If it were for me, we'd already be in Iran, and their leader would be one dead sonuvabitch!

snarls a general (tip of the #%$&*%@# to Carine).
This political correctness stuff is a bunch of crap! … All this stuff you've heard about America not wanting to fight, wanting to pull out of Iraq, is a lot of horse dung!

Now there's another thing I want you to remember: I don't want to get any more messages saying that we need to pull out of Iraq! We're not pulling out of anything! Let the enemy do that!

When Will the Press Realize that THEY Aren’t News?

Gee. I wonder why?

France Isolation Watch

Germany is not happy about Sarkozy playing footsie with Khadafi.

Good thing Americans don't it for the thanks

Since WWII, European economic growth is always driven by American taxpayers (Marshall Plan), American consumers (buying all that Eurocrap), or by American ingenuity (Texans leading the Europeans to the oil that was right under their noses).

... and in the meantime, don't get your hopes up

Guy Millière to Israel: change your weak leadership.

Paris urban violence

Paris is experiencing more and more extreme violence with each passing day.

The Gare du Nord, train station for the Eurostar to London as well as the suburban trains commuting to many shitholes points north of Paris, which was the scene of urban riots earlier this year, was at the center of a shootout yesterday during the Paris rush hour.

Mau Mau Land: Riots at the Gare du Nord, March 2007.

Weekend stroll around Paris

The Just Called to Say They Hate You - Teil Eins

”Is everything in order?”
“Yes, just as long as detainee isn’t naked. That’s just so you know.”

Over 25 years of steady decline

But what the hell. Strip away government spending, all those welfare schemes, and the other hand-outs to the over 50% of French who pay no income tax, and the French standard of living is still on par with Roumania and Bulgaria.

If you want to see the logical conclusion of the Nanny State process, just come to France for a while

Nanny State. How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists, and other Boneheaded Bureaucrats are Turning America into a Nation of Children. The preening, screaming EuroEunuch-friendly Breck girl seems to be the latest outgrowth of this negative trend. "They will never silence me!", he blusters. He sounds more like a Frenchman every single day -- risk-free resistance in the face of a non-existant threat.

Slime Machine

Thy name is Villepin.

An insurgency in the position of using its major weapons to punish noncombatants is not in a winning situation

You will look long and hard to find any of this in the legacy media. Apart from a handful of exceptions (such as John F. Burns of the New York Times), it's simply not being covered. Those operational names would come across as bizarre to the average reader, the gains they have made impossible to fit into the worldview that has been peddled unceasingly by the dead tree fraternity.

J R Dunn goes on to wonder what it is exactly that the American left wants.

What the media are concentrating on — and will continue to concentrate on, in defiance of sense, protest and logic, to the bitter end — are peripheral stories such as the Democrats' Senate pajama party, reassertions of the claim that the war has "helped" al-Qaida and the latest proclamation from the world's greatest fence-sitters.

…Vietnam also had its ruling narrative, one that had no room for successful combat operations. That narrative had been born in 1968, at the time of the Tet offensive. …It was an utter rout, with the communists losing something in the order of 60,000 men. The Viet Cong were crippled as a military force and never did recover.

But panicky reporters, many of whom had never set foot on a battlefield (not to mention figures at ease with manipulating the facts, such as Peter Arnett), were badly shaken by the opening moves of the offensive, among them an abortive attack on the U.S. embassy grounds at Saigon. Their reportage, broadcast and printed nationwide, portrayed a miserable defeat for the U.S. and its allies, with the Viet Cong and PAVN striking where they pleased and making off at their leisure.

The media portrait of a beleaguered American war effort was never corrected, and became the consensus view. … After Tet, there could be no victories. The success of the Abrams strategy was buried for 20 years and more, as the myth of utter U.S. defeat was put in concrete by "experts" such as Stanley Karnow, Frances FitzGerald and Neil Sheehan. Only with the appearance of revisionist works such as Lewis Sorley's "A Better War" and Mark Moyar's "Triumph Forsaken" has the record begun to be set straight.

That was how it was played at the close of the Vietnam War. That's how it's being played today. And what do they want, exactly? What is the purpose of playing so fast and loose with the public safety, national security and human lives both American and foreign?

