Strategic Chocolate Production

The buzz is to imagine that Cadbury is a strategic industry, outdoing for once the French protectionist habit of banging their national spoons on their national high chairs. Strategic yogurt production degenerates into the ridiculous.

Given that Cadbury has courted every offer it’s gotten for what seems like half a year, (first with Hershey and now with Kraft,) it seems rather clear that the new European league table competition is temperamentally resorting to whining when a financial gambit gets tricky.

How About this for a Trip through the Wayback Machine ?

Although I’m still trying to wrap my brain around this strange German fetish.

And the Meme Goes on

Dissipating even in the usual quarters, ”Occupation fever” is still all the rage at Le Monde. It’s grown obsessive enough that Sarkozy is being accused of giving in to the imaginary dialogue French sentiment thinks it’s having with “Barak”

Mr Sarkozy puts the emphasis on the international conference he wants to call, even if the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who wants to work step by step, openly thought the idea premature. M. Sarkozy avait annoncé au début du drame qu'il se rendrait en Haïti "dans quelques semaines" . Mr Sarkozy had announced earlier that he would address Haiti "in a few weeks".

Presumably to appear to be doing a great deal by “calling a conference”, even if you’re trying to look like you’re being caring and generous on the evidence of other peoples’ resources.Les liens historiques entre la France et Haïti ne figurent pas en haut de la liste des priorités de Barack Obama .

But following closely is the most absurdly arrogant thing I’ve ever heard:

The historical ties between France and Haiti are not top of the priority list of Barack Obama. Le président américain est peu tourné vers l'Europe. The U.S. president is not facing Europe. Il a fait d'Haïti une cause du continent américain. He has made Haiti an issue of the American continent. Sans être mauvaise, sa relation personnelle avec M. Sarkozy n'est pas excellente. While not bad, his personal relationship with Mr. Sarkozy is not excellent. Mardi, une source gouvernementale brésilienne déclarait à l'AFP que Barack Obama avait suggéré au président brésilien Lula da Silva que les Etats-Unis, le Brésil et le Canada assument "le leadership de la coordination des donateurs" . On Tuesday, a Brazilian government source told AFP that Barack Obama had suggested to the Brazilian President Lula da Silva that the United States, Brazil and Canada assume "the leadership of donor coordination. Pas un mot sur la France. Not a word about France.

Tailoring policy to the historical ties between Haiti and France, especially when the relationship was that of operating is as a slave colony, are assumed to be an American responsibility in the middle of dealing with a humanitarian crisis.

Apparently, the only way to make the crocodile tears go away, is for the US to help Haiti less so as to alleviate the misery of the Élysee on the pretext of constructing maximum PR Kumbaya. If they feel that so strongly about their connection with Haiti, why don’t they put that energy into helping Haiti instead of baiting the United States? Simple: the French public has thought rarely of and cared little for Haiti normally, except as a tourist destination where part of the entertainment involves getting a giggle out of the Creole language. The ties aren’t that strong, even with the sure-to-be forthcoming declaration that “we’re all Haitian”.

The Le Monde reader commentary, on the other hand, ranges from kind to feral to foggy, with blatherings of the sort that reflects on opinions and outburst as their assumed basis in fact.

Still, it’s strange that even the Haitians are very afraid of this American influence, especially since it seems that Americans are more preoccupied with putting their men to distributing water and food. Go to the U.S. sites and you'll see.

How DARE they undermine these people by making them dependant on their food and water! And look at that website! They’re claiming to NOT be doing what we say they are!

However it should come as no surprise to see that in large part the sacrifices nations make to aid those in need are seen as nothing more than a great game, one that needs to be one for no reason other than megalomaniacal fantasies of world domination that too many Europeans harbor with no explanation of purpose. They just want to tap Mami because they want to tell themselves that they can.

There’s only one option to act big and to live up to the Americans diplomatically and operationally: Europe. No offense to adherents of the "Grande Nation", but this requires compromise. Otherwise we choose to stay pure, independent and go unheard.

Who knew that the tragedy of the Haitians could ever be all about them! So much so, that outsourcing their inaction to the other Europeans becomes an option - with the hope that it will make them fit the strange obsession found widely that they should be some kind of masters of the universe.

It has absolutely nothing to do with wanting to make an effort to be effective and helpful in the world, it is clearly a fascination with having power over others, such as it was with the notion of a French rider on a German Horse, thinking that the horse would willingly by ridden.

