The Search for Intelligence Continues

German Curveballs and Italian Yellowcake

The EU's intelligence bureau, the Joint Situation Centre, has recently sent people to Libya. But its new director says there is little prospect of turning it into a genuine intelligence-gathering service even in the "long term."

In fact, they seem so harmless, that even the enemy of their member states received and ignored them.

Joint Situation Centre chief Ilkka Salmi confirmed that one of his staff accompanied a European External Action Service (EEAS) fact-finding mission to Tripoli on 6 March and that another one took part in a visit to Benghazi on 5 April.

"We want to avoid the impression that these were spooks of any kind. They were technical specialists who went to help with satellite phones and that type of thing. There was certainly no tasking," he explained. "These are the only missions of this kind that we have carried out since I became director two months ago."

'Tasking' is intelligence jargon for being asked to get information on a given subject.

Outside of obvious comparisons to phone company linemen, who they were there to support goes unexplained: EU diplomats? Member state Diplomats? A extra-special surrender phone to the trailer trash dictator himself? Serious brown-nosing?

A contact familiar with the work of SitCen earlier told this website: "These are fairly normal people who have perhaps in their lives had some experience of being out in the field in a place less comfortable than Washington … They are people who can write reports. Who do not mind not staying in five star hotels. Who know how to take precautions when they go out at night."

FOUR star hotels?!? They’re SO butch!

Another week, another lumbering, leaden polemic from Paul Krugman

From England's Fawley, one British reader of the International Herald Tribune has had his fill of the New York Times' star economist. Writes Robin Somes (second entry):

Another week, another lumbering, leaden polemic from Paul Krugman over the twin evils of Republicanism and the cutting of government spending (“The Mellon doctrine,” Views, April 4).

As a Briton, I object to Mr. Krugman's continual and inaccurate sneering at my government’s austerity policy. Imperfect as it may be, the alternative is to continue the never-ending and gargantuan cycle of debt foisted on us by Gordon Brown.

While the Republican Party may well be wrong, Mr. Krugman is not necessarily right. When, not if, the rest of the world tires of buying U.S. debt, who then will pick up the tab? It’s a simple question, but I see no answers from Mr. Krugman.

Paris Sera Toujours Paris - V

For those of you getting sentimental for the city of lights, art, fashion, etc., etc.™®©, ¡No Pasarán! Brings you truth in advertising.

They’re all Special, and All Equally Irrelevant

Like a Chamber of Commerce from hell, or a disturbing recurring clown dream, the EU is replete, if not festooned with “Presidents.”

Overview:

The Lisbon (Portugal) Treaty creates an all-powerful “President of the European Council” (POEC).

This is additional to the existing roles of “President of the European Commission”(POCO) and “President of the European Parliament” (POPE). There is also a “rotating” President-in-Office of the European Council (PORC).

This is the same “European Council” as mentioned in the first paragraph. However, we observe no matching rotating “President-in-Office” of either the Commission or Parliament. Thus, the “Council” is the only EU institution with a rotational element in its presidential structure.

There is also a “President of the Committee of the Regions” (POCE) and a “President of the Economic and Social Committee” (PESC), two EU institutions operating quietly in the background. These two Committees (not real committees as they are not subordinate parts of a bigger entity) are nothing to do with the 22 committees of the European Parliament, which are subordinate but nevertheless have their own “presidents”.

Maybe they can use a kaleidoscope of other superlatives, like El Hefe, Pimp Daddy, or maybe just Christ almighty to differentiate themselves from one another.

We need more time to reach considered conclusions as to the purpose and relative values of all these presidential positions, and the many others we have uncovered.

For instance, the European Court of Justice has a “President” as does the European Court of Auditors and the European Central Bank. Other EU-related bodies using the term include the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market and the Community Plant Life Variety Office. The term “president” seems to be accorded to anyone of even marginal authority in the EU system.

Unlike our own system, there is little appetite in Europe for terms such as “Speaker”, “Governor” or “Chairman”. The idea of, for example, US Senate and House Committee leaders being titled “Chairman”, to ensure clear (downward) separation from the Head of State, is unfamiliar.

This confusing focus on “president” status in Europe is blamed on the French language, which uses the term for both “President” and “Chairman” in political life. Without the French influence, the vast majority of EU positions carrying the term “president”, would, in English, be reduced to “chairman” or something less.

The French language is also blamed for the plethora of EU committees often termed “commissions”, causing confusion with the status of the European “Commission”, which is not a committee.

That implies that there is some actual reason to communicate with any of them or try to sort out their gauntlet of completely unjustified self-importance.

The Greenest Kids U Know

Nature has a way of thinning out the herd.

Large sections of Australia’s rich are engaged in a conspiracy to screw the poor in the name of saving the planet.

The Friends of Which Workers, Exactly?

11 September, 2001 – the Communist Party of the Workers of France issues a press statement indifferent to the cause of the Jihadists because it would not serve any “progressive” causes or the people of “Palestina”, but did manage to denounce what America might do.

The symbols of the financial, military and diplomatic power of US imperialism have become the target of attacks of an extent hitherto unseen on American soil. The strongest power on the planet, sure of its invulnerability, has promised to avenge itself. One must fear the worst!

The attack psychosis has spread to all capitals. Plans of control and of police and military surveillance, such as the "vigipirate" plan in France, have been set up. NATO has been placed on maximum alert. The declarations of war are multiplying.

These attacks do not serve any progressive cause, neither that of the struggle of the Palestinian people nor the popular protest which is developing against the politics of US imperialism and other imperialist powers, as the huge demonstrations against imperialist globalization show.

We denounce in advance all the acts of reprisal that will be taken against the peoples, in the name of a so-called "war on terrorism."

We denounce as well the measures against democratic rights, particularly the right to demonstrate.

We reject the calls for a "holy alliance" with the imperialist power of the United States, which has to its account, the largest number of wars of aggression.

Our total disagreement with the methods and goals of those who have ordered these attacks will not cause us to lose sight of the antagonistic class interests between us and the imperialist powers.

The imprint of the structural aggrieved insanity of the far left is all right there. Who was denied the right to demonstrate, or lost their rights to vote or speak? Who exactly was it, through either words or actions that declared war that day? It doesn’t matter: they have an imprinted attitude easily filled by a predetermined pattern, and a mechanism that lets them ignore a defense of ‘the people’, so long as ‘the people’ match a constructed mental image that they have.

May revolution indeed find you. May you suffer for what you wish for.

"Brazil's Columbine": As soon as the killer's Islam connection emerged, the media started cleansing the narrative

Last Thursday (April, 7th) Wellington Menezes de Oliveira killed 12 children in a school in Realengo (Rio de Janeiro). … He brought two guns (no registered) and reloaded the gun 9 times before he was shot and killed himself.

He wrote a letter with strict rules that must be applied to his funeral, with outstanding references to that written by Mohammed Atta (one of the perpretators of 9-11 attacks).

When the news emerged the connection with Islam was clear: he declared himself as a muslim (after left Jehovah Witnesses four years ago).

But as soon as it emerged, the "cleansing" of the Islam connection started.

