Words have meanings

Quote Victims of Communism Unquote

My whole life won't be enough to yell how much I despise this commie s**thole where I happened to be born, and this is not a soft damnation

confides Hervé shyly.

Yesterday a memorial to the victims of communism was settled in Washington DC, Bush was invited and made a speech — an excellent speech by the way.

The speech seems to have been basically ignored in the mainstream media (Hervé's email was the first I'd heard of it!) — as was the fact that last week (in the words of Natan Sharansky),

President George W. Bush, who put the democracy agenda back on the world stage after 9/11, came to Prague to renew the commitment he made in his second inaugural address to work toward "ending tyranny in our world" and met with each and every dissident.

Notice that it took someone who has actually lived in an authoritarian state to write a sentence like Bush "put the democracy agenda back on the world stage after 9/11" without sarcasm, adding matter-of-factly that the president "came to Prague to renew the commitment he made in his second inaugural address to work toward 'ending tyranny in our world'" without hyperventilating about the expression "axis of evil". Notice also how the IHT's mother paper, the NYT, apparently thought unfit to print Sharansky's piece (probably, with all the Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd material, there simply was no room).

But back to the memorial to the victims of communism; Hervé decided to check the news about this:

• Google news US: 173 articles
• Google news Fwance: 7 articles, one duplicate, one from Switzerland.

And every title is the following: Etats-Unis: hommage solennel à Washington aux "victimes du communisme"

First They Came for Piglet...

The cartoon exploits of Astérix may be enjoyed by millions of children around the world, but the ancient Gaulish hero has just been declared unfit to be official ambassador for children's rights. He is too French, too violent, he perpetuates stereotypes and his outlook conflicts with the spirit of the European Union.

It’s so sad that it defies the bounds of anyone’s acceptance of the absurd as an emotional defense.

The DCI organisation says that Astérix conveys an "archaic...hierarchical" world at odds with the "revolutionary" values of the 1989 convention. This stresses the child's existence as a being with rights while children in Astérix are fragile objects that need to be protected, said Jean-Pierre Rosenczveig, a senior juvenile judge who heads the French DCI.

Astérix also projects "a Gaulish vision which ignores the intercultural reality of French society," they say. His constant resistance against the Romans and other foreign invaders sends altogether the wrong message in the peace-loving European Union.
[ ... ]
It congratulated Obélix for tackling the problem of obesity but faulted the cartoon for failing to deal with unsanitary housing. The child defenders are also upset that Astérix delivers "a eulogy to tribal, hierarchical, society with frequent references to a chief." The right to education is sadly depicted by a woman school-teacher telling pupils: "Get into rows in silence please," adds the DCI.

Like the ubiquitous presence of the rainbow for a flag, turning holloween into an olympiad of gay narcissism, and the turning of clowns into icons for suicidal anti-capitalism, the ones who lose are the children who have their joy and innocence stolen from them by politcos trying to find the quickest and cheapest shot they can.

Astérix entertained generations of kids and also showed them that they could have moxie and valor. Evidently this isn’t good enough. It’s not that they themselves didn’t select it for their own kids, it’s that they also seem to need to give it a bad name while they punch up their own narcissism to state, but not prove by example, a “spirit of the European Union” in “peace-loving European Union” that has something as transparently fake as an “Ambassador for children”. What they need to do is set their personalized selfishness aside, show some hope for the future of man and actually have some children.

French wishful thinking

Agence France Presse wrongly published a news bulletin on Saturday stating that the space shuttle Atlantis had exploded; explosion confirmed by NASA according to said news bulletin. Asked for an explanation about this very typical case of French wishful thinking, Agence France Presse declared that the catastrophic news bulletin had been written "just in case" and then had been sent out by error. We've seen stuff like this before. When Agence France Presse journalists are not on drunken rampages, they are working for the enemy.

The Conclusion From the Use of Superlatives

It's the civil war unleashed by Bush's invasion of Iraq that has resulted in a torrential bloodletting in Iraq.

There are currently 3,500 dead Americans in Iraq along with violence in 3 of Iraq's 18 provinces (the others being entirely peaceful). May I ask how Mo Rocca would describe the situation if there were twice as many deaths and twice as much violence (7,000 Americans down and violence in 6 provinces)? You can hardly use expressions like "torrential bloodletting", "the daily mass slaughter of innocents", "the unending nightmare in Iraq" (Keith Olbermann), and/or "the most disastrous military adventure since the founding of the republic" (IHT letter) because they are superlatives that you have already used.

As for "the Iraq invasion [being] the worst foreign policy error in our nation's history", World War II faced America with over 400,000 lives lost (not to mention the other nations' millions of deaths) in much less time and somehow I don't really remember (angry) expressions such as "torrential bloodletting", "the daily mass slaughter of innocents", "the unending nightmare", and/or "the most disastrous military adventure since the founding of the republic" being used there — even in news items and news reels from the early 1940s! It doesn't sound right, because it sounds too impassioned (although, again, for a war with more than 100 times more deaths in fewer years and months).

I submit to you that the only conclusion that can be arrived at here is the following: all those expressions have little to nothing to do with the objective descriptive reality, but have everything with presenting opposition to Dubya. Which is entirely fine, of course. Just one thing: don't pretend that your language is free of partisanship and that it is supposed to reflect objective descriptions and the unfailing truth.

How Can You Be So Retarded As Not to Be Concerned by Global Warming?!

…Everybody knows that all scientists agree that the danger — like like-minded theories — is nothing short of true fact!

Who Can Do Better?!

I got 67% (#s 1 and 4 wrong) in Mikhail Simkin's An artist or an ape quiz. (Grump, Hervé!)

And Don't Forget That We Have Bush's Bellicose Policies to Protest…

The Elysée's New "Diplomator"

Corine Lesnes has an article praising Jean-David Levitte, the Elysée's new « Diplomator » who seems to be "appreciated by the Americans".

There may be some truth to that. But it remains a puffy piece of praise through and through ("Les humanitaires étaient touchés qu'on ne les prenne pas de haut. A la fin de la séance, tout le monde applaudissait"; "Partisan d'un monde « multipolaire harmonieux », Jean-David Levitte est d'un optimisme perpétuel"; and, of course, a nuanced Frenchman teaching the clueless Americans lessons ["Jean-David Levitte s'est souvent servi de cet exemple pour essayer de faire comprendre aux Américains que la France était moins antisémite qu'ils ne le croyaient"]).

Indeed, the last part is entirely dedicated to a lucid Frenchman standing courageously up against treacherous "French-bashing".

