"Letters to the Editor" — Why We Blog

Why am I so angry, asks Louis angrily of me in a first comment that the discontented reader left on one recent post. And, indeed, am I angry at all?
[For those who already have read this, his second comment is answered 12 paragraphs below.)

I wouldn't describe myself as angry, but let me say that the answer has to do with injustice, double standards, and the injustice of double standards.

I do not like the injustice of the French press covering the 60th anniversary of D-Day, while downplaying the contribution of the Americans, the foremost country involved in Western Europe's fighting from 1944 to 1945.

I do not like the injustice of covering the negative news in Iraq and totally ignoring not only the positive news but the views and emotions of the Iraqi people.

I do not like the double standards of attacking Bush on his every position (or absence thereof), often with vigor and while speaking loftily of principles, while having nothing to say about the shenanigans of the members of the peace camp or the United Nations.

I do not like the double standards of speaking with contempt and condescension of George W (while calling any attempt to bring some sensible arguments to the debate as being nothing less than asking "the entire French populace [to sign] a fealty oath to [that] frat-boy overlord") while having no emotions (bad or even mixed) about, or policies opposing, even slightly, Putin, Hu, Mugabe, and (last but not least) Saddam Hussein.

If you think that "dissatisfaction with U.S. policy in Europe and elsewhere is rarely, if ever, expressed with the belligerence and vitriol of the attacks on 'France' and the 'Euroweenies' from the American right", then I can only conclude that you are blind or seriously deluded. What you call "dissatisfaction" is like I said before, a mix of contempt, condescension, mockery, and arrogance, the kind of which is visible in your comment about that "frat-boy overlord George W" and which is likewise never (as I also just said) applied (including by yourself) to any other leader…

Yes, I do call such types of injustice and double standards anti-Americanism, and I find it hard for any individual to honestly conclude it is anything else. As it happens (and this'll make you laugh), I believe that "the belligerence and vitriol of the attacks on 'France' and the 'Euroweenies'" is related to, yes, Americans' greater sensibility. Greater devotion to justice and fairness and a greater sensibility to the absence thereof.

About seeing "anti-Americanism everywhere", a Swiss friend recently asked me if I didn't think I was exaggerrating with all my posts (and those of the other webmasters); I answered the truth: we don't invent anything or set anything up — we react to what we see, hear, and read in the media and in society, and if there is so much to react to, the fault can hardly be attributed to us.

As for the getting glances from women (French or otherwise), let me just say that I don't think I ever had much to complain about…

I will add that what you seem to be doing is applying the same tired tactic from people of the left, which is to make personal attacks, in your case calling supposed adversaries angry, paranoid, (sexually) frustrated, etc, not to speak of suggesting they can only be the vassals of Dubya…

French-speakers (and -readers) can read a more developed explanation here.

Oh, and by the way, I already addressed the draft-age comment (along with attendant "enlist or shut up" spiel).

This answer brought up another message from Louis:

In this post you relate France's honoring of Americans with the Legion of Honor to anti-Americanism somehow. Why?

Because, like I said, when observing events, it is necessary to take a step back to get a larger view and put the events into context. When, for instance, you hear, or see, an autocrat say he is willing to cooperate in the hunt for WMD, you cannot just take this as proof of good faith and positive intentions, but you have to take into account whether (and how much) he has been cooperative in the past, whether he ever tried to build weapons of mass destruction in the past, whether he used same on his enemies, foreign or domestic, and how trustworthy he has shown himself to be. Trust, but verify. Sometimes one makes mistakes, but better safe than sorry…

Louis later claims that an American government official (Bush) is doing nothing more than putting on on "an act" — why can't it be said when (if) a French government official or decision is, from the face of it, an act?

Like I said, I was about to post the news item verbatim, until I remembered how the press covered the 60th anniversary of D-Day last summer (more below). And if it is fair for people and media outlets opposed to members of the Bush administration to point out inconsistencies in their speeches and deeds, is it not fair for me to add, from an objective point of view, how often French deeds turn out to have been self-serving? Is it not always said, "We are not against the American people, we are only against Bush"? Here, double standards prevail as well, because you obviously cannot be against the Chirac administration's foreign policy (or the general atmosphere prevailing at le quai d'Orsay) without being against France…

Besides, aren't you always saying, "Vous croyez tout ce que l'on vous dit? Do you believe everything the officials say? Don't you know you shouldn't trust politicians? Don't you know that leaders are liars and treacherous?" It turns out that this skepticism and this cynicism should only and always be directed at Uncle Sam, because when countries opposed to Washington say, and/or do, what seems to be positive things, then this can only be taken as proof of their generous intentions and their openness and honesty. And any skepticism as to that is immediately rendered as acting with obsessive bitterness and in bad faith.

The so-called "French press" (aka, one article you read somewhere) hasn't exactly re-written history on D-Day.

The "one" article? This would seem to prove that you neither follow the French press nor our links (or that you minimize and relativize everybody's (mis)deeds, except those involving Uncle Sam). The general attitude, throughout the totality of the French press, from June to August and beyond (nary a word on the Battle of the Bulge), was a belittlement of the contributions of the Americans.

There may have been exceptions, but that was the general mood in all of France. And in any case, what little description of the Americans' heroism there was, was invariably compared unfavorably with Washington's foreign policy today.

Of course, I would hope that nobody has forgotten that in June 1964, President Charles de Gaulle refused to attend the ceremony commemorating the 20th anniversary of the D-Day landings (a decision which one school textbook (!) heralded as his "spectacular" feat), n'est-ce pas?

(By the way, the French did participate in the advance on Nazi Germany — all French history books make a point of honor of pointing out that Gaullist France fought against the Nazis, at least in the last part of the war, and was one of the main four victors — and the French press did make a brouhaha about the Warsaw uprising (involving nobody but Poles, Germans, and Soviets); so do not simply brush away statements that the fighting at Bastogne being hardly mentioned in the French press is due only to a French absence in the campaign.)

They didn't exactly dynamite the museum at the Pointe du Hoc.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no museum at the Pointe du Hoc. I also note that (and this is typical in some european circles) in your eagerness to counter-attack and to depict me as a Bush-loving nut who is invariably anti-French (effectively trying to destroy my credibility), you deliberately ignore those of my comments which can only be described as positive ("I have never failed to put the failures of the French military — real or imagined, supposed defeats or the failure to even show up — mostly on the back of French politicians").

And if I recall it's in American conservative circles that I often heard the call to disinter and repatriate the American soldiers buried in France -- for what? Because De Villepin wanted to let the inspectors finish? Because France was opposed to an ill-conceived war, the rationale for which has been changed multiple times in the interim?

