2012 Trial Awaits the Frenchmen Involved in the Oil for Food Corruption Scandal

Ten years of searching for evidence in the oil-for-food corruption scandal involving Iraq's Saddam Hussein should bring Charles Pasqua, Total, and the oil company's CEO (Christophe de Margerie) to trial in Paris in 2012, writes Le Monde in an unsigned article. Believe it or not, of 17 Le Monde readers (many of them skeptical of their country's justice system where the élites are concerned), a couple actually praise George W Bush (or at least credit W) for his actions (without mentioning it was war) in bringing the corruption to an end.

Meanwhile, in an op-ed, Denis MacShane reminds us that the reason the Iraq War was allegedly "illegal" was due to a refusal to adopt a second resolution by… a communist Politburo (in Beijing) and a neo-authoritarian close to the Russian oligarchs (in Moscow) — and that, far earlier than the threat of a French veto.

La guerre en Irak a été illégale parce qu'un Politburo communiste en Chine et un néo-autoritaire proche des oligarques à Moscou ont refusé d'adopter une deuxième résolution de l'ONU et ce, bien avant la menace d'un veto francais.

Overruled: Government Invasion of Your Parental Rights

Today is Phyllis Schlafly's birthday, so it is far from inappropriate to show the trailer for the 30-min ParentalRights.org Docudrama. The full 30-minute docudrama regarding the proposed Parental Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is available on DVD or www.ParentalRights.org.

Related: Birth and Freedom by Terri LaPoint as well as another trailer, the one for Guilty Until Proven Innocent

The Difference Between Britain and Switzerland

Email from Damian:

No spanking in Britain.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/10/uk-riots-liberal-right-parent

No guns in Britain.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/WARHUKKER/london-riot-tottenham-arrests_n_920806_101746998.html

Riots galore in Britain.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10970/

No riots in Switzerland!

(A little something for my gun-toting pals):

http://thetruthaboutguns.com/2011/08/robert-farago/switzerland-is-crime-free-and-its-all-because-of-guns/

Guns and … chocolate. One doesn't expect a nation occupied with the manufacture of high-grade chocolate to produce union-grade thugs or French "69" style rioters.

Valerie adds:

The Swiss also produce some nice high grade rifles and handguns.

Speaking of encouraging a life with no consequences…

http://www.mrctv.org/videos/london-riot-reactions-and-debate-clapham

Valerie has more:

And then there is this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MXwCOcBjpbg#at=611

Courtesy of the blog Wake Up Black America.

“Spend the next month reading’, try that for a change.”

May this common sense spread.

[Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter] is a progressive and a friend of the Obamas.

“Don’t touch what doesn’t belong to you or what you haven’t earned.”

He’s a friend to Obama. Maybe he should go give this talk to the White House.

Euro-Think: a Sampler

In response to the mere mention of moral failure in the discussion of a failed civil institution, this is the kind of Pavlovian reaction you get.

Get the satanic freemasons out of law-enforcement and from out behind Church pulpits

Once, just ONCE, I'd like to pull the cord on one of these clowns' back and here something different. It's been decades of listening to the same trope, the same vocabulary, the same impotent rage. Can we have some diversity, please!?!

I presume all those paedo priests do believe in an all powerful skyfairy, yet they continue their damnable activities in secret with no shame.

And this doozy, advocating crushing free speech by calling (the mere existence of) a conservative media outlet to be like statist oppression:

In the 1930s, when the Nazis ruled Germany, Reinhard Heydrich was at the head of the Gestapo (the Third Reich's Secret State Police) - an organisation whose major aim was to spy on the German people.

In the 1980s, when the Communists still ruled East Germany, Erich Mielke was at the head of the Stasi (East Germany's Secret State Police) - an organisation whose major aim was to spy on the East German people.

In 2011 Rupert Murdoch is at the head of News Corp. - an organisation whose aims I don't know.

However, having watched FOX NEWS, I am absolutely sure that balanced reporting of political issues to a broad audience is certainly NOT among the aims of News Corp.

And the source? A conservative British newspaper.

So what are the aims of News Corp.?
And how dangerous is News Corp. for all freedom-loving citizens?

If the sick determinism wasn't so typical, it would be shocking.

Immigration Pushes the EU's Population Above 500,000,000

A Le Monde article by Grégoire Allix comments on a Eurostat graph showing how the EU's population has reached (and risen above, by half a million people) 502,000,000, thanks mainly to immigration. But while many countries have seen increases — even when the natural natality rate was negative — eight countries, including Germany, have seen negative rates of population growth.

…plus que l'accroissement naturel, qui se solde par une hausse de 514 000 habitants (+ 1 ‰), c'est l'immigration qui a contribué à grossir les rangs des Européens : le solde migratoire affiche 854 000 personnes (+ 1,7 ‰). Les dix-sept pays de la zone euro, avec 332 millions d'habitants, accueillent à eux seuls 1 million d'habitants en plus et, signe de leur attrait, bénéficient de l'essentiel du solde migratoire (700 000 personnes).

…L'Allemagne a … perdu 50 000 habitants en 2010 mais elle demeure le pays le plus peuplé de l'UE avec 81,7 millions d'habitants devant la France (65 millions) et le Royaume-Uni (62,4 millions).

