Penetrating Journalism

A recent random look at a Egyptian newspaper leaves one with little hope. The headlines:

3 stories about Mubarak which contained no news, at least not from this decade –

- “Mubarak: the liberation of the Sinai, a turning point in history”
(if memory serves, they lost.)

- “Mubarak: Egypt advances on the irreversible course of global reform”

- “Interview with Mubarak: Egypt refuses the classification of nations into moderade and radical.”

All that and some further speaking in Runes meant to look like actual news. There are also a page of sports, some fashion, TV, weather, a few ads. The only other items of news other than a short article about Condoleeza Rice failng to leave Jerusalem with anything, don’t even com in the form of articles. Five 150 word-long blurbs fall under the headings: UNIFIL. Iraq, Darfour, Gaza (a hit-piece about Israel), and Israel (another hit-piece about Israel).

It also included this incredibly lame but revealing cartoon:

Like a kind of Jerusalem for bad ideas.

Nowhere else can one discover that everyone else on earth is so completely unoriginal. Both for good and bad, we discover the auspicious history of the town of town of Montargis:

The men and women met in the Durzy gardens behind the Town Hall, where a wall was used for their propaganda posters. It was here in July 1920 that Cai Hesen -- the leading theoretician -- set out a programme for the "salvation of China" which the next month he urged in a letter to Mao.

"It is known as the letter of August 13th, and it proposed the creation of a Chinese Communist Party. Mao signalled his approval and the following year the party was set up," says Wang.

Then I guess it should come as no surprise that the CCP killed 77 million of their own people.

- Thanks to Val

the fuse is lit!

It’s really best not to ask why. I don’t.

From the womens’ section of your local Pharmacie: 3 day deodorant.


Maybe it’s for those weekends when they're getting
used up by a gang of filthy little felchers.

En France, la plupart des journalistes ont intériorisé des règles qui se fixent et qui font que les choses dérangeantes, on n'en parle pas

On peut dire que plus un organe de presse ou un média est aux ordres de l'oligarchie dirigeante, plus il emploie d'euphémismes

writes Eric Hazan in Le Monde.

Je pense qu'il y a une intériorisation de la censure. Il n'y a pas de censure au sens habituel du terme. Mais la plupart des journalistes ont intériorisé des règles qui se fixent et qui font que les choses dérangeantes, on n'en parle pas ou en utilisant le langage que j'ai essayé de décrire dans mon livre, la LQR, qui aplatit, anesthésie, qui crée le consensus.

Some tourists develop paranoia, others lose their marbles altogether.

A sophisticated culture runs headlong into those charming traditions of another one:

PARIS (Reuters) - Around a dozen Japanese tourists a year need psychological treatment after visiting Paris as the reality of unfriendly locals and scruffy streets clashes with their expectations, a newspaper reported on Sunday.


The phenomenon, which the newspaper dubbed "Paris Syndrome", was first detailed in the psychiatric journal Nervure in 2004.

Bernard Delage of Jeunes Japon, an association that helps Japanese families settle in France, said: "In Japanese shops, the customer is king, whereas here assistants hardly look at them ... People using public transport all look stern, and handbag snatchers increase the ill feeling."

- Thanks to Ace of Spades and to ¡No Pasarán! reader Stavn

the fuse is lit!

Obviously Not Lost in a Taxi

Lost: a small terrier who disappeared on October 20th near my apartment in the 14th arrondissement. This gentle sweetheart is called Mohammed and isn’t the least bit dangerous.

- With thanks to Sebastian, who will
probably receive death threats shortly.

So Young, So Sensitive

After a bus was set on fire by about thirty young people in the town of Grigny on Sunday afternoon, bus drivers on Monday have refused to drive routes through large, sensitive district, saying that they need more safety. “It had a psychological impact on the [transit] workers”, said a union representative.

- from Le Figaro

Pancho's Permanent Lapse of Reason

” ...We have to contact our allies in the region...”
“ ...Who, Saddam Hussein?... “

That’s the “ally” the U.S. fough two wars against, but no matter. Once with France.

Letters to the Editor

Pierre Derouche (citoyen français):

I am opposed to Turkey’s entering the European Union and I have much sympathy for the numerous Armenians [in France] who have become more French than the Duponts and the Durands. But what does the PS [Socialist Party] think it is doing in seeking to punish as criminals those who refuse to admit the existence of a genocide against the Armenians? Why not also punish those who deny the mass crimes of Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot (and they are numerous)? Why not also fine or send to prison those who have dared to claim that no plane crashed into the Pentagon in September 2001? When will our representatives begin treating us as adults? We are old enough to research subjects of this nature ourselves and to form our own opinions. It is in guaranteeing that the necessary documentary evidence is available – both for and against a given proposition – that we will make democracy work, not by threatening heretics.

