How to Succeed in Europe without Really Trying, Part 2

Further to the practice of guilt-tripping, legalizing, and free-riding, the makers of the Opera web browser is piling it on to Microsoft when the uptake of Opera’s own product is roughly one 12th that of Firefox which is also given away for free, and is just as compatible with websites generated for Windows Internet Explorer as anything else.

This falls under the simple heading of “If you don’t play along, I’ll sue”. Oh, and sour grapes too.

All your Derangement Syndromes Are Belong To Us

Plantu loses his last marble.

The New Aryan Science

”All your history are belong to us”

He also said the symbol of Genk Municipality was a double headed eagle, and added as his conclusive proof, “In the Selçuk tribe, the same symbol was used. One head symbolized Interior Oğuz while the other Exterior Oğuz.”

Apparently, no Russian, Greeks, Etheopians, nor even Lucy were available for comment.

The death of French culture

He's gone and there's no way (Thank God) that you can bring him back.

Royal Family Travesty

The new UK franchise.

The shithole is boiling over

European laxism will be the death of us all.

Panic in Needle Park

Has France become a narco State?

How to Succeed in Europe without Really Trying, Part 1

“We must invent new methods of intervention… we need protection, to defend national and European products in the face of foreign competition… It is time for a real European economic patriotism to be born.”

- Dominique de Villepin, French Prime Minister, in his book “European Man”

Though it has a disturbingly air reminiscent of National Socialism, it’s stood to reason what this amount to: no change in methods, no adaptation to the ways of the world that don’t involve keeping the poorest of the world aid dependant and unable to trade, and hypocritically criticizing the US’s 5% tariffing with:

The EU runs two sets of protectionist policies that could be almost designed to wreck the trading chances of those of the poorest countries that have comparative advantages in food and textiles.

First, there are the trade restrictions. Though the EU has a low industrial tariff of five per cent, its agricultural tariffs are far higher. These average 20 per cent, but rise to a peak of 250 per cent on certain products. For example, the tariff on Bolivian chickens is 46 per cent, and on Bolivian orange juice 34 per cent.

As with everything else. Which brings us to the comparatively inconsequential nature of a suit harassing an American software company. What’s even more repellant is that they see no difference between a potential rigging up of a trade restriction against a struggling farmer as they do with Microsoft. What it appears to show is that they have no passion for the concept of legality, of the possibility that there might be a bump in the road that comes with the freedom to innovate, and that that igniting an hypocritical argument over trade is a perfectly acceptable instrument to protect the secondary members of the political cartel – Europe’s industries.

Who can read this as anything other than a court demanding a bribe or tribute in the manner of a petty dictator who believes in laws only being useful toward their ends?

"'It would have been preferable if these issues could have been resolved amicably with Microsoft,' said Jonathan Todd, a spokesman for the European competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes. 'But that has not proved to be the case. Therefore we have opened these formal investigations. That does not prove there is a violation. We will only be able to come to a conclusion after investigations.' The legal battle that ended last year involved the bundling of a media player with Windows and the availability of information required to make rival software operate smoothly with Microsoft products. In September, the Court of First Instance, Europe's highest after the European Court of Justice, endorsed the commission's 2004 decision to impose record fines on Microsoft."

THEY state yet Spectrum as a organizational shambles created by nation-state contract manipulation, but still underestimated the over-runs by nearly one-half.

LOSER: Geopositioning

GOAL:To create a 30-satellite geopositioning -system to provide greater accuracy than GPS or GLONASS, generating income from premium services that rely on encoded signals.

WHY IT’S A LOSER: Galileo is way behind schedule and over budget; meanwhile, GPS and GLONASS are -improving, so Galileo will never obtain the competitive edge that would have made it profitable. Also, its organizational structure is too complex. To succeed, it would need a single authority with wide operating latitude.

PLAYERS: The 27-state European Union and the 15-state (not perfectly overlapping) European Space Agency

STAFF: Too numerous and too dispersed to count

BUDGET: €5.4 billion (about US $8 billion) and counting; originally €4 billion

From billions to yet more millions...

According to information obtained by SPIEGEL, industry experts together with EU finance gurus have told their superiors that the current estimated cost of €3.4 billion may be radically exceeded. The final price will be at least €5 billion ($7.4 billion) and could climb to as high as €10 billion, according to the information. SPIEGEL also writes that an expert report produced for the German government likewise claims that even in a "best-case-scenario," the Galileo project will swallow up €1.5 billion ($2.2 billion) more than planned.

Experts say that the cost explosion is the result of a compromise, hammered out in November and December, securing EU-wide funding and dividing responsibilities. The agreement was hailed as the final hurdle still standing in front of the project's final completion, but one Galileo specialist told SPIEGEL that there are still many technical challenges awaiting the project.

Those “technical challenges” include, technically, having a project at all, even if it is 4 times over budget and 6 years late.

In spite of the fact that the system is supposed to benefit THOSE nation-states, and even THOSE INDUSTRIES ginning up the delay and over-runs, they still engage in a feeding frenzy no different than the one banishing farmers in the developing world to a mediocrity they can’t evade. Galileo is for THEM, and they can’t even set aside their vulgar habits.

So when the same extraordinary nagging is used in they notion of what’s acceptable in an assymetrical trade war, so to with the bleating, nagging, and hand-wringing that goes on over the predatory nature of trying to capture hearts and minds not for their own sake, but to take it away from others, and in particular against the United States, ginning up a state of false righteous indignation over extraordinary renditions that they oppose but want for their own protection, to overbearing criticisms of anything else done on the behalf of the stability of the western world of which they are a parasitic and populous free-rider. Using law and emotion as a fig leaf does nothing for the making of a good society, and just further convinces the population that their cynicism, and the lack of the patriotism necessary to develop a social contract that comes with it, is well founded.

In other words, if they don’t believe in the humanity of your decision making, why believe in anyone else’s? Sound like business as usual for something they’re trying to sex up as a brave-new-whatever of “ever closer union.”

Another Great Outpouring of Peace and Love

It might be time to tot up the old FranceUnibodyCount... New Year’s Eve, it seems was more of a Smart Car Frittata than the police were willing to admit.

Quelque 878 véhicules ont été brûlés au cours de la nuit du 31 décembre 2007 au 1er janvier 2008, selon un bilan actualisé à la hausse par le ministère de l'Intérieur après la révélation de nouveaux chiffres par Europe 1 : après son propre comptage ce matin, la radio avançait que "au moins 746 véhicules" avaient été incendiés au cours de cette nuit de la Saint-Sylvestre.

Selon le ministère, le bilan est en "baisse de 9,7%" par rapport à l'année précédente, contrairement à ce qu'indique la radio, qui évoque une hausse de 10%.

Which is to say:

Some 878 vehicles were burned during the night between December 31, 2007 to January 1, 2008, according to an update by the Interior Ministry after the revelation of new figures by Europe 1 [the media outlet]: According to his own count this morning, the radio station argued that "at least 746 vehicles" had been burned on New Years’ Eve.

According to the ministry, the record is showed "a 9.7% decline compared to the previous year, contradicting Europe 1’s statement indicating an increase of 10%.

Which night-for-night is higher that the Fracifada. I mean, where are the damn truthers when there’s a coverup to look into?

Pity the Humorless, for they Want it in Triplicate

In Canada, apparently this isn't hate speech:

Ezra Levant is a piece of shit JEW.
Piece of shit jews and my right to say it.
A recent quote from this fag...

My name is Exra Levant. Before the Government interrogation begins, I will make a statement.

