Saturday, March 18, 2006

Further protests against opportunity



Any school leaver who believes that their first task is to find their last job ever has absolutely no sense of what excelling at something really is and has been captured by a previous generation's paranoia. When socialism is embedded into any social model, an artificial scarcity is constructed. Factions are compelled to fight over resources when they would really need to otherwise. Belold the cage-match.

Dassault's Rafale Is "Too French" to Be Sold

In a comment in which everythig French (from state companies to foreign policy) is lauded to the skies (and where it turns out oil sales are good if the buyers are French), one of our readers (make that one of our Pavlovian detractors, rather) contends that French companies are nothing less than "the best on the planet." (And they say that patriotic discourse — and patriotic indoctrination — is no longer something that exists in rational, avant-gardist France…) (My answer here, by the way.)

If Dominique Gallois and Laurent Zecchini are to be believed, however, Dassault can't sell its Rafale jet fighter. Why? Expect the usual comments about dastardly Yankee (or Anglo-Saxon) deeds. Le Monde goes into that, too, needless to say (viz. the Brits), however the paper has another explanation: They can't sell it because it is "expensive and very… French."

In Le Monde Today…

Marc Roche has an article on Bill Emmott's leaving The Economist while Rémi Barroux has a couple on France's work inspectors and Ariane Chemin has one on the possible Corsican gangster who was murdered at the Ajaccio airport. Meanwhile, the demonstrations are continuing.

How to make Apple abandon a market.

There is this twisted notion of anti-trust floating around in some corners. The notion has to do with ‘busting open’ i-tunes even though there is nothing really monopolistic about a artist choosing to sell their work on it, nor does a buyer have some sort of natural right to be able to purchase it in the desired format.


They just don’t DO open product development anyway.


Business week’s technology commentator Arik Hesseldahl writes:
«For its part, Apple hasn't yet commented on the pending legislation or any changes that may result from its passage. But this is isn't the first time Apple has been hassled for the way it does business in France. Last year, Apple's French unit was sued by the Union Federale des Consummateurs -- Que Choisir (UFC-Que-Choisir). The consumer group accused Apple of violating consumer law by not mentioning that iTunes songs don't work with other brands of players, and thereby tying sales of the two products. Apple is fighting the suit.»
What if you wanted to buy a book in the B3 format and not “trade size”? What exactly are your ‘rights’ to that? Look at it this way – on one side you have a ‘foreign’ entity in Virgin with sought legislation favorable to them, and in the other case Vivendi Universal doing the same. The messenger, or complainant, mattered more that the concept. Like the ongoing anti-Microsoft zealotry anti-competitiveness is confused for ‘the killer app.’
«And in 2004, VirginMega tried to force Apple to open up the iPod so that French customers of other services could play their music on the player. That complaint was rejected by the French Competition Council, which said access to the iPod wasn't indispensable to the development of the digital-music marketplace.»
It is the equivalent of passing a law saying that a newpaper had to be translated into every known language because the medium isn’t universal, regardless if it isn’t free for the stealing – my synapses just don’t do Finno-Ugric languages, THEREfore...

Like the EU’s passion play about Mircosoft “bundling” becomes the lame excuse. In that case, insisting that people are too stupid to download RealPlayer, Opera, Eudora, or Firefox becomes the pretext.

It’s only use, if any, is as a large scale cultural fig leaf and stalling tactic. Like tariffs in low performing economies, When domestic development is lagging, bully your way in with laws and various things you’re trying to call anything other than what they really are - embargos. If you can’t be a smart player in a market what really is the solution? Spend 30 years pouring money taken forcibly from the citizens as they did with Airbus or let a freer market develop on its’ own?

Open thread: the endgame

Are the protesting students just an ugly mob expressing their rage, enviously trying to have a 1968 of their own? Or do they have an endgame? Who’s to take hold of this “movement”, and what are they trying to accomplish?

Have your say.

