Great Moments in Schadenfreude

From degree programs in Social Engineering to degrading into a sort of haven for socially awkward but violent outré lefty Animal Farm types, Antioch College is finally giving up the ghost.

Of the eight student organizations currently listed on Antioch's website, only one, the Antioch Environmental Group, is not focused on identity politics of one sort or other. The others are By Any Means Necessary for students of African descent, Unidad for Latinos, the Third World Alliance, Kehilla (formerly the Jew Crew) for Jews, two separate groups for gays and lesbians (the Queer Center and Queers of Color), and the Womyn's Center. (The spelling looks like another Saturday Night Live parody, but it is in fact the center's official orthography, although "wombmen" is also in current use on campus.) The only Antioch College students who do not have a campus organization listed in their name are white, heterosexual, non-Jewish males. Traditional college clubs centered around student interests--say, French or music or film or chess or debate--seem to be entirely lacking. Even the events featured for this fall's "Community Day" on October 16--an Antioch tradition in which classes are suspended to accommodate student hayrides and other social events--seemed obsessively focused on identity. The evening events, for example, consisted of a queer lecture followed by a queer movie followed by a dance to the music of a queer band--leaving one wondering what Antioch's non-queers were supposed to do with themselves.

Enjoy. Watch it smolder. After the dominant student culture resembled militant intolerance, and thus looking an awful lot like dominaition, what else could one hope for other than for the entire thing to “go out in style”?

Although political views at Antioch might have tilted leftward even back then, the students of the 1950s and early-to-mid 1960s prided themselves on their willingness to hear out their more conservative classmates in lively all-night dorm discussions on politics and philosophy, inspired by professors who encouraged them to test all their assumptions against the evidence. "We were completely respectful of every point of view," recalled Rick Daily, a Denver lawyer who graduated from Antioch in 1968 and is treasurer of the alumni committee that is struggling to save the college from closure. "We even had a Goldwater Republican in our graduating class," Daily said in a telephone interview.

That was Antioch then. Antioch now might be fairly represented by a September 21 article in the student newspaper, the Record, consisting of a gloating account of the invasion by 40 gay and lesbian Antioch students (a full fifth of the current student body) of an evangelical Christian book-signing event at a Barnes & Noble store located in a mall in nearby Beavercreek, Ohio. Record reporter Marysia Walcerz described the hours-long "Gay Takeover," whose participants wore rainbow-tinted bandannas, ostentatiously held hands and kissed, and did their best to shock both authors and customers in this socially conservative sector of Ohio, as a "success .  .  . for direct action executed in style."

Regardless of their presceient trendsetting in 2000 that would inspire Paris’ City Hall years later in asking murderer Mumia Abu Jamal (née Wesley Cook) to address their graduating class (calling him a “political prisoner” for reasons that only the most inventive and mendacious could gin up), their prospects do map out the future of the “radical” left: dumbed further and further down as the reality of events in the world are kept further at bay, and dumbed further and further down as they try to engage with the reality of events in the world. Toast some marshmallows while you’re at it.

It Would Seem That…

…Somebody got interviewed on Fausta's Blog (on France, Kadhafi, anti-Americanism, and a coupla books…)

It’s Their Kind of Aspirational Society Thing

When the President is banging a former supermodel. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase Allez les Bleus!

Just in Time for “Winterval”

A little something for that tender little revolutionary in your life. Give Snoogums two perfectly matched boxed CD sets sure to provide more of the endless repetition EUvians have been babbling to themselves since 1917.

Sick, Pervy Visitor of the Day - Part 3

Something for Sneering Know-it-alls to Think About

Before the “U.S. smogging civilization out” meme is repeated for the n-th time by the bien pensent who think that nature (which just is) is really either a philosophy, an new reason to believe in rationing and redistribution, in or a tree in the sidewalk - should read this before they go jump in a lake:

The Kyoto treaty was agreed upon in late 1997 and countries started signing and ratifying it in 1998.  A list of countries and their carbon dioxide emissions due to consumption of fossil fuels is available from the U.S. government.  If we look at that data and compare 2004 (latest year for which data is available) to 1997 (last year before the Kyoto treaty was signed), we find the following.

· Emissions worldwide increased 18.0%.
· Emissions from countries that signed the treaty increased 21.1%.
· Emissions from non-signers increased 10.0%.
· Emissions from the U.S. increased 6.6%.

In fact, emissions from the U.S. grew slower than those of over 75% of the countries that signed Kyoto.  Below are the growth rates of carbon dioxide emissions, from 1997 to 2004, for a few selected countries, all Kyoto signers.  (Remember, the comparative number for the U.S. is 6.6%.)

· Maldives, 252%.
· Sudan, 142%.
· China, 55%.
· Luxembourg, 43%
· Iran, 39%.
· Iceland, 29%.
· Norway, 24%.
· Russia, 16%.
· Italy, 16%.
· Finland, 15%.
· Mexico, 11%.
· Japan, 11%.
· Canada, 8.8%.

That’s right – that industrial cipher, Luxembourg where their ridiculous wealth is a result of being a parasitic bank and tax haven investing other people’s hard earned money, and basically being a member of as many morally vane alphabet-soup international organizations as is possible.

While greenies always seem to be looking forward glowingly to the misery and failures of an earlier age, they cant wait to get a swipe in at anything seeming marginally conventional which a large part of society shares.

In fact all it’s about is hearing the sound of your own voice, and the social coercion:

Last week, two newspaper columnists called for a return to the kind of social coercion only ever seen before in wartime. It's all for the sake of "the environment", but as we'll see - it's a very peculiar and selective version of environmentalism.

Singer Thom Yorke told The Observer: "Unless you have laws in place, nothing's going to happen," he said.

"Nothing of this is going to be voluntary. [sic] It's a bizarre form of rationing that we're all going to have to accept, just like people did in the Second World War."

It's the War On CO2, of course, and Radiohead will be doing "their bit".

As for applying any of these “warm and fuzzy” strictures to the anyone other than those that are symbolic of the “developed world” in the limited intellects of the campaigning activist in need of an emotional outlet, Christmas, unlike the Berlin Love Parade, the Glastonbury Festival, or anything else celebrated by one of the flavor of the week coddled social factions becomes fair game.

It is claimed the UK's love of the traditional turkey dinner will generate 51,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Academics calculated the production, processing and transportation costs of the festive ingredients.

The Manchester researchers estimate a dinner for eight generates 20kg (44lbs) of carbon dioxide emissions.

They arrived at the total emissions figure by assuming one third of the UK population eats a typical Christmas meal.

The slaughtering of sheep in Brussels or any other colonized city need not apply because of the lunacy of people being little more than symbols to designated “social thinkers” of the day who have a monopoly on what ideas are permitted to be promoted out there. Seem like you’re from the developing world, even if you’ve grown up in Minneapolis? That’s okay. The smart money says that that little feature of the genetic lottery matters more than what people say or think in the world view of the cultural left – the same one whose emissions growth are 3 times higher that the “Kyoto deniers” they like to berate.

We’ll just leave them to those confused do-gooders to their nocturnal emissions while we take the real challenges in the world seriously.