But this is. I guess it’s the lack of homophobia, or however it is that they’ve redefined reason this week, that tipped the scale in favor of a liberalism that coddles Islamists AND hates gays.

Go figure. Interesting too is Ezra Levant’s recent hearing with a Provincial “Human Rights Agent” which quite improbably contained this:

That's the point I was making. And after I made it, Officer McGovern said "you're entitled to your opinions, that's for sure."

Well, actually, I'm not, am I? That's the reason I was sitting there. I don't have the right to my opinions, unless she says I do.

I wouldn’t so much call her an agent per se, as much as I’d call her a “Human Rights Broker” in that she’s trying to figure out who is entitled to speech rights and who isn’t.

Mark Steyn is going through the same thing, even though HIS ‘hate speech’ was basically made up of quotes drawn from the people he’s criticizing. Right-o. Hate speech if Steyn says it, artful expression of man’s inhumanity to man if the fan club of murderous, drooling, intolerant fascists who wants to kill you because you aren’t a fundamentalist Muslim says it. To sum it up:

Who can doubt it? Jihadists promise to "Behead The Enemies Of Islam" and demand the Pope be executed and threaten to rain down a second 9/11 on Europe and call Britain's Tube bombers "the Fantastic Four" - and no-one ever suggests restraining their free speech. On the contrary, in London the guys calling for the beheading of infidels are flanked by constables of the Metropolitan Police so zealous in their defence of jihadist free-speech rights they threaten to arrest any members of the public who get too near.

What's at issue here is the non-jihadists' right to free speech.

Throw the book at 'em

Standing up to the Bolsheviks.

Organ Döner Kebap

Biased BBC touches on a story that’s been kicking around (in the form of an unaknowleded ‘season’) on the BBC: the matter of taking organs from terminally ill patients without them having ever signed up as döners, erm, doners.

"The Spanish organ donor system is a remarkable story of human generosity in the face of grief."

It’s a story ignoring the fact that a patient may not be an organ doner, and it’s floated out there to prop up a proposal by Gordon Brown to do the same.

Behold how taking a patient’s organs without their consent is now being called “Generosity”, much in the way government aid is renamed “charity”, and taxes renamed “contribution” in a fashion intended to impress upon the listener the illusion that there was free will involved.

On Radio 4 there was some awful panel discussion centered around the fact that the patient might change their mind if they knew how dead-like they were, might have neglected to place the organ doner card in their wallet, and so forth. The subject that was willfully and completely ignored was the will of the patient.

There isn’t any free will involved at all. Of course there isn’t. For heaven’s sake this is Europe we’re talking about. The only stories deemed “remarkable in their humanity” anymore involve a apparachik forcing people to do things by compulsion. Perhaps it’s based on the passivity trained into the population by virtue of a century of statist policy and general self-centeredness. Maybe there isn’t any other way to get people who are so distracted by their lauding of their own humanity to give of themselves.

The Subculture’s Motives Might Not Be Openly Stated, But They’re Quite Clear

Daniel Ellsberg, Mr. Pentagon Papers himself is so widely used by those carrying around the trope of ‘questioning reality’ (any answers yet?) that he’s pandering to truthers:

“There is no question in my mind, that there is enough evidence to justify a very comprehensive and hard hitting investigation of the kind we have not seen, with subpoenas, general questioning of people, releasing a lot of documents,” said Daniel Ellsberg, PhD, in a 2006 interview with Jack Blood.

Either that or they’re getting mendacious again.

Corrupt cowardly pedophiles

Bow down before their purple helmets of peace.

The pot calling the kettle black

French freelance journalmalist doesn't want Americans taking part in cherished French pasttime. L'Afrique, ce n'est pas le pré-carré de la Fwance ?

Embarrassing Western Civilization Since 1971

After a decade of mass evacuation the brainiac whiz kids are finally beginning to realize why Netherlands has gone from being merely dreary and pedantic to something teetering between depressing and chilling when this counts as good news:

The politically-correct elite in the Netherlands is no longer able to neutralise dissident views, according to Ayaan Hirsi Ai. "A chasm between the elite and the people has really emerged," she said yesterday in an interview with De Volkskrant.

The fact that they tried to control the at all is enough of a reason to run away, never mind even that the assumption is that Americans are the ones on a cabal-regulated drip feed of truthy news “wisdom”.

Another Proud Example of That “More Socialism Makes for Better People” Argument

And I guess They Think Oceania Will Last 1000 Years Too

In the European war of attrition against the world’s working poor, they also seem to have found the killer app of obstructive protectionism.

Mr Sarkozy urged Brussels to discuss the implications of "unfair competition" by firms outside the EU, which do not have to abide by strict European standards on CO2 emissions.

By taxing goods from counter-revolutionary non-signers of Kyoto.

But hey, don’t feel bad. It will have to stop once they realize that it will only accelerate their own decline faster than it would that of the world’s blue collar manufacturing labor, and their delusions about the United States that it’s meant to abuse.

Nonetheless, “sane provincials” are striking back at this lunacy.

Bucharest on 21 December filed a complaint at the European Court of Justice against a commission decision to slash its 2008-2018 emissions by 20.7 percent and lower its 2007 ceiling by 10 percent.

The move follows similar court action against Brussels by several other member states.

L'ancien FARC déteste qu'on le mette dans le même sac que les "paramilitaires démobilisés"

What with the appearance of an in-depth article about the FARC guerillas (in which the "good" members of Colombia's rebellion, true believers they, are contrasted with the evil mercenary rightists who double as… drug addicts.), the NP post on Colombia's rebellion and hostages has been updated…

When the Saber-Rattling is the Mullahs', It Is Made Light of by Le Monde's Pancho

What would happen if Dubya made what could be called threatening, provocative measures (in the Arabian Sea or elsewhere)? Remember his simply mentioning the Axis of Evil? Wouldn't there be outrage? The left, American and European (not least Pancho himself) would go berserk.



As it happens, t'is Tehran doing the saber-rattling (and much more seriously than just in speeches). And when it's Iran's mullahs doing so, it is considered nothing to be afraid of, it is made light of, almost like a game; au contraire: it's nothing worse than tweaking the nose of the abominable hyperpower…

Readers' Comments on Lemonde.fr's Articles Are Worth Close to Zilch and Will Vanish After a Couple of Days

Apparently, Le Monde's editors have decided that subscribers' comments on certain articles should disappear, totally and without trace, as the article enters its paying mode after a couple of days.

Not that previously, readers had been especially well-treated in the matter — they were (and still are) allowed a limit of two reactions per article with a limit of 500 characters each! Now even those crumbs are to be taken away (after a few days) as the — separate — URL page(s) for readers' opinions, notes, kudos, and/or criticism vanish once the article is no longer free. In other words, only the deeply profound words of Le Monde's wiser-than-thou journalists will remain; the contributions, important or otherwise, of readers will not.

Giddy Up!

Nifty blogatrice Karin from Germany posts on a Frenchman who’s been Svaned.

Today I met – hold your breath – a pro-American French. Yes, this species exists! He even told me that there is pro-American literature in France. He wrote the titles down for me on a little piece of paper (3.3 x 4.7 in). Well, what would you have expected?

And for some absurd reason I’ve spent the better part of a lifetime trying to figure out: it was also probably graph paper.

Man the Barricades! The Investors are Coming !

If anxious EUvians see all economics as warfare, their attempts at “going asymmetrical” are becoming hilarious:

French president Nicolas Sarkozy said he wants state-owned bank Caisse des Depots et Consignations (CDC) to form part of the defence of French companies in the face of attacks by speculative funds.

