Brussels is convulsed in a general strike, that has closed down the metro, buses, trains, some schools and lord alone what else, the stroll across the grey city this morning was quiet as the Brusselaars took the opportunity to blame the Unions for not being able to get to work. Why are they striking?

 

This article was written by the Englishman El Inglés. It is based on his own research and that of the Fleming VH. The article first appeared at the Gates of Vienna blog.

This article appears at the website of l'Union, a local newspaper serving the northern departments of Champagne, Ardennes and Picardie. It describes the changing face of the city of Orgeval, north of Reims, in the rural Ardennes region:

George Handlery about the week that was. Independence in conflict with Russia’s security. Europe’s energy independence. Dictatorships and violence. Blanc check for Tehran? It might be the economy now, but it will be terrorism in the future. Problems on the Swiss-Liechtenstein border. One more thing!
 
1. Russia claims to have a right to the privilege that there be no NATO member on her borders. Translated into plain English this means that her neighbors – mostly once part of the Crimson Empire – have only a limited sovereignty.

The French patriotic Right has always had trouble unifying into one strong voice that speaks for French interests. Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the Front National, destroyed his own chances through his deliberate and well-timed provocations and his refusal to give up his one-clan rule of the FN. Determined to stay on as party leader, though he is now 80 years old, Le Pen denies to anyone outside the Le Pen family the opportunity of taking control. He even forces his daughter Marine to kill precious time as she waits for her father to give up his personal stranglehold over the party (although Marine's bad ideas were largely responsible for the FN's poor showing in the presidential election).

According to a soubriquet originally awarded by John Stuart Mill, but which has stuck, the British Conservative Party is “the stupid party”. Conservatives have themselves often invoked their anti-intellectualism with pride. Edmund Burke, the great 18th century Tory and the founding father of conservatism, who stood for the wisdom of unspoken tradition against rationalism and ideology which he associated with the dangers of revolution, lauded precisely the conservative’s aversion to thought when he praised the rights of the silent (and stupid) majority over the annoying chatter of the intellectual classes. He even likened the former to cows:

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbyeee. Ladies and gentlemen, I am sad to announce that from henceforth my contributions shall be consigned to the dustbins of history. I say this with a heavy heart, but it is the case. And this is why.

Due to personal commitments there was to be no “Duly Noted” this week. Writing this “self defense” is more than inconvenient; it is also predestined to be futile. Investing scarce time to throw good words at a subject of dubious value is probably foolish.

 
Sticky, Sweet, Stupid, Scary

Western Civilization is now like the Three Gorges valley downriver from the biggest dam in the world, breached. Pouring in is an alluvial torrent of toxic bilge waters of unbridled license, commercialized lust, puerile 24/7 media content of unlimited choices -- all of them bad, institutionalized overconsumption of useless junk with phantom money, mindless self-mutilation and nihilism. Foaming on top of this flow are cowardice and confusion masquerading as righteousness and tolerance, and a supine acquiescence to an invasion of a hundred million – 40 million in the US alone – Third World immigrants legal and illegal who are, in the balance, a gross burden on society.

 

Last weekend’s events in Cologne demonstrate what European conservatives are up against. A conference protesting the building of a mega mosque run by Turkish radicals was violently disrupted by thugs who gained the approval of the local German authorities and the German media. The international media, including the so-called “conservative” media, have either not written about the Cologne incidents or done so by branding the conservatives as “Neo-Nazis” and the thugs as ordinary citizens bravely fighting back “Nazism.” An example of the latter can be found in The Times of London.