Much in the way a portrait becomes a mirror, it explains the clinging to the obsessions they have about American capacity to act being malevolent. That invective is symptom of the accuser’s world view. That they can align with the opinions of unworkable notions of “world peace” is nearly irrelevant. The objective is not bearing responsibility or the satisfaction of putting an effort into doing what you can for the sake of the world, it’s to seek the thrill of having some kind of power over people who don’t look or sound like you.

Debate on France 24 — Obama : la claque

Debate on France 24 concerning the slap handed to Barack Obama.

The debaters on either side of Antoine Cormery:

Yannick MIREUR, Directeur de la revue Politique Américaine et auteur de « Après Bush, pourquoi l’Amérique ne changera pas »

Erik SVANE, membre de Republicans Abroad France et auteur de "La Bannière Étalée"

Jake LAMAR, Ecrivain, Membre de Democrats Abroad France et auteur de “Bourgeois Blues”

Pascal RICHÉ, Rédacteur en Chef de rue89 et ancien correspondant de Libération à Washington (2000-2006)

The two parts of the debate can be seen on France 24, or they can be viewed on YouTube (1000 mercis à Hervé).

A Burning Need to Maintain their Gross National Moral Vanity

"Clinton found it possible to go to Haiti, and I think that the European Union has to be there on the spot. Not just in the sidelines."

- Daniel Cohn-Bendit, identifying the
value Haitian misery has to Europe

Despite Joyandet’s “constructive” criticism and implausible image recovery effort, the reflexive complainers are still given to complain that the Americans aiding in the operation of the airfield at Port-au-Prince are “killing people” by cruelly forcing to pause the landing of 2 aircraft from Mexico, 1 from Argentina, and 1 from France. They have, in fact, been forced to land grandstanders of every sort who are jamming the very limited capacity of the field with “inspection visit” photo ops.

Those drawing away the air field’s capacity have included this quickly found sample:

EU international policy Manchurian candidate Baroness Ashton, who was rushed there to lend “visibility” to the EU.

- Understanding little more than his tiny world, French ‘International Cooperation’ Minister Alain “go with the stock accusation” Joyandet himself, who returned on 16-January to the nation popular among the French as a tourist destination.

- Unintelligible über-twit John Conyers, D-Michigan, on 15-January, quicker than the aftershocks, presumably finding facts that 12000 civil servants and troops cannot find without his stunning skills.

- EU's development commissioner, Karel De Gucht, despite the fact that there is nothing there to develop yet, other than potential rioting, and a need to maintain appearance of involvement, jammed tarmac notwithstanding.

- Ban Ki Moon, parachuted in despite having 9000 UN personnel in place even prior to the quake. Many of whom were rescued by the 82nd Airborne, and other fixations of “occupation” narrative.

- A Lebanese Foreign Ministry guy who somehow got there in time to “receive a Lebanese delegation” bringing aid, but only for their own nationals and those of Lebanese heritage.

- Jamaica's football Captain Horace Burrell representing FIFA.

Etcetera, and so forth with the critical fact finding disaster tourism that couldn’t possibly be getting in the way of aid flying in.

Haiti by the Numbers: Governments’ Aid

Having quickly swept through the data as the UN has provided it as of Tuesday, the 19th, the extent to which EU member states are rendering aid to Haitians should give the rather predictable European critics of the US pause.

EU member state governments: $119,895,596, or $0.27 per head of population, or 49.36% of that of the US government with $163,905,019, or $0.54 per capita. This does not include American aid in kind which was last indicated to be in the area of 12000 civilian and military personnel, and rising rapidly, nor does it include the material support of feeding stations, field hospitals, aviation support, ships, helicopters, or heavy and light equipment.

The unfunded commitments, which history tells us we are likely to never see once Anderson Cooper stops trying to show off his pecs, are as follows:

EU member state governments: $89,016,697
The United States government: $150,000

It Takes a Village

...to turn a garden variety musicologist into a mass murderer.

During World War II, the famous German musicologist Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht belonged to the Feldgendarmerie division 683, which committed horrific murders on the Crimean peninsular [sic.]

