Dithyramb

Daniel Pipes on the French Intifada

Daniel Pipes has some Reflections on the Revolution in France.

Jihad in Europe

Mark Steyn: Wake up Europe, you've a war on your hands

200th Anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar

200th Anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar!
The Nelson Society
The 1805 Club

Telegraph: Service brings Nelson up to date

 

 

       Nelson painted by Lemuel Abbott

For more information on Lord Nelson one can read the classic:
The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson by Robert Southey

David Donachie has written and exciting and enjoyable trilogy on Nelson and Emma:  On a Making Tide, Breaking the Line and Tested by Fate.

Terrence Rattigan, the great playwright, has written a magnificent piece called A Bequest to the Nation (which is featured in the Collected Plays of Terrence Rattigan and can be purchased from the Paper Tiger).

Eat My Shorts!

The Simpsons exported to Arabs -- Minus Bacon, Beer: Key Aspects of New Middle East Version Gets Lost in Translation

"Oct. 18) -- After 17 seasons of entertaining U.S. audiences, "The Simpsons" can now be seen on Arab television. While U.S. foreign policy is not always a hit overseas, there is a huge audience for American popular culture.
...

"Translating the show linguistically, as well as culturally, as well as socially so that it appeals to the audience that's watching it here, I think there's a lot of details that one has to pay attention to," said Nadia Rahman, a professor at the Zayed University Media Center in the United Arab Emirates. "How does the mother dress? How does the sister dress?"

So MBC is making some changes as the characters go from American to Arab. They will remove references to things forbidden by the Koran, such as bacon, beer, and other references that might be construed as offensive.
...

Homer Simpson's ubiquitous Duff beer will now be soda in the Arab version of the show.

Hot dogs will become Egyptian beef sausages, and donuts will become popular Arab cookies called "kahk." Moe's Bar has been completely written out of "Al Shamshoon."

With characters who are Jewish (like Krusty the Clown), Hindu (like Kwik-E-Mart owner Apu) and Christian (like the family's pastor, Rev. Lovejoy), Al Jean — "The Simpsons" executive producer — says those changes mean they aren't "The Simpsons" anymore."

The Show seems hardly recognizable.

Air-strikes and Smurphs

Mark Steyn has written a piece on modern warfare called Sometimes it is worth going to war where he argues the case for the moral superiority of air-strikes over any type of tribal warfare.

Missiles to threaten Europe

Russians help  Iran with  missile threat to Europe

"Former members of the Russian military have been secretly helping Iran to acquire technology needed to produce missiles capable of striking European capitals."

Banning the Burqa

Holland fears killings over ban on burqa

Merkel to take the helm in Germany

Merkel will lead as Schroeder yields chancellorship

Death to all Smurphs!

Smurf Massacre Terrifies Kids!
Gargomel is pleased!

"BRUSSELS - The people of Belgium have been left reeling by a public service commercial featuring the Smurfs, in which the blue-skinned cartoon characters' village is annihilated by warplanes.
...
The 25-second commercial is the work of UNICEF, and is to be broadcast on TV across Belgium next week as a public fundraiser. It is intended as the keystone of a drive, by UNICEF's Belgian arm, to raise about $145,000 for the rehabilitation of former child soldiers in Burundi.
...
Belgian television viewers were given a preview of the commercial earlier this week, when it was shown on the main evening news. Reactions ranged from approval to shock and, in the case of small children who saw the episode by accident, wailing terror."

Traumatizing kids to show that war is hell!...

"The ad pulls no punches. It opens with the Smurfs dancing, hand-in-hand, around a campfire and singing the Smurf song. Bluebirds flutter past and rabbits gambol around their familiar village of mushroom- shaped houses until, without warning, bombs begin to rain from the sky.

Tiny Smurfs scatter and run in vain from the whistling bombs, before being felled by blast waves and fiery explosions. The final scene shows a scorched and tattered Baby Smurf sobbing inconsolably, surrounded by prone Smurfs.

The final frame bears the message: "Don't let war affect the lives of children.''"

