"I think voting twice is against the law, but that's OK"

(Fist bump to Hervé)

Some Good News

The first good news of the election are coming in (thanks to Larwyn)…

Change You Can Believe In…

(Zank iou tou Hervé)

"At this moment — but for how long ? — we can say with far more conviction than on 11 September 2001 : we are all Americans"

In a In a Le Monde piece entitled Sorry we can't — and half-written in English — Robert Solé says he can't write, because he is weeping for joy, all the while:
• informing us that Obama's election is nothing less than the "first worldwide good news since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989"
• basically admitting that the French did not really feel much empathy with America af ther the 9/11 murder of 3,000 citizens, and
• stating that today, because of the election results, "we [truly] are all Americans" but immediately casting doubt onto how long he thinks that will last…

Sorry. No column today. The keyboard is not responding. History is a page being turned. Three words on the screen: "Yes we can." While it is impossible to joke with genocide or disaster, it is equally impossible to joke with an event that makes you weep for joy. The first worldwide good news since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 needs more than a pirouette or an amused wink. At this moment - but for how long ? - we can say with far more conviction than on 11 September 2001 : we are all Americans.

(Désolé. Pas de billet aujourd'hui. Le clavier ne répond pas. L'Histoire est une page qui se tourne. Trois mots sur l'écran : "Oui, nous le pouvons." S'il est impossible de plaisanter avec un génocide ou une catastrophe, il est tout aussi impossible de plaisanter avec un événement qui vous arrache des larmes. La première bonne nouvelle planétaire depuis la chute du mur de Berlin en 1989 appelle autre chose qu'une pirouette ou un clin d'oeil amusé. A cet instant - mais pour combien de temps ? -, nous pouvons dire, avec beaucoup plus de conviction que le 11 septembre 2001 : nous sommes tous américains.)

Much maligned....

.....but truly one of the greats:



The key to note is both lines in the clip. Wallowing in self-pity and nothingness is the job of our leftist brothers and sisters. Do not take the bait.

Straight to acceptance

No thank you, I won't be moving to Canada. Maybe Andorra, but never Canada.....

No long faces here*

Absolute congratulations to the next President of the United States, Barack Obama. The personal story is something everyone cheers, the policy story .... well that is indeed another story.

As it stands it would appear that non-leftists should wait and see what the new President does once ensconced in office. With a group of real leftist howlers running Congress, chances are it will not be pretty. Do not believe me, believe the thoughtful and beautiful amongst us. Those are fights for another day. Remember to judge the new President by what he does once in office, not based on the past (that was settled yesterday) and not how one "feels".

A good maxim to remember:

I am not interested in government or politicians making a difference in my life. I am interested in government and politicians staying out of my life.

Investing oneself emotionally in government or politicians will lead you down the path of poor Richard: bereft, discouraged, depressed, and searching for that non-existent (at least in a democracy thus far) uber-talisman of using the hyper-force of the state to ensure absolute conformity from the masses and their wallets. The use of force because the hard-left is unable to persuade with thoughts and deeds.

* There may be long faces at Der Spiegel today though. The three-legged stool of European-based anti-Americanism took it in the shorts yesterday. The "dead, dying, and racist" prolix which has been the standard of our European press masters is no more. Until we see a minority reach the top elected office in any of our European capitals it might be best for our continental betters, next time they get that "amerikkkaistheworstthingtohappentohumanityonany-givendayoftheweekmonthyeareverinthehistoryofever" urge, to take a bit of advice from the great Henry Rollins:

"Sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up!"

Transatlantic Transfiguration? Don't Bet on it!

What if what we have got to look forward to is years of two-way transatlantic lip service? Aport from health issues on a global scale, monetary policy coordination as an imperative at the moment, the respective publics on each side of the North Atlantic need to brace themselves for a potential slumber; and a sort of kabuki theater of asking one another for initiatives that might indulge the egos and worries of their populations (move European troops for ISAF, environmental commitments from the US and Canada), only to find it come in at too high a political or economic cost for their taste.


it actually feels like it's already started: the early morning: post U.S. election talk shows on German television (for example.) including a few people speaking at the more venerable looking round tables,were repeating the recitation of cultural and political complaints that we've had to hear over and over these past years including the mantras of the now victorious American left.

We are who we are, after all, and it might he too much to expect that this temperament of the American left and of the European popular media w N be any different today as it was (very literally,) two days ago.

