MERRY CHRISTMAS 2016!!!

Another year has gone by, and it's another Xmas.

Like every year, DowneastBlog wishes its readers of good will heartfelt Merry Christmas!





I just came home from dinner at my mom's house; she had invited our family and my siblings and their families for the yearly supper on the eve of December 25. The company of my sisters and their husbands and their children was pleasant, and the supper absolutely great.

In short, or, as they say in French, "bref", we had a real good time.

So good in fact, that I could not help comparing my blessings to what befalls other people sometimes.


Like Wim D.B., a client whose wife was ten years ago diagnosed with CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), had to stop working two years after that, and was diagnosed with cancer three years ago. Last thing I heard, about one year back, was that she was a little better. Then I came across Wim again last week, and I gullibly asked how S. was doing, and the reply was, "S. died in September".

So that's what Wim and his two young sons had to cope with at the exact same time I was enjoying my meal, prepared by an excellent chef from a small but well known, well regarded restaurant in my hometown.


Then last week I also read an article about a forty-three year old former IT manager, a guy by the name of Erwin Vervaet, who suffers from a extremely rare Multiple Sclerosis variant:





Erwin hails from Mechelen, roughly right between Brussels and Antwerp. Like Wim's wife, he got the diagnosis of his disease ten years ago. Until 2010, he could function more or less in an acceptable way. But since that year it's unstoppably downhill. He's confined to his wheelchair now, has troubles with bladder and eyes, and cannot bear heat. There's no medication for his particular MS-variant, unless...

... well, there seems to be a new therapy, called HSCT, which stands for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. However, since the therapy is still in its infancy, it cannot of course be recognized by RIZIV, the Belgian State Institute for Insurance against Disease and Invalidity, and therefore Erwin would have to cough up the 55,000 EUR needed for the treatment himself.

He's desperate, since he's getting worse day after day. He has therefore set himself a goal: collect the money via crowdfunding formula in a mere 60 days.

So, if you want to make a difference, you can do your little bit HERE.


And two days ago, I learned at another client's home that one of their sons sits in class with a ten year old girl, Femke, who first lost her dad in an accident some four years ago - he was in construction, and reportedly made a deadly fall from a scaffold - and just one week ago lost her mother in a botched operation.

I.... don't want to think what Femke is going thru these days.


Anyway, what I want to say is... for those spared by the sort of calamities listed above, we should count our blessings and be GRATEFUL...

There's a world of hurt out there. In the spirit of Christmas, you might want to help a bit, even if you think it don't mean much, to alleviate the pain of others, to offer a shoulder to cry on, to proffer some financial help.

It might make a bigger difference than you think.


Nite.



MFBB.

INSANE: NOT ONE BUT TWO IMAMS PRESENT AT MERKEL ATTENDED CHURCH SERVICE TO COMMEMMORATE VICTIMS OF BERLIN TRUCK JIHADI.

Via PI News:

"When a fake Christian like Angela Merkel wants to make a big show by attending a church service, a lousy priest in a run of the mill church won't do. No, an imam has to be trucked in. Even better, two!

Die Welt reports:

"When Angela Merkel entered the church in the afternoon, to sign the Condolences Book, someone in the public called out: "It is you whom we have to thank for this!" A few houers later the Chancellor is in the church again, to attend the remembrance service for the victims and their relatives. At the altar, the priest is in the company of a rabbi and two imams. "We stand here together, because separately we are unable to comprehend this", exclaims Father Martin Germer."

One simply cannot understand this! So a Christmas market is attacked. Right near the Gedaechtniskirche [a famous Berlin landmark - MFBB]. Germans die. A Jewish woman is missing. A presumably Catholic Pole is shot dead and his truck hijacked. And what happens in this clueless country? Two imams standing at the altar! Words fail me..."

Two big thumbs down. One for Monster Merkel who has the NERVE to show up in a church to "mourn" the victims of muslim terrorist Anis Amri - but they are her own victims just as well.

