This Robert Frost quote was one of Dymphna’s favorites. I’m sure she would approve of the use to which I’ve put it:
Young Folks at Home
Monthly Archives: July 2019
Gates of Vienna News Feed 7/20/2019
London police are searching for the person or persons who released CS gas early this morning on a train in the Underground. Two persons were hospitalized with breathing problems after the attack.
In other news, Italian prosecutors have ordered human trafficking indictments against another NGO, Proactiva Open Arms, for running illegal migrant ferries into Italian ports.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to JD, Reader from Chicago, SS, Upananda Brahmachari, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Over the Wall We Go — Into Melilla
Melilla is an autonomous Spanish city on the coast of North Africa, and shares a border with Morocco. It is a favorite location for migrants who want to attempt entry into Spain, and thus into the European Union.
Several days ago a group of 200 migrants stormed the border fence around Melilla, acting in a coordinated fashion. About fifty of them succeeded in getting over the fence, despite the actions of both Spanish and Moroccan police.
Many thanks to FouseSquawk for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Video transcript:
The Battle We Are Losing
In this week’s essay, our Dutch correspondent H. Numan discusses the usurpation of the public space for Muslim prayers, and related matters.
The battle we are losing
by H. Numan
Mohammedans have discovered something new: civil disobedience. It works excellently for them. I’m referring to the illegal mass prayer meetings they organize wherever convenient.
Civil disobedience is nothing new. The extreme left discovered and practiced it for ages. They actually worship it. I recall flower-power hippies preaching civil disobedience as an alternative for an army. Just don’t obey any commands from an occupier and there is nothing he can do.
That was long ago, when I was just a lad. Not a stupid lad, I think. Because the very idea was too silly to even consider. Even when I was 12. I thought ‘How the hell can that possibly work? Look at the Prague revolt and the Hungarian uprising. All you have to do as the Warsaw Pact is to machine-gun the unruly crowd into obedience.’ Which is exactly what the USSR did.
You don’t have even to machine-gun everybody. Much later when I served in the military police we had a spot of trouble with Moluccans. After the hijack was resolved, we had to clear an area where snipers were seen. It became somewhat dangerous, so an M113 armored personnel carrier moved in. The gunner used his Browning .50 machine gun to shoot over the heads of our opposition. That quieted things down in a hurry. Nobody got hurt, apart from some chimneys. The sniper was quickly arrested. (After that action the .50 was replaced with a MAG 7.62 mm, as the Browning was serious overkill.)
Does civil disobedience work? Sure it does — if your opponent is democratic. Otherwise it won’t. The left sang songs of praise about the civil disobedience at Tiananmen square. During the first couple of weeks, at any rate. The lone man holding a squadron of tanks back, all alone. That’s real civil disobedience! The sad truth is different. The Chinese government had absolutely no problem at all using as much violence as they deemed necessary. Shooting a man from a tank, or waltz over him — that’s a bit embarrassing. Absolutely no need for that. Apart from that lonely individual, who probably was executed later, plenty of violence was used. Did it work? Did the Chinese civil disobedience work? You tell me. My bet is on the Chinese government.
What happened with the Tankman from Tiananmen Square? We don’t know. We don’t even know his name. It’s highly likely he didn’t live happily ever after. Or if he is even alive, in some out of the way prison — we simply don’t know. This civil disobedience action was squashed completely. In other words: it didn’t work. It couldn’t work. Why? Because the Chinese government is anything but democratic.
Did you know you have your own home grown disobedients? They are called ‘Sovereign Citizens’. A mixed bunch (not a coherent group) of disillusioned anarchists, fundamentalists, poor and extreme rightists. They claim they are not US citizens and bring many a cop to tears. Sovereigns are usually non-violent and most of the time excruciatingly polite. All the same, they do not comply with lawfully-given orders by traffic police, and try to make any citation as difficult as humanly possible.
Sovereign citizens are not really a defined group, but more a sort of weird legal ideology in which they consider themselves not to be US citizens and are exempt from the law — except where it suits them. They invariably deny they are driving, and claim they are ‘traveling’ which according to them is a constitutional right. When asked for a driver’s license, car registration and proof of insurance they never give them, but do insist that the officer shows any kind of identification they desire. Watch some YouTube clips about them; it’s hilarious. Having been a police officer myself, I sympathize with my American colleagues and admire their patience.
Mujahideen Sentenced for Attempted Sabotage of a High-Speed Russian Train
As I understand it, “IGIL” is an alternate designation for ISIS, the Islamic State. It may be a transliterated Russian acronym of the name.
Many thanks to D@rLin|{ for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Video transcript:
Gates of Vienna News Feed 7/19/2019
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized a British oil tanker in the Straits of Hormuz. A second ship flying a Liberian flag was also seized, and then later released.
