Operant Conditioning Then and Now

Speak to us, oh giant head!!!

22 April is Earth Day, and the birthday of the ultimate unwitting leader of its’ proponents, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Speaking of it as the day of the birth of their savior, the official organ of the Communist Party of Germany said:

In 1902 Lenin's book "What Is To Be Done" was published, which had great significance for the struggle against opportunism. In this book Lenin explained that socialist consciousness can not emerge out of the spontaneous workers' movement, but only out science, that consequently socialism can only triumph if the workers' movement is connected with the theory of scientific socialism. This connection is the communist party.

The first earth day was on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lenin.

Today, the environmental political movement sees itself in the very same terms: a class of people indispensible to civilization, one that is compelled to tell us what matters philosophically (despite our nature and independent reflections,) and want to tell us how to live while pretending to instruct us in how to live. In reality, they are programming children only because it is a shorthand around reasoning with people with a perspective more stable than their own.
Those incapable of any sort of natural scientific scepticism even act like every positive stroke, no matter how repetitive or pedantic, is a reward, like a rabbit in a lab getting his oxycontin. Even when they live in a wealthy suburb occupied by omnivore-consumers whose economy is founded on the seizing of wealth from the productive, whom they can’t wait to find ways to further hinder.

Our disobedience is pitiable, and the mere result of false consciousness. One subject to change, just as the name of the movement, it’s vocabulary, it’s enemies are all subject to change based on who the competitors in the political field are.

Lenin also showed why the opportunists, who strove for reconciliation with the bourgeoisie, glorified the spontaneous workers' movement so much: it is because the spontaneous development of the workers' movement leads to its subordination to bourgeois ideology.

Lenin concluded from this, "that all worship of the spontaneity of the working-class movement, all belittling of the role of 'the conscious element,' of the role of Social-Democracy" (the revolutionary parties of the working class at that time still called themselves "social-democratic", RM) "means, quite irrespective of whether the belittler wants to or not, strengthening the influence of the bourgeois ideology over the workers."

Moderation is wrong, he said, even when they called themselves “social democrats”.

It was all subject to change – the names, suppositions, ideas, all to the level that “the unaware masses,” unwilling to go along for whatever reasons that the divine lesson-givers aren’t patient enough to bother to try to understand, can make you choke down.







Try to tell me that something has changed.

Earth, peace, harmony, the godhead of the all-meaningful blob... it’s all the same to the indoctrinated. It gets to suit any previous purpose they had for other people, and if not that, anything and everything else. Further to that bullshit is this kind of prose:

The first Earth Day, proclaimed by the City of San Francisco and celebrated on March 21, 1970 was created by John McConnell. What led him to the idea was his interest in Space exploration and awareness of the March Equinox, nature's primary day of global equilibrium.

This special moment of nature's equipoise provides a sound basis for members of the human family to simultaneously join -- each in their own way -- in silent prayer or reflection: a time for dedication and commitment to the care of our planet, a time for thanksgiving and celebration. Earth Day is on the first day of Spring -- nature's symbol of renewal and new life.

Observed each year at the United Nations and to some extent around the world, nature's Earth Day celebration of life has been a dynamic force for resolution of conflicts and peaceful progress -- for harmony with neighbor and nature by people acting as responsible trustees of Earth.

Which is amusing, since we were told that all war forever would be over drinking water and who can get the high land far from the perpetually late tidal wave of sea rise that is when we aren’t running out of water, and if not that the other apocalypse of the guilt-bearing human for which we can never be redeemed: fighting over the cooler polar regions where we can raise crops.

If that doesn’t suit you, just wait a few days for some other reason will be passed around. Maybe something about things only being made whole by Mayan crafts, living in a geodesic dome, and raising your own chickes. Again, it’s whatever someone thinks you can choke down.


i.e.: earthquakes. Taunters mocked the greens for their predilection of making a connection between people using fuel and any natural disaster. They were told that there are always a few cranks and crazies. They didn’t tell you that the conditioned are the real cranks and crazies.

The last few years saw many natural disasters and most are still afresh in our memories. One very good example to site is Haiti crisis. Did you know, the last few years have been registered as the most warm years? Ice Age, though an animated movie actually addresses a real problem! Ice from the poles, Arctic and Antarctic regions is melting at an alarming pace – 9% per year! There’s a hole in the Ozone layer that’s contributing to increase in temperatures considerably. Why all these adverse issues? The only reason for this drastic climate change is our lifestyle, which is against nature.

Stop wasting humanity’s time and effort.

Next they will Ban Deoderant

I really wonder if the biological drive to reproduce is what drives Greenies to bring the rest of civilization down to conform with their own fragile outlook, particularly when they do things like ban Trisodium Phosphate.

It is still a must in commercial establishments like restaurants and hotels. But 17 states have already banned the product for consumers, causing most all makers of the detergent to remove it from their products, which vastly degraded their value. The detergent makers saw the writing on the wall and this time decided to get out in front of the regulatory machine, anticipating a federal ban before it actually takes place.

In case you’re wondering what the chamber of horror TSP is, it’s commonly called Spic ‘n Span. Phosphorus is also what is used to make non-chlorine bleach, or if you live in the village of the truly retrograde, anything marked “sans javel”.

Environmentalists are gunning for humanity. They have a taste for blood, and feel the power. To dictate. To beat the servants and sing to themselves like Eva f’ing Peron on psychotropics.

Europe: Vee Play Naughty Dress-up Game, Yes?

Just for fun, say that title again, except this time, trying to sound like Yoda. Otherwise the European intellectual legacy of impossible to understand analogies, humorlessness, and hate-hate relationship with those of faith, we find an opinion columnist comparing Germany with a Vicar disciplining his flock. Those of you who actually attend religious services know that happens all of the time.

The Eurozone crisis has now put Germany in the classic vicar's dilemma

Given that they are conditioned at this point to believe that every man of the cloth is a child molester, it might actually seem more clear. Either that or they miss the good old days of studying the gender dynamics of Russ Meyer “films” as an analogy for geopolitical dialogue.

Some even whisper that German European policy has entered its punitive phase.

If that whispering gets you too excited, there are some paper towels on the kitchen counter.

The writer heads the Brussels Office of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). He is writing in a personal capacity.

You don’t say?

A dramatic inversion of postwar roles: Adenauer and de Gaulle must be turning in their graves

I’ve always had a soft spot for Nicolas Sarkozy

admits Roger Cohen in France Flies, Germany Flops.