Jean-Louis Caccomo (maître de conférences
en économie à l'université de Perpignan):

Il a belle allure, le déclin américain, périodiquement annoncé (souhaité ?) par nos intellectuels en lutte... La France devrait se mobiliser à l'ONU pour demander que soient appliqués des quotas dans l'attribution des prix Nobel reflétant plus justement la diversité culturelle dans le monde. Mais les astrophysiciens, chimistes, biologistes ou économistes du monde entier qui veulent travailler sérieusement (avec des moyens réels) et librement (en toute indépendance, car une science manipulée n'est plus une science), où trouvent-ils meilleur asile si ce n'est aux Etats-Unis ?

(Unfortunately, the letters amount to tokens.)

The revolution will not be televised ...

... it will be driven through your filthy French hearts. Gratuitous violence is up 12% and knife attacks are up in the greater Paris area (but authorities won't give out hard numbers on knife attacks so as not to panic the poor paternalized populace). Happy Ramadan, scumbags.

See, Leftism Actually CAN be Cured.

- Shukran to Frank.

I love anniversaries

Looks like this year's riots will be in broad daylight. On Sunday at 2PM, French youths boarded a city bus in Grigny (shithole Paris suburb), forced the passengers to get out, and torched it. At 6:30PM, police were still at the scene in an attempt to "secure the area". French cop and evident super-sleuth Jean-François Papineau (you can't make up a name like that) declared that the attack "was deliberate". Firemen arriving at the scene were pelted with rocks and other objects.

It's a bug, not a feature

Just like appeasement, surrender, and structural unemployment, the French Intidafa is permanent.

Beirut, 23 October 1983

"Our former warriors have now joined a long line of Soldiers of the Sea who have given their lives in the service of a grateful nation,"

- Former President Ronald Reagan.

It was actually the second deployment of United States Marines to Lebanon, each time to guarantee a peace. In 1958 the effort was to cut off an attempted putsch by the Syrians disposing of their own Marxist rabble-rousers, and staging a series of violent attacks on civilians to cause factional violence. The effort eerily similar to what the former Iraqi elements, and in all likelihood the Syrians Mukharabat, as well as the Iranians are trying to do to Iraqi civilians today.

In 1983, the effort was to give a new opportunity to the possibility of peace by making safe the exit of both the Israeli Army and the forces of the PLO from Lebanon. The newly created Hizballah would have none of it. The prospect of stability gave them no way to exert their power over the beaten and struggling Lebanese civilians. That method of operation remains one that they use to this day.

"The whole idea of knowing that this person gave his life for something he truly believed in," said Perry, reiterating words spoken by 1st Sgt. James Richard, "how the flood of memories of that person burned into your mind, is lost in people who have never experienced it."

- Former Defense Secretary William Perry

241 U.S. Marines and 58 French paratroopers were lost. UK Royal Marines ran to their aid along with the French and American survivors, Lebanese civilians, and Lebanese Army and Police.

Seduced by unproved methods that amounted to little more than leftist mumbo-jumbo about “an image of provocation”, Americans and French forces took a grave risk by taking a non-threatening posture by being lightly armed and protected. The price they paid for trusting those who gave that indulgent nonsensical advice was dear, and it also caused a sea change in American diplomatic and military tactics. Those inclined to ordain America a hegemon and provocateur have none other than Hizballah’s uncompromising, cruel, murderous methods that lead nowhere to thank.

These men, the dead and the survivors should never be forgotten. Hizballah should never be forgiven. Their victims need not merely be added to Hizballah’s larger trophy death-toll. Even then, the US was taunted not to retaliate, and accused of wanting revenge for the sake of their emotions. They needed to retaliate to remove their incentive to do it again. And they did it again, and again – from Argentina to northern Israel to the rampage they wought on most of Lebanon.

Popular wisdom ...

... or not. Money talks, bullshit walks.

Buying up that strategic goat-cheese production.

Another great buy to go with those casinos.

On their planet, they call this comedy

The goofy, clueless left in the UK, for all their crackpot logic about diversity (celebrating something that simply exists whether they “celebrate” it or not), has no clue when it comes to respecting religion or other cultures for that matter.

I'm sure the actress in the veil will get death threats. The whole sketch makes fun of the whole 'my veil is my identity' thing.
The veiled woman counts off all the cosmetics she no longer needs to apply to her face - she just does up her eyes. She says she also enjoys the veil because she knows that every man who sees her is dieing to see what she looks like naked.

Fellow diner agrees and says he himself is indeed wondering. And says that if the government ever banned him from driving his Bentley (which he feels defines who he is), he would become a suicide bomber. The woman in the veil says 'Yes, there are limits.'

She gives in - got to have a drink. They are British, after all. Later, she has taken off the veil and her husband (not in either pic) asks her to put it back on. She yells at him, calling him an infidel. The four people at the table applaud after she does it and the husband is clearly working up a woody.

Barely funny, but all done in the name of entertainment, if that's what you can call it.

Expect Channel 4's studios at Broadcast House to be burned down by certain members of a religion C4 keeps apologizing for otherwise.

- with thanks to alert reader Valerie.

the fuse is lit!

La racaille: you're either with them or against them

Urban guerilla tactics being used in France's suburban turf wars pitting French kids against cops.

Is it soup yet?

Ahmadinejad warns of 'boiling wrath'.

Brilliant

Meet theNews Sniffer. Not a blog, not a news site, but a change tracker for censored comments and stealth edits.

