Court Rules in Favor of Enderlin: In Press, Al Dura Affair Journalist (Again) Described as a Poor Martyred Victim (Simply) Trying to Clear His Honor

A French court has just ruled in favor of Charles Enderlin, writes Le Monde's War or Peace blog, by nullifying the 2008 acquittal (for "good faith") of his accuser in the Mohamed Al Dura affair, Philippe Karsenty. Did you notice the "finally" in the headline of the (entirely objective and the strictly neutral) reporter, Gilles Paris? Justice [i.e., a Court] (Finally) Vindicates Charles Enderlin!

Throughout the years, the narrative on Charles Enderlin has been: poor, innocent, well-meaning, martyred victim…

That's the message one gets from the very first paragraph in Le Monde article by Laurent Zecchini.

Parfois l'envie vous prend de lui dire amicalement : " Charles, tu devrais arrêter de penser à tes guerres ; et laisser tomber l'affaire Al-Doura ! "

After all, what self-respecting journalist (especially of Enderlin's caliber) would not want to "wash his honor" in the same circumstances as the Mohamed Al Dura affair?!

Quant à la récurrente affaire Al-Doura, quel journaliste peut affirmer que, confronté à la même expérience traumatisante, il aurait réagi avec détachement ? Détaché, à coup sûr, Charles Enderlin ne l'est pas, même s'il affirme qu'aujourd'hui, " ce n'est plus une nuisance personnelle ".

Follows a long article — by Laurent Zecchini who already a year and a half ago praised Enderlin's integrity while demonizing his "hateful" critics — on adversity, on the vindictiveness of France's Jews, on never-ceasing lawsuits and visits to the tribunal, and on "the solitary quest" to a man to "wipe a spot on his honor as a journalist", a quest by a poor "journalist whose professionalism is not put in doubt" (except that precisely, yes, his professionalism is put into doubt).

Des années de reportages et d'analyses vont peu à peu bâtir la réputation d'un journaliste sérieux et pondéré, dont le professionnalisme n'est pas contesté.

Here is Laurent Zecchini's article in full which, because it appears in Le Monde's TV section, is behind the daily's firewall.

Charles Enderlin

AU CŒUR DE L'ADVERSITÉ

Parfois l'envie vous prend de lui dire amicalement : " Charles, tu devrais arrêter de penser à tes guerres ; et laisser tomber l'affaire Al-Doura ! " Mais on s'abstient, pour deux raisons : Charles Enderlin, correspondant permanent de France 2 en Israël depuis 1988, est une mémoire encyclopédique du Proche-Orient. L'écouter, c'est entrevoir un éclairage, apprendre une anecdote sur les acteurs du conflit israélo-palestinien, qu'il a illustré de ses innombrables reportages et livres.

Et puis, il a un argument imparable : " Un chimiste, il parle de chimie ; un correspondant en Israël, il parle du conflit, avec ses conséquences sur la société israélienne, c'est normal. " Quant à la récurrente affaire Al-Doura, quel journaliste peut affirmer que, confronté à la même expérience traumatisante, il aurait réagi avec détachement ? Détaché, à coup sûr, Charles Enderlin ne l'est pas, même s'il affirme qu'aujourd'hui, " ce n'est plus une nuisance personnelle ".

Rappel des faits : les images de la mort du petit Mohammed Al-Doura, âgé de 12 ans, filmées le 30 septembre 2000, au début de la seconde Intifada, au centre de la bande de Gaza, par le cameraman de France 2, Talal Abou Rahmeh, ont fait le tour du monde. La thèse de Charles Enderlin est que l'enfant a été tué par des tirs israéliens. Philippe Karsenty, de l'agence Media Ratings, affirme, lui, qu'il s'agit d'une " simple mise en scène " (pour nuire à l'image d'Israël).

LAVER SON IMAGE DE JOURNALISTE

Charles Enderlin récuse cette " théorie du complot ", mais les péripéties judiciaires perdurent (la Cour de cassation se prononcera le 28 février), et il estime qu'il n'a pas le choix : il doit réfuter les accusations, afin d'obtenir in fine une réparation morale. Laver son honneur de journaliste, n'est-ce pas, à 66 ans, le seul combat qui vaille ?

" Pendant trois ans, reconnaît-il, cela m'a plombé : les menaces, contre moi, contre ma femme, les problèmes rencontrés par les enfants à l'école. " Aujourd'hui, cela va mieux, quitte à faire preuve d'une sérénité un peu forcée : " Ma réputation professionnelle n'a pas été atteinte, mes livres se vendent, je suis toujours invité à des conférences, la réponse de la profession a été extraordinaire, de même que le soutien de France 2. " Mais il ne se fait pas d'illusions : " Ils vont continuer jusqu'à temps que je prenne ma retraite... "

L'adversité, il connaît, ne serait-ce que par l'histoire de sa famille, qui avait quitté l'Autriche en 1938, au moment de l'Anschluss, et par ses débuts en Israël, où il arrive en 1968, après avoir fait partie du comité de grève de la fac de médecine de Paris. Une expérience dans le kibboutz Dafna, qui lui laisse un sentiment mitigé, et un premier emploi de journaliste, en 1971, à Kol Israel, la radio nationale. Commence ensuite, en 1981, le début de sa collaboration à Antenne 2.

Des années de reportages et d'analyses vont peu à peu bâtir la réputation d'un journaliste sérieux et pondéré, dont le professionnalisme n'est pas contesté. Jusqu'à cet échange incertain de tirs israéliens et palestiniens, à Gaza, qui va engendrer une âpre vindicte, instrumentalisée par une partie de la communauté juive française. Pourquoi un tel acharnement ? Bien avant l'" affaire ", dit-il de sa voix rocailleuse, " il y avait déjà une campagne permanente d'intimidation contre moi, comme à l'encontre de tous ceux qui font mine de critiquer Israël ". Charles Enderlin a des amis qui respectent ses choix, même s'ils ne les comprennent pas toujours. Daniel Ben-Simon, député travailliste à la Knesset, ancien journaliste, estime qu'il est difficile de " faire la distinction entre Charles le journaliste et Charles l'homme politique ".

L'" homme politique " ? " Oui, dans la mesure où c'est un journaliste impliqué pour la paix et la création d'un Etat palestinien. En ce sens, il n'est pas complètement neutre, parce qu'il veut changer les choses. " Comme d'autres, lui aussi regrette que l'affaire Al-Doura " lui empoisonne la vie, devenant obsessionnelle ". C'est aussi l'avis de l'historien Zeev Sternhell : " Le prix moral et humain qu'il a payé est exorbitant, mais je respecte sa décision d'aller jusqu'au bout. " Et le professeur Sternhell d'ajouter une nuance : " S'il y a eu une erreur dans cette affaire, elle n'était pas préméditée, parce que je ne peux pas imaginer Charles, qui est un journaliste honnête, fabriquer un film. " Qu'en pense un homme qui ne fait pas partie de ses amis ? " Je considère qu'il a été piégé par son cameraman, nous indique Richard Prasquier, président du Conseil représentatif des institutions juives de France. Par orgueil, il n'a pas voulu l'admettre, et les conséquences ont été extrêmement graves. Et ses confrères ont réagi par solidarité affective, plutôt que par une analyse des faits. "

Claude Kandiyoti, autre ami de Charles Enderlin, est l'un des responsables de JCall, cet " Appel à la raison " de juifs européens qui se réclament du camp de la paix. " Quand j'écoute Charles, observe-t-il, je suis convaincu ; quand j'écoute certains Israéliens, le doute s'installe. Dans cette histoire, il me semble qu'il y a encore des zones d'ombre. " Tout porte à croire que tant que celles-ci n'auront pas été complètement dissipées, la quête solitaire de Charles Enderlin pour effacer ce qu'il estime être une tâche à son honneur de journaliste ne prendra pas fin.