He was the guy with the wrong name and the wrong background who took on the smug talkers with names like Dominique de Villepin and vanquished them. He was the outsider from the wrong schools who believed in energy and talent and had the audacity to smash the taboo that said a French politician can’t love America and prosper.

Sarkozy was a doer. He thought François Mitterrand’s seductive phrase (in French at least) — “Il faut laisser le temps au temps” (You must let time take its course) — was baloney that left you with disasters like the Bosnian genocide. He thought work and reward should be linked, a Gallic heresy, and he worked hard.

He hated the dependency culture of an overdeveloped French state, which entrenched rights and enfeebled responsibility. That he was elected president showed that France, deep in its soul, knew it had to escape the Mitterrand-Chirac rut with its glut of erudition and its glob of inaction. That was heartening.

…Only in recent weeks has the distance traveled come into focus: France, reintegrated in 2009 into the command structure of NATO, spearheading the United Nations-backed NATO military operation in Libya; providing armed muscle to the U.N. forces in Ivory Coast; and giving its pacifist-trending ally Germany a lesson in 21st-century Atlanticism.

Adenauer and de Gaulle must be turning in their graves. Here was Germany standing wobbly with Brazil, Russia, India and China — and against its closest allies, France and the United States — in the U.N. vote on Libyan military action. And here was France providing America’s most vigorous NATO support.

This was a dramatic inversion of postwar roles. It revealed the drift of a navel-gazing Germany unprepared to lead despite its power and impatient with Adenauer’s Western anchoring. It also demonstrated France’s break under Sarkozy from the posturing Gaullist notion of a French “counterweight” to America. These are seismic European shifts.

In Benghazi, the capital of free Libya, when they see a NATO aircraft they say, “There goes another Sarkozy.” After the French shame of Rwanda, a genocide where Mitterrand let time do its fullest work, that’s something.

…Sarkozy has intuited three things. First, the democratization of the Arab world is the most important European strategic challenge of the decade. Second, it was time “to take the training wheels off,” in the words of Constanze Stelzenmüller of the German Marshall Fund, and have Europe rather than an overextended America lead in Libya. Third, the U.N. cannot always be an umbrella that folds when it rains. If its “responsibility to protect” means anything, it must be when an Arab tyrant promises to slaughter his people.

…We stand at a high point in French postwar diplomacy and a nadir in German.

Just what you’d Expect from a Murderer with Nothing to Lose

In an interview with the Spanish edition of Vanity Fair, Charles Manson spews far-left rubbish.

President Barack Obama is "a slave of Wall Street,"

Indeed, the turnips and potatoes of the “progressive” world view.

"Everyone's God, and if we don’t wake up to that, there’s going to be no weather because our polar caps are melting because we’re doing bad things to the atmosphere," Manson warned.

Maybe he’s still getting messages from the mother ship, or the Might Quinn or something.

For the second time in less than two years, California prison officials caught Charles Manson, mastermind of one of the most notorious killing sprees in U.S. history, with a cellphone behind bars.

What’s the frequency, Kenneth?

In Spite of them for their OWN GOOD!

Jürgen Habermas:

Europe's unification process is faltering because the political elites are not committed to promoting increased citizen involvement, the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas writes in the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung: "As long as European citizens see only their national governments as the actors on the European stage they will perceive the decision-making processes as zero-sum games in which their own players must prevail over the others. ... It is quite possible that the expectation that Europe-weary nations will oppose the further transfer of sovereign rights even within the Union's core zone is correct. But this prediction is a convenient excuse for the political elites to shun their share of the responsibility for the pitiful state of the Union. ... The European unification process, which has always been driven above the heads of the citizens, has now reached a dead end because it can't go any further without converting from the present mode of administration to one that entails greater participation from Europe's citizens. The political elites are burying their heads in the sand. They are continuing with their elite project and the incapacitation of Europe's citizens."

Yeah?!? Well no-one really asked them anyway!

Sarkozy’s line for Africa is “neither interference nor indifference”

President Nicolas Sarkozy, having suddenly engaged France in shooting wars in Libya and Ivory Coast, seems to be harking back to the old days of French African policy, sometimes known as Françafrique, when Paris and its army dictated politics in its former colonies and reaped economic rewards.

Thus writes Steven Erlanger in his New York Times article, French Colonial Past Casts Long Shadow Over Policy in Africa.

But Mr. Sarkozy and the Foreign Ministry reject the suggestion of a return to colonial reflexes, emphasizing that in both cases France acted under a mandate from the United Nations Security Council that authorized the use of force to protect civilians. …

Mr. Sarkozy’s line for Africa has been “neither interference nor indifference.”

France’s colonial empire covered much of North and West Africa, from Algeria to Ivory Coast. The colonies were gradually granted independence in the 1960s, but France still has troops based in Africa and close business, political, linguistic and personal ties to its former colonies, which as a whole give France more importance in the world. …

Accusations persist of France taking sides to make new presidents or overthrow old ones, of illegal political contributions and payoffs, of parallel but separate policies run by the Élysée and the Quai d’Orsay. The newspapers, for instance, have depicted the friendship of Mr. Sarkozy’s former wife, Cécilia, with the French wife of Gbagbo rival Alassane Ouattara, and Mr. Gbagbo played heavily on anti-French sentiment in his effort to retain power.

… But other historians and analysts suggest that Mr. Sarkozy was sincere when he said that his African policy would emphasize partnership and not paternalism, and note that he does not share the same ties to Africa as his predecessors, in particular Mr. Chirac and Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, infamous for a scandal over African diamonds allegedly received as a gift.

“Sarkozy has no nostalgia for the former colonies, and I believe there has not been any real change in his African policy,” said Antoine Glaser, former editor in chief of Lettre du Continent, an African newsletter, and co-author of “Sarko in Africa” and “How France Lost Africa.” He added: “The policy is still marked by realpolitik and pragmatism. For Sarkozy, it’s much more the political, diplomatic and geostrategic opportunities of the moment.”

France Gives Up on Curbing its’ Citizens

For the 400,000 residents of Toulouse, says Fabre, who’s also a veterinarian, the postcard-perfect southwestern town is otherwise soiled by 50,000 dogs that step outside to leave tons of their excrement annually. In tow are 300 sanitation workers, 100 of them with scoopers-at-the-ready, spending as much as 33 percent of the city’s 153 million-euro sanitation budget on shoveling canine fecal matter.

Anywhere else, this would seem improbable and bizarre because people actually clean up after their pets.

Do “unapproved thoughts” cause Global Warming?

Greenie “public intellectuals” living in their self-referential hell seems to think so.