Peace is “No-one Taking You Seriously”

This couple answers the questions lefties ask about the Jihad: “why do they hate us”

The couple, known just as 'Johan' and 'Jenny', say they registered their marriage in a ceremony in the 'BjornSocialist Republic'. This, they say, is an independent Marxist state, located "on a stone that looks like a tractor", in front of the Bos Islands in Lake Immeln in Skåne, southern Sweden.

The republic, they say, is the smallest in the world, with a land area of 6-8 square metres, a national anthem, a president and ministers, including a minister for 'Enlightenment and Insight.'

The couple applied in August for the Swedish tax authority to recognize the marriage. The application was turned down on the grounds that the republic was not recognized by Swedish law.

The question should really by, why shouldn’t we hate them. They were refused on a point of law, not that they lied to the court by trying to declare a fictitious nation. Who knows – maybe it’s a joke about Marxism, but given that Marxist love taxes but want to evade them anyway, I’d think that they show that same incapacity for irony that bedevils the average revolutionary who has a summer home.

They live in a culture that doesn’t seem to know what to make of people who either a) want to be liberated, or b) kill people who want to be liberated.

Assyrian Professor Stabbed in Sweden

Assyrian professor Fuat Deniz, of the University of Örebro, was stabbed in the back of the neck at 3.30 AM on Tuesday and has been declared brain-dead. Swedish police have collected a description of the suspect, who remains at large, from witnesses and have a picture of him from a surveillance camera from a local store.

I gess it comes wioth all of that public-order inducing peaciness and social engineering and stuff in places that actually have “environmental courts”.

The 45-metre (148-foot) elk, or moose in north America, is the brainchild of Thorbjörn Holmlund, who recently received permission from Arvidsjaur and Skellefteå councils to begin construction of the wooden animal.

[ ... ]

The area would be better served by investment in eco-tourism, they argue, rather than the construction of roads leading to an enormous elk on the top of a mountain.

As we all know, eco-tourists don’t travel, stay in hotels, use camp sites, eat, or defecate.

The Sights, the sounds, the Smells... of The City of Lurrrve

Voilà Kadhafi avec ses cheveux en bataille, son regard que rien n'accroche et ses faux airs de Keith Richards, le plus déjanté des Rolling Stones

Kadhafi is a "guide" whom Sarkozy will hardly be forgetting soon, write Raphaëlle Bacqué and Ariane Chemin in Le Monde.

My father was born in Peru, as poor as poor can be…

I don't know how they got that scholarship…



Dammit! America, man… you guys really treated my family well…

You may think "Oh how corny! Oh what a corny guy!" … and I'm not gonna apologize if I sound corny, but let me tell how grateful I am… that I am an American…

Without a word said about the total inefficiency of Socialism

French Socialists recognize the efficiency of the market economy.

Sick, Pervy Visitor of the Day - Part 2

Rhetorically Speaking, the Designer Might Actually Exists

The designer himself describes the filter as "a vegetal brain enclosed in an aluminium and Pyrex cranial box." That "brain" then cleans the air in your house for you.

And I refer to that as overblown nonsense that on a construction site might even result in a brick being therapeutically and anonymously thrown at you to induce some humility.

Elsewhere one of my favorite bloggers out there notes something he heard at a lecture. An Architect with a nutsack addresses the unstoppable gob of that whole “I talk therefore I am” phenomenon that so many people attempt to lunch on:

To rephrase Garcia-Abril's response to the audience member's question on whether his architecture posed a moral dilemma: "Some architects are excellent theorists and writers but often produce terrible buildings, while others never write a sentence yet produce sublime works of art. I choose to believe that it is better to let the architecture speak for itself, independent of any theoretical or philosophical justification. In the end there is just a building, and whatever verbal rhetoric that accompanied it will eventually be forgotten." I'm sure the Spaniard would somewhat object to my interpretation of what he was trying to say in a foreign tongue that evening, but what I do recall still deeply affects my view of the matter. To be honest, I admire the fact that he refused to directly engage the question by arguing that his designs are sustainable and green depending on the criteria used. And he refused to publicly claim that he was fully committed to sustainability (though he might be), since his work showed quite a few contradictions such a statement (unlike numerous hyprocrite designers who do exactly that). Rather, Garcia-Abril's retort transcended such mundane eco-talk by essentially saying - "Here are my buildings, here is what the design process is like for me, make what you will of it, since in the end its about the building itself and it is independent of any contemporary value system".

How do you think history will judge Bush?

Pretty Amazing: AOL polls (not to mention New York Times polls) tend to show heavy leanings in favor of the left, but in polls linked to the server's news service "reprinting" of Sheryl Gay Stolberg's NYT story ("Bush Scores Victories Despite Low Ratings"), Bush, the White House, and the Republicans consistently come out in front.

According to the polls, the White House is generally favored over Congress, more people are unsurprised by Bush's victories over Congress than otherwise, more respondents like Bush's leadership style than not, and more people think history will judge Bush… for the better!

Update: More evidence of global warming in Le Monde…

The European Union, which so much likes to take the high moral ground on human rights, is rather agile in finding excuses

For the European Union, which so much likes to take the high moral ground on human rights, it has been a pretty miserable month

writes Judy Dempsey.

Last week, EU leaders and their African counterparts held a summit in Lisbon, the first in seven years. But it was marred from the beginning. Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, was the only leader to take a principled stand. He stayed away after Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's president, had been invited by Portugal, the current holder of the EU's rotating presidency.

The rest of the EU seemed to have forgotten that the member states had imposed a travel ban on Zimbabwe's top leadership because of its appalling human rights record. But when African leaders threatened to boycott the summit without Mugabe's presence, the EU caved in and declared that it was more important to have a public dialogue with Africa.

…The EU has been cowardly in demanding the truth over the shooting of hundreds of [Uzbek] protestors in Andijan in 2005. …

[That and other] examples also show just how agile the EU is in finding excuses. …

Take Kazakhstan. Ruled by Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has created a cult of personality equal to North Korea's Kim Jong Il, this Central Asian country has been awarded the annual rotating chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. … EU officials … say that if Kazakhstan had not been given the chairmanship, its foreign policy would shift eastward to China — and so would its vast energy resources and business contracts.

…if Germany and the rest of the EU did not engage Africa in a serious way, then China would set the agenda there. …

If the EU claims that it is competing with China for influence in Africa, the first thing it should do is break down its protectionist trade barriers and then speak up much more forcefully for human rights, which is crucial for civil society.

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Solstice

Trapped in Beeb-istan: the Provisional Wing of the PC left has finally found a way to get into the Christmas spirit.

Former Brookside babe Jennifer Ellison is to star in a new BBC adaptation of the Nativity story.
The new show will be broadcast live on BBC Three on December 16th and will see Ellison playing the part of a pregnant Mary who is fighting to stop her asylum-seeker boyfriend Joseph from being deported.

Further, the Ho Ho Hosebag will be sexing-up the dumbing-down of the greatest story ever told:

Jennifer Ellison will don a silver catsuit to play an angel in the BBC's new adaptation of the Nativity story.

