By Intervening Militarily Against Islamists in West Africa, "Hollande of Mali" Earns Foreign Policy Kudos

By intervening militarily in Mali, reports Hélène Sallon in Le Monde, François Hollande has earned foreign policy kudos, including from numerous newspapers in western Africa. The French presence fighting the Al Qaeda group is slated to grow from the initial 550 soldiers to 2,500.

En lançant une intervention militaire largement attendue au Mali, le président François Hollande a gagné sur la scène internationale ses premiers galons de chef d'Etat et s'est attiré les éloges des éditorialistes des pays de l'ouest de l'Afrique. "Hollande le Malien", le gratifie ainsi dans son éditorial le site Internet Maliweb. Une distinction qui n'allait pas sans dire. "Si jusque-là pour sa sympathie jugée protubérante pour le Mouvement national de libération de l'Azawad — MNLA,  la France n'était plus la tasse de thé des Maliens, l'action rapide et décisive de François Hollande à leurs côtés les réconcilie désormais", précise l'éditorial.

Désormais, aux yeux de tous, il est le "sauveur" face à "un péril qui n'avait jamais paru aussi global", poursuit Maliweb. Le quotidien électronique Le Journal du Mali salue également "la main tendue de la France à notre pays malmené depuis huit mois par les djihadistes et terroristes de tout bord, infiltrés au Nord et contre toute libertés individuelles et tolérance..." Il loue en François Hollande "la finesse politique" et la "prudence" d'"un homme d'Etat qui s'affirme de jour en jour".

More and More Frenchmen Heading North to Acquire a Belgian Passport

With the socialist government's intent to raise taxes to up to 75%, more and more French taxpayers want to escape North, warns Le Monde on its front page, and become Belgian citizens. In 2012, exactly twice as many French citizens sought to become Belgian as in 2011 — many of them after the May elections that brought socialists to power.

Belgian legislators, meanwhile, were hardly amused to learn of Gérard Depardieu's decision to accept a Russian passport from Vladimir Putin, are now hesitating whether to give the French movie star the Russian movie star a Belgian passport (should Nounours make the demand), and are debating whether to make it harder for foreigners to become Belgian.
Reminder: A few days after Vladimir Putin offered a Russian passport to Gégé, the (now ex-) French movie star, disgusted with French taxes and offended by his treatment from France's ruling socialists and cultural élites, accepted and, as related by the Kremlin, became a Russian citizen.

Related: Travel back to the 1770s:
Russia has always needed its Depardieus, just as much as they needed Russia

Additional: Check out the meaning of the last name Depardieu
and why it is particularly appropriate for the movie star 

Selon M. Dallemagne, les développements de l'"affaire Depardieu", avec l'octroi, par le président Vladimir Poutine, de la citoyenneté russe à l'acteur, devraient toutefois "changer la donne" en ce qui concerne ce dossier spécifique. "Les nationalités ne se collectionnent pas", souligne M. Dallemagne, même si l'on peut en posséder plusieurs.

… La lettre de l'acteur aux médias russes, dévoilée jeudi et se concluant par un "Merci !" à son nouveau pays d'adoption, devrait être d'autant moins appréciée par les élus belges qu'elle ne mentionne pas une seule fois leur pays. "De quoi confirmer que son installation à Néchin s'est faite sur un coup de tête et pourrait bien être très temporaire", explique un député qui préfère garder l'anonymat. Il confirme cependant que l'épisode sera sans conséquence pour les Français désireux de devenir belges. Ils seraient environ 500 à attendre une réponse. Un nombre qui s'est accru au cours du dernier trimestre 2012, quand la polémique sur les hausses d'impôts battait son plein en France tandis que la Belgique annonçait un changement de ses dispositions légales au 1^er janvier 2013.

Plantu, bringing in the parallel issue of Gégé's court case for driving intoxicated on a motorcycle…
• Nounours: State of France…
State of Russia…
An' now:
State of inebriation…

Vodka for everybody!
 
A look back (merci à LE): already in 1976,
Gégé was thinking mostly about eating and about motorcycles…

Gérard Depardieu (1976) par ina

Worshipping Little Else But the Aryan Race, Hitler Abhorred the Christian Faith and Wanted to Replace Christmas with the Pagans' Yuletide

The images are chilling, bordering on surreal: On December 18, 1941, as World War II rages and the horrors of the Third Reich’s “final solution” grow ever clearer — killing operations at the Chełmno death camp, for instance, began less than two weeks earlier — Adolf Hitler presides over a Christmas party in Munich. Stark swastika armbands jarringly offset the glint of ornaments and tinsel dangling from a giant Tannenbaum; candles illuminate the festive scene. Confronted with the scene, a viewer might reasonably ask, How could Nazi leaders reconcile an ideology of hatred and conquest with the peaceful, joyous spirit of the holiday — much less its celebration of the birth of the Jewish Christ?

