SWISS SHOW SOME SANITY: REFERENDUM FORBIDS BUILDING OF MORE MINARETS.

From YNet News, 29 November:

"Swiss voters back ban on minarets in referendum.

In what is being called 'huge surprise,' about 57.5% of citizens accept far-right call to oppose 'Islamization of Switzerland'. Result certain to embarrass country's neutral government.

Swiss voters approved a ban on construction of new minarets on Sunday, a surprise result certain to embarrass Switzerland's neutral government. The Swiss news agency ATS and other media said about 57.5% of voters and all but four of the 26 cantons approved the proposal in the nationwide referendum, which was backed by the right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP). The government and parliament had rejected the initiative as violating the Swiss constitution, freedom of religion and the country's cherished tradition of tolerance. The government had said a ban could "serve the interests of extremist circles". "


The vote against the building of more minarets is a huge blow for the Swiss government, which had beforehand stated that it was strongly against holding the referendum. For the Liberal Democrats and the Christian Democrats in the four-party coalition that is the Swiss government, the explanation for their reluctance is clear: they fear backlash from the muslim world which has gigantic assets in their country. The ties go beyond the merely financial aspect though: the prime organization of the salafist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, opened its first and most influential embassy in Geneva. It was headed by a certain... Said Ramadan, father of you-know-who. But back to the Swiss government. In the case of the third party making up the current coalition, the socialists (the fourth party is the rightwing SVP, which called for the referendum), there is like in every European country the evident dhimmitude and self-loathing element which lies at the base of their opposition to the popular vote. Here, too, the Swiss leftists have been tripping over each other to import and accommodate as many immigrants as possible, especially muslims. In this regard it is impossible to get around a person like Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey. On the photo you see her in 2008, at the occasion of the signing of a dubious gas deal with Iran. But there is more to this lady under that veil than you would expect. She was the first Swiss official to protest vehemently the refusal of the Bush administration to grant a visa to Tariq Ramadan, islam's "leading intellectual" in Europe and a citizen of Geneva. And in the same year as her controversial encounter with Ahmadinejad, she stated in front of the international press that she would be okay with direct talks with Osama Bin Laden to end the terrorist threat. I am not kidding:

GENEVA - Switzerland's foreign minister told top diplomats on Monday she favours direct talks with Osama bin Laden to tackle the threat of terrorism. Micheline Calmy-Rey, who has raised both eyebrows and hackles with her controversial style, told Swiss ambassadors gathered in the capital Bern that they needed to talk to "heavyweight political figures" on the world stage even if they are considered persona non grata by other powers. "This even goes as far as sitting down at the same table as Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden," she said. Switzerland does not have any list of banned organisations to which it will not talk, unlike other countries. Calmy-Rey said that groups as diverse as Hezbollah, the FARC guerrillas in Colombia, Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka and the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda are all "essential in the search for a resolution" of different conflicts worldwide.

It's only natural that Calmy-Rey & Co. would like to have as many minarets as possible spoiling the Alpine skyline. Expect a lot of bruhaha in the coming days from their corner hinting at the racist edge in the Swiss popular vote, and it wouldn't surprise me if they wouldn't try to look for means to circumv.... hold on a second, did I say "coming days"??? Silly me!!! Haha, barely an hour after the result got known, the chairman of the Swiss Greens and a comrade of Calmy-Rey (though his party does not participate in the government), Ueli Leuenberger, called SVP's initiative "unconstitutional" and stated that he would bring the referendum's outcome to the European Court for Human Rights.

Who would have thunk it???

Swiss, stick to your guns. And I mean that also literally, knowing that you have plenty.



MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT BRING YOU DOWN SONGS.

I got to know Radiohead and Thom Yorke with this number. Creep was released in 1992 and initially attracted negative reviews, with al-Beeb even blacklisting it because it was "too depressing". It took an Israeli DJ to propel it and Radiohead's debut album Pablo Honey to stardom in 1993. Sixteen years later I still consider it one of their most powerful songs, if not the ultimate one.





I suppose you don't expect me to come up with an Italian lawyer, but here I am, with 1987's Max from Paolo Conte, the Italian answer to our Jacques Brel or France's George Brassens. It's from the album Aguaplano, with which he broke through in Europe, though he had been making music for mre than a decade in his homeland. Sorry if this number brings you down a little too, but it's dripping in melancholy because Mr. Conte is mourning a friend, recently deceased at the time.





Absolutely marvellous ballad from Cracker, a Californian alternative rock band around singer David Lowery and guitarist Johnny Hickman. The Big Dipper, from the 1996 album The Golden Age.






MFBB.

TRAVESTY OF THE WEEK.

I don't know how it is with you, but for me the shocker of the week was this.

Now, look at the photo. Who would be the man hanging on that bridge there, or rather what remains of him? Would it be Scott Helvenston? Or Michael Teague? Or Wesley Batalona? Or Jerry Zovko?



Via FOX News, November 25:

"Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com. The three, all members of the Navy's elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called a captain's mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named "Objective Amber," told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

Matthew McCabe, a Special Operations Petty Officer Second Class (SO-2), is facing three charges: dereliction of performance of duty for willfully failing to safeguard a detainee, making a false official statement, and assault. Petty Officer Jonathan Keefe, SO-2, is facing charges of dereliction of performance of duty and making a false official statement. Petty Officer Julio Huertas, SO-1, faces those same charges and an additional charge of impediment of an investigation."