The Elephant and the Donkey Give Birth to a Mouse

In Plantu's take on America's debt, "the Democrat donkey and the Republican elephant give birth to… a mouse" (a French expression meaning that, in the face of expectations, the results are extremely disappointing)

The French Attack on the Political Egotist Rick Perry Kicks Off

Needless to say, the (David J Phillip) photo of Rick Perry chosen by Le Monde's print edition to illustrate Sylvain Cypel's article on the Texas governor's joining the Republican race has Perry and his image on the screen behind him looking like a maniac.

The opening sentence of Sylvain Cypel's article suggests that Rick Perry is an egotist, politically speaking at least, who is delighted with the degradation of America's debt, since that will (quelle horreur) hurt Barack Obama and since that in turn will benefit Perry's election prospects.

D'un point de vue égoïstement politique, Rick Perry, gouverneur du Texas, a pu suivre les suites de la dégradation de la note de la dette américaine avec délectation : les candidats à l'investiture républicaine pour l'élection présidentielle de 2012 se poussaient tous du col pour dénoncer un Barack Obama " entraînant l'Amérique à sa perte ".

What with Sylvain Cypel's description of Rick Perry as close to Christian fundamentalists, Le Monde readers are fretting about someone who believes he has a direct line to God (shades of another former Texas governor, George W Bush), about Rick Perry's election leading to a world war, and about a description of the USA as "humanity's civilizational mistake".

Is it Time to Start a Death Watch?

When Jon Bon Jovi's hair becomes the subject of conversation, even among unmedicated adults, methinks so.

Memories of the Fall of the Berlin Wall

In one of innumerable summer series published in Le Monde, short and long, to keep French(wo)men interested in the daily during the July and August months, the newspapers presents a series on stories from the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the barrier which was erected by the Warsaw Pact on August 13, 50 years ago.

Bloggers From Around the World

In another summer series, Le Monde presents a dozen portraits of bloggers around the world, a few of them interesting, but apart from a couple (The Arabist, Generación Y…), none of them as exciting as InstaPundit or as… No Pasarán:

1) Claire Ané sur le blog de Elsa Fayner, créatrice de Et voilà le travail

2) Florence Beaugé sur Issandr El Amrani, créateur de The Arabist

3) Pascal Galinier sur Ophélie Neiman, créatrice de Miss Glou Glou

4) Audrey Fournier sur Ian Ference, créateur de The Kingston Lounge

5) Philippe Jacqué sur Pierre Dubois, créateur de Histoires d'universités

6) Pascale Santi sur Christian Portal, créateur de Pour une médecine écologique

7) Adrien Le Ga sur William Réjault, créateur de Ron l'Infirmier

8) Véronique Lorelle sur Tavi Gevinson, créatrice de the Style Rookie

9) Pascale Robert-Diard sur Jean-Yves Moyart, créateur de Maître Mô

10) Paulo A. Paranagua sur Yoani Sanchez, créatrice (cubaine) de Generación Y

11) Nathalie Brafman sur Manuel Dorne, créateur de Korben

12) Xavier Ternisien sur Anne Lataillade, créatrice de Papilles et pupilles

13) Brice Pedroletti sur Li Chengpeng, créateur du blog du même nom

The Same to You, Spanky

Behold the image that graced the website of the permanently dyspeptic besserwisser German magazine Spiegel since 2009:

Nearly. Three. Years. Now that the concept of individual savings lost to dramatic drops in the market are closer to home, and people they are capable of imagining are human are involved, the picture has been taken down. NOW, you see, it's in poor taste.

But Apart From Those (Insignificant) Details, the Cartoon Hit the Mark!

It isn't Obama's money and it isn't — far from it — lunch money…

It is a bit tiring seeing the number of political cartoons that still don't get it, such as John Darkow's GOP Bullies drawing in the Columbus Daily Tribune.

Reminder to leftists, to statists, and to other Obama supporters:
It is not your lunch money, Barack Obama;
it is not the government's lunch money, leftists and Obama supporters…
It is our lunch money!

Is that idea starting to seep into your New York Times propaganda-addled brains?!

In fact, it is more than just lunch money; it is a good deal of our (responsbily-earned) savings and we do not want Obama — or anyone else — to throw it, or any part of it, out the window…

Before you know it, They'll Have us Wear Uniforms and Carry a Little Red Book

Which is no surprise given the chillingly broad range of life features that watermelons meddling in building design and construction are willing to indulge. This, from an email I just got:

As the LEED Pilot Credit library is now open, this webinar is a timely event to learn about Pilot Credits such as the LEED Pilot Credit for Physical Activity.

This webinar will address the following topics:
- tying improvements in health to improvements in the built environment
- increasing the physical activity of building users
- synergies between Active Design, sustainability, and LEED
- Intent & Requirements of the LEED Pilot Credit for Physical Activity and how it benefits building users
- What are LEED Pilot Credits and how can you participate in them
- Case studies of projects using the LEED Pilot Credit for Physical Activity
- Free technical assistance to help LEED projects implement the LEED Pilot Credit for Physical Activity

No preshha!

Felonious Munk: Stop Bein' a D*ckhead an' Balance the F*ckin' Budget, B!

(Thanks to Hervé in New York)

Line up Children, and Repeat After the Activist!

When foundations and other flunkies are engaging in post-modern behavior modification campaigns, sometimes they lose sight of what they're going. I'm being charitable. I don't think they are even remotely aware of where the missing word belongs here:

So it seems that you're expected to pledge that any loud mook
double-parking in Teheran is also your fellow American.