You’ll likely not fail to note the “social cohesion measure” required to defeat the natural morality of formerly capable independent thinkers:

Various units were assigned to the operation. The process, which was at once collective and based on the division of labour, and in which all positions were in constant rotation, was obviously intended to vindicate the perpetrators. Feelings of individual guilt and responsibility could potentially be made to disappear within a large collective of perpetrators.

America is prepared to do the heavy lifting in Haiti, just as it has in Iraq, in the knowledge that it will not only be unappreciated, but denigrated

From the Daily Telegraph:

President Obama's ambition to improve the global image of the United States has some way to go if the response to America's aid operation in Haiti is anything to go by. Washington acted quickly and decisively within hours of the earthquake, mobilising its armed forces on a scale that no country in the world can match. "We have to be there for them in their hour of need," the President said.

This generous act of altruism has been greeted with extraordinary churlishness. America has been pilloried for not getting assistance to Haiti's people more quickly, as though the staggering logistical challenges posed by the disaster did not exist. It has been criticised for pouring in troops, yet without a strong security presence there was a danger of a descent into anarchy. And it has been vilified for daring to take a lead, in a country whose government is barely functioning, with Alain Joyandet, France's minister for "co-operation", levelling the ludicrous accusation that the US was "occupying" Haiti.

Such knee-jerk anti-Americanism is as predictable as it is depressing. Would the critics have preferred it if Washington had turned a blind eye? Of course not. It is to America's great credit that it is prepared to do the heavy lifting in Haiti, just as it has in Iraq and Afghanistan, in the knowledge that it will not only be unappreciated, but positively denigrated.

Compare this with the response to the disaster in the Arab states, where the US is so routinely reviled. Some of the poorest among them, such as Jordan and Lebanon, have sent assistance, as have the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. But Saudi Arabia, one of the world's wealthiest nations, has managed to send just a letter of condolence. As for Syria, which never misses an opportunity to denounce the iniquities of the Great Satan, it appears to have sent nothing at all.

Strictly Speaking Stalin was also the Man of Steel

In the familiar form of the colloquial character, Superman isn’t, per se, either a raving Socialist with Maoist tendencies, nor a degradingly bad south Asian film production.



It’s a bird! No, it’s a plane! No! They’re doing that ‘changing a lightbulb’ dance!

It’s actually hard to be sarcastic with some of this stuff. Besides, I always preferred those ‘change the lightbulb’ dance moves.

In France, Stalinist-style social engineering is not quite dead

Stalinist-style social engineering is not quite dead

opines Theodore Dalrymple in a FrontPage article about the grandes ecoles, the elite tertiary educational establishments such as the Polytechnique and the Ecole Nationale d’Administration that, since Napoleon’s time, have provided France with much of its business, government and cultural elite (merci à Monsieur Ben).

Indeed, it flourishes. … Admission to one of the grandes ecoles more or less guarantees the student a prosperous subsequent career. Entry is by competitive examination; and it has long been a proud boast of France that such entry is by ability rather than by social connection or political prominence, for talented young people from poor homes are given a state subsidy that allows them to attend. The openness of the grandes ecoles to talent from wherever in society it comes is taken as one of the great achievements of the French Revolution.

But the purely formal nature of equality of opportunity that the grandes ecoles exemplifies has recently come under attack led by no less a personage than the President of the Republic who, though nominally conservative, argues like any left-wing demagogue.

The students at the grandes ecoles are in fact overwhelmingly from the comfortable middle or upper-middle classes.

Suicide Rate in French Prisons Shows Little Sign of Abating

France's wave of prison suicides increased in 2009, says Le Monde.

Selon une étude de l'Institut national d'études démographiques publiée à la mi-décembre, la France détient le taux de suicides en prison le plus élevé de l'Europe des Quinze, en chiffres absolus et relatifs (20 suicides pour 10 000 détenus, moyenne annuelle entre 2002 et 2006).

At 7 pm, French Time, I Will Be Joining in a Debate on France 24 on Obama's First Year in Office and on the Massachusetts Election

Ce soir, à 19h heure continentale (one hour from now), je participe à un débat sur France 24 concernant la première année d’Obama et les élections au Massachusetts…

Mon ami Stu Haugen participe, quant à lui, à un débat en anglais…

(My own previous appearances on France 24 were in English too…)

Let’s Look at it in Essence

Last night, Bay Staters spoke for Americans when they pushed back against Revolutionary Crypto-Socialism, especially the Trotskyite-style chaos that Obama’s entourage have used to get us here.