Barring a disaster, I don't see the promise behind that enthusiasm found on both sides of the Atlantic preparing itself to accomplish anything that its' complaints seem to have wanted to promise, and still looks trapped in that vulgar habit of evasion and taunting, if one judges the reactions by and on the press for anything.

As with the kabuki mentioned earlier, there's also a risk of repeating a past no-one is sentimental about – one where the overtures themselves are a depressing and repetitive set of non-starters and amount to little more than domestic ideological politicking 'such as the European interest in bravery the U.S. sign a "son of Kyoto" treaty with some sort of transatlantic lip service as a secondary use.

la fact now we need to genuinely explore the model and ask just what is this ”'transatlanticism” that is so anticipated can really shape up to be. In the past it was largely limited to mutual security, economics, and dealing with potential pandemics on behalf of a world beyond that of the alliance – and this sort of bilateral, mission-oriented statesmanship was always was the strength of the likes of John McCain, JFK, and other veterans who ended up in politics.

It was also intentionally less socially intrusive and invasive, avoiding the issues that resembled the sort typified by "the personal is the political” in the interest of cultural respect and to contain the hegemon of homogeneity, something at risk where social issues are transformed into international issues.

A hope land many also have too is that the relationship isn't informed only by crises. As things go, who warts another "unifying event” to be forced on us in the form of a global financial crisis or large scale terrorist attack? There must be something more that can embolden the alliance in a way that is neither informed by fear or isn't an intellectually thread-bare act of just seeming vacuously "nice”.

The need for that bond is real, and we need it to deal with just those things that we wish didn't have to inform it to begin with - the real calamities, and our mutual well-being and security. But the sophistication just isn't there (zum beispiel) here in Berlin, where the only questions one gets about Obama is about his skin color, and literally nothing else.

The President-Elect Metamorphosing From a Black Man Into a Man of Mixed Blood

Barack Obama remporte l'élection présidentielle américaine
	Selon les estimations d'Associated Press, le démocrate est désormais assuré de l'emporter face au républicain John McCain. Il devient ainsi le premier Noir élu président des Etats-Unis.

Besides some dubious humor, the language was changing within minutes… It's no longer "un (homme) noir" who has won the White House, according to Le Monde's email service, but "un métis". (That way, the path is open for charges of anti-"black" racism to be levelled at (white) Americans in the future…)

Barack Obama entre dans l'histoire américaine
Le candidat démocrate, 47 ans, sera le 44e président des Etats-Unis. Pour la première fois, un métis va diriger les Etats-Unis, tout en bénéficiant d'une forte légitimité en raison d'un taux de participation très élevé. "Il en a fallu du temps, a déclaré Barack Obama devant une foule en liesse de 65 000 personnes à Chicago. Mais ce soir, grâce à ce que nous avons accompli aujourd'hui et pendant cette élection, en ce moment historique, le changement est arrivé en Amérique." Les électeurs votaient également pour renouveler un tiers du Sénat et les 435 représentants de la Chambre. Les démocrates ont renforcé leur majorité, gagnant 5 sièges au Sénat et obtenant plus de 60 % des sièges à la Chambre. Ce qui aidera M. Obama à faire passer ses réformes.

Am I wrong to point out that I predicted this in my post on racism?

…the bean-counters, the snickerers and the snorters … will say that oh, sure there is an African-Americans (there are African-Americans) whom Americans have elected president, but… his (but their) skin color wasn't dark enough. "Would they ever" — insert knowing ironic smile here — "elect a really dark Negro?"

It's Mourning in America

…and in the world…

Those who say otherwise — notably those who are ecstatic — remind me of an old joke…

A man and his wife are driving in the countryside, when they stop to get out and take a look at the panorama.

Suddenly, a robber appears before them. Give me your clothes, he demands. Give me your car keys. Taking out a piece of chalk, the man draws a big circle on the road. Get in there, he tells the naked husband. If you as much as put a single foot outside of it, I'll kill you.

The thief takes the naked wife behind a couple of trees and rapes her. Then he takes their money, their clothes, and their car, and drives off.

The weeping wife comes staggering back to where the husband is in his circle. To her surprise, he is laughing. :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

How can you laugh?! She says between two sobs. That beast raped me, and took everything we got!!

Between two snickers, the husband replies: Because I managed to put my foot out of the circle — three times! — and he never saw me do it!

Let's Hope This Helps…

Seen earlier in the day:

An appropriate vanity license plate…

Their House is a Museum When People Come to See 'Em

People are leaving the Netherlands and the other ‘prime cuts’ of the EUtopian rump, and in record numbers for peacetime.