'In the face of the increasing power of extremely aggressive speculative funds and sovereign funds which do not obey economic logic (France is taking) the political and strategic choice to protect its companies, to give them the means to defend and develop themselves,' Sarkozy said.

'We are going to make the Caisse des Depots a tool in this policy of defence and the promotion of economic interests essential to the nation.'

While their coddled national champions are free to seek investment in foreign companies, not to mention pillaging the third world, as fair game.

Obviously pandering to the public, I don’t think Sarko quite gets that investment from abroad might be a good thing, and money might stop pouring into their little economic booby-hatch of a country.

If Hillary wins, Americans are racist. If Obama wins, Americans are sexist.

Those naive Europeans and their obsession with American electoral politics.

“Economic growth imposes a hectic form of life, producing overwork, stress, nervous depression, cardiovascular disease and… the development of cancer"

In France and Germany, students are being forced to undergo a dangerous indoctrination. Taught that economic principles such as capitalism, free markets, and entrepreneurship are savage, unhealthy, and immoral, these children are raised on a diet of prejudice and bias. Rooting it out may determine whether Europe’s economies prosper or continue to be left behind.

Thus begins Stefan Theil's article in Foreign Policy (merci à RV). Makes you wonder, isn't it about time those oafish, clueless Americans start listening to the brilliant ideas of those more-lucid-than-thou products of the Europe's avant-garde educational system?

“Economic growth imposes a hectic form of life, producing overwork, stress, nervous depression, cardiovascular disease and, according to some, even the development of cancer,” asserts the three-volume Histoire du XXe siècle, a set of texts memorized by countless French high school students as they prepare for entrance exams to Sciences Po and other prestigious French universities. The past 20 years have “doubled wealth, doubled unemployment, poverty, and exclusion, whose ill effects constitute the background for a profound social malaise,” the text continues. Because the 21st century begins with “an awareness of the limits to growth and the risks posed to humanity [by economic growth],” any future prosperity “depends on the regulation of capitalism on a planetary scale.” Capitalism itself is described at various points in the text as “brutal,” “savage,” “neoliberal,” and “American.” This agitprop was published in 2005, not in 1972.

…French students … do not learn economics so much as a very specific, highly biased discourse about economics. When they graduate, they may not know much about supply and demand, or about the workings of a corporation. Instead, they will likely know inside-out the evils of “la McDonaldisation du monde” and the benefits of a “Tobin tax” on the movement of global capital. This kind of anticapitalist, antiglobalization discourse isn’t just the product of a few aging 1968ers writing for Le Monde Diplomatique; it is required learning in today’s French schools.

…Equally popular in Germany today are student workbooks on globalization. One such workbook includes sections headed “The Revival of Manchester Capitalism,” “The Brazilianization of Europe,” and “The Return of the Dark Ages.” India and China are successful, the book explains, because they have large, state-owned sectors and practice protectionism, while the societies with the freest markets lie in impoverished sub-Saharan Africa. Like many French and German books, this text suggests students learn more by contacting the antiglobalization group Attac, best known for organizing messy protests at the annual G-8 summits.

One might expect Europeans to view the world through a slightly left-of-center, social-democratic lens. The surprise is the intensity and depth of the anti-market bias being taught in Europe’s schools. Students learn that private companies destroy jobs while government policy creates them. Employers exploit while the state protects. Free markets offer chaos while government regulation brings order. Globalization is destructive, if not catastrophic. Business is a zero-sum game, the source of a litany of modern social problems.

…A likely alternative scenario may be that the changes wrought by globalization will awaken deeply held resentment against capitalism and, in many countries from Europe to Latin America, provide a fertile ground for populists and demagogues, a trend that is already manifesting itself in the sudden rise of many leftist movements today.

Investor's Business Daily writes that the

European Union, created to be an economic giant, will never fulfill its goal — not as long as two of its biggest economies continue to demonize capitalism and the free market.

More on Training a Generation of Anti-Americans and on The Opinions of 11-Year-Olds…

"ne pas voter pour la beurette"

In a Le Monde article by Jean-Michel Normand, we learn more about the French, and especially about those Frenchmen (i.e., the left and, more specifically, the Socialist Party) who are constantly giving lessons on race relations to the Americans.

Certains de ces ["candidats issus de la diversité"], bien qu'enracinés de longue date, n'en sont pas moins confrontés aux réticences, voire à l'hostilité, des instances locales ou départementales du Parti socialiste. Le premier secrétaire, François Hollande, l'a reconnu : ces engagements, qui ne se sont encore que partiellement concrétisés, confirment l'existence, au sein du parti, de "certains préjugés, réticences et frilosités".

…Le parcours de M. Mammeri au sein du PS aura été moins aisé qu'il y paraît. "Tant que je me contentais de coller des affiches, tout allait pour le mieux mais, une fois devenu candidat, les choses se sont gâtées. L'appareil du parti n'a jamais cherché à me nuire ; c'est au niveau local que j'ai parfois été malmené", témoigne M. Mammeri, navré de devoir faire avec "cette vieille phobie de l'étranger qui étreint une partie du microcosme".

Le "geste" des FARC confirme les relations étroites entre Hugo Chavez et les rebelles, qui disposent de centaines de camps de repli au Venezuela

In a Le Monde article, the former head of the AFP in Colombia and Venezuela, Jacques Thomet, comes clean.

En Colombie, Ingrid [Betancourt] n'a jamais été que l'un des 3 000 Colombiens aux mains des rebelles, et nul n'ignore qu'elle s'était jetée dans la gueule du loup en refusant d'obéir aux objurgations des services secrets de son pays qui l'avaient incitée, en vain, à ne pas poursuivre son chemin vers le repaire de la guérilla le 23 février 2002 (je garde par-devers moi un document secret qui le prouve). L'intervention publique de Jacques Chirac en sa faveur, sous la pression de Dominique de Villepin, a réussi à déformer la vision des médias français sur la tragédie colombienne. La scène y a longtemps opposé un méchant, Alvaro Uribe, à une guérilla "romantique" méprisée par le chef de l'Etat. Dans cette intrigue répétée sans relâche par la famille Betancourt, le président colombien endossait le rôle d'accusé.

Par ailleurs, le

"geste" des FARC [la promesse de libérer de trois otages] confirme les relations étroites entre Hugo Chavez et les rebelles, qui disposent de centaines de camps de repli au Venezuela sur les 2 300 km de frontière commune entre les deux pays.

Un véritable cirque médiatique est alors monté par le président vénézuélien, avec la complicité d'une sénatrice colombienne d'extrême gauche, Piedad Cordoba, [mais la] désillusion est totale … La fourberie des FARC a renforcé Alvaro Uribe, déstabilisé Hugo Chavez - muet depuis ces révélations - et, hélas, ridiculisé tous les pays qui avaient oublié d'imiter Ulysse en ne se faisant pas attacher au mât pour échapper à l'appel de sirènes encore plus dangereuses que dans la mythologie : la sanglante guérilla colombienne.

Update: Marie Delcas has an in-depth article about the FARC guerillas. Needless to say, the "good" guerillas, true believers they, are contrasted with the evil mercenary rightists who double as… drug addicts.

[Un ancien combattant] ne regrette ni ses années de guérilla ni sa décision de déserter. Mais il déteste qu'on le mette dans le même sac que les "paramilitaires démobilisés", ces membres des milices d'extrême droite qui ont abandonné la lutte armée dans le cadre d'un programme gouvernemental – "Des mercenaires qui ont fait la guerre pour du fric et qui se droguent. Nous, on y croyait à la révolution."

