Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…
Il rayonne, Douste. Mais vachement!
- Val, who is still cracking up at this
Today on Arrêt sur Images, the foreign minister known far and wide for his sympathetic head-tilt told a Chinese journalist that France loved China because they are a great civilization and because China has never waged war on anyone outside of their own borders except the South Koreans, Russians, and Vietnamese.
I suppose threatening Taiwan is okay, though too... right?
Barrot warned that if steps were not taken, the project could nose-dive. “The US’ future [version of] GPS would take the place of Galileo,” he said.
Galileo, and all the purported economic value that goes with it was due to be betamaxed before it was even initiated.
“In any case, profitability would be limited. The applications on which many expectations have been pinned would be delayed.
“But I can’t believe that scenario because it would represent a great European defeat. Industrial instincts will kick in very quickly. And, member states have their pride.”
Nonetheless we hear the sounds of whistling past the graveyard, The shell company that is supposed to run Galileo is trying to sell something that’s already available for free. Go figure. Good luck, spacedog.
"That means free access for consumers who use navigation devices," said the scientist who broke the code, Mark Psiaki, in a statement
Where every day is red-nose day.
From the editor’s foreword: It was Moscow in 1953, a few weeks before Stalin died, the director of the Hospital psychiatric ward invites a writer to remain among the “patients” and asks them to rewrite, at their level of understanding, both average and severe, the history of Communism and the October Revolution. He was convinced that this “therapy” could cure some of his patients. Matéi Visniec plunges us in the fuzzy universe of these psychiatric hospitals where real patients and jailed opponents of the state display their nature in their own ways. It shows us once more that whatever the circumstances, man cannot live without concepts of utopia... at the risk of sinking into horror when he tries to put the ideas into practice.
Visniec, born in Romania in 1956, is a historian and philosopher cum dramatist and journalist in the tradition of the broad-ranged intellectual. He first published poetry in 1972, and went on to write for the theater but was cencored by the communists. In 1987 he fled Romania for France seeking political asylum, and became a French citizen in 1993. He lives in Paris and works for Radio France International.
The European past meets the European present: the home truths invented out of comfort and conformity haven’t changed one bit:
The new dead-enders are in fact little more than people seeking affirmation from one another that their uncertainties about their own views can be ameliorated by ignoring history.
- with thanks to Walt
Perchance to feel:More than 600 BBC journalists led by the director general, Mark Thompson, joined vigils for kidnapped Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston across London this afternoon.
Seeming to resort to the supernatural, the very idea has the air of a séance. When one starts to believe that having empathy and good intentions will cause barbarians to change their ways, then you are indeed proving that you’re out of options, and that the concept stinks – that is, if you can admit that the world isn’t always what you hope it is and have a Plan B.
Some 500 staff left their desks at Television Centre while 100 World Service members demonstrated their support at Bush House.Fearing for their lives, European Union monitors stationed at the Rafah Crossing that connects the Gaza Strip and Egypt have asked the defense establishment for help in drawing up escape routes from Gaza...
Then again, with such great aspirations of peace and love among the innocent and downtrodden that the same mass of humanity holding vigil is willing to promote through their reporting, such a thing hardly seems necessary.
...The third proposal, which was accepted by the EU monitors, was to make a dash for the Gaza security fence that separates Israel from Gaza, where they would be rescued by the IDF.
"They want to know that we will help them escape if the need arises," the defense official said. "Their concerns are understandable if you take into account the large number of threats they face."
In fact the red light has always been on. neo-luddism for thee, but not for me:Trudie Styler, wife of Sting and self-styled eco-warrior, recently took a helicopter to travel 80 miles from Wiltshire to Devon, a journey that would have taken less than two hours by train.
I guess that’s the way of the “eco-warrior” making the sacrifice of leading by example. It later emerged Sting had twice used the airfield in question from which to roar off in his private jet.
Styler's personal assistant declined to comment on her boss's travel arrangements when I called.