Smashing stuff.

- Via my hero(ine), Natalie of Biased-BBC.

French Intifada

French youths are keeping all the goodies on a slow burner just waiting until the situation is just right. Don't worry about the 500 pound Islamic elephant waiting in the corner and please parrot the State Party Line©: the kids are depraved because they're deprived.

The Al-Dura Affair: Fabrication Nation

TelChaiNation on France2’s getting a child killed to provide drama for the camera:

At another point, a boy faked a leg injury, but instead of drawing big kids who could pick him up and rush him past the cameramen to an ambulance, he only attracted little kids. He shooed them away, looked around, and, seeing that no one was coming to evacuate him, straightened up and walked away without a limp. An Israeli cameraman working for France2 who was watching the film with me and Enderlin at the time, laughed at this point. When I asked him why, he said, “because it looks so fake.” “That’s my impression as well,” I responded. Enderlin responded, “Oh, they do that all the time. It’s their cultural style. They exaggerate.”

To the sensationalist, ideologically driven press, human life is cheap.


Eyes wide shut: meet the face of evil.
An even shoddier news outfit playing on France2’s problems by saying their news is more “real.” Using a fad-in, fade-out montage of images, the video includes the implication that US soldiers in Iraq commonly kill innocent civilians.

Bientôt au Quai Branly

The face of today's Fwance. More suburban monkey business as police are continually ambushed with impunity.

Pressing their advantage (International edition)

Iran to Europe: forget the Jews and you won't get hurt. "America is far away, but you are neighbors." Can Europe be a poodle to Russia and to Iran at the same time? Who will hold the leash?

Pressing their advantage (French suburban edition)

The French Intifada continues apace as suburban racaille step up the pressure on law enforcement to see how far they can go [Ed. - the response is "very far"]. In Orléans, an unmarked police vehicle was hit by 2 Molotov cocktails and police had to fire rubber bullets to fight off the thugs. Hit-and-run attacks against French police are now becoming an almost daily occurrence. As usual, the French preSS and pédé-bloggeurs put this down to Sarkozy's provocations and other socio-economic mumbo-jumbo, and not -- shudder the thought -- anything to do with France's second most popular religion. After all, serious French polls conducted by authorized French pollsters who have never set foot in a French suburb all indicate that these chères têtes blondes all claim to be good French citizens just chomping at the bit to play their part in the Universalist and Secular Utopia that is the Repoublika Franska.

In Europe, you can say anything you want ... really!

As long as it's insipid, bland, unthreatening, and in accordance with the State Party Line©.

Her master's voice

Zeropeans adopt their role as Putin's poodles in order to keep their hovels and favelas warm and comfy. ... et moi qui croyais qu'ils se tenaient bien au chaud rien qu'avec leurs lumières zéropéennes.

The French rediscover their balls ...

... when it comes to threatening Jews. French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie has her Fofana moment.

Next week's Friday edition will contain editorial commentary by Magilla Gorilla

Libération PropagandaStaffel, while it continues its death spiral towards bankruptcy, is desperately latching on to any gimmick in an effort to boost sales. Today, to mark the anniversary of last year's Muslim Suburban Riots, the newspaper decided to hand over the editorial direction for one day to the stewardess bashing, chimp beating, French rap mogul Didier Morville (Joey Starr). Today's edition was littered with editorial commentary from this distinguished representative of La Repoublika Franska des Zarzélettres (set apart from the rest of the content with titles typeset in graffiti tag fonts -- see link above).

How the West was won

This performance, which is really just one long wardrobe malfunction, goes out to the guys at 5 Years Later.

“Contre la barbarie, le soutien à Robert Redeker doit être sans reserve”

A petition: Against barbarism and in complete support of Robert Redeker.

Bush Has Brought Chaos to Iraq

Listen to reason, listen to the reason of the peace protesters, American and foreign nationals alike: As Cécile Hennion confirms, America has brought chaos to Iraq.

Chasing Jeff Spicoli

Attempting to impose their notions of citizenship on foreigners, the editors couldn't be in love with a lamer American.



Otherwise they prefer image over reality, and don’t use the word much when it comes to what a good citizen should do to be called one.the fuse is lit!

French State TV

French State TV is all about yearly State TV taxes financing blood libel and fabricating the truth. Sort of a "All the news that's fit to rig" operation.

Aujourd’hui hier

Is it just me, or do you smell something burning?

Don't get my hopes up

The Shape of Things to Come in Europe.

Crossing the Atlantic with a Koran in hand: "Islam and terrorism have become intertwined in the collective subconscious"

A hijab left only the oval of my face exposed - my blond hair was covered, pulled back in a tight bun - and I was wearing an ankle-length skirt. For good measure, a copy of the Koran stuck out of my handbag.

In a typical mainstream media article, Katrin Bennhold dresses up as a Muslim and crosses the Atlantic Ocean in a flight from Washington to Paris. Although hardly anything happens — most officials and fellow travelers, both in the airports and on the plane, show her no disrespect (they even know Muslim customs) — the International Herald Tribune's Paris correspondent discovers that, needless to say, any (rare) example to the contrary (such as a remark) speaks

loudly about how Islam and terrorism have become intertwined in the collective subconscious.

