Cheering and honking in Paris	Cris de joie et klaxons à Paris
It's good to see that the blogosphere is not suckered into buying Le Monde's Al-Jazeera on the Seine bogus sympathy after 9-11. The French only like Americans when they are on their knees. Americans, you are hated here.	Ça fait du bien de voir que la blogosphère n'est pas dupe en ce qui concerne les condoléances bidons étalées par Le Monde Al-Jazira sur Seine suite au 11-9-2001. Les fwançais aiment les américains uniquement quand ceux-ci sont mis à genoux. Les américans, vous êtes détestés ici.

Irony Lost

Victor Davis Hanson weighs in on Europe's Choice in America's presidential election:

The French write and talk obsessively about Anglo-American adventurism in Iraq. Yet with an easy two-day drive an American can visit more than 50,000 British and American dead soldiers, resting at places like Hamm, St. Avold, Epinal, Omaha Beach, Ranville and Bayeux. The irony seems lost that the recently much-maligned Anglo-Saxon muscularity that ended Baathist Iraq is the logical successor to the same unapologetic partnership of Churchill and Roosevelt that once interfered in continental Europe to save it from its own indigenous fascism.

In this regard, blinkered European Union utopianism is thematic in its post-1960s World War II museums. Guides, videos and brochures remonstrate, often in self-righteous indignation, about the follies of war, violence and racism. Only at American and British cemeteries, in contrast, does one receive a different view of what the SS Panzers were really up to — and how they were stopped. Words like courage, sacrifice and duty are chiseled on the architraves of granite pavilions. Like mute stone totems, they look out over thousands of white crosses. In this context, the well-meaning, but entirely impotent European efforts at curbing genocide in the Sudan or the nuclearization of Iran make one doubt the vaunted new efficacy of "soft power" — triangulation always predicated on the threat of real American hard force in the shadows.

(Gracias para el Barcepundito)

The bravest woman in Zeropa	La femme la plus courageuse en Zéropa
You go girl.	Vas-y ma belle.
UPDATE: Allah notes that Oriana sold half a million copies in just a few hours in Italy. Pantywaist brown shirts have already tried to censure her in France.	DERNIERES INFOS: Allah remarque qu'Oriana a vendu en Italie un demi-million d'exemplaires de son livre en seulement quelques heures. Les pédaloïdes chemises brunes (tiens, tiens, encore eux) ont déjà tenté de la censurer en Fwance.

Pantywaist	Pédaloïde
Frenchified wimp in macho garb.	Mauviette francisée sapée comme un vrai, un dur, un tatoué.

Fo' shizzle my nizzle!	Dacodac chef!
English leaves little room in Zeropa for the language of surrender.	L'anglais laisse peu de place en Zéropa pour la langue de la capitulation.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...

On the heels of this event, also in Rhône-Alpes, the AFP reports

Sixty Jewish tombs at a cemetery in Lyon were covered in swastikas and Celtic crosses, Monday evening, the Rhône police department disclosed in the night of Monday to Tuesday. The cemetery guard found the head stones daubed with black paint shortly after 11 pm on Monday, deputy chief of police François Lalanne told the AFP. The defaced graves are in part of a cemetery row that comprises several hundred sepulchers, all of them Jewish, in Lyon's 7th arrondissement, according to Lalanne. The perpetrator(s) painted one to two crosses or swastikas on each grave, he added. Regional police have been assigned to an investigation at the request of the Lyon prosecutor's office. The prefect, police commissioner, Republic prosecutor, the rabbi of Lyon and the president of the local Jewish consistory arrived on the scene toward 11 pm, sources said.

Today in France

The Guantánamo four remain in jail for the time being. Without comment, the Paris court of appeals ordered their continued detention to-day. The prosecutors office also declared to-day that in its view the release of the four men (Nizar Sassi, 25, Mourad Benchellali, 23, Brahim Yadel, 33, and Imad Kanouni, 27) would disturb public order. See here for more information about the men.

A further three French citizens are currently being held at Guantánamo.

***

France has given €300,000 ($368,183) to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), earmarked to help the four Sahelian nations (Mauritania, Senegal, Mali and Niger) cope with a plague of locusts that threatens to provoke a famine affecting up to a million people.

The situation is very grave, indeed. The last such plague in 1987 caused $300 million worth of damage to food production but, according to the FAO, this time it will be worse. Locusts engulfed Nouakchott capital last week and the Mauritanian government claims that the locusts have gotten to a million hectares (2.47 million acres) of its land. The Gao region in Mali has been overrun and Gambia has declared a national emergency as 70% of its population farms for subsistence.