Thus writes Luís Afonso Assumpção, who points out that despite the fact that the massacre occurred in a school, what Brazil's media have called the "Brazilian Columbine" should more realistically be considered a twin of the Fort Hood case.

Many people in Brazil wrote on the case as the "Brazilian Columbine". Despite they had been occurred in a school, the Brazilian case must be considered as a twin of the Fort Hood case.

He received some instruction by the internet. He was a part of a group called "group". He broke his computer at his home to avoid investigations to find some link.

Just like in US, the "investigators" don´t want to pursue such leads. They believed Wellington was a lone lunatic that acted on his own.

The Pointlessness of European Political Life: a Case Study in Dessicated Old Commies

1992: A defensive/ passive aggressive statement titles ”News” from Katyn in Roter Morgen (Red Morning), the house Organ of the Communist Party of Germany tries to mock the Soviet massacre of Polish officers in 1940.

Imagine that, the whole Politbureau leadership had signed! What a "find"! However: "Political observers in Poland expected that Warsaw nevertheless would not decide to appear as accuser of the CPSU" (FR). Perhaps Lech Walesa is a secret Stalinist?

This cheap melodrama shows clearly what is to be made of the whole propaganda cry about the alleged "proofs" of Soviet responsibility for Katyn. For decades even in the West it was assumed that the Hitler-fascists were the criminals at Katyn. And then all of a sudden things were turned upside-down. Without a single document being presented. Simply because it was politically convenient.

Operating on the theory that they all killed themselves, I suppose. Otherwise the inflammatory style of Communist “public relations” (when not massacring) normally involves:

1. Insisting something pointing to their ideological fellow travellers didn’t really happen.
2. Insisting someone else did it.
3. Insisting loudly that the proof is fake without any actual proof.
4. Obfuscation

2001: Facts still aren’t good enough.

Yuri Zhukov, senior scholar at the History Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, claims that documents proving Stalin’s security service (NKVD) murdered over 20,000 Polish officers in the Katyn massacres are “counterfeit”.

Operating on the theory that they all killed themselves, I suppose. Otherwise the inflammatory style of Communist “public relations” (when not massacring) normally involves:

1. Insisting something pointing to their ideological fellow travellers didn’t really happen.
2. Insisting someone else did it.
3. Insisting loudly that the proof is fake without any actual proof.
4. Obfuscation.

Zhukov is taking issue with documents made public last April which show that on 5 March, 1940, the Soviet politburo decided to kill several thousands of Polish prisoners, who they claimed were, “nationalists and counter-revolutionaries”.

On their release, President Medvedev said of the documents, signed by Stalin: “'Let people see it, let them know who made the decision to kill the Polish officers. It's all there in the documents. All signatures are there, all the faces are known.”

Same old, same old. A Red Army smokescreen with fakes supporting evidence were even presented in an attempt to use the proceeds at Nuremburg as a Soviet-style post-revolutionary show trial. No matter: when you only know one chord, repeat it over and over and play it as loudly as possible. What you’re left with is a European leftist.

This Report is superbly characteristic of Nuremberg evidence. The ‘testimony’ consists of ‘written statements’ signed by ‘eye-witnesses’ but which only appeared in a report written at Stalin’s behest and read aloud (in excerpt form) by a Soviet prosecutor. The ‘statements’ were not attached to the report, the ‘witnesses’’ did not appear in court and the original documents were not available.

Most Nuremberg evidence was considerably less substantial than this document. The ‘forensic report’ reproduced here was the only forensic report ever introduced into evidence at Nuremberg.

In April 1943 4,500 bodies were discovered buried in the Katyn Forest. At first the Russians claimed it to be an archeological find but shortly afterwards the British, American and Russian Allies laid the crime at the door of the Nazi enemy. Another 10,000 Polish officers remained unaccounted for.

Following numerous Russian excuses and pretended searches, the British and American authorities both knew of Soviet responsibility by the time the Nuremberg Tribunals were held. The charges of German guilt brought at the IMT placed the British Government and the Tribunal in an intensely difficult position. Relations with the Polish Government-in-Exile were strained and to have acquitted Göring and the other twenty IMT defendants of the crime would have implied that the Russians were guilty, and they shared the bench. When judgement was eventually delivered by Lord Justice Lawrence on 1 November 1946 the charges relating to the Katyn massacre were simply passed over, as if they had never been brought at all.

A Dull Persistence

In one random post a few weeks back, Erik used a picture of Hitler to illustrate some point or another. Since then, an overwhelming amount of our traffic originating in Europe has stumbled across us in search engines because they’re looking for an image of the world-famous mass murderer that’s suitable for framing.

Look – he’s your butt-buddy Europe. You can keep him.

He Calls Himself Russell the Love Muscle

French reporting-of-self yields to bragging about their meatwhistles. The same study shows that those self-reporting are being mendacious about their pecker-hood, Mister Happy, and growling trouser snakes, by the same difference between the great national French Johnson and –measured- American willies.

Predictably, Arabs, Italy, and other sad, real-life reflections of their stereotypes, seem to report the most “grade inflation”, all reflecting a similar level of “great national” powerlessness and propensity to blame anything they don’t like on someone else. They are also places where men are the most p-whipped.

Un Frenchy Chez les Yankees: A French Pilot Trains American Flyers

Lt. Tristan Isorce trains American pilots on Hornets at Naval Air Station Oceana (merci à Christine), a place the French pilot was trained at himself five years earlier.

Pour des questions d'économie, tous les pilotes de l'aéronavale sont formés aux États-Unis (1:24)

Le Monde, Fox News: On the Same Wavelength?

"Maybe they should send the flotilla to Syria instead - I'm sure it's more needed there."

Europeans are planning another Gaza “flotilla”:

The NGOs behind the project also expect several MPs from EU countries and MEPs from Brussels to join them when they set sail in late May.

Huseyin Oruc from the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), a Turkish NGO, said: "There will be many MPs on board. I don't think Israel will attack us. They did so much damage to their international reputation last time that I don't think they will repeat the same actions again."

Plans for the new project will be finalised at a meeting in Athens next week.

All that humanitarian aid, what with the issue being SOOOOO important in the Middle East right now. The doofuses.

An Israeli diplomat noted:

Noting the current turmoil in the region due to the Arab uprisings, he said: "It makes this attempt to make the situation in Gaza look like the most important thing happening in the Middle East even more out of place than before."

He forgets that the target audience is European, not so much Arab. There is little evidence that Arabs WANT Gaza to be “opened up”. In reality, it’s playing into the Iranian effort to open yet another military front on Israeli civilians.

Delegates are also expected from Canada, the US, Switzerland, the Nordic countries, Belgium, Germany, Greece, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK. Nobody from the former Communist EU member states or from Iran and Syria will be involved.

Around 15 boats are to set sail from a number of ports in the Mediterranean including Cyprus, Italy, Malta, Turkey and Tunisia. The route will avoid the Nato naval blockade on Libya and Israeli territorial waters, aiming to unload humanitarian supplies in Gaza and, later on, to sell the boats and donate funds to charities working in the strip.

