The appropriation of issues like Iraq to vindicate a pre-existing chauvinism against America is despicable

Roger Cohen (September of Hope, Globalist, Sept. 3) elegantly reflects on the demise of America's international reputation following the attacks of 9/11

writes Stephen Jones from Tokyo.

Undoubtedly, President George W. Bush's foreign policy has provoked widespread acrimony, but this alone does not account for the global disdain of all things American.

In the late 1990s, I worked in Japan alongside several young Brits, Canadians and Australians. Dispensing frequent invectives against the United States, including its people, was common practice, with one Canadian boasting how she routinely expressed her hatred of Americans to impressionable Japanese junior high students.

There was little goodwill to lose in 2001. While Iraq, Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay irreparably tainted America, the appropriation of these issues to vindicate a pre-existing chauvinism is despicable.

France and Germany both opposed the war in Iraq and both have been targets of terrorist plots by Islamic extremists, some of them before 9/11

France and Germany both opposed the war in Iraq and both countries have been targets of terrorist plots by Islamic extremists, said François Heisbourg, a French expert on terrorism and a special adviser to the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris.

Thus reports Jane Perlez in the New York Times.

A French government white paper in 2006 described 11 attempts by Islamist jihadists to blow up targets in France in the past 10 years, some of them before 9/11, Mr. Heisbourg said. This showed, he said, that just because France has criticized the Bush administration and stayed out of Iraq, it enjoys no immunity from terrorism.

Because you are feckless pussies

Europeans ask: "Why do they hate us?"

UK's C4 “Celebrates” 9-11

Al-Dura Affair: France 2 Still Weaseling

The Blogs Extreme-Center and the Augean Stables continue to monitor the al-Dura affair, more to the point – monitoring the very typical “social management” of the deliberate lie’s effect on the reputation of a public institution.

To Patrick de Carolis, France2 Television
France2: Release the Secret Muhammad al Durah Tapes!

People around the world who depend on the media for reliability, accuracy, and transparency in reporting, demand that France2 release the unedited video tapes (”rushes”) that its Palestinian cameraman, Talal abu Rahmah, sent them on September 30 and October 1, 2000 from Gaza.
On September 30, 2000, your Middle East correspondent Charles Enderlin, broadcast a story about Muhammad al-Durah, a 12-year old Palestinian boy. Using the footage and the testimony from his cameraman, Talal abu Rahmah, Enderlin reported that Israeli soldiers had targeted and killed the boy. That allegation of deliberate murder spread instantaneously around the world.

Click here to sign the petition.The Fuse is Lit (No Pasaran!)

Hatred is its’ Own Reason

That is... when you’re a leftist

There they were, the determined self-flagellators, flooding the talkback radio lines moaning about what they saw as Australia's and Prime Minister Howard's misplaced but slavish devotion to the US and President Bush.

What's wrong with us, they whimpered, wailing even more when the President said America had no better friend than Australia. They whined about the inconvenience of roadblocks caused by the presidential motorcade: did he really need that many gas-guzzlers? they griped

But for all people of that ilk, the world is static, dictators can mean well, time is something that long ago stood still.The Fuse is Lit (No Pasaran!)

Celebrate Liberty

Fête de la Liberté

Sunday 16 Sepetember 2007 from 10-4

at the Charenton Conference Center
323 bis Rue de Charenton; 12th arrondissement, Paris Metro: Porte de Charenton/Line 8 [Balard - Creteil-Prefecture]Walking distance from the RER A and D lines from Gare de Lyon

5€ at the door. Students enter free. Dedicated child-minding area.



Map

Année Soixante-Neuf

Legacy Comes to a Close

Reporting from Berlin from the blockade and airlift to the fall of the wall, RIAS radio signs off.

Founded by the United States of America, DIAS (Wire Broadcasting in the American Sector), later to be known as RIAS (Radio in the American Sector), started broadcasting on February 7, 1946.
From the Blockade of 1948/49 to June 17, 1953, from the Khrushchev ultimatum to the erection of the Wall, from the Kennedy visit to the first Agreement on Permits, up to November 9, 1989, when the Wall finally came down: RIAS BERLIN was the Berlin radio station reporting live from the scene.
RIAS BERLIN, as the radio station in the divided city, was always at the center of the East-West conflict. At no time, however, did it run the risk of turning into a propaganda station. RIAS remained committed to the tradition of rational, critical American journalism.

Authority obsessed European critics of the US who ironically accuse it of just that – including allegations of “propaganda” and “imposing American culture may want to take note.

via Glenn Hauser

Soft Limp Power

In the same issue where it is suggested that Belgium would do well to snuff itself, The Economist argues that Europe should aim a little bit of its own celebrated lucidity at itself.

"And that is the final problem: even if the EU could unite, a Europe that has a static or even shrinking population has far less weight in the world than it once did. This leads Mr Sapir and his co-authors to an intriguing argument in favour of more centralisation. If relative decline is inevitable, Europeans might as well consolidate what clout they have left, and get some credit for being generous to rising powers. Take the question of pooling EU seats at the IMF, to free up chairs for emerging economies. If Europeans do not budge up, bodies like the IMF may simply lose credibility. In a phrase nicely calculated to get the attention of well-lunched Eurocrats, the book suggests: “If Europe refuses to share its place at the table, it may find itself increasingly short of dining partners in consequence.”"

Learned to Feel Guilty When Caught

Meet a PhD who just “couldn’t seem to realize” an abundance of things over the course of 3 years that your average high school drop-out could dope out in half an hour:

Despite having worked on South Africa's secret apartheid-era nuclear programme in the 1980s, when he was approached in 2000 by a nuclear industry contact about manufacturing a "compact pipework system" for an unnamed client, he'd said he hadn't batted an eyelid.

The client had paid him a handsome fee of 1 million euros (1.3 million dollars) to find a company in South Africa to manufacture the system.
On examining the plans Wisser and his employee Swiss-born engineer Daniel Geiges realized the drawings were for a uranium enrichment plant, but it never occurred to him that it could be for use in a nuclear weapons programme, Wisser previously claimed.

An old friend and fellow engineer with experience in the nuclear industry, Johan Meyer, of Tradefin Engineering near Johannesburg, was the recipient of the contract.
Wisser repeatedly claimed he did not suspect he was abetting Libya's nuclear programme until mid-2003 and that he believed he was working for Pakistan's nuclear energy programme.

The penny still did not drop when two Libyan engineers arrived in South Africa to inspect the plant in 2002.

Even after "the realization dawned" - when Johan Meyer received a payment from Libya in 2003 - Wisser did not immediately intervene to pull the plug on the plant.
It was only when Italian and US authorities intercepted a ship carrying parts for Libya's nuclear programme off the coast of Italy in October 2003, exposing Moamer Gaddafi's then atomic ambitions, that he gave the order to destroy it.

