The Hardest Part...

... will be getting over herself once this is all over.

'As his party prepared Champagne and canapés for Sunday night outside his Paris headquarters, Sarkozy swiftly rebuffed Royal's fears of rioting. "She's not in a good mood this morning," he told Europe 1 ratio. "It must be the opinion polls."'

Erik Svane sort la suite des aventures de Leonardo da Vinci

Erik Svane sort la suite des aventures de Leonardo da Vinci

Croisade vers la Terre Sainte

Vedette américano-danoise de la BAF, Erik Svane a fait paraître le deuxième volet de sa série de BD (voir le premier tome ici) avec Dan Greenberg aux Éditions Paquet.

Dans ce Tome II, Croisade vers la Terre Sainte, nous découvrons qu'après avoir "embrigadé" un Leonardo réticent et réquisitionné ses inventions militaires pour une nouvelle Croisade, les forces du Vatican, commandées par le général Scharano, mettent les voiles vers Rhodes, bastion chrétien du Proche Orient assiégé par la redoutable armée ottomane. Mais les soldats du Saint-Siège ne sont pas aussi invincibles qu'ils croient l'être devenus, et... il y a de la trahison dans l'air...

Le commander sur Amazon (ou aller l'acheter dans une Fnac quelconque)…

Plantu's Demonization of Sarkozy Continues Until the Very Last Days

…as did his concurrent beatification (although it is admittedly tongue-in-cheek, as you can see, it is just barely so, with all those brave innocent followers of hers, aka "the people") of Ségolène Royal (and that, on Le Monde's front page, natch)…

Update: Appealing to the Vote for a Woman crowd, Serguei weighs in (click on 2 above left) with a joyful Ségo looked upon tenderly by a motherly Marianne while a spiteful Sarko sweats with hatred… (Plantu's cartoon has to do with Afghanistan's Taliban putting off their ultimatum about the fate of their French hostage until the end of the voting.)

Update: Three months later, Pancho weighs in…

It's always fun watching Leftists lose ...

... but other than that, don't get your hopes up. We're still in Europe, after all.

1,5% of “Growth?”

On Air, but not in print the BBC is continuing the report that “combating” Anthropogenic Global Warming will ONLY cost 1,5% of global growth. Nonsense. The Stern report softened the ground by pricing this salve on the unscientific conscience at 1% of GDP, not “growth. Globally, the GNP grows at a rough average of 2%. A 1,5% burden, itself a figure intended to seem acceptably low to get civilization to sign on the bottom line, is actually 75% of all growth, and as such 75% of all real poverty eradication, development, and definable and certain improvement of the quality of life.

To begin with this 1/1,5/3% business is nonsense. To impose a burden of a 50-150% on growth will cause more contraction that the actual loss of growth itself. Think of it as reverse compound interest. The throw-away line greens have about suggesting an area pursue “eco-tourism instead” falls into the same category of condescension for humanity.

All this to accomplish what? A supposed 2º C “correction” to the neam global temperature in 40 years. So instead of eradicating poverty, this pernicious obsession of the whingerati will instead eradicate the poor.

The BBC’s global reach makes this more than a mere slip. Their world service radio and television programming reaches a good part of the world, and in many underdeveloped parts of it, is considered the only access people have to “real” journalism. Instead, they prefer to lie to the inhabitants in under-developed society about their own fate.

See this (skip to 12 min. for the skinny) to imagine the moral repugnance of what they’re trying to promote: in half a century, what would we tell the descendants of those we’re taking opportunity from today?

Pour le PS, ça part en couilles

The final poll before the actual vote gives Sarkozy 55%, a score which has been rising steadily since the debate earlier this week (which the French preSS saw as a win for the combative and pugnacious Ségolène -- it would seem that the French public, for whom she came across as shrill and hysterical, begs to differ). Ségolène Royal, when not making catastrophic proclamations of impending doom should Sarkozy be elected, is making impassioned calls to the French to ignore all polls before Sunday's vote. Behind the scenes, Socialist top guns are already thinking about how to get rid of head honcho François "Flanby" Hollande who is on the verge of losing a 3rd straight Presidential election for his Party. The défaitisme at the Socialist Party is such that certain talking heads are stating that, at 47% of the vote Ségolène Royal will chalk up a symbolic victory.

