To “Save the Planet” You could also Eat your Young

Via Tim Blair, we find the bottom-of-the-barrel, desperate, throwing-spaghetti-at-the-walls sort of stuff that economically and technologically deaf eco-ravers resort to. Today some of them suggesting that we all do every winter what we would if one were trying to stave of hypothermia in a disaster or massive civic utility failure: sleep with our pets.

This isn’t great news for the tropical fish population. Bee-keepers, too, may be at a loss to make use of the directive.

Conservative Blogs — Again — Called "Extreme Right" and "Fascistic" in Le Monde

In his Le Monde report on the content of France's conservative blogs in the wake of Anders Behring Breivik's Norwegian terror attack, Samuel Laurent refers to them as the extreme right and as fascistic while Le Monde brings out its its old graph (one that reminds One More Middle Aged Guy of a Jackson Pollock creation) designed to summarize the entire problem. How? As the Fascist Sphere (la fachosphère).

La thèse est la même sur le blog du collectif Riposte Laïque, les organisateurs des "apéros saucisson pinard", qui établissent dans une longue note une comptabilité des attentats commis par des fondamentalistes musulmans depuis 2011 (un rapport d'Europol en 2010 attribuait aux "islamistes" 0,4% des attentats commis sur le sol européen l'année précédente).

Christine Tasin, l'une des fondatrice du mouvement, s'insurge dans un billet contre "l'amalgame commode entre Anders Behring Breivik et tous les islamophobes". Agitant elle aussi la théorie du complot, elle juge que "l'attentat d'Oslo tombe bien, au moment où les hommes et les partis qui s'opposent à l'immigration et au développement préoccupant de l'islam se voient plébiscités par les électeurs" .

Plus Ça Change… And Who Might Have Been the Main Butt of Jokes of the Ancient Greeks?

If any leftist tells you how much more intelligent and how much more compassionate our generation is (i.e., the left's current generation is), you need to tell him or her about the people who lived in Greece 2500 years ago. With a summer batch of articles in Le Monde devoted to humor through the ages, it is refreshing to hear from Macha Séry that the main butt of jokes of the ancient Greeks were — already then — the intellectuals.

…les principales têtes de Turc des Grecs sont les scholasticos, autrement dit les intellectuels, présentés comme des crânes d'oeuf, des naïfs dépourvus de logique, exempts de sens pratique, qui comprennent tout de travers. Exemple : « C'est un intellectuel qui a perdu l'un de ses livres. Après plusieurs jours de recherches infructueuses, alors qu'il est en train de manger une salade, il tourne la tête et aperçoit son livre qui traîne dans un coin. Plus tard, il rencontre un de ses amis qui se plaint d'avoir perdu toute sa garde-robe. «Ne t'inquiète pas, lui dit-il, va t'acheter une salade, mange-la, tourne la tête et regarde dans le coin, tu vas la retrouver.» »

... The main butts of Greek jokes turn out to be the scholasticos, i.e., the intellectuals, presented as eggheads, naive beings devoid of logic, bereft of any type of common sense, who understand everything widely off the mark. Example [from the Philogelos (The Friend of Laughter in ancient Greek), a compendium of 265 jokes]: "There's this intellectual who's lost one of his books. After several days of fruitless search, while eating a salad, he happens to turn his head and spot the book in a corner. Later, he meets a friend who complains of having lost his entire wardrobe. 'Do not worry,' he tells the friend, 'go buy yourself a salad, eat it, turn your head, look in the corner, and there you'll find it'."

• Grèce antique et blagues modernes de Macha Séry

• Les goliards, les rigolards du Moyen Age de Macha Séry

• Tribunal des flagrants délires sous Louis XIII de Macha Séry

• Rire sous la Terreur (French Revolution) de Macha Séry

• Les Arts incohérents, sérieux s'abstenir de Macha Séry

• C'est l'histoire de mecs et de nanas... (Coluche) de Macha Séry

Maybe he just Sees the Concept of a “Donation” Differently

See if you can find out what the political affiliation is of this politician accused of bunga-bunga with the 18 year old daughter of a campaign donor. He also has had quite a history, despite the social machine’s bogus rah-rah-ing him for being politically useful for his little more than his ethnicity, since there is no evidence of him ever having had any kind of platform outside of seeking earmarks.