These are not disillusioned post-Glasnost Russians with doctorates driving cabs, these are Grade A European Science Sluts.

What do you get for this serious a threat to world peace? Three years at home wearing an ankle bracelet.

Meet Someone Who Gets It

From an oddly titled blog:

The United States, with increasing trade and interests in Asia and the Pacific Rim, is unlikely to maintain large military forces in defence of the European Union; and it would be very wrong for Europeans to expect it to do so. Indeed, many American forces have already been redeployed from Britain and Germany to Central Asia and the Middle East. The future will hold only more of the same. And why should Americans defend Europe? Are we not rich enough to defend ourselves? Do we not have the political will to browbeat our enemies into doing our will? Are we unable to stand up for our values and interests with the use of armed force? Europe’s future is bleak if the answer to all of these questions is not a firm ‘yes’. A strong European Union will have the military and political cohesion to work with the United States in order to sustain Western primacy. A weak Europe will distract American concerns, and empower forces hostile to Western civilisation.

Anyone wondering where the "grow a nutsack" attitide from Americans comes from, look no further.

Comment gérer les inévitables désaccords lorsqu'il s'en présente : en les théâtralisant ou en les maîtrisant ?

Il sera difficile en réalité de sortir de la formule "amis, alliés, pas alignés". (...) Si nous oublions un des trois thèmes de cette formule, la réalité nous y ramènera. Ces relations comportent d'ailleurs une seule difficulté sérieuse : comment gérer les inévitables désaccords lorsqu'il s'en présente : en les théâtralisant ou en les maîtrisant ?

Le Monde publishes excerpts from Hubert Védrine's report.

Soirée Dantec

"Well that would be a real big problem for us, no question about it"

The Petraeus Report might prove to be entirely too positive for some "anti-war" liberals to believe. It seems that since the day this war began there has been an echo chamber of nay-sayers who have proclaimed that we "just aren't seeing any progress in Iraq." When progress actually emerges, they choose not to believe it.

Benjamin Duffy goes on to ask why liberals seem so intent on not believing that General David Petraeus might be making a difference in Iraq?

I have a few guesses on that. First, liberals are so bent on losing this war that they cannot tolerate success. Second, losing the war in Iraq and blaming it on conservatives would benefit them in elections for years to come. Third, the idea of this whole Iraq project backfiring on us gives them a rush of schadenfreude.

Vermin

Useless Old Europe thigamajig

The Economist says that Belgium should pack it in.


They were good for a few laughs. Especially during beer-fueled drunken rampages.

Plantu remembers 9-11 a few days early

How nice of the prick.


The airplane is labeled "American mortgages"
Cécilia: Should I go to Prada, yes or no? Sarkozy: wait a second, dear.


It's a yearly fixation with him.

"Dude, I am on Marx's Tomb!"

In the States, mainstream media types have called Michael Moore's Sicko his "least political film". But in his interview with Thomas Sotinel, the Le Monde reporter states that this seems to be Michael's coming-out as "a socialist". To which Moore answers (retranslated from the French) that, in a scene in Sicko,

I film myself on Marx's tomb. Nobody mentioned it. In the reviews in America, they wrote, "it's his least political film." And I say: "Dude, I am on Marx's Tomb!" Do I need to take out a baseball bat and hit them on the head [for them to understand]?!

In case you hadn't understood, this says — and this reveals — almost more about the powers-that-be (both in the U.S. and abroad) than about Michael Moore: being on the socialist/marxist-bordering left, for the MSM and America's Eastern élites (as for Europe's MSM and élites), is mainstream, is normal, is understandable, is OK, is cool. It is avant-garde. Beyond being (naturally) avant-garde and therefore (obviously) a positive and endearing trait, it hardly bares mentioning. And it is "not political" (that's only a dirty game that America's hit-below-the-belt Republicans play).

Update: As far as I know, the best answer to Michael Moore's Sicko arguments is provided by Stuart Browning's Free Market Cure films…

More on Michael Moore in the archives (2004-2016)…

You have one year to kill your baby and still get away with probation plus counseling

Just when you think that you actually share a little common ground with liberals, writes Benjamin Duffy, they will surprise the heck out of you with an absolutely outrageous new policy proposal.

Dan Greenberg's Artwork

In preparation for the publication of the second volume of General Leonardo, Dan Greenberg has opened his new blog…

Gitmo alumni already miss their Alma Mater

You can't go home again.

Belgium "shocked to the core"

All the more interesting following the recent attempted attacks in Denmark and Germany. The official party line in Fwance is that such problems absolutely do not exist here. The French youth rise up, from time to time, solely as a means of social protest and they fully adhere to France's Republican values. N'importe quoi.

The report was authored by the hyper-arrogant Hubert Vedrine

French study finds that the French are arrogant.

What’s A Scribbler To Do When Events Don’t Match His World View?

In reporting the foiled terror attacks in Germany, an AP hack implies that even though the targets were centered on US citizens in Germany, with the obvious intention of scaring the German public into placing distance between itself and the US (Zapatero style) through the use of terror, that deposing Saddam Hussein is somehow behind it.

Germany, which did not send troops to Iraq, has been spared terrorist attacks such as the mass transit bombings in Madrid and London - although its involvement in the attempt to stabilize Afghanistan has led to fears it might be targeted.

Why use Europe for this? Apart from the fact that Zapatero’s actions have conclusively proved to the drooling fanatical observer that they are pushovers and readily manipulated, but that they also have a kind of inability to lead an idea domestically as well. In short they are the softest of soft targets from top to bottom.

I suppose al-Qaida have spiritual time machines in the AP writer’s mind, since the US involvement in Iraq must surely have had a lot to do with this kind of thing in 1999, and long since forgotten since the rump of the European public found the US as an enemy instead of the savages trying to bomb their people, cities, and public institutions.

Serguei’s Vane Fantasies about the World

”... It’s so unusual to see you here ...”
“... I feel a bit like I’m at home ...”

1. Implying that Bush has not come to Iraq often enough
2. Implying that the US is some kind of military regime (which he would LOVE if it involved south American leftists,) and that being surrounded by soldiers is “like home.”
3. That the soldiers have to string together a busted flag staff
4. That there are nothing but US soldiers in Iraq.
5. That they are faceless to the point of being inhuman.

I could go on, but why bother when Serguei through his actions proves himself to be no better than the filthy illiterate savages that are being tacitly supported in a Hizballah-loving “celebration” of 9/11.