[T]he capitalistic systems of economy follow the one principal rule: the rule of profit making. All else must bow down to this rule…The current USA is an example of a failed capitalistic state in which essential long-term goals such as prevention of climate change and limitation of human population growth are subjugated to the short-term profit motive and the principle of economic growth.

It’s all sounding rather familiar.

In the Army of Davids, Instapundit is General Eisenhower

Congratulations to Little Miss Attila (via Instapundit).

And thanks to Professor Glenn Reynolds — thanks for your service, to cause and country.

In the Army of Davids, you are Dwight (David) Eisenhower — the general-in-chief overseeing the fight against those who hate America, liberty, and the rights of the common citizen.

In the fight for right and the truth, and against the left's prevailing (and self-serving) narrative(s), in America as well as abroad, there are many Davids — or Pattons, if you will — stockpiling ammunition (knowledge, facts, etc), determined to use those armaments, willing with resolve, fearless to take on the enemy, prepared to fight, and whose only desire is not to be left on the sidelines but to be allowed to bring their contribution, large or small, into battle, on the side of their "band of brothers" (and sisters), and join in hitting back against the left twice as hard…

Regarding the Destruction of the "Piss Christ" Artwork, One Blogger Has Had His Fill with the MSM's Indignation About Acts of Barbarity

Regarding the destruction of Andres Serrano's Piss Christ at an Avignon exhibit, Michel Garroté can no longer stand the mainstream media's take on the whole affair (such as The Guardian's Angelique Chrisafis) — with Garroté protesting that if we must discuss acts of barbarity, let's talk about some real acts of barbarity:

First of all, it is not Christ himself and even less his own urine.

Secondly, it is not a work of art. Otherwise, a picture of a Koran dumped in the john is also a work of art. You have to choose: no more freedom of expression with variable geometry!

Third, a museum can simply not be the subject of "death threats"; otherwise, we must specify the number of many threats, in what exact form, and mailed to whom.

Fourth, the Piss doodad was — and still is — the subject of strong protests, not only from "fundamentalist Catholic movements", but also from a very large number of Christians, Jews, and atheists who do not accept that French secularism submits when confronted with Islam, while being complicit in piss-ant stagings regarding the Jew of Nazareth (Jesus Christ to his friends).

That is something which our community of blogs has been reflecting for several days now. But the writers of the AFP don't give a damn, those journo hacks who speak of an "activist" when a Hamas terrorist — a murderer and a psychopath — commits a ritual murder against against a Jewsih child or a Christian one.

Primo, ce n’est pas le Christ en personne et c’est encore moins son urine personnelle.

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Secundo, ce n’est pas une œuvre. Ou alors, la photo d’un coran balancé dans les chiottes est aussi une œuvre. Il faut choisir : plus de liberté à géométrie variable !

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Tertio, un musée ne peut pas faire l’objet de « menaces de mort » ; ou alors, il faut préciser combien de menaces de mort, sous quelles formes exactement et adressées à qui.

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Quarto, le Piss machin a fait - et fait encore - l'objet de vives protestations, non seulement de la part de « mouvements catholiques intégristes », mais aussi, de la part d’un très grand nombre de chrétiens, de juifs et d’athées, qui n’acceptent pas, que la laïcité française, abdique face à l’islam, tout en se faisant complice, de mises en scènes pisseuses, à l’égard du Juif de Nazareth, Jésus Christ pour les intimes.

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De cela, notre communauté de blogues témoigne depuis plusieurs jours. Mais les journaleux scribouillards de l’AFP n’en ont rien à battre, eux qui parlent « d’activiste » lorsqu’un terroriste du Hamas, assassin et psychopathe, commet un meurtre rituel contre un enfant juif ou contre un enfant chrétien.

In Wake of "Piss Christ's" Destruction, Artist's Dream Would Be to Create a Gigantic Work of Art in the Vatican

Following the destruction of Piss Christ (described by two news outlets as a "crucifix soaked in the urine of Christ", i.e., in the urine of Jesus himself (!)) at an Avignon exhibit, Andres Serrano is interviewed by Libération's culture editor, Vincent Noce, where he claims to be a Christian, and a Christian artist at that. Moreover, his dream would be to work at the Vatican and create a gigantic piece of art for the Popes, à la Michaelangelo.

Face aux critiques … j’ai toujours dit qu’il s’agissait d’une totale mésinterprétation de l’œuvre. Je suis moi-même chrétien, et plus encore je suis un artiste chrétien. Ma maison est pleine d’œuvres sacrées des XV^e et XVI^e siècles. Je n’ai rien d’un blasphémateur, et je n’ai aucune sympathie pour le blasphème. C’est tout le contraire de ma nature.

…Vous savez ce que je rêve de faire ? J’aimerais travailler au Vatican, réaliser une grande œuvre religieuse à Rome, dans les églises de la cité pontificale. J’aimerais que le Saint-Siège comprenne que je suis un artiste profondément chrétien de mon temps.

Meanwhile, while "Je crois aux miracles" exhibit director Eric Mézil complains to Anthony Hernandez about alleged death threats and a "return to the Inquisition," Philippe Dagen tries to justify provocative art in Le Monde while excoriating "religious vandalism".

Depuis la dégradation du Piss Christ, ces menaces ont-elles pris fin ?

Non. Nous venons de déposer plainte, lundi à 15 heures, pour menaces de mort. Depuis hier, les pires menaces sont proférées par téléphone à l'encontre du personnel. Nous recevons également des courriels racistes et antisémites qui font référence notamment aux musulmans ou à Anne Frank par exemple. C'est le retour de l'Inquisition, si l'on en croit les photographies de bûchers que nous recevons. La teneur des messages est inquiétante : on nous dit que "cette action n'est qu'un début".

My take:

Jésus a "très probablement fait pipi et caca chaque jour" dit un lecteur du Monde et "rappeler cette trivialité n'est pas une insulte"…

Mahomet, Che Guevara, et Lénine faisaient (sans doute) aussi pipi et caca et on peut se demander si Riyadh, La Havane, et Moscou seraient aussi compréhensifs — à notre époque ou à celle du vivant de ces leaders respectifs — par rapport à des œuvres "d'art" (nationaux ou étrangers) montrant un symbole de leur icône respectif dans de l'urine.

(La lucidité vantée des laïcs ? On ose à peine imaginer la réaction outragée des gauchistes/"humanistes" occidentaux dans de tel cas de figure…)

Paris Sera Toujours Paris - VI

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

Better Than the Shroud of Turin and the Pieces of the True Cross

Regarding the destruction of Piss Christ, Michel Garroté notes that one star French TV presenter repeated an early AFP mistake, describing Piss Christ, Andres Serrano's work of art (sic) as a "crucifix soaked in the urine of Christ."

