The Shutdown, as Seen from France

Like an immense Godzilla or King Kong, a huge white Republican elephant
stomps on poor Barack Obama's White House in Chloé Pazat's Le Monde cartoon.

Like an immense Godzilla or King Kong, a huge Republican elephant with stars on the trunks worn by its white body stomps on poor Barack Obama's White House in Chloé Pazat's Le Monde cartoon…

The International Herald Tribune Is Gone, Off the Newsstands for Good

(Well, Not Really) Today, the International Herald Tribune is gone:

On Tuesday, The International Herald Tribune, the global edition of The New York Times, becomes The International New York Times. The paper has changed names a number of times since its founding 126 years ago, but its mission has always remained the same: to provide a global perspective on events and ideas shaping the world. This is a look at its journey so far.

What follows at the link is a retrospective of news and editorials, from the 1890s to the 2000s, but if you really want a good time, read Art Buchwald's 1956 report of the Monaco wedding between Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly. A couple of years earlier, the humorist had written Tax Deductions Made Easy…
My take:

I've been a devoted reader of the International Herald Tribune since the tender age of 8.

(Okay, at that time I only read the comics page, but still…)

I had a number of letters to the editor in the paper since then, although only about boring international happenings and tedious issues of liberty and freedom (they never published my missives complaining every time they got rid of another comic strip — Buzz Sawyer, Beetle Bailey, Blondie, etc; I never understood why Dennis the Menace was less important than Dilbert).

Maybe soon the NYT will take the next logical step, and follow the NYT's example, getting rid of if its comics page altogether (no, seriously, folks, the Big Apple-based editors pride themselves on the NYT being without a comics page)!

Leave the comics page alone, New Yorkahs.
And leave the IHT's name alone, as well!

If you must change anything at all, do as follows:
change the name of the New York Times to
the "New York International Herald Tribune"!

In Obama's America, Everyone Must Know Their Place

In the leftist paradise that is Barack Obama's America, everyone must know their place.

That goes from common citizens to journalists while including soldiers and combat veterans who must give up their right to visit war memorials so that the apologizer-in-chief can use them — "my military", remember — for his kabuki theater against Republicans and whoever else his opponents, real or imagined, may be. (Yes, places too must "know their place", in a manner of speaking — for they exist too merely, or mainly, for the benefit of the supreme leader.)

And God forbid (so to speak — it really ought to be "Obama forbid") that a Catholic priest in the military should want to celebrate Mass on an army base. Bringing relief to a given soldier, even with the priest forgoing his payment because of the government shutdown, is not an option if it goes against the Supreme Commander's attempt to utilize said shutdown to his benefit. And so, if he does not know his place, the priest will face arrest. (Sarah Hoyt calls this "a means of “spanking” the American public for not falling into line.")

For in the leftist pantheon, people who took to arms and risked their lives on the battlefield are not heroes. (Well, a bit, but only to a certain extent…)

The only real heroes there are — the only white knights on white horses there are — are the leftist politicians — those people who don't cling to their guns and bibles but who are wise, and tolerant, and generous, and forward-looking, etc etc etc — who come dashingly to the rescue of the poor and defenseless.

The real villains in the world are not the Russians, the Iranians, the Syrians, the communists…

The only true despicable people in the world are red-blood Americans who can't understand, who don't want to understand, that Obama and his government is here to help them, others, everybody.

And they must be punished.

Punished for not knowing their place.

Punished for opposing the leftist agenda.

Punished by the IRS for having the temerity to vote against Barack Obama and Obamacare.

Punished with IRS audits that will put those despicable individuals in their place.

Blacks, Obama is on your side; physicians, Obama is here to help you; black physicians, Obama is here for your sake, and if you don't understand your duty to stand by your savior (ya listenin', Ben Carson?!), then, by golly, you will be punished too!

Time to recall what I consider the single most important paragraph in Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism (to which I have added a couple of editor notes):

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."

Shouldn't we update that for the Obama adminsitration?

That is how the liberal Gleichschaltung works; contrary voices are regulated [by the IRS], barred [by the IRS], banned [by the IRS] 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."

Fox News:

“This is the people's memorial,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told a crowd of several hundred gathered near the WWII Memorial on the closed National Mall, which has become a national symbol of the shutdown and the country’s response. “Simple question: Why is the federal government spending money to keep veterans out of the memorial? Why did they spend money to keep people out of Mount Vernon, Mount Rushmore? Our veterans should be above political games.”

 … “Today somebody’s wife [or] husband is dead in Afghanistan. Is somebody going to pay her husband [or] his wife or their children?” one protester shouted at the White House, referring to the partial shutdown cutting off benefits for the survivors of military personnel.

Some of the metal barricades were carried the roughly half-mile walk from the memorial to the White House, where they were left near the fence in front of Pennsylvania Avenue.

 …  Protesters shouting “U.S.A.” and “Tear down these walls” put the blame squarely on President Obama and Democratic congressional leaders.

“In a mean-spirited fit of selfish anger, Barack Obama has shut down our nation’s war memorials,” march organizers said in a press release. “And he has declared open war on our honored veterans. The World War II memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, Obama has shut them all down to force his will on the House of Representatives and, frankly, to get revenge on the American people who oppose ObamaCare and his other naked power grabs.”

Sent Directly to Hell: Early Censorship on French Television

Le Monde's Daniel Psenny presents a report, which shows how much the French television was into censorship. In journalist lingo, the reports that displeased the authorities prior to being broadcast were sent to "hell", hell being the part of the TV headquarters building where undesirable news reports, cultural programs, and others ended up.

L'"enfer" … Pour comprendre dans quelles conditions ces films ont été précipités en enfer, il faut remonter dans le passé. Plus précisément à la présidence du général de Gaulle, au début des années 1960. Souhaitant contrôler les journaux d'informations à la radio et à la télévision - "les voix de la France" -, le président de la République avait mis en place un système de censure que les journalistes avaient bien du mal à contourner. A la tête de ce système, on trouvait Alain Peyrefitte, ministre de l'information depuis 1962, chargé des basses oeuvres audiovisuelles. Chaque matin, il réunissait dans son bureau les responsables de la radio et de la télévision, à qui il dictait le conducteur quotidien de leurs différents journaux. Ensuite, il les faisait surveiller par quelques fonctionnaires du service de liaison interministériel pour l'information (SLII), organisme interne de son ministère chargé, jusqu'en 1969, de contrôler la "bonne conduite" de la radio et de la télévision. Rien n'échappait à ces hommes de l'ombre dont le zèle frôlait souvent l'abus de pouvoir. Ainsi, lorsqu'un reportage traitait d'un sujet politiquement sensible ou que des images ou des commentaires ne plaisaient pas, il était immédiatement envoyé en "enfer".

 … De leur côté, les moindres gestes du général de Gaulle et de son gouvernement sont surveillés. Un fonctionnaire du SLII a par exemple envoyé en "enfer" quelques images du chef de l'Etat qui, lors d'une visite officielle en Italie, se mouche en se promenant sur la place Saint-Marc, à Venise ! Enfin, les opposants au Général sont systématiquement censurés : ce sera le cas, notamment, du fameux appel des généraux "félons" d'Alger.

