powell expressed alarm at "budgets that are running into the multi-trillions of dollars" and "a huge, huge national debt that, if we don't pay for in our lifetime, our kids and grandkids and great-grandchildren will have to pay for it." "So, I think the president, as he moves forward with his initiatives, has to start really taking a very, very hard look at what the cost of all this is. And, how much additional bureaucracy [will] be needed to make all of this happen?"

YOU. BLOODY. IDIOT. You ENDORSED him, remember????????

"In regard to the financial crisis, which Powell called the candidates' "final exam," Powell said McCain appeared unsteady in dealing with it, while Obama had excelled in handling the situation. "Obama displayed a steadiness, an intellectual curiosity, a depth of knowledge," Powell said."

Dude, you may have been National Security Advisor and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but...

... I sometimes just may be smarter than you.


MFBB.

SHARIA COURTS IN THE UK: IT IS FIVE PAST TWELVE.

From The Daily Mail, 29th June, 2009:

Britain has 85 sharia courts: The astonishing spread of the Islamic justice behind closed doors.

...But the study by academic and Islamic specialist Denis MacEoin estimates there are at least 85 working tribunals. The spread of sharia law has become increasingly controversial since its role was backed last year by Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams and Lord Phillips, the Lord Chief Justice who stepped down last October. Dr Williams said a recognised role for sharia law seemed 'unavoidable' and Lord Phillips said there was no reason why decisions made on sharia principles should not be recognised by the national courts. But the Civitas report said the principles on which sharia courts work are indicated by the fatwas - religious decrees - set out on websites run by British mosques.

Mr MacEoin said: 'Among the rulings we find some that advise illegal actions and others that transgress human rights standards as applied by British courts.'
Examples set out in his study include a ruling that no Muslim woman may marry a non-Muslim man unless he converts to Islam and that any children of a woman who does should be taken from her until she marries a Muslim. Further rulings, according to the report, approve polygamous marriage and enforce a woman's duty to have sex with her husband on his demand.

The report added: 'The fact that so many sharia rulings in Britain relate to cases concerning divorce and custody of children is of particular concern, as women are not equal in sharia law, and sharia contains no specific commitment to the best interests of the child that is fundamental to family law in the UK. 'Under sharia, a male child belongs to the father after the age of seven, regardless of circumstances.'

Don't say you haven't been warned.





Of course, Outlaw Mike may just be a racist xenophobic closet nazi.


MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT STRANGLER'S NIGHT.

The Stranglers were instrumental in bringing punk rock to the UK, although you wouldn't say so for a lot of their songs. They originated in 1974 in Guildford, Surrey, southeast of London, a place a much younger Outlaw Mike passed through all alone on a bike ride after finishing high school in the blessed year of 1984. Wonderful memories by the way. Passed the tea clipper Cutty Sark on the way back through Greenwich, where at that time it had been berthed for thirty years. Anyway... here's "All day and all of the night", a cover from The Kinks:





... I will always like Golden Brown. Even young and naive and far less proficient in Englis, I suspected it had a lot to do with funny sntuff you sniff thru your nose. Cool video imho.




A far darker number is La Folie, sung in Fwench. This number is the result of Jean-Jacques Burnel's insistence on producing a French sung hit. It didn't tick in the UK, where it reached #47, or elsewhere. It did with me, but then, well, I was born and raised practically on the fault line between the latin and germanic cultures, in an ancient Flemish town a stone's throw away from Wallonia, and French is actually my second language, more in fact so than English. I think you really got to have your brain wired partly in French to enjoy a song like La Folie. I will post it anyway because of the fond memories. I also think this really is an essential Strangler's song.

Oh f*ck. "Embedding disabled by request". Wasn't so last week. Then some lighter stuff: Always the sun.



It seems to me that when Hugh Cornwell left in 1990, The Stranglers stopped producing hits.



MFBB.

THURSDAY NIGHT OPEN THREAD (DON'T CRY FOR ME ARGENTINA).

Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson deceased. May they rest in peace and if you are a christian, say a prayer for them. I chose iconic pictures of these celebs because, well, if I have to remember them I'd rather remember them how they were in their heyday. I never saw Charlie's Angels - I knew Mrs. Fawcett primarily because of her romantic interest with Lee Majors, who, when I was a kid, was "De Man van Zes Miljoen" (the six million dollar man - never knew how this series was called in the States itself). I think by and large Mrs. Fawcett was a decent character - I've never known her to behave like the current crop of godawful sluts. I'm sorry for Mr. O'Neal, dunno if they managed to marry yet - hope so.