You put it so nicely: "De Villepin wanted to let the inspectors finish", "France was opposed to [a] war", ill-conceived or not. Which many others wanted and were. But what France, and Villepin did, was go far further in their words and their actions, and the entire population participated in the denigration not only of Bush (if not of America) but all his allies in the coalition of the willing, which became the poodles, the messenger boys, etc, etc… What you put so diplomatically was, rather, filled with condescension, castigation, and snobbishness.

This illustrious French writer says as much here (And this time, please follow the link, Louis — merci.) That condescending tone of voice and that attitude, in which France "transformed itself into an anti-American propaganda relay station" (and in which it voiced its contempt for its fellow EU members), I believe and unless I am mistaken, was what made certain Americans talk about repatriating the fallen of Normandy.

As for rationales changing multiple times, I would be a lot more sensitive to your arguments if you applied the same standards to the "peace camp". First, they oppose the United States because the war would cost tens of thousands of lives and go on for months while millions of refugees would starve as they lined the roads from Baghdad, the battle which could only turn into "Saddamgrad", a bloodbath comparable to Stalingrad; then, we knew all along Saddam had no WMD; then, the main goal of the crisis became to get the occupying foreign troops out; then, the entire Iraqi population was rising in resistance; then, Arabs and/or Muslims aren't capable of voting; then, what will we do if, as expected, the Shi'ites win the elections and won't America suffer for it; and now (my favorite), the new Iraqi government risks being too weak! And throughout it all, the line, "Ah oui, we predicted tragedy, we were right all along, you should have listened to us…"

Injustice? Hypocrisy? Of the European elite. Of the American administration. I only wish you were a little more balanced. I wish I understood what all the mockery of France was for, what you hope to accomplish. Is the French press exactly kind to Chirac?

With regards to foreign affairs, yes! Definitely! While most of the criticism you mention about Bush originates from within the United States and her media, hardly any of France's foreign policy originates there, and a conversation in which one doesn't give in to the Bush-bashers invariably ends with the knee-jerk reply calling the offender "anti-French" or otherwise clueless or fascistic (typical response: "Mais vous n'êtes pas pro-Bush, quand même?!")…

Why do you want so badly for me, or anyone else, to take George W. Bush seriously?

As it happens, I have written a post in which I argued that Bush may be be the worst politician in the world (thank you for following the hyperlink…)

No, Louis, I do not expect you to take Dubya seriously. I expect you to treat Dubya fairly. And not in his interest, but in yours. For you to rail about Dubya's sins, while ignoring (relatively speaking) those (often far worse) of, say, Chirac, Putin, Hu (an example here), Mugabe, the "peace camp", and Saddam Hussein himself is your loss, intellectually speaking, not Dubya's (or America's) and gives you, in my opinion, a skewered view of the world (one in which America and capitalism are always caricatured, always playing the role of the worst offenders and the most dangerous threats and in which it is always those who remain skeptical of this point of view and who point out the double standadrds involved who are charged with acting with obsessive bitterness and in bad faith)…

Electoral politics in America and France are equally craven.

Perhaps, but the media and the citizenry in America — contrary to the self-serving legend always circulating in Europe about goose-stepping media outlets and uncouth, clueless citizens — are far more willing to be critical, and far more likely to be aware of criticism which their leaders are facing. This in contrast to, say, the food-for-oil scandal and the business dealings of the "peace camp", which French citizens and media alike dismiss out of hand of being of little interest.

If you can willingly point out Chirac's vain and flatulent oratory, why can't you handle people mocking Bush's pseudo-populism and proud anti-intellectualism?

The point of No Pasaran, in my mind, is less to "point out Chirac's vain and flatulent oratory" than to point out a media, a populace, and a culture which is unwilling to challenge that oratory, at least when it concerns foreign policy, especially when that foreign policy entails opposing the big, bad bogeyman… I am all for people, pundits, and politicians mocking any American leaders' pseudo-populism (as I am all for their opposing wars), but not when it entails double standards (the type of which Revel describes here).

If he doesn't look a little ridiculous to you with his pandering cowboy act (and it is an act), AT LEAST as ridiculous as Chirac (and that's pretty ridiculous), then we don't live in the same universe.

Yes, Bush is the most ridiculous-looking politician in the world (except for…)

What's the purpose of all this? Why would you live there if it's all so contemptible to you? I love France. I love Paris now. I love how scared you are of the kids from the cites. I love going to concerts out there and hearing the newest hip-hop from the 94... maybe you just can't connect, and that's why you're afraid. I live in New York, in the shadow of terrorism every day, and I'm not scared. Is that the difference between us?

"What's the purpose of all this?" I answered in my previous comment: I do not like injustice and double standards. As I said before, you take comments based on objective observations and turn them into evidence of personal defects (anger, fear, frustration, paranoia, racism, mentally challenged, brainless, vassals, poodles, acting with obsessive bitterness and in bad faith, fascists, etc) while pointing out, indirectly, to your own courage and joie de vivre — a type of self-serving opinion which, incidentally, can be included in the very type of injustice and double standards this blog is determined to expose.

I will add this: I happen to consider that this blog, and the family of blogs that write in the same spirit (see the blogroll), are very fact-oriented, based on objective observations, and that opinions are not taken lightly. When W points out that the French media play the race card inappropriately (to say the least), he doesn't do so without good reason, and he argues, he shows, he demonstrates, he proves, so to speak, what leads him to say so.

In that perspective, what is extremely odd is that people like Louis, Thierry, Rémy, and anti remain largely absent from any type of debate — on issues central to the opposition to Bush such as this one — until something tendentious, or something that can be given a tendentious ring, comes up. Then they let loose, (and I don't mean to be rude), they all flock down, like vultures upon a carcass, as if they had passed the message around, and retreat to their places of hiding until the next ever-so-slightly tendentious piece comes up. It gives you the distinct impression that they do not visit blogs or browse the web to learn anything — indeed, they don't even live life to debate and learn anything new or for any intellectual challenges — they just act, and crusade, to defend their (self-serving) biases and preconceptions…

Michael Jordan and the American Way of Doing Things

Today is the birthday of Michael Jordan (1963- ), the American Basketball Player who said (the two top quotes seem especially destined for our European brethren and their governments):

I never looked at the consequences of missing a big shot... when you think about the consequences you always think of a negative result.

If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you never will change the outcome.

I never thought a role model should be negative.

I can accept failure, but I can't accept not trying.

I play to win, whether during practice or a real game. And I will not let anything get in the way of me and my competitive enthusiasm to win.

I realize that I'm black, but I like to be viewed as a person, and this is everybody's wish.