Better Than Borat

(…not to speak of, Better than ABC News "reporting"…)

Inside Iraq: The Inside Stories by Mike Shiley (excerpt)

Ségolène the American

The rancor, the anger, the spite, the accusations... the narrative of “Anybody but Bush” among the other Pavlovian drools translated directly. To put it in perspective of accusing people of “being American”, take into account the exchange I had with a lefty American blogger and a completely fake populist:

"Two days until France becomes a police state, which you apparently support. So much for 'freedom'."

Hey, before you know it they’ll be segregating the lunch counters, and the rest of the canned spiel and freshly potted bile. Behold how the "warnings" of the wise look like threats by a typical peace-camper:

"The term police state is a pejorative term for a state in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic and political life of the population (or a segment), especially by means of a secret police force which operates above the normal constraints found in a liberal democracy. A police state typically exhibits elements of totalitarianism and social control, and there is usually little distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the executive."

Wait for the riots that will erupt if he is elected. You think those riots last year were bad?

I'd hate to be a Muslim in France come Monday morning.

That the overraught left in the magical land of € sounds so much like America’s own “special” people should come as no surprise. The similarities are striking when it comes to the casualness with which they’d dispose of both pluralism and civil calm when they don’t have their way:

Tony Essono, 32, an unemployed economist whose parents emigrated from Cameroon before he was born, said that despite years of anger and discrimination, people in La Courneuve were willing to put their faith in the ballot box "because they understand they can change something" by voting. But, he added, "if Sarkozy is elected, it means we haven't been heard, and we'll trash everything."

As U*2 said: just wait for that 3e Tour.

Not only is she hysterical

She's a hysterical liar.

1968ers head for the lifeboats

And hopefully, there will not be enough lifeboats to go around. Le Monde Al Jazeera on the Seine is sending out a distress signal with this afternoon's edition headlined with a gasping "Sarkozy-Royal: the gap widens". Seems like everyone saw what the still politically correct straight jacketed French preSS refuses to report: that Royal was a hysterical, scatterbrained, hormone-addled, castrating ballbuster during her debate with Sarkozy. Definitely not figurehead material. Not even for the French.

"The French have been sitting around talking to themselves as if the world didn't exist"

When an interviewer asked Valéry Giscard d'Estaing the other day what he thought of the minimal attention paid to international affairs in France's presidential election campaign, he corrected his questioner

remembers John Vinocur in the International Herald Tribune.

There was no interest at all, the former president said. "It's a France living with the shutters closed," he said. "The French have been sitting around talking to themselves as if the world didn't exist."

… A country confused about how to end the misery of its high unemployment and low growth, France likes the prerogatives that come with United Nations Security Council membership and its hold on big-power status as a nuclear-armed nation. But it doesn't want to hear and think much about its diminished place in the world, or the prospect of new responsibilities and having to take sides.

• Bonus NYT article: After Chirac, a Question Mark on French Foreign Policy


• Bonus AP article: Sarkozy more pro-American than Royal — but may not be the lapdog critics say

"Il faut voter SR pour sauver le PS"

Hemming and hawing in a front page editorial, Le Monde's Jean-Marie Colombani ends up by coming out for Ségolène in order (see last two paragraphs) to …save the Socialist Party! (Since this would allow le PS to reinvent itself…)

Most Le Monde readers have already shown their partisanship, but as one of them says,

Je n'ai jamais rien lu d'aussi révolutionnaire. En appelant à l'élection de Royal pour permettre la réinvention (sic) du PS, JMC prend la France et les français pour le laboratoire de ses délires. Que le PS et ses fossiles se modernisent seuls sans leur présenter la France en offrande. Les jeux de la gente Rive Gauche n'amusent qu'eux même. Organisez vous une garden party à Versailles pour un évènement royal.