And one for the clueless idiot of a priest, who more than anyone else should KNOW that Christians are the victims of merciless day by day prosecution, harassment, humiliation, torture and discrimination at the hands of MUSLIMS, yet who still needs the support of not one, but TWO representatives of this gruesome death cult "to comprehend better what happened".

In my worst moments, I tend to think that a continent that has degenerated so badly that it is ruled by the likes of Merkel and populated by the likes of that mentally challenged priest, deserves its sad demise.


MFBB.

THE REAL FAKE NEWS.

Because our moral betters cannot comprehend why Trump won over Clinton, they have been searching frantically for reasons ever since. The only venue they did not explore was some serious soul searching, but why go down that path when you can blame it on Russian hacking, James Comey, and, naturally, rightist websites offering "fake news".

Well, in the aftermath of yesterday's horrible attack on Berlin's Breitscheidplatz, where yet another paedophile worshipper allahu akbared a huge truck in a crowd of peaceful Christmas Market shoppers, we all got an (un)healthy dose of "fake news".

How about this, for instance? The BBC shines its light on what happened and it looks like the Polizei will need to ramp up it's prison building schemes for those naughty naughty NAUGHTY eighteen wheelers:


BERLIN BREITSCHEIDPLATZ: LORRY KILLS 12 AT CHRISTMAS MARKET.





Eighteen wheelers having committed serious crimes will from now on face harsh penalties like oil starving, flattening their tubes (with the added benefit that they can't escape - smart!), scratching their sides with rusty monkey wrenches, indecently fondling their private parts over big "maintenance" pits, disconnecting their batteries etc etc etc. Guantanamo will look like Cars 3.0 by comparison.

As the "article" slugs forward, we come across the opinions of some enlightened politicians, who know it so much better than these hateful AfD types and dumb Buerger Pieparsch in the Strasse:

"Was it a terror attack?

German politicians have been unwilling to call the deadly crash a terrorist attack at this stage, while many of the details remain unverified or unclear.

Interior Minister Mr de Maiziere told ARD television: "I don't want to use the word 'attack' yet at the moment, although many things speak for it.

"There is a psychological effect in the whole country of the choice of words here, and we want to be very, very cautious and operate close to the actual investigation results, not with speculation."

Chancellor Angela Merkel has been briefed by the interior minister and the mayor of Berlin, her spokesman Steffen Seibert tweeted.

"We are in mourning for the dead and hope that the many injured can get help," he added.

German President Joachim Gauck said in a statement that Monday was an "awful evening for Berlin and for our country".

Truly helpful, these people.


In Germany itself, a scandalous example of the disgusting practice of burying THE key fact about these murders committed by yet another muslim terrorist is offered below. Hard left daily DIE WELT offers a very, very long winded essay choke full of irrelevant items such as a 1968 Conference in Vienna detailing how truck drivers should at all times retain control over their vehicle, Scania activating the Emergency Braking Systems on its trucks at 15 kloms an hour, diatribes by a MAN (another truck manufacturer) spokesman, new technologies such as radar, swerving away sensors, Tempomats and what not...







You almost have the impression you are reading Trucker Magazine's latest issue! Here, check it out, but I don't have the heart to translate and anyway, translating this garbage which is completely and deliberately diverting attention away from MURDER IN THE NAME OF ALLAH is pointless:

"Zu den schrecklichen Details der Todesfahrt auf dem Weihnachtsmarkt in Berlin will sich der Lkw-Hersteller Scania nicht äußern. Der Attentäter nutzte einen Lastkraftwagen des Unternehmens, der vermutlich auch mit diversen Fahrerassistenzsystemen ausgestattet ist – womöglich auch mit einem Notbremssystem. Diese technischen Hilfsmittel folgen bislang aber unabhängig vom jeweiligen Hersteller alle einem schlichten Gesetz: Sie können vom Fahrer überstimmt oder lahmgelegt werden.

Hintergrund für die Formel „Mensch vor Technik“ ist das sogenannte Wiener Abkommen von 1968. Demnach muss ein Fahrer die Kontrolle über sein Fahrzeug haben. Diese internationale Regelung kollidiert aber immer stärker mit neuen Entwicklungen für automatisiertes oder sogar autonomes Fahren. Erst im Herbst gab es dazu auch im Bundestag eine ausführliche Debatte.