I was alerted to this by way of an email I received requesting that we post a link to this campaign on this site. It was addressed politely, but so badly thought out, that I simple have to decline. It was sent by someone, it turns out, who comes to this as an academic feminist: a real student of not just sculpting images, but from a school of thought convinced that it isn't founded on the principle of class warfare. I suppose she told herself that she had to be especially nice to the ones who aren't on the usual mailing list of foundation types whose "work" is inherently unproductive in any real social or economic terms: raising "awareness" among those whose awareness and personae is a caricature to begin with.

Besides: I KNOW that American Muslims are my fellow Americans. My sense is that everyone else I know knows that as well. SO WHO exactly is this ritual crapola for? Judging by the youth and geographic ambiguity of the people who have linked to it, my guess is that it's supposed to fit the feel-okay-this-is-nice-nothingness crowd that is largely made up of college students from the US and abroad. My sense is also that the audience for the display it a foreign one in a bid to "better like us", despite the fact that they know where they need to immigrate to, to experience genuine freedom of though and conscience.

It also seems to be structured around outlook modification based on a false premise that Americans, in a conflict with near-east terrorism are at war with a religion, in preparation of some supposed "orgy of internecine violence" that will overcome whitey on the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

Sorry, but that mental bugaboo is THEIR problem, not ours. We are no more at war with Islam, as we were at war with the Orthodox Church when we were shutting down Solbodan Milosevic. We are neither that stupid, or that inhumane to fit the profile that activism imagines the public to be, or perhaps needs us to be to justify their existence.

Like all of these campaigns, they are tacitly insulting and patronizing. Muslim Americans are my fellow Americans - that's a fact that doesn't need some sort of "pledge".

Obviously, They're Oppressed

Feds? Look, whatever. The BBC is calling them "protesters", and the petri-dish trot are calling it "social justice". Hopefully, their ability to embrace reality is just an arm's reach away.

His Own Private Idaho Isn't Private Enough

Idaho police tell man to stop wearing bunny suit

"He's got the bunny outfit, a cowboy suit and a ballerina dress but you don't see him except where he's tripping through his backyard," she said.

So I suppose the local constabulary would prefer a Annie Oakley number, or something. Who can tell, when weirdness comes right up against the bleeding edge of the 2nd Amendment

Police warned Idaho Falls resident William Falkingham after a woman said she saw him dressed in the costume, peeking at her young son from behind a tree and pointing his finger like a gun, according to a police report.

An investigation of the sighting led officers to question other neighbors, "who expressed that they were greatly disturbed by Falkingham and his bunny suit," the report said.

It's all starting to look like DSK's retirement hobby once he's off of the little blue pills, if you ask me.

Young Man Killed by Polar Bear

And I'll bet you believed that they were made extinct every year for the past decade by people not thinking the correct thoughts.

A polar bear has mauled a 17-year-old British boy to death in the Arctic and injured four other UK tourists.

Horatio Chapple, from Wiltshire, was with 12 others on a British Schools Exploring Society trip near a glacier on the Norwegian island of Svalbard.

The fact is that it's a very sad thing to happen to a 17 year old with his entire life ahead of him. That doesn't stop the BBC from having a fit of Daddy drinks because you cry,. After all, nothing signals a Pavlovian response among the rugged, toothless outdoors-people of the BBC's ilk like the word "polar bear":

As climate change reduces ice cover, there are concerns that more polar bears will become displaced and will move further inland to seek food, bringing them into contact with more people.

The fact is that an excess of sea ice, that stuff that's supposed to have been a distant memory at this point, was the cause of the young Eatonian, part of a party of 80 having been in proximity to polar bears.

A blog on the group's website dated 27 July described polar bear sightings from their camp where they had been marooned due to "an unprecedented amount of ice in the fjord".

The Telegraph notes:

It added that students on the £2,900 expedition were told they would "venture into the untouched beauty and wilderness of Svalbard".

The repetitious environmental propaganda of modern education being the unbalanced thing that it is fetishizes it's chosen victims and special examples. Those that planned this trip undoubtably drew their interest on it.

Another local person, Liv Rose Flygel, 55, said: "It's not been the first time. Last summer a man was attacked by a polar bear and there have also been attacks on a man from Austria and a girl. Only the man in the attack last summer survived. He was taken in the mouth of the bear and his friend ran after it and shot it.
"The problem is, when the ice goes, the bears lose their way and cannot catch food. People don't really know how dangerous they are. One came down to the sea recently and people were running down to take pictures."

You can firmly blame it on grown-ups with such a zeal to program the young to act out the adults' desired will, that they'll neglect their obligation to transmit common sense or perspective to the young. Effectively, it's operant conditioning.

One out of three children aged 6 to 11 fears that Ma Earth won't exist when they grow up, while more than half-56 percent-worry that the planet will be a blasted heath (or at least a very unpleasant place to live), according to a new survey.

But that didn't stop an adult adherent of the cult of stupidity from prefacing it this way:

There's a new bogeyman lurking in the closet, and this one isn't imaginary.

With a sick air of things past, the anxiety is clearly more frequently being transferred to them by parents who have drunk the kool aid.:i>

Interestingly enough, kids vex over the state of the planet, especially when it came to safe and clean air and water, regardless of any pro-environmental measures on the part of their parents. A staggering 95 percent of the children surveyed said their parents pitched in by recycling, using rechargeable batteries, and conserving water and electricity.

