Conservative Blogs — Again — Called "Extreme Right" and "Fascistic" in Le Monde

In his Le Monde report on the content of France's conservative blogs in the wake of Anders Behring Breivik's Norwegian terror attack, Samuel Laurent refers to them as the extreme right and as fascistic while Le Monde brings out its its old graph (one that reminds One More Middle Aged Guy of a Jackson Pollock creation) designed to summarize the entire problem. How? As the Fascist Sphere (la fachosphère).

La thèse est la même sur le blog du collectif Riposte Laïque, les organisateurs des "apéros saucisson pinard", qui établissent dans une longue note une comptabilité des attentats commis par des fondamentalistes musulmans depuis 2011 (un rapport d'Europol en 2010 attribuait aux "islamistes" 0,4% des attentats commis sur le sol européen l'année précédente).

Christine Tasin, l'une des fondatrice du mouvement, s'insurge dans un billet contre "l'amalgame commode entre Anders Behring Breivik et tous les islamophobes". Agitant elle aussi la théorie du complot, elle juge que "l'attentat d'Oslo tombe bien, au moment où les hommes et les partis qui s'opposent à l'immigration et au développement préoccupant de l'islam se voient plébiscités par les électeurs" .

Plus Ça Change… And Who Might Have Been the Main Butt of Jokes of the Ancient Greeks?

If any leftist tells you how much more intelligent and how much more compassionate our generation is (i.e., the left's current generation is), you need to tell him or her about the people who lived in Greece 2500 years ago. With a summer batch of articles in Le Monde devoted to humor through the ages, it is refreshing to hear from Macha Séry that the main butt of jokes of the ancient Greeks were — already then — the intellectuals.

…les principales têtes de Turc des Grecs sont les scholasticos, autrement dit les intellectuels, présentés comme des crânes d'oeuf, des naïfs dépourvus de logique, exempts de sens pratique, qui comprennent tout de travers. Exemple : « C'est un intellectuel qui a perdu l'un de ses livres. Après plusieurs jours de recherches infructueuses, alors qu'il est en train de manger une salade, il tourne la tête et aperçoit son livre qui traîne dans un coin. Plus tard, il rencontre un de ses amis qui se plaint d'avoir perdu toute sa garde-robe. «Ne t'inquiète pas, lui dit-il, va t'acheter une salade, mange-la, tourne la tête et regarde dans le coin, tu vas la retrouver.» »

... The main butts of Greek jokes turn out to be the scholasticos, i.e., the intellectuals, presented as eggheads, naive beings devoid of logic, bereft of any type of common sense, who understand everything widely off the mark. Example [from the Philogelos (The Friend of Laughter in ancient Greek), a compendium of 265 jokes]: "There's this intellectual who's lost one of his books. After several days of fruitless search, while eating a salad, he happens to turn his head and spot the book in a corner. Later, he meets a friend who complains of having lost his entire wardrobe. 'Do not worry,' he tells the friend, 'go buy yourself a salad, eat it, turn your head, look in the corner, and there you'll find it'."

• Grèce antique et blagues modernes de Macha Séry

• Les goliards, les rigolards du Moyen Age de Macha Séry

• Tribunal des flagrants délires sous Louis XIII de Macha Séry

• Rire sous la Terreur (French Revolution) de Macha Séry

• Les Arts incohérents, sérieux s'abstenir de Macha Séry

• C'est l'histoire de mecs et de nanas... (Coluche) de Macha Séry

Maybe he just Sees the Concept of a “Donation” Differently

See if you can find out what the political affiliation is of this politician accused of bunga-bunga with the 18 year old daughter of a campaign donor. He also has had quite a history, despite the social machine’s bogus rah-rah-ing him for being politically useful for his little more than his ethnicity, since there is no evidence of him ever having had any kind of platform outside of seeking earmarks.

A trace of the illusions, dreams, and ambitions that have dominated German thinking about Russia over the centuries can be seen in Merkel’s stance

How does the leader of an admirably democratic country offer a seeming endorsement to a presidential hopeful from an authoritarian state

asks John Vinocur (the most conservative commentator working for the New York Times) in the International Herald Tribune

— all the while knowing its top job will be decided privately and in advance?

Ask Angela Merkel. The chancellor let on at a German-Russian symposium in Hanover this week that her man in the Russian election next March is President Dmitri A. Medvedev.

At an annual event whose persistent coziness and lack of vigorous exchange — call it a tone of connivance — gets frequently targeted by the German news media, the Russian president was talking about academic titles when the word “candidate” popped into his remarks.

Mrs. Merkel snatched it up. No artful or subtle mention of the barriers to real political expression in Russia followed. Rather, the chancellor said, “Candidate — that’s lovely to hear.”

The meeting’s participants, according to one newspaper, grinned in unison. When it comes to how Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Mr. Medvedev decide between themselves who will be the Russian president, (they have said the country prefers a single candidate), the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote: “Merkel’s favorite’s name is Medvedev. Anyone who observed the chancellor relating to her guest couldn’t miss it.”

Or, with a little close reading, couldn’t overlook how very aware the Merkel government is of the embarrassing aspects of seeming to tighten links to Russia at a time when Moscow is about to demonstrate how far in the last decade it has retreated from democracy.

…there’s no immediately visible yield in backing Mr. Medvedev.

The chancellor seems to think he is a modernizer, but Mr. Putin is widely regarded as the most likely future president.

In all of this, the arguably greatest error in terms of international reality would be Mrs. Merkel’s appearing to suppose there is some major strategic differentiation between the two Russian leaders, and to cast Mr. Medvedev as a relatively benevolent force.

Is there a difference? While Mr. Medvedev was president, Russia invaded Georgia and, shortly afterward, he proclaimed the countries along Russian borders, in the manner of the Brezhnev doctrine, to be of vital “strategic interest.”

