Keane with Everybody's Changing. From the 2004 album Hopes and Fears.
Blokes from Battle, Sussex. Active since 2004, although there was a hiatus between 2014 and 2018. But back together for the moment. Keyboards replace guitars as the main instruments.
Black Eyed Peas with I gotta feeling. Album The E.N.D. (2009).
Must be the first time DowneastBlog serves you hiphop. And because I'm in SUCH a good mood, here's a Fergie pic completely gratis:
As time goes by, it is becoming crystal clear that the EU and its affiliate organizations are going the UN Way. It is becoming hard to ignore the signs that major policies which are promoted "for the common good" are in reality wealth distribution schemes.
Last Thursday, OCT 3, on the agenda of the Parliamentary Meeting of the European Council, which convenes in Strasbourg, France, there was this innocent looking proposal, neatly tucked away between all kinds of "well-meant" advice. The Council of Europe cannot "enforce" these proposals, merely pour them in a resolution, but the intention is clear. Check out Number Four:
"4.) In the light of the above, member States should recognise human migration as a tool for livelihood resilience and a legitimate form of climate change adaptation, and therefore review their management of migration taking this factor into account. Migration being inevitable in certain cases, States need to take a proactive stance to better identify and anticipate the impact on population movements that may be provoked by climate change."
Got that? Rahm Emmanuel once said 'Never let a good crisis go to waste'. In the course of less than two decades this has morphed into 'Never let a fake crisis go to waste'. There IS no climate crisis, there IS no climate emergency. Yes, the planet is now on average some 0.85 degrees Centigrade hotter than it was around, oh, 1850 or so. But the millions who are now on the move direction Europe and North America manifestly DO-NOT-FLEE because it's hotter over there, or because there are more tropical storms, but because, sixty years after the decolonisation, their countries have FAILED, and failed spectacularly, in creating successful states.
That is not our fault.
Yet, to justify opening our gates for Third World flotsam which will over here inevitably lead the very same destructive lifestyles that guaranteed their countries of origin's failures, they are now apt to receive the honorary title of 'CLIMATE REFUGEE'. And all of that because of a fake crisis. What nonsense! This horrible resolution is nothing less than another tool in the globalists' armamentarium to implement the 'UN Global Compact for safe migration'.
Concerned citizens in Europe and America and, to a lesser extent, prosperous non-Western countries, need to take a good, hard look at this disgusting specimen of a politician in particular, the Dutch socialist Frans Timmermans, now First Vice President of the European Commission, that is bad enough already, but also...
In the following video you can see this scoundrel making the case for a CO2 tax:
And in this one, Timmermans is reassuring a German public that islam has been a consistent part of Europe "for 2,000 years" (!):
It all follows that this archglobalist is practically the worst possible person to be Number Two in the European Commission, the EU's "government". On many occasions, he has stated that Europe must embrace 'diversity' (and lose its identity). As an islamophile he's all for continued islamization of our continent. And now that he has the climate portfolio, he will MOST CERTAINLY give his ear to a Council of Europe Resolution recommending the creation of a 'Climate Refugee Status'.
Very unfortunately, Salvini apparently shot himself in the foot and this is the result, via The Gatestone Institute:
"Italy's new government, which has pledged to reverse former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini's hardline approach to migration policy, appears to have triggered a new wave of mass migration from northern Africa.
More than 1,400 migrants reached Italian shores since the new government took office on September 5, according to data compiled by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
During just the past several weeks, the number of migrant arrivals to Italy has increased incrementally: 59 migrants arrived on September 6; 67 arrived on September 9; 121 arrived on September 14; 259 arrived on September 15; 275 arrived on September 18; and 475 arrived between September 19 and September 25, according to the IOM. Overall, the number of migrant arrivals in September 2019 is up by more than 100% over the number of arrivals in September 2018.
Many of the new arrivals are reaching Italy by using new people-smuggling routes that originate in Turkey. In recent weeks, at least five migrant boats have landed in Calabria, in the far south of Italy. On September 21, for instance, 58 migrants, all Pakistani males, reached the Calabrian port of Crotone.
People-smuggling mafias are also using new routes in the Southern Mediterranean to move people to Italy from sub-Saharan Africa. In recent weeks, criminal groups have used small boats to transport migrants from Libya to Tunisia, from where the crossing to Lampedusa, Italy's southern-most island, is shorter and less risky. On September 20, for example, 92 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa — Gambia, Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal — reached Lampedusa.
At the same time, Italy's new government also appears to be taking a more lenient approach to the migrant rescue ships operated by European charities, which have been accused of coordinating with people-smuggling mafias to pick up migrants off the coast of Libya and transport them to Italian ports.
On September 14, the Italian government authorized the Norwegian-flagged Ocean Viking, operated by the French charities SOS Méditerranée and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), to dock at Lampedusa, where 82 migrants picked up off the coast of Libya were allowed to disembark.