I am very sorry to conclude that the cancer of political correctness is eating away at the core of even the US Army. It is, e.g., apparent in the multiculti/diversity insanity which is slowly but persistently undermining the combat effectiveness of US Armed Forces. It is also apparent in the unjustified respect a General Casey pays to a monstrous and disgusting belief system called islam when he states loud and clear that anti-muslim backlash would be worse than 50 plus people murdered and/or wounded. And it is again apparent in a woolly do-goodery promo film for the US Navy which raises the question whether that institution should remain what it was meant to be, an apparatus to keep the peace by breaking things if necessary, or whether it should in time become the world's biggest toy and candy distributing NGO. If this stream of nonsencical stories continues, soon, all the US Army will need to make the picture complete is a union.

Let me now ask the same question, who would we have here? Scott Helvenston, Jerry Zovko, Wesley Batalona or Michael Teague?




It all doesn't matter, because Lieutenant Colonel Holly Silkman, and the General Casey types higher up for whom she is merely parroting, are more concerned with Ahmed Hashim Abed's bloody upper fucking lip. Back in World War II, BEFORE and AFTER the Malmédy massacre, GI's shot, hell, machinegunned helpless German POWs. As horrible as it was, it did not for one nanomoment lure the top brass in a situation of senseless self-doubt because a.) they WERE CERTAIN, and rightly so, that they were the good guys and the other side the bad guys and b.) they wanted to WIN. When I read stuff like the above, which smells like, say, dog feces you just stepped in (on a hot summer afternoon), I must conclude that too many in the US Army are not certain anymore they are fighting a good war, and neither am I certain that they still want to win:

"... Lt. Col. Holly Silkman, spokeswoman for the special operations component of U.S. Central Command, confirmed Tuesday to FoxNews.com that three SEALs have been charged in connection with the capture of a detainee. She said their court martial is scheduled for January.

United States Central Command declined to discuss the detainee, but a legal source told FoxNews.com that the detainee was turned over to Iraqi authorities, to whom he made the abuse complaints. He was then returned to American custody. The SEAL leader reported the charge up the chain of command, and an investigation ensued. The source said intelligence briefings provided to the SEALs stated that "Objective Amber" planned the 2004 Fallujah ambush, and "they had been tracking this guy for some time."

The Fallujah atrocity came to symbolize the brutality of the enemy in Iraq and the degree to which a homegrown insurgency was extending its grip over Iraq. The four Blackwater agents were transporting supplies for a catering company when they were ambushed and killed by gunfire and grenades. Insurgents burned the bodies and dragged them through the city. They hanged two of the bodies on a bridge over the Euphrates River for the world press to photograph. Intelligence sources identified Abed as the ringleader, but he had evaded capture until September.

The military is sensitive to charges of detainee abuse highlighted in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. The Navy charged four SEALs with abuse in 2004 in connection with detainee treatment."

Post World War II the left achieved two enormous victories. The first is that they convinced the world that Nazis were extreme rightwingers, while of course it's the exact opposite. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid share far more convictions with Heinrich Himmler than Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher do. The second is that the left managed, through their hold on the institutions, the educational system and the media, to get the bulk of their insane theories become widely accepted as common wisdom, to the extent that people do not realize anymore, if they ever realized it, that so many of the fraudulent lies they now take for granted originated from the leftist cookbook. This is illustrated by the fact that while the Left is in retreat in Europe, the so-called victors, Europes rightwing and center-right parties, have almost unconsciously adopted the majority of the left's talking points. Examples? Global Warming. Gay marriage and adoption. Neo-Keynesianism. Multiculturalism. Prosecution of dissenters. Unbridled immigration. Active support for an ideology hellbent on destroying our culture.

In America, the situation is slightly different in that the Left is in power. But Americans should be wary of the European predicament. Even though it now looks as if president Baraka Hussein Mohbama may become a one-termer, the real danger lies in acceptance of this administrations dogmas and achievements. It is why Americans, even if they oust their most anti-American government ever in 2012, they still risk to get stuck forever with its legacy - without even realizing it.

Lt Col Silkman and the top brass she's carrying water for, may think of themselves as being "on the right" - because, after all, it's mostly rightwing inclined people who join the military while it's mostly leftwing people joining, say, Oxfam. The point is, Madam Silkman does not even realize she has part of her mind conditioned by the left. In a NORMAL WORLD, when someone, military or otherwise, would hear that a guy who orchestrated the murder and an ensuing mutilation defying belief of people actually helping that guy's country, received a punch on the upper lip, he or she would shrug or laugh.

In a world increasingly turning insane, the guy who allegedly administered the punch is court-martialled. But then again, what do you expect when a muslim terrorist who literally waged WAR on US citizenry with the most massive projectiles ever and hundreds of tons of kerosene, will be tried in a CIVILIAN court with all the prerogatives that entails, and to add insult to injury in the most perverse manner ever...





... just blocks away from where this victim of his, and countless others, fell to their death.


I never thought I'd buy a line from Oliver Stoned one day, but I do now. It's from Platoon, a film I didn't realize at the time was projecting that same leftozoid nonsense we've been stuck with for five decades now. That line is: "the enemy is inside us".

It certainly is.

Hey America!

Come to your senses.




MFBB.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Ladies, I NEVER claimed I was a gentleman.


MFBB.

THE GAZA-IZATION OF FRANCE.

Via François Desouche, appalling stories of what is happening daily all over France...

*Var: ten youths arrested. They are suspected of being the perpetrators of a series of deliberate arsons at Brignoles and at Val, which destroyed more than forty vehicles, three buses and about fifty garbage containers. While waiting for their trial, scheduled for 10 February 2010, the four majors were placed under house arrest, to avoid the risk of being subjected to "pressure". The six minors, aged between 14 and 17, have been led before a judge for minors who had placed them under judicial control. Several months of investigation have been necessary for the police being able to identify the perpetrators.