 … Les événements de Mai 68 ont mis fin aux activités du SLII, qui n'a pas survécu aux grèves générales des personnels de télévision ni aux attaques de l'opposition, représentée alors par François Mitterrand. Cependant, tous les gouvernements qui se sont succédé au pouvoir - y compris ceux de gauche - ont créé des organes de substitution. En 1976, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing a créé le Service d'information et de diffusion (SID), dont le rôle était la coordination et la diffusion de la communication gouvernementale. En 1996, sous Jacques Chirac, le SID est devenu le Service d'information du gouvernement (SIG), qui est toujours en activité et dont les missions, qui ont évolué depuis, sont de valoriser l'action du gouvernement et de coordonner sa communication auprès des médias.

Aujourd'hui, le jeu est plus subtil et rien n'est imposé aux journalistes. Désormais, au lieu de supprimer ou de censurer des reportages, ce sont les partis politiques eux-mêmes qui produisent et fournissent gratuitement des images aux chaînes de télévision... Un autre enfer.

French Waiters' Mentality: ‘Don’t bother me when I’m working’

On a recent afternoon near the Place de la Bastille, Alberto Riberio, a tourist from Spain, stopped with his family at a quaint cafe and asked a waiter if they could sit down

writes Liz Alderman in a New York Times article in which the money quote comes in the final paragraph.

 “Look around!” he recalled the waiter replying abruptly. “You see empty tables, don’t you?”

When the family tried to order food in halting French, the waiter rolled his eyes, Mr. Riberio said. Later, when a wrong dish was served, an argument ensued over whether it would be changed. 

“In general, the French can be quite friendly and helpful,” said Mr. Riberio, whose family went on to have a pleasant stay. But the encounter “was a reminder of why they can also have a reputation for being rude,” he said. 

In the City of Light, an eternal question is once again spurring debate: Is the stereotype of the brusque Frenchman justified, or do visitors just not understand the French? 

The soul-searching is coming from an unlikely place: the Paris tourism board. It is ramping up a charm offensive to burnish the image of France — and Paris in particular — as a kinder place for tourists. Officials have been deluging cafes, hotels, shops and taxi ranks with 20,000 more pamphlets titled “Do You Speak Touriste?”, a manual on how to make travelers feel more welcome, after 35,000 copies handed out in July ran out.

The British, it advises, want to be called by their first names. The Japanese need to feel reassured. The Spanish mainly want people to be nice. (“I would agree with that,” Mr. Riberio said.) As for Americans, the guide notes, they are glued to their personal devices and want to eat as early as 6 p.m. — a frightful thought to a typical Parisien.

“The goal is to fight against a bad reputation, and improve the quality of the welcome in Paris,” said François Navarro, the communication director for the tourism board, the Comité Régional du Tourisme Paris Île-de-France. With 30 million tourists a year, Paris is one of the most visited cities in the world, he said. “But we can do more.” 

How much more remains to be seen. Paul Kappe, an owner of the renowned Brasserie de l’Isle Saint-Louis, perched behind the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, gave a Gallic shrug when he saw the brochure.

“It starts with the assumption that the French are disagreeable,” said Mr. Kappe, a contemplative man who kept a watchful eye on the restaurant’s sunny terrace, full of waiters and patrons crammed behind tiny tables. “Well, that does have the ring of truth,” he said. “But it won’t stop a waiter from being unpleasant.” 

He added, “Their mentality is, ‘Don’t bother me when I’m working.’ ”

 … many of the 600,000 Parisiens employed in the tourism industry place a premium on politesse. 

Still, “snobisme” is hardly a relic of the past, and even the French complain about a perceived lack of civility among some of their big-city brethren. A spate of mocking television ads by the newspaper Le Parisien a few years ago, showing Parisiens cutting in line and leaving poodle droppings on the sidewalk, provoked knowing laughs. And this is by no means the first time the government has encouraged a more polished image: in 1995, a “Bonjour” campaign urged people to be pleasant to tourists, echoing several similar efforts since World War II. 

Of course, tourists can be uncouth, too. “A lot of Americans shout, or don’t say hello, and then they say the French treated them rudely,” said Karen Fawcett, the president of BonjourParis, a Web site that dispenses travel and cultural insights. “If you don’t have some cultural sensitivity, you are probably not going to be well received.” 

Ms. Fawcett said her main tips for visitors were to be polite, keep their voices down and not assume they will be served immediately. “A simple ‘bonjour’ or a ‘s’il vous plaît’ will go a long way,” she said. 

 … “In the United States,” Mr. Kappe observed, “waiters can be fired at any time and must work for tips, so they have to be nice. In France, you can’t just fire somebody if they’re not doing a good job. If you could, everyone would be friendly.”

Did You Know That in France, People Also Use Guns in Self-Defense? And That the New York Times Would Present the Shooting of a Criminal in as Biased a Way as Possible?

Members of the French élite and its political class may preen about how their country is in favor of gun control as well as poised against the death penalty — thus showing themselves far above the Wild West mentality of those clueless Yanks — but average French citizens apparently think differently when one of theirs comes face-to-face with crime in the streets — something you would have trouble seeing sometimes in Dan Bilefsky's New York Times article.

Early on the morning of Sept. 11, a 67-year-old jeweler in Nice, France, raised his unlicensed semiautomatic pistol and shot a teenager in the back as he and an accomplice sped away on a motor scooter with gems they had stolen at gunpoint … the jeweler, Stephan Turk, was arrested last week and charged with murder. 

So a vigilante shoots a "teenager" in the back, we learn. Why don't we hear that the jeweler was "punched and kicked" by both the "youth" and his accomplice, as they forced their way into his jewelry shop? Doesn't the NY feel the need to report that?! Sure it does! But only 11 paragraphs into the story…

The case has set off a national debate in France about how to define self-defense, and about the decision to charge Mr. Turk. Many have rallied behind the jeweler, lauding him as a hero who was protecting his life and property, while others have accused him of being a reckless and unfeeling vigilante. 

  … a Facebook page created to support Mr. Turk by an anonymous author has attracted about 1.6 million “likes” — a figure so high that some social-network experts have challenged its veracity. 

Well — but of course. High figures are always — and only — challenged when they seem to support the right…

At first Mr. Turk was held in police custody, but after a public outcry, he was moved to an undisclosed location under house arrest, wearing an ankle monitor

At this point the International Herald Tribune added a tongue-in-cheek comment (not on the website) — although it made sure to disguise it under unnamed "critics" of the jeweler's:

—a show of empathy that his critics say he did not show his victim.

Notice who is, who it is who has become, a "victim". Notice who has become "the" (i.e., the only) victim.

Yes, it is Anthony Asli, a "onetime horticulture student" with — to be sure — "a string of previous convictions for assault, theft and driving offenses". The victim of "Mr. Turk, a prosperous business owner" in a city where, the New York Times has no choice but to note, "400 jewelry robberies occurred last year."