…la grande vague de francophobie aux Etats-Unis, il a mené la contre-attaque. … Il fallait construire un rempart contre cette hostilité. Il l'a fait à sa façon, avec une grande tolérance pour ce qui lui était dit. » … Quand Bill O'Reilly, l'animateur de Fox News, a dépassé les bornes du « french bashing » (le dénigrement des Français), Jean-David Levitte a pris rendez-vous. Il lui a reproché d'attiser la haine. … Les conseillers ont fait la liste des insultes anti-françaises circulant dans les médias. L'ambassadeur l'avait toujours dans la poche. Quand il était invité quelque part, il la lisait à ses hôtes en remplaçant « Français » par « juifs ». Un jour il l'a lue à Colin Powell. « Permettez-moi maintenant de remplacer Français par Noirs », a-t-il suggéré sans se soucier de l'embarras de l'Américain. « Quand il revenait, il disait : «J'ai encore gâché l'ambiance !» », raconte un collaborateur. … Le 17 mai 2003, M. Levitte … dénonçait « la campagne de désinformation » contre la France orchestrée « par des responsables gouvernementaux anonymes ».

Unless Corine Lesnes (and Lavitte) have forgotten, there are quite a few differences between France's America-bashing, which is continual, harsh, and never-ceasing, and America's French-bashing, which came only at a time when America (or Washington, or Bush) — rightly or wrongly — took a very risky decision, and put America's troops in harm's way.

As I have written before,

there is a difference between a country that takes action and one that remains passive. In America's case, Bush (and Blair) — rightfully or wrongfully — took risks. George W Bush put his politics at risk, he put his popularity at risk, he put his presidency at risk, he put his party at risk, he put his country at risk, and most importantly, he took decisions that put the lives of his soldiers at risk. In France's case, it did nothing — nothing being lauded as courageous by one French citizen after another ("au moins Chirac a eu les couilles d'opposer Bush"). That was its policies (or lack thereof) — all the while bringing opprobrium on America and its foreign minister going out of his way to get the most autocratic countries to oppose Washington in this riskful undertaking. Trust me, America's anger was anything but hysterical.

In fact (speaking of "disinformation campaigns"), the biggest disinformation campaign of all is presenting America's anger as …"French-bashing", i.e, little more than an entirely unjust phobia of the gratuitous kind, low, dirty, and totally uncalled-for.

Moreover, if any Frenchman wants to replace a nationality with "Jew", all he has to do is turn on Canal +'s Les Guignols and he can see their version of Sylvester Stallone, the everyday American (treacherous, racist, barbaric, dollar-hungry, bloodthirsty, etc…) who is the 20th/21st century version of the old caricature of the Jews and who — unlike the temporary anger of the Americans — has been depicted thus since the very beginning of the TV show.

There are a couple of other things that Corine Lesnes left out. But La Bannière Étalée did not:

Souvenez-vous de la Commission des Droits de l’Homme de laquelle l’Oncle Sam fut expulsé en mai 2001 sans cérémonie (les Américains furent réintroduits l’année suivante). La France, elle, avait gardé sa place grâce à un nombre record de votes (52 sur 53), et à Jean-David Levitte, ambassadeur français aux Nations Unies, d’attribuer le succès de son pays, avec un soupçon de suffisance, à une politique étrangère “fondée sur le dialogue et le respect”. Le message sous-entendu : la rebuffade contre l’Oncle Sam était due à l’absence de “dialogue et de respect” de la part de Washington.

Il est intéressant de noter que la plupart des Américains aient vu la situation différemment. Dans un éditorial, le New York Times a noté que la réaction de Paris semblait faire écho à celle de Pékin qui disait que Washington avait “miné l’atmosphère pour le dialogue”. De quel dialogue parlent les Chinois, se demandait le quotidien. De celui concernant les églises rasées, les pratiquants de Falun Gong qui sont morts en prison, les moines tibétains emprisonnés, les activistes du Parti Démocratie dans les camps de travail ? « Voila, présumément, quelques-uns des sujets que la France pense devoir être approchés avec plus de “respect”. Le Soudan, la Libye, Cuba, et le Vietnam, autres membres de la commission, seraient sans doute d’accord.» (Le Times aurait aussi pu mentionner l’Autriche de Jörg Haider.) Pour le journaliste William Safire, le vote révèle un empressement, de la part d’une “bande d’hypocrites” de “nous poignarder dans le dos en échange d’une préférence commerciale chinoise ou pétrolière arabe ou un vote du conseil de sécurité.” Il se demande “pour quel avantage commercial ou politique ont-ils troqué leurs votes en trahissant les droits fondamentaux des êtres humains” “avec la connivence de diplomates français cherchant à gagner la faveur de dictateurs africains et arabes.”

Les Américains n’auraient donc pas retenu la leçon de diplomatie indirecte fournie par Paris. Comme la Suède, “La France, terre des libertés, patrie des droits de l’homme, donneuse de leçons universelle” serait en fait plus apte à donner des leçons à la démocratie américaine qu’aux dictatures syrienne, irakienne, et chinoise. (Quoi qu’il en soit, l’on comprendra que dans ce type de circonstances et avec ce type d’alliés, les Américains ne font peut-être pas tout à fait confiance à une cour pénale internationale de garantir un procès équitable.)

Can You Hear the Dueling Banjos?

Does anyone have any idea why these commie hellholes still exist anywhere in civilization?

Bonus: by way of the charming and talented Kate herself, we find this bit of unwitting proletarian irony:

"'I'm depressed - I voted for the Socialists purely because the right is going to win,' said Geraldine Gourbe, a 30-year-old philosophy professor, on her way out of a polling station in northern Paris. 'I voted for them to be effective, but I'd rather have voted for the Greens or the Communist Revolutionary League,' she said, concerned that those parties' candidates stood less of a chance of gaining seats."

A French philosophy instructor and university parasite is depressed. A pinhole in the balloon of a fantasy world views is burst by an organic mass called the anonymity of the voting booth. Even someone in the university racket can’t chock it up to “brainwashing” or any of the other usual Fig Newtons of the leftist imagination.

Just one question: teacher, may I laugh now?

Guess what: that’s Not Entertainment

Left and right may disagree, but I’m fairly sure we all want to break David Chase’s knees today:

Chase pulled the ultimate copout.

Nothing happened.

Actually, it was worse than nothing. In the last few minutes of the last episode of The Sopranos, the screen suddenly went blank and silent.

Big joke on the audience. Get it? A lot of us went crazy thinking our TVs had suddenly died, or the cable company went kerflooie.

That's not drama. That's sadism.

Time to poison his cannoli if you ask me.

Election non-watch

While monitoring enemy broadcasts a discussion of the Parliamentary elections in France came up. The BBC’s correspondent at large in France discussed the mechanics of what looks like a landslide, after which the presenter rapped with some writer from Libération who sounded to be all of 14 years old. She rattled on for a while about how voting doesn’t really matter and “their” democracy was on the streets.

This would only make sense if you believed that voting doesn’t matter, and that the will of a majority that votes matters less than the will of a minority willing to break windows and burn trash cans.

Otherwise the BBC sound like this:

blah, blah, blah, climate change, blah, blah, blah, George Bush, blah, blah, blah, climate change, blah, blah, blah, climate change, blah, blah, blah, climate change...