On September 24, the Italian government allowed the Ocean Viking, this time carrying 182 migrants, to dock at the Sicilian port of Messina.
Whereas Salvini had banned migrant rescue ships from docking at Italian ports, the new government's more lenient approach appears also to be encouraging European non-governmental organizations (NGOs). On September 23, the Spanish NGO Open Arms announced that it would resume migrant rescues on board a vessel called Astral.
In August, Open Arms and its rescue ship of the same name were involved in a three-week stand-off with the Italian government, which refused to allow the vessel to dock in Italian ports. After more than a dozen migrants jumped overboard and tried to swim to shore, Sicilian prosecutor Luigi Patronaggio on August 20 ordered the Open Arms, anchored one kilometer off Lampedusa, to dock in Sicily so that its passengers could disembark. Subsequent video footage showed that Open Arms staged the jumps to manipulate public opinion. Italian authorities later impounded the ship...."
¿Recuerdan aquel vídeo donde el fundador de Open Arms aparecía desesperado porque los inmigrantes habían saltado al mar? ¿Y si os digo que todo era parte de una teatralización de la propia ONG para presionar a Europa?
The crux of the matter is that both North America and Western Europe are litterally under assault from the Third World. The reasons for this are twofold:
a.) First, there is a potential for migration because a considerable number of nations have FAILED as states, and failed miserably. It's not about war, and in the cases that there is, the reasons for that are the same reasons why the nations failed in the first place.
b.) Second, I have always considered myself an opponent of conspiration theories, but the events of the past 4 years are forcing me to reconsider that opinion. There are mechanisms behind (the facilitation of) migration flows. Perhaps it's not centralized. But there are... instigators, facilitators, financiers, and yes, ideologues... behind the stampede of Third World flotsam direction The West.
Western politicians who want to save their countries and indeed, Western Civilization itself, must dare to call out the utter failure of Third World countries to provide their citizens with the basics for what it is. The misery there is NOT the West's faults but rooted in their cultures and/or marxist/socialist ideologies. No more grovelling in the sand and weeping for 'the evils of colonialism'. Instead politicians must have the courage to say to the bozos running Mali, for instance: "Hey you there, YOU-ARE-FUCKING-UP!!!"
And at home, those same politicians must also start to confront the Open Borders lunatics among us FAR-MORE-AGGRESSIVELY. And I am sorry - I really am - that I feel I have to add "if necessary, with violence".
Western Civilization is far too important to squander it on the altar of insane multiculturalism and have it destroyed by the same attitudes and policies that caused the countries the 'refugees' are fleeing... to turn into shitholes in the first place.
"Löfven, you have lost control of Sweden," the leader of the largest opposition party, the center-right Moderate Party, Ulf Kristersson, recently wrote in an article in the daily newspaper Aftonbladet, in which he criticized Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven for failing to solve some of Sweden's biggest problems. According to Kristersson:
~ "Two areas that we [the Moderate Party] highly prioritize are law and order and integration. Because Sweden's biggest problems are there now.
~ "Last year, 306 shootings occurred and 45 people were shot dead. According to the police, the number of people killed has doubled since 2014. During the same period, the number of people who have been subjected to sexual abuse has tripled according to BRÅ [the Swedish Crime Prevention Council]...
....
One of the realities, according to the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) -- the state authority for community protection and preparedness -- is that terrorism is now a threat everywhere in Sweden, and therefore even smaller municipalities need to be prepared for terrorist acts to occur.
"First of all," said Jonas Eriksson, who is responsible for security in the public environment at MSB, "you have to be aware that this can happen in smaller cities... Then you have to think about what is in the municipality that can be vulnerable and sensitive." The statement came after police intercepted a potential terrorist act in the city of Östersund in August. The suspect was trying to drive into a crowd and run people over, according to Aftonbladet. He is also being investigated for links to Rakhmat Akilov, a terrorist who was convicted of killing five people by plowing a truck into a department store in central Stockholm in April 2017.
From the beginning of 2019 to the end of July, there were 120 bombings in Sweden, according to police statistics. The figure represents an increase of 45% over the same period last year, when 83 bombings took place. The south of Sweden has been particularly badly hit, with 44 bombings. "At present, one can only really speculate on the reasons why. We have an increased problem with crime and exclusion," said Petra Stenkula, chief investigator at Police Region south. "It is possible that the supply of dynamite is good, whereas the supply is somewhat more limited when it comes to weapons today compared to before."
In the southern Swedish city of Landskrona alone -- a place of roughly 35,000 inhabitants -- since December 2018, there have been seven explosions or bombings. In August, the entrance to Landskrona's city hall was blown up.