A trace of the illusions, dreams, and ambitions that have dominated German thinking about Russia over the centuries can be seen in Merkel’s stance

How does the leader of an admirably democratic country offer a seeming endorsement to a presidential hopeful from an authoritarian state

asks John Vinocur (the most conservative commentator working for the New York Times) in the International Herald Tribune

— all the while knowing its top job will be decided privately and in advance?

Ask Angela Merkel. The chancellor let on at a German-Russian symposium in Hanover this week that her man in the Russian election next March is President Dmitri A. Medvedev.

At an annual event whose persistent coziness and lack of vigorous exchange — call it a tone of connivance — gets frequently targeted by the German news media, the Russian president was talking about academic titles when the word “candidate” popped into his remarks.

Mrs. Merkel snatched it up. No artful or subtle mention of the barriers to real political expression in Russia followed. Rather, the chancellor said, “Candidate — that’s lovely to hear.”

The meeting’s participants, according to one newspaper, grinned in unison. When it comes to how Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Mr. Medvedev decide between themselves who will be the Russian president, (they have said the country prefers a single candidate), the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote: “Merkel’s favorite’s name is Medvedev. Anyone who observed the chancellor relating to her guest couldn’t miss it.”

Or, with a little close reading, couldn’t overlook how very aware the Merkel government is of the embarrassing aspects of seeming to tighten links to Russia at a time when Moscow is about to demonstrate how far in the last decade it has retreated from democracy.

…there’s no immediately visible yield in backing Mr. Medvedev.

The chancellor seems to think he is a modernizer, but Mr. Putin is widely regarded as the most likely future president.

In all of this, the arguably greatest error in terms of international reality would be Mrs. Merkel’s appearing to suppose there is some major strategic differentiation between the two Russian leaders, and to cast Mr. Medvedev as a relatively benevolent force.

Is there a difference? While Mr. Medvedev was president, Russia invaded Georgia and, shortly afterward, he proclaimed the countries along Russian borders, in the manner of the Brezhnev doctrine, to be of vital “strategic interest.”

Under Mr. Medvedev’s leadership, Russia also designated NATO as the single greatest threat to its security, menaced eastern Europe with new missiles, and has refused to negotiate reducing Russian supremacy in tactical nuclear weapons in Europe.

A trace of the illusions, dreams and ambitions that have frequently dominated German thinking about Russia over the centuries could well be present in Mrs. Merkel’s current positioning.

An excellent book (not for beach reading), Der Russland-Komplex, looks into these issues. Its author, Gerd Koenen, has warned of recurring German delusions concerning Russia and said Germany was again an object of Russia’s “refreshed world ambitions.”

As a former East German, Mrs. Merkel’s personal view of Russia has been hard to track.

Since the Summer of 2010, Marseille Has Seen One Homicide After Another

Les policiers dépêchés sur les lieux du crime … ont trouvé son cadavre gisant sur le trottoir, le corps criblé d'une dizaine de balles, aux jambes, dans le dos et à la tête.

As the ever-lucid French keep giving lessons to the ever-clueless Yanks on the perils of owning guns and on the benefits of following the ever-visionary Europeans in their quest for an ever-vaster gun-free zone, Le Monde's Ariane Chemin looks into the story of a trophy wife who asked her lover (another politician's bodyguard) to hire a hitman (a counter-spy with France's secret service) to shoot her UMP husband (she finally had to try and do it herself) while Yves Bordenave reports in the French daily about how a gangster — yet another one — was gunned down in France's second-largest city.

Criminalité organisée

En l'espace de sept mois, Roland Gaben est le sixième malfrat abattu à Marseille, et le troisième lié à la criminalité organisée au cours des trois derniers mois. Avant lui, en avril, Saïd Tir, 60 ans - "le parrain des quartiers nord" -, et, début juillet, l'un de ses lieutenants, Akim Grabsi, 42 ans, avaient eux aussi été abattus dans des conditions à peu près similaires. Notoirement connus des policiers pour leur proximité avec l'ancien caïd Farid Berrhama, assassiné par des Corses en octobre 2007 au Bar des Maronniers, Saïd Tir et Akim Grabsi étaient, comme Berrhama, originaire de la région de l'étang de Berre.

Depuis l'été 2010, les homicides se succèdent dans la deuxième ville de France. Marseille semble être le théâtre de plusieurs guerres : celle sans répit auquel se livrent les voyous des cités pour le commerce de la drogue ; et une autre, celle du milieu traditionnel, dont Roland Gaben vient d'être victime, qui porte la marque du grand banditisme. A tous les coups, l'on meurt.

A Marseille, au cours des dix-huit derniers mois, 39 personnes, plus ou moins impliquées dans des trafics, ont subi le même sort que Roland Gaben.

"I never understood why some people destroyed my career, my life, insulted me while I was the victim"

TO some, she is a frail, tormented young woman who was preyed upon by an influential politician and well-known womanizer. To others, she is a publicity-seeking fantasist. To still others, she is a skillful manipulator who helped foment a plot against the Socialist Party.

Whether fairly or not, Tristane Banon … has become one of France’s most polarizing figures, even to some of her colleagues and friends

writes Maïa de la Baume in her article on the 32-year-old writer who contends that Dominique Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her in 2003.

For Ms. Banon herself, the complaint brought an end to years of indecision and turmoil. “It’s liberation,” she said in a phone interview. “It’s the most liberating and violent thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

…In [a L’Express] interview, Ms. Banon said the [DSK] episode destroyed her self-confidence, affected her relationships with men and hurt her chances to find work in journalism. “I never understood why some people destroyed my career, my life, insulted me while I was the victim,” she said.

…after the episode with Mr. Strauss-Kahn, she says she was branded with a reputation. Many in the French media world knew about her accusations against Mr. Strauss-Kahn and feared them, she said. She implied that she was a marked person. “I was hired at a radio station and then a month later, my boss would tell me abruptly that he couldn’t keep me anymore,” she said.

Damn Those Presbyterians!

Pix of the Near Distant Ago

SPON features a set of images of a disused Soviet military hospital in the Brandenburg town of Beelitz, a sanitarium in Oranienburg, and other abandoned structures in what was the DDR by Berlin photographer Axel Hansmann. Is it art or merely deliciously grim scenery?

"Needless to say, America's right is having a field day"

Pour la première fois depuis 1938, la droite s'est emparée du poste de gouverneur ainsi que de la majorité dans les deux Chambres locales. Autant dire qu'elle s'en donne à coeur joie.

So much for respect of the outcome of elections. In Corine Lesnes' Le Monde articles on Scott Walker and the situation in Wisconsin, we are treated to social "traditions" that "date to the Roosevelt era" while members of the left are duly "motivated" while the right — and the Tea Party — are, needless to say, behaving irresponsibly.

Scott Walker n'aurait été qu'un gouverneur parmi d'autres, aux prises avec la crise budgétaire, s'il ne s'était attaqué aux syndicats. A la faveur du passage du budget, il a aboli le droit de négocier par conventions collectives dans la fonction publique, un acquis datant de 1959. "Il a changé fondamentalement cette idée que les syndicats de fonctionnaires ont le droit d'exister", considère le professeur Charles Franklin, de l'université du Wisconsin à Madison, capitale de l'Etat.