Now let's pick up on the evil and fearful far right forces, including the awful capitalists, the true enemy of the country:

After the left-wing newspaper Libération lamented on Monday that the support on Facebook for Mr. Turk was “worrying” and “unprecedented,” a reader using the name Rantamplan insisted that the wellspring of admiration for Mr. Turk showed that France was dominated by reactionary right-wingers. “Some people feel that property is worth more than a life,” the reader wrote online in the comments section.  

Only after all that do we get to the 11th paragraph:

Eric Bedos, a Nice prosecutor, told reporters that Mr. Turk was held up at gunpoint by two young men as he opened for business on Sept. 11, and that security-camera video showed him being punched and kicked, and then opening his safe. 

It's not even Stephan Turk being "punched and kicked", it's not even a "security-camera video [showing] him being punched and kicked", it's as follows; it's "a Nice prosecutor [reporting] that security-camera video showed him being punched and kicked"! How far away from simple factual reporting can you get, disguising it under emotion-lacking "he said, she said, it showed"?!

President François Hollande said in an interview on the French channel TF1 … that he recognized the “exasperation and anger” in the case, but that “it’s up to the justice system to do justice, and no one else.” 

Well, that's just the problem, ain't it, Monsieur le Président? When police acting as tax inspectors, i.e., are busy raising money for the French state by ticketing car drivers right and left instead of patrolling (say) the streets of (say) Nice.

The International Herald Tribune decided to change paragraphs around, in order to end the story full of emotion, adding a claim that "a" girlfriend "told Le Monde that she was pregnant at the time of his death" ("a" girlfriend? How many did he have? How many are expecting?) and with a quote from Anthony's dad:

  … the father of Mr. Asli said, he did not deserve what happened to him, the newspaper Nice-Matin reported. “He was a little delinquent, a scooter thief,” the newspaper quoted the father as saying. “But he had the face of a child, and no child should have to die like that.” 

No quotes from Stephan Turk's wife, mistress(es) — if he has any — parents, children, or 3rd cousins…

Related: 
• For a Nation Used to Giving Americans Lessons on Firearms and Police Trust, France Has Been Amassing Quite a Collection of Bullet-Ridden Bodies

• For a Country Always Giving Yanks Lessons on Civility and Gun Control, There Has Been an Amazing Amount of Kalashnikov-Related Killings

• "Unlike the U.S., guns are tightly regulated in Europe, but the French gangs have armed themselves with weapons obtained on the black market"

• In a Country with Gun Controls Like France, the Kalashnikov Has Become the Thug's Rolex of Choice

• PLUS: this lengthy, dispassionate, in-depth discussion on the issue of gun control:
What Is to Blame for the Connecticut Shooting? Does the Blame Lie with the Right to Bear Arms Or Can It Be Found Elsewhere?

Serguei on the Likelihood That Assad Will Be Prosecuted for War Crimes

Serguei on the International Criminal Tribunal and on the improbable sanctions that will be placed on Bashir Assad for his use of chemical weapons:
• ICT honcho: There's one head we're not about to bag anytime soon…

Again, "Dialogue" for the Left Amounts to Rejecting Any Argument by Their Adversaries as Nothing More Than Inanities

Xavier Gorce again demonizes the adversaries of global warming:
• So, according to our latest scientific projec-tions…
• Global warming might precipitate a change of one meter…
• the drop of the climate skeptics into their inanities…
• Easily…

The Faceless and Diabolical Enemies of Barack Obama

Disarmament in the United States

Serguei takes on those despicable enemies of Obama's, Congress and (again) the Gun Lobby…

Russia's Gulag in the 21st Century 4: It Would Be Nice to Hear Our Leftist Activists React With More Vigor

“I am declaring a hunger strike starting Sept. 23. I refuse to take part in slave labor in the camp until the penal colony authorities start to conduct themselves in accordance with laws and start treating women inmates like people rather than cattle.”

Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is starting a hunger strike in Mordovia's penitentiary colony # 14, report Marie Jégo and Masha Gessen.

 Nadejda Tolokonnikova, l'une des militantes incarcérées du groupe russe Pussy Riot, … purge sa peine dans la colonie pénitentiaire n°14 en Mordovie, devenue récemment la nouvelle patrie de Gérard Depardieu, à 300 km au sud-est de Moscou. De sinistre mémoire, l'endroit est peuplé de "camps de rééducation par le travail" aux conditions de détention dignes du Moyen Age.

Selon son témoignage, les détenues y sont forcées de travailler quotidiennement jusqu'à dix-sept heures pour coudre des uniformes de police, au rythme de 150 pièces par jour. "On a les mains piquées par les aiguilles et pleines d'éraflures, le sang se répand sur la table de travail, mais on continue à coudre", écrit-elle. Les détenues ont droit à moins de quatre heures de sommeil par nuit et jouissent d'un jour de repos toutes les six semaines.

Les punitions sont cruelles et dégradantes. Ainsi, il est fréquent de laisser les détenues des heures à l'extérieur dans le froid, de les empêcher de se laver, d'aller aux toilettes, de boire et de manger. "Dans la 2^e brigade, celle des invalides et des retraitées, il y a une femme qui a dû se faire amputer d'une jambe et de plusieurs doigts de la main parce qu'elle avait été trop longtemps punie dehors", écrit Nadejda Tolokonnikova.

Devant la banalité dans les commentaires de lecteurs et, pour tout dire, la quasi-absence de réactions tout court, une lectrice réagit :

Véronique Pillet

Ce serait bien d'entendre nos belles âmes de gauche (et de droite) réagir un peu plus vertement...

"Flexibility" Is for Putin; Not for Members of the Republican Party

Yesterday's debate (Note to Americans Who Believe Europeans' Health Care System Is the Way to Go) continues…

I'm looking at the government shutdown regarding health care from a different perspective…

Notably from a European perspective, where (believe me) a LOT of people would like it if hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats were sent home! (I read somewhere, "if they are "non-essential", why were they hired in the first place?" That certainly applies here in France, where the dream of most young people, according to one poll after another — you would hope it was to go out and start a business useful to one's fellow citizens — is to land a civil servant job with the administration — one that is safe and one where one doesn't have too much to do…)

 Certainly I do not view us as enemy debaters on two opposing sides of one single issue…

Notice however, that my very first comment on this thread did address your main point (by quoting a Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law):

It is … worth noting that the Republicans are not the only side in this dispute who are willing to shut down the government if they don’t get what they want on health care policy.

President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Senate could just as easily avoid a shutdown by accepting the House bill.

Later, I quoted the Washington Post, which said that shutdowns were commoner than thought, and even occurred when the three "parts" of government were in the hands of the same party (shutdown #4)…

As for "stable and reliable management", wasn't the revolutionaries' message of 1776 to their overlords, "we can do very well without management, thank you very much"? (And that they went on to prove that they could…)

There's an organization here in Paris, where the basic message is "Nous ne sommes pas des vaches à lait". That means "we are not milch cows" and it is a message to politicians, local and national, to "cease throwing money out the window".

