In 2006, their single Crazy catapulted these guys from nowhere to stardom. Gnarls Barkley is singer Thomas Callaway and multi-instrumentalist Brian Burton. Call it New Hiphop, neofunk or whatever you like, it's an instant catch. From their debut album St. Elsewhere.
Some twenty-five years earlier, Aussie band Icehouse had a single Crazy of themselves, but that ain't the one that's following now. I chose the 1985 single No Promises. The album it was drawn from, Measure for Measure, came out only the year after. Icehouse is forgotten now, but in the early to mid-eighties they did achieve some status as a talented New Wave/synthpop group in Europe. Other singles include Hey Little Girl, Great Southern Land and Electric Blue. The singer and pretty much the only consistent member is Iva Davies, who also did/does guitar, bass guitar, oboe and keyboards. Yeah he looks like a terrible softie. So what? I've seen him worse.
Being somewhat of an aviation fan, I have for some reason always had a soft spot for a remarkable French naval fighter, the Dassault-Bréguet Super Etendard.
This one is photographed here on the deck of the French carrier Charles de Gaulle.
It's not that it's extraordinarily fast (top speed 1,180 kmph, or 733mph) nor that it can carry a sizeable bomb load (only 2,1 tonnes). I suppose it's the aircraft's clean cut, sleek lines that do it for me.
Above you see a Super Etendard Modernisé (SEM) in the Afghan skies. That's right, the French use a small number of these planes in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. If I'm not mistaken, the French naval air arm has deployed three to operate from KAF, alongside Mirage 2000's from the Armée de l'Air.
Brits however have less rosey recollections of this plane. During the Falklands War in 1982, the Argentines had on hand some five Super Etendards, the first batch of around 15 which they had recently purchased at the time from the French. Also available were the notorious Exocet anti-shipping missiles. The Argentinian air force used them to deadly effect against several British RN and MN ships, notably the HMS Sheffield and the cargo Atlantic Conveyor.
Five years later, in 1987, these same Exocet missiles would cause the deaths of 37 US crewmen on board the USS Stark in the Persian Gulf, in circumstances that to this day remain unclear. The plane(s) that fired them were no Super Etendards however (although the Iraqis did have 5 on loan from France), but Mirage F-1's.
And a magnificent shot of a Super Etendard taking off.
Nite all. And oh yeah, the only quakes today probably occurred in the Hojateslam's underwear.
There's an awful lot to report ot there, what with the EU's deepening financial woes, yet another Belgian government fallen, the War on Islam etc... but before we get to that, it's time for a little experiment of our own. I'm sure most of you heard of this:
Now, there was this student, Jen McCreight, who, upon hearing this, decided to test Sedighi's theory:
"... Sedighi claims that not dressing modestly causes earthquakes. If so, we should be able to test this claim scientifically. You all remember the homeopathy overdose?
Time for a Boobquake.
On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own. Yes, the one usually reserved for a night on the town. I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that's your preferred form of immodesty. With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I'm sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn't rumble. And if we really get through to him, maybe it'll be one involving plate tectonics.
So, who's with me? I may be a D cup, but that will probably only produce a slight tremor on its own. If you'll be joining me on twitter, use the tag #boobquake! Or join the facebook event!"
Now, April 26 has come and gone and nothing much happened. Must be that they didn't try hard enough. That's why I thought of conducting a little experiment myself.
We start with an ex girlfriend of mine. I'm sure she doesn't mind her photo on DB. Science trumps privacy.
Then my secretary. She's a rather shy type but otherwise cooperative.
And now we come to the part where we really mean bizness. A former Miss Belgium:
SHAZAM! What do you think of THAT Hojatoleslam?
Okay, that does it for now. Mind you, I've always been a cautious type. Like a broken clock still gives the correct time twice a day, even Iraniun Holotojislamullahtollahs just may be right every now and then. But, If we're all alive and well come tomorrow, then that Sedighi dude theory SUCKS. Anyway, rendezvous tomorrow night, same time, dead or alive!
Quick! I JUST had to post this. Via Theo Spark. Margaret Thatcher on socialism.
What a WOMAN. I have tears in my eyes for two reasons. First, because of her personality. Second, because of what has become of the Conservative Party. Next to her, Cameron is a contemptible MOLLUSK.