Viele Fahrer schalten Sicherheitstechnik aus

Die Logistik- und Lkw-Branche diskutieren untereinander und mit der Politik seit Längerem darüber, ab welchem Baujahr welche Assistenzsysteme zwingend vorgeschrieben sein sollen. Das ändert aber nichts daran, dass sie alle von Menschenhand ausgeschaltet werden können. So sind etwa die Notbremssysteme darauf ausgelegt, dass ein Lkw nicht auf ein Hindernis auffährt, etwa auf ein Stauende auf der Autobahn.

Anzeige

Bei Scania werden diese Notbremssysteme bereits ab einer Geschwindigkeit von 15 Stundenkilometern aktiviert. Doch viele Lkw-Fahrer schalten diese Sicherheitstechnik aus, wie in der Branche zu hören ist. Sie fahren auf der Autobahn häufig sehr dicht auf und werden dann von optischen oder akustischen Vorwarnstufen des Notbremssystems darauf hingewiesen – und das kann auf Dauer anstrengend sein. Wie sich die Systeme konkret ausschalten oder überstimmen lassen, ist von Hersteller zu Hersteller verschieden. Als Beispiel werden etwa ein kraftvoller Tritt auf das Gaspedal, ein sogenannter Kick-down, oder das Betätigen eines Spezialknopfes genannt.

Die Lkw-Hersteller von Mercedes bis Volvo treiben die Entwicklung für Hightech-Lkw mit diversen Assistenzsystemen, Sensoren und Radartechnik wie etwa Spurhaltung, Abbiegeschutz, Tempomat oder automatisches Kolonnenfahren voran. Ein Meilenstein ist dabei das automatisierte Fahren. „Aber es gibt immer auch die Möglichkeit, dass der Fahrer bewusst eine andere Entscheidung trifft“, erklärt ein Sprecher des Lkw-Herstellers MAN.

Lkw lassen sich nur schwer von außen stoppen

Im konkreten Fall der Lkw-Todesfahrt in Berlin werden die weiteren Ermittlungen vermutlich ergeben, dass der Attentäter die Schutzsysteme des Lkw bewusst ausgehebelt hat. Ein Stoppen eines Lkw von außen ist ohne Vorbereitung kurzfristig nicht möglich, sagen Experten..."

A SCANDAL, basically. For such agitprop and deliberate misleading efforts, the author of this "article", Gerhard Hegmann, should be fired right away. And then having the nerve to conclude with "Trucks are not stopped easily". No shit Sherlock! Tell that to the relatives of the dead and wounded, it might be news to them! What an ASSHOLE!!!

But if you thought that enlightening the German public about Tempomats and self-driving trucks would give people a clue about what's at stake here, you might be mistaken. Mr Hegmann's Wanderlust for pointless venues in this horrible story is unsatiable. Why, how about the next item: a reconstruction of...

.... the truck's itinerary through Europe! What a shocker of a header:

"RECONSTRUCTION: IT ALL BEGAN IN TURIN"





No scumbag, it "did not all begin in Turin". It all began in the 7th century in Camelfuckerland on the Arabian Peninsula, where a murderous inhumane pervert by the name of Mohammed started spreading his insane message to kill the unbelievers. THAT's what happened here, a muslim terrorist heeding a 1,400 year old call from a syphilis-ridden leering child molester and ruthless killer.

But of course we don't get to see it that way. Instead, we are treated to the fascinating story of the Polish driver... loading his truck with square steel tubes in Turin. Just about ANYTHING is okay if only Mr Hegmann can avoid the dreaded words "muslim", "jihad", "islamic terrorist":

"Der polnische Fahrer Lukasz Robert U., geboren am 16. Februar 1979, belädt im italienischen Turin seinen Sattelschlepper vom Typ Scania mit 25 Tonnen Vierkantrohren aus Stahl. Diese waren von der ThyssenKrupp Schulte GmbH bestellt worden. Die Lieferung der Rohre sollte plangemäß eigentlich erst am Dienstag erfolgen."