And that, to me, is the main message of the Tea Party, of all Tea Partiers, left'n'right.

Now, if Tea Partiers have a bad reputation, it is for one of two reasons:
Either 1) they deserve the bad reputation,
or 2) the bad reputation is somewhat artificial and designed, serving the purpose of those who do not like their message of self-sufficiency, notably knight-on-white-horse-come-to-save-us politicians (and newspapermen!) who relish their (self-attributed) role of heroes in shining armor coming to the rescue of one group of poor innocent victims after another.

I am inclined to suspect that more often than not, the second reason prevails…

You mention death panels. True, that was/that is a (very) dramatic war of putting it, but there happens to be truth in the expression, although it is not active, but passive denial of care…

If a bureaucrat has two people who need an artificial knee or a back operation, and one of them is, say, a young 35-year-old athlete while the other is an old woman over 75, they are not unlikely to deny that care to the second person because he or she "is too old", who might even have trouble surviving, or surely benefiting from the operation for a great many years, and because the younger person is more in need of it.

That makes sense, somewhere, doesn't it? If you are a bureaucrat with an overview, and you see an operation required by a young healthy person and one close(r) to death, it makes more sense, and it is more humane, to choose the younger one.

The magic word, however, is "if"!

IF you have an overview! Maybe the solution is to take away the bureaucrat(s) and the bureaucracy. If no one has an overview, if an army of bureaucrats is not involved, both the younger man (in Denmark, say, or in Iowa) will make a decision with his doctor(s), while the 75-year-old woman (in France, maybe, or in Texas) would make her decision with her doctor(s), along with with her family and children.

And to the Americans protesting that this is not taking into consideration the poor, you need to remember that those despicable American capitalists are world leaders in charity and donations (also internationally, think of the Marshall Plan) — by contrast, here in Europe people will say, let the government take care of whatever the problem is.

Maybe you think this is only theoretical and you can continue to mock the term death panel. I don't know whether Forbes is also totally untrustworthy, but here comes a recent article that lends some truth to the term:

Why The Federal Government Wants To Redefine The Word 'Cancer'
The federal government wants to reduce the number of Americans diagnosed each year with cancer. But not by better preventive care or healthier living. Instead, the government wants to redefine the term “cancer” so that fewer conditions qualify as a true cancer." 

 This is how government works! Now the bureaucracy has so many fewer people to take care of!

A French comedy took this on several years ago. In Les Ripoux (The Rotten Cops), a young trainee arrests a pickpocket (minute 25:05). His older partner typing the thief's testimony instead makes up a report that the thief was an honorable citizen who found the handbag in the street and brought it to the station. (And if the handbag's owner doesn't come to reclaim it, after a year and one day the thief can call it his own!) The younger cop is outraged. The older one says, this is doing more good than arresting him. Because local politicians want crime statistics to look good (they're already 11% higher than last year's), they've stopped counting pickpockets and other lesser criminals into the statistics — until next year. As the film progresses, Thierry Lhermitte becomes as manipulable as Philippe Noiret…

And this is the type of thing America wants in its health care system, to come between you and your doctor (who has changed from being "your" doctor to being "the community's" doctor)?! This is what you want to pay for at ever mounting prices?

Here's a proposition: your "broken" health system may be far better than you think, certainly than the Europeans ones that you laud so much (and that Europeans laud endlessly — and selv-servingly)…

As for the 1850s, you are correct, of course, to say that the Republicans were honorable as well as nation-oriented.

However… that is not how they were treated!

Look at how Republicans, or Tea Partiers, are treated today — as the ridiculous, despicable, mindless human beings whose condemnation is without the shadow of a doubt warranted; you might even go as far as calling people such as them reptiles (in fact, that is how James Carville described the Republicans in 2010). They are so despicable that Obama is willing to talk to people such as Medvedev (I will have "more flexibility" after the election), and Putin, and Iran's leaders, Venezuela's caudillo, easily, but to the Republicans he — and for this he is praised — will not give an inch. They are too despicable for him — for America — for the world. (No "flexibility" for people such as them!)

Well, guess what: that is exactly how Republicans were treated in the 1850s…

It went so far that one prominent frontier lawyer had this to say in 1860, as he told supporters how he would speak to the party's adversaries, in the Democrat Party as well as in the South, assuming they were willing to listen:

…when you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to [Republicans]. In all your contentions with one another, each of you deems an unconditional condemnation of [Republicanism] as the first thing to be attended to.

Abraham Lincoln — for it was he — added:

Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite — license, so to speak — among you to be admitted or permitted to speak at all. Now, can you, or not, be prevailed upon to pause and to consider whether this is quite just to us, or even to yourselves?
Sure, you're right: many things are different from the 1850s/1860s.

But maybe we shouldn't be too quick to deny the similarities…

(Indeed, Republicans were then condemned, by Democrats North as well as South, forllll everything from hare-brained schemes to lack of respect for the status quo, through disregarding the unity of the nation (or the Union), mixing into the affairs of others, dissing the Constitution, and recklessly opposing duly-voted laws that should be regarded as the law of the land…)

French Ad Makes Fun of JFK Murder

50 years after the John F Kennedy assassination in Dallas comes a French ad that makes fun of the murder.

Actually, it isn't as bad as it sounds — in fact, the joke is not the JFK shooting itself, but the fact that it turns out to be a spoiler (which I've just spoiled for you), because only at the end of the 30-second ad do we find out what was going on at a seemingly harmless and innocent parade. In that perspective, it's not unreasonable to find the ad somewhat unobjectionable and rather amusing, moreover so when one knows that the PMU (aka France's nº 1 horse racing bookmaker) also has an ad on the Titanic (look quickly for the Leonardo Di Caprio and his sweetheart characters).

But still, you have to wonder: would they have dared make a similar ad over the violent deaths of Salvador Allende or Che Guevara?

You like to bet?

You will love horse betting

PMU: we bet you are going to win!

Russia's Gulag in the 21st Century 3: In Russia, "the Spirit of the Gulag Is Alive and Well"

Zoïa Svetova is interviewed by Le Monde's Marie Jégo: but what information she gives, needless to say, is of no interest to Barack Obama and his followers (foreign and domestic), who want to get pesky foreign policy problems out of the way as quickly as possible, in order to focus on the real problems of the world: those despicable members of the American people who do not realize that Russians, Arabs, and Europeans are all basically kind-hearted and harmless while that their own society is a nightmare which needs the government's remedial intervention as quickly as possible…

Zoïa Svetova : The Russian prison system, a legacy of the gulag (the Stalin era camps), continues to exist as the authorities use it as an instrument of repression. Habits of the gulag have not disappeared. How could they when they have never been condemned at the state level? It must be kept in mind that those who now run Russia are the political heirs of Stalin and Andropov [KGB Chairman between 1967 and 1982, later Secretary General of the Communist Party of the USSR, he succeeded Leonid Brezhnev at the head of the Supreme Soviet in 1983], who used the prison system as an instrument of repression. It is clear that the heirs of the prison system use it in the same fashion today.

