ONE YEAR ON...

On March 31, 2011, at about 9.30 pm, I entered my parents' home. All lights were on, but nobody answered my calls. I looked in the garage - my parents' Mercedes was gone.

Somehow, even though I never suspected in the preceding weeks that something was wrong with my father's health, I just knew I had to rush to the hospital in our town. And indeed, there they were, in the last Emergency cell, my father sitting upright in a mobile bed, my mother at his side, both apprehensively, although they tried very hard not to look worried. They explained that father had felt so miserable that mother had felt compelled to call the MUG (Medisch Urgentieteam, Medical Urgency Ambulance).

Actually, at that precise moment, dad didn't look too bad. With his typical dry humor, he asked one nurse what his chances of survival were. That nurse stood with arms crossed, calmly pondering the situation as it were, and with a humorous wink shrugged his concerns off, saying that it couldn't be that bad, could it, and besides, he was going to be carried away by a beautiful nurse. Which was true, the one preparing dad to be carted to his room was a beautiful young lady.

However - it turned out that alas, it WAS bad.

It turned out that it was VERY bad.

A couple of minutes later, we left father alone in his room and went home. The last thing I remember about that scene was how father assumed a fetal position on his right side with a grimace of pain on his visage. And still I somehow expected that after a short stay in hospital all would be well again. Hadn't dad participated, just the sunday before, in the yearly reunion of his old class of the Institut Technique in A., and hadn't he been clearly the strongest character, walking proud and upright among all the cane-toting seventy-plussers with a plethora of deficiencies and handicaps?

In the morning, at about 7 am, mom called in a panic urging me to come immediately to pick her up and rush to the hospital because during the early hours father had suffered a cardiac arrest.

That was the beginning of a month long struggle which ended with... father's passing.

Hail Mary, full of grace.
Our Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,
Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power,
and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.

Dad... you are sorely missed.

HUMAN ACHIEVEMENT HOUR: PUT THE LIGHTS ON (AS MANY AS YOU CAN).

First a compelling article (although not for me anymore - been debunking the green crazyness here since 2004 or so) in the Wall Street Journal by William Happer:

"GLOBAL WARMING MODELS ARE WRONG AGAIN.

What is happening to global temperatures in reality? The answer is: almost nothing for more than 10 years. Monthly values of the global temperature anomaly of the lower atmosphere, compiled at the University of Alabama from NASA satellite data, can be found at the website http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/. The latest (February 2012) monthly global temperature anomaly for the lower atmosphere was minus 0.12 degrees Celsius, slightly less than the average since the satellite record of temperatures began in 1979.

The lack of any statistically significant warming for over a decade has made it more difficult for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its supporters to demonize the atmospheric gas CO2 which is released when fossil fuels are burned. The burning of fossil fuels has been one reason for an increase of CO2 levels in the atmosphere to around 395 ppm (or parts per million), up from preindustrial levels of about 280 ppm.

CO2 is not a pollutant. Life on earth flourished for hundreds of millions of years at much higher CO2 levels than we see today. Increasing CO2 levels will be a net benefit because cultivated plants grow better and are more resistant to drought at higher CO2 levels, and because warming and other supposedly harmful effects of CO2 have been greatly exaggerated. Nations with affordable energy from fossil fuels are more prosperous and healthy than those without.

The direct warming due to doubling CO2 levels in the atmosphere can be calculated to cause a warming of about one degree Celsius. The IPCC computer models predict a much larger warming, three degrees Celsius or even more, because they assume changes in water vapor or clouds that supposedly amplify the direct warming from CO2. Many lines of observational evidence suggest that this "positive feedback" also has been greatly exaggerated.

There has indeed been some warming, perhaps about 0.8 degrees Celsius, since the end of the so-called Little Ice Age in the early 1800s. Some of that warming has probably come from increased amounts of CO2, but the timing of the warming—much of it before CO2 levels had increased appreciably—suggests that a substantial fraction of the warming is from natural causes that have nothing to do with mankind...."

Tomorrow it's Earth Hour again, the yearly Econazi Nutterfest, and the lunatics that think the planet is going bust because we've raised the CO2 level from, ah, something like 0.0365 to 0.038 per cent, expect us to sit cold in the dark and cry rivers over our mistreatment of our puh-puh-puh-puh-pooooooooor planet!!!