Gazans don’t need that “humanitarian relief” nearly as much as those caught in the middle of a civil war in Libya, the people of Haitians and Pakistanis still suffering from the effects of their earthquakes.

No, the permanent ward of the UN is in need of this “emergency aid” first.

The Golden Age of Brit-Flicks

Further to my weakness for UK mid-century fillums, from 1959, it's I'm Alright Jack

They Love Death the Way that We Love Life

Yet another glance at that superior Euro-humanism.

An increasingly sterile and senile continent obsessing over more and newer ways to bring back the ham-fisted euthanasia of 20th century Europeans autocracies.

At a private conference in 1990 Els Borst, a well-known figure in the euthanasia movement, said that this progression was always the objective: "It was a matter of tactics: we could gradually win the field for the acceptance of euthanasia by starting with this category." By "this category" Borst, who later became minister of health and who saw to it that the Euthanasia Act was passed in parliament, meant the people who were able to ask for euthanasia. In other words: Borst started out presenting euthanasia as termination of life at the request of the person due to die, with the implicit aim of subsequently making it possible without request, for individuals who are unable to ask for euthanasia, for example people with dementia and babies.

Don’t forget that this all started with “strict conditions” caveats, etc.

What started with an appeal to self-determination ("if a person is in terrible pain and asks to be allowed to die, then that should not be a problem"), has led to termination of life in individuals who are unable to express their will and whose lives other people assume to be worthless ("it is better for him to be at peace now"). What happened to self-determination here? Is it not the ultimate act of paternalism to decide for a severely disabled individual that it would be better if they did not exist?

The imprint of the Nanny state will all over these notions that this is all “so humane”, and is the “dignified option. The fact is, it’s nearly cult-like in its’ motives.

Now the next step is under discussion. What if a baby can survive without treatment and is not suffering now, but will suffer in the future? Some physicians are deliberating whether termination of life is an acceptable option in this case. This future suffering does not need to involve physical pain; the Committee for Pediatricians, Ethics and Law of the Dutch Association of Pediatricians mention the inability to communicate, the burden of treatment and an anticipated long life-expectancy of the disabled or sick baby as suffering that could legitimise termination of life.

Soon, when people say that growing old is not for cowards, it will likely mean not just facing mortality bravely, but facing off with those dropping the idea in your head that you should take the “dignified option” that they will present repeatedly. After all, Europe will have warehouses of social liabilities to dispose of – and it seems to be increasing with the “death with dignity” campaign’s political timeline.

Is it possible to adequately organise such assistance for elderly people who feel they have lived long enough? Can it be done in such a way that we know what we are getting ourselves into and do not end up somewhere we never wanted to go? The people from Uit Vrije Wil are saying that this is for the elderly, that only people over the age of seventy should be able to get help to end their lives. But a meeting of Uit Vrije Wil and the Dutch Humanistic Union on 9 November 2010 in Amsterdam was attended by so many sympathisers, that a few individuals forgot that this was a public gathering. The famous neurobiologist Dick Swaab, one of the initiators, said: "The age limit is arbitrary. Just between you and me: this age limit was chosen for pragmatic reasons, so we would have a chance to obtain majority support in parliament."

The sad thing is that those who fight for their lives over this will probably face humiliation from caregivers or even from malicious and negligent relatives. Is this really the –social- humane, socialistic model of a society that they keep banging on about?

Congressman Paul Ryan accepts that the present system is unaffordable and destined to collapse

BARACK OBAMA, as we unhappily noted when he produced his budget in February, has no credible plan for getting America’s runaway budget deficit under control

editorializes The Economist (Praising Congressman Ryan), although the London weekly has been Democrat/leftist-leaning for the past dozen years and, therefore, fully Barack Obama-friendly since he became the Democrats' candidate in 2008…

On April 5th Paul Ryan, the young chairman of the House Budget Committee, laid out a brave counter-proposal for next year’s budget and beyond (see article)—brave both in identifying the scope of the problem and in proposing the kind of deeply unpopular medicine that will be needed to cope with it. It is far from perfect; but it is the first sign of courage from someone with actual power over the budget.

Unlike Mr Obama, Mr Ryan puts fiscal responsibility at the centre of his plan … Mr Ryan accepts that the present system is unaffordable and destined to collapse. Everyone else, including Mr Obama, is pretending that it isn’t. Mr Ryan’s willingness to confront the scale of the problem has set a standard by which other proposals will now have to be judged.

You can download Paul Ryan's PathToProsperityFY2012 plan here…

2 years after the financial crisis, the French feel more resentful vis-à-vis the banking system than Americans do

Après la crise, les Français [sont] plus rancuniers que les Américains vis-à-vis des banques

writes Cécile de Corbière in Le Monde. Unsurprisingly, the anti-capitalist French feel far more vindictive towards the banking sector than Americans do.

Selon une étude menée par l'IFOP et présentée par Groupama Banque, mardi 5 avril, 49 % des Français (sondage effectué par Internet auprès de 1 000 personnes âgées de 18 ans et plus) ont une bonne image du secteur en général, contre 73 % des Américains.

“The German reactions to the events in Libya and Japan appear hysterical on one hand, and on the other without any substantive basis”

Two thoughts about Angela Merkel’s weekend of political debacle: Her government’s shifts and pivots in an effort to avoid defeat in a regional election override in importance the loss itself. And they leave Germany’s governing coalition with a fracture in credibility affecting the country’s international role and notions of its leadership in Europe.

Thus does John Vinocur start his International Herald Tribune article on Germany's "election hangover".

…the government effectively turned its back on Mrs. Merkel’s supposed virtues of loyalty, resolve and calm as its dominant campaign message.

Instead, it appeared to pander to the electorate’s most hypersensitive instincts…

Across party lines, and before the voting, the political class picked up on the deepest ramifications of a contradictory-looking attempt by the government in Berlin to both spook voters and coddle their fears.

Patrick Adenauer, grandson of postwar Germany’s first chancellor and head of the Association of Family Enterprise — Christian Democrat roots don’t go deeper — told Handelsblatt, the newspaper: “The German reactions to the events in Libya and Japan appear hysterical on one hand, and on the other without any substantive basis.”

Hans-Ulrich Klose, the man Mrs. Merkel named last year as special coordinator for German-American relations (he has since left the post because of illness in his family), maintained that the situation damaged Germany’s reputation in Europe. The Social Democrat told me in a conversation that the election campaign’s pirouettes “raised the issue of our reliability. Germany has lost credibility.”

…Here was the essence of the problem that the German government, as Europe’s de facto leader, created for itself in a month of openly subordinating to very risky domestic political considerations what were thought to be its international credo and sense of responsibility.

For some, it had been caught out acting far beyond enlightened self-interest and, unpredictably, abandoning principles.

Update: Some voices in Germany are growing louder in portraying the Merkel government’s inaction as a disaster

The war in Libya can create "a new Iraq on the Mediterranean coasts"

(See Update below…) In response to the International Herald Tribune article on Bernard-Henri Lévy's view on and role in the conflict against Muammar el-Qaddafi, Umberto Eco (who was recently in Paris for the Salon du Livre) responds from Milan:

I totally disagree with the French writer Bernard-Henri Lévy. The war in Libya is a terrible mistake.

