…to the simply smashing
Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…
Monday, April 11, 2005
BBC's "Talking Point": just looking for something to talk about
One panelists was trying to build his "secularist cred" when he averred that "the US is a religious regime" and that George Bush is the "biggest fundamentalist"... So too with this notion that corrupt Arab regimes are all the creation of the United States.
They presented the usual ridiculous, even self-delusional notions. And to a European audience which has been largely seduced by it, merely more red meat.
What one saw none of was actual analysis or reflection. None at ALL. How VERY rare it is to see an Arab commenter actually not say that some negative event is the cause of their own action, or that of their countrymen, co-religionist, or fellow Arab. They are in the cultural straight they're in because of this very dwelling on the notion that everything flaw in the universe is somebody else's fault. The cultural norm is a textbook case of learned helplessness.
Don't you think it's emotionally convenient that the one-at-fault always seems to be a group of people who would otherwise be the object of some envy? Either in the civility, efficiency, or economic success of their society or sub-culture? A brief look at the hate spewed by many Arabs even on the house of Saud confirms this.
Rami Khouri, an erudite and articulate editor of The Daily Star, and english languge
Beirut daily put forward thay there HAVE been generations of Arabs calling for democracy and pluralism. There certainly were, and one could virtually count them on your hand. They learned this in the west that their children now hate, and many were either shot or deported. They expressed that sentiment where they could - in north and south America.
How arrorgant it was when he said that this grand history of 'calling' for democracy should be cause to "call Bush's Bluff" on wanting to promote pluralism by way of a chain reaction and social change which permits a new generation to act. He is clearly not bluffing. There would have been a great deal more hesitation in the start of the Cedar Revolution were it not for George Bush's consistency and clarity. They knew he would neither talk it down or indulge in failed "realpolitik" with the tyrants running Syria - not just because of its' basic wrongness, but because it would give the Syrians a way to stay in Lebanon and retaliate by themselves or through their proxies.
I'm sure the BBC's panel and the middle-minded who can't face how wrong they've been would still find a way to disparage "the other" for it. Turn around, and you will find the same disparagement of Europeans, but only when they aren't there to hear it.
It is the childish act of sticking ones' tongue out knowing that Americans and Europeans will not call them on it - nothing more.
The most perplexing thing to President Bush's opponents is that he isn't bluffing, and that's why things are changing. He does what he says, and gives his reasons for doing it. I'm sure they would be more comfortable with the evasions and double-talk that they've been used to, but I find it childish and hypocritical to look down their noses at straight talk and transparency for little more than their own emotional satisfaction.
It is after all, like many leftist pursuits in the west, the sign of a problem of the individual so wrapped up in the attitude of a group that can't perceive the wrongness of many thing and don't think much further in time than their immediate urges will let them, and certainly not any longer than their own lives.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Sickly suckers for suffering
An excellent quote from an evening with the Tory International Man of Mystery:«Jesus? To most Europeans he's just, like,... a nice guy... right up there with Ghandi, maybe even, I don't know, Nelson Mandela...»
Slander of an Idea by Association
To see how it works, here is an example:
«Le Pen Calls for EU Constitution Rejection!»
Never mind this from The Guardian:
«For the Socialist Party, the referendum has laid bare bitter divisions.»Or this from the Glaswegan Sunday Herald:
«Plastered on the walls of apartment buildings, carefully arranged in the corners of shop windows and slapped in sticker form on lamp-posts and traffic lights: around the Pernety quarter of Paris – a mixed neighbourhood behind Montparnasse railway station – the “no” campaign has been hard at work.»Tired yet?