Or to quote U2, Folks, you can't make this shit up. It's a French Socialist mindset sputtering away on all cylinders.

After the Hissy Fit, we now have to put up with Crazed Cries of Impending Danger

Never mind that, as a Socialist, Ségolène speaks in the name of the most brutal ideology of what was an already very brutal 20th century -- she is now sounding the alarm that a vote for Sarkozy is a dangerous choice that will plunge France into the throes of a brutal system. Socialists are shameless bastards.

One Webmaster's Prediction

As the debate ended on Wednesday night, I said: Sarkozy wins on Sunday with 53-54%.

(Unless, of course, the socialists are "lucky" enough to get a totally unexpected windfall à la Madrid bombing…)

The socialists are so imbued with their Sarkozy hatred that they failed (or Ségolène failed, at least) to see that one point of the debate (the main point, indeed) was to appear presidential, especially for the undecided voters, centrist or otherwise. Somewhere, they did realize this, as Ségo tried relentlessly to make Sarko lose his temper and appear like the brute we all know he is. But with her eyes full of contempt (they rarely seemed to leave him), she was clearly out for blood while Sarkozy was (or at last appeared) only interested in ideas and having a back-and-forth discussion, addressing the journalists as well as his adversary (and thus the French people).

Question to the French (those decided and undecided alike): Who would make a better representative for France at, say, the G-8?

Good idea. Just one question. Who will be escorting the escorters?

One tragicomic moment during the Sarko-Ségo debate was when Royal attacked Sarkozy on France's high crime rate by shamelessly exploiting the recent rapes of 2 off-duty policewomen in Bobigny. After laying the blame on Sarkozy's stint as Interior Minister she went on to expose her solution to the problem: if she is elected, she promised to have all off-duty policewomen escorted by... the police! Folks, you can't make this shit up. It's a French Socialist mindset sputtering away on all cylinders.

As for the rapists. Well. She had nothing to say about them.

Ségolène's brainstorm can be seen here. Part 2 at 1:46 (8:27 if the timer counts backwards).

Hey Ségolène, why not create special emploi jeune McJobs and have the policewomen escorted by French youths?

“At Peace with Itself”

• “Traditional” May Day riots

• Violence mars global May Day

• “Resistance” against who knows what. I’m not sure it matters to them.

• Hate is only not a family value when you can pin it on a non-revolutionary.

• Tangent! "Battle for Power" in the interest of peace and all thigs good: Ad Melkert got the memo, but while he advised Wolfowitz’ on his ethics issues initially, he found it more interesting to go after him instead of telling his own committee what a ethical basket case he was himself. He hired an official from his political party in the Netherlands in a cozy position, didn’t submit a disclosure statement about his financial interests as Wolfowitz had, and amounts to just another parasite job hopping from one transnational booby-hatch after another. The Klingons can’t seem to remember their own proverbs about vengeance, can they?

• Obviously at peace with itself. Caveat emtor, peeps.

• Speaking of space: American are from Mars, the EU is orbiting your anus. 2005-2007: the message hasn’t changes.

• At peace with itself during naptime.

Battlegroup!:

An important part of the EU’s military ambitions is to have the capability to react fast and forcefully in trouble spots outside EU territory...

• Solana: "The world is not standing still" (08 March 2006)

• EU reluctant to send troops to Congo (24 February 2006)

It’s the siesta after the fiesta: they can’t yet count as their first success the ambush on the Mount Wolfowitz.

• Oh, and strangling. In the name of peace of course.

Still Waiting for the De-Nazification of Discourse?

Don't bother.

This shithole, that shithole. What's the difference?

Bat Ye'or discusses the Palestinianization of Europe.

The Debate

The Economist has coverage of the debate.