And so forth.

Sure, And a big fat Sieg Heil to you two too.

French election watch

TF1 is announcing the following results for the French parliamentary election:

UMP & Presidential majority (Right) : 405-455 seats
Mouvement pour la Démocratie (Eunuch Centrist) : 1-4 seats
Socialist Party and other Left : 120-160

Run-off elections continue next Sunday.

French election watch

Official results will be announced in minutes, but Swiss TV is forecasting a right wing majority for the UMP (Presidential) Party of between 440-470 seats out of 577 in France's National Assembly. If this turns out to be accurate the French Socialist Party has been well and truly laminated. If Sarkozy does not push through Reagan and Thatcher style reforms after this then it will never happen.

I Can Hear it Now

No linkage. Bush’s poodle. Created by America. Al-Qaida has nothing to do with Syria which has nothing to do with Al-Qaida... Rumsfeld's lawn jockey... I wonder how terror’s willing collaborators among the western left will explain this away?

Beirut - This is an update on last week's Ya Libnan report on the arrest by the Lebanese security agents of the Al-Qaida terrorist mastermind at a Beirut hotel . The arrest was called 'a major catch'.

According to LBC TV, Lebanon's "major catch" has revealed that he is the coordinating officer between the Syrian intelligence and Fatah al-Islam terrorists.

Those inclined to fall for terrorist causes for their ‘rebeliousness’ need to realize just how “bought and paid” by authoritarian regimes many terrorists are: Ahmed Mehri was an al-Qaida “officer” type, and a liason between Syrian intelligence and the gang that hid behind civilians in a Palestinian camp in northern Lebanon by firing on the Lebanese Army.

The whole affair looks like it was set up as retaliation and a diversion for the Lebanese effort to keep attention on the investigation of Rafiq Harriri’s murder which is getting closer and closer to showing Damascus’ complicity.

The source explained that al-Qaida is "no more a solid-structure network. Many of its ranking members have joined several intelligence agencies and are used to infiltrate, control and direct local Qaida-inspired fanatics to carry out attacks that serve the interests of these intelligence agencies."

Fatah al-Islam, the source added, "is one of such local groups. Its members are inspired by al-Qaida ideology, but its attacks are directed by Syrian intelligence officers."

It also looks like someone (no-one will say who) seems to be putting a lot of these guys out of a job.

I wonder... who could THAT be?

Winston Smith: Run and Hide!

From a rag that reads like a 1960’s report on Soviet tractor production we can observe the species in the wild: among the announcements is this bit of common evasion:

Journalist and Communist: Françoise Germain-Robin passes on the colors of the PCF [French Communist Party] to her replacement in the 19e district of Paris, Catherine Ballester. The candidate is a recognized writer to l’Humanité readers, where she’s been since 1975 after having been a journalist for France Culture. For l’Humanité she was a correspondent in Algeria until 1981, and then a reporter at large for the Middle East.
She’s also the author of several works in particular on Islam, Algeria, and Israel or Palestine.

This is undoubtedly the motivation which led people to take part in her committee of support, where dramatists, those organized on the questions of the Middle East, and historians are found. Beyond being a candidate who has lived in the 18e arrondissement since 1989, she intends to fight against the right and “for a strong left” in a district which she likes to say, is a “reflection of the world and is rich in true human and cultural diversity”.

So a neighborhood of rich lefties (and political monoculture) is now magically “diverse”, journalism’s purpose is entirely political, and it’s warm, touching and sincere to run for local office in a place you don’t live.

Now I see.

Looks like Putin drank him under the table

¡No Pasarán! Readers Seen Protesting in Rostock

Here, Kid. Pull My Finger.

He also proves that tortured, repetitious allegations remain lawful.



Dick Marty accuses civilization of trying to protect Itself. All of society complicit.

I thought that the very existence of an unelected and unaccountable "Council" that levels accusations without proof was an insult to Europe

Jean-Charles Gardetto, Vice-President of the sub-commission of Human Rights for the European Council declares that the CIA's secret prisons, rumored to have existed in Poland and Romania, are an "insult to Europe".

For the French, it's the next best thing to America bashing

Fofana declared sane and able to stand trial. Declares himself a jihadist. Blames Jews. Cheb Mami setting up a Dr. Benway cut-rate abortion franchise in Algeria. Blames Jews.

 

Religious fanatics regularly flout French law

Given who and what is involved, don't expect the French authorities to anything about it.

As if the Rest of it isn't Pretty Awful to Begin With

Model Euro-citizens



Coming in behind a washed up tennis pro is what sells, even if it’s mindless trash, comes someone singing about something completely unrelated, that is, channeling their personal disappointment into criticizing a whole nation.

Live From Jerry’s Acid Park

Get a load of this idiot who wants to pollute in the interest of “raising awareness” about the environment or some other little mental pleasantry.

Marco Evaristti, originally from Chile, said he would colour the peak of Mont Blanc -- the highest mountain in western Europe --- in biodegradable paint and establish a sovereign "Pink State" on the summit in an attempt to raise awareness for environmental issues.

Evaristti's guide Michel Bordet told AFP the artist had already painted a part of the mountain at the Col des Flambeaux passage, at 3,400 metres (11,150 feet) in the Vallee Blanche valley, as a "small taste of what is to come."

Not his property, but so what. He’s got an answer to that one: good old fashioned Euro-thought and moronic pseudo-rebelliousness acted out for personal reasons.

"My aim is to transform this mythical mountain of Mont Blanc into a Mountain Red and establish a sovereign state, the 'Pink State'," Evaristti told AFP.

Snow-capped Mont Blanc rises to 4,808 metres (15,774 feet) in the French Alps.

According to the 43-year-old artist, the purpose of his "Mont Blanc Project" is to raise questions such as: "Who owns nature? Who owns the water in the lakes, the snow on the ground, the flowers in the fields and the trees in the rain forests?".

Evaristti said he has the "right" to "create a non-violent state of pluralism and tolerance" on the mountain, which "doesn't belong to France alone."

His credentials as a grreenie hypocrite are nonetheless firm:

Evaristti caused an outcry in 2000 with an exhibit in Denmark's Trapholt modern art museum that featured gold fish swimming in blenders. Evaristti's exhibit gave visitors the choice of switching on the machine.

"I wanted people to confront their consciences, their inner judgement, their instincts, to press the button of death or not," the artist said at the time.

A Danish animal rights group took him to court over the exhibit. Evaristti was acquitted.

It’s right up there with the illogic of imposing new things on nature in an effort to “purify” it in a subconscious effort to “purify” themselves of guilt that’s been trained into them:

The Pleistocene was the heyday of megafauna, a span of geologic time when big mammals like mammoths, saber-toothed cats, woolly rhinos and giant ground sloths roamed the continents. The epoch lasted over one million years during which glaciers plowed the planet's surface, stretching and retracting across vast expanses. Near the beginning of the end of the Pleistocene some 50,000 years ago, much of the megafauna disappeared in synchrony with the spread of modern humans. This loss left the Holocene, the current geologic epoch (which began about 11,000 years ago) with a much impoverished megafauna.