I never - NEVER - was a fan of Michael Jackson, unlike he was the one writing books 'bout Beljun beer. That said, I DO acknowledge the baffling impact of his personage, the reasons of which elude me completely, but then I must be sort of an alien myself. RIP Mr. Jackson and may God forgive you your sins.

And then Mark Sanford.

The Huffington Post would not be a leftist f*ckwad rag if they didn't spin the story of Mr. Sanford's journey to Argentina as follows. Here's Bonnie Fuller's take:

... Instead, this Mark Sanford has been moondogging over an "impossible situation of love". It's clear from his eloquently romantic emails to his "Maria" - I can almost hear the giddy strains of West Side Story -- "I've just Met a Girl Named Maria" -- that he's a lovelorn goner.

He emails Maria, comparing himself to the Richard Chamberlain priest character in The Thornbirds mini-series. Chamberlain's character famously chose ambition over his true love for a young Australian woman, called Meggie, played by the beauteous Rachel Ward. He writes "I was always upset with Richard Chamberlain for not dropping his ambitions and running into Maggie's arms (real name Meggie) ... my heart wants to get on a plane tonight and be in your loving arms..."

So do it Mark. That's exactly what you should do. If you are truly and passionately in love with the Argentinean Maria, why ruin several lives by denying it. You're not doing your wife, Jenny, any favors by resigning yourself to a marriage that's no longer working.

People who deny love and stay in loveless marriages become sad and bitter. Jenny may be boiling mad right now because you have betrayed and embarrassed her, but in the long run, she'll have a chance to find a new love of her own....

In other words, give up, retreat, surrender, cut and run, leftozoid boondoggle all over again. Same shit as always, whether it's on Afghanistan's plains or in the sleeping room. Look at that pic. LOOK AT THAT PIC. Mark, you got a lovely wife and fantastic kids. DON'T RUIN ALL THAT DUDE. You been a naughty boy but, well, if you haven't strayed earlier in your twenty years of marriage maybe you can get a sponge wrapped over it. Now fall on your knees for your sweetheart (no, not Maria), and ask - beg - if she wants to forgive you. Hormones are a weird thing. If she's still willing, give it another chance man. Have some payback arrangement, for God's sake, if it has to be then tit for tat. But keep that wonderful family together. Advice from Outlaw Mike.

But oh yeah... as for deserting your office... that's another matter. I'm not saying you should drop out of the GOP 2012 contender list... but if I were an American, you'd be up to a MIGHTY job of persuasion before I considered you again as a viable candidate.

Hey, nite all.


MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT RANDOM POP.

Although considering Eric Burdon's voice and style, he'd possibly be offended by my labeling The Animals' music as "pop". For some reason, for a long time I thought they were Americans. It wasn't until Al Gore invented the internets that I could correct my mistake: they are - were - Brits, more precisely from Newcastle upon Tyne. If you go there, don't miss Tyne Bridge, Saint Nicholas Cathedral, and, of course, the Angel of the North.





Dionne Farris is an R&B/soul musician who, after recording three songs with hiphop group Arrested Development, embarked on a solo career which spawned one big hit, I know, from the album Wild Seed - Wild Flower (1995). I remember how this catchy song made my daily 40 kloms drive to the industrial plant where I worked then somewhat more bearable. "I Know" hit number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 96. She had a minor hit with Hopeless in 97.





Next week I may post some Smokey Robinson. Or not. Depends. Nite all.


MFBB.

NOT SO STEALTH JIHAD.

At least one third of the Parti Socialiste (PS) for the Regional Elections of Brussels Capital Region was made up of the following individuals:


n° 3 : Emir Kir
n° 7 Fadila Laanan
n° 8 Mohammed Daïf
n° 10 Sfia Bouarfa
n° 13 Rachid Madrane
n° 19 Jamal Ikazban
n° 20 Fatiha Saïdi
n° 22 Nadia El Yousfi
n° 25 Mohammed Azzouzi
n° 27 Ahmed El Ktibi
n° 28 Souad Razzouk
n° 29 Emin Ozkara
n° 35 Abdallah Boustani
n° 42 Yasmina Nekhoul
n° 43 Mohamed Errazi
n° 45 Mohamed Lahlali
n° 47 Mounir Laarissi
n° 51 Ahmed Laaouej
n° 54 Myriem Amrani
n° 55 Ibrahim Dönmez
n° 57 Ahmed Ouartassi
n° 59 Ahmet Gjanaj
n° 61 Hava Ardiclik
n° 63 Abobakre Bouhjar
n° 67 Talbia Belhouari

Opvolgers:


n° 4 Mahammadi Chahid
n° 7 Karim Chetoui
n° 11 Sevket Temiz


The biggest shocker was however some news from the Brussels Chapter of the Walloon (ex) Christian Democrat Party, the Cdh. A muslim candidate for the Cdh, a certain Mahinur Ozdemir of Turkish origin, was elected for the Parliament of the Brussels Region.





