Saturday, January 28, 2006

Ecological wine-tasting and other fits of naïvité

Further Tales from the Crypt, courtesy of a fed-up scientist. Swedish Unis are indoctrinating students with eco-babble to the point of making them into ineffectual idiots:
«Since the Swedish government has decided that every single education must include both an “ecological” and a “gender” perspective, the doomsday theories of global warming and the ideas of post-modern Marxist feminists were included in many courses. Perhaps the best example from my own studies was when I took a course in human ecology. During the first lecture the speaker proudly explained to us that the institution had been born out of the 1968 left-wing radical wave. And so the course went on explaining how socialism and an “ecological” society was the only solution for a planet soon to be exploited to death by the evil Americans, led by their conservative ideology and profits from oil companies.»
Whatever floats your boat, sparky – but where’s the science? Virtually all of it in environments and eras that have rejected Political Correctness

Name that forgotten abbreviation

With characteristic stupidity both BBC24 and CNN commentatorati wondered why the PLO couldn’t step in and deal with Fatah’s problems.

Because the PLO is Fatah. PLO is the English abbreviation, and Fatah is the Arabic. For people who will crane their necks to avert the sight of the worst of Arab society at work killing their way to paradise, they are especially stupid when they aren’t aping their gullible friends.

Saturday photo (bis): that euro-sheen of euroness III

The Zeropean Constitution in the crapper. In all their hallowed Euro-ness, some EUrine Peeins want to continue flogging a dead horse.

Saturday photo: that euro-sheen of euroness II



C'mon kids!, let’s play “name that century!”.

Saudis boycott Danish foodstuff

Until the Vikings cough up some appy-polly-loggies for those nasty newspaper cartoons. Danish pork leads the resistance.

Protocols of the Elders of the Oumma

In an effort to modify and diminish, British moonbat stokers boycott Holocaust memorial day, a day when Jews remember their lost loved ones, while most others observe them in their solemnity. The fact that they do this at all makes Jew haters in the Muslim realm and to the west, insist that their remembrance is “using” the horrors of the Shoah for their ends.

Were it not for these very people who make an effort to remember the victims, most people would not even know the word genocide, nor keep the threat of those horrors in the public mind when it happens in Rwanda, Cambodia, Turkey, Namibia and the Americas in addition to the only one Euro-lefties ever care to remember to name a few. This is not unlike the selective boycott in its’ motives. Never mind the horrors that the “peace camp” also tacitly defend.

If you really want to see a misuse and political appropriation of a horror by people who can’t make the link and also defend abortion? Lookie here

Meanwhile Saudis given to priggish snits of hypocrisy boycott Danish beer and ham. Pffffft! Cut it out - I see you sneaking that drink...

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Il est certain de gagner. La France est une République Bananière où les dernières élections étaient décidées avec un score digne d'un roi nègre.

French comic Dieudonné is running for President. He announced that he will be running on an anti-neocon ticket during a presentation which was laden with references to Jewish control of French media and politics. He is calling for a 'Marshall Plan' for French suburban areas and wants France to emulate Venezuela and become the first Bolivarian Republic in Europe. He defended recent remarks made by the Iranian President which were "extremely hostile towards the State of Israel and its racist, colonialist policies". He went on to say that recent remarks made by the Iranian President "were in no way antiSemitic".

Strolling down moonbat lane

Stolen in whole from The Best of the Web:

This Usenet posting, from one Moussaoui C. Abdenacer, will seem unremarkable, but bear with us (quoting verbatim):

«George Bush's whole administration has all the earmarks of a well prepared nazi-type regime! They are working on it tooth and claw! The only thing they need now is an internal terrorist threat, or civil disorder growing from anti-war protests to justify declaring a National Emergency with its protests to justify declaring a National Emergency with its legally sanctioned suspension of Constitutionally protected rights. Concentration camps for hard-core anti-war activists will be supported by the stupidity silent majority with their brainless, moronic, imbecilic, blind and bigoted moral retardation. Hence idiotic flag-waving becomes a substitute for rational analysis, and Jerry Falwell Bible Thumping a means of conditioning the rah rah war crowd to perceive anti-war protestors as low-life scum and traitors who need to be locked up or shot by loyal, awesomely patriotic volunteers like Marino Sicki of Arch-hate-a, Calif. who has publicly proclaimed his desire to kill protestors.

