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The Golden Age of Jewish Baseball Next foe for the Israeli nine is Cuba. Lee Smith

After going 3-0 in the first round of the World Baseball Classic, Israel moves on to the second round of pool play this weekend in Tokyo when it squares off against international powerhouse Cuba Saturday (10 p.m. EST). The other two teams in Pool E are the Netherlands, whom Israel defeated Wednesday night 4-2 in the preliminary round, and Japan, the 2006 and 2009 WBC champions. The pool winner and the runner-up will move on to Los Angeles for the semi-final round starting March 20. If the Israeli nine makes it through, it might be the first time a Chavez Ravine crowd gets to the park early and stays till the end.

The club’s success, Israeli ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer told me, “is a real home run for the Jewish state.” Some credit the team’s undefeated run to mascot “Mensch on the Bench,” while more seasoned baseball observers note that the lowest-ranked club in the 16-team tournament is stacked with current or former major leaguers, like pitcher Jason Marquis, catcher Ryan Lavarnway, first baseman Nate Freiman, designated hitter Ike Davis, third baseman Ty Kelly, and centerfielder Sam Fuld, while the rest of the roster has plenty of minor league experience.

It’s not a star-studded lineup, like the Dominican Republic’s, for instance, but they play good baseball. They’re also playing role of lovable underdog. One broadcaster read aloud from the promotional material concerning Israel’s slick-fielding shortstop during Wednesday night’s game like a mother boasting about her son. In high school, “Scott Burcham was selected top defensive shortstop in the Southland by the Los Angeles Times prior to his senior season.” We are all very proud of Scotty.

Yes, even people who aren’t normally baseball fans are pulling for Israel. Even before the U.S. team has taken the field (the Americans open Friday night against Colombia), the Israeli squad has generated an unusually high level of interest in the WBC. Initiated in 2006, followed by the 2009 and 2013 tournaments, the WBC is roughly modeled after the FIFA World Cup, held every four years. Previously, the WBC seemed to get lost in that strange gre -zone of spring training, somewhere between catchers and pitchers first reporting the second week of February and opening day. For scouts and baseball executives, it’s an opportunity to get a closer look at foreign talent, especially Asian players and the Cubans. In past WBCs, Cuban stars who eventually signed major league contracts after fleeing the island, like Aroldis Chapman and Jose Abreu, showed they could more than match up with big leaguers.

But for most casual fans, the WBC is essentially a string of exhibition games. Sure, you’re watching some of the game’s greats go against each other, but it’s not clear why Robinson Cano working Daisuke Matsuzaka to a 3-2 count is super exciting just because they’re in the uniforms of their national teams. It’s still March.

It’s different for fanatics with immigrant backgrounds from the Caribbean baseball powers, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the 2013 WBC championDominican Republic. Here some of the Dominican players celebrate “plátano pride,” and Baltimore Orioles star Manny Machado explains why he’s playing for the D.R. rather than the United States. The U.S. third baseman and star of the Colorado Rockies Nolan Arenado, whose mother’s family is Puerto Rican and father’s family comes from Cuba, remembers that his family made it “clear that I should be proud to live in this country because so many of the freedoms we have here do not exist in Cuba. But despite the negative views of the Cuban government, my family members still root like crazy for the Cuban national baseball team.”

I suspect there’s something similar going on with the Israeli club. American Jews are thrilled to see Jewish ballplayers take their place among the nations of baseball. Most of the Israel roster is made up of American ballplayers whose family history qualifies them for Israeli citizenship, but only two active players are Israelis. There’s veteran pitcher Shlomo Lipetz, and Dean Kremer, a right-handed pitcher the Los Angeles Dodgers selected out of the University of Nevada Las Vegas last year in the fourteenth round. He’s the first Israeli drafted by a big league club.

From Horned Helmets to Pussy Hats

If you thought Sweden’s men have become mice think again.
They are yet worthy of their warrior ancestors! They are still a fighting breed whom Sweden’s great seventeenth century soldier-king Gustavus Adolphus would recognise with pride!