Mind you, thank God she will not be sitting in the federal parliament (yet), but thus in the Brussels Parliament. Let me explain. In Belgium, the European elections of a couple of weeks ago coincided with regional elections, i.e. elections designating parliamentarians for the regional parliaments, of which there are three: a Flemish Parliament for the Flemish Region, a Walloon Parliament for the Walloon Region, and a Brussels Parliament for the Brussels Capital Region. It is indeed so that for Brussels a special region has been created, although geographically, Brussels lies embedded in Flanders. As such our capital, also the capital of the EU, is some kind of mini Washington DC, a situation indeed somewhat comparable with the District of Columbia which lies basically completely embedded in Maryland, but is neither a part of that state nor of Virginia. But back to Mahinur Ozdemir.

Scrutiny into Mrs. Ozdemire's past reveals she's a religious fanatic. As such her arrival does not bode well for the future of Brussels and by extension for the future of our country. The arrival of a vanguard of muslimfanaticism in a Belgian Parliament, even if it is a minor one, is but one part of phenomenon characterised by two dynamics, because the party Ozdemir joined... are the FORMER Walloon Christian Democrats. Indeed, a couple of years ago, the Cdh's chairwoman, Joelle Milquet, decreed that the "C" no longer stands for "Christian" but for "Centre", so Cdh is now a "centrist, democratic and humanist party". Officially, Wallonia has no Christan Democratic Party anymore.

So what we see here is the entry in a Belgian Parliament of a representative of a gruesome, inhuman belief system, that is nevertheless in ascendance ... and this dynamic coincides with the disappearance of representatives of a beautiful, caring faith that has given the world immense riches and untold generations of people hope and consolation, but is nevertheless fading away...

Mrs. Ozdemir will be the first headscarved woman sitting in a Belgian Parliament.

It is an ominous sign.


MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT RUSH HOUR.

"Tom Sawyer" from the album Moving Pictures (1981).




Damn good video of "Witch Hunt", also from Moving Pictures.




"Manhattan Project", from Power Windows (1985). On this album the use of synthesizers, begun in earnest on Signals yhree years previous, is taken to a new height.




"Dreamline" from 1991's Roll the Bones . The guitar comes back to the forefront.




Nite all. Sorry if I'm not very communicative. Wifey just called to watch zhe saturday night dvd. Sometimes it's good, most of the time it sucks.


MFBB.

EUROPEAN ELECTIONS 2009: CENTRE-RIGHT VICTORY, DEFEAT FOR THE LEFT.

The European elections are over. From June 4th to June 7th, of the about 500 million Europeans, 375 million were entitled to elect 736 MEPs (Members of the European Parliament). The major trend is a now unmistakable shift to the right, something I predicted almost 4 years ago. Some caveats remain however. Many parties calling themselves "rightwing" would not pass the lithmus test for the "right" US style. Geert Wilders' PVV party in The Netherlands e.g., though it expressly champions limited government, is pro gay marriage. In France, and Sarkozy's centre-right UMP has shown itself thus far to be centre right in name only. As I said before, one could just as well call the 2009 European elections a move away from the left - at least this is undeniably true. A second caveat is the historically low turnout - fewer than half of the 375 million eligible voters cared to do so.

Be that as it may - the results can be summed up as a victory for center-right, an almost europeanwide dismal performance of the left, and successes for parties which are routinely labeled extreme right but which are often nationalistic groupings with economic agendas not differing too much from their socialist counterparts. As someone who would label himself a modern rightwinger/Hayekian conservative, I'd say: "it could be better, but but it's moderately good". A brief overview of some of the 27 EU member states:


a.) In Bulgaria, pop. around 8 million, capital Sofia, the Right-wing opposition party GERB beat the ruling Socialists with 24.4 per cent of the vote against the 18.6 per cent of their counterparts.


b.) An even more clear victory for the Right in Hungary, pop. circa 10 million, capital Budapest. Fidesz, the center-right opposition party, beat the ruling socialist party with 56.37% of votes against 17.37. Of the 22 seats available in the EP for Hungary, Fidesz will occupy 14 and the socialists a mere 4. A good result indeed.