I've always believed that if you put in the work, the results will come. I don't do things half-heartedly. Because I know if I do, then I can expect half-hearted results.

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

If you're trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I've had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

Satire is inadequate

Nuclear debutant uses the wanker defense.

Monty-python-esque

Must have been in honour of his valiant defense from this amphibious attack.

Getting nowhere fast

Socialist management of reasearch and medicine can only produce mediocraty and shortfall which kill people.

Even for statist western Europe there are alternatives that have worked for nearly a century.

Bitch slapped by the Invisible Hand	Pédaloïdes giflés comme de salopes par La Main Invisible
The power of free markets is displayed to Green pansies.	La puissance du marché libre est démontré pour des pédaloïdes Verts.

No linkage…

MEMRI TV Project special report - commander of Saddam Hussein's ‘Army of Muhammad’ confesses: We received money and arms from Syria and Iran. No linkage… no linkage… They also have an report on a Lebanese journalist regurgitating forged Nazi nonsense about the Franklin, Jefferson and the other founders of the American Constitution being Anti-Semetic. Never mind the fact that Benjamin Franklin lived 200 meters from the first synagogue in the North America.

Muslims at hate website celebrate murders of the Coptic family - don’t mind the man behind the curtain, there is no hatred here….

Go North - they have short memories...

Alain Juppé, (stop laughing!) discredited political moron, has been asked to teach in Quebec. They’re already very good at anything he could possibly teach them about sleazy politics.
Kevin Jaeger clues us in on the barely mentioned fact that he is being asked to teach at the ENAP (Ecole Nationale D’Administration Publique.)

Who owes who?, and for what?

Helle Dale opines on US-EU relations and EU arms sales to china. Doesn't the EU realize that they can only give away the farm ONCE? The fact that all the effective assets in the Iranian Navy and Air Force are Russian, French, and German should not be lost on President Bush as he travels to Europe to mend relations that the Euros made such a huge effort to sabotage.

"Europeans, however, have so far grudgingly agreed to dispatch a small number of trainers to help with the Iraqi police under NATO auspices, though where they will be allowed to conduct their instruction is still uncertain. The French government persists in the absurd opinion that the place cannot be Iraq.

"A far more meaningful gesture of good will would be for the EU to listen to American concerns over China's arms build-up, and to step back from a really
bad decision. Since the Tiananmen massacre in 1989, both the United States and the EU have had arms embargos in place against China (the American far more stringent than the European). It is the EU's plan to lift its embargo by June, according to EU Foreign Affairs High Commissioner Javier Solana.

Look up, say cheese

Iran accuses the US of using spy drones to spy on them. If that's really the case, fine... We still have these fine folks on the job since 1970.
As if one didn't need to keep an eye on the whacky irregulars, the IIRG, who kidnapped British troops against the orders of the Iranian government.

Treffpunkt Mainz!

Go to Medienkritik Online or David's Medienkritik for more details.

Europe is on the fritz	L'Europe est HS
There's no more signal.	Y a plus d'image.

The French people's dearest wish	Le voeu le plus cher aux franchouilles
A "new attack" by terrorists inside the United States?	Une "nouvelle attaque" terroriste aux Etats-Unis?

Small Dead Animals more insightful than Canadian Liberals

Kate at SDA reports on the Canadian Al-Queda. Naturally the "humaninsts" are calling the detainee a mere child, never mind the actual weaponry he was toting around, of course... Or that our young friend would spend more time in the crowbar hotel if he was in posession of those same weapons in Canada itself.

She reports on the Canadian Taliban most every day, shining a light on that leftist zombie called the Canadian print and broadcast media.

Little Green Footballs	Petits ballons de foot verts
France 2 meets with Little Green Footballs. Watch out for well off leftists and other greens turned brown calling for censorship mesures.	Rencontre entre France 2 et Little Green Footballs. Il se peut qu'un gôchiste des beaux quartiers ou autre vert transcriptasié en brun tente d'imposer des mesures de censure.

A survivor’s story

One Lebanese woman’s harrowing tale of dealing with militant Islamism, learning how to break out of the mental trap of the most hateful propaganda campaign that any population has known since 1940's Berlin, and learning to judge people by their actions.

Watch the entire thing.

She’s also entirely unashamed in her defense of decency.

France to Honor Six Americans Who Risked All in Support of a French War in a Faraway Land

Allen L. Pope risked life and limb to fly CIA supply missions in 1954 to besieged French forces in what is now Vietnam

writes the AP.

But the thing he recounts most vividly is not the danger he faced. It's the bravery of the French troops.

"They never raised the white flag," he says. "There were men without hands, men without legs, men without feet, men that were blinded. They were catching hell."

They caught it at Dien Bien Phu, a cluster of villages in a valley ringed by mountains near the Laotian border. Communist rebels on higher ground pummeled the French with artillery in an epic battle that marked the end of French colonial rule in Indochina and foreshadowed the U.S. experience in Vietnam.

Next week, nearly 51 years after the fall of Dien Bien Phu, the seven surviving American pilots who braved those perilous skies — but later were essentially disowned by the CIA — will be awarded the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, or Legion of Honor, France's highest award for service.

Six of the seven will gather at the official residence of French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte for a ceremony to commemorate an important chapter in the history of U.S.-French relations.

"It's a nice gesture on their part," says Douglas R. Price, a Rockville Centre, N.Y., native who was 29 years old when he flew 39 airdrop missions to Dien Bien Phu in April and May 1954 as a civilian employee of Civil Air Transport, a flying service whose undeclared owner was the CIA [later succeeded by Air America].

"There has been a lot of friction between the governments lately," he said, alluding to the leading role France played in opposing the Bush administration's decision to go to war in Iraq. "Maybe they're making a gesture, hoping that they can get things back together again."

I almost posted this without comment (merci à Toto), because I didn't want to spoil the party. (I didn't feel there was a party to spoil, and I have never failed to put the failures of the French military — real or imagined, supposed defeats or the failure to even show up — mostly on the back of French politicians.)

But then I remembered the GIs of World War II who, also they, have been the recipients of — well-deserved — honors and citations many times in the past, in France as elsewhere.

That did not prevent the anti-Americanism of the Chirac administration, nor the French press from following the Chirac administration and report on the 6oth anniversary of D-Day with accounts in which America's contributions were downplayed and/or ignored.

Gestures are nice, as is symbolism, but they — and it — should never be subjected to the policies of and politicians and administrations or to la raison d'État. Especially when they involve men going to combat and putting their life and limbs at risk.

