For The Fallen

A staggering 888,246 poppies, representing all the British Empire and Commonwealth troops killed in the First World War surround Windsor Castle ...... At the going down of the sun,
 

A Sobering Sight As It Developed ....

and in the morning .... 

But A Magnificent Memorial When Completed ....

 

We will remember them.

 

Treasure Of The Neibelung

When I developed an interest in classical music, I naturally came across the The Song of the Nibelungs aka 'Nibelungenlied', which is a high German epic poem about a dragon-slayer Siegfried at the court of the Burgundians, and the tale of how he was murdered and of his wife Kriemhild's terrible revenge.

The Legend Of The Rheingold

As a part of the tale, a golden hoard is stolen from Kriemhild, and it is thrown into the Rhine where its known as the 'Rheingold'.  

 

River Deep, Mountain High?

The Chinese, and to a lesser extent the US have embarked on a series of civil engineering projects, the like of which the world has never seen before .... levelling mountains, using the rubble to fill up the valleys, and thus create new level land for building on.

The example below, shows what's happened to mountains in western Shiyan province, between the first picture taken in 2010, and second from 2013 ... with work still ongoing.

Western Shiyan Province Mountain Flattening

... but this is just one of many such developments in China.

Now putting aside all the obvious ecological concerns (water and air pollution, landslides, subsidence and environmental degradation ... all of which the Americans, if not the Chinese, believe that they will overcome if they happen), the sheer bravado of these ventures, especially in China, shows that while Europe subsides ever further in to a Health and Safety led quagmire, with a 100 'risk assessments' required for every development. The Chinese new world order, and to a less extent the old 'new' world of the USA, are unhindered in their civil engineering and development plans, and are forging ahead ... The sweep of human progress, if such it is, apparently continues without us ....

.... leaving the real 'old world' of Europe behind, like a sclerotic, retired old incontinent.

The Doomsday Vaults

When I came across a story, ostensibly about 'Crop Banks', I'm afraid that I almost skipped by it, as I assumed for a second or two that it was another of those tales that welfare benefits claimants in the UK are so poor, because of the £26k total benefits cap is too low and that they were going to free food banks in vast numbers ..... but at the last minute I dipped into the story, and found something interesting instead.

You learn something new everyday ... or should try to.

There are apparently 'crop banks' set up in many countries (over 100 in fact), the purpose of these 'banks' being to preserve the genes of as many species as possible. This to preserve the plants against some species threatening epidemic, or even over reliance on GM Crops (which Europe can only resist the arrival of for another decade or so at most), or possibly just extinction caused be human influence such as global warming.

Anyway, apparently in order to insure against any of the stored seeds getting corrupted, the Norwegians have created one such bank, deep inside a mountain on a remote island in the Svalbard archipelago, which is located halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole - the vault, which cost £5m (US $7m), and took 12 months to build, offers permanent protection for the world's food crops, say its operators.

The main purpose of this depository, which is owned by the Norwegian government and maintained by the Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT) and the Nordic Genetic Resources Centre, is to store duplicates of all seed samples from crop collections around the world .... many countries such as Japan have opted to send seeds to the bank, and now many of the national seed collections from around the world, have provided the samples being stored in the vault.

The Doomsday Vault

The innocuous looking doorway leads to a massive complex ..... who knows, one day our very future, or rather the future of generations to come, may rely on these isolated banks.

Superior Than Thou Art We

I noticed that one of the UK's seemingly never ending stream of Islamist, Jihadi loving 'preachers', Anjem Choudary, was endearing himself to the rest of us again, by posting an image on social media of Buckingham Palace converted into a Mosque, with the message 'someday god willing' ... this while he's on bail for yet another alleged offence.

Buckingham Mosque As It Will Be Insha'Allah As Our Prospective Overlords Like To Say.

This got me thinking about several things, but as we as a country, are apparently incapable of deporting those who wish us harm, I turned myself with a sigh to other thoughts, and started to ponder why, with all that's going on in the world: Islamist's fighting with other Muslims, or killing, raping and committing a genocide on non-muslims in almost every continent I could think of:

•   North Africa - Algeria, Libya, and Egypt.
•   Black Africa - Nigeria, Somalia, Kenya (and probably more places as well).
•   Middle East - Iraq, Turkey and Syria.
•   Asia - Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Kashmir (and many of the other 'stans').
•   Central Asia - Uigherstan in China and terrorist attacks.
•   Southern Asia - Thailand, Burma and Indonesia.
•   North America - terrorist attacks USA and Canada.
•   Europe - terrorist attacks UK, Spain, and Belgium.
•   Russian Federation - Chechnia and terrorist attacks in Russia.

.... why Muslims (and every opinion poll of Muslims backs this up), still say 'we are superior to you'.

Even if you ignore the last 30 years of violence and mayhem, and look back in time, then most of the historical evidence of the last few hundred years show that contrary to Muslims beliefs, Muslim societies rarely produce anything that isn't inferior to the Western model in every way. Which makes the mass delusion that even the most educated of their societies share, despite the fact that they flee here by the plane and boat loads, that they are the superior society or civilisation in all things, such a baffling thing.

It would be funny really, if it wasn't a belief that's accompanied by such terrible violence and backwardness .... oil, is the only thing that has brought the Arab region marginally into the modern world, and when its gone, they and the societies they support will slump back again in to the backwaters.

But in the mean time, strangely, no matter how much better they claim the Muslim world is too ours, they will, in vast numbers, still try anything to get here. Apparently to escape those so superior Muslim lands, and to live in the lands of Kaffirs, subsisting on welfare benefit handouts, and bringing up their children up to believe that they are also superior.

Not content with escaping the privileges of living in superior lands, they also want to bring their religion and their regressive attitudes with them, and then try to recreate the same social issues that they fled from, here. Intellectually they are just incapable of making the connection to between the backward lawless, nasty and brutish states that they come from, to the religion and attitudes that they are so desperate to force on our states.

They have forced Christianity, or even Secular Muslim governments out of their own lands, by voting for or supporting 'Islamic' parties, but then when those lands become a bad place to live (Egypt or Iraq for example), they then simply flee here (claiming asylum from the results of their own actions), and try to do the same thing again. What is the 'Respect' party in the UK if not a Pakistani/Bangladeshi one religion party?

I have even heard one Jihadi mother, going on BBC Radio 4 to ask us to sympathise with her radical son coming back after just 8 months, because he was traumatised by the fighting in Syria. She made no mention of what horrors he must have participated in, before he became 'traumatised' by the rounds of violence and rapes and wanted a rest ... another family wanted our support after one of their sons and two of their daughters went off to join in the carnage in Syria. Yet another has lost two of three sons fighting etc etc, but wants us to feel sorry for them.

I guess its that ability to hypocritically try to murder our soldiers, or destroy our society, and then use our tolerance to claim we should sympathise with them, which is what makes them be able to claim 'Superior Than Thou Are We'.