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It’s sackcloth and ashes time.  Belgium is really gearing up its euthanasia followed by organ harvesting regime–and apparently the transplant medical community has no moral qualms. In fact, it has become so morally ho-hum, that it was the subject of discussion at the 21st European Conference on General Thoracic Surgery held in the UK in May. It’s all just peachy keen. From the Abstract (0-099) of “Lung Transplantation with Grafts Recovered From Euthanasia Donors: January 2007 and December 2012, 47/350 (13.4%) patients received pulmonary grafts from controlled DCDs [donation after cardiac death], including 6 (1.7%) after euthanasia in accordance with state legislation and...

The euro firmed and Athens breathed a sigh of relief after European leaders agreed to rescue debt-ridden Greece, but markets stayed cautious amid lingering concerns over the currency's health. "I think Europe proved its capacity for action on a major issue," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel as European Union leaders wound up a two-day summit mulling a new 10-year jobs and growth strategy for the bloc's half a billion people. "For all of us it is important that our common currency ... remains stable and that's why yesterday was important for the euro," Merkel said of a rescue plan brokered...

NARAL Pro-Choice America, formerly known as the National Abortion Rights Action League, appears concerned it may be losing the battle to depict a 20-week abortion ban as "extreme." The group expressed outrage that a host on NBC, a network usually sympathetic to abortion rights advocates, implied the 20-week ban is "reasonable." "Is it not reasonable to put late-term restrictions on abortion ... ?" David Gregory of "Meet the Press" asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on July 14. Gregory pressed Reid twice more, repeatedly using the word "reasonable," after Reid continued to dodge the question. Reid promised to "look at"...

The European Union’s new ban on areas located beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines will do nothing to advance peace talks, Finance Minister Yair Lapid wrote on Friday. In fact, said Lapid in an op-ed which appeared in the New York Times, the ban will simply encourage terrorist groups. “As the American secretary of state, John Kerry, leads new efforts to reinvigorate peace talks among Israelis and Palestinians, one of the obstacles—if not the main one—is the presence of extremist Palestinians and their supporters,” he wrote. … According to Lapid, “The world shouldn’t make things easier for extremists. It’s challenging enough...

Some truths about the EU http://www.ukip.org/page/truth Van Rompuy tells Italy not to hold elections http://www.thecommentator.com/article... EU demands right to dictate national budgets http://uk.news.yahoo.com/eu-launches-... UK Parliament kills the referendum debate http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics... European Union has destroyed national democracy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK_yKh... How Brussels stifles democracy in Europe http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/4... The end of Europe's fantasy is now in sight http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/4... Nigel Farage: This is how dictatorship begins http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HanScO... Europe's hit squad http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all... The lamps are going out all over Europe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEYWVd... If you live in the UK, sign the People's Pledge and demand a referendum http://www.peoplespledge.org/ Campaign for an independent Britain http://www.freebritain.org.uk/

This evening, the White House announced a new nominee to be the next U.S. ambassador to Belgium: President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts WASHINGTON, DC – Today, President Obama announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to key Administration posts: · Denise Bauer – Ambassador to Belgium, Department of State

June 18, 2013 (PJSaunders) - In this last week both Belgium and the Netherlands have taken major steps towards euthanasia for children. A consensus among members of the Belgian Federal Parliament has reportedly formed in support of legislation to allow children to choose to undergo euthanasia in certain dire cases, according to a report in the Belgian daily newspaper Der Morgen, as translated by the Paris-based news agency Presseurop. If child euthanasia is legalized in Belgium, the country would become the first in the developed world to have a law on the books formally allowing the practice. Belgium became the second country in the world...

(Online Translation from Dutch/Flemish) Spring pierces through the dry leaves carpet in the Royal Park, but here and stabs also something else: a used condom, a tube of lubricant. During the day, but especially at dusk and at night here intensively gecruiset by gay men looking for sex partners. On the Internet the tourist quickly towards this Burgundian hunting ground: cruising is widely promoted in the front yard of the House and Senate. "Between the waffles and the wall behind the catwalk parade on July 21, the place to be, sir: the two small woods." (© Bart Dewaele) The Royal...

U.S. Ambassador To Belgium Howard Gutman, who was a top Obama campaign bundler, reportedly “solicited prostitutes, including minors.” Gutman was also a Palin-basher who challenged her parenting skills. (VIDEO-AT-LINK) The New York Post reported, via Weasel Zippers: A State Department whistleblower has accused high-ranking staff of a massive coverup — including keeping a lid on findings that members of then-Secretary Hillary Clinton’s security detail and the Belgian ambassador solicited prostitutes. A chief investigator for the agency’s inspector general wrote a memo outlining eight cases that were derailed by senior officials, including one instance of interference by Clinton’s chief of staff,...

A consensus among members of the legislative body has reportedly formed in support of legislation to allow children to choose to undergo euthanasia in certain dire cases, according to a report in the Belgian daily newspaper Der Morgen, as translated by the Paris-based news agency Presseurop. If child euthanasia is legalized in Belgium, the country would become the first in the developed world to have a law on the books allowing the practice, although the Netherlands has since 2005 not prosecuted doctors who perform euthanasia on some minors as long as the doctors act in accordance with a set of...