Laurent Zecchini

Previous French Oscar Winners

Le Monde gives the list of French artists and films who won Oscars prior to Jean Dujardin and The Artist.

(Meanwhile, Tennessee also has reason to celebrate, as Instapundit notes, as there is Not one, but two Oscar winners from the Knoxville area.)

So French in his being, so little French in his acting, the opposite of the intellectual actor

It's the story of a Frenchman who can't be more French than he is nor have a more French name, writes Marion Van Renterghem of Oscar-winner Jean Dujardin in Le Monde. So French in his being and so little French in his acting, the opposite of the intellectual actor.

Si français dans son être et si peu français dans son jeu. Le contraire de l'acteur cérébral : intégralement physique, un charisme viril à la Clark Gable, une voix vaguement nasillarde de doubleur de western, un corps qu'on dirait fabriqué pour occuper l'espace et prendre la lumière. Un french lover comme les Américains les aiment, avec le mauvais accent et l'élégance coquine.

… Jean Dujardin, 40 ans en juin, est un enfant de la télé devenu adulte avec le Web. De cette génération d'acteurs propulsés à la célébrité sans filtre, par un simple "buzz". Ils ne s'empoignent pas sur la politique, ne sont pas hantés par la littérature ni par les films d'auteur comme les cinéphiles de la Nouvelle Vague. "Ils ont en commun une totale décontraction par rapport à l'érudition, au statut des uns et des autres, constate le producteur Alain Attal. Ils n'ont pas honte de citer des comédies "lourdotes" américaines. Chacun participe à tout sur un film, sans frontières entre les métiers."

In the reactions, a Le Monde reader gives a link to one appropriate episode in the series of daily TV shorts, "A Dude, a Gal", that made Jean Dujardin (or John of the Garden, as another reader calls him) famous along with his future wife, Alexandra Lamy. (Other readers suggest that — sigh — Marion Van Renterghem's article is… racist!)

French Triumph in Hollywood: The Artist Wins 5 Oscars, Including 3 of the Top Awards

Those Invalids Who Govern the French

First, it is a medical secret. Then a state secret. After a certain time has passed, it becomes an open secret.

While the French are criticizing Americans for being close-minded and not "lucid" and self-critical enough towards their society and towards the people and the institutions who govern them, Isabelle Talès writes a Le Monde review about a documentary showing how France's presidents have often misled their peoples about the true nature of their health, something that becomes known only many years later.

La maladie du pouvoir reconstituait ainsi, mercredi 22 février sur France 3, les heures dramatiques où le pays fut gouverné par de grands malades. Enfin... dramatiques, c'est facile de le dire aujourd'hui, mais à l'époque, qui s'en doutait ?

C'est comme si l'histoire se rembobinait : on reconnaît les images d'archives (Georges Pompidou de plus en plus bouffi, François Mitterrand de plus en plus fragile), mais elles s'accompagnent désormais du bon commentaire. Lors d'une visite en URSS quelques semaines avant sa mort en 1974, Pompidou, atteint d'un cancer du sang, sourit aux officiels mais souffre d'hémorragies.

… L'enquête de Philippe Kohly et Françoise Fressoz (journaliste au Monde) tente de répondre à trois questions : comment ont-ils tenu ? Pourquoi ? Mais surtout, auraient-ils dû tenir ?

… On est presque surpris de voir s'ouvrir le dossier Jacques Chirac. Mais peut-être n'a-t-il jamais vraiment récupéré d'un arrêt vasculaire cérébral survenu en 2005. Les témoins ne sont pas encore tout à fait "mûrs" ni tout à fait sûrs. Il faudra encore attendre quelques années.

C'est alors que se présente le cas Sarkozy. On l'avait presque oublié : l'actuel chef de l'Etat a été pris d'un malaise vagal en joggant sous le soleil en 2009. Mais là, il est vraiment trop tôt.

N'empêche, on sort de ces visites répétées au Val-de-Grâce un peu inquiet. Les candidats qui courent la France ces jours-ci feraient bien de subir un check-up. Et surtout, si ça ne va pas, qu'ils nous le disent !

Sunday Dada

Doesn’t everyone?



Hans Richter : Filmstudie

NYT Reporter "Cherishes" Memory of How, During Nixon's Beijing Visit, China's Communists Taught the Yankee Imperialists a Lesson

Forty years after "Richard Nixon touched down to be greeted by the Chinese premier, Zhou Enlai, at the airport in what Westerners in those days still called Peking", the New York Times' John F Burns reminisces wistfully, even eagerly, on how China's communists "taught" the Americans a lesson, with those wise old men even showing restraint in the exercise thereof.

How often since have I cherished the note of mischief that the Chinese smuggled into that solemn moment. Plain as could be, inscribed on a large posterboard at the rim of the airport apron that overlooked the cockpit of Air Force One, picked up by the television cameras relaying images of that famous handshake, were Mao Zedong’s words in Chinese, set in white on a red background in the manner of the “big character” posters of the Cultural Revolution: “Make trouble, fail; make trouble again, fail again, until their doom. This is the logic of all imperialists and reactionaries the world over, and they cannot go against it. This is Marxist law.”

If the board had been bigger, the inscription might have added these still blunter words from the same passage: “When we say ‘imperialism is ferocious,’ we mean that its nature will never change, that the imperialists will never lay down their butcher knives, that they will never become Buddhas, till their doom.” But the Chinese, ever economical in their dealings with foreigners, must have felt that they had made their point with sufficient clarity.

Now ain't that something? Not only did China's communists teach America's capitalists that the latter aren't better than anybody else, according to the New York Times, those wise leaders even exercised restraint in doing so! Almos' makes you wanna forget the tens of millions o' Chinese citizens killed by Mao and his henchmen, don't it?!

My Dinner with André the Giant

Here’s an interesting confrontation: read as Marxist-Leninist Communism tries to run head-on into Ronald Reagan and try to rhetorically topple it with the mendacious assumption that the USSR’s radical leftism was the defender and standard-bearer of human rights.

Secretary General Gorbachev: It is a shame, Mr. President, that you and I do not have enough time to discuss humanitarian issues. We have concrete ideas on this which we simply are not going to have time to discuss. I have to say that people in the Soviet Union are very concerned about the human rights situation in the United States. There is one other important subject. This is the importance of mutual information in our day. The situation now is this: the Voice of America broadcasts around the clock in many languages from stations you have in various countries in Europe and Asia, while we cannot present our point of view to the American people. Therefore, to achieve parity, we are forced to jam Voice of America broadcasts. I propose the following: we will stop jamming Voice of America and you will be able to broadcast what you consider necessary to us, but at the same time you will meet us half-way and help us lease, from you or in neighboring countries, radio stations that would allow us to reach the American people with our point of view.

Then, as with today’s radical leftism, they continue to parrot the bogus position, still reading off the same, yellowing 3 by 5 cards as their fellow travelers were in 1986 and 1956.