In order to make this hardly-a-story an article, the German journalist must go to other sources, documenting how unfairly Muslims have been, and are, treated in the West and getting feel-good quotes such as the one ending the piece. Never mentioned, of course, whether by herself or the complaining Arabs she interviews, is how non-Muslims are treated in Muslim societies and whether there might not be a modicum of common sense (at least, in this day and age, i.e., that of Mohammed Atta) in racially profiling people whose brothers regularly call for the death of the West.

But... but I thought they cared?

Check it out – the über-moonbats at Courrier International cover WaPo’s statement of what’s been rather obvious with a light touch. Having been hyperventilating over the Gitmo prisoners, they bury this little gem:

Regularly, the United States is challenged over the Guatanamo Bay prisoners who are supposed terrorist and are called “enemy combatants”, and do not enjoy Geneva convention rights. It’s good to close Guantanamo, certainly, but what to make of the prisoners? According to The Washington Post, in spite of their calls to the closing of Guantanamo, several European countries refused the transfer of prisoners on their territory.

As for that great, self-stated love of “human rights” for anyone who appears remotely opposed to U.S. interests, WaPo wrote this unsurprising stance of the Europeans:

Other European governments, which have been equally vocal in assailing Guantanamo as a human rights liability, have also balked at accepting prisoner transfers. A Turkish citizen who was born and raised in Germany was finally permitted to return from Guantanamo in August, four years after the German government turned down a U.S. proposal to release him.

In addition, virtually every country in Europe refused to grant asylum to several Guantanamo prisoners from China who were not being sent home because of fears they could face political harassment there.

Can you smell that, son? Can you smell the mendacity?

All it is, is more of the usual European bleating about what they WISH could happen, while making no effort whatsoever to achieve it.

"We think countries whose nationals are in Guantanamo ought to take responsibility for them," Bellinger [the State Department's chief legal adviser] said. "We have also, in certain cases, encouraged European governments to see if they would be eager to take detainees of other nationalities."

So far, there have been few takers.

This, behind all the dramatic foot-stomping and fist-shaking we find:

"It was a shame what happened," said one of his [the German national’s] attorneys, Bernhard Docke. "It was a kind of excuse for being passive and just watching what was going on. If Germany had done something then, it would have kept him from having to spend another four years in Guantanamo."

Surprised?the fuse is lit!

Les distractions sont si rares

fuse is lit!

Play the game, bleed a beast

And they’re so often gored in the bathtubs in crappy apartment buildings. Otherwise this pleasant description from the heart of the caliphate’s province of Belgium still piques ones’ interest.

The lucky winner gets: a new kitchen (cabinets and appliances), two-way plane tickets, a sheep, 'Ramadan cooking for sharing' cookbooks.the fuse is lit!

Blood Libel

Always a French favorite. Surtout chez les pubards pédaloïdes.

L’Internationale des BoBos Buveurs de Café Equitable

As boring as a film directed by Christian Carion.

Down in flames

The flames will come later. For now, the EU admits that its multilateral approach to dealing with Iran has failed.

When it comes to Jew bashing ...

... the French rediscover what going on the offensive if all about.

The French Intifada

It's not just in the French streets. It's also in the French preSS.

Plan B: Iran, I ran so far away.

Hiding in among the usual EUtopia-ese

The WEU Assembly and the European Interparliamentary Space Conference (EISC) are jointly holding a conference on space, defence and European security in Kourou, French Guiana from 19-22 September 2006, at the invitation of the European Space Agency (ESA), the French space agency (CNES) and Arianespace. Numerous members of the national parliaments of European countries, as well as representatives of the European Parliament and the EU Military Staff and Satellite Centre, will be attending, alongside leading figures from Europe’s space industry. The conference will address the various aspects of a European Space Policy having regard to security and defence, with a particular focus on the technological and industrial capacities needed to achieve such a policy.

It sounds like they’re seeing if they have the capacity to mount a missile defense program, or at the very least a serious remote-sensing capability.

If they can get a grip on the usual adolescent bickering over “how many jobs are doled out where”, they might manage something.

French humor

Canal+'s Guignols show American financial traders scheming with Islamic terrorists in order to rig world markets.

It's a turf war, and French cops are losing

French cops trapped and sandbagged.

It's a French trend

This seems rather tame from a country where a best selling book contained a storyline having World Trade Center employees engaging in orgies in the burning Towers just before they came down. And since plagiarizing is a French National Pasttime, Groland (a French satirical program on Canal+), had a sketch for the 5th anniversary of 9-11 with FDNY firefighters ducking into WTC stairwells with buxom secretaries to catch quickies before the Towers came down.

Y'a Bon en Ripoublika Banania

On the Left, Ségolène Royal declares that "the Capitalists must be scared" (suffit de zieuter un peu sa tronche glaciale pour avoir froid dans le dos) and she will soon submit proposals to do just that. This in a country, where the President on the Right, has already equated the damage done by communism with the damage caused by Free Markets. The goose-stepping State Party Line©, the same for all Parties like its made in the same French State-run factory, is moving ahead. Radio Fwance: one frequency, all the time.