Last night, I was watching TF1's news report and suddenly, Claire Chazal mentions a "crucifix soaked in the urine of Christ." In the urine of Christ himself. Jesus's urine has thus been conserved for 2,000 years. That's even better than the shroud of Turin and the pieces of the true cross.

Hier soir, je regardais le TJ de TF1 à 20h00 et voilà que Claire Chazal parle d’un « crucifix trempé dans l'urine du Christ ». Dans l’urine du Christ en personne. L’on a donc conservé, pendant 2'000 ans, l’urine du Christ. Mieux que le saint suaire, le linceul de Turin, la tunique d’Argenteuil et les débris de la Croix.

Adulating in the High Esteem in which they Think they are Held

Europeans, permanently putting America on trial, can’t seem to get a bone out of their throats: for all their resentment, they have no-one out there to do for them what the United States does.

Asked to rate US impact on the issue most important to them, views are even more negative. On average, 61 percent have a negative view, with just 29 percent positive. Indeed, majorities in
all countries except one have majorities holding a negative view. The one exception is Poland, which is divided – 44 percent negative, 41 percent positive.

Canadians are 62 percent negative.

The arrogance is in the questions. The only way the “impact us” conclusions make any sense to discuss is if you naturally assume that the United States exist to serve your interests at its’ own expense. It actually doesn’t.

For example, when the “transatlantic study” ask the question “is the relationship effective?”, what they mean to ask is “it is effective for them?” The very fact that there are a majority of French people who want to further relations with the United States should make Americans ask what all of these couched phrases, the auto-eroticism, and pretend-statesmanship are for?

In summary, it seems that the EU is nearly universally seen as intrinsically positive, though there is less enthusiasm about its ability to produce positive results on the issues that matter to people.

Amusingly, this comes up in an evaluation of what Europeans think of the EU, and what Americans think of the EU, ignoring the incompleteness of the study: what do Americans think of the US when similar questions are asked, if for no other reason, as a control point? The idea that you can assert that they are “loved universally, except when anything meaningful is at stake” is idiotic.

If they really want to understand what people think of their standing in the world, the questions that should be asked are:
“What can Europe do if the United States starts ignoring it?” and
“What can Europe do if the United States becomes hostile to it’s interests and requests?” Their arrogant imaginings that they are at the heart of all global affairs prevents them from even thinking realistically in such terms.

Lastly, the French appear to see themselves as important players in transatlantic efforts to address global issues. The perceived success of these efforts, in French eyes, seems to require France to exert its influence, and for the US to be reliable.

This, despite the fact that minus “peacekeeping” in the Ivory Coast, they’re total commitment is quite limited, and that their demands for others’ reliability needs to be tempered with decades of playing the spoiler at every opportunity as a means of triangulating more influence than their power and capacity at commitment can justify.

Now that they’re buoyed by studying themselves, perhaps they can then start expressing themselves in some real way: do something other than wring their hands, hold seminars, have unimpeachably simplistic opinions about things, and take sort of action that will actually let observers see if they really are doing something that makes them the world’s superpower teddy bear of their fantasies. This is only true if you can “hide the decline”, or in this case conceal an inherent inhumanity and indifference at every turn:

Nearly three quarters (73%) say it is very likely they would volunteer their time to help address the poverty issue, rising to 81 percent in America. Poverty is another issue on which Americans are more prepared than Europeans to contemplate paying higher taxes – 56 percent say they would be likely to do so willingly, compared to 47 percent of Europeans.

Sssh! Don’t say that too loud! De’re hunting wabbits!

Europeans have rather strong perceptions of Americans

you don’t say!?!

with most of these being negative. Majorities or near majorities perceive Americans as manipulative, aggressive, and selfish. However, majorities or near majorities also perceive Americans as bold or daring and as keen consumers.

It must be all of that volunteering to relieve poverty that makes Americans “manipulative, aggressive, and selfish”...

Americans have much less pronounced views of Europeans. They give them modestly high ratings in a number of positive traits including being open, collaborative, sensible and respectful. They also give Europeans low ratings in being aggressive, selfish, and vulgar.

Including aggressive, selfish, and vulgar thoughts like the notion that people are trying to beat down Europe’s door in order to worship them:

The survey suggests that one of the legacies of the turbulent last few years may be a situation in which Americans are much keener on a closer transatlantic relationship than Europeans.

Of course, of course. Whatever you say.

The rest of the publication has a collection of essays which with a few exceptions are not interested in Transatlantic relations in any way, but rather use stale preconceptions and stereotypes about the United States, a few harmless old saws about Europe, and the assumption that the whole “America thing” is simply there for them to use. It is to the point of offering nothing. So fond of its preconceptions, the editors probably thought themselves generous when they asked American Heather Gonzales, Association Director for the National
Association of Evangelicals, to contribute to it – in some effort to get a grip on “that religion thing” that they think plagues “that America thing”. Fighting the temptation to having her play the goat must have been agonizing.

Like the basis of the opinions of most of the essays included, it is printed on post-consumer waste.

Details Emerge From A Handful of Christians' Destruction of "Piss Christ"

Philippe Dagen has more details in Le Monde on the men who destroyed Andres Serrano's Piss Christ during its display in an Avignon exhibit.

Aux alentours de 11h30, un groupe d'hommes jeunes, entre 18 et 25 ans d'après les témoins, a pénétré dans l'exposition en s'acquittant des droits d'entrée. Trois d'entre eux se sont rendus dans les combles, où étaient accrochés les Serrano. Après avoir molesté l'un des trois gardiens présents, ils ont brisé la vitre de protection et détruit les œuvres à l'aide d'un marteau et d'un pic à glace ou d'un tournevis avant de prendre la fuite.

The art collector behind the exhibit denounces the "violence" of the "barbaric acts" committed, worthy of the "Middle Ages".

Yvon Lambert a dénoncé des "injonctions moyenâgeuses". Dans un communiqué, la Collection annonce qu'elle "a déposé plainte pour la destruction des œuvres et les gardiens concernés ont porté plainte pour agression. La Collection Lambert rouvrira le musée dès mardi matin avec les œuvres détruites montrées telles quelles afin que le public puisse apprécier lui-même la violence des actes de barbarie perpétrés".

Unconvinced, many Le Monde readers have the same reaction:

Voyons voir si ce «courageux» «artiste» a le courage de faire un petit truc comme ça à propos de l’Islam… Quel imbécile!