President Reagan: The difference between us is that we recognize freedom of the press and the right of people to listen to any point of view. This does not exist in your press. Today in Washington there will be a press conference, and Americans will see it, and newspapers will publish the text of it. It is not that way in your country. Your system envisions only a government press.

In fact Leftism appears to have liberate no-one and subjected billions of lives to an unnecessary compromise between the individual and a power-hungry state whose only purpose is to preserve the privileges of a permanent, hereditary class that runs it and lives off of it. That outlook even modifies the notion of common sense, and the very idea that a civil society can guide itself in any endeavor, no matter how common or banal.

Secretary General Gorbachev: We are for parity in general. In the information field, for example, or in film. Almost half of the movies showing in our theaters are American. Soviet movies are hardly ever shown in the United States. That is not parity.

President Reagan: We do not have any ban on your movies. The film industry is a free business, and if someone wants to show your films he can do it.

Secretary General Gorbachev: I see that the President avoids this question and goes into talk about business.

President Reagan: Our government cannot control the film market. If you want to inundate us with your movies go right ahead. How our movies get to your country, I do not know.

What I can tell you is that the idea that half the films being run in the Socialist East were American is entirely false. What did give them a woodie, oddly enough, were films critical of American society freely made by Americans, something not one of the Socialist states permitted themselves.

Fast forward to day. Government run Voice of Russia runs flamethrower shortwave transmitters and have leased AM transmission capacity in London, Washington, and New York City that broadcast in English, is buying up capacity in other parts of Europe on MW and in India on FM, and attempt to entertain when they aren’t trying to counter the obvious conclusion anyone would have for the moves that Moscow makes.

The US, on the other hand, may do no such thing in Moscow.

Ireland to erect monument to Che Guevara

"No worse insult to Che Guevara’s forgotten victims" fumes Fausta:

The Galway Advertiser reports that “A major and innovative monument to the Irish-Argentinean revolutionary, guerilla, doctor, writer, and politician Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, has taken a step closer to becoming a reality this week.“

One can imagine many places wanting to build a monument to El Che, but why would precisely Ireland step in to do that? Because Ernesto Guevara had an Irish ancestor, born in Galway in 1715 (and appropriately, perhaps, named Lynch). Fausta notes that

it’s still time to stop [the building of a monument honoring "a mass murdering sociopathic racist Communist"].
Here is the Galway City website. You can contact Billy Cameron at bcameron@eircom.net. Please make sure to be polite and civil when you contact them.

Public Secrets, Sister Toldjah, and Babalu have also reacted to Fausta's announcement, as have Parkway Rest Stop, Blood Thirsty Liberal, and Marathon Pundit, who opines that

it might be a good idea to ask Cameron how he would feel if Buenos Aires built a monument to Oliver Cromwell—the man who utilized what is now called ethnic-cleansing in Ireland.

Reader, if perchance you don't understand some people's opposition to this most romantic of revolutionaries — if indeed you find it baffling — or if you are Irish in this particular case (and proud that in his "veins flowed the blood of the Irish rebels"), you might want to peruse through some of the following thoughts on Che Guevara:

• It is customary for followers of a cult not to know the real life story of their hero, the historical truth

• "I have sworn before a picture of the old and mourned comrade Stalin that I won't rest until I see these capitalist octopuses annihilated"

…The future T-shirt icon … proclaimed to the press that his ideal societal model was Kim Il-Sung's North Korea. … Guevara traveled there in 1965, saw the brutality and poverty with his own eyes, and then made it his goal to import that system to Latin America. As a champion of the poor, Che aspired to emulate a society that truly benefits its poorest inhabitants -anyone not named Kim Jong-il or Kim Il-Sung. … Leftists always have a problem with U.S.-backed dictatorships, but never with Stalinist and Maoist stooges like — well, like Che Guevara. (Benjamin Duffy)

• Stalin II

There is a misperception that [Ernesto "Che" Guevara] was a free spirit. He had cold Stalinist personality. He used to sign his early correspondence "Stalin II." He said early on that he saw the solution to all the world's problems behind (the) Iron Curtain. But this was not some hippie dippie Marxist, Guevara said in speech in 1962 that he regarded the very spirit of rebellion as anti-revolutionary. Figure that out, he said individualism must disappear in Cuba. If you tried to do your own thing under his regime you wound up in a prison camp. (Humberto Fontova)

• The jails of Castro are far worse than those of Batista

Who is the writer of that claim? A capitalist reactionary? An imperialist? A (neo-)fascist? A Batista ally? No. Gustavo Arcos Bergnes is Castro's fellow revolutionary, imprisoned with the future Líder Maximo in the mid-1950s. And he experienced Castro both as a fellow cell-mate and (twice) as a warden. Castro's violent revolutionaries of the 1950s were treated far more humanely by the dictator Batista than non-violent human rights activists are treated by Castro today, he says as he recalls getting special treatment (hospital rooms as cells, private cooking facilities, etc) and pardons after only 21 months. (Since Castro's coming to power, incidentally, there have been 20,000 summary executions, but — unlike Pinochet's 3,000 victims — these are not of any particular concern to "human rights activists")

• Che’s biographers consistently report that he sent thousands to the firing squad:

Che Guevara was one of the regime’s chief executioners during this period and is said to have acknowledged ordering "several thousand" executions. All took place without affording the victims fair trials and due process of law.

• The mass executioner's T-shirt adorns the very people who oppose capital punishment!

• Leftists: Don’t feed them after dark and don’t get them wet

In 1956, when Che linked up with the Cuban exiles in Mexico city, one of them recalls Che railing against the Hungarian freedom-fighters as "Fascists!" and cheering their extermination by Soviet tanks. (Humberto Fontava)

• Where Are the Mickey Mouse Ears?…

Nearly four decades after his death, the legend of Che Guevara has grown worldwide. In this new book, Alvaro Vargas Llosa separates the myth from the reality of Che's legacy, and shows that Che's ideals were a re-hash of notions about centralized power that have long been the major source of suffering and misery in the underdeveloped world. With testimonies from witnesses of Che's actions, Alvaro Vargas Llosa's detailed account of the "real Che" sets the record straight by exposing the delusion at the heart of the Che phenomenon. Vargas Llosa shows that Che's legacy—making the law subservient to the most powerful, crushing any and all dissent, and concentrating wealth under the guise of "social equality"—is not the solution to poverty and injustice but is the core of the problem.

• A la Cabaña, lorsque les familles rendaient visite à leurs proches, Che exigea qu'on les fasse passer devant le mur d'exécution maculé de sang frais

Oubliées, les purges, oubliées, les exécutions sommaires, le plaisir sadique des tortures: Che Guevara est un mythe, et un mythe ne peut être que parfait. … Fidel Castro sut exploiter les pulsions sacrificielles de son ancien compagnon en l'envoyant exporter la guérilla dans le vaste monde — et surtout, coupé de tout lien officiel avec le régime. Che Guevara finirait bien par mourir sur un champ de bataille ou un autre; resterait de lui son image inspirée et intemporelle, contrastant avec une dictature cubaine qui n'en finit pas de pourrir encore aujourd'hui. L'homme devint légende grâce à d'innombrables intellectuels de gauche cherchant à éviter l'erreur du soutien passé à Staline: mieux vaut rendre un culte à la personnalité d'un révolutionnaire mort qu'à celle d'un dictateur vivant. Son histoire fut soigneusement épurée et revue, les moments de gloire mis en avant et les périodes sombres gommées ou effacées. (Stéphane)

• C'était le moyen, pour Castro, de donner une image éternellement jeune à la révolution cubaine, alors que Castro et la révolution vieillissaient

Le statut d'icone de Che Guevara est une construction post-mortem, raconte Jacobo Machover dans son livre, La Face cachée du Che

• La victoire des barbudos a réveillé en l'intelligentsia française une vieille passion française pour la révolution

• Che Was a Mainstay of the Hardline Pro-Soviet Faction

The cult of Ernesto Che Guevara is an episode in the moral callousness of our time. Che was a totalitarian. He achieved nothing but disaster. Many of the early leaders of the Cuban Revolution favored a democratic or democratic-socialist direction for the new Cuba. But Che was a mainstay of the hardline pro-Soviet faction, and his faction won. Che presided over the Cuban Revolution's first firing squads. He founded Cuba's "labor camp" system …
In the famous essay in which he issued his ringing call for "two, three, many Vietnams," he also spoke about martyrdom and managed to compose a number of chilling phrases: "Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine. This is what our soldiers must become …"— and so on. (Paul Berman on The Cult of Che)

• Che Guevara in 10 Quotes

• Commemorating the Death of Che Guevara the Baf Way

• Che Guevara, Revolutionary and Icon

• Channeling the dead for affirmation

• ¿Quiénes son los revolucionarios verdaderos?

• And here I thought under Communism we were all supposed to dispose of our bourgeois pleasures and eat our spinach

• Gaddafi Is Starting to Be Compared to Che Guevara, Allende, and Other Leftist Icons

• Compare with Bin Laden's Death at the Hands of the U.S.: When a Cuban Dissident Is Killed by Havana, Only a Couple of French Readers Bother Reacting

Joachim on the Spot

The man who I feel should have been Germany’s president has been nominated to the position. While the position is that of a state funeral attending figurehead, the position permits commentary on the state of the culture and the of its’ big pieces and parts, namely freedom and the role of the state.

Theologian and former East German dissident Joachim Gauck is just the man for the job, and is at the right place at the right time in European history. A man well aware of the nature of an overbearing state is needed right now in a position where a bully pulpit can be used from time to time.

The nomination is not without its’ distractions though:

The FDP, her beleaguered junior coalition partner, put Ms. Merkel's grip on power to the test on Sunday by backing Mr. Gauck. She was furious, according to a person familiar with the weekend talks, but realized she couldn't persuade the FDP to support any other candidate. Fearing an irreparable split in the coalition, Ms. Merkel grudgingly accepted Mr. Gauck.

Her position on this is strange, given that Merkel is herself a former East German, and the daughter of a pastor who opposed the state, one familiar with the role the Lutheran Church played in the downfall of the repressive Socialist regime.

There must be something unheimlich going on with one or the other of them that isn’t obvious to the rest of us.

It all Just Looks so Vacuous and Flaccid Right Now

Why does this planche of last-years' Plantu seem so totally inappropriate today?

"I challenge you to distinguish a naked prostitute from any other naked woman"

I wouldn't be so sure of that! ;o) Especially with a money quote like this one:

"I challenge you to distinguish a naked prostitute from any other naked woman"

the lawyer of Dominique Strauss-Kahn told French television, prior to the onetime presidential candidate being released after two days of questioning regarding his involvement in an alleged prostitution ring, some of whose members were provided, to him and to other men, by police officers.

Return of the Bunghole Ninja

Discussing DSK is even beneath out dignity, if you can believe it.

Girls as Young as 13 Plied with Drink & Drugs by 11 UK Men for Use as Sex Objects; Needless to Say, the BBC Never Mentions the Sex Ring's Muslim Roots

A group of 11 men plied girls as young as 13 with drink and drugs so they could use them for sex, a [Greater Manchester] court has heard

writes the BBC in a story that is perhaps as significant for what we learn from the story as for what we do not learn. (Because what we do not learn, you understand, is totally irrelevant, has no bearing on the story — whatsoever — and only goes to show the racism of intolerant Westerners like myself who dare to notice that kind of things.)

Liverpool Crown Court heard how the men, aged between 22 and 59 and from Oldham and Rochdale, "acted together to sexually exploit the girls".

All deny conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child under 16.

Rachel Smith, opening the case for the prosecution, said one 13-year-old fell pregnant to one of the defendants and had an abortion.

She said another girl felt flattered by the attention but that she quickly became regularly heavily drunk, depressed and "incapable of getting herself out of the situation".

Another teenager recalled being raped by two men while she was "so drunk she was vomiting over the side of the bed", she added.

Miss Smith said: "No child should be exploited as these girls say they were."

'Raped and assaulted'

The court heard that some of the girls were raped and physically assaulted and some were forced to have sex with "several men in a day, several times a week".

Miss Smith said the girls were given alcohol, food and money in return for sex but that there were times when violence was used.

So far, so good (so to speak). But look at the picture of the defendants. What is clear to the average viewer is never addressed in depth by the BBC piece, let alone mentioned at all: all the defendants are or appear to be from the Middle East or, alternatively, they are second- or third-generation immigrants. (Incidentally, there is no mention of the origin of the girls, either, whether they are of Western extraction, whether they share the defendants' Muslim and immigrant background — my guess — or whether they are a mixture of both…) Indeed: a look at the defendants' names seems to confirm the "hunch" that the 11 men are Muslim — every single one of them.

Kabeer Hassan, 24, Abdul Aziz, 41, Abdul Rauf, 43, Mohammed Sajid, 35, Adil Khan, 42, Abdul Qayyum, 43, Mohammed Amin, 44, Qamar Shahzad, 29, Liaquat Shah, 41, and Hamid Safi, 22, [along with a 59-year-old man who cannot be named for legal reasons] have all pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child under 16.

As an aside, anybody is free to plead not guilty to conspiracy, of course. However, needless to say, in at least some Muslim quarters (see how I am being a good politically correct Westerner and how I am making an effort not to "put all Muslims in the same bag"?!?), doing so would be entirely natural in the circumstances, while pleading guilty would seem untoward, in view of the fact that in Muslim society what happened might fit in with the Koran's temporary marriage (Nikah mut‘ah) condition…

Naked Ramblers in the News

While this is an issue the editorial Quango here at ¡No Pasarán! visits from time to time, I did not realize that it’s not so much about scaring dog walkers, but rather gathering statistics.

The committed naturist kept score of the number of positive reactions versus adverse reactions he received on his naked tea-time stroll at Otley Chevin in Leeds on October 2 last year.

What’s particularly funny is that the reporter is trying to give this guy’s strange, empty life of polling those people in that other world who wear garments, the air of someone reasonable who has something to say.

''I saw her turning around, I could tell she was upset about something.''

Aren’t you glad that in this crass, career-obsessed world, that there are Europeans willing to face the big issues of the day? ...and do it with such dignity and aplomb?

20 February 2004 Remembered

¡No Pasarán!: eight years, and still going, well, strong.

Or something.

After All of these Years, and I’m Still Looking

I have yet to meet anybody who gets homesick for Philadelphia.

(Sorry, Skye, You know
we’ll always love ‘ya.)

Nuances and a Range of Possibilities: How the French and the Americans Approach Love and Sex Differently

This is how the French are groomed to think about love from an early age: not in the absolutes of total love or utter rejection, but in nuances and a range of possibilities.

Debra Ollivier makes interesting comments on the difference between the French and the American approach to love and to sex, although keep in mind that she is a HuffPo contributor, and as all leftists, she seems to treat anything done by a non-American is always inherently more reasonable and hence far, far superior to anything a red-blooded American would do… And so we are peppered with statements like the one saying that the American approach to marriage

stands in stark contrast to the French, who not only prefer to cohabitate rather than marry, but are also wary of perfection. "If anything looks too good to be true," my French friend Marie-Louise once said, "it probably is."

And statements like

The French also understand that what creates chemistry and ignites passion has very little, if anything, to do with the factors and algorithms of online dating.

Still, Debra Ollivier's article is hardly unworthy of interest…

Another Luxury Ship Sinking Off Europe's Southern Coast — Dramatic Video from Rescue Helicopter

Another impressive luxury vessel flounders off Europe's Southern coast, reports Le Monde quoting Paris Match's François Labrouillère and David Le Bailly. This time it is not a passenger cruise ship like the Costa Concordia but the mega-yacht belonging to French millionaire Stéphane Courbit, the largest yacht in France which lays down on its side before sinking below the waves, to the bottom of the Aegean sea. The video of the Greek rescue team comes from the very helicopter carrying them to the rescue of the Yogi's crew…

Διάσωση Επιβαινόντων σε Γαλλική Θαλαμηγό from haf.webmaster on Vimeo.

Do they Realize that this Involves Genetic Modification?

They tried to give us “the new man,” and it failed. Now they’re working on “the new cow.”

Scientists from across Europe are gathering in Aberdeen this week to draw up a programme of research aimed at mitigating some of the causes of climate change, as well as benefiting rural communities and addressing global food security.

The € 7.7 million, four-year project is a partnership between 11 European organisations, and will be coordinated by Professor John Wallace of the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, UK.

The demand for livestock products is growing, and the health of the farming industry is vital to the sustainability of rural communities. Farm animals are however significant contributors to the emission of the ‘greenhouse gas’ methane, but there is still much uncertainty around how this happens.

Professor Wallace explains the aims of the collaboration as follows: “Ruminomics aims to increase the efficiency – and decrease the environmental footprint – of the farming of ruminant livestock, and to significantly advance current knowledge in this sector.

“The project will exploit state-of-the-art technologies to understand how ruminant gastrointestinal microbial ecosystems – called microbiomes – are controlled by the host animal, and by their diet, and how this impacts on greenhouse gas emissions, efficiency and product quality.

Evidently the methane-producing capacity of German beer has yet to be exploited as “untapped potential”.

A Portrait of European Sophistication

AKA: A Sad Tale of Ill-Timed and Awkward Smarminess

Unlike Americans, a great many Europeans who should know better are prone to leaping to compare present day Germans to the Nazis. That is, when they weren’t quietly wishing that they had “finished the job,” that is.

Bernd Ulrich wrote in Hamburg’s Die Zeit:

At a book reading in Portugal the sensible East German writer Ingo Schulze was even asked if the Germans intended to take with the euro what they had failed to take with their panzers, i.e. become the masters of the continent. From Greece we can hear the same sort of remarks every day, often put more dramatically.

Elsewhere the reproach is dressed up with more gentility, when for example Germany’s current austerity policy is compared with that of Reich Chancellor Brüning, whose successor was Adolf Hitler. Frequently, too, German’s “special path” is brought up, as when the Merkel government fails to print as much money as the others are demanding. The so-often quoted “special path” ends where, historically? In Auschwitz, of course. Thus is the circle closed.

And that’s just a normal daily tidbit from the paper, so you can imagine what chatter among bar patrons and neighbors to whom Euro-Ur-man regularly grumbles recreationally with must be like.

It does not take long, really, to work out the riddle of why the Nazi comparisons are being flung about so thick and fast. It’s because for the first time since 1945 Germany is back at full strength, not because it wanted to be, but because the European debt crisis has left it the economically strongest and politically most powerful country in Europe. German interests now reach deeply into the internal affairs of other states.

In other words, like the United States they are through the underperformance, negligence, and dependency of others, the only entity left among their allies with enough power to be begged, or beggared as the case seems to be.

Ulrich recognizes the need for realism, not just in outlook by Europeans in vaunted “national imagery,” but in simple understanding of other humans:

What should we do now? Ask the others to quit this Nazi crap, to please insult us Germans in every imaginable way but that one? Yes, that could be done. The Germans could also admit that they want to be loved, much more than the French or the British, who already love themselves very well indeed. However, the Germans cannot deny themselves out of the sheer need for love, if only because the others would despise us even more.

It’s a silly thing to have to waste time on to repair the public regard of Germany when those who need to learn the lesson are broke, saddled with delusions about economics, and pusillanimously paralyzed by their own envy-laden forms of national cultural identity.

The Big Issue Overshadowing the US Presidential Election in 2012

The President believes that the Government creates success and that private enterprise creates poverty. This makes his goals no different than that of a Marxist-Leninist, and makes his opponents the calm, caring, mild voice of common sense.

Is New Age Fluff Another Form of Naziism?

You bet, Cha Ca, only a lot more buffoonish, historically ignorant, and almost as morally bereft.

The article quotes fillum maker David Lynch’s blindingly bad, but banal in its’ predictability:

"What do you mean by this concept of invincibility," asked an onlooker from the audience, made up mainly of film students with a smattering of meditation devotees. "An invincible Germany is a Germany that's invincible," replied a Delphic Schiffgens, who was dressed in a long white robe and gold crown. Adolf Hitler wanted that too!," shouted out one man. "Yes," countered Schiffgens. "But unfortunately he didn't succeed."

Ship of Tools Adrift at Sea and Longing to be Heard

This man is indicative of why Europeans generally don’t get the global economic crisis, or Europe’s own debt crisis. There has been so much babble, spin, and talking in circles, that he doesn’t realize that there was much of a “French-German Axis” to begin with. It was the case that the two conferred because they were the only large economies remaining who were marginally serious about dealing with the EU’s issues within the EU.

One may think that in these difficult times, the renewed Franco-German axis is a good thing. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Today, it is the “total collaboration” between Merkel and Sarkozy that is driving Europe into the catastrophe.

Really? What’s the alternative? Who’s coming forward? You guessed it: no-one.

In fact the other large economies in the Eurozone as well as the small ones, when they aren’t begging special deals of one kind or another from France and Germany, have become inept enough to believe that they could just punt for some kind of politically CYA freebies from the IMF and Washington, and somehow remain a union.

Sarkozy’s opponent François Hollande has become the lone challenger to Mrs. Merkel. “Socialists live in Europe” he has declared and he has vowed to re-negotiate the fiscal pact by which Merkel hopes to germanify Europe. This fact explains why the German Chancellor has thrown her weight behind Sarkozy, the conservative candidate; even if her foreign minister was quick to point out that party support was not in the interest of the German state. It will be harder for Merkel to dominate a socialist government in France than a weakened Sarkozy.

And no, the entire world, let alone the western Europeans, do not believe that everything that happens is a form of palace intrigue. Nor are the charged exchanges between the Europeans genuinely serious for the outside world or even the rest of Europe for that matter.

Where does that leave France and Germany? National identities have a long shelf-life. Fois gras and Schweinshaxe will not disappear; nor will the different models of organising the welfare state. What is needed is a new political consensus that allows citizens to assume responsibility for their common affairs, and both France and Germany can contribute to making it happen.

Which is being expressed HOW exactly? What is being proposed or volunteered in the hinterland other than pot-banging, destroying property, and rioting? Zip.

The dramatization and personalization of the whole thing gives me a sense that those who indulge in it have such a shaky understanding of economies and markets, that it appears to be a defensive act – one meant to let one hear the sound of ones’ own voice and pretend to have a grip on things. It’s no wonder most of it comes from either leftists who wish private markets didn’t exist (possibly out of an inability to understand why prices can’t be controlled and fixed), and the neo-fascist “far-right”, the one with leftist platitudes when it can come up with economic pronouncements, one of which was this pointless pearl free of the burden of prescience or even tolerance for his fellow Europastani tribesmen:

Is Germany a normal country?

...and other rude assumptions made just before uttering the obvious about the political behavior of national government heads. Remember, that kind of callous crap is supposed to offer the already intelligent an even more-super-special insight.

Typical of the high quality and informative commentary in the continent available these past 4 years, it even pretends that you haven’t heard the pathetic theories based on one nation or another’s “national persona” which even among Europeans inevitably devolves into a Russ Meyer style German she bitches, cartoon Italians playing the accordion, and a beret-clad lout canoeing a unfiltered cloc that’s stuck to his lower lip representing the citizens of the republic.

Where does that leave France and Germany? National identities have a long shelf-life. Fois gras and Schweinshaxe will not disappear; nor will the different models of organising the welfare state.

As opposed to, say, a saucisson or Eisbein, which a twit unfamiliar of whom he speaks might pretend to know, if they can’t find a real sporting of real lifestyle analogy that post-dates the 19th century.

So beware the idea that you can understand economics by trying to force it through the cheesecloth of politics or culture, especially the politics and culture or what you THINK YOU KNOW. After all, through the fog and muck, there is a little voice saying to all of us something we don’t want to hear: you’re all broke, you filthy moochers.

Yet another Guilt Trip for Parents, Founded on Some Feeble Notion of ‘Cultural Superiority’

Much has been made lately of an article by Pamela Druckerman on claims of the “superiority” of French parents, and it’s hard to make inferences of that kind without plainly telling the reader that the statement was founded on the writer’s limited observation of a few isolated days with the sort of French families that she would have as friends and acquaintances, and is also very much the case of an American who only seems to know Americans like herself:

Soon it became clear to me that quietly and en masse, French parents were achieving outcomes that created a whole different atmosphere for family life. When American families visited our home, the parents usually spent much of the visit refereeing their kids' spats, helping their toddlers do laps around the kitchen island, or getting down on the floor to build Lego villages. When French friends visited, by contrast, the grownups had coffee and the children played happily by themselves.

If I might add an opinion here based on observation – a lot of it – Druckerman’s thesis is completely specious. Parents in any society are broadly varied in their ability, and that’s reflected in children’s behavior. What the writer observes are small piece of things that are present everywhere in the world. I can tell you quitter plainly that there is no shortage of trashy parents, indifferent parents, confused parents, over-active parents, meddlesome parents, good parents, and utterly helpless parents in France or anywhere else.

Druckerman’s assumption is reminiscent of a 1972 comment by Ney York film critic Pauline Kael, where she is reputed to have wondered aloud how Richard Nixon could have won since no one she knew voted for him. Yet while armed with that received wisdom, Richard Nixon won.

A French-American friend wrote me with a rather different view from her experience teaching in France:

I have taught French schoolchildren, teens and young adults.

The 9 - 13 year olds were hell. Complete and total hell. Not that each individual on his/her own was not, in general, a nice enough kid. But as a group, trying to teach them was a major effort and discipline was THE problem.

The 1 - 3 year olds were fine because they were in an English-language group all day with English-language educators and, so, we ran a tight ship, so to speak. When we walked across the hall to the French-language group, it was like walking into a zoo. The noise was unbearable. And the educators were standing around drinking coffee and chatting amongst themselves and just letting the kids behave that way. The German-language group was similar to our group but even quieter.

The older students I taught, when they had been to Catholic schools, were fairly well-behaved. The ones from public schools were not.

So the fact Druckerman decries that non-French children don’t behave like painter’s subject should be taken for what it’s worth: shallow intercultural babble dressed up as yet more meddlesome unsolicited advice offered to parents of young kids.

Un Message Pour Les Toujours Courageux Pédés-Bloggeurs Franchouilles

Contrary to popular received wisdom among intelligent Europeans, we do not languidly pass our evenings by firing weapons in the air while barefoot and wearing bib overalls.

That's just to let you know.

Seen at CPAC

Plus: my entry for the CPAC contest:
Why Am I a Conservative?
— explained in 60 seconds or less

Why DO We Still Hold These Truths...?

Filmed in the streets and parks of Paris,
this was posted as an entry into the CPAC category
Why DO We Still Hold These Truths...?

Why Do We Hold These Truths…?

For 5,000 years, mankind was ruled by the thought that Man is a clueless, ignorant persecuted martyr, a victim incapable of fending for himself; OR, alternatively, by the thought that he is a selfish, narrow-minded, greedy, heartless, treacherous, barbaric, racist, bloodthirsty exploiter without love for his fellow man.

For this reason, and again for 5,000 years, mankind was ruled by people — still is, on most of the planet — whose credo, whose self-serving credo, was that the common man, the little man, needed, and needs, an élite to guide his life and to make society function — a king, a class of aristocrats, a caste of government bureaucrats. And for this the common man should be happy, and grateful, that he was thus taken care of.

Then, in the 1770s came a startling development — a group of men in America became fed up with being told they were clueless and/or selfish and/or ungrateful and that they should be pleased to pay taxes so that their betters could care of them in such a generous fashion.

And so these ungrateful men (some of you know them as the Founding Fathers) acted on the following belief — which turns out not to be a belief, but a truth: The average man (and the average woman) is neither victim nor exploiter, instead, he or she is smart, and good, and kind, and generous, and self-sufficient, and has common sense, and he or she can take care of his or her own affairs, all the while — yes — helping the needy. Said in a slightly more aggressive fashion, this becomes, "Do not tread on me!"

When Thomas Jefferson wrote that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" AND that "they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights", he was taking as the premise — the unqualified premise — that the average man is good, and kind, and generous, and self-sufficient. What is important, what is vital, to note is that ONLY if these truths are correct, that ONLY if these premises are true, that ONLY if there ARE no victims, no exploiters, no "little people" do the rights make sense in the first place.

What is remarkable is that for thousands of years, technology had barely progressed, only by the occasional sputter here or there. And then, all of a sudden — as you know if you have read Cleon Skousen's The Five Thousand Year Leap — following the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution and the industrial revolution and the advent of the patent law, technology started advancing by leaps and bounds, from the steam ship to the railroad, from the sewing machine to street-lighting, from mowing machines to the McCormick Reaper, from the telegraph to the telephone, from the photograph to the cinema, from steel to the skyscraper, from the bicycle to the automobile, from the airplane to the rocket, from the personal computer to the smartphone. And perhaps most important of all, from the stethoscope and chloroform and anesthesia to all the medicines that prolong lives and that put an end to the early deaths of infants and children that mankind suffered under for 5,000 years.

THE BACKLASH

And since the 1770s, and all throughout this time of unprecedented progress (as described in Cleon Skousen's The Five Thousand Year Leap), there has been a backlash, from alleged "progressives" and by the monarchs and the élites of foreign countries, to demonize or to ridicule most everything related to the American Republic and just about every event in the Republic's history.

The main purpose in life of the demonizers seems to be to point out the alleged fallacies in the Founding Fathers' belief, the alleged hypocrisy of the American creed: they will point to a crook or to a racist or to a member of the armed forces who committed a war crime and say, "See, this is how, deep down, Americans really are!" In reality, they say, Americans are victims. Or they really are exploiters. Just like the common people of all other countries are — their élites "helpfully" remind them. And they look for a father figure, or an older brother figure, to lead the nation of narrow-minded abusers and clueless victims like a messiah would lead his flock. And how DARE we ungrateful little people criticize this father figure, this benevolent Dear Leader, who is taking care of us and acting in "our very best interests and using our earnings more wisely than we would ourselves"?!

Given that the liberals will — cheerfully — provide examples of all of America's sins, real or alleged, why is it that we do not react to what they say? Indeed, if the examples they provide are true, we conservatives can only be wrong. And so the answer is that we do not believe in these examples of American depravity for the simple reason that the examples are not true, or if an occasional example proves to be true, we know that it does NOT turn out to be representative of America in general, and we know, therefore, NOT to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.

We know that for every Bernie Madoff, there are 49 capitalists who earned their money honestly.

We know that for every Enron, there are 49 companies who treat their clients fairly.

We know that for every crooked bank manager, there are 49 banks with no need of government oversight.

We know that for every evil drug company, there are 49 that help mankind with their medicines.

We know that for every 19th-century company where workers were treated badly, there were 49 others where workers were treated correctly and where those workers prospered relative to foreign workers in the same situation.

We know that for every failed marriage and for every atrocious story involving a so-called dead beat dad, there are 49 families with 49 perfectly loving fathers lured into divorce by the lawyers and the other parasites of the divorce industry, families who get sucked into the welfare state.

We know that for every tragic incident involving alcohol or tobacco, there are 49 Americans perfectly capable of handling their booze and of smoking in an adult fashion who are in no need of nannies to set up a Prohibition-like environment.

We know that for every priest or preacher who abuses children, there are 49 men of the cloth who are truly good and humble and who set an example for their flocks.

More generally, we know that for every preacher who seems to be off his bonkers and who says something allegedly hateful or preposterous, there are 49 preachers who are entirely run-of-the-mill, and who give entirely good advice to the members of their churches or synagogues.

We know that for every My Lai and for every Major Calley, there are 49 soldiers and sailors and marines and pilots of the United States of America who are good and decent and dutiful and courageous and patriotic.

We know that for every crime involving a gun, there were 49 instances where a gun stopped a crime or prevented a crime from occurring in the first place.

WHAT WE KNOW

In short, we know that, we know the truth that, the generalizations that the liberals make are not supported by the facts.

What is important to realize is that if the liberals' viewpoint is correct, it can only be true that mankind is narrow-minded and that we conservatives are — as perhaps the perfect illustration of this — indeed clueless. And the very fact that we are blind is proof in itself that we are, that we all are, in need a King George III or an Obama or a Che Guevara or any member of the Kennedy family.

But BECAUSE our eyes are open, we know that the liberals' and the statists' self-serving generalizations are NOT true.

And that man is good.

And that he is self-sufficient and capable of taking of himself without government oversight.

And that the society in which he lives is capable of surviving, and of taking care of the needy, without mountainloads of taxes on his back.

And thus, to liberals everywhere and to statists everywhere, within America and abroad, we repeat this:

It is BECAUSE man is good and kind and self-sufficient, it is for THAT VERY REASON that — We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

How Charming! They’re Even Wearing Shoes for Us!

Western civilization is afflicted with a horrible condition. It is one that debilitates the mind, poisoning international relations, enfeebling whole nations to anguish, wasted tears, hands chapped from self-flagellating wringing. Daniel Hannan can tell you all about it.

Congratulations to Rahul Bedi for putting into words what we all half-suspected: India neither needs nor wants UK aid. Such grants are outdated and patronising, he says, and encourage corruption. Indeed, Indians have 'become so contemptuous of Britain’s contribution that they accept it merely to avoid causing the Coalition embarrassment'. Ouch! Indians are a courteous people and Mr Bedi is perhaps too discreet to play his trump card: India's economic prospects are healthier than Britain's.

I call it the bedwetting of the morally vain. The nations at risk of this affliction are the donors, not the recipients, who seem uniquely unaware that the recipients suspect that the erstwhile missionaries of better-ness want to be called “B’wana”, and make them wear native garb for them, but parrot back stories about their good old days in Uni together.

Still, it's worth standing back and considering the big picture. We are borrowing money we don't have to send it to a country less indebted than our own. That country doesn't want it, but accepts it as a favour to us. The money encourages corruption without reducing poverty. Our relations are damaged in consequence.

German Science Finally Escaping the Plantation

Dirk Maxeiner is a long-time blogger and all-around evil genius who has spent years doing the hard work of shining the light of reality on the sad world of Gleichhaltung, or common feeling in Germany. In the present day and age, much of that Gleichhaltung comes in the form of commonly held delusions borrowed from abroad, or things that empirically challenged people just wish was true:

More and more each day, the academic structure that was built around the dogma of global warming, reminds me of a corrugated metal shed, one that shudders and wobbles at every turn. That said, it constantly needs shoring and having holes in the roof patched up. Yet with each gust of wind, someone from the Potsdam Institute has to brave the cold and patch another hole.

Meanwhile, what we have to show for it is a sort of climate favela, ugly and almost always leaking. It’s charming that we have to hear that the current bitter cold have their cause in global warming. Ten years ago, you still could have prophesied that there would be no more cold winter, now they know exactly why they still aren’t. The findings are supposed to become real in hindsight. That is, if the theory and computer models absolutely do not fit the reality, they are not rejected, but subsequently adapted to the fit the trend. That’s how it goes with scientific socialism [Ed.: consensus]. Yu can also call it anti-science.

With the recent turn of direction taken by a senior one-time apocalypse-monger, and a general skepticism about once-favored foregone conclusions, the charlatans of Klimaschutz are being held to some of their claims, even in Germany.

The Proper Way to Wear Your Name Tag If You Are Sporting a Fedora

When a gentleman is wearing a fedora at a conference or a convention, either to keep his head warm or simply to look handsome and/or "cool," etiquette demands that he does forget to wear his name tag in the proper way, as Monsieur Pete Ingemi Da Tech Guy is kind enough to demonstrate here:
the aforementioned badge must appear on the side of the hat — with the name displayed on the outside, tout naturellement — while the lanyard is stretched over the side of the fedora at its widest and ends up strapped tightly under the wearer's chin. (Brusque movements are not recommended…)

What Would Abe Lincoln Say to Barack Obama?

At CPAC Thursday, I met with Richard Fenton, who is the co-author of the book What Would Lincoln Say? (introduction and first chapter available online), and we talked about our respective Lincoln books with our co-authors, respectively Andrea Waltz and Dan Greenberg.

An extraordinary meeting between Barack Obama and our nation's greatest president… with a "twist" you'll never see coming!

How Raymond Aubrac and a Dozen Other Prisoners Escaped a Gestapo Firing Squad

Raymond Aubrac tells the BBC's Hugh Schofield how he met with Jean Moulin during World War II and tricked the Gestapo out of his execution.

How Lucie [Aubrac] and her Resistance group sprung [Raymond] Aubrac from the clutches of the Nazis is today one of France's best-known stories from the war - as uplifting for the French as the Caluire episode is grim.

Somehow Lucie managed to persuade the German commander that she was a) pregnant by the prisoner Aubrac (this was actually true) and b) unmarried to him.

By feigning horror at the prospect of the child being born out of wedlock, she got the commander to agree to a pre-execution marriage.

And so on 21 October, the convoy taking Aubrac back to Montluc jail from his "marriage" ceremony at police headquarters was attacked by a heavily-armed Resistance gang. Three Germans were killed and 14 prisoners escaped.

"One of the Resistance cars overtook the truck in which I was being transported, and when the two vehicles were level they shot the German driver," recalls Aubrac, who received a ricochet bullet in the side of the face.

It Must be Because of those “Money People” or Something

Typical European solidarity and humanistic concern for the common man: Hungarian Police and Firefighters protesting austerity decide to burn Stars of David in protest.

Thousands of protesters of law enforcement agencies and the armed forces demonstrated against the government's austerity programme along with two far-right organisations Friday, burning a Jewish emblem.

The policemen, professional soldiers, customs, prison and civil guards as well as firefighters joined forces to voice their anger with the government's aim to abolish their last privilege -- early retirement.

I’m still looking for the congruousness in ”I want my meal ticket, and to pack Jews into boxcars too!”

Why Am I a Conservative?

Why Am I a Conservative? is a 1-minute contest
set up by and for CPAC to explain (as the title
suggests) in less than 60 seconds, why
a person is a conservative…
The original text (some of which I cut because
of the time limits) for my entry (which was not
among the three top winners) follows:

Why I am a conservative?

I am a conservative because of telephones.
Until the 1970s, there was no innovation,
hadn't been any, hardly, for decades
everybody had the same yucky-colored telephone,
khaki, black, cream — with a rotary dial —
brought to your home by a government employee…

But hey! Look at the good side: everybody was equal!
All of us, throughout the nation, throughout the world,
we were all equal! we all had the same basic telephone!

Then, at the time that Ronald Reagan became president, AT&T was broken up.
State monopoly vanished, private companies emerged.
All of a sudden, we got innovation, we got new technology
from push phones to wireless sets to cel phones to smartphones
Stores sprang up all over America, all over the world,
jobs were created, in an area that was not even thought of
as an industry previously!

And guess what — it's totally disorderly, it's chaotic,
there is no overview and — What is "worse", quote unquote:
Nobody is equal!
The "gap" between the basic phones
and the smart phones keeps growing!
And yet!
The poor person with the most basic phone built
over the past decades, in any part of the world,
has better equipment — he is richer, phone-wise —
than the wealthiest American multi-billionaire of three decades ago

I am a conservative because of telephones.

The Beautiful Game: Football Players in Eastern Europe Are Subject to Harassment, Violence, Racism, Corruption, and Much More

"Je m'appelle Rodoljub Marjanovic, j'ai 23 ans, je suis footballeur professionnel en Serbie. Il y a deux ans, j'ai signé un contrat avec le FK Hadjuk Kula. Pendant six mois je n'ai pas été payé, puis on m'a forcé à mettre un terme à mon contrat auprès de la fédération serbe. J'ai voulu me défendre, mais le directeur financier du club m'a dit que je serais tué si je ne retirais pas ma plainte. Je me suis senti très mal, car le directeur financier, Nikola Dzomba, est célèbre en Serbie pour être quelqu'un prêt à tout. (...) J'étais dans un tel état psychique que j'ai dit aux médias que j'allais m'immoler par le feu devant le siège de la fédération serbe."

When Europeans aren't deploring the Yanks' lack of refinement or when they are trying to point out, say, how the European version of football is far more civilized and far more beautiful than American football, it turns out that Europe's football players, at least those in the Eastern part, are subject to intimidation, violence, and racism, not to mention the deliberate withholding of their pay and the corruption brought about by criminal gang activity.

Cet extrait choisi parmi de nombreux témoignages contenus dans le "Livre noir" réalisé par la FIFPro (le syndicat international des joueurs professionnels) donne une vision alarmante de la situation du football professionnel en Europe de l'Est. Ce rapport de 177 pages, que révèle Le Monde et qui sera rendu public mardi 7 février, démontre - à rebours des clichés qui nimbent celui nanti d'Europe de l'Ouest - qu'à l'est du continent le footballeur est un travailleur dont les droits ne sont pas toujours respectés, que les mauvais traitements sont légion, le racisme omniprésent et les pressions de corruption exercées par des organisations criminelles endémiques.

… 41,4 % des joueurs, toutes nationalités confondues, qui ont répondu à la FIFPro ont indiqué que leurs salaires n'était pas versés à temps. 11,7 % ont affirmé avoir subi des violences, 10,2 %, des brimades physiques ou psychologiques. Le rapport évoque par exemple le cas de Nikola Nikezic, ancien joueur du club russe FC Kuban, molesté et menacé par un revolver en janvier 2011 : "Quelques minutes après que j'ai refusé de signer un document qui mettait fin à mon contrat, deux gars très costauds sont entrés dans la pièce que l'entraîneur s'est empressé de quitter... J'ai fini par signer..." 9,6 % disent avoir été l'objet de discriminations raciales. Roberto Carlos, capitaine brésilien d'un autre club russe de l'élite, FC Anzhi Makhachkala, a été accueilli au stade du Zenith Saint-Pétersbourg par un supporteur qui lui a tendu une banane. 15,6 % ont été obligés de s'entraîner seuls, à l'écart du groupe. Le footballeur russe Igor Strelkov a dû respecter un programme individuel consistant à courir autour du terrain pendant plusieurs jours. La température moyenne était de - 20 °C.

Ces professionnels deviennent, dès lors, plus vulnérables à la corruption mise en place par des organisations de type criminel. 11,9 % des joueurs interrogés ont admis avoir été approchés pour manipuler le résultat d'un match. Pour la FIFPro, il y a "un lien évident entre le non-paiement et les matches arrangés". Un tiers des joueurs approchés pour arranger un match ont subi des violences.

Even More Illiberal and Expansionist

Let’s not forget about that other #European union.

The document was signed by the leaders of the Russian Federation, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. Only the ignorant will be less than impressed.

And it wasn’t just about “Kampuchean-Yemeni Solidarity” like the bad old days.

The Eurasian Union is part of an integration process leading to the Common Economic Space. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev likens it to a train. Think of it as a new European Union with Russia in the driver’s seat, picking up new passengers as it happily motors along.

Western Europe’s clout on world affairs is fading. My sad analysis is that the EU’s economy will soon implode like that of the old Soviet Bloc. Its people’s poverty and austerity will resemble that of communist Romania or Albania.

While the “implosion” fantasies are bogus, the notion of going through a transition phase of mediocrity and dependence isn’t. The EU being the world’s locus of high finance or “big-wind” in the form of being perpetual UN conference hosts will not pay the bills. The fact that we are talking about two R&D deserts doesn’t really figure into things either when you consider who it is that has the natural resources.

The harsh fact is that thanks to years of political ineptitude, the European Union has nothing left to offer the world. It is an also-ran.

I don’t see a sauve qui peut threshold being crossed in the future, but rather a creeping awareness that comes in the form of independent treaties and partnerships that critics will characterize as being rather too “British“ or “Hungarian” for their happy, loving family.