A French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, a household name in France, had its offices torched after it published a motoon accompanying an article about the real nature of the so-called "Arab Spring".
I'm too tired and have no time to spare. Check out Atlas Shrugs for the story:
Charlie Hebdo Offices Firebombed After It Joked About The Prophet Muhammad (Pictures) Puff Ho (hat tip Paulo)
The Paris office of the satirical French Magazine Charlie Hebdo has been firebombed and its website has been hacked. It follows the announcement that the magazine would be 'guest edited' by the Prophet Muhammad.
It has been reported that the office was gutted by fire at around 1:00am Paris time, but there were no injuries.
Patrick Pelloux, a witness to the attack, told the AFP news agency that a molotov cocktail was thrown through the window.
"Everything was destroyed," he said.
According to the Associated Press the director of the magazine said “the material damages are large”.
On Tuesday the magazine said that the Prophet Muhammad would be editing the magazine in "honour" of Islam's role in this year's uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and other Islamic countries.
"In order fittingly to celebrate the Islamist Ennahda's win in Tunisia and the NTC (National Transitional Council) president's promise that sharia would be the main source of law in Libya, Charlie Hebdo asked Muhammad to be guest editor," the editorial team said in a statement.
On Wednesday morning the magazine's website had also apparently been hacked by an Islamist group.
There have been several cases in Europe of cartoonists, journalists and publishers being threatened or attacked after depicting cartoons and pictures of the religious figure.
Charlie Hebdo was taken to court in 2007 by two Muslim groups for reprinting those cartoons, but the suit was thrown out.
In Belgium, we are now flooded daily with stories of how our marvellous - cough - cultural enrichers from mooslim shitholes wreak havoc upon autochtons.
On the 23rd of October, a real Belgian man of 86 living in Borgerhout, an Antwerp suburb, tired of being harassed and confronted for the sixth time with muslim robbers inside his home, stabbed a 16-year old Moroccan. The latter fled, accompanied by his accomplice (also a Moroccan of course), but died one kilometer further.
So you have worked all your life and saved for a cozy old day. Alas the socialists and the muslim voting cattle they imported caught up with you. You have managed to live to the ripe old age of 86, even still have your wife, but now your neighborhood is transformed beyond recognition.
The muslim ape who broke inside the man's home was 16 and had committed 43 CRMINAL ACTS OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS.
Yet according to the genetically degenerated father of the criminal, his son was a good boy and always quick with a laugh.
As I have stated so many times, when we whites learn of a white criminal being cut down, we say 'good riddance'.
Not so muslim subhumans. When their worst offender is killed, watch out for his legions of sympathizers from among the 'great majority of respectful and law-abiding muslim citizens'.
The 86-year old man and his spouse can kiss their normal life goodbye. Never again will they be able to live in peace in their home, which is under police surveillance because you can bet your sweet *ss it will be torched or vandalised.
Islam is a cancer for Europe and whatever other place it takes root. You must cut away cancers in time or they will ultimately kill you.
This item is already about two weeks old, but its relevance will remain assured for what presumably will turn out a long, long time yet. Rooting out leftist bias from western media channels may well prove to be a sisyphus job.
The story. On October 3, Belgium's most prominent daily De Standaard ran a frontpage article about the north israeli mosque of Tuba Zangaria, torched by Jewish colonists:
How awful for them. Those eeeevil colonists! Now, I'm all for reporting on this kind of stories. Especially so when the burning of this mosque may have something to do with the brutal killing by Paleostinians of a 25 year old Israeli father and his infant son, just a couple of days earlier:
HOWEVER....
The leftist rag having the audacity to keep calling itself De Standaard, will never inform its readers on scores of torchings of churches all over the islamic world. Here, for example, is a tidbit on a Coptic Church in the Egyptian village of al Marinab. Via Coptic World:
"St George's Church in the village of Al Marinab of the province of Edfu was attacked and burned by Muslim fanatics from the same and neighboring villages. No one was inside the church during the attack. This church was attacked several weeks ago by the same mob of Muslims who demanded to remove its cross. Today, they succeeded in doing so as they have been threatening for several days. They prayed their Friday prayers in front of the burned church. The fanatics numbered approximately 150. Three adjacent homes, a store as well as a building, all of which are owned by Copts, have also been burned.