Over here at DowneastBlog we support Human Achievement Hour instead:

"The Competitive Enterprise Institute plans to recognize “Human Achievement Hour” between 8:30pm and 9:30pm on March 28, 2009 to coincide with Earth Hour, a period of time during which governments, individuals, and corporations have agreed to dim or shut off lights in an effort to draw attention to climate change. Anyone not foregoing the use of electricity in that hour is, by default, celebrating the achievements of human beings.

We salute the people who keep the lights on and produce the energy that helps make human achievement possible.

Green and private conservation are fine. We have no problem with an individual (or group) that wants to sit naked in the dark without heat, clothing, or light. Additionally, we would have no problem with the group holding a pro-green technology rally. That is their choice. But when this group stages a “global election” with the express purpose of influencing “government policies to take action against global warming,” we have every right as individuals to express our vote for the opposite

If Human Achievement Hour is at all a dig against Earth Hour, it is so only by the fact that we are pointing out what Earth Hour truly is about: it isn’t pro-earth, it is anti-man and anti-innovation. So, on March 28th, CEI plans to continue “voting” for humanity by enjoying the fruits of man’s mind."

So, you might want to:





Thanks! Happy Human Achievement Hour!



MFBB.

NATIONAL CLEAVAGE DAY.

The Brits held a National Cleavage Day today:





Belgium stands brea, eh, shoulder to shoulder with our friends across the Channel:





Nite.

YOUR DAILY DOSE OF MUSLIM SCUM: FATHER MOHAMED MERAH SUES FRENCH POLICE FOR 'MURDER' OF HIS SON.

I just wonder: WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE???

A screenshot from Het Laatste Nieuws:

"An Algerian lawyer, Zahia Mokhtari, announced that she has been charged by Mohamed Benalal Merah, the father of the Toulouse killer, with sueing the RAID, the French elite police unit that after a siege which lasted much too long finally killed Mohamed Merah, the Toulouse killer."





The French far-left candidate for the presidency, a certain Mélenchon, announced last week that he was convinced that Merah could definitely not count on the sympathy of, you guess it, those wonderful, peace-loving, law-abiding overwhelming majority of moooooslims. I would not count on that. Via Atlas Shrugs:

"The self-avowed “Islamic warrior” Mohamed Merah, who opened fire on a Jewish school in France and slaughtered Jewish children and a rabbi in cold blood, was no “lone wolf,” as the mainstream media initially insisted. His brother has been charged with complicity in his murders, and his mother refused to urge him to surrender when police asked her to do so during the 31-hour standoff before he was killed. But even worse, his cold-blooded murders are winning him sympathy from Muslims and leftist useful idiots around the world.

Will the Muslim community in France, famous for its rampages and car burnings, decry Mohamed Merah’s murderous deeds and Islamic Jew-hatred in general? Don’t bet on it. Millions of Muslims worldwide share Mohamed Merah’s genocidal inclinations. The hatred of Israel is commanded in Islam. The very existence of Israel is offensive to practicing Muslims. That should be no surprise, since the Quran, which calls the Jews the worst enemies of the Muslims (5:82), commands that Muslims wage war against them (9:29). A hadith adds that Muhammad said: “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say, ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him’” (Bukhari 4.52.177).

Mohamed Merah was no lone jihadist. There is an army of millions. Monstrous. Even the “peaceful” people on the “humanitarian” flotilla that confronted the IDF in summer 2010 was chanting a genocidal war cry invoking Muhammad’s massacre of Jews at the Khybar oasis in Arabia: “Khybar, Khybar, O Jews, the army of Muhammad shall return.”

So it was no surprise when Agence France-Presse reported Friday: “Facebook on Thursday removed a page that paid homage to the young Frenchman who died in a shootout with police after killing seven people, officials said.” “Frenchman”? He was a Muslim who would almost certainly have denied being French at all. “The page,” AFP stated, “which bore a picture of the self-proclaimed al-Qaida militant and was titled ‘Homage to Mohamed Merah,’ was ‘liked’ by more than 1,800 people before it was removed just hours after it appeared, they said. Many visitors left comments that were hostile to the police or favorable to Islamic extremism.”