In August, another city in the south of Sweden, Linköping, experienced its second blast this year. Police found an object that they suspected was explosives. When it was destroyed by the national bomb protection squad, a powerful explosion occurred. It destroyed a police storehouse and damaged several other buildings. In early June, also in Linköping, an explosion blasted through a residential building. Miraculously, no one was killed, but 20 people were wounded. The police suspect that the incident was gang-related..."
Some firsthand info from Peter:
Police working in Swedish no-go zone says that criminals "laugh at our laws".
- Record number of fatal shootings last year. - Over 120 explosions so far this year. - Cars being set on fire almost every night. - 21 women raped every day on average.https://t.co/DT40TAm269
Meanwhile, the sole Swede the world is paying attention to is a 16-year old girl with Asperger, who will forever stay small because of a self-imposed hunger diet, and who by now must be seriously lagging behind in basic education because of all that school skipping. Yet she has the ear of throngs of gullible heads of states and their lackeys. She claims the world is burning because of "climate change"... while in reality it's beginning to look more and more that it's her country that's burning.
The bare-backed beauty on the piano is Wendy Melvoin, one half of the duo Wendy & Lisa. And the gorgeous playing that piano is Lisa Coleman, the other half of course.
Nik Kershaw's When a Heart Beats. Album Radio Musicola (1986).
Well, only on the cassette and CD versions of the album anyway, not on the LP. Don't ask me why.
Today was Climate Change Nutter Day or Climate Strike Day or whatever, and it seems all over the globe gullible idiots, far too many of them seriously indoctrinated schoolchildren, went AWOL from whatever responsibilities they had to protest the governments' lack of measures to combat climate change.
One such a bunch of bozos demonstrated on Mount Hotham, a 1,862 metres (6,109 ft) high peak in the south of the Australian Alps, renowned for its skiing possibilities:
As you can all notice, the demonstrators stand or sit in an, ah, peculiar..., powdery, White Substance.
Which is REALLY WEIRD, because that substance, apparently sometimes referred to as 'snow', SHOULD NOT BE THERE!
Indeed, back in 2012 an Australian Professor, Catherine Pickering, of the Griffith School of Environment no less, scared the living sh*t out of all ski aficionados with her scientifically underpinned claim that by 2020, the snow in the Australian Alps would be gone:
"ENVIRONMENTAL researchers say the end of Australia's ski culture is in sight, despite Victoria and NSW experiencing one of their best snow seasons in almost a decade.
People were still shredding up powder last weekend at some of Australia's top ski resorts, but Griffith associate professor Catherine Pickering says snow is rapidly disappearing because of global warming and by 2020 Australia may not have any left.
"We've predicted by 2020 to lose something like 60 per cent of the snow cover of the Australian Alps," Professor Pickering, from the Griffith School of Environment, said.
"Unfortunately because our current emissions and our current rises in temperatures are at the high end of the predictions, it's definitely coming to us sooner and faster."
Professor Pickering researched the effects of declining snow cover and hotter summers on the Australian Alps and says this year's better than average season has been a one-off combination of La Nina and a cold snap.
"We'll still occasionally have good years, but they'll become less frequent," she said. "A poor year in the past will be a good year now."
The research covered all Victoria and NSW ski resorts and Professor Pickering says the alpine region is most threatened by climate change, with an increasing threat to endemic and endangered mountain species as well as plants because of early thaws...."
Listen to Prof Pickering yakking about the catastrophic effects of climate change:
But that was then (2012), this is now (2019):
2019:
A low-pressure system will bring snow during Friday through Saturday, mostly above 1400m, but possibly reaching 1200m, followed by another cold surge and more snow during Sunday into Monday. All up we can expect 20-40cm across all resorts...
This season has already passed expectations... The latest reading from Spencer’s Creek a week ago was up at 228.8cm, which puts us well above average. But looking lower down at Deep Creek (1620m) and Three Mile Dam (1460m), snow depths are fairly average.
Warmists take notice! The Head of the World Meteorological Organization, Petteri Taalas, has called you out for nutcases!
Of course, you can now resort to your standard practice and shriek at the top of your lungs that Taalas is a climate denier and also moonlighting as a nazi and a racist.
Speaking to Finland’s financial newspaper Talouselämä (“The Journal”) on 6 September 2019, Petteri Taalas called for cooler heads to prevail, saying that he does not accept arguments that the end of the world is at hand:
~ It is not going to be the end of the world. The world is just becoming more challenging. In parts of the globe living conditions are becoming worse, but people have survived in harsh conditions.
He also says that the Finnish discourse on climate change has become overly doom-laden:
~ The atmosphere created by media has been provoking anxiety. The latest idea is that children are a negative thing. I am worried for young mothers, who are already under much pressure. This will only add to their burden.
Moreover, contrary to much of what is heard in the media, he thinks that the solution to climate change does not require people to live ascetic lives. “If you start to live like an orthodox monk”, he says, “the world is not going be saved”. He stresses that standards of living should not be lowered.
