SATURDAY NIGHT FISCHER Z, BOB SEGER.

New wave band Fischer Z with So Long. From the album Going Deaf for a living (1980). Fischer Z is a forgotten band now, and back in the day they never even broke really through in their homeland, the UK. But in western continental Europe there was a brief period in the early eighties when they were quite well known - they did have a string of hits there, a.o. The Worker, So Long, Marliese, You'll never find Brian here.




If singer and guitarist John Watts looks slightly weirdo to you, it may be because before he was a mental health care worker.


Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band with Main Street. From the album Night Moves (1976).





Golden Oldie, eh?


Sorry for the light blogging lately. Completely ruined when I get home. Others are doing real great jobs. Gates of Vienna. Pam Geller. Creeping Sharia. François Desouche. American Thinker. Townhall. The Brussels Journal. Het Vrije Volk. CDR Salamander. And so many, many others. Check 'em out.

But hey, don't let the islamonutters and crazy leftozoids steal the fun out of your life. Make sure to take a break now and then. Life's worth living. To the decent people among our readers: have a nice weekend.



MFBB.

LA PRIMAVERA (ANTONIO VIVALDI).

Never again say I'm a pessimist. It's the onset of winter, and this is La Primavera (Spring), the first of four violin concertos composed by Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (1678-1741). The four violin concertos, known as Le Quattro Stagioni (The Four Seasons) are among the most popular and well-known baroque compositions.





Why post this now? Because I can.



MFBB.

OUTRAGE AT SPEAKER'S CORNER.

From the 'This makes my blood boil' category. Last Sunday, October 24 2010, Gates of Vienna had the scoop of an appalling story:

BREAKING NEWS: RABBI UNABLE TO SPEAK AT SPEAKER'S CORNER

The American rabbi Nachum Shifren is visiting England to meet with members of the English Defence League and express his solidarity with the European resistance to Islamization. See this post at ICLA for a video of a BBC news report featuring Rabbi Shifren. The report describes (in that well-known snarky BBC tone) the growing transatlantic cooperation among groups opposing Islamization.

This afternoon Rabbi Shifren was scheduled to address the crowd at Speakers’ Corner in London. I’ve just received a phone call from an EDL member at the scene, who reports that the rabbi was prevented from speaking by a group of Muslims who effectively occupied Speakers’ Corner.

The rabbi moved to a location a short distance away to give his speech, but was unable to address supporters at Speakers’ Corner itself.

Speakers’ Corner is the epicenter of the tradition of free speech in England. Up until now it has stood as a sanctuary, a sacred place in the heart of English civil liberties.

If you can’t speak out at Speakers’ Corner, then free speech in England is dead.

Originally there were several Speaker's Corners throughout London, and there are some others, far less known, in other countries: Australia, Singapore, The Netherlands (where it is called De Spreeksteen [the Speaking Stone - MFBB], Canada. But when people mention Speaker's Corner then THE Speaker's Corner is meant, the archetypical forum for anyone wishing to address not matter what subject. It's in the northeastern corner of London's Hyde Park, and it was established in the latter half of the nineteenth century after several workers and middle class organizations had adapted the habit of airing their political discontent there. Since then, it has become a place where you can utter no matter what opinion on no matter what subject. Historically, the most notable political speakers have almost always been socialists of socialist theorists (as anyone knows, rightwingers are always working): Karl Marx, Ben Tillet (socialist and trade union leader), Kwame Nkrumah (postcolonial afrosocialist dictator of Ghana, a self-described scientific socialist who ruined his country), William Morris (designer, socialist theorist), Vladimir Lenin etc etc.

Either way, Speaker's Corner is an ICON of Freedom of Speech. Naturally, it attracts its fair number of nutters, and though on any given day you may get to hear some really sensible talk on a variety of subjects, you're just as likely to run into a speech by some colossal nutter. Unfortunately, such was the case with yours truly upon visiting London in 1992, where I took some pics of the raconteurs du jour:






But all that has come to an end now. As Gates of Vienna notes,

If you can’t speak out at Speakers’ Corner, then free speech in England is dead.

Upon reading the GOV entry I became so enraged that I posted a comment about it on Belgium's top political blog, run by Luc Van Braekel. There's a fella commenter there, a lefty commenter. Moniker is "Tjerk" (he might just as well have omitted the first character). This was his reaction:

"Secondly (category: a half-truth is worse than a full-blooded lie) you say that a jewish rabbi was prevented from speaking at Speaker's Corner by muslims, but what you do not say is that it was a Californian rabbi who intended to address a throng hooligans from the English Defense League."

So if you are a rabbi, from CA no less, and if you address EDL people, you have no right to speak. Hmmmm. This comment tells you in a heartbeat that The Netherlands, even though it has produced several contemporary Shining Knights in the defense of Freedom of Speech, is at the same time home to some of the worst politically correct apparatchicks, unfortunately often with far-reaching powers. Like I wrote a big higher up, The Netherlands has its own Speaker's Corner. It's called the Spreeksteen, and it's actually a monument commemorating the filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, who was bestially murdered by a muslim. Check out this wiki entry:

In the Netherlands, there is a permanently designated speakers' corner called the Spreeksteen in Amsterdam. Lawfully, every person has the freedom of speech as a matter of right. In practice, there is considerable ambiguity which gives mayors and other authorities the semi-lawful powers to prevent or distort free speech. The 'Spreeksteen' is open for free speech 24-hours a day, and was established to allow complete free speech. The 'Spreeksteen' has been located in the Oosterpark in Amsterdam since May 5, 2005, and has been erected by a citizens action after the brutal murder of film-maker and columnist Theo van Gogh. Plans for bringing the Amsterdam Speakers' Corner online with a permanent camera and microphone are in a phase of installation. In the meantime the speakers are filmed with a hand-held camera.[8]

The Spreeksteen was involved in controversy when they allowed Michiel Smit, a extreme rightist, to speak on October 1, 2006. Antifascists used noise to prevent Smit from being heard (as is the longstanding tradition in the Netherlands when right wing people speak in public). René Danen, a former council member, threatened the Spreeksteen foundation with criminal prosecution if they let Smit speak again. Smit was scheduled to speak at the Spreeksteen again on November 5, 2006.

People ought to know that the REAL oppressors of Free Speech, the REAL tyrants... are basically always...


...LEFTISTS.


Americans should think about that come November 2.



MFBB.

PRESIDENT OBAMA, DIVIDER-IN-CHIEF.

There's a plethora of good subjects out there and actually I finally wanted to do some post about Europe's next big evolution, namely the ideological struggle that's getting almost imperceptible hotter by the day.

But with US Congressional elections now very close, I thought this one should be about some hateful comments made (again) by the US's president.

First of course, there was his address at a Boston fundraiser around October 18:

'And so part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared. And the country is scared, and they have good reason to be.'

In other words, despite your many assurances and promises, you screwed up big time, as a result you have turned off an awful lot of people, but if subsequently they now seriously consider to vote Republican it's STILL because they do not understand your grandiose schemes. This in itself was almost a replay from the 2008 mantra about country idiots clinging to guns and religion. Yes, that's YOU, Joe in Austin, TX.