"We're touching something sacred here"

"We're touching something sacred here," said François Vergne, a lawyer in Paris with Morgan Lewis, a leading employment law firm in the United States
to the International Herald Tribune's Katrin Bennhold.
The traditional French CDI, which still accounts for almost 90 percent of employment contracts, has an average probation period of 1.5 months, compared with 6 months in Germany, 9 to 12 months in Denmark and one year in Britain. After that, dismissals can cost employers 12 to 24 months of salary. Disputes take a year on average and are judged by employment tribunals, which must rule in favor of the employee where there is reasonable doubt.

Roubaud knows that firsthand. In his 33 years as head of Simonet, he said, he has fired only four people. Twice, the dispute involved years of legal wrangling; in one case the costs matched his company's annual profit.

"That sort of experience puts you off hiring," he said. "It gives you existential fears if you're running a small business."

Friday, March 17, 2006

Subverting the Dominant Paradigm

France-Echos Now has an English edition, and with 50% more vitamins and minerals than your average patriot. Another fine source for all your information...

A “best of” our readers' comments

Blog comment tread recently asked the question: does George Clooney belong in a dress? Feminized? Butch? or a Man?

Hot or not? Our irreplaceable readers decide.

Keeping the dream alive

Pourriel International is keeping the dream alive after all these years, and in so many ways:

Quarante ans après la Révolution culturelle 40 years after the cultural revolution, I would add, communism is STILL a bad idea.


Note the loving portrait - Mao bouge encore!

ABOU GHRAIB
Vous n'avez pas encore tout vu


True that, but Pfft! I hate to ask, but did Mao's cadres also issue kneepads to the round-eye press when they forced the Little Red Book and re-education camps on the Chinese people?

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Another reason to not get sick in Germany



A word to the wise: read Ray and David.
It’s not just nutritious, it’s refreshing!


Totally unrelated update: German researchers, (possibly also strange looking doctors,) have somehow arrived at the conclusion that excessive friendliness can actually be harmful to your health. Waß?

French Giving Lessons in Democracy to Americans in Iraq

Iraq's prime minister has met with Le Monde's Patrice Claude. The result is an article (which long remained unavailable online) in which the title has the word "terrorists" in quotes (M. Jaafari refuse de négocier avec des « terroristes ») and which goes on to highlight a sentence suggesting the Americans are unhappy with democracy (Pour M. Jaafari, Américains, Kurdes et Arabes sunnites qui rejettent sa candidature, doivent « respecter la démocratie »). As a general rule, the focus of the article is on Iraq's problems and on standing up to the Americans, whose departure would set everything well.

Sick of those crioter's yet?

This trotskite idiocy has one commenter, a student at the Sorbonne at a loss, and obviously quite angry for ending up with the short end of this particular stick ( - next to the taxpayer, that is.)

Khalas!:

«As a student currently attending the Sorbonne (history and language) I must say...WTF! I am more than a little irritated, I want to attend class. My conferences have been cancelled 3 times. I cannot go to the school office to pick up paperwork because it is closed...BLIMEY!!...»
I guess someone, unlike the ‘leaders of the future’ they're surrounded by, sees something else in life then demanding a pound of flesh from others and bellowing out good intention while chucking bricks. It starts with being fed up:
«but people have little foresight and like most college age idiots, kids will be kids, people want what they want, everything else...job growth, creativity, innovation, hard work...be damned....F*** everyone, I want to work at the supermarche for the next 40 years and if I am crap...TOO BAD! you cannot fire me. Vive les socialistes! Strange place this....»
Strange? Really? Isn’t scarcity and fighting over resources what a nanny-state inevitably leads to? The only place Malthus' theory really appies is in a disaster are, or a well planned commune.

Real rioters don't cry



AP:
«A student who attempted with numerous others to take over the College de France university, near the Sorbonne university in Paris, sits and cries on the street after clashes with riot policemen Monday, March 13, 2006. The French prime minister's vow to press on with a new labor law that has sent students into the streets drew fresh criticism Monday from unions and the opposition Socialists, who said President Jacques Chirac should intervene [ED.: even though they tacitly back the whiny punks in the street]. The top two unions of high school students called for classroom protests starting Monday.»
Photo credit: AP/ Michel Euler.

Like Erik asks – this is the cream of the crop?...