Thus reads the introductory paragraph to the Life Magazine website portfolio of A Nazi Christmas Party, 1941. In that perspective, readers of this blog will remember a Christmas post detailing the Führer's attempts to replace Christianity with the "religion" of National Socialism. Those readers may also remember a couple of readers' protest pointing to (rare) photos of Hitler in the presence of churchmen or exiting a church, protests which I examined carefully and dispassionately, responding thereto in detail. Now — if need be — comes confirmation in a story from Time-Life, which can hardly be called a website of rabid right-wing rants.

We cannot accept that a German Christmas tree has anything to do with a crib in a manger in Bethlehem. It is inconceivable for us that Christmas and all its deep soulful content is the product of an oriental religion.

 Those were words of Nazi propagandist Friedrich Rehm in 1937, in pre-war attempts to take “oriental” religion out of the holiday by harking back to the pagan Yule, an ancient Northern European festival of the winter solstice. (An eye-opening 2009 exhibit at Cologne’s National Socialism Documentation Centre featured early Nazi propaganda employed to make over the holidays: swastika-shaped cookie-cutters; sunburst tree-toppers, to replace the traditional ornament Nazis feared looked too much like the Star of David; and rewritten lyrics to carols that excised all references to Christ.)

But by the time of the 1941 Christmas party featured in this gallery, with World War II at its height — America had officially entered the fray just weeks earlier, after Pearl Harbor — the focus shifted to more practical matters. Rather than trying to dissuade millions of Germans from celebrating Christmas the way they had for generations, the Reich instead encouraged them to send cards and care packages to the troops.

The photos published here were part of an enormous stash of color transparencies made by Hitler’s personal photographer, Hugo Jaeger, and buried in glass jars on the outskirts of Munich in 1945, near the war’s end. Advancing Allied forces had almost discovered the pictures during an earlier search of a house where Jaeger was staying (a bottle of cognac on top of the transparencies distracted the troops), and Jaeger — justifiably terrified that the photos would serve as evidence of his own ardent Nazism — cached them in the ground. A decade later, he exhumed the pictures; 10 years after that, he sold them to LIFE, which published a handful in 1970.

In fact, the caption accompanying the one frame from the Christmas party that was published by LIFE in April 1970 offers a possible explanation for Hitler’s glum expression in that photo (slide #3):

“In 1941, Hitler gave this Christmas party for his generals. Though he dominated his officers and came to despise them, Hitler never felt socially at ease with them — they had better backgrounds and education. He never invited them to dinner, aware that they looked down on the old comrades he liked to have around.”

As for the religious views of Hitler himself, the evidence is conflicting: In public statements he sometimes praised Christianity (once calling it “the foundation of our national morality”), but in private conversations — including one recalled by the Third Reich’s official architect, Albert Speer — the Führer is said to have abhorred the faith for what he deemed its “meekness and flabbiness.” Hitler did, however, fervently worship one thing above all else: the so-called Aryan race. And by the time Hugo Jaeger took the photos seen here, Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, commanding general of the SS, had articulated and launched their plan for creating a “master” race — via, in large part, the mass murder of Europe’s Jews and other “undesirables.”

Russia has always needed its Depardieus, just as much as they needed Russia

RETURNING home from a visit to Russia in 1774, the philosophe Denis Diderot wrote that in France, he could not “help but think that I’ve the soul of a slave in a country where men are called free,” whereas in Russia he “had the soul of a free man in a country where men are called slaves.”

Thus writes Robert Zaretsky.

Has Gérard Depardieu had similar thoughts of late? 

On Sunday, President Vladimir V. Putin welcomed the French actor to Russia with a newly issued Russian passport. Mr. Depardieu, outraged by the French Socialist government’s proposed 75 percent wealth tax, had walked out on his country. A fan of Russia’s low taxes, he also praised its “great democracy”: “I love your country, Russia — its people, its history, its writers. I love your culture, your intelligence.” Mr. Putin’s increasing authoritarianism went unmentioned. 

In the centuries since French celebrities began washing up on its shores, Russia has used them to affirm itself as a center of European culture, as well as to poke its finger in the eye of Western nations. Russia has always needed its Depardieus, just as much as they needed Russia. 

Diderot’s reasons for visiting were not terribly different from Mr. Depardieu’s. Catherine the Great had repeatedly expressed her desire to meet the celebrated philosophe. In an age of enlightened despotism, when kings made a show of seeking the guidance of philosophers on how best to rule, such an invitation was hard to ignore. This was certainly the case for Diderot, editor of the Encyclopédie, whose entry on government affirmed that the laws of nature and reason must guide rulers in bettering the lot of the people, for whom the greatest good is liberty. …

The more pressing motivation, however, was financial:
Diderot was broke.