A Few Bad Men Might Be Preferable…

In view of the fact that the lucid and solidary humanitarians of Europe are always waxing on about how members of the Bush administration are the devil incarnate, it is not a bad idea to remember that today is the birthday of Henry Adams, the man who said

It is always good men who do the most harm in the world

The American writer and historian (1838-1918)  also may have explained Americanism in some of the following quotes:

Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself.

Morality is a private and costly luxury.

American society is a sort of flat, fresh-water pond which absorbs silently, without reaction, anything which is thrown into it.

As for America, it is the ideal fruit of all your youthful hopes and reforms. Everybody is fairly decent, respectable, domestic, bourgeois, middle-class, and tiresome. There is absolutely nothing to revile except that it's a bore.

It is impossible to underrate human intelligence — beginning with one's own.

25 = 1 = No accountability

Diplomatic immunity extended to Eurocrats. If they are “one union” or “one nation, and civil servants, why are they given super-national privileges, ask the Telegraph?

What the Government describes as "a small, technical and non-controversial" Bill now being nodded through Parliament will give the equivalent of diplomatic immunity to the employees of a range of "international organisations", mostly organs of the EU. The "privileges and immunities" it grants will be enjoyed not just by staff members of these bodies, but by all members of their families and "households".
Although questioning of this curious Bill has been led by a tireless Eurosceptic, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, it has raised the eyebrows of even such a committed Europhile as Lord Wallace of Saltaire. He was surprised to discover that, since his wife is a director of the Robert Schuman Centre, part of the European University Institute, he will share her "immunity from domestic taxation" and other privileges, as her "dependent spouse".
The danger of this Bill, according to Lord Wallace, is that it will create "two classes of people – those of us who are subject to domestic law and pay our taxes and parking fines, and an increasing number of people who do not".
In response to a question from Lord Pearson, the Government itself only named 28, ranging from the European Railways Agency and the European Plant Variety Office to the European Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia, although the Foreign Office concedes that its list will have to be updated "as new bodies are added".
What the Foreign Office would never explain, however, is how these fast-proliferating organs in many ways now represent the true government of our country. Just why therefore the privilegents that works for them should be granted the immunities traditionally accorded to diplomats of a foreign power…

- obrigado, John Ray.

CBS news: countdown to implosion	le JT de CBS: compte à rebours jusqu'à l'implosion
The rats are leaving the sinking ship. Rather pitiful.	Les rats fuient le navire. Qu'ils pissent du sang par tous les trous.

As predictable as catching VD in Ibiza

Commenters on Aljazeera's website are already suggesting that Rafik Hariri was knocked offed by the Mossad and/or the CIA... What next, saying that Chuck Barris did it?!?

c i a at work people. looks like the u s are not so happy with lebanon's refusal to kicking out the s yr ians. the u s is looking to light the fire once more. but i am positive that lebanon won't get dragged into this. the u s should focus more on its internal affairs and get out of other people's.
-Jess from Egypt

Now if only ‘Jess’ could spell. Or think. There has been no request by the U.S. or "refusal" to kick out the Syrians, becuase the Lebanese Government CAN'T. They are being threatened and coerced by the Assad regime, idiot boy. See - the evil US is doing all of this. No-one else is ever responsible....
Even better was one e-mail that the BBC World Service read over the air - the writer suggested that Syria will leave Lebanon when the US leaves Iraq. Not only was the beeb goofy enough to read it, but the writer doesn't seem aware that Syria has had their Military and Intelligence apparatus in Lebanon since 1975.

Socialism: where's the beef?	Socialisme: de la poudre aux yeux
Seen in the current issue of 'L'Imbécile'.	Vu dans le numéro actuel de 'L'Imbécile'.

Tolerance will be the death of the West	Tolérance, l'Occident va en mourrir
Kill faster. Total war.	Tuer plus vite. Guerre totale.

English proficiency test as anti-American rant

Via Normblog: English proficiency test as an anti-American rant
Could you imagine the outrage if anyone in the US did such a thing? No less a Univeristy?

If the Dutch would only learn from their escapees.

Fred Reed on the incoherent Maureen Dowd

"Actually, what men very much do not want is to marry Mommy. The problem for Maureen is that she is Mommy: censorious, moralizing, self-pitying, endlessly instructive, and so achingly tedious that men find themselves thinking of moldy bath sponges. I have never seen her and don’t know how old she is. She may be twenty-three, radiantly gorgeous, and have seven husbands. She writes as if she were fifty, a tad overweight and, having grossly overestimated her value in the meat market, missed the train."

Fred Reed has also made the obersvation that many of Dowd's readers heve - she can't write, and just doesn't make sense most of the time.

allah ih'rimu

Rafik Hariri, 1944-2005, Former Prime Minister of Lebanon

Like the bravest and boldest Lebanese who tried to cut through the dark cloud of paranoia, feudalism, terror, and oppression, his life was cut short by those who love death more than life.

The Kind of Frenchman the Country Loves

Between Le Monde and the International Herald Tribune, there have been quite a lot of interesting articles in the recent past.

Henri Tincq has a piece on Jean-Marie Lustiger, Cécile Hennion goes back to the 1940s to write about the prospects for an independent Kurdistan, while Rick Smith dwells on how Sept. 11 has made Arabic the language of choice for a new generation of ambitious diplomats and academics across the world.

While Stéphanie Maupas devotes a full-page article to the hunt for war criminals (under the auspices of the Tribunal pénal international pour l'ex-Yougoslavie (TPIY), Frank Salvato has some interesting words about the Real Atrocities of Abu Ghraib on CNSNews.

Incidentally, it took Le Monde 10 days to mention the death of Max Schmeling.

But what is most interesting (and most illuminating) is Le Monde's portrait on the Elf scandal's Alfred Sirven, in which Hervé Gattegno and Pascale Robert-Diard call the late businessman (he passed away Saturday)

a totally French person. In any case, one of those characters whom the country loves, blustering and rogueish, slipping from the Republic's official palaces to its prisons, throughout a life started with heroism — the Resistance at 17, volunteering for the Indochina and Korean wars — fallen into banditry at 25 — the hold-up of a bank in Japan in 1952 — and pursued in the largest French companies until the pinnacle and the fall, at Elf-Aquitaine.

May explain quite a bit, hein?

The EU prefers to hold its nose and allow business to continue

The EU … prefers to hold its nose and allow business to continue

writes Daniel Altman as he contrasts European business pratices with those of Uncle Sam in the International Herald Tribune. Another possibility, of course, is that the Europeans have lost all sense of smell by now — especially given he fact that it is always America they are railing against and whose sins (if they can be called that) they refuse to forgive.