I suppose the point they’re making really is that there is no reason to become a citizen since the only notion they now have of what a citizenship is feeling perpetually guilty about your very being. That’s sure to bring the brain-trust knocking on their doors, and that forgiveness and salvation are available with a Scheisster and paperwork sent to the Home Office.

This is the same BBC that refers to any other nations newcomers as immigrants, but otherwise as “migrants” only when referring to a foreigner in the UK, legally there or not, seeking citizenship or not.

Sick, Pervy Visitor of the Day - Part 1

The next Khalid Sheik Mohammed or Abu Zubaydah can rest easy: Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., is looking out for you

Democrats have created a climate where investigators are to follow some kind of Robert's Rules of Order and the interrogators are to be more fearful than those they interrogate

editorializes Investor's Business Daily.

But we didn't necessarily want the terrorists to know that or what other techniques, like being forced to listen to Rosie O'Donnell, might be employed. If we do not torture, we would still want captured jihadists to think we do, that we will do more than read them their Miranda rights and ask if they want an attorney.

…Is waterboarding in fact torture? Not if torture is defined as the deliberate infliction of intense pain and possible physical harm. Waterboarding instilled fear, and we see no reason terrorists should not be afraid, very afraid, of us.

…the congressional leaders of both parties were extensively briefed on the techniques used in interrogating captured prisoners. Thanks to Democrats and the mainstream media, so were the terrorists who are trying to kill us.

Swedes Should Probably Stop Singing “Take a Chance on Me”

(Pictured: a charming and welcoming German street scene, left in place for years because it's concidered "art") Immigrants vote with their feet.

toward the end of last year – following the riots in France's immigrant-populated suburbs - something happened: discussions about Europe's "social model" grew quiet, very quiet.

Just a few months earlier, when Hurricane Katrina had struck New Orleans, European media and politicians were wallowing in schadenfreude (taking pleasure in the misfortune of others). The U.S. was called a "developing country," unable to protect its own citizens, and thus a world away from a Europe of solidarity and compassion.

But then the fires began in Paris, Lyon and Marseille. And an embarrassed silence settled in.

The American societal model, with its wide disparities and gaping safety net, is something that few in Europe wish to emulate. There is, however, quite a bit to learn from it. One example is the assimilation of immigrants into the labor market.

The case in point? Comparing the success and level of happiness of Somalis who immigrated abroad after that nation’s descent into lawlessness and civil war.

Compared to the odds of things working out for an immigrant in the US, Europe stinks.

When Somalia collapsed at the beginning of the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of Somalis fled the country. Those who reached Sweden had almost no chance of finding work: In 1997 only 10 percent were employed. Currently, the number has risen to some 30 percent, which is long way off the national level of 77 percent.

This isn’t a matter of pulling out the Euro-pavlovian rationalization-response number 1,547 about the better disposed and more ambitious immigrants bypassing Europe in favor of the US, Canada, Australia, Brazil, and so forth. The study compared apples to apples, and demonstrates something that anyone familiar with immigrant communities on both sides of the pond can readily see – the socialist-cum-dogooder rhetoric found in Europe is most frequently a failure, and at times an outright lie aimed at using social self-flattery to compensate for a failed social model.

Calling In and Airstrike

Antoine di Zazzo, identified by AFP as "one of the biggest Taser representatives" outside the United States, said his company is "developing a mini-flying saucer like drone which could also fire Taser stun rounds on criminal suspects or rioting crowds.

The roadblock obviously is that because it’s been used in the US and Canada, that the UN determined that it is a form of torture. Otherwise they’d be abusing themselves to the sound of Nicholai Tesla’s words, zapping “youts”, and going on smugly about the superiority of their export numbers.

And in the national interest, of course, the AFP’s notion of fair journalism lives on: some German guy uses Chinese prisoners remains are used to make art, a flying taser is seen uncritically, but the same lot lose their continence over Gitmo.

What I don't get is that AFP put the flying saucer thing at the end of the freakin' story about TASER! What the heck!? Are stun-gun equipped flying saucers just sort of ho-hum in France? This should have been a huge headline with pictures of children running for their lives, as the evil alien-looking TASER saucers attack.

This shouldn’t be confused with the culture’s more normal sounding loopiness preoccupied with the “Bush Junta”.

"Vous n'avez ici que des amis, Excellence"

Although Kadhafi's Paris visit has led to a number of criticisms by French lawmakers (notice reactions like the crybaby Christiane D's agreeing with the dictator as well as pouting how much the Iraq war had led to suffering for… Europe — Europe, for Christ's sake!), heaven forbid that there be any demonstrations like that in Paris when George W Bush came to commorate the 60th anniversary of D-Day.

Heaven forbid as well that there would have been a glowing reception given to the American president like the Ritz event described by Ariane Chemin in Le Monde in which Kadhafi is told he has nothing but friends and is oohed and aahed over by Paris's intelligentsia.

Ambassadeurs, admirateurs, éditeurs, on se rue sur la petite table où Kadhafi signe ses oeuvres.

One woman is "delighted" that her book has been signed by Kadhafi with the word "friendship". Meanwhile, André Fontaine is taken out of the mothball closet to explain how an insult made during his first Paris visit 34 years ago (the Guide of the Libyan Revolution had more criticism for France this week) had to be answered by then-Le Monde editor Fontaine. He then goes on to say, obviously with a nodding attitude, even with admiration (for the interpreter):

Mais la manière dont l'interprète libyen traduisit ma réponse fut assez habile pour satisfaire Kadhafi, dont le visage s'illumina.

I thought that when it comes to a free country like France, the point is to be upright and always to tell friends and enemies alike the truth outside of all fear? If your translators are going to mis-translate the words, or the sense of the phrase, then what's the point?!

Don't think that these monuments to France's lucidité at the Ritz don't have principles, however. They are in rage. Over what? Over Bernard Kouchner's refusal to attend the Kadhafi love-fest, as well as his refusal to explain his reason for not attending, which Roland Dumas deems nothing less than… "a dual cowardice"!

Update: Axel Poniatowski answers questions from Le Monde readers (teaching them — and us — that, among other things, "à partir du 1er janvier prochain, la Libye va présider le Conseil de sécurité de l'ONU")…

The left's one-dimensional conception of racism is entirely unsatisfactory and needs to be revised

The American left's perception of racism is contradictory at its base

writes Ben Duffy.

On the one hand, they see racists under every bed, but on the other hand, they don't recognize someone like Bob Green as the bigot that he is. …

If you listen to his program for 30 seconds, you will know that Mr. Green is black because that's all he ever talks about. He allows his identity to be determined by his pigmentation. Bob Green is also incredibly racist. His racism is usually directed towards white people, but our society is so constrained by white guilt that we don't recognize anti-white racism as a form of bigotry.

Stand procedure in these parts

Down-and-out French journalmists with no money obsess about Jews with money.

So How’s That “Weapons Free Zone” Thing Going

Woman's Square or Woman's Station?

Oddly (or appropriately?) enough, Place de la Femme can mean both Woman's Square (the supposed meaning on the sign on this Moroccan statue's pedestal) and Woman's Station (as in her station in life, vis-à-vis men)…

Y aura des rediffs de la Famille RamDam ?

EurabiaTV.