 … The best known type of beating is the "registration". It goes like this: when new prisoners are entering the colony for the first time, a hedge of clubs are formed on either side of their path and they are beaten, in order to break them and force them to abide by the rules of the camp.

Zoïa Svetova : Le système carcéral russe, hérité du goulag (les camps staliniens), continue d'exister car les autorités s'en servent comme d'un instrument de répression. Les habitudes du goulag n'ont pas disparu des mentalités. Comment le pourraient-elles quand elles n'ont jamais été condamnées au niveau étatique ? Il faut bien avoir à l'esprit que ceux qui dirigent aujourd'hui la Russie sont les héritiers politiques de Staline et d'Andropov [président du KGB entre 1967 et 1982, puis secrétaire général du Parti communiste d'URSS, il succède à Leonid Brejnev à la tête du Soviet suprême en 1983] qui ont utilisé l'univers carcéral comme un instrument de répression. Il est clair que les héritiers de ce système pénitentiaire l'utilisent de la même façon aujourd'hui.

Lire aussi : "Une Pussy Riot décrit son quotidien 'd'esclave' dans un camp de travail"

 … Le cas de tabassage parmi les plus connus, c'est l'"enregistrement". Cela se passe comme ça : lorsque des nouveaux prisonniers font leur entrée pour la première fois dans la colonie, une haie de matraques se forme de part et d'autre de leur passage et ils sont tapés, histoire de les casser et de les obliger à se soumettre aux règles du camp.

Mreowr

Join the Tygrrrr Express…

Note to Americans Who Believe Europeans' Health Care System Is the Way to Go

This comes from a Facebook discussion that I got into:

Never mind it's worked reasonably well in Canada and Europe. In the U. S., it would be "socialism," even though we have socialized education and socialized police, fire and transportation systems. And we are "exceptional" which is Tea Party speak for never allowing ourselves the indignity of learning and prospering from other countries' successes. We have to uphold the illusion that we are the best at everything by doing it our way, though the data clearly show otherwise.

Speaking as somebody who lives or who has lived in Denmark and in France as well as several other European countries (besides the United States), I'm afraid some of you Americans take Europeans' self-serving declarations as fact and need to learn more about European civics and the "data" that they present to you (as well as, foremost, to their own citizens).

First, you castigate all the claims a Republican makes — which is nothing bad, to be sure (it would maybe be better if you were consistent and did the same for Democrats once in a while); but then, every piece of Europe's never-ceasing bragging you accept as true (some of you even accept CUBA'S assertion that the country's health coverage is superior to America's; back in the day, we were told that the Soviet Union had superior coverage to America's)!

Note: In Havana, the élite goes to special dispensaries only for the élite.
The same was true in Moscow and in Leningrad.
And in Paris, when you want really good care, you go (that is, the rich person goes) to the city's private hospital (called — wait for it — the Hôpital… Américain!).

Europe:

Oh we are so much more humane than those clueless Americans; Oh we are so much more generous than those egoistical Americans; Oh we take so much better care of our poor than those awful Americans; America is a nightmare for the poor, for minorities, for [fill out the blank], a nightmare of racism and egotism!

You believe this nonsense! Then you turn around and go: "No no no, it is not all of us, it is only the reactionary Republicans; we liberals we're good, humane people, and now we're going to be wise and benevolent, Europe, and imitate your outstanding example of noble altruism!"

How about putting Europe's claims into doubt, once in a while?

In short:
The reason that Europe has its "universal health
coverage" is because of, and thanks to, America.

Here's how it works!
(And let's skip over how America's military shield allows (and has allowed for the past 70 years) Europe gobs of money for its health coverage by spending no more than a pittance on their own armed forces — then again, the current administration wants to pay heed to Europe in that area also…)

Europe says it has better health coverage than America.

They said the same 20 years ago.

They said the same 50 years ago.

Well, in the meantime, came a lot of innovations.
The innovations help/helped everybody, from America to Europe to further afield.
The (supposedly evil) pharmaceuticals put more medicine at the disposal of everybody, bringing prices down (over time), and eventually this trickled down to the poor (poor Americans as well as poor Europeans).

But where did the innovations come from? More often than not, from America. Who wins the Nobel prize in medicine every year? If it isn't an American, it's usually someone working at an American university. Why? Because of innovation.

How do you have innovation? By reducing red tape and the presence of bureaucrats — not to mention reducing the presence of on-the-dole workers, due to entitlements — as well as the entitlement spirit…

(Some might say this was the message of 1776: we do NOT need all these rules, we do NOT need all these taxes, we do NOT need all these bureaucrats, we CAN build it ourselves, the average human being is quite capable of taking care of himself…)

Supposedly, medicine costs less in Europe. Well, most of the medicine used in Europe happens to have originated in America. When it is researched and developed in America, the (supposedly evil) pharmaceuticals need to recoup their costs. (FYI, the profits go to… more research; yes, that's how a business is run.) So when it is first marketed, the price starts out relatively high (America). Later, the price can come down (Europe).

MOREOVER, the price comes down because an entire government (France, Germany, Denmark…) is negotiating, using carrots and sticks to bring the price down.

That sounds smart to some of you, doesn't it?
Sure — except it gives you a false image of what is going on.

They can do this for the simple reason that there is a locomotive pulling them, a locomotive to pull them along — now the locomotive wants to imitate the carriages?! Who is going to do the pulling?!

With America ALSO adding an army of whole new bureaucrats, IRS employees, and other (sorry if I offend someone) parasites, we're going to — we're ALL (Europeans, Americans themselves) going to — kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

We'll never know it, of course, because we won't see what was NOT invented/discovered.

Okay, maybe we won't stop the locomotive, maybe we won't kill the goose, maybe we'll just slow the locomotive down, maybe we'll just break one leg — but it this something to aspire to?

Compare telephones between now and ca 1980; which is better?
Prior to 1980, there were 20 to 40 years of little to no innovation, but nobody knew it, nobody complained about, because few if any people could imagine technological evolution in the sector. The common citizen (American or foreign) couldn't imagine it, the common bureaucrat couldn't imagine it, and certainly the common "I'm-here-to-make-your-life-better" politician couldn't imagine it. Only a few rare individuals could do so. Government got out of the phone business at about the time Ronald Reagan was president (although I don't think it was due to one of RR's own policies), the private sector was where "bold, new policy solutions" were created, and the field boomed — to everybody's benefit! And today the average "poor" person has more telephone "power" — he is richer, in a sense, regarding one's own communications capabilities — than the dirty capitalist pig millionaire of 50 years ago, of 20 years ago, and even of 10 years ago.
(But at least, back in the day, everybody was equal! Everybody — from prince (i.e., filthy rich capitalist) to pauper — had about the same rotary phone, black, although later came those sickly khaki and cream colors…)
Wouldn't it be better if medical innovations came at the rate of telephone innovations?!