Maybe they should have though about that before they aired it on the evening news.

Developing Nuclear Capabilities

How can the IAEA win the Nobel Peace Prize given this development?...

MI5 unmasks covert arms programmes

"The determination of countries across the Middle East and Asia to develop nuclear arsenals and other weapons of mass destruction is laid bare by a secret British intelligence document which has been seen by the Guardian.

More than 360 private companies, university departments and government organisations in eight countries, including the Pakistan high commission in London, are identified as having procured goods or technology for use in weapons programmes.

The length of the list, compiled by MI5, suggests that the arms trade supermarket is bigger than has so far been publicly realised. MI5 warns against exports to organisations in Iran, Pakistan, India, Israel, Syria and Egypt and to beware of front companies in the United Arab Emirates, which appears to be a hub for the trade.

 

Article continues

 

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The disclosure of the list comes as the Nobel peace prize was yesterday awarded to Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN watchdog responsible for combating proliferation. The Nobel committee said they had made the award because of the apparent deadlock in disarmament and the danger that nuclear weapons could spread "both to states and to terrorist groups"."

IAEA: Rewarded for being a failure!

Long Live Piglet!

The Sun

"NOVELTY pig calendars and toys have been banned from a council office — in case they offend Muslim staff.

Workers in the benefits department at Dudley Council, West Midlands, were told to remove or cover up all pig-related items, including toys, porcelain figures, calendars and even a tissue box featuring Winnie the Pooh and Piglet."

Mark Steyn has a good commentary on the story entitled Making a pig's ear out of defending democracy

"When every act that a culture makes communicates weakness and loss of self-belief, eventually you'll be taken at your word. In the long term, these trivial concessions are more significant victories than blowing up infidels on the Tube or in Bali beach restaurants. An act of murder demands at least the pretence of moral seriousness, even from the dopiest appeasers. But small acts of cultural vandalism corrode the fabric of freedom all but unseen."

Cox & Forkum have created this brilliant illustration!

Al-Qaeda Job Vacancies

A hilarious post from Secular Blasphemy

"Al-Qaeda job vacancies

Help wanted. Crappy salary, paranoid boss, short life expectancy and imaginary retirement benefits. Sounds like the kind of job you'd like to have? In case, what about a job doing video editing for al-Qaeda?!"

Another Nobel Peace Prize Disgrace

"Norway" has done it again. IAEA has been given the Nobel Peace Prize. Why? It's an ineffective organisation much like the UN, that has been critical of American  "unilateralism" and which has done it's best to obstruct the USA. And maybe that is the reason! To officially give moral sanction to the "multilateralist-UN-approach" and implicitly criticise US foreign policy.

Why take offence?

The Nobel Peace Prize has previously been given to the infamous Yassir Arafat, who invented modern aircraft hijacking!

The prize has been rendered worthless a long, long time ago.

The Decaying Corpse of Communism

The Lenin dilemma: Rest in peace, or in public

"For eight decades, he has been lying in state on public display, a cadaver in a succession of dark suits, encased in a glass box beside a walkway in the basement of his granite mausoleum. Many who revere him say he is at peace, the leader in repose beneath the lights. Others think he just looks wan and macabre.

Time has been unkind to Lenin, whose remains in Red Square are said to sprout occasional fungi and whose ideology and party fell to ruins."

Columbus day and 9/11

Thomas A Bowden, author of The Enemies of Columbus has written a good article called Columbus Day: The Cure for 9/11

"On a deeper level, therefore, Columbus Day celebrates the rational core of Western civilization, which flourished in the New World like a potbound plant liberated from its confining shell, demonstrating to the world what greatness is possible to man at his best."

Wifebeating

An Islamic Guide To How To Beat Your Wife

MADRID -- An imam who wrote a book on how to beat your wife without leaving marks on her body has been ordered by a judge in Spain to study the country's constitution.
The judge told Mohamed Kamal Mustafa, imam of a mosque in the southern resort of Fuengirola, to spend six months studying three articles of the constitution and the universal declaration of human rights.
    Mr. Mustafa was sentenced to 15 months in jail and fined about $2,600 last year after being found guilty of inciting violence against women.