The potential for social unrest in European Union countries is higher than anywhere else in the world and the already yawning gaps between rich and poor, a major trigger, are likely to widen globally, the International Labour Organisation said on Monday. Those most vulnerable, the report said, were Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain. However the risk of social unrest had declined in Belgium, Germany, Finland, Slovakia and Sweden since 2010. Overall, the risk of unrest in the EU "is likely to be due to the policy responses to the ongoing sovereign debt crisis and their impact...

TFB friend Nic Jenzen-Jones was commissioned by the Small Arms Survey to document the ammunition used in the Libyan Revolution. The report can be downloaded here. Nic discovered that ammunition was procured form the usual suspects (China, Russia, Pakistan etc.) but I was surprised to discover that a lot of FN Herstal made rounds in Gadaffi’s arsenal. FN discovered that by throwing in a few FN303 less lethal launchers in among a lot of ammunition, they could get approval to export a lot of ammunition on humanitarian grounds. A risky move in my opinion. If Britain or the USA had committed ground troops to the civil war it would have been a public relations disaster...

People can believe a lot of crazy stuff nowadays and not be fired from their jobs, but a senior research associate at the Catholic University of Leuven learned that you better not believe that God can heal. The university is the oldest and largest in Belgium. It was founded in the 1400s under the approval of the Vatican. But as modern Europe has secularized, so has the University, and even here, faith has come under fire. Fernando Pauwels worked at the University's Research Institute for Work and Society for 11 years without a negative review when he was suddenly fired....

So asks Newsweek's cover, which features a full-length photo of the prime minister his people voted the greatest Briton of them all. Quite a tribute, when one realizes Churchill's career coincides with the collapse of the British empire and the fall of his nation from world pre-eminence to third-rate power. That the Newsweek cover was sparked by my book "Churchill, Hitler and The Unnecessary War" seems apparent, as one of the three essays, by Christopher Hitchens, was a scathing review. Though in places complimentary, Hitchens charmingly concludes: This book "stinks." Understandable. No Brit can easily concede my central thesis: The...

It took Kimberly Vlaminck three long years and nine painful laser treatments to finally look like herself again - her face no longer etched with 56 tattooed stars. Vlaminck, a 22-year-old from Belgium, made headlines around the world in 2009 after she emerged from a tattoo parlor with an entire constellation inked on the left side of her face. Initially, then-19-year-old Vlaminck lied to her parents and the media, claiming that she asked a local tattooist for only three stars near her eyes, but he kept adding more and more after she dozed off under the needle.

Belgian police have demanded that Lola, a theatre-starring donkey, be removed from the balcony of a cultural centre in Brussels after neighbours complained about her braying.Lola is staying on the first-floor balcony while she performs in a play at the Arab Cultural Centre, located in the same building in the Belgian capital. But police ordered Lola's keeper to move her indoors after receiving complaints about the donkey making too much noise. Despite the police demands, Lola was still outside on Friday, and the director of the cultural centre was berating her neighbours for interfering.

The gilded lifestyle of MEPs has been compared to the uncontrolled excesses of ancient Rome after research showed their perks have not been dented despite biting austerity measures. From Italian MEPs who enjoy free haircuts to Maltese ones who get 52 free gallons of petrol a month, the perks—and expenses—continue unabated for the representatives of European Union nations. MEPs from the 27 EU nations are paid salaries of £137 million ($207 million) a year, according to research by German pricing watchdog Preisvergleich.de, and some earn 740 percent more than the average citizen. …

The European Union is to ban olive oil jugs and dipping bowls from restaurant tables in a move described by one of Britain’s top cooks as authoritarian and damaging to artisan food makers. The small glass jugs filled with green- or gold-colored extra virgin olive oil are familiar and traditional for restaurant goers across Europe, but they will be banned from 1 January 2014 after a decision taken in an obscure Brussels committee earlier this week. From next year, olive oil “presented at a restaurant table” must be in prepackaged factory bottles with a tamper-proof dispensing nozzle and labeling in...

Beer is another one of those testimonies to how the Catholic Church built European civilization. It is true that brewing was widely practiced in the ancient world, but the process was very primitive, even as simple as soaking a loaf of bread in water. Modern brewing practices grew up within Benedictine monasteries, where beer provided good sustenance, sanitary drink, and probably some mirth (at least for the pilgrims). The monks even created a special brew to sustain Lenten fasts, the double bock, classically seen in Paulaner’s Salvator (“The Savior”; look for St. Francis Paola on the Paulener label).The French Revolution...

At the heart of several cities in Belgium lies an unexpected treasure. A gate in a high brick wall creaks open, to reveal a cluster of small, whitewashed, steep-roofed houses round a church. Cobbled alleyways run between them and tiny lawns, thickly planted with flowers, grow in front of them. The cosiness, the neatness and the quiet suggest a hortus conclusus, a medieval metaphor both for virginal women and the walled garden of paradise. Any veiled women seen there now, however, processing to Mass or tying up hollyhocks in their dark habits and white wimples, are ghosts. Marcella Pattyn...