The situation in Libya now is catastrophic and the war is a real danger for the European economy and can increase the risk of terrorist attacks in Western countries. This war can create a new Iraq on the Mediterranean coasts. This war is stupid and dangerous for all.

Note that each writer happens to be reflecting the attitude of his respective government (or vice-versa)…

Update: Turns out that the Umberto Eco letter is a hoax:

In the newspaper of April 6, the International Herald Tribune published a letter over the name of the writer Umberto Eco, criticizing the military actions in Libya. This letter was a hoax and should not have been published. We take efforts to verify the authenticity of every letter we publish. In this case, however, we failed to contact Mr. Eco for confirmation. We have expressed our regret to him, and we apologize to our readers.

Totten Tours Hizb’allahstan

Ever wonder what it’s like to travel back in time?

“A guy from Hezbollah TV came down here to Fatima Gate once,” Leena said, “and some Israelis having a picnic on the other side recognized him. ‘Hey!’ they said. ‘You’re that guy from Hezbollah! What’s up?’ He was furious. He wanted to say something, but no one here is allowed to talk to Israelis. So he growled at them.”

She smiled. “He just clenched his teeth and went, ‘Grr.’”

The notion that we should feel “inclusive” of this culture is why I will never willingly go back there:

Hezbollah erected a billboard next to him that faced south and taunted Israelis with horrific images of violence and war — dead bodies gunned down in a street, a soldier with skin missing on one side of his face holding a rocket launcher, and a Hezbollah militiaman holding up the severed head of an Israeli man by his hair. Underneath these gruesome photographs was text written in Hebrew referring to Israelis who had been captured and never returned: “Sharon don’t forget, your soldiers are still in Lebanon.”

I felt embarrassed for Lebanon that this was what Israelis saw when they looked north. What on earth must they have thought when their eyes lit upon that barbarous billboard?

Why? Because they’re barbarians, and they don’t care. Hizb’allah are more than happy to turn Lebanese society into a Iranian proxy populated by angry, illiterate, and vulgar louts willing to use the general population as a human shield against their will.

Of all the cities in the world I could have relocated to, I chose Beirut, partly because I liked it, but mostly because it was the capital of the only country in the whole Middle East that had freed itself from the great Arab prison. Damascus was a dungeon, Baghdad was on fire, Cairo was choking with slums, and Dubai was a mall. Beirut was the light. From Israeli soil, however, Lebanon must have looked like Somalia.

To be more precise, from most of Lebanon, Hizb’allahstan looks like Somalia.

Old Fashion Spook Tools

An avid Shortwave radio listener reports:

A reliable source in the politburo informed me a few months ago that China Radio International's distribution of content on radio stations in Australia, United Kingdom, United States and Canada is not just way to have foreign listeners. My source informed me that since 2005/06 China's Ministry of State Security has been embedding messages into the Chinese programs. The messages are encoded in the audio. How the messages are encoded is unknown at this time.

The Pride and Dignity of the Diversity Agenda

It’s all sunshine and lollipops, as you know because it’s what we’re told with Stalinesque repetition. Let me correct that. It’s all sunshine, lollipops, and child abuse:

JEONJU (SOUTH KOREA): A transgender father of four was sentenced to a two-year jail term for abusing his children, who refused to call him "mom", according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency, citing a local court on Wednesday.

The poster children of diversity, as with every other one of the left’s cultural re-education efforts are normally exempt from the kind of attention borne by human frailty, of course. The same people who tell us not to feed the wildlife because it might change their nature, might make them greedy to violate norms, and make them dependent can’t seem to understand that this also goes for humans.

During court trials, he showed strong desire to receive a sex reassignment surgery to become a "real woman."

That was at HIS trial for the abuse of his children. Somehow, as predictably as a NYT tirade anything social aberrant to those with any common sense and kindness, it stops being about the issue at hand.

It became about him. It became about his identity. Little does any officially “socially aware” type realize that abusing his children just said a lot more about his identity than a reality defying hatred of how he was born.

French Deputies Vote on Whether to Release Secret Government Documents from the… 1870s

Ce mardi 5 avril, une question pour le moins inhabituelle sera posée aux députés : acceptent-ils, oui ou non, de rendre publics les débats tenus à huis clos par leurs prédécesseurs pendant la guerre franco-prussienne de 1870 et à la veille de la Commune de Paris ?

Come evening, the députés chose common sense and finally voted in favor — unanimously — writes Thomas Wieder in Le Monde, but still it seems odd to many that politicians in the 2010s should have a say concerning the release or not of a trove of government secrets from the 1870s and that there is no prescription rule to deal with events when they are up to 140 years old.

Conservées depuis cent quarante ans au fond d'un coffre-fort situé dans les caves du Palais-Bourbon, les 723 pages dont la publication est aujourd'hui soumise au vote des députés nous replongent dans quelques-uns des moments les plus dramatiques de l'époque. Ce mois d'août 1870, quand l'opposition républicaine à Napoléon III plaida – en vain – pour une mobilisation massive des Parisiens contre les Prussiens.

Pointing out that the last time a vote concerning the disclosure of the talks of secret committees took place was in 1968 (concerning the discussions of comités secrets from 1916-1917, the latest secret committee talks in French history having taken place during the Spring of 1940), Thomas Wieder explains the rule:

[Le règlement est] clair. Depuis la Révolution française, les comités secrets – la possibilité pour les parlementaires de débattre à huis clos – obéissent à des règles strictes. Les tribunes réservées au public doivent être évacuées. Le nombre des fonctionnaires nécessaires au bon déroulement des séances est limité au minimum indispensable. Afin d'éviter les fuites, les comptes rendus doivent rester confidentiels à tout jamais, sauf si la représentation nationale en décide autrement – d'où le vote de ce 5 avril.

What Do Julian Assange’s Thoughts Turn on Christmas Eve?

Things that give him a woody. 24 Dec 2006

The pending total annihilation of the US regime in Somalia

The US backed Somali "government", the Somali Transitional National Assembly (TNA), faces total annihilation, avoidable only by an Ethiopian invasion of Somalia and the creation of a Quisling regime.

In the past year the TNA has been routed from all regions of Somalia by the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) and now holds only Baidoa, a middling town close to the Ethiopian border. The "government" has already lost the capital, Mogadishu. The TNA is a US supported power broker club with many detested warlords, including those behind the 1991 atrocities in Black Hawk Down. Its hold on Baidoa is weak and has only been maintained in the last 24 hours by aggressive Ethiopian air-strikes, artillery and the invasion of 10 to 20 thousand Ethiopian troops. Ethiopia is the traditional, hated enemy of Somalis. Whatever legitimacy the TNA may have had with Somalias is now completely lost. The Molotov-Tribbentrop Pact is statesmanship compared to cynicism behind the TNA inviting Ethiopian troops and artillery into Somalia.