Here come da' judge

French kids charged with "contempt of court" after making fun of Chiraq. French law defines the President as head judge of the country Repoublika Banania or something, thereby neatly rendering all mockery of the President and his office the same thing as contempt of the highest court in the land. Not a bad racket.

Légiferant sur l'utilisation des claquemerdes

More coddling of diverse sensitivities, more directives as to what is double-plus-ungood, and ever more shutting down of free speech in Ripoublika Banania.

... La nature des débats pâtit évidemment de ce confort matériel, bien mal réparti sans doute : cinquième semaine de congé et RTT, âge de la retraite et augmentation de la taxe foncière n’incitent pas aux grandes envolées lyriques ou aux prophéties apocalyptiques. On commence seulement à prendre conscience de la profondeur des enjeux sociaux économiques actuels.

Et puis, surtout, les haines sont interdites, les excès sanctionnés et les gros mots réprimés. Un mot en trop ou en moins sur les homos, les immigrés, les casseurs, les brûleurs de voitures, les colonialistes, les marchands d’esclaves des siècles passés, les massacres atroces estampillés « génocides », et vous voilà montré du doigt quand ce n’est pas traîné devant les tribunaux.

Une magnifique existence s’ouvre à nous, aseptisée sans doute, mais surtout insipide, craintive, ligotée. ...

-- Pierre Rigoulot, préface de France Intox chez Editions Underbahn.

"Police say it might have been stolen for the metal"

Sure, and monkeys will come flying out of my ass:

A bronze monument near Paris commemorating the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks has been destroyed just two days after France's parliament passed a bill that would make it a crime to deny the genocide.

A local member of the Armenian church in Chaville, a town near Paris, said the heavy bronze sculpture was wrenched off its pedestal late Friday night or early Saturday morning.

A Pleasant, Caring Society to Be Born In

What the AFP isn't telling you about the woman who murdered three of her newborn babies is that she is — or was, rather — an assistante maternelle (!) at a lycée, the type of outfit that makes European society oh so much more humanistic, so much more solidaristic, and so much more caring than America's clueless, egotistical, dog-eat-dog society…

How to talk to a European leftist, if you must

When polluting the minds of the locals, make sure to use the occasional religiously based allegory. It works especially well while discussing minor points of their stated pacifism with a leftist anarchist throwing a chair through a plate glass window.
Ex.: “wouldn’t it be better to teach a man to fish?,” and that sort of thing. Also ask them why there is no explosion of enthusiasm when there is a broadly publicized murder in the US, a nation of 300 million people, and no call to “understand the vast majority of peaceful Americans” when so many “social commentators” are prepared to claw each others’ eyes out to be the first to mention “the vast majority of peaceful muslims” when, say, a huge ugly mob marches after coordinated Friday sermons in Pakistani mosques or a nun gets shot?

DumbJohn, as usual, inspires:

Incidents like this allow the MSM to ram home another of the chattering classes favourite points, namely the evil of guns. Hell, the only way they could have worked themselves into more of a self-righteous snit would be if the killer had been driving round the school in a 4x4. The funny thing is that the same MSM which claims that the gun is at the very centre of US culture, act as though the Koran and the Hadiths are just a set of vague suggestions, completely unrelated to any current events, in fact hardly worth bothering with at all.

Sassy youthes singing: “give peace a chance” and
“I just wanted to say I love you in a song.”

Le Palais de la BD à la Conciergerie

The authors of General Leonardo will be signing their graphic novel at the Lire en Fête festival this weekend.

Erik Svane et Dan Greenberg dédicaceront leur nouvel album au Palais de la BD ce weekend.


Lire le résumé et voir un extrait de l'album…

Know the enemy

Two-faced, fork tongued, double language speaking Tariq Ramadan. Ramadan has a large following among Western touchy-feely types. Ramadan declared on French State TV that the continued stoning of women (a method approved of by his Islamist activist brother, for example) should be subject to a moratorium and debated before the oumma, Ramadan waffling something to the effect that without a debate led by Muslim authorities, any condemnantion of such practices would be moot. Apparently, it is politically correct for Ramadan to insinuate that Muslims are bloodthirsty, simple minded savages that require education from enlightened beings. Recordings of Ramadan's incendiary speeches, spoken in Arabic, are best sellers in the France's suburbs and rank right up there with Daniel Pearl and Nick Berg snuff videos as the most prised elements of French youth popular culture.

Thanks a million... or two

2 000 000 visits, and still no offers to join the editorial board of Socialist Worker newspaper. All three of us extend our thanks to our readers, especially the alumni and, um, imaginative commenters.

Now is the time at ¡No Pasarán! when we dance.

"No Niggers in Espirat"

"PAS DE NÈGRE À ESPIRAT, PREMIER AVERTISSEMENT"

While Europeans give lessons on racist harmony, international solidarity, and the meaning of dialogue and discussion to the clueless Yanks (all the while castigating the society that saw the birth of the Ku Klux Klan), Gérard Davet files a report from Espirat about the troubles undergone by a man variously described as a "SALE NÈGRE" and a "BATAR". (As it happens, François Phillippe is a métis (Madagascar father, English mother) who looks more white than anything else.)