Hissy Fit Nation

In France, when a Right Wing Guy gets angry he is considered to be uncontrolable and dangerous (and something akin to a Nazi). When a Left Wing Broad totally loses it, she is simply expressing her righteous indignation. Last night, after a smear campaign of several weeks during which French Socialists painted Sarkozy as unstable and prone to temper tantrums, Ségolène Royal had a hysterical meltdown during her debate with Nicolas Sarkozy. This morning, French Lefties are boasting about the fighting spirit of their candidate. It wasn't anger you understand (as they talk down to you as French Lefties always do) -- it was healthy ire in the face of injustice.
UPDATE: Ségolène's hissy fit can be seen here.
UPDATE: LCI news is announcing that, according to a poll by OpinionWay, Sarkozy was considered to be more convincing by 53% of debate viewers. Royal was judged more convincing by 31%. The Socialist Party has already issued a statement trashing the poll.

While We're on the Subject…

The job comes…

…with six châteaux…

Sarko vs Ségo: The Debate

The entire debate in 16 Youtube segments. The build-up to Ségolène's hissy fit is in part 12 starting at 3:12 (6:58 if the timer counts backwards). The aftermath continues into the first seconds of part 13.

A full transcript of the debate can be found here.

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All eyes on the election, except that it's not the same one the French are talking about

The French, flattering themselves as they always do, are convinced that all eyes, especially those in Europe, are turned towards France as their Presidential election draws to a close. They need to get over themselves. All European eyes are indeed turned towards an election except that it isn't in France. It's in Turkey.

Sarko and Ségo's Programs Compared

Comparing both candidates' programs, La Baf takes no prisoners.

Entre deux tours d'élection
Uploaded by Labaf

To anybody getting uptight about that hooker scandal in DC

Don't sweat the small stuff, boys.

Our history lessons gloss over the war's aftermath precisely because Vietnam became the slaughterhouse that war supporters had predicted

One philosophy is that an American retreat from Iraq will actually have a stabilizing effect on the country. This tired old argument is usually some variation of the idea that U.S. troops are "driving the insurgency," that the only reason there is violence in Iraq is because there is a target: U.S. troops. Simply remove the troops and peace will fall on Iraq like rain.

Thus writes Benjamin Duffy.

I have never heard of a war being won by retreating, but let's analyze this. If going home now were all we had to do to pacify Iraq, I would support the policy. But are U.S. troops really the only target? Of course not. They aren't even the main target. Iraqis are killing Iraqis in far greater numbers than Iraqis are killing Americans. Removing the Americans will not make the terrorists lay down their arms.

Since Iraq is always being compared to Vietnam, Benjamin Duffy tackles that next.

Don't worry if you don't know much about the aftermath of American retreat from Vietnam. Our history lessons gloss over the subject precisely because Vietnam became the slaughterhouse that war supporters had predicted. Much to the embarrassment of John Kerry, nothing vaguely resembling peace materialized.

After our troops came home, North Vietnam attacked South Vietnam in direct violation of the Paris Peace Accords. One million dissidents were herded into "re-education" camps under deplorable conditions, and some were not released until 1986. The victorious communists executed 65,000 Vietnamese, and that does not include those who died slowly in the "re-education" camps, for which there are no reliable figures. A flood of 800,000 Vietnamese "boat people" fled onto the dangerous high seas, where many drowned. And above all, the power vacuum remaining after American retreat led like night into day to the rise of Pol Pot in Cambodia, and his massacre of 1.7 million people, or about a quarter of the population.

The war supporters' predictions were validated because they understood that such atrocities always follow communist victories. Unfortunately, we allowed ourselves to be worn down by a domestic "anti-war" movement that made victory impossible. The rest is history.

Benjamin Duffy ends with the following conclusion:

Don't be fooled by the Left's imagery of peace. They would have you believe that going home now will make violence in Iraq disappear, when in fact it is a recipe for disaster.

Information from Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First by Mona Charen was used in this article.

It Must Have Been a Dry Heat

Cultwatch!: Alert Thierry Meyssan again: here’s some steel that, contrary to the new Aryan Science of “Truthers” deforms under impact and in contact with temperatures achieved by burning fuel. It seems that the hand of justice has taken this to the home of the hive-mind in San Francisco to explain this.

