I never vote, in any election here. I just can’t bring myself to choose between the motley gang of Collectivists that’s invariably on any French ballot, and in any case, well… “Don’t vote, it just encourages the bastards.”

It isn’t that I don’t value the democratic system; on the contrary, it’s precisely because I value it that I don’t want to taint it by endorsing with my vote the circus of inbred freaks that is the French political class.

I never vote, ever. Yet this past week, and for the first time ever, I found myself in a bit of a Cornelian dilemma.

For those of you who have more productive things to do than wabble in French Classical literature (fear not: most of the French don’t, either), a Cornelian dilemma is a sort of no-win situation wrapped into a Pyrrhic victory. Named after Pierre Corneille (dubbed “the founder of French tragedy”), who first introduced an unsuspecting world to this hopeless moral issue in his play ‘Le Cid’, it is “a choice between actions which will all have a detrimental effect on the chooser or on someone they care for.”—In this instance: me, myself, I, a few of my relatives and friends, and a large chunk of the Western world.

Quite a few people, actually.

Unlike Corneille’s El Cid, my dilemma wasn’t between banging my girlfriend or wasting her father (I bet you can tell that was written by a Frenchman, now) but rather between voting for someone who deserved to lose, and not doing my humble part to minimize the score of someone who did not deserve to win.

On one hand, Hollande’s election pitch (the candidate’s Profession de Foi, or “profession of faith” as it is called even, ironically, by those Frenchmen who claim that God is dead) reads like he and the Socialists have been living on another planet for the last 20 years. I mean, I knew the French Left was in a semi-fossilized state since the early 1970’s (the French Communist Party was, after all, the last Stalinist party in Western Europe, long after the others ‘reformed’ themselves) but I never knew the Socialists were so economically, socially, culturally and politically retarded in this glorious year of 2012.

Candidate Porcinet’s profession of faith reads like the Ten Commandments of last century’s People Prophets: punish those who succeed (until they move to Britain or Switzerland), plunder big businesses (in case they’d still harbor any intention to go for big employment), force or flatter and in last resort coerce and submit as much as possible to a State whose expansion you will feed through taxing everything that moves (and keeps moving, dixit le Gipper), while spending more than you have and borrowing whatever you can’t steal.

Looking at the French Left these days, you can almost feel a North Korean-lite level of insanity at work: no matter that the money is running out, that the standards of living are falling steadily and will continue to do so, these guys want to carry on, nay, extend the very policies and practices that brought us in this sorry state of affairs in the first place.

The horrible truth about the party that is now at the helm in France is that they are, and I weight my words carefully, completely mental (though in truth, the previous one was only ever so slightly less bonkers), while the added horror stems from the fact that they’ve just been chosen by a slight majority of the voters.

Hollande did not deserve to win—unless you belong to the kind of people who, when asked “Who should we put in charge of the clattering train?” would answer “Why, Death, of course. Who else?” (for the record, that’s 51.63 % of the French electorate)

On the other hand, Nicolas “Tricky Nick” Sarkozy did deserve to lose. Back in 2007, he fooled the better half of the voters by campaigning on a free(ish)-market / small(ish) government platform, before making a u-turn (okay, maybe just 170°) as soon as he was elected, aggravating both his friends on the Right and his enemies on the Left—who hate him for being at times (though admittedly not all the time) more effectively, and in some tragic way more efficiently, Left-wing than themselves. Cue his disgusting pandering to the Ecologists and hard left unions at the ‘Grenelles de l’Environment’, including but not limited to, his warm introduction of Al Gore as “President Al Gore”.

And so there was no doubt in my mind that he couldn’t win—that much has been crystal clear to me for quite some time (I mean, look, I last predicted the sacking of Sarko in September 2010, and everybody acts as if yesterday’s results are the big shocking results? What the hell are these people reading? Le Fluffingtown Host?¹)

On the third hand (that’s the one the big French state was slipping in my pocket while I was foolishly debating the other two) there is one thing with which I can blindly entrust my fellow Frenchmen: they always have, and always will make the worst possible choices at the worst possible times—and this time again, they did.

So my ‘solution’ out of this dilemma? Well, knowing that Sarkozy couldn’t win, even with my vote, I felt desperate enough at the prospect of a Socialist plebiscite that I would give him my vote, thus clinging to the bittersweet consolation of knowing that in the end, I did my part to minimize Hollande’s victory margin—no matter how useless this might have been.

Hence the photo of my voter’s ID card above. Yeah, the caption should say “I voted for Sarko, and all I’ve got was this stupid date stamp on my card”²

Having said that, there is a sad irony in Hollande’s victory: Socialism put us in our current ordeal, and as this train wreck is headed to its dreadful conclusion in the coming months, I find it only fair that Socialists be at the wheel when the disaster strikes.

They’ll have a much harder time getting away with it, as they’ve had so far.

Note: if you are reading this on the frontpage, be advised that there's a couple of photos on the full pageWe was just started so far...

Clifford D. May over at National Review Online has a perfectly valid column "The Messages of Toulouse" on what Merah, and other freelance Jihadis like him, mean for the larger Muslim population, but unfortunately he starts it with a rather irritating mistake:

This part of the story has received too little attention: Merah, the 23-year-old son of Algerian immigrants, began his killing spree by gunning down French paratrooper Sergeant Imad Ibn Ziaten and, four days later, two more uniformed paratroopers, Corporal Abel Chennouf and Private Mohamed Legouad. All three were Muslims.

Wrong.

Corporal Abel Chennouf was French of Kabyle and Alsatian descent, born in Martigues (south of France) 1986 and moved with his family to Illzach (a town near Mulhouse, Alsace) in 1987. And he was a Catholic.