The father of Alan Johnston, the BBC Gaza(n) journalist who has been missing for a week made an appeal for his saying: “that’s no way to treat a friend of the Palestinian people,” using any appeal possible, but forgetting that a journalist is not supposed to befriend the subject of their reporting. The BBC announced that they suspect that it’s just an armed gang looking for some money, and finally admitting that these kidnappings are frequently undertaken by factions as a means of harming one another, which hardly sounds like a simple ransom scenario.
Around the web, other scattered points are made of this matter, but not too loudly. As unsurprised as near-east watchers are, they certainly wouldn’t want to see any harm come to Johnston, even if he did report for the same World Service that spent an hour referring to Valerie Plame simply as “Valerie,” and reported he claim that her very being was a secret, and that she was some sort of highly placed operative who simply didn’t know that it was wrong to recommend a biased spouse to a position where he could do a political hatchet job against their countrymen.
As for Johnston, the BBCeye blog takes up the BBC on their ‘cause’ quoting former PA Information Minister:"We are opposed to the kidnapping of foreign journalists who serve the Palestinian cause."
While a fine fellow from Sweden noted in straightforward manner quoted him, saying: "We are opposed to the kidnapping of foreign journalists who serve the Palestinian cause," he added.
Is it journalism or is it advocacy? Is it because Johnston was only biased 90% of the time, or was it because on rare occasion he would hint that there is an internecine tribalistic feeding frenzy going on among the Palestinians at the very moment they have a chance at their own state?
Or if you allow me to paraphrase: Don't touch our journalists who support us.
The only thing that’s certain is that you can’t call the BBC’s reporting journalism, not because of its’ editorial political stance, but because they frequently suppress basic reporting that doesn’t support the world view of their reporters.
French President Jacques Chirac told Israel at the start of the war in Lebanon that France would support an Israeli assault on Syria, it was reported on Sunday.Israel's refusal to enter into a deal with Monsieur Chiraq was probably the best Israeli decision of the whole war.
I’m sure you’re shocked, but not in the way the French leftists’ image of themselves will: France urged Israel to hit Syria. Doublegame, against their own bitch no less.
While they were telling the thin-skinned, yet terror-symp French public that religiously driven murderers were O-tay! with them.
Army Radio reported that in the message, which was delivered by Chirac to Israel via a secret channel, the French president suggested that Israel invade Damascus and topple the regime of Bashar Assad. In exchange, Chirac assured Israel full French support for the war.
According to the message delivered from Paris, Syria was responsible for the flare up in the North and encouraged Hizbullah to attack.
Image of self, including banal leftist “truthy fairy-ness” and international marketing tactics : gone.
Have a nice day.
On the anniversary of the Madrid bombings, a jihadist cell found it germane to celebrate by threatening Germany and Austria, (yes, Austria,) with retribution for thinking unapproved thoughts, and not pulling a Zapatero: letting terrorists dictate their terms.
[ed.: this is an un-funny play on words between Verlierer (loser) and Vereinigte (United, as in ‘United States’)] ...against Islam and Muslims will all be for nothing other than risk threats at home in Germany. Then the allies will have to set it straight after they experience the same thing their allies did, then the German troops in Badakhshan and Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan will not be safe from the Mujehedeins of Al-Queda and the Taliban.A message to the governments of Germany and Austria
In the name of Allah the humble by heredity and merciful, Joy to those who follow in the path of righteousness. The Caliphate channel correctly brings to you a message to the governments of Germany and Austria, the following people threaten you safety, but not by their own actions: the noble among you must remain vigilant and respect the will of the people before it acts, or acts on behalf of their allies, we ask a question: what does Germany gain from sending 2275 troops to support NATO to defend Bush’ lies? What does Germany gain from Bush’s promises? The German government lied to her people when they told them that participating with NATO troops is intended for reconstruction!Their big lie was just a statement to get their soldiers to go to Afghanistan, and to prevent terrorist attacks in Germany!
Their first lie to get soldiers sent to Afghanistan was that they were just their for reconstruction was a lie that the whole world could see through. The German media reported more about the ways in which the soldiers were actually there more for security. The whole world saw pictures of them with skeletons and skulls.The second lie to get your soldiers to go to Afghanistan was to say that it would prevent terrorism at home.
