Abraham Lincoln and the Founding Fathers' Supposed Embrace of Slavery Along with Their Alleged Rejection of Women's Rights

This week, The Economist published a screed describing the tea parties' "constitution-worshippers" as "infantile".

When history is turned into scripture and men into deities, truth is the victim. The framers were giants, visionaries and polymaths. But they were also aristocrats, creatures of their time fearful of what they considered the excessive democracy taking hold in the states in the 1780s. They did not believe that poor men, or any women, let alone slaves, should have the vote.

As far as The Economist's history lesson is concerned, if Lexington had any real knowledge of history, allegedly coming from the framework of "modern politics", he would know that most of the issues he brings up are not as clear-cut as holier-than-thou leftists would like and that, in any event, they were settled already (over 150 years ago, which seems a lot for a progressive like him who has little but scorn for anything not modern), by none other than Abraham Lincoln.

• Regarding "excessive democracy" and not giving the poor the vote, briefly this: the founders did not found a democracy, they founded a republic. They did not want a land of mobs, they wanted a land of laws. By kowtowing to the poor, the state pulls down the rich; by protecting the rights of everybody (including the rich), the state ensures the poor can at least try to raise themselves into a wealthier class.

• Regarding not giving slaves or blacks the vote: during the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Stephen A. Douglas, like today's constitution-rejecters, pointed out that slavery had existed since the revolution and the constitution — except that in his case the argument was to make the point, contrary to what today's holier-than-thou moralists hold (that the framers were nigh-despicable and that we should have no admiration for those terrible slave-holders), that slavery was a good thing and was something intended by that time's slave owners.

At Galesburg in October 1858, Douglas spoke words that mirror those of today's founding father scorners (as nothing but slave-holders), except, again, his argument was to defend the fathers as well as slavery:

Let me remind [my opponents] that when Thomas Jefferson wrote that document, he was the owner, and so continued until his death, of a large number of slaves. Did he intend to say in that Declaration, that his negro slaves, which he held and treated as property, were created his equals by divine law, and that he was violating the law of God every day of his life by holding them as slaves? It must be borne in mind that when that Declaration was put forth, every one of the thirteen Colonies were slaveholding Colonies, and every man who signed that instrument represented a slaveholding constituency. Recollect, also, that no one of them emancipated his slaves, much less put them on an equality with himself, after he signed the Declaration.

Abraham Lincoln responded that what Stephen Douglas is asking you in the audience is:

Is it possible to believe that Mr. Jefferson, who penned the immortal paper, could have supposed himself applying the language of that instrument to the negro race, and yet held a portion of that race in slavery? Would he not at once have freed them? I only have to remark upon this part of the Judge’s speech … that I believe the entire records of the world, from the date of the Declaration of Independence up to within three years ago, may be searched in vain for one single affirmation, from one single man, that the negro was not included in the Declaration of Independence; I think I may defy Judge Douglas to show that he ever said so, that Washington ever said so, that any President ever said so, that any member of Congress ever said so, or that any living man upon the whole earth ever said so, until the necessities of the present policy of the Democratic party, in regard to slavery, had to invent that affirmation. And I will remind Judge Douglas and this audience that while Mr. Jefferson was the owner of slaves, as undoubtedly he was, in speaking upon this very subject he used the strong language that “he trembled for his country when he remembered that God was just;” and I will offer the highest premium in my power to Judge Douglas if he will show that he, in all his life, ever uttered a sentiment at all akin to that of Jefferson.

At Quincy six days later, Lincoln pushed further, pointing out that people who declare that the founding fathers wanted, that they instituted, or even that they tolerated slavery (whether to praise said fathers or to demonize them) are assuming "what is historically a falsehood":

I insist that our fathers did not make this nation half slave and half free, or part slave and part free. I insist that they found the institution of slavery existing here. They did not make it so, but they left it so because they knew of no way to get rid of it at that time. When Judge Douglas undertakes to say that, as a matter of choice, the fathers of the Government made this nation part slave and part free, he assumes what is historically a falsehood. More than that: when the fathers of the Government cut off the source of slavery by the abolition of the slave-trade, and adopted a system of restricting it from the new Territories where it had not existed, I maintain that they placed it where they understood, and all sensible men understood, it was in the course of ultimate extinction.

As for the Declaration of Independence, Honest Abe said in June 1857 that

the authors of that notable instrument … did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all [men] were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet, that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere. The assertion that “all men are created equal” was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration, not for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to be, thank God, it is now proving itself, a stumbling block to those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should re-appear in this fair land and commence their vocation they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack.

• How about women's lack of the vote? Again, Lincoln's career is illustrative. Two events during his electioneering are well known, but the — obvious — ramifications have not been inferred. During his 1858 campaign for the Illinois senate, one huge banner said

Westward thy star of Empire takes its way
Thy Girls Link-on for Lincoln
Their Mothers were for Clay

If the feminists' version of history is true — that of long-suffering martyrs with no rights, horrifically oppressed by their male tormentors — this sentence (whom the daughters support(ed), whom the mothers endorse(d)), which was accepted by all, male and female alike, makes no sense. Nor, indeed, does the very presence of innumerable females at the Lincoln/Douglas debates and other such public political events. Unless, of course, you go along with the leftists' (self-serving) view of history, that everyone prior to members of the modern left — male and female alike, again — were dunces fooled by the evil forces of reaction and/or capitalism… Could it be that American females were not that victimized as we are led to believe?

Indeed, during the 1860 election, Lincoln got a letter from a 11-year old girl prompting him to grow a beard. Grace Bedell wrote that

I have got 4 brother's and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President. … I will try to get every one to vote for you that I can.

Fancy that! Women (or American women) — even 11-year-old girls (!) — were not long-suffering martyrs, oppressed horrifically by the male tormentors, but individuals discussing politics and attempting to persuade and cajole and "tease" (and/or terrify?!) the (oppressing) menfolk in their lives into voting for the candidate of their choice (and probably into doing many other things — like taking out the garbage)!

Guess what: perhaps it turns out that the male vote of the pre-20th century was not a male vote at all, but a family vote, one that happened to be carried out by the (titular) head of the family…

Related: All the viceless leftists' (self-serving) arguments against the fathers, such as that brought up by The Economist, are thoroughly dissected and examined in detail the books by Harry Jaffa…

Rest in Peace

Rest in Peace…

Peace Out!