It happened early this morning, reported at 3:42am, when the driver of a refinery tanker was speeding along a freeway overpass, lost control and the tanker, holding 8,600 gallons of unleaded fuel, hit the guard rail and flipped.

But then again, we live in a brave new world, and I’ve invented a new greeting for May Day:

May the turnip of the collective’s wisdom fall on your head.

I think it’ll catch on if I repeat it often enough. This blog’s friend Valerie replied: “And a bottomless bowl of gruel to you Comrade!”

You couldn’t imagine by delight at the joyousness. So too, it seems is Carine, rounding up the May Day Mayhem.

Speaking of cults, get a load of these clowns who seem to be waiting for rapture:

Visitors to the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa won't find the Gideon Bible in the nightstand drawer. Instead, on the bureau will be a copy of ``An Inconvenient Truth,'' former Vice President Al Gore's book about global warming.

Remember, sometimes heat does nothing, pointing to the evils of non-leftists, and sometimes it’s the only that could possibly ever matter, pointing to the evils of non-leftists.

Wall Street Poet

Eugene Schlanger will be reading poems from September 11 Wall Street Sonnets and Other New York City Poems at The Writing Center, Marymount Manhattan College, The Regina Peruggi Room, 221 East 71 Street, New York on Wednesday May 2 at 6:30PM.

Pathetic

Al-Jazeera sur Seine is using pink and baby blue like a 1960’s maternity ward, and placing the lower vote getter that their writers are pulling for on top. What sophistication.

A Tried and True Election Tactic: Lie

First of all, to accuse your opponent of “apologizing” to America for the torrent of hatred that’s been a part of their lives for decades, you first have to actually have an apology, but there wasn’t one.

Ségolène Royal, the Socialist candidate in the French presidential election on May 6, accused Nicolas Sarkozy, her conservative opponent, on Wednesday of having “apologized” to President Bush for France’s decision not to back the United States militarily in Iraq.

Mr. Sarkozy’s campaign team called her words “lies.”

“I am not for a Europe that aligns with the U.S.,” Ms. Royal said on France 2 television. “I have never been, and will never, go apologize to President Bush for the position of France on the issue of refusing to send our troops to Iraq.”

The interviewer noted that Mr. Sarkozy’s official position was that he had supported President Jacques Chirac’s opposition to the war and to French participation in military operations in Iraq.

“Yes, well, listen,” Ms. Royal responded. “He still did this.”

Let’s look at this in a clearer light: Royal is indulging the egos of potential voters by assuming that French people venting to other French people about the US would somehow matter to the US when in reality the US merely ignored the French stance on Iraq, or any of the other flavor-of-the-week screaming in the pediatrician’s office.

Just what part of the chicken in she trying to stroke? The one that assumed that the bleating of a needy European public that navel-gazed over a decade of open warfare in Balkans would matter to anyone in the world.

America acting alone, not giving Europeans who sheltered terrorism the right of refusal over its’ actions, as some sort of sin? If Ségolène Royal imagines that “Europe” should not align with the US, who’s the lone wolf here? With who would they prefer an alignment? Those paragons of human rights in the Africa, the Arab world, Russia, or China?

Seriously. Who ARE these imaginary allies of theirs’? Who are these mystery societies that share their sensitivity and world view? When have they ever demonstrated this sooper-dooper über-greatness they keep assuming undergirds their actions?

They can’t because none of it is real.

The demonisation of Sarkozy

Sarkozy démonisé en sosie de Richard Bohringer.

The Bogus Scandal of the World Bank

The Wall Street Journal has been investigating what it regards as the bogus scandal surrounding Paul Wolfowitz in the World Bank…

May Day message

Better dead than red!

Sclérose soixante-huitarde

Time to put 1968 out of its misery. Maurice G. Dantec spoke about France's 1968 problem in this 2003 interview.

Red on red

Rip 'em to shreds. More heartache for French youths ahead of Sunday's election.