National emigration figures for 1999 to 2006 show that men are twice as likely to emigrate as women, and it is mostly the young (under 30) who emigrate. Furthermore, it is the Dutch in the top decile of the income distribution who are most likely to emigrate. Sixty-nine percent of Dutch emigrants choose a European destination. It should not be a surprise that most emigrants move to one of the neighbouring countries Germany and Belgium. However, it is well established that this applies mainly to cross-border migration, where people live just across the border and still work in the Netherlands. High housing and land prices in the Netherlands drive many to move to Belgium or Germany, which offer spacious houses that are almost unaffordable for middle-income households in the Netherlands. When Belgium and Germany are left out of the equation, 31% of emigrants are headed to European destinations. The US and Canada account for another 15%.

Alas but why?

Examining the determinants of emigration intentions and subsequent actions reveals a clear picture. The determinants may classified into two groups: (a) the individual characteristics that one would expect to be relevant if emigration were a matter of private gains (like age, human capital, health, networks, psychological personality characteristics) and (b) the provision and perceived quality of the public domain of life in the Netherlands. Every individual depends on the actions and solidarity of others and perhaps more so in a crowded country such as the Netherlands which is also known for its extensive welfare state. The following elements were determined – based on a statistical analysis – to represent the public domain: (1) the Dutch welfare state and institutions which provide the public goods and services (law and order, social security, education, health care); (2) the quality of the public space (noise pollution, space, nature, crowdedness); and (3) the evaluation of social problems addressed by the government, like crime, pollution, and ethnic tensions.
The results of our study reveal that both the private and the public domain of life are important to understanding emigration from a high-income country like the Netherlands. The more negative one is about the public domain, the more likely it is that one will actually emigrate (see Figure 1). Of course, the Dutch who stayed are also negative about large parts of the public domain, but emigrants (“movers” and “dreamers”, i.e. those who intended to emigrate but have not yet) are far more negative than those staying behind.1 The biggest difference between emigrants and those staying behind is the evaluation of the quality of public space. Without knowing how people feel about the quality of the public domain, large-scale emigration would remain a mystery.

In other words, a poor quality of life – and this is THE NETHERLANDS we’re talking about, possibly the most interventionist nanny state in existence. Deep intervention in social matters seems to show that those with a latent anger and an expectation that the rest of the population is structured to serve their aesthetic needs stick with it.

They go on to note that they are the more ambitious people who originate in the middle income and lower middle income brackets – those more likely to spur innovation. That they are largely male and in their prime also has a prospect of hitting the future in other ways. If social, academic, and economic activity are not robustly started or maintained by the bright ones of parenting age, what does that hold for a society’s evolution? In relative terms, not as much as it could, and what energy it does have will be a result of initiation, programming, funding, or managing by government, much as government supported art and music foundations are slowly overwhelming what used to be a private matter or the result of non-government-funded symphonies, operas, and the like.

Sooner or later, if ex-migration of the most dynamic isn’t matched by inward migration of the people with the same energy and commitment to the place, It thins out the herd, and leaves the culture on a trend toward dullness, inaction, selfishness, or disconnection from the idea that we all have a personal obligation to contribute our effort to make a good society. In its’ place goes government managed guidelines, rules, programs, etal – truly the stuff of dreams, non?

Our study suggests that the quality of the public domain is an important part of quality of life, and those Dutch who have moved are implicitly casting a vote of no confidence in those who govern the nation. This lesson may also be of some relevance to other European countries where emigration has taken off and crowdedness has become a concern. For example, England’s population density is similar to that of the Netherlands (394 inhabitants per square kilometre), and British surveys seem to register the same type of dissatisfaction witnessed in the Netherlands.

Which is hard to believe given that one of the big criticism Europeans harbor for the US, Canada, Australia, etc., is the lower apparent quality of things like parks, streets, the artfulness or otherwise of public structures. For the Dutch especially this doesn’t hold, especially for those moving to places that are more angry and cramped like greater London.

But like we often see with surveys, the questions only address the questions asked, and that the way those questions were asked hint at a subtext. Maybe it’s the weather. Maybe it’s the feeling of being fenced in, or the surprising unsociability of a place still characterized as libertine. Maybe what’s angry and cramped in this case is entirely social. When in the NETHERLANDS 30% of those who leave cite the health care system (of supposed global envy) as one of many reasons, you know that it’s isn’t just a matter of “doing more of it” to make them happy.