Now the left can go back to forming grassy knoll theories about why they aren’t taken seriously, even by Democrats in a state like Massachusetts.

People are sick of having policy shoved down their throat only to be mocked as reactionary, patronized, and told that it’s good for them when they ask simple questions. The left has lost the faith of the overwhelming majority of the population in a matter of 8 months.

Listen to the Daughter of Massachusetts' New Senator!

And sing along!

The Usual Drip-feed of Back-handed Hatefulness Starts Again in Europe

I suspect that is has more to do with a unconscious maintaining of unsupportable illusions about self regard, wanting, more than anything, that they have a larger place in the world than they really do anything to deserve.

“Cooperation Minister” Alain Joyandet, a post only needed where one trying to repair generalized dysfunction, implied rather childishly that because they couldn’t wedge a French aircraft carrying a field hospital in right away, that the US military was “occupying Haiti”. This, of course fires up the usual nonsense you hear about some Europeans’ favorite straw man. So much so that the subtext does not need to be signaled to the public immune to the evidence of just WHO is supplying the bulk of assistance to Haiti and WHERE THEY COME FROM.

Clearly slamming the US with their inability to take, what is in effect, a cow-patch and magically give it the capacity of O’Hare.

Given that I heard today from CNBC's London business news operation an innumeration of who's gone into Haiti, mentioning EU and US GOVERNMENT donation PLEDGES, and that there are 9000 "UN aid workers" and 2000 Marines "on the way". No mention was made of those funny grey aircraft and ships from some unknown nation, or those 6500 men and women in green with US flags on their right shoulders from –gee, some unidentified nation- or the fact that the vast majority of aid is being provided by independent American charities and the US and Canadian militaries.

Also unmentioned the myriad of other national governments, militaries, and aid organizations that have poured in, even if the efforts are comparitively symbolic, the luvvies are usually fond of trying to mention something like the one aircraft of aid that thug autocrat Hugo Chavez sent -first-.

To correct CNBC London: far more than the 200 Marines mentioned are on the way, and the 6500 or the 7000 “UN troops” mentioned yesterday by Ban Ki Moon are American, “helmetized” to the omission of their origin in the press. Let’s hope that they can improve the image of the U.N. Peacekeeper

As to the attribution made to the United states, I didn't know that being there and not being there was concurrently possible.

I am also never surprised by the emotionalized crypto-political exploitation that props up in 'humanist circles' when Americans are being forthcoming, and their favored proxies and vessels of their inert hopes are failing miserably to do as is wished by their egos.

Amusingly we find a French poster at the Puffington Host who leaps to find in the usual fog of unrelated accusation about how “the US did nothing in Bosnia” and the Asian Tsunami disaster, sour grapes about France-bashing, as though there was no cause for it in the pleasure so many Europeans have shown to be taking in Joyandet’s comment.

As is usual with the likes of these folks, their interest in humanity is self-declared, the desire to respect the autonomy of cultures comes right out the next time you pull the ring on the doll’s back, and finally you have the statement “I’m a big fan of American politics” implying that they know a great deal about American society – more than Americans, should they ever try to explain it to her:

The US army is a lot about image, and posturing (see hollywood movies) but they lack of a good intelligence division.

See? It’s all right there in the MOVIES! Everything you ever wanted to know, (or want to assume is true)! See! See! Not only that, anything I happen to think is also about anything and everything else a fevered mind can relate to it!

We were right about Irak, our forces ar doing great in Somalia, our secret services has every terror plot dismantled here in France (and believe me we are at risk). Why? Because they do not brag, they do not posture and the get the job done.

They do NOT get the job done, and if the line above was not bragging of the “but I... I... THINK my imaginary American foil brags to my hateful satisfaction!”, do please clear up WHAT it’s meant to imply.

Further we find the near mechanical display of “let’s make this work one way” nonsense, where a “diverse” humanity is expected through the derision of people who name themselves “ImissKitten,” to think monolithically about life.

I'm a US political junkie, and I'm amazed by Americans poor judgment sometimes, but I respect you.
So stay classy.

She clearly does NOT respect people that she believes are so two-dimensional compared to herself that they are little different than characters in emotionally loaded characters in film fiction.