… La mission civilisatrice — France’s civilizing mission — was nevertheless started in Russia, and furthered by a wave of French celebrity émigrés fleeing the very event for which thinkers like Diderot were held responsible: the revolution. Few countries seemed safer for French aristocrats than reactionary Russia.

… A new generation of French intellectuals and artists arrived after 1917, the revolution that grew out of 1789. The Surrealist Louis Aragon, who toured Russia in the 1930s, was just one who was dazzled by what he wanted to see. He praised the science of the re-education of man unfolding in Stalin’s gulag, while in his notorious poem “Red Front” he urged, in Lenin’s name, the massacre of France’s bourgeois political leaders. 

Set alongside these remarks, Mr. Depardieu’s sallies on Russian democracy are mostly silly. But they also have a history. From enlightened despotism through absolute autocracy to Soviet communism, Russia has been a screen against which France has projected its ideological or merely idiosyncratic dreams. That these dreams have proved nightmares for those who really lived them is, of course, beside the point for Russia’s leaders.

 And — beside the point for the Frenchmen escaping to, and lauding, Russia…

Related: Check out the meaning of the last name Depardieu
and why it is particularly appropriate for the movie star

And, while we are on the subject:
Plantu, bringing in the parallel issues of gay marriage advocates versus traditional marriage supporters (currently heating up in France) as well as of Gégé's court case for driving intoxicated on a motorcycle:

After the school war, the fiscal war
• Nounours with his new Russian passport:
Long live Orthodox marriage…

Obama Is a Progressive Terminator and the U.S. Constitution is Sarah Connor

Via Instapundit, an inspiring piece from Kurt Schlichter:

It’s Not “Game Over”— It’s Time for the GOP to Counterattack

The current state of the GOP brings to mind the surviving Marines in Aliens, with no shortage of demoralized hacks lamenting their inability to resist by channeling Private Hudson: “Maybe you haven't been keeping up on current events but we just got our a**** kicked, pal!”

So what? So we took a hit on the Fiscal Cliff. Stand up, brush off and get back into the fight. This is no time for self-pity, no time for weakness. Every combat leader knows that when you take a hit, you regroup, reorganize, and prepare to counterattack. The defense is but a temporary, transitory period that serves just one single purpose – to prepare your forces to resume the offensive.

We don’t need wimpy handwringers trying to excuse Republican fecklessness by repeating stupid clichés like “Elections have consequences.” Maybe I missed something, but everyone in this new Congress won the last election – and the House kept its majority. If President 50.6% has a mandate, so does every single GOP member. And that mandate wasn’t to tuck-up into the fetal position and sob.

Here’s another consequence that the election had – now that the tax cuts have expired, Obama can’t do anything unless we say “Yes.” From here on in, if he wins it’s because we let him win. So don’t.
This guy has a glass jaw. He had tax increases by default on everyone, yet he had to walk away with a $450,000 ceiling instead of the $250,000 definition of “millionaire” he’d been selling to the low-information types who make up his base. Oh, and this week these same slack-jaws opened up their pay envelopes and found out that The One failed to get the payroll tax cut extended. Moreover, the AMT is fixed and the estate tax is improved somewhat. The GOP may have lost, but contrary to the cheerleading by the government-controlled mainstream media, so did progressive President Pyrrhus. 

Obama has the initiative today, but hand this guy a couple defeats and he’ll go right back to ground hoping 2014 will bring him a liberal majority again.

The GOP needs to clearly understand its objective, because right now they are acting as if this is politics as usual, just with a particularly liberal president. Wrong. Obama is a dedicated progressive ideologue who wants to permanently change this country for the worse and he intends to clear his path to doing so by ruthlessly destroying all opposition. That means you, GOPers.

He isn’t playing a game; he’s fighting a war, and it better dawn on the GOP that Obama doesn’t want to just shift the needle a bit. He wants us defeated, disarmed and docile so he can turn us into the progressive, extra-Constitutional Utopia his faculty-lounge buddies have been fantasizing about for the last century. 

Obama and his minions are serious about defeating us, so we need to be serious about defeating them. Let’s banish cheesy talk about “Working together for the good of the country.” The only thing that is good for this country right now is defeating Obama’s leftist agenda, fully, completely and in detail. You can’t work with him, you can’t compromise with him, you can’t convince him. He’s a progressive Terminator and the Constitution is Sarah Connor. 

You have to beat him, and that means counterattacking to seize the initiative by getting on the scoreboard with some wins and restoring our team’s morale.