Be not deceived! Those horned helmets we associate with the Vikings, those fearsome raiders who struck terror into all hearts, have not been abandoned.
They have merely been given a makeover, in keeping with the Wallstrom/Soros era.

See?

These stalwarts, members of the Construction Workers’ Union in Sweden, have been marking International Women’s Day.

You could read the original here On the other hand, you may wish to read a translation: the Vlad Tepes blog has one here

Too bad these guys couldn’t do something really constructive (no pun intended!) for the cause of Swedish women by breaking ranks with the rape capital of Europe’s crazy leftist-feminista-Islamophile government and identifying exactly where the clear and present danger to women’s rights and women’s safety really lies in the country Swedish journalist Ingrid Carlqvist so rightly terms Absurdistan!

Turkish Riots in Rotterdam Threaten Dutch Political Stability Ahead of Elections This Week By Patrick Poole

The Reuters picture above of supporters of Turkish dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan are not from Istanbul or Ankara, but from riots overnight in Rotterdam that threaten the stability of the Netherlands ahead of Dutch parliamentary elections later this week.

The Rotterdam riots, which required a state of emergency to be declared by the Dutch government, are part of a larger unfolding drama involving provocations by the Turkish government inciting millions of Turkish citizens living in European countries.

The current crisis began when the Dutch government prevented the Turkish foreign minister from landing in the Netherlands to hold a political rally in Rotterdam in support of dictator Erdogan and an upcoming referendum in Turkey intended to give Erdogan more power. The foreign minister then landed in Metz, France.

Reuters reports:

Several hundred demonstrators waving Turkish flags gathered outside the Turkish consulate in the Dutch city of Rotterdam on Saturday, demanding to see the Turkish minister for family affairs as a dispute between the two countries escalated.

Police erected metal barriers and patrolled on horseback to keep the demonstrators away from the consulate as the crowd grew with more pro-Turkish protesters arriving from Germany.

Turkish Family Minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya traveled by road to the Netherlands from neighboring Germany after the Dutch government revoked landing rights for a plane carrying Turkey’s foreign minister earlier on Saturday.

Dutch TV footage showed police stopping the minister’s convoy near the Turkish consulate in Rotterdam and preventing her from entering the building.

The Dutch government said it did not want Turkish politicians campaigning among Turkish emigres in the Netherlands, leading President Tayyip Erdogan to brand the fellow NATO member a “Nazi remnant”. CONTINUE AT SITE

Holland: the Canary in the European Coal Mine By Michael Walsh

Holland was the first European country I set foot in as a lad, and it continues to have a special place in my memory. But the country I encountered in the summer of 1970 is all but unrecognizable now. In a fit of cultural enervation, social ennui, and just plain suicidal stupidity, it was among the first Western countries to throw open its doors to the avant-garde of Islam, and is now paying the price. So with the Dutch elections now looming, the question is: can the tide of Muslim social conquest be reversed?

The question is precipitated by the extraordinary sight of riots in Rotterdam this weekend when the Dutch government forbade the Turkish minister of family affairs from landing in Holland in order to openly campaign among Holland’s Turkish “emigrant” community on behalf of Turkish strongman Erdogan’s latest power grab, which is coming up for a vote on April 16. Naturally, she simply snuck across the border from Germany into the Netherlands, but the Dutch somehow managed enough backbone to block her.

Police using water cannon, horses and dogs moved in to disperse the crowds after several hours of demonstrations on Saturday evening. Protesters hit back, throwing rocks at the police, while hundreds of cars jammed the streets blaring their horns.

Tensions tipped over into violence after a day of fast-moving events, triggered when Turkey’s family affairs minister Sayan Kaya was stopped from attending the rally by being expelled from the Netherlands. Ms Kaya could be seen in images on Dutch NOS television appearing to argue with officers about the situation.

Earlier, Dutch authorities also refused permission for foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to land in the city, saying he was not welcome to campaign for the referendum. In response, Mr Erdogan accused the Dutch, who were once under Nazi occupation, of being “the vestiges of Nazis”.