To that, Ayman Al-Zawahiri said: “Security is a double edged sword! If we’re safe, you’re safe. Only then is it possible for you to be safe. And when we will live in peace, it will then be possible for you to live in peace. When we’re attacked and killed, it will be definite that with Allah’s permission we will attack and kill. That is just retaliation, otherwise find understanding when you finally can understand.”
The participation of Germany in the war of the Loser States of America...
For some time Mullah Dadu Allah has been warning that Taliban operations were underway in northern Afghanistan.
Oh, German government! Germany has a strong economy, and was until not long ago a wonderful land! Why would you want Bush and his cronies take that away? Isn’t it obvious that your economic interest worldwide is at risk? Isn’t it obvious that our Mujehedeins will conduct operations in your country? By helping America, those they call terrorists will be motivated to attack you, thus you risk you own safety.
What we propose is that you remove your soldiers from all muslim lands, and withdraw your support for Bush and his people, and then your interests will be safe.
And to Austria we say: your soldiers in Afghanistan are not much of a threat to us as you display your support for Bush and his cronies. The truth that the Austrian government has withheld from you is that these soldier were attached to NATO, even though it is a neutral country, and not part of that alliance! How can you be a neutral country, a military power, and go along with their alliance? How can one be a neutral country and support America against the muslims?
Austria was and still is one of the safest places in the world. Your people face no struggles, and their future is bright. The country relies mainly on summer and winter tourism, which brings in pleny of revenue. When world gets out that there are security threats, and Austria goes on the Mujehedein’s list of enemy states, this business will end. We blame this on the new Social Democrat government that spoke of fairness and public safety for not pulling their soldiers out of Afghanistan, and for listening to Bush in his war against all muslims. Thereby Austria has risked...
He drones on for about another two minutes in exactly the same way that “a deal” could be made available to the Germans.- With thanks to Liberal in Austria
for the tip-off, where you can also readily see that the
first comment to the post was “yeah, so what?”
Many months ago, I received an email asking if I might be interested in giving a speech at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, with the subject matter the anti-Americanism observed, dissected, and described on No Pasarán and in my book on anti-Americanism.
The title of the speech, suggested by my editor, was "Faux Amis (Je t'aime moi non plus)", and the subject was: what nobody tells you about America-bashers (foreign and domestic). I spoke for 45 minutes (did so easily, given the subject matter), giving example after example of double standards and self-serving "opinions", both in Europe and among liberal and/or leftist Americans, before arriving at some common-sense conclusions.
The reception I got from (the extremely friendly members of) the College Republicans group was awesome and, on top of that, I was invited after the speech to a delicious dinner at the town's best Italian restaurant (with a gift added in, which kept me warm during the ensuing snowstorm that hit the northeast a couple of days later). Many mercis, les amis, for the fine welcome! It is good to know that you are present, that you are using your common sense, and that you are unwilling to let the loud noise drown you out and willing, on the contrary, to stand up to the masses with pride and voice your opinions, reminding them of a reality here and there.
Peaceful, Wonderful France, of course: On February 13, 2007, French anchor Patrick Poivre d'Arvor - kind of the French Dan Rather - introduced the news of the shootings in Philadelphia, PA and Salt Lake City, UT,
The argument is even easier to make when you magically triple a bad statistic. The conclusion: 4 dead. 4 victims among the 33 000 people who die every year in the United States, killed by a firearm.
The actual figure is 8 259. The firearm death, and not the murder rate was approaching 33 000, which included suicides and manslaughters had its’ peak under the “Clinton Junta.” I guess they couln't stop thinking about tomorrow.
- If you don’t already read Carine's
blog daily, you should consider it.
...and environmentalists would do this for their moral vanity and their own pocketbooks. Where for they got off sailing through life on the backs of the genuinely productive.