In any event, a loss of that sort can’t be sustained forever.

Obama's Attack Ad On Himself

"Wake Up, America": Que Dios bendiga a America

Obama supporters just came into my front yard and put signs against McCain on my car and on the sign of McCain in my front lawn

reports Xiomara Pagés, a Floridian from Kendale Lakes.

This is before Election day and before knowing who will win... Can you imagine?... what type of followers are these?...It just remind me of Castro Cuba's patrol not respecting the freedom of everyone. What a shame, Wake up America ...(*)

Thanks and God bless America!!

(*) my next door neighbor is Black, and he came a while ago to show his sorrow for what happened, He doesn't approve of this.....we hugged because we both said Friendship should not be damaged for political reasons. That already happened in Castro's Cuba.....I wish a lot of people would understand that.

Acaban de entrar a mi patio de enfrente y a mi carro a poner letreros contra McCain
acabo de llamar a la policia y a noticieros,
diganlo por todos lados....y que se sepa
tome fotos de los letreros

Es asi es como quieren ganar las elecciones? haciendo lo mismo que los comunistas... ....pues no es solo entrar a una propiedad ajena sino atentado contra la libre expresion y la libertad de todo ciudadano de tener en SU PATIO Y SU CARRO. EL CANDIDATO QUE QUIERA..

YA YO VOTE....SOY REPUBLICANA Y VOTE' ya POR McCAIN (mi vecino es negro y vino hace un rato a presentar su pena por lo que me paso hoy que me pusieron letreros contra Mc Cain en mi patio delantero y mi carro, el no esta de acuerdo con este vandalismo, y nos abrazamos, pues el y yo dijimos que la amistad no debe perderse por diferencias politicas, no vale la pena, Ojala mucha gente supiera respetar esta division de familias y amigos, que ya paso en Cuba...

Que Dios bendiga a America

Cuba Got "Change" in 1959…

…Be Careful What You Wish For…

That was the message Florida's Cubans had for America as they greeted John McCain at the Republican candidate's (midnight) arrival at the University of Miami's Bank United Center on November 2, 2008, for a Road to Victory rally, accompanied by Cindy McCain, their daughter Meghan, Joe Lieberman, Tom Ridge, Mel Martinez, Kelsey Grammer, and others…

Also in Florida was Atlas Shrugs, who could not make the McCain bash, desafortunadamente, but before she returned to New York, I witnessed her get some hard hits in…







See also the Iraqis' message to America during her presidential election…












Echoing Ronald Reagan…

So Long, Democrats

…says the Democratic speech writer Wendy Button.

I was dead wrong about the surge and thought it would be a disaster. Senator John McCain led when many of us were ready to quit. Yet we march on as if nothing has changed, wedded to an old plan, and that too is a long way from the Democratic Party.

I can no longer justify what this party has done and can’t dismiss the treatment of women and working people as just part of the new kind of politics. It’s wrong and someone has to say that. And also say that the Democratic Party’s talking points—that Senator John McCain is just four more years of the same and that he’s President Bush—are now just hooker lines that fit a very effective and perhaps wave-winning political argument…doesn’t mean they’re true. After all, he is the only one who’s worked in a bipartisan way on big challenges.

Did you Realize that there are Acts More Patriotic than Paying Taxes?

The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Oil

And the rusty trombone gets the mouthpiece. Or whatever... It seems hotel workers in Strasbourg are no obliged to police the private lives of Ministers of European Parliament, because it seems that many of them have to buy what their personalities can't provide otherwise: whatever preferred form of nookie they it is that gets their great deliberative body off.

It also seems that they have a Reaganite, aspirational streak, looking to be more than they are themselves:

"The parliamentarians are not interested in street prostitutes. They prefer escort girls, call girls of a slightly higher level. They find little adverts and make telephone calls. That's how they take care of business," the NGO's Isabelle Collot said.

- Via Brussels Journal, who suggest that MEPs

deserve as much regulation as their victims.

Red County

Thanks, Rich! Two articles of mine (Is Sarah Palin the Dan Quayle of 2008? and What Is It About Obama's Friends and Acquaintances That Stands Out? They All Belong to the Blame-America-First crowd) were reprinted on (in?) Red County…

Now It Is Not Only Change, It Is "Universal Change": Oh Hail the Messiah

Is that the Nation of Islam's Louis Farrakhan calling Obama the messiah?

Barack Obama's ties to the black nationalist movement in Chicago run deep, and that for many years the two men have had "an open line between them" to discuss policy and strategy, either directly or through intermediaries.