And he suggests that radical environmentalists are now a major problem:
~ While climate sceptisism has become less of an issue, now we are being challenged from the other side. Climate experts have been attacked by these people and they claim that we should be much more radical. They are doomsters and extremists; they make threats. Much more radical action is demanded by Extinction Rebellion movement. They demand zero emissions by 2025 and “honest” climate information from governments.
To Taalas, the deep greens have been abusing the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, cherrypicking parts that they think will support radical action.
~ The IPCC reports have been read in a similar way to the Bible: you try to find certain pieces or sections from which you try to justify your extreme views. This resembles religious extremism.
Although he is critical of right wing populists who do not accept any climate action, he warns of what might happen if fuel taxes are raised too far, noting the protests of the French gilets jaunes.
Taalas hopes that mainstream media will become more critical and hopes more for a more diverse presentation of views and argues that all sides should be interviewed.
~ We should consider critically, and with reservations, the thoughts of experts…”
Now if only we can get Mr Taalas to drop the nonsense about taking a measure of climate action...
In which we follow the restoration of a Citroën Traction Avant, the iconic car of the interbellum in Europe!
The legendary Citroën Traction Avant (litterally Front Traction) existed in a wide range of mostly 4-door saloons and executive cars, with four or six-cylinder engines. It was produced by Citroën from 1934 to 1957, and around 760,000 units of all types rolled off assembly lines in France, Belgium, the UK, Germany and Denmark.
The front wheel drive was but one of several quite revolutionary innovations which are still common in modern cars, like four-wheel independent suspension, a crash resistant monocoque body, and rack and pinion steering. Visually too, the car instantly stood out, because of its sleek lines drawn by famed Italian designer Flaminio Bertoni and the fact that its ground clearance was far less than that of contemporaries (because of the absence of a separate chassis underneath):
Isn't she a beauty? This is the Traction Avant 11CV, in which CV stands for "Chevaux fiscaux", or fiscal horsepower. The 11 CV was launched in 1935 and was fitted with the 1,911 cm3 engine. Real horsepower reached a maximum of around 55HP at 3,800 rpm, and maximum torque was 119Nm at 2,000 rpm.
We have dwelled before on multiculti scoundrel Leo Varadkar, soi-disant Taoiseach of Eire.
Ever since that unholy name entered my political vocabulary, I have found myself baffled at the improbability of a man reaching the highest office in a country of which he intends to replace the population in perhaps the most drastic scheme in all of Europe.
Before you watch the following video, it is necessary to understand what the Irish mean by 'Direct Provision':
"Direct Provision (Irish: Soláthar Díreach) is a system of asylum seeker accommodation used in the Republic of Ireland. The system has been criticised by human rights organisations as illegal, inhuman and degrading, while proponents argue that it ensures asylum seekers are housed and cared for, in accordance with international law. The system, operated by the Reception and Integration Agency (RIA) of the Department of Justice and Equality, provides asylum seeker residents with accommodation free of charge and a living allowance.[2] Asylum seekers in Direct Provision are usually entitled to state-funded medical care,[3] and children have full mainstreamed access to the education system."
Got that? "accommodation free of charge", "usually entitled to state-funded medical care". There you are, a cream white Irishman at 60 or 65, having contributed 40 years of your life to social security, obeyed the law, doing your part in society, now looking forward to a meager pension and wondering how to pay the bills and stay healthy. Along comes Varadkar and his many cronies who intend to flood Ireland with up to a million welfare seekers who will get everything for free YOU worked for 4 decades of your life... and these bastards think they can get away with it???
"A Government Minister was booed and heckled as up to 700 people attended a public meeting in Oughterard, Co Galway, on Wednesday, and vowed to fight any plans to provide a direct provision centre in their community.
Speaker after speaker expressed anger at the lack of consultation, information and clarity which they say has fuelled rumours in recent weeks concerning refurbishment works at the Connemara Gateway Hotel in Oughterard, which has been closed for a number of years.
Cllr Tom Welby chaired the meeting on behalf of an ad hoc Facebook group which is campaigning to stop any plans to accommodate asylum seekers in the town.
Cllr Welby said neither he or any of the public representatives attending the meeting, including Minister of State Seán Kyne and TDs Catherine Connolly and Noel Grealish, had knowledge of any plans for the future of the building.
However, Mr Kyne told the angry meeting there was a tender process ongoing in the west to find locations for new asylum seeker centres but that this was under the remit of the Department of Justice and neither he nor his colleagues were privy to information about any applications.
He was booed and heckled when he reminded those assembled that Ireland was obliged under EU and United Nations laws to accept and process anyone who could prove they had fled persecution and injustices in their own country.
Many of the speakers accused the Government of ignoring rural towns such as theirs which had only one doctor for a population of 1,600, full to capacity schools, an intercom instead of a Garda station and a social housing waiting list with no sign of any new schemes being built.