Not that he didn’t appear to take joy in it, linking all of the miseries of the Somalis to it when he gets the urge to write the words. Like a conditioned pigeon, parroting the fictional Manchurian Candidate’s behavior, he thinks wildly creative and witty to call his public thoughts about it: Black Hawk Down, White Wash Up

With the characteristic inferences drawn by a teenager trying to mimic the house organs of the Soviet age, he arrives to this: the American Revolution was illegitimate, nor is the notion of western-style participatory government, and...

...God.. Creator.. Men are created equal... Life, Liberty,... pursuit of Happiness.. Safety and Happiness... [followed by 26(!) paragraphs of hatred for the abuses of King George].

Because it’s in bad taste? Because it might offend someone named Julian two centuries later? The question with all of his thoughts, other than the proof that he is unpleasable as a shoeless Imelda Marcos, is to ask “what crawled up HIS ass and died? He prattles on:

In other words, religious feeling (x2), equality, life, liberty, happiness (x2), safety and above all, an extreme hatred for the brutal acts, preferment, and corruption of foreign influenced or controlled government.

It’s funny thing for a fellow traveller in Australia’s recreational revolutionaries taking up stance for a genuine and native anti-Commonwealth, Australian Republic movement to hold, as it seeks to divest itself of the symbolic allegiance to Great Britain and no longer have the British Monarch as its titular head of state.

Not once does democracy or shopping appear.

Where foreign influence is promoted in the American Declaration of Independence is beyond me. In fact it seems to rather explicitly seek to end it, which Assange views solely as “rudeness” toward the British Monarcy.

It seems that even past figures HAVING principals of their own that he doesn’t approve of is criminal. I wonder if he even notices what an authoritarian reflex he’s hiding under his awkward, affected manner.

The Philosopher Who Alone Persuaded Sarkozy to Intervene in Libya

Making his mark young as a philosopher, [BHL] was satirized neatly by a critic with the words: “God is dead, but my hair is perfect.”

Thus does Steven Erlanger start his New York Times article about the philosopher who alone, by his own reckoning, made Libya a French cause.

…in the space of roughly two weeks, [Bernard-Henri Lévy] managed to get a fledgling Libyan opposition group a hearing from the president of France and the American secretary of state, a process that has led both countries and NATO into waging war against the forces of the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

It was Mr. Lévy, by his own still undisputed account, who brought top members of the Libyan opposition — the Interim Transitional National Council — from Benghazi to Paris to meet President Nicolas Sarkozy on March 10, who suggested the unprecedented French recognition of the council as the legitimate government of Libya and who warned Mr. Sarkozy that unless he acted, “there will be a massacre in Benghazi, a bloodbath, and the blood of the people of Benghazi will stain the flag of France.”

Mr. Lévy, a celebrated philosopher, journalist and public intellectual, gives Mr. Sarkozy sole credit for persuading London, Washington and others to support intervention in Libya.

“I’m proud of my country, which I haven’t felt for many years,” Mr. Lévy said in an interview. “When I compare Libya to the long time we had to scream in the desert about Bosnia, I must agree that despite all our disagreements, Sarkozy did a very good job.”

…[B.H.L.] has outdone himself on Libya, playing to Mr. Sarkozy’s vanity and need for success as well as gratifying his own, and it is hard to say who used the other more.

It is an extraordinary tale, about which neither the Élysée Palace nor the Foreign Ministry wished to comment, other than quietly urging a grain of salt.

Today’s Leftist “Statesmen”

Huffington Post discusses Dany the Red’s outrage at Germany’s non-action on Libya, and overlooks Daniel Cohn-Bendit pederasty.

Like the Jacobean queens and their horses, this seems to be "their thing."

The real question is: why is the outrage of an MEP over some nation NOT doing something news? It isn’t. It’s to artificially raise the sale pédé’s profile, and amplify his criticism of Merkel?

Oh, and in case you’re wondering why so many Europeans are eager to “enforce the No-Fly Zone”, it’s because Libya has virtually no airworthy aircraft. This way they can look like they’re doing something.

"In France there is a tradition of non-communication"

"Not only are they [French politicians] smooth talkers, but in France, the fact that a politician tells a lie is not considered very serious. While in the United States, in Great Britain, it is unthinkable."

Thus is France 2's David Pujadas quoted (speaking to Arrêt sur images' Daniel Schneidermann) in Franck Nouchi's Le Monde column.

"In France there is a tradition of non-communication", adds Philippe Chaffanjon, director of France Info. "Ask the foreign correspondents stationed in Paris. They are appalled by the way the system works."

Paris Sera Toujours Paris - IV

For those of you getting sentimental for the city of lights, art, fashion, etc., etc.™®©, ¡No Pasarán! Brings you truth in advertising.

REO Mistwagen

In December 2010, Frank Schneider, the president of the German Society for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Treatment of Nervous Diseases admitted that the race and euthanasia policies of the Third Reich had not been forced upon German psychiatrists, but that they had been among its initiators.

Germans, always hypersensitive to the telling of any history or comparisons of present day German society with Nazism need to stop fretting, because you aren’t alone. No-one buys the routine any more, and humanity realizes that it comes a lot more naturally to Europeans that we want to believe.

Forty-seven percent of Germans are of the opinion that Israel is exterminating the Palestinians according to a poll undertaken by the University of Bielefeld for the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, affiliated with the German Social Democratic Party. These findings raise fundamental questions about the future of German society and not only about those Germans who falsely accuse Israelis of behaving like their own totalitarian or murderous ancestors.

It’s the few of them that aren’t conspiracy crackpots, that handful that don’t believe things for the sake for their egos that I have some slight hope for.

The recent data should not surprise anyone. It even marks some progress when compared with the past. This same university undertook a major poll in 2004. Some 68% percent of Germans then agreed with the allegation: “Israel undertakes a war of destruction against the Palestinians.” Fifty-one percent shared the opinion: “The way the State of Israel acts toward the Palestinians is in principle no different from the Nazis’ behavior in the Third Reich toward the Jews.”

All of those lesson-givers, going at it again...

At least they have Norwegians to keep them company. Alan Dershowitz offered to offer to speak without compensation at Norwegian Universities, only to be turned down for similarly one-sided reasons. These “tolerant” academics “in search of the truth,” it seems tend to stick to plugging their ears while yelling nya-nya-nya-nya

A third university, Bergen, answered that it was only willing to host Dershowitz provided he change his topic to an analysis of the O. J. Simpson trial, the American star football player who became a criminal. They did not want him to speak about Israel. Dershowitz rightly refused. The student unions of the three universities then quickly organized lectures by him, thus saving a little bit of the country’s honor.

Dershowitz told the small Christian daily Dagen that the refusals by the Norwegian universities to let him speak reminded him of his visits to the Soviet Union, and South Africa under the apartheid regime. He called the Norwegian universities propaganda tools, with leaders who are smart yet ignorant. Dershowitz added that Norwegian government policies were a hindrance to the peace process, as their double standards helped Hamas.

Americans to look down on, whodaguessedit? Somehow, I don’t think the Dersh takes requests, especially when it comes to offering a survey of the kind of law practiced by scheissters who advertise on buses.