* Wattrelos: a hellish night in the Vieille-Place neighorhood. On 19 November, the torching of one car led to a domino effect setting several more cars on fire as well as a gas supply tube. Result: six cars totally demolished, three houses severely damaged. "It was a genuine fireworks display", said a resident. Faced with endemic criminality, the autochtons can't take it no more: "Every two days there's cars set on fire", an exhausted local fulminates.


* Tours: a hot night at Rives-du-Cher. Last Wednesday, the storage depot for waste bins of a HLM building was ravaged by the flames during the evening. The fumes climbed to the eighth floor. "In my twenty years of living here, it's the first time I see a fire of such magnitude", says the building's guard. During the night, two vehicles and a bus stall were equally destroyed. Exhausted, numerous indigenous Frenchmen don't hide anymore the fact that they can't take it no more as well as their intention to "leave the neighborhood".

Read this article if you want to know more about the desperate situation of the indigenous French in Rives-du-Cher. Ethnic cleansing by muslims, in full swing where once Charles Martel beat the invading muslims.


Unlike a gazillion other places in France, the Champs Elysées was lucky after the victory of Algeria over Egypt in a soccer match in Sudan. All that happened was:

« França frança m’ta3na », « Sarkouzi 7imaroun », voilà les slogans qui se mêlaient aux cris de joie et de victoire des supporters de l’équipe d’Algérie.»

Translation: "France is ours! Sarkozy is a donkey!"

Sad spectacle in Marseille every Friday afternoon. François Desouche again:

... Every Friday, streets in the center of Marseille are completely forbidden for cars and passersby, and this completely without authorization of the town council, to permit muslims to pray in public and listen to sermons in arabic relayed by loudspeakers..."

"La rue Recolettes est ainsi interdite aux non-musulmans et même aux non-priants ainsi que la rue perpendiculaire jusqu'au Cour Belsace..."

Translation: "Recolette street is forbidden for non-muslims and even for those [muslims] who do not pray, as well as in the perpendicular street leading to the Cour Belsace..."


A gruseome nightmare is engulfing Europe.



MFBB.

Cold Busted

I've been waiting for this to happen for years now:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ikaqlFpp9jCRHWN0zNuamKXfyeMgD9C441LG0

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/11/024996.php

Yes, Man Made Global Warming™ turns out to be a massive fraud. The people behind this need to be taken behind the woodshed. And yes, you liberals who believed every word of this crap with religious zeal just lost 100% of your credibility as "supporters of science" and being serious thinkers who are too sophisticated for religion. You never questioned what you were being told, because it lined up with your ideology. You were led like sheep, while the simple minded conservatives were the ones who actually used their brains and realized that there was a distinct lack of science behind the "science" of MMGW™. Congratulations for being on the wrong side of the biggest scientific scandal in history, and good luck being taken seriously when you try to use scientific data to support your next leftist religious movement.

SATURDAY NIGHT CHEER UP MUSIC.

Wendy Mc Donald, priceless 1996 song and video by Spookey Ruben, a Canadian alternative rocker from Toronto. Rather distinctive sound consisting of mixed acoustic and electric guitars and swapping between high and low vocals. His father was a space engineer, hence probably the shots in the video.





Little Green Bag will forever be linked to Quentin Tarantino's 1992 debut film Reservoir Dogs, one of my all-time favourites btw. It was the debut single of the Dutch pop group the George Baker Selection, which, apart from Little Green Bags, produced otherwise rather cheesy stuff. Old enough Dutchmen peeking in will remember Paloma Blanca, and their eartips are coloring red as we speak. George Baker is the artist name of singer and guitarist Johannes Bouwens. Either way, I can't think of a better intro for this brilliant movie. And whatever happened to Tim Roth? And Michael Madsen?






MFBB.

CULTURAL ENRICHMENT IN TOULOUSE AND ANDERLECHT.

Post upcoming about the appointment of Belgian PM Herman Van Rompuy to EU President, but since not ready yet here two appetizers. If you get sick of it, tomorrow some lighter stuff.

First France. There, Algerians (I will call them Algerians even though they have French passports) tore off the French flag of Toulouse's town hall and replaced it with the Algerian flag:





Then Anderlecht, Belgium. Moroccans (I will call them Moroccans because, when a poll shows only 7% of Moroccans with a Belgian passport consider themselves Belgian, it is clear where their loyalties lay) attacked a police station and threw a molotov cocktail in it.






MFBB.

FRANCE FUCKED UP BEYOND BELIEF.

French police is losing control of the streets in virtually all big cities. The followong is a video of a publicity stunt gone wrong when the Belgian (hey yeah, I can't help it) advertising company Rentabiliweb promoting god knows what stuff, distributed envelopes with money for free. The fools had announced it days before so that, on the day the distribution would start, a throng of hundreds if not thousands of Cultural Enrichers had appeared on the foot of the Eiffel Tower, where Mailorama, the French branch of Rentabiliweb, would hand out the envelops. Realizing there wouldn't be enough for the 7,000 or more persons who had turned up, Mailorama canceled the event at the last moment. That's when the fun started for real.




No one has to give me or any of the decent people out there money. I suppose you, like me, work for it. Not so for the scum you see in the video. Apparently thousands of "youths" can hang out in the middle of the day in Paris, doing nothing but nevertheless feeling "entitled" to checks for free. And when that doesn't turn up, that apparently justifies demolishing the neighborhood.