Mark Steyn has an ominous topic on my country, Belgium. He begins with a quote from Belgian daily Le Vif/l'Express:
"...Brussels, overwhelmingly Muslim in 20 years? It can't be totally ruled out... Today, families with children - 'Whites' and of the middle class - are leaving the 19 municipalities of the Brussels Region, attracted by the convenience and low prices of the Walloon Brabant, Flemish Brabant and Hainaut provinces. The birth rates of immigrants, which is slightly higher than that of natives, and the international immigration (mainly through family reunification), compensate for this exodus and reinforces it. In reality, Brussels is experiencing what French demographer Michèle Tribalat calls a "process of demographic substitution". One population replaces another [Le Vif/l'Express quote ends here].
Which is pretty much what I said in America Alone - although my comparison of the native European exodus with the "white flight" from failing US cities in the Seventies seems more relevant than rosy-hued paeans to the "low prices of the Walloon Brabant".
Unlikely as it sounds, my book is required reading at some colleges, and the other day I was taking some questions from students who were a bit skeptical of the thesis. And one of them asked how critics refuted my argument. Well, there's been a bit of nitpicking about the rate of demographic transformation from people who say it's absurd to think Europe will be semi-Muslim by 2030 or 2050 - a line of attack which concedes implicitly that that's where the Continent's headed, and we're merely quibbling about the date of arrival. But far more common on the progressive left is to deny there's anything worth arguing over. The more militant types, as Right Girl says, cry that it's racist even to raise the question. But the more benignly deluded do as various interviewers from Canada to Australia have done and respond: "So what if Europe becomes Muslim? What would be wrong with that?" Robert Voorhamme, Antwerp's alderman for education is a bit like that, explaining why there's nothing to worry about in the news that over 40 per cent of elementary school students choose Islam for their religious studies class (versus 31.5 per cent for "non-confessional morals" and 26.5 per cent for Catholicism):
'People see a threat where there is none,' says the alderman for education... 'It is a statement that the composition of our school population is changing. But that is not a reason to be schizophrenic and to exclusively aim at students who choose Islam for their religion class subject. Has anybody ever seen it as a threat that children choose Catholic religion, or for morals class?'
Well, whether or not it's a threat, it surely means something. I take a particular interest in Belgium because my mother grew up not far from Antwerp. If you had said to her in 1960 that within 50 years 40 per cent of the city's elementary school children would be Muslim, she and most other Belgians would have thought you were nuts. If you'd said it in 1970 or 1980, likewise. Yet it's happened, and it's now estimated that by 2012 a majority of grade-schoolers will be Muslim. Which means that in ten years' time Antwerp may not yet technically be majority Muslim, buts its energy, its character, its culture, its cusine increasingly will be..."
Violence in Brussels at the hands of moroccan "youths" is exploding. Weapons caches containing AK-47's and Scorpio submachineguns have been found. On April 2, police intervened when moroccans were destroying an electricity cabin and streetlights near the Lemmensplein in Anderlecht. While there they found clear evidence of preparations for an ambush: the streets round the Lemmensplein had been covered with oil, and oil and gasoline canisters, wooden blocks and car tires were found.
Last wednesday, Brussels railway police went on strike because two officers had been lured into an ambush. When encountering two young immigrant women who were apparently being harassed by males of north african extraction, they wanted to intervene. The scene proved to be a trick though, since they were immediately jumped upon by 30-40 moroccans who beat them to a pulp.
And the following video, obtained from security cameras on New Year's Day, shows how a Bulgarian student in the Brussels underground is horribly beaten and then thrown over a railing onto the tracks a level below. Miraculously the guy, a certain Lyuben Tyulekov, survived a fall which could easily have meant his death. Security cameras clearly show the faces of two moroccans and one black. To this date, they have not been found.
Long before muslims constitute a majority in Brussels, the city will be unlivable.
Of course, it don't have to be that way. If they would only listen to my plan.
When this cunt disappeared from the stage, I thought we had seen the last of her.
I was wrong.
In the UK, general elections will be held on 6 May in all UK constituencies to elects MP's (these MP's only sit in the House of Commons, since members of the House of Lords are not elected - not kidding btw). 650 seats are contested, and basically it's a clash between the three big parties, Labour, the Conservatives, and the Liberal Democrats.