Obama’s getting cocky – this guy always believes his own hype and his prissy press cheerleaders aren’t doing him any favors telling him he’s mastered the opposition. Unless we let him, he’s mastered nothing. In his overconfidence he’s over-extending himself, and that means opportunities.

It looks like he’s going to nominate Chuck Hagel for SecDef. Even Chuck Schumer is having trouble swallowing that. Republicans, time to get out the long knives and get to work – and make sure you let the world know that besides Hagel’s terrible policies you’re doing it on behalf of the Jews and gays he detests. Filibuster him if you need to – if Harry Reid wants to eliminate the filibuster he can do it on behalf of an anti-Semitic homophobe who thinks we’re too mean to Hamas.

Obama loses even if he “wins,” squandering capital and forcing his Democrat pals into terrible votes they’ll be hearing about at re-election time. And GOP senators, we don’t need to hear about deference toward one of your own. Hagel sold out the GOP when he supported Obama. Nor do we need to hear any sanctimonious crap about deference to the president in nominations – if you still think this is business as usual, you’re either a fool or in a coma.

Obama is now talking about taxing the successful even more by eliminating deductions. Hand him another big goose egg. He got his tax increases – you need to be out of the revenue increase business. How about the House pass a payroll tax cut, paid for by slashing corporate welfare to Obama’s Hollywood buddies and his green energy scam cronies?

Spending cuts? Obama doesn’t get a say. Sequestration is going to happen unless the GOP agrees to change it. That’s a $1.2 trillion cut. Let it happen, and let Secretary Hagel deal with the defense cuts. Obama loses again unless you save him.

And guns – talk about a golden opportunity to defeat Obama while also helping set the stage for a Democrat wipe-out in 2014! Obama and his progressive pals are giddy with the idea that Newtown will let them jam through a whole slew of Second Amendment-trashing measures before everyone starts thinking again. If Obama’s actually foolish enough to proceed – and I am not sure he is – he’s setting himself up for a huge loss.

GOP, remember Napoleon’s admonition to never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. Let Obama try and force the red state Democrat senators to come out against guns. Let the Democrats tear themselves up while we watch and gobble popcorn.

Heck, we should egg them on – like by trying to force a Senate vote on, say, a provision which reaffirms the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms for the protection of their families and communities and directs that all federal law shall be interpreted toward preserving and protecting that right. Let’s see how all those Democrats paying lip service to the Second Amendment feel about voting on that.

And if some bill finally limps out of the Senate, hopefully without a single GOP vote, Speaker Boehner should mimic Harry Reid’s fiscal cliff antics and just let it die. No debate. No discussion. No vote. Obama’s dream of disarming his opponents, paid for with the careers of several sitting Democrat senators, will die in the hopper.

It will be a thing of beauty.

Remember, this is an existential crisis for our country. Now is not the time to “govern;” it’s the time to defeat Obama and his radical left-wing agenda. No, you can’t say that out loud – simpering wimps will shudder and fret. Just do it, even as you talk about working together and compromising and hugging and all that goo-goo baloney.

Republican, quit shouting, “Game over, man! Game over!” Counterattack, seize the initiative, and start winning again. Play for keeps. Stop channeling Hudson and start channeling Ripley. It’s time to figuratively nuke the site from orbit – it’s the only way to be sure.

Not hatin', just sayin'......

Someone finally has done all the math on the recent sale of Al Gore's Current TV to the Arabic language channel Al-Jazeera for $500 million. Jobs were lost, buzz created, employees angered, but the former vice president had little to say about it. He did walk away with a reported $100 million — a tidy sum for a man who had less that $2 million in assets when he ran for president more than a dozen years ago, says Forbes magazine.

"Taking into account taxes to be paid on the deal, possible earlier debt and the fact that Gore's representatives declined to comment, Forbes conservatively estimates the former vice president's net worth to be at least $300 million, making him wealthier than unsuccessful Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney," says Ryan Mac, a Forbes analyst.

"Last May, Forbes estimated Romney's net worth to be around $230 million," he adds.

Americans Shouldn't Fret Over the American Flag Being Stomped On in a South Carolina High School, Tut-Tuts Critic

Parent Michael Copeland recounted that his daughter told him Chapin High English teacher Scott Compton took down the flag from their classroom and asked his students if it meant anything beyond being a piece of cloth. He then reportedly threw it to the ground and stomped on it, saying, according to Copeland's daughter, that "it's just a piece of cloth that doesn't mean anything."

Among the reactions to the MSN story of a South Carolina high school teacher being placed on administrative leave for stomping on an American flag, there was the following, from a person named krrisis:

Funny to see all these Americans being shocked.