Another new high for European culture

The Borders of the 'Hoods: "A Sort of Stairwell Patriotism"

• Yo! Where you from? Show some I.D!

France's borders are inside France's borders, says Plantu, in places (i.e., in 'hoods) where even doctors fear to tread…

The cartoon relates to the beating at a Noisy-le-Sec train station of a Sartrouville 19-year-old (he was almost beaten to death) by a dozen Rosny-sous-Bois "youths" who could not stand that he was dating a girl from their cité (from their 'hood).

"Les agresseurs seraient des jeunes d'une cité de Rosny-sous-Bois (la cité de Bois-Perrier) qui n'auraient pas supporté de croiser l'une des filles habitant le même quartier qu'eux et qui fréquentait un jeune de Sartrouville", a raconté à l'AFP une source proche de l'enquête. "Il est très probable que la jeune fille connaissait les agresseurs", a ajouté cette source. La jeune femme, choquée, devait d'ailleurs de nouveau être entendue par les policiers dimanche en début de soirée.

… Pour le responsable du syndicat de police USGP-FO de la Seine-Saint-Denis, Michel Marrec, "c'est une affaire de jeunes de cité qui n'ont pas grand-chose dans le cerveau".

Pour des sociologues, ce nouveau fait divers, après des rixes entre des bandes d'Asnières et de Gennevilliers, dans les Hauts-de-Seine, s'apparente à un nouvel épisode de rivalités entre jeunes de cités de la banlieue parisienne. "Il y a une identité de territoire très forte (...) en Ile-de-France car dans cette région, il n'y a pas d'identité régionale comme on peut en trouver à Marseille. Il y a donc une identité de quartier qui est surévaluée", dit le sociologue Marwan Mohammed. "Il y a toujours une rivalité entre cités, quelles que soient les cités, a expliqué une source policière. Mais avant il y avait des motifs bien précis, maintenant c'est pour n'importe quoi."

Claude Bartolone, député PS et président du conseil général de Saine-Saint-Denis, a pour sa part dénoncé un "repli sur soi d'un certain nombre de quartiers" où s'impose "une espèce de patriotisme de cages d'escaliers".

Ja, Aber... Na Ja.....

March 1981: Germans selling out to the highest bidding autocrat, otherwise complain about American arms trade and “hegemony”. In the meantime, they continued with the peacenik hair-shirt routine.

March 2011: Germans selling out to the highest bidding autocrat, otherwise complain about American arms trade and “hegemonyIn the meantime, they continued with the peacenik hair-shirt routine.

What's Old is Old Again

Wars caused by capitalism... Jews are behind everything bad... Evil central bankers lustily rub their hands at the thought of your personal misery... If all of the arguments sound familiar, don't be surprised. You could hear them on the airwaves of Nazi era German propaganda radio broadcasts just as easily as you can hear them on the streets of cities in Europe and the Near East today.





Nazi Propaganda, "back in the day" that the anti-everything (and supposedly anti-authoritarian) left should be honest about and get sentimentally reflective about.

Brzezinski: "We live in a very asymmetrical world; And this will remain a reality, unless the United States 'commits suicide' through stupidity"

Comment l'Amérique peut-elle défendre ses intérêts dans un monde multipolaire ?

Zbigniew Brzezinski is interviewed by Le Monde's Natalie Nougayrède.

Le monde est et n'est pas multipolaire. Ce n'est pas un monde uniquement fait d'un Léviathan et de Lilliputiens. C'est un monde dans lequel existent des puissances régionales significatives, dont certaines pourraient un jour, même si cette perspective reste pour l'instant lointaine, devenir des puissances mondiales. Bien entendu, la Chine. Peut-être — mais cela me paraît très peu probable — l'Inde. Je ne vois aucun autre candidat pour l'instant. (...) Que le Brésil soit une puissance régionale, cela ne fait pas de doute. Un acteur sur la scène mondiale, bien sûr. Mais y aura-t-il des soldats brésiliens stationnés en Corée ? Au fond, nous sommes dans un monde très asymétrique. Et cela demeurera une réalité, sauf si les Etats-Unis se "suicident" par stupidité.

The Ration-Book Thinking of our Governmental "Betters"

Stupid EU cookie law will hand the advantage to the US, kill our startps stone dead

Says TechCrunch

From 25 May, new European laws will dictate that “explicit consent” must be gathered from web users who are being tracked via cookies. That translates into warnings which will put off consumers from EU sites, while US-based startups will be free to continue as they are. How convenient huh.

Although businesses are being urged to work out how they gain ‘consent’ from users, this is bound to cause consternation.

The new European e-Privacy directive is supposedly to protect privacy, although seems to be operating in a bubble. Privacy controls have existed in Web browsers for years. Indeed there are even privacy specific browsers. But consumers have consistently ignored them and carried on happily using cookies, with many people knowing that cookies actually help the browsing experience.

French flocking to London for its favourable fiscal and regulatory climate

It is rational interests, rather than cultural affinity, that draw this type of Frenchman to London

writes The Economist in its article on The French community in London (Paris-on-Thames):

high-paid work, lower taxes (especially on wealth), and the chance to raise bilingual children. …

The superior beauty and efficiency of Paris often come at the price of dynamism. Many young French arrivals in London say they are fleeing rigid social codes, hierarchical corporate culture and a sense of distance from the global swirl of people and ideas.

…Many young French of African or Arab origin also say that there is less discrimination in Britain.

Steyn, On the 80’s Retread Goings On in London

It’s all very Carnaby Street.

Instead, the Polish and Balkan baristas were hurriedly dragging in all the sidewalk tables and chairs before the Socialist Workers’ Party chaps showed up in search of projectiles. Nobody in the Socialist Workers’ Party actually works, which is one reason why it’s Mitteleuropeans frothing your coffee rather than any of the natives.

So right after watching the real proletariat trying to save their hides in the face of the puerile children’s crusade, we get to go from the Mittel-Europäern to the Middle-Minded:

Still, on balance I prefer the class-war thugs trashing the joint, who at least have the courage of their convictions. The “nice” people bussed in from the shires struck me as some of the most stupid people I’ve ever met anywhere on the planet. One elderly lady from Yorkshire told me she was there because her grandson’s university fees were likely to go up.

... SNIP ...

She stared at me blankly. “Well, I don’t want to argue,” she said politely. “I just think it’s a disgrace.”

It’s all a matter of “being nice” this desire to take and take for ones’ illusions and comforts. After all, if one is truly nostalgic for a Britain of the 70’s and 80’s, you might as well note a feature of that nation that has gone unchanged the whole while:

I was in a cranky mood because I hadn’t had my coffee. “You can protest all you like,” I said. “But this country’s broke, so all you’re doing is postponing its reacquaintanceship with reality, and ensuring that your grandson and his contemporaries are going to be stuck with the tab because you guys spent their future.” I pointed out that in her part of the world – northern England – as in Wales and Northern Ireland, the state accounts for three-quarters of the economy. And it’s still not enough for the likes of her and her pals.