The Revolutionary is a chameleon who disguises himself as one of us until such time as he springs into action and attacks our way of life

Something we can call the Revolution has gutted the West – absconded with its treasure, destroyed its cultures and faith in God, enslaved it to sex and drugs, stolen democracy, replacing it with a dictatorship indifferent – and impervious – to individual needs, desires and strivings, and reduced us to the lowest common denominator

writes Don Hank (obrigado para Luís Afonso Assumpção), quoting Olavo de Carvalho and his identification and definition of the leftist revolutionary mentality.

It did so in the guise of “democracy,” of the UN, the EU, the IMF, the New World Order, using such revolutionary terms as “diversity,” “peace,” “multiculturalism,” “world citizen,” “saving the planet,” and yes, even “capitalism” and at each step in the Revolution, warning of an emergency and reminding us that if we failed to accept the new measures, we could be in even more trouble. And yet these emergencies were mostly orchestrated by the Revolutionaries themselves.

…the Revolutionary is a chameleon who disguises himself as one of us until such time as he springs into action and attacks our culture, economy, soul and way of life

That Nu EU

Will certainly be exempting the pupils from quizzes on their bloviating lectures on tolerance and human rights if they let in their potential diversity hire:

Minority Sect Protests New Mandatory Islam Classes: The Turkish Alevi federation announced that the Alevi students will not attend religion classes if their protest on October 9 does not change government policy. Fevzi Gumus, chairman of Pir Sultan Abdal Cultural Association, says: “There are several verdicts of the European Human Rights Court stating no one can be forced to attend religion classes.” However, the AKP government is reluctant to release a decree saying Alevi students are free not to attend the classes.

The EU, a global force for good!

Then there’s this great act of Turkish inclusiveness and trust that will surely go over like a turd in the European punchbowl:

Alcohol raids shut down art gala

But a note on the moral weight and effectiveness of the EU... you KNOW that they are humanity’s conscience, and what with all of that soft power buzzing in your ear, the rayonnement is sure to bring the socialist new man into his happy place.

European Union Critical of Turkey Crackdown on Press Freedom

Nice job working that peashooter, Scooter. The Turkish government is actually proselytizing to unwilling religious minorities (who are not Muslim enough for them), and ignoring your impotent complaints. And to think that pulling them into the EU is someone’s idea of a gesture that will save your population from some kind of latter day version of Moorish and Ottoman beheadings and Danegold tributes.

WORK that paper! WORK it! You’re almost there!

It looks as though the time has come for Obama to stop attacking the fat cats of business and try stroking them instead

“The administration is doing more talking than listening, and several of us are already worried we’ve been suckered into a PR exercise.”

It is hard to find an American boss nowadays with a good word to say about the current administration

laments The Economist — as the weekly editorializes that Barack Obama "has gained a reputation for being hostile to business" (not that the Demonizer-in-Chief simply is hostile to business), again suggesting that America's problem with Barack Obama is, at least, to a great extent, clueless, brainless, and/or myopic members of the public —

and the absence of anyone with a business background in Mr Obama’s inner circle is invariably mentioned as a reason why. The perception in corporate America that the president is actively anti-business, or at the very least doesn’t “get it”, has started to “have a psychological effect on how firms invest”, notes one well-informed insider, who used to see this as a “seven out of ten problem” but now rates it as a ten.

Discontent that started as mostly private grumbling not long after Mr Obama entered the White House has recently gone public. Ivan Seidenberg, the chief executive of Verizon, a telecoms giant, used a recent speech in Washington, DC, to accuse the president of creating an “increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation”, claiming that the administration’s regulatory expansion into “every sector of economic life” is making it “harder to raise capital and create new businesses.” Jeff Immelt, the boss of GE, has said that the administration is not in sync with entrepreneurs. The US Chamber of Commerce, a business lobby, has complained that the Obama administration has “vilified industries”.

After duly using Barack Obama's favorite meme — blaming the situation on his predecessor — and suggesting that "it would be tempting to conclude that Mr Obama’s business critics protest too much", the evermore-turned-to-the-left Economist finally admits that

the bosses do have a point; it is hard to imagine that a president who really understood the depth of America’s economic problems would have pushed ahead with such a huge, disruptive reform at that particular moment.

…as a person with first-hand experience of Mr Obama’s decision-making points out, the “atmospherics really do matter”. The mere perception that the administration is anti-business is “starting to make the bosses of Fortune 500 companies more risk-averse,” says a billionaire who used to run one of America’s leading internet firms. Another valid criticism is the absence of any former business executive in the cabinet, meaning that there is no “go to” person for corporate America. “Surely he could have given us commerce secretary. Who has even heard of the current guy?”, wails one veteran boss. (The current commerce secretary, by the way, is Gary Locke, a professional Democratic politician and former governor.)

…After all, notes the veteran, just like his boss they have “never had to make payroll”.

…As for Mr Obama, when he meets businesspeople at fund-raisers and the like, he too often shakes hands and moves on, leaving them feeling he was more interested in a photo-op than a conversation. He caused offence and disbelief a while back by turning up for a meeting with a group of prominent chief executives and then reading to them from a teleprompter.

…a cabinet member [who had run a big firm] would have been a particularly valuable counterweight to the influential but rather ivory-tower academics in the current White House. … It looks as though the time has come for Mr Obama to stop attacking the fat cats of business and try stroking them instead.

It is depressing to note that most of the the comments to the articles and the editorial are slated to the left (although that seems to prove the contention that the magazine is equally so), but one reader's reaction stands out:

Obama's idea of a "mixed capitalist economy", as the article puts it, is to take enormous election campaign donations from big business and Wall Street, then once in power hit them with punative policies to pay for his administration's profligate spending. He is a typical liberal hypocrite.

In an editorial, The Economist shows why the leftist media gets it all wrong:

The president has gained a reputation for being hostile to business. He needs to change it

is how the subhead reads, before segueing into a largely-pro-Obama (apart from the White House PR) text. But the problem is not that the Demonizer-in-Chief "has gained a reputation for being hostile to business." The problem is that he is hostile to business. As another reader points out:

Obama seems anti-business because he is. This is not just a PR problem. Every policy is designed to drain the private sector of resources and free choice, add burdens to successful people and businesses, subsidize the politically connected, and make as many people as dependent on government as possible. This is intentional in order to "fundamentally transform America" into a sclerotic social welfare state that is poorer, less free, more accommodative to tyrannical regimes, and less reliable to traditional democratic allies. In 20 months, BHO has made giant strides toward this objective. It will take many years to reverse the damage, if we ever can.