The infestation coincides with the beginning of the planting season and will deprive affected areas not only of staple foods but also of feed for livestock. Each locust can eat its own bodyweight in 24 hours, meaning in a day a ton of them consume as much as 2,500 people.

Some fear the locusts could spread as far east as Darfur. In fact, the last plague began in western Sudan and ultimately spread to 28 countries, including places as far away as India.

***

France's Lieutenant General Jean-Louis Py has taken command of Nato's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

***

The MFA announced to-day that Djiboutian president Ismail Omar Guelleh will enjoy diplomatic immunity while in France for the August 14 and 15 ceremonies celebrating the 1944 Provence landings and the liberation of France. Twenty-two heads of state were invited to participate but only 16 have accepted. Among those absent will be Tony Blair, Dick Cheney and Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo.

President Guelleh is currently under investigation for the murder of the French magistrate Bernard Borrel, whose half-carbonized body was found alongside a cliff overlooking the sea of Oman in 1995. Borrel had been working as an advisor to the Djiboutian Justice minister and his mysterious death has aroused a great deal of suspicion. As yet, the investigation hasn't turned up anything solid.

France is that shitty little country	La Fwance est ce petit pays merdeux
The French know no shame. Thanks to Allah.	Les franchouilles sont sans honte. Merci à Allah.

The Sillies

There is absolutely nothing at all going on in France at the moment. To-day's news includes not a single item of either national or international importance. See for yourselves if you don't believe me. Usually at this time of year when something bad happens in Corsica so keep your fingers crossed for that.

The perfect moment, then, for NPR to air an in-depth analysis of the Chirac-Sarkozy show-down. "The whole country seems to be on the edge of its seat," said Liane Hansen. Sure about that one, Liane? Before midday on Saturday, Bison Futé had recorded a total of 334 km of traffic jams on French highways.

It was interesting to hear from Nicholas Domenach, who said, "we live in a republican monarchy in France and Sarkozy is committing regicide."

However, it was disappointing to hear NPR's Eleanor Beardsley repeat the trite half-truth about the initial 1995 dust-up between Sarkozy and Chirac which so many people suppose started it all: Chirac wasn't angry because Sarko supported Balladur... or at any rate, not just because he supported Balladur. Sarkozy supported Balladur because the two were angry: Sarkozy had abruptly broken off his wedding engagement to Claude Chirac. Guy Birenbaum writes (p. 98) about this widespread misunderstanding, lamenting the

political disputes and other internal frictions that are experienced by all parties and which most of the time are 'sold' to the public as so many battles among men and women, mechanical clashes, conflicts of trends, if not of ideology when, at the outset, they cover over banal personal matters. [...] In February 2003, when the tensions between the Elysée Palace, Bernadette Chirac and the minster of the Interior seemed to be rising again, only Eric Mandonnet of the magazine L'Express would describe the real cause of the dust-up: 'I will never forgive him because he has penetrated my privacy,' he quotes Chirac as saying crudely [... Eric Mandonnet, "Chirac-Sarkozy: la guerre froide," L'Express, 30 janvier 2003]

Verdammt dee Polls! Der Pat Kuy Hast Reachet Vifdy-Tzix Perzent!

Optate:

Ja, vell, I hate do preak your feelings, my Ami freund, put dat chust habbens do pe dee vay it ist: Amerikans are kreedy, arrokant, tstupit, dreacherous, war-mongerink, closse-meinted, vull of kraysy emotionss, und not do pe drusted. Vhile uns Europeans, vell… ve haff more history, you see. So… you vould to vell do listen do us. Avter all, ve are reassonaple, forwart-t'inking, chenerous, beace-lofink, resbectful, glear-headed, und, apofe all, dolerant und not gifen to lettink emotzions ket de bedder of us. Zis is profen efery tay of der year, in every bart of dee vorld. Chust look at dee newss efry nite. Only an Amerikan kannot tsee de tifferences bedween kreedy Ami bolicy und chenerous Europa bolicy, all ofer dee planet! Hier, kome, led uss durn on der DV set und der kombuter und ko check on dee ZDF channel und vep site, und you vill see…

Was der Teufel ist das für eine Schweinerei!??! Der gut kuy has t'irdy-tzix perzent in dee bolls!! Und der pat kuy hat vifdy-tzix perzent!? Teviltry! Teviltry of der plackest kind, das ist! Verdammt die bolls! Verdammt David Kasper! Straf!! Straf, Kaspar, dein Straaaaaf!! Hören sie mir, to you hier me? You vill pe bunizhed, Kaspar, for dreason, dreason to dee Cherman mutterland! Und you! You dere laffink, ja you, Ray, chust you vait, you Tefil, we vill alzo ket— Uch! Ich! Ach, Koff, Koff! — Qvickly, Elsa, koff, wasser! Vater! Und meine heart medizine! Schnell! Nein, nicht dere, dere! Dere, you dummkopf, on dee — koff koff! — dee top zhelf — uch! — of das kubpoard!! Dee shmelling tsalts, Elsa! Vhere are dee verdammte shmelling tsalts?!