Just do it

Wait a second before you jump so I can get my videocam and post it on Youtube (peut-être même j'y mettrai des bruitages rigolos pour envoyer à VideoGag).

Bad Boys, Bad Boys, Whatcha Gonna Do?

There’s naïve, and then there’s this:

...last year, the 24-year-old German reached out to a convicted killer on Texas' death row. Her motives were altruistic, she said, not romantic. In time, after more than 50 letters posted back and forth across the Atlantic, Ms. Deeken said, mutual feelings grew.

"I have a connection with him," she explained recently, shaking slightly, tears running down her cheek. "Everyone in life has a vision, has dreams, has fears, is searching for something. He is the person I can talk deeply with about these things."

It seems that in the absence of a more grounded existence to help put things into context, let’s say, one where they try to legislate the trials and tribulations of human life out of existence, it should come as no surprise that loneliness and a need for irredeemable empathy would bubble up to the surface as a preoccupation. Perhaps it’s thought of as a sort of “giving back” or charity, but of a sort selected to give one ultimately the greatest degree of personal anguish in the end. Where some who have no family or close relationships fall into bad habits, others genuinely give of themselves. Some, it seems want to appear to be generous, but choose as vessel for those emotions something that could only result in ones’ own helplessness:

Each month, dozens of travel-weary, love-struck European women arrive in Livingston for visits with condemned inmates, a pair of four-hour chats through Plexiglas. There is no touching.

There are people out there who see something out there in the world that gives them pain. Some try to understand the phenomenon, while others foolishly believe that they can go make that painful thing go away, in spite of the reasons they have for exiting to begin with.

In other words, they are sick people who have been living in comfort so long that they are no longer able to interpret the value of their emotions, the hurt feelings of the convict, and the actions of the convict. It’s all equally incomprehensible it it’s purpose or reasons for being. It all seems intended when they all stem from the consequences of the actions of the convict. To the simpleton, retribution and justice are the same, they are riddled with things that are hurtful to think about, therefore the circumstances must be done away with.

In 1995, Mr. Martinez was convicted of stabbing to death a 68-year-old woman and her 4-year-old granddaughter. He sexually assaulted the older woman, defiled the corpse of the child, and reportedly threatened the victims' family as he was led from the courtroom, saying, "It's not over yet."

The reasons usually speak for themselves when you consider the alternatives are to let them walk, leave them to inflict yet more non-therapeutic violence on the prison population, or even creating a society where ones’ harmful actions don’t result in consequences of any sort.

- Vielen Dank, Corbusier

It Makes Me Think of Haute Couture, ‘n Stuff...

Have a Richard Dawkins Christmas

Looking for psychotic murderers? Look no further than products of that leftist hobby horse, the social welfare system!

Hey, I think I can Smell the Exit Over Here!

Didn’t low-brow roadside attractions pass their prime in the late 60’s?

From Bagram to Atlantic City

Medic!

“Ambitions have not been matched by resources”

Other contributing countries include Poland, the Netherlands, Austria.

But some, notably the UK, have "offered to give political support, and where appropriate any technical advice", but stopped short of "any promises to offer any money or forces", UK European minister Jim Murphy said earlier this month

Of course, when in doubt, form a committee. Draft a white paper. Blow off another six months. It’s the typically European quietly inhumane thing to do while you’re promoting your own virtues.

The planned force still lacks ten helicopters, a third medical facility and other support assets, French General Henri Bentegeat, head of the EU's Military Committee, said earlier this month according to Reuters.

blog.libero.it/putans nopasaran.blog-libre.net nopasaran.samizdat.net www.nopasaran.es/

Grampa's Arrival in America

Ancestry.com allows you to search U.S. Passport Applications from 1795 to 1925…

Giving in to their Homoerotic Love of Dictators

French broadcaster TF1, majority owned by construction, energy, and cellular magnate Martin Bouygues produced a program which reasons of favoring a business to a state long known to be brutal and corrupt. The documentary was so far out, it had to stay in the can.

The big network TF1 has kept in the closet a program that it will never run. It is a plateau television she has done for the sake of a dictator. Bakchich-TV published the best excerpts from the video, and discusses how TF1 took liberties with their own ethics.
 
The story begins in 1996, at the offices of the giant BTP and owner of TF1, Martin Bouygues. The group Bouygues then concocted a fairy tale about a small republic in Central Asia that’s rich in natural gas: Turkmenistan. Its president, Saparmurad Niyazov, then offers the French company a 200 million concrete contract for a mosque in the desert, a palace, and a parliament building. To be specific, let's get clear the fact that it’s a ghost parliament, as Niyazov was classified by Amnesty International among the worst dictators of our time. Before his death in 2006, the man has had time to be elected by parliament as president for life, to imprison incommunicado and tortured his opponents, to give months of the year the names of members of his family, to prohibit freedom of the press, and the expressive arts, as they were deemed “contrary to the spirit of the people"
Niazov is not a democrat, but signed contracts with France’s BTP. So when he landed on an official visit to Paris in September 1996, his closest French friend, Martin Bouygues, began right away to flatter his cult of personality.

The builder is mobilizing its selling point, it is the only one to have: TF1, Europe’s leading television channel. Bouygues promised Niazov a prestigious program devoted entirely to the splendor of Turkmenbashi, "the father of the Turkmen" (as he renamed himself). The studios TF1 are mobilized to turn out an exceptional effort. Martin Bouygues himself, and TF1 and Gaz de France CEO Patrick Le Lay are sitting facing the President Niyazov, which to be interviewed by the deputy news director of TF1, Jean Narcy. The title of this special edition to run in primetime: "Turkmenistan and its economic future! Wow.

The show begins with images as generic as one can get since the founding of the ORTF, in 1964: a picture of Paris, peaceful, with the Seine, the Eiffel Tower, and on top of that the sound of a loud fanfare that sent the gladiators in the arena of an Italian peplum. It's stale and has everything that would put TF1 viewers to sleep punctuated with fast-flowing images to flatter Niazov!

Then comes a 45 minute long disturbing interview. Jean Narcy, forgetting that 50% of the Turkmen population is unemployed, continues to ask the dictator about his country’s wealth. Probably quite shocked, Niazov returns the flattery by describing TF1 as the "most powerful force in television in the world, and the largest carrier of culture." What the CEO of TF1, Patrick Le Lay, reply with is doubly impertinent: speaking of Turkmenistan as a "country at the crossroads of the world's great movements," the television quoted Turkmen as "the memory of a people and a civilization ", and suggested that the Father of the Turkmen should help, (don’t laugh,) "to produce programming devoted to his country and its culture." Unsaid is that we know that the President Niyazov, culture is restricted to folk music and readings officially imposed on schools and universities, a book of thoughts which Niyazov himself authored, and whose quotations adorn buses.

Poor Niazov! Narcy keeps the viewer from dozing off with a long speech without rhythm or relief. Narcy droned on but earned his salary: he goes on to give the floor to the boss of Gaz de France, invited and jumped in himself to discuss… gas, and then the construction contract by Bouygues: a Conference Center open to the Turkmen population. He even goes into the importance of culture and welfare of the population not just once, on the occasion of this historic interview, he’s even asked the Turkmen president to give his position on the opponents and journalists he had jailed.