Enough is enough.

Of the World's Mature Economies, The US is Still the Leper with the Most Fingers

José Manuel Barroso, the head of the European Commission, underlined the anxiety gripping the continent when he acknowleged: "The tensions in bond markets reflect a growing concern among investors about the systemic capacity of the euro area to respond to the evolving crisis."

Europe's economic minor league, the marginal fringe economies, having spent the past two years threatening civilization with cascading defaults, are exhibiting more weakness than ever. The press tries to cast this gross failure in terms of a "strain on leadership".

I suppose that's true, but it isn't the cause. It's just a sign that everything they do is seen solely through the prism of the political power of its' leaders. Frankly, they look like a bunch of bulldogs fighting in a gunny sack. Typical of that tone:

In a parliamentary speech delayed until after the market close, Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's prime minister, blamed the recent spike in its borrowing costs on factors beyond Rome's control.

Want to see how bubbles are made? When the financial world flocks to shelter in forex and singles out the Swiss Franc, one wonders how there could ever be enough volume there to support it. The notion of trading their goods and currency with other people's monopoly money has even lead those Knights Templar of finance to join everyone else in debasing their currency.

Switzerland's central bank made a surprise attempt to halt the rise in value of the franc on Wednesday, arguing the popular haven asset was "massively overvalued", but the initial impact of the move faded as the day wore on.
The Swiss National Bank cut target interest rates to "as close to zero as possible" and said it would inject SFr50bn in liquidity in coming days as it tried to halt the franc's relentless appreciation against both the dollar and euro.

Even the Swiss, the most notorious opportunists in the world of glow-ball finance are QEing, if you can believe it.

The Family Tree looks Like Kudzu, if you Ask me

But it's probably more like a wreath. From the WSJ:

There's no way to be certain, of course, but the speculation is the second woman from left in the group photo above, taken earlier this month at Pyongyang Department Store No. 1, is Mr. Kim's daughter Kim Sol Song. She is the third-eldest of Mr. Kim's seven children and the second-eldest daughter.

Like many a primitive tribal chief or ghetto thug:

(Mr. Kim had children with four different women.)

None of which seem terribly proud of the fact, so far as we can tell based on how they seem to dress the little guy.

The Ugly Slobs Couldn't Fight the War Against Tooth Decay

John Rosenthal, who is one seriously astute SOB, ask rather plainly why it is the Europeans wanted to depose Muammar Qadaffi if they wern't willing to try and win it?

Gates indicated that the US has no vital interest there, and HR Clinton indicated that it was a vital interest based on "our NATO allies saying it was int THEIR vital interest". Since then, it seemed to have stopped being in their vital interest.

The Italians, it seems took a healthier approach: to just no take sides. It looks like UK and French communication fo "vital interest" rolled down-hill to hit the US and then Italy.

Secretary Clinton's inclusion of Italy in the list was dubious to begin with. In fact, from the start of the unrest in Libya, the Italian government warned about taking sides in the conflict and supporting the rebellion. For example, in an interview published on February 23 in the Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini alluded to the creation of an "Islamic Emirate" in the eastern-Libyan heartland of the rebellion. "We do not know more [about it]," Frattini told Il Corriere. "But we know that they are dangerous. There are elements of al-Qaeda there."
The Italian government's caution was hardly surprising, given that the February 17 protests that sparked the rebellion were called to commemorate protests five years earlier that had culminated in the storming of the Italian consulate in Benghazi by an angry mob. Several local residents were killed when Libyan security forces attempting to protect the consulate opened fire on the mob. The outrage of the protesters was tied to the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and other European newspapers. (On the 2006 protests, see my article "Our Principles? The Libyan Insurrection and the Mohammed Cartoons.")

The Italian reluctance to support a military intervention also had to do with fears of seeing such an intervention provoke an exodus of tens of thousands of refugees from Libya, many of whom would inevitably end up in Italy. These fears have proven well founded.

But now, according to a report in the Saturday edition of Il Corriere della Sera, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has confided to colleagues not only that he was opposed to the NATO intervention in Libya, but that he was pressured into making available Italian military capabilities by precisely the United States. According to the report, Berlusconi recalled that "at the time I had warned our international partners, and also at home I had explained that the operation would not be easy . . ." "But," Berlusconi is reported to have continued, "in the face of the pressures exerted by the United States, the position of [Italian president Giorgio] Napolitano, and the vote [in favor of the intervention] by our parliament, what could I do?"

Thanks for throwing us another Curveball, spankers.

If this Doesn't Work, They'll ask you to Start Hoarding Canned Food

ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said the central bank's controversial program of buying government paper in an effort to stabilize markets, inactive since March, was ongoing. "You will see what we do,'' he told a news conference.

Be afraid.

The EU is setting up the ultimate moral hazard: buying up member government bonds to backstop them. They will then have to find buyers for the stuff.

It also raised questions about whether the ECB was waiting for Rome and Madrid to take extra fiscal adjustment measures before it will buy their bonds, or whether the central bank was unable to agree on widening the scope of bond-buying to them.

The ECB were certainly waited out by the "provincials" who only need to stay mum to out-maneuver Trichet.