What's more, avant-garde lucid people will understand that, in the final analysis, there ain't much to fear from Manuel Marulanda's guerillas, those poor "sons of farmers":

Les combattants ne combattent guère. Ils se lèvent à 4 h 30 du matin. La journée passe entre exercices physiques, organisation de la garde, le bain dans le cours d'eau le plus proche, les corvées, l'instruction militaire ou les cours de marxisme. Les repas sont faits de riz, de lentilles et de haricots rouges. A 19 heures, tout le monde dort, hormis la garde.

And in the field, at least, they were respected, while in (capitalist) society, they are nothing.

"Mais dans le maquis on était respecté, dans la vie civile on n'est rien", résume Atahualpa.

Only at the very end do we get a couple of paragraphs about the drug trafficking that nourishes the movement. The very last sentence (La guerre n'est pas gagnée, mais les FARC ont depuis longtemps perdu) again suggests pity for the movement, suggesting in turn that the anyone who opposes it (the army, the rightists, the Americans, i.e., all the usual scoundrels) are unfair and blinded to continue to use violence on them.

Six weeks later, Marie Delcas is still at it, with more articles on 60 years of guerilla warfare and describing (i.e., accusing) the conservative government (of the 1940s) alone of "repression without mercy", the (today's) government's war on the guerillas as "without mercy", a government response to a attack by the principled guerillas (the "FARCs remain anchored in the misery of the rural world") as "the pretext for a brutal intervention", and the country's "social injustice" as "screaming out", as well as voicing her consternation at the continuing "popularity of President Alvaro Uribe".

Update 2: Laurent Artur du Plessis adds:

Cette libération a fait le jeu d’Hugo Chavez et des FARC. Le président vénézuélien a été à l’origine de cette opération, menée en collaboration avec Bogota et le Comité international de la Croix Rouge (CICR) dans la jungle colombienne. Il en a aussitôt entrepris l’exploitation politique, demandant le retrait des FARC – et de l’ELN (Armée de libération nationale – guévariste) – de la liste des groupes terroristes dans laquelle les États-Unis et l’Europe les ont insérées en 2005.

…En outre, la guérilla n’a guère envie de se départir d’Ingrid Betancourt : sans elle, elle retournera à l’oubli. Chavez, dont le projet de réforme constitutionnelle a été rejeté par 51 % des électeurs le 2 décembre dernier, utilise la libération des otages pour faire oublier ses échecs de politique intérieure.

Meanwhile, Nicolas Joxe strikes back at Jacques Thomet with multiple references to paramilitary rightists to which article Pablo Paisa replies (emphasis mine):

Joxe a raison d'évoquer le problème des paramilitaires mais il omet, ou nie, l'essentiel: Alvaro Uribe, avec le soutien de la vaste majorité des Colombiens, refuse toute concession politique aussi bien aux paramilitaires qu'aux FARC. S'il devait changer cette position, en réponse aux hallucinations de Chavez (improbable) ou à toute pression française, le résultat serait une tragédie pour la Colombie... et le courage de tous les otages n'aurait servi à rien.

And Denis L summarizes Joxe's piece (the Arte "documentary" director seems to be related to former interior/defense minister Pierre Joxe) as follows:

Des rumeurs (une vieille fiche de l'espionnage US, citée par un antiaméricain obsessionnel comme N. Joxe, c'est savoureux), des amalgames, la culpabilité par association familiale (un genre particulièrement nauséabond, qui m'autorise à faire observer que chez les Joxe, l'américanophobie frise la tare). Les faits: la Justice arrête des alliés de M. Uribe: quel meilleur brevet d'Etat de droit? Courage, M.Uribe (trop blanc et anticommuniste pour nos Médias), ne cédez rien aux preneurs d'otages!

Update 3: Following Joxe's article, Colombia's ambassador to Paris, Fernando Cepeda Ulloa, weighs in:

Alvaro Uribe, dans président de la Colombie depuis le 7 août 2002, un criminel ? Un politicien ayant des liens avec le "paramilitarisme" et les mafias ? Quelle ironie ! Quelle injustice et quelle incroyable et inadmissible déformation de la vérité !

Le président Uribe a été lui-même victime d'actes criminels. Son père fut assassiné par les FARC. Son frère, blessé par les FARC. Et lui-même a été la cible de plusieurs attentats auxquels il a échappé par miracle.

Le président Uribe a extradé vers les Etats-Unis plus de 700 criminels, qui, eux, oui, avaient des liens avec les mafias. Et parmi eux, deux membres des FARC qui sont jugés en ce moment dans ce pays pour trafic de drogue.

Le président Uribe a traqué sans répit les "paramilitaires". Pour la première fois, le gouvernement colombien a abattu au combat plus de 1 500 membres des groupes "paramilitaires", du jamais-vu dans les administrations précédentes.

Grâce au processus de paix et à la loi "justice et paix", 31 671 membres des groupes "paramilitaires" d'extrême droite et plus de 10 000 membres des guérillas ont à présent posé les armes et se sont réintégrés dans la société (...). Grâce au soutien du gouvernement, la Cour suprême de justice a reçu tous les moyens techniques et économiques afin de mener les enquêtes et collecter les preuves suffisantes pour émettre des mandats d'arrestation visant les hommes politiques liés aux groupes "paramilitaires".

Les crimes attribués aux membres du Congrès actuellement détenus ont été commis avant l'arrivée au pouvoir de ce gouvernement.

A Nation Asks with Bated Breath: Who Fingered Rashida ?

Severed finger mailed to French justice minister. Rubber glove at eleven. We now return you to your scheduled program.

- Thanky thanky to ¡No Pasarán! reader Shy Guy.

Welcome to readers of Jules Crittenden’s excellent Forward Movement blog. Take off your PPE, put your feet up, and stay awhile.

I hate You, Don’t Leave Me.

EUvians ask: where is the love?

European institutions suffered a big loss of trust among EU citizens in the last six months, despite citizens' support for EU membership reaching the highest in over a decade, according to a Eurobarometer poll published on Tuesday.

Maybe familiarity breeds contempt, or is it something else? Could this be a cyclical expression of the lot that licks the boot that kicks them?

Sebastian Kurpas from the Centre for European Policy Studies labelled the results "remarkable", but had no explanation for this outcome, in particular when bearing in mind that the German EU Presidency, which ended in June 2007, was widely seen as a success.

Actually I find it hugely unremarkable considering the imperial nature of what’s going on. The territory of the realm is expanding through bribery and economic intimidation. After all, can you imagine Romania asking itself what its’ prospects would look like were it to ‘go it alone’ adjacent to a giant economic zone that they would be otherwise restricted from trading with under a tariff regime?

Un "Maudit Français": "I shouldn't say this but I find the Quebeckers very… Anglo-Saxon" admits Françoise, as though this was the worst kind of insult

Benajamin Duffy's Québec adventure (more global warming in the region's "legendary harsh winters") makes for a hyperlink in the Wall Street Journal, no less.

The bitterness of the many disappointed French immigrants who had seen Canada through rose-tinted glasses

is palpable. Quebec is described as a matriarchal society ("Feministan") with failing infrastructures ("Kebekistan"). The Quebeckers are described as "intolerant racists" who speak an outdated and incorrect language, bask in their own ignorance and suffer from an inferiority complex that results in a loathing of "maudits Français" ("damned French").

…A Frenchman who has been living in Quebec for 11 years but now plans to leave, Yann complains among other things that he was not made aware of the appalling quality of health care [something Michael Moore failed to see while making Sicko, apparently]. "Sometimes you have to wait a whole day to see a doctor. Patients even have to wait on stretchers in the corridors, resources are so limited," he explains.