What was so funny about it? That Niazov took the interview very seriously, although it is being run by his friend French. The stage and the actors are real, but they know very well that there would be "special edition" on Turkmenistan running on French television. Once Niyazov was gone, the TF1 recording of the broadcast was carefully locked away.

No pipeline, no problem!

So where is the false outrage of the likes of Michael Moore for this kind of “national champion” business with a red “hey, let’s get into cahoots” line to a national government? No-where. It doesn’t flatter their ideology or prop up their illusions about a “Bu$hChimpyHitlerburton” straw-man hiding under the bed, lest you hand them your brain. After all, you know that only Americans les Ricons do that!

Proof that Paris’ Massive Army of Street Cleaners Are Worth Every Cent

Paris sous les bombes (bis)

Here is a promotional video of the law firm hit by the package bomb attack:



UPDATE (5:31PM Paris time): Interior Minister Michèle Alliot Marie has arrived. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack at this time. Olivier Brane, the lawyer shown in the above video, is the lawyer injured in the attack. He has been hospitalized and is expected to pull through.



UPDATE (6:55PM Paris time): In a short statement to the press, Interior Minister Michèle Alliot Marie stated that investigators are working with witnesses in an attempt to identify the messenger who delivered the package bomb.

UPDATE (7:33PM Paris time): Police are now looking for a dark haired female messenger, 1m55 tall.

UPDATE (9:26PM Paris time): France3 reports that the lawyer to who the package bomb was addressed, Catherine Gouet-Jenselme, has been the target of sexual harassement since January 2005. Legal proceedings were initiated in June of this year. According to France3 State TV, investigators are now going with a sexual-harassement-personal-vendetta motive. Judicial authorities are denying this report while confirming that a sexual harassement case was being handled by the law firm in question but that it is still too early to be able to identify a motive for the bombing.

Paris sous les bombes

A package bomb has gone off in the 8th arr. of Paris in the office of a law firm co-founded by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. 6 people have been injured and radio reports now announce 1 law firm secretary dead (with 1 laywer among the injured). A second package is being taken in by the bomb squad. The explosion occured at 1:30PM Paris time.

UPDATE: Reports now indicate that two likely targets are located in the building where the explosion took place. A law firm co-founded by Nicolas Sarkozy and a Holocaust Memorial Foundation ("Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah").

UPDATE: One death now confirmed. French MSM cable news now getting up to speed on this. At this point, French MSM insists that there is no confirmed link between the explosion at that location and the Holocaust Memorial Foundation.

UPDATE: Reports now indicate that the explosion took place in a 4th floor law office. Sarkozy's ex-law firm is located on the 1st floor. French MSM is downplaying the presence of a Holocaust Memorial Foundation at the same address. There is 1 confirmed death and 5 injuries.

UPDATE (4:03PM Paris time): the package that exploded was delivered by messenger and addressed to Olivier Brane and Catherine Gouet-Jenselme. The law firm hit by the explosion deals mainly in divorce and insurance cases. It is not known for dealing in sensitive cases. I-Tele cable news now reports that the law office targeted is on the same floor (4th floor) as the Holocaust Memorial Foundation.

UPDATE (4:46PM Paris time): Interior Minister Michèle Alliot Marie is expected to arrive on the scene any minute. She was in Belgium at the time of the explosion.


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Today Schengen, Tomorrow ‘Ze Vurld

In someone’s mind, Europe has grown to include all of Turkey, half of the ‘Stans’ and all of Asian Russia. Ew-key. Plan on telling those people in Siberia that?

Lefty Loves Lefty

2003

What a year. Iran is suspected to have dismantled (or changed) some of its nuclear weapons research, and the US made good on their threats to Saddam Hussein.

Let’s say you’re a bonehead, and can’t connect the dots, and can’t imagine a crackpot like Ahmedinejad noticing the soft power value of hard power when the US deposes the dictator next door.

Okay. Let’s not say you’re a bonehead, just for the sake of your own embarrassment. Let’s say you’re a lazy journalist who tries to jam the same argument into every visible global event.

Unconfirmed

The source is unknown. This report still needs some Habeas Corpus It could well be just some rah-rah trash talk to embolden the disillusioned and enflame violence.

DANISH AUTHORITIES WHITHHOLD SECRET INFORMATION
A prophet cartoonist has been burned alive

An unprecedented global crisis that laid bare the "clash of civilizations" was in play as a result of the publication of these drawings, reprinted dozens of times worldwide. According to a reliable source we learn that one of the authors of the famous twelve caricatures of the Prophet Mohamed (Salvation Be Upon Him) was burnt alive by persons unknown. Although lacking details about this case and knowing that the Danish authorities are trying to stifle this matter so as not to unleash a new wave of threats and outbursts around the world, the victim was reported to have been attacked in her home before being tied up, having gasoline poured on her and burned alive.
In the absence of reliable information about this event it could just as well be a simple accident, which would mean, in the eyes of the Muslim world, that divine retribution was exacted on her, and confirmed by the simultaneously embarrassed silence of the Danish government and the conservative newspaper that had published the cartoons.
The event took place on Wednesday night. We contacted the Danish Embassy in Algeria would neither confirm or deny the report.
This, it must be feared, could trigger a new crisis between Muslims and Christians. The suspicion, indeed, quite naturally draw attention to Muslims living in Europe even though the crisis appears not necessarily benefit them.

To recall what this is all about, Jyllands Posten, a Danish newspaper, had decided to publish a series of twelve caricatures impacting the image of our Prophet (QSSL) and of Islam in September of 2005. This initiative was taken after Danish author Kare Bluitgen had complained that he had not found anyone willing to illustrate a book about the Prophet Mohamed (QSSL).
An unprecedented circumvention then followed. The Western newspapers had hastened to "republish" the incriminating documents, highlighting a stir the Muslim world, and triggering massive demonstrations around the world.

Meanwhile, small groups of madmen or pranksters had threatened the newspaper and the perpetrators of these drawings. Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen hid behind freedom of speech in order not to see his government fall, but still had to bend over backwards to deal with the financial and economic countermeasures. The decision (almost spontaneously) to boycott all Danish products weighed heavily on them. The kingdom ran straight into bankruptcy. The crisis then faded gradually, having lasted nearly six months. But now that this new event is likely to bring it back.

In what way is the question.

