Never tear us apart, an INXS hit.
From, imho, their best album: Kick.
'night.
MFBB.
Mr. Blankley’s dedication to journalism and the craft of writing was unmatched. His wife Lynda Davis told us he was working on his half-finished weekly column shortly before he died. This zeal was fueled by his love of country and deep concern for America’s direction. His two books, “The West’s Last Chance” and “American Grit,” both focused on our contemporary crisis but were tempered by hope and faith in the greatness of the United States and our people to turn it around. Mr. Blankley’s intelligence, experience and humanity made him a truly irreplaceable individual. While his family grieves for a missed husband and father, his extended family at The Washington Times is shedding tears of love and support for their fallen friend. Godspeed Tony Blankley. Requiescat in pace.
1.) A remark, Kortrijk.
'They should urgently add a manual to those handguns you know. 'First look in the barrel and pull the trigger, before you point the gun on other people.'
Offensive? Not done? Tell us. 27/12/11 16h28
2.) maja konecke
'As a result of overpopulation this will only happen more often, you ain't seen nothing yet!'
Offensive? Not done? Tell us. 26/12/11 18h40
3.) Kansarax Buda, Erps-Kwerps
'And still there's people who are pro the public selling of guns... To them I say: read last month's stories... Is that what we want??'
Offensive? Not done? Tell us. 26/12/11 18h25
4.) Honest meaning, Ghent
'What a world. All the time more violence and less punishment for this violence. A downward spiral.'
Offensive? Not done? Tell us. 26/12/11 16u10
5.) wim janssens, Westerlo
copycat. This happened a few years back in the Promised Land.
Offensive? Not done? Tell us. 26/12/11 11u14
6.) Marc Spandel, Sint-Niklaas
'Since it is in America, the 'gifts' could have been the loaded handguns themselves because the murders occurred right after opening the packages... Maybe this was about a deliberately created drama between rivals whereby the onlookers too had to give up their lives.'
Offensive? Not done? Tell us. 26/12/11 09u19
7.) jefke fonske, Tremelo
'You always have to pay attention with what you buy for someone (best beforehand establish the amount you will spend etc)'
Offensive? Not done? Tell us. 26/12/11 07u49
8. Gee Bee, Bonheiden
'thus the question is: who committed suicide?'
Offensive? Not done? Tell us.26/12/11 07u32
"Nigeria is an example of a country on the cusp of becoming Islamic: its population is now about 50% Muslim. As a result, it is subject to continuous low-level internecine warfare, punctuated by occasional flare-ups into massive violence, such as the Christmas Day bombings that killed dozens of people.
Yet Nigeria is not a true nation. It is not a homogeneous ethnic and cultural entity, but simply a patchwork relic of British colonialism. If it had formed naturally, it would consist of at least two states: a northern one (mostly Muslim) and a southern one (mostly non-Muslim).
The devout Muslims of northern Nigeria, as represented by the terrorist group Boko Haram (“Western education is a sin”), are now trying to create a de facto sharia state in their portion of the country. That’s what the Christmas Day bombings were about. And now the follow-up is an effort to drive the Christians out of the north and into the south.
Here’s the story from Asia News:
Boko Haram Gives Three Day Ultimatum to the Christians to Flee Northern Nigeria
The “Nigerian Taliban” also advise Muslims in the south to return to the north because they risk being killed by soldiers. Thousands of Christians fleeing. The bishops reject the sectarian drift of the conflict and ask for more security, but also no retaliation.
Lagos (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Christians in northern Nigeria have three days to leave the area before a series of attacks against them: This is the ultimatum set by the radical Islamic sect Boko Haram, which has claimed responsibility for the massacres that took place Christmas day in 12 sites across the states of Yobe and Borno (northeast), Niger (West), Plateau (central Nigeria). The killings have claimed the lives of over 40 people and already thousands of Christians are fleeing in terror.
The ultimatum comes a few days after the decision by President Goodluck Jonathan (a Christian) to declare a state of emergency for the areas attacked, with the deployment of armed soldiers.