[ ... ]

But re-wilding initiatives in Europe must also include reinvigoration of megafauna populations already there that have suffered severe range constriction. Among them: the wolf, brown bear, lynx and moose. Scientists should also consider reintroducing 11 additional megafauna species: the Asiatic lion, leopard, spotted hyena, dhole, horse, cattle, Asiatic wild ass, Asiatic elephant, hippopotamus, water buffalo and hairy rhinoceros.

Indeed. The membership nodded with a sheepish, unquestioning display of some sort of mimicry of sane behavior that they recall from their youth at private school. We’ll set aside the resemblance this has to the effects of child abuse at this point. The real nuttiness here is that natural climate change killed off these species. In the interest to create a pre-human ecosystem that humans will not be able to enjoy out of self-loathing guilt, these idiots who seem only slightly better educated than “zee arteest” want to impose a completely artificial nature that does nothing particular for the earth’s most useful and able species (at least a few of them) - man.

Caption Contest

You’re the flower of Europe’s youth. You’re wearing a wig. You’re protesting the fact that the G8 exist. You’re dressed like a clown. The Polizei are either trying not to laugh at you, or thinking of giving you the "wood shampoo". You have your hand up a puppet’s ass. What could the puppet possibly be thinking?

Calling Dr. Benway

French citizen Cheb Mami, the singing abortionist, now on the run and wanted by Interpol, blames the whole sordid affair of the kidnapping and attempted forced abortion of his ex-girlfriend on his Jewish manager.

In 2003 Cheb Mami received the French National Order of Merit from Jacques Chiraq.


Cut rate abortions include free musical soundtrack.

Move Along. Nothing Left to See Here.

Paul Belein:

Last year more than 155,000 Germans emigrated from their native country. Since 2004 the number of ethnic Germans who leave each year is greater than the number of immigrants moving in. While the emigrants are highly motivated and well educated, "those coming in are mostly poor, untrained and hardly educated," says Stephanie Wahl of the German Institute for Economics.

In a survey conducted in 2005 among German university students, 52 percent said they would rather leave their native country than remain there. By "voting with their feet," young, educated Germans affirm that Germany has no future to offer them and their children. As one couple who moved to the United States told the newspaper Die Welt: "Here our children have a future in which they will not have to fear unemployment and social decline."

More numerically staggering is that emigration is exceeding immigration in the Netherlands, and at a rate of 130.000 in 2006, eclipsing Germany’s loss by a factor of four. But to the point of interest to the American social conversation, the image of the European social idyll pitched by the supposedly urbane press needs to be tempered with a basic and rational observation of that flight:

Americans who think that the European welfare state is the model to follow would do well to ponder the question why, if Europe is so wonderful, Europeans are fleeing from it.

Belein describes some curious milestones that the wizened sooths of Old Europe’s™ national governments don’t care to call attention to: emigration peaked after the murder of Pim Fortyn and Theo van Gogh. For many, these events appear to be too much – a sort of tipping point or ”emotionally significant” number which the press reserves for issues they themselves seem better psychologically prepared to countenance.



The “other white meat” – social mass suicide.

Let’s not forget about the most noticeable feature scaring people with personal potential and families away: the social medium dominated by the predilections of many of the “aboriginals” themselves:

With the international media focused on the violent clashes between left-wing "anti-globalization" activists and German police at the anti-G-8 protest in Rostock this past weekend, another component of Germany's broad "anti-globalization" consensus will have passed largely unperceived: namely, the neo-Nazis of the National-Democratic Party of Germany or NPD. Under the motto "There is no such thing as fair globalization," an NPD-sponsored anti-G-8 demonstration had been scheduled to take place in the nearby city of Schwerin on Saturday, the same day as the "leftist" demonstration in Rostock. The NPD protest was, however, cancelled at the last minute, as the state supreme court of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, citing the potential for violence, upheld a ban issued by the local authorities. In light of the entirely predictable rioting of the leftist "Black Block" in Rostock -- leading to the violence that left nearly 1000 injured, including some 433 police officers -- the court's grounds, it must be said, now seem rather feeble.

In spite of the ban, over 1,500 NPD members are reported to have taken part in smaller, "spontaneous" anti-G-8 protests in several German cities. Over 100 are reported to have marched through Berlin's central Brandenburg Gate. As documented on the NPD Web site -- but virtually ignored by not only the international, but also the German media -- some 50 NPD members, including three members of the regional parliament of Saxony, managed briefly to occupy the steps of the German Reichstag, unfurling anti-G-8 banners and waving NPD flags. "Under the gable of the western entrance to the Reichstag building with its inscription 'To the German People',"

Much in the way Ausländern can’t quite understand how virtually the entire political spectrum in Europe tends to find quiet comfort in totalitarianism-light, they at least wonder about it out loud.

For the NPD, the anti-globalization movement is to be understood as part of a "völkisch" uprising of the world's "peoples" [Völker] against the "rootless" capitalism system. [The German word völkisch is derived from the word Volk: which can be rendered as either "people" or "nation," but unlike the corresponding English words, typically carries a strong connotation of ethnicity. The ethnic idea of the "Volk" or nation was the core idea of the National Socialism of the 1930s and 40s

Oddly enough Nazi writer Joachim Fest said what seems to remain a truth of left dominated societies, both by omission and commission:

“The media fabricates more than two thirds of public opinion from which the foam of the parliamentary Aphrodite rises.”

- El Gato has more.

Many Men Came Here as Soldiers…

The story of D-Day.

One of the Best Movie Themes Ever Composed…

One of the best movies ever filmed, and one of the best books ever written…

Many men came here as soldiers
Many men will pass this way
Many men will count the hours
When they live The Longest Day

Many men are tired and weary
Many men are here to stay
Many men won't see the sun set
When it ends The Longest Day

June 6th

For those who enjoy riding the Paris Métro

Never mind the lyrics ...

So that anti-American thing is about all Americans, not just Bush

Les pédaloïdes au chômage de la Rue89 (anciens journalmalistes de Libé PropagandaStaffel) se mettent à pisser sur les chevilles de Hillary.

House of Cards

Built with a loaded deck.

C'était pour voir s'il en avait dans le ventre

Typical French family fun. A child welfare judge rules that a 3 year old should be placed in special care, away from his crackhead welfare baglady of a mother. And then ...

"The mother, Fatia, spit on the courtroom floor. She then took a butcher knife out of her handbag and lunged at the judge, pushing the 20cm blade into his stomach."

Cretinist Leftist pseudo-journalist bitch slapped by Hitchens

A tribute to all who have had to stagger out of the blood foaming surf to die on a foreign shore

A couple of weeks ago was Memorial Day weekend, writes Valerie.