To want to imitate the Europeans is insane!
(Indeed, it is even more insane for a European to WANT Americans to imitate them — unless he is a member of the élite wanting to keep his perks and privileges…)
As for this European message "America is a nightmare, we are so much more humane than those retards" (which liberals in America transfer to conservatives alone), it is a message to their own masses. It is PRECISELY a message not to look to (what until now was) America's far less and to put into question the tons of rules, regulations, and taxes Europeans live under.

And when Americans elect a president who promises to put in more rules and regulations, the European élites are ecstatic, because there will not be the nation that their tax-weary citizens can look to, and they bestow him with the Nobel Prize simply for… being like them!
(Being like those wise, generous, tolerant, visionary, etc etc etc beings that those enlightened Europeans — modestly — happen to be…)

More on health care here:

• The French healthcare system, even if taken at its best, is like an expensive jewel on a beggar’s neck by Bojidar Marinov

• What the American enamored with French health care doesn’t realize is that the French, too, would love to have such a perfect health system by Guy Sorman

• Call it the grass-is-greener syndrome: the French have their own problems that show there's no such thing as a free lunch — or a free doctor's visit by Investor's Business Daily

And if you have some more time…

• Extra Charges, Bribes, and a Yoke that Fetters Innovation: The Reality of France's State Health Care Is "Rather Insidious" from Le Monde

• The Best Health Care System in the World, Yes; Well, Except for This One Flaw and, Oui, This Other Flaw and, Oh, That Flaw Over There, and… from Le Monde

• French Health Care? Faced With a Health System that Has Become Practically Incomprehensible, Individuals Feel Helpless from Le Monde

• America Needs a National Health Care System Like the Europeans'; After All, France's Medical Accidents Result in No More Than 10,000 Deaths Per Year

Obama to Republicans: "Get in the back of the bus!"

Just saw this on Facebook:  

Obama to Repubs: - "get in the back of the bus."

Russia's Gulag in the 21st Century 2: The Type of Thing That Obama's Democrat Party Have No Stomach For

Valentin Danilov, a Russian physician sentenced to 14 years in "a hard-work penitentiary colony", testifies to Le Monde's Marie Jégo.

Needless to say, such information is of no interest to Barack Obama and his followers (foreign and domestic), who want to get pesky foreign policy problems out of the way as quickly as possible, in order to focus on the real problems of the world: those despicable members of the American people who do not realize that Russians, Arabs, and Europeans are all basically kind-hearted and harmless while that their own society is a nightmare which needs the government's remedial intervention as quickly as possible…

Russia's Gulag in the 21st Century 1: "The Soviet Union has vanished, but the gulag is still alive"

In Russia, says Vladimir Osetchkine, the founder of the website gulagu.net ("No to the Gulag!") to Le Monde's Marie Jégo, "The Soviet Union has vanished, but the gulag is still alive!"

Complain in writing to the conditions of detention and the attitude of the administration is risking trouble. There will inevitably be a conversation with a member of the administration and then he will have to choose between the solitary and "pressure box", ie a cell number, in which there is "yellow" responsible all relate to the administration. They will have to convince the detainee that his complaint has no chance of success.

The name of your website refers to the gulag. Is the comparison relevant? 

The Gulag was designed, down to the smallest detail, to eliminate all forms of human dignity. The USSR is no more, but as for the Gulag, it is still alive. Over 90% of penal colonies originate from the camp system of the Stalin era. On the heating pipes you will see the years 1937, 1946, 1954, everything comes from that time [Stalin was in power from 1924 until his death in 1953]. Same for the "barracks" [inmates' housing] and canteens where 300 people have to eat in 30 minutes.

Needless to say, such information is of no interest to Barack Obama and his followers (foreign and domestic), who want to get pesky foreign policy problems out of the way as quickly as possible, in order to focus on the real problems of the world: those despicable members of the American people who do not realize that Russians, Arabs, and Europeans are all basically kind-hearted and harmless while that their own society is a nightmare which needs the government's remedial intervention as quickly as possible…
 

Se plaindre par écrit des conditions de détention ou de l'attitude de l'administration, c'est risquer les ennuis. Il y aura forcément une conversation avec un membre de l'administration et après il faudra choisir entre le mitard et "la boîte à pression", c'est à dire une cellule à plusieurs, dans laquelle il y a des "jaunes" chargés de tout rapporter à l'administration. Ils devront convaincre le détenu que sa plainte n'a aucune chance d'aboutir.

Le nom de votre site fait référence au goulag. La comparaison est-elle pertinente ?

Le goulag a été conçu jusque dans les moindres détails pour supprimer toute forme de dignité humaine. L'URSS n'est plus, le goulag, lui, est toujours vivant. Plus de 90 % des colonies pénitentiaires viennent du système des camps de l'époque stalinienne. Sur la tuyauterie du chauffage vous verrez toujours écrit 1937, 1946, 1954, tout vient de cette époque [Staline était au pouvoir de 1924 jusqu'à sa mort en 1953]. Pareil pour les "baraques" [logement des détenus] et les cantines où 300 personnes doivent manger en 30 minutes.

Obamacare is creating artificial scarcity; The leftists want the whole medical system to collapse financially so that it can be nationalized

From our circle of friends' debate on health care comes this nugget from No Pasarán's very own Joe N:

They're creating artificial scarcity.  They want the whole medical system to collapse financially so that it can be nationalized.

It's a government acting directly against its people's interest.

This post is No Pasarán's post number 12,000 since the blog's inception almost 10 years ago, so let this be an opportunity to write:

We miss you, Joe, and we hope you come back — soon!

Contentious public debates are nearly always won by those who hammer home the most easily repeatable catchphrases

This year’s climate news has been enough to give the even the most fanatical warmist a bad case of heartburn

writes Benny Huang on Patriot Update:

The primary setback to their cause is the revelation that the earth hasn’t warmed at all in the last fifteen years despite ever increasing levels of greenhouse gases.

Hypotheses abound to explain away the lack of warming. Is it a weak La Niña? Fluctuations in the solar cycle? Is more heat being captured in the depths of the ocean? Scientists aren’t sure and their uncertainty speaks volumes.

Contentious public debates are nearly always won by those who hammer home the most easily repeatable catchphrases. The public isn’t particularly informed about the question of climate change but it thinks it “knows” two things—the science is settled and scientists are in broad agreement.

Neither of these statements is true by any objective measure, and yet plenty of people who consider themselves eminently reasonable believe both of them. How then can these same people process the recent revelations coming from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that there hasn’t been a lick of warming since Eagle-Eye Cherry topped the charts? We can now see that the science is not settled because the expected upward trend did not continue, just as easily as we can see that there is no consensus as to why.

 … Several countries expressed their alarm that the IPCC would actually mention the net zero warming that has taken place since 1998. One must wonder why various world governments made their gripes known only in secret. Is it because they knew that they were essentially asking for the conclusions to be massaged to their liking?