I am not going to waste words on Gordon Brown. I was far too optimistic when I endorsed him on this blog a couple of years back. In my defense I'd like to say that I based my opinion on his relatively good record as Chancellor of the Exchequer - I had the impression that he was a tax slasher, since he lowered both income and corporate taxes. It was only recently that I learned that all the time, he was in fact stealthing taxes rather than slashing them.
I am also not going to dwell on what many see as the wildcard in these elections, the Liberal Democrats' Nick Clegg. Far too smooth, far too green, far too multiculti, far too metrosexual - I have just gotten SICK of characteristics like that. To top it all off, I'm sorry, but someone who still insists that "the invasion of Iraq was unjustified" is a doner with me, period.
That leaves David Cameron. What to say? I don't recall a single instance in recent euro politics whereby a conservative party in dire need of an inspiring leader was saddled with such a soft mellow doofus. No honestly, I have no words for it. Just take this, for example:
Actually, Labour is very lucky that Margaret Thatcher's shoes are not filled by a personality who even measures up to her shadow, or they'd be blown to smithereens. But if I thought I had seen it all with Cameron, I was mistaken. It must somehow have escaped my attention, but...
And that since February!!! Can you f*cking believe it??? The leader of a major "conservative" party HIRING THE SERVICES OF A MAO SYMPATHIZER?????? It's perhaps a blessed thing that Mrs. Thatcher is demented - she might drop dead from shame if she would be consciously aware of what that drooling idiot of a Cameron is pulling off.
I actually have no time to do this post - company chores call, what do I say, scream out loud - but I thought it was my goddam duty. I will give Britons only one advice: vote either UKIP or BNP. The rightwing/libertarian UKIP because they have sound ideas about direct democracy (referenda), because they oppose the evolution towards a EUSSR, and because they want less state and less taxation. The BNP because they are Britain's best hard-hitting weapon to combat islamization. They also allow non-whites now, and it is clear to me they are going thru the same sanitization process that has made the VB a respectable party fifteen years ago.
Something for connoisseurs. Wishbone Ash with Throw down the Sword. From the album Argus, 1972. Quintessential seventies prog rock. Famous cover.
If I'm not mistaken, Wishbone Ash are still in the running. Given da internasionel contekst they might perhaps consider to write Pick up the Sword for a change.
Kings of Leon.Use somebody. From the 2008 album Only by the night.
These guys have it you know. They have the touch. World class. Next to them, Arctic Monkeys, Queens of the Stone Age, Franz Ferdinand et al are just amateurs.
'Acid attack': A court artist's impression of, from left, Mohammed Vakas, Mohammed Adeel and a 17-year-old defendant who cannot be identified, appearing at the Old Bailey (drawing via The Daily Mail)
Mohammed Vakas huh? And Mohammed Akeel huh? I get it. Named after the Perfect Example, no doubt. I wonder what the 17 year old's name is. You can guess three times: Mohammed, Muhammad or Mohamed.
I have a dream...
I have a dream, that one day, the spineless coward socialist apeshits who allowed these CREEPS into OUR COUNTRIES, will be brought to justice.
With all the stink coming from both the current WH occupant and the spineless eurocrats, it's easy to overlook the sad fate of a Swiss businessman, Max Göldi. On February 23, The Times ran this appalling story:
I am just wondering... are there really so few of us that we cannot hear more seething outrage over the totally unjustified and asinine reproaches emanating from the idiot du jour speaking on behalf of that entity any sane person should be now beginning to wish on Pluto, the muslim world? Why do we keep taking it for granted that paedophile worshipping retards with genetic defects as a result of 1,400 years of inbreeding, who have given the rest of the planet basically nothing but severe headaches, keep lecturing us on their "sensitivities"? Do rocket scientists cautiously pay attention to the ramblings of a fat five-year old boogersnot who has just spilled his icecream and blames them for it?
I don't know about you... but I have had enough of it. It's so goddam awful IN YOUR FACE that I can't take it anymore. Whether it's abu sayyaf terrorists in Somalia, or muslim fuckwads decapitating Thai teachers, or Moroccan teens throwing molotov cocktails to Brussels police, or algerians doing the same in a hundred French cities, or muezzins yelling Germans wide awake at five in the morning, or Hizballah, Hamas or Al Qaeda monsters blowing innocents up, or iranian lunatics pursuing nukes, or Saudi creeps arresting a Filipino because he reads the Bible, or a godforsaken cryptomuslim calling the shots in the White House no less, and bending the world over to dictators while offending allies... I really can't take it anymore. It's all over the place and no matter where you reside, you get your nose rubbed in - gulp - that POS called islam.