c.) Slovakia, pop. ca. 5 million, capital Bratislava, is a rather rare exception in that the ruling left-wing Smer party still took 32.01 per cent of the vote versus the 17% of the center-right Christian Democratic opposition party SDKU-DS (the party of ex-PM Dzurinda).


d.) Another rightwing victory, albeit less outspoken, in the Czech Republic, pop. 10 million, capital Prague. Here the centre-Right Civic Democrats won nine EP seats, the Social Democrats seven, the Communists four and the Christian Democrats two.


e.) Spain (40 million people, Madrid) witnessed the first nationwide defeat for Zapatero's ruling socialist PSOE party. The Right-wing Popular Party led by Mariano Rajoy gained 42.2 per cent of the votes winning 23 seats in the European Parliament compared to the ruling Socialist party's 38.5 per cent and 21 seats.


f.) In Poland (39 million people, Warsaw) it was again a win-win situation for the right since both the ruling Civic Platform, led by Donald Tusk, Poland's prime minister, and the country's main opposition party PiS (Law and Justice), are rightwing parties. Civic Platform won 25 of the 50 seats on offer while PiS came in second with 15 seats. In Poland, the socialists of SDL have been hanging in the ropes for some time now, but then Poles are generally a saner kind of people than the rest of Europeans. Far too modest too.


g.) In Italy (60 million, Rome), PM Silvio Berlusconi and his centre-Right People of Freedom Party dreamt of attracting up to 45 per cent of the vote; instead they had to be content with just over 35 per cent. But even this disappointing result is better than that of the leftwing opposition, the Democratic Party - it won 26 per cent of the vote. Berlusconi might have done better had he not been embroiled just one week prior to the elections in a rather unsavoury scandal with topless beauties and fellas with proud boners having a good time in some sunny resort owned by Italy's flamboyant PM, with the latter walking around like some kind of 21st Century Sun King. Still, when one takes into account the best results ever of the anti-immigration Lega Nord (Northern League), formerly a secessionist party, Italy, too, clearly opted for the Right. Lega Nord garnered 10 per cent of votes (compared to 8.3 per cent in last year's general election) and let me tell you that that is telling something. Lega Nord is a fierce opponent of illegal immigration, and is in fact the driving force behing legislation which makes it a crime to be an illegal immigrant in Italy.


h.) In the UK, Labour suffered a terrible defeat at the hands of fed-up British voters: it polled just 15.3% of the vote, its worst election result since World War II (!). Labour is now the UK's third party behind Cameron's "Conservatives" (that caveat again) and UKIP (an anti-EU party). Also remarkable and - dare I say it - a hopegiving sign: the British National Party for the first time won at a national level, even to such an extent that it can send two delegates to the EP.


i.) Holland: The Netherlands' anti-Islamic and Euro-sceptic Freedom Party PVV, headed by Right-wing politician Geert Wilders, won 17 per cent of the vote which translates into four seats in the European Parliament. Despite the fact that the ruling Christian Democrats remain the biggest party, the PVV's ascent is an ominous sign for Holland's left.


j.) A somewhat bewildering scenario in France: with just under 28 per cent of the vote, Sarkozy's centre-right UMP was the first presidential party to come out on top in EU elections since 1979. Bewildering since "Sarko" is deeply unpopular on the domestic front. Sarkozy, with his etatist gimmicks, his unhealthy endeavour in establishing some kind of European/Maghreb Union, and his slut of a wife, has unfortunately proven himself to be a disillusionment for the Right in France. Still, a gain for "centre-right" Sarkozy is far better than a gain for the French Socialists, who polled very bad, getting only 16.48 per cent of the vote and narrowly avoiding becoming France's third party.


k.) In Germany, Merkel's centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian allies the Christian Social Union (CSU), held their own despite falling to 38.5 per cent from 44.5 per cent in 2004. They are still the strongest grouping, besides Merkels coalition partners, the socialist of SPD, also lose, albeit not so dramatically.


l.) In Portugal, the Socialists of Prime Minister Jose Socrates were defeated heavily, scoring just 26.6 per cent of the vote vs. 31.7 per cent for the centre-right social democrats.


m.) Victory for the conservatives on Cyprus too


n.) In Belgium... the situation is, as always, complicated. Let us say that Flanders, Belgium's Dutch-speaking northern part, clearly voted center-right, while Wallonia, Belgium's French-speaking southern half, voted, as always, left. The big win for center-right in Flanders did, however, not mean good news for my party, the Vlaams Belang: it lost big, losing a third of its voters. These ones voted however for two emerging center-right parties, LDD and NVA, which, with a bit of good will, could be labeled as VB Lite. VB remains Belgium's SOLE truly rightwing party, ideologically pure so to say with its staunch defense of traditional values and its ongoing resistance against gay marriage and gay adoption, while at the same time being pro free market. Its economic programme even literally advocates supply side economics. While I am personally very disappointed in VB's low score, I take heart because the votes it lost went to center-right parties, and ultimately the bigger European picture is what counts, and the verdict is clear: Europeans punished the left.