This is the equivalent of a couple of California-sized states issuing bonds left and right knowing that the more bogus the prospect, the more likely that the Federal government will "save" them by buying those obligations up. Not only is there no-one else out there that can be bullied or to pawn this crap off on, it could cause an outflow and inflation at the same time.

Next step, of course is to see internecine cat fights. But first you'll hear some actual, real-life economics being theorized:

"I note that the Bank of Japan today launched quantitative easing and the Swiss central bank cut rates to zero. We are waiting for (ECB) decisions if possible, but desirable,'' he said. Tremonti said when he talked to Asian investors, they said: "If your central bank doesn't buy your bonds, why should we buy them?''

Bring popcorn.

Sometimes a Smurf is Just a Good Smoke

Reviving a truly sad academic theory from the 1980's, normally kicked around by undergrads desperate for a subject to write about, it has returned. Strangely enough, having mocked it a few times here is usually sufficient to eliminate it from the zeitgeist:

"The workers own all the capital equally, and there is no upper class of owners/capitalists to oppress them," wrote Mr. Schmidt, author of the book "Secrets of Pop Culture," in an email. "Unlike real-life Marxist countries, the Smurfs managed this feat without resorting to totalitarianism or repressing personal freedom, so it is a utopia."

In other words: Smurfs = the happy proletariat, Gargamel = USA

Yep. You read that right. It does betray some of the modern delusion people have about real, living socialism, which assumes that it's a caring, therapeutic sort of society. It wasn't and it isn't.

It held and holds rather bluntly that if you don't work, you don't eat. The ankle-biting modern promoters of "that other way" seem in large part to be allergic to the first half of that dictum.

The pedantic lifelessness of the argument wasn't enough to stop a Parisian academic, seemingly as desperate for a subject to write about as those undergrads of old.

All of the above was more than enough fodder for Parisian academic Antoine Bueno, who in June published a treatise on the topic, the aptly named "Little Blue Book." In its 250 pages, the 33-year-old university lecturer argued that Smurf society represents a "totalitarian utopia drenched in Stalinism"; in subsequent interviews, he claimed the Smurfs also were racist, and that Gargamel was an anti-Semitic caricature.

Not to mention the reaction of the "therapeutic culture":

The same Smurf fans who approved of a 2005 UNICEF television ad that depicted the Smurf village being bombed by fighter jets - the better to raise money for ex-child soldiers in Africa - called Mr. Bueno's book a disgrace. Thierry Culliford, son of the deceased Smurfs creator, called the author's take "grotesque."

Are we getting carried away here? No, the line of thought that believes that an animated feature about an anatomically incorrect panda says something about geopolitical theory has:

In his YouTube video, Mr. Topham does Mr. Bueno one better, noting widespread Internet belief that "Smurf" is an acronym for "Socialist Men Under Red Father."

And yet it the majority of humans who are told that they suffer from "false consciousness" by neo-coms and "scholars" looking anywhere and everywhere for affirmation of their ideas.

Two years ago, a Canadian professor was ridiculed for writing that Thomas the Tank Engine propagated a sexist, ultraconservative ideology. As opposed to being, well, a smiling choo-choo train.

For heaven's sake, how much more proof do you need? Isn't it obvious that Thomas the Tank Engine is an unwitting shill of the conspiratorial patriarchy rubbing their handlebar moustaches as they gurgle in glee?

Defend Socialist Land of Peace !

Hanguk Story has got the plot.

In his dream, an American fleet invades North Korea. The protagonist and his friends try to defend by firing artillery shells made of pencils, but the protagonist doesn't know how to use protractor to aim. Overwhelmed by the evil American fleet, he wakes up from the dream. He says something along the line of "I must study hard and pay attention in class so I can be a great soldier to fight against the Americans". The rest is math lessons.

Work hard, kid. Lil' Kim needs his hookers and smack.

He Was Listening to The Bruce Dickinson

Dutch Tourist Caught Stealing A Cowbell In Bavaria

Police say the tourist, whose name was not released, says he was just looking for a souvenir.

German Woman Leaving Paris Muses About What She Will Miss and What She Won't

Could there be any worse time to leave Paris?

asks Katrin Bennhold, a German working for the New York Times' International Herald Tribune offspring who indeed is leaving France (in spite of being six months pregnant) for a post in London.

On the long list of things to miss about France, the climate, public transport and generous amounts of vacation do of course feature prominently.

But, for this woman at least, none of that can beat a combination of free preschools, family allowances, tax deductions for each child, a paid, four-month maternity leave and to top it all off, an extended course of gymnastics, complete with personal trainer and electric stimulation devices, to get you and your birth canal muscles back into shape, courtesy of the taxpayer.

…I have another list, a much shorter one, of all the things I won’t miss about France: the overrated coffee, the smell of andouillettes, the “do not walk on the grass” signs in public parks and all the unnecessary traffic congestion due to cars piling into the intersection just as the light turns yellow. There are also the early-morning ticket controls in the Métro that in my experience seem to focus mostly on black and Arab-looking commuters.

But the No. 1 spot on this list is also occupied by something related to being a woman: A deep-seated machismo in everyday interaction that grated with me long before the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case made headlines.

Many French women appear to worry more about being feminine than feminist, and French men often display a form of gallantry predating the 1789 revolution. “Charming,” I thought, when I first arrived 10 years ago and an official in the Foreign Ministry scrambled to open every one of four doors in a very long, narrow corridor. But I soon tired of the unsolicited attention that young men sometimes heap upon women who are walking down the Champs-Élysées in a skirt.