Under Mr. Medvedev’s leadership, Russia also designated NATO as the single greatest threat to its security, menaced eastern Europe with new missiles, and has refused to negotiate reducing Russian supremacy in tactical nuclear weapons in Europe.

A trace of the illusions, dreams and ambitions that have frequently dominated German thinking about Russia over the centuries could well be present in Mrs. Merkel’s current positioning.

An excellent book (not for beach reading), Der Russland-Komplex, looks into these issues. Its author, Gerd Koenen, has warned of recurring German delusions concerning Russia and said Germany was again an object of Russia’s “refreshed world ambitions.”

As a former East German, Mrs. Merkel’s personal view of Russia has been hard to track.

Since the Summer of 2010, Marseille Has Seen One Homicide After Another

Les policiers dépêchés sur les lieux du crime … ont trouvé son cadavre gisant sur le trottoir, le corps criblé d'une dizaine de balles, aux jambes, dans le dos et à la tête.

As the ever-lucid French keep giving lessons to the ever-clueless Yanks on the perils of owning guns and on the benefits of following the ever-visionary Europeans in their quest for an ever-vaster gun-free zone, Le Monde's Ariane Chemin looks into the story of a trophy wife who asked her lover (another politician's bodyguard) to hire a hitman (a counter-spy with France's secret service) to shoot her UMP husband (she finally had to try and do it herself) while Yves Bordenave reports in the French daily about how a gangster — yet another one — was gunned down in France's second-largest city.

Criminalité organisée

En l'espace de sept mois, Roland Gaben est le sixième malfrat abattu à Marseille, et le troisième lié à la criminalité organisée au cours des trois derniers mois. Avant lui, en avril, Saïd Tir, 60 ans - "le parrain des quartiers nord" -, et, début juillet, l'un de ses lieutenants, Akim Grabsi, 42 ans, avaient eux aussi été abattus dans des conditions à peu près similaires. Notoirement connus des policiers pour leur proximité avec l'ancien caïd Farid Berrhama, assassiné par des Corses en octobre 2007 au Bar des Maronniers, Saïd Tir et Akim Grabsi étaient, comme Berrhama, originaire de la région de l'étang de Berre.

Depuis l'été 2010, les homicides se succèdent dans la deuxième ville de France. Marseille semble être le théâtre de plusieurs guerres : celle sans répit auquel se livrent les voyous des cités pour le commerce de la drogue ; et une autre, celle du milieu traditionnel, dont Roland Gaben vient d'être victime, qui porte la marque du grand banditisme. A tous les coups, l'on meurt.

A Marseille, au cours des dix-huit derniers mois, 39 personnes, plus ou moins impliquées dans des trafics, ont subi le même sort que Roland Gaben.

"I never understood why some people destroyed my career, my life, insulted me while I was the victim"

TO some, she is a frail, tormented young woman who was preyed upon by an influential politician and well-known womanizer. To others, she is a publicity-seeking fantasist. To still others, she is a skillful manipulator who helped foment a plot against the Socialist Party.

Whether fairly or not, Tristane Banon … has become one of France’s most polarizing figures, even to some of her colleagues and friends

writes Maïa de la Baume in her article on the 32-year-old writer who contends that Dominique Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her in 2003.

For Ms. Banon herself, the complaint brought an end to years of indecision and turmoil. “It’s liberation,” she said in a phone interview. “It’s the most liberating and violent thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

…In [a L’Express] interview, Ms. Banon said the [DSK] episode destroyed her self-confidence, affected her relationships with men and hurt her chances to find work in journalism. “I never understood why some people destroyed my career, my life, insulted me while I was the victim,” she said.

…after the episode with Mr. Strauss-Kahn, she says she was branded with a reputation. Many in the French media world knew about her accusations against Mr. Strauss-Kahn and feared them, she said. She implied that she was a marked person. “I was hired at a radio station and then a month later, my boss would tell me abruptly that he couldn’t keep me anymore,” she said.

Damn Those Presbyterians!

Pix of the Near Distant Ago

SPON features a set of images of a disused Soviet military hospital in the Brandenburg town of Beelitz, a sanitarium in Oranienburg, and other abandoned structures in what was the DDR by Berlin photographer Axel Hansmann. Is it art or merely deliciously grim scenery?

"Needless to say, America's right is having a field day"

Pour la première fois depuis 1938, la droite s'est emparée du poste de gouverneur ainsi que de la majorité dans les deux Chambres locales. Autant dire qu'elle s'en donne à coeur joie.

So much for respect of the outcome of elections. In Corine Lesnes' Le Monde articles on Scott Walker and the situation in Wisconsin, we are treated to social "traditions" that "date to the Roosevelt era" while members of the left are duly "motivated" while the right — and the Tea Party — are, needless to say, behaving irresponsibly.

Scott Walker n'aurait été qu'un gouverneur parmi d'autres, aux prises avec la crise budgétaire, s'il ne s'était attaqué aux syndicats. A la faveur du passage du budget, il a aboli le droit de négocier par conventions collectives dans la fonction publique, un acquis datant de 1959. "Il a changé fondamentalement cette idée que les syndicats de fonctionnaires ont le droit d'exister", considère le professeur Charles Franklin, de l'université du Wisconsin à Madison, capitale de l'Etat.

Sentant le danger, les organisations de gauche se sont mobilisées, et le Wisconsin est devenu une cause nationale, l'emblème du bras de fer historique qui oppose démocrates et républicains sur le modèle social à l'heure de la crise. "Le Wisconsin a toujours été pionnier pour les conventions collectives, pour les indemnités-chômage, rappelle Peter Barca, chef de file des démocrates à l'Assemblée. Tout le pays nous observe. Les gens se disent : si on peut changer les droits syndicaux dans le Wisconsin, on peut le faire n'importe où."
.
…"Ces élections vont changer le débat jusqu'à Washington, assure Charles Chamberlain, de Democracy for America, une association nationale venue aider les militants locaux. Les républicains, où qu'ils soient, ne seront plus si pressés de toucher aux programmes sociaux s'ils s'aperçoivent de la réaction violente qu'ils engendrent."