****
LES AUTORITÉS DANOISES MAINTIENNENT SECRÈTE L’INFORMATION
Un auteur des caricatures sur le prophète (QSSSL) brûlé vif

Une crise mondiale sans précédent, mettant à nu le " choc des civilisations " avait pris naissance à la suite de la publication de ces dessins, et des dizaines de reprises qui s’en étaient suivies à travers le monde. Selon des informations recoupées et dignes de foi, nous apprenons que l’un des auteurs des fameuses douze caricatures sur le prophète Mohamed (Que le Salut Soit Sur Lui) a été brûlé vif par des personnes inconnues. Même si les détails manquent à propos de cette affaire, sachant que les autorités danoises tentent d’étouffer cette affaire afin de ne pas déchaîner une nouvelle vague de menaces et de contremenaces à travers le monde, la victime aurait été attaquée chez elle, avant d’être ligotée, arrosée d’essence et brûlée vive. En l’absence d’informations fiables relatives à cet évènement, il pourrait tout aussi bien s’agir d’un simple accident, ce qui signifierait, aux yeux du monde musulman, que la vengeance divine a bel et bien frappé, et justifierait dans le même temps les silences gênés du gouvernement danois et du journal conservateur qui avait publié ces dessins. Toujours est-il que l’évènement remonte à la nuit de mercredi à jeudi. Contacté par nous, aucun responsable au niveau de l’ambassade du royaume du Danemark en Algérie n’était en mesure de nous renseigner, confirmer ou infirmant cette informer. Celle-ci, il faut le craindre, risque de déclencher une nouvelle crise entre les mondes musulman et chrétien. Les soupçons, en effet, vont tout naturellement vers les musulmans résidant en Europe, cela même si la crise ne semble pas leur profiter forcément. Pour rappel, un journal danois, " Jyllands Posten ", avait décidé de publier, au mois de septembre de l’année 2005, une série de douze caricatures portant atteinte aux images de notre prophète (QSSL) et de la religion musulmane. Cette initiative était intervenue après qu’un auteur danois, Kare Bluitgen, se soit plaint de n’avoir trouvé personne pour lui illustrer un ouvrage à propos du prophète Mohamed (QSSL). Une surenchère sans précédent s’en était suivie. Les journaux occidentaux s’étaient empressés de " republier " les documents incriminés, mettant en émoi le monde musulman, et déclenchant des manifestations gigantesques partout dans le monde. Parallèlement, des groupuscules d’illuminés ou de plaisantins, avaient commencé à lancer des menaces contre ce journal ainsi que les auteurs de ces dessins. Le Danemark, dont le Premier ministre Rasmussen se drapait derrière la liberté d’expression pour ne pas reculer, a quand même dû courber l’échine devant les arguments financiers et économiques. La décision prise (quasi spontanément) de boycotter tous les produits de ce pays, a pesé très lourd dans la balance. Ce royaume courait tout droit vers sa faillite. La crise, par la suite, s’est estompée petit à petit, non sans avoir duré près de six mois. Mais voilà que ce nouvel évènement risque de la faire rebondir. Dans quel sens ? Là est la question…

- with thanks one shrewd bastard.

The Gravel Sound Effects Engineer

French culinary traditions helps explain why French gravel sound effects engineers are reknown worldwide as the best in the film business (thank you for swallowing that coffee before playing the video)…

Where it’s Always 1978

What you get for taking a passive attitude to it : with between 58000 and 127000 drug dealers, even « le shit » has proved itself to outdo whole sectors of industry wether national champions or not, and is becoming the mother’s milk for thugs who import assault weapons from the Balkans.

« Soft » drugs indeed. Never mind that... there are dead idols to worship and propaganda to eat up.

BBC defends Chester the Molester

It’s as close to Mom and Apple Pie as the BBC thinking gets: a peasant girl in a developing country is raped and political Feminists parachute in with the BBC on hand to help “make a difference”.

"BRADSHAW: Defeat, this time, for the Cardinal. For many in Nicaragua Rosa's parents have become heroes, an ordinary couple defying the church and making a stand for women's rights. Others in Nicaragua are also defying the ban on abortion."

Journalists galvanizing the public to a cause, pat-on-back, etc., etc.

Too bad the BBC kept quiet the fact that one of these peasant-like ordinary people/heroes, infallible in their almost Evo-Morales-like imagery, caused this problem by molesting his own daughter.

Unfortunately for the BBC's portrayal of Rosa's father, Francisco Fletes Sanchez, as the pro-choice hero, it now turns out that he was in fact the man who raped her. He has been convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison for his crimes. He was in fact on the run at the time, having escaped from Costa Rica to Nicaragua.

Somewhere In their herpetic minds they might be able to come clean by blaming the patriarchy, but they would have to imagine that their favorite flavor of class-struggling peasant might be subject to the same morality as the average human.

So you think dey wanna hit dat shit?

blog.libero.it/putans nopasaran.blog-libre.net nopasaran.samizdat.net www.nopasaran.es/

Interview with Svane & Greenberg

Nicolas Vadeau de Bulle d'Encre publie une interview avec le scénariste et le dessinateur de Général Leonardo (il y a même un bonus)…

Une interview précédente était apparue sur Sceneario…






Entretemps, la série a été plébiscitée par le Club Français des Amateurs de Furet…

The declaration of Ségolène Royal notwithstanding, it is certain that the U.S. has not seen such a level of urban violence for the last 40 years

Among the points that John Rosenthal makes, the following stand out (emphasis mine):

Are the deaths of two youngsters that sparked several nights of rioting in France last week being exploited for political purposes? Consider only that one of the two lawyers representing the families of the boys happens to be none other than the personal attorney of Ségolène Royal: the Socialist Party (PS) candidate who was defeated by Nicolas Sarkozy in the French presidential election May 6. It will be recalled that just two days before the vote, in an interview with French radio station RTL, Royal warned ominously that Sarkozy's candidacy was "dangerous" and that there would be "violence" -- notably, in "popular neighborhoods" -- if he was elected. It is particularly noteworthy in retrospect that when RTL journalist Jean-Michel Aphatie pressed Royal on the point, asking her to agree that if there is violence it would be illegitimate, she did not reply to the question. "He has to ask himself why he provokes so much [violence]," Royal retorted, "I think he is also responsible." Could Royal and her allies in the PS be helping to make her grim pre-election prediction come true by transforming what was in all likelihood a banal, if tragic, traffic accident into a political issue?

…It was precisely on the Web site of "Désirs d'avenir" that Ségolène Royal on Wednesday published her own statement on the riots. "This escalation of violence has to be stopped," she said: thus employing a formula that again can be understood to imply that the violence of the rioters is somehow a "response" to purposeful violence on the part of the police. "We, citizens of France," she continued, "must all refuse that our urban neighborhoods (quartiers) come to resemble the urban neighborhoods in the U.S.A., where the firing of real bullets is a frequent occurrence. . . . I thus call for a national mobilization, including all political tendencies, so that the question of our urban neighborhoods and of the future of the youth in these neighborhoods will become a great national cause."

Commentators of virtually all political stripes in the French media -- including President Sarkozy in a televised interview on Thursday night -- have made a point of praising the French police for the restraint they showed in the face of the rioters. But such praise could someday soon prove to be a fatal burden. For though the police did not resort to the use of lethal force, there was in fact plentiful firing of real bullets in the trouble areas last week: namely at the police. According to the latest available figures, some 130 police officers were injured in the rioting, with several of them being seriously wounded by gunfire (Le Figaro, Nov. 30). One police officer lost an eye; another was struck in the shoulder by a 12 mm cartridge fired from a shotgun; a third is reported to have been hit 30 times by pellets, eleven times in the face. Police have also reported being fired upon with an "improvised bazooka" (Le Figaro, Nov. 29). It is clear from the reports that still more serious injuries or even deaths were only avoided thanks to the heavy body armor that French police habitually wear in riot situations. "The use of firearms has been systematic," Patrice Ribeiro of the French police officers union Synergies Officiers told Le Figaro, "There was an intent to kill."