No arrests were made. Muslim fanatics have prevented fire trucks from coming on the scene. No protection or justice has been promised for the Copts of the village has been pledged by authorities. Copts fear these acts will continue to increase as the government continues to allow these criminal acts to go unchecked. This is the fourth Coptic church to be destroyed by Muslims this year following the revolution."
Same old same old. Let's face it. Blogs remain a marginal phenomenon. I've been blogging for almost eight years now, and when I look in my intimate circle, I know no one who turns to blogs for his or her news. The overwhelming majority of people still gather their news from traditional channels, i.e. newspapers and TV. Channels which are overwhelmingly in the hands of legions of leftist bozos.
The result is that entire swaths of the population have a completely distorted worldview. How can you expect people not having a bis vis-à-vis Israel when the liars from de Standaard and hundreds of other western newspapers implement a policy of reporting extensively on the torching of ONE mosque by Israeli colonists...
... while deliberately choosing NEVER to report on churches burned and destroyed from Mauretania over Egypt and Pakistan to Indonesia.
I meant to do a post on something completely different, like the emergence of rocket scientist calibre intellectuals Shakira and Lady Gaga as advisors and fundraisers for Prez Obamba, but then I came across this once again splendid Pat Condell video, courtesy of our pals over at Gates of Vienna:
As long as the vile politico-religious ideology known as 'islam' holds sway in that part of the world, there's NEVER going to be a peaceful solution for Israel or Judea and Samaria. Islamic countries are no good to negotiate with. It is useless for Israel to come to terms with its neighbors in a way civilized countries would recognize, as history has so amply proven. There's no such thing as a two-state solution, a one-state solution. Land for Peace is an exercise in folly.
I don't care for the fate of the Paleostinians in Judea and Samaria. They are plain and worthless idiots. Each and everyone of them could have lived in peace and prosperity by either moving out of that hellhole, or becoming an Israeli citizen, abide the law in that country, if possible forsake his or her 'religion' and earn a decent living and be generally happy.
That leaves Israel. A solution has to be found for Israel.
Striving for 'peace', as in - again - the vocabulary of civilized countries is pointless in that region.
Therefore, Israel would do well to adopt Outlaw Mike's solution for its predicament.
That solution is amazingly SIMPLE.
It's called 'ETERNAL STATE OF WAR'..
That's right, it's really that simple!!! All Israel has to do is to keep its armed forces in a permanent state of readiness, ever ready to strike - and strike devastatingly. Israel does not need phony peace accords with untrustworthy neighbors. What Isreal needs is strong armed forces that can lash out and destroy any external threat.
There are several advantages to my solution:
a.) Permanent REAL PEACE through superior firepower.
b.) The nation's citizens are kept on alert all the time, ensuring they don't become mindless wussies and retirement aficionados like in so much of the world, especially the West
c.) Permanent investments in the Defense Industry will provide countless spinoffs for civil benefit, and the cutting edge technology will make Israeli hitech the envy of the world
d.) No more pointless and costly negotiations
e.) Israel will set an example for the rest of the non-muslim world on how to deal with the adherents of islam
Now check out these videos. First the IDF:
Then the Israeli Air Force:
Finally the Israeli Navy:
So Israel, now you know what to do. Stop negotiating, never stop arming and being ready to strike deadly and mercilessly. And maybe, at some distant point along history's path, your pitiful, worthless opponents, having outspent themselves and having run out of nature's resources, forever incapable of turning their pseudo-economies in something self-sustaining, will come begging at your door for peace ON YOUR TERMS.
Last week, De Standaard suddenly discovered there's apparently a problem with gay couples being pestered away from their flats, neighborhoods, and even their cities. It even spoke of 'a trend?'?
Pestering gays away, a trend in The Netherlands?
In the Netherlands this week, gay couples announced they were moving, bullied away by their neighbors. Geert Wilders asks for an speedy parliamentary debate. Is intolerance against gays growing?
'Monday evening I got a telephone from a lady. She was older than eighty (!), she said, but now she was, together with her girlfriend, busy packing boxes with their belongings. She was desperate. She wanted away, get out of the provincial town. The reason: she and her girlfriend were bullied by their neighbors because they were a lesbian couple. When I heard that, it got too much for me, and I decided to open up a callpoint.'
... says Henk Krol, chief editor of the Gay Gazette. 'Four days later the counter stood on 82 reportings. That's quite a lot. And of the severity of some incidents I was rather dumbfounded. On the other hand, of the about 800,000 Dutch gays and lesbians 82 is an altogether negligible number. Also, I think that the number of reportings will decline after the first wave.'