Another telling example of French police incapable of asserting its power on the streets in Marseille, when after a soccer match Egypt-Algeria on November 14, which ended in defeat for the latter, all hell broke loose. And not only in Marseille. A majority of muslims in France are Algerians, and apparently they think that if their country loses a soccer match thousands of kilometers away, those stupid French should pay for that. Btw, it really is their country first and foremost, a situation which reminds me of my country, where 93% of Moroccans or people of Moroccan descent feel first like Moroccans and then - possibly - like Belgians. Anyway, in France a soccer match Egypt-Algeria ending in 2-0 is reason enough for this scum to terrorize the Marseille natives and set boats in Marseille's port on fire:








Of course, it's not only the police that get the rough treatment. Firefighters too are subject to insults and beatings. They are molested, thrown rocks and iron bars at, in some cases lynched. Same goes for medical personnel. More info here. Sorry, it's in French and I got no time to translate. Let me conclude that I suspect the usual assholes will show up claiming this has nothing to do with Islam. It has EVERYTHING to do with Islam, which teaches its adherents to despise the West, even though we have given them everything - free education, housing, food, decent medical treatment - with which to succeed in our society. That all, plus the mindboggling attitude of the lefist elites who, even on the funeral pyre of our civilization, stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the horror now engulfing Europe and keep feeding the indigenous Europeans fairytales through the media and the education apparatus, which are overwhelmingly in their hands in all European countries.

While these traitorous idiots keep spouting their vicious les, at the same time, all over Europe, thousands of mosques are being constructed. The photo below shows the mosque of Poitiers, nearing completion. It will have a 21-meter high minaret equipped with loudspeakers and high-power light projectors, and these won't be for playbacking Britney Spears. During the years this abomination was under construction, an estimated 400,000 Iraqi Christians were forced to flee from their country under threat of death, Algeria closed churches by the tens, and persecution and mistreatment of the remains of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism in a great many predominantly muslim countries were continued more intensively than ever. Curiously, facts like these elude the attention of our moral betters, who insist that we have to trust the intrinsic capacity for self-emancipation of the muslim world.





Just so that you know who's the new boss. In Poitiers, of all places. Charles Martel is spinning in his grave.

One last thing.

The mayor of Poitiers, Jacques Santrot, is a member of the Parti Socialiste.

I suspect however, that you suspected that already.



MFBB.

AFGHANISTAN UPDATE.

News from the Belgian contingent in Afghanistan is hard to come by, but since last summer there's a sketchy overview every week via a pdf document downloadable from the MoD website. Currently, Belgium has about 600 plus military personnel in Afghanistan, active in south, east and north Afghanistan.

Operating from KAF (Kandahar Airfield) in Afghanistan's south are six F-16 fighter bombers, which are flying combat missions daily. Crews, ground personnel and a protection squad account for about 125 men. Many flights are recce and "scare" flights, but about every week or so the jets are requested to engage ground targets. E.g., the MoD overview file for 28 0ct/4 Nov states that two F-16's destroyed two 107mm rocket launching sites which were threatening KAF. The weapons used were laser-guided GBU-12 Paveway II bombs.





Then there is the 300-strong detachment securing KAIA (Kabul International Airport). They guard the innermost perimeter, this for both military and civil aviation (besides, the latter is becoming ever more important). The detachment has been there for aeons now (2002, to be exact), and even though it must be one of the safest assignments in the whole of Afghanistan, it's a wonder that apart from a couple of wounded now and then there haven't been fatalities. It is composed of a variety of subunits and changed every three months. Every new batch is transported from Belgium to Dushanbe, Tajikistan with airbuses, then from there to Kabul with C-130's. The 15th Transport Wing has constantly about three to four of these old but reliable and recently updated transports in service between KAIA and Dushanbe, and regularly provides transport services for our allies too. Aviation freaks may be interested to know that the Belgian Air Force will replace its Hercules transports with the Airbus A 400M, but delays in the programme have postponed the first delivery to 2012 at the earliest. As a sidenote, the problems have been such that several countries (Italy, Portugal, South Africa) involved in the project have already quit or cancelled their orders. Which is a shame imho, since the A400M will be a magnificent transport plane once it is operational, capable of delivering a payload of 30 tonnes over a distance of 2450 nautical miles.




Third, a small platoon-sized EOD group of about thirty men is embedded with the Germans in Kunduz. While not in an actual combat role, this group has made itself extremely useful in that it has, over the past three years or so, neutralised or otherwise destroyed litterally tens of thousands of explosives, mostly mines and mortar rounds:




Fourth, a 70-strong OMLT (Operational Mentoring and Liasion Team) is operational also near Kunduz, where they are responsble for the training of an ANA infantry battalion. This is actually Belgium's only ground combat engagement, for while this troop is not supposed to be fighting taliban, the nature of their work implies that they come under fire regularly. The MoD entry for 1 and 2 November e.g. reads that the OMLT and the battalion it is "coaching" were engaged east of Kunduz. Rather exceptionally the Belgian EOD team was present too, clearing IED's around a place called Basoz. After the mission, the 2nd ANA battalion (kandak in Pashtun), the OMLT, and the EOD team moved to Chahar Dareh, but were still taken under fire.




The Belgian camo, see the instructor, is quite good given the bleak surroundings, but the camo of the ANA soldiers strikes me as incongruous. These guys stand out like sores and must be easy targets. You wonder who came up with the folly of kaki in a desert battleground.