From the Obama-loving newspaper, we are treated to the description of a statesman (Scott Walker, needless to say, not Barack Obama) as a politician "without much experience" ("M. Walker, ancien élu local sans grande expérience") and to healthy doses of paranoia about the Koch brothers without apparently noticing the irony in the fact that in the very next paragraphs we learn — but here vast amounts of money from out-of-state is apparently a good thing — that thousands upon thousands of dollars have been spent on recall elections by MoveOn and the AFL-CIO, etc…

Johnny Hallyday is as French as the baguette, and he has been singing for more than 50 years

It is hard to explain the place [JOHNNY HALLYDAY] has in French life

muses Steven Erlanger from Paris about the French rocker, now 68, who "has survived three previous marriages, kidney stones, a bout with colon cancer and [a] bungled operation on his spine" along with "a couple of suicide attempts, and even an effort at retirement."

— he has done more than 100 tours, sold more than 100 million records, made 47 studio albums and 26 live ones. He has been on more than 2,100 magazine covers, and his Wikipedia entry in French is longer than Jesus Christ’s.

Johnny Hallyday is as French as the baguette, and he has been singing for more than 50 years, bringing Elvis rhythms, energy and glitter to a culture steeped in ballads.

…IN Los Angeles, at least, where he went in part to escape high French taxes, his children are untouched by his celebrity, since few Americans outside the music world know who he is.

Remembering Past Hissy Fits

Remember those endless, repetitious, screamed-hoarse blubbering about the US not having a victory or a postwar plan in Iraq, when in fact they did? We were led to believe that lefties, should they be “forced” to fight a war, and it wouldn’t be “of choice” would at least get that part right.

Wars of choice, however, are fundamentally different. They are normally undertaken for reasons that do not involve obvious self-defense of the United States or an ally.

Fast forward to the truth. Libya is not a war “of choice”. Worse still, Europeans are trying to run it. There is no apparent plan to win, and postwar planning seems to be limited to “you’re on your own, kid - now cough up that light-sweet Brent grade crude”.

In theory, this would all have been worked out before NATO intervened, thus taking ownership of the outcome. And it's possible that someone, somewhere planned all this out. But, if they did, they've been awfully quiet about it.

Elsewhere: an excellent data source is found for the “dead hippy index”.

"German society is changing and it's not easy to be a naturist anymore," said Kurt Fischer, president of the German FKK association (DFK). There are some 500,000 registered nudists and a total of seven million Germans sunbathe naked regularly.

"But the numbers are unfortunately falling by about two percent each year," Fischer told a group of reporters in the Foreign Press Association (VAP) while sitting, fully clothed, at a beach bar in Berlin's government quarter. "Times are tough."

The main problem is the shrinking population, Fischer said.

Aside from a still fetid river cum canal, Berlin’s government district (as if that didn’t describe their whole society), is far enough away from a tropical beach (Club Med Libya, perchance?) to make this look about as silly as most impromptu press events in Germany.

And WHO makes all of those Solar Panels ?

They would sell their Grandmother for a nickel.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has advised the Greeks to invest more in solar energy to overcome the crisis.

FAZ called him „Sonnyboy Schäuble” for this. I say start singing “Danny Boy” for a continent if they’re going to keep attitudes like that.

Need Some Comic Relief?

Just wait for some Russian scientist (seeking attention) to open his mouth.

Europe: A Paradise for Social Pyromaniacs

Of course no explanation is ever given to bombastic claims like this:

Lack of women in top jobs to cause 'problems' for EU economy

But the well subsidized crow seems to have no problem with threats:

The commissioner said that come March next year she will look to see whether companies have made a "clear, precise and measurable evolution" towards greater gender balance within their walls.

"If yes, there will be no need for European legislation. If no, we will have a problem with the internal market," said the commissioner explaining that major companies who work across the EU will be confronted with different national laws on women quotas.

The Luxembourgeoise, whose only real job outside of government was “journalism” while in various parliamentary posts went on to prattle on about ‘the boardroom’, as if that’s where the economy really was. Really, it’s the imagined prize of getting power quick that the boardroom obsession, the one that assumes that the internal operation of private entities are under the rule of the state.

The commissioner, who wants to boost female boardroom positions to 30 percent by 2015 and to 40 percent by 2020, said she is "completely supported" by internal market commissioner Michel Barnier.

Who is used in this context as if he was an advocate of getting the albatross off from around the neck of business. He isn’t. He’s a Commisariat type like Reding, indifferent about them or anyone else being generous with other people’s resources. They’d all join in to buy off some dickless votes anyway.

She is supported by the EU parliament, which earlier this month said Brussels should make such quotas mandatory. An EU law in an area dealing with employment and social policy is likely to be controversial among member states, however.

The threatening tone is borne out of disappointment at the public not doing what’s “being asked”. So it’s no more Mr. Nice Guy for Viviane’s pet issue of female cronyism that uses government as an enforcing thug.

Although Reding has been increasingly vocal about her campaign, to date only seven companies have signed up to the public pledge, up and running since March.

A Pause for Poesy

In fact it’s all about beef

Terribly upset.
It is my birthday today.
No one gave me beef.

"Incoming, small arms fire!"

Frédéric Bobin files a Le Monde story from Afghanistan's Honaker-Miracle Base, named after two U.S. soldiers who lost their lives in combat.Needless to say, it reflects leftist, pacifist tendencies…

Les soldats Christopher Honaker et Joseph Miracle, tombés au combat, ont donné leur nom à cet avant-poste américain butant sur les marches du massif de l'Abas Ghar au coeur de la province de Kunar, dans l'Est afghan, tout proche de la frontière avec le Pakistan.