France ranks 46th in the World Economic Forum’s 2010 gender equality report, lagging behind the United States, most of Europe, but also Kazakhstan and Jamaica. Women in France earn on average 26 percent less than men but do two-thirds of the housework.

As the historian Michelle Perrot put it to me a few months ago, “France may be Scandinavian in its employment statistics, but it remains profoundly Latin in attitude.”

And still, this is the only European country where I’ve routinely met successful businesswomen with three children and an enviable figure.

Surprise Election Results!

And the returns only took two days !

"99.97 percent of all the voters registered in the lists took part in the election and voted for the candidates for deputies registered in the relevant constituencies."

The epitome of leftist socio-political thought is clearly a bastion of free spirited debate and prosperity, I tell ya!

The remaining 0.3% who did not vote being the cosmopolitan evangelists of this international superpower who are out spreading the good news to the world of the fabulousness of being them.

"Mon coeur est français, mais mon cul est international"

In an article in Le Monde about French actresses and celebrities who took German officers, if not Nazi ones, as lovers during World War II, Frédéric Lemaître praises one of them — Arletty — for anticipating the sexual revolution and — in Klaus Harpprecht's words — as a patriot ("in her own way") for seeing the German occupants "as human beings like all others", all the while tipping his (Lemaître's) hat to the German author for his World War II paean to 1940s France.

Malgré ses 84 ans, Klaus Harpprecht se souvient encore parfaitement de l'effet ressenti en 1947 lors de la projection à Stuttgart du chef-d'oeuvre de Marcel Carné Les Enfants du paradis, tourné pendant l'Occupation. La magnificence des décors ne pouvait que subjuguer les spectateurs qui vivaient au milieu des ruines. Mais surtout, comment résister à Arletty ? "Ses grands yeux sombres, (...) ses épaules soyeuses, son décolleté, le jeu amusé de la commissure de ses lèvres." Il n'en fallait pas plus à ce jeune homme qui avait déjà dévoré (en allemand) Le Rouge et le Noir pour tomber définitivement amoureux de l'actrice et de la France. Un amour qui, avec le recul, ne devait rien au hasard.

… Depuis une dizaine d'années, Klaus Harpprecht est revenu à son amour de jeunesse. Le fruit de ses recherches vient de paraître sous le titre : Arletty und ihr deutscher Offizier, eine Liebe in Zeiten des Krieges ("Arletty et son officier allemand, un amour en temps de guerre") (éd. S. Fischer). Si la liaison d'Arletty avec Hans Jürgen Soehring, officier de la Luftwaffe, est connue des Français (notamment en raison de la célèbre justification donnée par l'actrice elle-même : "Mon coeur est français, mais mon cul est international", nombre d'Allemands la découvrent grâce à Klaus Harpprecht. Mais au-delà de cette relation, qui a valu à Arletty d'être incarcérée puis placée en résidence surveillée pour "transmission d'informations à l'ennemi", c'est une véritable fresque sur la vie culturelle et artistique sous l'Occupation que l'auteur propose à ses lecteurs. De Jean-Paul Sartre à Sacha Guitry, de Céline à Simone Signoret ou Danielle Darrieux, Klaus Harpprecht dresse une impressionnante galerie de portraits.

… Sous sa plume, Arletty préfigure la révolution sexuelle à venir. Signe que le temps a - heureusement - produit ses effets, Klaus Harpprecht se permet même de juger qu'"à sa façon Arletty était bel et bien une patriote. Elle était fière de la culture française. Elle aimait le pays et ses habitants. Mais elle ne voyait pas pourquoi elle ne devrait aimer que ses compatriotes. Pour elle, les Allemands, qui, dans leur majorité, ne faisaient pas la guerre de leur plein gré, étaient des êtres humains comme les autres".

Les librairies allemandes regorgent de livres sur la seconde guerre mondiale. … Mais rares sont ceux qui se lisent avec un tel plaisir ou qui, à travers les lignes, témoignent d'un tel amour pour la France.

More Communist Gaiety

It's Another New High for European Culture



Don’t think for a second that she isn't into pegging him every night.

Love for Sale

Austria, Belgium, the Czech republic, Greece, Italy and the UK made more nuanced statements but were broadly-speaking in the French camp. The UK said only that diplomats should study implications for regional stability before making the move.

EUobserver reports on the usual policy-by-scrum going on in EUtopia. It reads like the racing form.

While the method of dialog tends to make ones’ eyes glassy, you have to stay awake to notice that they’re talking about arms sales to China.

It reads rather typically of any sort of subject in the “political union”, and is largely undifferentiated from events: for one thing, China has been aggressive in the waters around her, ramping up the hostility to Vietnam and Taiwan, and sending smoke signals about war to the US.

France, the strongest pro-China advocate, said "the embargo is anachronistic and must go" and showed "zero flexibility" on asking Beijing to make reforms in return for lifting the embargo, arguing that "China would not accept human rights conditionality."

Which is to say that they found a way to rationalize their way around the “human rights policy” that they like to think makes them the only residents in heaven.

Wen arrived in London to meet his British counterpart David Cameron. At a joint press conference, Cameron cited late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping's most famous quote - "It doesn't matter if the cat is black or white as long as it catches the mice" - to express his attitude on Britain's introduction of Chinese-made high-speed trains.