A second OMLT team, about thirty-five men strong, will arrive in Afghanistan towards the end of November. They will bring the total of Belgian military personnel in Afghanistan to about 650.

All in all it's not that bad, but still not comparable with the Dutch mission in Afghanistan, which has seen fierce and unfortunately bloody ground combat for a couple of years now. Even so, it's amazing what a difference a government with half of the socialists out can accomplish. The complicated political situation in Belgium has led to a coalition in which the Flemish socialists find themselves in the opposition, while the Walloon socialists are still in the government. Luckily, not in a position where they can do much damage to Belgium's NATO responsibilities: the current Secretary of Defense, Pieter De Crem, is a center-right Christian Democrat and a far more competent personality than his predecessor, the catastrophic André Flahaut of the Parti Socialiste. The current Belgian PM, Herman Van Rompuy, also a Christian Democrat, can be cautiously labeled center-right too. He is actually tipped for the post of EU President, but I'd rather have - and I mean that very honestly - that he stays on his post, because we finally have a degree of stability here. A stability that not only allows us to come up with a more than symbolic military presence near our allies in AF, but also a stability that is rather business-friendly, as opposed to a situation where you have politicians in charge who see the private sector as enemies, like in some recent governments. I guess this is one of the reasons why Belgium, even though we too have seen a rather troublesome surge in unemployment figures, has until now withered the economic crisis relatively well. But more about that later. Time allowing.



MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT PORNO FOR PYROS, ROGER DALTREY.

Pets, the only single drawn from Porno for Pyros' debut album of 1993. PfP was formed by Perry Farrell and Stephen Perkins, both ex Jane's Addiction. Farrel was also the father of the touring festival Lollapalooza, of which I'm not sure it still continues.





What can I say? Rock with balls. Roger Daltrey CBE with "Say it ain't so, Joe", actually a Murray Head cover. One of my all-time favorites.





Nite.


MFBB.

VETERANS DAY 2009.

Just a couple of minutes ago, I could slap myself on the head for not having the appropriate cable right now to extract a number of photos from my digital camera, for on its memory card are several very relevant shots related to the battles around Nieuwpoort during WWI. Those photos were of commemmoration plaques of British and French soldiers who fell defending the Belgian coast town of Nieuwpoort in 1914-1915 - in Europe, Armistice Day as it is called here, or at least in my country, is still very much a "Great War" related event, as opposed to the broader concept it seems to have in Anglosaxon countries.

However, when I remembered I had a set of recent shots of WWII vets I thought I could just as well post from them. I took them in Oosterbeek near Arnhem, The Netherlands, about one month and a half ago. A business trip had taken me to Germany and, matters concluded there, I discovered I could make the return trip in about the same time going over Arnhem. It was the perfect occasion for a quick visit to Hotel Hartenstein in Oosterbeek, which was the HQ for the British 1st Airborne Division during those fateful days in September 1944, when Operation Market Garden was in full swing and upon it success depended whether the war could be ended that same year.

However, Market Garden faltered. The fact that a 100 km long corridor had been wrestled from German control did not matter, for it was leading nowhere. The British 1st Airborne Division was virtually annihilated, with barely 2,200 troops making it back to Allied lines. As all WWII buffs know, Market Garden required the capture of five crucial bridges across Dutch canals and rivers, and crossing the last and northernmost one across the Rhine in Arnhem would put the Allies in a situation from where they could storm unhampered either by natural obstacles or the Siegfried Line across northern Germany to Berlin. Of the about 10,000 paras and glider troops which landed near Arnhem on September 17 and subsequent days, only around 600 or so, constituting the bulk of Lt. Col. John Frost's battalion plus some scattered divisional subunits, made it to the bridge across the Rhine in Arnhem's centre. Unable to capture it entirely, they dug in around the northern end where they withstood the German armoured onslaught for several days. When they were finally defeated, what remained of the 1st Airborne concentrated in the village of Oosterbeek, some six kilometers west of Arnhem, whence the survivors were finally evacuated across the Rhine not one week later.

Today, Hotel Hartenstein in Oosterbeek's west has been beautifully restored, and it houses a splendid museum full of dioramas and artifacts. When I arrived there in the afternoon of a late September day, there happened to be a few vets around - which was no coincidence, since the fateful events of September 44 took place almost day to day 65 years ago. Below you see a snapshot of three Brits, I assume once all belonging to 1st Airborne, together with a Dutch lady. The troopers must now be in their late eighties - as for the lady, she said she was a teenager living in Oosterbeek at the time, so she must be in her late seventies. Meeting with these old warriors who, in the mist of time, liberated her from the yoke of nazi tyranny, was obviously a very moving moment for her - as it was to all of us tourists standing around.





A few passes further, behind the hotel, I took a photo of this small monument. In outward appearance it is not impressive, however upon reading the text with which it was emblazoned I felt I could not simply walk by it:




How... utterly true. But then of course, so many men laid down their lives back then not just for their friends, but for an entire population. Men not only from the 1st British Airborne, but also from the British XXX Corps, allied aircrews, and last but not least from the US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, units which TODAY... sixty five years later, are AGAIN in the field, fighting an enemy which is every bit as inhuman as the nazi oppressor.

To all those warriors from past and present times, I - we - want to say

"Thank you for your Service".

God bless.


MFBB.

WHORENALISTSPOTTING.

A.) Belgian daily Het Laatste Nieuws, 6 November: "BLOODBATH ON ARMY BASE BECAUSE PSYCHIATRIST HAD TO GO TO IRAQ".