Oh how very ironical

By way of the one and only Carine: the French government planned sour-facedcountermeasure’ to CNN, BBC, Fox, CBC, ITN and a raft of other international news providers will end up broadcasting mainly in English.
In an attempt to be a ‘counterweight’ to everything in civilization, they end up pouring billions into one 2nd rate mimicry when it’s too late. If government wasn’t in the business of trying to run businesses, they might find themselves at the high end of the curve, and not the long tail.

Hands Off the Internet!

Tell Congress: Hands off the Internet.
Never, in the history of the Internet, has a broadband provider blocked a customer from accessing their Yahoo! Mail or Google search engine. Yet, these companies want Congress to enact legislation that will protect them from this non-existent problem.

Ironically, these calls for the government to become the Internet’s traffic cop are being led by companies like Google, which only a short time ago made headlines when it chose to cooperate with the Communist leadership of China.

Remember when Google caved to the Chinese government and agreed to block access to all information and websites that speak about freedom and democracy? When they agreed to censor all information that discusses Tiananmen Square and independence for Taiwan – or anything else that can be interpreted to go against the interests of China’s Communist leadership?

Can you believe it’s supposed conservative lawmakers who are now cow-towing to these interests and offering to legislate and regulate the Internet in response to these ridiculous demands?

We have witnessed the success of the Internet and all that it does: brings families closer, grows economies, creates a new generation of entrepreneurs and increases access to information for people all over the world. All this with little, if any interference from the government.

The Internet must remain free from government regulation and taxation!
Tell Congress: Hands off the Internet.

Outrageous!



(Thanks to Jaana)

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

„Excellent- makes killing the kuffar all that bit easier…..”

Agora translates another interesting items from Jyllands-Posten – the signatories of the recent manifesto against intolerance in Islam have been quite unsurprisingly the recipients of threats on their life from what apologists try to characterize as modern and moderate readers living in Europe:

«According to one of the signers, the French writer Caroline Fourest, the threat was made this Saturday on the website ummah.net. It mentions a who’s who guide and a list of targets scheduled for termination.

The group urges its adherents to take their time but says it should happen soon. It adds that it isn’t necessary to first have a Fatwa from a religious leader, such as the one Ayatollah Khomeini issued in 1989 against Salman Rushdie’s life for having offended the religion.»
In contrast, this is what real men do. In my memory, it's a first for a Canadian PM.

The Sorbonne takeover is the most interesting and revealing part of the story because these are the best students France has to offer

Just imagine you own a small company. How eager would you be to hire someone - anyone! - if you knew that you had to carry him or her forever? Never mind all the perks you are required to lavish on employees.

Every sane economist understands that this is an untenable system. Unemployment among French workers under the age of 26 runs at about 23 percent, and it's higher than 50 percent in immigrant-heavy suburbs.
In Vive la Sloth!, Jonah Goldberg takes on "what happened over the weekend at the Sorbonne, the creme de la Brie of French education."
…parliament decided to add un petit peu of flexibility. Of course, they couldn't call it "flexibility" because the French consider that a code word for capitalism run amok or "Americanization." And what greater hell is there than Americanization? After all, between 1970 and 2003, America produced 59 million jobs. France, Germany and Italy put together managed to create fewer than 18 million jobs over the same period - and nearly half of that came from the demographic injection of the East German economy.

America, according to French politicians, journalists and intellectuals, is an economic state of nature. But in 2004, according to economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth, only 13 percent of unemployed American workers couldn't find jobs in 12 months of looking. In France, 42 percent of unemployed workers couldn't find jobs within 12 months. (In Germany the number was 52 percent, and in Italy it was 50 percent.)

In response to the hint of "flexibility," students at the Sorbonne rioted with the aid of France's powerful labor unions. Fifty-eight percent of French voters now believe the First Employment Contract should be repealed.