So life goes on in totally unlinked, dissociative fashion. Naturally, the Europeans will sell them weapons. It comes on the heels of the Chinese leadership touring Europe and lavishing them with bailout money and deposits to backstop their banks.

Wen began the first leg of his tour on June 24 in Budapest, the first visit to Hungary by a Chinese premier in 24 years. He signed a number of cooperative deals with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, and announced that China was ready to purchase Hungarian government bonds and extend 1 billion euros (US$1.4 billion) in credit. The purchase of Hungarian treasury bonds was hailed by Orban as "historic help" for Hungary.

And vice versa, even at the cost of selling their only real ally and security guarantor up the river.

It calls for Soviet era sounding statements and declarations that sound as if they could be about “the thrilling tractor production quotas being not just met, but beaten!” and ‘new eras in international relations and world peace’:

"The wide range of topics up for discussion and the substantial achievements are all pioneering work in the history of Sino-German relations and Sino-EU relations," Wen said during a press conference with Merkel.

French Health System: A Casebook History of the Unintended Consequences of Government Intervention

While the French are busy bragging to the clueless Yanks about their (France's) second-to-none health care system, Emmanuel Vigneron tells Laetitia Clavreul in a Le Monde interview that the French system is beset with failures, such as excess fees (honoraires libres) and medical "deserts" in various regions of France, not to mention pointless operations (such as 90,000 appendectomies instead of the 65,000 that are truly necessary).

On parle beaucoup des déserts médicaux. La relation de cause à effet entre nombre de médecins et santé n'est pas établie, mais il y a suspicion. Il est donc largement temps de poser la question, d'autant plus que ces inégalités territoriales se conjuguent avec les inégalités sociales, sous l'effet du coût du foncier qui pousse les classes les moins aisées à s'éloigner des zones urbaines, et ainsi des professionnels de santé.

Meanwhile, more and more French doctors are choosing to be paid in excess fees, adds Le Monde's Laetitia Clavreul, with the attendant overrun ratings constantly rising, in a system that is getting "deeply anchored in the French health system." Needless to say, neither the writer nor the Le Monde readers seem to notice it, but it turns out to be a case history of the unintended consequences of government intervention, with more and more rules being laid out (more reforms! more reforms!) to make up for the shortcomings of each previous generation of rules…

Lancé en 1980, pour éviter à la Sécurité sociale d'augmenter les tarifs des consultations tout en permettant une hausse de la rémunération des médecins, le secteur 2 a remporté un tel succès que face à la difficulté, déjà, de trouver un praticien au tarif de base, il a été décidé d'en limiter l'accès en 1990.

…Mais vingt ans plus tard, après une baisse des effectifs de praticiens en tarif libre, ce sont désormais des niveaux de 1990, voire bien au-dessus, que l'on retrouve dans certaines spécialités, comme les chirurgiens, les anesthésistes ou les gynécologues.

…La barre des 50% est souvent dépassée, par exemple chez les ORL, les ophtalmologues ou les gynécologues, et surtout les chirurgiens, qui atteignent désormais les 85% !

…L'essor des dépassements favorise donc bien la médecine à deux vitesses. Les médecins, qui préfèrent parler de "compléments d'honoraires", refusent cependant d'être jugés responsables, rappelant à l'envi que la hausse est due au fait que les tarifs de base, si peu augmentés par l'Assurance-maladie, ne permettent plus d'exercer.

The result of multiculturalism gone tragically wrong through ignorant immigration policies

What we have witnessed in Oslo and on Utoya Island, and what we risk experiencing in future copycat atrocities elsewhere,

writes Karl H. Pagac,

is the result of multiculturalism gone tragically wrong through ignorant immigration policies — politically correct but naïve interpretations of democratic values — and an idealistic view of a free, open and tolerant Europe.

The Takers Eat the Makers

George Handerly’s comments on sovereign debt may be directed at Europe, but apply equally well to the United States:

Sovereign debt and the Euro. This chaos of the global economy is not caused by its participants’ inability to offer goods in a quality and for a price for which there is a demand. That (private) part of the economy that produces and consumes is in good shape. The tumor is located in the political direction of the economy. The crisis is one of confidence. No wonder. The Western pillars of the world economy have governments that are in debt because their clientism forces them to misspend the community’s funds. These indebted governments are run by leaders who, being blinded by their “eurocratic” doctrine, extend loans to broken systems. These national economies have no chance to climb back up on the greased flagpole on which they have slid down.

I would rather think it should be called political venality rather than clientism, but the point is clear. Decades of vote-buying by way of pet projects dressed up as social experimentation and intervention lead finally to the state destroying the private affairs of the governed and their ability to function, employ, and build.

Those who would impose just one more eenie-weeny unproductive burden on us don’t get it. The good that they see in the world as a gift they want to give themselves and others isn’t made by them.

This is said as I find myself dealing with a LEED consultant who know less about that unproductive burden than I do, but still feels compelled to “get something else out of the owner” for what he thinks to be the sake of the planet. Knowing this, I doubt this owner will ever build again.

On "the right side of history" regarding Syria? At the UN, the Obama administration has not issued a peep

In dealing with the Middle East’s political eruptions, the United States, credibly or not, has made standing on the right side of history its operative watchword

notes John Vinocur in the International Herald Tribune.