But the practical effect of a no-sanctions policy is to draw the EU closer to many countries that the United States considers its enemies or holds in low regard. "Whenever they see a country, they try to engage it, unless the going really gets rough," said Andrew Moravcsik, a professor of politics at Princeton University. …

Regardless of its leaders' motives, the EU's appetite for expanding its economic hegemony shows no signs of fading.

No, It Is Not Only Bush Supporters and Out-of-the-Mainstream "Partisan" Bloggers Who Liken Europe's Mainstream Media to Al-Jazeera

I wonder whether anyone told [Abu Musab al-Zarqawi] about the suicide bomber who managed to blow up only himself outside a Baghdad polling station and how Iraqi voters walked around his body, spitting on it as they went by

writes Thomas L Friedman in the New York Times (emphasis mine).

Zarqawi claims to be the leader of the Iraqi Vietcong — the authentic carrier of Iraqis' national aspirations and desire to liberate their country from "U.S. occupation." In truth, he is the leader of the Iraqi Khmer Rouge — a murderous death cult.

The election has exposed this…. In other words, this election has made it crystal clear that the Iraq war is not between fascist insurgents and America, but between fascist insurgents and the Iraqi people. One hopes the French and Germans, whose newspapers often sound more like Al Jazeera than Al Jazeera, will wake up to this fact and throw their weight onto the right side of history.

Not bloody likely; see why below…

The message from Europe was that a fresh start in trans-Atlantic relations would require the U.S. to swallow European viewpoints hook, line and sinker

As the new U.S. secretary of state dashed around their capitals, Europeans sat comfortably auditioning Rice for the new role they want her to play in drawing the Bush administration closer to Europe

writes Reginald Dale in the International Herald Tribune (where he is sorely missed — the editor of the policy quarterly European Affairs doubling as a media fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University used to have a weekly feature on common sense economics in the IHT, but that ended after the New York Times took over the Washington Post's part of the global paper).

They produced copious reviews of her performance, from the glowing to the snide. But none felt the need to step up on the stage themselves.

The overwhelming message from the audience was that a fresh start in trans-Atlantic relations would require the United States, and not Europe, to make all the concessions. Typical was the comment of an EU diplomat, who demanded "a complete convergence of views," meaning that Washington should swallow European viewpoints hook, line and sinker.

…If, however, the Europeans think they do not need to do anything to respond to Bush's conciliatory efforts, then the rebirth of the alliance will be stillborn. Rice made that clear in responding to this much-quoted remark by Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair: "If America wants the rest of the world to be part of the agenda it has set, it must be part of their agenda too." Her riposte came in Paris: "America stands ready to work with Europe on our common agenda, and Europe must stand ready to work with America."

Bush has been loudly signaling his wish for better relations with Europe. [He] first sent out doves across the stormy Atlantic waters last May. U.S. officials muzzled their previous anti-European rhetoric; Bush bowed to European insistence that he work more closely with the United Nations, and Iraqi reconstruction contracts were opened up to noncombatant countries. These doves did not return with any sprigs of greenery, at least in part because many European leaders wanted Senator John Kerry to win the U.S. elections.

Now, with Bush due to visit Europe this month, it is time for the Europeans to step up to the plate. The obvious place to begin is Iraq, the main source of animosity, where the recent elections have opened the way for a new approach.

It is not necessary for France and Germany to send soldiers there if they do not wish. What is needed is that the Europeans raise the tone of the dialogue far above the nickel-and-diming over such issues as where NATO should train Iraqis, and whether a few more trainers should be added. It is time to show genuine, overarching political support for what Washington is trying to achieve in Iraq and the broader Middle East, without petty, nit-picking reservations.

…That is what France, Germany, Spain and other European critics of the United States must now offer. Their governments say they want to put past disagreements behind them. If they mean it, they should not be calling for better relations one minute, and fomenting anti-Americanism the next.

(Emphasis mine.) John Vinocur follows this line of thought through with his Politicus column, taking the Germans as an example as he writes from Munich:

Diplomacy in action. Here was Condoleezza Rice scooting to Paris and Brussels and Luxembourg, deftly working the idea that Europe mattered and the United States respected it. And here was a group of heavyweight American pols in town for a postscript, attending the weekend's yearly seminar of defense and security experts (Don Rumsfeld and John McCain among the Republicans, Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton for the Democrats) and thinking, fair traders all, there might be some signs of a quick and generous European response.

The fact was that a speech by Gerhard Schröder, billed as a German-take-on-the-world and read out by Defense Minister Peter Struck (Schröder called in sick), grated. The Bush folk, trying so hard to be Europe-amenable seven days before the president's arrival, suddenly found themselves laboring not to look too wrong-footed, embarrassed or provoked by a message from the chancellor they did not fully expect.

What they got from Schröder was a complaining five pages, mostly about the unsatisfactory state of trans-Atlantic relations. His call for an umpteenth blue-ribbon panel to assess what to do followed. …

His text restated his determination that Germany get a UN Security Council seat cum veto power. It fled any mention of his quest to have the European Union lift its embargo on arms sales to China, a proposal that has enraged Congress across the board. And it urged an end to Iran's isolation and consideration for the mullahs' "legitimate security concerns" — on a day when James Woolsey, a Clinton administration director of U.S. central intelligence, was asking a seminar panelist if he knew of a single shard of fact indicating that Iran was not about to produce atomic weapons. (No answer.)

In fact … there was something both detached and harsh about Schröder's speech.

Its tone was nonconciliatory exactly at a time when America was trying to be. Contradictorily, it came at a point when Germany's increasing ambitions on the world stage are most strikingly complemented, as Gunther Hellmann of Frankfurt University has said, by its declining social and economic competitiveness. And the speech's icy edges were such that Schröder talked of Russia with more palpable warmth than the United States.

[A] Clinton administration Democrat described Rumsfeld, who spoke to the conference on Saturday, as sounding more open and flexible than the chancellor.

"The thing that quite amazes me," said Wolfgang Schäuble, the man who may have the sharpest political intellect within the German conservative opposition, "is that Americans are disappointed with what Schröder said, that they found no givebacks. That's quite naïve. There's nothing to expect except a man looking at poll numbers all day and still thinking he'll stay in power if he turns every election into one in which he runs against George Bush."

… in terms of feeling, Schröder's speech was an even less hearty view of trans-Atlantic relations than one offered by Jacques Chirac, mulipolarity included, in London earlier in the year.

Not to mention the hard issues: Iraq, China (where Schröder's commercial interest is great and his responsibilities nil), Iran? Any indication of new German support from the chancellor? No. …

All this forces the question about what happens if Bush comes to Europe and gets precious little in return. Schäuble has said, considering the people in place in Germany, it's no small possibility. Awkward stuff. Not good.