Still [De Standaard editor now] something seems to be going on in The Netherlands. Last week stories emerged of two other gay couples who were also moving. One couple had been pestered away by schoolkids in The Hague, another couple was leaving Ulft, a village in the Achterhoek. There the bullies would have been between 12 and 22. Attempts to recruit the help of police would for a long time have remained unanswered and when finally a serious dialogue had been organized, the couple had already scrapped its hiring contract, wrote De Gelderlander [east Dutch newspaper - MFBB]. In August, in Amstelveen another gay couple would have given up all hope."
Blather and speculate all you can, you blistering FOOLS. Over here at DownEastblog, we've been reporting for aeons about gay couples in the wonderful new multifucking cultural society being harassed by, you guess, it, adherents of the Religion of Piss aka islam.
Because that is the gist of the story that even De Standaard had to admit, a couple of lines on I was too tired (and fed up) to translate. Naturally, muslims in Holland means very often if not always moroccans. Not that it matters, mocro or paki muslims, mauritanian or yemeni muslims, syrian or iranian muslim, they're all equally retarded.
The only politician asking for a parliamentary debate in the matter is... Geert Wilders, chairman of the PVV, the Party for Freedom. You know, Geert Wilders, Public Enemy No. 1, Vile Racist, Eeeeeeeeevil Rightwinger, not so long ago denied access in the UK because too dirty for the Country of da Queen. The guy who even more recently narrowly won a trial meant to convict him because of 'hate crimes'.
Yes, that guy. And of all the well-meaning morally superior beings labelled with fancy green, red, orange and blue buttons, The Netherlands has heard nary a peep. Gays, listen well to Outlaw Mike. Yes, we are squarely AGAINST gay marriage and gay adoption, because we think, and we have very decent arguments for it, that this age-old institution is meant for a man and a woman, and we think that the various vehicles the greens and reds gave you to mimic traditional marriage are travesties belonging in a freak theatre for the perverted.
HOWEVER.... we will defend your right to live together peacefully in a civil relationship, embedded in a safe neighborhood, where you will never have to fear to walk hand in hand on the streets.
In a matter of years, the only thing standing between you and islamic subhumans will be a thin grey line of conservatives. The cowards who gave you hope which will prove as false as it was unjustified, will be nowhere to be seen when literally your life is at stake, even when you have moved to the farthest corner of your native land.
Reader Koen R. sent me the link to this James Delingpole video.
I like Delingpole. I'm pretty sure greens would very much like there was some apparatus with a red 'Destroy Delingpole' button on it, like in that video. His new book is Watermelons: The Green Movement's true Colors. Available here.
And if you don't believe me (like so often), check out this quote from Paul Watson, founder of Sea Shepherd.
"WORMS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PEOPLE".
Do I at least have sympathy for some actions of Sea Shepherd? I do. I do, in the way that I acknowledge that World War II meant a huge scientific breakthrough in a plethora of disciplines.
It's the price I'm worrying about. Btw, Hitler was a veganist, animal lover and misanthrope too. As well as a socialist.
"A fanatical terrorist has escaped being thrown out of the UK because it would breach his human rights.
Hate-filled Siraj Yassin Abdullah Ali, graded the highest possible risk to the public, was released after serving just half of his nine-year sentence for helping the July 21 bombers. He now mingles freely among the Londoners his co-plotters tried to kill six years ago.
Government officials are desperate to deport the Islamic fundamentalist back to his native Eritrea but have been told they cannot because he could face ‘inhumane treatment or punishment’.
Ali was convicted of helping a gang of five Al Qaeda suicide bombers in their bid to repeat the carnage of the attacks of July 7, 2005, two weeks later.
Graham Foulkes, whose 22-year-old son David was killed on July 7, said he was ‘filled with despair’. He said: ‘These people were plotting to commit mass murder - what about the human rights of victims and families?
‘These people had no consideration for the women and children they were trying to kill. How can they claim we should look after and support them?’
The case is the latest to highlight how human rights laws have left the authorities powerless to remove some terrorists and convicted criminals.
Imposed human rights laws have left the authorities powerless to remove some terrorists and convicted criminals. Imposed by unaccountable European judges, they place the rights of the most dangerous wrongdoers above the risks faced by ordinary people.
