Auroras in the Northern Hemisphere are called northern lights; in the Southern Hemisphere southern lights. They appear as arcs, clouds and streaks which move across the night sky. The most common colors are green and red, although other colors may occur, too. Auroras have been observed on some other planets such Jupiter and Saturn as well, caused by their strong magnetic fields. They become more spectacular the closer you get to the Arctic or Antarctic regions, which is one of the reasons why their nature was finally worked out in Scandinavia.

George Handlery about the week that was. Rejection, quotas, under- and over-achieving minorities. Exploiting refugee status. When cowardice is masked as tolerance. Old procedures for new crimes? Health care, the budget savings and the deficit.

1. The hope of an easily attained good life and ignorance regarding the country and the working of advanced societies attracts large numbers of Gypsies to Canada. At this time, the place of departure is Hungary. With the help of totally distorted reports of the situation prevailing in there and also aided by a skill to say the right things at the right places, the Roma arrive. They travel with tourist visas and upon their arrival, they request refugee status. This is generally refused because Canadian Immigration knows that Hungary, but also the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, etc. are “safe countries”. The Gypsies’ movement-to-paradise is aided and amplified by shady organizations. They feed the eager press with stories of persecution at home while they recruit candidates for export and generously organize their trip. A profit is made as the migrants to the land of milk and honey sell their possessions at a discount. Doing so means burning all bridges to proceed on a road that leads to nowhere. As a result, after their forced return, these “refugees” are totally destitute. Reportedly, Canada is considering the reintroduction of visas – a requirement that had only been suspended a few months ago.

Herman Van Rompuy. Get used to the name. He is the first President of the European Union, which with the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon by all the 27 EU member states in early November was transformed into a genuine United States of Europe.

The President of Europe has not been elected; he was appointed in a secret meeting of the heads of government of the 27 EU member states. They chose one of their own. Herman Van Rompuy was the Prime Minister of Belgium. I knew him when he was just setting out, reluctantly, on his political career.

To understand Herman, one must know something about Belgium, a tiny country in Western Europe, and the prototype of the EU. Belgians do not exist as a nation. Belgium is an artificial state, constructed by the international powers in 1830 as a political compromise and experiment. The country consists of 6 million Dutch, living in Flanders, the northern half of the country, and 4 million French, living in Wallonia, the southern half. The Belgian Dutch, called Flemings, would have preferred to stay part of the Netherlands, as they were until 1830, while the Belgian French, called Walloons, would have preferred to join France. Instead, they were forced to live together in one state.

The environmental lobby gradually succeeds in promoting "the environment" to the "Golden Calf" of the 21st century. Rationality and sense of proportion have  vanished from the environmental debate. Whoever questions Al Gore's climate alarmism gets labeled as "negationist" worse even than Holocaust deniers. Even human rights, democracy and prosperity give way to the new idolatry.

Recent research however learns how much the climate alarmists exaggerate “global warming” an its effects. Anti-globalist motives seem to dominate the Copenhagen Climate Conference rather than environmental concerns. This hidden agenda is likely to distort global trade and inflict development and the environment far more bad than good.

The newspapers and the bookies say that Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy is one of the top candidates for the job as the first “EU President.” A glance at his recent career reveals that he is indeed the “perfect” candidate for the job. As Speaker in the Belgian federal Parliament, he changed the locks to the plenary session room overnight in order to prevent a gathering of parliamentarians from taking place. Who would better fit as the head of an organization that forces member-states to organize a second referendum when the first one doesn't give the desired result?

On Friday November 14 Novopress had warned of possible violence if Algeria lost a soccer match against Egypt. Algeria did lose on Saturday night and, as predicted, Algerian immigrants in France turned violent. The following very short video shows a scene of a boat burning in the port of Marseilles.

The book that inspired this text was The Legend of the Middle Ages: Philosophical Explorations of Medieval Christianity, Judaism, and Islam by Rémi Brague, a French professor and specialist of medieval religious philosophy. He is also the author of the fine book Eccentric Culture: A Theory of Western Civilization, which I have written an extensive essay about previously. Thematically this text overlaps to some extent with some of the material from my book Defeating Eurabia. I will supplement it with some quotes from two good online interviews with Mr. Brague.

Medieval Muslims were reluctant to travel to infidel lands. According to Islamic jurists Muslims should not stay for too long in the lands of non-Muslims if they cannot live a proper Muslim life there. Muslims had little knowledge of or interest in any Western languages. Only Italian had some currency for commercial purposes, but mainly involving Jews and Eastern Christians, especially Greeks and Armenians. Few Muslims knew any non-Muslim languages well, the knowledge of which was considered unnecessary or even suspect.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak cancelled a November 4 and 5 visit to Spain amid a dispute over the command of the European-led United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). The visit was called off after reports surfaced that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had secretly asked Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to keep Italy in command of the 13,000-strong UNIFIL force for six months longer than planned, instead of allowing Spain to take over.

George Handlery about the week that was. The killing spree in Ft. Hood. Snake medicine and the snakes. Ignore what you see, believe what they say. How to legalize the Sharia without alarming anyone. Aid to the destitute, poverty through aid.

1. In the past, this writer has repeatedly handled themes related to political correctness. This was done to depict it as an idiocy that survives because so many of us are too foolish or cowardly to defy it. No wonder, the unmasked doubters of PC are quickly tagged as “bad human beings”. Now, we find out that that the killer’s associates had suspicions regarding the Ft. Hood murderer. These reservations concerning his political reliability and commitment were shared by the Major’s superiors. No one dared to undertake anything to deal with the problem that signaled itself through Hasan’s statements and his behavior. It was not the amount and the weight of the evidence that held back the concerned. It was that no one wished to jeopardize his career. Everybody stood in danger of being labeled a “racist” for speaking up and for stating what in PC terms was not supposed to exist at all. Such as that Hasan rated what he considered to be Islam’s command, more highly than his sworn duty to America.) The conclusion: PC is at its best stupid in its motives and ridiculous in their outcome. The case at hand demonstrates that PC also kills. Not only in Texas.