So I have a feeling that by this Spring civil unrest and economic turmoil will exacerbate domestic problems sufficiently to permit administrative type detention policies to be implemented by the Tyrant Bush with the complete support of all war-loving red, white, and blue American zombies. This demented hard-hat mental disease was prevalent during the Vietnam war era and those that don't learn from history eventually get a rude awakening. The economy is going to be so bad: the whole situation is going to be so bad; more oppressive measures will be imposed. They're already establishing special camps for those deemed a threat to national determination of your subversive potential rather than on any overt acts you may have committed.»
OK wait, one more and then we'll get to the point. This is from Rick Burgess:
«Impeach George Bush! Call your Congressperson and demand it!

How much more blatant and obvious does the information have to be? We've got a President who very obviously came into power under very corrupt circumstances. . . . This is not just another Republican administration run amuck! Impeach George Bush Now!»


What's interesting is the dates on which these ravings were posted: Abdenacer's was on Feb. 17, 1991, and Burgess's on April 19, 1991. Yes, they were talking about the first President Bush. Well, plus ça change, though who would've predicted that Al Gore, who voted in favor of the Gulf War, would turn into one of these guys?

The land of the free versus the land of the freeloader, Part IV

The fact is that no-one works for a poor man – therefore markets must function at their best to support the public well being. Others still obsess over the socio-industrial complex.

DAVID NG:

«In France, a corporation is above all a social organization. Indeed, the French adjective “social(e)” can be translated as either “social” or “corporate” depending on context. Consider the importance of les syndicats (trade unions): the collective power of employees to bring business to a halt whenever demands are not met is more than just a right; it’s a national pastime. Also consider le cadre, the general term for management. The word itself has socialist connotations. Within a corporation, the term suggests a homogenization, as if individual managers all thought and acted alike—almost as if they were a part of a revolutionary army.

Not surprisingly, the individual employee is marginalized. »
Zut alors! That simply CAN'T be true!


Crossposted on Marxist Byproducts

Speaking of Portuguese upper-cuts...

EU Rota:

«In the past empires were brought down by war, plagues, pestilence, etc. How far has Europe sunk to be thrown into 'stalemate' over a bunch of hairdressers?»

Ever see a Portugese uppercut?

When a foreigner (who supported the war in Iraq no less) gets up in front of the French National Assembly and takes on the bureaucrappers in their own language that sully its benches -- it's a bitchslap-fest. The French are still too used to thinking of the Portugese as concierges to have seen that one coming.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Faut les insulter dans la langue de Molière

France gets bitch slapped by a foreigner, in its own National Assembly, and in French.

So That's What It Was All About

The only thing that the November rioters wanted was to send "a message of despair", explains would-be intellectual Hugues Lagrange. The only thing the "jeunes" wanted was "to regain their self-esteem".

(In totally unrelated news, Jean-Philippe Rémy explains that the body of Firmin Mahé will be unearthed from his unmarked Ivory Coast grave and examined by two judges. Meanwhile, Bernard Kouchner remembers Kosovo's Ibrahim Rugova.)

The land of the free versus the land of the freeloader, Part III

Corbu points out that the prigs at Der Spiegel cant quite differentiate between socialism and a commercial establishment with an open door policy, as if (under the law) Ikea was able to pick and choose who could walk through the door.

It might behoove them to consider the ancient proverb gayer than Ikea on Superbowl Sunday. I also doubt that they would care to notice that the same thing is happening at the evil McDo, where the name they have for these poor waifs is customer.

Like floodwater for Chocolate



Why is his dishonor trying to come off like a middle age woman whos into new age mumbo-jumbo?

Monday, January 23, 2006

The land of the free versus the land of the freeloader, Part II



No, it isnt New Orleans in days after Katrina, its what the Workers paradise that leftists keep talking about is like all the time.

As always the explanation is kept from the foot soldiers in the Childrens crusade, but eventually leaks out:
«Galloway is also known for his love of Cuban cigars, though he remains tight-lipped as to whether he has actually been skinny-dipping with the Cuban dictator. In his book, Im Not The Only One, Galloway writes of an incident when he went swimming with Castro. When asked to recall the anecdote during a subsequent interview, Galloway said: "You meet Fidel, you have to be prepared for a long night. If you are there on the right night, you end up in the Caribbean with Castro. Its quite a treat. Ill not go into what we were wearing... that would be a breach of confidence."»