Generally, when someone repeats a formula, it's because they want to repeat a result. And that's what the American left wants in this case. … The American left wants a return to the 1970s — without Jimmy Carter. They want a cowed GOP. They want control of the institutions and the branches. They want a miserable, defeated country they can manipulate.

Les soldats impliqués dans un scandale ne sont pas américains ? Pas besoin d'en faire une montagne, alors…

Des casques bleus accusés d'"abus sexuels généralisés" et "systématiques" : On n'ose imaginer le tollé que cela aurait suscité si les "soldats peu disciplinés" impliquées dans le (non-)scandale — avec ou sans la "complaisance" de leurs supérieurs hiérarchiques —, au lieu d'être de l'ONU, avaient été américains…

D'ailleurs, ce n'est pas compliqué ; si les États-Unis avaient été impliquées, le scandale de la Côte d'Ivoire aurait été en première page jour après jour après jour, avec force dénonciations et expressions de dégoût, pendant des semaines — que dis-je? pendant des mois…

…en dépit d'une politique affichée de "tolérance zéro" envers l'exploitation sexuelle par les casques bleus des populations qu'ils sont censés protéger, l'organisation a été mise en cause à de nombreuses reprises, depuis 2001, en Guinée, au Liberia, en Sierra Leone et en République démocratique du Congo

Évidemment, si ces articles (et le scandale) concernaient l'Oncle Sam, pas besoin d'être devin pour savoir qu'ils seraient aussi parmi les recommandés et les plus envoyés des articles des lecteurs de lemonde.fr… Mais voilà, c'est l'ONU louée aux cieux (cette ONU extraordinaire dont la compétence et l'honnêteté auraient permis d'éviter la guerre en Irak si seulement Bush était aussi intelligent que les Européens toujours extra-lucides), et donc à part un article ou deux de temps en temps, on fait de son mieux pour ne pas trop remuer la situation — et quand on le fait (rarement), c'est pour mettre le focus sur le positif, c'est-à-dire les efforts de l'ONU pour remédier à la situation…

Poetic Justice for the Poet of Matignon

Confounded, among other things, by the notes on General Rondot's computer along with the damning testimony of Jean-Louis Gergorin, that noble combatant (and champion for peace, international justice, and fair play), Dominique de Villepin, was indicted Friday morning for his role in the Clearstream scandal.

As Thomas Lifson (thanks pour Penny) wrote a few weeks ago :

Remember how many media libs swooned over former French prime minister [Dominique] de Villepin? He published poetry! He wrote a book about Napoleon! He dressed in fancy suits and was oh, so sophisticated. Not like you-know-who, the [cowboy] who makes self-styled sophisticated Americans cringe in embarrassment.

Many conservatives heartily despised de Villepin and his boss President Chirac, recognizing them as hypocritical libs, and smarting over French betrayal in the UN Security Council. Evidence is now accumulating that conservatives were right all along.

Incidentally, notice a difference in the AP report as quoted by the New York Times and its sister paper, the International Herald Tribune. In the former, a sentence reads:

The longtime diplomat, who served as foreign and interior minister under Chirac before being named premier, made his mark on the international stage with a 2003 speech before the U.N. Security Council arguing against the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

In the latter (which features a nonexistent "page" 2), the equivalent part of the article is even more laudatory:

Villepin served as foreign and interior minister under Chirac before being named premier. His international moment of glory came in a 2003 speech before the U.N. Security Council, where he made an eloquent case against the U.S. war in Iraq.

"International moment of glory", "an eloquent case", etc; notice, though, how the half-dozen words of which the latter phrase forms a part are thoroughly misleading — "the U.S. war", "the U.S. war in Iraq" ("in Iraq"? shouldn't it be "against Iraq" or, better yet, "against Saddam"? how about "the U.S. invasion of" or "the U.S. intervention in" Iraq, not to mention its "invasion of Saddam's Baasist Iraq" or "intervention against Saddam Hussein"?), we could go on, but you get the idea. None of those options, although more precise (certainly from a military — i.e., purely strategic and tactical — point of view), would fit the reporter's (or editorial bureau's) lionizing as well.

You can’t say that! It isn’t in the script!

Didn’t you know it was those freakin' amis that have an absolute monopoly on violence?

Khadafi's poodle

It's official. Sarko s'est chiraquisé à donf.

George Bush is smarter than the majority of French people

On a French TV reality show this week a contestant was asked what body was at the center of the solar system. He responded "magma". Here is an oldy but goody from the French version of "Millionaire".