The American in the marble hallway, upbeat on Europe in the administration's current mode, considered that everything might turn around by the time Bush gets to Mainz on Feb. 23.

The American said Schröder had an important regional election next Sunday, and considering that he won in 2002 opposing the Iraq war, he wasn't going to cross anybody up by sounding America-friendly a week ahead of time.

Not anybody, just George Bush. And perhaps not just momentarily.

An outpost of progress	Chili brisé! Chili martyrisé! Mais Chili libéré!
Kill a commie for Christ. Thanks to Mercutio.	Casser du coco est toujours bénéfique. Merci à Mercutio.

Hope for Zeropa	De l'espoir pour la Zéropa
Thank God for free speech! Stop making a movie out of it!	Dieu merci, la liberté d'expression existe! Assez de cinoche!

This nonsense about open-mindedness and listening is just puerile psychobabble hiding stunning arrogance

Why doesn't George W Bush get along with his detractors? asks David Limbaugh. Because he doesn't listen to them? No; it is because the detractors

don't want to get along; they are implacable. They are entrenched. They are determined to obstruct. How much more so European liberals who distrust him on their own even without the persistent encouragement from their counterparts in America.

Friedman's mushy advice on the virtues of listening sounds just peachy, but underlying it is the presumption that President Bush has not considered the full spectrum of ideas on Iraq. It naively assumes that if he would just develop an open mind — not just open ears — he would inevitably change his foreign policy.

Why is it that liberals conclude that if you don't agree with them, you just don't have an open — or competent — mind? The answer is simply their stunning arrogance. The president would have to have lived in a cave not to have heard a thousand times all the arguments against his foreign policy.

But what if Mr. Bush followed Friedman's advice? What if he listened to the European ingrates but still didn't change his mind? Would that make them love him? No. They will only be satisfied, just like American liberals, if they are calling the shots: if Bush does exactly what they say. This nonsense about open-mindedness and listening is just puerile psychobabble.

…We're not playing in the sandbox, Mr. Friedman. Foreign policy is for adults.

Philadelphia City gov't. greets gullible French activists butt-monkeys

photo: murdered Philadelphia Police officer Danial Faulkner.

French Mumia backers get Liberty Bells
Via Michelle Malkin

"Jacky Hortaut of the National Unit Collective, a coalition of pro-Abu-Jamal groups, addressed the crowd with pointed words for the Philadelphia judicial system.

"We are here to denounce this discriminatory and racist justice," Hortaut said. "So we are here today to tell Mrs. Dembe that we are here to support Mumia Abu-Jamal, whose only crime has been to fight for poor people here in America."

Traylor then handed them the Liberty Bell replicas.

"We welcome you to Philadelphia," said Traylor, who serves as the city's international liaison for visiting dignitaries. "Thank you very much for coming." (Philadelphia Daily News)

- as if they'd KNOW. The activists have been duped by a murderer on death row with nothing to lose. Their collectivist minds were entirely incapable of understanding the meaning of the word "justice" when they cocked up the term "social justice".

Cowboy Capitalism Heeyah!

Olaf Gersemann, a correspondent for Wirtchaftwoche (the Economy this week) debunks the myths floating among the Euro-left about the U.S. economy in his recently released book "Cowboy Capitalism":

Myth: The U.S. unemployment rate is lower than that of the European Union largely because America imprisons a greater proportion of its citizens.

Fact: The growth in the number of prison inmates in the United States contributed only about .1 to .2 percentage points to the reduction of unemployment between 1985 and 1998. The actual difference in unemployment between most European countries and the US is, of course around 4 full points, nowhere near that .1 or .2 percent

Myth: America is a stratified society with a small handful of wealthy individuals and lots of low-income families, with no middle class in between.

Fact: Measured in 2002 dollars, the share of U.S. households that made $35,000 to $100,000 was 44.5 percent in 2002. That makes the middle class the single largest segment in the US population by a large margin.

Myth: In the U.S. the rich do not pay their fair share of taxes.

Fact: The top 10% of high-income US households pay 65% of all income tax while in Germany that top 10% pays under 50% of the income tax and other European countries follow similar patterns of having very small wealthy classes which pay very little real tax.

Myth: In the U.S. the poor are growing more numerous.

Fact: Between 1972 and 2002 the share of U.S. households with under $35,000 income per year, adjusted for inflation, declined from 44.9% to 40.6%. BTW, that poverty level is higher than the average income in most European nations.

Myth: European welfare provides better for the most needy.

Fact: The poorest 30% on welfare rolls in the U.S. receive 40% of the total benefits paid. In comparison the poorest third receive only 20% in Italy and 30% in France and Germany. This means that the US system weights distribution of welfare more towards the most poor than do European systems. In addition, the official poverty level in the US is almost double that of most European nations when adjusted for relative consumer prices, yet our total number of poor is no higher and the quality of life for our poor is enormously better.

adds Blogcritics.com:

So, the next time a Europhilic Leftist turns up his nose at the oppressive capitalist regime here in America and how our wealthy plutocrats ride over the plundered bodies of our mass of poor and oppressed people, point out to them that in every category of comparison Americans are better off than the equivalent class in Europe and that we have fewer poor, fewer unemployed, less disparity of wealth, an enormously higher standard of living - and then laugh when you tell them we pay about 30% lower taxes too.

All babes want to kill me

A film by Colin Miller and Alex Cain.

Coming to a theatre near you... Hopefully...

Neal Stephenson on Terror

Instapundit reports on an interview with author Neal Stephenson by Mike Godwin in Reason Magazine. Reynolds offers up this quote:

"I would point out that terrorism is a much more formidable opponent of political liberty than government. Government acts almost as a recruiting station for libertarians. Anyone who pays taxes or has to fill out government paperwork develops libertarian impulses almost as a knee-jerk reaction.
But terrorism acts as a recruiting station for statists. So it looks to me as though we are headed for a triangular system in which libertarians and statists and terrorists interact with each other in a way that I’m afraid might turn out to be quite stable."

"That, in fact, is why I see it as important to win the war. I think that the best thing for civil liberties in America is that we've gone over 3 years without another 9/11 style attack."

We know who the statists and the terrorists are. It's hard to call the U.S. a sort of ersatz-libertarian in that love triangle. In a way, none of the parties in that model COULD conduct a war on terror.

Defend the defenders

From Sheisters.