| Zeropa is still tilting at windmills | La Zéropa contre les moulins à vent |
| European sensitivity. A non-entity very much in fashion these days with New York latté panty-wastes showing off their Emmanuel Todd books where the elite-meet-to-eat. As Spain celebrates the 400 years since the writing of Don Quixote, French intellectuals latch on to one more dusty Zeropean relic in a madcap attempt to revive a European dream that was already dead when Spain handed its election over to Al-Qaeda. With European political integration now in full reverse mode, | La sensibilité européenne. Un non-sens très à la mode ces jours-ci avec des pédaloïdes new-yorkais fortunés qui friment en lisant Emmanuel Todd dans les derniers salons où l'on parle. Tandis que, l'Espagne fête les 400 ans depuis l'écriture de Don Quichotte les zintellos franchouilles s'agrippent à une énième bricole zéropéenne poussièreuse dans une tentative loufoque de redonner un souffle à ce rêve zéropéen qui était déjà mort-né au moment où les électeurs espingouins avaient cédé leur place à Al-Qaida. L'intégration politique de l'Europe fait désormais marche arrière, mais |
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| The French are a bunch of fruits anyway | Vu de l'Ukraine, toute l'histoire française n'est qu'un navet |
| The French accuse the US of squeezing Ukrainian democracy like a grapefruit. Instead, they should ask themselves what France has to offer the Ukraine. Nothing. Eastern European countries are not about to forget how the French have always sucked up to communist regimes. | Les fwançais prétendent que les Etats-unis pressent la démocratie ukrainienne comme un citron. Ils ferait mieux de se demander ce qu'ils ont, eux, à proposer aux ukrainiens. Rien. Les pays de l'Europe de l'Est ne sont prêts d'oublier comment la Fwance a toujours eu un béguin pour les régimes communistes. |
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Saturday, April 09, 2005
The vessel of Euro-lefty hopes
World class caring and loving socialism, world class healthcare...
«I am sure that Venezuelans are really excited to see what they can expect in just a few short years!»
hat-tip: John Ray
The Guardian: «The NHS is turning to Cuba for inspiration on how to improve its services. Officials from the Department of Heath and 100 GPs visited the Caribbean island which, despite being short of medicines and money after decades of a US-led economic embargo, manages to deliver excellent healthcare at a fraction of our cost.»
The Toronto Star: «.In Cuba today, people with HIV are guaranteed access to free medical care. And nobody can be fired from their jobs because they are carrying the virus. There is clearly a strong commitment on the part of the political leadership in Cuba to undertake a wide-ranging and comprehensive HIV/AIDS action plan - domestically as well as internationally, as part of Cuba's activist foreign policy.»
Which they should, given that their soldiers in Africa where the ones banging the Spider Monkeys. The problem is the young Chomskybots who cant register reality of Castros human warehouse and crimes against humanity.
The Krugman double lindy
It's been a really entertaining to watch the spiraling intellectual decline of Paul Krugman.
Besides, wouldn't most conservative scientist try to start their own enterprise or do strictly praxis type real-life work in industry anyway instead of dealing with a horde of loopy 19 year olds?
From our comment section we’ve found one of his fellow travelers. We all know that his limited vision channeled through seeing a band in a club certainly is enough to provide a complete guide to life and the way of the world:
Not much is happening everywhere you find Socialistic practices and lefty though not having any sort of balance or complement. It’s a death cult of sorts, making a earthly utopia for only one generation…
Rich Tucker exposes Krugman's inability to identify the obvious:
Then again there's also Krugman's nutty idea that Conservatives don't make good scientists and, ergo, shouldn't teach. The Harvard Larry Summers kerfuffle reveals that he may be partly right - conservatives refuse to stomp out in a huff in the face of impiricism, and don't see much use in pandering to committee and review panels of non-scientists who want to do things like find genetic determination for gayness but not reproduction, or that there's a stupidity determinant which is only found in their political opponents. hm. Real science...«A favorite game in my house is called “Piggyback Ride.” One of my boys hops on my back, and we attempt to frighten their mother, who convincingly calls out, “Oh, I’m so scared.”
She’s just pretending.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman isn’t. He’s really frightened that conservatives … may start killing liberals.»
Besides, wouldn't most conservative scientist try to start their own enterprise or do strictly praxis type real-life work in industry anyway instead of dealing with a horde of loopy 19 year olds?