Let’s get this back into perspective. Many of the comments at the Grauniad, UK’s Telegraph, and Le Monde, imply that it’s a dispute or disagreement such and such is having with the U.S. It isn’t. It is the usual raft of cheap accusations aimed at the United States by armchair critics at the expense of the suffering.

Apologizer-in-Chief Feels the Need to Explain America's Quick Intervention in Haiti

Using the word "I" twice in the first six sentences of his Le Monde article, the Apologizer-in-Chief apologizes for America's (leadership) role and actions in Haiti. Because it is Barack Obama, of course, Le Monde's Corine Lesnes defends America's action in this case…

Humanity is Expected to Role-play for the Sake of the European Ego

”US Imposing it’s leadership”



The vision is ALWAYS about passive-aggressive hostility, even in a humanitarian crisis. Always, employing the ‘poor little me’ routine familiar to child psychology therapists treating emotional manipulative behaviour.

Elsewhere: Will the mindless fealty and lionization never end? Why not “Obama takes first hungover growler?” I think it’s time the residents of the 4th estate stop paying rent.

‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’ Research is Degenerating into ‘Aryan Science’

The world’s ‘best and brightest’ were to provide political leaders with the best science possible. The problem is that once it goes into the patronage mill of global NGOs and activists, what you get is the worst advise possible from social engineers with ulterior motives.

Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.

That this wild, unsupported allegation was previously obfuscated with the off-hand apologia that what they really meant was the year 2350 says more about the year zero authoritarianism hiding behind the friendly sounding ‘oopsie! My bad!’ that pops up every time anyone so much as scratches the surface of the allegations that mankind can somehow hack the climate into either destruction or has the leverage to alter it in the way these crackpots think.

In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC's 2007 report.

If these hypocrites want us to live like the Amish, they should probably abide by their example of having a low opinion of liars.

It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was "speculation" and was not supported by any formal research.

- 1999: spaghetti thrown at wall, allegation repeated in 2003 and 2005 by IPCC and WWF in the process or providing political leaders with the best science possible.
- 21 December 2009: claim debunked
9 January 2010: called ‘voodoo science’ in a slow, implausible covering action by IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri, Lord High Executioner of the carbon cult.

Does a Subscription to Le Monde Bring You a Gift Laced With Antisemitism?

Eric Fottorino has an interestion offer: Should you think that a young person in your inner circle might be interested in the news cycle, the Directeur of Le Monde suggests you enter a new subscription for a weekly edition of France's newspaper of reference, which contains "a synthesis of the major events as seen by Le Monde" and — this is important — which will allow for the ability "to follow, to analyze, and to understand the French and international news cycle from Le Monde's viewpoint".

Gifts are offered, depending on which subscription plan you choose: For a one-year subscription (52 numéros pour 84 Euros), the payer will get the six double-CD from the Monde de l'Opéra along with their booklets (La Gioconda by Ponchielli, Tristan et Isolde by Wagner, Roméo et Juliette by Gounod, and Don Giovanni, La Flûte Enchantée, and L'Enlèvement au Sérail by Mozart).



For a six-month subscription (26 numéros pour 55 Euros), one gets Plantu's Le Monde watch. But which cartoon is it that the face of the watch shows in this offer — which, to repeat, allows for the ability "to follow, to analyze, and to understand the … international news cycle from Le Monde's viewpoint"? If websites such as LePost.fr and Juif.org are to be believed, the cartoon, published on 11 October 2009, shows nothing less than "bloodthirsty Jews":

…tout ce qu’un Plantu a trouvé pour évoquer le prix Nobel (ridicule soit dit en passant) d’Obama [c'est] Obama entouré de colombes, un « palestinien » se réjouissant à moitié écrasé par un char, lui-même conduit par un Netanyahou grognon à l’idée de la paix. Non seulement Plantu ne comprend rien à la politique de la région, mais pire, il diffuse une image de l’israélien, le juif, amateur de guerre, de sang.

LePost.fr points out that the Palestinian in the cartoon — the average Palestinian? — is nothing but a child, a being of innocence,

un enfant palestinien portant un drapeau palestinien. L'enfant tout sourire adresse ses compliments à Obama porté par les colombes de la paix et volant au secours de l'enfant grâce à son Prix Nobel tout frais gagné.

One Year Ago this Week in Boboisme

According to Le Monde of January 17, 2009, the Airbus that landed in the Hudson River from New York was due to a bird-strike.