There is also another "part of the story that has received too little attention": Loïc Liber, the third paratrooper shot in the throat and the spine by Mohamed Merah in Montauban is originally from the Guadeloupe islands... And a Catholic too.

In the end, Merah attacked and killed Jews, Muslims and Christians. How the good folks at the NRO, of all the places, could miss that?

Well, what do you know? Looks like the whole business of shutting down power and moving operators into the building didn't spell "Assault" after all. Maybe it's French-bashing joke time, like wondering who's going to surrender to whom.

TF1 has started a new page, so I'll do the same. This will be the continuation of Murder by Mohamed: the latest in French Jihad

• 00:30 Guéant tells Reuters "There is no assault". According to the ministry of the Interior, these (shutting down power, I presume) are just "intimidation maneuvers to apply pressure on the maniac [nice twist here to avoid any reference to Islamic terrorism by using the generic French word "forcené" ("maniac"), a familiar term used in the French press whenever someone goes through a massive nervous breakdown and barricades himself in his house after shooting his neighbors or his own wife and kids—DF] who apparently changed his mind and doesn't want to surrender anymore". Well, he's a second generation immigrant after all, he probably did not fully integrate the whole Frenchy surrendering gist yet.


• 01:22 The wait. TF1 feels compelled to inform us that absolutely nothing is happening. At a slow pace.


• 01:35 (approx.) Three detonations according to Reuters. Smaller than the flashbang noise earlier. TF1 says it could be firearm, but hasten to add that they have no idea on their origin. That's sharp reporting, that is.


• 02:15 Quiet again, but TF1 switches from sharp reporting to wild presumptions and states that these detonations could be a trick to try the Mohamed's resistance.


• 05:35 Three bangs, again. TF1 finds two "sources close to the investigation" but forget to ask their names. Still, "they" formally confirm the detonations are not signaling the final assault". Into a feat of modern reporting, they dig deeper and find a "specialist" who, despite having seemingly no immediately available patronymic identification to provide, still manages to inform the daring TF1 news editors that the bang-bangs "could indeed come from stun grenades, used to try the Mohamed's alertness and weigh on the negotiations". As this unnamed specialist doesn't seem to be aware that the Mohamed isn't negotiating since yesterday evening, the TF1 stumbles on a second Specialist With No Name who claims that bang-bang-bangs could also herald the assault, as the first bang blows the door and the others incapacitate the target.
  
  If I was to indulge in sharp reporting à la TF1, I'd wildly presume that these name-challenged specialists are the editor's nephew who derives his acute knowledge of everything bang-bang-bang from hours of extensive training on Counter-strike. No, seriously. You have no idea how ridiculously lazy and incompetent the French press is.


• 06:25, 07:16 TF1 fills the inaction with blabber on this being one of the longest missions of the RAID (the previous one being the 1993 maniac who planned to blow himself up in a Neuilly school), and on yet another sources without a name who informs us that the Mohamed seems to be a little bit closed up since yesterday. Sharp, sharp, sharp.

TF1 does the completely broken timeline again, and in a different, and chronologically-challenged page, manages to slip in the following information from Guéant on RTL radio:

According to the ministry of the Interior, the Mohamed wishes to die guns blazing. Guéant also says that he "hopes" the "suspected motorcycle killer" [still grossly dodging the Islamic nature of the scumbag] is "still alive" in his flat, as he is surprised there had been no reaction from the Mohamed after the detonations around him during the night. The ministry finds it "somewhat strange that he did not react", particularly after the RAID blew up his windows shutters. Moreover, Guéant adds that they've "heard two gunshots, but don't know what it means".

Well, one of France most famous case of political corruption conveniently ending in blood is that of Bérégovoy, Prime Minister under France's beloved Socialist president Mitterrand, who shot himself in the head. Twice. So there you go.

Final update: the Mohamed is dead

Things suddenly went down this morning:

• 09:10 Guéant is on the scene, saying "nothing new".


• 09:50 Movement around the building, RAID operators repositioning, police entering a nearby building, stretcher brought forth.


• 10:30 Three detonations, yet the assault still doesn't seem to be on.


• 10:55 TF1's says their "source" reveals that the RAID follows a slow progression strategy, and that the assault could last for hours, depending on the lay of the Mohamed's flat.


• 11:00 So much for TF1's "source" on slow progression: another "source close to the investigation" reveals that although they still don't know if the Mohamed is still alive, the RAID is inside the apartment.


• 11:07 Mohamed Merah reportedly entrenched in his bathroom. RAID reportedly "smashing through the walls one by one to get to him" and opting for the "slow progression strategy". Slower than going through the door, that's for sure.


• 11:27 Heavy detonations and gunfire around the Mohamed's flat.


• 11:38 Let the People rejoice: the Mohamed is dead; shot during the assault, while trying to flee through his bathroom window [a tactic known in certain circles as the Fargo Strategy—DF] with a Kalashnikov and a handbag or satchel, the content of which has not been revealed. Three cops wounded unfortunately, including one in critical condition.


• 12:03 Guéant confirms that Mohamed is dead.

Kudos to the assault teams, keep the wounded cops in your thoughts or your prayers.
For the sake of his victims, it would have been an absolute disgrace if the Mohamed had made it alive.

After the murders at the Ozar-Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse on Monday, there was no doubt in my mind that the 'right-wing Neo-Nazi' lead was the wrong one.