…Silence, solitude et adversité. La bannière étoilée flotte sur l'enclos de bunkers et barbelés cerné de "hescos", ces paniers en treillage métallique bourrés de cailloux faisant office de fortifications. Au pied du mât, des stèles funéraires égrènent soixante-dix patronymes, soixante-dix gars du Colorado, du Tennessee ou de l'Ohio, morts au nom de la "guerre contre la terreur". Dans quelques jours, la liste s'allongera.

Feminist Pork: Women who make domestic violence accusations are not required to produce evidence and are never prosecuted for perjury if they lie

For 30 years, the feminists have been pretending that their goal is to abolish all sex discrimination, eliminating all gender differences no matter how reasonable

writes Phyllis Schlafly in her article on the "feminists' determination to punish men, guilty or innocent" and on the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), whose billion-dollar-a-year price tag is "spent by the radical feminists to pursue their ideology and goals (known as feminist pork)".

When it comes to domestic violence, however, feminist dogma preaches that there is an innate gender difference: Men are naturally batterers, and women are naturally victims (i.e., gender profiling).

Starting with its title, VAWA is just about as sex discriminatory as legislation can get. It is written and implemented to oppose the abuse of women and to punish men.

…Currently used definitions of domestic violence that are unacceptably trivial include calling your partner a naughty word, raising your voice, causing "annoyance" or "emotional distress," or just not doing what your partner wants. The law's revision should use an accurate definition of domestic violence that includes violence, such as: "any act or threatened act of violence, including any forceful detention of an individual, which results or threatens to result in physical injury."

Women who make domestic violence accusations are not required to produce evidence and are never prosecuted for perjury if they lie. Accused men are not accorded fundamental protections of due process, not considered innocent until proven guilty and in many cases are not afforded the right to confront their accusers.

Legal assistance is customarily provided to women but not to men. Men ought to be entitled to equal protection of the law because many charges are felonies and could result in prison and loss of money, job and reputation.

…Feminist [lobbying — on the taxpayers' dime —] has resulted in laws calling for mandatory arrest (i.e., the police must arrest someone -- guess who) of the predominant aggressor (i.e., ignore the facts and assume the man is the aggressor) and no-drop prosecution (i.e., prosecute the man even if the woman has withdrawn her accusation or refuses to testify).

…The way the Duke lacrosse players' reputations and college education were destroyed is typical of feminist control of university attitudes. The prosecutor who falsely accused the men was disbarred, but there were no sanctions against the professors and college administrators who rushed to public judgment against the guys.

Merkel’s dwindling interest in foreign policy: Together, the chancellor and Westerwelle have weakened Germany’s international standing

The slump in the popularity of [Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle] and the Free Democrats is bad news for [Chancellor Angela Merkel], especially when the Christian Democratic Union is also smarting after big setbacks in recent regional elections

writes Judy Dempsey (while, in an unrelated story, Michael Kimmelman discusses the latest revelations regarding the "dark secrets" linked to Adolf Eichmann's post-war escape to Argentina.)

For Germany, Mr. Westerwelle’s weakness is compounded by Mrs. Merkel’s dwindling interest in foreign policy at a time when Europe is in desperate need of strong leadership to deal with the immense changes sweeping across the Middle East. Together, say analysts, Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Westerwelle have weakened Germany’s international standing.

In March, they snubbed their French, British and U.S. allies by abstaining in a U.N. Security Council vote authorizing a no-flight zone over Libya. “It was the wrong decision. It damaged Germany’s reputation as a reliable ally,” said Elmar Brok, a European Parliament lawmaker and leading foreign policy expert in Mrs. Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union party.

“The point is that Germany did not bring anyone else along,” said Heather Grabbe, E.U. expert and director of the Open Society Institute in Brussels, which promotes democracy and human rights. “Maybe it was a justified decision but there was no strong moral argument communicated either to the domestic audience or Germany’s E.U. partners.”

…With Europe confronted with upheaval in the Middle East, a continuing war in Afghanistan and unresolved issues in the Balkans, Germany can ill afford a weak foreign minister.

“Germany has often acted as a moral conscience of Europe in foreign policy,” said Ms. Grabbe. “To play that role, Germany’s foreign minister has to take a lead and articulate the foreign policy dilemmas facing all of Europe.”

It was Mrs. Merkel who tried to do just that during her first term as Chancellor from 2005 to 2009. She repaired the rift between Berlin and Washington after former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, a Social Democrat, had opposed the U.S invasion of Iraq. With Russia and France, he established an anti-war “alliance” which in turn deeply divided NATO and the European Union

Mrs. Merkel also became a beacon for human rights campaigners in Russia, China and Iran by speaking out for the values of an independent news media and basic civil and human rights.

But since being re-elected, she has shown scant interest in foreign policy. It is the euro crisis and the future of nuclear energy that have monopolized her time, leaving little time even for fundamental issues like the war in Afghanistan or the Arab revolutions.

No Surprise at all: Statists’ Personal Priorities Coming Before the Public Good

It’s that all-important quality of life thing that matters I guess. If you can count yourself among the elite.

economists, such as Commerzbank's Christoph Weil, do not rule out a spontaneous market event, such as one or two top private investors moving out of Ireland, Italy, Portugal or Spain and causing wider panic.

So I guess the solution (to whatever) needs to be more Europe not less Europe, but only when a power-grab is possible. Otherwise it’s all one big sunny “slow food” movement.

Amid a "clear risk" of potentially seismic events in the eurozone and the Arab world in the next six weeks, EU institutions will drop to staff levels of just 20 percent as officials go on holiday, limiting their capacity to react.

Unaware of the concept of irony, the piece goes on:

Amid the common perception that the EU sleeps in August, institutions will have four major crisis-monitoring centres running 24/7. The biggest one, the Joint Situation Centre, keeps half its staff in place during holidays.

...despite “the situation”, chaos will know when to strike.

The Ancient and Dark Art of Listening to the Radio

A number station of undetermined origin was heard 15 June 2011, 0135 UT on 6767 khz. 5 digit cifer was read in multiple languages by what sounded like a computer generated female voice.

It went off air at 0140.