In other news, an “American” man has been charged with terrorism offenses in a federal court in Brooklyn for traveling to Syria and becoming a sniper for the Islamic State.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to JD, Reader from Chicago, SS, Upananda Brahmachari, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
I am Curious, But Not Yellow
The following video is a report on what happened on the sidewalks of the Champs Elysées in Paris on Bastille Day, July 14th. All traces of support for the Yellow Vests were systematically eliminated from the scene. Gendarmes and police moved among the crowd, arresting people for wearing yellow clothing or carrying yellow balloons. Watch the action at about 5:25, when a young woman with a yellow balloon is manhandled (personhandled?) roughly by the gendarmes.
Many thanks to Ava Lon for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Video transcript:
Members of Nigerian Mafia Arrested in Bologna and Turin
The following news story from Italian TV reports on the arrest of members of the Nigerian mafia in two major Italian cities. The report doesn’t specifically mention it, but it seems likely that this group has connections to the “Nigerian cannibal mafia” that murdered and dismembered Pamela Mastropietro in Macerata. That group was also said to have controlled the local trade in drugs and prostitutes.
Many thanks to FouseSquawk for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Below is an article from ANSA (hat tip Insubria) about the arrest of the Nigerians:
Nigerian Mafia Clan Busted
‘Maphite Cult’ ran sex, drug rackets according to ‘Green Bible’
(ANSA) — Bologna, July 18 — A Nigerian mafia clan that allegedly controlled a big chunk of the drugs and prostitution markets in Piedmont and Emilia Romagna was busted by Turin and Bologna police in twin operations on Thursday.
Among those arrested were the heads of the so-called Maphite Cult, which initiated members with burning rituals as well as running sex workers with voodoo rites, keeping ties with other mafias and controlling the drugs flow.
The clan was run according to the rules of their ‘Green Bible’ whose commandments included the ‘Mario Monti’ norm on recycling money to countries of origin, police said.
Interior Minister Matteo Salvini hailed the bust.
“Maxi-operation against the Nigerian mafia, so much for those who denied its existence. Thanks to the police and investigators. We don’t need this kind of immigration. Ports closed, jails open!,” he tweeted.
Video transcript:
Ilhan Omar: Incest and Polyandry
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is not really incestuous or polyandrous — the alleged marriage to her brother was never more than a scam, presumably to advance his immigration status. Her main squeeze, whom she belatedly married, was not her husband when she falsely filed joint tax returns with him. So there was no bigamy, just plain old tax fraud.
For the rest of this post, readers are asked to mentally insert the word “alleged” in front of any description of a crime or potential crime. Except for the fraudulent tax returns — which are documented in the public record — Rep. Omar has not been convicted of any crime, so the “alleged”s are de rigueur. Nor has she been investigated for any of the other crimes, as far as I know. Since she is a Woke Woman of Color, and a Muslim to boot, she generally gets a free pass.
She has refused to answer any questions about her siblings, her marriage to her brother, or related matters. Her spokesbeings uniformly dismiss such questions as evidence of “bigotry” — even when they are asked by The Star-Tribune, the local Minneapolis paper that has served as her own unpaid PR firm from the inception of her career. Yes, even the earnest Progressives of the Strib are bigoted if they ask Saint Ilhan about her marriage to her brother.
The “bigotry” charge is, as usual, more than enough to deflect any serious media inquiries into the matter. Not that the MSM needs any real deflection — a Progressive Muslim woman of color is close enough to their idea of a perfect politician to ensure that they accept the Congressmuslima’s press releases as the gospel truth.
For the past three years three non-MSM people have been digging deeply into Ilhan Omar’s (or really, Ilhan Elmi’s) shady dealings. Two of them, Scott Johnson of Power Line and David Steinberg, formerly of PJM, have collaborated to do the investigative work that the “journalists” should have been doing, but haven’t.
Scott Johnson appeared on Tucker Carlson’s program to discuss the devastating information in David Steinberg’s latest report, which was published yesterday at Power Line:
To summarize:
Gates of Vienna News Feed 7/18/2019
Three men who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State were convicted of murder and sentenced to death by a Moroccan court for killing two female Scandinavian hikers last year. The men had recorded the murders and posted the video on social media.
In other news, an angry man used an accelerant (some reports say gasoline) to set fire to an anime studio in Japan, killing 33 people and wounding dozens more. His motive is unknown.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Insubria, JD, Reader from Chicago, SS, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Is America Heading Towards a Second Civil War?
A Gates of Vienna reader sends these observations about the vicious culture war currently raging in the USA, which he thinks may evolve into a full-on civil war.
Is America heading towards a second Civil War?
by SF
A violent outbreak of civil war usually arises as the final stage of a constantly escalating series of rhetorical accusations between two polarized and irreconcilable sides. We are seeing this today in the confrontation between Republicans and Democrats.
In a nutshell, the Democrats consider the Republicans to be “Nazis”. And because the Republicans are “Nazis”, the Democrats refuse to listen to anything they say. Instead, the Democrats only listen to themselves, and those Democrats who are loudest and most aggressive in their leftist agenda keep pushing all the Democrats farther and farther leftwards, in a repeating cycle of positive feedback (self-reinforcement).