This simply means that, the US is not exactly a nightmarish country with devilish imperialist policies as Hugo Chavez, the demagogue president of Venezuela and others are portraying her to be. For if the US was reduced to only the negative things that sadly even some Americans and in chief, the Democrats are always claiming, people the world over will not be thronging to her, as it is currently the case. Even the hordes of Latin Americans who are now demonstrating on the George W. Bush tour of the region and are shamelessly and stupidly comparing him to Adolf Hitler, are in their numbers wanting to go the US.
writes Elie B. Smith at the AfricaPath journal, who finds little depth and a great deal of transparency in the venom directed at the notion of the United States, calling her an “indispensable World helper,” not deserving of the treatment it’s given.When the US went to Afghanistan to flush out the medieval government of the Taliban there were some who cried, but now America wants to reduce her troops and have asked others to take up larger share of the responsibility, but there is an out cry. More France is even withdrawing her troops in Afghanistan. The lead vocalists against America are those so-called Peace activists who are in reality merchants of illusions who privately appreciate America but publicly decry and tarnishes her noble job around the world.
Read on. He cites some excellent examples of how elites have constructed and exploited that anger while benefiting from the largess of American private and governmental generosity. It should come as no surprise that after decades of apparent invective, that many Americans find such aid which comes at the expense of helping far needier people who don’t have the same emotional difficulties with the US rather naïve.
Tell a Shiite or Kurdish Iraqi or even a southern Sudanese to accept those audacious and odious statements peddle around against America, he/she will have the one uttering such statements for supper, for they know and appreciates the true loving America, that is ignored and ridiculed by some Liberals (US Democrats included) and Islamists today. America is a great country and it must be made known without any fear or shame.
After another anti-property law hits the books (thanks to employment minister Jean-Louis Borloo), members of the Borloo Fan Club try to celebrate both at a popular NGO and at the housing ministry (where the BAF cameraman is blocked inside the security doors and scolded by a functionary to the tune of the message, "you should be ashamed of yourself for making pranks while the minister is working for the French people").
Call it a killer sales gimmick: The story was repeated in dozens of Scandinavian newspapers: Bush bans CD featuring Swede Eva Dahlgren.
[ ... ]
The only problem with this story: it was entirely false.Her fans, (both of you know who you are...) are sure to be disillusioned.
To encourage a world, where globalization is not only about homogeneity and standardization, but also about diversity and cooperation.
To provide edited print stories, audio and video of the above on the Internet for independent media contacts, thought leaders, and the general public
To favor a strict separation between state and religion.
To oppose all radical religious movements and violence associated with these movements.
To support democratically elected governments
To oppose war as a solution for solving conflicts
To facilitate the networking and coordination of like minded individuals for the coverage of local events as well as the gathering of information about events to be covered
To provide links to a broad spectrum of news resources, including the alternative media, activist, and research groups
To seek out and provide coverage on the global reason's for social, economic, and environmental problems, as seen from the perspective of those that are most affected by these problems
To encourage, facilitate, and support the creation of a global system of independent newsgathering organizations
If a transnational socialistic superstate is about anything, it is about creating homogeneity in law, society, and everything else. That a blog about it is as disengaged and has the air of never having been touched by a human hand should come as no surprise.
All the news that’s fit to link? When it comes to “truthiness”, it’s hard to beat: The only problem is that France doesn't have a "happy-slapping" issue.
Joining a business that sells sex toys, The European Union is looking into entering the virtual world and opening up an office in Second Life - an increasingly popular internet-based virtual world - which the Swedish government and the French presidential candidates have already entered.
Why there’s even some imaginary political strife to give them something to pretend to believe in and even a way to amuse themselves too. It’s all so very continental.
The amusing part is that the story isn't quite dead yet.
- found by Hervé who is one
seriously shrewd bastard.
Behold a perfect metaphor for their International Policy. Two performance artists come from France to “express themselves” in Rapid City, South Dakota:After stripping off their grubby clothes, the pair gobbled potato chips and spit them on the crowd, vomited into a filthy commode and threw around fake feces and urine before being shut down about a half hour into what was to be a 45-minute performance.
Naturally, there had to be a “concept” – one which, as usual, leads to the wise übermenschen of the continent treating others like they’re a different, lesser species.
Costes, a French performance art duo consisting of one 50-something man, Jean-Louis Costes, and a 20-something woman, Lisou Prout, were the fourth act of five scheduled to perform Wednesday at the Dahl.It was all in French, but people who saw it said it was basically a depiction of American life from birth to death, portrayed in the most extreme way possible.