Over the years, the European Parliament has seen, almost in a natural way, the emergence of political families. Indeed, conservatives, socialists, greens etc from different European countries have found each other and formed groups in the EP. And what we see today is e.g. that the EPP, the European People's Party, home of the national parties of center-right leaders such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, took 267 of the 736 seats in the European Parliament. The socialist group, the Party of European Socialists , slumped to just 159 seats, while the Liberals took 81 and the Greens 51.

At this point in time... it is thus fair to say... that currently... the "United States of Europe" might well be more rightwing than the United States of America. Certainly so when president Hussein basically nationalized an iconic car maker of America. Admit that we would consider this normal in the USSR. But in the US?



MFBB.

PART 12 IN TAKUAN SEIYO'S "FROM MECCANIA TO ATLANTIS SERIES": "SWALLOWED BY LEVIATHAN."

Working on that euro elections update, did not get it ready. In the meantime, savor Takuan Seiyo's twelfth installment. WARNING. You may not like everything he writes. But I think he's a goddam genius:

"... Leviathan is the Hebrew word for a giant sea creature, a whale (e.g. Jonah 1:17-2:10 KJV). Leviathan is also the title of a book by Thomas Hobbes, published in 1651, and the name Hobbes gives to a society based on the social contract. In exchange for security and order, individuals relinquish their native freedoms to a giant aggregate entity that assumes the absolute responsibility for their defense and welfare.

Hobbes’s Leviathan was embodied in the absolute monarch, but the modern democratic state is an even bigger Leviathan. Snatcher State maintains an ornate façade of constitutionality and rule of law, and makes a show of maintaining its side of the social contract. But it maintains that contract not with the signatory population.

...

Under the “Disparate Impact” doctrine, American employers are prevented from hiring based on competence, because minorities often cannot pass competence tests. Regardless of merit, if members of a “protected class” are selected at a rate less than four fifths (80%) of that of another group [read “white males”], the employer is subject to harassment and legal proceedings by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, currently employing 2200 persons, soon to go up to 3,000.

An employer cannot refuse to hire convicted felons, because a disproportionate ratio (13) of them is black, hence the refusal would have “disparate impact.” Customer Service employees of major American companies talk incomprehensibly, because a suitable screening policy would have a “disparate impact” on the protected class of nonwhite immigrants. And since requiring a down payment and a good credit score would have a “disparate impact” on black and brown minorities, American banks were forced to waive such requirements. Thus was the sub-prime mortgage born, leading to the unraveling of the American banking industry, and of America itself.

Moreover, Leviathan does all it can to transfer the levers of power to the clients themselves, particularly in jurisprudence, so that the punishment Body Snatchers yearn for in their erotic dreams can proceed ever more directly, by Nashist minorities in black robes, determined to avenge colonialism, “racism”, “inequality” or God’s stinginess with their own modest intellectual gifts that made them feel inferior at Yale or Oxford.

President Obama, a former constitutional law professor who has never published a single page about the law, singled out, as U.S. senator, empathy as the quality most desirable in judges. Fittingly, he has just nominated a racial spoils empathy queen (14) to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s main qualification for that position at the pinnacle of America’s power hierarchy seems to be her activist background as a fanatic Latina partisan using the judicial bench to sock it to whitey. According to her, policy is made [i.e. “empathy” applied] at the courts of appeal, and “A wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

As an appeals judge, Sotomayor has been a champion of the “disparate impact” doctrine. In Hayden v. Pataki, she wrote that felons doing time in prison should be allowed to vote because, Blacks and Latinos constituting a disproportionate share of the prison population, the denial of felons’ voting rights would be “race-based.” In Ricci v. DeStefano, she dismissed with one paragraph the racial discrimination lawsuit of 20 white firefighters against the city of New Haven, Conn. The city had thrown out the results of two Fire Department promotion tests that the plaintiffs had passed, because no black applicants had passed.