"NEGRO TU VA CREUVE"

While racist actions in America would be comdemned hysterically in the harshest of languagues (smugness, snorts, sputtering, shouting, mockery, etc), lawyer Gilles-Jean Portejoie's reaction is of the typical hand-wringing, mortified, explanatory (there's-some-kind-of-explanation) kind when and where the Europeans themselves (like this… assistante maternelle (!) at a lycée) are concerned ("Cette affaire est révélatrice d'un climat, pense celui-ci, la déshumanisation touche aussi le tissu rural, et le racisme pousse sur ce terreau").

"LES NÈGRES AU BÛCHER, DEUXIÈME AVERTISSEMENT"

What I picked up from the Monde article, far from uninterestingly (and which I am not sure that Davet himself noticed), is that part (most? all?) of the resentment seems to have come from François Philippe's enthusiasm, individualism, can-do attitude, and work ethic.

Venu d'un village voisin, François Philippe construisait, seul, sa maison, depuis 2002. A mains nues, un peu à l'écart de la départementale qui traverse Espirat. Charpente, menuiserie, plomberie, électricité, il s'occupait de tout. C'était son rêve, son bonheur promis, pour héberger sa deuxième femme, Véronique, et Clément, né d'un premier mariage. … François Philippe continue à bâtir son rêve, pierre après pierre, la maison sort de terre, le couple et l'enfant s'installent dans les chambres.

Chaque week-end, chaque soir, l'homme travaille sur le chantier. Il choisit les meilleurs matériaux. En guise de poutres, il achète de gros rondins à Saint-Flour, qu'il fait sécher pendant trois ans avant de les placer avec soin, dans le salon. "Je n'ai pas pris de vacances pendant trois ans, ni ma famille d'ailleurs. Cette année, seulement, on a réussi à partir une semaine, à Noirmoutier."

No wonder they fire-bombed his house.

Hey Gim!

Listen to those bedwetting leftists for once, man! Don’t you know that You can’t hug kids with nuclear arms?

Slobodan Milosevic pales beside Saddam Hussein, so why has smug anti-Bushism replaced reflection?

What drove the left-of-center interventionists in Sarajevo and Kosovo, abrupt discoverers (and rather to their surprise) of the merits of military force, was the sight of hundreds of thousands of Europeans being driven from their homes and selectively killed by a repressive regime in Belgrade that, in the Bosnian case, did not hesitate to use concentration camps to speed "ethnic cleansing" along

writes Roger Cohen in the International Herald Tribune.

For this new European left, confronted by such monstrous abuse on their own continent, the case for military action was clear enough. In Kosovo it went ahead without a clear United Nations mandate.

But such sentiment vanished at the gates of Baghdad. Having covered the wars of Yugoslavia's destruction, I'm as vehement in my sentiments about the late Serbian strongman, Slobodan Milosevic, as anyone, but I would have to concede that he pales beside Saddam Hussein.

In the scale of the destruction he unleashed - from the war with Iran, through the gassing of the Kurds, the slaughter of the Shia, and the invasion of Kuwait - Saddam was the Pol Pot of the Middle East.

His monstrous regime, built around a personality cult, random murder, and the iron discipline of the Baath Party, rivaled the worst totalitarian inventions of the 20th century. Indeed, it was openly modeled on them. By comparison, Milosevic's Serbian Socialist Party was a trinket.

And yet, with a few exceptions like André Glucksmann and Bernard Kouchner and, yes, Tony Blair, the left-of-center liberal, interventionists found Iraq to be a step too far. Back came the tired arguments about the countless tyrants on the planet and how you can't make it your business trying to oust them all.

Why did the Sarajevo-Kosovo wave stop at Baghdad, leaving the European left to congratulate itself on being antiwar as it compared notes on who could express more derisive hatred of President George W. Bush?

There are many reasons. …

But given that this war also ended a regime of unrelenting terror, why have Europe's liberal interventionists lost their voice? Why is there no self-analysis, no explanation of the fact the road from Sarajevo to Pristina stopped short of Baghdad? Why has smug anti-Bushism replaced reflection?

… Why is such debate so absent in Europe? Why does freedom for Iraq not resonate just because it comes from Bush's mouth? Why is Europe's interventionist left, unanimous today about Hungarian freedom, apparently uninterested in Iraqi freedom?

That pathetic air of superiority and entitlement

Gideon Rachman on what Greek politician and EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas believes he’s entitled to:

If I, an American living in Brooklyn New York, do not have the right to vote in any European country (and rightly so!) what makes a pompous cretin with a bloated sense of worth, like you, think that you have the right to vote in my country?

Ironically, as a politico he should know the value of every legitimate, solid, mandate giving vote he’s ever gotten, but obviously believes that it’s only of value to him, and to hell with yours’.
With no view of the future or even with a basis in logic or morality, he’s sure that some issue of his matters more than any in the future might have.