Do Indulge me, would You?

I'll admit to a weakness: old movies, and British films in particular. While my faves date from 1940 to 1955, I thought it would be interesting to present this rare gem. This adaptation of H. G. Welles' "Things to Come" also presents a portrait of the experimental art and design of the era in which it was made. After all, it needed 'futurism', so they let loose.

From 1936, here is "Things to Come":

Another Successful European “Get Tough on Iran” Exercise

It’s all political exhibitionism, all the time.

“Reports indicate Germany’s exports to Iran have reached near the two-billion Euros mark in the first half of 2010.”

I guess they can eventually tout the superior qualities of being superiorly irradiated, and that it makes them a glowing light for the rest of the world to follow in stupefied awe.



How about the type flying a ballistic trajectory in your direction?

As Enderlin Publishes His Book on the Mohamed Al Dura Affair, Le Monde Praises His Integrity While Demonizing His "Hateful" Critics

Il est des livres que l'on écrit pour se défendre contre la diffamation, tenter de rétablir sa vérité et laver son honneur. Tel est l'objet d'Un enfant est mort. C'est peu dire que Charles Enderlin, correspondant permanent de France 2 à Jérusalem depuis 1981, a été meurtri par la campagne de dénigrement qui le poursuit depuis dix ans à propos de l'affaire du petit Mohammed Al-Dura.

In his Le Monde review of Charles Enderlin's Un enfant est mort (A Child Is Dead), Laurent Zecchini serves out the same ol' defense of the Mohamed Al Dura affair based on praise for Charles Enderlin (as a poor martyred victim, trying innocently to carry out his journalists' job in good faith) coupled with demonization of his critics (as shameless, treacherous, envious, and virulent members of the "powerful pro-Israeli lobby")…

Among the people of unimaginable bad faith in "the heart of France's Jewish community", engaged in concocting a diabolical plot and creating a "hateful, insulting, sometimes threatening" campaign "of calumnies" against "a journalist" ("whose professional reputation is undeniable" but who has "been bruised by the denigration campaign which has been following him for ten years") are a filthily rich Jewish lawyer and other unsavory characters from France's "powerful pro-Israeli lobby". The review ends by praising the book as symbolic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in that "it illustrates the intensity of the hatreds which the latter feeds on."

…un puissant lobby pro-israélien s'est mis en branle, visant à délégitimer le journaliste (il n'était pas présent sur les lieux du tournage), et instrumentaliser une théorie du complot : le film serait un "montage", une "mise en scène", une "manipulation" et une "imposture".

La campagne contre Charles Enderlin, en Israël et au sein de la communauté juive de France, va devenir haineuse, insultante, parfois menaçante. … La mécanique de la diffamation est en marche, elle ne s'arrêtera plus. Elle dispose d'avocats déterminés et influents. A sa tête, Philippe Karsenty, pour qui l'affaire Al-Dura est devenue, depuis dix ans, un véritable fonds de commerce. …

Le livre de Charles Enderlin n'est pas un règlement de comptes, mais une démonstration : il décrit minutieusement, faits et citations à l'appui, la trame et la progression d'une campagne de calomnies. Si Un enfant est mort est d'abord le récit de l'acharnement contre un journaliste, c'est aussi un livre sur le conflit israélo-palestinien, en ce sens qu'il illustre l'intensité des haines dont celui-ci se nourrit.

"Vous avez dit acharnement?" demande JC Durbant, incrédule :

Démasquage par la TV publique allemande, perte de ses procès en diffamation, condamnation de Canal plus, interview-fleuve de Karsenty dans Médias, limogeage de Chabot, deconstruction minutieuse de Taguieff …

A l’heure ou 10 ans tout juste après la tristement fameuse imposture de la pretendue mort en direct du petit Mohammed qui lancait la 2e infifada et contribuait largement à mettre a feu et à sang le Moyen-Orient et une bonne partie du monde …

Le Quotidien de révérence, qui ne rechigne pas lui meme à l’occasion à recourir au bidonnage d’infos, ressort l’artillerie lourde (« opinion arabe et musulmane », « assassiné un enfant », « puissant lobby pro-israélien », « théorie du complot », « mécanique de la diffamation », « acharnement ») …

Pour lancer l’apparemment ultime baroud d’honneur (« Un enfant est mort », Charles Enderlin) censé « rétablir la vérité et laver l’honneur » du tristement fameux faussaire et jusqu’ici indéboulonnable correspondant permanent de France 2 à Jérusalem (bientôt 30 ans au compteur !) …

Nothing Gets those Wise Germans more Worked up than a Hackneyed Old Argument

In fact the further back “the crime against humanity” is in the loon-induced mist, the better. But look at this in basic terms. 9-11 takes place. These idiots, employing the same weak logic that they always have in their overraught and fiction-laden way over the past four decades, want to blame the victims, and the majority of “wizened” folk in this “wizened” land just nod along with them.

Other than among associates of Feisal Abdul Rauf, one could well believe that 9/11 “trutherism” is largely a thing of the past. The main target of the “9/11 truth movement” was always, after all, the supposedly nefarious cabal otherwise known as the Bush administration. With the end of President Bush’s second term, the “movement” had lost its very raison d’être.

In the meanwhile, the vast majority of Americans have other fish to fry. But photographs from a rally that took place in Berlin on the anniversary of 9/11 suggest that 9/11 “trutherism” is alive and well in Germany.

These people are not allies – not of the US, nor to the humanity that they pretend to have a monopoly on the sympathy people have for them.

“Regime change” in the United States appears not to have sated the hunger for “9/11 truth” in Germany. As documented on the German Gnurpsnewoel blog, “truthers” were out in force earlier this month at the “Freedom Not Fear” demonstration that took place on Saturday, September 11, in Berlin.

They have forfeited (for the last time,) any “sure I’ll play along for history’s sake” respect that anyone could possibly have for them. Looking for a “class enemy” fit to rally the proletarian mass? Well, here they are:

The reference is to the February 1933 Reichstag fire, which was famously exploited by the Nazi regime to consolidate its power and persecute its political opponents. It has frequently been suggested that the Nazis themselves were responsible for setting the fire. The “9/11 = the Reichstag fire” equation has long been a preferred trope of Germany’s homegrown brand of “trutherism” – or what might better be called, in light of historical precedents, “9/11 revisionism.”