The five would-be suicide bombers were jailed for life after trying to detonate bombs at Shepherd’s Bush, Warren Street and Oval Tube stations and on a bus in Shoreditch.
Ali, 35, knew about the potentially murderous July 21 conspiracy and helped the fanatics clear up their explosives factory. He was jailed for 12 years in February 2008 for aiding and abetting the Al Qaeda cell. Judge Paul Worsley QC said he must have ‘harboured the hope’ the bombers would ‘destroy society as we know it’.
The sentence was reduced to nine years on appeal and after time Ali spent in jail while awaiting trial was taken into account, he was automatically released on licence several weeks ago. He is now living at a bail hostel on a leafy residential street in north-west London. He has been seen travelling on the Tube and catching buses. With music headphones plugged into his ears and a bag slung casually across his shoulder, he appeared to be caught on camera chatting on a mobile phone. It is understood that Ali is being monitored around the clock and must obey a curfew and other conditions, including a ban on using the internet..."
But if you thought this was just an isolated case...
"He is the second high-risk terrorist linked to the July 21 attacks to win the right to remain in the UK on human rights grounds in recent weeks.
Ismail Abdurahman, 28, who hid would-be bomber Hussain Osman for three days, escaped being deported to his native Somalia after judges feared for his safety. Abdurahman is also living at a bail hostel in London despite the protests of police and Home Office officials."
Ladies and gentlemen, that's the UK today. Muslim terrorists who were instrumental in the killing and maiming of tens of UK citizens can walk free after less than half of their prison time, and are then not deported because some drooling leftist judges fear for their safety.
Performance by the Finnish Toivio siblings. Seeli, the woman, is a renowned classical virtuoso cellist (and a Doctor of Music). Her brother Kalle an accomplished classical pianist. This video was recorded in 2007 in the Basiliek van Halle (Halle Basilica), some 20 kloms south of Brussels. A must see btw, if you happen to be in the neighborhood. Try to count the cannonballs to your right, upon entering the basilica.
I realize I'm late to the party but all through August and September I felt I had to do some post regarding the London riots; just as I still feel I should offer my take on the Anders Behrend Breivik murders.
The facts in se - widespread looting, damaging of private and public infrastructure, defiance of police officers, endangering the very lives of common citizens - are bad enough.
But once again I was powerfully reminded of the asphyxiating hold our media have over public opinion, as AGAIN the approach to the riots, offered to the man in the street via the written and televised reports, walked the perpetual, flattrodden paths of social injustice, lack of opportunity, institutionalized victimhood, racism, and of course the 'growing gap between the rich and the poor'.
'Yawn' should not be an appropriate reaction to this approach.
Anger should be it.
Anger at the cabals of leftist assholes who keep repeating the same old lies, packing it in soothing voices and larding it with designed 'interviews' of the poor rioters who 'steal to provide for their kids', all the while pointing to the glass and steel towers of high finance and to neat middle class houses, 'for whom the government does something', as opposed to them, 'for whom the government does nothing'.
I'm damn sorry that I don't have the time to provide the translation to the following video, but I'm sure the images speak bookmarks. Here you have the poor downtrodden youths who 'appropriated' themselves training gear and computer games 'for their kids' for whom they care so much. Certainly the camera will show us from time to time the interviewing reporter from Belgian/Flemish TV, who's clearly showing sympathy for the scum. And as per usual:
The caption reads: 'The government helps nobody, only the rich.'
Wow, who would have thunk it???
Miraculously, wherever Belgian TV ventures out to some disaster zone, they will just about ALWAYS find the appropriate Belgian know-it-all expat who will provide the crew with the (politically) correct explanation. And so it was that the VRT reporters, let loose in smoldering Croydon, had the good fortune to come across a certain Thomas Aelbrecht, who - surprise! - wholeheartedly shared the VRT (Flemish Television) premicrowaved opinion that the chasm between the haves and the have-nots invariably must lead to, well, tensions you know. Proletarian shopping. Wholly understandable:
If you are a rightwinger, you simply must be too stupid to understand the motives of Ahmed and Moise descending upon racks of DVD players, digirecorders, Xboxes and what not. But LUCKILY there is always Flemish television!!!
"The violence cannot be excused, but many Londoners realize that the gap between rich and poor in the [British] capital widens, and this results in tensions."
Yeah, that's really what the background voice is saying. Pure, raw, unfiltrated MarxistShit. If only our moral betters would care to explain us who those mysterious many realizing Londoners are.