One of the main organisers of the meeting, Patrick Curran, said time and again in the course of the night that if the politicians would not stop the centre, the people would."
A vid from the meeting:
Incredible scenes in #Oughterard tonight as locals give a resounding NO to Direct Provision. They reflect how the majority of decent Irish people feel about the UN/EU ‘Great Replacement’. Treasonous #FFFGFO and their media whores have been exposed yet again. Video @gearoidmurphy_pic.twitter.com/hgiZYtLcrj
Now if only genuine Irishmen and -women could show as much backbone as these people and throw Fine Gael off the Cliffs of Moher in the next general election, Eire has a chance to survive.
In which Mr Darwall elaborates on the Nazi roots of radical environmentalism. For many years I have known about Walter Darré, read stories about concentration camp guards sparing what they called the 'Goethe Eiche' and of course about Hitlers vegetarianism, but to conclude from such circumstancial evidence that Nazis were greenies always seemed a bit far-fetched to me. Darwall's well-researched book just may change that perception:
Rupert Darwall is a strategy consultant, policy analyst and former special adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Ben Weingarten is a Senior Fellow of the London Center for Policy Research and Founder & CEO of ChangeUp Media.
Not extremist islam, not islamism, not islamic radicals murdered and maimed that day.
Islam murdered and maimed that day.
Islam is the enemy of humanity, and one day humanity will have to decide what to do with this insane and murderous belief system.
UPDATE:
I hear that President Trump refused to call the evil by its name. If that is so, then this is my first very serious disappointment in him during his years in office.
However, on my 'fatherlandish' soil we are lucky enough to still have politicans who are not afraid to call out a disease by its name. One of these men is Filip Dewinter, of Vlaams Belang. A true Flemish Lion:
Aldo Balding was born and raised in the UK and currently resides in the South of France. Like the impressionist of times past, he prefers to paint "en plein air":
British-born Anne Magill's works have a hitherto unseen haunting quality:
"Het aantal mensen dat in Nederland bekend staat als dak- en thuisloze is sinds 2009 meer dan verdubbeld, zo blijkt uit cijfers van het Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (CBS). In 2018 stonden ruim 39.000 mensen bekend als dakloos; in 2009 waren dat er nog ongeveer 18.000. Daklozen die illegaal in Nederland verblijven, zijn niet meegenomen in de cijfers.
„Ik schrik erg van deze cijfers”, schrijft staatssecretaris Paul Blokhuis van Volksgezondheid (ChristenUnie) in een reactie op Twitter. „Dit is een trend die we absoluut moeten keren. Ik wil de komende tijd precies te weten komen wat deze stijging heeft veroorzaakt, zodat we hier samen met gemeenten, woningcorporaties, opvangorganisaties en andere ministeries mee aan de slag kunnen.”
Het aantal daklozen met een niet-westerse achtergrond groeide de laatste jaren harder dan gemiddeld. Deze groep, waarvan de meesten jonger zijn dan 30 jaar, is sinds 2009 in aantal verdrievoudigd tot ruim 18.000. Zij maken sinds 2016 ongeveer de helft uit van het totale aantal daklozen; in 2009 was dit nog 36 procent. Wat daarbij opvalt is dat zij vaker dan gemiddeld in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht en Den Haag verblijven.
Van alle 18- tot 65-jarige daklozen had vorig jaar 57 procent een migratie-achtergrond. Het overgrote deel (84 procent) was man."
The Central Bureau for Statistics notes that in 2009, there were about 18,000 homeless. In 2018 there were 39,000. So that's actually a doubling in 9 years.
Of all the homeless between 18 and 65 years of age, last year 57 per cent had a migration background. Since it is fair to assume that homeless usually fall into that category - below 18, you are usually cared for by your family, and beyond 65 as a homeless person you are either dead or put in a shelter - one can conclude that the doubling is for the greater part the result of The Netherlands' migration policy.
The howler is of course that State Secretary for Public Health Paul Blokhuis "was very much shocked by these numbers".
Well of course you idiot. If your country has an Open Border policy re immigration, you attract large numbers of Third Worlders with no knowledge of the language, no skills, no money, and no customs worth speaking of. Ergo, prime candidates for the growing army of homeless people.
The numbers are devastating. My country Belgium receives about 125,000 - 129,000 migrants PER YEAR. Dutch politicians are a degree more responsible and sane than their Belgian counterparts, but the population is bigger: now around 17.5 million vs 11.3 million. It is thus fair to say The Netherlands also easily welcomes over 100,000 welfare seekers per year.
That is UNSUSTAINABLE.
And to think that if there is one word the grand majority of our treacherous class of politicians slaps us around the ears with - apart from 'racism!' - it is .... sustainability.