There is a certain irony in the fact that such 9/11 revisionism would abound at Berlin’s “Freedom Not Fear” demonstration. As German-language publicity materials make clear, the principal practical objective of the sponsoring organizations is to combat so-called data-retention laws. In March, Germany’s Constitutional Court overturned a German law implementing minimum data retention requirements laid out in a 2006 European Union directive.

So if its’ any sort of salve, the reason they persistently find new and rotating ways over the decades to hate American and the United States, is because it’s an easier, more passive-aggressive way to hate their fellow Germans.

“Freedom Not Fear,” indeed...

What is it REALLY all about anyway? The same as it always is. This year’s pretext just has to be a juicy enough lie to keep the kids marching: the idea that everyone not like them, their “class”, their “tribe”, etc., permanently has blood on their hands. And somehow, despite the regimes they love to defend, they don’t.

Without irony, the march started at what was once a divided zone, part of which was the “death strip” of a regime that never seem to understand is had the same ideology as the one most of them promote.

Starting at Potzdamer Platz, any direction you would then go in would run you into a former line in the boundary where people seeking “Freedom from Fear” were shot on sight by fellow anti-capitalists who pretended to have a monopoly on human decency – whose enemy was a faceless mythical super-beast with stars and stripes on their flag, and a flunky German federal state to do its’ bidding.

Nothing has changes. They are simply to intellectually narrow to see events as events, and not a burning bush confirming their theories and world view. They are incapable of dealing with any of the randomness and complexity of the real world.

In fact, I think that the stale repetition of the whole thing actually provides comfort, much in the way that children crave continuity.




By the way, DW-Radio last week, actually reported this event on air. However, they called it a “data privacy” rally, with the gist of the story being that “gee, people just don’t come out for these things like they used to.” The pedantic, old fashioned antikapitalismus, “Black Bloc”, anti-Polizei crap, nor were the terrorist-supporting themes mentioned. In fact the thrust of their complaint is that German ISPs log data, but somehow, by some secrete international magic, it’s all because “9-11 was an inside job”.

Demonstrators also criticized electronic cards for health insurance and the SWIFT agreement, which gives the United States access to bank transaction details in the EU to carry out counterterrorism operations.

Never mind anything else they also, in large margin, said.

Decades ago, I first saw this logic operate in exactly the same manner. It remains as vacuously and morally inverted as ever, as strange as people going on hunger strikes for the release of the Baader-Meinhof gang. Them being "the victims", and all.

George Soros, the State of the Roma in France, and an Old Case From the French Judicial System

Le milliardaire philanthrope américano-hongrois George Soros en a fait une affaire personnelle. A 80 ans, le spéculateur n'a jamais digéré sa condamnation par la justice française, en 2002, pour délit d'initié dans l'affaire du "raid de la Société générale" de 1988. L'unique incident de parcours judiciaire de sa carrière.

Because he was pronounced guilty by the French justice system in 1988 — the billionnaire's only judicial condemnation — George Soros never seems to have forgiven France, writes Claire Gatinois in Le Monde. Perhaps that helps explain why he is now fighting so strongly for the rights of the Roma in France, although his Roma Education Fund has exists for all Europe. The subject of the "raid de la Société générale" is never broached in Le Monde's interview by Sylvain Cypel.

Vingt-deux ans après les faits, M. Soros obtiendra-t-il réparation ? Ce n'est pas impossible. Après avoir épuisé les recours devant les juridictions françaises, le financier avait fait appel devant la Cour européenne des droits de l'homme (CEDH). Celle-ci a jugé, mercredi 15 septembre, sa requête "recevable". Cette décision ne préjuge en rien d'une éventuelle remise en question de la condamnation pénale de M. Soros, mais son avocat, Ron Soffer, se dit "confiant".

One Le Monde readers's reaction is to reply thus:

Le nouvel Obs et le Monde qui prennent la parole de M SOROS pour parole d’évangile ! On aura tout vu ou tout lu. Quand je pense ce gars la a ruiné des milliers de gens par ses spéculations, permettez moi de ne lui accorder aucun crédit ! Qu’il mettent ses milliards au service du peuple Rom serait plus intelligent que se positionner en donneur de leçons. A l’avenir, puissent les journalistes nous épargner de tels interviews !

It’s that Time of Year Again

Oktoberfest is not for your après ski digestif types.

“Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son”

- Dean Wormer

Obama's combative diction vis-à-vis Tehran are "done less to scare Iran than to silence critics on talk radio here in America"

American leadership is difficult to detect. … If the president is uncertain, that’s human. But why offer Tehran (and American allies) new evidence of American indecision?

When a senior member at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (!) puts into doubt the declarations of the Obama administration, you know there must be at least some truth in it… Specifically, George Perkovich, the Endowment's vice president for studies and director for nuclear policy stated that Barack Obama's seemingly combative diction attempts “have no effect on Iran. It appears to me that this is done less to scare Iran than to silence critics on talk radio here in America." (Again, America's enemies being, in the final analysis, not foreign communists or Middle Eastern Islamists but — sigh — inhabitants of the American heartland…)

That is only part of what we learn from John Vinocur's New York Times column:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, just last week, proclaimed that the world was entering “a new American moment when our global leadership is essential.”

Presumably, that’s good news. But when it comes to leading, the task involves clarity, and on Iran’s sprint toward a nuclear weapon, there’s reason to see the Obama administration heading into confusion.

With Iran now estimated to be in possession of enough low-enriched uranium to produce, with further enrichment, two nuclear weapons, and administration officials saying manufacturing one would take the mullahs about a year, American policy is hard-pressed to be credible.

Either the administration is demonstrating a new toughness, or it has once again decided to reach out a diplomatic hand in Iran’s direction.

People who heard President Barack Obama out on the subject here last month left a meeting divided about which of those notions he has in mind.

If this is a new American Moment, the administration’s approach to Iran appears to be providing its friends with at least as much uncertainty as motivation and resolve.

…The problem with evaluating the tough talk, which preceded Mr. Obama’s meeting with the writers, was that nothing was reported among the president’s comments to match it in substance or tonality.

I asked George Perkovich, vice president for studies and director for nuclear policy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, how real or effective the seemingly combative diction sounded to him.

His answer: these attempts “have no effect on Iran. It appears to me that this is done less to scare Iran than to silence critics on talk radio here in America. It would be desirable for the United States to have credible use of force in relation to Iran, but in my view we do not.”

Ingrid Betancourt's Tale of Her Six Years of Captivity Goes on Sale, But She Is Still One of the Most Unpopular People in Colombia

Ingrid Betancourt has published the tale of her six years of FARC captivity in the Colombian jungle, writes Josyane Savigneau in Le Monde.