When America is supposed to pause and honor her fallen warriors. But, thanks to 4 decades of Leftist indoctrination it is now, to too many, a three day weekend to indulge in personal gratification. Nothing more. Not even a passing thought to the men and women and have died to safeguard this country.

Was going to send this out on Memorial Day but found myself thinking of this song almost daily.

A tribute to all who have had to stagger out of the blood foaming surf to die on a foreign shore.

For [my father's] friends who did not live to come home. And for the ones who did.

In Their Youth They Saved the World

What If His Name Had Been Karl Instead of Sandy?…

… (not to mention Scooter) asks Ronald A. Cass…

Sure. Whatever you say, Spanky.

They must have been peeing themselves with anticipation to say it: « L'économie américaine traverse un trou d'air » You know the one they’re talking about: the one that Old Europe has been stuck in for almost a generation.

Brought to You by America's Armed Forces

(Shookhran to New Republic)

Some Hayawan Must Have Whispered in His Ear

Look at how quickly this:

The claim emerged in a document written by official DH Colvin at the British embassy in Paris, quoting a contact at the Euro-Arab Parliamentary Association, as the crisis unfolded.

Can become this:

Israel secret services 'involved in 1976 Air France hijack'

What went nearly completely unmentioned, even then was that the hijacking was a collaboration between the atheistic European Leftists embodied by Bader-Meinhof Gang (those crazy kids!) and a religious offshoot of the PLO, but look at what the scribbler is calling a conspiracy.

Do I need to draw you a picture?

Two More Days

…to freely access over 90 million U.S. war records at ancestry.com…

Yeah, but Would Thierry Meyssan Let Them Work on his House?

The “truthers” are desperate, if not obsessed with, to legitimating their credentials any way they can. It’s key to selling the irrational, implausible, and unprovable digestible to oneself and to others. After almost six years of banging their spoons on their highchairs, they finally found a handful of Architects and Engineers to provide some kind of satisfaction in their search for conclusions that don’t fit the objective evidence of the 9-11 attacks.

Meet bin Laden’s poodle, and the UFO seeking narcissists who’ve given up on Clearasil and are jumping up and down for joy. Too bad they don’t realize what a poor authority is carrying their hopes of getting more than 5 professional engineers (ones who have taken one of the P.E. registration exams) in the entire United States to go along with their “9/11 was an inside job” snowjob: Architects don’t do the structural design of anything larger than a freestanding house.

They include a Fire Protection Engineer who’s had his license cancelled 9 years ago, a Land Surveyor, a Mechanical Engineer, and an Electrical Engineer who aren’t qualified to analyze or design structural designs, and a Civil Engineer who’s professional registration check returns no results. Indeed, true scholars for “truthiness” if there ever were any.

I'm glad to see engineers and architects finally coming together to dispel the myths and add weight to the science backing the questioning of the coverup...

- So goes one of the “testimonials” we're asked to take with the authority that comes with credentials as firm as these!

Rotting From the Neck Up

Al-Jazeera sur Seine, having long-since redefined who the aggressor was in the 6-day war, reduces it to cartoon villainy.

Flying Bomb

It should be easy enough to find 19 environmentalists with box-cutters.

Et il Continue à Leur Donner la Pipe

Where did Michael Moore’s whacky pipeline fetish get to?

The EU pipeline, designated as a "priority project" by EU heads of state at the March summit, is designed to link Europe - via the South Caucasus and Turkey - to Azerbaijan and Iran in the first phase. A second phase, which is crucial in terms of overall financial viability, would add a branch under the Caspian Sea to Central Asia.

One wonders: did that dastardly Bushco go to war in Afghanistan just to protect Europe from Putin?

Shipwrecked Africans: left clinging to a tuna net for three days

Once again, Europeans prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that their societies are far more humanitarian, generous, and solidaristic than everybody else's, especially than those hopeless, clueless, greedy capitalist Americans…

Someone just take a pillow and put these doddering old fools out of their misery

This will have Old Europe crapping in its geriatric diaper.

And now for a moment of clarity

«I think that this is the first war in history that on the morrow the victors sued for peace and the vanquished called for unconditional surrender.»

-Abba Eban

Habituated hatred: the leftist lifestyle that make you stupid

It certainly isn’t the particular one that Euro-lefties think of when they hear the name Ariel Sharon, and a massacre that they wish he had something to do with and parrot Sabra! Chatilla! as if the words were the only thing the words Lebanon or Sharon bring to mind.

But then again that IS all there seems to be in the leftist mind – judging by what comes out of the mouth of those pissed-off mockingbirds of politics.
I guess they can always do a rag from the stock repertoire, and demand money more for healthcare. You can’t go wrong demanding more and more and more money for healthcare.

I guess they could just go back to making up stories and of course demanding more more Tapioca. Something like that.

Call their bluff

If Bush does nothing, it's a sign of American selfishness. If Bush does something, then "Attitudes within Europe hardened on Friday as some politicians and activists accused Mr Bush of trying to wreck next week’s summit ..."

European G8 countries are systematically capable of summoning up unlimited amounts of bravery when it involves risk-free America bashing.

"A comment by Mr Bush to German media that Ms Merkel “will be pleased” with his proposals, which run counter to her own, was seen as provocative."

First they are provoked (looks like they are taking a lexical cue from their own disaffected youth population). Next thing you know, they'll be carrying on like victims.

Where are the 'torture' howlers?

(…asks George Adair…)

Fat, Happy Angst-Ridden, and Stupid

You are what you bleat.

One is a EU super-group of fat-fighters. Formally this is referred to as a High Level Group comprised of a representative from every member state. The group would compile programmes on nutrition, overweight and obesity health issues.

More than 50% of the adult population is overweight or obese in most member states, the EC says. In the child population, an estimated 21 million are overweight, with the number increasing by 400,000 every year.

The beaurocracy is a nice touch, isn’t it? It must be soothing somehow – something to break up the omnipresent anarchy of company and property owner wanting to do what they want with their own stuff from time to time:

Shoe factory workers in southern France took four senior managers captive on Wednesday after the firm announced plans to relocate its production to Tunisia.

Managers of Jallatte, Europe's leading manufacturer of safety shoes, told workers early Wednesday they intended to cut 285 out of 336 jobs across its four French production sites.

Furious at the news, union leaders and workers burst into a meeting in the southern town of Saint Hippolyte du Fort, attended by four top executives, including Giovanni Falco, managing director of the company's Italian owner JAL.

The managers were held captive for several hours, until Falco agreed to push back by three weeks a June 6 meeting intended to kickstart the restructuring plan.

When in doubt, the logical thing to do about a company that can’t break even is obvious: take hostages. It must be the mysterious X-factor in that “most productive people in the world” thing they keep banging on about.

Fat, happy, and stupid.