Translation:

"The Polish driver Lukasz Robert U., born on February 16, 1979, loads his Scania truck in Turin, in Italy, with 25 tonnes of Square Steel tubes. These had been ordered by ThyssenKrupp Schulte GmbH. Delivering the steel would, if everything had gone as planned, have taken place on Tuesday..."

Notwithstanding the brave efforts of Lukasz Robert U., who by all accounts, like a Real Pole, died fighting the muslim terrorist, is there any sane person who can explain what the story of ThyssenKrupp Schulte ordering 25 tonnes of steel tubes in Italy has got to do with this latest islamic terror act???

Anybody?

It might help to digest this journalistic garbage if one were able to wield such a steel tube and smash Mr Hegmann's head with it. It might even make a better person of him.

But alas, like it or not, this is the real world. BBC did not write "A truck killed 12 people" in some parallel universe, it really wrote it in our world. And Die WELT really gave us insight in Tempomats and steel tubes from Turin.

Leftists are INSANE.

And the US really dodged a bullet on Nov 9.

No, not a bullet. An artillery shell, rather. This is The Donald adressing the Berlin islamic terror attack:






Upon reading that, I got a distinct "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall" feeling. I guess there's still hope for the US.

As for Europe...

... not so much, reading the tweets from 99 per cent of its politicians. Less than a day has gone by, and it's onwards to the next islamic slaughterfest.



MFBB.

NEW DOCUMENTARY: "HATE SPACES: THE POLITICS OF INTOLERANCE ON CAMPUS".

Miriam Elman over at Legal Insurrection, the blog of William A. Jacobson, Clinical Professor of Law at Cornell Law School, has a film review up on a 70-minute documentary dealing with the rampant and increasing anti-semitism at US universities:

"What’s happening to Jewish and pro-Israel students on many American universities and colleges from coast to coast is horribly ugly. On “hotspot campuses” the problem is only getting worse.

“Hate Spaces: The Politics of Intolerance on Campus”, a new 70 minute documentary recently released by the organization Americans for Peace and Tolerance, chronicles the rampant anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activism prevalent on many of America’s institutions of higher learning..."

Below is a kind of 10-minute 'trailer' by Avi Goldwasser, the executive producer, writer and director of “Hate Spaces: The Politics of Intolerance on Campus”:





For some background, check out this article over at USA Today College, November 3, 2016:

"Jewish students face rising in antisemitism on campus:

Anti-Semitic activity on U.S. campuses continues to be on the rise. A 2016 study conducted by the AMCHA Initiative, an organization that seeks to combat anti-Semitism on college campuses, found the number of incidents involving “the suppression of Jewish students’ freedom of speech and assembly” doubled from last year.

“We’re really concerned for this new year,” said Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, AMCHA’s cofounder and director. “(Anti-Semitic behavior) really tends to completely shut down and obliterate the presence, the opinion and the safe space for one particular group. It’s not a matter of incivility, it’s a matter of intolerance.”

As reported by Newsweek, more than a dozen Jewish student events were violently disrupted this year at schools coast to coast, including Boston University, University of Maryland and University of Florida. And on the University of California campuses, anti-Semitic graffiti reading, “Zionists should be sent to the gas chamber” has appeared on the walls of buildings, and a UCLA student’s impartiality on a judicial board was questioned due to her involvement in the Jewish community..."

The following map details the prevalence of anti-semitic incidents on US campuses:





Hmmm, that map reminds me of another map:





Indeed, as per usual the rise in antisemitism can safely be attributed to our leftist do gooder fellas and self-declared persons of tolerance and diversity. But it's not only them, it's also, possibly foremost:





... our good friends the muslims.


Wherever they roam, they cause trouble, they are a pain in the *ss, they wreak havoc. You should really check out all photos at the end of Elman's article.

Muslims do seem incurable. When will the rest of humanity finally acknowledge the inherently vile nature of islam?



MFBB.