Belgium voiced concerns that using the hottest year on record—1998—as the baseline would be misleading. Actually, when the hottest year on record was fifteen years ago, it’s not misleading at all. It’s kind of the point. The Belgians suggested using 1999 or 2000 instead because that would produce … an upward trend. And at the end of the day, ensuring that the chart displays an upward trend is really the goal, isn’t it?

 … Germany wanted to delete all references to the lull supposedly because the time scale of ten to fifteen years was too short. Again, would it have been too short if had supported the sacred cause? Hungary worried that any mention of the lull would only be used as ammunition by skeptics. Did it ever occur to them that the skeptics might be right?

The First Gulf War, The Dirty One Between Iraq and Iran, Turns Out to Have Been a Synthesis of Both World Wars

Because gas and trench warfare were used like in the conflict started in 1914, writes Gaïdz Minassian in his Le Monde book review of Pierre Razoux's La Guerre Iran-Irak, première guerre du Golfe 1980-1988, along with major tank battles and the bombing of cities like in the conflict started in 1939, the "first" Gulf War turns out to have been a synthesis of both world wars. (The conflict between Iraq and Iran from 1980 to 1988 is the first Gulf War, the second Gulf War is the one from 1991, and the third is the one from 2003 to 2011.)

C'était la première guerre du Golfe (1980-1988). La plus méconnue des trois - la deuxième a eu lieu en 1991, la troisième entre 2003-2011. Elle a opposé l'Iran religieux à l'Irak laïc. Huit ans de guerre sale quasiment sans images ni ouvrage de référence, encore moins de longs-métrages.

Le dernier livre de Pierre Razoux, directeur de recherche à l'Institut de recherche stratégique de l'Ecole militaire (Irsem), La Guerre Iran-Irak, première guerre du Golfe 1980-1988, vient combler ce vide en nous plongeant dans les horreurs de cette boucherie.

Trente-trois ans après le début des hostilités, Pierre Razoux nous ouvre les portes de ce conflit si déterminant pour le Moyen-Orient, un tournant géopolitique dont les effets perdurent. A l'époque, Ouest et Est voulaient déjà contenir l'Iran révolutionnaire. Pour cela, Américains, Européens et Soviétiques comptent sur le bouclier irakien laïc de Saddam Hussein. Résultat : 60,3 milliards d'euros d'assistance militaire à Bagdad, dont 17 milliards de la France.

DES SOURCES INÉDITES

Quant aux Etats-Unis, ils sont officiellementpro-irakiens et leur versent 187,2 millions d'euros. Mais, en réalité, ils livrent des équipements militaires au régime iranien honni, d'une valeur de 486,7 millions d'euros. Cette assistance a laissé un nom dans l'histoire : "l'Irangate".

La particularité de ce livre repose sur l'exploitation de sources irakiennes inédites, récupérées par les forces américaines après la campagne de 2003. En tant qu'ancien chercheur au Collège de l'OTAN à Rome, l'auteur a eu accès aux bandes audio de Saddam Hussein, ces enregistrements des discussions d'état-major entre le chef de l'Etat irakien et ses généraux lors de la guerre contre l'Iran.

Ce livre se singularise également par la durée de la recherche qu'il a nécessité - dix ans de travaux à travers les capitales concernées par ce conflit - mais aussi par l'usage pour la première fois de sources iraniennes.

Le résultat est inversement proportionnel à l'horreur du déroulement de la guerre. Le chapitre sur le calvaire des enfants-soldats iraniens est poignant. Celui sur le martyre des Kurdes gazés à Halabja est bouleversant. Recours au gaz et combats de tranchées comme en 1914, utilisation des blindés et bombardements des villes comme en 1939, ce conflit Iran-Irak est une synthèse des deux guerres mondiales réunies.

Real Voices on the ACA: "My premiums already tripled on anticipation"; "our bare bone plan is gonna be terminated on Jan 1 2014 because of MugabeCare"

Regarding Health Insurance Marketplace premiums, a bunch of friends have been emailing back and forth recently how well they have been doing with regards to Barack Obama's "unaffordable care act" and how much better off they will be next year:

DH:

Yikes! I don't think Obamacare is going to be a good deal for me. Huge increase over my current plan.

How do you all make out? …

TM:

Mine doubled. My boss covers me, and my plan went from about 150 to 300.

JN:

My premiums already tripled on anticipation.  If you include my employer's part of the seal, its cost now is equal to more than a quarter of my gross pay.

Cheaper! Better! More equal and proletarian!

VP:

I learned 5 months ago that, due to OCare, [my] insurance would cease after Dec. 31. [My husband] doesn’t know the exact figure, but his and [our daughter’s] will go up. We contacted insurance brokers and the BC/BS plan that [my husband and daughter] are on to see if I could get on. All said the same thing “We have to wait until Oct 1.”

How those scumbags in Congress sleep at night is beyond me. Guess evil is not pricked by conscience.

When I was young I studied the American Revolution and the French Revolution. The great violence of the latter was hard for me to understand. I understand it now.

Friends contact the U.S. House of Representatives and let them know how this wonderful program THEY BEGGED to not be applied to THEM is affecting you. Urge them, as this speaker does in the video below , to defund this monstrosity.
http://gohmert.house.gov/

DH:

Right on, Sister. This is not the Change we were Hoping for.

I haven't found anyone that I know, Dem or Republican, that believes Mugabecare (if I may borrow RV's apt description) is the right answer to fixing our healthcare system. So, it astounds me that anyone in Washington can support his law. However, as I understand the situation, it will get funded. As long as the Dems can get this thing going, it won't be eliminated or stopped. Revised, yes. But, we will have socialized medicine in this country. And that's a bad thing.

Yesterday [Wednesday], Obama finally admitted that his Unaffordable Healthcare Act does raise taxes. Another lie admitted to. What is a government that totally lacks credibility?

RV:

[My wife] and I are on a bare bone BC/BS plan for about $400/mo. But it's gonna be terminated on Jan 1 2014 because of MugabeCare, and to this day I don't know what we're gonna replace it with. It's gonna be cancelled because it doesn't cover abortion and mammograms for me, and testosterone injections for [my wife].

It's a good thing MugabeCare doesn't mandate car insurances to cover oil changes and tire rotations... Yet.

DH:

I'll add to the calculus. My premium will go up 347% AND my deductible will increase by $1000.

In addition, does anyone realize the deduction for medical expenses must now be at least 10% of gross income instead of 7.5% currently?

We are being taxed to death...does that mean the death panels are already running the show? :-)

JN:

They're creating artificial scarcity.  They want the whole medical system to collapse financially so that it can be nationalized.

It's a government acting directly against its people's interest.

For Vladimir V. Putin: Just FYI, my grandparents did not flee the United States for Russia

Michael Granoff responds — briefly — to Vladimir V. Putin's New York Times Op-Ed, “A Plea for Caution From Russia”:

For Vladimir V. Putin, just two thoughts:

Can I publish an opinion critical of you in Moscow’s most prominent daily? 

Just F.Y.I., my grandparents did not flee the United States for Russia. 