But while Even Silence Has an End goes on sale in French, in English, and in Spanish, only Josyane Savigneau's article in the print edition of Le Monde (a rather positive review of the book) is available online. The article by Marie Delcas does not seem to be available, in which Le Monde's correspondent in Bogota explains to what extent Ingrid Betancourt is unpopular in Colombia, second only to Venezuela's Hugo Chávez.


Meanwhile, Michel Garroté asks why journalists in France have turned on the woman they once (during her captivity) considered a martyr and a heroine:

Que se passe-t-il donc chez certains journalistes pour qu’ils virent à 180° ? Les conditions de la libération d’Ingrid Betancourt ne correspondaient peut-être pas à leurs fantasmes progressistes. Ainsi par exemple, ces quelques médias qui assimilaient et assimilent toujours les narcoterroristes farcistes (Farc) à des guérilleros marxistes. Ces quelques médias qui auraient tant désiré qu’Ingrid Betancourt soit libérée dans le cadre d’un accord tripartite entre l’omniprésident Sarkozy, le caudillo autocrate vénézuélien Hugo Chavez et les psychopathes des Farc. Ces quelques médias qui n’ont pas supporté qu’Ingrid Betancourt soit libérée par les Forces armées colombiennes.

… Ces quelques médias qui ont vu rouge lorsqu’Ingrid Betancourt a remercié le président colombien Uribe et l’armée colombienne. … Quelques médias, ulcérés par le succès d’Uribe et de son armée, garderaient-ils rancune et exerceraient-ils vengeance ?

An Object Lesson in Libertarian Thinking

I'll admit to a weakness: old movies, and British films in particular. While my faves date from 1940 to 1955, I thought it would be interesting to present this rare gem. This adaptation of H. G. Welles' "Things to Come" also presents a portrait of the experimental art and design of the era in which it was made. After all, it needed 'futurism', so they let loose.

From 1936, here is "Things to Come":

Say It Ain't So, Bjørn…

According to Hervé Kempf's interview of Bjørn Lomborg in Le Monde, the skeptical enviromentalist has become a dyed-in-the-wool proponent of global warming of climate change…

Update (from Radegunda in the comments section):

A few days ago, I read somewhere an email in which he explained to a concerned blogger (sorry I can't remember who) that he hasn't changed his views at all. It's just that his views had been misunderstood by the ideologues who tend to be enraged by any questioning of climate catastrophism--and who probably saw a propaganda coup in saying "Even Lomborg has come around ...."

“Something for Nothing” Watch

Just as the mindless outburst of university students in California demanding unlimited subsidies of something they will be the only beneficiaries of, the swirl of non-intellectualism surrounding “the Bologna Process” is no different.

However one does need to distinguish between the Bologna documents, the praxis of the Bologna Process, and the political use of the label "Bologna" in the national context. The introduction of the two-tiered degree as planned in Austria results most significantly in a hierarchization of university education that cannot immediately be inferred from the Bologna Declaration. The planned BA courses basically follow the logic of higher education as provided by a technical college – job-oriented, mid-level, applied – in new, modulated form.

But the logic of the protests don’t differentiate. Past efforts in the UK to merge the Polytechnik and University systems were treated with similar bloviating, but oddly enough they fell along the same strange lines of those interested in constructing evenness, equality, yadda yadda, not wanting to be though of in the same area of interest with those pursuing practical interests, even if they required more rigeur, let alone those in trade schools.

Again, the Protests for an “Egalitarian” Model were Dominated by Elitism

And an “Identity” elitism, by way of the heritage and provenance of the subject of study at that.

On one hand, the evils of the “two tier system” which could preserve the higher reaches of areas of studie that are not in applied fields are protested against on grounds of inequality, but so is the “commercialization” that would enable it. So what exactly is a lit department to do? Protest against the preservation of its’ own field?

Of course! The goal is to object!

Because it happened in the benighted center of the universe, it needed to be called “a process” and named after yet another city, but what it amounts to is that governments are looking for a way to get out of the business of paying the full ride for university educations that amounts to a subsidy to the few.

At the time of writing, universities throughout Europe and the US are being occupied. In Austria, the protests that started at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna have spread throughout the country and students and teachers are expressing their solidarity with the international strike in higher education. Among the issues being criticized by the protest movement are restrictions on access, the under-funding of universities, the demotion of university education to mere schooling and the introduction of tuition fees. Also among the protesters' concerns are the European university reforms and the way they have been propagated and implemented at the national level over the last decade. The protests have made clear the contradictions between the national and the supranational goals of the university reforms.

What they are protesting is the fix, but who’s really keeping track or footnoting. The idea of invoking an anachronism like “Die Uni Brennt!” seems to have little to do with the students themselves, but rather a sentimentalism of a much older and more disinvolved group of people: those getting weepy about the good old days of trying to dismantle anything functional in civilization.

As to the students, all they really want is to come up with a reason to have access to resources confiscated for others, and pulled out all of the stops. The scare tactics included the non-sensical: literature will die, education will be commoditized (as if it was an ethereal gossamer of no defined shape or meaning now,) and that fewer students could study. This, rather nonsensicly, was identified with a specter of evil identified with “Americanization”, where somehow more people have the chance to study, and actually go further with it from even a modest entry point on that holy “academic” scale.

The feebleness of it all is hard to avoid:

It is still the case that all protesters are judged by the idealized benchmark of the '68ers, often solely in order to point out differences. Mouse click is thus compared to street fighting, "recreational strikes" to social critique, hedonism to political motivation – ultimately doing justice to none. Many of these misunderstandings can be explained by the way in which the respective movements were structured, internally and externally. The iconography of the '68ers was marked by spectacular one-off protests and provocative displays – from the performances of the Vienna activists, to the naked photographs of the Kommune 1, to the sit-in demonstrations. In the latest university protests, things have been turned inside out – partly consciously, in the name of transparency (setting up and maintaining the live web-stream from the Audimax) and partly as a side effect of the relatively widespread use among students of platforms such as Facebook, StudiVZ and Twitter. The result is that the material from which conclusions can be drawn about the occupiers is not only considerably broader, but also extends further into the trivia of participants' daily lives, beyond the "performance" of the protest. After all, it seems improbable that partying after the day's protest was first conceived of in the Audimax – it is just that in '68, only those who were actually there could share in the post-protest beer. Today's journalists, by contrast – even, or especially, those suspicious of "flashmob voodoo" – do not necessarily have to be at the actual site of an occupation. Thanks to "lifecasting" (the constant transmission of events through the course of the day) they have been able to follow the debates, look up pictures on Flickr and Twitter, and even get hold of participants to interview.

