Ralf Goergens

The Sun King

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This account by the Duc (Duke) de Saint-Simon on the life of Louis XIV. of France is quite interesting and in some parts also pretty amusing:

His natural talents were below mediocrity; but he had a mind capable of improvement, of receiving polish, of assimilating what was best in the minds of others without slavish imitation; and he profited greatly throughout his life from having associated with the ablest and wittiest persons, of both sexes, and of various stations.

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Glory was his passion, but he also liked order and regularity in all things; he was naturally prudent, moderate, and reserved; always master of his tongue and his emotions. Will it be believed? he was also naturally kind-hearted and just. God had given him all that was necessary for him to be a good King, perhaps also to be a fairly great one. All his faults were produced by his surroundings. In his childhood he was so much neglected that no one dared go near his rooms.

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His mind was occupied with small things rather than with great, and he delighted in all sorts of petty details, such as the dress and drill of his soldiers; and it was just the same with regard to his building operations, his household, and even his cookery. He always thought he could teach something of their own craft even to the most skilful professional men; and they, for their part, used to listen gratefully to lessons which they had long ago learnt by heart.

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Prominent pro-Arab lobbyist Möllemann dies, very likely by suicide

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Möllemann published an anti-Israeli flyer during the federal election campaign last year causing a scandal that cost the FDP (Freie Demokratische Partei) a lot of votes, unfortunately just enough to let Schröder squeak by with a tiny majority of about 6.000. It turned out later that Möllemann may have financed the flyer by illegal campaign contributions and is also possibly guilty of fraud and other offenses. After months of investigations the Bundestag revoked his parliamentary immunity on Thursday, shortly afterwards police raided 25 buildings in four European countries. Less than 30 minutes later Möllemann plummeted to his death while parachuting; since there are no signs that his equipment was sabotaged suicide seems very likely.

Stefan Sharkansky has more; he has kept an eye on Möllemann for over a year and has even devoted a website to him: moellemann.com.

Suicide bombing kills five in Kabul

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Four of the dead are German soldiers, 30 more soldiers and bystanders were injured.

As terrible this is it still is telling that attacks like this are rare enough to be newsworthy in a country that has been liberated less than 18 months ago. It really seems as if the remaining Taleban and Islamists in general are no longer capable of conducting real operations and are reduced to blowing themselves up like Palestinian terrorists.

Going after European targets is a seriously boneheaded moveon the side of the Islamists; for all their hypocrisy about the American approach to the war on terror European governments are much less concerned with respecting the human rights of terrorists once they feel forced into all-out war. The European camps are going to be much less pleasant than that at Guantamano Bay, not to mention much larger.