The Democrats consider traditional white conservative Christian Republicans to be a dangerous enemy who are preventing the spread of liberal “progressivism” throughout America. But the Democrats still do not dare to call the Republicans “Nazis” outright. Instead, they use the politically correct terms “racists”, “fascists” and “nationalists”.
The Democrats characterize the Republicans as “white supremacists, Christian bigots, and male chauvinists”. Their ultimate goal is to establish a utopian one-world government where whites do not dominate. To accomplish this democratically, without open warfare, they have thrown open America’s borders, and invited all of the Third World to enter America (primarily Latinos, Africans, and Muslims), where they will eventually be able to outvote the Republicans and make them a permanent minority.
The Democrats have a fixed ideology that is really a religious dogma. They consider white conservatives to be evil (what the Communists used to call “reactionaries who cannot be re-educated”). Democrats refuse to believe that there is any genetic component to human intelligence, so that every human being is a potential genius as long as he is educated by the Democrats. Accordingly, when America becomes majority non-white, and all those non-whites have been educated by the Democrats, then America will lead the rest of the world into becoming a global utopia.
I do not see how America can survive intact when Democrats become the permanent majority. The Republicans will probably secede, and form a new nation in America’s heartland, leaving both coasts and the Mexican border in the hands of the Democrats.
Mullah Krekar Will Be Relocating to a Warmer Climate
Mullah Krekar is a “Norwegian” spiritual leader, kind of like the Dalai Lama of the fjords. Only with a much bushier beard.
Mr. Krekar is a Kurd — original name Najmeddine Faraj Ahmad — who moved from Iraq to Norway in 1991. He has engaged in incitement, threatened prominent people, been arrested, and was sent to prison (for five years starting in 2012, but was released early). He’s not a Norwegian citizen, yet the Norwegian government has never been able to deport him.
But on Monday an Italian court convicted him of terrorism offenses in absentia, and Norway has agreed to extradite him. The esteemed mullah will now be enjoying a warmer climate, albeit from a room with bars in the windows.
For the previous exploits of this renowned interfaith leader, see the Mullah Krekar archives.
Many thanks to FouseSquawk for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Video transcript:
Gates of Vienna News Feed 7/17/2019
Carola Rackete, the captain of the migrant-rescue ship Sea-Watch 3, insists that the European Union must accept all the migrants who have gathered in Libya awaiting passage to Europe. It is estimated that half a million migrants are currently assembled in Libyan camps.
In other news, Nigel Farage, the leader of the Brexit Party, said that Ursula Von der Leyen, the new president of the European Commission, wants to build a neo-Communist state in Europe.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Dean, Gort, JD, JLH, Reader from Chicago, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
The Lack of Repose
As of very early this morning, it has been one month since my wife died.
These have been by far the hardest thirty days of my life, much worse than the time after the death of my father (which was very hard). I don’t know what the experience of divorce is like, since I’ve only been married once. Maybe it’s as bad as this. And I don’t know what it’s like to lose a spouse about whom one had been ambivalent — I had never been ambivalent about Dymphna. All I know is the depth of how much I miss her.
My goal is to keep this site running in more or less its accustomed form. To some extent the American side of the news will be lacking — Dymphna and I divided our functions more than a decade ago: I specialized in European affairs, and she specialized in the USA. I’ll be looking at American issues in attempt to make up for the lack of my better half, but I won’t be able to watch the number of videos she watched. For the last few years of her life she absorbed her information mostly through videos, since she could watch those on her little tablet while sitting up in bed.
[To see a chilling video that Dymphna would almost certainly have posted if she were around, check out this excerpt from Tucker Carlson’s program (hat tip JLH), which features an interview with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL).]
The main problem for me right now is that I don’t really want to do anything. I feel an obligation to keep Gates of Vienna going, obviously, and I know that going to work every day — which is effectively what this is — will eventually enable me to pass through the worst of my grief. The landscape around me looks bleak and uninviting, but I expect that to change gradually as I maintain my routine over the next few months.
Writing about my misery from time to time will probably also be helpful. Putting these things down in words makes me think about them carefully, and thus gain a better understanding of what’s happening.
In a different context Wallace Stevens wrote (in “The Lack of Repose”):
And not yet to have written a book in which
One is already a grandfather and to have put there
A few sounds of meaning, a momentary end
To the complication, is good, is a good.
There’ll be no book from all of this, just a series of occasional jottings.
They say you can get used to anything. Over the past six years I’ve gotten used to the occasional injections that I have to receive in my left eye to prevent a recurrence of wet macular degeneration. It’s a horrible experience, but I got used to it.
I had one of those injections this afternoon, the first one since Dymphna died. That’s why I’m not doing much this evening.
But I don’t know if I can get used to the absence of my wife. I’ll just have to wait and see.