Sentant le danger, les organisations de gauche se sont mobilisées, et le Wisconsin est devenu une cause nationale, l'emblème du bras de fer historique qui oppose démocrates et républicains sur le modèle social à l'heure de la crise. "Le Wisconsin a toujours été pionnier pour les conventions collectives, pour les indemnités-chômage, rappelle Peter Barca, chef de file des démocrates à l'Assemblée. Tout le pays nous observe. Les gens se disent : si on peut changer les droits syndicaux dans le Wisconsin, on peut le faire n'importe où."
.
…"Ces élections vont changer le débat jusqu'à Washington, assure Charles Chamberlain, de Democracy for America, une association nationale venue aider les militants locaux. Les républicains, où qu'ils soient, ne seront plus si pressés de toucher aux programmes sociaux s'ils s'aperçoivent de la réaction violente qu'ils engendrent."

From the Obama-loving newspaper, we are treated to the description of a statesman (Scott Walker, needless to say, not Barack Obama) as a politician "without much experience" ("M. Walker, ancien élu local sans grande expérience") and to healthy doses of paranoia about the Koch brothers without apparently noticing the irony in the fact that in the very next paragraphs we learn — but here vast amounts of money from out-of-state is apparently a good thing — that thousands upon thousands of dollars have been spent on recall elections by MoveOn and the AFL-CIO, etc…

Johnny Hallyday is as French as the baguette, and he has been singing for more than 50 years

It is hard to explain the place [JOHNNY HALLYDAY] has in French life

muses Steven Erlanger from Paris about the French rocker, now 68, who "has survived three previous marriages, kidney stones, a bout with colon cancer and [a] bungled operation on his spine" along with "a couple of suicide attempts, and even an effort at retirement."

— he has done more than 100 tours, sold more than 100 million records, made 47 studio albums and 26 live ones. He has been on more than 2,100 magazine covers, and his Wikipedia entry in French is longer than Jesus Christ’s.

Johnny Hallyday is as French as the baguette, and he has been singing for more than 50 years, bringing Elvis rhythms, energy and glitter to a culture steeped in ballads.

…IN Los Angeles, at least, where he went in part to escape high French taxes, his children are untouched by his celebrity, since few Americans outside the music world know who he is.

Remembering Past Hissy Fits

Remember those endless, repetitious, screamed-hoarse blubbering about the US not having a victory or a postwar plan in Iraq, when in fact they did? We were led to believe that lefties, should they be “forced” to fight a war, and it wouldn’t be “of choice” would at least get that part right.

Wars of choice, however, are fundamentally different. They are normally undertaken for reasons that do not involve obvious self-defense of the United States or an ally.

Fast forward to the truth. Libya is not a war “of choice”. Worse still, Europeans are trying to run it. There is no apparent plan to win, and postwar planning seems to be limited to “you’re on your own, kid - now cough up that light-sweet Brent grade crude”.

In theory, this would all have been worked out before NATO intervened, thus taking ownership of the outcome. And it's possible that someone, somewhere planned all this out. But, if they did, they've been awfully quiet about it.

Elsewhere: an excellent data source is found for the “dead hippy index”.

"German society is changing and it's not easy to be a naturist anymore," said Kurt Fischer, president of the German FKK association (DFK). There are some 500,000 registered nudists and a total of seven million Germans sunbathe naked regularly.

"But the numbers are unfortunately falling by about two percent each year," Fischer told a group of reporters in the Foreign Press Association (VAP) while sitting, fully clothed, at a beach bar in Berlin's government quarter. "Times are tough."

The main problem is the shrinking population, Fischer said.

Aside from a still fetid river cum canal, Berlin’s government district (as if that didn’t describe their whole society), is far enough away from a tropical beach (Club Med Libya, perchance?) to make this look about as silly as most impromptu press events in Germany.

And WHO makes all of those Solar Panels ?

They would sell their Grandmother for a nickel.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has advised the Greeks to invest more in solar energy to overcome the crisis.

FAZ called him „Sonnyboy Schäuble” for this. I say start singing “Danny Boy” for a continent if they’re going to keep attitudes like that.

Need Some Comic Relief?

Just wait for some Russian scientist (seeking attention) to open his mouth.

Europe: A Paradise for Social Pyromaniacs

Of course no explanation is ever given to bombastic claims like this:

Lack of women in top jobs to cause 'problems' for EU economy

But the well subsidized crow seems to have no problem with threats:

The commissioner said that come March next year she will look to see whether companies have made a "clear, precise and measurable evolution" towards greater gender balance within their walls.

"If yes, there will be no need for European legislation. If no, we will have a problem with the internal market," said the commissioner explaining that major companies who work across the EU will be confronted with different national laws on women quotas.

The Luxembourgeoise, whose only real job outside of government was “journalism” while in various parliamentary posts went on to prattle on about ‘the boardroom’, as if that’s where the economy really was. Really, it’s the imagined prize of getting power quick that the boardroom obsession, the one that assumes that the internal operation of private entities are under the rule of the state.

The commissioner, who wants to boost female boardroom positions to 30 percent by 2015 and to 40 percent by 2020, said she is "completely supported" by internal market commissioner Michel Barnier.

Who is used in this context as if he was an advocate of getting the albatross off from around the neck of business. He isn’t. He’s a Commisariat type like Reding, indifferent about them or anyone else being generous with other people’s resources. They’d all join in to buy off some dickless votes anyway.

She is supported by the EU parliament, which earlier this month said Brussels should make such quotas mandatory. An EU law in an area dealing with employment and social policy is likely to be controversial among member states, however.

The threatening tone is borne out of disappointment at the public not doing what’s “being asked”. So it’s no more Mr. Nice Guy for Viviane’s pet issue of female cronyism that uses government as an enforcing thug.

Although Reding has been increasingly vocal about her campaign, to date only seven companies have signed up to the public pledge, up and running since March.

A Pause for Poesy

In fact it’s all about beef

Terribly upset.
It is my birthday today.
No one gave me beef.

"Incoming, small arms fire!"

Frédéric Bobin files a Le Monde story from Afghanistan's Honaker-Miracle Base, named after two U.S. soldiers who lost their lives in combat.Needless to say, it reflects leftist, pacifist tendencies…

Les soldats Christopher Honaker et Joseph Miracle, tombés au combat, ont donné leur nom à cet avant-poste américain butant sur les marches du massif de l'Abas Ghar au coeur de la province de Kunar, dans l'Est afghan, tout proche de la frontière avec le Pakistan.

…Silence, solitude et adversité. La bannière étoilée flotte sur l'enclos de bunkers et barbelés cerné de "hescos", ces paniers en treillage métallique bourrés de cailloux faisant office de fortifications. Au pied du mât, des stèles funéraires égrènent soixante-dix patronymes, soixante-dix gars du Colorado, du Tennessee ou de l'Ohio, morts au nom de la "guerre contre la terreur". Dans quelques jours, la liste s'allongera.

Feminist Pork: Women who make domestic violence accusations are not required to produce evidence and are never prosecuted for perjury if they lie

For 30 years, the feminists have been pretending that their goal is to abolish all sex discrimination, eliminating all gender differences no matter how reasonable

writes Phyllis Schlafly in her article on the "feminists' determination to punish men, guilty or innocent" and on the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), whose billion-dollar-a-year price tag is "spent by the radical feminists to pursue their ideology and goals (known as feminist pork)".

When it comes to domestic violence, however, feminist dogma preaches that there is an innate gender difference: Men are naturally batterers, and women are naturally victims (i.e., gender profiling).

Starting with its title, VAWA is just about as sex discriminatory as legislation can get. It is written and implemented to oppose the abuse of women and to punish men.

…Currently used definitions of domestic violence that are unacceptably trivial include calling your partner a naughty word, raising your voice, causing "annoyance" or "emotional distress," or just not doing what your partner wants. The law's revision should use an accurate definition of domestic violence that includes violence, such as: "any act or threatened act of violence, including any forceful detention of an individual, which results or threatens to result in physical injury."

Women who make domestic violence accusations are not required to produce evidence and are never prosecuted for perjury if they lie. Accused men are not accorded fundamental protections of due process, not considered innocent until proven guilty and in many cases are not afforded the right to confront their accusers.

Legal assistance is customarily provided to women but not to men. Men ought to be entitled to equal protection of the law because many charges are felonies and could result in prison and loss of money, job and reputation.

…Feminist [lobbying — on the taxpayers' dime —] has resulted in laws calling for mandatory arrest (i.e., the police must arrest someone -- guess who) of the predominant aggressor (i.e., ignore the facts and assume the man is the aggressor) and no-drop prosecution (i.e., prosecute the man even if the woman has withdrawn her accusation or refuses to testify).

…The way the Duke lacrosse players' reputations and college education were destroyed is typical of feminist control of university attitudes. The prosecutor who falsely accused the men was disbarred, but there were no sanctions against the professors and college administrators who rushed to public judgment against the guys.

Merkel’s dwindling interest in foreign policy: Together, the chancellor and Westerwelle have weakened Germany’s international standing

The slump in the popularity of [Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle] and the Free Democrats is bad news for [Chancellor Angela Merkel], especially when the Christian Democratic Union is also smarting after big setbacks in recent regional elections

writes Judy Dempsey (while, in an unrelated story, Michael Kimmelman discusses the latest revelations regarding the "dark secrets" linked to Adolf Eichmann's post-war escape to Argentina.)

For Germany, Mr. Westerwelle’s weakness is compounded by Mrs. Merkel’s dwindling interest in foreign policy at a time when Europe is in desperate need of strong leadership to deal with the immense changes sweeping across the Middle East. Together, say analysts, Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Westerwelle have weakened Germany’s international standing.

In March, they snubbed their French, British and U.S. allies by abstaining in a U.N. Security Council vote authorizing a no-flight zone over Libya. “It was the wrong decision. It damaged Germany’s reputation as a reliable ally,” said Elmar Brok, a European Parliament lawmaker and leading foreign policy expert in Mrs. Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union party.

“The point is that Germany did not bring anyone else along,” said Heather Grabbe, E.U. expert and director of the Open Society Institute in Brussels, which promotes democracy and human rights. “Maybe it was a justified decision but there was no strong moral argument communicated either to the domestic audience or Germany’s E.U. partners.”

…With Europe confronted with upheaval in the Middle East, a continuing war in Afghanistan and unresolved issues in the Balkans, Germany can ill afford a weak foreign minister.

“Germany has often acted as a moral conscience of Europe in foreign policy,” said Ms. Grabbe. “To play that role, Germany’s foreign minister has to take a lead and articulate the foreign policy dilemmas facing all of Europe.”

It was Mrs. Merkel who tried to do just that during her first term as Chancellor from 2005 to 2009. She repaired the rift between Berlin and Washington after former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, a Social Democrat, had opposed the U.S invasion of Iraq. With Russia and France, he established an anti-war “alliance” which in turn deeply divided NATO and the European Union

Mrs. Merkel also became a beacon for human rights campaigners in Russia, China and Iran by speaking out for the values of an independent news media and basic civil and human rights.

But since being re-elected, she has shown scant interest in foreign policy. It is the euro crisis and the future of nuclear energy that have monopolized her time, leaving little time even for fundamental issues like the war in Afghanistan or the Arab revolutions.

No Surprise at all: Statists’ Personal Priorities Coming Before the Public Good

It’s that all-important quality of life thing that matters I guess. If you can count yourself among the elite.

economists, such as Commerzbank's Christoph Weil, do not rule out a spontaneous market event, such as one or two top private investors moving out of Ireland, Italy, Portugal or Spain and causing wider panic.

So I guess the solution (to whatever) needs to be more Europe not less Europe, but only when a power-grab is possible. Otherwise it’s all one big sunny “slow food” movement.

Amid a "clear risk" of potentially seismic events in the eurozone and the Arab world in the next six weeks, EU institutions will drop to staff levels of just 20 percent as officials go on holiday, limiting their capacity to react.

Unaware of the concept of irony, the piece goes on:

Amid the common perception that the EU sleeps in August, institutions will have four major crisis-monitoring centres running 24/7. The biggest one, the Joint Situation Centre, keeps half its staff in place during holidays.

...despite “the situation”, chaos will know when to strike.