B.) Belgian "top" daily De Standaard, 6 November: "MAJOR HASAN DID NOT SEE THE MEANING OF WAR"






C.) DUTCH TV BROADCASTER NOS: "HASAN DID NOT WANT TO GO TO AFGHANISTAN".





Mark Steyn says it best on NRO's The Corner:

NUTS [Mark Steyn]

For the purposes of argument, let's accept the media's insistence that Major Hasan is a lone crazy.

So who's nuttier?

The guy who gives a lecture to other military doctors in which he says non-Muslims should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats?

Or the guys who say "Hey, let's have this fellow counsel our traumatized veterans and then promote him to major and put him on a Homeland Security panel?

Or the Army Chief of Staff who thinks the priority should be to celebrate diversity, even unto death?

Or the Secretary of Homeland Security who warns that the principal threat we face now is an outbreak of Islamophobia?

Or the president who says we cannot "fully know" why Major Hasan did what he did, so why trouble ourselves any further?

Or the columnist who, when a man hands out copies of the Koran before gunning down his victims while yelling "Allahu akbar," says you're racist if you bring up his religion?

Or his media colleagues who put Americans in the same position as East Germans twenty years ago of having to get hold of a foreign newspaper to find out what's going on?

...

We have nothing to fear except ourselves.



MFBB.

THE GUARDIAN REGRETS THE DEMISE OF THE GDR.

At the 20-year anniversary of the fall of the Wall, The Guardian openly regrets the demise of the cruel dictatorship that the GDR was:





Quick reality check. The Boston Globe, May 2006:

"Matthias Melster, 40, says he still suffers nightmares from his time at Hohenschoenhausen, a notorious Stasi prison that today serves as a museum. He was inmate number 312. As with all Stasi prisoners, his guards and interrogators addressed him only by the number of his solitary confinement cell. Melster was more fortunate than most inmates -- he at least knew why he was shoved into a windowless van in 1987 and hauled away to prison. He and his girlfriend had plotted an escape to West Germany, a major offense.

``I liked the idea of freedom, and that made me an it antisocial element," Melster recalled as he led visitors along the same dimly lit corridors through which he was frog-marched as a terrified teenager. He passed rows of solid cell doors to the monotone chamber -- looking like the lair of the blandest of bureaucrats, with its wooden-veneer desk, clunky telephone, and metal file cabinet -- where he was grilled 10 hours a day for five months before being sent to another prison.

``At first you think, `I'll tell them nothing,' " Melster said. ``In the end, you tell them everything. Whatever they want to know, you tell."

Melster's life has never quite gotten back on track. He's nervous. He chain-smokes. His voice is flat, affectless. ``Was I beaten? No, I was never beaten. I have no scars to show," Melster said.

``Stasi torture was psychological. It was sleep deprivation and disorientation," he said. ``It was intimidation through insinuation -- the guard who would start screaming and touching his weapon, as if you were just seconds away from a bullet. The interrogator whose hints of `worse to come' were somehow more terrible than an actual fist to the face.

``It was months of never seeing another human, except for guards and interrogators. It was never hearing your own name, only your cell number," he said. ``It was being stripped of your humanity, layer by layer."

Sleep deprivation, intimidation through insinuation, months of never seeing another human, except for guards and interrogators. Hmmmm. Where have we heard that before? It's on the tip of my tongue...

... got it! The Guardian!




Hey, if there happens to be a The Guardian sonofabitch out there reading this, I just want you to know that I consider you a piece of shit and that I'd like to kick you in the balls!

That's all. good night!


MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT TEXAS, THOMAS TALLIS

Inner smile, a hit by UK band Texas, which formed in Glasgow in 1986. And if Mr Ghost thinks it's Old Fogey Night again, the second clip takes thou back to 1580 or so. Texas prolly sounds like an incongruous name for a Scottish band but they took it reportedly from the 1984 Wim Wenders movie 'Paris, Texas'. Wenders is an artsy fartsy German film director, emphasis on f.a.r.t., and also a f*cking leftist asshat, and it's always pretty cool to hang round these guys or connect in one way or another when you're in zhe muzik biznes. FYI, another Scottish band, Travis, featured here before, are named after the lead character in Paris, Texas; yet other Scots, Primal Scream, sampled actress Natassja Kinski on one of their albums; the movie reportedly inspired the U2 album The Joshua Tree; for Kurt Cobain it was the best movie he'd ever seen... so,...

... where was I? Oh yeah, artsy movies by leftozoid directors attract cool people in the music industry. Either way, I've always liked Texas (the band). It's not that I'm that greatly impressed, but they have a string of reasonable hits. As for singer Sharleen Spiteri, it's one of those women I've been asking myself my entire life whether they're hot or not. I'm still not decided, maybe someone out there can help me with it.





Then the movie adaptation of Fantasia, an orchestral piece dating from 1910 by British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958). For the movie it was cut short to about five minutes, but normally it lasts about thrice as long. Fantasia is itself an adaptation if you want from a much earlier work, a theme by Thomas Tallis (1505-1585), an acclaimed church composer and organist in 16th century England. Tallis' talent was such that not only was he sought after by high-ranking employers, from famous abbeys and cathedrals to a series of Kings and Queens, but also that it let him survive the religious strife between catholics and protestans (from founder of the Anglican Church Henry VIII over the Catholic Queen Mary to Queen Elizabeth again). Having written music solely for churches and royal chapels, it should come as no surprise that Vaughan Williams' adaptation is 'made' to resemble church music and indeed, Fantasia, though it is to be performed by a string orchestra, 'sounds' like an organ. The string orchestra is to be divided in three parts: one a full sized string orchestra (the 'great division'), the second a single desk from each section (the 'choir division'), and the third a string quartet (the 'swell division').