Michelle Malkin has more.
To quote one of our more unselfconscious trolls: Our latest nuclear submarines can dispatch 90 million Americans million from the East coast off to paradise.
In other words a nation suspected of possibly going to war over resources to keep its’ massive population occupied, a economically defunct theocracy that supports terrorist sleeper cells in Europe’s cities, and a nation ritually making thinly veiled threats to Europe’s energy supplies in winter. No. The fantasies are of nuking the nation that acts as their bodyguard guaranteeing their safety, precluding them from the need to engage in the ugliest tasks of geopolitics, making the sea-lanes safe, and the financial environment stable enough for them to peddle their overpriced rubbish all over the third world, and have the luxury of imagining themselves dueling with windmills.
I offer this example based on the question Michel Druker of French TV posed to the [French] chief of subsurface naval warfare “so that the missiles reach the USA?” It was not China, Iran, or Russia, but clearly the USA.
I'm sure Freud had a name for it.
Drucker is among those uniquely European media phenomena – one of those variety/talk show hosts who is equally unqualified to do a serious interview as they are to have a conversation based on cringing flattery with a third rate bubble-gum band or B actor.
The love of their old squinting and mumbling hero of their violent youthful fantasies has brought the arthritic left a conundrum: Daniel Ortega made abortion illegal, and the EU has threatened to cut off aid to the leftists’ erstwhile holy land of Nicaragua in retaliation.
Can someone say sovereignty? Or perhaps call it ham-fisted “social justice” action?It’s odd, really. During the Iraq war, Euro-sophists kept telling us that it was not for the US to impose its values on the world and that it was up to Iraqis to decide their own future. Fair enough. So why is it that, when it comes to hectoring Africans about the death penalty, or ordering South Americans to form a supra-national bloc in mimicry of the EU, or insisting that abortion be made easier, Brussels suddenly comes over all colonialist?
Perhaps?
If abortion is a fundamental human right, why isn’t parliamentary democracy? If the EU can demand the former in Nicaragua, why can’t the US demand the latter in Cuba?
Perhaps the answer is that Brussels has never been all that keen on democracy.
- Kudos to a good friend
of this blog, Stavn
While getting intensely worked up about transatlantic passenger data, Europeans persist in monitoring ISPs, telephone calls, and emails for no clear reason. When they impose even more sever measures with less oversight, there is a refusal to admit to the outrage they reserved for American authorities monitoring the communications of people with hostile intent to Europeans and Americans alike.
It makes no difference – the goal is to find an authority figure to hate. Since Europeans feel foolish doing this with other Europeans, the US comes in quite handy. It’s petty and hateful, and causes many to persistently raise the meaningless to the level of “news”:(Reuters) - Mayan leaders will spiritually "cleanse" ancient ruins in Guatemala after a visit by U.S. President George W. Bush, unpopular here because of foreign policies going back to Central America's civil wars.
How his memories of his ancestors is degraded is unclear. Despite the fact that they were decimated by Spaniards, some flunky panders to the ideologically predictable world press, and the press can’t but wait to dish it up to an eager European public to eat it up.
The leaders said they would hold a spiritual ceremony to restore "peace and harmony" at the Mayan ruins of Iximche after Bush tours the site on Monday.
"No, Mr. Bush, you cannot trample and degrade the memory of our ancestors," said indigenous leader Rodolfo Pocop during a press conference. "This is not your ranch in Texas."
Reuters also seems to forget how the word “new” figures into the word “news”:Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, Washington's principal antagonist in Latin America, has called Bush "the devil" and at a United Nations debate last year said the U.S. leader left a smell of sulfur lingering in the room behind him.
But it doesn’t matter. It’s reporting without purpose, but does a nice job of tacitly describing the real story: people whining about America need to get over themselves, stop dwelling on an imaginary enemy they’ve created, and get out of the tight little shells they built around themselves.
White Euro-sclerosis has unemployment at twice that figure, the NYT buries the news. If the left were in charge, and if they’re smart enough not to impose any of their “economic theories” on it to destroy it, the New York Times would call it the end of another successful 5 year plan.