Then, in a radio interview aired last Monday, there was this:

In a radio interview that aired on Univision on Monday, Mr. Obama sought to assure Hispanics that he would push an immigration overhaul after the midterm elections, despite fierce Republican opposition.

“If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’ if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s gonna be harder and that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2.”

Referring specifically to Republicans such as Senator John McCain, who are stressing border security and supporting strict immigration laws like Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration measure, Mr. Obama said, “Those aren’t the kinds of folks who represent our core American values.”

Finally, this is what he said during a speech in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, also last Monday:

WOONSOCKET, R.I. – President Barack Obama attacked Republicans with gusto Monday as he plunged into a final week of midterm election campaigning, but his party's prognosis remained darkened by the feeble economy and his itinerary was designed largely to minimize losses.

...

In a little more than five hours in the state, Obama was booked for a factory tour and for a pair of fundraisers that party officials said would bring in $500,000.

He said Republicans had driven the economy into a ditch and then stood by and criticized while Democrats pulled it out. Now that progress has been made, he said, "we can't have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back."

Republicans had driven the economy in a ditch huh? While they lost Congress, in, wait, was that in 06 already? And they 'gotta sit in the back'?

In short, we have here, in the space of one week, three separate occasions in which the President of the United States of America:

a.) willfully insults people who consider to vote for the other side as not being able to think straight
b.) tries to set up the US's Hispanics against white rightwing voting people - it's clear that he first and foremost means whites.
c.) tells those same people that, if he gets a chance to pursue his glorious career in remaking America, they can "sit in the back".

...And this from a guy who promised he would be a Uniter.

Like Bush or like him not, but have you ever, EVER, heard him use such derogatory terms about the people who opposed him? About that part of the US population that gave him the finger? EVER???


But here we have the self-proclaimed Agent of Change, who basically promised America the Garden of Eden, and who, with his cronies in charge in Congress for four years now, and he himself POTUS since almost two years, has nothing to show but 10% unemployment, a second trillion plus dollar budget deficit, a national debt soaring as never before, sluggish growth, and unseen poverty levels.


SHAME ON HIM. Either way, America's going to be stuck with Obama, alas, for yet another two years. But after that, I hope and pray this man of shadows, this basic Nonentity, spawn from a self-hating mother and a deluded marxist, and raised first in a madrassa and then in a culture of nepotism and irresponsibility, will disappear swiftly from the world stage, never to be heard of again.

I HOPE so.







MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT LEVEL 42, MANIC STREET PREACHERS.

I really liked Level 42. Carefree, unpretentious funk, easy listening. Children say, a hit from the 1987 album Running in the Family.





For me, these guys were cool. Or cool doesn't even describe it. In a music world with egos as big as skyscrapers, these guys were utterly normal. In the eighties, they produced a hit string of about fifteen memorable songs. Half that number would have turned many other pop musicians into superarrogant egosexuals. Not so Level 42. But they were never the same after the underestimated Gould Bros. left in the late eighties, although Boon Gould continued to write lyrics for his erstwhile colleagues. Together with Mark King with his very recognizable slap bass technique and tenor vocals, and Mike Lindup with his falsetto voice which somehow did not turn him into a wussie, they were the orginals. No bad word on their (series of) successors - but the hit machine stopped not long after the Goulds went their own way.


Manic Street Preachers with A Design for Life. It's 1996. Album's Everything must go.





Although I don't have the foggiest idea what it is they're singing about.

Hey, they are leftozoid nutters. Played for Castro or something. Yeah, that must be it.



MFBB.

CHIDIKE OKEEM ON BLACK INTELLECTUAL SERFDOM.

Over at The American Thinker, there's this gem of an article by Chidike Okeem, The Liberal Elite and Black Intellectual Serfdom:

"Recently, while campaigning for the upcoming midterm elections, President Obama engaged in classic liberal race-baiting by demagogically asserting that Republicans are counting on blacks not turning up to the polls. However, despite Obama's agenda in making that assertion, unfortunately, the underlying premise of his comment is accurate: the majority of blacks unthinkingly vote for Democrats in droves.

It is my contention that black people who diligently vote for Democrats are intellectual slaves to the liberal agenda, inasmuch as they, for the most part, are ignorant of the history of the Democratic Party and vote for policies that harm their communities. It is only a black intellectual slave who can observe the impact of liberal policies on the black community without having a scintilla of unease about pulling the lever for Democrats -- election after election.


Black liberals have been cleverly coaxed into believing that Democrats have their best interests at heart because these Democrats no longer don white pointed hoods, lynch people, and burn crosses. With more sophistication than the mass-murdering tactics they employed in the days of yore, Democrats continue to actively perpetuate insidious policies that keep blacks on the lowest rung of the socioeconomic totem pole.

...

It's been nearly fifty years of failed Democrat policies, and all black intellectual slaves have to show for their decades of cultish allegiance to liberals is worsened poverty, a broken family structure, failing schools, massive black genocide via abortion, run-down communities, perennial joblessness, and almost every other social malady that can be imagined. Yet with recent approval ratings for President Obama remaining steady at 91% among blacks, there is no sign of black devotion to their Democrat oppressors changing anytime soon. Black liberals are suffering from political Stockholm syndrome. These blacks are the Uncle Toms they accuse us freedom-loving black conservatives of being.


The need for Democrat cross-burning in order to keep blacks in the underclass is over. Democrats have succeeded in creating black intellectual serfs who are so swayed by the blandishments of Big Government and the empty anti-capitalist rhetoric of the left that they don't even realize they've been hoodwinked by some of the biggest beneficiaries of capitalism!


Unless black liberals realize they've been the victims of a decades-long election-buying rip-off perpetrated by the Democrats -- and advanced using the cat's-paws of the black faces in the leftist elite -- the black community will remain in the quagmire of despair it has been in since the Democrats started handing black people their scraps to live off....

...

Socialism is nothing more than a deceitful left-wing farce that inherently creates a super-exclusive oligarchy under the laughable guise of egalitarianism.


If the Republican message to blacks of "stand up on your own two feet, stop relying on government handouts and benefits, get a stellar education, hone your native skills and talents, and work incredibly hard to make a massive success of your life" is something so extraordinarily depraved, why is it that the elite black left invariably follow the Republican roadmap to success in their private lives while advocating failed socialist tripe for the liberal black intellectual serfs?


From rappers to athletes to academics, every single black person who has made it out of unfortunate circumstances, climbed, and sustained his or her place at the top has done so through hard work and taking advantage of the capitalistic meritocracy in America.


Only mass intellectual serfdom in the black community can present an adequate explanation as to why the myth of "Benevolent Big Government" continues to prevail -- and why the black vote is almost monolithically given to the Democrats.

And here it comes, the final quote:

The black community's allegiance to Democrats is among the most shameful political facts in American history -- and it can be ended only by the articulation of a true conservative message from passionate, intrepid, and ethnically diverse messengers.

Got that, brother and sister?


MFBB.


PS: read more from Mr. Okeem here.

SATURDAY NIGHT HOOVERPHONIC, ALANNAH MYLES.

Upbeat number from Belgian band Hooverphonic, The world is mine (album Jackie Cane, 2002).