News from France — and Abroad

Franck Johannès and Jean-Philippe Rémy have an article about Firmin Mahé, the Ivory Coast national whose custody in the hands of the French military ended in some unpleasantness

Beyond Africa, Thomas Sotinel brings us a story about the Palestinian actress whose influence on Steven Spielberg's Munich went beyond her screen role.

Meanwhile, Nicole Vulser tempers her article about a record year for French movie exports with an interview of a specialist in film economics.

As for George W Bush, Dominique Dhombres has more on the global warming that that damned rascal has caused.

Future shock schlock

Bernard Henri Lévy claims to have foreseen the Katrina disaster while staying in New Orleans to write his book about the USA.

"The trip was under three shadows. The shadow of the war in Iraq, the shadow of an election, and the shadow of Katrina, ..." The hurricane hadn’t struck at the time he was writing the book. "The anti-ci-pated shadow of Katrina, as you see. I was in New Orleans four or five months before Katrina, and I more or less foresee what is going to happen."

Soft power ...

...n'est pas de ce monde. Les zéropéens continuent à y croire.

Le Monde comments on US-Mexican relations

Competitive Economies in Europe: Truth or Fiction?

Thmas Fuller and Ivar Ekman report that
European leaders want to know how Sweden and its Nordic neighbors, so heavily laden with cradle-to-grave welfare systems, float high above the struggling economies of much of the rest of the Continent.

Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway are rated among the top six for competitiveness by the World Economic Forum and score highly in just about every international comparison on living standards, education and health care. The Nordics are outpacing the European average in economic growth and, remarkably for countries with such large public sectors, all have budget surpluses.

How do they do it?

…Economists say the Nordic countries have a solid footing today precisely because they went through a wrenching period of restructuring in the 1980s and 1990s that opened them to increased competition. Unprofitable manufacturing industries were winnowed out while research and development was increased to buttress high-technology industries. The service sector was built up, and government programs like pensions and unemployment benefits were reined in. Today, unemployment is manageable - although some economists question the figures. Productivity, a measure of how much each worker produces, continues to increase faster than the European average.

Hans Karlsson, the minister of employment in Sweden, attributes his country's progress to the acceptance that unions show toward a fast-changing world. Unions in Scandinavia generally reject protectionism and consider outsourcing a fact of life.

…"Workers in Sweden don't try to prevent restructuring," Karlsson said, adding that they know they have a cushion to fall back on.

The Nordic success stories are being enviously tracked by leaders in the flat-line economies of France and Germany because they appear to prove that, yes, you can have it all: generous unemployment benefits, cheap child care, free education and health care - and a healthy economy and government finances to boot.

Social services come with a cost, of course. Taxes in the Nordic countries represent approximately 50 percent of gross domestic product, compared with about 35 percent in the so-called Anglo-Saxon countries. But citizens here seem willing to put up with higher taxes if it means they know they will be taken care of.

The Nordic model also appeals to many politicians on the Continent because it is a counterpoint to the Anglo-Saxon-style system of smaller governments and larger private sectors.

…But in an article released by a Brussels research group on Tuesday, Rasmussen warned against "bad karaoke," by which he meant other countries' trying halfheartedly to imitate the Nordic model. Countries must realize that policies alone are not the answer because the Nordic model is above all a spirit of cooperation between workers and employers.

Naturally, there are skeptics who attribute healthy-looking Nordic balance sheets to luck and good timing as much as good policy. Demand for the main commodities and products exported from Nordic countries is strong: oil from Norway, steel from Sweden and pulp and paper from Finland. The region also benefited handsomely from the technology boom, especially for companies like Nokia of Finland and Ericsson of Sweden.

"I'm trying to ring the alarm bell," said Marcus Storch, chairman of the Nobel Foundation and formerly chief executive of the large Swedish chemical company AGA. "We had a number of lucky things coinciding, but they won't last much longer."

Storch said that the tax system in Sweden, which was overhauled in the 1990s, was still too burdensome for companies, leading to a hollowing out of the country's industries. Companies with roots in Sweden, like Ikea, Tetra Pak and Skype, do not operate from Sweden mainly for tax reasons.