…Si ce Serrano avait fait subir le même sort à un coran, parions que cela aurait donné un sens nouveau à la vie de ce lâche, qui s'attaque à la sensibilité des croyants pour tenter d'exister.

…je méprise cet Andres Serrano qui ne cherche que la publicité. Je lui conseille de plonger dans son urine une image du prophète Mohamed. Ce sera encore beaucoup plus médiatique et on verra comment il se débrouille avec une Fatwa aux fesses ! Peut-être regrettera-t-il alors les catholiques intégristes.

…je me demande ce qui se passerait si j'exposais, par exemple, Das Kapital dans un pot de chambre plein de m..., de préférence la veille du Ier mai, ou bien une photo de Jaurés dans un pot plein de pisse. J'attends les réactions...

Movie Monday

Peter Lorre is listed as a film director only once in his biography. It was a film he also played a lead role in. From 1950, here is part of „Der Verlorene”, or ”The Lost Ones”. The German language film reveals in his diction a fairly refined acting accent, Viennese in general form, which makes quite a bit of sense of his characteristic English-speaking accent.

Much of the film doesn’t go long without visiting film noir style image framing and lighting, and the entire thing has a characteristic silence that brings out the characteristics of his voice, and the facial expressions of the cast.

Now if only he could find a way to work Sidney Greenstreet into it...

A Group of Christians in Avignon Vandalize Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ" Photo

Andres Serrano's Piss Christ was vandalized by Christians in Avignon, reports Le Monde (update: more details emerge). Whilst displayed in the "Je crois aux miracles" (I Believe in Miracles) exhibit, the work of "art" (sic & sick) (by — update 3 — a self-declared "Christian" artist) showing a photo of a crucifix soaking in the "artist's" own urine (and — update 2 — not, repeat not, in that of Jesus himself (!)) was hit by sledgehammers.

Michel Garroté explains:

A group of Christians have battered the pissant "artwork" with hammers and sledgehammers. They entered the Lambert Collection with tickets that they paid for, which I feel shows lots of tact. Then, without hiding their faces, which I feel shows lots of courage, they destroyed the protective glass and the Plexiglas with mallets and hammers before taking on Piss Christ itself. Tonight and all day tomorrow the media will be telling us that the act was perpetrated by fundamentalists or use another stupid term in the same vein. Muslims plant bombs and they are called "activists". Christians demolish pissant doodads with a sledgehammer. That's cool. I am in a very, very good mood.

Des Chrétiens ont détruit "l'oeuvre" pisseusse à coups de masses et de marteaux. Ils ont pénétré dans la Collection Lambert en payant leur entrée, ce que je trouve très délicat de leur part. Puis, le visage découvert, ce que je trouve très courageux, ils ont détruit la protection en verre et celle en plexiglas avec des masses et des marteaux avant de s’en prendre au « Piss Christ ». Ce soir et demain les médias vont nous raconter que l'acte a été perpétré par des intégristes ou une connerie de ce genre. Des musulmans posent des bombes et on appelle ça des "activistes". Des Chrétiens démolissent des machins pisseux à coup de masse. C'est très bien. Je suis de très, très bonne humeur.

The contemporary art collector who organized the "Je crois aux miracles" (I Believe in Miracles) exhibit is not in a good mood. Whining that Christians' "ignorance" is intolerable, Yvon Lambert complains that he has been persecuted:

"I am being persecuted on the phone. I've received 30,000 emails, I am not exaggerating, 30,000 emails from fundamentalists [...] This ignorance, this intolerance. It's the Middle Ages making a comeback at full speed!"
("Je suis persécuté au téléphone. J'ai reçu 30 000 mails, je n'exagère pas, 30 000 mails des intégristes (...) Cette ignorance, cette intolérance. C'est le Moyen-Age qui revient à grand-pas")

To which four Le Monde readers, among many others, responded:

What would one say if an exhibit displayed a depiction of the prophet with a pig's body soaking in manure ... But when it comes to Christianity ... Any picture that scandalizes becomes a work of art ...
(Que dirait-on si une exposition produisait une représentation du prophète avec un corps de cochon trempant dans le lisier...Mais, quand il s'agit du christianisme...Toute image choquante devient de l'art...)

Go ahead, Third World lovers [meaning the usual leftist readers leaving comments bemoaning Christian fundamentalism]: pissing on the cross (deliberately not capitalized, as I am not a believer) is different from pissing on the Koran, isn't it?
(Allez, les tiers-mondistes: pisser sur la croix (volontairement sans majuscule, je ne suis pas croyant), c'est différent de pisser sur le Coran, 'est-ce pas?)

1) As far as "works of art" are concerned, it's easy to find better. 2) Would Mr. Lambert have dared display a work of art called "Piss Allah" (a Qur'an dipped in urine)? If so, he would have risked more than receiving 30,000 emails: complaints from the usual associations, litigation from the district attorney, fatwas, death threats, etc… 3) Speaking of "ignorance" or "intolerance" makes me smile, when what it really is is "provocation" that inevitably brings on the type of retaliation that even an atheist like me can understand.
(1) Comme "œuvre d'art", on peut facilement trouvé mieux. 2) M. Lambert aurait-il exposé un"Piss Allah" (un coran baignant dans l'urine)? Dans l'affirmative, il aurait risqué davantage que 30 000 mails : plainte des associations habituelles, poursuite du procureur, fatwas, menaces de mort, etc. 3) Parler d'"ignorance" ou d'"intolérance" fait sourire, il s'agit d'une "provocation" qui attire inévitablement des représailles que même un athée comme moi peut comprendre.)

I would advise Mr. Lambert to display a Koran soaked in his urine. It would make his role as a victim of fundamentalism much more convincing. In view of the fact that they really run no risks at all, the real reason that all these pseudo-martyrs of art use provocation is only to become celebrities.
(Je conseille à Monsieur Lambert d'exposer un Coran trempé dans son urine. Ce serait beaucoup plus convaincant pour son rôle de victime de l'intégrisme. Tous ces pseudo-martyrs de l'art ne se servent de la provocation que pour faire parler d'eux, dans la mesure où ils ne risquent rien.)

Stop All Human Activity Now!!!

Founded entirely on a falsehood, more and more people believe that human productivity and advancement are, with some sort of puritanical self-hatred, little more than a guilty pleasure to be kept in secret. To wit, the German stereotype of having a reputation for cheerless kinkiness is held up rather nicely.

In Baden-Württemberg the dilemma is more apparent than ever. Many want the dangerous dynamic of modernity to be held back by the Greens, and their motives are decent enough. But they are the same people who, while they do indeed want to take to heart the limits to growth in their daily lives, are extremely relieved that the financial crisis is slowly giving way to economic recovery. Baden-Württemberg owes its remarkable prosperity to its industries. Its chemical industry alone — not exactly a friend to the environment — employs nearly 100,000 and brings in 28 billion euros in annual sales.

Unlike sin, there is no redemption here – no matter how modestly one lives, no matter how rough ones’ hair-shirt has become, merely being has effects that must be “mitigated” for the sake of the new omission against gaia: emitting carbon dioxide, one of the earth’s most abundant elements.

Otherwise... Live a little! Take a bus somewhere and chill out!

So how can nature be “wrong” without millions of Besserwisser heads exploding? I don’t know, but I may start carrying an umbrella.

Just how much sustainable lifestyles are grounded in the gains in freedom afforded by prosperity can be observed at any organic market in the Western world, but especially prettily in the Vauban district of Freiburg. The neighbourhood is named after a French marshal, and after the French troops left in 1992 their barracks were converted into a kind of model settlement for ecologically minded townspeople. In the regional elections on Sunday the Greens in Vauban won 72.2 per cent of the vote. These are all very nice, friendly people in Jack Wolfskin jackets; but anyone who has ever strolled through Vauban knows what the gentle “virtue terrorism” of our time looks like.

I prefer to call it terroirism, but like whatever, bro. As long as there are Americans and Asian to buy their goods, I’m not too sure that they care when they lecture us about the use of the vehicles that they export.

Elsewhere: hysteria! Run for your empty, repetitive, welfare-parasite lives!

Europe “in a state of nuclear emergency”

Il n'y avait aucun moyen, ont dit les autorités américaines, d'empêcher le pasteur de brûler le Coran

Discussing the treatment of Islam in Western countries in Le Monde, Alain Frachon compares France's decision to outlaw the burqa with Americans' refusal to prevent Florida's Terry Jones from burning a copy of the Koran.

Pointing out that the First Amendment prevents Americans both from telling certain people what (and what not) to wear and from prohibiting someone from burning a Koran (or from burning a Bible, Buddhist writings, or the Stars and Stripes), Alain Frachon delivers an odd conclusion (in the form of a rhetorical question) — as Le Monde's readers break out in an binge of anti-Americanism.

Les droits des musulmans sont-ils mieux défendus à Strasbourg ou en Floride ?

Will the White House Recognize the US as a NATO Member?

It’s hard to tell. Mark C. Toner, Acting Deputy Department Spokesman, April 12, 2011:

That’s all I have for the top. I’ll take your questions.

QUESTION: Mark, on Libya, there seems to be some unhappiness in Europe among your European NATO allies, in particular your first ally ever, France, and its – enemy ever.

MR. TONER: You mean ever ever? (Laughter.) Yes.

QUESTION: Yes. And Britain. They seem to be teaming up on you wanting more U.S. military input – a bigger U.S. role in the NATO operation. Are there any plans to increase – to go back to where – to increase that role, to go back to where it was at the beginning?

MR. TONER: Matt, I’m aware of the remarks and I don’t know that they were necessarily ganging up on us. I think they were commenting on NATO’s tempo of operations. And I believe NATO briefed earlier on this issue today and addressed some of those concerns.
We have every confidence in NATO’s ability to carry out the tasks of enforcing the arms embargo as well as the no-fly zone and the protection of civilians in Libya. As the President said, the U.S. and other key partners had capabilities that they brought to this operation up front, and then our role would diminish as NATO stepped up and took command and control of the operation.
(Sneeze.)

MR. TONER: God bless you.
And that’s what’s happened, and we have confidence in NATO’s ability to carry out the mission.

QUESTION: Look --

MR. TONER: Yeah.

QUESTION: You talk about NATO as if it is some extraterrestrial being from another planet with which you have occasional meetings. (Laughter.) I mean, you are the largest country in NATO.

Laughter.

The Star-Spangled Banner Floating Over England's Premier League

Le milliardaire américain Stan Kroenke est devenu lundi 11 avril le propriétaire du club anglais d'Arsenal

writes Le Monde's Benjamin Pruniaux (you can also read Rob Hughes' English-language version).

Il devient le quatrième propriétaire américain dans le championnat anglais, à l'image de ses homologues de Liverpool, Manchester United et Aston Villa. …

"LA PREMIER LEAGUE ANGLAISE N'EST PLUS ANGLAISE"

L'Angleterre attire les capitaux étrangers à tel point qu'aujourd'hui, plus de la moitié des clubs de la Premier League appartiennent à des propriétaires étrangers. Au point qu'on entend dire maintenant "English Premier league is no longer English" ("La Premier League anglaise n'est plus anglaise"). "On assiste à une mondialisation du championnat anglais. Cette mondialisation a d'abord eu lieu par sa main-d'œuvre puisque 40 % seulement de ses joueurs sont Anglais, mais aussi par le produit car Manchester United est devenue une marque dans le monde entier."

Reporting for the HQ of the Office of the Propagation of the Faith...

Left think:

As if Tea Party Republicans have not done enough to undermine the working class in America, now they are going after children. New pro-business legislation threatens to make it even harder for adults to keep their jobs, or get new ones, in the struggling American economy.

Of course, one must first ignore the fact that the Tea Party ARE overwhelmingly the working “class” in America. You must also ignore the fact that the non-family-farm working age isn’t being lowered, and that 20 year olds are not children.

Instead of seeing every shadow, every leaf, every whistle in the wind as political ammunition for the gullible, why don't these cretins look at what the proposal really is: a youth unemployment measure to deal with the handwringing about young people delaying the start of work, and not developing skills.

To make her feeble “globally distributed” point, he tosses in a Youtube video of child labor in a grab-bag of places in the developing world, including “fashionably backward” societies like Kenya, and rapidly developing Brazil.

Maryann Tobin is a professional journalist who has appeared on the History Channel in Brad Meltzer's DECODED. She is also a former jockey and rescues abused animals on her farm.

She calls herself a “political spin examiner”, if you can believe it. Her “journalistic” magnum opii includes fact-of-the-title-statement masking items with titles such as:

Gov. Rick Scott plans to add 12,300 to Florida unemployment lines.
Republican Tea Party conservatives plan big govt. regulation of women’s rights.
Republicans get failing grade in new poll.
Republicans begin Muslim American terrorist hearings.
Republicans take collective bargaining rights with no democrats present.
Republicans want to cut funding for tsumani warning system

Without irony, or noticing that Unions are little more than a movement corrupted and exploited by the left:
Republican Governors use union busting to go after democratic campaign funds.