Backing a French-British resolution condemning the Syrian regime for its brutal repression of opposition demonstrators, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice, reached for the moral prop: “We will be on the right side of history if and when this comes to a vote. If others are unable to, or are unwilling to, then that will be their responsibility to bear.”

Now, with deaths in Syria reported to have risen to 1,400 over four months of clashes, there has been no U.N. condemnation, and no U.S. calling-out by name those countries blocking the measure and supplying Syria with its arms and financial wherewithal.

With Syria’s dictatorship killing daily with impunity, Ms. Rice’s line, five weeks later, has less the look of a U.S. government acting on history’s right side than one comfortable with indignation minus consequences.

As it turns out, the West is doing very little to transform the outrage of Syrian citizens into effective penalties against the regime of Bashar al-Assad and its suppliers, or into active outside support for a best-case scenario — ending Damascus’s symbiotic relationship with Iran, stopping Syria’s promotion of terrorism and isolating Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The language of moral commitment remains: President Barack Obama has said the United States is “using all the diplomatic, economic and strategic tools at our disposal” to support democratic transition and “block the path of murder.” But evidence of that action — or anything resembling results — isn’t shining through.

…for the Americans, moral impeccability, with the Security Council action floundering, relates in the short term to whether the United States considers the Russians and the Chinese too big to assail concerning Syria.

…how do you not exert pressure on Moscow now when tanks and helicopters — Pieter D. Wezeman of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates Russia to be the essential source of the Syrian military’s heavy equipment — mass near a Syrian town where soldiers have defected?

Two despairing answers:

One, according to a European diplomat, is that the European Union, without specific U.N. cover, could never achieve the consensus necessary to call out Moscow or penalize it for providing the hardware involved in Syria’s ongoing massacres.

The other is that for the Obama administration, the task of confronting Syria’s supply chain with sanctions would savage the basic Russia-is-manageable premise of the president’s so-called reset with Moscow.

They Spoke Out

Thanks to the art of Neal Adams, among other contributors, Disney provides us with the series They Spoke Out (American Voices Against the Holocaust).

Anniversary of an Apologist’s Birth

"When I am dead, I hope it may be said:
'His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.'"

- Joseph Hilaire Pierre Belloc,
Born this day in 1870

How’d That Work Out for Ya?

27 July 1961:

East Berlin to be Rebuilt Into Red Super-Metropolis

BERLIN (NANA) – East Germany plans to rebuild Communist East Berlin as the showcase capital of the German Communist state and an architectural counter-attraction to West Berlin.
Walter Ulbricht, the East German leader, revealed that cornerstones for a complex of government buildings at Marx-Engels Square as a feature of signing ceremonies for a Soviet-East German peace treaty.

East Germany has conducted an architectural competition for the designing of the “ultra modern socialist metropolis.” Professor Max Hensermann, the architect in charge, says East Germany decided against imitating Moscow architecture.
“There are many forms of functional socialist architecture, and we will choose those forms best suited to East Berlin,” Henselmann said.

In 1953 East Germany began construction of the Stalin Allee, a gaudy boulevard designed as a propaganda façade for the rubble and ramshackle structures which make East Berlin and eyesore.
This avenue of “Moscow Modern” apartment buildings and luxury shops now stretches for nearly a mile along the pre-war Frankfurter Allee. It is to be extended to the Alexanderplatz.
But future new construction will deviate sharply from the Rococo and gingerbread of “Moscow Modern.” Henselmann indicated that the east Germans have decided on a modified Le Corbusier functional architecture with flowing lines.

The Marx-Engels Square, the pre-Communist Lustgarten, will house government offices, in effect replacing the pre-war Wilhelmstrasse and Leipzigerstrasse.
Foreign embassies will again be concentrated at the western end of Unter Den Linden, the famous Linden tree-lined avenue containing Humboldt (Berlin) University, the State Opera, and principal museums.
Since the war the Soviets have built a mammoth embassy near the former site of the U.S., British, and French embassies. The East German regime has now reserved a large tract in this area which will be subdivided and sold for embassy sites to countries recognizing East Germany.

COMMUNIST GAIETY

The opposite end of Unter Den Linden, bordering on the old Lustgarten, will be developed as East Berlin’s center of elegance. It will contain large department stores, cafes and restaurants, and even night clubs. Henselmann remarked, “who says there’s anything against gaiety in Communism?”

Freiedrichstrasse, pre-war Berlin’s amusement area, will retain the same character under the Communist reconstruction plans. A 200-bed hotel is to be constructed near the Friedrichstrasse railway station.

Hanselmann estimates that the major buildings in the program including Friedrichstrasse Hotel, will be completed by 1967. “The exact date depends upon the establishemtn of priorities for this program as compared with our general industrial development,” he explained.
“But we can promise this: By 1965 you will no longer recognize the city you see today.”

USA Number One!

America's Debt,
by Plantu:
$14,300 billion
• Barack Obama:
We Are the Champions!

To “Save the Planet” You could also Eat your Young

Via Tim Blair, we find the bottom-of-the-barrel, desperate, throwing-spaghetti-at-the-walls sort of stuff that economically and technologically deaf eco-ravers resort to. Today some of them suggesting that we all do every winter what we would if one were trying to stave of hypothermia in a disaster or massive civic utility failure: sleep with our pets.

This isn’t great news for the tropical fish population. Bee-keepers, too, may be at a loss to make use of the directive.

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.