Originally (for a couple of years following the formation of the band in 1995), these guys named themselves Hoover, but they were forced to add the suffix "phonic" to avoid legal issues with a US band of the same name. A number of their songs made it internationally, both as singles and as soundtrack numbers. The song 2Wicky e.g. was on the soundtrack of the first I know what you did last summer movie. The number above was used in the UK television series Mile High (2003-2005).

The singer, Geike Arnaert, unfortunately left the band in 2008, to pursue a solo career.


Canadian singer-songwriter Alannah Myles had a smash hit in 1990 with Black Velvet.





To underscore my point that artists are more often than not clueless nutters and/or brainless twats, let me add that she's a muslim, be it of the more harmless variety (sufism).



MFBB.

THE SAGA OF THE USS KIRK.

They told you that the US had no business in Vietnam, but never uttered a word about the involvement of the USSR and China. They told you about America violating Cambodia's airspace but never questioned the legitimacy of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They told you that a Third World country vanquished a superpower but never that the Thet Offensive was actually a complete disaster for the North Vietnamese. And they told you all about Agent Orange, rightly so for that matter...

... but then they'd never tell you anything about the USS Kirk's story.





You can read it here. Do so. Some exerpts:

"The Kirk steamed through the night to Con Son and reached the island just as the sun came up on May 1. There were 30 South Vietnamese navy ships, and dozens of fishing boats and cargo ships. All of them were packed with refugees, desperate to get out of Vietnam.

The ships "were crammed full of people," says Kent Chipman, who in 1975 was a 21-year-old machinist's mate in the ship's engine room and today works at a water purification plant in Texas. "I couldn't see below deck, but above deck the people were just as tight as you could get, side by side."

There was no exact count of how many people were on those ships. Some historical records say there were 20,000 people. Other records suggest it was as many as 30,000. Jan Herman, a historian with the U.S. Navy Medical Department, who is documenting the story of the Kirk, uses the higher number.

The Kirk sent its engineers to some of the boats to get them started.

....


After fixing what could be fixed on the seaworthy vessels and transferring people from the ships that would be left behind, the Kirk led the flotilla of naval ships, fishing boats and cargo ships toward the Philippines.

The USS Cook, another destroyer escort, like the Kirk, helped out as the ships were leaving Con Son. The Cook's crew provided rice, and its corpsman helped Burwinkel and his assistant from the Kirk attend to the sick and injured, too.

As the flotilla headed out to sea, on the way to the Philippines, other Navy ships came in and out of the escort, according to Herman. Among those other ships were the USS Mobile, USS Tuscaloosa, USS Barbour County, USS Deliver and USS Abnaki.

But it's clear from the daily logs from the Kirk and the other ships that the crew of the Kirk took the lead.

"For me, the Kirk was ideal," says Armitage, who moved from the Kirk to the Vietnamese navy's flagship. "It could communicate with the rest of the U.S. fleet. They would go with us across to the Philippines and would be able to rescue any of the folks who might be in harm's way. Some had been wounded. Some were pregnant. All were sick after a while. And we needed a way to take care of those folks."

The Kirk's sailors kept busy providing food, water and medicine to people on the South Vietnamese ships.

Burwinkel spent his time moving from ship to ship treating the sick and injured. With thousands of people — many of them babies and children — he had to work almost nonstop.

"When they gave me the meritorious service medal over all this, I quite frankly referred to it as my 'no-sleep' medal," says Burwinkel, who made a career in the Navy and is now retired and living in Pensacola, Fla. "I would go out there and do my thing and at dark we would come back to the Kirk and try to get a little bit to eat and make some rounds — gather my wits about me, resupply myself and get ready for the next day."

'Last Sovereign Territory Of The Republic Of Vietnam'

Of the some 30,000 refugees on vessels escorted by the Kirk over six days, only three died.

But as the flotilla approached the Philippines, the Kirk's captain got some bad news. The presence of South Vietnamese vessels in a Philippine port would present the government in Manila with a diplomatic predicament.

"The Philippine government wasn't going to allow us in, period, because these ships belonged to the North Vietnamese now and they didn't want to offend the new country," Jacobs, the captain, recalls.

The government of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos was one of the first to recognize the Communist rulers now in control of a single Vietnam, and Jacobs was told the ships should go back.

Armitage and his South Vietnamese friend, Capt. Do, came up with a solution that Marcos had to accept.

Do recalls the plan: "We will raise the American flag and lower the Vietnamese flag as a sign of transfer [of] the ship back to the United States, because during the war those ships are given to the Vietnamese government as a loan, if you want, from the United States, to fight the Communists. Now the war is over, we turn them back to the United States."

There was a frantic search to find 30 American flags. Two officers from the Kirk were sent aboard each Vietnamese ship to take command after a formal flag ceremony.

Rick Sautter was one of the Kirk officers who took command of a Vietnamese ship.

"That was the last vestige of South Vietnam. And when those flags came down and the American flags went up, that was it. Because a Navy ship is sovereign territory and so that was the last sovereign territory of the Republic of Vietnam," he says.

"Thousands and thousands of people on the boats start to sing the [South Vietnamese] national anthem. When they lower the flag, they cry, cry, cry," Do remembers. "

Also, check out this video. How a young American woman of Vietnamese descent found out about the origins of her middle name.





A fine and proud ship, the USS Kirk:





Hat tip CDR Salamander.



MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT HUEY LEWIS AND THE NEWS, THE CLASH, GARY NUMAN.

In the mid-eighties, San Francisco based Huey Lewis and The News had a string of hits. Hip to be square comes to mind, but this wasn't bad either.





Heart and Soul from the 1983 LP Sports, which proved to be their breakthrough album (they still exist today, btw). But Jesus Christ Almighty, how
eighties videos suck.


The Clash with Rock the casbah. From the album Combat Rock (1982), a successfull but also rather commercial album.





Needless to say, my favorite line is 'Drop your bombs between the minarets'. Lead man Joe Strummer (vocals, guitar) died far too early in 2002 of a heart attack, aged 50. His band had already broken up in 1985, after only 9 years of existence. Even so, The Clash were a highly influential punk band.



1982. Londoner Gary Numan, for some time known as the King of Electronic Pop, with Music for Chameleons.





Dunno if you ever heard or saw Numan. Despite his somewhat ghey appearance, at least in his heyday, the man reportedly slept with 500 vhimen. At some point, he married a member of his fan club, a certain Gemma O'Neill, with whom he has three children. Also, he seems to be an accomplished stunt pilot.



That's all for today. Nite, and may the farce be with you.


MFBB.

THE SIGN FALLS OFF THE WALL.

No comment.



MFBB.

IN MEMORIAM STAFF SERGEANT ROBERT J. MILLER.

Today, President Obama awarded the Medal of Honor, posthumously, to Staff Sergeant Robert J. Miller, who, aged 24, fell in combat against taliban forces in Konar Province, Afghanistan.





This is the official narrative as taken from the US Army website:

"Staff Sgt. Robert J. Miller, U.S. Army, heroically distinguished himself by exceptionally valorous conduct in the face of the enemy of the U.S. while serving as the Weapons Sergeant, Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha 3312, Special Operations Task Force–33, Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force–Afghanistan, Forward Operating Base Naray, Kunar Province, Afghanistan, in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.