Nonetheless, that doesn’t stop the dimwitted from massaging their egos with their narrow obsessions: what Gaza has to do with ditching an airliner in NYC, it seems will remained the property of the artist’s fevered brow. It’s one thing to demand consistency in the symbolism that you end up being trained into a reaction over, another still to expect that all real-life expressions of that association with symbolism fit into any and every context it appears in.

P.S. - Condolences to Pat over his San Diego Chargers.

When all you have is Keynes, Everything Looks Like a Nail

Be a good lefty and do your best to keep people employed, especially in the public sector:

litter as much as you possibly can.

The Soviets' Unbelievable Cruelty Towards Civilians in the Afghan War

It may only be a token article for Le Monde, but still, it's nice to see the claims of Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s ambassador to NATO, punctured by Natalie Nougayrède:

[Au représentant de la Russie auprès de l'OTAN, Dmitri Rogozine,] de se lancer dans une formidable réécriture de l'Histoire : "Nous étions les premiers à défendre la civilisation occidentale contre les attaques des musulmans fanatiques. Personne ne nous a remerciés." Surtout pas les civils afghans ! Un million d'entre eux ont péri de 1979 à 1989, sur une population d'environ 20 millions d'habitants.

L'URSS a envahi unilatéralement l'Afghanistan et l'a dévasté. C'était un acte d'agression pure, pour étendre la sphère d'influence de Moscou. La guerre soviétique, par sa cruauté inouïe contre les civils, a poussé 5 millions d'Afghans à fuir vers l'étranger. Loin de le combattre, elle a nourri l'islamisme radical, semant les germes de nouvelles violences. L'URSS, selon nos auteurs, aurait évité d'employer la force aérienne contre des civils. Quel beau mensonge ! En réalité, c'étaient des tapis incessants de bombes sur les villages, à l'aveuglette.

MM. Rogozine et Gromov nous font une annonce tonitruante : "en cas de fiasco de l'OTAN", la Russie "et ses alliés en Asie centrale" seraient prêts à déployer en Afghanistan une "force de réaction rapide". On reste songeur.

Flight to Freedom Noted

When they aren’t generally howling about American “shredding the constitution” the proclivities of those societies that wallow in that kind of criticism of America is almost too predictable to be believed.

Former Portuguese air force officer and professor Vasco de Castro sees in his Portugal a corruption so pervasive that he names his critique of it "Tudo em Família" or “All in the Family.”

So corrupt, in fact, that he didn’t feel comfortable publishing in on the continent:

That’s why, many people, if not all the people, will wonder why this book is being published in the USA and by an American publisher, when it’s written in Portuguese, about Portugal’s social-political matters and obviously addressed to a Portuguese speaking audience?

Although this unreal situation could also lead to a confusing answer, the explanation is in fact quite simple and understandable: censorship in Portugal is a common procedure to silence criticisms that aren’t based in speculations or general accusations which do not identify anyone in particular, as frequently done by the media in general. Indeed, even if Portuguese law condemns today any form of censorship, it’s a known fact that censorship still exists, although by less frontal means and ways than those used during Salazar’s dictatorship.

Ask any responsible and honest publisher and they will tell you how it’s almost impossible to survive in this poor and still illiterate country, without the contracts with sponsored government institutions, the cultural subsidies, etc.

As sad as it is, it would matter little to the larger world were it not for the way a patronage culture of censorship and corruption could not readily find itself at the center of a budding political power that is the EU, one given to lauding it’s implausible and unproven infallibility in so many for a where it stacks the deck with its’ numerous now-statelets maintained on the thin logic that the member states remain sovereign when it suits them.

Unfortunately the events related in this book did not take place in USA, where a judge who is found guilty of a crime is judged and punished as any other citizen.

No, in Portugal, to even think possible that a former President could be subjected to an investigation for so serious an accusation as diamond trafficking - as a Minister of Angola charged M. Mário Soares - is almost as unimaginable as to realize that President Clinton risked impeachment, just because he lied about his own and private sex life.

Something we are still told is a prudish reaction and “no big deal”, when it was about the core of all flaws that make trusted elected leaders into untrusted “overseers”... lie-ing to the public and to institutions of justice, as if those things that could be thought to be small crimes were not crimes at all. The principal of right and wrong is in jeopardy.

Massachusetts Miracle

(Thank you to Val)