Pardon my French, but I have come to HATE anything islamic, and if you want my honest opinion, so should you.
In the night of Sunday to Monday (11/12 April), in Chapter MCLXVIII of the saga of escalating violence in and around Brussels, two very dangerous Moroccan criminals fled in a stolen Audi on the Brussels Ring, pursued by police. Around 3am, near Wauthier-Braine some twenty kilometers south of Brussels, they were intercepted by a Volvo and BMW of a special pursuit unit of the Federal Police. A firefight ensued, in which one of the gangsters was killed and the other gravely wounded, when he tried to jump off the viaduct where they had been cornered.
The following night: widespread riots in the Brussels commune of Saint-Gillis. Video below:
It is the umpteenth incident whereby the neutralizing, sometimes with deadly results, of Moroccan gangsters by the police results in retaliatory riots by Moroccan youths, and it is becoming a veritable plague. It should be borne in mind that this sequence has a logic all of its own. Whereas authochton Belgians, upon learning a "white" criminal was offed, will invariably deem such a thing good riddance and even cheer about it, the same does not hold true for the Moroccan community in Belgium, which holds even recidivist rapists and murderers in high regard. Indeed, any Moroccan gangster killed or wounded in an engagement with the police is a hero. As I don't tire from saying, this has EVERYTHING to do with that most vile, despicable and inhuman belief system that is called islam. Children brought up in the "culture" guided by this insane paedophile worshipping moon cult have learnt to despise everything our western civilization stands for, and that includes first and foremost the most visible servants of our society, the police officers. On the map below, the inverted drips show you some hotspots in the "Capital of Europe":
"Incidents" include police precincts attacked with molotov cocktails (in one instance a complete destruction of the precinct), ambushes of the police, shooting incidents involving automatic weapons (AK-47's), armed robbery often with deadly consequences, riots, damage of public property, car torchings, car theft, intimidation, (sexual) harassment, grave physical injury to underground users, and to top it all off the pestering away of entire classes from a central Brussels High School to another neighborhood because the (autochton) pupils were massively robbed and attacked by moroccan teenagers, some barely past age ten, on the road leading to school.
In all these cases, the common element is that the perpetrators are Moroccans (although sometimes cooperating with blacks, and although intra-black violence of youth gangs is also steeply on the rise).
Now, the percentage of muslims in Brussels, pop. around 1,100,000, is 25%.
Thus, we have here a perfect illustration of how violence in a society is directly proportional to the percentage of the followers of muhammad.
It should also be noted that there are no indicators in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek. This is not surprising, since more than any other Brussels commune, this area has been ethnically cleansed of indigenous Belgians. I would have to look it up, but the percentage of muslims in Molenbeek must have passed the 80% mark by now. In Molenbeek, the "peace" of dar-al-islam rules, and it has in no small way been facilitated by that vicious cretin of its Parti Socialiste mayor, Philippe Moureaux. He has so affectively hamstrung his police, amongst others by forbidding them to eat sandwiches on the street during ramadan and by ordering them not to patrol anymore in "sensitive areas", that 'lo and behold, no incidents are reported anymore from this beacon of (false) peace. Moureaux is past 70 now, and his successor is already known: Emir Kir, of Turkish descent and - who would have thunk it - an Armenian Holocaust denier. I pity the 20% of so of authochton Belgians left in Molenbeek, in most cases people too old to move, and apart from that knowing that if they would have to sell their apartment, they would only get a fraction of what it would go in a normal neighborhood.
In any case, it is clear that the police can no longer cope. The time to deploy the army has come.
This morning, as we were packing our stuff to get back to Belgium - our family spent the Easter period with my mother-in-law's family in some small Polish town - the underground garage's security guy, very upset, broke the news to me that the Polish president had just died in a terrible plane crash in Smolensk, Byelorussia. At this point, it is still unclear to me how many people exactly perished in the crash. While still in Poland this morning, I heard TV first speak of 97 dead, then my wife picked up the number of 136 somewhere. FOXNews writes that Mr. Kaczynski headed a delegation to Byelorussia of 88, so, if we add him and his wife and assume a crew of 7, which seems like a reasonable estimation for a Polish Air Force Tupolev, the number of 97 is probably closest to the actual number.