The Majority of French People Are Dumb - Watch more free videos

Live free or die

"He put his life on the line for the paper."

First it rolls you. Then it rolls over you.

Socialized medecine KILLS.

Colbertism on steroids

Sarkozy takes on EU Central Bank head honcho Jean-Claude Trichet in an effort to dope France's anemic exports.

In response to claims that the book glorifies the military, he wrote: "It does indeed ..."

Taylor Dinerman eloquently covers the legacy of Robert A. Heinlein.

The professor explains: "The power to tax, once conceded, has no limits; it contains until it destroys. I was not joking when I told them to dig into their own pouches. It may not be possible to do away with government--sometimes I think that it is an inescapable disease of human beings. But it may be possible to keep it small and starved and inoffensive--and can you think of a better way than by requiring the governors themselves to pay the costs of their antisocial hobby." As they say on the Moon, "TANSTAAFL!": "There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch!"

Une terrible épée de Damoclès suspendue au-dessus de la tête du responsable de la Défense

Au terme d'une enquête de plusieurs mois, tant en France que dans les pays de l'Est, L'Express est en mesure de lever le voile sur cette affaire d'Etat: un futur ministre français de la Défense a été — pendant au moins dix ans — rémunéré par des agents de Moscou. C'est l'incroyable vérité que contenaient les documents venus du froid.

Mitterrand's first defense minister (alias "André" and "Dinu") was a Soviet spy, revealed Jérôme Dupuis and Jean-Marie Pontaut 10 years ago (spasiba to RV). (Notice the French Wikipedia's take on this — and that, under the heading… "miscellaneous" : "Under the code name Dinu, he worked for overseas [pour l'étranger] during the Cold War" — as if he were doing nothing more — or less worthy — than humanitarian work for an NGO in darkest Africa!!)

…l'«investissement» soviétique sur Charles Hernu, dans les années 60, qu'il ait continué ou non, a été couronné de succès au-delà de tout ce que Moscou pouvait imaginer. Tout au long des années 70, Hernu est le spécialiste de la chose militaire au sein du Parti socialiste, principal parti d'alternance.

…Arrive 1981: l'apothéose. Ce vieux grognard du nouveau président de la République devient, tout naturellement, ministre de la Défense. Certains de ses anciens traitants roumains et bulgares assistent avec stupéfaction à la formidable promotion de leur ex-ami «André-Dinu». Charles Hernu, à son nouveau poste, règne sur la politique nucléaire, les services secrets et la défense stratégique de la France. Les services roumains, qui ont transformé leur pays en un terrible Etat policier, comprennent tout le parti qu'ils peuvent tirer d'une telle promotion.

…La divulgation publique de ces éléments — même en 1992, lorsque François Mitterrand en prit connaissance — sur l'homme qui, de 1981 à 1985 (jusqu'à sa démission après l'affaire Greenpeace), fut responsable de la défense nationale française aurait déclenché une crise internationale. A ce poste, Charles Hernu a eu en effet à gérer, notamment, la crise des missiles SS 20 avec l'URSS...

Giving Lessons to the Bush Administration

Since George W Bush is such a clueless bungling idiot, it's only right that his administration be given lessons by a handful of brilliant strategists. (And that's only the American ones!)

Pol Pot in Prada

According to Ralph Peters, all you need to warn you about the worst possibilities in the future is to look at the worst of the present:

Malthusian linear projections never fulfill themselves (and hysteria is never productive). But, beyond that, the notion that Europe, the continent that's exported more death and destruction than any other, is going to just shuffle wimpily to its doom is crazy. The Europeans have been playing pacifist dress-up while we protected them, but, sufficiently threatened, they'll revert to their historical pattern--which is to over-react. Europe's Muslims may prove to be the real endangered species; after all, Europe's history of dealing with rejected minorities veers between genocide and, for the lucky, ethnic cleansing. For me, the question isn't whether Muslims will take over Europe, but whether Europe will simply expel them or kill any number of them first. Sound far-fetched? How would the Holocaust have sounded to an educated German (or Brit, or American) in 1932? Europe is a killer continent. When the chips are down, it will kill again.