The Sorbonne takeover is the most interesting and revealing part of the story because these are the best students France has to offer. In other words, these kids should have the least trouble finding work. But they're revolting because they understand that France isn't an egalitarian society - French propaganda notwithstanding. It is a system designed to lavish job protections, perks and, most of all, the French "lifestyle" on the upper-middle class. France pretends to be a great civilization, but in reality it wants to be an Epcot Center attraction, a "FranceLand" where everything is comfortable and protected. Liberating the job market, even a tiny bit, threatens a system designed to keep the French upper crust from working too hard and to keep those brown-skinned and lower-class slobs out of the best jobs and cocktail parties.

What should be so frightening about this episode for Americans is that it shows how even the best and brightest can become addicted to welfare.

1st meeting of Palestinian Polar Bear Club

Don't humiliate the poor things.

More violence chez the economically and socially deprived challenged

A car bomb went off on a highway north of Paris this morning. Police have written it off as part of a gang war and insist that it has nothing to do with terrorism. The bomb went off just outside of La Courneuve, a Paris suburb known for being a hotbed of Islamic activity and the hub of several gangs which use armed robbery as a means for financing international terrorist organisations.

Pour les juifs français, c'est reparti comme en 40 !

Pas un G.I. ne doit mourir pour José Bové. Mais pour un juif français, ça c'est une autre question. Send in the boys! A petition is circulating Stateside in favor of granting political asylum to French Jews.

Petition here (thanks to Balagan).

To me, he’s just a self-absorbed dictator

Writing from Brazil, Luís, blogger of Swimming Against the Red Tide points out that there are two ways that Latin Americans look at Hugo Chavez – as a “Bolivarian” or a Clown. I think that there is more there. Just this morning the BBC did more of the usual repating of his paranoiac ravings without question, but that’s to be expected in the narrowminded atmoshere of the European media. No – that man is quite a bit more.

His lunacy, and the popularity thereof has led France to peddle seaborne missile systems to him, Zappo’s Spain to sell him chemical weapons, and of late he’s been gearing up to build a nuclear weapons program in coorperation with the NORKS. His only enemies are the majority of his own people and the one’s he’s trying to make. Linking Vcrisis, Assumpção elaborates:

« Boyd also showed the atomic link between Venezuela and North Korea.

To fight this, Venezuela government is accusing anyone that exposes its lies as traitors back-funded by American government.
Boyd mocks about theses false accusations creating "The AngloVenezuelan Connection" - a fictitious group of Chávez opposers, fund backed by tenths of thousand of "imperialist" money.»
Not only is Hugo the budding pop-stain making alliances with failed social concepts that have been laid waste on the trashheap of history, he’s been trying to make bogeyman out of the US, it has been ignoring Chavez’ adolescent attention-seeking behaviour. In spite of sharing some ideological similarities, those affiliations are ones of convenience of services in kind. They are attempts to form a network of dependancy that place him in the fulcrum of societies that would otherwise ignore him to improve their well being. So what it lacks in depth of bonds it has in blood.

Poor, misguided idiots



It’s not autonomy they’ll get by never being able to lose a job that they can’t do, don’t know how to do yet, or may not like. Want to guarantee a respectable quality of life for yourself? Don’t support Communists, Socialists, or collectivists. The only trust they put in people are the ones they control in every stage of their lives.


The state is not your friend. Nor your parent. The rest of society can not be made responsible for an individual’s personal laziness.

If we want to fight terrorism, the last thing we should do is to fight terrorism

Robert Tracinski takes on the
warning we keep hearing from the press: Ahmadinejad and the mullahs are unpopular with the Iranian people—but precisely for that reason, we dare not oppose them, because confronting Iran will only cause the people to rally to the dictators' side. In other words, if we want to fight terrorism, the last thing we should do is to fight terrorism.

This is an obvious contradiction, and functions merely as another excuse for those who seek the superficial safety of doing nothing—or for those who secretly sympathize with the enemy and want to blame "American aggression" for every problem in the world. … Michael Ledeen provides a good analysis of that second approach.

He does so while discussing yet another crackdown on internal dissent being launched by the Iranian regime. As Ledeen points out, the only American newspaper that is prominently and tirelessly covering the fate of Iran's dissidents is the New York Sun… The rest of America's newspapers are apparently indifferent to the world's real freedom-fighters.