Ach du lieber! Not anudder obtate?!

Tennyson on Lies

Regarding French and European tendencies to eschew the good in Iraq (and America!) while exaggerrating the bad (not to mention German polls which are supposed to carry deep significance only if the population's pensée unique shines through), it is not useless to remember that yesterday wasthe birthday of Alfred Tennyson, the English poet (1809-1892) who said that

A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies.

Pferdemerde!

Pferdemerde!

The Economist has an article on the new lingua franca of the European Union. Besides the French, it should specifically be of interest to those Germans who claim that the Soviets are due most of the credit (and the gratitude) for winning World War II (see the paragraphs with my emphasis below).

[The accession of central European countries] is already reinforcing the dominance of English as a language for the EU as a whole. In central Europe, as in much of the world, knowledge of English has become a basic skill of modern life comparable with the ability to drive a car or use a personal computer.

What has happened to the other main languages? A majority of central Europeans have eschewed Russian as firmly as they have rejected the communist ideology which was once articulated in that tongue.…

The limited enthusiasm for German in central Europe has been much more surprising. … German has languished partly because Germany has been shy about promoting its language and culture in a region ravaged by Hitler's war. No such shyness has affected France. Its cultural diplomacy in the region has been vigorous and generous. Handsome French cultural centres ornament the capitals of the region: the newest of them will open in Riga, the Latvian capital, in October. But admiration for France's culture does not translate into widespread use of its language. …

The choice of English has been made easier by the demands of foreign investors. The first to move east were the most international European companies, which tended to use English as their international working language regardless of their base. The biggest foreign direct investor within central Europe for most of the past decade, Siemens AG of Germany, an engineering and telecoms firm, made English its main “corporate language” in 1998. “German companies are very pragmatic,” confirms Bernhard Welschke, head of European policy at the Federation of German Industry. They value a single language for business, he says, even if it is not their own. …

The rise of English as a lingua franca [may] have a big impact on the institutions of the European Union, and even on European integration. The EU recognises an official language for every country, and translates all main public documents into all 20 of those languages. But civil servants and committees within the EU's institutions use three main working languages: English, French and German. French has long been fighting a losing battle against English for “market share” among the three, with German far behind. The arrival of more countries favouring English will threaten to render French almost as marginal as German.

An increased use of English within the EU institutions will mean an increased use of it in the ministries of member states, where officials spend much of their time working on EU-related matters. Jean-François Deniau, of the Académie Française, a linguistic watchdog, told Le Figaro newspaper that English had conquered even the treasury directorate of the French finance ministry, which he called “the heart, the bastion, the stronghold of French power”. It now circulates drafts of new regulations in English “because they will be discussed in English in Brussels”.

One big question now is whether the generalised use of English as a first or second language will accelerate the political integration of the EU. The spread of English will lower the language barrier which has, arguably, obstructed pan-European political debate. It will open the way to the formation of pan-European public opinion, and to politicians with pan-European appeal. But there have been empires, like the Soviet one, which had common languages and still fell apart. A language can help a good political system work better, but it cannot rescue a bad one.

The second French candidate	Le candidat franchouille bis
The French take a break from boosting Kerry so they can play pom-pom girls for Muqtada al-Sadr. This Ripoublika Franska of impotents, cowards, and collaborationnists of all stripes (France having joined the ranks of Saddamites, figuratively and physically, a long time ago) ululating their joy. It's just the logical progression after the Paris youth cheering in the streets and the celebratory horn honking in northern Paris after 9-11.	Les fwançais marquent une pause dans leur support inconditionnel à Kerry afin de faire les pom-pom girls pour Moqtada al-Sadr. Les citoyens de Ripoublika Franska hululent à l'unisson pour exprimer leur joie, ce qui est le passe-temps préféré des impuissants, des lâches, et des collaborateurs de tous bords (la France étant passée Saddamite, figurativement et physiquement, depuis belle lurette). Ce n'est que la suite logique après la jeunesse parigotte qui criait de joie dans les rues et les gens sur la Rive Droite qui klaxonnaient pour fêter le 11-9-2001.