To which a Dutch official replied: “It is a crazy remark, of course. But I understand they are angry, but this is of course way out of line.” If that’s the best riposte the Dutch government can muster, they’re going to need a lot more riot police.

Peter Smith: The Left Left Leak

Bill Leak, Australia’s eminent political cartoonist was forced to move his home and family to a secret location after being marked for death by Islamic fascists — real fascists, mind you, not the sort the sniveling Left perceives at every word of disagreement. He died of a heart attack.

The left is no longer the left unless names mean nothing. The old left would never, ever kneel before an oppressive medieval culture, nor would they cheer as Star Chamber commissars assault free speech. Bill knew that and it sickened him.
In Bill Leak’s last cartoon in The Australian (below) he has Rob Stokes, the NSW minister for education, in front of Punchbowl Boys High School, severed head in hand, explaining to an interviewer that “boys will be boys.” Getting to the nub of the matter is the cartoonist’s art. Bill Leak was a peerless grandmaster of it.

I was at the CIS function last Wednesday evening for the launch of his book Trigger Warning, which contains his cartoons over the year 2016. Partway through his speech, he was stopped in his tracks by Sir Les Patterson. If you are going to be pushed off stage I can’t think of any more formidable person to do it than Sir Les; though perhaps Dame Edna would come close. In any event, Bill took it in his stride: brilliant cartoonist interrupted by iconic entertainer. Ending is hard but I can’t think of a much better sign-off than a book launch, Sir Les and a final, cutting cartoon.

I met Bill only twice but on both occasions he told me how much he enjoyed reading Quadrant. Like me he was a convert from the dark side. I don’t know, but I tend to have more affinity with those who’ve seen the light than with those who start out that way. Being youthful and conservative doesn’t always sit right somehow. Aren’t the young supposed to be, at the least, a touch radical? Mind you, I think I’m living in the past when being left had more of a respectable and honourable cloth cap about it.

The left is no longer the left unless names mean nothing. The traditional left would not have happily seen miners thrown out of work and power stations and heavy industries closed down in pursuit of a climate chimera. They would not have been happy with strange men visiting their daughters’ bathrooms. They would not have been happy to have gender-fluidity studies shoved down their children’s throats. They would not have been happy to have free speech closed down to appease an alien and oppressive medieval religious culture.

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THANKS TO E-PAL CHARLITE
ISIS Shoots At U.S. Helicopter … The Response Was EPIC!! [VIDEO] | News Today

http://warfarefootage.com/2017/03/isis-shoots-at-u-s-helicopter-the-response-was-epic-video/

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This particular video has been watched over a million times and it was taken during the evening hours. It shows ISIS shooting at a U.S. helicopter, and our military retaliated with BRUTAL force! The response to ISIS’s attack is a stark reminder of all those who put their lives on the line to keep our country safe.

Please watch and share! This video will leave you breathless!
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Bill Leak’s Last Testament

Bill Leak, a famed cartoonist in Australia, was forced to move his home and family to a secret location after being marked for death by Islamic fascists — real fascists, mind you, not the sort the sniveling Left perceives at every word of disagreement. He should have been able to count on the full weight and support of every government agency and bureaucrat. Instead, while the Prime Minister declined to utter four short words, ‘Je suis Bill Leak’, he was abandoned to the torments of the shameless Gillian Triggs and her posse of tax-funded thugs. What’s the difference between ISIS and the HRC? The former is open and honest in its vindictive contempt for all who will not toe the line. Days before he died, Bill delivered these words at the launch of his latest book, Trigger Warning. Quadrant Online reproduces them, as have other sites, because it is vital his message be as widesprad as was his humour engaging.

Quote: ‘As the senses of humour of people suffering from PC atrophy, their sensitivity to criticism becomes more and more acute until they get to the stage where everything offends them and they lose the ability to laugh entirely. For people with chronic PC, feeling offended is about as good as it gets’

I know it’s International Women’s Day so first I must apologise for not being a woman. It’s particularly regrettable that I’m not a glamorous Sudanese-Egyptian-Australian woman who wears a hijab promoting a book about what it’s like being a glamorous Sudanese-Egyptian-Australian woman who wears a hijab. If I was, this wouldn’t be the only event I’ve got lined up on my non-government funded whirlwind Trigger Warning awareness-raising tour.