Meanwhile, Europe's Muslims are behaving so stupidly that their folly can't be measured with any tools at our disposal. Even as British pols pander to radical clerics, the average Brit has had enough of coddling mullahs who preach the destruction of all non-Muslims (and closing the pubs). In mid-July, in Germany, the major organizations representing the millions of Turkish residents refused to come to a conference held by the chancellor to address integration. The Turkish leaders demanded--demanded--that the German parliament first rescind a new immigration law that would have prevented Turks from importing child-brides, isolating them as virtual prisoners and beating them to death. Oh, and the Germans also wanted new immigrants to have a vocabulary of 300 German words upon arrival--just enough to say, "Help, husband killing me." No self-respecting Turk was going to stand for that.

So if the pattern repeats itself, after insisting that we all “give peace a chance” they will again have to be protected and restored from without by people stuck with the effects and aftermath of their ideology.

Thanks a lot, spanky.

La propagande anti-américaine se glisse dans les moindres recoins, au point qu'on peut se demander si ce n'est pas une sorte d'exercice de style

La propagande socio-démocrate (et anti-américaine) se glisse dans les moindres recoins, au point qu'on peut parfois se demander si ce n'est pas une sorte d'exercice de style.

Any opportunity in the European press is good to exercise one's anti-Americanism, concludes Stéphane, all the while (of course) hailing Europe's state interventionism.

La pique est évidemment dans la fin de l'article, qui lance quelques slogans d'une façon totalement gratuite …

Pour l'auteur de l'article, une enfance saine, c'est la souscription à une assurance-maladie. Difficile d'avoir une vision plus socio-démocrate de l'existence.

The Big Question

As early as 1932, Winston Churchill said: "France, though armed to the teeth, is pacifist to the core"

writes Thomas Sowell in his column regarding "moral paralysis" and "what is still the magic mantra today — 'negotiations'."

History may be interesting but it is the present and the future that pose the crucial question: Is America today the France of yesterday?

…Not only the history of the UN, but the history of the League of Nations before it, demonstrates again and again that going to such places is a way for weak-kneed leaders of democracies to look like they are doing something when in fact they are doing nothing.

…Incidentally, Hitler made some of the best anti-war statements of the 1930s. He knew that this was what the Western democracies wanted to hear -- and that it would keep them morally paralyzed while he continued building up his military machine to attack them.

…the big question is: Are we France? Are we morally paralyzed, perhaps fatally?

„ La Jeune Garde Socialiste ”

How to look like an idiot: make a simple case of your political opinions sound gallant and rebellious: give yourself funny and anachronistic names the way creepy Euro-aristocrats always have.

I’m in sync with you!

We assist, seems to me it, as the “Great mass from the rear” of Serge Halimi’s book and whom one can find in the index: “D.O.L”. I didn’t see the videos, but just read the introductory notes and some comments. I voted for the first socialist time at in 2nd presidential round for “none of the above” and against SN [ed.: pacifist-leaning National Teachers Union].
I am more in phase with the speech of Olivier Besançenot and I make a point of specifying that I am not member of any “party”. As long as some will want to be khalife in the place of the khalife… It is really a question of knowing if a minority of people will be able to stop this steamrolling “fascistic” “xenophobia” neo-liberal even with (secret prisons where torture in “democratic” countries is supposedly practised…)

Are the media (TV and consort) controlled by arms merchants? Does that not remind anybody of anything?

Damn the BOSSES! Otherwise pretend it’s 1927 when you’re in your thirties trying to hide you receding hairline and the crow’s feet at your eyes. I mean do any of these twits seem at all “jeune” to you? They’re throwbacks to a time in Europe where even individual, unenlightened self-interest trumped their own ideology and even societal meltdown.

But remember, always demand tolerance and fairness in the midst of your calling everyone who disagrees with you Hitler. One commenter was keepin’ it real, or as real as it get to them:

Ne jetez pas la pierre à la femme adultère, je suis derriére.

Customer warming

McDonald's reminds Paris residents that their restaurants are among the few eating establishments that are air-conditioned. That and the fact that customers may buy just a coffee and sit down without paying extra (Paris cafés jack up the price for table service) means that McDonalds are about the only establishments in the city where elderly French on a retirement pension can afford to go while remaining confortable.


Say no to customer warming. Our restaurants are air-conditioned.

Ever feel like you've been cheated?

Dissident Frogman has a go at the language police.