…It should be noted that French police, not surprisingly, have been known in the past to use their weapons. Just one year ago, in November 2006, a rioter was shot and killed by a French police officer following a soccer match on the outskirts of Paris: an episode that, symptomatically, received less prominent coverage in the French media than a shooting incident involving police in far-off New York two days later.

…The bizarre declaration of Ségolène Royal notwithstanding, it is certain that the United States has not seen such a level of urban violence for the last forty years: since the urban riots of the 1960s.

... and just wait, 'cause there's more where that came from

The French have been stunned by the savagery of the riots in Villiers-le-Bel.

26 years of feel-good-and-festive Socialism has produced this:
"'It felt like they were out to kill us,' said one of the officers in Villiers-le-Bel last week. 'We knew that there were weapons in the suburbs, but they have never been turned against us like that. The kids were shooting at us at close range, loading and reloading their weapons. I’ve never seen anything like it.'"

Sarkozy's pivotal battle: to transform "la France du refus"

Nicolas Sarkozy faces his pivotal battle, writes William Langley: to transform the 'France that will not change'. Meanwhile, John Vinocur describes how the Président means "to dissolve the taboos that for a generation made a reactionary concept for the French out of the idea that greater effort equals greater productivity and greater reward."

Langley: France has it in for everybody who wants to be left alone to run a business. Consumed by a statist allegiance to what it regards as equality in the workplace, the country has effectively abolished the right of anyone to take a low-paid job. It not only imposes Europe's highest minimum wage - about £800 a month - but layers it with complicated and costly regulations about who can work where, for how long and in what conditions. In doing so, it has effectively closed the labour market door in the faces of the poorly educated and mostly ill-qualified youths of places such as Villiers-le-Bel, where the unemployment rate frequently touches 60 per cent.

…Pleasant as it is to find a backstreet bistro run by lace-hatted crones, where nothing appears to have changed for centuries, the changelessness in France is an expensive illusion. The crones will be paying 50 per cent income tax and 19.6 per cent VAT, plus property tax, business tax, rubbish collection tax, licensed premises tax and a "solidarity" tax to support the unemployed. "How," asks the President, "can we continue to believe that by taxing more and working fewer hours, we can ever create wealth and jobs?"

Noël Arrive

Christmas is fast approaching, if we are to believe Chris Dawson…

sKul DaZe

mark Steyn snarking away with a vengeance this week. He gives a spanking to Australian Santa policy under the new Rudd Junta, The ACLU’s selective outrage, and points out why Arabs who are more like the Sudanese than they are like the smart ones that leave aren’t quite ready for prime-time when it comes to things like tolerance, stoning rape victims, restraining oneself from threats to decapitate middle aged school-teachers, etal:

"Santas Warned 'Ho Ho Ho' Offensive To Women."
Really. As the story continued: "Sydney's Santa Clauses have instead been instructed to say 'ha ha ha' instead, the Daily Telegraph reported. One disgruntled Santa told the newspaper a recruitment firm warned him not to use 'ho ho ho' because it could frighten children and was too close to 'ho', a U.S. slang term for prostitute."
If I were a female resident of Sydney, I think I'd be more offended by the assumption that Australian women and U.S. prostitutes are that easily confused. As the old gangsta-rap vaudeville routine used to go: "Who was that ho I saw you with last night?" "That was no ho, that was my bitch."

Which depends on the kind of girls you know in Aus, I suppose. The ones I’ve known have not generally pulled the “perpetually offended Mamasita” racket, but may have to from now on under the Imperialist warmongerers of a Labour government.

For example, when I said the right not to be offended is now the most "sacred" right in the world, I certainly didn't mean to offend persons of a nontheistic persuasion. In Hanover, N.H., home to Dartmouth College, an atheist and an agnostic known only as "Jan and Pat Doe" (which is which is hard to say) are suing because their three schoolchildren are forced to say the Pledge of Allegiance.

Well, OK, they're not forced to say it. The pledge is voluntary. You're allowed to sit down, or, more discreetly, stand silently, which is what the taciturn Yankee menfolk who think it's uncool to sing do during the hymns at my local church. But that's not enough for "the Does." Because the pledge mentions God, their children are forced, as it were, not to say it. And, as "Mr. and Mrs. Doe" put it in their complaint, having to opt out of participation in a voluntary act exposes their children to potential "peer pressure" from the other students.

Which I find puzzling, since I only though that kind of jingoistic indoctrination only happened in perpetually well-intended Canada. Back in my own Grammar school days in Ontario under the oppressive Trudeau Regime, I remember one day when in assembly we had to sing Oh Canada!, I found myself wondering if I should have to do this every week if I’m not Canadian.

I happened to be standing next to my teacher. She asked me why I stopped singing. I asked if it was wrong to sing it if I wasn’t actually Canadian.

She hit me on the back of the head, right above the neck. As I am a male of the species, I though nothing of it other than that I probably had it coming to me. My only other thought that afternoon was that my head hurt, and wondered why they didn’t stop smacking kids around like they had in the US. Whatever.

Let us now cross from the New Hampshire school system to the Sudanese school system. Or as The Associated Press headline put it:

"Thousands In Sudan Call For British Teddy Bear Teacher's Execution."

Last week, Gillian Gibbons, a British schoolteacher working in Khartoum, one of the crumbiest basket-case dumps on the planet – whoops, I mean one of the most lively and vibrant strands in the rich tapestry of our multicultural world – anyway, Mrs. Gibbons was sentenced last week to 15 days in jail because she was guilty of, er, allowing a teddy bear to be named "Mohammed." She wasn't so foolish as to name the teddy Mohammed herself. But, in an ill-advised Sudanese foray into democracy, she'd let her grade-school students vote on what name they wanted to give the classroom teddy, and being good Muslims they voted for their favorite name: Mohammed.

Actually, the little snot-nosed kid who got to name the was behaving in the generous manner typical to the native males by naming the toy after himself. Since only a thoughtful western adult, (any thoughtful western adult,) can be wrong for this “outrage”, I suggest that Jan and Pat Doe be required to either foster-parent this child, or undergo mandatory instruction from him.

...It’s just a thought...

Someone Needs to Get an New Aphorism.

Just how many times can you keep recycling the stale phrase « Pyromane Pompier » without looking stupid?

Artus: Yes. Greenspan was an arsonist and a fireman combined. He derived all his glory from his reaction to the savings-and- loans crisis, to the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management LP, and to Sept. 11, 2001. But LTCM and the savings-and-loans crisis were his doing. He absolutely failed to see where the malfunctions in the U.S. economy were.
Greenspan came up with a phrase, ``irrational exuberance,'' in 1997, but he didn't do anything about it.

He was seeking glory? That’s news to anyone in the real economy. Besides, what do you think the Fed should de with markets? Control their every detail? I’ll bet!

Artus: The most modern central banks are the Bank of England and the Bank of Sweden.