From our comment section we’ve found one of his fellow travelers. We all know that his limited vision channeled through seeing a band in a club certainly is enough to provide a complete guide to life and the way of the world:
Et les ricains, je connais un trés bon groupe de punk-rock allemand qui s'appel Spermbirds. Vous devriez un peu l'écouter, ça vous déboucherait le cerveau et vous ouvrirait l'esprit.Mmm – no illumination there, the Klansmen went after Republicans and Catholics with the same spring-in-their-step as they did with black people who refused to submit to their forcedul proscriptive social policies. The kind of thing the left, guys like Democratic (the left) Party Senator Robert Byrd might force on your beloved 'sheeple.' Plus, I dont think you'll really illuminate anyone with that tune, but it does sound like you just learned a new ‘knock-knock’ joke. Nonetheless, I don't think there are roving bands of Marines herding innocent Europeans up and force feeding them McDo...
Mais c'est vrai qu'il est facile de pointer du doigt les néo-nazis (que je ne cautionne en aucun cas), quand chez soi on a le taux de morts par armes à feux le plus élevé du monde. Et surtout n'oublions le KKK, ah oui c'est vrai c'est du folklore...
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C'est quoi ces sites anti-français et anti-européens ?
Messieurs Mesdammes les ricains et autres crevures capitalistico-impérialistes, je vous pisse à la raie.
Not much is happening everywhere you find Socialistic practices and lefty though not having any sort of balance or complement. It’s a death cult of sorts, making a earthly utopia for only one generation…
A ‘What, Me Worry?’ view of the future
«On housing, Mr Delanoë pledged at his election to reintegrate the Parisian population by buying up luxury properties, mainly in up-market areas of Paris, and making them available at lower rents to poorer tenants. This he has done by buying up properties in the west and centre of the city and thus making several hundred new apartments available as moderate rent dwellings, or HLMs (Habitations à Loyer Modéré), although this has not been welcomed by all the current residents, who accuse him of pointless social engineering. He says that this policy will reverse the trend of poorer people, especially younger families, abandoning the city altogether as well as reintegrating the city population, a policy already practiced in other European cities such as Munich.»«His policy is based on the ‘Law for Solidarity and Urban Renewal’, passed by France’s Socialist Government in 2000, which makes it compulsory for communes of more than 50,000 people to have rent controls in at least 20 per cent of the housing stock by 2020. The aim is to standardise the principal of ‘social variation’, and prevent neighbourhoods slipping into either very rich or very poor ghettos. Mr Delanoe applies this law to each of the 20 arrondissements (districts) of Paris, which vary between 30 per cent social housing to one per cent. He wants to make the obligatory minimum threshold of 20 per cent apply evenly across the whole of the city.»
All one can be sure of is that rent control REDUCES the quantity, quality, and diversity of the housing stock. What property owner would invest a cent into a rent-controlled building other than to keep it from being condemned? The south Bronx that became so famous for looking like West Beirut circa 1983 is a result of those ‘progressive’ rent control policies. While the do-gooders look at capitalism as being inequitable, the socialistic policies promise to be permanently inequitable.
What else would you expect from a pillow-biting, evolutionary dead-ender? There really is no ‘next generation’ to really worry about if you won’t or can’t have kids. If one only wants to project ones’ feelings on the young, and don’t care about their lives in anything other than an aesthetic way, then who cares?
The only way to guarantee ‘removing social variation’ is to make everyone miserable, and give the poor no way UP and OUT of poverty. Nor does anyone have a way to ‘slum’ in a low rent district while saving up or striving at a new business.
Economist Thomas Sowell has addressed many of the silly old saw policies in specific. They are things like height restriction and excessive environmental regulation which have the effect of reducing housing supply, raising the cost imposed on the builder, and thus the buyer – with no rendered addition of quality or value.
To quote Sowell who was reflecting on similar policies:«As the realtors say, the three big factors in housing prices are location, location and location. In California, and probably some other places, there are three other big factors -- liberals, liberals and liberals. [note: in American English a ‘liberal’ means a ‘leftist’]
Liberals love to have the government do nice things -- without the slightest regard for the costs or the consequences. Greenery is nice. Open space is nice. It is nice to have buildings that are not too tall. There are all sorts of nice requirements you can put on builders before granting them permits to build.
There is no cash register ringing as the costs of all these nice things keep adding up. It is all done with a wave of the government's magic wand. Not having added up any of these costs, liberals are then shocked and outraged when they discover that apartment rents are stratospheric and housing prices astronomical.»