Soirée Maurice G. Dantec

Pour la sortie de son nouveau roman, "Artefact, machines à écrire 1.0", Une soirée spéciale aura lieu le 11 septembre 2007 à Paris en présence de Maurice G. Dantec. Renseignez-vous rapidement. Le nombre de places est limité.

Sneers for Fears

The BBC has been whinging on The World Service all day about the US Federally mandated minimum wage (which only 0.32% of earners are paid,) neglecting the fact that the US has had a minimum wage since 1938. That was fully 61 years before the UK introduced theirs in 1999 more as a PR stunt than anything else.

The rise, long awaited in the US by those looking to exploit as many gullible people as possible with a “social justice” argument, who want to make the minimum wage’s use as a provisional and on-the-job training mechanism for employers as permanent as possible for as many people as possible.

Distortions and outright fabrications about the war: When troops come back complaining there aren't enough fights to go around, you are not losing

Much of the reporting on the war in Iraq suffers from [an] abandonment of integrity in pursuit of short-term profit

writes Patrick S Lasswell (quoting in the process Michael Totten's post about the media being "a total distortion machine" ["Baghdad is gigantic and sprawling. It looks much less ramshackle from the air than I expected. … The sheer enormity of the place puts the almost daily car bomb attacks into perspective. The odds that you personally will be anywhere near the next car bomb or IED are microscopic."]).

Even though it will cost the free people of the world massively if the United States abandons the Coalition and Iraq, the media continues to present distortions and outright fabrications about the conditions of the war. By maintaining a bubble of panic, they keep their sagging ratings afloat. But this panic is a bubble that may not last until a retreat occurs, and the bursting of that bubble must be terrifying to people profiting from it.

This weekend I talked with a Marine friend of mine who recently came back from a tour in Anbar province. His base was attacked (incompetently) twice while he was there, and that used to be the worst place in the whole country. He was disappointed in the level of action he saw and felt that as Marines his unit should have been rotated to the active fighting in Baghdad. When troops come back complaining that there aren't enough fights to go around, you are not losing.

If the Iraq panic bubble bursts before a retreat is forced on our otherwise undefeated military, the impact on the perpetrators of the bubble may be catastrophic.

If you call "constantly thinking about your retirement" thinking

French leaders tell the French to stop thinking and get on the stick.

De la merde entre les deux oreilles

Just a fluid filled space. French civil servant gets by using a tiny brain in a fluid filled cranium.

When the doctors went to look at his brain to see if the problem lay there, they found, well, pretty much nothing but a great black hole.

Never ask a boy to do a man's job

Djibouti gets fed up with France's looking down its nose at the natives and reaches out to the USA. They've had enough of France and its condescending 70s world view.

Au sujet de ce petit pays de merde européen et sa façon de se comporter en Afrique :

Ali Youssouf s'insurge toutefois contre une vision économique de la France "vieille de trente ans". "Le monde a changé ! Djibouti a d'autres ambitions que de demeurer un petit pays qui vit de l'aide de la France. Laissez-moi vous dire que le rôle économique de la France est proche de zéro ! Nous répétons sans cesse que le secteur privé français doit venir prendre sa part dans la vie économique de Djibouti. Or il ne le fait pas : personne ne vient, personne n'investit !" lance-t-il avant de conclure : "La France est en train de rater une occasion historique. Qu'elle cesse de croire que Djibouti n'est qu'une caserne de légionnaires !"

The French That We Will Never Forget

Month of the Living Dead

In the nation of Stepford Children given to synchronized operation meltdown in August, the businesses that actually remain in open actually merit a newspaper article.

August vacationers, like tourists, will have some difficulty this year knowing if restaurants are opened or closed. Some establishments that normally remain open all summer will close their doors on the week of August 15, while others normally closed this time of the year will make an exception and stay open.

Though more in decades past, the campers and overstuffed hatchbacks worthy of Jed Clampett jam the highways to such an extent that the folks even have a name: « Les Aoûtiens »... and they’re here to drink your blood.

As for the rest of them – mighty green of you to stick around, but isn’t it just because you’re broke?

Meanwhile Plantu emerged from his absence into a narcotics induced haze comparing Sarko to a winning cyclist doped up on yellow-jersey mojo juice of Sarko with an ever growing phallic-symbol of a nose.

Remembering Daniel Pearl

Never mind Hollywood's moral equivalence and other hypocritical fluff. The real tributes are elsewhere.