- thanks to some guy in Baghdad.
One of the aspects of a cult is that it tries to intrude on every area possible sphere of people’s lives. Call it the drip, drip, drip of meme affirmation.You've heard of green cars, green tourism and green weddings. Now Canadians should ready themselves for green sex.
All those things sound so damned green, don’t they?
Another one of EUtopia’s countless “central committees” speak:It's absolutely clear that this kind of message is not appropriate for the competition," said Kjell Ekholm, an organizer of the contest. "We'll have all the delegation leaders here in Helsinki next week, and I'm sure we'll talk about this case within the EBU [European Broadcasting Union] group."
We failed, therefore the world and all of the vulgar shlubs living in it in it must be big fat idiots... Andrew, I spent many years with you (idealogically at least) but life on the front line of socialism, both campaigning and administrating at local authority level, taught me one overarching truth. The people are simply not up to Socialism. It's too difficult, it's too hard and it's too 'intellectual' for the people. The people have shown themselves, the world over, to be fundamentally lazy, greedy, selfish and myopic.
Don’t you just love the distinct lack of mortal, fiancial, or personal risk of his efforts “on the front lines”? Having lived behind the iron curtain, I don't think the comment's author realizes how meaningless people's work was, just how shabby the education and housing really was, or even how bad the knock-off "coca cola", or any other available goods were.
Did you watch the wall come down? The glee with which the people pulled down those bricks and threw themselves and their families headlong into unemployment, shabby education, poor health and CocaCola showed more clearly than anything else that the people are just too dumb for Socialism.
Socialism is indeed a better way to run things than capitalism, but first we have to find ourselves another 'people'.
Move on mate. You'll only cause yourself heartache.
- Vielen Dank, Georg
Just make it up. Start cherry-picking in 2007 for a good-looking trend in data for 2004 to 2005!According to the Commission's Joint Employment Report, published on 19 February 2007, "unemployment in the EU-25 fell from 9.1% in 2004 to 8.8% in 2005 and employment rose by 0.8% in 2005 - the largest increase since 2001.
Indeed. The Lisbonian magic is clearly at work. By 2010, the hard-working elves of the EU were scheduled (through the miracle of saying so,) to have the worlds leading economy. Instead a recent report warned that by some measures they were 22 years behind the US (where supposedly people live in cardboard boxes and eat cat-food.)
In two years’ since 2005, the gap EU-US has widened for all economic indicators:
- Income (GDP per capita). The current EU level for income was achieved by the US in 1985. Since the first edition of the study, the time gap has increased by 3 years;
- Employment and R&D. Both the current EU levels for employment and R&D investment per capita were reached by the US in 1978. (+3 years and +5 years respectively);
- Productivity (GDP per employed). The current EU productivity level was achieved by the US in 1989 (+3 years).
- The current EU level of Internet users per capita was reached by the US in 2002. Obviously, there hasn’t been enough ranting about predatory capitalism this winter to keep the good burgers of Outer-Lisbonium warm and dry long enough for them to enjoy the way high taxation and low wealth-creation is breaking their knees.
Owing to the usual democratic-sounding un-democratic ideas, French Presidential elections require that 500 Mayors sign a petition to get a candidate on the ballot. One mayor of a town in Calvados (Noron-la-Poterie,) is giving his vote to the highest bidder. Any punters?
Funnier still is the dim starethat the news elicits. The story's been up all day without a single comment at Libération.
Funny how we come across some people: author and apologist for Syrian dictators Jürgen Cain Külbel seems mad at Medienkritik’s Ray, and oddly enough mad at the US, Israel, and even mad at most of Lebanon too. He’s even nearly expressing genuine emotions in his desperate comparison of the US’ dealings with the eastern Mediterranean as a “puppet play”, and implying that the Siniora government is a puppet of the US. The poodle meme dragged out one more painfully boring time.