When I met the great cartoonist Bill Mitchell about 34 years ago, he said, “Mate, a cartoonist only has to be funny once a day, but it’s a lot harder than you’d think.” He was right, but he had no idea how much harder it would be for me than it ever was for him.

For a start, in order for Bill Mitchell to come up with a cartoon, all he had to do was take a serious political issue, exaggerate it to the point of ridiculousness, then draw what he saw when he got there. But I can’t do that because the ideas our politicians come up with these days are utterly ridiculous to begin with. And if you’re starting at the point of absurdity, where do you go from there? I mean, what am I going to have to come up with to make teachers in the Safe Schools program look ridiculous when they actually start giving jobs to gimps? And how long do you think it will be then before some gimps’ rights campaigner accuses me of gimpophobia? It’s only a matter of time.

Another reason why the job’s so much harder now than it was for Bill Mitchell is because, unlike him, I can’t just breezily assume people are looking at my cartoons hoping to get a laugh. Ever since conceptual art supplanted transcendent art, all art has been reduced to the level of graffiti. And to people reared on postmodernism and cultural relativism who can’t tell the difference between Picasso and Banksy, I’m not a cartoonist drawing cartoons for a newspaper; I’m an artist exhibiting triggs leakhis work in a gallery that gets hundreds of thousands of visitors through the doors every day. And the work of a man like that has to be taken very seriously indeed. It has to be analysed. It has to be deconstructed. It has to be decoded by these people in a search for hidden meanings. And because art, like political activism, is a form of therapy, it’s supposed to reinforce and confirm their prejudices, not challenge them.

A Month of Islam and Multiculturalism in Britain: February 2017 by Soeren Kern

Muslim pupils outnumber Christian children in more than 30 church schools, including one Church of England primary school that has a “100% Muslim population.” — Sunday Times.

Six Muslim men shouted “Allahu Akbar” as they were sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court for a total of 81 years for sexually abusing two girls — including one who became pregnant at age 12 — in Rotherham.

“By 2030, one in three people will be a Muslim in the world — that is a huge population.” — Romanna Bint-Abubaker, founder of modest fashion website Haute Elan.

A Chatham House survey of more than 10,000 people from ten European countries found that an average of 55% agreed that all further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped.

February 1. Jim Walker, a 71-year-old volunteer at Carnforth Station, was banned from the premises after someone complained about an alleged racist comment. Walker, who, for more than a decade, has been winding a famous clock at the station, was overheard discussing a newspaper article about young migrants entering Britain from the French port of Calais. Walker said:

“Carnforth Station Trust received a complaint from a visitor who was not happy about me speaking to somebody about the issue…. What they are doing is outrageous. It is absolutely unbelievable, it is a violation of free speech….

“I must be the only man in Carnforth who has a document saying where he can and can’t walk and all for expressing a point of view and quoting an editorial from a newspaper. Now [winding the clock] is no longer possible.”

February 1. Prime Minister Theresa May told the House of Commons that women should feel free to wear the hijab, a traditional Islamic headscarf. Several European countries have imposed bans on parts of Muslim religious dress. “What a woman wears is a woman’s choice,” May said after she was asked — on world hijab day — if she supported the right of women to wear the garment.

Death and Destruction for Christmas Muslim Persecution of Christians, December 2016 by Raymond Ibrahim

“Nothing has been done by Pope Francis or the Bishop of Abu Dhabi to get me released, in spite of contact being made by my captors.” — Rev. Tom Uzhunnalil, a Catholic priest who was kidnapped on March 4, 2016 in Yemen, when Islamic terrorists raided a nursing home and killed 16 people, including several nuns and aid workers.