…Another element plays a part in the return rate: the culture shock. Their common language means that the French are unprepared for this. Many expect to find "an acre of France in America" rather than "America in French." And even then, it's not the same French. Johanna admits she still uses typical Quebecker expressions months after her return to France.

Language is only one aspect of the cultural divide faced by the French immigrant. The basic cultural precepts are also unique. "I know I shouldn't say this but I find the Quebeckers very… Anglo-Saxon," admits Françoise, as though this was the worst kind of insult. With their more right-wing economic vision, a culinary approach that is a long way from its French origins and policies based on individual freedom, the Quebeckers are first and foremost North-Americans.

Annie:

Et oui nous disons "Les maudits Français" et vous que dites vous des Québécois...

Nous on dit ça pour rire, en France je me suis fait poser des questions sérieuses du genre "L'hiver à Mtl tu vas travailler en motoneige?" ou "Ça doit pas etre marrant d'aller dehors à -50 pour aller au WC?" ou encore "Vous dormez en habit de ski la nuit car des maisons en bois ça doit pas être chaud?", "Tu dois bien chanter?", "Tu connais Céline Dion?", "Ça doit être stressant de pas pouvoir sortir pendant des jours à cause d'une tempête de neige", et j'en ai tout une liste complète comme ça... Pendant 4 ans presque à tout les jours on m'a étiquetté comme ça... Ils sont hypochrites avec tout le monde...

C'est p-t pas nous traiter de con mais c'est vraiment nous prendre pour des cons...

Super, on vit dans des cabanes en bois au travers des orignaux avec nos bécosses dans cour en plein Montréal... Et malgré tout ça on arrive à faire un emission de TV qu'on entend parler jusqu'en France... WOW pour des bûcherons je nous trouve très forts...

C'est quand même bizarre que beaucoup de Français s'installent ici au Québec alors que les Québécois qui expérimentent la vie en France revient presque tous au Québec... P-t parce que même au bout de plusieurs années là-bas on se fait encore dire tout les jours "Ha vous etes Canadien!"... Non mais on peut pas vivre tout simplement sa petit vie comme tout le monde mais non... Quand t'es arabe t'es çi, quand t'es noir t'es ça, quand t'es Canadien t'es bucheron, ect... A part etre Francais pur laine pas moyen de vivre une vie tranquille normal... Toujours un commentaire par çi, un commentaire par là, un critique par çi, un exagération par là... En passant j'ai beaucoup beaucoup beaucoup voyagé dans le monde et nous ne sommes pas les seuls à dire "Maudit Français"... Hi hi hi

L'Irak n'a-t-il aucune dette envers la France ?

From the exceptional World Politics Review: In violation of the divine holy order of the UN Security Council’s resolution, the French government is continuing to resist Iraqi efforts to recover the financial assets of Saddam Hussein in France. According to George Malbrunot' recent investigative report in Le Figaro, some €23.48 million of Saddam's money remains blocked in French banks, withheld from the elected government of Iraq.

But perhaps the most startling revelation in the Malbrunot piece -- and the most relevant for American readers -- concerns the extent of Saddam's corporate holdings in France and, notably, in French publishing. Malbrunot writes:

Apart from the villa in Cannes and the assets frozen at the Banque de France, the Iraq of Saddam Hussein held shares in French companies via offshore corporations, based, notably, in Switzerland and Panama. One of these front corporations, Montana Management, held 8.4 percent of [the French publishing house] Hachette and 2.5 percent of [the French aeronautics and defense firm] Matra, prior to their fusion in Lagardère. The value of these shares is today estimated to be around €200 million. The former owner, Khalaf al-Dulaymi, a former Baath Party official close to Saddam Hussein, is supposed to have taken refuge in Jordan. . . . . Iraqi lawyers have demanded the seizure of the property of Dulaymi, who also possessed another front corporation named Midco, but Dulaymi has opposed the move.

Aérospatiale Matra was one of the founding members of the Franco-German aeronautics and defense consortium EADS, some 7.5 percent of whose shares continue to be controlled by Matra's parent company the Groupe Lagardère. The French publishing giant Hachette is likewise part of the Lagardère Group. In 2006, Hachette purchased Time Warner Books, thus becoming a major player also in American book publishing. Under its "Grand Central" imprint, the Hachette Book Group USA is the publisher, for instance, of comic Stephen Colbert's "I am America (And So Can You!)."

Which is about as humorless as anyone who read it twice, but that’s beside the point. Is this ideology at work, just the usual use of technicalities to grab a dead dictator’s loot, or an attempt to play ‘hide the weenie’ after Saddam’s connections came to be so widely known?

Of course a few commenter to the article in Le Figaro couldn’t just leave it at that, what with the conclusions and even the majority of comments showing some healthy anger at the amorality of holding back any funds from a post-dictatorial state in formation:

Tr.: Bravo to France

The international community recognised this Iraqi puppet regime under the American occupation, falsely sectarian regime that it is. As a product of the American occupation. This obscurantist criminal sectarian regime has no national or international legitimacy and death squads. Iraq is the most corrupt country in the world.
France should hold on to this money for the next Iraqi nationalist regime.

and

Why you do not reclaim it from others ?

from the Chinese or Dutch

Or Danes, or Belgians, or English, or Americans, or others

Or Saddam and Bush who declare war.

It hard not to laugh at the strange absence of any moral compass, what with those who depose dictators being no better than the dictator himself, or that the same lot yelled and screamed asking why they didn’t fight in Rwanda, when life showed them something that horrified them, as long as it’s always done by somebody else. It is, after all beneath the deep intellects who find “bravitude” in acting out a minor political vendetta on the new Iraqi government as a proxy for the hate-puppet they’ve been fixated on.

That must be when some of those drive-by commenters think of as blood and treasure.

Don't you Need Schade to have Schadenfreude?

l'empire américain est-il en train de s'effondrer ?

It seems to be making their nipples hard to think about the US unemployment rate "surrrrrging" to 5% while it's still only 2/3rds of the EU's earth-shattering "lookie-lookie-look-at-meeee!" 40 year record low of 7.5%. Europe hasn't seen a rate of 5% since the post-war years of manpower shrotages caused by huge number of dead.

In fact this lame blurb wants us to believe that the gap in figures between predictions and November US unemplyment data is "a deception". I suppose that if you think the world is static and the author is willing to discount the fact that European states constantly talk-up their futures and doctor their employment data, then, well, that's okay - for them, even if the euro-zone is still the OECD's sick man, weighing the aggregate rate of 5.5% with their 7.5% rate or able -bodied loafers. Come on, people... the world can't wait!

Otherwise that sideshow of caring, "income inequality" so important to the romper room social thinkers of the continent would also align employment, and would require 4 million Americans to be put out of work to salve their guilt-ridden spirits. Fat chance. The next public obsession will bring out the old saw about the EU catching a cold when the US sneezes. This might have to do with the fact that even as adults they refuse to build up an immunity for themselves.

If there was only a Convention on the Torture of Statistics

I really want to know how you can torture data that gets you from here:

EU global image improving, US fading

to here:

While it is now perceived as the world's number one superpower by 81 percent of the respondents, 61 percent think the US will still be top world player in 13 years time.

Terminally obsessed with Welmacht, the report is titled “Who Rules the World”. The title and its’ motives alone offer far more veracity than it’s contents or conclusions.

The US is still seen as the world's number one superpower, while the EU ranks fifth

This, after saying that they are behind Russia which has one third the population of the EU, and that unimpeachable Mother Theresa human-rights, China. Actually it should say that China and Russia’s global image is improving – displacing the EU, but that would be unthinkable. More amusing still is who they asked:

Respondents to the survey from within the EU are the most optimistic about the bloc's future as a global actor, with percentages ranging from 80 percent in Germany, to 70 percent (UK), and 38 percent (France).