I don't think that studying the constitution for 6 months would shake up any-body's weltanschauung.  I suppose they consider this as taking firm and decisive action.

 

The Fascist Anti-War Left

Christopher Hitchens Anti-War, My Foot: The Phony Peacniks Who Protested in Washington
Excerpt:

"The name of the reporter on this story was Michael Janofsky. I suppose that it is possible that he has never before come across "International ANSWER," the group run by the "Worker's World" party and fronted by Ramsey Clark, which openly supports Kim Jong-il, Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic, and the "resistance" in Afghanistan and Iraq, with Clark himself finding extra time to volunteer as attorney for the génocidaires in Rwanda. Quite a "wide range of progressive political objectives" indeed, if that's the sort of thing you like. However, a dip into any database could have furnished Janofsky with well-researched and well-written articles by David Corn and Marc Cooper—to mention only two radical left journalists—who have exposed "International ANSWER" as a front for (depending on the day of the week) fascism, Stalinism, and jihadism."
...
"To be against war and militarism, in the tradition of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, is one thing. But to have a record of consistent support for war and militarism, from the Red Army in Eastern Europe to the Serbian ethnic cleansers and the Taliban, is quite another. It is really a disgrace that the liberal press refers to such enemies of liberalism as "antiwar" when in reality they are straight-out pro-war, but on the other side. Was there a single placard saying, "No to Jihad"? Of course not. Or a single placard saying, "Yes to Kurdish self-determination" or "We support Afghan women's struggle"? Don't make me laugh. And this in a week when Afghans went back to the polls, and when Iraqis were preparing to do so, under a hail of fire from those who blow up mosques and U.N. buildings, behead aid workers and journalists, proclaim fatwahs against the wrong kind of Muslim, and utter hysterical diatribes against Jews and Hindus."

Transcript: Andrew Bernstein on MSNBC

Should the government prevent price-gouging?

Brutal Stuff

South Africa anti-rape condom aims to stop attacks

"A South African inventor unveiled a new anti-rape female condom on Wednesday that hooks onto an attacker's penis and aims to cut one of the highest rates of sexual assault in the world."

It' will cut more than just high sexual assault rates...

"The device, made of latex and held firm by shafts of sharp barbs, can only be removed from the man through surgery which will alert hospital staff, and ultimately, the police..."

Terrorism Research in Norway

Norwegian Research on Terrorism

Petter Nesser
Jihad in Europe:a survey of the motivations for Sunni Islamist terrorism in post-millennium Europe

The Slaying of the Dutch Film Maker: Religiously Motivated Violence or Islamist Terrorism in the Name of Global Jihad?

In Norwegian
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Brynjar Lia & Petter Nesser: Terror Mot Drikkevann -  En  Oversikt over terrorgruppers' interesser for å ramme offentlig vannforsyning

Brynjar Lia & Petter Nesser: Terror mot Jernvegar: Eit oversyn over typiske terroraksjonar mot togpassasjertransport

Terra prosjektets rapporter

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I haven't had the time to read all of these yet, but I would like to know what kind of research is being done in the country that I live in.

Israeli Appeasement

ARI

Israel's Deadly Appeasement Policy Continues by Alex Epstein and Edward Cline

The Silent Pro-War Majority Speaks Out

Undaunted Courage

Hans Island Conflict

Agressive Canadians send warships to Hans Island
How will the Danes counter?

Terrorism: The Greatest Enemy of Radical Islam?

Daniel Pipes has written an intriguing piece entitled: How Terrorism Obstructs Radical Islam

Gas Attack in London Foiled by Scotland Yard

The Times

"SCOTLAND YARD believes it has thwarted an Al-Qaeda gas attack aimed at ministers and MPs in parliament. The plot, hatched last year, is understood to have been discovered in coded e-mails on computers seized from terror suspects in Britain and Pakistan."
...
“They were planning to use chemicals, a dirty bomb and sarin gas. They looked at all sorts of ways of delivering it.”