Which underlines not just the fakeness of it all, but the lack of sincerity that it’s “performed” with.

Yankee Gal

Directed by Celine Desrumaux, Gary Levesque, Antoine Perez, & Francois Pons, Yankee Gal is a 2008 short created at Supinfocom (gracias por Jane).

The Pause that Depresses

Have you ever wondered what to give people who think they’re funny/witty/intelligent? At least on the college sophomore level - when they’re unaware of how tedious they really are?.

We the People: Honoring Constitution Day

The Heritage Foundation's Ed Feulner weighs in
(Sorry for bringing this a day late…)

Only a Couple of Years After WWII, Americans Were Personae Non Gratae in French Workplaces

A friend and I recently toured la Monnaie de Paris (the Paris Mint) to view the exhibit of

150 works by French humanist photographer Willy Ronis, who would have turned 100 this year.

The photos were/are terrific, but… Needless to say, and as we found out while touring the exhibit, the "humanist" descriptive is shorthand for communist. Indeed, for communist militant. For communist militant who photographed workers' strikes, leftist demonstrations, and other social conflicts and who traveled to East Germany to show the French that life behind the Iron Curtain was as normal as that in France.

What's more, we soon learned from the exhibit's captions that by 1947 — only two years after the end of the war — French photographers were in demand because Americans (i.e., American photographers) were personae non gratae in French workers' working places!

American reporters … were often unwelcome in places with social conflict — the Cold War had started — and to cover this type of story, Life often had to turn to French photographers.

To recap:
• A photographer (i.e., a "passive" job) and a communist militant =
a hero (then and today — i.e., witness the very existence of
exhibits like this one), someone to be welcomed with open arms.
• Americans = causes of international hostility, unsavory people
who deserve (!) to be scorned and to be made felt unwelcome.

Isn't it rewarding to realize — this a couple of years after "nos amis américains" stormed the beaches of Normandy to proceed towards the liberation of Paris and the rest of Europe —
1) whom it is that the French consider a hero and
2) whom it is, conversely, that they consider uncouth and unwelcome in their midst?

No, Really. You Go First.

For a Nation Used to Giving Americans Lessons on Firearms and Police Trust, France Has Been Amassing Quite a Collection of Bullet-Ridden Bodies

The slightest dispute, and the caliber — Kalashnikov, Scorpio, Uzi, automatic pistol — is resorted to, with a conclusion reached only at the cemetery.

UPDATED (below). While French policemen are busy pestering law-abiding citizens with a myriad of fines and an increasing habit of arbitrarily placing them in police custody, elsewhere violence is erupting, Yves Bordenave reports in Le Monde. For a nation — and a continent — used to give Americans lessons 1) on the follies of possessing firearms, 2) on the (related) benefits of trusting the police, and 3) on the (resulting) peace that will follow for society, France has displayed an impressive, and a macabre, collection of bullet-ridden bodies this summer…

Dans [la ville de Marseille] où le milieu "avec un grand M" conserve des positions importantes dans le monde des jeux et des établissements nocturnes, le grand banditisme est aujourd'hui dépassé par ce que Roland Gauze, le directeur interrégional de la police judiciaire de Marseille, appelle "le banditisme des cités". Les parrains corso-marseillais, qui ont longtemps fait régner leur ordre implacable sur le monde du crime, voient la montée en puissance de ces nouveaux adeptes de la gâchette sans foi ni loi.

Leur fond de commerce est le trafic de stupéfiants, essentiellement le cannabis dont la vente fait florès dans les quartiers nord de la ville. Ces territoires sont autant de marchés que se disputent de jeunes truands, organisés sur le modèle des gangs.

…Le chiffre d'affaires quotidien peut dépasser les 10 000 euros pour un seul point de vente ; une activité qui rapporte gros et ne souffre pas la concurrence. Les équipes, composées d'une quinzaine d'individus, s'approprient un territoire (en général autour de leur domicile) qu'ils contrôlent arme au poing. Aucune intrusion n'y est tolérée. Le moindre litige se règle au gros calibre — kalachnikov, Scorpio, Uzi, pistolet automatique — et finit au cimetière. "Il n'y a pas de mise à l'amende, pas de peine intermédiaire. On tire sans préavis, comme dans les séries télé", explique M. Gauze.

The model of the drug trafficking groups, or gangs, adds Yves Bordenave, is usually organized among family members or among friends…

L'analyse des données détaillées montre une diminution significative des infractions les moins graves, portant sur les biens, notamment les vols de véhicules (-36,6%) ou les dégradations et incendies de voiture (-27,7%), et une augmentation importante des atteintes aux personnes, notamment des violences

ajoute Luc Bronner dans son rapport du Monde qui constate "une augmentation des "crimes et délits contre les personnes" de 42,4 % en huit ans."

Le nombre de dépôts de plainte pour "coups et blessures" a augmenté de 53%. Les violences contre les personnes dépositaires de l'autorité, notamment les policiers, ont crû de 30%. Les vols avec violence ont augmenté de 15% sur cette période.

On ne s'étonnera donc pas que les armes, destinés à des cités sensibles d'Ile-de-France, forment un trafic très rentable, avec pour clients des bandes spécialisées dans le grand banditisme, selon Piotr Smolar in Le Monde.

Les policiers de l'office central de lutte contre le crime organisé (OCLCO) interviennent au moment où les sacs sont chargés à bord du véhicule volé de Necho, pourvu d'une fausse plaque d'immatriculation. Ils y découvrent huit pistolets-mitrailleurs Ingram de calibre 9 mm, avec chacun un silencieux, ainsi que des munitions.

The Double Standards in Jon Stewart's Comedy Show

First of all, let's get this straight. I like laughing.

I like enjoying myself. I am also (more than) willing to take hits for "my" team and laugh at any incongruity on "my" side. I've also watched the Daily Show quite a few times and think that Jon Stewart is a funny guy. Therefore, I want to like Jon Stewart and his Daily Show.

Except for one thing: like I've always stated, my reason for blogging and the reason for my political viewpoints and my reason for generally supporting conservatives can all be boiled down to the fact that I do not like double standards and I do not like injustice.