MICHAEL GRANOFF
Tenafly, N.J., Sept. 12, 2013 

It is stunning that President Vladimir V. Putin has the audacity to write about freedom, democracy and equality. Mr. Putin is responsible for some of the most repressive antigay laws in the world. He has orchestrated mass arrests and crackdowns on ordinary protesters. 

While he may be attempting to come across as sensible on these issues, his record in Russia speaks volumes, and in this case taking what he says with a grain of salt would be generous. 

BRANDON LEVEY
Washington, Sept. 12, 2013

French Consulate Chauffeur Caught with 150 Kilos in Gold Bars

After the France24 story of the former French ambassador to Baghdad who got caught with 350,000 Euros in cash, we get Laurent Zecchini's story of the French consulate chauffeur in Jerusalem who was found to be crossing across the border to Jordan with 152 kilos of gold bars, 500 kilos of tobacco, hundreds of new cel phones, and $2 million in checks.

152 KILOS D'OR (...) ET PLUS DE 2 MILLIONS DE DOLLARS

En effet : 152 kilos d'or en lingots [4,9 millions d'euros, selon le Comptoir national de l'or], 500 kilos de tabac, des centaines de téléphones portables neufs, et des chèques pour un montant de plus de 2 millions de dollars. La suite est tout aussi extraordinaire : interpellé par la police, l'homme va être placé sous les verrous ? Pas du tout. Arrêté le mardi à la mi-journée, il est mis dans un avion pour Paris le mercredi, sur proposition des autorités israéliennes.

Quelle hâte ! Décryptage d'un diplomate israélien : "J'imagine qu'on lui a dit 'tu coopères avec la police en nous donnant tes complices et des détails sur ce trafic, et on t'expulse'." Il ajoute : "A l'évidence, il y a un réseau ; mais lui c'est une sardine, pas un requin." On n'en sait pas plus, dans l'immédiat. A Paris, le Quai d'Orsay a saisi le Parquet, au nom de l'article 40 du code de procédure pénale, qui stipule que "tout fonctionnaire qui (...) acquiert la connaissance d'un crime ou d'un délit, est tenu d'en donner avis sans délai au procureur de la République", et le directeur général de l'administration a "signifié son licenciement" à l'intéressé.

Insofar as the car in the photo is representative of French diplomatic vehicles, one reader complains that French diplomats are doing their work German Volkswagens.

Du bon sens 13/09/2013 - 20h20

On roule en VW dans les ambassades françaises... Comme représentants de notre commerce extérieur... déficitaire, y a pas mieux ! Le parti de l'étranger est toujours "aux manettes".

Smart Diplomacy: Brazilian President complains to Obama about "a grave violation of human rights" and "especially of disrespect to national sovereignty"

A few days after Brazil's president canceled her trip to the United States, Dilma Rousseff criticized the United States before the United Nations, report the BBC and Le Monde, while calling for "the United Nations to play a leading role in regulating electronic technology" — which sounds like censorship, if you ask me…

"We face, Mr President, a situation of a grave violation of human rights and civil liberties; of invasion and capture of confidential information concerning corporate activities, and especially of disrespect to national sovereignty".

 … She asked the United Nations to play a leading role in regulating electronic technology and said Brazil would present proposals for a "civilian multilateral framework" for the governance and use of the internet and to protect web-based data.

 

That Was Before America's Capitalist Society Betrayed Him — and Us…

In Julien Bouissou's article on a quarter of India's minority languages being in danger of disappearing, Le Monde's cartoonist manages to turn the story into an anti-American, anti-capitalist screed.

 • Before, you used to speak our language, my son…

Michael Yon: When Concealed Carry Counts — The big difference is that one gunman can kill 20 unarmed people, but if they are armed and trained, he might get only 2 or 3

Michael Yon:

When Concealed Carry Counts: Massacre

Many people have said or strongly hinted that firearms related massacres only (or usually) happen in gun free zones. The statement that they openly make is that the attacks would not occur if the people were armed. This is completely false. We just had another Green on Blue in Afghanistan this week. Blue on Blue and Green on Blue often happen against heavily armed people.

The big difference is that one gunman will have a very hard time killing twenty armed people. He can kill twenty unarmed people, but if they are armed and trained, he might get two or three, or even ten if he is truly "good", but he will quickly be put down, chased off, or holed up in a defensive position. At minimum, he will be slowed, giving people a chance to escape.

But over in Norway, a single madman killed 77 unarmed people who did not fight back. If just one of those people had a pistol, the death toll might have been 10. We never will know.

Now in Nairobi, reports have it that 10-15 heavily armed terrorists have killed at least 68 so far. The terrorists have been pushed into defense. The final battle appears to be unfolding. My guess is that the Kenyans are taking back the mall piece by piece. It is a big mall so that takes time due to the complication of the hostages.

Images from the early stages of the attack show people with handguns. Clearly some people were fighting back early into the attack. But imagine a terrorist attack like this in a US state where guns are all but outlawed. 10-15 terrorists could kill hundreds.

See also: Another Mass Killing, Another Nutcase with Plenty of Warning Signs
and my extensive and dispassionate in-depth post on gun control:
What Is to Blame for the Connecticut Shooting?
Does the Blame Lie with the Right to Bear Arms Or Can It Be Found Elsewhere?

Robin Williams: Divorce is "ripping your heart out through your wallet"

As Robin Williams tells it, this is what feminist-imposed government intrusion into private life has wrought: as if separation weren't painful enough, lawyers intrude and ensure that

Divorce is expensive. I used to joke they were going to call it "all the money", but they changed it to 'alimony'. It's ripping your heart out through your wallet.

Don't forget to check out Stephen Baskerville's Taken Into Custody (The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family)

The Venezuelan State's Occupy "Movement": The Victory of Socialism!

A Venezuelan state agency on Friday ordered the temporary takeover of a factory that produces toilet paper 

writes Reuters (gracias para Hervé),

in what it called an effort to ensure consistent supplies after embarrassing shortages earlier this year.

Critics of President Nicolas Maduro say the nagging shortages of products ranging from bathroom tissue to milk are a sign his socialist government's rigid price and currency controls are failing. They have also used the situation to poke fun at his administration on social media networks.

 A national agency called Sundecop, which enforces price controls, said in a statement it would occupy one of the factories belonging to paper producer Manpa for 15 days, adding that National Guard troops would "safeguard" the facility.

Frenchman Hervé writes

Having grown in a staunch Socialist country, I was always told Socialism is the Glorious Path to a Bright and Enlightened Future, where great intellectuals will be describing the greatness of Socialism while sipping delicious cocktails, sitting on chairs at tables overlooking the happy proletariat running naked in the fields, laughing and chanting with butterfields and pink rabbits.

Well, they gotta start some place: no running naked after pink rabbits and butterflies if you don't wipe your ass, comrade.

From the archives: Note to the Apologizer-in-Chief (Barack Obama):
No, a Republic Is Not Equal to a Dictatorship

Reminder: Six months ago, Maria Thunholm took pictures of
a mural in Paris saying "Rest in PEACE Hugo Chávez"…