According to a dissenting judge, “The single-paragraph order issued by Sotomayor and her colleagues ignored over 1,800 pages of testimony and more than an hour of argument -- ignoring the facts of the case.” But a Washington Times editorial pinned the ruinous swindle on a higher figure:

“Barack Obama's legacy is coming sharply into focus,” wrote Wesley Pruden. “He's out to transform ‘a nation of laws,’ once the pride of the Anglo-Saxon heritage and exemplar to the world, into ‘a nation of feelings.’ We won't need judges, just social workers damp with empathy”.


The looters’ coalition

The way it works, the looters build up the Body Snatchers, and the Body Snatchers reward the looters with access to the spoils of power. Thus, Harry Reid, one of the biggest looters in the US Senate (e.g. here and here) has recently praised President Obama with the words, “Obama’s heart is bigger than any heart in the world.” This may well be true, and one shudders for America.

Built on the defining lameness of the Western soul, Leviathan’s forward thrust is fueled by the emotion Body Snatchers invest in the idea of the state as a dispenser of empathy, equality and protection from the white people’s wickedness. This allows Snatcher State to foray ever forward in the search for more krill, i.e. more aliens, more Muslims to import, more African refugees to save, more taxpayer-financed transgender post-ops, more oppressive laws, more racial revanchist judges, more salaried positions for Pod social engineers, more growth of the monstrous blimp, and more taxes to pay for it all.

“The Obama administration has a $3.6 trillion 2010 budget. Its 2009 deficit will be $1.841 trillion,” writes Declan McCullagh at CBS News. “A recent poll asked Americans how many million are in a trillion. 21% knew.”

In 1992, the U.S. federal, state and local government had 18.75 million (civilian) employees with a payroll of $43.1 billion. Just 14 years later, by 2006, the number of employees had grown by over 21%, to 22.75 million, and the payroll had grown by 73%, to $74.6 billion.

The average compensation per federal worker will go up by 3.5% to $75,419 in 2009, versus average compensation about 30% lower in the private sector and mounting unemployment.

On the local level, it’s the state and municipal employees’ unions whose sweetheart deals with Leviathan are the primary cause of bankruptcy for states like California and cities like New York. Even as both are raising taxes to match (with federal taxes added) the highest in Europe, the number of state employees in California has increased by more than a third since 1990, and public school janitors in New York make over $100,000 a year.

When looting by legal means is not viable, there are other means.

“Our democracy's going down the plughole with the Home Secretary's dirty bathwater”, writes Melanie Phillips. “Getting the taxpayer to reimburse them for eyeliner, plastic bags, nappies, mock Tudor beams, Maltesers, nail polish, plasma TVs, Christmas tree decorations, horse manure, bath plugs; and on and surreally on.”

Our favorite in this series, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, who never saw a jihadi immigrant she didn’t like, claimed tax deductions for her husband's porn movies expenses. Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer, has been a serial 'flipper', i.e. a practitioner of renovating one’s country estate and claiming it as the expense of maintaining one’s official little flat. MP Margaret Moran claimed £22,500 of taxpayers' money for treating dry rot in a house in Southampton, a long way from her constituency in Westminster. Communities Secretary Hazel Blears failed to pay capital gains tax on the sale of two properties -- the list is long and amusing, if it were not so indicative...."

If this undoubtedly true discourse is a tad discouraging, here's some positive news from the EU, where centre-right has generally done very well, and the left has almost everywhere suffered serious defeats. The photos shows leading personalities of the Spanish Partido Popular, Spain's conservatives, after a resounding victory over the PSOE, the Spanish Socialist Party. Small wonder. In five years, Zapatero, in an almost Obamaesque way, has severely damaged Spain's economy, with unemployment now almost at 20%.



MFBB.

65 YEARS AGO: D-DAY.

"Face downward, as far as eyes could see in either direction were the huddled bodies of men living, wounded, and dead, as tightly packed as cigars in a box… Everywhere, the frantic cry, 'Medics, hey, Medics,' could be heard above the horrible din." Indeed, for some the racket was worst of all: "The noise," said another, "always the noise, naval gunfire, small arms, artillery, and mortar fire, aircraft overhead, engine noises, the shouting and the cries of the wounded". But the sounds weren't what one soldier, who'd been wounded after coming ashore in one of the subsequent assault waves, remembered: "As I painfully walked back to the beach, thousands of parts of bodies lined it. They were floating, heads, arms, legs. I realized what being in the first wave was all about."

- a veteran to Stephen Ambrose, historian and biographer, author of Band of Brothers.


Freedom... isn't for free.