Like the welfare state that only survives one generation, he’s prepared to put sovereignty in the same dustbin as long as he gets his way. His sniffing and snorting will never get it back if he changed his mind.

Inasmuch as official Europe wants people to vote as little as possible, especially on whether or not they willingly want to join official Europe, one can hardly be surprised.

In the face of Islamist intimidations, what is the free world to do?

Check out Fausta's translation of the article that brought Robert Redeker into trouble.

Fear-Mongering Tactics

They're preying on our fears again, writes Ben Duffy about the… Republicans (?).

Operation Gratitude

Operation Gratitude

State Ownership of Railroads Keeps the Fatalities Down

Another success for France's state-controlled railroads.

Some may wonder, do we mean to rejoice in the death of innocents. No, of course not, but if anybody has been doing so over the years — or at least deriving schadenfreude-type satisfaction from the tragedies of others — it has been the French press. French journalists have always been giving a great amount of attention to the numerous accidents on British railroads as proof of the failure of the utterly inhumane private property system.

A few years ago, a French commentator pointed out that a ring of accidents on the Austrian network were given far less publicity in French news media. The explanation? Why, because Austria's railroads were state-owned, naturellement. (We won't even go into the fact that the never-to-be-delved-into finances behind the SNCF, in the words of one French libertarian, would make Enron — likewise, always to be sure of getting extensive copy in France — look like child's play.)

State-run railroad accidents, whether in France or elsewhere, are blandly reported — with the only emphasis on the humane tragedy, not (as opposed to capitalist-related accidents) on any profound lessons to be derived therefrom — only to be immediately forgotten.

Double standards, folks. Double standards.


Update: In a slightly-related article, Stéphane examines neighboring Switzerland's state-regualted health system.

Pancho-noia will destroy ya.

Whinging about the basic data that airlines have anyway, which is the same data European airlines share with European governments anyway when you fly within the ”holy city of Schengen” through which all the 9/11 hijackers came.

...”You can’t fly to the United States unless you give me 34 pieces of information for the CIA.”

“but I don’t HAVE that much data!”...

Yes you do. Your über-euro-arline/champion keeper of the naotionalist culture already has it.

Stone them back to the bomb age

A young girl in Lyon was pelted with rocks for snacking during Ramadan. Thanks to 5 Years Later.

Caption/subtitle contest

Seen in a street market in the village of Nobsa, Columbia.



Ché, the mobile phone salesman. Long live the communications revolution!

Ward of the state gets new warden

Nationalistic euro-goofyness is still everything:

The appointment will see power over EADS's most important subsidiary consolidated in the hands of a single French executive. A similar proposal was fiercely resisted by the aerospace group's German shareholder DaimlerChrysler just over a year ago when it was mooted by the former Airbus chief and EADS executive Noel Forgeard, who left after a share dealing controversy this summer.

However people close [to him in] DaimlerChrysler said Mr Gallois was "a different character". A long-time civil servant who led the restructuring of France's rail group SNCF, ...

A complex structure of cross-reporting, with French executives reporting to German and vice versa, has been blamed for perpetuating national rivalries which have contributed to the group's recent troubles. Moreover the personal ambitions of former Airbus executives such as Mr Forgeard have created an atmosphere of mistrust between the aircraft maker and its parent which has affected the group's performance.

A different character being a government type taking a mad romp through the carnival ride of this strange new thing called capitalism, excerpt the company is rigged up in such a way that it fail all it wants, but never go out of business.

It is understood the French government, which has 15 per cent stake in EADS, agreed to Mr Streiff's departure yesterday afternoon after initially supporting him. However, the deal was reached only after the EADS shareholders agreed Mr Gallois could retain both his EADS role as co-chief executive as well as the Airbus post.

Alas, the state is everything, and everything for the state – but there’s another subtext: a fight over the national controlling the ship been getting in the taxpayers’ aft for 4 decades.

A victory for western diplomacy

Time to dash a thank-you note off to “food not bombs”

The Dear Leader’s nuclear test could not have occurred without Bill Clinton’s decade of dalliance. Clinton could have obliterated the Yongbyong reactor with one strike when he first learned of North Korea’s covert nuclear program in 1994. Instead, he allowed Jimmy Carter’s private foreign policy to preempt him. Upon completing the “Agreed Framework” in 1994, Clinton stated, “This agreement will help achieve a vital and long-standing American objective: an end to the threat of nuclear proliferation on the Korean peninsula.” We now know the $4.6 billion bribe gave the Communists the two nuclear reactors they used to create their current arsenal.

A victory for leftism, if there ever was one.

For those not familiar with the Marxist stooges who prey on adolescents to do their idiot-work, here’s a sample of their brilliance:

How Food Not Bombs Got Its Name

During 1980, a group of friends who were active in the protests against the Seabrook nuclear power project were searching for a way to make the connection between the issues of nuclear power and militarism. One of our many activities was to spray paint anti-nuclear and anti-war slogans on public buildings and sidewalks using stencils. One of our favorites was to spray paint the words "MONEY FOR FOOD NOT FOR BOMBS" on the sidewalk at the exits to grocery stores in our neighborhood. One night, after an outing of spray painting, we had the inspiration to use the slogan "FOOD NOT BOMBS" as our name.