"The Intermarium strategy was developed in Poland as a political doctrine at the turn of the 20th century. It was an attempt to answer the general question on how to rebuild a sovereign Polish state and how to secure its future. The concept was innovative even if the purpose was not. The Poles alone, and Poland as a sole actor, wouldn’t be able to achieve such a goal. Poland’s enemies, especially Russia, were considered the main obstacle to independence and excessively powerful. The authors of the Intermarium strategy, Józef Piłsudski and his closest associates of the Polish Socialist Party, discovered the potential of nationalistic aspirations of other nations living within the Russian state. The idea was simple: to initiate a national revolt in a suitable moment and split Russia along national divisions. In such a way both major Polish goals would be fulfilled: independence and a secure future. Russia, if pushed from Europe and stripped of its conquest, would be annihilated as an empire and no longer pose a threat to the newly established states.
The first opportunity to turn Intermarium strategy into reality appeared at the outbreak of the war between Russia and Japan in 1904. Piłsudski submitted his political study and idea to the Japanese ministry of foreign affairs. But the Japanese did not take that proposal seriously. The second opportunity emerged at the end of the First World War, which left Poland’s partitioners (Russia, Germany and Austria) defeated. Russia was additionally crippled by the revolution and civil war. Piłsudski wanted to create a chain of sovereign nation states from the Baltic Sea up to the Black Sea including Poland, Lithuania (heirs of the Grand Duchy in its 18th century borders), Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia and some countries in the Caucasus. All these nations working together within a political bloc were supposed to fundamentally transform Eastern Europe and bring a new strategic balance not only to the region, but also to the whole Europe. It is evident that the Intermarium project was directed against Russian power. Such a bloc would also prevent Germany from rebuilding its imperial might in Europe. Finally, newly established countries would become good allies to the Western European powers.
For achieving his goal Piłsudski needed two preconditions: complete military defeat of Russia and deep co-operation of the nations involved in the project. Neither came into place. The Riga Peace Treaty (1921) was a disaster for the Intermarium concept. It sanctioned a de facto partition of Ukraine and Belarus between Russia and Poland as well as ruined the relations of Poland with the other countries in the region. No nation was willing at that time to recognise Polish political aspirations nor were they willing to replace one colonial power for another; all of the neighbors were afraid of Polish domination. Additionally, the West treated Polish ambitions and activities as unjustified expansion to the East. Russia, on the other hand, was humiliated by the war with Poland and abandoned by the old entente allies. It started to look for new friends, such as Germany. The alliance was profitable for both sides. However, this change of international balance was achieved at the expense of all the nations settled between Germany and Russia. The new war broke out in 1939 and after five terrible years Germany was defeated, but the Soviet Union celebrated victory. The Yalta agreement allowed the USSR to swallow the whole disputed region in its direct and indirect sphere of influences.
In the post-war era, Intermarium was deeply buried and censored. Outside of the region it was cultivated by Polish exiles, for instance by Jerzy Giedroyć and his magazine Kultura. Giedroyć once stated: “There can be no free Poland without free Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine.” What was important here was that Giedroyć abandoned the concept of Poland in its historic, Jagiellonian borders and stressed the value of equal co-operation among partners in every respect. In such a way he addressed the Eastern European nations’ pre-war fears of Polish domination.
This stance was supported and repeated by the Polish democratic opposition, which matured in the 1970s. In September 1981 the First National Conference of the Delegates of NSZZ “Solidarność” prepared a “Message to the working people of Eastern Europe”repeating Giedroyć’s position. The communist regimes were furious. The Soviet government treated the message as unauthorized interference into state policy. The Intermarium concept was still treated as a danger to Soviet rule over the region.
One could believe that after the dreams of many people in the region were realized and the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Intermarium project would have been reintroduced. However the majority had another dream: to make a geopolitical shift from the East to the West. The first step was gaining independence from the Soviet Union through the disbanding of the Warsaw Pact and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. In this action all the countries of the region were loyal and supportive to each other. However, when it came to the negotiations with NATO and the European Union, solidarity disappeared. Nations were lodging separate applications; there was constant competition and individual negotiations. The weakness of the Intermarium was laid bare. It consisted in the differences between the goals of the potential partners. Whenever it came to deciding between solidarity and individual benefits, the latter always won – also within Visѐgrad Group. If the countries of a similar level of development were not able to reach any vital agreement, what can be said about the post-Soviet dependents like Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia and others?
Nevertheless, Intermarium existed as a slogan, especially in Poland, to which right-wing politicians frequently referred in their speeches. For instance, this could be visible in the parliamentary debates after the annual address by the minister of foreign affairs. One may ask: What was the reason for such empathy? That might not be solely the attachment to the tradition and glorious history, though this element should also be considered. Paraphrasing US President Donald Trump’s slogan, the Polish right was still attracted by the idea of “making Poland big again”. But how? They neither favoured sticking to the mainstream, nor promoting close co-operation with the most developed EU countries.