Yes — Americans should just close their mouths and let their élites (politicians, "intellectuals", teachers, etc etc) do their thinking for them… Just like in Europe…

If this were to happen to any flag in Europe, it wouldn't even make the news.

Exactly — (insofar as the previous statement is indeed the truth) that's because the people who are in European news rooms are the same leftists who are in European class rooms… I believe Americans know something about that — ever heard of the mainstream media? (But even in spite of the MSM's best efforts, this type of stories manage to make it through in the land of freedom…)

Hope one day the US will wake up and understand that patriotism and nationalism can be a very dangerous thing.

Yes — if only British and American nationalists had kept their mouths shut in the 1940s, there were have been many fewer deaths on the battlefield in Nazi-dominated Europe. (Of course, there would have been many more in the concentration camps…) As Ronald Reagan said, there is an easy way to have peace — and that is to give in; to surrender…

And mr/mrs honey nut: no, the American flag is not a symbol for freedom to people worldwide, on the contrary.

Yes, that is certainly what foreign élites (politicians, "intellectuals", UN civil servants, teachers (!), etc) say. But if Old Glory is such a symbol of oppression, how come so many (ordinary) people are seen walking around in the street, in public, wearing it on their T-shirts?

Please wake up, and discover there is a world outside of the US (surprise, it's quite big).

How about telling Europeans, and Arabs, and Africans, and Asians:
"Please wake up, and discover there is a world outside of the élite-dominated societies throughout the world (unfortunately, it's quite small)"?

2002 Was Once Considered Funniest Onion Year On Record, Man In 2013 Remembers Wistfully

This particular "area man" recalls when the Onion was a must read in terms of satire and humour. Quite libertine in their former outlook, the publication skewered and hoisted all comers, regardless of ideology or fetishistic cause. Alas, those were the days. From an American perspective, the Onion today is rapidly paralleling previous demises of television shows such as M*A*S*H (pre Alan Alda takeover = funny; post = not so funny) or the Daily Show (Craig Kilborn = funny; Jon Stewart = dreadful). The demise is quite evidently driven, "stop taking on all sides and become part and parcel of a single echo chambre", in other other words, become agenda-driven hacks.

To wit, today's offering on show:

NEW WASHINGTON—Marveling at how dire things seemed in the relatively stable days of 12 years ago, Alan Gibson, 41, a local man of the year 2024, wistfully recounted on Wednesday the then-record temperatures recorded in the United States in 2012. "To think that we were concerned about a 55.3-degree average is almost comical, but then, I guess at that point we must have still had some kind of perceivable ozone layer," Gibson said fondly while reapplying the full-body coat of UV-resistant resin he and his fellow citizens of the 43 contiguous United States wear at all times. "Today, you wouldn't think twice about a 96-degree day in the middle of February, but a mere decade ago you would look up at the skies waiting for snow. Christ, those were the days, man." Gibson then recounted at length to reporters the story of how he and his family narrowly escaped the Eastern Seaboard during the abrupt and tragic events of March 2019.

It reminds me of Bart Simpson trying to re-capture his 15 minutes of "I didn't do it!" fame with his follow-up catchphrase "Woozle Wuzzle", just doesn't have the same comedic heft. As it is understood, humour must have several elements, key among them an element of the truth. Too little truth and the joke is so subtle as to pass unrecognised, too much truth and the joke is a ham-handed pie in the face. As such, the Onion today neglects the truth entirely with its eco-scare ha ha. After all, where were the pointed satirical barbs from the Onion related to the annual State of the Climate reports which previously showed:

2011 - 23rd warmest year on US record
2010 - 23rd warmest year on US record
2009 - 40th warmest year on US record
2008 - 39th warmest year on US record
2007 - 10th warmest year on US record
2006 - 2nd  warmest year on US record
2005 - 13th warmest year on US record
2004 - 24th warmest year on US record
2003 - 20th warmest year on US record
2002 - 14th warmest year on US record
2001 - 6th   warmest year on US record
2000 - 13th warmest year on US record

"Come on, this is the Onion. They are just having a bit of fun....." you might say. I suppose so, but at the end of the day all I can think is, "woozle wuzzle".

The Arab Spring: A Look Back

The Tunisian Revolution

• Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!


• Freedom!
Freedom!
Freedom!


• Thank you

Where ARE they Now, Really?

David Bowie has released a song, breaking a 10 year absence. It is a reflection on his time in the past in West-Berlin. It will draw mockery, but David Bowie asks good questions, and stakes his hopes on the person, their soul, and their love. He seems to be thinking about the Germany of today, not the Vergangenheit that he has been living in for many years, trying to provoke some reflection.

There Was This Movie About an Ultra-Safe Society Where Only the Police and Military Had Guns

E-Nough's Damien has a post with "three concise counter-arguments" to gun control advocates.