As for the movie, it was quite good. Russel Crowe convinces as the tough captain who outsmarts the enemy, courageously leads his men into battle, and in a heavy storm does not hesitate to cut off rigging keeping a broken mast tied behind the ship, threatening to sink it - but in doing so he dooms a sailor thrown overboard who's still clinging to the rigging. Fantasia plays during this scene.



MFBB.

IN MEMORIAM FORT HOOD VICTIMS.

Unfortunately, I do not have all the names of the deadly victims of the shooting rampage. These are the ones I found:

Michael Pearson, 21
Amy Krueger, 29
Jason Dean Hunt, 22
John Gaffaney, 56
Kham Xiong, 23
Aaron Thomas Nemelka,19 Russel Seager, 51
Francheska Velez, 21, and unborn child


What I found especially heartbreaking was that Ms. Velez was pregnant and that her unborn child... is yet another terrible loss.

Please save a prayer for all those people and their loved ones, as well as for the wounded. This tragedy also reminds us that our countries lose brave soldiers and civilians EVERY DAY in a fight with a monstrous foe. It's not that their deaths are overlooked on this blog or forgotten, but such is the power of names and identities when that foe strikes so close that the victims suddenly get a name and a face.

MFBB.

FRANCE COMMITTING SUICIDE.

Just a street in Puteaux, west of Paris, on a Friday afternoon...





Via François Desouche, we learn that the mayor actually gave permission for this blocking of the street. Believe it or not, this is the genuine wording of the permission:

"Nous vous informons que la prière dans la rue est possible avec l’aimable autorisation de la mairie de Puteaux, ainsi que la collaboration de la police municipale qui ferme la rue tous les vendredis pendant toute la durée de la prière. »

Translation:

"We inform you that prayer in the street is possible with the kind authorization of the municipal authorities, as well as with the cooperation of the police which will close off the street all fridays for the entire duration of the prayer."

Readers will recall that in certain neighborhoods in Paris itself, muslims did not wait for "kind authorization" and blocked the streets themselves. Either way, the result is the same. I don't know how it is with you, but upon seeing this I have a terrible case of déjà vu. It's Vichy all over again.

Most muslims you see on the photo are Algerians or of Algerian descent. While the mairie is happily granting permission to block an entire street for muslim purposes (and greatly annoy its indigenous inhabitants in the process)...

... Algeria is happily closing Christian churches, and severely prosecuting the pathetically small Christian minority there.

When you look at the following video, do this thought exercise. Imagine that Christians block an entire street in Algiers like that, and high-volume broadcast the priest's sermon and Gregorian songs via loudspeakers. Even assuming they would be able to get set up at all, in no time there would be a terrible riot, they would be viciously attacked by a muslim mob, and Algerian police would, instead of helping and protecting them, partake in the beatings and arrest as many as possible.

But in Puteaux, the reverse situation is not only permitted, but actively facilitated at the expense of genuine, native French:





The French are pathetic. Speaking of French, you don't hear it much, huh?


MFBB.

SANFORD ROBINSON GIFFORD (1823-1880).

Today there was such a fucking shitload of depressing news again, a.o. the European Court of Human Rights ordering Italian schools to remove crucifixes, Russia and White Russia doing live exercises simulating an attack on Poland (included in the scenario were nukes), and the goddam scumbag of the mayor of Marseille wanting to grant a building permit to yet another giant mosque...

... that I decided to post something different lest I don't get completely nuts of it all.

The two plates below depict well-known works by American painter Sanford Robinson Gifford (1823 – 1880), a landscape painter of the so-called Luminist school. Luminism, is actually an offshoot of the Hudson River school. It is characterized by its emphasis on light effects in landscapes, and often breathe an aura of tranquility, an effect in many a case attained by depicting calm, still waters under soft, hazy skies.

Gifford traveled extensively to find scenic landscapes, both in the US's northeast and in Europe. During the Civil War, he was a Union soldier, serving as a Corporal in the 7th Regiment of the New York militia. New York City's Seventh Regiment is actually still the proud proprietor of several of Gifford's canvases. It was in New York also that this painter who was as gifted as he was prolific (he painted over 700 works) died in 1880 of malarial fever.




Kauterskill Clove (1862)



The Wilderness


Nite. Let's hope the very best for Christie and McDonnell.


MFBB.

BRITS COMPLETELY LOSING IT.

Cambridge University is going to allow burkas at graduation. Via The Sun, November 3:

"Cambridge University issued a clarification to say certain items of national dress, military uniform and religious garments — including the burka — were allowed. Yesterday a spokesman confirmed burkas could be worn under mortar boards but no one had requested it yet. He said: "Religious dress and cultural observations are allowed at graduation. "If a student has a religious or cultural obligation to wear something then we absolutely respect that." Ahsan Mohammed, chairman of the Newmarket mosque committee, praised the decision as "very sensible".

We saw this coming, of course. All through 2009, the British, with the exception of BNP and EDL and a few hapless Tory outcasts, seem to be tripping over each other to transform the UK into Al-bion. A short recap, starting with an article in The Daily Mail, March 31:


A.) MARCH: FEMALE MUSLIM FIREFIGHTERS ISSUED HIJABS:

"... with the fire service anxious to attract recruits of all sexes and backgrounds, it was decided that something had to be done. So yesterday the results were uneveiled, including full-length skirts, hijab headscarfs and long- sleeved shirts for Muslim women recruits. The hope is that the uniforms, designed for wearing round the station and for outings such as school trips, will be smarter and better fitting for every firefighter - even the men.