Now having - through my marriage to a Polish girl - a certain affinity with this great country and its citizens, I feel that it is only right to offer, for what it's worth, my sincere and heartfelt condolences to the relatives of the deceased.
Apart from the president and his wife, Lech and Maria Kaczynski, the dead include:
* Ryszard Kaczorowski, the last Polish president in exile (during World War II, an anti-Communist government-in-exile had been set up in London. It was still there right before the Wall came down, and Mr. Kaczorowski held the post in 1989-90).
* Aleksander Szczyglo, the head of the National Security Office and a former Secdef
* Pawel Wypych and Mariusz Handzlik, presidential aides
* Jerzy Szmajdzinski, deputy parliament speaker and also a former Secdef
* Andrzej Kremer, the Deputy Foreign Minister
* General Franciszek Gagor, Army Chief of staff
* Andrzej Przewoznik, the minister in charge of WWII memorials
* Slawomir Skrzypek, the Chairman of Poland's National Bank
* Janusz Kurtyka, Chairman of the National Remembrance Institute, an institution investigating communist-era crimes
* Przemyslaw Gosiewski, Zbigniew Wassermann and Grzegorz Dolniak, MP's
In a tragic twist of fate, the delegation led by Mr. Kaczynski was on its way to a commemmoration of the horrible murder seventy years ago in Katyn, back then in the Soviet Union, of thousands of Polish Army officers by NKVD executioners.
On orders of Lavrenty Beria, some 22,000 Polish officers were killed during fall 1939 and throughout the subsequent winter and spring, an appalling tragedy approved by the entire Politburo including, of course, Stalin. April 10, 2010, will now be another date connected to that fateful name.
One story among a plethora of them. In November 2007, a Moroccan immigrant, Omar Sellami, strangled his muslim wife Karima, born and raised in Belgium. Their marriage, a few years previously, had exactly been the reason why Omar Sellami had been allowed in the country, since our notorious family reunifiaction laws allow for such a possibility.
Karima Sellami (24) got little credit from her own parents for her marriage troubles. That much was clear from their testimonies before the Antwerp Judicial Court today. They had bluntly shown her the door [when she came to explain her troubles - MFBB], because she wanted to work outdoors while her husband Omar Sellami (38) was against it. That he beat her was only normal according to her father. "She didn't want to listen."
Father Abdelkader gave his eight children a traditional Moroccan education. He taught them the principles that a woman must show respect for her husband, that she has to obey him and that he may beat her when she does not listen. In Abdelkader's eyes, Karima caused her marriage troubles herself by not respecting Omar and as a result deserved it to be beaten.
"I was afraid."
Mother Rahma did not agree with her husband. "A man may not beat his wife. I told Omar [her son-in-law, MFBB] that if the problems continued, he had to divorce." Yet she too had shown her "disobedient" daughter the door. "I agreed with Omar, because I was afraid that otherwise he'd beat Karima."
On Karima's alleged possession by evil spirits they did not issue an unanimous opinion. "Because she had been beaten by Omar she had gotten scared and therefore she had to go to a koranic healer. There were no djinns involved." said Abdelkader. Rahma first agreed with her husband, but nevertheless said later on that three djinns inhabited Karima.
"Strangled like a chicken."
Abdelkader and Rahma recall their daughter like a joyous, humorous girl. Rahma still has some difficulty with they way Omar killed her daughter. "He strangled her like a chicken. It was not a quick death, Karima suffered. He has not only killed her, but me as well. It hurts too that he lied for so long."
Karima and Omar's children are now being raised by her parents. "I do hope dat Omar realizes well that he leaves them as orphans", Rahma concluded.
And here is an expert opinion by Latifa, one of Karima's sisters:
1.) islam is such an appalling, diabolical belief system that it leads fathers to justify son-in-laws killing their own offspring if they do not adhere to "muslim rules".
2.) the complete and total backwardness of this evil belief system is furthermore apparent from the continued presence of djinns - evil spirits - in the daily worldview of adherents to the muslim faith
3.) the set of rules still to be followed by muslim females in our "modern" societies is as out of touch with western values as icecream on a steak.
4.) the muslims females who do observe the rules develop into unschooled, dumber than dumb brainwashed breeding machines
5.) the backward parents, Abdel and Rahma, had eight children
6.) the end result is that the children of Omar and Karima will now be raised by Abdelkader and Rahma.