Case in point: Stewart's handling of two heads of state that appeared on his show, within a couple of days of each other. With Tony Blair, the leftist comedian is interviewing the former British Prime Minister about Iran and about the Iraq War (which Stewart opposes), and he will not let Blair (related material on the alleged "poodle" charge here) talk, as he keeps interrupting Blair with his "Yes, buts"… (As a friend wrote, he "behaved very unpolite. He was talking at least 70% of the time. You cannot ask someone like TB about such a complex issue like Iran and don't give him a possibility to make his point.")

Compare that with the latest guest on the show: Jon Stewart simply let Bill Clinton take over the (comedy) show with his statistics and his opinions and his politicizing (for the Democratic Party, which the comedian supports), adding nary a comment, funny or otherwise, and simply sitting back… (There was actually a — rare — moment of hilarity as the 42nd president stated, deadpan, that his daughter's wedding happened to be "my contribution to the economic stimulus.") Which is fine (Jon Stewart's reaction, I mean), except: do not use double standards.

Note to talk shows, comic or other: either you let everybody have their say, whether you agree with them or not, or you break into all their comments with funny asides, whether you like their opinions or not…

Aren't leftists (serious or other) always railing about fairness and equality and every member of society getting their fair share? Comedy, and levity, and satire, is supposed to be directed at everyone. With the same levels of wit. There aren't supposed to be any double standards… There isn't supposed to be any injustice in the dishing out…

BSP8R, Private Doofus

The passive-aggressive “pacifist”left has lost its’ hobgoblin and its’ imaginary foil: the German CDU-led government has decided to end conscription and rely on a an all-volunteer force. Not only does thin out the ranks of the thoughtless buffoons that a soldier in harm’s way need no longer depend on with his life, takes the Mickey out of the endless blathering rhetoric of the German far left’s argument that “our children” (whom they can’t seem to stop hating,) are cannon fodder for whatever war that comes along.

While compulsory service will be abolished, the alternative Berlin daily wonders aloud if this is truly "a triumph for the pacifist left". Its answer is a firm nein: "On the contrary, when Germany is called on to take part in a war more than 1,000 km away, (the army) doesn't need a horde of fresh recruits, but rather teams of specialists in security and modern weaponry".

Funny that with all the “hey, I play fist-person-shooter games too” talk of robocops with sooper-dooper death ray weapons, that they can’t even imagine what the social dynamics of an all-volunteer force are.

Never mind the fact that their deployments since 1945 have been limited to police duty in the former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan, unless you count the DDR’s “advisors” to the Sandinistas and to South Yemen.



For two generations, the only group of people that have benefitted more from the spilling of other people’s blood and treasure have been Kim Jong Il’s cronies, and Swiss bankers. It’s time that the war-obsessed anti-defense suicide cult in Germany did the halts Maul! and get real for once.

In the mean time, Die Welt reports that:

"The nostalgic invocation of the usefulness of conscription could no longer stand up to the facts: When fewer than 7,000 out of a total of 250,000 soldiers are available for missions abroad; when just 14 percent of young men are drafted; when even the majority within the military itself supports reform -- in such a case, renewal is unavoidable."

(Translation by Spiegel Online.) The protesting types are angry armies even exist, so it comes as no surprise that they wouldn’t “support the (conscription of) troops” so long as they remain in an ineffectual state. Some Conservatives, on the other hand, have always seen it as a means toward social cohesion, and to keep otherwise feral youts under control long enough for them to get a grip on their warm and charming personalities. Either way, they cannot afford it, or are unwilling to go on as they have in an embarrassingly low state of readiness.

One Fourth of the Citizens of Brussels, the European Capital Where the Very Rich and the Very Poor Work Side by Side, Live Below the Poverty Level

Capitale internationale, belge et (officiellement) flamande, [Bruxelles] génère près de 25 % du produit intérieur brut du pays mais un quart de ses habitants vivent sous le seuil de pauvreté.

According the information in the Jean-Pierre Stroobants article in Le Monde, the capital of the European Union, i.e., the capital of those hundreds of millions of people who are constantly giving Americans lessons in social norms and in generosity and in redistributing riches — and that Americans such as, say, Barack Obama constantly eulogize and desperately want to emulate — has a poverty level that covers fully one quarter (!) of its inhabitants. And that ain't all: the unemployment rate in Brussels is the highest in Belgium, which the French daily calls the "city where the very wealthy and the very poor live side by side."

Et puis, le chômage y est le plus élevé du pays (20 %, et même 35 % chez les moins de 25 ans). Enfin, des études évoquent le risque d'une explosion sociale, liée à la "balkanisation" de cette ville où se côtoient très riches et très pauvres.

I am not Above Torturing Our Readers

¡No Pasarán! presents ”The Final Countdown” on the KazooKeylele.



Respect!

A Portrait in Cognitive Dissonance

It will be a hard day for some on the benighted continent to get through. The vessel of their political hopes, Fidel Castro has urged the character idolized for his “Russell the Lovemuscle” approach to the Great Satan™ and the Little Satan™, Ahmedinejad, to stop using the foaming blather of his delusions as an intelligence report.

Castro reportedly said "the Iranian government must understand the consequences of anti-Semitic theology" while urging Ahmadinejad "to abandon Holocaust denial and refrain from slandering Jews."

Minds all over Bobo –town must be imploding.

The reporter asked him if he would be prepared to say that to the Iranian president and Castro responded: “I am saying this so you can communicate it.

That’ll leave a mark.

The story of Dien Bien Phu’s fall is an epic of endurance—like Bataan or Stalingrad—of men fighting to the limits of body and spirit

A conservative American magazine, the Weekly Standard, pays homage to Marcel Bigeard, with Robert Messenger praising his French troops at Dien Bien Phu (merci à Pat Patterson).

Popular historians tell us the French staked everything on Dien Bien Phu. But just 4 percent of the French troops in Indochina were holding down 60 percent of [Vo Nguyen] Giap’s fighting units. … The story of Dien Bien Phu’s fall is an epic of endurance—like Bataan or Stalingrad—of men fighting to the limits of body and spirit. Though [Pierre] Langlais never got the reinforcements he wanted, each day volunteers parachuted into the camp, between 1,800 and 2,600 soldiers during the battle’s last month, most at night, through heavy flak, and uncertain they would even land on French-held ground. Some arrived the night before it fell, jumping into a fortress that they knew was doomed. … The French at Dien Bien Phu had found their Thermopylae, but there would be no Salamis or Plataea.