There is no denying that France has her share of Neo-Nazis, but they usually fall into two categories: old farts who lament the loss of that fantasy they call 'la Grandeur de la France', and young(er. Or "ish", considering the demographic trends around here) skinhead thugs whose level of involvement in direct action ranges from empty threats on the Facebook to the occasional bare hand skirmish with their twins of the 'Antifa' faction. In other words, accidentally lethal, at most.

Killing children face to face and in cold blood takes an entirely different kind of moral perversion; one that in Europe, at this moment in History only exist among the followers of Islam.

So I am not surprised that at 03:00 this morning, the RAID (the French equivalent of the SWAT) was going after one Mohamed Merah, a 24 years old French of Algerian descent. The guy apparently checks all the right boxes:

• Known by the police for delinquency, sometimes with violence—your average 'racaille des banlieues', or suburb scumbag.


• Two tours in Afghanistan & Pakistan. Gets the Al-Qaeda wings with Taliban ribbons. Admittedly imprisoned in Kandahar, that little shit bird flew away during a Taliban-organized break-out in June 2008 (though that last bit still has to be officially confirmed by French sources)


• Back in France, that particular Mohamed follows through on the Way of the Jihad. His brother and sister share the same vibe, even though they have not had their AfPak ticket (yet?).

Talking about moral perversion: it's been revealed that this particular Mohamed was wearing a camera in a harness on his chest, in order to videotape his own little Jihad while he was killing children and their father at point blank range. Expect that to end up on a Tube near You, as well as on the Umma's mobile phones the world over. Sick barbarians, the whole lot of them.

LCI/TF1 (perhaps France's least less reliable media source—though that's not saying much) gives the time-line of the RAID's raid, which I'll summarize here:

• 03:00 AM (Wednesday 03/21) RAID operation starts. Gunfire at some point. One cop slightly wounded in the knee, another can thank the Gods of Kevlar for his bulletproof vest.


• 05:00 2 hours in the raid, and the suspect is still holding up in his flat. Negotiations are under way. Cops in helmets and bulletproof vests have the whole area under lock-down. Why are they negotiating? Beats me, though I imagine they may fear the suspect is a fully equipped Muhammad, which would include the Exploding-Muhammad Personal Kit.


• 05:45 Gunfire again. One cop reportedly wounded in the shoulder. I guess that in the course of the negotiation, somebody must have said something offensive to the Muhammadan sensitivity.


• 06:00 Claude Guéant, ministry of the Interior, takes the mic to confirm that the raid is still going on, and targets "someone with links to people who describe themselves as Salafists and Mudjahidins, claims to be a Mudjahidin himself and be part of al-Qaeda, and willing to avenge the Palestinian children as well as take on the French Army". Guéant also announces that the Mohamed "talks a lot" and that his Mom was brought to the scene, and offered to contact him and try to reason with him. She refused, saying that she had little influence on him.


• 06:14 The anti-terrorist task force announces that "several operations are currently under way" in the Toulouse area. Probably rounding up some extra Muhammads.


• 08:30 raid still under way. Marc Stzulman, secretary-general of the CRIJ (French representative council of the Jewish institutions), after a meeting with Guéant, reveals that "the suspect won't surrender". No, don't expect a French-bashing joke here.


• 09:02 A blast is reported. According to the AFP, that's just the police destroying a car that was blocking the operation. Then again, the AFP are the very people who can't tell a bullet from an unspent cartridge when shown one by a old Iraqi hag, so make what you want of that...


• 09:06 Guéant announces that "the suspect" (that's the guy who's been firing at the cops for the last 6 hours) said he will surrender this afternoon. Says Guéant: "our primary concern is to get him in custody and in such conditions as we can bring him to justice. Our concern is to catch him alive of course. This is how justice must work." In proper speech, that means "If at all possible, let's get us an unexploded Mohamed; without too many holes in the Mohamed thank you very much."
  
  Guéant adds that the Mohamed has thrown his Colt .45 through the window but still has "many weapons". TF1 says "a kalachnikov and a Uzi pistol". But TF1 is just the AFP's next of kin so what do you know. Plus: how a ruthless Mudjahidin can possibly be pursuing Jihad by way of Infidel American and Jewish Weapons of War? Cognitive dissonance much Mohamed?


• 10:51 "the suspect" has stopped talking with the police. Moreover, "the police" has told TF1 that the Mohamed's Mom, his brother and said brother's girlfriend have been in preventive custody since 04:00/06:00 AM. Under French law, they can remain there for 4 days without a court order.


• 11:25 The residents of the building have been evacuated. Yeah, just 8 hours after the raid began, the shooting, the negotiation and all. Hey, don't ask me.


• 12:00 TF1 says that "according to an Afghani official" (undetermined and without a name, apparently—DF) the suspected Mohamed did time in Kandahar for bombing activities (IEDs, I presume).


• 13:05 TF1 says that "according to someone close to the investigation" (undetermined and without a... Oh, you get it—DF), the love is back between the RAID and the suspected Mohamed: they be talking again. Methinks TF1 doesn't know much, but feels like they need to update anyway. That's the French press for you.




Developing here for those of you desperate enough to inflict some raw French upon themselves.

If TF1 find some source with a name and qualifications, or if anything else of importance happens, I shall update here too.



Update


TF1 updates its updates on the raid with an information not directly related to the raid. And without citing any source. I did tell you about the French press, didn't I?




• 13:49 Says TF1: "Mohamed Merah tried to join the French Army (infantry) in 2008 and the Foreign Legion two years later—without success." Would-be Jihadi infiltrating Western armies? Gee, that's a scoop.


• 14:20 TF1 says that BFMTV says that the suspected Mohamed was just arrested by the RAID, but the DCRI (that's the police intelligence bureau) says "not true". He-says-she-says. Who knows?