During the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 25, 2008, ODA 3312 conducted a combat reconnaissance patrol to Gowardesh, Afghanistan, to confirm or deny enemy activity and/or insurgents presence in the vicinity of Chen Khar in order to clear the valley of insurgent safe havens. This area was known to have several high- and medium-value targets massing and operating freely in the valley and three surrounding villages. The area of operations was also symbolically and strategically important because it was a Russian-era chokepoint, provided the enemy a tactical advantage due to its high ground and deep valley summits, and was a well-known insurgent stronghold.

Insurgents had prepared reinforced rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fighting positions with fortified overhead cover throughout the valley. They also amassed weapons caches comprised of RPGs, PKM medium machine guns, AK-47 assault rifles, ammunition, and food stores in the event of a protracted engagement.

The enemy’s confidence and morale was at a two-year high following a series of tactical successes against Afghan National Security Forces. The experience garnered from these battles, continued refinement of sophisticated tactics, techniques and procedures (including ambushes) and the expansion of insurgent forces in the region threatened the Coalition's ability to operate freely in this key terrain. Insurgents were confident in their ability to win any battle against Coalition Forces on their own terrain.

As the combined ODA and ANA convoy neared its objective, ODA 3312 was forced to halt twice to dismount and explode insurgent-emplaced boulders along its route. Staff Sgt. Miller and other members of ODA 3312 recognized this tactict as a potential precursor to an insurgent ambush and immediately heightened security. Recognizing the historical enemy tactic used to canalize and ambush Coalition forces, the detachment dismounted an overwatch element.

Staff Sgt. Miller led the overwatch elements as the threat of imminent danger increased. The rocky, snow-packed terrain, freezing temperatures and a fierce wind chill further exacerbated the ODA’s movement to the objective. The ODA’s only Pashto speaker, Staff Sgt. Miller took charge of the dismounted element and assembled partnered ANA forces to ensure they could move under cover.

Once ODA 3312 arrived at the target compound, Staff Sgt. Miller led the ANA and established security around the ODA’s ground mobility vehicles. After security was established, the team confirmed through the employment of an unmanned aerial vehicle that 15 to 20 insurgents were congregating and occupying prepared fighting positions in the targeted compound.

Maintaining his situational awareness, Staff Sgt. Miller immediately jumped into his vehicle's turret and engaged the enemy with its mounted MK19 40mm automatic grenade launcher.

From his vantage point in the turret of his vehicle, Staff Sgt. Miller expertly described the engagement area to the joint tactical air controller and identified insurgent positions by engaging them with his MK19.

As a result of his superior tactical skills, he positively marked the enemy while simultaneously describing the area to the JTAC. Without his expert marksmanship and accurate description of the area, the JTAC would not have been able to provide accurate grid locations for close air support.

As noted by the team’s JTAC, Staff Sgt. Miller’s involvement in the employment of CAS was largely responsible for the accuracy of four 30mm strafe runs and the emplacement of three precision-guided GBU38 munitions on the objective. As a result of his efforts, two A-10 Warthogs and two F-15 Strike Eagles dealt lethal effects onto numerous enemy positions and disrupted their ability to maneuver.

As Staff Sgt. Miller continued to neutralize numerous insurgent positions, his MK19 sustained a catastrophic malfunction, which eliminated it for the duration of the battle. Without hesitation, Staff Sgt. Miller quickly transitioned from the MK19 to an M240B machine gun mounted on the rear of his vehicle and continued to effectively engage the enemy.

Understanding the peril of the battle and the composition of his force, Staff Sgt. Miller moved from his firing position and began emplacing ANA soldiers in positions to provide overwatch, detect movement from the high ground, observe the rear of the patrol and provide security to the flank of the ground assault. His actions provided security for his team and enabled them to maintain their focus on enemy targets. Once ample security was established, Staff Sgt. Miller re-engaged the enemy.

During a lull in fire, Staff Sgt. Miller dismounted his GMV a second time to repair a malfunctioning Carl Gustav 84mm recoilless rifle.

Upon completion of the initial contact and CAS, the ODA commander directed a dismounted patrol to conduct battle damage assessment and a post-CAS strike assessment of the destroyed insurgent positions. Sensing the need to provide the ANA additional assistance, the ODA commander charged Staff Sgt. Miller with the responsibility to lead the partnered ANA force in an advisory role.

With the proficiency of an already-proven combat leader, Staff Sgt. Miller briefed the ANA platoon leadership on the scheme of maneuver onto the objective in their native Pashto language. Staff Sgt. Miller established rapport and instilled confidence in the ANA platoon leadership and its soldiers despite being partnered with the ANA platoon only 30 minutes prior to the mission.

Again, because of his tactical prowess, leadership and command of the Pashto language, Staff Sgt. Miller was selected as the point man for the dismounted patrol comprised of an Alpha and Bravo team from ODA 3312 and 15 ANA soldiers. He led the patrol with his M249 squad automatic weapon across the Gowardesh Bridge toward the target area.

During the movement, Staff Sgt. Miller continually reinforced proper patrolling techniques as well as repeatedly adjusted and corrected the ANA rate of speed. Realizing that the engagement area was located in the mouth of a small, extremely steep and narrow valley that created a natural choke point, Staff Sgt. Miller directed the ANA to disperse from a file into a modified wedge.

As Staff Sgt. Miller and the lead element of the patrol entered the mouth of the narrow valley, they confronted an insurgent hiding behind a large boulder. Refusing to surrender, the insurgent leaped from the boulder yelled, “Allah Akbar!” and began firing on the lead element from approximately five meters. Staff Sgt. Miller stepped forward to return fire and killed the insurgent instantly.

This contact initiated a near-ambush from a company-sized group of insurgents. The insurgent forces fired on Staff Sgt. Miller’s patrol with multiple PKM machine guns, RPGs, and AK-47 assault rifles from distances of less than 25 meters.

The patrol was completely vulnerable, in the kill zone and without cover in a complex ambush with insurgent fighting positions located to the front (East), the left (North), and the right (South).

It soon became evident that numerous insurgents occupied prepared, elevated and hardened fighting positions in the mountain rock with overhead cover along the North and South valley ridgeline. Insurgents on the valley floor to Staff Sgt. Miller’s direct front, left, and right were fighting in defilade and possessed ample cover and concealment necessary for the employment of overwhelming fires on the totally exposed patrol.

As enemy fire erupted from the high ground, Staff Sgt. Miller called out the contact report to his team members and his detachment commander located behind him. He simultaneously engaged multiple insurgent positions from a distance of approximately 15 to 20 meters.

In the face of devastating insurgent fire, the ANA located directly behind Staff Sgt. Miller broke formation and bound away downhill and out of the kill zone, leaving Staff Sgt. Miller alone and with no support in the open terrain.

To the front of Staff Sgt. Miller’s position one PKM machine gun and five AK47s were inflicting devastating hostile fire on the retreating ANA members and the remaining ODA patrol. Understanding the potential for catastrophe, Staff Sgt. Miller boldly charged the enemy and accurately engaged the entire force with his squad automatic weapon, thus eliminating the threat.

With heavy fire from insurgent forces from all sides of his position engulfing him, Staff Sgt. Miller continued to engage at least four other insurgent positions, killing or wounding at least 10 insurgents.