The Bank of England is the only central bank that has factored real-estate prices into its policy making, and that also looks at exchange rates. It has a global vision of the economy, and that's what we like. They completely slipped up when it came to the banks, but that was the Financial Services Authority, it wasn't them.

``Les incendiaires'' is published by Perrin.

There are people who would debate that the former Exchequer’s butchery of the Bank of England was very modern, given the recent run on the banks that they’ve had. Nor would anyone really believe that an economy like Sweden’s is some sort of powerhouse so depended on by others that it can’t make a display of its experiments.

On the other hand, the United States has a population which is actually growing, which is why it needs growth. We have had 11 straight years of it preceded by 6 years in upward trend. Our unemployment rate has at the same time been nominally half that of the “big-dogs” of the Euro zone. In that whole period of world-wide expansion, Euro-land has yet to hit anything even close to that pitch while the acceleration of their economies took nearly a decade longer to start. – Even the one this great sage Patrick Artus had a hand in influencing through his punditry.
Yet the entire finance and currency conversation is about the US “stagnating” as it sheds bad loans that the whole world, sage and dismissive, couldn’t resist as an investment.

What did they want US banks to do? Keep redlining?

Lining up for the Donkey Show

One reader spotted this curiosity in a Philippino newspaper:

"French people are always busy, living a very stressful life. They want to unwind. We know Philippines has many boutique hotels that offer spa treatments with good services.”

- with thanks to Greg

blog.libero.it/putans nopasaran.blog-libre.net nopasaran.samizdat.net www.nopasaran.es/

Sick, Pervy Visitor of the Day - Part 7

Off to a bad start

Guy Millière is not optimistic about Sarkozy's start. Never mind Reagan or Thatcher, Sarkozy isn't even a Tony Blair.

"In order for there to be a Tony Blair, there had to be a Thatcher before, to take care of the toughest tasks."

Public service announcement

CitizenInfo, Paris
date Nov 28, 2007 4:25 PM
subject U.S. Embassy Advisory for Americans in France
mailed-by state.gov

US Embassy-Paris
Warden Message
November 27, 2007

On Sunday, November 25, 2007 riots broke out in the Paris suburbs of Villiers-le-Bel and Arnouville after two teenagers were killed when their motorbike collided with a police car. Youths in the area began stoning police and firemen, injuring 21 police officers and setting fire to four buildings and 28 cars. The investigation into the crash that sparked the riots is ongoing. Similar riots continued Monday night November 26 with youths throwing Molotov cocktails at public security officers and setting fire to cars, businesses and a library.

The press has reported that an American business was one of the four buildings set ablaze, but there is no indication that American businesses or citizens are in any way being singled out or specifically targeted.

Tensions between police and youths in some Parisian suburbs have been notable in recent years. The U.S. Embassy reminds American citizens to pay close attention to local news reports and police instructions, and to remain clear of demonstrations or large gatherings of people. While most of the unrest in years past transpired during the evening hours, the Embassy encourages Americans to remain vigilant at all hours if traveling near Villiers-le-Bel and surrounding districts. Even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence. American citizens are therefore urged to avoid the areas of demonstrations if possible, and to exercise caution if within the vicinity of any demonstrations.

For the latest security information, Americans living and traveling abroad should regularly monitor the Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs Internet web site at http://travel.state.gov, where the current Worldwide Caution, Public Announcements, Travel Warnings, and health-information resources can be found. Up-to-date information on security can also be obtained by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll free in the U.S., or, for callers outside the U.S. and Canada, a regular toll line at 1-202-501-4444. These numbers are available from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday (except U.S. federal holidays).

Travelers in France who need assistance can contact the U.S. Embassy by telephone or email at mailto:citizeninfo@state.gov. The Consular Section of the U.S. Embassy in Paris is located at 4, avenue Gabriel, 75008 Paris (Place de La Concorde, Métro Stop Concorde), tel. 011-33-1-43-12-22-22 or (in France) 01-43-12-22-22; fax 011-33-1-42-61-61-40. Further information can be obtained at the U.S. Embassy's web site at http://france.usembassy.gov/.

For the latest security information, Americans living and traveling abroad should regularly monitor the Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs Internet web site at http://travel.state.gov/ where the current Worldwide Caution, Public Announcements, and Travel Warnings can be found. Up-to-date information on security can also be obtained by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll free in the U.S., or, for callers outside the U.S. and Canada, a regular toll line at 1-317-472-2328. These numbers are available from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday through Friday (except U.S. Federal holidays).

Registering with the U.S. Embassy
The cornerstone of our efforts to keep the American traveling public aware of problems threatening their safety and security is our Consular Information Program. Travel registration is a free service provided by the U.S. Government to U.S. citizens who are traveling to, or living in, a foreign country. Registration allows you to record information about your upcoming trip abroad that the Department of State can use to assist you in case of an emergency. Americans residing abroad can also get routine information from the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate. You may register online at https://travelregistration.state.gov/ibrs.

United States Embassy
Office of American Services
4, avenue Gabriel
75382 Paris Cedex 08
France
Telephone in France: 01 43 12 22 22
Telephone from U.S.: (011 33) 1 43 12 22 22
Website: http://france.usembassy.gov
E-mail: mailto:citizeninfo@state.gov

Pays de merde

While on his death bead in a Paris hospital, neo-Stalinist rag Marianne paid freelance hit-woman sadistic-hit-bitch Stéphanie Marteau to execute Rita Mitsouko guitarist Frédéric Chichin for his crimes: admitting a fondness for American culture, reading Maurice G. Dantec, reading Pascal Bruckner, rejecting the French musically correct, and expressing an implicit support for Sarkozy.

Make the myths

On the morning of the jump, Knievel stopped in the casino and placed a single $100 dollar bet on the blackjack table (which he lost), stopped by the bar and got a shot of Wild Turkey and then headed outside where he was joined by several members of the Caesars staff, as well as two scantily clad showgirls.

Are the Comparisons to Guerilla Warfare Really that out of Place, or Just Embarrassing?

The excerpt below from an interview with a policemen in Saturday’s Le Figaro speaks for itself.

Can you describe what Black Monday was like for law enforcement?

At Hélène at around 6:30 p.m. we were called in to back up fellow officers who were getting stones and Molotov cocktails thrown at them in the housing project. We ran in as a unit with our helmets and shields. We received permission to fire rubber bullets and tear-gas grenades. I had a spotlight and tried to illuminate the targets.

Where were the rioters?

Dozens of them were about fifteen meters from me when two tear-gas canisters were released. Suddenly, I heard the slam of detonations. Four of my colleagues crumbled all at once. I found myself alone and I grabbed a shield to avoid becoming a target. We have to protect our fallen wounded. Shortly thereafter, a sniper in a bush, maybe the same shooter, kept firing at us. We had to take cover like rabbits while they kept up their deluge of projectiles. The thugs really wanted to kill a cop ...

The worst was thus averted ...

Absolutely. In a corner, a stranger pulled out a pump action shotgun. Then I saw a colleague drop his shield when he got hit in the legs. The then drew his pistol. He waited for the shooter to reload before he could fire.

Just ” youts”.

Elsewhere 20 Minutes elaborates on a injury of a Chief of Police in one of the better know hellholes.