The use of number stations is an ‘old school’ method of communicating with your spies from the home land to the nation where they are doing their surveillance without being detected. The transmission times are short, giving a counterespionage operation little time to determine the location of the transmitting antenna. It is likely that the phasing of the sound of the signal, or a heterodyne that might be heard on top of the signal might offer clues.

The strength of the signal and the use of this reliable but primitive method of messaging suggest that it likely originated in Cuba, Venezuela, or transmitted from sea.

Democrats in 1936: Plus ça change…

75 Years Ago:

1936 Zioncheck Escapes Over Wall

A new chapter in the checkered career of Representative Marion A. Zioncheck, Democrat of Washington, began today [June 28] with the allegedly insane Congressman from Seattle breaking out of the private sanatorium in which he had been confined and regaining the turbulent freedom he so dearly loves. Zioncheck was docilely exercising with a number of other patients in the enclosed yard of the institution when suddenly and without the slightest warning he made a dash for the eight-foot wall, scaled it, and with a wild whoop, leaped to the ground on the other side.

2012, Mission: Élysée Part 1 (Movie Trailer)

2012, mission: elysée part 1 movie trailer UNCUT... par staiffDA

Vive la Similarité

… the ties that bind America and France are more important and infinitely more interesting than most of us know

writes David McCullough as the author of The Greater Journey (Americans in Paris) tries to mention every allegedly positive French aspect in the United States, from Pierre Charles L’Enfant and Jean-Antoine Houdon to over "a million American students [who] are taking French" and "the hundreds of young Americans who went to study medicine in France in the 19th century" via the "the number of French names all across the map of America" and the "nine million of us [who] are of French descent."

Consider that the war that gave birth to the nation, our war for independence, would almost certainly have failed had it not been for heavy French financial backing and military support, on both land and sea. At the crucial surrender of the British at Yorktown, for example, the French army under Rochambeau was larger than our own commanded by Washington. The British commander, Cornwallis, was left with no escape and no choice but to surrender only because a French fleet sailed into the Chesapeake Bay at exactly the right moment. …

The first major study of us as a people, “Democracy in America,” was written by a French historian, Alexis de Tocqueville. Published in 1835, it remains one of the wisest books ever written about us.

What David McCullough fails to mention, though, is that the charge that is regularly fired in America's direction can equally apply to the French presence in the 1770s and 1780s ("well, sure, but… didn't they do it for their own interests?") and that Tocqueville's book was meant to serve as a rebuttal to the stream of anti-American and anti-Democratic tomes being published in France on a regular basis and how, in the aftermath of the book's appearance, dozens if not hundreds of books were published to disparage “Democracy in America” as well as its author.

To be sure, our relations with France have not always been smooth.

…But the rewards of our ties with France have far exceeded any difficulties there have been. With the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France, the size of the country was more than doubled. The Statue of Liberty, one of our most treasured symbols, was a gift from France.

Not to want to destroy the feel-good atmosphere, but again, wasn't la Louisiane sold mainly, if not solely, in and for the interests of Napoleon? As for the Statue of Liberty, wasn't it offered to America only after and only because the Egyptians refused a statue meant to be raised at the newly-built Suez Canal?

Especially for American women and for African-Americans, Paris provided an atmosphere of freedom and of acceptance such as they had never experienced.

Fine, except how tolerant and anti-racist would the French have been, would they be, if there were a similar percentage of blacks in their society as there was, as there is, in the United States? (Not that that should in any way serve as a pretext for racism…)

To end on a positive note, I will not offer any comments on the following:

And there is a further reason France should hold a prominent place in our memories and in our hearts. More American history has unfolded in France and more Americans are buried there than in any other country but our own.

During World War I more than two million American soldiers served “Over There.” In World War II another generation of American soldiers numbering more than 800,000 served in France. In all, more than 60,000 Americans are buried in French soil, at Meuse-Argonne, Normandy and nine other cemeteries. At the Meuse-Argonne, the largest, lie fully 14,246 American dead. The grave markers are a sight never to be forgotten.

Paging Bashar Assad!

Whose very nom de guerre (Bashar = messenger of good news, al Assad = “the lion”) has the cast of infantile fakery that sneers at the intelligence of the people. Because they’re stupid and need bold leadership that they can easily understand?

No. They need to dispose of the Socialist hereditary dictatorship that has led them into one war after another, suppressed them politically, and given them decades of isolationism, state economic control, and periodic bloodbathes. So it’s time to go. Alas, but where?

That’s a fine question. I’m so glad you asked.

What do all the places that an ousted dictator can flee to have in common?

The places?
Belarus
Venezuela
Cuba
Uruguay

The habitual rhetoric that they commonly share?

1. A hatred of the United States, individual freedom,
2. Anything that doesn’t fit the Marxist-Leninist Revolutionary recipe for taking power.
3. Leftism

The balance of the world’s anti-Americans are in good company.

Bastille Day Cancelled? France No Longer Has the Military Means to Carry Out Its Political Ambitions

Le ministère des finances a décidé que le défilé militaire du 14-Juillet coûtait trop cher. Comme d'autres démocraties, la France renonce à sa démonstration annuelle. Elle se contentera d'un logiciel de simulation pour donner au pays un aperçu des capacités de son armée. Ce scénario de fiction le restera-t-il longtemps ? Le 14 juillet 2011 a lieu dans un climat tendu entre les armées et le pouvoir politique.

As Frédéric Bobin reports that all French soldiers will have left Afghanistan by 2014 and as Olivier Hubac warns that France will pay dearly for its engagement in Libya, Nathalie Guibert's front-page article in Le Monde informs us that France no longer has the military means to carry out its political ambitions (see map of French military presence around the globe, an image which expands as the browser window is enlarged), with the daily adding a warning that one day, what with all the current budget cuts, a finance minister may decide that the Bastille Day parade is too expensive and cancel it once and for all.