“Christians continue to be the most persecuted believers in the world with over 90,000 followers of Christ being killed in the last year.” — Massimo Introvigne, prominent statistician and researcher, interviewed on Vatican Radio.

As in previous years, the month of Christmas saw an uptick in Islamic attacks on Christians — much of it in the context of targeting Christmas festivities and worship.

The one that claimed the most lives took place in Egypt. On Sunday, December 11, 2016, an Islamic suicide bomber entered the St. Peter Cathedral in Cairo during mass, detonated himself, killed at least 27 worshippers, mostly women and children, and wounded nearly 70. A witness said:

“I found bodies, many of them women, lying on the pews. It was a horrible scene. I saw a headless woman being carried away. Everyone was in a state of shock. We were scooping up people’s flesh off the floor. There were children. What have they done to deserve this? I wish I had died with them instead of seeing these scenes.”

The death toll and severity of the attack (pictures and videos of the aftermath here) surpassed even the New Year’s Day bombing of an Alexandrian church in which 23 people were killed in 2011. A few weeks before the St. Peter’s bombing, a man hurled an improvised bomb at St. George Church, packed with thousands of worshippers, in Samalout. Had the bomb detonated, casualties would likely have been higher. In a separate December incident, Islamic slogans and messages of hate — including “you will die Christians” — were painted on the floor of the Virgin Mary church in Damietta.

In Germany, Anis Amri, a Muslim asylum seeker from Tunisia, seized a large truck, murdered its driver, and pushed him onto the passenger seat, then drove the truck into a Christmas market in Berlin. Twelve shoppers were killed and 65 were injured, some severely. Four days later, Amri was killed in a shootout with police near Milan. ISIS claimed responsibility despite original reports claiming the man had no ties to Islamic terror groups.

The Beginning of Democratic Nationalism — or the End of Europe With sympathy for his subject, James Kirchick in his new book surveys the continent in crisis. By Brian Stewart

The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age, by Jamie Kirchick
Yale University Press, 288 pages

It is tempting, especially for those in thrall to notions of American exceptionalism, to regard the election of Donald Trump as a singular episode in the history of our times. It is more properly viewed as the traumatic continuation of a populist trend that has been detectable across the democratic world for some time. The rise of Trump exemplifies nothing so much as the crisis of liberalism roiling the West. With luck, it will prove the culmination of that crisis rather than its harbinger. For if it persists, it would herald the end of the liberal international order as we know it.

On this score, Europe’s predicament does not give reason for hope. A quarter-century after being formally established by the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, the European Union is in deep trouble. The economic and political institutions erected after World War II to foster European integration have yielded diminishing returns as the circle of nations in their orbit has grown.

In recent years, the disappointments of European federalism have eroded the credibility of its swollen political establishment and empowered rabble-rousers on both the far left and the far right (or some combination of both). In country after country, crises have converged. Separately and together, they portend a rising of the drawbridges not merely on Europe’s depressed periphery but also in the EU-15, the core nations of Western Europe. At stake is not merely the rickety “European model” of governance but the entire project since the fall of the Berlin Wall of a Europe “whole, free and at peace.”

Few have shed more light on this phenomenon than James Kirchick, an American journalist who has done yeoman’s work covering Europe from a variety of vantage points. In The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age, he analyzes the forces that have put the continent on a razor’s edge, and what is at stake in putting it back on solid ground. Kirchick’s book is preceded in the declinist oeuvre by Walter Laqueur’s The Last Days of Europe (2007) and Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe (2009). In contrast to those earlier works, however, The End of Europe is not even remotely Euro-skeptic.

Kirchick makes clear that he regards last year’s British exit from the EU as an indefensible folly, as if it were merely a species of Little England xenophobia that impelled Brexit. It is true that British influence in European affairs has dwindled — an unalloyed catastrophe for those who, like this reviewer, hold liberal, Atlanticist principles. But it’s too much to say, as Kirchick does, that Britain thereby “demonstrated that it had learned the wrong lessons from its history.” One need not advocate splendid isolation from the continent to see that the British recoil was a valid response to the manifest failures of the EU.