“Concerned”. Always “Concerned”

The EU is concerned about Google and privacy. So concerned that they’ll go after Google, and possibly, sometime in the future, just maybe, someone else. Why? Because Google isn’t German.

An independent European Union panel has launched an investigation into whether Google Inc.'s Internet search engine abides by European privacy rules.
EU spokesman Pietro Petrucci said Friday that the 28-member panel, which advises the European Commission and EU governments on data protection issues, wants Google to address concerns about the company's practice of storing and retaining user information for up to two years.
"This group has addressed a letter to Google raising a number of questions," Petrucci said, adding that EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini was backing the investigation.
"He considers those questions raised by the letter to be appropriate and legitimate," Petrucci said.

‘Tis their way.

Embedded in Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes's objections to Microsoft's proposals for licensing its technology to rival firms, which she outlined in March, is that her department -- known as DG-Competition -- will decide what is or isn't innovative

As if a neo-com apparachik could even remember what innovation is anyway.

With "Scorn and Derision"

Can America Trust the BBC? asks Tim Montgomerie…

Keepin’ it Real

Tony Blair on rump-Europe’s notion of what alliances really are:

I have real concern that on both sides of the Atlantic there is, in certain quarters, an indifference, even a hostility, to an alliance that is every bit as fundamental to our future as it has been to our past. By this I don't just mean the rampant anti-Americanism on parts of the left. In a sense, that is relatively easy to counter.

It is more a drifting away, occasionally a resurgent isolationism that crosses right and left. In Britain now there are parts of the media and politics that are both Eurosceptic and wanting “an independent foreign policy” from America. Quite where Britain is supposed to get its alliances from bewilders me. There is talk of Britain having a new strategic relationship with China and India bypassing our traditional European and American links. Get real. Of course we will have our own relationship with both countries. But we are infinitely more influential with them if we have two strong alliances behind us.

Indeed. The very fact that one would have to impress a British public whose instincts are generally to follow the precise opposite course in international relations that Blair advocates isn’t so much surprising or telling, but a sign that mainstream European public opinion is not to be taken with much seriousness by anyone – not even these mythical allies to be found in Beijing.

How About a Symbolic Display of Despair Before Selling China More Weapons?

While trying to live a proactive and virtuous existence vicariously through a BD, play hide the weenie:

Set in the European Parliament and the fictitious country Fang Dong, “Operation Red Dragon” is the fictional story of Elisa Correr, an MEP who gets embroiled in a risky and fascinating adventure whilst in pursuit of her parliamentary activities.

Quite implausibly, the story revolves around someone connected with the EU actually DOING something on a fact-finding mission, and trying to keep arms away from a tyrant.

I’m sure you’re excited. Alternative histories can be so entertaining.

Europe showing signs of life

Dead cat bounce.

A Purrfect Love

A tale of betrayal and revenge: A man, his best friend, and the love of his life. When all three come together, tragedy cannot be far away…

The guys of La Baf have decided to enter a short feature (A Purrfect Love, starring Jixie Juny, in her most demanding role yet) in Youtube's Sketch Comedy Contest.



(For the time being, the public is not being asked to vote on the sketchies. Still, if you have time and if you like the movie written by Erik Svane, you might want to consider giving it a (five-star?) rating and/or adding it to your favorites, peddling it around and asking a friend/colleague or two (or three) to do likewise...)

Cultural Exception: Exceptionally Paranoid

Radio gaga:

English-language radio stations complained Tuesday they had been refused an FM licence in Paris, a city which currently has Armenian, Portuguese and Arabic broadcasters but not a single English language station.
The BBC World Service, Paris Live Radio and World Radio Paris were all excluded from a shortlist of contenders for licences drawn up by the CSA, the French broadcasting authority.
"It is unknown in the developed world for a major city to not have at least some local radio in English," said Ian de Renzie Duncan, the director of Paris Live Radio, which has broadcast on satellite and cable in France.
"The CSA have just said 'no English radio' on our turf," he said in a statement.

Remember – this is about a frequency auction. It only puts them 9 years behind the US in getting out of the business of micromanaging the airwaves, and they still wrap their brains around the notion of private ownership, let alone foreign-seeming ownership of a frequency. So for the time being, the listener remains stuck with a weak AM signal for the BBC World Service, and nighttime listening on LW and AM from the UK reminiscent of the last century which is only enjoyable if you’re a old-fashioned DXer.

N.B. - Otherwise your choices are cable (pfft!) or satellite if your “quaint” shoebox apartment can see the south-western sky – something which this correspondent happens to experimenting with to making homesickness for North Americans a thing of the past. (Further details will be presented if things start looking promising.)

Hey, Lefty...

...Redistribute this:

Which of the groups do you think enjoyed big increases in income since 1991? If you read the papers, you probably would assume that the bottom fifth did the worst. After all, income inequality in America is increasing, right?

Wrong. According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study released this month, the bottom fifth of families with children, whose average income in 2005 was $16,800, enjoyed a larger percentage increase in income from 1991 to 2005 than all other groups except the top fifth. Despite the recession of 2001, the bottom fifth had a 35 percent increase in income (adjusted for inflation), compared with around 20 percent for the second, third and fourth fifths. (The top fifth had about a 50 percent increase.)

Even more impressive, the CBO found that households in the bottom fifth increased their incomes so much because they worked longer and earned more money in 2005 than in 1991 -- not because they received higher welfare payments. In fact, their earnings increased more in percentage terms than incomes of any of the other groups: The bottom fifth increased its earnings by 80 percent, compared with around 50 percent for the highest-income group and around 20 percent for each of the other three groups.

Travailler plus pour gagner plus? Oh that would NEVER work! The poor just keep getting richer, and the rich (relatively) poorer.

One of the Best Hang-Out Movies of All Time

On our last day in Cannes, we headed over to the 10:30 pm showing of Rio Bravo, expecting nothing but a simple screening of Howard Hawks's nearly 50-year-old masterpiece.

So it was with no little amount of surprise for the seated viewers when a couple of VIPs showed up, one being none other than Quentin Tarantino, impeccably dressed (cough), who proceeded to give an impassioned introduction to the John Wayne western. (Of course, it is no secret that "Rio Bravo" is one of QT's favorite films…)



Following lots of applause, the Death Proof director sat down in the seat …directly in front of me. The film started, and went on for two glorious hours (with laughter galore after just about each of Stumpy's groans or cackles). Knowing that Tarantino is a comic book/graphic novel fan, at the end of the showing, I handed him a copy of Général Leonardo.

Someone should explain to her that Europeans do not have that very American thing known as disposable income

Latté Leftist ripping off European working poor.

How the French Rate According to Europe's Hotel Owners

Far from being the most nuanced, most generous, most lucid people in Europe (if not the world), the French in a poll turn out to be (at least according to 15,000 polled hotel owners [as well as Paris Express]) the worst in terms of behaviour, politeness, etc…

The Choice of the Irish?

