Elections 2008: Democrazy

In Francesco Vezzoli's new movie, Jim Mulhall helps Bernard-Henri Lévy run as a Democratic candidate for the presidency of the United States in 2008, thus fulfilling the leftist Europeans' dream of having someone like-minded in the White House… (BHL's opponent: Sharon Stone!)

Jim Mulhall : Nous nous sommes placés dans le contexte d'une vraie campagne. Aux Etats-Unis, quand un candidat se lance, on lui explique en quoi va consister la course. C'est ce qu'on a essayé de faire avec Bernard : "OK, tu veux être président, voilà ce que tu dois faire pour plaire aux électeurs américains." En même temps, c'était bien d'avoir le regard de Francesco sur la manière dont on conduit une campagne politique. Un oeil critique, c'était important pour nous. … Un président américain doit organiser sa biographie pour qu'elle fasse sens. On a choisi des images très spécifiques, qui caractérisent un candidat démocrate moderne pour conduire une Amérique moderne. L'opposition à la guerre en Irak, mais en étant fort et sans concession sur la sécurité, pour ne pas laisser aux républicains le monopole du drapeau. Bernard a certains points dans sa biographie qui rappellent ces valeurs.

One hit wonder

Ses histoires de fesses flasques ont eu raison de son assise au sein du PS.

Where’s Dick Marty?

I wonder, will the EU’s secretive “Security Clearinghouse” get Dicked? He’s got to stop this immediately!

The group - which was set up in reaction to the 9/11 attacks in the US - is part of the EU's common foreign and security policy branch, with a December 2001 EU "common position" mandating that "information shall be exchanged between member states" to help curb terrorist financing.

Clearing House does not appear on any official EU listings of "working groups" - standard meetings of mid-ranking EU diplomats, which pre-agree EU decisions before they are adopted by EU ambassadors and, later down the line, rubber-stamped by EU ministers.

Then again, look at the part they want to make civilly “political”:

The group's main job is to decide, every six months or so, who should be on the EU's terrorist register and have their financial assets frozen, with the group meeting sometime this week to finalise contents of the next terror list before its formal adoption in early July.

What say, old bean? Do they get the treatment?

Sarkozy's "embedded spokesman"

"Pendant des années, j'ai biberonné du Madelin. A droite, c'était le seul qui moulinait vraiment. Mais j'ai compris qu'il n'aurait jamais le pouvoir, et Sarkozy m'a guéri de mon libéralisme théocratique."

The person in charge of Nicolas Sarkozy's communication department (aka the president's spokesman), explains Philippe Ridet in a page-long portrait, is David Martinon, a former deputy spokesman to foreign minister Hubert Védrine as well as a person once close to Alain Madelin until he understood that the closest thing in France to a free-market ideology would never gain power…

BitchGate

Given current usage, "bitch" is not strong enough of a translation into American English. I'd go with "cunt".

Shamnesty International

The NGO that's got to go.

BBC: Beach Break Channel

Flotsam and jetsam.

All the Same Buzzwords

From Pétain to PS



“European framework,” “tied to the land,” “struggle of the worker” – none of the arguments seems to change.

The Lisbon Strategy is working splendidly

"For anyone whose dream is still some ideal of European unity, the mere fact that each competing camp won at this summit was, of itself, a defeat."

From Chicago to Bercy

"En une minute, j'ai compris que l'immense liberté dont j'avais bénéficié, comme patronne d'un groupe d'avocats autonome, était restée au bord du lac à Chicago."

Coming to France's finance ministry, writes Marion Van Renterghem, is Christine Lagarde, who was "chairman" of the Baker & McKenzie law firm in Illinois.

One thing to notice in the piece is that although she lived, and worked, for umpteen years in America, no American, coworker or other, is interviewed about Christine Lagarde; in typical Gallic journalistic fashion, only Frenchmen (and -women) are. (As usual, only those lucid beings can be counted on to say anything profound.)

The Generosity of Europe's Solidaristic Health Care Systems

In yet another example of ultra-successful health care program in a society whose legendary generosity, solidarity, avant-gardism that Michael Moore's Sicko was correct to praise over the rooftops (although French officials might simply be James Bond fans), we learn from Robert Solé that an invalid by the name of Jean-Claude Paris will be taken in charge for a daily amount of 700, no, 70 Euros (uh, wait a minute, lemme check that amount again)…

Typical French family gathering

Encore un qui voulait voter Hollande. Some unemployed loser who dressed up like a woman and prostituted himself wound up getting snuffed by his main squeeze. Vive la Fwance !

Qu'ils crèvent tous la gueule ouverte dans leur propre merde

57% of those animals that are called Palestinians have a favorable view of Bin Laden.

Wall Street Poet

Jules Crittenden asks "I wonder if al-Qaeda plans to put out any of Daniel Pearl’s haiku?" Terrorist detainees scratch rubbishy gibberish into styrofoam cups and find a US university press to gush over the stuff. Around the same time, an acknowledged American poet has to go to a French language publisher to be read.