(because union money are THEIR campaign funds)

Is Fox News running scared from Huffington Post, AOL deal?.

and the utterly implausible notion:
Republican bill takes Food Stamps from union workers children and families.

Because union workers are starving, underpaid, and are poor enough to qualify for the same food stamps that no pre-packaged anti-Walmart tirade fails to include, saying “they make just enough to not qualify for food stamps”.

And scrambling feverishly into the past centuries for personal opinion justification:
Can Republican Budget Cuts lead to Another Triangle Fire Disaster?

As if the Federal government budgeted for local fire departments... Etc. You get the picture - reporting MSNBC opinion as newsworthy facts, and the like.

She has also lent her crack-reporting skills to something she is quite proud of: some production on History Channel called “Decoded”.

Brad Meltzer's Decoded, (or simply Decoded), is an American mystery and conspiracy theory investigation television series, produced by Go Go Luckey and Berman/Braun, that premiered December 2, 2010 on the History channel.[1] The series is hosted by political thriller author and non-fiction writer Brad Meltzer and follows a team of investigators who try and determine the meanings behind various symbolism, alleged secret codes and conspiracies that surround us everyday.

So goes the search for fining that all adversity in the world is caused by Jewish Bankers, the British Royal Family, and Fluoride.

You get it. “Journalism,” indeed. To call herself a Political spin examiner is laughable. Her entire occupation is to spin others’ journalism for her own, and her uses. She aggregates from wire items like a politically programmed adolescent would blogs.

One does have to give her points for consistency. “Decoded” the serialized mimeograph-grade cult pamphlet that she posed as a journalist with a sound reputation for to ligitmate it, somewhere among heaven knows who, was received thus:

New York Times reviewer Ginia Bellfante, gave Decoded a negative review saying; "[there] are the languorous crackpots who wonder if codes are embedded in their Home Depot receipts, or if George Washington's wooden leg hid an alternate Constitution. It is for this group that the series 'Brad Meltzer’s Decoded' has been conceived"

There it is, folks... the Black Helicopter crowd, and they appeal to the kind of lefty fake-crisis gin-ups and populist pandering that have done more to tar the American people’s reputation than anything else. In other words, the new generation of the left.

Remind me to send out the Bilderburg hit teams on our Alien technology transporters later this week.

I always wanted to bring my kids to Paris, yet waited as their palates grew up from macaroni and cheese and pizza to salmon and a good cut of steak

Food is often an afterthought to parents planning a vacation

muses Stephen Jermanok during a visit to Paris.

For my family, food is an essential ingredient, the necessary spice that, when added properly, can turn a bland trip into a memorable experience.

… I had always wanted to bring my children to Paris, yet had waited as their palates grew up from macaroni and cheese and pizza to salmon and a good cut of steak. No way would I fly my family of four overseas, only to dine at the McDonald’s on the Champs-Élysées. I had no desire to force sweetbreads down their throats, but I did want them to try new dishes they could find only in Paris.

Soviet Fears That Gagarin Might Use His Space Flight to Defect, Parachuting Into America

Mistrust prevailed. ... The capsule could be operated manually, but the risk was great. What if the cosmonaut were to take the opportunity to say "nyet!" to the [Soviet Union's] bright future and parachute into the American enemy's territory? A solution was quickly found: the manual controls of the aircraft were blocked by a padlock whose secret code was hidden in the cabin unbeknownst to its passenger. ... This Byzantine and risky system was foiled by colleagues of Gagarin, who, despite the top secret arrangement, promptly whispered the code into his ear before his departure.

As Russia — and the world — celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first human space flight, Le Monde's Marie Jégo points out — "cette obsession du secret !" — that the Soviet authorities were suspicious that Yuri Gagarin might use the occasion, and his Vostok space capsule, to try to defect to America.

La méfiance régnait. … La capsule pouvait être gérée manuellement mais le risque était grand. Et si le cosmonaute en avait profité pour dire "niet !" à l'avenir radieux et se parachuter chez l'ennemi américain ? Une solution fut bientôt trouvée : les commandes manuelles de l'appareil furent bloquées par un cadenas dont le code secret fut caché dans la cabine à l'insu de son passager. … Ce dispositif byzantin et hasardeux fut déjoué par les collègues de Gagarine, qui s'empressèrent, malgré l'interdiction, de lui souffler le code avant son départ.

EU Changes Tack

Henceforth they will now provide advance of any upcoming impotent hand-wringing.

EU ministers to 'deplore' Syria killings, threaten sanctions

what is a lot more serious that “expressing concern”, or even “deep concern”, I gather.

EU foreign ministers will next week step up pressure for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to stop killing protesters and to make good on promises of reform.

Well, there goes the big surprise as far as their heavy ammunition is concerned.

And if that doesn’t do it, there’s always the magical power of Roget’s Thesaurus and their other secret weapon: the menacing Petit Larousse, or perhaps even the Langenscheidt of doom.

The EU vocabulary puts Syria on a par with Yemen, up to now seen as the most dangerous and unstable regime in the region.

This is supposed to make them seem forceful, robust, and effective.

You are asked to wear the costume they gave you and play along:

Deep Inside the Machine

Don’t forget that these are the polished, polite, and compliant elite that the North Koreans are letting the camera see.



This is a view of the engine room of a state propaganda apparatus.

Executed in a "quiet" neighborhood of gun-controlling France by gangsters firing 9-mm caliber rounds from an automatic pistol

Those — in France, in America, or elsewhere — who think that Europeans (unlike clueless American gun-worshipers) have attained an unprecedented lack of violence should read Yves Bordenave's Le Monde article detailing what happened in Villepinte last Sunday.

They smashed the gate, shouted "Police", then pulled Bilal, 20, out of his bed, before gunning him down in front of his family — his parents, two sisters aged 16 and 9, and his 12-year-old brother — in the living room. Four shots including one in the chest and another in the neck that hit the carotid artery. 9 mm caliber rounds fired from an automatic pistol, the weapon of a professional. …

It was about 5: 45 am, Sunday, April 10, when … four men covered in black wearing hoods, gloves, and bulletproof vests, broke into the Villepinte (Seine-Saint-Denis) home of this family of Moroccan origin which has lived in this rather quiet neighborhood for years. Once their execution accomplished, they left as if nothing had happened, taking care beforehand to seize all mobile phones in the house, then vanished.