Discovering the meaning(s) behind Jimi Hendrix's discharge (from the Screaming Eagles, no less — maybe the musician can be found on ancestry.com?), Benjamin Duffy steps into Collin's Tavern…

Until the Anniversary of D-Day

Until June 6, people can freely access "more than 90 million U.S. war records from the first English settlement at Jamestown in 1607 through the Vietnam War's end in 1975" on the military records of ancestry.com.

The collection includes the names and gravestone details of 3.5 million deceased U.S. soldiers, including 2,000 who died in Iraq.

France is isolated within the EU

A little more isolated with every passing day.

It was established on Chiraq's watch, by the way

France's spanking new Commission nationale de contrôle des interceptions de sécurité (CNCIS). With a simple mouseclick, CNCIS operatives can obtain the list of all incoming and outgoing phone calls on a given phone line, the identity of the line's subscriber and all corresponding bank references. They may also obtain the list of all Internet sites visited using the phone line in question. Idem for phone texting and e-mails. Currently handling 300 requests a week for phone line surveillance, the system is designed to handle over 20,000 requests a year. Other systems for voice and texting interception are still in the works.

Very good. I certainly hope all of this is used to listen in on the idiotic American dhimmicrapper yuppies who lounge about Paris sipping their lattés while they curse Bush's dictatorial tendencies and blather on insipidly about how the French sure know how to live.

Patron voyou

Somebody tell that shithead Besancenot that the patrons voyous are not the ones he is ranting about.

Ça nous change des imbécilités humanitaires habituellement proférées par les pédaloïdes qui dirigeaient ce trou

Bernard Kouchner declares that the Lebanese government would be justified in attacking the Fatah Al-Islam terrorists hiding in the Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp.

Time to put up or shut up

Talk is cheap. Actions alone will tell us if Sarkozy is as America-friendly as he sounds.

In Memoriam

Orémus. Tibi Dómine, commendámus ánimam fámuli tui, ut defúnctus saéculo tibi vivat: et quae per fragilitátem humánae conversatiónis peccáta commìsit, tu vénia misericordìssime pietátis abstérge. Per Christum Dóminum nostrum.

Kyrie Eleison

Réquiem aetérnam dona ei, Dómine.

Κυριε ελεησον

Réquiem aetérnam dona ei, Dómine, et lux perpétua lúceat ei. Offeréntes eam in conspéctu Altìssimi.

If Suddenly You Forget Me

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

- Pablo Neruda

This Week’s Secondary Obsession...

...is Kennesaw, Georgia TF1 is recycling old news again. Without causal link, they linked into this story with a very brief mention of some guy in Idaho who went nuts. Nuff’ said. The membership emits a muffled huzzah.

Of Course It Isn’t Fit to Mention

Here’s your ‘bumper sticker’, Johnny.

While european "humanists" was out in the streets trying to convince itself that Abu Ghreib was America’s Auschwitz and trying to say Dick Cheney was directing it personally or something, someone more likely to draw their admiration was having his ‘dissent crushed’. Guess how many of those thoughtful, nuanced, holier-than-though media operations deign mention this kind of story? None, even despite the genuine impression of some journos.

"The Quai d'Orsay is instinctively pro-China, pro-Russia, pro-Germany, anti-British and anti-American”

“The Quai d'Orsay is instinctively pro-China, pro-Russia, pro-Germany, anti-British and anti-American,” said one adviser before the election. “He will have to sit on them hard to take control.”

Thus spoke an adviser to Bernard Kouchner.

A contempt for knee-jerk French anti-Americanism also unites the two men. Mr Sarkozy has called America “the greatest democracy in the world”, and denounced the “arrogance” (if not substance) of France's hostility to war in Iraq. Mr Kouchner was one of the few Frenchmen to see merit in the Iraq intervention, though he criticised its aftermath. Both would hope for better Franco-American relations, which soured after 2003 (though Mr Sarkozy has no plans yet for an official trip). One plus is the choice of Jean-David Levitte, France's ex-ambassador to America, as Mr Sarkozy's national security adviser.

Golden Parachute to Become Golden Shower

Can you get any more Underwhelmed than this ?:

Papers seized by two investigating magistrates from General Philippe Rondot, a former head of the DGSE, France's intelligence service, show Mr Chirac opened an account in the mid-1990s at Tokyo Sowa Bank, credited with the equivalent of £30 million.

Saving his mayoral salary diligently no doubt, despite his weakness for Chateau Sempap.

Well it’s too bad that his luck is running out. His “sovereign” immunity runs out in 18 days. As for getting on the good side of a gullible public pining to turn its vanity about itself and its passive aggression into a sort of virtue, he no longer has a way to do that. Cast your mind back to when he was a lightening rod for criticism, and what it took to give him “papal infallibility”:

There is little doubt about the source of the media's obvious faith in Chirac's statesmanlike "grandeur": namely, his high-profile role in opposing the Iraq War in early 2003. In France, Chirac's anti-war stance predictably led to a spike in his popularity, as the "anti-imperialist" left suddenly found itself expressing pride in the courageous and upstanding leadership of a man who only the year before was being persistently referred to in "leftist" media as "Super-liar" [Supermenteur]: a leaden allusion to "Superman" that is as unfunny in French as it is in English.

Too bad it didn’t last. After this brief salad day, his favorability rating at home remained far below that of George Bush in the US.

See Sarkozy. See Sarkozy run.

Perpetual motion machine.

Céline on wheels

La journée, la bouffe, le job ... Tout ça a du mal à passer.

Lo, The Causes of Nodding Stepford Children

Meet the feelies. Smug, smart... you know that they’re better people than you are. They became that way by giving money to neutral and opinionless handwringer nicey-nicey peacy-peacy causes who NEVER take sides politically. That would get in the way of thir main mission is to repeat to one another that their shit doesn’t stink.

“Apolitical”

Benevolence of Great Leader, Dear Leader, Uncle Joe, Uncle Ho, Enver Hoxha, Erich Honecker, Fidelito, Hitler, Mao, Abd’l Nassar, the murderers of 100 million civilians, Robert Mugabe, the Janjaweed, a cast of thousands, and all those other poster-children for grand European ideas about getting along are curiously overlooked.

And all of their pandering to the membership for what? Amnesty International, once a meaningful provider of information is, now resembles a gang of idiot potbangers trying to guilt trip the public all the way down to school kids for small donations. That’s quite a point of pride for an organization which has itself never actually freed anyone.

Click here to send a mass email to their entire membership, all at once.

Le Canard Diminué

The down-and-outers over at Rue89 are worried about Sarko's Big Takeover.

Rue89 is an online newspaper started by some dead-enders who lost their jobs at Libération PropagandaStaffel following the recent downsizings. They are more or less reduced to breaking earth shattering stories like "Cecilia didn't vote" or "Le Journal du Dimanche was forced to cancel their story about Cecilia not voting". How they manage to take themselves seriously is anybody's guess.

Sicko

Socialized medecine kills. At least 145 patients over-radiated in a Toulouse hospital while receiving brain scans. Not to worry though. No one is showing any worrysome symptoms. Yet.

This is your brain.	This is your brain on socialized medecine.

What a difference 3 years, losing the Olympic games, a failed EU Constitutional referendum and a Presidential election make

Party like it's 2004. Not! No longer on their high horses, even Libération PropagandaStaffel doesn't give Michael Moore two thumbs up for Sicko.

Michael Moore praises the Socialized healthcare system that let 15,000 die from heat in 2003 (many waiting for ice water in hospital hallways).

So How’s That Jaw Jaw Thing Working For Ya?

EU-3 to meet U238:

"We have serious signals that something is under preparation in Europe," Moniquet said. "Iranian intelligence is working extremely hard to prepare its people and to prepare actions."

Household hint: keep some iodine handy.

- With thanks to the super sleuthy Grimmy

Erik Svane on Fausta's Blog-Talk Radio Podcast

Talking to the one and only Fausta on her podcast, Erik Reports from Cannes on Michel Moore’s worn-out welcome, and the doings of the film world today, including the trend to pack them back into the movie houses with 3D.

We look forward to hearing more from our intrepid reporter on the comings and goings at this year’s festival, as well as his own plans and impressions.

Cultural Exception Within a Cultural Exception

Plan on aging disgracefully? Then you know where to go.



Via Hot AIr

The figures seem to call the overblown bleating about prejudice to shame. Weirder still is the desire to try to “normalize” the conclusions through selective reporting regardless.

More 1968 garbage being thrown out

Jean-Marie Colombani, the pompous blowhard director of Le Monde Al-Jazeera on the Seine who hypocritically used the headline "We are all Americans" the day after 9-11 (and then made sure that his rag shit on America every chance it got), has been fired.

How About Idea nos. 31 and 32?

Add to PropagandaStaffel’s “30 Ideas for Renewing the Socialists”: Drinking the Eco Kool-Ade or joining the Mehdis that they keep rooting for.

If the Lisbon declaration states something, you better believe it

I just love that can-do European spirit.

Watch out, next thing you know British playwrites will be lashing out at American tourists with their man-purses

The good news is that it's playing in an old brewery.


European expressionism, so to speak. Check out the Angela Davis look-alike in the back to the right.

Bring it on

Unfortunately, the French street often undoes what the French ballot box decides.

A Paris festival celebrating US music and culture has been called off following a series of anti-American threats, organisers said on Sunday.

Called "Three Days in America", the festival featuring country and gospel concerts, line-dancing, sales of US paraphernalia and a tribute to Elvis Presley was to take place from May 26 to 28 in Saint Cloud, southwest of Paris.

Organisers issued a statement saying they were forced to postpone the event following "persistent pressure and threats of an anti-American nature".

Hat tip to 5 Years Later.

Paving the Road to Hell with a Now Meaningless Term

Nuance

Über-humanism. Sophistication. Diversity. Blah-blah-blah:

Called "Three Days in America", the festival featuring country and gospel concerts, line-dancing, sales of US paraphernalia and a tribute to Elvis Presley was to take place from May 26 to 28 in Saint Cloud, southwest of Paris.

Organisers issued a statement saying they were forced to postpone the event following "persistent pressure and threats of an anti-American nature".

- H/T: Frank

"The Party that Doesn't Lie"?!?

The wheels might just be falling off the cart in Spain for Zapatero. His party faces regional election, but acrimony is flying in every direction about everything but schools, highways, and sewers. Stifla and tant effin pis, spanky. This is the guy who's trying to peddle this doozie:

Zapatero's party routinely describes itself as one that never lies. This is a biting and pointed allusion to the idea that the conservatives committed political suicide by deceiving voters _ blaming Basque separatists for the blasts even as evidence of Islamic involvement mounted _ in the run-up to the general election held three days after the massacre. The train bombings killed 191 people and wounded more 1,800.

In other words, he wants you to believe that if he knew on 8-7 that an Al-Queda cell was behind 7-7, that he would have said so? Hunh? Sure, you would have. Let's get you back into that sweater that ties in the back, now, shall we?

"This is called having principles of tin, like the patriotism they try to exhibit every day,'' Zapatero roared at a campaign rally in Valencia.
Two days later Rajoy shot back at the Socialist leader, describing Zapatero's own principles as a joke. ''His are those of the Marxism of Groucho Marx,'' Rajoy said.

This is the Europe that the American thinks we're supposed to actually take seriously.

Funny, though, that the bravado of what a nation that withdrew forces from the Middle East and elected a faux-democratic-socialist who's enamored with Chavez and Castro WOULD HAVE SAID TO ITS' PEOPLE counts for "bravitude." Don't believe it for a moment. Regardless of political persuasion, one is either WITH the likes of Zapatero or one is with the allies, the ones from whom he withdrew military support. Fellow travelers come in all shapes and sizes, even ones who call themselves Economic Liberals, and show themselves to be more obsessed with dismantling the world view that guarantees their freedom from fear and tyranny than anything else.

When the Washington Post revealed at the beginning of November 2005, that agents of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had kidnapped Muslims assumed to be terrorists and had detained them in illegal secret prisons, I was unable to imagine what would be in store for me over the following months. That same day the American NGO Human Rights Watch published a report, in which similar information was brought to light and substantiated and where we learned that these secret detention centres were in Poland, Romania and other Eastern European countries. As we later learned, the sources for the Human Rights Watch came from, amongst others, the CIA themselves.

In other words, Dick Marty is suggesting that even whatever transparency the CIA can afford is atmospherically incorrect, even if his end-goal is to terminate a program going selectively after the hardest-core bad-asses of the jihadist terror networks.

Remember? The "peace camp" bleated about using intelligence forcefully to limit the human cost of going after terrorists. That is, when they weren't distracted by their own 40 year old obsession with the CIA which they otherwise want to convince you is incompetent, incapable, and evil whenever they had the opportunity to say it, and in that "Usama bin Forgotten" tone that thinks that looking at patterns of international telephone calls is a fascistic imposition on the rights of would-be mass murderers, and to the point of mendacity.

Would he prefer limiting this to open warfare? Certainly not. It seems he would prefer that NO methods be employed, and that EU, CoE, and the rest of the alphabet soup states of Europe do nothing about terror except leave it to their own citizens to helplessly bang pots in the streets and see their citizens kidnapped and paraded for the news cameras.

If they think that any of the peacenik posturing will protect any citizen or defend any notion of anyone's individual freedom, then they truly have drunk the 68er kool-ade, and plan on forcing that idée fixe on the generations that evolved past it.

Psychotic Anti-Semite Imagines Himself Clairvoyant

Willem, from: “Merci Ben Laden” / “Thank you Bin Laden”

Kouchner expelled from the French Socialist Stalinist Party

Austin Bay comments on Sarkozy and Kouchner.