The darkness of the night and limited visibility made Staff Sgt. Miller’s weapon, also the most casualty producing, the greatest threat to the insurgent ambush. The highlighted muzzle flash and the distinct sound from his SAW instantly marked Staff Sgt. Miller as an easily identifiable target.

Cognizant that his vulnerability increased with every burst from his SAW, Staff Sgt. Miller continued to engage the enemy courageously drawing fire away from his team and onto his position. Within seconds, Staff Sgt. Miller began receiving a majority of the insurgents’ heavy volume of fire.

Realizing that his team was pinned down and unable to actively engage the enemy, Staff Sgt. Miller, with complete disregard for his own personal safety, continued to charge forward through the open area engaging multiple elevated insurgent positions and purposely drawing fire away from his trapped ODA members.

Staff Sgt. Miller’s cover fire was so accurate that it not only provided the necessary cover to save his team, it also suppressed the enemy to the right flank of the patrol, to the point where they could not reposition from that direction against the ODA for the duration of the engagement.

His actions single-handedly provided the needed cover fire that allowed his fellow ODA members to maneuver to covered positions as the ANA broke formation and ran away from the kill zone.

During his final charge forward, Staff Sgt. Miller threw two hand grenades into fighting positions, destroying the positions and killing or wounding an additional four insurgents. Only when Staff Sgt. Miller realized his fellow team members were out of immediate danger, and in positions to support him, did he attempt to move for cover.

As he directed his fire to engage enemy positions above him, an insurgent shot him through the right side of his upper torso under his right arm; the area not protected by his body armor. Staff Sgt. Miller immediately turned toward the enemy and shot and killed the insurgent who had wounded him. During this time, Staff Sgt. Miller’s detachment commander also sustained gunshot wounds to his upper chest and shoulder.

The perilous situation forced the detachment commander to order the ODA to fall back to cover. Staff Sgt. Miller realized his commander was seriously wounded and that, as the point man with ODA’s only SAW, he had the highest potential to inflict the most casualties on the enemy. Again, with complete disregard for his own personal safety, Staff Sgt. Miller remained alone at the front of the patrol, so his team could bound back.

Ignoring the severity of his critical wound and still completely exposed to intense, direct enemy fire, Staff Sgt. Miller continued to low crawl through the snow, incessantly fighting uphill into the valley to engage insurgent positions to the East and South in order to draw fire away from his wounded commander and identify insurgent positions to his fellow ODA members.

Without his heroic efforts, his wounded commander would not have been moved safely out of the kill zone to the casualty collection point.

Throughout the engagement, the insurgent fire around Staff Sgt. Miller was so intense that his fellow team members could not see him due to the dust, debris, and RPG and small arms fire impacting around him. During the ensuing 25-minute battle, Staff Sgt. Miller was mortally wounded by a second gunshot to his upper torso under his left arm. Despite suffering a second and fatal wound, Staff Sgt. Miller remained steadfast and continued his selfless acts of heroism. He provided essential disposition and location reports of insurgent actions and he relentlessly fired his SAW until he expended all of his ammunition and threw his final hand grenade.

At the first opportunity, members of Staff Sgt. Miller’s team bound up to his position to render aid and recover him. Enemy reinforcements overwhelmed the recovery team with direct fire causing the team to seek cover. During the recovery attempt, the enemy’s precision was clearly evident as team members sustained multiple hits from small arms fire to their body armor and equipment.

Approximately an hour and 45 minutes later, a quick reaction force arrived, which allowed the ODA to lead a patrol back into the valley to recover Staff Sgt. Miller. As a testament of the enemy’s tenacity, the quick reaction force sent to assist with recovery operations sustained additional casualties from intense direct RPG and small arms fire. Because of the enemy’s dominance of the terrain and potential for loss of additional lives, the patrol was forced to use its second CCP and two MEDVACs.

The entire battle lasted nearly seven hours.

Post-battle intelligence reports indicate that in excess of 140 insurgents participated in the ambush, more than 40 were killed and over 60 were wounded. Staff Sgt. Miller is credited with killing more than 16 and wounding over 30 insurgents. His valor under fire from a numerically superior force, complete selflessness and disregard for his own life, combined with his unmatched ability to accurately identify and engage insurgent positions, allowed his patrol to move to the safety of covered positions.

Staff Sgt. Miller chose to remain in the fight and provide vital suppressive fires to his teammates in order to save their lives, while disregarding his own mortality.

Staff Sgt. Miller’s selfless acts saved the lives of his seven of his ODA members and 15 Afghan soldiers. As a result of Staff Sgt. Miller’s heroic actions, the Gowardesh Insurgency was dealt a crippling blow, decimating insurgent forces involved in the battle, and shattering their morale and confidence. Staff Sgt. Miller’s actions exemplify the honored tradition of military heroism and reflect distinct credit upon himself, Special Operations Task Force–33, the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force–Afghanistan, Special Operations Command Central, and the U.S. Army."

Here is the video of the ceremony:





God bless.


MFBB.

ECONAZIS GIVE WHOLE NEW DIMENSION TO 'FREUDIAN SLIP'.

I realize I'm late to the party, but I can't help a little gloating so this thing comes up again, here, on DowneastBlog. I'm talking, of course, about the appalling 10:10 'No Pressure' video made by Richard Curtis, meant to instill in the broader public, beginning to suspect that MMGW and perhaps GW itself is the mother of all hoaxes, new fears about ecological disasters if we don't reduce our carbon footprint.

The video has been taken down on the organizations' website, but for those few among you who haven't watched it yet, here it is again:





In my opinion, by far the best column on the subject was The Telegraph's James Delingpole's:

Gillian Anderson, Peter Crouch [a tall footballer], Radiohead, David Ginola [a French footballer] and – above all – Richard Curtis, I salute you! You have just released a video which has entered history as the most emetic, ugly, counterproductive eco-propaganda movie ever made. Believe me this thing is going to go viral beyond your wildest dreams. But unfortunately that virus is ebola. (Hat tips: Barry Woods/Tom Dalton/Pete Hayes/Old Goat/half the civilised world….)

Here’s what the Guardian had to say, excitedly, when it previewed the video yesterday:

Had a look? Well, I’m certain you’ll agree that detonating school kids, footballers and movie stars into gory pulp for ignoring their carbon footprints is attention-grabbing.

It then goes on to quote one or two of the usual suspects, such as this light-hearted, “no we don’t really want to blow up schoolchildren for showing insufficient environmental zeal, that’s just our sense of humour, ha ha ha ha” little missy:

“Doing nothing about climate change is still a fairly common affliction, even in this day and age. What to do with those people, who are together threatening everybody’s existence on this planet? Clearly we don’t really think they should be blown up, that’s just a joke for the mini-movie, but maybe a little amputating would be a good place to start?” jokes 10:10 founder and Age of Stupid film maker Franny Armstrong.

What’s fascinating, reading this kind of thing, is seeing just how far removed from reality the green movement has gone. Kyoto is dead. Copenhagen was a flop. Cancun is going to make a mockery of all those green dreams about global carbon emissions legislation. And how do the environmentalists respond?

By force of argument?

By presenting new evidence which supports their cause?

Nope.