How about this for a fair trade?



(via Reason) Trade'ja one leftist racket for the ability of farmers to make a living.
Its like outlawing private enterprise,
said one Honduran coffee grower who was nearly wiped out by hurricane Mitch because being part of a co-op, ('folk marxist' obsession,) disqualified him from another trotskyite fetish fair trade. Its just another shakedown by crackpots who just cant seem to live anywhere on this earth.
«Berkeleys politically-correct tyrants conspired to place on the November ballot a measure requiring all coffee sold in the city to be brewed only from beans carrying a fair trade, shade grown, or organic label. Critics have noted that this wacky law will require coffee cops and a coffee-control board, and that it will do more to harm than help poor people who grow the beans in Third World countries. »

Kill a commie soixante-huitard for Christ

Latin Quarter street fighting is getting thicker by the minute and the French preSS is openly supporting the leftist elements who are opposing any labor market reform. The individuals who are demonstrating in favor of the labor market reforms are labeled extreme-right by the 68ers who control French media.

French terror abettor still eligible for dirtnap

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

He might not be going to school -- but he still gets his education

Ever feel like you been cheated? There is a growing realisation among demonstrating students that they are being manipulated by outside groups composed of leftist extremists and anarchists.
"Later, 2 demonstrators debated the use of violence: as one demonstrator objected to throwing objects at riot police, an other demonstrator who had his face hidden by a scarf reponded: 'Without us you are nothing. Direct action is direct action!' "

Tant qu'ils s'étripent entre franchouilles, rien à foutre

At this moment, riot police are battling with students around the Sorbonne and at the Place Saint Michel after demonstrations to protest the reform of France's labor market degenerated for the umpteenth time.

Happy, Happy...

...joy, joy.

This might put one certain expat yank and decent chappy out of a blog!

Post Bamboozlement update: it's nothing more that wishful thinking on my part and some requisite Purim silliness, courtesy of none other than Adloyada.

Hee! I shold have known it was too good to be true.

Architecture’s most embarrassing moments

A sort of trailer park for the blue-in-the-face types.


Courtesy of socialist over-planning one finds the politics of childhood, (the programming of a cult or otherwise).

These experiments have been no less of a failure as the eastern bloc or the abandoned chaotic egalitarian religious communes of colonal North America. Their natural evolution is into a slum which only the energy of the individual using ambition and enterprise, not a "collective", can renew.

Fighting over who can be the life of the pity party

Now that being abused is a virtue, who isn’t scrambling to work out the perfect martyr complex?

The NYT and their UK Troskyite fantasists paesanos were over the moon, but it seems that their simply taking something as fact doesn’t make it one. They might have to stop rubbing their little hands after all these years of lectureing, panel-talking, screaming, and such over stupid reservists abusing what were, in the main, a bunch of prisoners convicted of rape. What the Guardian, Independent, and NY Times Opinion writers would normally suggest be the handling of convicted rapists would otherwise not be deemed worthy of presentation.

The Abu Ghraib gnome appears to be an object of status that 5 people are fighting over. That’s right – the NYT which ran the Abu Ghraib story for 83 straight days without a single new piece of information, has to look into just WHO it was they made a folk-victim out of.



Remerci a Georges for the links, we also find that Salon.com does a bit of tip-toeing around the NYT’s ‘self-confidence’ itself in the questions it posed to the Times. Alas, little remorse was detected.

Cold War Bomb Parcel Seems to Be Ignored by the French Media

There are few things the French like more than unearthing a piece of history that (allegedly) shows the Americans as idiots, bastards, deviants, or treacherous swine. (Thus, thanks to George Clooney, the unspeakable horrors of the McCarthy era have become a fashionable topic again.)

Others tend to get a free pass. Thus, unless I am mistaken, the mainstream media has so far been ignoring what was not only an almost-50-year-old assassination attempt during the Cold War but what was in fact a Soviet attempt to cause an explosion at a meeting attended by leading French politicians (obrigado para Luís Afonso Assumpção de Porto Alegre). This type of plot, of course, is one reason people like McCarthy decided that Soviet communism had to be countered in the first place.