L'appareil militaire est " au taquet ", a pourtant convenu le ministre de la défense, Gérard Longuet. Depuis les années 1960, les armées ont connu des restructurations, des projections extérieures et des phases de contrainte financière. " Mais jamais les trois à la fois comme aujourd'hui ", souligne le chef d'état-major des armées, l'amiral Edouard Guillaud. " Les armées sont fragiles et fragilisées, il ne faut pas le nier ni se voiler la face : nous sommes dans une situation difficile ", admettait-il, en mai, devant l'Institut des hautes études de défense nationale.

… Si les militaires s'inquiètent de perdre à ce jeu, c'est que les budgets de défense européens ne cessent de baisser au profit des priorités économiques et sociales.

While a Colonel François Chauvancy wonders what kind of army France will have in the 21st century, Sénat president Gérard Larcher claims, in an interview with Patrick Roger, that "internationally, we are defending our [France's] values."

Meanwhile, Bastien Guibert tells Nathalie Guibert that in France, there is no debate about the country's role in the world, unlike in the UK, and that France wants to box in a category above its weight.

The Gift of What U.S. President Does the Leader of the Latest African Country to Become Independent Display? Obama's? Or Bush's?

A new country is born. A new country in Africa. South Sudan. And whose symbol, the gift of which U.S. president, does the African country's new president proudly wear (during the independence ceremonies photographed by Tyler Hicks)?

Barack Obama the prudent and thoughtful diplomat? Barack Obama whose "intelligent" diplomacy would restore international acclaim to the United States? Barack Obama the first president not to be a dirty WASPish racist but a messiah whose ancestors hailed from eternal Africa? Barack Obama who fights, and whose father fought, the colonialism of the evil white racists?

No.

South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir, [wears] a signature black cowboy hat given to him by Mr. [George W.] Bush.

America Beats France in Soccer Semi-Final, 3-1, Heads for Women's World Cup Final

Updated & Corrected: Under a downpour at Mönchengladbach, the American woman's soccer team beat France in one of the semi-final games of FIFA's women's soccer World Cup, 3-1 (ESPN video & FIFA video), denying the French team a victory just in time for Bastille Day and heading to the final against Japan.

"…les Françaises ont dominé l'essentiel du match" pouts Le Monde, pointing out that "Les Bleues [the French team members] ont encore réussi un très bon match, se montrant supérieures techniquement aux Américaines". Over at ESPN, Roger Bennett agrees, calling France "brilliant in defeat"…

The French depart with dignity and the consolation that they have provided the tournament with some of its most tactically complex and satisfying soccer.

During the previous match, against Brazil, US head coach Pia Sundhage was heard to say:

I have no words, it was phenomenal. There's something about the American attitude and will to win. They bring out the best performance in each other.

Making that Mullet Pay Off

"I have been trying for ten years to get this classified as a handicap," Tullgren told The Local.

"I spoke to three psychologists and they finally agreed that I needed this to avoid being discriminated against."

Whenever you see news coming out of Sweden, why do feel compelled to ALWAYS ask "is this a joke"? It’s a stupid question, because it never is.

Sweden: Man gets sick benefits for heavy metal addiction

A Swedish heavy metal fan has had his musical preferences officially classified as a disability. The results of a psychological analysis enable the metal lover to supplement his income with state benefits.

So on the occasions where he DID show up to work, he employed psychiatry to try to compel his employer to listen to metal for what is likely a 6 hour a day job. This despite the fact that he was getting paid at all.

Eventually his last employer tired of his absences and Tullgren was left jobless and reliant on welfare handouts.

But his sessions with the occupational psychologists led to a solution of sorts: Tullgren signed a piece of paper on which his heavy metal lifestyle was classified as a disability, an assessment that entitles him to a wage supplement from the job centre.

"I signed a form saying: 'Roger feels compelled to show his heavy metal style. This puts him in a difficult situation on the labour market. Therefore he needs extra financial help'. So now I can turn up at a job interview dressed in my normal clothes and just hand the interviewers this piece of paper," he said.

Winners and enterpreneurs seem rather hard to come by after 6 decades of deprogramming people of common sense.

While Media Coddled Alleged Ex-Criminal for His Tell-All Book, He was Planning Drug Deals and Attacks on Armored Trucks

Yves Bordenave has a story on Redoine Faïd, an(other) outlaw who became famous when he wrote a tell-all book about his life and started making headlines in the media. The problem, it turns out, is that while appearing on TV shows, in fact the man from les cités never turned his back on his criminal past, as he claimed, but continued organizing drug deals and attacks on armored trucks. "Inspired by Hollywood productions", we learn, the youths from les cités "conceive an attack as a war movie." And those attacks, in the EU's gun-free zones, are carried out, wouldn't you know it, with Kalashnikov machine guns.

Redoine Faïd s'inscrit dans la lignée de ces braqueurs d'un genre un peu nouveau. Ce caïd des cités s'est forgé sa réputation dans les années 1990, en montant à l'assaut des « tirelires à roulettes », kalachnikov en main, comme il le raconte dans son ouvrage. Redoine Faïd se plaît à incarner la nouvelle génération du grand banditisme. Ces jeunes qui ont grandi dans les cités, aiment à dire qu'« ils se sont faits tout seuls ». En tout cas, à l'écart du milieu traditionnel. Souvent en regardant des films comme Heat, de Michael Mann, dont Redoine Faïd avoue être un fan. A l'instar de ces productions hollywoodiennes, ils conçoivent le braquage comme un film de guerre.

De l'audace et de l'adrénaline, voilà le credo. C'est comme cela qu'ils ont fait main basse sur le marché des stupéfiants, en se passant des intermédiaires et en allant se fournir à la source dans le sud de l'Espagne ou directement au Maroc. Ils sont les inventeurs des fameux go fast, qui remontent la drogue du sud vers le nord au volant de puissantes cylindrées lancées à 200 kilomètres/heure sur les autoroutes.

Le Monde adds a complimentary article which shows that in the fight against drugs, the police is absent.