And they go on to suggest that some Russians imagine themselves a power, and so forth. In other words, far from being a survey on others’ image of EUtopia, it’s a survey that tells you just how in love people are with their own countries, and how thoroughly they believe the image constructed by it. The only people convinced that the EU is a “global actor” for a positive future of humanity are Europeans who think that it acts at all. It doesn’t. It does comparatively little compared to its’ wealth and writes a exposé every time a sac of rice is sent to someone they’re using to prop of their image of themselves. They bury the fact that of the 8911 people in this survey, only 1000 are from the US and each nation polled in the EU, and the don’t innumerate any further. In terms of population, this over-represents Germany, France, and the UK by a factor of two over Russia, and more than four times over the US.

They also absurdly call respondents “the world population” when they refer to the entire sample which come from 9 countries, 3 of which are in the EU.

It is nonetheless quite revealing. In terms of perceptions of just who is a world power, it arrives to the conclusion that the only people in the world who believe the EU is a world power are Germans and Britons. It also absurdly asserts Germans and Britons believe the UN, which is a forum (used mainly for political grandstanding,) and not a state actor, is actually a "world power".

Were it a world power it might act effectively on its' mandate, and there would be no hunger or disease left in the world. But it isn't. It's an extranational not supranational player which they try enoble the EU with by association. In fact they flatly and falsely assume that the EU is a supranational entity when it is in reality just a nation (a region functioning under a body of binding laws) incomplete in its formation.

Cloying for both pity and for someone to lick their boot, the motives behind ginning up this kind of non-story, one need look no further than the following emotional set-up. In fact this survey by Bertelsmann Stiftung discussed with Josef Janning both seem unnaturally preoccupied with improving Europe’s image by trashing America’s. Instead of quoting Janning, I’d rather quote a blogger who puts the motives and the methodology into some perspective with an emotional hostage-taking of her own:

At this time of year Ms R normally wants to go all Eastern European, gaze out of the window and say things like,“The frosts are early this year, there will be no apples," whereupon someone will put their head in their hands, a grandmother will start to sob uncontrollably and a small, disturbingly happy child will play with a broken musical toy.

Thanks to a very good friend, Ms R won't be indulging in this somewhat Chekovian tableau. Oh no. For the next week Ms R will be living like an European aristocrat or at least the Eurotrash lover of a Hedge Funder.

Unlike the desperate beings at Bertelsmann she’s actually self-aware enough to know the difference between sarcasm and a lie. This leads me back to the study which is actually only about the EU.

Whereas the majority of the Japanese population are undecided when it comes to cooperation with Europe (though the vast majority of those who can make up their minds is in favour of greater cooperation), the British population is especially sceptical about greater cooperation with the EU–almost a third of the British are against it, and only 60 per cent are in favour of the idea.

The population of the U.S. thinks differently. Here 78 per cent are in favour of greater cooperation with Europe. However, an interpretation of the results needs to take into account the level of cooperation which already exists with any particular country.

In other words the more familiar any of the people question are likely to be involved with the EU, the LESS likely they are to like the idea of cooperation with them – which makes one woder about the puff-pieces put out in the press about it: where did they find anything in the poll supporting ANY of their conclusions?

The Heat Is Unbearable: Bush's Global Warming Extends to Lake Michigan's Sunny South Haven

Economic growth comes to those as do wait

Hooray!

French economic growth has found its source. A Lyon café owner has decided to "enter the resistance" against France's new anti-smoking law. He has already been fined (after a police raid during which 20, count 'em, 20 cops showed up in his café) but is encouraging his customers to keep right on smoking. He is taking "artsy photos" of the butt filled ashtrays and plans to sell the photos on the Internet to pay his fines. Whatever is left over will be profit. Good luck with that, bud.

Café 203, Lyon

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Over 60 years later, France's new "Zone Libre"

That Lisbon Strategy thing is going to kick in real soon now, I'm sure

Not so long ago, France still officially had a 5 Year Plan. Now, Sarkozy is boasting that he's going to go and find economic growth. Perhaps there is a government plan to crank up strategic yogurt production.

As if they had the disposable income to shop more often

Shop 'til you drop? Not if EUtopian business police can help it.

Just One Little Window in Their New “Kristallnacht”

New York Defender est un nouveau venu dans le monde des jeux Flash à thème sérieux.

[ ... ]

Le jeu lui même est sans envergure, mais il suscite néanmoins un débat intéressant.”

Note the shallowness of “seriousness” with which it’s taken. Just one of their precious little possible « débats » that they’ll imagine they’re enlightening the world with. If Americans really wanted to reciprocate, they would have to advocate the destruction of European cities on Arab satellite TV channels.  That's how far that goes:

Remembered as one of the worst days in American history, countless millions believe Sept. 11, 2001, should never be duplicated, not even in a video game. 

Apparently, a group of French Internet video game makers never got the message, and now families of victims from that horrid day are enraged with the notion that children get to replay the tragedy over and over again.

"It's horrible what happened. People shouldn't see it again and kids should not be playing games like that. It's just not funny," said Lauren Zaifart, a Battery Park resident.

So when lefty asks “why do they hate us?”, they need look no further than the fantasies of Europeans that have been exported to the third world fever-swamps that their own colonization and resource wars created.

Those complaining about this are not overreacting. The game was designed to demonstrate from abroad an argument to Americans about their own actions, not those of the terrorists. The French game designer told the Denver Post in 2002 that there is no way to win the game.

The sole purpose is to illustrate the ultimate impossibility of fighting terrorism – a fight the United States is still waging in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere throughout the world.

Odd, isn't it that nowhere in that clown's world view is there room for making the same "brave statement" to al Qaida.

Is it safer to walk around in Baghdad than it is in Caracas? Hugo Chávez's socialist "sea of happiness" resembles a war zone.

…which nation shows average civilian deaths at 33 a day in the last third of 2007?

asks Investor's Business Daily.

Now name the one where civilian deaths average 19 a day? If you guessed Iraq and Venezuela, you'd have it backward.

…This is Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, the place wildly praised by Hollywood eminentos like Oliver Stone and Sean Penn, and its crime is so bad it tops that seen in actual warfare.

People like Stone and Penn frequently criticize the Iraq war effort and its progress toward peace. But not once have we seen any of them express outrage at the slaughter brought to the streets of Venezuela courtesy of Hugo Chavez, a supposed champion of the poor.

Warm Fuzzy Blackmail

How goes the verse? Green skies at night, capitalist take flight...

EU environment ministers meeting in Brussels on Thursday (20 December) agreed that restrictions should be put on carbon dioxide emissions from air planes from 2012.

Under the proposal, all airlines coming to and leaving the EU bloc of 27 member states, as well as intra-EU flights - will be included in an emission trading scheme, something that has already been applied to other polluting sectors in the Union.

Airlines would be able to meet pollution-reduction quotas either by reducing their own emissions or buying credits from other industries.

European Industries, or more precisely the racketeers trading in the credits. (It will only work if you BELIEVE. Just BELIEVE!)

Of course the whole thing involves forcing private enterprise, much of it non-EUvian, to “do something” has only one purpose. So Eurocrats like pre-cambrian Marxist coocoo Tony Benn can say:

"This is a bold step by Europe ...”