And if the 1957 plot starts getting coverage, you can bet that it will be passed over very quickly. No wonder the French believe they can be friends to all, from democrats to despots. Any information to the contrary is belittled, rationalised, or ignored…

(Speaking of Cold War plots…)

News from Finland's Very Own Cartoon Controversy

Our special correspondent in Oulu gives us the latest news from the cartoon controversy in Finland and about the sense of brotherhood among Scandinavians (that much-vaunted European solidarity that the Americans are so unfortunate not to have): On Sunday March 5,
we had a public appointment with the cartoonist (Ville Ranta) and the leader of muslims of Northern Finland and some other muslims. There was press and Tv cameras (Finnish Tv 1) … There was officials of the City of Oulu and the politicians who gave the sack to Ville. The leader of the muslims thought that Ville is a racist and he said ... Islam is a peaceful religion... and so on... He said: Because of those Danish caricatures people will die and why you Ville draw cartoons like that too in here peaceful Finland... and you cartoonist should not do things like that anymore (He was mothering us : Don't do things like that, children, or I will punish you : ) ). Later Jaana Suorsa asked who kill those people because of some stupid drawings.. just paper and ink... not bullets and bombs... actually they didn't like what she said very much...

Americans Are a Weak and Cowardly People…

They are zombies. They have no stamina, no courage, no balls, no sense of humor, no nothing. And neither do their womenfolk (a thank yuh to Valerie)…

Black Hole Europe

Zeropean radical pacifism and appeasing humanism will be the death of us all.

Dead weight

According to an OECD study, higher education in Europe is being pulled down by France and Germany. "France and Germany (...) which represent one third of the UE economy, are no longer among the world leaders for the development of knowledge and talent".

and take your stinking wife with you, shithead

Karl Zéro, TV host on French Canal+ who has built his programs around anti-Americanism at least as much as the Guignols, has been fired.

Monday, March 13, 2006

…either that or they removed it for the public good.



Perchance the commies were too lazy to place an actual sculpture on plinth. Equality, of course means that no-one has to figure out how to use the chisel.

A rare, rare moment

Garden variety European lefties not arguing against personal freedoms and individual responsibility!
«The opium trade was started by rich english aristrocrats and they used it it alot, it was then banned because too many poor people used it making it unfasionable to the rich people in power.»
While still managing to shoehorn worthless “class theory” arguments in there too! Amazing!

The State Department doesn't want to embarrass America's allies

The State Department doesn't want to embarrass America's allies…

Allies like France and Russia (spasiba to Bertrand Latour)…

Meanwhile, the demonization of the Bush administration, America, and the reasons for the war continues…

Anti-Semitism among French Muslims on the rise

No kidding.

Wall Street Poet

Eugene Schlanger, the Wall Street Poet, will be appearing at a Wall Street Rising reading Poetry and Commerce II at the Downtown Information Center in New York City on March 29.

Of Course Submitting a Person to Kidnapping and Torture Isn't a French Tradition…

…Why do you ask?

(Note how Le Monde reader André Xech complains about the daily's "horrifying mess", seemingly because the newspaper does not yet have the correct thinking about the Ilan Halimi affair down, and is confusing its readers because it can't tell them the correct way to think!)

It's like a French tradition, or something

Just a typical French family gathering (entre batârds franchouilles arriérés). The new French national pasttime (after anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism) is ... (drum roll please ... badabadabadabadabadabada -- boum!) KIDNAPPING!!!

A 28 year old man was kidnapped, burned repeatedly with an iron, lit cigarettes, a red hot knife blade, doused with perfume which was set on fire, and forced to drink bleach -- before being set free. All that for a ransom of 1500 euros.

Whistle while you work. Lefty is a jerk.

Adloyada draws attention to yet two more idiotic anti-Israeli boycotts similar to last years UK academic boycott against their like-minded radical colleagues in Israel.

Since I edit Architectural specifications as part of my work, Ive been quietly boycotting European industrial conglomerates by simply not directing my product selections their way when I can. Because that can amount to roughly 250 million in construction material value, my silent action can accomplish a good bit (per capita) more to disinvest from the brands that benefit the corner store fascists that roped noted Architect Richard Rogers into their strident hate-fest.