Take a good look at Omar Sellami, wife-killer and a good muslim. Before the murder, he beat Karima with a belt and not only forbid her from working outdoors, but also from meeting friends and even her sisters.
This human filth has now been sentenced to 24 years of imprisonment.
Mister Bellami was allowed into our country by a law drafted by socialists.
In 8 years, if he "behaves" in prison, he will be set free by another socialist law, which reduces a sentence to one third of the verdict if the convicted is a model prisoner.
Just to add some features to DowneastBlog, I wanted to equip it with some Java applets. In practice these should look like applications in the side"bar" to the right. Now, when you scroll down you'll see there, at the bottom, a blank rectangle. That's supposed to be a Java applet. I named that applet simply "AppletDemo". Normally, the only thing it should do, since it is merely a test, is show a black rectangle and circle. The code I included in DB's web page is:
... which I wrote of course between the appropriate brackets, and afterwards terminated with a closing applet-tag, and...
... wherein the argument "codebase" points to the absolute domain where I have stored the binary code of AppletDemo, and the file that contains it, AppletDemo.class. Since I cannot store the file AppletDemo.class on the same server as DowneastBlog, I have to place it somewhere else, and luckily I have this junkyard site of mine, http://users.skynet.be/OUTLAWMIKESSITE/, which I use mainly for storing pics. So that's why the codebase arg. As a sidenote, I might add that I wrote the sourcecode of AppletDemo using ECLIPSE (which I can recommend, btw), and that it compiled this sourcecode, AppletDemo.java, in AppletDemo.class. Also as a sidenote, the uploader software I used to get the AppletDemo.class file to OUTLAWMIKESSITE is "Classic FTP", which looks very much like Ipswitch software (which I used before) and is extremely easy to operate.
... and oh yeah, OUTLAWMIKESSITE is a bogus name for reasons of privacy...
Now, as for the code in AppletDemo.java, it's simply this:
And, being poepsimpel it works of course just fine on the ECLIPSE platform.
Have I got you this far? You must be a geek. Okay.
So... the line of code in DB is okay, and if not I'll eat my shoes. The sourcecode of AppletDemo is okay too, and so must be the binary code. AppletDemo.class is in an appropriate location, and the codebase and code arguments point to its correct whereabouts.
On my web browser, Java is enabled.
SO WHY THE H*LL WON'T IT WORK?
If you have a hunch why not, please feel free to drop a line in the comments section. I'll get you a Nobel Prize for Numbnuts Assistance, I swear it.
Christus geeft de sleutels aan de Heilige Petrus, by Peter Paul Rubens (Christ hands the keys to Saint Peter - painting is in the Staatliche Museen in Berlin)
An appropriate painting, I think, since Easter is when Christians commemmorate the Resurrection of Christ and this scene depicts an event shortly thereafter, when the resurrected Jesus hands the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to Saint Peter. Peter was Jesus' first and most important apostle. Peter is actually his "surname" since Jesus told him that "he would be the rock upon which he would build his church" [Peter stems from the Greek "Petros", which means stone, rock, and indeed he became the Christian's first pope]. And his first name was Simon, the son of Jonah, and he was a humble fisher at the Lake Gennesaret. So it is rather more correct to refer to him as Simon Peter (or Simon Cephas, since "cephas" is aramaic, Jesus' language, for "rock").
Reasonably good Joe Jackson hit, "Nineteen forever". What do I say? It's a brilliant song!
At some point in the mid-nineties these guys were real cool. Faith No More with Midlife Crisis. The cover is of Angel Dust, the album the hit was drawn off. I read somewhere sometime that singer Mike Patton used to drink one of his shoes full of urine on stage. Well, to each his own.
And because I am in such a good mood, Rush with Afterimage. That's one from the 1984 album Grace under Pressure.
Rush must be the biggest rock band that has forever eluded mainstream. No matter whether you like them, their craftmanship is undeniable. Geddy Lee is a wizard on the keyboards, Alex Lifeson I'd rate among the planet's five most proficient guitar players, and Neil Peart is the best drummer this side of Zeta Reticuli (period).
We've been talking about Benno Barnard here before. He is a leftist playwright who saw the light in 2009.
Now a speech he intended to give at the University of Antwerp was disrupted by radical muslim students. Police had to intervene. The speech was cancelled altogether, even before it begun.