By threatening to blow up anyone who disagrees with them.

And not just that: they believe this is actually an entirely reasonable and rather amusing position to adopt...."

Upon learning more about 10:10 and the creepy people behind it - take Franny Armtrong e.g. - and after watching 'No Pressure' again, and again... I was reminded of those marvellous words of wisdom by Thomas Sowell in his groundbreaking work 'The Vision of the Anointed':

'...What a vision may offer, and what the prevailing vision of our time emphatically does offer, is a special state of grace for those who believe in it. Those who accept this vision are deemed to be not merely factually correct but morally on a higher plane. Put differently, those who disagree with the prevailing vision are seen as being not merely in error, but in sin. For those who have this vision of the world, the anointed and the benighted do not argue on the same moral plane or play by the same cold rules of logic and evidence. The benighted are to be made “aware”, to have their “consciousness raised”, and the wistful hope is held out that they will “grow”. Should the benighted prove recalcitrant, however, then their “mean-spiritedness” must be fought and the “real reasons” behind their arguments and actions exposed....'

Right. The 'mean-spiritedness of the recalcitrant' must be fought. By blowing them up, for instance. Rarely have econutters so blatantly exposed their true intentions as in 'No Pressure'.

The extreme leftist people behind this appalling 'movie' - 10:10's founder Franny Armstrong is an avowed Ken Livingston fan, to give just one example - may look like lunatics. But we should never forget they are dangerous lunatics. Madam Armstrong may make nothing of the blood splattering in No Pressure: "Clearly we don’t really think they should be blown up, that’s just a joke for the mini-movie, but maybe a little amputating would be a good place to start?” and "the five people blown up are but a blip compared to the hundreds of thousands dying from climate change"...

... but you better take these bozos at their words.

I reckon you recognize this guy?





Pim Fortuyn, murdered in broad daylight in 2002 in Hilversum, The Netherlands, with six bullets in the back and head.


But you may have trouble placing this guy:





Let me help you. Fortuyn's murderer Volkert Van Der Graaf. Vegan. Animal Rights Activist. Member of the militant environmental organization Vereniging Milieu Offensief.


A greenie.


They may look like fools, but they are dangerous.



MFBB.

A DAY OUT IN THE ARDENNES.

Saturday was a day with shitty weather but unbelievably, the weather broadcast for this Sunday was a warm (up to 23°C) and sunny 3rd of October, so I guessed this might just be about the last summer-like day of 2010, ideal for a day out in the Ardennes with wife and kiddos.

First off, a pic of the Meuse river, with to your right the principal rocks of the Massif de Freyr, very popular with Belgian, Dutch, British and Northern French rock climbers. The rock wall you see is the so-called l'Al Lègne, a 120-meter high nearly vertical wall of stratified limestone.





A pic from a bit closer up, on top of a grate. You can well see how through the ages the Meuse has carved this valley through the land, with the Rochers de Freyr nevertheless being so hard they forced the river to bend. The two lads had just finished climbing up l'Al Lègne. I don't know whether the lady did so too, but she sure had nice titties, pity there was no cleavage.





Uh, wait a minute. What did I just say? I was talking about valleys, right?


Okay, have some patience with poor old Outlaw, who still hasn't upgraded from his geriatric Nikon Coolpix 4800. I post this video just to annoy people.





Here, a better shot of the Chateau de Freyr, which is actually some kind of mini Versailles. Indeed, the park, with a.o. 300 year old orange trees, was designed by the famous landscape architect Le Notre, who also did Versailles' parks, and the Sun King himself, Louis XIV, stayed here. This Renaissance castle was in fact the summerresidence of the Dukes of Beaufort-Spontin, and their descendants, in their 20th generation now, inhabit it to this day.





Then it was off to another chateau, more precisely the Chateau de Walzin. Very interesting place, in fact. Chroniclers mention the existence of some stronghold on this very spot from the 11th century on. What you see right now is of course a neogothic folly built from 1850 on by a certain Alfred Brugman, and adapted in the thirties by a descendant, Frédéric Brugman. What stood here before was ravaged four times, and only the 11th century donjon is still there. Castles and chateaux have been peppered quite abundantly in this corner. Also nearby is the Chateau de Veves, another must-see.





When I had a closer look at my photo this evening, I saw that I should have waited a couple of more weeks, till some kind of Indian Summer turns the Ardennes into a red-green-yellow-brown carpet. When you take a pic then, yu get something like this (not my photo):





After Walzin the evening had set in, so we off to nearby Dinant, the "fille de la Meuse" [the Daughter of the Meuse - MFBB], for a wrapup of the trip in a cafeteria. There I took this pic of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, with Dinant's citadel behind it on top of the cliffs.





Here's another overview of the centre of this town of 13,000 people. I picked this photo from Wikipedia, we had no time left to cross the Meuse for a photo op from this angle. When you cross the bridge on foot, you might want to look out for a commemmoration plaque marking the spot where a young Lieutenant Charles de Gaulle was wounded in World War I. Speaking of World War I, long before the Waffen SS Dinant was subjected to teutonic fury, since in the opening days of the Great War, no fewer than 674 Dinantois were brutally murdered by German soldiers.




Dinant is also famous for being the birthplace of Adolphe Sax, the inventor of the saxophone.





And we conclude with a pic for the romantic souls. Again, not mine. Photographer's a certain Luc Viatour.





Good night.


MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT DAVID MCCOMB, MOBY, PATTI SMITH.

David McComb with Setting you free, from the album Love of Will (1994).




He was the front man of famous Aussie band The Triffids. Died in 99 as a result of complications following both a car crash and drug abuse.


Moby. That's when I reach for my revolver (1996). It's actually a cover from a 1981 Mission of Burma song.





You can see that from the early days Moby was some kind of nutter.


Patti Smith with Frederick.




I seem to recall there's something tragic with this song (as a non-native English speaker, haven't paid much attention to the actual lyrics, weird though that may sound. Non-native English speakers are always first struck by the musical arrangements, then the text). Anyroad, IIRC the Frederick Smith is singing about was her friend or husband who tragically died. I think so. RIP.



MFBB.

NEW CENTER-RIGHT MINORITY GOVERNMENT IN THE NETHERLANDS: A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.

Circumstances and lack of time prevented me from ever putting up a decent post about this years' parliamentary elections in The Netherlands, which took place on June 9th, and resulted in a clear shift to the right. The big winners of these elections were the VVD [the liberal party, but note that in Europe 'liberal' is considered center-right - MFBB] and the PVV, Geert Wilders' Party For Freedom [Partij voor de Vrijheid - MFBB]. For a host of reasons the clear outcome did not immediatey result in a government, not least because of the machinations of the leftist parties which were understandably totally upset because of the PVV's ascendance. All through summer and early fall the negotiations dragged on. But yesterday, Thursday September 30, the soon-to-be Dutch PM Mark Rutte (VVD), announced the formation of a minority government consisting of VVD and the christian-democrat CDA, with, and this is important, gedoogsteun (conditional support) from the PVV. In short, Wilders' PVV is not part of the new government. He will however support it as long as it implements the far-reaching measures the PVV has been asking for for years. The formula is not new, and has been tried succesfully in Denmark, where Pia Kjaersaard's Dansk Folkeparti (DF) has in the same manner supported Anders Fogh Rasmussen's center-right minority government for years. As a result, Denmark is now far, far better off than most European countries.