Fire minister Sadiq Khan added: 'We want the widest range of applicants to apply to join the fire and rescue service. 'To achieve this, it is important that all applicants - men and women - know that the uniform and clothing they will be issued with will not only protect them but will also fit properly and be comfortable.
'The introduction of more appropriately fitted clothing is just one initiative to help to both retain female firefighters and encourage others to consider a fire service career.' 'The uniform now available shows that cultural beliefs are being recognised, as we seek to increase the representation of ethnic minorities within service.'

... Jagtar Singh, spokesman for the Asian Fire Service Association, said: 'We are pleased to note that the fire service is now taking seriously the issues of culture and religious belief when purchasing corporate and protective clothing for fireighters.'

Note that the UK's Fire (and Transport) Minister is a Sadiq Khan, a sunni muslim born and raised in London. He coincidentally belongs to the Labour Party. He is friends with terrorism suspect Babar Ahmad, but that too must be a coincidence.



B.) JULY: AVON AND SOMERSET POLICE ISSUE VEILS FOR NON-MUSLIM FEMALE POLICE OFFICERS;

Britain's Muslims welcome coverings for female police (Al-Arabiya).

The United Kingdom’s female police force will soon have to don the Muslim headscarf if they enter mosques or places of worship while on the job in the force’s latest efforts to respect the religious practices of the country’s religious communities. Avon and Somerset Police has issued two types of head coverings to its female officers so they can enter mosques while on duty. Embroidered with the West Country force's name and logo, the scarves come in to colors to match two types of uniforms.The blue is designed for the Police community Support Officer uniform while the black headscarf matches the uniform of the standard police officer.

“This is a very positive addition to the Avon and Somerset uniform and one which I'm sure will be a welcome item for many of our officers," Jackie Roberts, Assistant chief Constable for Avon and Somerset, said told the Times online.

The Metropolitan police, the largest and most diverse U.K. force, said the new uniform addition was adopted after consultations with the British Muslim community in a joint project with the Aklima and Mosque Initiatives, which focus on working Muslim women. Rashad Azami, imam of Bath Islamic Society, was pleased with the move, saying it was the right step towards building trust between British Muslims and the U.K. law enforcement establishment.

Assistant Chief Constable Jackie 'This is a very positive addition to the Avon and Somerset uniform' Roberts.


C.) AUGUST: THREE NON-MUSLIM FEMALE OFFICERS PATROL IN SHEFFIELD DRESSED IN NIQABS AND HIJABS.


A Jew with a View writes:

"Two of the policewomen covered their faces completely hijab headscarves and niqab veils, leaving only narrow slits to see through. The third opted for Muslim dress and a headscarf showing her face."

The officers who took part in this madness, Sergeant Deb Leonard, Sergeant Deb Pickering and Police Community Support Officer Helen Turner, all from Sheffield, were accompanied by four Muslim women to help them learn more about the Islamic faith on a tour of the city. In return, the Muslim women were shown around South Yorkshire Police’s custody suite and CCTV office and learned about the day-to-day duties of a police officer. A spokesman for the force said the exercise, called ‘In Your Shoes Day’, was designed to help officers interact better with the Muslim community across Sheffield. But she was also forced to acknowledge that there are no plans for police officers to spend the day dressing up as Hindus, or Sikhs, or Jews, or Catholics or indeed any other faith."

D.) SEPTEMBER: CONSERVATIVE MAYOR URGES NON-MUSLIM BRITISH TO FAST A DAY DURING RAMADAN

Everyone should fast for a day ‘to understand Muslims’, says Boris Johnson
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 5:07 PM on 04th September 2009
London Mayor Boris Johnson today encouraged people to undergo a day of fasting to help understand their ‘Muslim neighbour’.

He said Muslims in the capital were ‘challenging traditional stereotypes’ to show they wanted to be part of the mainstream during a visit to the East London Mosque and London Muslim Centre. Mr Johnson’s visit coincided with the holy period of Ramadan in which participating Muslims fast from dawn until sunset. Boris Johnson arrives at the East London Mosque with his Director of Communication Guto Harri this afternoon where he talked about the need for greater understanding of Muslims
He said: ‘Whether it’s in theatre, comedy, sports, music or politics, Muslims are challenging the traditional stereotypes and showing that they are, and want to be, a part of the mainstream community. '

The howler is that Boris Johnson... is a Conservative.


Jesus Christ.



MFBB.

ANTWERP: KORANIC READER ARRESTED FOLLOWING BURNING ALIVE OF MUSLIM GIRL.

From Belgian daily Het Laatste Nieuws, October 28:





A Moroccan koranic reader, a certain O.G., has been arrested for the murder of 18-year old Layla Hachichi. Three weeks ago the girl's severely burnt body was found in her parents' house in Antwerps Dam neighborhood. Neighbors say the girl, who was lesbian, was the victim of a ritual murder.

According to O.G.'s lawyer however, NOTHING is wrong:

"Koranic reader O.G. services had been sought by Layla's parents to help her with her psychological problems. He has several times read exerpts from the Koran at the girl's home, but never performed any ritual purification. The man has nothing to hide. Besides, he reported himself at the police precinct."

The name of the lawyer? Abderrahim Lahlali. Koinsidens of course.

And what is the explanation of the parents for the gruesome death of their daughter?

That she had burned herself accidently while showering. In the bathroom an electric waterboiler was found.

Yeah right.



MFBB.

PS: pray for this girl, one of hundreds of millions of victims of muslim barbary throughout the ages.