In neighboring Sevran, the mayor is interviewed by Luc Bronner. To rid his town of dealers, Stéphane Gatignon has written a book on decriminalizing cannabis.

Pourquoi un tel niveau de violence dans votre ville ?

Nous vivons dans un état d'exception avec des bandes qui se tirent dessus pour le marché de la drogue. Un hall d'immeuble pour faire du trafic peut rapporter 30 000 euros par jour. Avant, ils se négociaient entre bandes, aujourd'hui, cela se règle à la kalachnikov.

…je propose la dépénalisation du cannabis pour mettre fin à ces dérives criminelles.

N'est-ce pas un renoncement ?

La prohibition est aujourd'hui une immense hypocrisie alors qu'il y a quatre millions de consommateurs de cannabis en France. Sur la drogue, il faut accepter l'idée que les trafiquants ont sans doute gagné.

You can read Yves Bordenave's original article in French (while musing over an unrelated story, the murder of a(n unarmed) jeweler killed during a hold-up in the center of Paris):

Ils ont défoncé le portail, ont crié "Police", puis ont sorti de son lit Billal, 20 ans, avant de l'exécuter sous les yeux de sa famille — ses parents, ses deux soeurs âgées de 16 et 9 ans, et son frère de 12 ans — dans le salon. Quatre tirs dont un dans le thorax et un autre dans le cou qui a atteint la carotide. Du calibre 9 mm tiré au pistolet automatique, une arme de professionnel. …

Il était environ 5 h 45, dimanche 10 avril, lorsque dans ce pavillon du 21, avenue Jussieu à Villepinte (Seine-Saint-Denis), quatre hommes cagoulés, gantés, revêtus de noir et protégés de gilets pare-balles, ont fait irruption au domicile de cette famille d'origine marocaine qui vit dans ce quartier plutôt paisible depuis plusieurs années. Ils sont repartis comme si de rien n'était, une fois l'exécution accomplie, en prenant soin de s'emparer de tous les téléphones portables de la maison, puis ont disparu.

Greens Former Fixation on Earth’s Corn Hole Long FOrgotten

Remember waaaay back, right after the paper bag hysteria based on the idea that the world would run out of trees, and that paper bags were by-some-miracle linked to the loss of old-growth forests (when we were supposed to start using PLASTIC bags)... there was this impending apocalypse called the hole in the ozone layer. Apparently, it hasn’t changed much at all in 20 years, despite eliminating spray deodorant and going through the costly effort of changing the refrigerant used in, say, everything.

John Ray links to one rather telling quotation that a few bitter clingers in the cult of ecological millennial madness can’t quite square: the fact that the Ozone layer Jihad really was as much of a big fat pile of mendacity that “the deniers” said it was. Even the author of the Gaia theory, James Lovelock, reacted the way any as-yet unprogrammed person would with the 2009 leaking of the Climategate emails.

“I was utterly disgusted. My second thought was that it was inevitable. It was bound to happen. Science, not so very long ago, pre-1960s, was largely vocational. Back when I was young, I didn’t want to do anything else other than be a scientist. They’re not like that nowadays. They don’t give a damn. They go to these massive, mass-produced universities and churn them out. They say: “Science is a good career. You can get a job for life doing government work.” That’s no way to do science. I have seen this happen before, of course. We should have been warned by the CFC/ozone affair because the corruption of science in that was so bad that something like 80% of the measurements being made during that time were either faked, or incompetently done.

It’s really just their followers that are coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs. Aside from the flunkies and dupes, the true proponents are just proving themselves to be evil.

“The warmers are getting more and more like those traditional predictors of the end of the world who, when the event fails to happen on the due date, announce an error in their calculations and a new date.”

Otherwise, top of the icecap to you, friends. May your endless wait for the violent, dramatic, and sudden sea level rise be as uneventful and contrived as every other feature of your lives.

Libya: The French seem proud that their country is active on the international scene and getting recognition; But will Sarkozy benefit?

With Barack Obama having largely backed the United States out of the alliance’s airborne support of Libya’s anti-Qaddafi rebels, France now plays something very close to the lead role

states John Vinocur in his International Herald Tribune.

By Élysée Palace logic, underpinned by Germany’s skipping out on joining the interdiction force, France has turned the war into a demonstration of its unique and pre-eminent role managing both Europe’s defense pillar (with Britain) and its economic stewardship (albeit as a German junior partner).

…An unidentified voice, sounding remarkably like Mr. Sarkozy’s, said in a conversation with Pierre Rousselin of Le Figaro over the weekend that [the] French seemed proud that their country was active on the international scene and getting recognition for it — which was fine for morale.

I take that as meaning that any trace of bankable, politically fungible fallout from the lovely war doesn’t exist for now. In the Sarkozyian frame of reference, which leans toward triumphalism, that’s no small measure of circumspection.

In fact, reality says there isn’t a poll anywhere that foresees the president’s re-election.

… The buzzword these days to characterize the country’s feelings about Mr. Sarkozy is “désamour” — meaning disaffection, but closer, really, to the blank coldness that can come at the end of an affair.

Thinking I might get a dose of urbane, intelligent counterspin on this from the chief of the Gaullist party, I asked Jean-François Copé for his take on “désamour.”

He replied, “The word fits the situation. We’ve got to deal with it.”

… Various projections on the first-round outcome indicate the president could be eliminated from reaching the head-to-head final, with a significant part of his support having gone to Marine Le Pen of the extreme-right National Front. She seems to be succeeding in giving an aura of respectability to the party, whose anti-immigrant pitch was embedded for decades in a vocabulary reeking of racism and anti-Semitism.

Two Old French Broads Dispensing Pro-Gadaffi Propaganda in Beirut

Neglected since 30 March:



Some women would work the donkey show for enough money. Others just naturally love dictators.

...and the Horse You Rode in on.

Can fragile, sensitive Europe take it?

Almost 60 percent of Iceland's citizens have voted for the second time against compensating the foreign customers of the bankrupt online Icesave bank. In the eyes of the left-liberal daily Tages-Anzeiger the referendum is also a "No" to EU membership: "What does the entire process mean for the Eurozone, of which Iceland is not a member? Before the vote the Icelanders were told that if they voted against compensation the British and Dutch governments would sue for the money. But that wasn't the greatest threat because the outcome of such a court case is not certain.

More significant was the threat that the Icelandic governments plans to join the EU might have to be postponed. But the citizens of Iceland obviously weren't intimidated by the prospect

They seem pretty happy to me.

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.