The Antidote to Euro-Lethargy

So Howard Husock quotes one reader in the Wall Street’s Journal’s Opinion Journal Taste Commentary:

It has been 24 years since I last moved, but in the decade before that I had ten different addresses. The ability to move and to adapt to a new adventure is a function of personal ambition and a willingness to pursue new adventures. It often accompanies youth and fundamental personal change such as having children and getting married. I have acquaintances who are so place-bound that they voluntarily impose a ceiling on themselves which traps them in a world of low incomes and narrow social contacts. Staying home limits our range of choices and is almost an un-American habit. I prefer to throw in with Horace Greeley and "Go west, young man."

- Thanky-thanky to Val

Minimum Wage, Minimum Effort

Wage-parity freaks are running a race to the bottom:

Luxembourg, which has by far the highest per capita income in the EU, also has the highest minimum wage. But the country also has the highest percentage of workers having to live on that minimum wage. In some other countries which do have minimum wages, they mark little more than a lower ceiling of workers' payment, with just around 1% of the workforce being on minimum wage.

It might be twice as high, but 11 times as many French workers are stuck at the minimum wage as they are in the U.S. Hint: when you try to divert attention from the lack of growth by discussing abstractions of relative purchasing power vs. income, you’re missing the fact that one never hears of economists getting stoked about the future poverty reducing potential of “Purchasing Power Parity” when there is little in the way basic growth. This is the detritus of decades of micromanagement.

"Ever since the introduction of the 35-hour week, we've heard discussion about purchasing power, not about salaries," Sarkozy said — rebuffing the business leaders' frequent retort that purchasing power is mostly an old union chestnut to justify demands for pay hikes. "Explaining there's no problem of purchasing power in France is trying to pull the public's leg...

- Shukran to überchav Georges who has the
stomach to dig through the confusion at Euractiv.com.

The Trifecta !!!

Rival gangs wage urban warfare at the Gare du Nord for the third time in one week and French police are worried. But you ain't seen nothin' yet. Pretty soon, French police will make with the furrowed brow and the stern look of disapproval.

La Fwance: quand les assistés trucident les travailleurs

When welfare recipients make a stand against the man they go for the jugular.

"If none of the above is possible, then smile."

You would think that being friendly is obvious to most everyone in the hospitality business. That only seems to apply outside of the land of the forcefield of cultural superiority cultural exception.

France was last week jolted by the realisation that, while still blessed with 79 million annual visitors, the country has slipped to third place - behind the US and Spain - for income from tourism.

But it's still the destination no. 1 for those who enjoy being personally abused.

Europeans: working hard or hardly working?

In any case, Americans are busting ass.

Authorities Blow Meat Whistle

Superior, superb, deeply caring social management rapidly deals with public health problem... after 14 months:

Berlin - Around 150 tons of rotten meat have been shipped from the southern German state of Bavaria to Berlin companies making Turkish-style doner kebab skewers and then distributed across Germany, prosecutors said Friday.

Bush! Isn't it obvious?

Trendy Celebrity Truthers

In the wake of Thierry Meyssan, who went from unknown activist to celebrity author overnight thanks to Trutherism and Thierry Ardisson, there is no shortage of well known French who are trending towards Trutherism. The recent surge in Trutherism among celebrity french was kicked off by Karl Zero who, after losing his cushy position on Canal+, started his own web based TV show and made heavy use of Trutherism to boost his audience.

Suckers

An Italian study has concluded that French taxpayers financially support the most expensive bureaucracy in the EU. Thanks to Bertrand.

<LMAO/>

French über-adviser and soothsayer extraordinaire, Jacques Attali, states (with a straight face no less) that France must aim for 5% economic growth. No word yet on whether the 5% should be attained before or after the EU growth target stated in the long forgotten but fast approaching deadline put forth as part of the Lisbon Strategy. <ROTFL/>.

The Difference Between Labor Day and May Day

Much like the myth that socialism alleviates poverty, after hearing for years about how working less makes Europeans more productive, the lid gets blown off by those nettlesome facts. Le Figaro reported today:

Les Américains meilleurs travailleurs Les Etats-Unis se maintiennent à la tête de la productivité mondiale, creusant l'écart avec les autres pays développés, alors que l'Asie de l'est a doublé en dix ans sa production par travailleur, a indiqué le Bureau international du travail (BIT) dans un rapport.

Americans are the Best Workers Widening the gap with other developed countries, the United States [economy] remains the world’s most productive, while workers in the Asian Rim doubled their productivity in ten years – so indicated a report by the International Labour Organization (ILO).

I’m sure we’ll get a tirade any day now about the wrongness of reporting that, or how the editors of Le Figaro are secretly Americans who just “look out for their own”, or some similarly overblown emotional abstraction.

Katrina Hypocrisy to the Tenth Power

Like lefties’ erstwhile cause celèbre of post-Katrina New Orleans (not post-Katrina Mobile, Alabama, mind you), many Greeks tend to wallow in conspiracy theories and blame incessantly at the top of their voices.

But that’s where the similarities end. Within 48 hours there were more helicopters in the skies of New Orleans than could safely operate in civilian airspace. After more than a month of forest fires in Greece, the EU finally shows up for some PR and to toss some of their subjects a pittance, so long as it’s highly visible. That’s because they’re better people than you and me.

Perennial Whine-fest

Every year summer vacation ends. Every year kids go back to school. Every year parents have to get them school supplies. Cluebat: It’s why merchants have been competing with one another with “back to school” sales since Meseopotamians have put stick to clay, and little snot-nosed boys have been pulling the pony tails of snot nosed girls.

With kids returning to school, it’s time to buy school supplies. An investment which weighs heavily on the family budget.

Waaaah!!!! If you can recall, the nation’s brain was fairly sure that the Virgin Mary doesn’t really think kids should go back to school at all.

Like the other hypermarkets, Carrefour has been preparing for the return to school for several weeks. Setting it up has been going on since mid-July. “We hired five more people for two months”, said Christophe Chenevier, who is in charge of non-food sales. It is one of strong times of the year. In turnover, it’s equivalent to the sale of toys in December. ”From simple fountain pen ink cartridges to large dictionaries, hundreds of items are available.” To make life easier for customers, Carrefour Saint-Malo proposes a new service: “Come in with your shopping list and we’ll fill out your order for free in 72 hours. More people need to do this, it’s a real time saver.”

An aside: this ad brought to you free by the local paper – and one of the less dishonest ones at that.

Do these parents think that their kids don’t need pens and paper? The population at large is already paying for their schooling. Do these people think that their neighbors have to be responsible for what amounts to the kids’ personal property?

