Lives in a Shoe

Coincidence? There Are No Coincidences.

President Trump seated next to painting  of "The Hammer of the Turks".

tt may be seen as a remarkable coincidence, therefore, that of all the rooms and of all the paintings, they chose to sit President Trump besides a portrait of one of Poland’s best-known warrior kings. King Jan (John) III Sobieski is today remembered and celebrated in Poland, and elsewhere in Central Europe, for his pivotal role at the Battle of Vienna in September 1683.

Banner of excellent blog "Gates of Vienna".

And If We Fail to Preserve It, It Will Never, Ever Exist Again

The world has never known anything like our community of nations. We write symphonies. We pursue innovation. We celebrate our ancient heroes, embrace our timeless traditions and customs, and always seek to explore and discover brand-new frontiers. We reward brilliance. We strive for excellence, and cherish inspiring works of art that honor God. We treasure the rule of law and protect the right to free speech and free expression. We empower women as pillars of our society and of our success. We put faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, at the center of our lives.

And we debate everything. We challenge everything. We seek to know everything so that we can better know ourselves....

And if we fail to preserve it, it will never, ever exist again. So we cannot fail.

 

 

 

The Yanks Were Coming -- WWI

George and I visited the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City,
Missouri last year.  I remember walking up the marble steps thinking I would finally be able to figure out the Why of that war, aside from the Archduke Ferdinand part.  No luck.  There is an exhibit timeline that tried to help me get my head around it, though:

And this --- a glass walkway bridge over 9000 poppies -- 

The Yanks over there.  The readable Victor Davis Hanson:

One hundred years ago, on April 6, 1917, the United States entered World War I. The ongoing conflict ended just 19 months later with an Allied victory.

The United States did not win the war alone, given the far earlier and greater sacrifices of Great Britain, France, Italy and czarist Russia.

But America's late arrival, with some 2 million doughboys who landed in France less than three years after the start of the war, saved the teetering Allied cause.

My Dad always played Over There for me -- I've always loved it. 

 

 

 

 

LePen

For Tanya --

 

To the Women of Europe

 

But -- That Hair.

He has been compared to Donald Trump and indeed addresses existing fear and concern about national borders as establishment politicians continue to whistle through the graveyard.

Geert Wilders -- voice of Dutch who worry that the large number of immigrants attracted to the Netherlands generous welfare benefits are not assimilating but are causing social disruption.  He has lived in secret locations for years under armed protection -- "reclusive provocateur" -- maybe. Provocateur yes, reclusive not entirely through his volition since he has had death threats.  Recently one of his own guards has been removed and charged with leaking his location.

“In this country there is an underestimation of the number of people who are afraid of Islam”.

Reasonably evenhanded article from the NY Times, written with a tinge of cluelessness and alarm.   

I went looking for a better photo of Mr. Wilders and found that Breitbart  ("Islam is not a religion, it's a totalitarian ideology") and Reuters video "Could Anti-Islam, Anti-EU Geert Wilders Win the Dutch Election?") The Fiscal Times had stories about him up today.  He is leading in the polls.

A few years ago he spoke in Nashville, "A Warning to America".  I can't find a video without doomsday music and inflammatory photos.  The information if alarming enough without that.  So I have put the full text of the speech below the break.  If somebody can find just him speaking, please let me know.  Text copied from the always excellent "Gates of Vienna".

In just a few decades, Sweden has gone from ABBA to Allah. It has not been an improvement.

Well documented, good resource to begin discussion. Read the whole thing.

In the 1970s Sweden was a stable and wealthy country that was admired by many outsiders. It had international pop artists such as ABBA, sports stars like Björn Borg and Ingemar Stenmark as well as Volvo cars. Some outsiders still maintain this rosy image. In 2016, Sweden was still ranked as the world’s “ goodest “ country.[1]

Unfortunately, being “good” in the Western world today seems to mean being suicidal.

In just two generations, Sweden has become an increasingly dysfunctional and crime-ridden country. The main cause of this negative transformation is non-European mass immigration.

I have been chronicling Sweden’s decline for many years. My reports were falsely dismissed as fantasies made by an alleged “right-wing extremist.” This denial is no longer possible.

