Belgian king’s meeting with far-right leader sparks controversy

long live a republic!

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First such audience since 1936 comes after Vlaams Belang wins 18 seats in election

The leader of Flanders’ far-right separatist party has had an audience with the king of Belgium for the first time in the modern political era.

According to Belgian media, 1936 was the last time a far-right leader held an official meeting with the king.

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Shields Date Garden in Indio, California

Knight of Shields, guiding seekers of dates.

A mammoth knight in armor points the way to Shields, just off U.S. Highway 111 in Riverside County, California. From the dusty heat of the Colorado Desert, follow the knight’s guidance into the calm and splendor of Shields Date Garden, overlooking the majestic Santa Rosa Mountains.

When Floyd and Bess Shields opened the Shields Date Garden on Christmas Day in 1924, they knew competition would be strong in the rapidly-growing Coachella Valley date industry. To distinguish his date farm from all others in the valley, Floyd began offering lectures to visitors on the lawns of the garden. In the 1950s, he did one better: a slide show with a recorded soundtrack, cheekily named “The Romance and Sex Life of the Date.” Today, garden visitors can enjoy the slideshow, which has since been turned into a film that plays on a loop in the garden’s own “Romance Theatre.”

But the main attraction of Shields is, without question, not the suggestively titled cinematic experience, but the actual grounds: 17 acres of date groves, with a little pond at its center and Jesus in its heart. For here, amidst the beauty of winding pathways and date palms lush with fruit, are 23 biblical sculptures depicting Christ’s life, from birth to resurrection. They were donated in 2011 by a Canadian couple who were regular Shields Garden visitors, and are dispersed amid the date palms, olive trees, aloe plants, and citrus trees that populate the garden.

Visitors can also sample Floyd Shields’s two hybrid date varieties—called blonde and brunette dates—the only place in the world where they are grown. Today, nearly 95 percent of all dates grown in the United States are from the Coachella Valley.

In 1936, Shields also developed and patented a date sugar that he called date crystals, which are the key ingredient in Shields Date Garden’s most popular beverage: their signature date shake. Visitors can enjoy a date shake at the original counter, set up in the 1960s. The café at Shields of course celebrates dates on its menu. While they have your garden-variety omelets, sandwiches, and steak, consider trying the date burger, date pancakes, or just plain ol’ dates stuffed with cheese, jalapenos, and prosciutto, and wrapped in bacon.

There’s also the garden shop, which sells all the date varieties grown on the grounds, in addition to the famous Shields date crystals, along with a variety of sauces and vinegars, including the very intriguing figs and date vinegar.

Joe Biden Puts Hands on Girl’s Shoulders at Town Hall

it is clear Biden has learned nothing. Biden is not listening. It’s not that hard not to touch someone! And yet, he can’t seem to stop doing it. Over the last few months, a slew of women have attempted to point out to him, again and again, why it is not OK for him to put his hands on their shoulders, or sniff their hair, or kiss the backs of their heads—not just that it is wrong, but why. Biden promised to respect women’s space, and yet he has not; he said he would do better, but he did not. “It’s my responsibility to make sure I bend over backwards to try to understand how not to do that,” he said on The View in April, when asked to address the creepy touching, and yet here we are. It’s troubling that Biden can’t see why it’s inappropriate to comment on a 10-year-old’s beauty, or why it’s demeaning to juxtapose a girl’s looks with her intelligence. And it doesn’t bode well for a presidential candidate not to listen, not that that’s much news when it comes to Biden. Election 2020 is, as ever, a long and weary road.

Source: Joe Biden Puts Hands on Girl’s Shoulders at Town Hall

A Haven For Warmongers

In Saner Thought

I have been preaching a message of antiwar for 40+ years, since 1972 and I will admit it has been a long hard road because most Americans could care less since it does not apply to them at all.

The problem is we should send people to Washington that will do all they can to keep Americans out of harms way in the many small wars raging at any given time.

US foreign policy should be…Do No Harm!

But these days DC has become a haven for warmongers and their handlers…..the situation with Iran illustrates this point…..

The current crisis atmosphere in U.S.-Iranian relations, in which the risk of open warfare appears greater than it has been in years, is solely, unequivocally due to the policies and actions of the Trump administration. To point this out does not mean that actions of the Iranian regime have not come to be…

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