More terrorist poetry here ...

Money in the Bank?

Who would put their money elsewhere than in Fwance?

Moral high ground

The Germans don't have it and wouldn't recognize it if it bit them in their EUtopic asses.

If They Want To Count Corpses, Why Not Count These Too?

Hint: not civilians.

EUtopia at its Best

A spate of purple helmet stories can’t be far off:

Leading NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged the EU and NATO to make its future peacekeeping operations in Kosovo subject to law, after a string of failures by existing "accountability" structures to investigate allegations of criminal behaviour by international personnel.

By “law” they seem to mean something they’d have a hand in writing, of course. That no-one ever elected HRW doesn’t seem to register any more in this one of their imperious declarations as any other one they’ve issues.

The EU effort - the biggest of its kind in the union's history - is to see 1,600 policemen and 72 civilian officials deploy in January, if UN talks on Kosovo's status end quickly. An EU preparatory office in Pristina - the EUPT - began work in April with 40 staff but has now grown to over 200 personnel, reports indicate.

The EU policemen will be supported by 16,000 soldiers drawn from 35 countries, including the US, Turkey and Ukraine, as well as most EU states. The military force - currently called KFOR - is under NATO command and has already been working alongside UNMIK since the end of the civil war eight years ago.

And to think that if deploying 1600 cops in their own back-yard for their own security isn’t a giant sacrifice in the interest of people in, say, South Africa and Thailand, imagine that it needs an “international” coalitions of 16 000 soldiers to back it up. 10 to 1, even when we all know that violence never solved anything!

But a fresh HRW report out Thursday (14 June) suggests the system is breaking down. In February 2006 the Ombudsperson lost his mandate to oversee international bodies. The human rights panel has not yet started work. The oversight committee last met in 2004. The UNMIK commission has been invisible so far.

Yup. You read that right: the controlling authority is being deemed by an NGO to be illegitimate to oversee and apply the law to alphabet soup “International bodies” and NGOs.

A two-state solution: just give up and let the NGOs administer the EU. Barring that, I’m sure temporary administration of the EU’s back yard by the UN might calm EUvian nerves over the state of their own administrative capacity. I suppose the wet dream for them would be blue helmets keeping the peace in Brussels, with all of its’ attendant zen and good PR juju.

Une "catastrophe sanitaire" et une "Omerta" : "L'hôpital a eu du mal à avouer ses bêtises"

"L'erreur, on peut la comprendre, même la pardonner, mais ce qui est inadmissible, c'est que rien n'a été fait pour soigner mon père. L'hôpital savait mais ne lui a donné aucune chance pour s'en sortir"

"On m'a menti" : Sandrine Blanchard has an article about the type of ultra-successful health care program that French government authorities didn't brag to Michael Moore about and that "Sicko" didn't tell the members of Michael Moore's fan club about. "Vous comprenez, dit [Jean-Luc Genay], l'hôpital Jean-Monnet a caché trop de choses, ils ont menti, alors on ne fait plus confiance."

Une "catastrophe sanitaire", a reconnu, le 8 juin, Roselyne Bachelot, la nouvelle ministre de la santé, dans un entretien accordé au Parisien. Un radiophysicien qui modifie le protocole de radiothérapie et se trompe dans le paramétrage, des médecins radiothérapeutes qui minimisent les plaintes des malades en les attribuant à des "complications classiques", des autorités locales qui ne mesurent pas l'ampleur de la crise... cette affaire comporte une chaîne incroyable d'erreurs et de défaillances.

…"Tout ça, c'est à cause d'un manque de personnel pour faire fonctionner ce genre d'appareil, pense-t-il. Les machines, elles sont de plus en plus sophistiquées mais il faut des hommes pour les utiliser."

…"C'est un péché d'orgueil de la part des médecins", considère M. Colombel. Mal suivis, peu écoutés, les malades "sont restés livrés à eux-mêmes", souligne l'IGAS. Solange Didierlaurent le confirme avec rage : "On a été abandonnés." Son père, âgé de 84 ans, est mort il y a quelques semaines.

…cette affaire dramatique est "révélatrice d'un dysfonctionnement dans la prise en charge de la souffrance des patients et d'un manque de démarche qualité". De son côté, M^e Welzer parle d'un "dossier emblématique" qui illustre "la chape de plomb qui prévaut sur les erreurs médicales".

Le Monde Critic Eats Bad Mushrooms, Survives

Despite the fuss over prices. the critics have given Streisand, 65, a warm reception. Le Monde's review said that carping over ticket costs was an injustice where the New York diva was concerned. "Streisand is a work of art. She is Broadway, love, la fête, perfection. She has absolute mastery of the stage and the talent and professionalism that demonstrate the power of America and the feebleness of the rest of the world,” said le Monde