I’m sure you remember what condition the schoolbooks you didn’t have to buy were in. Reason: the kids knew that they were not theirs. It’s also why teachers had to inspect your book covers – so you’d learn something about taking care of things in spite of disinvolved inattentive parents.

But in only a few very “special” places are parents culturally acclimated to complain about it, showing that they don’t value education or take a stake in it. Not only are they extending the cultural exception to the personal one, they’re making one hell of an example for their kids, initiating them into the culture of complaint and personal passivity.

Never mind why “Johnny can’t read,” with every display of parental blubbering, Johnny can’t imagine doing relatively simple things for himself. Good luck with all that.

They aren’t alone in this - in the US, they observe this problem dominating in the ghetto, but not largely with the general population.

Encore des pingreries franchouilles

France to cut back on contributions to the UN's Global Fund to Fight AIDS? Pas étonnant qu'on n'a pas les moyens.

De la merde entre les deux oreilles

French arthouse veneer over a heaping pile of anti-Americanism. Starring a typical French broad: "Some things I forgot because it was just too much." Connasse.

Gosplan 2.0

Planned obsolescence.

Another Protest of Bronislaw Geremek's That Will Not Earn the Pole a Spot on the Front Page of Le Monde

Today the European Parliament will act as the host to a conference held by the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP). Despite the neutrally sounding title of its conference, CEIRPP has a proven record of anti-Israel bias, spreading propaganda that presents only the Palestinian narrative, including the delegitimization of Israel - a UN member state.

The CEIRPP casts a shadow on the UN role in the Middle East conflict and is first and foremost harmful to the UN. Its work only reinforces a long held Israeli suspicion vis-a-vis the UN and contributes nothing to the cause of peace. A recent example is a plan of action calling for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

Will today's conference, in the halls of the European Parliament, issue similar directives? Though of little practical consequence, this conference, especially under the banner and auspices of the European Parliament, will harm the cause of peace and also damage European credibility as an honest broker.

We are told that Parliament is merely letting CEIRPP use its premises. Surely, the European Parliament is not just a convention center. As Members of the European Parliament, we are shocked that this biased event would take place within our institutional premises.

Several colleagues have already announced they will boycott the conference. We hope many more will join in condemning this event and call on the presidency to reconsider the damaging consequences this event will have for our institution. Behind the neutral banner of a UN committee and the seemingly respectable goals of this conference there lurks a biased agenda of radical anti-Israel organizations. The European Parliament should not give them a platform in the only representative body of the European Union, whose goals are to foster dialogue and understanding, not acrimony, mistrust and despair.

Frédérique Ries, Belgium, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
Bronislaw Geremek, Poland, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
Patrick Gaubert, France, European People's Party
Bernard Lehideux, France, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
Sarah Ludford, Britain, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
Marek Siwiec, Poland, European Socialist Party
Charles Tannock, Britain, European People's Party

The International Herald Tribune-published text entitled The wrong platform, signed by seven members of the European Parliament, represents yet another protest which is not among those that will earn Bronislaw Geremek a spot on the front page of Le Monde. (You could call it… the wrong platform…)

Tourette's Syndrome? "The European America-bashers launch free-associative rants that would be irritating if they were not ultimately so hilarious"

The signature moment in The Anti-Americans (a hate/love relationship) comes during a series of interviews with irate French citizens blathering on about how McDonald's is oppressing their country

writes Glenn Garvin in the Miami Herald (merci à Jay).

Though, one woman adds sternly, it won't last forever: ''We threw out the Germans, we'll throw out the Americans, too.'' Asks the interviewer in astonishment: ''The French threw out the Germans?'' Well, the Frenchwoman replies airily, ''you Americans helped a little.'' How long before we see a Jean-Luc Godard film in which Charles de Gaulle saves Private Ryan?

So it goes in The Anti-Americans, a sly and maliciously funny documentary airing as part of the PBS film series America At A Crossroads on the post-9/11 world. Like victims of some weird political form of Tourette's Syndrome, the European America-bashers launch free-associative rants that would be irritating if they were not ultimately so hilarious.

"The woman is almost always the first victim of a dictatorship"

There is another disturbing current in [Mario] Vargas Llosa's work that is less often discussed--mistreatment of women, ranging from disrespect to outright violence

writes Emily Parker in an interview with the Peruvian writer that seems to put the lie to the tale that in Saddam's Iraq, "at least" women were free and had rights.

The abuses are particularly horrifying in "The Feast of the Goat," a novel based on the life of Rafael Trujillo, the dictator who terrorized the Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1961. Mr. Vargas Llosa describes traveling to the Dominican Republic and being stunned to hear stories of peasants offering their own daughters as "gifts" to the lustful tyrant. Trujillo and his sons, he tells me, could abuse any woman of any social class with absolute impunity. The situation in the Dominican Republic, which he refers to as a "laboratory of horrors," may have tended toward the extreme, but it underscores a larger trend: "The woman is almost always the first victim of a dictatorship."

Mr. Vargas Llosa discovered that this phenomenon was hardly limited to Latin America. "I went to Iraq after the invasion," he tells me. "When I heard stories about the sons of Saddam Hussein, it seemed like I was in the Dominican Republic, hearing stories about the sons of Trujillo! That women would be taken from the street, put in automobiles and simply presented like objects. . . . The phenomenon was very similar, even with such different cultures and religions." He concludes: "Brutality takes the same form in dictatorial regimes."

Did this mean that Mr. Vargas Llosa supported the invasion of Iraq? "I was against it at the beginning," he says. But then he went to Iraq and heard accounts of life under Saddam Hussein. "Because there has been so much opposition to the war, already one forgets that this was one of the most monstrous dictatorships that humanity has ever seen, comparable to that of Hitler, or Stalin." He changed his mind about the invasion: "Iraq is better without Saddam Hussein than with Saddam Hussein. Without a doubt."

Media Moron Describes Recent Gang Violence in Paris as « A L’Américaine »

Which is secret code for not wanting to admit how normal and traditional it is.



« Les loups sont entrés dans Paris » / “The wolves have entered Paris” but not on the TGV as they’re trying to imply.

-Danke Schön zu Hervé

Mexican 300

"This...is MEXICO!"

Posted Aug 22, 2007

France: a new reality based community?

More on French foreign policy:

"There is a third idea, not articulated, but which seems to be guiding this new diplomacy: a fresh pragmatism, based on a more realistic assessment of France's rank, and a touch of opportunism. In his entire speech, Mr Sarkozy mentioned neither French grandeur nor gloire, both staples of Chirac-era discourse, preferring less ambitious terms such as France's “influence” and “role”. "

Who's afraid of Google?

You mean, besides the French?

Ça fait drole

Wow, imagine France doing something other than ankle biting.