• 14:35 The police reports that "explosives" (these are TF1's own quotes, not mine) have been retrieved from the suspected Mohamed's brother car. Muhammad, explosives, check.


• 14:50 Guéant, France's Ministry of the Interior has denied the Mohamed's arrest—as claimed by BFMTV. So either the Ministry or the channel are full of fecal matter. According to my personal knowledge of both French politicians and press, it's a 50/50 call.


• 15:15 TF1 updates: "Sarkozy just left the barracks [army or police? no precision—DF] nearby the building where the suspected Mohamed is under siege, without making any comment". In other words, TF1 says that Sarko leaves without saying anything—and they think that was worth saying.


• TF1 update: "according to the CRIF, the suspected Mohamed was ready to strike again this morning" (Wednesday). I presume the CRIF got the info when its secretary-general met Guéan earlier this morning.


• TF1 pushes on the last update with an unspecified source "close to the investigation" that reveals the suspected Mohamed was planning to kill a soldier today.


• 16:00 François Molins and Michel Valet, public prosecutors from Paris and Toulouse announce a press conference alongside Christian Lothion the boss of the "Police Judiciaire" at 16:30, Perignon barracks in Toulouse.


• 16:55 The RAID allegedly tried to enter the Mohamed's stronghold several times today, only to be driven out by the Mohamed's gunfire. That's a bit weird; these guys are (used to be?) elite.


• 17:00 Paris public prosecutor François Molins says that Mohamed Merah has updated his surrender program: rather than this afternoon, he's now aiming at "late evening" today—In time for prime-time perhaps? Is the Mohamed looking for a public apparition during the sacrosanct 20:00 news?




This guy (presumably) alone has been keeping French elite intervention forces at bay for nearly 15 hours. You can bet your spare Quran that he is scoring big Mujahidin PR creds. "La Republique" should stop this circus dead in its tracks right now.



More updates



Bits and pieces from the press conference with Molins, the public prosecutor:


• They knew about that particular Mohamed's potential for Jihad. For years. That's how they spotted him among the 576 IP addresses users they checked after the first murder on March 11.


• Watching the videos of the murders on the 19th allowed them to match the killer with the psychological profile of Mohamed Merah: violent, and with several charges of violence as a juvenile.


• The owner of a Yamaha dealership approached the police to reveal that one of the Mohamed's brothers had visited his store and asked how to disable the tracker helping to find scooters in case of theft.


• The Mohamed can't stop talking apparently, "spontaneaously" since this morning according to Morins, giving away many information that call for verification.


• He told the police where they would find a Renault Megane car he rented in early March, containing weapons.


• Among other things he reportedly "doesn't have a martyr's soul" and "would prefer to kill while remaining alive". He claims he's acting in reaction to the Palestinians' fate, the French foreign policy and interventions as well as the ban on burqas.


• He "regrets he didn't kill more people" but gloats that he "brought France on its knees".


Since the Socialists abolished the death penalty—without asking for the public's consent—and since the Justice department in this country is the left wing of the Left, this dirtbag is looking for a life term at most.

In France, that's roughly 22 years—not such a big deal for a 24 years old.



More TF1 timeline



Here's the latest on the TF1 timeline of events:


• 19:53 Longuet, the Ministry of Defense chimes in and declares that "this may take the whole night as they want to catch him alive in order to bring him to justice, learn his motivations, and his supports and accomplices, if any". No idea why the Ministry of Defense brings his big mouth in what is interior police matter, by it's always "interesting" to know that the French ministry of war still isn't sure enough about the "motivations" of an al-Qaeda affiliated Mudjahidin. Figures.
• 20:20 Paris public prosecutor reveals that the Mohamed could spend days hunkered down in his flat just watching videos, including decapitations.
• 20:25 The suspected Mohamed claims he refused to go on a suicide attack for al-Qaeda but accepted a "general mission" to commit some attack in France.
• 20:30 Guéant hopes the "suspected motorcycle killer" (TF1's words—I guess this is not Jihad anymore, just... Motorcycle road rage) will soon surrender, hopefully at nightfall; they are purportedly discussing conditions.


This is top journalism: TF1 botches its own timeline, and puts a 21:04 marker between the 20:20 and the 20:25. They're editing their bloody site by hand or what? Anyway: power has been shutdown in the whole block. Looks like the beginning of the end (or the end of the beginning) for the Mohamed.

And it spells "Assault", not "Surrender". I must confess I'm hoping for a double-tap à la française. Geronimo!


• 22:05 According to TF1 / LCI's own reporter in Toulouse, approximately 20 RAID operators have entered the building. Some of them are in the apartments next to Mohamed Merah's.
• 23:37 Three detonations reported by TF1 near the Mohamed's nest—presumably stun grenades. According to an (again) anonymous "police source" for Reuters the assault has started. This is apparently confirmed by Toulouse's mayor office.


Time for me to close shop for the night however. Here's to tomorrow, and the hope of one less kid-killing Mohamed breathing the same air as ourselves.



Update, Thursday



The story continues here.

A few hours here before we slide into the Last Year of the World as we know it, (at least according to a bunch of stone-age primitives who weren’t clever enough to invent the wheel—and yet, supposedly managed to predict the unpredictable centuries before it’s supposed to happen) so this year, I feel like joining the New Year’s Predictions club.

If, coincidentally, the world really ends in 2012 I will not look like a complete ass at the same time next year. That’s a bonus.

So here goes:

The world will not end

However,  the witch-doctors, cargo cultists, snake-oil salesmen and other global warming prophets will have a great year, as just about anything can and will be interpreted as signs of the coming Mayan Apocalypse.

There will be a war in the Middle-East.

Then again, tell me when there isn’t one.

Expect major protests and possibly riots in France.

Not by the average working French, mind you. He is just scared shitless of losing his job and will buckle up and take every tax increase the State will toss at him this year. He’s never the one who goes on strike and protest, as he is too busy scrapping a living.

Those who do and will, however, go on rampage in the streets of La Belle France are a different class of Frenchmen: idle and dependant on the taxpayer’s money. In other words the unemployed and other government workers—both of which France has accumulated in vast numbers.

When the money runs out—as it will this year—they are the ones with both the time and experience to light up the French street.

The Euro and possibly the EU, at least as we know them, will crash and burn. And die.

Okay, that’s as much a prayer as it is a prediction.

It’s a presidential election year in France, and the French will re-elect a Socialist as president.

That one is easy: all the candidates are (yeah, including Daddy’s girl, Front National’s Marine le Pen.)

I will rebuild this site and start blogging regularly again.

Okay, that’s more a prayer than a prediction.

Call it a New Year resolution then.

Oh, and a Happy and Prosperous New Year to you all!

I find hard to believe that it has been 10 years already, but here we are. Nearly 3,000 victims, as young as two and as old as 82, murdered in a most brutal manner by 19 Muslims hooked on the fanatical and homicidal teachings of their political-religious ideology.

A decade since their future was robbed by men who renounced all pretenses to humanity by planning, helping and perpetrating the attacks.

Reflecting on these past 10 years, the one thing that strikes me most is how the attacks have indeed become the “defining event of our time”, as pundits and press repeatedly put it—sometimes even without really caring much about the actual meaning of that powerful sentence.

10 years on and there is no doubt for me: September 11 has been so far a Great Revealer of the spirit of both nations and individuals.

In the West, Europe and the largest part of Europeans either could not care less or actually rejoiced when the planes crashed and the towers fell:

[...] the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen [...] called the attacks “the greatest work of art ever created.”

… while in Paris:

A far-right journalist who fantasizes he is of the left because he opposes the “plutocracy” [...] was crossing the boulevard Saint-Germain: “150,000 Americans less! What excellent news!”

Meanwhile, in the Parisian suburbs, the flags of various Northern African countries were flying high, while people danced in the streets singing “A bas, à bas, Babylone!” (“Down with Babylon”)—spontaneous expressions of insane joy, only matched by the bile served by the French press at large in the weeks that followed.

10 years on, and if things have changed in Europe, it is only for the worse. What Septembers 11 reveals is that on that day, 10 years ago, Europe chose—definitely—the path to suicide, a path on which she was already too far advanced anyway, even if most Europeans don’t even realize it or won’t admit it.

America and the majority of Americans did not. No matter how grim the global situation may look at this very moment, it pays to take a step back from the current woes of the US economy and look at the bigger picture, through the lens of the Great Revealer, that “defining event of our time”. Why? Because culture always trump economy.

The enduring spirit of the USA, the efforts and sacrifices Americans have been willing to make, the unrelenting hunt for any aspiring or confirmed Jihadist who might have harbored the notion that “al-Ameriki” were soft targets and a quick way to Islamic paradise—only to discover that after September 11 the first part of that assumption was now fatally incorrect—reveals without a doubt where the real future of Western Civilization lives and will thrive.

No, not in Europe anymore.

Surely, mistakes were made. The election of President Zero for instance is a good example—yet simply a typical case of battle fatigue on the count of the American voter, of which he has began to recover and react already.

Americans have a way of fixing errors (theirs and frequently those of others, even when it isn’t their immediate best interest) that is far beyond the grasp of the average European (wallowing as we are in whatever the new and trendy nihilist ideology of the day) and that ensures their nation’s resilience, no matter what happens.

10 years after, the lesson of September 11, 2001 is that while Europe doubled-down on the path to societal suicide, America took the high road to survival.

I expect that despite a few bumps on the road, she can only gather speed now.

There is much comfort to be taken in that, and I simply cannot think of a better way to remember and honor the victims of that terrible day.

The accute and instantaneous political commentary on the Tucson tragedy by the brightest minds of the American Left¹ and the lowest depths of the French printed media sheds an unexpected light on the shooting of another elected Democrat under, as they'd say at Reuters, "controversial circumstances".

Forget about the lone gunman at the window of the book depository with a lame Carcano. The exclusive photographic evidence above clearly shows three shooters on the grassy knoll—as it's been suspected for a long time—with at least two rifles: Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin's Dad and a third, so far unidentified figure, presumably the elusive Black Dog Man—without a doubt a highly qualified CIA secret black-ops operative, considering that he's holding what looks like a very threatening sort of black full automatic machine gun rifle that's certainly not available to a civilian loser like Lee Harvey Oswald.

And now, I'll let Moulitsas¹, Krugman¹ or Sullivan¹ explain how Bristol Palin was actually performing an early rehearsal of "Dancing with the stars" on stage at Ford's Theater, thus luring Abraham Lincoln to his fateful end.

Update

The Left never ceases to amaze: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (no less) confirms. Kind of.

Write Doug Powers at Michelle Malkin's:

For a second there I expected him to claim witnesses saw Sarah Palin on the grassy knoll.

Ha! Wikileaks, eat your heart out!

French President Nicolas “Tricky Nick” Sarkozy just reshuffled his gang of Socialists-in-suits, and while the Prime Minister François Fillon resigned fully knowing he’d be reappointed straight away¹, there’s been some actual change of windbags at the Defense Ministry (France’s DoD, if you will).

Hervé Morin is out, Alain Juppé—a fixture of contemporary French politics, and one of the heinous Chirac’s most trusted henchmen—is in.

Some would say “again”, and follow that by a resigned yet aggravated sigh.

As I was preparing to go through my files and proceed with the tedious translation to English of Juppé‘s remarkable record (for a given value of “remarkable” and strictly in the context of French government, of course), I found out that the Daily Mail has already done the job.

Life being already too short to waste it on anything French, I hereby declare the Daily Mail a blessing upon us all, and wave you in the general direction of its article on the man who will, from now on, be in charge of French armed forces (don’t laugh).

This may even be a short read indeed, as the Daily Mail masterfully put everything you need to know about that Gallic trash in the title: France appoints its new Defence Secretary – a convicted criminal jailed for misusing public funds and banned from office for ten years

No, really. That’s all you need to know about Alain Juppé.

Honest, I don't have the beginning of an opinion when it comes to the amount of truth in this:

'It’s hell. I can’t stand it!’ Carla Bruni reveals what Michelle Obama REALLY thinks of being First Lady

I can only guess that if your definition of Hell includes partying at the White House with money you don't have to earn and will never have to repay, when you're not hobnobbing with the nobs over a gazpacho while your Golfer in Chief of a husband is trying to fill some holes again, then yeah, Michelle must be in Hell.

That said, Sarkozy is a nasty little bugger who has shown time and again that he could hold a grudge, and who isn't going along too well with Hubby Hussein¹. In this instance, he could be having a cheap swipe at Obama, through is Bobo² of a wife — diplomacy by proxy, if you will. So maybe Michelle O' did say that, maybe she didn't. The only thing I'm quite certain when it comes to Mistress Obama is that she didn't get where she's at in life only on her good looks.

Sweet Jesus in a velvet suit, that woman is ugly as Hell.

And I'm not just speaking about her mind.

What did catch my interest and spark my amusement though is this:

[Bruni] says one term as French president ‘will be enough’ for her husband and suggests he might take tips from his friend Tony Blair: ‘Why not start making money?’

No, before you ask, it's not the "why not start making money", part that I find amusing. Particularly not the "start" bit: as if that parasite of civil society had been living so far on the minimum wage and isn't entitled to the pay and benefits of his current tenure for the rest of his life — a telling feature of French legislation indeed: make it to any seat at the level of Parliament and beyond, and as far as your paycheck is concerned, you're elected for life.

No, what I do find funny is this "one time is enough" thing. Sounds like the Bruni-Sarkozy lingo for "best way to avoid a humiliating defeat, is not to compete in the first place".

Tricky Nick pissed off so many people, left, right, front and center — and he knows it — that I can't see how he could get a second term anyway.

Even in Hell.

Well, what do you know? Even anodyne colloquialism such as the one below demonstrate that Islam was already a pain in mankind's backside, way before both Great and Little Satans came around and started to "oppress" that poor, poor Umma:

Feather in your cap: an honor to you.

"The Caufirs [from the Arabic "Kafir": infidel -- df] of Cabul [Kabul, Afghanistan -- df] stick a feather in their turban for every Mussulman [Muslim -- df] slain by them."

"In Hungary, at one time, none might wear a feather but he who had slain a Turk."

Thus, anyone who reduces — and excuses — modern Islamic terrorism as the result of unheard yet legitimate grievances following the reestablishment of the State of Israel, the foreign policy of the USA or even the unpredictably variable length of Western womenfolk's skirts, is primarily showing his ignorance of both English language and History.

9 years later, and what is the burning issue? what was destroyed or what might now be built?

Never forget. Never forgive.

And never surrender, ever.

The message from Switzerland today sums up as "no tolerance for intolerance", as the Swiss citizenry draws a line in the snow:

Switzerland 'approves minaret ban'
Over 57 percent of Swiss voters on Sunday approved a blanket ban on the construction of Muslim minarets (...) A final tally of 26 cantons indicates that 57.5 percent of the population have voted in favour of the ban on minarets (...) Only four cantons rejected the proposal brought by Switzerland's biggest party -- the Swiss People's Party (SVP), which claims that minarets symbolise a "political-religious claim to power."

As expected, a dumbfounded Swiss 'establishment' struggles to keep its collective head in its collective derriere while playing its old appeasement tricks...

[Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf] sought to reassure Swiss Muslims, saying the decision was "not a rejection of the Muslim community, religion or culture".

Look Fraulein, I hate to burst your bubble but this is a clear cut rejection of Muslim religion and culture. As for the community, well, the Swiss have the reputation of being a decent folk, very much attached to individual rights, liberties and independence, and I'm quite confident they wouldn't single out and discriminate against any community in their midst—granted, of course, that said community clearly, honestly and verifiably (that is to say "not as Qur'an 3:28 preaches") rejects all the utterly detestable and unacceptable customs and commandements that make its religion and culture. You know, stuff like 'honor' killing, beheading 'unbelievers', hurling airliners into buildings, and generally speaking following to the letter the example of a disgusting self-proclaimed prophet of a man who, in his late fifties, managed to 'marry' a 6 years old girl and screwed¹ her when she reached 9—among a whole lot of other offenses against his fellowmen.

I mean, it's Switzerland, for Heaven's sake. If Islam can't reform itself there, it's not really trying.

Swiss Muslims, unfortunately yet as predictably, play the victim card, blame it all on 'Islamophobia' and issue veiled (no pun) threats:

"The most painful thing for us is not the ban on minarets but the symbol sent by this vote. "Muslims do not feel accepted as a religious community."

That's rich, considering Islam's unmatched record in creating the most segregative states and societies along strict religious divide lines, all over the world's history, but you have to keep in mind that when it comes to Public Relations, Swiss Muslims as well as most of their western world brothers and sisters, are currently in Meccan Cuddly Fluffy Surah Mode (with unicorns and rainbows thrown in). If you know the differences between the Koran's Meccan and Medinan verses, and the historical and strategic rationale behind them, you get my meaning. If you don't, look it up because that's a bit beyond the scope of this humble post and I'm already far too easily dispersed as it is, okay?

Elham Manea, co-founder of the Forum for a Progressive Islam, added: "My fear is that the younger generation will feel unwelcome. (...)"

Or in other words: "You filty infidels fancy a bit of car-B-Q, French style? Wink-wink, nod-nod, say no more." That was a public announcement from the Forum for Progressive Islam.

... And finally, we have the usual Professional Human Rightists and staunch defenders of Democracy, except when the democratic outcome doesn't match the agenda:

Amnesty International said the vote violated freedom of religion and would probably be overturned by the Swiss supreme court or the European Court of Human Rights. 

Notice that you could argue that since one can be a Muslim in, say, the Vatican or Israel yet there can be no Jew or Christian in Mecca, Amnesty International can stuff its outrage over this alleged encroachment upon the sacro-sainct Islamic freedom of religion where the desert sun never shines. Deeply, and with feelings.

Notice as well, that nothing, nowhere in this referendum forbids Muslims from practicing their religion. I know you noticed, but you're not a shill for Islamic victimhood, right?

Notice, finally, that there must be a reason why minarets, those funky phallic towers with a muezzin sitting on top, moaning "Oooh Allah is so very ackbar, can you feel it?", in the otherwise quiet Swiss landscape were deemed such a problematic issue that it 1. prompted someone to think that maybe the People should give His opinion, and 2. that someone received the legal amount of signatures required by Swiss law to call for this referendum, and 3. the People, in vast numbers, said No, we won't have it, thank you for asking.

I mean nobody is seriously thinking about a ban on churches, synagogues or American Bills of Rights—okay, maybe some people do but quite frankly all they achieve is provinding the whole mass of us with brief and cheap entertainment, save for the occasionally lucky ones who get a free seat in the Oval Office without even having to produce a birth certificate—so there must be something about the Muhammadan flock in London, Paris, Bern or Berlin that ruffles our Western liberal democracies' feathers, isn't there?

Make no mistake indeed: if any people in Western—and increasingly, I suspect, Eastern— Europe were given the same opportunity as the Swiss and were asked the same question, you'd get the same answer. So here's a tip for the European Establishment at large: if so many of your 'subjects' think there is a problem with Islam in our societies, perhaps there is indeed a, you know, problem with Islam, or at the very least a legitimate concern. So, dismissing them with the fabricated concept of 'islamophobia' or the irrelevant one of 'racism' is not only stupid and insulting: it is also becoming very risky and untenable. We the masses who happen to live with the consequences of our elites' multicultural nation-building invariably come to the following estimation of your handy work: sure, the food choice is wider and nicer but that doesn't compensate for burning cars, no-go zones, rapes, assaults and the notion that after millennia of struggle against tribalism, feudalism, theocracy and tyranny and for the defence of individualism and civic rights, you are pushing us to submit to one of the most backward, violent and oppressive religion ever to set its curse upon mankind, rather than let us reap quietly the fruits of our hard-earned Enlightenment.

The truth is, I can't really blame Muslims for being a globally intolerant bunch, as a group—that's what their holy book and their Imams teach them, and one can only blame them for not exercising more critical thinking individually—but I do blame our Western "policy makers", elected and supposedly accountable, for indulging them.

In addition to that dismal record of policy-enforced melting-pot failures from Helsinki to Palermo—again, in large part because 'integration' doesn't exist in the Islamic lingo and they've been encouraged not to learn it by our in-house Social Democrats—any European with just a slight varnish of knowledge of European history knows that they have some unfinished business with Muhammad's seides that predates by far Osama bin Laden's canard of modern oppression of the Muslims by the US-led and Zionist-inspired Crusaders of the West. We are vaguely aware that George W. Bush wasn't President of the Franks in Poitiers, yet these good proto citizen-soldiers had to fight back, and temporarily stop, decades of Islamic aggression up to the very heart of what is now France. Neither was Dubya that Spanish King who had to reconquer Spain or something. And the American Navy definitely had no battle group under the name Holy League operating in the Mediterranean in 1571. The most educated among us even know the trouble with Islam doesn't begin with Whitey 'oppressing' a bunch of happy people in turbans by building empires in North Africa or forcing them to live next to, in the Islamic parlance, 'sons of pigs and apes' by re-establishing 5,000 years old Jewish settlements in the middle-east.

In fact, considering the legions of our kin slaughtered, raped, sold into slavery or converted by the sword over the centuries of Islamic conquest, let alone the properties and cultural assets looted or destroyed, we'd appreciate it if they could keep the tone of 'Islamic grievances' down. Oh, and while we wait for that mythical but awfully silent 'majority' of moderate Muslims to stand up, speak up and kick those Very Bad Men who, we are told, 'hijacked their religion', we can't help but noticing the increasing number of women trotting about Western streets donning variants of Islamic 'extremist' attire, or other manifestation of Islamic attachment to pluralism such as burning embassies over a few cartoons or spitting on British soldiers upon their return in their hometown.

