Gros-Delettrez, Ethnographic & Indigenous Artifacts, June 28, 2019, 2:00 PM CET, Paris, France

Lot 57: Une exceptionnelle collection de 47 ceintures Berbères, Afrique du Nord — An unique collection of 47 antique Berber belts, North Africa, Moroccan Sahara

S’il est rare de rencontrer une de ces ceintures, en voir 47 réunies en une collection, cela nous semble unique. Certaines possèdent des fils métalliques dorés, d’autres, des fils métalliques argentés, d’autres sont toutes en laine, enfin d’autres possèdent des parties en coton. Usures mineures.
Milieu du XXe siècle
3 x 92 cm ou 3.5 x 97 cm de moyenne
It is unusual to find even one of these belts, but to see 47 united in one collection, seems unique. Some have gold wire, some silver wire, some are all wool, others have cotton parts. Minor wear.
Mid 20th century
1.2 x 36 inches or 1.4 x 38 inches on the average.

Starting bid €8,000 ($9115.60)

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Interesting visually, but just a bit expensive.

Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, from Denmark, and Maren Ueland, 28, from Norway, were brutally murdered by Muslim fanatics while camping in the Atlas mountains.

Their killers posted a video of the decapitation of one of these young ladies on Facebook. (Take my word for it. You really do not want to see it. link) One girl had been slowly decapitated. The other only had her throat cut. It appears that they had previously been raped.

Dr. Bastiat, at Ricochet, marveled once again at the naive optimism of members of the Trans-Atlantic contemporary community of fashion.

Fox News has a story about two Scandinavian women in their mid 20s who went hiking in Morocco and were killed at their campsite. One was decapitated, one was nearly decapitated. I don’t understand stories like this. Have these young women never heard of Islam? Modern western societies are fanatics about safety, even putting bicycle helmets on their kids to ride around their own yard. But then they take insane risks because of … well, I’m not sure what.

I’m a fairly experienced traveler in somewhat risky places, but I would never consider taking risks like this. They go to a Muslim country, take pictures like the one above, and presume they will be safe. I just don’t understand why these women thought they could do this.

This was not a tragedy. This was murder. The real tragedy was that it is so predictable, so routine, that it wouldn’t even be a news story if they weren’t young and beautiful. I’m not being unsympathetic. Quite the opposite. But this rosy view of reality, despite all evidence to the contrary, is remarkable. And remarkably common. And remarkably dangerous.

photo: Sir Terence Clark

photo: Sir Terence Clark

Sir Terence Clark writes:

Morocco has some amazing weapons still in common use. These muzzle-loading rifles with their silver chased barrels are used in the Fantasia [a traditional exhibition of horsemanship in the Maghreb performed during cultural festivals and to close Berber wedding celebrations], when a group of horsemen charge full tilt at the audience and at the last minute stand up in their stirrups, drop the reins, swing their rifles around in a circle and fire blanks into the ground with a deafening crash before pulling up short in a cloud of dust.

In Morocco, who would have imagined? goats make their living climbing Argan trees (Argania spinosa) in order to devour their seeds. Traditionally, the undigested seeds then excreted by goats were collected by the natives and pressed to produce Argan oil which is used for cooking and as a salad oil, as well as cosmetically on skin and hair, and even medicinally.

You might suspect the photo was Photoshopped, but here are another 16 pictures of goats in trees.

Israeli Intelligence mouthpiece DEBKAfile succeeded in restoring service today after a period of outage.

DEBKAfile’s two sites in English and Hebrew came under a massive cyber attack on our servers at the moment Israeli ground forces crossed into the Gaza Strip Saturday night, Jan. 3. The attackers tried and failed to block and replace our content. We did our utmost to restore service as quickly as possible and return to full operation.

DEBKAfile wasn’t the first site hit.

Computerworld reports earlier activity aimed at Israeli business and web domains:

The conflict raging in Gaza between Israel and Palestine has spilled over to the Internet.

Since Saturday (12/27), thousands of Web pages have been defaced by hacking groups operating out of Morocco, Lebanon, Turkey and Iran, said Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

The defacements have primarily affected small businesses and vanity Web pages hosted on Israel’s .il Internet domain space. One such site was that of Israel’s Galoz Electronics Ltd. On Wednesday, the hacked Web site read “RitualistaS GrouP Hacked your System! ! ! The world isn’t insurance! ! ! For a better world.”

Other attackers have placed more incendiary messages condemning the U.S. and Israel and adding graphic photographs of the violence. Warner said he has seen no evidence that any Israeli government site has been hit by these attacks, although they have been targeted.