The answer could be seen in the parliamentary debate of 2013. Witold Waszczykowski who was then a deputy to the parliament stressed the need to “regain the role as spokesman of the region” and “rebuild the autonomous region, e.g. Carpathian”. His colleague Arkadiusz Mularczyk added that Poland should become a leader and a representative of Eastern and Central Europe within the EU. Thus, the essential role foreseen for Poland was to build its position by being a leader of an autonomous region. The will of some politicians is not always easily transformed into real action, however. And it certanily is not so easy to become the leader of a regional group.
When a new idea, the so-called Three Seas Initiative, appeared in 2015 and was followed by two summits (first in Dubrovnik in 2016 and second in Warsaw in 2017), the old Polish strategies began to once again emerge. The old questions were also being re-formulated: Does Poland still aspire to play the role of regional leader and want to use the newest initiative for its own purposes? What is the real reason for the 12 countries of Central and Eastern Europe, all members of the EU, to unite around some common goals?..."
In 2015, Pilsudski's old dream resurfaced, under the name Three Seas Initiative (3SI), a geopolitical joint project by Poland and Croatia:
"...It acts as a forum between twelve European countries to strengthen trade, energy, infrastructure and political cooperation. It is also known as the BABS Initiative as the member countries border with three European Seas - Baltic, Adriatic and Black Sea.
The Three Seas or BABS Initiative comprises of twelve Eastern and Central European countries. This includes Poland, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Austria, Latvia, and Slovenia. Other than Austria, all the member countries were formerly Soviet-influenced communist countries and part of the former socialist group known as Eastern Bloc.
Six of these member countries, Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, and Slovenia, are Central European Defence Cooperation (CEDC) countries. The CEDC was formed in 2010 with the objective of developing and strengthening defense cooperation between the member countries. Except Austria, all CEDC member countries are also part of NATO. Apart from that, four of its member countries, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia, are into a cultural and political alliance known as the Visegrad Group or Visegrad Four since 1991.
Interestingly, seven member countries of this project, Hungary, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, were part of the Intermarium plan of Jozef Pilsudski of Poland, who proposed a federation of Baltic States after the end of World War I.
The first summit of the Three Seas Initiative was held on the 25th and 26th of August, 2016 in Dubrovnik (Croatia). It was headed by the Croatian President, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic. The member countries agreed on economic cooperation to strengthen economic activates, especially in the energy and infrastructure sector.
The Three Seas Business Forum was formed during the second summit of the initiative that was held on 6th and 7th July 2017 in Warsaw under the leadership of the Polish President, Andrzej Duda. This event was highly debated and highlighted internationally as it was attended by the American President Donald Trump.
The initiative provided a base for strategically important infrastructural projects, two of which stand prominently so far are the North-South Highway and the LNG Projects.
The North-South Highway project is part of the Three Seas Initiative. It will connect Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. The proposed route will connect Klaipeda, which is an important seaport of Lithuania, located on the coast of Baltic Sea, to Thessaloniki, one of the most important trade hubs in Southeastern Europe. It will also help boost trades with Poland by providing Eastern Poland with a north-south route to connect with Central Europe.
Poland and Croatia took the initiative of building Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminals in the Baltic Sea to fulfill gas requirements of the member countries. Poland has completed its LNG terminal already, while Croatia is expected to complete its terminal by 2019. The construction of a pipeline for LNG is also part of the project...
Better pay attention to Eastern Europe. With potentially 150 million people, The Three Seas Initiative is set to become a geopolitical power to be reckoned with. Once again, the spoiled, deluded nations of Western Europe find themselves cushioned from Eastern dangers by, if not a Polish buffer, then in any case a Polish-doctored buffer, for it is Poland which is the main inspiration and instigator of this novel project.
There may be another reason to rejoice - while Western Europe will, over the next decades, in all likelihood drown in islamization and insane unchequered Third World immigration, the Three Seas Initiative, composed of the far saner Eastern European countries, may very well escape that terrible fate.
In more than one way, 3SI may become to the Western World what Byzantium was to the whole of the Roman Empire: a place where the immensely valuable assets of a great culture, material and immaterial, will be preserved from harm and decay for a thousand years to come.
Shudders in the cosmos have revealed what’s likely the sad end of a neutron star — getting swallowed by a black hole.
If confirmed, it would be the first solid detection of this source of gravitational waves, revealing a type of cataclysm never before spotted. Researchers from the LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave observatories reported the candidate event, which was detected August 14, in a public database used by astronomers.
Scientists are still analyzing the data to verify what created the gravitational waves, which are tiny vibrations in spacetime caused by massive, accelerating objects. But one thing seems fairly certain: “Something has occurred out there in the sky,” says physicist Daniel Holz of the University of Chicago, a member of LIGO. “So far, it doesn’t obviously look like anything we’ve detected with high confidence before.”