The man you see lying there... has a name and a history. The fact that the photo is gray, grainy and... old... does not mean that it magically transforms its subject into some fictional character which never existed. Once upon a time, this young man loved, told jokes, was exhilarated about some great prospect. History and fate dictated otherwise and forced him to confront great evil. He took the challenge like a man... and did not survive it. A young life cut short, a life which might have been full of joy, love, and great expectations. Because of his sacrifice and the sacrifice of his comrades, the lives of many, many more... were full of joy, love, and great expectations.

May we never forget.

God bless.


MFBB.

DEWINTERS BOOK "INCH'ALLAH?" - MINE DESPITE THE WITCH HUNT.

Just today, I finally got my copy of Filip Dewinters new book "Inch'Allah?", about the islamization of Europe:





It wasn't easy. Belgian bookstores, and especially the two main chains De Standaard and FNAC, refuse to distribute it freely. Which means it is not in their racks, and if you absolutely want one, you have to order it. Which is what I did. By contrast, the history and politics wings in De Standaard and FNAC bookstores burst with center left and leftist works. There are no books by conservative authors.

All the bruhaha surrounding this book and another one, a biography of François Miterrand by VB MEP Koen Dillen, which he wrote under the pseudonym Vincent Gounod just to get it on the market, are a perfect illustration of how spasmic the politically correct Belgian establishment reacts to dissenting opinions. One should wonder why. I only have had an hour or so to briefly check out the book, and I have yet to find a hateful message. The prose is however clear and precise, and the book bursts with a plethora of easily verifiable facts. To give you an idea of the style, I random-picked the following paragraph:





Translation:

Huntington is not alone with his conclusion that islam is a belligerent religion. An investigation by the American Professor Ted Robert Gurr concluded that muslims were involved in twenty-six of the fifty ethno-political conflicts between 1993 and 1995. Of the twenty conflicts which took place between groups of different civilizations, a staggering fifteen were between muslims and non-muslims. Other inquiries confirm, too, the conclusion that in the early nineties muslims were more than non-muslims involved in violent conflicts, with two-thirds to three-fourths of all wars having been fought between muslims and non-muslims. Huntington rightfully concludes that "the borders of islam are smeared with blood".

So it's a cool and reserved approach, where the author never falls into the role his adversaries love to cast on him: that of a frothing-at-the-mouth xenophobe white supremacist. Dewinter paints a detailed and chilling picture of Europes ongoing islamization, and clearly demonstrates that this process is actively encouraged, subsidized, and legalized by Europes leftist elites. The responsibility of the latter is... enormous.


Dewinters many, many opponents and detractors like to paint him as a crude, dumb populist and intellectual lightweight. While Dewinter is not an academician - as if that in this time and age is such a recommendation - he's far removed from the doofus the cabal of socialists, liberals, greens and christian democrats paint him like. Indeed, a closer look at the two main European protagonists in the battle against islamization - Geert Wilders and Filip Dewinter - puts, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Dewinter in a far more favourable light than expected. Both men have their merits, but it is not because the flamboyant Wilders' style attracts spotlights like magnets that Dewinters impact is less. Wilders is the man of high profile media events - take his journey to Heathrow and the ensuing deportation back to Holland - but Dewinter is the stubborn dogfighter. Both approaches work: Wilders successfully used the shameful entry refusal in the UK to his advantage in yesterday's elections, and Dewinter's dogged fights on many a barricade effectively block the advance of islam in many alleys. He's everywhere: one day leading a protest against a salafist mosque in Kortrijk, another day addressing Pro Koeln members in Cologne, yet another day facing antifa thugs refusing him entry to Ghent University even though he had the authorization of the relevant faculty. While Dewinter is not the VB's chairman, he is our proverbial attack dog - or should we say attack lion, for a prominent lion has for many centuries been a heraldic emblem of Flanders.

On Sunday, in most EU countries people will head to the polls to elect 785 MEPS. There is much at stake, and we will need many Dewinters and Wilders to stem the tide. I remain moderately hopeful however. Not for a conservative landslide, but for further consolidation of the tentative rightwing shift we have been observing in Europe for the past four years. How ironic that as Europe is (ever so) slowly moving to the right, America is shifting to the left - apparently at breakneck speed.


MFBB.

PARISIAN MAYOR FORBIDS PENTECOST MASS.