The Danish Option. "Rechtsaf" means "to the Right". From left to right: Maxime Verhagen (CDA, a former Foreign Secretary), Mark Rutte (VVD, the future PM) and Geert Wilders (PVV, he will offer support for the minority government VVD-CDA).


The guidelines Rutte wants to follow are:

a.) Cutting government spending
b.) Cutting the number of government employees
c.) Reducing the size of House and Senate, which in The Netherlands are called the Eerste en Tweede Kamer.
d.) Reducing the EU contribution
e.) Slashing expenses in child allowances, the public broadcasters and the army (the latter point is a bummer of course)
f.) Implementing a more severe immigration and asylum policy.
g.) General prohibition of the burqa
h.) More means for domestic security
i.) Raisin the retirement age to 66, with an option of raising it further in the future if life expectancy allows it

The motto of the new government is "Freedom and responsibility".

Geert Wilders, PVV chairman, is pleased with the accord. In an interview yesterday he was quoted as saying 'Your voice has made that a new wind will be blowing. The country becomes safer, the number of asylum seekers will drop, and there will be investments for elderly care'.

It is indeed true that one of the focal points of Wilders' campaign is enhanced portfolios for taking care of the elderly. This is not so strange as it may seem. Due to The Netherlands' catastrophic demography 'dynamic', which it shares with basically all western countries, it will be confronted, two decades hence, with an enormous block of 65+ voters. Wilders' emphasis on more means for them is meant to placate them and avoid a Catch 22 scenario, in which disgruntled retirees would block necessary reforms, thus making future reforms ever more necessary. How this is all going to pan out is still unknown, but it seems to me the PVV's preoccupance with the elderly is more about psychology than actual welfare.

Wilders also claimed that if the proposed measures to cut down immigration are applied in full, they will result in a reduction of 50% in the number of non-western immigrants.

All in all, I think there is cautious reason for optimism, but this should only be a beginning. I do not want to sound like an incurable pessimist, but I see nowhere concrete measures to stop islamization. Nevertheless, this new Dutch center-right minority government is a step in the right direction, and further confirmation of what I have been predicting for years, namely Europes shift to the right - even though 'right' in Europe obviously still means something quite different from what it means in the States.



MFBB.


P.S.: See also this excellent post over at Gates of Vienna.

AMERICA, WAKE UP.

Yet another mob of muslims aggressively taking possession of the streets. Only this time it's not in Paris' Barbès neighborhood, nor before a Milan church, nor the Groenplaats in Antwerpen.

It's Madison Avenue, NYC.





You allow islam to gain a foothold, you'll end up with this:

"... Sardar Israullah Zehri, a tribal leader and senator from Balochistan and a member of the PPP, took to the floor of parliament this past August to defend violence against women. Five women in his province had been buried alive for staining their family’s honor. (Reports from various human-rights groups indicate the number of women buried may actually be as high as ten.) No one knows who the women were; we have snippets—a first name here, a date of birth there—but they’ve been murdered terribly well, erased from public record.

In parliament, a month after the women were buried alive, Zehri defended the killings as “part of our traditional customs.” Three months after his atrocious declaration, he was appointed the Federal Minister of Postal Services (see?) and made an adviser to the prime minister’s cabinet. When criticized for his statements, Zehri shrugged off his critics—five women died and the sky didn’t fall, the charming minister is reputed to have said.

Then, in November, the PPP and its president, Benazir Bhutto’s widower Asif Zardari, appointed Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani as Federal Minister of Education (a cabinet post with actual heft to it). Any Pakistani with a memory should have alarm bells ringing in his head at the mention of Bijarani’s name. In 2007, the chief justice of Pakistan ordered his arrest after he decreed that five girls be handed over, like currency, to the family of a murdered man to settle a feud between their two families. Bijarani was acting as head of a local tribal council similar to the one that had Mukhtaran Mai gang raped. The eldest of the girls was age six, and the youngest were only two years old...."

Article by Fatima Bhutto. Hat tip The Daily Beast.


ISLAM IS CANCER. Live with it. Or rather, live with that statement. You know how it goes with cancer. You either destroy it with chemiotherapy, or you cut it away. If you don't, or you don't do it in time, you die from it.

America better wake up.



MFBB.

BILDERBERG GROUP DISCUSSES... WAIT FOR IT... GLOBAL COOLING!

Over the course of the past two years I have come to appreciate the UK's The Telegraph very much, and especially several of its young unapologetic columnists. One among them is James Delingpole, who last week had the following interesting column:

"Bilderberg. Whether you believe it’s part of a sinister conspiracy which will lead inexorably to one world government or whether you think it’s just an innocent high-level talking shop, there’s one thing that can’t be denied: it knows which way the wind is blowing. (Hat tips: Will/NoIdea/Ozboy)

At its June meeting in Sitges, Spain (unreported and held in camera, as is Bilderberg’s way), some of the world’s most powerful CEOs rubbed shoulders with notable academics and leading politicians. They included: the chairman of Fiat, the Irish Attorney General Paul Gallagher, the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, Henry Kissinger, Bill Gates, Dick Perle, the Queen of the Netherlands, the editor of the Economist…. Definitely not Z-list, in other words.

Which is what makes one particular item on the group’s discussion agenda so tremendously significant. See if you can spot the one I mean:

The 58th Bilderberg Meeting will be held in Sitges, Spain 3 – 6 June 2010. The Conference will deal mainly with Financial Reform, Security, Cyber Technology, Energy, Pakistan, Afghanistan, World Food Problem, Global Cooling, Social Networking, Medical Science, EU-US relations.

Yep, that’s right. Global Cooling.

Which means one of two things.

Either it was a printing error.

Or the global elite is perfectly well aware that global cooling represents a far more serious and imminent threat to the world than global warming, but is so far unwilling to admit it except behind closed doors.

Let me explain briefly why this is a bombshell waiting to explode.

Almost every government in the Western world from the USA to Britain to all the other EU states to Australia and New Zealand is currently committed to a policy of “decarbonisation.” This in turn is justified to (increasingly sceptical) electorates on the grounds that man-made CO2 is a prime driver of dangerous global warming and must therefore be reduced drastically, at no matter what social, economic and environmental cost. In the Eighties and Nineties, the global elite had a nice run of hot weather to support their (scientifically dubious) claims. But now they don’t. Winters are getting colder. Fuel bills are rising (in the name of combating climate change, natch). The wheels are starting to come off the AGW bandwagon. Ordinary people, resisting two decades of concerted brainwashing, are starting to notice.

All this, of course, spells big trouble for the global power elite. As well as leading to food shortages (as, for example, it becomes harder to grow wheat in northerly latitudes; adding, of course, to such already-present disasters as biofuels and the rejection of GM), global cooling is going to find electorates increasingly angry that they have been sold a pup.