Fredrik Reinfeld, leader of the opposition conservative party in Sweden and a candidate for prime minister in elections next year, says that some of the economic data are misleading, like the jobless numbers, which he says do not account for people on disability leave.

"We have put aside a lot of people who look as if they are not unemployed," he said.
Economists say the same criticism is valid for Denmark, which has tens of thousands of people in government-sponsored work-retraining programs.

Stefan Folster, chief economist of the Swedish employers' confederation, is also concerned about the long-term health of the Swedish economy and argues that smaller companies are hardest hit by the tax system because they have not been given the same tax breaks as bigger companies.

"The real Achilles' heel for Sweden is small firms and entrepreneurs," he said.
But most economists are not as pessimistic.

[Still, there] are signs that tax rates are creeping back up but nowhere near the levels of the 1970s, when Astrid Lindgren, the late author of children's books, was found to be taxed 102 percent - meaning that she paid the government more than she earned.

… "We had a very generous system in the 1970s, but by the end of the 1980s we realized that there was no way that we could actually afford it," said Gunnar Wetterberg, head of the policy department of the Swedish Confederation of Professional Associations, a white-collar trade union. "Little by little, I think people are beginning to understand that the state will provide a safety net but that they will be more left to look after themselves."

Policies are by no means uniform in the Nordic countries. Sweden and Denmark, for example, have very different employment policies: The Danish system allows workers to be dismissed with little notice or recourse, whereas the procedure for firing or laying off employees in Sweden is, by comparison, cumbersome.

But layoffs are generally accepted by Nordic unions as a fact of life in a fast-changing economic environment.

"Unions accept the idea that there will be fewer and fewer workers - that technology will replace them," said Klas Eklund, chief economist of the Swedish bank SEB. "This has very deep roots."

Workers have a more participatory attitude in their economies because for centuries important decisions have been made at the lower levels of government and workers feel more involved, economists say. …
Actually, it turns out that, to noone's surprise, you should take the declaration of any government (of any entity, really) with a grain of salt.

Regarding Sweden, meanwhile, some guy (?) named the Radical has a post on Muslims in Malmö.

In a (somewhat) related article, Thomas Fuller adds that

Bogumil Bialous is a Polish computer programmer who has traveled as far as Malaysia and Venezuela to install specialized billing systems at mobile phone companies.

But he's not sure about the legality of doing the same installation job in France or Belgium, two hours away by plane.

"I'm not a legal expert," he said. "There could be some technical issues."

It may seem absurd that a Polish citizen could face more obstacles traveling on assignment within the European Union than to Kuala Lumpur or Caracas, where he was sent by his former employer, a British-based software company.

But a year after the EU's expansion, a cloud hovers over the question of who has the right to work where and for how long.

"There's tremendous confusion," said Daniel Kasmir, the European human resources director for Manpower, the employment services agency. "At the moment on a practical basis you see companies muddling through."

Experts on employment law appear to agree on one thing: In Europe, when it comes to mobility there is the law and then there is reality.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

The whole country is for the birds

French broad might have bird flu.

UPDATE: French cable TV news (i-tele) has just announced that she doesn't have bird flu.

The land of the free versus the land of the freeloader, Part I






Crossposted on Marxist Byproducts

Where's the outrage, man?!?

Where are mobs of kids and dessicated old hippies out in the streets howling 'Abu Greib!' and waaaanh!

Ivory Coast: French Colonel, a "peacekeeper" covered up murder.

«The three [Captains] claimed that Col Eric Burgaud also congratulated his men when they told him of the death of Firmin Mahe, suffocated to death with a plastic bag inside a French armoured vehicle in May, the officials said.»
It seems that the beast has been rotting from the neck up in France's under-reported quagmire:
«Le Figaro adds that the original report into the incident was sent to the French headquarters where General Poncet approved it, despite - as one officer claims - being "aware of what happened."»
Gen. Henri Poncet was later put under investigation for complicity in murder.


N.B. - CDR Salamander has an item up on the recent silly comments by a Dutch General on their upcoming deployment to Afghanistan, and on the dismal state of NATO. European governments and committment just don't mix:
Ah ha. There it is. Being nice and non-confrontational with the Serbs in Srebrenica went so well, I guess you want to do that wholesale in Afghanistan?