And all of that is BEFORE every other single issue faction tries to salve their perspectiveless guilt by proposing the same dedication to THEIR issues. Either way, it’s a class firm in their belief that only a huge, paternalistic, government with obscenely high levels of power can solve problems, and that the solution to each problem starts by sucking more capitol out of society.

Not only can Ian and Nigella not add, but they don’t want to know the ugliness of knowing what those numbers do to them of the rest of society.

Violence Against Doctors in the 'Hood

• And when I touch you on this spot, does that hurt?

The 'hoods in France are reft by violence, both between gangs and against honest people, including even doctors…

Despairing Ahmadinejad

• Don't cry! One day, you too will have your own nuclear tragedy!

• Sob! It ain't fair, the Japs have all the fun!

Leftists: Crash Testing Civilization Whenever they Can

The recreational revolutionaries drawn to Wisconsin to overturn the will of the majority “for the sake of the majority” have nothing on the suffering sisters of Sappho across the pond:

Last summer the Fawcett Society attempted to create a precedent: they challenged the legality of a government budget. In response to the coalition's proposal for deficit reduction, which foresaw 500 000 public sector job cuts, the feminist pressure group put in an application for a judicial review. The Treasury, they claimed, appeared to have failed to honour its legal duty under the Equality Act to give "due regard" to the impact on women.

There are takers, and there are makers. You can guess which one Gal-Queda can be counted among. The expectation is simple: all of society exists to serve the political purposes of feminists employed outside of the Private Sector where both economics, and socially responsible decisions can be bypassed in the interest of a small political coterie.
It does not mean that they can be made exempt from the hash facts of life by a mere accident of birth – much as the selfish cretins of political feminism think that this is not what equality and equal opportunity actually mean. I wonder if there are any women left who don’t realize that they are nothing but a corrupt cartel, willing to fight to the last gullible “student volunteer.”

Tepco's CEO Expresses His Shame

• I will have trouble looking my grand-children in the eyes!



— Plantu

You are Only Free to Agree with Him

And little else

If we have a serious problem, we are tasked to re-engineer the world using the best political, psychological and technological tricks we can come up with.

Thinks Jullain Assange of the “Realpolitik” construction of a new society structured to eradicate what he calls global warming. He himself eschews the cutsie-poo “we win either way” Realpolitiker referencial terms like “climate disruption”, “climate change” and so forth.

Save your “tricks” for the women you can’t seduce.

The Debate in France The Debate in Japan

Plantu treats us to another strange France-Japan comparison…

• I don't see your face!

Airplane Etiquette: Undue Deference Is Not Applicable When Exiting an Aircraft

Have you had trouble on a flight due to bad behavior by your fellow passengers?

To the question at the end of Dr Helen's post on airplane etiquette, I answered as follows — maybe some of you have a comment on the remark?

The most trouble I have had on a flight was not due to bad behavior by my fellow passengers, but to good behavior by my fellow passengers!

Indeed, the behavior on airliners that most annoys me is not that made by obnoxious people but that made by the supposedly politest of people — albeit at the worst possible moment.

People should realize that being deferential and coming to a complete stop in order to allow someone else to pass in front of oneself is not — repeat, not — applicable when disembarking from an airplane.

Specifically, the plane has landed and come to its final resting place, and now some (most?) passengers are standing, crowded together, in one long line along the narrow aisle and are waiting at least somewhat impatiently — for reasons logical (having to catch a connecting flight) or otherwise — for the door to open to get off.

But the most compelling reason to want to get off the plane is to get out of the crowded line, and for this reason. Everybody is invading each other's personal space, which is something that causes discomfort, anger, and/or anxiety. That can be temporarily bearable, because we all realize that nobody had any choice in the matter, but within reason, and for a do-gooder to slow up that process is most irritating, precisely because blacking everybody is the deliberate choice of (what I call, with full awareness) that egotist.

If anything, at this point, for some person to stop, and bring the entire flow of impatient exiting passengers to a stop — while waiting for some waif who is in no hurry to get off to skip into the center aisle, reach above her head to first get one bag out of the overhead compartment, then another bag, plus her coat, and a sweater, followed by her boyfriend who has to slide through to the aisle and engage in the same activities — is disrespectful to the people behind him.

Of course, this doesn't mean anyone should be a boor. And sure, stopping can be fine if it is but a simple pause when you can tell a person in front of you is set'n'ready (standing, watching when he or she can join the flow) to jump into the moving flow and take off at the same speed (or lack thereof) as everyone else. But too often some person will stop for a passenger who is seated, or has barely stood up, and is taking her time and seemingly in no hurry to get off, and is more or less oblivious to what is going on in the aisle.

In fact: the people taking their time are probably doing so on purpose precisely because they don't like having their space invaded and invading other people's personal space, even less so then other people, and are waiting to exit when everyone else has left for that very reason.

Now, what has happened is that suddenly some do-gooder has created an artificial empty aisle (the part of it ahead of where he has deliberately made himself a blocking obstacle) and is pressuring them to go ahead and enjoy that (artificial) empty aisle, before he allows the natural course of things to resume its course, and they feel rushed to do so.

But the question arises: what business is it of our virtue signaler, and what business did the Don Quixote have in deciding that that handful of tranquil people taking their time is more important than the dozens of passengers who are itching to exit the plane, recovering their personal space in the process?

It's akin to stopping one's car at a green light, making all cars behind come to a stop, i.e., breaking the flow of the traffic, and that in order to "politely" allow a car on the perpendicular roadway to make, say, a right-hand turn on a red light. No! Keep the traffic flowing and trust in the capacity of the other driver to move in her good time, i.e., when her light turns green (in other words, when there is a "natural" break in the flow)…

If anything, this type of aircraft deference is not only impolite, and annoying, to the people who are ready to leave the aircraft or in a hurry, it is also impolite to the passenger that the champion of politeness is supposedly being polite to: that passenger may be in no hurry to get off, and she is now feeling pressured to speed up when she would be just as happy taking her time and leaving later or even being the last person off the aircraft… No, pressure has nothing to do with politeness…

2016 Update: Two further thoughts: 1) people have eyes in the front and not the back of their heads, and that's one reason they are less aware of people behind them than those in front of them;

2) The middle aisle could be thought of the highway and the seat rows as the side roads, and a driver on the highway does not, or ought not to, come to a stop, halting all the traffic behind him, in order to allow a car or two from the side to enter said highway — even if he has not been (see the previous paragraph) using his rear-view mirrors. (I actually once saw this happen on the ring road périphérique circling Paris!) There is nothing impolite or uncivil whatsoever in having the side roads' drivers wait for, and yield to, the drivers on the highway.

In mid-March 2016 (almost exactly five years after the above post), I was in the aisle of an airliner that had landed in an East Coast airport watching the front people quickly exit when suddenly the flow came to an abrupt stop.