RAQUAGES ET TRAFIC de stupéfiants sont les mamelles de la voyoucratie qui sévit dans les cités. … Des quartiers Nord de Marseille aux grandes cités sensibles du « 9-3 », cette activité lucrative recouvre des enjeux financiers tels, que des ados désoeuvrés et apprentis délinquants sombrent dans la criminalité pure, éblouis par la quête d'argent facile et fascinés par leurs héros de cinéma, genre Scarface.

Why is the police absent? Because they have been going after consumers rather than drug dealers and traffickers…

…la lutte contre les stupéfiants « a été orientée principalement vers l'interpellation des consommateurs sans amélioration significative des résultats en matière de revente ou de trafics ». A trop privilégier la répression contre les simples consommateurs, les forces de police ont fini par négliger les poursuites contre les revendeurs et les trafiquants.

En d'autres mots, le dérapage est général : la police ignore les trafiquants de drogues pour s'en prendre aux simples consommateurs, de la même manière que les policiers et les gendarmes ignorent les 5% de vrais délinquants de la route ("puissantes cylindrées lancées à 200 kilomètres/heure sur les autoroutes" dans le cadre de trafic de drogues) pour bastonner les 95% de conducteurs lambda dont les dépassements de vitesse sont minimes et sans gravité.

DSK… tastrophe

According to reactions sent to the daily from Le Monde readers, the newspaper's mediator, Pascal Galinier, says that French élites should not be too quick to judge America's journalistic ethics (or lack thereof)…

…la comparaison avec la presse américaine ne serait guère à notre avantage... "Le Monde n'est pas encore le New York Post (tabloïd américain), mais il est loin, très loin d'avoir le sérieux du New York Times", estime le lecteur new-yorkais déjà cité. "Les Américains ont été plus violents dans l'accusation, mais ultrarapides à rétablir la vérité sur la plaignante. Ils ont le défaut de juger vite, la qualité de se déjuger !", observe "Guy Levy".

…L'ancien patron du Fonds monétaire international sera-t-il "bientôt transformé en martyr par la presse des puissants", comme l'affirme "Roland Berger" ? Va-t-il "nous revenir en victime magnifique pour ne pas dire en héros" (signé "Trop Fort") ?

…L'éditorial faisant l'"éloge de la lenteur" (4 juillet) reflétait les débats internes au sein du journal. Cela n'a pas échappé aux lecteurs, qui rappellent, comme "Patrick Rabain", que le journal "publiait illégalement des documents secrets de WikiLeaks au nom du dogme de la transparence absolue", ou "reproduisait sans trop se poser de questions les "écoutes illégales" d'une "affaire strictement privée" avec des infos Mediapart reposant sur des "on-dit"", écrit "Guy Levy". Et que dire des "photos terribles illégalement transmises à la presse", évoquée par l'éditorial ? "Ces photos-là, c'est dans Le Monde que je les ai vues...", souligne Hubert Bertrand.

One (Wo)man Down, U.S. Women's Soccer Team Fights Brazil

Beating Brazil (Youtube video) with one (wo)man down, U.S. Women's soccer team advances to the finals against the French Team on Wednesday…

The Moral Superiority of Communism

Bored, impoverished, and often malnourished NorK troops are waxing their dolphins in their spare time.

An officer was arrested for letting soldiers watch South Korean films or soap operas that he had recorded at home, the source said.

And a group of officers and soldiers at a frontline Army unit were caught watching South Korean TV and listening to South Korean radio, while an officer was arrested for listening to South Korean radio broadcasts and explaining Seoul's North Korea policy and democratic elections to his colleagues.

To boot, necessity remains the mother of invention.

Another officer was arrested for making a porn film himself. A North Korean source in China's northeast said, "Rumor has it that an officer in the border region was arrested for selling porn films that he had made himself on the Chinese side of the border with North Korean women in their 20s and 30s after watching Western porn movies."

Western corruption? Likely, but no worse than the natively derived North Korean phenomenon of government officials loan sharking.

He was apparently executed.

Finally, Democrats in Southern California will have found a “martyr” for the world view.

What do they have in common? Vanity for one, not to mention the vicious threat of merely looking a certain way.

In DSK's Native France, Suspicions Surface Regarding Scandal's Manipulation From Sarkozy's Élysée Palace

Le Monde's Ariane Chemin travels to the Élysée to report on suspicions that President Nicolas Sarkozy's ruling UMP was somehow involved in eruption of the DSK scandal in a Sofitel hotel in America or at least has been less than forthcoming about the Élysée's reaction to the news. Indeed, at the same time that Dominique Strauss-Kahn was being taken off a New York City airport airplane, the head of Sofitel's hotel security (René-Georges Querry) was seen in Paris watching a football match with Nicolas Sarkozy (but also with Martine Aubry) from the presidential box.

Au Monde, "Jo" Querry assure qu'au Stade de France, "ni lui ni personne ne peut encore rien savoir".

As French VIPs learn of the events throughout (what in Europe is) the night, they treat the news with incredulity.

Nouveau coup de fil [du coordonnateur du renseignement à l'Elysée, Ange] Mancini à son copain d'Accor : "Jo, on est sceptiques... T'es sûr que c'est pas une blague ? C'est pas l'heure de rigoler."

And it is still unclear whether Nicolas Sarkozy was awakened in the middle of the night to be debriefed or whether, as the Élysée claims, it was decided to let him sleep and not tell him before the following morning.

"On ne réveille pas le président."

In Maid's Native Guinea, the DSK Scandal Is Taking a Political Turn, Reawakening Ethnic Rivalries

Le Monde's Philippe Bernard pays a visit to the Guinean village of Tchakulé, wherefrom hails Nafissatou Diallo, the woman who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of raping her in a New York City hotel. There, politics have intervened in the DSK scandal, bringing out age-old community rivalries (among the Peuls, the Malinkés, and the Soussous, among others).