"Nicolas Sarkozy made headlines this week by telling his diplomatic corps that 'an Iran with nuclear weapons is for me unacceptable.' But the French President did more in his speech than name the gravest current threat to global security, itself a feat of clear thinking. He also signaled that France means to be something more on the international scene than an anti-American nuisance player."

“But Officer, I Need To Hack My Way Home Through The Tall Grasses!!!”

Nouvel Observateur reports that:

Thirty people were arrested Monday night in the 18th arrondissement of Paris after brawls and armed violence between rival gangs, reported the police on Tuesday August 28th.
Six individuals, mainly from Hauts-de-Seine, were taken into police custody at the urban police task force (PUP) station which sees in this outburst a link with incidents on Sunday at Gare du Nord.

“Armed with machetes and kitchen knives”

Two people had been slightly wounded, probably with blunt instruments in the gang fight early in the evening inside the Gare du Nord station on Sunday. Three of the suspects were stopped shortly thereafter and placed in police custody.

You just wait. Before you know it, these punks will be learning to use stone, and then maybe even bronze tools.

The Wolfman Bites Again

Once upon a time, it was the New Soviet Man. Today, it’s the New Ecological Person, living in the New Sustainable Society. The new person is perfect because he consumes nothing.

Again, Gary Wolf takes up the subjects of civilization and the New Ecological Person…

Make the myths

Got Döner?

Eat your heart out, and don’t forger that hot ajvar stuff while you're at it.

- It’s always an after-party
at Observing Hermann

There are alot of French who would give anything to be poor in America

You haven't seen poor until you've seen French SDF-RMI-smicard-crevard poor.

Foot in mouth disease

This French "star" has it.

No surprise here

Racist attacks rise in Europe, says EU report:

These increases were recorded in Britain, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Poland and Slovakia ...

Fallout Boy

The fallout continues from the Dissident Frogman's ridiculing of the oh-so-venerable Agence Fwance Presse.



AFP is used to setting themselves up for ridicule.

Thank you Bill O'Reilly

Back in May, when Guy Millière appeared on "88 Minutes", political talk show on channel Direct 8, he confirmed that the French government had greatly underestimated the effects of the boycott of French agricultural goods by American consumers following the Vilpine's little song and dance at the UN. (comments are at 5:41 into the clip, or at 1:10 remaining depending on your viewer).



Part two of the show is here.

Evidence of the old glazzies

French Hate & Snuff Lit front and center at Paris' biggest bookseller: la FNAC Les Halles. Thanks to Xtofer.

Food for Thought

Scattered but interesting. a global politician blames America. Not everyone in America, just some:

This is how the European Union can claim to be the culmination of democracy, while in fact being entirely free from politics. The truth is that, except for a tiny minority of carping malcontents, all respectable Europeans agree on all significant political questions. Europe's educational system has simply done a fantastic job of eradicating dissent.

Fine. But what does this all have to do with anti-Americanism? How can an essentially American tradition be anti-American? This still makes no sense.

The truth, in my opinion, is that Europeans hate not America, but the American government. And they hate not the American government, but the red government - Defense, the White House, and maybe (quite anachronistically these days) the CIA. In other words, they are just like the San Francisco liberal who "loves her country, but doesn't trust her government." The fact that the overwhelming majority of American government employees work for the blue government simply does not occur to her in this context, and nor to the Europeans.

The foreign-policy institution of the blue government is, of course, the State Department - much as the foreign-policy institution of the red government is the Defense Department. So one way to see Europe is as a client state of State - much as Israel is a client state of Defense. No wonder they hate each other!

But only where dissent is eradicated can one find people blaming whole nation. People do, after all, try to find themselves in other people. So then how does one think of whole nations and whole peoples monolithically? By making ones’ society monolithic. In essence, this requires a society to become a minor subset of the state.

Call this touchy-feely cooperative zombie act what you will – nothing good can come of it. Time and again, the group hug became a beer-hall putsch. Time and again, America became an unwilling empire-crusher, either through force of arms, or force of ideas. That is the liberation – the real revolution. The physical and temporal myopia of the liberated standing too close to see the big picture always seem to resent the one who sprung them.

Sarko to the Mullahs: Read My Lips

Sarko lets loose.

"Un Iran doté de l'arme nucléaire est pour moi inacceptable."

"It is unacceptable that Iran obtain nuclear weapons."

... and ...

"Cette démarche est la seule qui puisse nous permettre d'échapper à une alternative catastrophique : la bombe iranienne ou le bombardement de l'Iran."

"This way forward is the only way to avoid a catastrophic choice: the Iranian bomb or the bombardment of Iran."

Isn’t Being Deified By Atheists Sort of Useless?

...” Is it an apparition? ” ...
... “ No, after the collapse it's the ascension. “...

First she was made to look bigger that Jesus Christ and walking on water. Now she’s sort of levitating in a non-specific, east-ish, new agey kind of way. Inasmuch as the Saints are now thought to be the state again and given the role of distributing Welfare checks and school vacations, in the absence of any sort of belief system in anything larger than themselves (and possibly government,) I wouldn’t expect much from this new lefty neo-medieval piety.

Press Distances Self From the Press

Some in the press have joined the rest of civilization in finding most of the press repugnant. What’s makes them register an 11 on hypocrisy index is all right there in the cartoon: a big chunk of the press hate Sarko, and fault him for somehow slavishly having in his thrall the very people who hate him.



Really. It’s time you had a nice little nap.

She makes Susan Sarandon look intelligent

Salope.

Doomed By Their Own World View

US based John O’Sullivan returns to the UK and sees little hope in its’ present social state.

My returning American friends sugar-coat their vacations to me. They enthuse over the historic monuments, the superb theatre, the cathedral cities, the improvement in British cuisine, the precision of the Royal Horse Guards, Fortnum & Mason, and the kindness of almost everyone they met.

Almost everyone? Yes, after a while, they admit sadly to the odd disappointment: the snide anti-American remarks directed at them, the warnings against crime near their hotel, the vomiting young people dominating the centres of every town at night.

"Going to a West End play today is like going to Broadway in the 1970s," said one. "You thread your way past the same sleazy porn shops, over the same junkies, and past the same drunks, except that the swearing doesn't stop when the play starts."

It didn't happen overnight. Breaking down a strong culture of civic self-control takes time and several social acids.

The first such acid was the cultural liberalism generally associated with the 1960s: the attempt to free people from irksome traditional moral customs and the laws that reflected them.

For all the “revolution’s” intent of fostering freedom, all they have made for themselves is precisely the opposite: a nanny state with neither the social ease of a safe street, or the confidence that one can freely air your views.

The result is a fractured, distrustful and disorderly society. And because a diverse society lacks agreed values and standards, governments regulate the behaviour of all, including the law-abiding, to maintain social peace.

Thus, we have far more officials supervising us than in the 1950s, but they are anti-smoking social workers and ethnic diversity officers rather than park wardens.

The police have become little more than the paramilitary wing of The Guardian, sniffing out "racist" or "Islamophobic" attitudes rather than investigating serious crimes that have some "cultural" excuse. Society gradually becomes more governed and less self-governing.

While some call their boorishness “art” others imagine that this is their freedom. In the end what that have to show for it is neither intellectually provocative and enriching nor do they the room to think freely.

The Only Tax Cut You Will Ever See the EU Support

EU giving people gas. Heresy! How dare they dispense hydrocarbons!

The Gaza Strip has power again. The European Union has resumed funding the territory's only electricity generating station. Brussels suspended the payments last weekend following reports that the new Hamas administration planned to siphon off some of the money. The EU decision looks to have been too hasty.

The shutting down of the power station led to a terrible situation. Residents were left to deal with the blazing heat, and even hospitals were without electricity. Many people found the European decision "unforgivable"

What goes unsaid is that this is Gaza’s only power station serving 25% of the population’s needs. The remainder comes from Israel.

A happy ending? There remain serious questions about the EU's performance. For example, Ms Torres declines to detail the grounds Europe had for suspecting Hamas.

It is thought that Hamas had plans for a tax on energy use, while the EU insists that all electricity profits are pumped back directly into the economy. The EU sees Hamas as a terrorist organisation which should not be allowed to profit from aid under any circumstances.

[ ... ]

If there are reports - following rumours begun by Israel or Fatah - that EU aid is being misused, Brussels has to follow these up. However, it appears that this time nobody stopped to think that the people of Gaza might be the victims of the EU move.

Money? Misused by Hamas? Impossible!

Can you feel the hatred?

Americans, you are hated here. Don't ever forget it.

This week kicked off the annual literary "rentrée" when France's most read authors have their new books released. Currently displayed (prominently displayed at that) among the bestsellers is a novel called "Répugnances - Parfums d’Amérique".

The story is about a French gigolo called Jean-Luc who is kept by a well off Chicago woman. Jean-Luc is quickly bored by life in America (which the book jacket describes as socially and economically one-dimensional). Happily, he is brought back from loneliness and boredom by the 9-11 attacks (emphasis mine, the terms are taken directly from the book jacket) and falls in with a group of French whose main activity is insulting, humiliating, and torturing American women (must be one of those French sleeper cells). Jean-Luc takes part in the activities of the group and massacres two American women (the book jacket insists that American women have horrible duck-like voices). He then marries the rich American and kills her, inheriting her estate. He happily returns to France a rich man, returning to Chicago from time to time where he owns a French sex academy.

From the back cover:

Jean-Luc, gigolo à la dérive, s'envole pour Chicago où il va retrouver Pamela, une riche Américaine qu'il a récemment séduite dans une boîte de nuit parisienne. L'espoir cède très vite à l'ennui, à la haine et au dégoût du monde qui l'entoure. A l'instar de la conformiste Pamela qui en vient très vite à l'entretenir, les gens qu'il rencontre sont lisses, dépourvus de substance, aussi fades que les étalages de nourriture dans ces supermarchés qui le dépriment, et le soi-disant écrivain en reste à la page blanche. Heureusement, la violence finit par l'arracher à la solitude et au néant. Les attaques terroristes du 11 septembre, d'abord, qu'il regarde avec une fascination malsaine, puis la rencontre avec un groupe de français dont la principale occupation est de médire de l'Amérique, d'humilier les Américaines et de les torturer. Il prend vite une part active aux activités de ses nouveaux amis et en vient à massacrer deux de ces Américaines aux horribles voix de canard. Puis, en application d'un plan soigneusement ourdi, il trouve moyen d'épouser Pamela avant de la faire assassiner et d'hériter de tous ses biens. C'est l'Amérique ! Alors il peut rentrer en France, riche, désormais libre de mener une vie de plaisirs et de débauche, retournant de temps en temps à Chicago pour fleurir la tombe de Pamela et s'occuper de son nouveau commerce : une école de sexe à la française.

He who smelt it, dealt it

It's not ethnic cleansing. It's more like social class cleansing. This is yet one more great advance for the glorious French Social Model, which, as any politically correct thinking commentator knows, is the envy of the Western World. In Argenteuil (yes, yet an other Northern suburb of Paris), homeless people have been dispersed through the use of a City Hall purchased stink repellant used to cleanse the areas where they congregate. Philippe Métezeau, the right-hand man for Argenteuil's mayor says that this is the best way to convince the city's bag people that they would be better off in a city-run shelter.

Thanks to 'Fane.

Typically Hypocritical Perfectly Reasoned Leftism

While accusing people of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and anything else handy, lefties themselves exhibit as little tolerance as their venerable intellectual ancestors.

Only in America are the Homeless so Bad Off

La vie cachee du peripherique / The secret life of the Paris beltway - part 4

The city's outreach call center gets 40.000 new cases per year

- With thanks to Social Traitre

"It is becoming very important to get rid of the Quai d'Orsay … I have contempt for all these guys, they are cowards"

Quick to anger, [Nicolas Sarkozy] calls both his aides and political enemies unprintable vulgarities

writes Elaine Sciolino in her New York Times report on Yasmina Reza's upcoming book (Dawn Evening or Night) on Nicolas Sarkozy.

At a breakfast with French experts on Russia and Chechnya, he declares that the Foreign Ministry is useless. "It is becoming very important to get rid of the Quai d'Orsay," he says. Branding the previous French ambassador in Russia "a moron," and the ambassador in Lebanon "an infamous cretin," he adds, "I have contempt for all these guys, they are cowards."

In another scene he asks himself whether Ségolène Royal, his Socialist opponent, is helping his own chances, and replies, "It's not certain. It's not certain that being a zero is necessarily a disadvantage in France."

Feeling Oppressed by Paper

American lefty editorial cartoonist Jeff Danziger takes a refuge for the detestation of his countrymen regularly in Pouriel International. Like many of his ilk, going over the top with his arguments is never quite enough. This month, he feels his liberties are dwindling away because of... the watermarks in his passport:

On the third page, opposite my picture and personal information appears an enormous head of a bald eagle, a ear of corn, a flag, and the preamble to the Constitution. The eagle has a curiously empty expression. For some unknown reason the federal government, which uses it everywhere and even affixes it post office trucks and medical warnings, is not able to decide to give to the bird a furious expression, slightly irritated, or a paternal look. This eagle, which glances at my photograph where I have little expression has a more tolerant air than usual.

I don’t think the paper mean it personally, Jeff.

But this part takes the cake:

The final result is that any feeling of affection which one could have for the country or its’ history is transformed into a joke. These oft used symbols, these common scenes, these paste board versions of our heroes and these there whirring quotations are presented as the real America. We have, of course, a lesson to be learnt owing to the fact that this setting in scene was conceived under a government which is without question the worst in recent history. But I do not dare to imagine which.

He probably wants to be the one – the single one – or maybe among the very few with whom he shares a common view, a minority to be sure, to tell us all what that “true America” is, but he can’t.

Nor should he if he is so much more misanthropic than the population itself, and yet has so little meaningful to say about his country that the rest of us are supposed to identify with when considering images of its’ identity. I doubt he would put his choice of symbols to a popular vote. He thinks Bison, Totem Poles, and the Rockies are kitsch. Of course it would seem that way if you can’t identify with anyone who doesn’t live in the intellectual gulag of east-coast urban leftism which has failed miserably in the agora of ideas for 4 decades. He has probably failed to notice that a pluralistic society is more than that.

Americans Don’t Care About the Poor. They Throw them Out onto the Street.

La vie cachee du peripherique / The secret life of the Paris beltway - part 3

- Hat-tip to some Blogger

Unapproved Thoughts Made Illegal

Europa, Europa:Brussels Mayor Warns: 9/11 Demonstrators Are Criminals

I decided to forbid the September 11 demonstration “against the islamicisation of Europe.” […] Since 2001 I have allowed over 3,500 demonstrations. This is only the sixth one which I forbid. […] The right to demonstrate exists only inasmuch as it does not cause a disturbance of the public peace and order. […] First and foremost the organizers have chosen the symbolic date of 9/11. The intention is obviously to confound the terrorist activities of Muslim extremists on the one hand and Islam as a religion and all Muslims on the other hand. […] Such incitement to discrimination and hatred, which we usually call racism and xenophobia, is forbidden by a considerable number of international treaties...

Also sprach Freddy.

Never mind anyone else provoking a disturbance of the peace, or what’s left of it, this guy thinks that international treaties, even if they really DO ban opinions, would even supersede the laws critical to a open pluralistic democracy which were put in place by a population on itself.

"Since Iraq was liberated from dictatorship"

In an interview with Le Monde, Jalal Talabani tells Cécile Hennion that the caricatured view that French élites, leaders, and citizens have of the situation in his country is, er, hardly the correct one…

Unlike the patented holier-than-thou hyumanists dissing France's foreign minister from the comfortable seats of their cozy living rooms, Talibani points out that the man on the terrain that Bernard Kouchner is

est un ami depuis plus de deux décennies. Nous nous étions rencontrés dans les montagnes du Kurdistan alors qu'il était en mission pour Médecins sans frontières pour aider les civils victimes de bombardements et de déportation.

DFTV

The Dissident Frogman provides free instruction for Agence France Presse.

Texas to EU: Get bent!

Texans will decide, democratically, what happens in the State of Texas. Texas State Law will not be influenced by unelected Ivory Tower Euro-elitists.

"230 years ago, our forefathers fought a war to throw off the yoke of a European monarch and gain the freedom of self-determination. Texans long ago decided that the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible crimes committed against our citizens. While we respect our friends in Europe, welcome their investment in our state and appreciate their interest in our laws, Texans are doing just fine governing Texas."

"Il y a deux cent trente ans, nos ancêtres ont combattu pour se libérer du joug d'un monarque européen et gagner la liberté de l'autodétermination. Les Texans ont décidé il y a longtemps que la peine de mort était un châtiment juste et approprié pour les crimes les plus horribles commis contre nos citoyens. Bien que nous respections nos amis en Europe, saluons leurs investissements dans notre Etat et apprécions leur intérêt pour nos lois, les Texans arrivent très bien à gouverner leur Etat."

America is Inequitable. There is no Social Solidarity.

La vie cachee du peripherique / The secret life of the Paris beltway - part 2

- With thanks to a special Blograde

Hooray!

French Social Model is back in action.

Merry Eco-Barbarian Luddites in Portugal

Last Friday (17 August) in Algarve in the south of Portugal, a Portuguese farmer who had planted a GMO crop legal even by tight EU standards, saw his lands invaded and the corn crop destroyed by activists of a fringe ecologist organization with complete impunity. Portuguese police did not act to prevent or stop the wanton destruction.

The vandals' actions were praised by the extreme-left party Bloco de Esquerda, which has supported the activist organization in the past. Miguel Portas, an MEP for the Bloco de Esqueda supported this action as a "precautionary measure", an act of "civil disobedience" and "non-violent conflict". Even tough he acknowledged the destruction of property, Miguel Portas wrote that there was a "wider social benefit" by raising the public awareness of GMO's.

Meanwhile, the Minister responsible for internal security said the police did everything they could to stop the crop destruction (although it was indeed destroyed...) and that those involved were to be prosecuted. In response, the spokesman for the eco-barbarians deemed this a "waste of public money" that would be better employed in a public campaign against GMO's. Their goal is to "re-establish ecological, moral and democratic order" even at the expense of others, so it seems.

- Via O Insurgente

La politique Chiraqo-Villepiniste de la France envers l'Irak a été karcherisée

Cleaning up Chiraq's mess.

Y'all Ain't in Kansas Anymore

But in zat case, where are iou, zen?
Over the past two decades, country and western festivals have sprung up in many parts of France, sparked by an abiding fascination with the trappings of the American frontier as well as by a craze for line dancing.

It's structural

A bug, not a feature.



"Accept loss forever." -- Jack Kerouac, In other words: learn to live with it, learn to love it. Jerkoffs!

Les fauves sont lâchés

The unemployed hacks at Rue89.com do their best to bite Kouchner's ankles.

Kouchner in 2003.

"Soiling One's Hands" Like "a Little Poodle"

When Moscow rattles its sabers at its neighbors (and the principle-minded leaders in the French government state that they will manage the sensibilities of the Russians), the French (including the opposition) have little to no reaction. When China threatens Taiwan (and the peacemakers in the French government light the Eiffel Tower in red for the visit of a Chinese leader while trying to resume weapons sales to Beijing), the French (including the opposition) have little to no reaction.

When Bernard Kouchner pays a visit to Baghdad, i.e., does something involving the Americans, all hell breaks loose. "France is like a little poodle" sputters Noël Mamère as the opposition (official and less official) erupts in indignation and even the government's friends and allies have their doubts and second thoughts. "It's a manner of soiling one's hands to go to Baghdad after Sarkozy's visit to Bush."

In France they call it a diplomatic surge

France's stance on Iraq shifting.

This Social Model is the Envy of the World

La vie cachee du peripherique / The secret life of the Paris beltway - part 1

- With thanks to the man with a camera

Could They Hack it?

Hurricane Dean (2007-08-21-1545 UTC) superimposed to scale on the heart of Europe. It would envelope all of Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Benelux, and most of the Czech Republic. Greater London would fit in its eye.

So where are the Katrina-esque tirades? Bring ‘em on! Here’s the coverage from the commie anachronisms who so sure that they’re concerned with “all of Humanity” as the name might imply, this lot only seems to have seen fit to cover the fate of one small island in the Caribbean without so much as even a link to a wire story about the Yucatan peninsula getting whacked. This, regardless of who their “real heroes” are.



More no-event non-news and poodle-like
idol worship from their weekly magazine.

Paris made Mumia an Honorary Resident

What will they make this guy? France has a real soft spot for American murderers. Now Obama is involved.

There are too many of them and they are filthy and wasteful

French vacationers are destroying the environment.


The French say: take that Kyoto thing and shove it!

Americans Are Hardly Known to Speak of Jack Chirac or Francis Mitterrand

Seven (or 20?!) years later, French journalists like Raphaëlle Bacqué and Ariane Chemin (or Philippe Bolopion) are so entwined in their nation's language that they have still not learned how to spell the names of two foreign presidents, Georges W. Bush and Georges H. W. Bush (or if they know the name of George Bush, they will mess up that of Gérald Ford).

Pas de quoi fouetter un chat, probably, but this is from the nation that is always speaking of understanding and respecting foreign cultures, honoring foreigners and diversity and multiculturalism, learning from foreign travels (the French make a fuss out of their accents being mishandled abroad but still refuse to use Spanish accents on Hispanic names and still call Beijing "Pékin"), and (especially)… pointing out that clueless, egotistical, and self-centered zombie-like Americans (!) are the people who routinely, regularly, and randomly can be expected to mess those things up.

Ratatouille

France is not the place to be this summer as tourism has been hit hard by bad weather (expect les experts fwançais to put that on Dubya's tab along with the rest of the world's ills). Never mind the lies and rubbish spewed out on the usual French hate sites.

Maybe They Forcibly Sodomized him Because They Felt Oppressed

I’m still waiting for “Talk is Cheap” to touch this one:

Lawyers in Pakistan are investigating a report that up to 30 men tortured and gang-raped a young Christian man for refusing to convert to Islam.

The victim is seriously injured and unable to move, Release International’s partner in Pakistan has reported. However, according to the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS) the police are keeping him locked up and have denied him medical treatment.

The police are also refusing to register the rape following a counter-claim made by his principal attacker – “a man of influence”, Release International has told Christian Today.

According to CLAAS, the Christian was invited to a game of cricket. A quarrel broke out and he was beaten up. Later that evening, the father of one of the Muslims asked the Christian over to his house.

Joseph Francis, the National Director of CLAAS, explained: “When he entered the drawing room, he found it filled with unknown people. They began to beat him severely. They threatened him with dire consequences if he did not accept Islam. After his refusal, they committed sodomy with him one by one for the whole night.”

And to think that there are people in the bien pensent cities of the west living in their own little universe who would pay big money for that.

Sauve qui peut.

Lucid, Nuanced, and Visionary French Élites

In his editorial for the last issue of Courrier International before the summer recess, Philippe Thureau-Dangin shows that all the nuance and the rationality of the French élites are all about Bush, and nothing else.

• La fin du mandat de George Bush risque d’être dur.

• Et, si jamais l’Iran passe du statut d’observateur occasionnel [au sein de l’Organisation de coopération de Shanghai] au statut de membre associé, cela aussi serait pénible pour George Bush…

• Tout cela ne serait vraiment pas de bonnes nouvelles pour George.

The British ally in Iraq, the Iranian foe in the Shanghai group, the WTO's negotiations in the Doha cycle, you name it, all international news revert to how it affects the Texan troublemaker, served with a spoonful of scornful schadenfreude that the news are hardly positive.

Forget about, ignore, the dangers posed by Tehran, Beijing, or international trade, real or otherwise. It's all about Bush being subject to bad news, Bush having a difficult time in the final months of his presidency, Bush not having a good summer this year…

Bon été à lui tout de même et à tous nos lecteurs.

All-Loving, All-Caring EUtopia

Which is superior in every way to America was deeply concerned about this man’s dignity:

A paedophile repeat offender, Francis Evrard, was sentanced Friday for the kidnap and rape of Enis in Roubaix (North). He had Viagra when he was arrested and says that it was prescribed to him before he was last released from prison, one confirmed source said on Saturday.

The 61 year old paedophile was arrested Wednesday evening in Roubaix with Viagra in his possession, according to one source close to the case.

Police officers indicated after his arrest that an investigation is underway to determine if this drug to treat male impotence was prescribed to him by a doctor in the Caen prison system where he was held.

Aren't you glad the Doctor went out of his way to enable him to get some of his physical manhood back in advance of his moral manhood?

Gratuitous Loony USA Reference № 2794

So Just Who is the Mad Cow?

Floaties: “ BCE “

Wifebeater shirt “ Love of risk “

Over at Libération PropagandaStaffel

Following French Minister of Foreign Affairs Bernard Kouchner's Baghdad visit, the reader comments over at Libération PropagandaStaffel are getting more hateful by the minute:

"J'ai mal au coeur quand je pense à M. Kouchner ..."
"C'est triste qu'un homme comme Bernard Kouchner s'abaisse à jouer les "Mickey" pour l'illusionniste de l'Elysée....Grave..!"
"... Koucner débarque pour se faire remarquer et bien 'nous' faire remarquer. A quand des attentats contre la France ?"
"A quand nos soldats à Bagdad ?"
"Trois hamburgers et un hotdog --
Je parie que Nick a promis à George d’envoyer les troupes avant la fin de l’année."
"Moi, je croyais que les visites médiatiques surprise à Baghdad, c'était le job de Blair. Ah oui, c'est vrai, Bush a changé de caniche... "
"le larbin --
le lobby francais a la solde de bush croit pouvoir sauver l'amerique.helas."

Bernard Kouchner in Baghdad

French Minister of Foreign Affaires Bernard Kouchner declares, "Now we have to face the reality, including the American view ... but this is an Iraqi problem and it must be solved by the Iraqis". Kouchner spoke to the press in English.

LCI French cable news video here.

French MSM will be in ape shit mode by this evening

French Minister of Foreign Affairs Bernard Kouchner has arrived in Baghdad for a 3 day visit.




De la lecture pour Bernard pendant son séjour.