LIGO and Virgo previously have picked up gravitational waves from pairs of merging black holes and from colliding neutron stars, which are extremely dense collapsed stars (SN: 1/19/19, p. 10). In April, scientists saw tentative hints of a rendezvous between a black hole and neutron star, but the signal was weak and could have been a false alarm (SN Online: 5/2/19).
This new discovery offers much more solid evidence: The detection was so clear that it’s considered very unlikely to be a false alarm. The researchers estimate that the run-in between the two objects occurred around 900 million light-years away, and within an area about 23 square degrees across the sky. (For comparison, the moon is about half a degree across.) Astronomers have since been peering at that region with their telescopes, looking for any light that may have been emitted in the merger. Such light could have been released if the neutron star were torn apart by the black hole before being gulped within its depths.
Further study of the encounter could help reveal new secrets about some of the universe’s most mysterious objects. But the potential detection is exciting on its own, Holz says. “The first of anything is always really fascinating.”
A quick recap of some key notions:
a.) A neutron star:
If a star right before going Supernova still has a mass of between ten and twenty solar masses, the core that remains after the explosion is a neutron star. Whilst weighing around 1.4 solar masses, its diameter is only about 20 kilometers, which means that one spoonful of that neutron star weighs about 1 billion tonnes!
b.) A Black Hole:
If the mass of the star before going Supernova was over 20 solar masses the remaining core may exceed 5 M☉, and from about 3–4 M☉ (the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit), the degeneracy pressure of neutrons which otherwise stops neutron stars from imploding into themselves, is now insufficient to stop further collapse. A black hole is born.
While we are at it, fun quiz: what would happen if you fell into a black hole?
c.) LIGO:
LIGO stands for Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. It is a large-scale physics experiment involving two observatories to detect cosmic gravitational waves and to develop gravitational-wave observations as an astronomical tool. Laser interferometry is used to detect gravitational waves. LIGO can detect a change in the 4 km mirror spacing of less than a ten-thousandth the charge diameter of a proton. There is an observatory in Hanford, Washington and one in Livingston, Texas.
d.) Virgo:
Virgo is LIGO's European couterpart, a large interferometer designed to detect gravitational waves. Virgo is a Michelson interferometer is isolated from external disturbances: its mirrors and instrumentation are suspended and its laser beam operates in a vacuum. The instrument's two arms are three kilometres long and located in Santo Stefano a Macerata, near Pisa, Italy. Godammit! We spent our summer holiday in Tuscany and of course we had to go see Pisa and its slanted tower and duomo and baptisterio. If I had known that Virgo was just around the corner, I definitely would have taken a look!
I can't for the love of God fathom what kind of a big gulp a black hole gobbling up a neutron star must give. Lucky are those with the smarts and the tools to explore these inimaginable phenomena.
Moloko with Sing it back. From the 1999 album I am not a Doctor.
Relatively short-lived (1994-2003) dance group from Sheffield, UK, around Róisín Murphy en Mark Brydon.
Red Hot Chili Peppers with Snow. Album Stadium Arcadium (2006).
The band apparently has no intention to die just yet, and they've been around since 1983. Although Kiedis and Flea are the only members who were there from the beginning.
Horrible images from Lesbos, a Greek island. I can't even say that the floodgates are open again, because it is crystal clear they were never really closed in the first place:
As for Med crossings, it's bad enough that Salvini's gamble failed and that the 5 Star Movement and Partito Democratico are now poised to form a government leaving Lega in the cold - which would mean that Italy's ports will reopen again for the deluge of African 'refugees'. And if you doubt that a 5 Star/PD government would do that, watch the following interview with a PD ("center left") Senator:
PD Senator from the new M5S-Socialist gov. asked whether they will allow migrants from NGO vessels to disembark in #Italy again (ending #Salvini's security decree)
But even without the thousands 'saved' twenty miles off the Libyan coast and transported up north per the wallet of the gullible EU taxpayer, many also cross the Med on their own, and succeed in reaching Europe's soft underbelly. They go ashore... and disappear, only to pop up weeks later in Berlin, Frankfurt, Brussels or Paris and wreak havoc there:
1 of the most dangerous sides of uncontrolled mass immigration to the EU are #GhostLandings (migrants making it across the sea without being intercepted by the coastguard)
We've no idea who these ppl entering our continent are.
Criminals, terrorists?Who knows?
These are absolutely very, very, very dire times. The whole of the West is now under assault from the Third World. The time is approaching when violence against those who are behind the massive human trafficking schemes must be considered as a real but, unfortunately, necessary option.
We cannot let them turn our beautiful countries in islamic/Third World hellholes. If we do not act, then this will be our future: Just a street in Stockholm, Sweden: