(Jules Crittenden has been so bold as to invite me to guestblog at his place again—brass balls and nerves of steel, that's iron man JC for you. As a result most of what you'll see here this week will probably be crossposted at Jules Crittenden Forward Movement. Considering that I am just one humble froggy on the short list of great bloggers he managed to round up this time, you'll definitely want to check what's happening over there.)

I understand the temptation to paint Brigitte Bardot as yet another example of the crushing of dissent brought upon the West by the conquering armies of Islam, or in this case their voluntary operatives on the Left and the multicultural fetishists who run most of Europe's social-democracies.

For one thing, because the problem does exist, and its weight on what is left of Europe's freethinking souls is proving lethal. No argument here.

However, when it comes to Brigitte the Uberbabe From the Past, there's a bit more than meets the eye—and I'm not talking about the lavish display (Now on NSFW-DVD!), of the generous shapes and forms of her youth that did more to establish her reputation than her true acting skills, really.

No, the problem with this chronologically reversed Johan of Arc—and incidentally the reason why you're not about to see me cheer for her anytime soon—is in many ways similar to the one that caused the recent fratricidal and frankly counterproductive row between Little Green Footballs' Charles Johnson and Gates of Vienna¹: namely Europe's old Fascists and Neo-Nazis piggybacking a legitimate anti-Islamist cause at their convenience, in a bid to blur the line between our liberal democracies' fight for survival and their own totalitarian agenda. Bardot is but one small crab in that fetid European cesspool of politics, but the interesting point beyond her own person is that in this instance, every party involved is equally deserving of contempt.

I mean, seriously:

1) Brigitte Bardot (eventually) married Bernard d'Ormal, whose ties with the top echelon of Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front apparently helped convert her from an annoying animal rights bully (re The Castrated Sexually Harrassing Donkey Incident—Don't ask) to an annoying animal rights bully with a neo-Fascist outlook on homosexuals, immigrants and contemporary American foreign policy²—as well as Islamic and Jewish³ rites and customs even though, typical of the Muslim Victimization Propaganda Machine, the one point that made the headlines and therefore the Great Google Database in the sky, is her attacking the formers' slaughter-fest of Eid-al-Kabir only.

2) The MRAP, who typically turned a legitimate critic of a religious and political agenda (Islam) into a racist issue again and is pressing charges, is an offshoot of the French Communist Party—that should be remembered for its record of being the longest lasting Western European Stalinist party on par with the Portuguese one (if memory serves)—is a vicious and ugly NGO combining the worse of Islamo-Leftism. The MRAP has been waging a war of terrorisme intellectuel ("intellectual terrorism") with the active support of the French State (yes, up to and including the Sarkozy administration) for years now, and definitely positioned itself at the tip of the "anti-islamophobic"⁴ spear when its president Mouloud Aounit called for the "penalization of blasphemy" on the state owned TV channel France 3 back in 2005. Think CAIR in bed with the Federal government and a legislative machine all too willing to vote whatever it takes to selectively limit freedom of speech (on top of the drastic limits already in place in the Vth Constitution of the French Republic, of course) and pave the way to Shariah.

3) The French courts, a hive of all shades of Leftist red, from bloody to pink, now increasingly mixing with the Green of "militant" Islam (can you guess the resulting tone of this additive color mix?). For the record, that's the system that gave us Robert "F* the Victims" Badinter and Jacques Vergès, noted for befriending Pol Pot, defending Klaus Barbie, Carlos the Jackal, as many Palestinian hijackers as possible, offering his help to Milošević and Saddam Hussein, and answering, when asked if he would have defended Hitler "I'd even defend Bush, but only if he agrees to plead guilty." Need I say more?

4) The French state that appoints and revokes judges and prosecutors, and is still playing its dangerous balancing artist game between its dreams of restoring La Grandeur de la France by opposing what every two bit Gallic politico and policy analyst calls "the American hegemony" (yes, up to and including the Sarkozy administration. Wake up fer cryin' out loud) and its delusional hopes to control France's growing and unassimilating⁵ Muslim populations and outposts by pandering to the increasingly pressing demands of the Islamists while trying to keep its pants as clean as possible—and not being very good at it, judging by the numerous Car-B-Qs around France's major cities that will take place tonight just like every other night, all year long.

26 And the Lord said, “If I find at Paris Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

26.5 And the dissident frogman said, “Fat chance there Oh Lord, so you might as well just go ahead and smite them all.”

Now don't get me wrong: this whole affair is indeed clearly another case of a Western liberal democracy suicidally turning itself against one of its core value by stifling the critics of Islam. You know, technically. However, the French state has a consistent history of confusing what is legal and what is right and making sure there is no such thing as a civil society to question the former. A raw deal, if there ever was any.

In an ideal world, or simply a decent country (present France excepted) Brigitte Bardot should definitely not be prosecuted, no matter how stupid or pertinent her opinions.

Yet it is happening no matter what, leaving one with the sole consolation to pick a side—if any—and decide how much one is willing to compromise. As far as I am concerned, this particular case is a dogfight between two equally totalitarian factions. I certainly do not recognize myself in the kind of France Brigitte Bardot (and the company she keeps) mourns in the book that sent her clashing with France's multicultural thugs nor with the "alternative" these thugs have in store. In any case, her getting in trouble for that is not enough of a reason for me to drop my principles and side with one flavor of Fascist just to oppose the other.

I'll just wait on my side of the line in the sand, to see which one comes on top. Rifle at the ready, if need be.

In addition to that, and having been exposed to the schemes of France's thought police mobs long enough, I can clearly see the MRAP's rationale here. They are discriminating against Brigitte Bardot on purpose and targeting her for her bad company; thus giving more weight to the Left's argument that all critics of Islam are but a bunch of xenophobic, racist Far-right activists—and by extension, so is anybody foolish enough to stand by their side, freedom of speech notwithstanding.

When the critic can't fit the bill however, the MRAP doesn't sue: it lets the Umma take over and the fatwas fly. Case in point? Why yes: I'm sure Robert Redeker would have preferred the French courts of Law, but the poor man wasn't Fascist enough for the MRAP, and therefore had to settle with Muslim death threats and clandestinity. You don't serve the cause, you die.

Bottom line: Brigitte Bardot is not Oriana Fallaci, and comparing them can only tarnish the reputation and the character of the sorely missed Italian defendress of the West.

Update

We've got Lizards in the house. Welcome, welcome, and don't forget to listen and to sing for the greater glory of Gore.

Update II

Not to be outdone, the Brussels Journal—one of the participants in The Great Schism—indulges in a bit of intellectual dishonesty through selective "shortcut quoting" à la Maureen Dowd to imply that I mean to "shoot Brigitte":

Moral Equivalence: My Rifle as Ready to Shoot Brigitte as Shoot Islamists, from the desk of The Brussels Journal on Tue, 2008-04-22 11:05

A quote from The Dissident Frogman at his blog, 21 April 2008

I understand the temptation to paint Brigitte Bardot as yet another example of the crushing of dissent brought upon the West by the conquering armies of Islam […] As far as I am concerned, this particular case is a dogfight between two equally totalitarian factions. I certainly do not recognize myself in the kind of France Brigitte Bardot (and the company she keeps) mourns […] [H]er getting in trouble for that is not enough of a reason for me to drop my principles and side with one flavor of Fascist just to oppose the other. I’ll just wait on my side of the line in the sand, to see which one comes on top. Rifle at the ready, if need be.

O-kay. For one thing, there couldn't be any sort of "moral equivalence" here considering that—as I hoped I made clear in the original post "the desk of the Brussels Journal" summarized with so much European sophistication as "Frogman,Bardot,Islamists,Rifle" (adding "shoot" on their own for good measure)—both sides are, quote "equally deserving of contempt".

Here's a primer on moral equivalence for all the desks in the audience (from Brussels and beyond): moral equivalence is akin to the rhetorical fallacy of equivocation. Or, in deskman terms:

There's the good guys, and there's the bad guys. Then somebody says "hey, the bad guys is no worse 'n the good guys, because something-or-another is just the same." That, Dear Desk, is moral equivalence.

When, on the other hand, you have the bad guys and the bad guys—as is the case in the present National Front + Sex Kitten vs. Muhammad and the Bolsheviks— then, well, it is somehow like moral equivalence only without the moral bit in front.

Makes quite a bit of a difference, if Mr. Desk in Brussels sees what I mean.

Now for the cheap sensationalism of the Brussels Journal title, through misquoting and at the expense of intellectual honesty, I could first point at the fact that there is quite a few steps between rhetorical images ("line in the sand", "rifle at the ready" and other inanimate objects—like "desks"—publishing articles on the Internet all by themselves) and the actual acts they depict (I am not really sitting all day on the sand and behind a line you know). Beyond that, and in any case, a rifle at the ready is not a firing one, no matter some brussels desks wishful thinking.

I could also add that if—emphasis on if Mr Desk—the need ever arises for guys like me to pick up their rifles and head for some European forest or the mountains of the Vercors again, it will be as a result of the collapse of European nations, brought upon us not only by the weakness of the States in upholding Western values (though that will definitely help), but also under the blows of Brigitte's bad company and their Jihadist/Leftist alter-egos, in their combined effort to pull a Serb-Bosnian type of shitstorm closer to the Atlantic. I may even finish by saying that what I've learned from the History of WWII and the Allied's strategic choices with respect to Stalin, is that considering what followed the capitulation of Nazi Germany, it doesn't pay off to make a deal with the other devil—or more exactly, that you always end up paying a higher price than you thought initially⁶. And I may wonder what the desk of the Brussels Journal learned from the same period.

But honestly, all I really feel like saying at the moment is: "Thanks to the Desk at the Brussels Journal for reminding me yet again why I've consistently kept both Right-wing and Left-wing fascists at bay in my life and on my blog all these years."

Wish everybody, particularly in Europe, could say the same.

In many ways, John "Lofty" Wiseman's SAS Survival Handbook is like the Bible: you're not really supposed to read it linearly, but rather refer to it for support and answers no matter the little page number at the bottom.

Truly a great book—both are actually and, come to think of it, the Bible is also about survival.

I recently found myself reading the Polar Regions part of the Climate & Terrain chapter, out of sheer curiosity since I definitely have no immediate intention to go freeze my sensitive parts in these parts, and I found this most delicious cartouche offering a gourmet advice in the Food: Hunting and Trapping section:

Polar Bears

Confined to the high Arctic — in Europe only resident on Spitzbergen — they have a keen sense of smell and are tireless hunters on sea ice and in the sea. Feeding mainly on seals, with some fish, they swim well and can stay submerged for two minutes. Rarely found on land — though in summer they may feed on berries and lemmings. Like many cold-climate animals, they are larger than their warmer-climate relatives. Most are curious and will come to you — but treat these powerful animals with respect and caution.

Always cook meat: muscles always carry Trichinosis worm. NEVER eat polar bear liver which can have lethal concentrations of vitamin A.

In bold, the facts on polar bears that Al Gore, "He Who Claims Polar Bears Can't Swim", famously ignore. I, for one, learned something even more important and will make sure to cook the meat and avoid the liver of the next polar bear on my menu.

The SAS Survival Handbook truly is a mine of practical knowledge. Right after the bit on polar bear comes this:

When food is scarce animals will steal it — so cache it carefully. If there are signs of would-be thieves look out for them — they could be your next meal.

Practical, focused and informative: that is so my kind of books.