Many alternative media and independent websites are now describing these issues. Major media in Britain, Germany, the USA and even in Russia have also finally discovered Sweden’s Multicultural problems. This is causing huge embarrassment to the ruling elites in Sweden. They are used to being admired. They are not accustomed to international ridicule, or being viewed as an example of what not to do.

 

All former Swedish governments since the 1970s, including those led by Mr. Bildt and Mr. Löfven, have directly contributed to the massive problems Sweden is currently facing.

Carl Bildt served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1991 to 1994. He was in charge of a center-right coalition government by Swedish standards. Bildt served as Minister for Foreign Affairs between 2006 and 2014 in the center-right coalition of PM Fredrik Reinfeldt. These governments also continued mass immigration, just as the Socialist Prime Ministers Olof Palme, Ingvar Carlsson, Göran Persson and Stefan Löfven did.

The Swedish author Astrid Lindgren published the first stories about Pippi Longstocking in the 1940s. If they were updated for today, perhaps Pippi would have to flee from the suburbs of a Swedish city after having been gang raped by immigrant boys. Alternatively, she might have been a radical Feminist who donned the Islamic veil in order to express her solidarity with the Muslims who are colonizing her country.

The Swedish mass media and political elites are very careful not to suggest any connection between rapes and mass immigration from Third World countries. Yet there is every reason to suspect that such a connection exists. We know from other Western European countries that immigrants from certain regions and cultures, particularly from the Islamic world and Africa, are disproportionately represented as perpetrators in rape cases.

The Dangers Of Virtue Signalling On The Internet

Twitter Users Pledge To Fly Thousands Of Refugees To Live In J.K. Rowling's Mansions - MILO NEWS.

It's unwise for wealthy leftists to "virtue signal" on the internet. They may get called out. Kudos to author, film-maker and controversialist (troll, if you prefer) Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich on Twitter) for offering to fly "up to 100 refugees" to live in JK Rowling's mansions. I think all of us who can spare a few quid should chip in.

"Not only will I buy a plane ticket for a male Syrian refugee of fighting age, but I will pick him up in my car from any UK airport to deliver him to whichever of JK Rowling's mansions she nominates. I look forward to the three of us having a cup of tea together as she welcomes him into her home."

Let's get this clear once and for all. You are not being “kind" or “generous" when you demand that others be taxed or otherwise compelled to do something you think is good. If you are a social justice warrior multi-millionaire then, until your every spare room is crammed with "refugees" and they are living in tented villages on your acres of manicured lawn, you have no right to demand that poor people be forced to have them as their neighbours.

 

Too Late, Maybe

Merkel offers cash handouts worth millions of pounds for migrants to return home in an embarrassing U-turn
The German chancellor agreed measures to speed up deportation
An estimated 450,000 rejected migrants are set to be sent home
Scheme includes £76million of cash incentives to leave voluntarily

Many will see the move as a desperate attempt for Miss Merkel to claw back support ahead of her challenging re-election bid in September.
Criticism of her decision to leave Germany’s borders open and welcome all refugees during Europe’s migration crisis in 2015 has led to a surge in support for anti-immigrant parties.

Yep. Hard to imagine.

More Cowbell

Left-wing Dutch vegan who moved to Switzerland is denied a Swiss passport because she is too annoying. 

Nancy Holten was born in the Netherlands but moved to Switzerland as a child
She is a fluent speaker of Swiss German and her children are Swiss nationals
She applied for Swiss passport herself, but was refused by locals twice
Locals said they were 'fed up' of her challenging Swiss traditions by campaigning against the use of cow bells, which she has tried to rid from the town
The Dutchwoman, who describes herself as a freelance journalist, model and drama student, has also campaigned against a number of other Swiss traditions
The resident's committee argued that if she does not accept Swiss traditions and the Swiss way of life, she should not be able to become an official national.

So there, Buttercup.  That's a well thought out immigration policy right there.

And -- for no reason at all except to indulge fond memory:

Christopher Walken's got a FEVER and the only prescription -- is MORE COWBELL.