Phony toughs	Faux durs
The French play the tough guy and generously insult Christians who peacefully practice their religion (which is logical given that the cowardly French know very well that they risk nothing by doing so), but they submit like sacrificial lambs as soon as they might be required to denounce the fascist rise of the Islam cult of death. (which is logical because those people are capable of slashing their throats in the middle of the street Van Gogh style, burning their cars Paris suburb style, kidnapping their news reporters, and even crashing an airplane into one of their buildings).	Les fwançais adorent faire les durs et lancer des insultes aux les chrétiens qui pratiquent leur religion de façon pacifique (logique puisque les lâches de franchouilles et autres pédaloïdes bouffeurs de curés savent très bien qu'en faisant ceci ils ne risquent strictement rien), mais ils s'écrasent comme des agneaux juste avant le sacrifice dès qu'il s'agit de dénoncer les travers du culte de la mort musulman (logique, ces gens-là sont capables de les égorger dans la rue à la Van Gogh, foutre le feu à leurs bagnoles façon 9-cube, kidnapper leurs journalistes, voire lancer des avions dans leurs immeubles).
Bush: Make sure you avoid creating a theocracy!

Embarrassing Stains on the Left Must Be Kept Silent, for 60 Years and More…

As you know perfectly well, the place to fear neo-fascists and other far-right nutcases is the United States of America.

You also know how the Americans deserve to have their reputation blackened, with the smallest blunder turned into a scandal of the vastest proportions, and that by Europeans whose own reputation — that of wise, humanistic, heroic, visionary, avant-garde paragons of virtue — is untainted by any spots of any kind.

Well, turns out it's a two-sided story made up of double standards:

After decades of neglect, Italy commemorated on its calendars and television screens this week the thousands of Italians who were massacred by Yugoslav partisans and dumped into mountain crevices at the end of World War II

writes Jason Horowitz (emphasis mine).

The killings occurred in and around the northern city of Trieste, when, in 1943 and 1945, Communist partisans from neighboring Yugoslavia went on anti-fascist raids, rounding up Italians and condemning them to execution by firing squads.

Between 5,000 and 15,000 people were shot and dropped into the deep pits of the Carso mountain range. Some of them were still alive when they fell into the ditches.

"If we look back at the 20th century, we see pages of history that we wish we could forget," Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Wednesday about the massacre. "But we cannot forget and we do not want to forget."

For 60 years, however, Italy seemed to suffer from a willful amnesia. Many in the Italian left chose to overlook the massacre, as it represented an embarrassing stain on the reputation of Communist partisans whom they cast as heroes, liberating the country from fascism. Western allies were reluctant to investigate the killings after Yugoslavia broke with the Soviet Union in 1948, and, perhaps most significantly, Italy wanted to get on with reconstruction and reconciliation after a disastrous war.

Well, no wonder they choose to overlook that type of event. After all, there is that big bogeyman to fight against…

As leftist militants scolded Jacques Rossi when the French communist started recounting his experience after returning from 20 years in the hell of the Soviet gulag "Vous faites le jeu de la droite" (You are giving ammunition to the right)…

The circumstances may be different, but that attitude of wanting to keep unwelcome news silent (of events that are often, if not always, far more horrible than those in capitalist countries) is very similar to the current response when one tries to have a non-emotional conversation about the situation in Iraq: "But are you pro-Bush, or what?!"

Warning from Paris: the French Will Not Forget the Iraq Rift

French Defence Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie said Thursday that Paris will not forget its divisions with the United States over Iraq, even if everyone had learned to love each other again.

"That everyone loves each other, that is fundamental," she said, when asked if everything was forgiven and forgotten two years after the transatlantic crisis triggered by the Iraq war.

"But that everything be forgotten? No," she said. "I don't think it should be forgotten," she continued. "I think that in the end these periods of tension are part of our transatlantic relations, and have been for a long time." [AFP]

You know what, Michèle? I have the feeling that Americans
won't be forgetting the Iraq rift, either, and that for a looong time…

Impotent and incontinent	Impuissant et incontinent
Just like their Old Continent. In France, the poor little panty waste bloggers and other spittle shooting shitheads join ranks with the useful idiots, while US bloggers are still reshaping MSM (increasingly retro lockstep Old Guard French bloggers just copy-and-paste from it).	Tout comme leur Vieux Continent. En Fwance, les petits pédaloïdes bloggeurs et autres bouilles à bozo postillonnants se joignent aux idiots utiles, tandis que les bloggeurs américains continuent à pousser à la refonte des médias aux USA (les bloggeurs franchouilles de la Vieille Garde, de plus en plus beaufs et consensuels, se servent des médias pour inspirer leurs copier-coller).
UPDATE: The pilgrims are suitably impressed and envious.	DERNIERES INFOS: Les pèlerins sont convenablement impressionnés et envieux.

Klexter, klokan, kladd, kludd, kligrapp
Le Monde Al-Jazeera on the Seine is already playing the race card in the Michael Jackson trial. Serguei drew a cartoon showing Jackson being crucified and electrocuted on a burning cross while OJ Simpson and a pack of hooded Klu Klux Klansmen look on. Far out duuuuuude.	Le Monde Al-Jazira sur Seine joue à fond la carte du racisme pour le procès de Michael Jackson. Serguei nous a pondu un dessin à ce sujet qui montre Jackson en train de se faire crucifier et électrocuter sur une croix en flammes. OJ Simpson et des types cagoulés du Klu Klux Klan regardent. Putain, c'est ce trip est trôôôôôôôôôôôôôp puissant mec!

March For German-American solidarity In Mainz

It's happened in Paris, in the Netherlands, on the streets of Miami, Dallas, Washington, and NYC...
If you are within striking distance of Mainz, clear your calender for February 23.
Davids Medienkritik is organizing a march For German-American Solidarity to greet George Bush. Let the Anti-Americans know that they don't have a monopoly on ideas, and don't own the streets.

Chirac, Who Is Keeping One Foot on the Platform and One Foot on the Train, Still Thinks Bush Has a Lot to Learn From France About Running the World

Four months after the Afghan elections, one month after the Palestinian elections, and two weeks after the Iraqi elections, the sophisticated French still think they have a lot to teach the uncouth Americans about the world and the wisdom of multilateralism. Elaine Sciolino:

[Jacques] Chirac is helped in his reality offensive by [Michel] Barnier. A low-key expert on European integration, the foreign minister lacks the domineering personality and romantic vision of France's greatness of his predecessor, Dominique de Villepin, which so infuriated Colin L. Powell when he was secretary of state.

…He underscored that he is "different" from Mr. de Villepin, the man who emerged as the most vocal and relentless critic of the Bush administration's march to war against Iraq. Still, Mr. Barnier characterized his predecessor as "a friend" who is "passionate," not "arrogant."