Heeb-Hating Surrender Monkeys

Jacob finds this interesting piece on Europe’s “Jewish problem,” as in “Europeans and their problem with Jews,” as in “What’s your problem”...

In short, the answer is jealousy.

Actually I prefer to call it penis envy.

Sarkozy's ambitions seem to have shrunk along with his poll ratings

The incredible shrinking président
His ambitions seem to have shrunk along with his poll ratings. Time to rediscover the original grand vision


Je t'aime, moi non plus

Of Dictators and Cuckoo Clocks

The city of Trier, spitting distance from the border with Luxembourg, a nation once thoroughly sodomized by Germans, has after 75+ years finally taken away Adolf Hitler’s honorary citizenship.

Believe it or not, some 4000 German cities gave the dictator honorary citizenship between 1933 and 1945.

The official observer of Hermann observes (quite frequently) something that hints that last century’s denazification program either was not entirely successful, or got that famous flaccid hand wave and “Ja, Ja!” gesticulation:

How many gave him honorary citizenship after 1945 is unclear.

Nobel Peace Prize winner to sign largest arms deal in U.S. history

Barack Obama, aka the latest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, aka the man to bring about a better (and more peaceful) world, is to sign the largest arms deal in the history of the United States, writes The Daily Mail.

A source close to the talks [with Saudi Arabia] told the Wall Street Journal: 'It's a big economic sale for the U.S. and the argument is that it is better to create jobs here than in Europe.'

The move could help ease intense criticism of Barack Obama over the ailing U.S. jobs market.

But it is also likely to attract opposition to selling arms, especially considering Mr Obama is a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Pro-Israel politicians have in the past voiced concerns about selling arms to Saudi Arabia, which they say could undercut Israel's military dominance.

Headline Bingo

Jerusalem Post: IDF foils attempted terror attack at Gaza border fence

INN: IDF Kills Two in Firefight with Gaza Terror Infiltrators

AP: Hamas: Israeli strike in Gaza kills 3 Palestinians

The right omissions seem to be what makes the right journalist.

- Thanky thanky, to Shy Guy

Here in France, the French Will Never Accept Us, "They Will Never Love Us"

From the country, and from the continent, that is always giving lessons to the United States — in the struggle for brotherly love, in the fight against racism, etc etc etc — Caroline Fourest testifies in Le Monde about the case of a fellow — an agnostic — named Mohamed…

a décision est prise. Je rentre définitivement au Maroc en 2011. » Des mots signés Mohamed. Une profession de foi symptomatique du malaise ambiant, parue sur le site d'information Rue89. Pierre Haski, son directeur, a rarement vu un article susciter un tel intérêt au coeur de l'été : « Près de 200 000 lecteurs, plus de 1 200 commentaires, en plein mois d'août ! »

Mohamed n'est pas un aigri ni un excité de la cause victimaire. Mais un ingénieur de 25 ans. Il gagne 2 700 euros par mois et a choisi de vivre en France. Parce qu'il manquait d'air au Maroc, de cinémas, de pluralisme et d'offre culturelle. Aujourd'hui, c'est en France qu'il étouffe.

Les blagues racistes dont il se moquait jadis sont devenues bien trop sérieuses depuis qu'elles tournent dans la bouche d'un ministre : « Le fait qu'un ministre de l'intérieur fasse une de ces blagues montre à quel point les clichés sont profondément implantés dans l'imaginaire français. Et le fait que l'on me rapporte à un cliché m'est devenu insupportable. »

A tort ou à raison, Mohamed se sent regardé de travers. Sa peur a la forme d'« une petite vieille » : « Son regard est plus vif. Son sac est plus serré entre ses bras. Ses jambes bougent plus vite quand je passe trop près. » Il a beau se répéter que cette petite vieille n'est pas la France, qu'il est entouré de Français ayant les yeux de l'amitié, il a décidé de repartir vers un pays où il n'aura pas à se demander s'il fait peur. Quitte à l'enjoliver. Le Maroc qu'il voyait jadis comme un désert est dépeint en palmeraie. Tout y serait plus vert. Même la liberté de conscience !

… D'autres Mohamed ou Ahmed qui songent, eux aussi, à partir. A Londres, où le droit à l'exotisme repose. Au Québec, où aucun passé colonial avec le Maghreb ne vient gâcher le rêve égalitaire. Nous ne parlons pas de jeunes faisant une crise identitaire ou réislamisés, mais de gens mûrs et cultivés, souvent agnostiques, en tout cas laïques, qui combattent l'islamisme... Et qui ne trouvent plus leur place.

…[La mère d'un ami, fils de harki] ne supporte plus de le voir au tribunal à cause d'arrestations au faciès. Elle a pris le voile et lui répète : « Ils ne nous aimeront jamais. »

Travel Ideas for the Lighthearted Gadabout

For fans of the gloriously miserable, why not head out to Siberia to see the world's largest head of Lenin?



It only takes 5 days by train out of Moscow, after all.

"Speak to us, oh giant head!!!"

Headline Contest

With no Republicans/Conservatives/Libertarians/Haters in positions of US leadership, this story is out there in the wild all on its lonesome:

The number of people in the U.S. who are in poverty is on track for a record increase on President Barack Obama's watch, with the ranks of working-age poor approaching 1960s levels that led to the national war on poverty.

What the story needs is a good headline (shockingly, even the NYT has taken a pass on reporting the information). Any suggestions?

In France, "policemen are becoming fine-writing or arrest-making machines" and "they are cutting themselves off from the citizenry"

As France has relaxed the rules on times when police custody (garde à vue) can be resorted to, writes Benoît Hopquin in Le Monde, more and more citizens are put behind bars "temporarily", often for trivial reasons. The reputation of the police, says a veteran policeman with 37 years of experience (which amounts to a personal total of 40,000 instances of taking people into police custody) — who has written a book called Have Cops Become Incompetent? — is suffering from the resulting dehumanization.

In the eyes of public opinion, policemen are becoming fine-writing or arrest-making machines. Little by little, they are cutting themselves off from the citizenry.

Communist Family Values

Surely you jest.

This has got to be the most insidious commi plot yet, or even ever. The German Communist Party in Essen (yes, it actually still exists) handed out pens to six-year-old kids that can project erotic images of women on walls and, well, I dunno, all over. And like, they even did it by accident.

Un hunh. Right. Whatever you say. I guess training the young to objectify women as nothing more that fuck toys is all part of that “social cohesion” agenda.