Which, of course, it really isn’t. It’s a bold step for someone in Brussels who never learned to touch-type, and what he was really trying to say was “bend over, or else”. It’s a subsidy – not for the Airline industry as the Greenie crackheads cited in the article say it is – but one for the “carbon credit” racket. And those credits are allotted by EU governments, not those imaginary hordes of “Eco-enterpreneurs”.

Only if we can Carpet-Bomb Your Cities

Brussels Journal cites some of that predictable and amusing nuttiness that we've come to know and love: ”Liberal Europeans Demand Right to Vote in U.S. Elections”

American presidential elections are not “home affairs.” American decisions have repercussions all over the globe. The American mortgage crisis affects banks in Europe. The insatiable American demand for oil makes the Arabian sheiks rich.

Actually Europe gets most of its oil from the Arab world and is propping up a charming little ex-KGB station chief in Moscow. The U.S. is addicted to domestic, Nigerian, and Venezuelan oil.

The American refusal to care for the environment causes the North Pole ice to melt and coastal areas in Asia to flood. A weakened dollar and an immense budget deficit affect the global economy.

Sounds more like their nocturnal emissions... Let me see if I can understand this one – the EU’s carbon emission grow at more than twice the rate of the US’, and they persist in trotting out this stale old saw. Quick question: have you ever SEEM anyone use those pretty little multi-compartment recycling dust-bins in blessed out EUtopia? Have you ever wondered why by comparison, a photo from outer space of the US makes the EU look like a parking lot? Probably not.

Hence, the world should be given the right to vote. Because the current situation is a blatant case of taxation without representation, against which the Americans rebelled in 1776. But of course the world will not be allowed to vote. The best we can hope for is that the Americans choose a leader who is deeply aware of the U.S.’s responsibility, as a superpower, for the rest of mankind.

And they think themselves capable of actually being responsible for anything positive in the world after spending 5 centuries screwing it up, of course. Sure. They were going to get to that next week. Right after they realized that Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, and Mao Tse Tung leaned all about their “healing, inclusive philosophy” at the Sorbonne.

It’s all part of the old “internationalism” schtick. They make themselves the sort of entrepot of these alphabet soup talking shop operations, find a few people who don’t look like Europeans to play the part of the shepard in the nativity play they scripted for themselves, and go to town. Ever heard them criticize Russian or Chinese capital punishment? Of course not.

This silliness has gotten to the point that they’re trying to form a nation which can count itself 25 times over in all of these international babble-fests, and try to call that a sort of “internationalism”. Why they love pluralism so much that they see the UN as a governing entity when all it really is, is a forum to speed up their own loony pronouncements for the rest of the world.

The answer in short is NO. You can’t vote here, so stay in your little playpen. You don’t understand democracy, individual responsibility, or even the basic notion of government by the people, let alone the difference between being a subject and a citizen, or being ruled rather than being governed.

Earth to Europe: go pound sand. Just because the US actually fights what you happy to just fear, doesn’t mean that we have to listen to your Borderline Personality Disorder talking to us.

Gee Pancho, You’re Such a, like, "Rebel”

Euro-reasoning 101: cultish hatred can be useful to create your own “facts on the ground”.



... Yeah, but at this moment, I’m still the most popular Republican of the 21st century ...

In other words, even if Bush has been chosen as America’s most admired man, Pancho’s notion of “news” is to simply smear the object of his ire with a polar opposite. This cartoon was titled “The Primaries have started!”... as if they would ever otherwise care. Bush can’t run again, but since this “Euro-übermensch” needs to periodically fondle his little plushie toy of hatred to keep the threads of his tender ego together, he trots out his best Georges Boosh.

Quiet

Well, you know, quiet for France.

Cradle to Grave EUDistopia

Europeans start to wonder about the numerous nanny state laws that they have woken up to in 2008.

One Big Mac IV coming up

José Bové©® and cohorts scheduled to start hunger strike to protest GMOs.

Russian Politics Finally Matures to the Continent’s High Standards

Putin mutates into Vladimir Zhirinovsky to find the sort of political dramatus personae Europeans will actually pay notice of . Some recently elected to Russia’s electoral body are young, firm, and fully packed with that form of intellect and idealism reserved for political environments where nothing they do could possibly matter:

ALINA KABAYEVA , A rhythmic gymnast known for her extreme flexibility.

The 24-year-old said: “People often asked me if I got offers to be pictured in erotic magazines such as Playboy. Yes, it did happen but I answered no each time. I know about ethical issues.
“I first of all consider a woman’s beauty from an aesthetic point of view.”

I can sense your relief at that great ethical stand. If that doesn’t give Euro-politicking a stiffie, I don’t know what will.

Paying Others to Bravely Fly in the Face of Adversity

Weeks and weeks later: unwilling to free up 10 helicopters out of a fleet of 2400 to support the UN/AU cum UN/AU/EU operation in Darfour, grotty Gordo proposed checkbook diplomacy:

Mr Mitchell called for tough sanctions to be imposed on the Sudanese government and said that Britain should offer to pay countries like India or China for the use of vital helicopters in support of the UN-AU force.

Let me see if I understand this: Blackwater bad, paying India good. The Corporatist continent sees contract security as mercenary, but bribing governments to do the same thing as not. It’s almost charming in its’ naïvité:

"The UN and EU should now set clear benchmarks and a clear deadline for the imposition of sanctions, unless the UN-AU force is allowed to deploy in full. The sanctions should include asset freezes and travel bans on key figures in the Government of Sudan and on rebel leaders who impede the deployment of the force."

Which are the very travel bans that Germany opposed, the sanctions that various figures in the EU called inhumane, and the force was one lefties kept chiding the US was required in 2001 in lieu of the one that deposed the Taliban. In other words ANYTHING but what’s needed WHEN it’s needed.

Harmless Fun "like Scouts or Cadets"

The UK: stranger than fiction:

An Electrician accused of being a Muslim holy warrior claimed he was hunting Nessie during an alleged jihad training course.

- Thx to EUdada

Prescience

Mad Magazine, 1977: a.k.a. Europe, 2008

Fini, les clopes au bec

French smoking ban starts today.

Sugar Pops

EU aid packages are loaded.

Hope it wasn't his drinking arm

Courageous AFP fotog Thomas Coex leaves hotel bar and gets his elbow smashed.



AFP press people have a long documented problem of substance abuse.

You calling them animals is hate speech

But when they symbolically behead someone, it's some form of Zeropean artistic license. Dutch rap group Youssef & Kamal symbolically behead Dutch anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders.

Sick, Pervy Visitor of the Day - Part 8

Sick, Pervy Visitor of the Day - Part 7

Let's See How This Goes Over

Even when they're acting like idiots, the image thing works for them.

Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- France bans smoking in cafes, hotels and clubs on Jan. 1, stamping out the habit popularized by Jean- Paul Sartre puffing Gauloises in hazy brasseries

Of course there IS the standard "personal defense mechanism" idiotic reply:

"Maybe we're a bit stupid with our traditions, but we have the right to be as such and I cannot stand the idea of a hygienic, clean, and sorry to say `American style' society," said David Droulez, head of the Friends of Pleasure and Taste Association in Paris, which wants to defend France's "epicurean conviviality."

Whatever the hell that's supposed to mean.

Either way whenever you hear the term "American Style ______" you're sure that it's something generally detested, and is as innacurate as their decades of "peasant science" of people telling one another that the black tobacco isn't as bad as the blond tobacco.