An auspicious start in defacing property, and not quite understanding just what a fantastic job the left has done for the cause of mass starvation and crop failures.



The irony is that the NorKs are among the very few people on earth who have had to make a choice between food and bombs, and reflecting on the fact that their ineptness has brought them poverty and were no meaningful threat to anyone, they chose bombs as far back as 1992, and have let their population starve even more since.

Outsourcing foreign policy

Douste-Blazy’s statement on the NorKy-nuke “wisdom bomb” theatrical warmongering fell just short of saying that there would be any sort of consequence attached, at least not anything that they wouldn’t try to get someone else to take care of, (as usual):

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy condemned the North Korean nuclear test Monday, saying the international community should take swift action against the Communist regime.

"France will turn towards her partners in the Security Council to quickly come up with a reaction," he said.

Well, now! THAT should stop that impish little perv! Douste-Blazy waits for the UNSC to react much in the way we wait for him to react – because it’s killer comedy! Where does he get this stuff, anyway?

Everything gives you cancer

Numberwatch is website created by Prof. John Brignell who has been tracking environmental hysteria and the innumerable phenomena that the non-scientific and incurious attempt to attribute to Climate Change©® to satisfy their need to believe in their own rationality.

Take a moment and look at the list. Imagine for a moment that there are people so satisfied by the “Diaboli Ex Machina” explanation of all of these things that they are no longer worth studying (such as yellow fever, for example) because they can be explained away with one of Al Gore’s megalomaniacal stares.

Galileo had it easy compared to any scientist or scholar looking for other causes for, say, stress fractures in drain receptors, taxation policy, or happy reindeer, among other things. However it DOES explain one thing: a rise in the number of people with nebulous Liberal Arts degrees making proclamations about science with more certainty than any scientist!

Equanimity

I’ll just throw this out there for the sake of equal treatment.

Deb Frisch is no better than a child molester.
Henseforth her name shall be Queen ASBO.

Another steaming pile of Plantu

It’s good to keep plenty of booze and dope around the house for moments like these: a Pythonesque white man playing the race card over and over until his audience is numb to it and no longer notices it's own unspoken hatred of people, giving them Step'n Fetchit features not seen since 1928.
The likes of Plantu think borders and sovereignty are luxuries only available to 3rd world, "real" countries, unlike the western society that they've done so much to dismantle.the fuse is lit!

Weekly taste

Short break for some T and A.

The mayor reaches out to shake the hands of the old-timers but leaves the ethnic Arabs alone

That attitude has contributed to a subliminal racism among older residents and an inclination for the two communities to keep separate. The ethnic Arabs congregate in one café; the Gallic Frenchmen in another. The ethnic Arabs gather in the shade of trees around the central town square on hot afternoons; the Gallic Frenchmen retreat indoors. When the mayor walks the streets, he reaches out to shake the hands of the old-timers but leaves the ethnic Arabs alone.

Thus reports Elaine Sciolino in her NYT article entitled French Farm Town Is Fertile Ground for National Front (which the IHT has — diplomatically — reentitled A French town fears the loss of its soul).

Every Bastille Day, the town celebrates the arts and crafts of daily life a century ago. Last July 14, Courtois ran an old-fashioned open-air café. A retired pharmacist ground potions. A baker made big loaves in a communal oven. Residents dressed in period costume sang old French country songs. Children rode ponies. The ethnic Arabs stayed home.

Bitter Competition Between the EU and NATO

The European Union and NATO have much in common, sharing members and pursuing similar goals

writes Judy Dempsey.

But instead of cooperating on defense, analysts say, the two organizations are engaged in a bitter competition that is damaging the credibility and effectiveness of both. …

The countries at the center of this competition, analysts say, are Britain, which wants to preserve and strengthen NATO, and France, which wants the EU to grow into a more robust defense institution, independent of NATO.

"The competition is there," said Peter Schwarz of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. "There is always the tendency by France to try to separate the EU's defense policy from NATO."

Indeed, when Germany agreed to command the EU's latest military mission to Democratic Republic of the Congo, which started in July, Chancellor Angela Merkel wanted to cooperate with NATO by using its planning headquarters, SHAPE, based in Mons, Belgium. But President Jacques Chirac of France and his Foreign Ministry insisted that the EU command the mission - alone, and from Potsdam, just south of Berlin, where the EU's newest military operations headquarters is based. …

NATO has repeatedly asked the EU for more civilian and humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan, particularly since both organizations say security cannot be attained without economic development and jobs. But the European Commission has refused.

"The Commission put its foot down largely because of opposition from some of the member states," Keohane said. These included Belgium, France, Greece and Spain, EU diplomats said.

Sans doute rédigé par les Bac+5 qui pullulent en banlieue

La Banlieue s'exprime, et elle est analphabète.

Especially the one-armed ones

L'Algérie somme les franchouilles de garder leur racaille chez eux.


Persona Manchot non grata en Dzayir

Drawing lesson

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