"What is needed now urgently is a top-to-bottom accountability exercise on expenses: Who spent how much on what and on whose authority? The RNC's members ought even now to be scrambling to get to D.C. (flying coach) to address this story and decide whether or not Michael Steele stays as Chair. They may chose to keep Steele, but he will need a vigorous show of support if he is going to stay on, and almost certainly a new Deputy Chair for Management should be named and vested with the authority to oversee the finances and administration of an organization which, at best, has enormous blind spots.
There isn't a moment to spare, and at the same time the NRCC.org and the NRSC.org will have to spend effort to message that they are not the RNC, and that their practices are not the practices of the national committee. It would help a great, great deal if either or both of the Congressional committees actually posted an online target list with links to GOP candidates for competitive seats so that the energized base could decide where to direct money and volunteer efforts to most effect.
In this new age of speed in communications and total transparency, whether voluntary or forced, the D.C. GOP still seems incredibly slow to transform itself and tone-deaf to the urgency felt by its core voters and newly arrived converts. The leadership from John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Mike Pence in the House as well as from Mitch McConnell, Jon Kyl and Lamar Alexander in the Senate was excellent through the battle over Obamacare. The display of expertise by Congressman Paul Ryan and others provided the hope that a new architecture of ideas on how to repair the damage was emerging. Great candidates were appearing across the country to challenge incumbent Democrats or contend for open seats.
2010 could indeed be a watershed year, a "Black Swan" moment for Democrats.
But not if serious self-inflicted wounds are left untreated and a staff that is building a reputation for miserable judgment left undisturbed in its evident complacency."
It's bad enough that I have to see the pitiful transformation of Europes "conservative" parties into left of center outfits - David Camoron's Tories, Sarkozy's UMP, Spain's Partido Popular et al...
But having to acknowledge that across the pond the American "conservatives" of the Republican Party can't seem to be able to cash in on the bankrupt policies of the Democrats is even worse.
It is really very, very, very easy and it works for me. Conservative ethics. Cultural self-confidence. Capitalism. Christianity. In America, as in Europe and everywhere else in the western world, conservative leaders must STOP trying to look like less extreme leftists.
If Steele is unable to lead, and lead in a convincing and genuinely conservative way, he has to go.
Very interesting post over at The Redhunter, a longtime colleague and "blogger in arms" of DowneastBlog. Tom investigates to what extent Obama has thus far performed as a Uniter, as he predicted he would reign during his presidential campaign. As we all know, during the latter three quarters of the Bush years George W Bush was scolded as the President who outdid every predecessor in dividing the country.
A.) LEGISLATION PASSED OR PROPOSED UNDER OBAMA'S WATCH.
House - March 21, 2010, 220 - 211: Democrats 220-33-0 GOP 0-178-0 Senate - Because this is being done as a "reconciliation" bill it has not yet been voted on in the Senate, but given that all it takes is a simple majority it's passage is a fait accompli. More importantly, I think we're all aware that Zero Republicans would vote for the measure, where as Obama has to bribe Democrats into voting for it
B.) LANDMARK LEGISLATION IN HISTORY
Let's go through some of the landmark history of the past century and examine the breakdown in voting between the two parties (for the sake of clarity, and because it doesn't really matter for our purposes, I have not included the votes from third parties in this legislation)
House - July 30, 1981, 323 - 107: (I cannot find the breakdown, but the party breakdown in the House for the 97th Congress were: Democrats 244, Republicans 191, so clearly many Democrats voted yes) Senate - July 1981, 89 - 11: Democrats 37-9 GOP 52-1
C.) CONCLUSION
While this is hardly an exhaustive list of legislation, I believe it to be a fair sampling of landmark legislation passed over the past 75 years. Before President Obama, in every single case the legislation was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.
Obama's legislation, however, is opposed almost unanimously by the Republicans. Worse, he can't even get all of his Democrats to go along with him without virtual bribes that stink to high heaven and legislative tricks that are foreign to most people.
Obama is worse than partisan; opposition to his bills is bipartisan, while support is strictly partisan. Obama even divides his own party.
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Sorry, but no original material from moi today. I am absolutely and completely busted. Oh wait. It seems that Ricky Martin has come out of the closet. Ha! As if we didn't know!
"A Swiss businessman who has been holed up in his country’s embassy in Tripoli for much of the past 19 months finally surrendered to the Libyan authorities yesterday after they ringed the compound with police and allegedly threatened to storm it.