Our fuel bills have risen inexorably; our countryside, our views and our property values have been ravaged by hideous wind farms; our holidays have been made more expensive; our cost of living has been driven up by green taxes; our freedoms have been curtailed in any number of pettily irritating ways from what kind of light bulbs we are permitted to use to how we dispose of our rubbish. And to what end? If man-made global warming was really happening and really a problem we might possibly have carried on putting up with all these constraints on our liberty and assaults on our income. But if it turns out to have been a myth……"

A couple of years ago we had a lefty contributor here, at least in the comments section, and if I were a mean character it would please me to no end to conclude, anno 2010, that all his predictions and estimates have by now proven to be a steaming pile of shit. Man Made Global Warming or even Global Warming in se? Sorry, sooooooooo nineties. And I'm not even elaborating on his other claims.

By contrast, I think we over here at DowneastBlog have a habit of being continually right, whether it's on islamization, Europes rightward shift (no matter how much that shift leaves to be desired), Iraq, the Surge, Obama's disastrous tenure or The Jam. Actually, a man'd get tired of being right so often. And now the steady unraveling of the MMGW/GW hoax. Btw, d'you know how many months I was able to switch off central heating in my house this year so far?

One. One month.

July that was.



MFBB.

POWERFUL AD.

Hat tip the inimitable Theo Spark. Also check out this article, full of Hope.


MFBB.

DUTCH AIRLINE COMPANY KLM FLYING GAYS TOWARDS SOUND BEATING UP.

Via Dutch online daily Algemeen Dagblad - Economie, September 13, 2010:

"AMSTERDAM - by means of a quiz about gay capitals, the national Dutch airline company KLM tries to appeal to British gays, writes the Algemeen Dagblad today. The campaign, which runs till the end of the month, aims to convince the target group of the gay-friendliness of the Koninklijke Luchtvaartmaatschappij.

'How hot are you on gay capitals?' begins the quiz on the site klmgaygetaway.co.uk. Visitors only have to guess the destinations on ten photos they see, fill in the multiple choice questions and leave their personal data. Thereafter they stand a chance to win a flight to one of the 'Top Gay Capitals' KLM is serving.

KLM finds it 'dead normal' that it aims at a specific target group. 'That's a bit business as usual for us', says spokeswoman Joyce Veekman. KLM regularly runs targeted campaings at, for instance, businessmen and golfers.

The quiz is part of a broader campaign for gays in general (CN/BVDL)."

Future historians, standing on the ashes of western civilization, will wonder how entire societies so willingly marched towards self-destruction. The fertility rate among your average autochton Europeans is now at a moribund 1.3 children per couple, although I suspect that number may still be too high. Yet KLM sees no problem presenting a lifestyle that does not result in that most precious of assets - customers - as utterly normal.

Apart from the fact that KLM chooses for short-term financial gains without having a clear strategy for the nearby future, which will be determined not only by the massive disappearance of customers with purchasing power, but also by terrifying problems in finding competent technical personnel (keep in mind that the output in terms of technicians and engineers of the muslim community is pathetically small), you have to wonder whether the company's top brass sits in some ivory control tower.

The autochton Dutchmen and -women take presumably pride in Amsterdam as one of the top gay capitals in the world. However, if you avoid rosy MSM accounts you discover an entirely different reality. Amsterdam, which, like Rotterdam, is undergoing a stealth ethnic cleansing at the hands of mainly muslim immigrants, is actually getting quite dangerous for gays. Via Big Peace, September 2010:

GAYS HARASSED DURING DEMONSTRATION

AMSTERDAM — A demonstration of two thousand gay and lesbians against anti-gay violence Sunday was ruined by a series of incidents. In one of them a demonstrator[1] was injured at the hands of two women of 18 and 19 years. Afterwards the demonstrator reported the perpetrators to the police. They were both subsequently detained, but set free on Monday.

The two women wanted to get through a group of demonstrators on the Westermarkt with their bikes, shortly after the march had ended. When the man said something about it, they shouted insulting remarks at him. This resulted in a fight in which the man was hit by the two women. When one of the woman hit him with a bag, he was wounded in the head. The man and bystanders managed to hold the girls until the police arrived.

[Note: Shortly after the demonstration against anti-gay violence a boy was beaten up by two Moroccan girls. This was reported by eyewitnesses who were present. (source) — VH]

But there were more incidents. On Monday, the reports poured in to a gay-rights organization, the foundation “Right to Feel Safe”, as spokesman Fya Hopelezz said.

For example, there were boys on scooters [see article below; these may have been Moroccans] who repeatedly drove onto the protesters. A group of lesbians was threatened, verbally abused and pelted with beer cans [see also the article below], and several fights had to be calmed down.

“This makes me very sad. It shows how rock-hard the situation is now in Amsterdam,” says Hopelezz. “The anger sits deep in the gay community. Anger over the violence, but also because everyone keeps saying that anti-gay violence is not that bad within the city.”

This is no recent phenomenon, of course. Five years ago already, The Times ran the following article:

"WHEN the editor of one of America’s leading gay magazines visited the world’s gay capital a fortnight ago, he assumed that he would be safe.

But as Chris Crain, editor of the Washington Blade, was walking hand in hand with his boyfriend near one of the gay districts in Amsterdam, two men standing on a street corner spat at his face. He stopped to ask why, was called a “fag” and suddenly the two youths turned into seven.

Surrounded, Mr Crain was kicked to the ground by the gang and ended up in hospital with a broken nose and badly bruised face.

His attackers were Moroccan youths, blamed by Dutch gay rights groups for a disturbing rise of gay-bashing, as conservative Islamic culture clashes with Dutch liberalism.

For the first time, the Amsterdam Tourist Board has issued a warning to gay visitors to be careful in the city. In the first country to legalise homosexual marriage, gays are increasingly fearful of holding hands in public. Some have been chased out of their houses and middle-class gays are moving to rural areas for safety.

“I was really surprised. I felt comfortable, because it is San Francisco times ten. But I didn’t appreciate the depth of hostility between different groups there, and we walked right into the middle of it,” Mr Crain said from his home in Washington.

In the city where six months ago Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film-maker, was killed by an Islamic extremist, the tourist authorities felt compelled to issue a warning.

Herman Terbalkt, of the Amsterdam Tourist Board, said: “Gay visitors should be careful and alert. Some people in Amsterdam are not tolerant of other people. It is a social problem.”

A social problem huh. I suppose KLM's Board of Directors and marketing boys are too high on cannabis to be aware of Amsterdam's 'social problems'.

Fucking fools. I am surrounded by fucking fools. They are all over the place.



MFBB.

SATURDAY NIGHT THE JAM, WIM DE CRAENE, PREFAB SPROUT, REM.

The Jam with Start! It's 1980 and actually The Punk Age, but Paul Weller & Co wear tailored suits and really are cool. Another big band of the age that's outside the Punk movement, and which is often named in one breath with The Jam, is The Clash.






Belgian/Flemish singer/songwriter Wim De Craene, unfortunately deceased in 1990, with Tim (1975), a beautiful ballad about a father letting his son free to find his way in life.






Prefab Sprout with Hey Manhattan! Cheesy video, but easy listening. From one of their best albums, From Langley Park to Memphis (1988).





For some reason, these guys, Brits who formed in Newcastle in 78, never topped in the States. I guess it'd have to be an American to explain us why, although I do have some idea.



We end with What's the frequency, Kenneth? The first single taken from the 1994 album Monster.





Nite.



MFBB.