More proof that Merah was no “lone gunman,” but a representative of the hopes and desires of far more Muslims than the mainstream media are willing to admit, came when scores of young Muslims gathered in Toulouse to honor Merah’s memory. (If that doesn’t sound like much, remember that a recent demonstration of “moderate Muslims” drew only 36, despite receiving enthusiastic international publicity.)

At the pro-Merah demonstration, a woman wearing a burqa said: “What we ask today is that we stop demonizing Mohamed, that’s it, he died.” She paid lip service to Merah’s victims: “We share the pain and suffering of the families because it is the same pain for us here.” But then she excused his murders: “I think what influenced him is what he had seen in his many travels. He could not manage all that. He was still a teenager in his head, despite his 23 years.”

Most teenagers, even those who are just teenagers in their heads, don’t massacre Jews while screaming “Allahu akbar.” This is jihad. This is Islamic Jew-hatred, prescribed and commanded by the Quran. This demonstration reveals the enemy within our own borders and shores. Imagine marching for this cold-blooded killer (in a cloth coffin, aka a burqa, no less). This is the most anti-human ideology on the face of the earth, and it is winning over entire nations and regions across the world."

Ask yourself THIS: if you were a father of a misfit son who committed sevenfold murder in cold blood INCLUDING three year old toddlers, and you learned that that son was killed by the police in a gunfight, would YOU sue the police for murder????





What does it take to drive a man so completely demonically insane that he is willing to pump bullets into the frail body of this girl?


It takes ISLAM.



As always.... ignore Outlaw Mike's advice at your own peril.



MFBB.

MULTICULTURAL ENRICHMENT: SIX OUT OF TEN NON-EUROPEAN IMMIGRANTS IN BELGIUM DON'T WORK.

Evidence of the catastrophic job situation within the community of Belgian Cultural Enrichers was provided by the Loonkloofrapport 2012 (Wages Discrepancy Report 2012), which in turn is based on statistical data obtained from Belgium's National Bank (NBB, Nationale Bank van Belgie).

'Of the non-European immigrants in Belgium less than half is working. Of the women three quarters don't have a job, writes De Standaard following the release of the Wages Discrepancy Report 2012 which itself is based on NBB data. The numbers have steadily gotten worse over the past few years, because in 2008 42,1% was working while this number levelled off to 39,9% in 2011. When taking gender into account 51 per cent of the male non-European immigrants are working; with women that number decreases to 26%.'

Outlaw Mike thinks that if there's a curious gap between males and females with regards to unemployment it might be wise to include a factor like religious persuasion in the equation. I do not think that the ladies in the photo above, lining up to receive their welfare check happily provided by the Belgian State (though probably less happily by the Belgian taxpayer) are actually ALLOWED to work outside the house by their husbands.

Luckily our friends the socialists have P-L-A-N-S to remedy the situation!


Hey, come to think of it, this article reminded me of another one, spotted in Het Laatste Nieuws a couple of weeks back: 'COLORED POVERTY MORE AND MORE VISIBLE IN GHENT':





Well yes of course, if you first allowed with open arms all those wifebeaters and then doctored fancy laws so that they could legally let come over mom, pop, and the rest of the family, all of them rocket scientists, world class biologists and clever mathematicians of course, chances are not everyone among them has a fitting slot at the end of the day.

Notice the lady in the photo.


You may now guess three times what she has in common with the ladies in the photo on top.


Notice also what she's pushing. Apparently there ARE chores their husbands deem them fit for.





MFBB.

A DAY OUT IN THE ARDENNES.

Although I would lie. The area I visited was not yet the Ardennes proper, but the Fagne.

My first stop was in Yvoir, where I hoped to lay my hands on a couple of decent walking maps of the larger area. More precisely I wanted to do a trek from the centre of Yvoir to the ruins of the medieval castle of Poilvache. Alas, no such luck. There wasn't even a Bureau of Tourism. So me off by car, and 'lo and behold, on my GPS display I noticed that a small road veering to the right, a couple of kloms outside Yvoir, was marked 'Chemin de Poilvache'. And indeed, after following it for about two kloms, I came across the old chateau. What remains of it sits on top of a rocky crag overlooking the Meuse river, "Belgium's Rhine":




Above a view from the chateaux' ruins down to the Meuse river, with the Ile de Houx in the center.