It’s interesting that Boko Haram consider it necessary to advise Muslims to flee the south of Nigeria and move north:
Europe is in the midst of a fiscal crisis caused by too much government spending, yet many of the continent’s politicians want the European Central Bank to purchase the dodgy debt of reckless welfare states such as Spain, Italy, Greece, and Portugal in order to prop up these big government policies.
So it’s especially noteworthy that economists at the European Central Bank have just produced a study showing that government spending is unambiguously harmful to economic performance. Here is a brief description of the key findings.
…we analyse a wide set of 108 countries composed of both developed and emerging and developing countries, using a long time span running from 1970-2008, and employing different proxies for government size… Our results show a significant negative effect of the size of government on growth. …Interestingly, government consumption is consistently detrimental to output growth irrespective of the country sample considered (OECD, emerging and developing countries).
There are two very interesting takeaways from this new research. First, the evidence shows that the problem is government spending, and that problem exists regardless of whether the budget is financed by taxes or borrowing. Unfortunately, too many supposedly conservative policy makers fail to grasp this key distinction and mistakenly focus on the symptom (deficits) rather than the underlying disease (big government).
The second key takeaway is that Europe’s corrupt political elite is engaging in a classic case of Mitchell’s Law, which is when one bad government policy is used to justify another bad government policy. In this case, they undermined prosperity by recklessly increasing the burden of government spending, and they’re now using the resulting fiscal crisis as an excuse to promote inflationary monetary policy by the European Central Bank.
The ECB study, by contrast, shows that the only good answer is to reduce the burden of the public sector. Moreover, the research also has a discussion of the growth-maximizing size of government.
… economic progress is limited when government is zero percent of the economy (absence of rule of law, property rights, etc.), but also when it is closer to 100 percent (the law of diminishing returns operates in addition to, e.g., increased taxation required to finance the government’s growing burden – which has adverse effects on human economic behaviour, namely on consumption decisions).
“A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.”
"Imagine it’s 1621 in Plymouth and, instead of the Pilgrims and the Indians gathering for the First Thanksgiving, it’s conservatives and liberals. They are sitting down to share their harvests happily and express gratitude for survival.
Yeah, right.
In truth, they’d be fighting over who brought more and who ate more. Those who didn’t get a drumstick would shatter the idyllic scene with shrieking charges of “Turkey Inequality” and wails for “my fair share.”
I jest to make a point. The point being that, 390 years after the first symbol of gratitude created by Europeans on this continent, Americans are locked in a bitter conflict of ingratitude. The tug-of-war over the turkey wishbone is now a polarizing class struggle.
The dividing line is the loaded phrase “income inequality.” It’s all about who eats and who pays.
On one level, income inequality is real, and growing. Yet as a bedrock and urgent political issue, it’s pure hokum, cooked up in the socialist faculty lounges and the back rooms where the government unions pull the strings of puppet pols. The aim is to hijack emotions and grow the government pie so favored voters get a bigger slice.
It has surprisingly wide appeal. People from the vagabonds playing drums in Zuccotti Park to the billionaire mayor of New York who rousted them, Michael Bloomberg, say income inequality is a big problem..."
"Having given up on the meaning of America, which is about expanding opportunity and liberty for everyone, income equalizers are pitting Americans against each other in a fight certain to make losers of us all."
RESOUNDING VICTORY FOR SPANISH CONSERVATIVES.
"This Sunday, November 20, the Spanish Conservative Party (PP) was the resounding victor in Spain's parliamentary elections. This much was clear after counting 75% of the votes. The PP claimed victory.
Mariano Rajoy's People's Party beat PM José Luis Zapatero's Socialist Party with utmost ease and can count on an absolute majority in Parliament.
After counting 75 per cent of the votes the PP could sign up 187 seats in the 350-seat Spanish House of Commons, the biggest score the party ever obtained. The socialists won 109 seats and have admitted their defeat.
The continuing high unemployment in Spain and the gloomy economic forecast in the country led many Spaniards in the voting booths to end Zapatero's premiership, which lasted almost eight years.
Rajoy and his PP now face the difficult task to turn around the Spanish economy and at the same time decrease the budget deficit by enhancing taxes and force through austerity measures."