In addition, check out the following No Pasarán posts:

• What Is to Blame for the Connecticut Shooting? Does the Blame Lie with the Right to Bear Arms Or Can It Be Found Elsewhere?

• In the rest of the world, 75% of humans live their lives being ransacked by mafias, cops, and the military

A Soldier's Sketchbook From World War I

The Daily Telegraph reproduces a dozen sketches from the First World War sketchbook of a British soldier.

Henry Buckle was a whitesmith from Tewkesbury who volunteered for active service in September 1914. During his time in France and Belgium with the 5th Gloucesters, he created over 60 paintings which show daily life in the trenches.

Pride in Your Region, Pride in Your Euro Coin

The French post office tries to sell pride, pride in one's Euro (?!) through sex:

Fier de votre région,
fier de votre euro.

A young foxy woman whose eyes can't be seen seems to be wearing absolutely nothing, nothing that is except a tattoo on her shoulder, one of… a Euro from a particular region of France. The tattoo changes depending on what region of France the ad is being shown in.

Proud of Your Region,
Proud of Your Euro

"Robin Hood" Taxes for the Poor of Developing Countries Are Really Handouts to Buy Influence with Third-World Despots

Dick Morris discusses

how the first global tax has been levied by France on American citizens. Where will it end? … The "Robin Hood" tax … is part of a scheme … to tax the American people and force the redistribution of wealth to … Third World countries — really, Third World dictators…

Burger King Returns to le Pays de la Gastronomie, Its Marseille Outlet Attracting 2,000 Customers Daily

While McDonald's has prospered in le pays de la gastronomie (France is now the second market for the Golden Arches, after only the United States itself), Burger King has had a much more ambivalent experience, which ended 15 years ago, when its last remaining "resto rapide" in France, on the Champs-Élysées, joined its almost 40 other outlets and closed its doors.

December was the season of revival, with the opening of the first new Burger King in 15 years, at the airport of Marseille, no less. The outlet attracts as many as 2,000 people daily, the Morandini website reports, and the customers sometimes have to wait up to as much as one hour to get served in the "fast-food" restaurant.

Movie Star Depardieu Has Long Phone Conversation with French President Hollande

While the French government's (foxy) spokes(wo)man declined to make any comments regarding Gérard Depardieu's being granted Russian citizenship, France's president has had a long telephone conversation with the actor.

Nounours told Flanby — to use the two mens' respective nicknames —that he was sickened by what was happening at the moment and that media had been dreadful with him.

Depardieu added that the fiscal aspect of his grievances was only one detail thereof, and that his main gripe was with the fact that, "in France, people who are successful and who take initiatives are spat upon."

This interesting item from Gégé's friend, who commented about the conversation to the Morandini website:

Toujours selon Arnaud Frilley, le Président a été à l'écoute, car "quand on est un politique on écoute toujours une personnalité populaire qui vous parle". 

"When you are a politician", says Arnaud Frilley without the least bit of protest or even of surprise, "one always listens to a popular figure who speaks to you."

In other words, it is far from abnormal for élites to listen to, and to pay attention to, each other, and it is just as far from abnormal that the little people are far from their concerns. 

Meanwhile, learning of Vladimir Putin's decision, Beligum has started digging in its heels: "Nationalities is not something that can be collected," opined one federal deputy.

It turns out that in 2012, 126 Frenchmen asked to become citizens of Belgium, exactly twice (!) as many as in 2011 (63).

Not helping the French government's case is the fact that a tennis star who was bestowed a significant ribbon (Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was named Chevalier dans l'Ordre National du Mérite) turns out himself to be a fiscal exile, albeit one living in Switzerland.

What are Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault's morality lessons to Nounours worth, asks the Moranidini web site, when the prime minister bestows a decoration on a sports star who provided the film actor with a blueprint for his actions?

Related: Check out the meaning of the last name Depardieu
and why it is particularly appropriate for the movie star

Gérard Depardieu Granted Russian Citizenship

A few days after Vladimir Putin offered a Russian passport to Gérard Depardieu, the (now ex-) French movie star, disgusted with French taxes and offended by his treatment from France's ruling socialists and cultural élites, has accepted and, according to the Kremlin, become a Russian citizen.

Go to the BBC link to see Moscow residents commenting on Depardieu becoming a Russian citizen ("Let the president of France tax [wonderful French actors] even more, so they'll all come to live here", 01:45).

Update:  Depardieu Has Long Phone Conversation with French President Hollande

In related news, it emerges that at least one of the places that the name de Pardieu ("by God") comes from is Normandy and that the family's motto was Win or Die, i.e., Victory or Death. More interesting, according to some (rare) French libertarians, Nounours (or Teddy Bear, as Gégé has been known since gaining weight) has an extremely appropriate name, as Depardieu can also come from la Part-Dieu (God's Portion), an expression referring to the place where, in the Middle Ages, one went to to pay one's tithe — "an iniquitous tax" not abolished until the 1789 revolution.

Gérard Depardieu porte bien son nom. "Depardieu" désignait, au Moyen-Âge, le lieu où l'on payait la dîme, impôt inique aboli en 1789. 

Indeed, according to Wikipedia,

Ce toponyme désignait soit une terre ecclésiastique, soit le lieu où étaient recueillis les produits de la dîme.

Pat Buchanan puts it this way:

Socialism creates and exacerbates a conflict in loyalties. A regime that takes three of every four dollars a man earns is an enemy of what that man works to accomplish for himself and his family.

… Californians flee to Nevada, Arizona, Idaho and Colorado to escape Golden State taxes. Are they disloyal to their home state, or are they doing what is right by their families, their first responsibility?

… For many successful Americans, over half of all they earn is now taken by government.

… Can a man love his country and hate its government? Of course. Ask Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Ask the patriots of '76.

Non?! Is Le Monde's Plantu Celebrating One of No Pasarán's Blogggers?!

Plantu in Le Monde

The breakdown of the family drives government spending because you and I then pay the bills for welfare, after school programs, and a host of other expensive (and unsuccessful) federal efforts to replace the nuclear family

Richard A. Viguerie's post came out at Yuletide, but it is timeless, and as the new year begins, along with the attendant resolutions, it bears reprinting:

… if Christmas is a celebration of the family, today, as First Lady of the conservative movement Phyllis Schlafly reminded us in her column, the American family is in serious trouble.

Last year, 41 percent of all babies born in the U.S. (including 53 percent of babies born to women under 30) were born outside of marriage. “It is obvious,” said Schlafly, “that when the mother of these children has no husband to support her and her babies, she calls on Big Brother Government.”

This is an important point to keep in mind as we take a holiday break from the battle over the fiscal cliff, taxes and spending.

America’s urban liberal elite, who are the arbiters of popular culture, constantly promote the idea that the family is irrelevant, motherhood is demeaning and stay-at-home mothers are a burden on the state.

After forty-five years of the sexual revolution, urban liberal feminists, the media and an amoral government-run education system have convinced less educated Americans that marriage and the “role of father or husband or wife” are not only unnecessary to emotional fulfillment and economic advancement, getting married will get in the way of the activities celebrated in the popular media, such as partying and casual sex.

Establishment Republicans don’t want to talk about marriage and the family. It all sounds so judgmental around the bar at the country club.

However, as Phyllis Schlafly noted, the breakdown of the family drives government spending because you and I then pay the bills for welfare, after school programs, Head Start and a host of other expensive and largely unsuccessful federal efforts to replace the nuclear family.

This is very much what Rick Santorum was saying out on the campaign trail during the Republican primary elections, but it is a truth that disappeared from the political conversation as soon as Santorum suspended his campaign.

This Christmas, please join me in celebrating the family and, in the midst of our battle over federal spending, let’s re-dedicate ourselves to helping to solve our government’s fiscal crisis by solving our nation’s family crisis.

In this context, it is never a bad idea to bring up the writings of Stephen Baskerville…

We get more illegitimate babies supported by taxpayers every year; This striking change in our social structure is the primary reason that government budgets are so bloated

Contrary to politicians who want to call a truce about social issues, there is absolutely no way to separate social and fiscal issues

wrote Phyllis Schlafly last spring (echoing Stephen Baskerville);

they are locked in a tight political embrace. Politicians who say we can ignore social issues, or avoid talking about them, are really saying that they have no plan to cut federal spending and the growing national debt.


That's because the social issue of marriage, and its importance to our society, has become a tremendous fiscal issue. The problem of marriage absence is now costing the taxpayers even more than national defense.

We used to have a social structure in the United States where husbands and fathers provided the financial support of wife and children. Last year, 41 percent of all babies born in the U.S. (including 53 percent of babies born to women under 30) were illegitimate, growing up without their own fathers.

It is obvious that when the mother of these children has no husband to support her and her babies, she calls on Big Brother Government. You and I then pay the bills for what is labeled welfare.

It's not poverty that causes broken families; it's the absence of marriage that causes poverty and puts kids below the designated poverty line. Social issues cause fiscal expenses. 

I grew up during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the American family, white and black, was not broken. It stayed together to face life's reversale.

The massive national problem of having babies without marriage started with Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty in the 1960s. LBJ Welfare channeled all the money and benefits to the woman, thereby making the husband and father unnecessary.

I'm not saying anything new; Charles Murray laid this all out more than 20 years ago. He said "Illegitimacy is the single most important social problem of our time ... because it drives everything else," imposing gigantic costs on the taxpayers.

After Barack Obama became President, he increased federal welfare spending by a third because, as he told Joe the plumber, Obama wants to "spread the wealth around." This was a conscious political strategy; it promotes dependence on government and more votes for the Democrats.

Most Americans are unaware that nearly $900 billion a year of federal taxpayers' money is handed out to non-taxpayers allegedly below a designated poverty line. Americans' lack of knowledge of the enormity of these handouts is why we sometimes hear reference to the "hidden" welfare state.

The Heritage Foundation reports that more than 70 types of federal means-tested handouts, in cash or benefits, are distributed. Half of Americans (47 percent) pay no income tax and depend for their living expenses in whole or in part on government handouts paid by the other half who do pay income taxes.

This federal welfare apparatus includes 12 programs providing food, 10 for housing assistance, 10 for social services, 9 for educational assistance, 8 programs giving cash, 8 for vocational training, 7 for medical assistance, 3 for energy and utility assistance, and 2 for child care and child development. Welfare recipients are eligible for a free cell phone with monthly minutes from the Universal Service Fund that the rest of us pay into.

So we get more illegitimate babies supported by taxpaying Americans every year. This extraordinary change in our social structure is the primary reason that government budgets, both federal and state, are so bloated. 

The Rasmussen Poll reports that 78 percent of American adults rate marriage as at least somewhat important to U.S. society, 60 percent consider it very important, and 77 percent say it's better for children to grow up in a home with both their parents. So why are we using tax dollars to discourage marriage and subsidize illegitimacy?

We should ask our presidential candidates who are worried about extravagant government spending, unbalanced budgets, and repeated raising of the debt ceiling, how they will stop the flow of money that promotes more and more dependency on government. Welfare spending is a major cause of our unbalanced budgets and colossal debt.

This hidden welfare state is the fastest growing component of government spending. And these figures do not include Social Security or Medicare payments.

Nor do the Heritage Foundation figures count the social and fiscal costs of the expensive problems that come mostly from female-headed households. These include drug addition, sex, suicides, school dropouts, runaways, and crime.

Welfare spending is a failure; it doesn't advance us toward any constructive goal, such as helping recipients to get on their feet economically. It merely increases dependence on government handouts and increases votes for big-spending politicians.

French Youth Poverty Rate Reaches 23%

While the French attack capitalism and America's way of life as being nightmarish — as compared to Europe's (oh-so-) compassionate economy and (oh-so-) generous society — the rate of French youth living in poverty has reached… 23%.

The diagnosis is critical.

That is Le Monde's interpretation given to the conclusion in the latest French report on the nation's youth.

Articles by Pascale Krémer and Catherine Rollot along with an interview of sociologist Olivier Galland, and filling the entire second and third pages of the French daily of reference along with the top four fifths' width of the front page, point out that "the young are the primary victims of the recession." And because "all youth do not suffer the recession as violently as their neighbors", the government's December report points out that the fracture is increasing between two castes of youth growing ever further apart.

Car les jeunes sont bien les premières victimes de la récession. Tous ne la subissent pas aussi violemment. Plutôt que le portrait d'une génération sacrifiée, ce rapport dessine la ligne de fracture entre deux jeunesses qui s'éloignent l'une de l'autre.

La première est dotée de diplômes, ils continuent bon gré mal gré de la protéger. La seconde en est dépourvue, elle est guettée par la pauvreté. Ce sont ces 15 % de jeunes qui ne sont ni en études, ni en formation, ni en emploi. Nulle part. Et que la puissance publique aide peu. Le taux de pauvreté des 18-24 ans atteint 22,5 %. Depuis 2004, il a progressé de 5 points. Au total, plus d'un million de jeunes sont désormais confrontés à une situation de grande précarité.

That's right: it's something we see over and over again: it turns out that — oui, even in Europe's compassionate© and generous™ societies — it is the rich who come out well and the poor who turn out not to be getting any aid (probably because, as usual, the poor are the ones paying for the rich).

Meanwhile, continues Pascal Kremer, 15% of people 15 to 29 are NEET (Neither in Employment   nor in Education and Training). Indeed, Pierre Cahuc, the author of The Pigeonholing Machine: How France Splits Its Youth in Two, tells Jean-Baptiste Chastand and Claire Guélaud that "we [French] have just about a million young people without a diploma and out of work, [and] half of those have stopped looking."

… on a quasiment un million de jeunes sans diplôme et sans emploi, et leur accès au travail est extrêmement compliqué. La moitié d'entre eux ne recherchent même plus un emploi... Ces jeunes sont dans une situation dramatique en France.