Ignorance is the new Red

A student explains rather plainly the lesson drawn from life in France:why Obama sucks.

I am living in France with two other Americans, both of whom voted for Obama. The election has come up a few times, and also the subject of socialism. I said, "I'm not voting for Obama, because I don't want to see my country become socialist."
One of my American friends, twenty-two years old, said, "What's wrong with socialism? I don't think it's a bad idea."

I was speechless for a second. But then those little warning bells that tell me, "say something. Don't let that pass. Even if her vote is cast, you can still try to give her an alternate perspective for the future," made me open my mouth.

So, I said, "What's wrong with socialism? We live in a socialist country right now, and you hate it here. You just spent all day yelling, "Damn these French!" Imagine this level of bureaucratic frustration and ineptitude taking over every aspect of American life." I didn't want to belabor the point. But I kept thinking of life here in a socialist nation

As with the passionate babble and desperate defenses I've been hearing in Paris about DSK, the French will defend the idea, because it's all they have at this point. Once a pickle, never a cucumber!

- With many thanks to Stavn

He Had His Entire Adulthood to Distance Himself From Ayers, but Didn't

The Love Bus Ends at the Terminal

Thank a Leftist

The self-absorbed me generation types are terminal, some of them can only think of one thing on the way out.

What do you expect? Merging class-selfishness and class-warfare with fake concern gave Europeans socialism-by-any-other-name, now that they’ve made every personal matter one of the society at large, they’ve gotten to the point where they have to ration human rights – such as the right to live – to make that all-important “social budget”.

On pitiless Planet Warnock, people are valued in proportion to their ability to lead an independent life. If they can't do so, they are to be written off as valueless - and even more nauseating, they are being told they actually have a duty to end their lives.

The elderly and chronically sick - indeed, anyone who constantly depends on others for care - often dread being a burden on their nearest and dearest. To be told that they must end this burden by finishing themselves off can only increase their guilt, despair and suffering.

On Planet Warnock, it seems that ties of family and kinship, acts of selfless love, the deep satisfaction from bringing comfort to those who are helpless or who are so poignantly leaving

It doesn’t appear to be asking “what kind of life is worth living” if you can’t quite hang from an S&M trapeze anymore – not even that... The motive is depersonalized and arbitrary, identical to that of those of the old eugenicists: to dispose of those who can’t produce anything for them anymore, but require a resource from the glorious welfare state that they idolized for so long.

Actually, it’s the bonds formed by love at all that have to be disposed of to get to the point where it seems okay to “mulch the aged in the interest of society”. Looking back, why is it that people are so much more likely to want to believe that their “independence” is a virtue, when in fact they have been socialized to be so unlovable?

Wake Up, America: Que Dios bendiga a America

Obama supporters just came into my front yard and put signs against McCain on my car and on the sign of McCain in my front lawn

reports Xiomara Pagés, a Floridian from Kendale Lakes.

This is before Election day and before knowing who will win... Can you imagine?... what type of followers are these?...It just remind me of Castro Cuba's patrol not respecting the freedom of everyone. What a shame, Wake up America ...(*)

Thanks and God bless America!!

(*) my next door neighbor is Black, and he came a while ago to show his sorrow for what happened, He doesn't approve of this.....we hugged because we both said Friendship should not be damaged for political reasons. That already happened in Castro's Cuba.....I wish a lot of people would understand that.

Acaban de entrar a mi patio de enfrente y a mi carro a poner letreros contra McCain
acabo de llamar a la policia y a noticieros,
diganlo por todos lados....y que se sepa
tome fotos de los letreros

Es asi es como quieren ganar las elecciones? haciendo lo mismo que los comunistas... ....pues no es solo entrar a una propiedad ajena sino atentado contra la libre expresion y la libertad de todo ciudadano de tener en SU PATIO Y SU CARRO. EL CANDIDATO QUE QUIERA..

YA YO VOTE....SOY REPUBLICANA Y VOTE' ya POR McCAIN (mi vecino es negro y vino hace un rato a presentar su pena por lo que me paso hoy que me pusieron letreros contra Mc Cain en mi patio delantero y mi carro, el no esta de acuerdo con este vandalismo, y nos abrazamos, pues el y yo dijimos que la amistad no debe perderse por diferencias politicas, no vale la pena, Ojala mucha gente supiera respetar esta division de familias y amigos, que ya paso en Cuba...

Que Dios bendiga a America