Ach du lieber! Push Ist Pekomink Von of der Most Bopular Bolidicians in Chermany!

Gott im Himmel! Was ist los?! Vot iss habbening?! Präsident Chorge Push ist egztremely unbobular in Vrance und Chermany, vhile Chon Kehry hast pecome bos' countries' vaforite Amerikan bolitician — der darlink von der Vrench und Cherman media, der darlink von die Vrench und Cherman leaders, und der darlink von die Vrench und Cherman zitizens.

Dis hast peen revlegted in polls s'roughout Push's derm, in vhich W kot only zingle dichits' abbroval; most rezently in eine ZDF poll zhowing der bobularity ov Push versus Kehry, in vhish Dupya only kot 15 perzent versus 75 perzent vor Kehry. Gut, ja, schön, das ist sehr gut, fery abbropriate! Chon Kehry vill undoubtetly vin der Unided Stades elektion in Novemper und pekome der vordy-vorth präsi— Aber…! Vait a minute! Was ist das?! GOTT IM HIMMEL! VORDY-VOUR PERZENT VOR PUSH!? VOT IS KOINK ON?! WAS IST LOS? VOT DER VUCK IST DER MADDER?!?!

Vy ist es das zuddenly der kurrent Amerikanischer Präsident ist ketting vordy-vour perzent in Cherman votes und ricink und apout do overdake Chon Kehry?!?!

Gould it pe das Davids Medienkritik hast akain asked its ploggers do jallenge die pokus foting on ZDF's vepsite?! Nein, das kann mann nicht tun!…

If you vant do help kive Push a push and if you vant do kive Chermany's state telefision ovvicials a kollegtife heart attack in ze brocess, ko do dis bosting and do like dee Chermans do — vollow dee instrukzhions!

Ja, ja, ko hier to fote…

Optate: Der pad kuy passes vifdy-tzix perzent!

No negative reporting for the French candidate	Pas de couverture négative pour le candidat franchouille
Le Monde Al Jazeera on the Seine is still going on about Yaba Daba Ass Grab and still hasn't uttered a single word about the Swift boat vets or other emerging Kerry news. We report, you decide? Not in France with it's across-the-board anti-Americanism and monolithic press coverage dictating a State Party Line©®™.	Le Monde Al Jazira sur Seine jacasse encore et toujours au sujet d'un Bout de Gras bien qu'il n'ait pas pipé mot au sujet de la question Swift boat et d'autres infos qui font surface au sujet de Kerry. Laissez les gens se faire un avis par eux-mêmes? Pas queston de ça en Fwance où l'anti-américanisme universel règne et une presse uniforme dicte la pensée unique Non-Pensée Inique de l'Etat©®™.

What an asshole	Espèce de trou duc
The flavor flav of the STDs just missed a good opportunity to shut up.	Le chouchou des cons-cons vient de louper une bonne occas' de se la boucler.

Socialism in action inaction	Le socialisme se mettre en branle s'en branle
The IMF recommends that Zeropeans should work more. This is particularly problematic for the French since they sleep so much. Thanks to Allah.	Le FMI conseille aux zéropéens de travailler plus. Ceci pose problème particulièrement aux franchouilles car ils passent tellement de temps à dormir. Merci à Allah.

Stuck in the joint	Les gôchistes aisés préfèreraient les voir dans les backrooms de Paname
More French blather about Gitmo. For the time being these fine young French citizens will stay in the slammer.	Ouais, et les cons-cons aussi. Encore du pipeau au sujet de Guantanamo. Dans l'immédiat, ces chères têtes blondes franchouilles ont pris résidence en taule.

Henri Cartier-Bresson 1908-2004

HENRI CARTIER - BRESSON (Mexico), 1934 Gelatin Silver Print, cm 30 x 40

The greatest photographer who ever lived has died.

Some of us may dislike socialism (though one doubts if they'd like working weekends, at any rate) while others (myself included) may yet believe in it — however the name for this blog comes to us from the Spanish Civil War, which Cartier-Bresson documented so vividly.

His greatness and his having been French aside, this is reason enough to mention his passing.

Where the Wild Things Are	Au régal des vermines
French Islamofascist whining has begun. More of the same old torture fantasies.	Les gémissements des islamofascistes fwançais ont commencé. Encore et toujours les mêmes fantasmes de torture.
This is where the future generations of French wallow (see here for caption)	C'est ici que se vautrent les prochaines générations de chères têtes blondes franchouilles.