How did we find this guy? He’s got his panties in a bunch over the fact that David’s Medienkritik organized a public demonstration in Mainz last year in support of President Bush and the war on transnational terror – something the Syrians have done more for through direct arming and tacitly allowing advanced terrorist training and technique development in the Be’kaa Vally of Lebanon for more than a decade. Using an accusation as a defense of his hatefulness, he accuses Ray of “working for the CIA”. Among idiots, this might actually seem novel. Evidently a handful of people practicing their right to free speech is a problem for this guy. He can’t wrap his brain around where the pluralism that permits him to trash others comes from or how to preserve it. It isn’t a matter of him disagreeing with anyone else’s VIEWS, he seemed apoplectic that they were allowed to be there at all.
What drew my attention to him was his blatant mendacity when it comes to the Lebanese which I'll get to later. But to get an idea of what passes for "advocacy journalism" these days, and what passes for intelligent discourse in the adolescent anti-western camp, you need to look at their actions and habits.
Forget free will, anyone who chooses anything other that his favorite repressive ideologues is “a puppet” – as if he isn’t. Talking straight through his teeth, he all but admitted to certainty that the Syrians killed Rafik Hariri while accusing the US and Israel of the deed, and seems a lot more concerned with constructing houses of cards to be fawned over in places which have no free press than making any informed or useful theses.
By way of German bloggers we learn that he's currently writing a book about Osama bin Laden entitled "Osama bin Laden -World Theater with a Corpse." In an interview he did with "Muslim Markt", he explains that his book will talk about how "USAma bin Laden" was already dead by the time of the 9/11 attacks, implying that he is a fiction created by the US to justify its' actions therafter. I suppose anyone with time-penetrating precience is sure to be capable of that sort of conspiracy! What's sad is that even in German the "corpse thing" is dated and tasteless, and if countless other attempts to make this same silly argument haven't grown stale yet, here he is trying to make it again. Too bad it only works once or twice with the same gullible audience, but by indulging the Syrians to find flattery in having a European writing it while focusing on their pet peeves, that a new field of interest might open up.
Like any bad propagandist, he also seems to have himself convinced of his own nonsense, and can’t seem to recognize that the majority of Lebanese detest the Hizballah, but like anyone with any serious criticism of the Ba'athists in Syria, are too scared by them to speak out. The fact that the far more serious problem that Hizballah, once a puppet, is now a barely controllable possessed puppet of Iran and Syria registers no-where in his work. One can hardly call that due dilligence.
Maybe this guy is grabbing his ankles for money, ideology, readership among fevered single-issue simpletons in the German-speaking geographic pocket, or simply doing it to get access to senior figures in Damascus. What seems particularly un-natural for any kind of writer is that he seems to be making quite an effort on their behalf of a state long obsessed with a neighboring state that has an actual free press.
Take look at his incredibly ignorant choice of images:
Siniora obviously still believes in the US-American neoconservative idiocy of „nation building“ and to the spreading of western style democracy in the entire elbow from Morocco to Indonesia. And it obviously recognizes from Bush and cohorts would only install „democratic“ revolutions so long as only valid ones were established...He goes on to question the motives of the protesters who wanted Syria-supporting President Emile Lahoud to step down, and also calls the Lebanese Prime Minister a “Guerrilla fighter for US democracy” and the first “Democratic Dictator” in Beirut.
„L’état c’est moi”, is what Siniora thinks, because he’s following on a November 2006 opinion poll that didn’t take place in Lebanon, but mainly among the exiled Lebanese living prosperously in California, Ohio, and elsewhere under the star-spangled banner along with a few Parisians, the Israeli Prime Minister, and the former East German girl-scout leader who are behind him.
From the “rights of man” to the flight to ban:
What began as a good natured attempt to suppress whistle-blowing by abusive care-givers in old age homes, as well as propagation of mobile-phone videos by “happy slappers”, finds itself fitting in perfectly with the continental predilection to suppress any telling but illuminating showing of their warts - without which there is no improvement or change. 
The council chose an unfortunate anniversary to publish its decision approving the law, which came exactly 16 years after Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King were filmed by amateur videographer George Holliday on the night of March 3, 1991.
Basically, this tries to make it illegal to report bad news to anyone other than the Police, unless you’re a “professional” journalist – which means, of course, you’ve been thoroughly indoctrinated into believing in the preciousness of the social status quo by having fear of one thing or another drummed into you.