As for the written media, how could we forget De Standaard, which was lightning quick to let international commentator Evita Neefs shed her light on the events. Fellow blogger Hoegin, a Flemish engineer working in Norway, has a marvellous piece on this depraved personage, who - fasten your seatbelts - blames the London riots on Cameron's conservative government, which has cut back welfare!
Never mind that Cameron has been in charge for only one year, that the cuts his government is allegedly preparing have not taken effect yet, and moreover, that Britain is just now emering from a ten year stint under Labour! Hoegin makes the astute remarks that a.) it's wondrous how Cameron's mere talking about welfare cuts has apparently within a year thrown back these downtrodden people to the lowest ring of the social ladder, and,
b.) that nevertheless the sorry life of 29-year old Mark Duggan, the guy whose death sparked the riots and who was 'unemployed his whole life', apparently cannot be blamed on ten years Labour.
How a newspaper like De Standaard keeps pretending that it's the Low Countries' equivalent of a 'fair and balanced' newspaper is beyond me.
My two cts about the whole business can be summed up as follows: it's the Left's fault. It's a simple answer but most genial answers are. It's a.) they who have purposefully broken down the core social fabric of society aka the family. The scum that you see rampaging in London's streets has not grown up in normal families. Normal, as in a married heterosexual couple lovingly raising kids and teaching them the virtues of hard work and decent manners. Btw, maybe you noticed that most rioters have, ah, how shall be put it? That they have a nice tan. Here's a hint tanned ones. Try to commit to one partner instead of fucking your way thru life and let your penis be your compass. Sorry - or not - but black people need to acknowledge the basic fact that their promiscuous behavior is not the best guarantee for their offspring's a harmonious upbringing. Yesterday I was in the home of a white woman client who a couple of years back had the brilliant idea of marrying a black man. I knew they had two kids, and it had been some time since I had been there. First thing I notice, the kitchen wall sports numerous photos of the lady and her two kiddos. Daddy nowhere to be seen, neither in real life nor on celluloid. It wasn't until I was checking out electrical stuff in the room adjacent to the heater that I found a photo of the, I think Senegalese dad. Tucked to the wall BEHIND a rack. Well, that was clear enough. The lady's is a single mom now, daddy is having fun elsewhere.
Then this week I overheard my mom telling me about her sister's daughter, who is an accomplished international volleyballplayer, how her former black lover from a couple of years back still owes her - the volleyballplayer - stacks of money which she foolishly lent him to refurbish his house. Btw, with former I meant it's been over for some time, the love I mean. Not that his state of being black is over of course, although some apparently use wondrous soaps.
Does this mean that all black men are untrue? It doesn't. But the ones who jump from hole to hole like rabbits, giving a flying fuck for what becomes of their seed, are far more numerous than the ones who stay and try to be decent dads. Period. And if you disagree with me you're either nuts or live in a parallel universe.
Where was I? Oh, b.) It's also the left which has opened the floodgates of an unbridled immigration, letting loose on the UK's soil legions of incapable fuckwads who can barely read and/or write and are then expected them to find decent jobs.
Oh well. The person who summed it up best is probably Pat Condell:
First, via our US Navy friend CDR Salamander the following sobering audio recording on September 11, 2001 between a NY Fire Department dispatcher and a Mr Kevin Cosgrove, trapped on Floor 105 of one of the WTC buildings:
Did you listen to the end? Did you hear Mr Cosgrove's final shout? Audible over the planet thx to the Internet, so I suppose there's a good chance this recording has reached Mr Cosgrove's entire family over the years.
Okay, now over to Mark Steyn at the OC Register, September 9, 2011:
I went to these wussies's website, pondering the extraordinary difference of the mindsets of the average westerner over the period since WWII. The people behind 911day.org seem to their damnedest best to try to make us forget there's actually still a WAR going on. Back in December 44, people wouldn't have needed to be reminded of that, and in the unlikely event that it would have been technologically possible to have them make their opinion heard, I figure there wouldn't have been much of that moochy I-will-remember-9/11-by-anger-management-sessions-with-my-son stuf wouf.
I figure the 1944 New Yorkers would have rather unequivocally stated they wished to see the Krauts and the Japs clubbered and defeated.