Still. Freedom of Religion. Important concept, that. That's where the Libertarian is supposed to jump in, right on cue, and assert that this Swiss business is one instance where Democracy is but the Tyranny of the Majority and how wrong it is to use the Power of the State to encroach upon Freedom of Religion™ even if the People wills it—because it won't resolve anything, dude.

I know that, because I used to harbor somewhat similar opinions, some time ago. But I watched and learned a few more things since then.

I'd still agree with that point however, as long as we were talking about any religion other than Islam (as well as a few other cults not worth mentioning, on account of being far less influential and efficient in the Conquest and Subdue Department) for the simple reason that Islam, unlike any other religion, is not just a mystical and moral framework for the individual believer: it is a collectivist and totalitarian political and religious system that aims to encompass and submit society as a whole, doesn't hide these absolutist goals (unless temporary dissimulation serves them), is actively at war with the rest of the world, and has been so ever since its inception. The minaret, in that respect, is part of the arsenal and the Islamic law specifically describes it as such by establishing precisely the rules for its edification—notably in terms of height, that must not be inferior to that of the Christian churches' bell towers for instance. And don't get me started on the fact that when they're not routinely being used as ammo stores and pillboxes in Fallujah or Gaza, mosques and their minarets far too frequently serve as propaganda & indoctrination agencies and strategic command centers all over the world.

Tell me, when was the last time you saw your local church's vicar stacking mortar rounds behind the altar while calling for the beheading of infidels "wherever ye find them" again? Yeah, me neither.

What the Swiss citizens have just done is actually a very clever and—unsurprisingly, from such an excellent people—a very diplomatic thing. The referendum calls for the ban on minarets, on account, rightfully, of being and I quote "symbols of Islamic power". But it doesn't call for a ban on mosques, the Koran, or the practice of Islam.

Ergo, what the vast majority of Swiss are saying to the minority of Swiss Muslims is: "We're fine with the personal religion thing, but you've got to drop that nasty 'submit, convert or die' habit of yours."

The proverbial ball is once again in the Islamic camp.

And the rest of Europe's unwashed masses is, once again, watching.

Those Americans. They won't stop oppressing and jailing black people:

African Immigrant Found Guilty of Human Trafficking
A Togolese woman accused of forcing girls from Africa to work in New Jersey hair braiding salons for no pay has been convicted of human trafficking and visa fraud in a case her lawyer says highlighted African cultural norms that failed to translate in America.

(...) women [between the age of 10 and 19 — DF] were beaten, psychologically abused and, in some cases, sexually abused, while being kept from phoning home, contacting friends or family, or accessing their passports and other documents.

All that at the hand of what her lawyer, Bukie Adetula, describes as "a benevolent mother figure", and her husband.

Now you could say that we see this pattern of behavior within "certain" immigrant communities all over the Western world—and not just in the USA— but Mama's lawyer knows better than y'all bunch of pale-faced rednecks. According to him, it's the culture, stupid: what the mean nasty U.S government calls slave-like is "merely a West African custom of protecting young girls by making sure they were tightly supervised".

I suppose that by these standards, Roman Polanski makes the perfect father figure.

Anyway, the real issue here is that you should all know by now that enslaving is only Whitey what does it!

Especially so when Whitey's an evil Secessionist Southerner Slaveholder. Like, for example, William Ellison: third-largest slaveholder in South Carolina, "owning" more than 60 slaves by 1860 (putting him in the top 5% of slaveholders in SC—and owning more slaves than 99% of the South's slaveholders), and staunch supporter of the Confederate cause: one of the richest men in South Carolina, his family lost it all after the war between the States because they put their dough in Confederate bonds. His oldest grandson served in the 1st South Carolina Artillery and was wounded in action on July 12, 1863.

Okay, so they were black too.

Okay.

Wrong example. My mistake.

Giving the Nobel Peace prize to Arafat was a disgrace,

Giving the Nobel Peace prize to Al Gore was a sham,

But Giving it to Obama is a joke.

It is also quite risky. With the mess the Obamateur is making of international policies, his reckless empowerment and appeasement of pretty much every thug-politician and rogue state on the planet, there are by now some serious and growing risks that he may actually corner himself into engaging the U.S. in all sorts of devastating conflicts before his term is thankfully over.

The joke would then be on the Norwegian nutcases — But then again, these guys did give their prize to Arafat.

So they must have some kind of a sense of humor, I suppose.

On this day, eight years ago, 19 devout Muslims brutally and cowardly murdered 2,974 men and women in the name of Allah "the benevolent" — and since then, many more all over the world have perished, victim of the same totalitarian ideology that is Islam.

For many of us, including me, this was a day of horror, anger and more importantly awakening. It was a day of renewed acknowledgment of that centuries-old and relentless enemy that ever since its first appearance in Arabia has expanded through sword, fire and bloody murder all over the globe and all along the ages, from India to Europe and from Asia to Africa. While the best among us have been battling them from the fields of Poitiers to the streets of Fallujah — with outstanding resolve and results — I am now more concerned about the dangers on the home fronts, whether of open attacks such as those of September 11, 2001 or of the more insidious, stealthy and growing parasitic encroachment and subversion of our open societies' values under the guise of Islam's "peaceful settlers" by those whose only goal is to enslave or destroy us.

Thanks to our brain's natural defense mechanisms, the horror of that September day gradually faded, feeding, hopefully, a more acute sense of alertness. The anger, however, is still here; when it comes to the hideous, oppressive political-religious system the Muhammadans aim to impose on the rest of the world, that anger woke us up — and ensures we won't fall asleep again.

It bears repeating that the meaning of the word "Islam" is "submission".

It also bears repeating that we will have none of it.