Have a nice day.

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Animal House

Typical French family gathering.

Bravo, lefties.

You've managed to be both peevish and unprincipled.

Plus chienlit que jamais !

Petit pays de merde.


Education Minister Gilles de Robien displays remains of rare books destroyed by French students during their occupation of the Sorbonne.

French Civil War watch

Military exercises in France that look like operations meant to quell a popular uprising.

A pea soup of naïveté and confusion

In his endless prattling speeches nascent poop-stain Hugo Chávez maintains the idea that the Bush administration wants to invade Venezuela to keep his ugly mobs whipped up.

Chávez demanded that Puerto Rico, Netherlands Antilles, Guadalupe, the Maldives and the Virgin Islands be “released from captivity."

From Retecool via Zacht Ei: a Photoshop contest in which Chávez features as the deposed colonial governor of the Netherlands Antilles.

When they're done blaming any event, including the weather on the US, Dutch "peace" activists will they call any possible attention paid to Antillians "The Netherlands' Vietnam war?" or attribute Chávez' paranoia-whipping in the Caracas slums to a "state of fear" among 'Muricans? Somehow blame it on mysterious Zionists, the Federalist society, Opus Dei, a man in a chicken suit, and all private enterprise? I'll bet you a buck.

Nothing demonstrates that view as well as this Jihad of righteous indignation which is obviously caused by the boredom and feeling of loss and helplessness at not actually being needed by anyone:

The City of Antwerp, (governed by a numb, argumentative cadre of Socialists, Liberals, Greens, and Christian-Democrats,) has requested that the court prosecute a member of the city council for the Vlaams Belang, the largest party in the city and their only political opponents. Also placing charges against him is The Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism, a government-funded inquisition office that under Belgian law can prosecute discrimination and incitement to hatred.

The councilman’s crime? He forwarded a weeks old chain e-mail. You know the type. It came from a Danish website offering an apology (of sorts) to “offended” Muslims:

«We’re sorry we gave you shelter when war drove you from your home country… We’re sorry we took you in when others rejected you… We’re sorry we gave you the opportunity to get a good education… We’re sorry we gave you food and a home when you had none… We’re sorry we let you re-unite with your family when your homeland was no longer safe… We’re sorry we never forced you to work while WE paid all your bills… We’re sorry we gave you almost FREE rent, phone, internet, car and school for your 10 kids...»
...and so on.

The councilman says that he forwarded the e-mail to friends. Antwerp authorities say he forwarded it to municipal employees with Arab names. Not exactly polite but not exactly illegal except under Belgium's "thought crime" laws where it's called racism - as if there weren't any Muslims who aren't hate ridden welfare parasites. According to Belgian authorities the Danish text is racist hate-speech when it's a criticism of a subculture of thankless whiners who would complain about the quality of someone's unconditional generosity.
Oddly enough, to their do-gooder friends who pretend to understand these permanently aggrieved pendejos, religion is such an alien thing that the ignorant nannies can only identify it as a race. The bigotry there is that they see "aboriginal" Belgians (of faith or otherwise) differently still - as another species unworthy of protection from extinction.

Deep cultural kimchee

Know-nothing college punks (with a little help from their friends) continue to protest a common sense youth job-creation measure.

«Nicolas Boudot, a local educational authority administrator, said about 300 people had entered the Sorbonne on Friday by breaking windows and not all of them were students.

The protesters, he said, were trying to turn the Sorbonne into a battlefield for fighting social woes.»
A real winner - right from jump street.
«In '68, the students when they left university, they found work»
...and without all those onerous employment contract conditions or measures that blew the head gasket off the economic engine that make just about every sort of talent unhirable.

There were also quite a few more people in their age bracket in 1968. So what began with the likes of these Mr. Wizard types later trying to thin the herd of this generation anyway ends with making sure nobody can actually make a living or sustain a functioning economy for ideological reasons, of course.

They have, after all, more important things to worry about.