- With thanks to Strummin’ Joe
The way you do a poll that sees air in Europe is to flatter and indulge the reader, and in effect, rigging up the outcome. A “world” public opinion poll excluded Americans from answering questions about the US, but asked Europeans questions about Europe. A majority of people polled for the BBC World Service across 27 countries believe Israel and Iran have a mainly negative influence in the world with almost as many saying the same about North Korea and the United States.
The outcome is obvious, and the BBC will flog it on the air for a good solid week without revealing the fact that it was ginned-up. Canada, Japan, the European Union, and France were judged most positively. Britain, China, and India received more positive than negative evaluations while Russia was viewed slightly more negatively than positively.
Of course they’ll flog the results on the World Service for 3 days, and try to keep the story alive tomorrow a few days after that by doing a story about their own poll.Opinions about Venezuela were evenly divided.
Of course they were, all things, ALWAYS being equivalent equal... but it isn’t very hard to explain:They met, fell in love and had four children. But their story has horrified Germany. They are brother and sister, separated at birth and reunited years later.
The writer goes on to explain in the money quote:And their story is astonishingly common.
- H/T to Georges
except for the fact that it’s not about America, and that it’s true:In five decades of France-Africa summits, France has offered continued material and military aid to prop up unelected leaders, some of whom have been around for decades thanks to elections that have largely become a mockery of democracy.
and right after their latest lecture promoting their faux euro-humanism to the rest of the world, they’ll be heading back down to the plantation to see what the Pinkertons of their state-run industries can wring out of those people getting “too many concessions.”
FRENCH COMPANIES are equally guilty. For instance, Elf Aquitaine has been closely related to the enduring system of Franco-African relations, “Francafrique.”
Beyond the formal institutions, “Francafrique” worked through a system of international clientelism, combining corruption and force, economic, political and social exchanges, and public and private relations.
Only 45% of the French want to work more to earn more.
As if that’s all bad. But for some bad is never bad enough. Le Monde publishes the result of a survey not so much on an attitude towards work, by on philosophizing about the concept of thinking about work... or something:
[the magazine] 20 minutes and [talk radio operation] RMC published on Friday March 2nd. 
Asked about their definition of work, 78% of the people surveyed saw it as “a way to earn a living”, ahead of being “an important value to pass on to your children” (63%), “a source of wealth” (42%), “the way to being useful to your employer” (28%), “a source of pride” (21%).
[work is] “A PLACE OF INJUSTICE” to 5% of those surveyed.
Only a minority of the French regards work as “a source of inequality” (9%), “serious constraint” (5%) and “a place of injustice” (5%). The total of the percentages is higher than 100 because multiple responses were possible with question about work.I’ll leave the heavy editorializing to your imaginations, dear reader, but consider the spin: 45% is still a lot of people, particularly in a society that has talked itself in circles and has had two generations of Socialist bunkum sold to them as an essential morality to the exclusion of all others.
Imagine a place for a moment where the society tells you what to do with a basic matter of personal choice like whether or not you want to work hard of your own free will.
It looks like the EU finally found the place to drone on about their imaginary problems.The European Union is looking into entering the virtual world and opening up an office in Second Life - an increasingly popular internet-based virtual world - which the Swedish government and the French presidential candidates have already entered.
It gets even more ridiculous. Far from “experimenting” with alternate universes, it turns out people are being as stupefyingly predictable in Second Life as they are in meat-space:
"It is certainly an idea we are looking into," commission spokesman Mikolaj Dowgielewicz told EUobserver.
"But we do not have enough people dealing with the internet - we could but they are bogged down with other work such as for the EU's 50th birthday,"the socialist Segolene Royal, centre-right Nicolas Sarkozy and far-right Jean-Marie Le Pen - have all opened election headquarters in Second Life sharing out free pizza slices and t-shirts while promoting their campaign.
However, the presence of Le Pen's anti-immigration, ultra-nationalist National Front has proved particularly divisive among virtual users, some of whom protested outside the party's first headquarters until it moved.