The news show most appreciated by latté-gulping, museum-going, opera-listening, convinced-everything-European-is-so-damn-cool, Bush-hating yuppy snobs

Sarkozy Derangement Syndrome can be fatal to your employment. The American translator for French State TV France2's US rebroadcast of the evening news has been fired after slipping anti-Sarkozy messages into the subtitles.

"We are like a tiny bird born in a cage"

We did not know what democracy was
Until America brought it against our will

We are like a tiny bird born in a cage
Its father and mother were born in the same cage.
And so were its ancestors
— For the past 1,400 years…
Along came America and
Broke the cage open.
But the bird does not know how to fly.
Because it has never used its wings.
We do not know what to do
With the values of freedom
— Because we were born slaves, the sons of slaves,
the sons of slaves for the past 1,400 years…

(Shookhran to the Resilient)

Vote Royal to Thwart the Racist, Fascist, and Hate-Mongering Bush Poodle Sarkozy

Worse than Hitler! Simple citizen, lucid militant, and Ségolène supporter Jean-Marx Attaque (reminder: a simple citizen just like the rest of us) warns La Baf of the evil that lurks in the minds of Sarkozy and his neo-conservative henchmen (and of the terrifying danger of being ruled by a George W Bush poodle).

Charnier sarkoziste - votez Royal
Uploaded by Labaf

Oh, Brother!

Brutalité et prolifération sont les maîtres mots de ce film dans lequel des menaces terrifiantes évoquent l'état du monde depuis la chute des tours.

Covering the third Spiderman movie, Isabelle Regnier discovers that the Peter Parker alter ego, the Venom character (created at least a decade before Dubya even became governor of Texas), is a metaphor for George W Bush's America…

Sigh…

(More immortal film reviews here…)

Message for Thierry Meyssan

"Je construis une majorité dans la cohérence, la clarté, le respect des partenariats et les valeurs du progrès économique, social et écologique"

Ségolène Royal is interviewed by Eric Fottorino, Patrick Jarreau, Arnaud Leparmentier and Isabelle Mandraud.

Céline on Wheels

Encore une virée à Paris.

In Europe, this passes for due process

Wolfowitz now better understands the expression "people in Dutch".

How Green is thy Zombie

Before and after: George just couldn’t help himself.



If British readers can be trained to believe that it was 40º C anywhere in the UK last week, they can believe anything.

Teacher! Leave the Kids Alone!

Luís Afonso, who suggests that parents read Charlotte Iserbyt's The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, has posted the complete (1 hr 11 min) Celsius 41.11 rebuttal to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.

Update: LA also has The Cabinet of Dr Caligari as well as a 1 hr 21 min film on how Chávez has manipulated the story of the "coup" against him…

American Fast Food: serving France's homeless and working poor since 1981

Boring!

Get this shit over with already. It's not like anything is going to change (for the better, that is) afterwards.

French youth send message to Sarkozy

The Nine-Three is gearing up for a showdown 3rd round following Sarkozy's election. A young off-duty policewoman was raped Sunday in Bobigny after leaving her station house. This is the second such incident in the last 6 weeks. Several suspects have been questioned and released. On March 18, an off-duty policewoman was raped in similar circumstances in the same general location. As both victims were off-duty, officials cannot determine if the the women were targeted because they are with the police.

The Presidential Dacha is Airtight

Is it a stunt to hold on to the Greenie vote? A sexist rumor? Toying with the one-track minds? Who can tell.

Conservatives as Nazis: the Non-Argument of Last Resort

The derangement syndrome seems perpetual, and Plantu has been warming up for SDS for about three. Woop-dee-doo, I say – what do you expect from a society where this kind of grand-parental behaviour is normal enough to figure into the public mind:

"I'll miss Chirac in the same way you'd miss your granddad who used to nick the cash you left in the kitchen," says Le Monde's cartoonist Plantu.

That unwittingly bizarre reflection about Chirac just might be finest paean of the man ever written.