Oui. "Arrogant" is reserved for Americans (no matter who sits in the French foreign minister's seat and no matter how positively he is depicted)…

"He still doesn't like the idea of the unipolar world with the United States as top dog," Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., a Delaware Democrat, said [of Mr. Chirac] in an interview after the meeting.

The senators came away from the meeting with Mr. Chirac and a meeting with Mr. de Villepin, who is now interior minister but still weighs in on foreign policy, convinced that France has not yet accepted that some of its dire predictions on Iraq may turn out to be wrong.

Both men have argued fiercely that the American-led invasion and occupation of Iraq has made the region much more dangerous. Now there is an effort to calibrate French policy while still asserting France's historic influence in the Middle East.

…"My read of Chirac, as a plain old politician, is that he was saying, 'O. K., you did better than we thought you'd do,' " Mr. Biden said. "I think he was saying: 'I'm not ready to step in and do the heavy lifting with boots on the ground. But you might make it, so I want to get in on the deal.' He's calculating he wants to keep one foot on the platform and one foot on the train because the train might leave."…

One of the main obstacles to improving the relationship between the Bush administration and the French has been chemistry. Mr. Chirac truly believes that his decades of experience in global politics have made him an expert on just about any place in the world.

At one point in the meeting with the senators, he said he would love to have some private time with Mr. Bush, without any aides present, when the two men dine together in Brussels as part of Mr. Bush's trip to Europe later this month.

"Several of us said that would be a great idea, to try to start over again," Senator Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said in an interview after the meeting.

But another participant said perhaps that was not such a good idea, noting that in some of their previous meetings, Mr. Chirac has pointed his finger at Mr. Bush and lectured him on what he does not know.

Captors taught him how to use the letter "R"

Alert and well equipped

Hey, Junge Gutmensch, can you handle this.

Real women understand the great equalizer. Do you?

They hate what they can't control, including your thoughts

The transparency and weakness of intellect of the left is obvious. Suddenly they argue against consentual government, individual rights, and any other sort of human advancement which doesn’t require ministerial management. They would sooner dismiss the value of political and religious freedom rather than admit to a positive outcome of anyone they oppose politically. They seem incapable of grasping abstract concepts as basic as this:

Because belief springs from freedom, it is a particularly opaque phenomenon - the conjunction of certainty and uncertainty. “Mental Unrest” in spite of unconditional assent: cum assensione cogitare. Belief does not still, but kindles desire - In firm contact with reality nevertheless.

- From Faith, Hope, and Love

relax, already. It's Sunday.

Few Brothers to Be Found in the Promised Land

I am happy to say that, growing up, I never felt comfortable with the anti-Americanism being spewed out around me — oh, the resistance is only to the American leadership, it was said reassuringly, then as now — and that I always felt that somehow there was something very much unfair about it.

One day, I was surprized to read in a news article how the students from the sister socialist states of Africa who came to Moscow to study (notably in what I think was called the "peace institute") were very unhappy about their experience: they were looked down upon because of the color of their skin and treated badly in the streets.

I was not so much surprized that racism existed in the USSR (I had never thought about it in one way or another) as I was at the fact that, in a world always denouncing racism and racist régimes (real or imagined) as a facet of capitalism while lionizing the society of the Soviet camp, nobody made a big deal about this. (In fact, if I had never thought about Russian racism in one way or another, it was because nobody ever talked about it, or even thought it was worth talking about.) This was one of many times I came face to face with double standards.

This brief paragraph, only to introduce you (and myself) to the rastafarians of Jamaica and the Caribbean, and their dreams of emigrating to Ethiopia.

We have all heard about the rastafarians and how they have suffered at the hands of the white race, coupled with the "brothers'" pride and love for Ethiopia, which they consider the promised land…

Well, according to Jean-Philippe Rémy, who visited the immigrant community in Ethiopia, the love affair and "mutual" attraction is very much one-sided (and believe me, I am no longer surprized).

One Jamaican emigrant the Le Monde reporter talked to 250 kilometers south of Addis Abeba makes a habit of hiding her dreadlocks because

people here do not to like that kind of hair. They don't like rastas. Sometimes you have to watch out, a wrong word is sufficient, they arrive in groups, ready to hurt you.

Inside the closed community of Shashemene (200 to 500 followers of Marcus Garvey live there, next to the city of the same name), you can hear no reggae, you can see no Jamaican hats (except for sellers of ganja), and the only place where you can truly taste rasta folklore is in the Tabernacle church (under the auspices of Bongo Rock I and his wife, queen Baby I).

Following Emperor Haile Selassie's gift of 5 gashas (200 hectares) in the late 1950s, the first Caribbean rastas emigrated to Ethiopia, only to discover that the Ethiopians were far worse off than they themselves had ever been.

The decades have passed and the salt of the promised land has turned out to be rather bitter and the New Jerusalem not very welcoming.

After the emperor was overthrown (in 1974), murdered, and his body thrown in the latrines, the local population, "which hated them" (considering them as protégés of the palace), stormed the community and looted everything they could.

Today, locals are still trying to take over their land. The "brothers" are shoved in the streets of the nearby city. Stones are thrown on their roof. Their animals are killed — one French-speaking rasta lost four dogs in a one-month period.

"Nobody tells that to the brothers who want to come to Ethiopia" sighs Cannelle-Jah [who has stopped introducing herself as an Ethiopian]. "Here, people think of what you have in your wallet, and not what you have in your heart."

Update: He is black, he is dreadlocked; guess whom Ted Hayes supports. (That's him in the Uncle Sam suit)…

French networking skills	Les franchouilles sont douées pour bâtir les réseaux de contacts
Someone save third world children from Koffee Hard-On and the UN pedophiles.	Il faut sauver les enfants du tiers monde de Kafé Hardeur et les pédophiles de l'ONUzi.

McDoBu$HitlerHalliburton DroitsDeL'Homme!

It's clear that Le Monde has run out of ways to torture both of these subjects.

The've lost it. They are so consumed with themselves and their envy, that they think perhaps this should be scrapped to restore their pride?

Penguin lurve in Deutchland

Think about it: they're social life is managed for them, their environment controlled, it's crowded, a government body feeds them.... If it happens to this control group of penguins how long will it take to take over the western world. Face it. We're talking about the future of the E.U.

At least they're kind enough to lure in a few Swedish girls to make 'em know what it means to be alive, as opposed to being part of some non-reproducing death cult of political correctness and selfishness.

What Was It Now That That Gift Was Meant to Symbolize?

First the French offer the Americans a Statue of Liberty enlightening the world from New York Harbour,

writes Jean-Claude Casanova in Le Monde,

and now they [the French] get rattled to hear them [the Americans] denounce tyranny…