… l'affaire est en passe de prendre un tour politique. Car Nafissatou est issue de la communauté peule, qui a souvent servi de bouc émissaire, en particulier lors de l'élection présidentielle de novembre 2010. Après cinquante-deux ans de dictature, elle a été remportée par le vieil opposant Alpha Condé, au prix d'une campagne anti-peule d'une rare violence.

A Tchakulé, Mamoudou Diallo se sent abandonné par le gouvernement guinéen. "Personne ne m'a contacté", se lamente-t-il. Son cousin Tidiane Diallo lâche : "Si Nafissatou avait été malinké ou soussou, le président s'en serait occupé." Les propos du président guinéen mettant sur le même plan sa "grande tristesse" pour DSK du fait de "l'appartenance de [son] parti à l'Internationale socialiste" et son émotion de voir "une compatriote" en difficulté, ont choqué nombre de Guinéens. Ils reprochent à M. Condé d'avoir jugé plus important d'afficher sa proximité avec un puissant, que de mettre en œuvre sa promesse d'"apporter son assistance" à Nafissatou.

"Les Peuls pensent que Nafissatou est une victime ; les Malinkés que c'est une menteuse, résume un journaliste guinéen. L'affaire ajoute une goutte d'eau dans le verre des querelles ethniques déjà plein." Tant que la justice américaine semblait avoir pris le parti de la femme de chambre, l'opposition guinéenne (largement peule) n'a pas cru utile d'intervenir.

Elle pourrait changer d'avis. Nafissatou Diallo risque d'"être utilisée pour conforter les campagnes racistes qui font de la femme peule une fille facile, incapable d'engendrer un chef", prévient Oury Bah, numéro deux du principal parti d'opposition, alors que des législatives à haut risque sont prévues en novembre.

Space Shuttle and Sarkozy: The End for Both?

The Last Flight of the Space Shuttle
by Plantu

Nicolas Sarkozy: As for me, I'm having trouble to achieve liftoff…

Let Me Guess... It’s to be called “Unexpected” News

Ineffectual summiteering no longer looks like a plausible way to calm the markets. As if it ever was.

Top eurozone officials meet amid alarm on Italy

The reality of economic integration without political integration will keep the summiteers on the road forever, or at least as long as old Dead Heads.

US Treasurys Receive Safety Bids As Spain, Italy Yields Soar

I suppose the Ratings Agencies which had nothing to do with the Italians’ or Spaniards’ borrowing habits are behind this somehow!

Heading into a meeting of euro-zone finance ministers to discuss the region's debt crisis, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble rejected talk of doubling the size of the European Union's temporary bailout fund. Reports also emerged that the bloc's officials may be warming up to the idea of allowing a partial Greek bailout.

Fresh fears about a credit contagion roiled financial markets in the periphery, sinking stocks and inflating costs to insure those nations against default. Ireland's five-year credit default swap hit an all-time high of 1,020 basis points Monday, according to Markit, while regulators in Italy are attempting to curb short-selling in the nation's stock market.

"We All Felt Different from the Americans, Sharing Values That Weren't the Same As Theirs"

…c'est paradoxalement en Amérique que Dominique Moïsi, qui sait parfaitement jouer de sa "french touch" dans les salons bostoniens, comprend que son identité profonde, ce n'est ni d'être français ni d'être juif, c'est d'être européen.

Dans son compte-rendu du livre Un juif improbable de Dominique Moïsi, Sylvie Kauffmann le décrit comme "l'un des plus fins commentateurs des questions de politique étrangère". And no wonder:

Dans les séminaires du Centre d'études européennes animé par Stanley Hoffmann, Dominique Moïsi rencontre, au tout début des années 1970, des Britanniques, des Italiens et surtout des Allemands, que son statut d'enfant de déporté passionne. "Nous nous sentions tous différents des Américains, partageant des valeurs qui n'étaient pas tout à fait les leurs, écrit-il. Nous avions cessé d'être en guerre avec nous-mêmes, nous ne l'étions plus les uns avec les autres, nous ne traversions pas une crise existentielle aussi déprimante que celle qu'avait creusée la guerre du Vietnam chez les Américains."

The writer of An Improbable Jew who had to hide during World War II prefers the company of Germans to those of Americans, whose values, he condescendingly writes, he doesn't (and those Germans don't) really share?

Ce qui est déprimant, c'est d'apprendre que le cofondateur de l'Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI) a eu comme mentor Raymond Aron. J'ai entendu Dominique Moïsi parler, notamment après l'élection de Barack Obama, et c'était pour nous sortir les jérémiades habituelles sur la bêtise de Bush et comment Obama était le président le plus intelligent depuis belle lurette.

They’re all just SO Worldly

Me talk good Euro-glish some day.

Les malfaiteurs ont ouvert le feu au fusil mitrailleur kalachnikov

While the French are busy teaching Americans about their cluelessness, notably regarding the presence of fire arms in their society, five gangsters burst into Aix's Pasino (France's second-largest casino) one Sunday morning, at 1 a.m., and fled with a booty estimated at a total of as low as 30,000 Euros to one as high as several tens of millions of Euros, writes the AFP, after unleashing fire on the police with… Kalashnikov machine guns.

À l'arrivée d'une patrouille de la brigade anti-criminalité, les malfaiteurs ont ouvert le feu au fusil mitrailleur kalachnikov et un policier a été touché à un bras. Le fonctionnaire, âgé d'une trentaine d'années, a été hospitalisé. Plusieurs impacts ont été relevés sur la voiture de police.

…Plus d'une dizaine d'attaques de casinos ont eu lieu en France depuis avril 2010. "Avec ce nouveau hold-up, on a atteint le point de non-retour. Ici, jamais jusqu'à présent un policier n'avait été blessé à la kalachnikov. L'escalade que nous avions dénoncée doit être enrayée", a déclaré à l'AFP David-Olivier Reverdy, secrétaire régional adjoint du syndicat Alliance en Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur.