Global Warming "Experts" to Study Kangaroo For Vaccine To Rid Planet of Cow Methane

"HOPE TURNS TOWARDS THE KANGAROO" reads a subhead in bold caps in Catherine Vincent's (quite serious) Le Monde article. With regards to global warming, and to the nefarious impact upon the Earth's atmosphere by the flatulence of cows and other ruminants, "will the kangaroo's stomach microbes one day lead to the cleaning-up of the atmosphere?"

Livestock is the cause of 35% of world emissions of methane, writes Catherine Vincent in the "Planet" section article that apparently she cannot see belongs in Mad Magazine's You Can't Make This Stuff Up department (although the Le Monde cartoonist can, with a cartoon fighting cows' wicked "greenhouse gasses" by adding a "catalytic converter" inside each animal's digestive system).

Among the "main problems" discussed at the 19th World Meat Congress in Paris, we learn, "experts" (the tongue-in-cheek quotation marks are my own) have decided to "act on the ruminants' digestion process."

Indeed, it turns out that the "kangaroo farts and belches like everybody else, but that its gaseous emanations contain no methane." Since "therein likes the difference with the flatulence of ruminant animals", researchers in global warming want to study the marsupial herbivore, specifically things like the bacteria in its stomach.

Thanks to genetic studies, they hope to discover a vaccine, sometime between 2015 and 2020, that would prevent ruminants from generating methane.

That's right, the next step in the distinguished search for new medicines, the next step in the glorious fight against global warming — the noble war of this generation of ours — is to develop an anti-farting vaccine for cows…

Syria: The Weapon that Assad Fears Most

Plantu's take on Syria

• UN soldier: Bashar! If you keep being naughty, we'll bring in Bernard Henri-Lévy!
• Assad: Oh no!! Not that!!

Lecturing the Yanks on Obscene Capitalism? EU's Richest 20% Have Income 5 Times Higher Than Poorest 20%

While Europeans are lecturing Americans on the "ravages" of their "obscene", "ultra-capitalist", "scathing", and "heartless" economic system — criticisms eagerly parroted by the American left (not the least of whom is the current occupier of the Oval Office) — Le Monde informs us that income inequality levels within the European Union goes as far as, for some countries, double that of their EU neighbors'.

Moreover, on average, the richest 20% of the EU have income five times higher than the poorest 20%.

En moyenne, au sein de l'UE, les 20 % les plus riches ont des revenus cinq fois plus élevés que les 20 % les plus pauvres, mais les niveaux d'inégalité peuvent différer du simple au double entre pays.

Depuis 2007 et le déclenchement de la crise, les plus fortes hausses ont été enregistrées en Espagne et en Lituanie. La moyenne européenne est, elle, restée stable.

Les inégalités se sont également creusées en France (+ 0,6) depuis 2007. Après une baisse dans les années 1990, l'écart est reparti à la hausse au cours de la dernière décennie, notait un rapport de l'OCDE en décembre 2011. Selon l'organisation, le système de redistribution (à travers les prestations sociales et les impôts), qui permet de réduire les inégalités de 30 % en moyenne, est devenu moins efficace.

Promoting Anarchy and “Social Justice” Have Their Very Own Bundesministerium

The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) is getting into the business of resource redistribution and „ global justice “. Meh, that’s nothing. The telling feature is that these preachers of the apocalypse for hire are forming links with religious institution – a perfect reflection that their world view (concious or not) is based in the faith they have in their assertions about Global Warning being (1) real, (2) irreversable, and (3) cased specifically by humans whome they disagree with politically.

Being new at teh religion thing, they are missing some fundamental articles – such as the idea that there actually exists such a thing as redemption and forgiveness if sin can be recognized. You see, it makes no difference what you do to appease them, there is always the next newly drawn-up commandmant to tell people that they are in violation of.

Indeed today we are experiencing a Renaissance in the use of fossil energies instead: The rising price of oil and gas has not only led to a Renaissance in coal, but is also making the tapping of unconventional oil and gas reserves lucrative. The international Energy Agency (IEA) is already celebrating the ‘Golden Age of gas supply’.”

As you can see, this is bad in their view, a calamity, except when they’ pause to make the specious “peak oil” argument (itself pulled out of somebody’s ass.) In that case, we are told to obediently follow their instructions to deindustrialize to head off the horror of energy running out.

The shockign thing is that there are people out there who are still fooled by these emotive attempts to manipulate our fears, “warmonger” style.

In a French Journalism School Poll, the Left's Hollande won 100% of the Votes While the Right's Sarkozy Obtained Not A Single Vote in Either Round

In Europe, it turns out, and particularly in France, most journalists are leftists just like in the United States.

Before France's presidential election, a poll was held in le Centre de formation des journalistes de Paris, writes Alain Frachon, with the first round showing the left and the far left out ahead, with incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy obtaining not a single vote, and with François Hollande winning the second round handily, with 100% of the votes, "à la North Korea".

A l'occasion du scrutin présidentiel, le Centre de formation des journalistes de Paris organise un vote parmi les étudiants de première année. François Hollande et Jean-Luc Mélenchon arrivent en tête du premier tour ; Nicolas Sarkozy n'obtient pas une voix. Le candidat socialiste rassemble 100 % des suffrages au deuxième tour. Un score à la nord-coréenne ! Grognards et grognons de l'UMP y voient la confirmation de ce qu'ils disent : la presse est partisane.

Alain Frachon part alors aux États-Unis pour évoquer

une grosse étude intitulée L'Elite médiatique. C'est du costaud, argumenté, documenté. Le livre [de trois politologues américains, Robert Lichter, Stanley Rothman, Linda Lichter] démontre que la plupart des journalistes aux Etats-Unis sont des électeurs du Parti démocrate. Il établit un parti pris systématiquement antirépublicain dans la couverture des grands quotidiens et des grandes chaînes de télévision. Il dénonce ce qu'il appelle "un biais journalistique presque inconscient" en faveur de la gauche, mélange de suffisance élitiste et de complexe de supériorité morale, qui, dit-il, ne reflète aucunement l'état de l'opinion.

Retour en France, où Le Monde revient sur vote au Centre de formation des journalistes de Paris :

" Les journalistes sont tous de gauche ", assure une femme. Elle en veut pour preuve le sondage réalisé dans une école de journalistes : 100 % des étudiants ont voté pour l'autre bord. " Dès le départ, ils sont hostiles ", dit-elle. On parle ensuite d'Audrey Pulvar et Arnaud Montebourg, d'Anne Sinclair et Dominique Strauss-Kahn, de François Hollande et Valérie Trierweiler, pour montrer jusqu'où vont ces affinités électives.

Voir aussi : Le Monde a-t-il contribué à la chute de Nicolas Sarkozy ?

Through the Gates of Hell On the 6th of June

(Thanks to Val)

The story of D-Day.

The Cat Can Write

This Is Not Europe

Declares The Scratching Post, expressing reasons for optimism in America. Seeing how it behaves in the face of the problems connected with a childish world view:

In Europe, they vote for socialists. In America, we vote to put an end to the destructive, omnivorous greed of the public employee union parasites.

Many Men Are Here to Stay…

The story of D-Day.





Plus: Rare color photos by LIFE magazine’s Frank Scherschel.




Related: Classic photos from World War II…

This is What Economic Hypothermia Looks Like

For example, public utilities not paying bills to their suppliers.

Greece’s Public Gas Corporation has asked power regulator RAE to take measures to protect the country’s electricity network, suggesting it may cut supplies to private electricity producers, which owe it €300m, Greek daily Ekathimerini reports. At least €100m must be paid to Turkey’s Botas and Russia’s Gazprom before 22 June.

Purges and Harassing Kulaks to Follow

Greek leftist vows to cancel bail-out, renationalise economy

It looks it’s playtime in the Comintern revival sandbox, kids.

Greek leftist leader Alexis Tsipras on Friday (1 June) unveiled his economic programme if he is elected later this month, pledging to cancel the EU-sponsored bail-out and renationalise banks and companies.

Surreal repetition aside,

economists say his plans are unfeasible and mere electoral posturing.

In which case new economists will be found. Or rather, you can call them “economists”.

To the extent possible, all goods and services should be provided free of charge to all. Goods available in abundance should be available without limit; those in short supply should be rationed.

and there will always be the same amount of them too, I bet... To pile more onto the heap of things that I can objectively tell you were untrue in any collectivized economy, he continues:

Economists' arguments in favor of property actually "only prove that man really produces most when he works in freedom..."
Kropotkin argued that, far from shirking work when they do not receive a wage, when people work cooperatively for the good of all they achieve feats of productivity never realizable through economic or state coercion.

All of which is untrue. All they had to motivate workers was coercion, otherwise finding a way to turn your work into a way into a black market trade would be the only other reason to show up, sober or not.

The sad thing is that despite history and first-hand accounts from living people to the contrary, there are people who actually believe the assertions like Peter Kropotkin's blatherings from pre-Soviet Russian communism. In the U.S., they either called themselves “Occupy Movement”, or call themselves the Progressive branch of the Democratic Party. They are just about the same everywhere in the world, and they have a penchant for whatever personal violence will satisfy their egos.

But back to Tsipras:

Yet despite the appeal a young politician vowing to take on "rotten, corrupt and discredited elites" may have with the electorate, his economic plans raised eyebrows among experts, as a cancellation of the bail-out would de facto leave Greece with no money and force it to exit the euro.

This despite his saying that “there is no way back to the Drachma.” He’s right on that one.

There is no way back to the Drachma. They have insufficent reserves to back it up with.

Trouble in the Mountain Hideout

Capital flight has made Switzerland rich, but now it threatens the real economy.

Even the shrewdest parasites such as the Swiss can’t live off of a dead host for very long.

In August, the SNB had instituted a floor of CHF 1.20 to the EUR and had sworn up and down to defend it by printing unlimited amounts of francs to acquire unlimited amounts of euros, a potential fiasco if the euro were to collapse. Jordan swore once again that the SNB would maintain the minimum exchange rate and that interest rates would “remain at zero for the time being.”

“But there’s a housing bubble,” he said. And and a dangerous conundrum: "In considering the threats facing Switzerland, we concluded that the focus must remain on the minimum exchange rate. As a consequence, interest rates are at zero, and so we have enormously expansionary conditions."

Panic now, while there’s still time, but don’t forget your coocoo clock.

Check Out the Election Posters of France's Oddball Candidates, Including a Porn Star, a Creepy Ecologist, and a Hoodie-Wearing Rapper

France 24's Joseph Bamat takes a look at "the oddball candidates trying to spice up the race" for France's parliamentary elections (merci à Hervé), including a lunatic comedian, a James Bond fan, a stripper, a porn star ("Céline Bara, a professional pornography actress … proposes a full-frontal election programme" — "antitheism, communism, [and] libertarianism" along with… "pornocracy"), and a hoodie-wearing rapper, as well as a number of nutty environmentalists, among whom are a creepy ecologist and an Avatar enthusiast posing next to a blue-skinned Na'vi version of himself.

“Management Frowns upon Penis-Whipping”

There was more than just sword play going on at the NYAC Golf Course.

as a tiff over a woman and “escalated into a brawl involving three fighting wolfpacks,” wherein “tables were overturned or moved to the room’s periphery to crate a lion’s pit for the battle,” a “fat pudgy kid came out of nowhere, laid out a larger man with a blow to the head and was tackled by a crowd,” approximately two noses were broken, and the police made three arrests.

It’s a freaky world, my friends.

Black Helicopters and Doomsday Behaviour

It’s something seemingly accepting and forgiving Europeans aren’t bad at, and occasionally prove. To keep the mad mob of zombies they expect to see if the “Euro melts down”, the UK plans on putting up border controls. Austria’s Der Standard warns of a “new iron curtain” or “racist Apatheid wall”, to use the term they prefer to use with Arizona or Israel, walling the rest of the EU off from Greece. After all, the way things are going there, even Albania looks good.

We should first be clear what level of threat is used. In the event of a threat to public order "Neighboring countries" can secure themselves immediately for the first 30 days by sealing their borders and introduce document and physical checks again. This can be extended for another month, and then the EU Council of Ministers would probably decide on how to proceed.

And the stakeholders would probably ignore that the probably deciders probably decide.

So it’s „ Auswies, bitte ! ” and « tes papiers! » all over again, and as if it doesn’t say enough about the much touted accepting and forgiving nature of Europe, humanity’s ray of hope in an ugly paranoid world, it’s raised no hackles even among the terminally loony.

Unlike the much-debated exit from the eurozone [...], closing the borders with Greece wouldn’t be a problem for its partners.

Travelers should make sure they bring their own rubber gloves to offer the Grenztruppen to use on them.

Opposition to (Or the Very Belief in) Eurabia Will Make You a Neo-Con & Turn You Into Anders Breivik

Le Monde devotes an entire full page of its paper edition (its opinion section, to be sure, albeit an opinion that is not balanced by one speaking from the opposing side) to the alleged Manichean World of Eurabia, as Jean-Yves Camus uses it to castigate "far-right parties", describing Anders Behring Breivik as a natural product of "the most radical extreme of the neo-conservative movement."

Follows a lionization of Øyvind Strømmen's La toile brune, followed in turn by broadsides against Richard L. Rubenstein's Jihad and Genocide and David Pryce-Jones's Betrayal (France, the Arabs, and the Jews) — which Camus uses to angrily denounce the Eurabia concept as "anti-French" — along with a litany of expressions, from "problematic", "polemical terms", and "abusive equivalence", to "fear", "plottism", "ethno-differentialism", and "Islamophobic Westernism", through "Western Europe's radical xenophobic right parties", their "obsession", and "their idol, Geert Wilders".

Griping about the terms Islamo-Fascism and Nazislamism, Camus is outraged that no distinction is made between differing totalitarianisms, such as Nazism and Communism — although he is quick to add "even though they might all be morally condemnable" (not "are morally condemnable", "might be").

The best part of the article is when Camus concludes that "this idea demeans the concept of European civilization as a skin-thick backlash at the Other, without proposing a coherent cultural project likely to define the values ​​that Muslims in Europe would be required to integrate." The values that Muslims in Europe would be required to integrate are, simply, to follow the local laws and not try to impose the laws of their societies on us. How complicated is that to understand? How reprehensible, how racist, is that supposed to be?

L'idéologie qui a conduit Anders Behring Breivik à s'attaquer à l'Etat norvégien, puis à des militants du Parti social-démocrate, en juillet 2011, n'est pas que le délire d'un homme seul : c'est une construction intellectuelle qu'il explique dans son manifeste "2083" - une déclaration d'indépendance européenne, qui s'avère être surtout une compilation des écrits d'auteurs anglo-saxons appartenant à la frange la plus radicale du mouvement néoconservateur.

L'enquête du journaliste norvégien Oyvind Strommen, La Toile brune (Actes Sud, 206 p., 21 euros), montre bien l'obsession qui s'est emparée depuis le début des années 2000 d'une partie significative des droites radicales xénophobes en Europe occidentale. Il s'agit de la peur d'Eurabia, néologisme forgé en 2006 par l'essayiste Bat Ye'Or, désignant un continent et une culture européens soumis de leur plein gré à l'islam et à son corpus de lois normatives, la charia, ayant renié leurs racines "judéo-chrétiennes" et de surcroît en voie d'être démographiquement submergés par les musulmans, au point que les Européens "de souche" deviendraient bientôt minoritaires.

Autre néologisme, la "dhimmitude" (le fait d'être soumis au statut de sujet protégé, donc de seconde zone, qu'impose l'islam aux non-musulmans) serait l'inéluctable horizon - et le choix conscient - des peuples de notre continent, si elle n'est déjà notre réalité quotidienne.

… Il a été assez peu souligné qu'il s'agit aussi d'un concept antifrançais, comme le démontre le livre-réquisitoire du journaliste et historien David Pryce-Jones, Un siècle de trahison : la diplomatie française et les juifs, 1894-2007 (Denoël, 2008). Intitulé qui revient à faire porter au Quai d'Orsay et à trois Républiques successives le sceau d'infamie de l'antisémitisme ainsi qu'à présenter la France comme un allié non fiable, voire un adversaire, des Etats-Unis, de la Grande-Bretagne et de l'OTAN.

Dans les milieux qui tiennent Eurabia pour une réalité, c'est la France qui est désignée comme le principal instigateur de la politique de "capitulation" face à l'islam qui aurait débuté après le choc pétrolier de 1973. Ce qui lui est nié est rien moins que le droit d'avoir la politique de sa géographie et de son histoire avec le Maghreb, le Machrek et l'Afrique occidentale, ainsi que de préférer un monde multipolaire à un remake de la guerre froide dans lequel le "monde libre" devrait endiguer les assauts de l'islam.

… La question est de savoir si, comme la théorie d'Eurabia le suggère, on peut y arriver de manière crédible en utilisant un concept marqué par le complotisme, en niant la réalité de l'existence du peuple palestinien et en promouvant une politique de confrontation globale.

Dans le langage des théoriciens d'Eurabia, le concept d'Occident remplace celui d'Europe. Preuve que, pour eux, notre continent ne doit se définir que par le lien transatlantique et non comme une Europe- puissance. L'idée d'Eurabia sert à justifier moralement le leadership mondial incontesté de l'Amérique, à la condition, bien sûr, que la politique étrangère des Etats-Unis ne soit pas celle du président Barack Obama mais de ses adversaires. Notamment de ceux qui accusent le chef de l'Etat américain de brader les intérêts d'Israël et qui veulent, depuis avant même le renforcement des sanctions internationales, en finir avec le régime de Téhéran par une intervention militaire.

Les mêmes polémistes accusent l'Europe d'abandonner ses juifs au nouvel antisémitisme des populations musulmanes issues de l'immigration, d'être hostile à l'existence d'Israël et de promettre les peuples israélien et juif à un nouveau génocide. Cette dernière hypothèse a été esquissée en 2010, dans son ouvrage Jihad and Genocide (Rowman & Littlefield), par le théologien de la Shoah Richard L. Rubenstein pour qui le "potentiel génocidaire" de l'idéologie djihadiste menace l'ensemble des non-musulmans.

Dans le monde manichéen d'Eurabia, le communisme a été remplacé par l'islam comme ennemi civilisationnel. Comme le communisme, il est un adversaire absolu d'autant plus redoutable qu'il est à la fois un ennemi extérieur (la menace Al-Qaida notamment) et un ennemi de l'intérieur. C'est sans doute ce dernier point qui a les conséquences politiques les plus graves pour la cohésion des sociétés européennes.

En effet, les partisans de la théorie d'Eurabia ont bien pour fixation l'islam et non l'islamisme. Ils considèrent que le premier est à la fois une culture et un projet politique, celui du califat mondial, et que le second n'est ni réformable ni susceptible d'être modéré. Cela revient à assigner à résidence les individus originaires du monde arabo-musulman dans une identité dont ils ne peuvent même pas se défaire par l'assimilation.

… On peut en tout cas remarquer que le Parti de la liberté néerlandais, comme naguère Pim Fortuyn et les populismes xénophobes scandinaves, a retourné contre l'islam les idées de la gauche émancipatrice des années 1970 : droits des femmes, des homosexuels, des minorités (les juifs notamment) menacés par la répression de la "déviance" que les islamistes au pouvoir mettent en oeuvre.

Le dernier problème théorique posé par la notion d'Eurabia est l'usage des termes "islamo-fascisme" voire "nazislamisme", le premier ayant été utilisé par George W. Bush lui-même. Il s'agit de termes polémiques, dénués de pertinence scientifique : le fascisme comme le nazisme sont des idéologies de l'homme nouveau et non du retour à un âge d'or ; ils positivent la modernité (les néofascistes italiens de CasaPound se réclament du turbofascisme) et non le fixisme ; ils ont le culte de l'Etat total, là où l'islamisme s'accommode très bien du libéralisme économique et de l'Etat faible voire, dans sa variante radicale, évacue totalement l'impératif de l'Etat.

Cette mise en équivalence abusive, tout comme d'ailleurs celle qui assimile communisme et fascisme, interdit de penser le totalitarisme selon des catégories différentes en nature, quand bien même elles seraient toutes moralement condamnables.

… L'occidentalisme islamophobe des tenants d'Eurabia est une impasse. C'est en premier lieu un mythe incapacitant : si l'islamisation de l'Europe est déjà advenue, si les peuples européens sont minoritaires sur leur continent, s'ils n'ont plus de conscience historique et politique, à quoi sert de lutter pour une civilisation déjà morte ? Penser Eurabia est une posture décliniste et démobilisatrice.

Ensuite, cette idée rabaisse le concept de civilisation européenne au niveau d'une réaction de rejet épidermique de l'Autre, sans proposer de projet culturel cohérent susceptible de définir les valeurs auxquelles les musulmans d'Europe seraient tenus de s'intégrer.

The Causes of Fools

Lefty Britons (and other) who boycott and protest at the drop of a hat are mirroring the Nazis of yore, despite the over-use of the term or accusation of Nazism, especially when it comes to protesting the existence of Israel, the existence of Israelis themselves, and the like.

The weird mix of ignorance, detachment, and not being a real stakeholder in the actual issue of the protest, despite being pathetic, causes some strange behavior:

Corrupting Shakespeare into anti-Israel slogans was bad enough, but one speaker, in an outrageous display of anti-Semitism, wore a grotesque “Jewish nose” mask which he refused to remove when challenged.

The anti-Israel protestors attempted to disrupt the performance within the theatre as well, using tactics that had worked at the Albert Hall against the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (when the BBC was forced to stop a live broadcast).

Bear in mind that they come and disrupt ANYTHING that elicits their conditioned-response behavior. What makes it especially pathetic are their protests against collaborative “peace-building” efforts:

Shakespeare’s Globe theatre in London invited Habima to perform here in London as part of their “Globe to Globe” festival; 37 plays in 37 languages, including the Palestinian Ashtar company playing Richard II and Habima playing The Merchant of Venice (apposite, we suppose)!

Again, you would think the balance of both companies performing would be good enough, but, again, no.

Once again, it’s loony non-stakeholders acting out their strange, self-important attention seeking behavior unworthy of a heartbroken teenager:

The Globe had the courage to resist boycott calls by David Calder, Trevor Griffiths, Jonathan Miller, Emma Thompson and other British thespians in March this year and Habima has just played to a sell-out house.

Maybe these great acTORs can hold their little Gautag somewhere where people care – say, in Homs where the regime is so kindly and accepting to minority opinions, outsiders, and contrarians.

Calder was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England.
Trevor Griffiths was born in Manchester, and raised as a Catholic.
Miller grew up in St John's Wood, London, England, in a well-connected Jewish family.
Emma Thompson was born in Paddington, London, England.

Each of them needs to get a dog to channel some of their emotions, and get used to dealing with living things on real terms instead of playing out this pandering Panto.

Mitt Hitler and Double Standards: Godwin's Law Applies to Thee, But Not to Me

THAT DIDN'T TAKE LONG, writes Damian sardonically as E-nough illustrates a post with a poster of Mitt-Romney-as-Adolf-Hitler that's popped up in California (merci à Carine).

This is as good an opportunity as any to bring up Godwin's Law: I cannot be sure of Mike Godwin's original intentions, but certainly, in the way that Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies is invoked and used, it is a terrible thing that makes no sense and that in no way serves intelligent discourse — why in the course of a (reasonably intelligent) conversation should one not be "allowed" to mention Adolf Hitler — or Stalin — or Che Guevara — or Abraham Lincoln — or Dan Quayle — or Mickey Mouse?! (It makes no sense, that is, except to shut up the other person and make oneself look superior.)

You're having an interesting argument, a good back'n'forth, and you are hearing all the arguments in favor of peace, of non-intervention; at one point you segue into the dangers of a peace candidate becoming, willingly or otherwise, another Chamberlain at Munich, and getting ready to cite arguments brought up at the time (1938), some of them extremely similar as those being brought up now, and the (sneering) leftist you are talking with lets out a shout: Time Out! Ha Ha! Godwin's rule! Conversation over! You nixed it!

Is this reasonable? Does it make sense?
(Is this not, rather, immature?)
Why should references to Nazis not be used?

Worse: it means that, instead of giving free rein to the conversation, and searching for new ideas and novel solutions (on both sides), at least one of the conversationalists is constantly monitoring the conversation, both the other person's (the other persons') and his own, for examples of Godwin's law (in addition to monitoring it for politically incorrect items like racism, sexism, phobias, gay jokes, and "hatred", generally, along with other things "beyond which we have moved" and that are "no longer acceptable").

Indeed, what you get is one party who is — eagerly — looking for traces (conscious or otherwise) of racism, sexism, Godwin's Law, and what have you in the other party's words, while the other party is — anxiously — worrying about traces of the same in his own words. In either case, a discussion that is hardly focused and hardly free and hardly honest.

You can just feel the first party's eagerness when suddenly you are interrupted and the pressure within the leftist is let out: "Hah! GOTCHA! You brought up the Nazis! You made a joke about women! You made a comment that proves you're a racist! Conversation over!"

Wonder why there is no more conversation in the Western world anymore? Really?! Godwin's Law is one additional part, small or large, in the manner in which free speech is being dismantled in the West.

There is a perfectly logical reason that Munich is brought up so often; it is simply the best known example, and by far, of avowed peace-lovers not getting the result they expected. (Au contraire!) Instead, if you wish, we could mention, say, the example of… well, no — there you go — off the top of my head, I cannot think of another example, certainly not one that is so good or so clear-cut or so famous to all.

In any case, Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies only applies to the right!

As is quite clear, leftists are giving free rein in evoking the Third Reich and the Führer, and that, not in regards to reasonable arguments but regarding name-calling and insults: for the left (American or international), Reductio ad Hitlerum is par for the course — describing conservatives (or Americans generally) as fascists and (neo-)Nazis (in need of murder); invoking Greed-Über-Alles and the specter of genocide; comparing such things as global warming to the Holocaust and conservatives to Holocaust deniers; and painting square mustaches on the photos of George W Bush, Mitt Romney, etc…

However benevolent its original intention may have been, Godwin's Law as it is used turns out to be nothing but an umpteenth example of leftists' double standards…

Update: Danke schön to Instapundit for the Instalanche.

By the way, we would like to point out that No Pasarán contributed a Brett Kimberlin day post that Michelle Malkin does not seem to have noticed; if anyone can bring our entry to her attention, that would be much appreciated… And please notice that the post in question quotes Jonah Goldberg as saying: "That is how the liberal Gleichschaltung works; contrary voices are [among many other things] mocked"; with that in mind, please turn to update 2…

Update 2: Mike Godwin reacts — saying that "The notion that Godwin's Law, as poorly comprehended by bloggers, inhibits their free speech is laughable." In other words, they are deserving of mockery. That may be the case, but forgive me if I am wont to be skeptical. First of all, the point is not whether I understand, whether bloggers understand, whether conservatives understand Godwin's Law, it is how it is understood, or rather how it is used (or misused?), in the current culture.

@Polliwogette @nopasa The notion that Godwin's Law, as poorly comprehended by bloggers, inhibits their free speech is laughable.
— Mike Godwin (@sfmnemonic) May 28, 2012

Second, there are few arguments in his tweet (as if you hadn't noticed) and it seems like Godwin thinks it is beneath him to provide any. (Quick question: who does that remind you of?) I don't know if Mike Godwin is a leftist (or a leftist-leaning libertarian), but among people and ideas and other things, we are told, that are, or that have been, "laughable" in recent times (and that therefore deserve mockery), so many turn out to be conservative. Among them are:
• the "nutty" candidates for the Republican primary
• Sarah Palin
• George W Bush
• Ronald Reagan
• Lowering taxes
• Spending less money
• Resisting Obama's statist agenda
• Overthrowing Saddam Hussein, the Middle East's Adolf Hit— oops, sorry!
• the notion that you can bring up Munich and the Nazi era in a reasonably intelligent conversation
• (you get the idea…)
And so, it turns out, "Laughable" is equivalent to "sexist", to "racist", to "ridiculous" (such as bringing up the Nazis), to "outrageous". So beyond the pale that no further debate is necessary. And no need to present, and to defend (how convenient), well-constructed arguments.

If you will allow me to go a bit further on this topic: I am doing research for a graphic novel biography of Abraham Lincoln with Dan Greenberg. One of the things many people know was that in his early years Honest Abe was part of a debating club. In politics, Lincoln the Whig would debate (among others) Stephen Douglas the Democrat. What fewer people know is that when the debate was over, it turned out that… the debate was… not over; at that point the debate would start again, but with the debaters "switching sides" and this time having to argue for their opponent's policies — i.e., with Lincoln arguing for the Democrats and with Douglas arguing for the Whigs. (No "Ha ha conversation over.")

You have to wonder to what extent something similar could happen in today's day and age, with a leftist trying, just for the heck of it, to defend, rationally, the viewpoints of a Dubya or trying to see a good, objective side in the positions of a Sarah Palin.

Update 3: Notice again the wording of Mike Godwin's tweet:

The notion that Godwin's Law, as poorly comprehended by bloggers, inhibits their free speech is laughable

The wording suggests that the members of one tinny subset of society, (conservative) bloggers, are whining, and that because their speech, and their speech alone, is being inhibited (and aw, ain't that sad). Again, leftists do not deal with realities but twist language around so that their enemies, or adversaries, come out looking foolish (or "laughable"). Should it need to be repeated, it is quite clear that all people's free speech is being inhibited — with the exception of liberals, who always are allowed to enjoy the double standards that their self-serving rules create.

Update 4: To no one's surprise, Godwin's Law does not apply to Hollywood. Jonah Goldberg on the flood of "gratuitous political self-indulgence saturat[ing] the popular culture during the Bush years, in fare that had absolutely nothing to do with the policies of the White House:

In the two (awful) sequels to The Matrix, a science-fiction hit about humans being used as a fuel source by a world overtaken by machines, Bush is visually compared to Adolf Hitler.

Update 5: Zombie Time has a (very) long retrospective of Bush=Hitler photos in the San Francisco Bay area alone.

Update 6 — from Ed Driscoll:

A few months [after the 2008 election], the Post’s E.J. Dionne pretended to be shocked, Claude Rains in Casablanca style, that some were now calling President Obama a socialist who believes in nationalization, or heck, even a National Socialist. “Media Amnesiacs Suddenly Appalled at Hitler Comparisons” Lachlan Markay of NewsBusters wrote in November of 2009, after everyone from MoveOn.org to Al Gore to John Glenn spent the last eight years comparing President Bush and the GOP to Hitler and the Nazis:

A liberal Washington Post columnist laments today of the loss of civility in the public discourse. Strange that he is suddenly outraged that Americans would dare call Obama a socialist or a fascist, given that Bush-Hitler comparisons were widespread during the previous administration.

Liberals in the media spent the summer and early fall bemoaning signs at town hall protests and tea party rallies calling Obama a socialist or communist comparing him to Hitler (incidentally, many of these signs were actually created by supporters of uber-leftist Lyndon LaRouche, as reported by Seton Motley here and here). These pundits had no such admonitions for signs at anti-war rallies during the Bush administration comparing him to Hitler and the Devil, and calling the president a fascist.

So the Post’s E.J. Dionne’s complaints about the loss of civility in the debate over federal politics fit right in with the narrative liberal pundits have been pushing since last year: comparing an American president to a murderous dictator is unacceptable…if that president is a Democrat.

Update 7: Every Republican Presidential Candidate Is Hitler by Daniel Greenfield (The “Big Lie” has been around for over fifty years)

Update 8: Newsweek Columnist Likens a Republican Candidate's Wife (!) — the "Insufferable" Ann Romney — to Hitler, Stalin (thanks to Ed Driscoll)

Related: How to Prevent America from Becoming a Totalitarian State (tongue firmly in cheek)
 
Update 9: Ed Driscoll himself:

 … every Republican presidential candidate, from Thomas Dewey (smeared as a Nazi by no less than Harry Truman) to the present will be attacked by the left in this fashion, no matter his temperament, or his small government, libertarian bona fides. … In his 1944 State of the Union address, FDR smeared the laissez–faire Coolidge era of the 1920s as “the spirit of fascism”

Update 10: WikiLeaks reveals John Podesta's rule for democrats
(via Joe Biggs): "Compare Your Opponent to Hitler" …

The Pigs Got Him!

Penguin no. 337, a Humbolt (known as Flash to his friends) who busted out of the Zoo in Tokyo 82 days ago by scaling a 13 foot high wall, has been apprehended.

Officials’ greatest fear is that he would turn into Pengzilla out there, and, you know, attack the island or something.

The Guardian reports that video footage has shown the penguin "frolicking," and apparently in good health, in a different part of Tokyo Bay

Despite your eternal optimism, I’m sorry to hear you were finally nailed, little Dude. I hope you can bust out of the crowbar hotel again really soon.

Who is a "natural born citizen" of the United States?

Birthers questioned whether Obama was in fact born in the United States, while they claim Rubio, indisputably born in Miami, is not eligible because his parents were not citizens at the time of his birth

writes Byron York regarding birther talk (thanks to InstaPundit) and the legal aspect thereof. (See my in-depth and dispassionate analysis of the birther controversy: The JournoList Issue No One Is Bringing Up.)

The one thing that characterizes both arguments is an ignorance of the law concerning citizenship.

The Constitution specifies that a president must be a "natural born citizen" of the United States, but it does not define the term. The Supreme Court has never clarified the issue, but there is a law, 8 U.S. Code 1401, that spells out in detail who is a citizen.

The law uses the phrase "citizens of the United States at birth" and lists categories of people who fit that description.

First, there are people born inside the United States. No question about that; their citizenship is established by the 14th Amendment.

Then there are the people who are born outside the United States to parents who are both American citizens, provided one of them has lived in the U.S. for any period of time. And then there are the people who are born outside the United States to one parent who is a U.S. citizen and the other who is an alien, provided the citizen parent lived in the United States or its possessions for at least five years, at least two of them after age 14.

Since they are all "citizens of the United States at birth," the question is, does that also mean they are "natural born citizens" in the constitutional sense?

"My conclusion would be that if you are a citizen as a consequence of your birth, that's a natural-born citizen," says Theodore Olson, the former Bush solicitor general who defended John McCain in a 2008 lawsuit alleging McCain was ineligible to be president. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 while his father served in the U.S. Navy there. Even though the area was under American jurisdiction and both McCain's parents were U.S. citizens, some Democrats alleged McCain was ineligible to be president. McCain won the case, if not the presidency.

The law is really quite lenient, especially for those born outside the United States. If a child were born today in, say, Kenya, to a Kenyan father and an American citizen mother who had lived in the United States for at least five years, at least two of them over the age of 14 -- that child would be a "citizen of the United States by birth" and be eligible for the White House.

But what about Rubio? What about a child born in the United States to noncitizen parents? "I am not aware of anyone who has contended that someone could be born in the United States and be a citizen by virtue of the 14th Amendment and nevertheless still not be a natural-born American citizen," says Washington lawyer Matthew McGill, who worked with Olson on the McCain case and did extensive research into the law and history of citizenship. "If he is born in the United States, his parentage is not of consequence."

But some do contend that Rubio is not eligible for the presidency. (The eligibility requirement for vice president is the same as president.) "Rubio is, quite simply, not a 'natural born citizen' by the accepted legal, English-language standard as it has been known throughout American history," wrote WorldNetDaily founder and editor Joseph Farah in February. "He was born in Florida to two non-U.S. citizen parents."

But according to the law, Rubio is a "citizen at birth," and the most reasonable reading of the law and the Constitution is that an American is a natural-born citizen if he or she is a citizen at birth. There might be complaints about that in coming months, but that's the way it is.

You’re Doing Fine, Baden-Württemberg, Baden-Württemberg, OK

Rereading this is starting to make my stomach hurt.

Observes Hermann. Not me, though. He discusses his view of the magnitude of the cash-pile that German savers and investors are sitting on. While this is in sharp contrast to the state of personal finance south of the Alps, that's still alright by me.

Because they see the Euro trending into devaluation for some period of time, it actually bodes well for the New York Exchanges at first (buying US stocks is a way of swapping your savings out into another currency,) as well as an eventual round of bargain-hunting on the European exchanges after a pullback of, say, 8-10%

This despite the nudnik flight to safety behavior of the bulk of German investors when the risks to them are readily managable:

the punch line is that they seem to have invested most of it at those awful horrible dreadful banks they like to despise so much (they make big banks even bigger, you might say). Investments in real estate haven’t even been calculated here, by the way.

One of the pressing problems with all economies, even the German economy, is that a large amount of money has been pulled out of markets, and has still not gone back in. This starves companies that hire, build plant, or otherwise invest, of operating capital.

One certainty is that when the fear DOES go away, stock prices (and volumes) will rapidly rise in a large, one-time Oklahoma-landrush style event.

After all there has been an awful lot of money worldwide that has been held back since 2009 despite the enthusiastic chatter about emerging markets and notions of Chinese economic infallibility. People have watched their retirement accounts fall and eke back something, but are likely exactly where they were 4 years ago. There's anxiety about this having cost/lost time in the scale of years that they will have to keep working beyond the age that they had once anticipated.

Before you discount this is a bad way of looking at what the German investor MIGHT do, make a note of their taciturn ways that define the Sparkultur that makes them look like “the 1%”. It always adopts behavior practiced abroad for some length of time as a part of sticking with what’s tried and true, even if it’s goofy.

Going “all in” on solar panels at a northern latitude where the sun might shine for a few days every other August is a sign of this. The shared-delusion makes perfect sense to them because they keep hearing that people out there in the big, wide world think it matters, so it must be the thing a schlauer Kopf needs to do – and do it Sofort, once it is recognized.
So it isn’t quite mad to think that sooner or later, they’ll be making large withdrawals from the 1st National Bank of Sealy Posturepedic at some point in the cycle we see now. It might foretell a trend which is also true of all of the OECD societies – more popularly among those that are emerging from recession in reasonable shape than the rest, but a likely trend across the board in an effort by the great mass of individual to (if nothing else,) get personal retirement plans back on track without the rest of society’s ideas.

Europeans being “forced” to retire at 68-70? Forget the Social contract as a discussion point - the economy has made that decision for us. This holds true despite the knuckleheads frequently found marching in the streets of French cities on a seasonal basis trying to circumvent the plain fact that there just isn’t enough money to provide for all their comforts on the backs of the taxpayers whom they outnumber by "making a debate" out of it.

The New Europe is Actually the Old Normal Europe

Title: "A run on the banks: Greeks gather together their liquid assets"

Stereotypical Greek man: "... Quick!, hide this under the mattress!"

Brett Kimberlin's Modus Operandi Was Described in Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism"

The harassment that convicted Speedway bomber Brett Kimberlin has been subjecting various bloggers to (Aaron Walker aka “Aaron Worthing”, Patterico, Liberty Chick, and Stacy McCain) is the epitome of the leftist mindset, as described by Jonah Goldberg in what is possibly the single most important paragraph of his book Liberal Fascism:

That is how the liberal Gleichschaltung works; contrary voices are regulated, barred, banned when possible, mocked and marginalized when not. Progressive voices are encouraged, lionized, amplified — in the name of "diversity," or "liberation," or "unity," and, most of all, "progress."

Incidentally, it seems like we only have photos of Brett Kimberlin as he looked at the time of his terrorism activities and his time in jail. Don't we have any recent, current photos of what he looks like in this day and age? Or is that also something that nobody has a right to post?

Elitist Piffle and the Modern Do-Gooder

An environmental “eco-district" built on "brownfield" land on the French side of the border with Switzerland 15 klicks from Genera aims to attract wealthy and indingnantly green Swissies.

More than 1000 people will be able to move into the low-energy apartments, which have green roofs and photovoltaic panels. The city will include a pedestrian town square and a “green corridor,” of walkways, planted with 750 trees. Price per square meter: 4000 euros, which is very reasonable. There will be a percentage of social housing as well.

The sad fact is that it will displace the people who live there: occasionally productive lower income folks who actually materially do something for a living, and therefore commit the sin of sometimes consuming fuel.

The materialistic bourgeois competition between the proletariat (who now vote FN) and the aesthetitian-new-socialist-man types can therefore be easily characterized in the narrative of the day’s class struggle dialectic:

“There’s a race for housing, which is a source of imbalance, both socially and ecologically,” Claude Barbier concludes.

So the modest and picturesque peasants may stay, so long as they move into the allotted percentage of “social housing”. How very empowering.

Boat People: What Does the French Version Look Like?

Obama Delighted to Meet France's Socialist Leader, Who Vows to Support BHO "For as Long as Possible"

According to Le Monde's Corine Lesnes and Thomas Wieder, Barack Obama is delighted to find in François Hollande a man of similar outlooks, with Hillary Clinton explaining the two leftist presidents were spending "a marvelous moment together during a marvelous day" (translated back from the French).

France's socialist president "is even bringing hardly-disguised support to Barack Obama" for the November elections — not to Mitt Romney nor to the United States proper — as he expresses his hope that their partnership "will last long" and that his meetings with the One will continue "to last the longest time possible".

As for Iran, "Barack Obama has reason to be satisifed" as Hollande's foreign policy is closer to Obama's weak soft approach than to Nicolas Sarkozy's "backbone of steel."

That is all regarding the 2012 election, however. Notwithstanding the fact that Obama seems to be interested in little else but his campaign for reelection, some things that other people would find more important, such as Afghanistan, are a different matter, as Dave Boyer points out (merci à Duncan):

…the path ahead [regarding Afghanistan] is far from certain. As if to underscore the problems remaining, new French President Francois Hollande skipped Mr. Obama’s remarks at Monday’s session, arriving to take his seat only after Mr. Obama had finished speaking. Mr. Hollande campaigned on a pledge to remove France’s 3,400 troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year, and he has publicly resisted efforts by Mr. Obama to reconsider his vow.

But of course, such things hardly matter when the really important issues in this day and age — for the White House, for the nation, for the entire planet — concern… getting Barack Obama reelected to a second term.


Back to Le Monde:

… tout était fait pour que les quelques journalistes qui avaient eu le privilège d'approcher la petite troupe croient M^me Clinton sur parole quand elle leur expliqua qu'ils passaient ensemble un "moment merveilleux dans une journée merveilleuse".

En assistant à ce spectacle, et en apprenant que François Hollande s'était vu proposer de dormir à Blair House dès le jeudi soir (mais il avait préféré arriver aux Etats-Unis le vendredi matin), on se posait une question : Barack Obama ne cherche-t-il pas à se rattraper après avoir affiché son soutien à Nicolas Sarkozy pendant la campagne présidentielle ? "La Maison Blanche reconnaît l'importance du président de la France et des problèmes mondiaux qui sont devant nous", rectifie un officiel américain. De son côté, François Hollande a indiqué qu'il comprenait que les chefs d'Etat parlent plutôt aux chefs d'Etat qu'aux candidats.

… le président français a même apporté un soutien à peine déguisé à Barack Obama, qui a pour horizon la présidentielle de novembre. Dans le bureau Ovale, quand il a souhaité que leurs rencontres se poursuivent "le plus longtemps possible". Et devant les Français, quand il a dit : "Nous avons engagé un partenariat avec le président Obama qui, je l'espère pour lui, et pour nous, durera longtemps."

Sur le fond, l'heure était à l'affichage des points d'accord. En matière économique, d'abord. Concernant la situation de la zone euro, le président français a ainsi souligné qu'ils ont "la même conviction que la Grèce doit rester dans la zone euro". Plus largement, "la croissance doit être une priorité, en même temps que nous mettons en ordre nos comptes publics à travers des pactes budgétaires", a déclaré François Hollande, en se félicitant que, "sur cette dimension de croissance, le président Obama a pu marquer une convergence".

Même si les propos sont restés assez généraux, il était important, pour M. Hollande, qu'ils fussent prononcés : le chef de l'Etat peut se prévaloir d'avoir un allié de poids dans sa condamnation des politiques d'austérité, ce qui lui donne un atout à la veille du marathon diplomatique qui doit l'amener à proposer à ses partenaires européens la "renégociation" du traité de discipline budgétaire.

Dans le domaine stratégique, les deux hommes ont également pris acte d'un point d'accord important. Il concerne l'Iran. François Hollande a donné sa position : "Que la négociation puisse s'engager mais avec la fermeté indispensable pour qu'il n'y ait à aucun moment l'accès de l'Iran à la technologie nucléaire à des fins militaires." Barack Obama a des raisons d'être satisfait : à l'égard de Téhéran, le nouveau chef de l'Etat français est davantage sur sa ligne que ne l'était Nicolas Sarkozy, qui est pleuré chez les conservateurs, désolés d'avoir perdu "la colonne vertébrale en acier" des grandes puissances qui négocient avec l'Iran.

The Retreat From Afghanistan, as Seen by Plantu in a French Cartoon

The Pullback From Afghanistan, by Plantu:
• François Hollande: How do you say in English the words however… although… nevertheless… having said that… notwithstanding?

Further to Pointless Devotions

Some of which live in a past held in some sentimental regard by people who can’t count past 21. This is particularly true of European Syndicalists and Socialists, such as propping up dead industries to pay back those who voted for you, such as steelmaking for that old-fashioned “butch men in cloth caps” feeling of haing a “Great Leap Forward”. They include ideas to make them sound modern like looking serious about the economy by starting a new ministry, such as a ministre du Redressement productif, which translated roughly as ”Ministry of Production Recovery”.

Not only is the idea that the government can spoonfeed prosperity to a thankful lumpenproletariat idiotic and impossible, but the name of this new little sub-empire makes no sense in any language.

This doesn’t seem to bother people who want to look like they are doing something, especially what they really don’t have anything in their ideological toolbox that will work.

Pointlessly Devoted to You

Any informed person’s first thought is to want to ask: “what austerity?”, but you have to remember that we’re talking about the true black helicopter crowd.

By this, I mean Germans doing generally better than virtually anyone else on earth that isn’t standing on a desert full of oil protesting the very existence of financial system, thinking that nanny’s teat could still provide after its’ post-revolutionary elimination.

French Terror Ring Dismantled, Members Sound Like Sympathizers of the Occupy Wall Street Movement

A terrorist ring has been dismantled in France, writes Elise Vincent in Le Monde, with its members now on trial and risking 10 years behind bars; and needless to say, their members all belong to the far right and are the ideological counterparts of the Tea Party movement in the United St—

Uh, wait — except, no, they are not sympathizers of the Tea Party movement, in any way; rather, they are members of the far left, who sound amazingly like sympathizers of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The six young men and women, aged 29 to 31, are allegedly part of an "anarchic-autonomous movement" who
1) are out of work (or "in training" for a job) and receive the minimum wage;
2) sing the praises of their "anti-capitalist" views;
3) expressed a wish to (do nothing else but) "become visible to imprisoned people"
(in other words, to become to visible the much-maligned bourgeoisie); and
4) claim to fight against poor housing conditions, personal data collection by the police, and the defense of undocumented aliens.

Le procès de six militants d'ultragauche renvoyés pour "actes terroristes" se tient, depuis le 14 mai, à la dixième chambre correctionnelle du tribunal de Paris. C'est le premier procès relatif à ce que les services de police et de renseignements ont commencé à appeler, à partir de 2007, la "mouvance anarcho-autonome". Une mouvance à laquelle le groupe de Tarnac - interpellé en 2008 pour des sabotages sur des lignes SNCF - a, plus tard, été rattaché.

Les six militants qui comparaissent libres, après avoir tous fait plusieurs mois de détention préventive, sont, eux, soupçonnés d'avoir fabriqué ou détenu des produits explosifs. Il est en particulier reproché à trois d'entre eux d'avoir été associés à la fabrication d'une bombe artisanale retrouvée avec la trace de leur ADN, le 2 mai 2007, sous une dépanneuse devant un commissariat de Paris.

Agés de 29 à 31 ans, les six prévenus se sont tous présentés comme sans profession ou en formation et bénéficiaires du revenu de solidarité active (RSA). Plusieurs ont indiqué avoir fait des études supérieures en ethnologie, biologie ou sciences politiques. Deux d'entre eux ont expliqué avoir été admis en classe préparatoire scientifique avant de lâcher leurs études.

A la barre, ils ont également parlé de leur engagement "anticapitaliste" mais ont réfuté l'étiquette d'"anarcho-autonomes". L'essentiel de leurs luttes, ont-ils décrit, tourne autour des causes de la lutte contre le mal-logement, le fichage policier ou de la défense des étrangers sans-papiers. C'est d'ailleurs à l'occasion d'une manifestation devant le centre de rétention administrative de Vincennes (Val-de-Marne), en janvier 2008, que le dossier judiciaire les concernant a été ouvert.

A l'époque, trois d'entre eux sont interpellés à proximité du centre de rétention avec, dans des sacs à dos, des produits chimiques pouvant entrer dans la composition d'explosifs. A la barre, Yvan H. et Bruno L. notamment, se sont défendus de telles intentions en indiquant que ces produits étaient simplement destinés à la fabrication de "fumigènes". "On voulait être visibles des gens enfermés", ont-ils plaidé.