Suddenly having an idea for a decent entry, I wondered how da boyz & girlz over at 911day.org would react to it. This is what I submitted. Took a screenshot of it:
Checked out their site several times, but alas, I fear Outlaw Mike doesn't reach the civility heights expected from kosher "I will (piss my pants)" submitters.
In the UK, retired judge Sir William Gage made public his inquiry into the death of Iraqi hotel manager Baha Moussa, allegedly tortured by British soldiers in 2003 in Iraq's main southern city of Basra. During an interrogation by British soldiers belonging to 1st Battalion, the Queen's Lancashire Regiment, an interrogation that would have lasted 36 hours, Moussa would have suffered 93 injuries, including broken ribs and a broken nose.
Naturally, a conclusion like that is gefundenes Fressen for DS as well as for the entire Belgian media landscape, which is as politically diverse as ink jet black has shades of green and red. Not a hint of WHY exactly it was that 1st Battalion, QLR saw fit to detain Mousa and several companions, but that must have been grossly unimportant.
The caption in this Thursday, September 8, 2011 DS article reads 'British government criticised for torture in Iraq'.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm all for an institution like the British Army to keep a spotless record with regards to upholding human rights, ridding itself of war criminals and so on. If Mr Moussa was indeed tortured for no good reason and if he died as a result, the service members responsible for his death should face justice.
But that's not the point.
The point is that a leftist rag like De Standaard, which because of some cosmic anomaly keeps presenting itself as 'objective' will just NEVER fail to inform its readers of alleged misconduct by western forces in the conflict du jour.
HOWEVER...
when it's about this kind of stories, De Standaard readers are left curiously in the cold.
The pain and grief of, say, the parents of Simon Miller?
NOT IMPORTANT for De Standaard! Doesn't even register on their radar! The result is that we are all well informed about Mr Mousa, but not at all about Simon Alexander Hamilton-Jewell, Russel Aston, Paul Graham Long, Simon Miller, John McGowan Hyde and Thomas Richard Keys.
DE STANDAARD CONSIDERS THEM NOT IMPORTANT.
Or, would it not be better to say 'De Standaard considers them nonexistant'? I think it would be.
I remember the sad deaths of these six men. I remember how appalled I was, seven years ago, to read about how these men, who were training local police forces and doing a job for the good in an islamic hellhole, were butchered by muslim animals.
I haven't forgotten. De Standaard, on the other hand, has chosen never to know them.
Until we get rid of this sickening pathological tendency to see the worst in the best of us, and the best in the worst of our enemies, our continent and indeed, western civilization, will continue its demise.
My friend and fellow conservative Traveller, an accomplished engineer who has been active in a plethora of countries, sent me the following interesting videos on the daring Osirak raid by Israeli fighter bombers, in June 1981.
In the mid-seventies, Iraq, by then for some years already under firm control of Saddam Hussein and his Baath party, purchased a 40MW light water nuclear reactor from France. The controversy surrounding the feasibility of making sufficient plutonium for a nuclear weapon using this reactor, in a sufficiently short time, continues to this day. The regime claimed the reactor was for peaceful purposes only, but given the track record of Saddam's Iraq, such a claim was doubtful at best. The regime was perhaps even lured into thinking, by the French engineers, that the Osirak reactor was indeed capable of producing plutonium for a ncuclear weapon.
In any case, since the founding of the Jewish state Iraq had shown itself to be viciously hostile, on several occasions launching its armies against Israel. This had happened as early as 1948. To trust such a state to make inroads in nuclear technology without taking precautions against a nuclear strike would have been foolish. When intense diplomatic efforts to make France and Italy stop its assistance in building the reactor failed, the israeli government decided to bomb the site to rubble.
This was the daring Osirak raid, dubbed 'Operation Opera'. On June 7, 1981, six F-15A's and eight F-16A's took off from Eitzion AFB, crossed Jordanian and Saudi airspace, and destroyed the Osirak reactor. One of the F-16 pilots was Ilan Ramon, who would become Israels first astronaut and who would be tragically killed in the 2003 Columbia disaster.
Wim Mertens is a Belgian/Flemish minimalist composer. I guess I may be boring the Belgians among the audience with the following number, Close Cover, but for foreigners it's a good start to become acquainted with this man's work.
Mertens, which by the way is a very typical Belgian/Flemish name, composed a.o. music for the 1987 Peter Greenaway movie The Belly of an Architect. Never saw that one nor made any effort for it, even though I like its main actor, Brian Dennehy.
