Hat tip to Bookworm Room.

By Tom Gauld (Scottish, b. 1976).

Hat tip to Ratak Monodosico.

Béziers Billboard:”From now on, the municipal policeman has a new friend.”

Robert Ménard, the conservative mayor of Béziers, a town in Languedoc in the south of France, has again upset the French establishment leftist clerisy by announcing that, starting at the beginning of this month, his municipal police will all be packing heat.

(Ménard had previously introduced several measures thought to be directed at Muslim immigrants which provoked passionate left-wing opposition, including a ban on drying laundry on balconies and a ban on the installation of satellite dishes on the sides of buildings, the prohibition of spitting in the street, and a curfew for minors.)

The Telegraph quotes French newspapers, detailing the cries of indignation at this kind of Americanization of French “surrender monkey” culture.

A controversial far-right mayor in France has been accused of turning the local police force into “Dirty Harry” after a poster campaign trumpeted their “new friend”: a 7.65-calibre handgun.

Billboards throughout central Béziers, southwestern France, feature large pictures of the semi-automatic weapon with the caption: “From now on, the municipal police has a new friend.”

Municipal police in France are allowed to carry arms, but the campaign has been criticised for promoting gun culture.

“Béziers, it’s the wild west, with its cowboys,” wrote one Twitter user, Sofia.

Another, called Loljak, tweeted: “Béziers cops have turned into Dirty Harry”, referring to the 1971 film starring Clint Eastwood as detective “Dirty” Harry Callahan.

Bernard Cazeneuve, the interior minister, called the posters “deliberately provocative”. He said: “The best friends of the police are not their weapons … but the French citizens who respect republican values.”

The decision to arm local police followed a national debate on whether all French police should be armed with lethal weapons after Clarissa Jean-Philippe, an unarmed municipal officer, was gunned down by Islamist terrorists during the Paris attacks in January that killed 17 people.

All this fuss over cops carrying a Beretta 92 chambered in the antiquated and anemic .32 ACP/7.65 Browning cartridge.

Draft Magazine interviews Dagbjartur Arilíusson, owner of the Steðji microbrewery in Iceland.

You … brew beer made from fin whale testicles…

We started last year with our first whale beer, Hvalur 1. The health department didn’t want us to produce it at first, but we were allowed to. The beer used whale meal as an ingredient, and it was something new for Iceland. It sold out almost immediately. This year, for Hvalur 2, we wanted to keep the concept, but use a different whale ingredient. We decided to use fin whale [Balaenoptera physalus -JDZ] testicles.

How, exactly, do you brew with whale testicles?
We get the testicles frozen from the whaling company, and we have a licensed butcher chop it up for us to use. The testicles are cured according to an old Icelandic tradition. The testicles are salted, and then smoked with sheep dung. A whole testicle is used in every brewing cycle, and then the beer is filtered and pasteurized. We put a lot of effort into this, and it’s a long process.

What’s the beer’s connection to Iceland’s annual food festival, Thorrablot?
We wanted to create a true Thorrablot atmosphere that celebrates traditional Icelandic food. Every winter, Icelanders gather to eat traditional food that sustained our ancestors for generations. This is very popular here in the countryside, and we wanted the beer to be released at the same time of the festival. The dishes we eat include boiled sheep heads, liver sausage, ram testicles, fermented shark, wind-dried fish, smoked lamb meat, and blood pudding. We thought that Hvalur 2 would fit in well with Thorrablot by using an ingredient that is a little different.

Does the criticism from whale conservationists bother you?
It actually brings more attention to the beer, which is a positive thing. Most of the protests come from people outside of Iceland. People have to remember that the fin whale is not endangered in the North Atlantic, and Iceland is known for sustainable fishing and setting quotas for our whale hunt. There’s actually a lot of demand for our beer to be exported, but there are laws that limit which countries can import it because of anti-whaling laws. The beer will sell out in Iceland, and people from other countries want a taste.

Whole thing.

Hat tip to Ratak Monodosico.

The Marine Corps responded to reports that US Marine guards at the embassy in Yemen had been under orders to surrender their rifles and sidearms to Houthi fighters at the airport before leaving the country.

Marine Corps Times:

Marine embassy security guards smashed personal weapons with sledgehammers and scattered them before departing Yemen as the U.S. Embassy was being evacuated this week, officials with Marine Corps Headquarters said.

The officials offered new details of the Marines’ departure in the wake of differing reports about what had become of personal weapons the troops had to leave behind before departing the country via the airport at Sanaa. A Pentagon spokesman told reporters Wednesday that Marines had handed over the weapons to Yemeni officials before boarding commercial aircraft for departure, while staff with the Sanaa airport told the Associated Press that Houthi rebels had seized U.S. Embassy vehicles, some with weapons inside.

A Marine official with knowledge of the movement told Marine Corps Times Wednesday that all personal and crew-served weapons had been rendered inoperable, but could not address how they had been made so or how they were disposed of before the Marines departed.

“To be clear: No Marine handed a weapon to a Houthi, or had one taken from him,” Marine officials said late Wednesday in a statement.

Crew-served weapons, officials said, were destroyed at the embassy before the Marines departed in accordance with an approved destruction plan.

The Marine embassy detachment then proceeded to the airfield at Sanaa with just their personal weapons.

“Upon arrival at the airfield, all personal weapons were rendered inoperable in accordance with advance planning,” Officials said in the statement. “Specifically, each bolt was removed from its weapons body and rendered inoperable by smashing with sledgehammers. The weapons bodies, minus the bolts, were then separately smashed with sledgehammers. All of these destroyed components were left at the airport — and components were scattered; no usable weapon was taken from any Marine at Sanaa airport.

Read the whole thing.

Translation: “Garçon, bring us a bottle of vodka and a map of Poland.”

The Guardian:

Ukraine conflict: four-nation peace talks in Minsk aim to end crisis

Planned summit in Belarus capital on Wednesday comes after intense diplomacy between France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia

Hanging in a lavatory at Birr Castle, County Offaly.

From the Irish Aesthete via Rafal Heydel Mankoo.

Birr Castle

Earl of Rosse