From the French weblog François Desouche, May 31:

La Mairie de Paris interdit une messe pour “risque de trouble à l’ordre public”
Posté le 31 mai 2009, 14:16 Auteur : François

Depuis 20 ans, le Pèlerinage entre Chartres et Paris se clôturait par une Messe traditionnelle dans un grand square devant la basilique du Sacré Cœur.
Cette année, prétextant l’affaire Williamson, la Mairie de Paris a interdit l’utilisation de ce square. L’UMP s’est abstenue. Motif invoqué : risque de trouble à l’ordre public. Non, vous ne rêvez pas. La Mairie de Paris qui donne des leçons de tolérance à la Planète entière, qui permet, et pire subventionne, l’expression de toutes les déviances, interdit à des Catholiques de célébrer une Messe. Désemparés, les organisateurs ont dû trouver d’urgence une solution de rechange. La préfecture a octroyé la place Vauban pour la messe de clôture.

Translation:

Since twenty years, the pilgrimage between Chartres and Paris ended with a traditional Mass on a grand square in front of the Basilica of the Holy Heart [one of the landmarks of Paris - MFBB]. This year, citing the Williamson Affair, the Mayor of Paris has forbidden that this square be used. The UMP withheld their vote [the UMP is Sarkozy's party - MFBB]. The mayor's motif: an allegedly enhanced risk for public order troubles.

Nou, you do not dream. The office of the Parisian mayor which gives tolerance lessons to the entire planet, which allows, and even subsidizes, all kinds of deviant behavior, forbids Catholics of celebrating a Mass. The shocked organizers had to quickly find, at the last moment, an emergency solution. Finally the préfecture authorized the Mass to be held at the Place Vauban.

Let us now shed some illuminating light on the personality of Mr. Bertrand Delanoë, Mayor of Paris:


Exhibit 1:

I actually mentioned this asshole some time before, in 2006, at the occasion of the fifth Ramadan celebration sponsored by the Parisian mairie, held then in the Stade Charléty. The ramadan poster is from Delanoë's own website. As we said at the time, Delanoë's zeal at pleasing his muslim overlords is a bit strange, given the fact that in 2002 he was almost stabbed to death by a muslim, Azedine Berkane, who upon arrest claimed he had done it because he "disliked gays". Ponder that for a while. Ponder it. We have here a man, the openly gay mayor of the City of Lights, who forbids an innocent Pentecost celebration... while he subsidizes a key religious event of a religion that proscribes that gay men should be killed.

THE MAYOR OF PARIS DECREES:

PENTECOST MASS.	RAMADAN CELEBRATION.
HARAM.	HALAL.

Exhibit 2:

From Galliawatch: "Delanoë espouses all the mandatory left-wing social causes, and fights against all forms of discrimination, as you can see. Among his other accomplishments he is known for having bestowed on Mumia Abu-Jamal the title of honorary citizen of Paris, putting killer Mumia in a class with Marie Curie and Pablo Picasso. He has also been criticized for renaming numerous streets of the capital after singers, performers and left-leaning celebrities such as Simone de Beauvoir, Salvador Allende, Rosa Parks, Habib Bourguiba, François Mitterand, et al..."


Exhibit 3:

On 19 October 2006, Delanoë inaugurated the Institute of Muslim Culture, situated in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, in 19-23 rue Léon, at the exact former premises of the Al Fath mosque (Al Fath means "The Conquest" in arabic, but that must be a coincidence). At the time the mayor's office assured everyone in a communiqué that "this university center of schooling, research and documentation is oriented towards the study of scriptures and modern praxis of islam". What the communiqué did not explain was the fact that two of the university members of the centre's "scientific counsel" were close acquaintances of the French branch of the Muslim Brotherhood (UOIF). The office of the mayor participated in the construction of the Institute of Muslim Culture with a donation of ten million euros. Below you see a photo of the inauguration ceremony with Delanoë shaking hands with a scholar from the institute.





One last thing.

Bertrand Delanoë is a prominent member of the French Socialist Party.

I suspect however, that you suspected that already.



MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT OLIVES AND PEACHES.

No. 1 is Olive with "You're not alone", 1996. Olive was a UK dance group from the mid-nineties, formed by songwriter/instrumentalist Tim Kellett (ex Simply Red), keyboardist Robin Taylor-Firth and singer Ruth-Ann Boyle. They had but two albums, Extra Virgin (1996) and Trickle (2000). You're not alone is from the first one, and, as far as I'm concerned, their only hit. I remember well that when it was released in summer 96, over here it was heralded by some deejay on a popular radio station (might have been Studio Brussel, but not sure), as "the music of the future". You might call that the Mother of all Overstatements, but thirteen years on I think it's still sounds pretty cool.





Cool were also The Presidents of the United States, an alterative rock/postgrunge band formed by Chris Ballew and Dave Dederer in 1993. Over here they had a couple of solid hits. Peaches is one of them, from the 1995 titleless album. It's - cough -not a very brainy song, but it is entertaining.






MFBB.