William the Silent

One wonders when the NRA is going to claim responsibility for the shooting in America. The weapon was allegedly fully automatic, which is illegal, but semi-automatics can be converted to fully automatic with legally purchased add-ons.

Just reading a biography of a Dutch hero, the main leader of the Dutch revolt against the Spanish Habsburgs that set off the Eighty Years' War and resulted in the formal independence of the United Provinces in 1581. He was also the ancestor of the monarchy of the Netherlands - the House of Orange-Nassau.

It doesn't say much...

William was tolerant of any religion on the proviso that it didn't subvert order. What incensed him was the intolerance within religion for other religions, in particular the fanatical and savage brutality of the Catholic Inquisition of the Spanish. Had be been alive today, he would have been equally tolerant of Islam, but without all the jihad and stoning nonsense of the fanatic.

The book has a strange physical property - the paper has an ultraviolet glow down the middle, but it's only visible in shadow. It's difficult to reproduce in a photo, but it's manifestly obvious with the eyes.

Talking of Spain - what a catastrophe. Nationalists hold what, according to the constitution, is an illegal referendum to foment trouble for their minority cause and the government responds with what can only be described as a cack-handed, overblown response that's played right into the hands of the nationalists. Nationalists everywhere think independence produces heaven on earth, but when required to explain how, they can never say; they just get annoyed and waffle. That's not to say nationalism isn't warranted when a nation is being genuinely oppressed, like the Kurds.

William the Silent's nationalism on behalf of the Dutch (he was not Dutch himself, but born in Nassau in what is now Germany with hereditary lands in both Germany and Southern France - the Orange part) came about due to religious oppression on the part of the Spanish overlords.