Kidnappers of children get off easy

Chad lets them off easy, probably in exchange for some contracts. 8 years hard labor for kidnapping kids is a bit on the light side. Expect them to be spirited out of Chad, real soon now, to do their time in France. The French preSS is fairly uniformly spreading the good word that these guys are misguided and their intentions were good. The fact is that these criminals were simply looking to build themselves a good street rep among competing NGOs (the better to attract those donations), and if they had to kidnap a bunch of brown skinned kids to do it, so much the better. The entire affair, from the government approved junket into Africa - the snatching of the children - the medical personnel bandaging the kids and putting phoney blood on them to make them look injured - the self righteous cries of those convinced that they know what is best for others - and the uncalled for support of the preSS for this criminal activity, is typically French: condescending, holier-than-thou, paternalistic, and profoundly racist.

The foolproof design of its long standing "Arab Policy" allows France to avoid this kind of messiness

Not. So tell us again, how's that working for 'ya?

Your Choice is to Lose Either Way

Delusions abound. That doesn’t stop the NYT’s international “agent of change”, the International Herald Tribune from arranging their priorities in the most foolish manner possible by thinking that can limit the landscape of choices among their fellow travelers to having to make a choice between human freedom and greenie moral vanity.

And since the imposition of the embargo in 1962, and especially with the collapse in 1991 of the Soviet Union, its major economic patron, Cuba's economy has stagnated.

Cuba has not been free of development, including Soviet-style top-down agricultural and mining operations and, in recent years, an expansion of tourism. But it also has an abundance of landscapes that elsewhere in the region have been ripped up, paved over, poisoned or otherwise destroyed in the decades since the Cuban revolution, when development has been most intense. Once the embargo ends, the island could face a flood of investors from the United States and elsewhere, eager to exploit those landscapes.

Oh the horror! Cubans have to keep gleaning fields, and doing dental work on themselves for the sake of mother earth!

Cuba has done "what we should have done — identify your hot spots of biodiversity and set them aside," said Oliver Houck, a professor of environmental law at Tulane University Law School who attended the conference.

In the late 1990s, Houck was involved in an effort, financed in part by the MacArthur Foundation, to advise Cuban officials writing new environmental laws.

But, he said in an interview, "an invasion of U.S. consumerism, a U.S.-dominated future, could roll over it like a bulldozer" when the embargo ends.

Gaia Loves You Conditionally

Let me take the opportunity on this day, as if it should be different from any other, to wish you a spiritually fortifying Ramadan, happy Hannukah (only if you’re into that kind of Kabalah that pop-culture figures fall for), and whatever the heck it is those geeks who want to revive Viking religion do, you know, because, we have to be, like inclusive. Well – except if it seems conventional or your parents believed it. They were, after all Patriarchal and selfish for bringing us into this world, and in spite of the great inequities out there, had the gall to feed us. It makes me grip my dream-catcher on my way to Yoga...

Now let me wish all of the UK a Happy Diwali since that’s not socially inappropriate in the same way as wishing you well for Christmas – which was invented by Coca-Cola and other corporations - *spit* - anyway to sell something that will kill you. Being as how 92% of the population has it as the festive tradition of their culture, we should all look for the shocking, non-applicable, and improbable to distract ourselves with. While we in the civilized west may be told every other day that we ‘have no culture’, at least we take comfort in knowing that the same critics don’t want us to share in that culture to begin with. WHAT culture you ask?

Given the loving ministrations of the promoters of anything improbable as a sort of virtue, that’s a good question.

Petite nature

She aids and abets kidnappers of children and then conveniently falls ill during the trial. She's risking 20 years of hard labor in a Chadian prison if convicted. Pretty intolerable for a broad coming from the country of the 35 hour work week®©.

Global Warming, Obviously

Weather forecast is less than festive:

Environment Canada began issuing a plethora of bad weather warnings for much of the province as last night wore on, forecasting fast freezing, heavy winds and overnight snow squalls. Mild temperatures that led to rainfall across part of Ontario on Saturday and yesterday were being pushed down by strong southwesterly winds gusting up to 90 km/h and sweeping eastward across the province and into Quebec by early morning.

“Justice” Employed to Effect

What’s fair or not depends on how European you are. Once again, Microsoft is getting sued in Europe over its web browser, this time by the makers of Opera. The term double jeopardy appeared nowhere in the discourse of course.

Microsoft Corp. was accused of abusing its dominant position in Internet browsers -- the first major new antitrust complaint against the tech giant since it lost a landmark European Union case in September.

Yesterday's complaint, lodged by Oslo-based Opera Software ASA, a Web-browser maker, followed on the ruling here that confirmed the European Union's power to regulate Microsoft's behavior.

”Anti-trust” defined by this:

"After four years of no growth, Opera is looking for someone to blame for its failures, and Microsoft is always an easy target. With the Firefox Web browser grabbing as much as 20 percent of the market in some European countries, it is clear that companies can compete and beat Microsoft in the browser market. ... Windows users have nearly unlimited choices for their web browsing and Internet search needs. Windows XP and Vista allow users to choose any Internet search provider as their default provider and to run searches using any browser – including Opera's."

It’s all about doing protectionism another way, and in the end, forcing your own population to have to live with it – either in the form of higher prices or limited choices, even if in the case of Opera, no-one is stopping the public from loading it, or the even more successful and free Mozilla Firefox. No matter.

Microsoft said that it is ready to cooperate with the latest proceedings, but it will be deeply unenthused by the prospect of returning to Brussels to defend yet another competition case. In September, the company suffered a bruising blow from European judges who upheld a record €497 million fine. The penalty was imposed on Microsoft for abusing its dominant market position by bundling its Media Player software, used to access video and audio content online, into Windows.

It’s about making others’ success unlawful. Case in point: “our trust” trumps “anti-trust” in a bid to provide poor services at high prices.

Amazon.com may not offer free delivery on books in France, the high court in Versailles has ruled.

The action, brought in January 2004 by the French Booksellers' Union (Syndicat de la librairie française), accused Amazon of offering illegal discounts on books and even of selling some books below cost.

The court gave Amazon 10 days to start charging for the delivery of books, which should at least allow the company to maintain the offer through the end-of-year gift-giving season. After that, it must pay a fine of €1,000 (US$1,470) per day that it continues to offer free delivery. It must also pay €100,000 in compensation to the booksellers' union.

Damages to the Booksellers’ UNION, not anyone actually aggrieved by their “free shipping” thing. This is probably because there is no harmed party to be found.

Even in a stitched up market within stitched up market, (cartel vs. any startup, France cartel vs. other European entering their market, etc.) that there are more buyers that sellers, and that other than a handful of book-sellers, logistics companies who could just as well be trucking potatoes around, as well as those they’re “protecting” in a puny vertical market, that no-one, no-one benefits from these rackets. Not one consumer, or even the merchant in the long run even benefits from this loony habit of using tribalism one day, nationalism the next, and them a phony anti-trust case the next.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, business needs a little palm greasing to remain as “competitive” as these books peddlers which they know you should read.

AN Indian court overnight ordered police to complete a probe into charges that a bribe was paid in a multi-billion dollar deal to buy Scorpene submarines from a French defence firm.
The Delhi High Court told the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to complete its inquiry within three months and report back to a two-judge bench.
The judges also told the CBI to press criminal charges against "accused persons" if it could establish an offence had been committed in the^€2.4 billion ($4.03 billion) deal.

[ ... ]

Earlier this month, India said it was scrapping a $US600 million ($700.16 million) deal to buy 197 military helicopters from the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) after allegations of corruption in the bidding process.
India banned middlemen in military deals following charges of bribery in a multi-billion-dollar artillery deal in the 1980s with Swedish firm Bofors.

Of course the answer just to this month's thievery will be “but everybody does it!” Erm... No, Spanky. They don’t.

Sick, Pervy Visitor of the Day - Part 6