This was once a room with a view. To the north, to be precise. Quite a commanding position indeed.


Then it was off to Dinant, 'Daughter of the Meuse', since I assumed that in a town of this (touristic) magnitude the Syndicat du Tourisme would be open so that I could get my walking maps. Btw, the inventor of the saxophone, Adolphe Sax, was born here.





Alas, no such luck. On a glorious Spring day like this one the fonctionnaires of Dinant's Bureau of Tourism were all exhausted from a week's hard work. I did not cross the Meuse for nothing though (I parked my car on the east bank while the Bureau of Tourism is on the west). There's a plaque ther commemmorating a particular fella.





Indeed, Charles de Gaulle, in the opening days of the Great War, fought and was wounded here on this very spot. Alas, the ghost of the good (cough) General was no more able to get me a map than Dinant's city personnel.


Back on the East Bank it was time for a prayer in the Church of Our Lady:





A couple of streets further I came across three Willy's jeeps, no doubt piloted by WWII buffs:





If memory serves it was the designer of a competitor for the contract that missed the order, who was the father of this very versatile vehicle.



Outlaw wouldn't be Outlaw if he didn't have a plan B though. Just in case I had a book with walking itineraries with me, and I noticed there was a decent walk near the village of Falmignoul, barely seven kloms south of Dinant along the Avenue de General Hodges (who commanded the 1st US Army when it liberated this region in autumn 44). A quick snap with the iPhone of the relevant page - it would have to suffice - and off I was. Pic taken looking back to the north, some one and a half klom out of Falmignoul's centre:





Already on the way back, I veered off the path's way and was rewarded for it with this sight:





The Chateau de Waulsort, apparently in a slightly better condition than the Chateau de Poilvache. Notice the pennant with the Belgian flag. On these lonely heights, Belgian nationalism is alive and kicking! Ta-daaaaaaa!!!!!



It was about time to wrap the day up. I figured that if I made a detour going home, I would still be able to see two items that for one reason or another had always eluded me. The first one was the small barrage of Ry de Rome, a couple of kloms south of the town of Couvin.





This is not for hydro-electric purposes however, only for distributing drinking water in the region. What did you say? Boring? Yeah, I guess so.


Time for our story's second Adolph. A while back, there used to be this Famous Socialist in Krautland, which is Belgium's eastern neighbor. In 1940, his troops canned the western allies in six weeks. Belgium's army resisted for eighteen days. When Dunkirk was over - btw, the French and the Brits were only able to evacuate 340,000 troops across the Channel BECAUSE of the Belgian Army's resistance - Adolph turned his attention south to finish France and the remainder of its armed forces. He did perhaps not envisage that from then on, France would collapse like bad soufflé. For right after our capitulation, he had the Organisation Todt (I assume it was that organisation) build him a HQ in Belgium's south near the village of Bruly-de-Pesche, whence he intended to monitor the rest of the Feldzug. The pic show the tiny, tiny (so unlike the Fuhrer's grand palns) bunker that was built there in a matter of days. It stands there to this day and you can visit it:





The interior of the mapping room. If only I had had the Fuhrer's Powers on this day, I certainly would have had my walking maps brought to me in no time on a silver platter, exhausted Tourism Bureau fonctionnaires or not.





Adolf was here!!!! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!


On a more serious note, Bruly-de-Pesche not only sports Hitlers first bunker HQ in a foreign country of the war, but also a small chapel commemmorating the Belgian maquisards of the region. On the ceiling, you can read the names of those KIA:





Here are the other ones. I felt that again a little prayer was in order to thank these gentle heroes for their sacrifice.





This thinly populated and rather rough area must have offered the Belgian maquis a liberty of action they did not enjoy in Flanders, Belgium's north. Still, I was surprised by the huge number of fatalities.



So. That's all for today. Tomorrow it's time again for being a maquisard myself.



MFBB.