After what seemed like five minutes, due to the deference of one "polite" (!) middle-aged gentleman's who was apparently not going to advance any further until every single person in the five or six seats ahead of him had cleared their seats, emptied their luggage compartments, and headed for the exit, I finally couldn't take it anymore, and to this polite gentleman I finally made something like the following statement in a strong and clear voice:

It is very nice of you, and very polite of you, and very civil of you to wait for the people in front of you to leave the plane before you do, but at least a few of them do not seem in much of a hurry to get out, and maybe if you were as nice, and as polite, and as civil to the people behind you — those who got up the second the engines were turned off, among other reasons to catch another flight — perhaps the people in front of you will not mind if the people behind you are allowed to exit first…

That provided a kick in the seat of the pants of the polite gentleman and got the flow moving again, and once in the terminal, a couple of passengers gave me a smile or a thumbs up…

2018 Update: doesn't it seem like the virtue signaling is close to leftist government, which likes to do things like combat poverty by using other people's money? The person coming to an abrupt stop in the middle of an aisle is not only being (allegedly) chivalrous (and showing his — alleged — chivalry), he is forcing everybody else to be chivalrous as well — whether or not they have reason (valid or otherwise) to rush off the plane (and, again, the main reason is to recover one's personal space as quickly as possible). Like the leftists, aren't they demanding that we all ignore, or belittle, our feelings and our instincts and become like robots?

Related:
• The fact is that airlines have no incentive
to end their cumbersome boarding processes

• Do airline companies assume that
terrorists can only afford a seat in economy class?

• Do Airline Safety Rules Make Sense? Yes,
But Not in the Way You Were Taught to Think

Google Reveals That French Web Surfers Are Obsessed About Whether Their Politicians — and Foreign Ones — Are Jewish

An Internet tool that flags up popular search words has spontaneously revealed a deeper trend

reports Expatica (as we are treated to more Jewish news from Europe):

French web surfers' exceeding curiosity about whether their politicians are Jewish.

Observers say the phenomenon betrays an obsession in a country with a sensitive history of anti-Semitism.

…try entering the name of a politician such as Dominique Strauss-Kahn -- the International Monetary Fund head who could challenge for the French presidency next year -- in the French version, Google.fr.

As you type, a list of suggestions appears below the search field, revealing what words other web surfers commonly associate with the name.

Along with terms such as "IMF" and "2012" -- for those interested in his global finance work or prospects in next year's French presidential election -- the fourth commonest search offered in French is "dominique strauss kahn juif" (Jewish).

The "Jewish" term is also offered for searches about France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, his Prime Minister Francois Fillon, and several other members of his three-month old cabinet.

The newspaper Le Monde said that a comparison of searches on various language versions of Google revealed that Autocomplete linked Jewishness to politicians far more commonly in France than in other countries.

…Autocomplete on the English language Google.com appears not to flag up "Jew" or "Jewish" regularly for prominent US or British political figures, though such words do appear for some foreign leaders.

But Google.fr reveals Francophone curiosity about Britain's prime minister, offering "David Cameron juif."

…The Le Monde report's author Stephane Foucart wrote that his findings reflected "a subtle and latent form of anti-Semitism, which seems only to manifest itself when face to face with a computer."

As N Jo points out,

I'm fairly sure that they [the people doing searches for the word Juif] aren't looking to convert.

It's time to buy a box of Matzoh crackers in honor of the French who can't go to sleep at night until Mother checks under their big-boy bed for Jews.

Paris Sera Toujours Paris - III

For those of you getting sentimental for the city of lights, art, fashion, etc., etc.™®©, ¡No Pasarán! Brings you truth in advertising.

All Your Memos are Belong to us

Wikileaks human prop Julian Assange reveals how scared he is of people and how hostile he is to the human condition. Behold some of his bitter and fearful, melodramatic and auto-lionizing Vogon poetry:

The Strawberry

I was travelling across a golden meadow when I encountered the tiger. I fled, with the tiger close behind.

Coming to a precipice, I caught hold of a wild vine and swung myself over the edge. The tiger sniffed my scent above.

Trembling, I looked down to the beach far below and saw a second tiger pacing the sands. Only the vine sustained me.

Two mice, one black and one white, came out of a crevice and started to gnaw away at the vine.

I saw a luscious strawberry nearby. Grasping the vine with one hand I picked it with the other. How sweet it tasted!

[with apologies to Zen]

Three Policemen on Trial in Northern France for Shouting Nazi Slogans While Carousing in Bar

The next time you hear a Frenchman sputter (or snicker) about how reactionary, how clueless, and how racist Americans are, remind him of the five Frenchmen (three policemen and two butchers) who are on trial in Amiens for exclaiming "Sieg Heil", "The ovens must be opened again", and "Death to the Jews." As more Jewish news reaches us from Europe, Le Monde's Patricia Jolly tells the story of what happened that night of revelry in 2008 inside a Northern France pub:

Les cinq hommes trinquent. "Sieg Heil", "il faut rouvrir les fours crématoires", entend alors, incrédule, un groupe d'enseignants tout proche. Alerté, [le gérant du pub, Thierry Martin] constate que les compères font le salut nazi. Il entend aussi "Heil Hitler", "Mort aux juifs". "Difficile de composer le 17 quand des policiers font quelque chose de délictueux, a-t-il raconté au tribunal. J'ai plutôt essayé de les faire sortir car je pensais qu'ils étaient armés."

…[le brigadier-chef Fabrice Lengelé (39 ans)] aurait alors ajouté : "Je fais partie du White Power. Je préfère briser ma carrière plutôt que de laisser mon pays colonisé par les bougnoules ou les négros."

…[Dans] une discothèque proche du commissariat où se sont retrouvés les quatre compères restant, vers 2 heures du matin … Lengelé a insulté un client d'origine maghrébine "venu au contact" pour se placer entre lui et "une blonde" avec laquelle il discutait. Mais le policier nie avoir traité son interlocuteur de "fils de pute" et de "bic" en portant sa main à la hanche comme s'il était armé. [Laurent Chanteux (41 ans, patron de la boucherie)], lui, a giflé un autre client d'origine maghrébine qui discutait paisiblement dehors avec [Frédéric Delhalle (41 ans)], un de ses employés]. "Sale bougnoule, retourne dans ton pays", a ajouté Chanteux devant Delhalle qui s'interposait.

…Frédéric Delhalle … s'est présenté au tribunal sans avocat. "Je n'ai pas les moyens et je n'ai pas cherché l'aide juridictionnelle. Cette affaire m'a brisé."

Cries Heard from the Fake Crisis Management Center

The desperate pleas are deafening!

Spectrum crisis vs. bandwidth crisis

However, the "spectrum crisis" is only part of the equation wireless providers and network operators face. Another challenge is the "bandwidth crisis," the increased demands on bandwidth as a result of the growing number of mobile users...

TMC Net:

...Nevertheless, all telecommunication sectors experienced a slow down following the global financial crisis...

Capacity runs short DESPITE a slow down... now THERE'S a crisis, if nothing else than of basic cognition.

Japan's Martyred Towns

Accompanied by photographer Hisashi Murayama, Le Monde's Jérôme Fenoglio visits Otsuchi and Taro, two "martyred" Japanese towns devastated by the tsunami…

Jérôme Fenoglio, envoyé spécial du "Monde" au Japon, raconte sa visite des villes dévastées de Otsuchi et de Taro, à 150 km au nord de Sendai.