Other’s still have looked closely and done the non-PC thing of questioning the un-named notion of ‘smart growth’ planning which effectively creates miniature elitist faux-towns where environmental restriction and forced aesthetics are the rule, (again with an effect on the time lying fallow before building) which forces up the cost and means that the only way the developer can break even is to build luxury units.
It gets worse – a study conducted in California looked into the actual effect of forcing developers to build moderate-priced housing as a condition to permitting them to build at all. It took over 20.000 housing units off of the market while adding 384 of the programmed ‘moderate price’ units. Be warned – reducing supply is WHY rents and houses in California are costly in spite of large quantities of land, just as it is in any European city. What do they have in common? It’s the feel-good regulation, stupid.
But what the hell, eh? If you can’t have kids, and don’t care about anyone else’s kids, there IS no future.
| and of course, CBS runs to l'AFP with the story | quelle surprise, CBS court se cacher dans les jupons de AFP pour pleurnicher |
| Too bad he wasn't killed on the spot. | Dommage qu'il ne soit pas zigouillé sur le champ. |
Worse than Russia under Brezhnev…
On Thursday, a guest on a Canal + talk show said that America under Bush was worse than the Soviet Union under Brezhnev.
I am not positive who the celebrity speaking was (at the exact moment that I turned on the set, the host was repeating what he had just heard); it may have been Jean-Marc Barr or Jennifer Ayache, but I think it was Tariq Abdul Wahad.
In this, the Descartesian nation of debate, no person, needless to say, rose to express even a limited sense of contradiction. Or even to ask whether the Poles, to take an example of people directly concerned by the Soviet leader, were likely to agree with the statement.
I am not positive who the celebrity speaking was (at the exact moment that I turned on the set, the host was repeating what he had just heard); it may have been Jean-Marc Barr or Jennifer Ayache, but I think it was Tariq Abdul Wahad.
In this, the Descartesian nation of debate, no person, needless to say, rose to express even a limited sense of contradiction. Or even to ask whether the Poles, to take an example of people directly concerned by the Soviet leader, were likely to agree with the statement.
Friday, April 08, 2005
Do Like Us, and Give Peace a Chance…
Why can't those clueless Americans listen to pacifist Europeans like Zapatero, and make the world a safer place by refraining from turning to violence and refraining from choosing the (outdated) military option?…
And then there was the one about…
Bill Clinton and the Pope die on the same day, but a mixup in the afterlife paperwork sends them to the wrong places: the Pope goes to hell and Bill goes to heaven…
In these other, independent, jokes, we hear what happens after the mix-up is corrected, and the Pope ends up in Heaven while Bill ends up in hell… (The first time I heard the latter, it was about Dubya heading to Hades, and the role of Jesse Jackson was taken by Clinton himself…)
Necro Heckling for fun and profit
«Elsewhere, in a swirl of Rothmans smoke that announced to the world after only one draft that "we have a loon," scatterbrained contrarian Christopher Hitchens appeared on the balcony of Slate and began channelling the sectarian snobberies he learned in England long ago. The programmatic gist of his urbi et orbi was the recrudescence of good old fashioned anti-Catholicism. I'm not talking about slightly suspicious Masonic provincialism either but the Giant Rosary For The Statue of Liberty stuff from the days of yore. The Kennedy brothers - part of "a cabal" - were Catholics, you see, and so were the Diems of Vietnam and - *sips scotch* - something something something... For most of the article I felt as though the reader was lying on his back next to Hitchens, both looking skywards as the great man tried to point out the cloud that looks just like Senator Joe McCarthy.
It began with the disturbing enjoyment many zealots around the Western world took in the death of Terri Schiavo.»
Hilarious
| Zee pozitive attitude | |
| A hilarious attempt by Raffarin to chat in English and support the European Constitution at the same time: 'Win the yes need the no to win against the no'. | Hilarante tentative de Raffarin de causer en anglais et de soutenir en même temps le 'Oui' à la constitution européenne: 'ouine Zee yes neede Zee No tou ouine auh gain Ze no'. |
| Faut voir leurs gueules longues comme des pissotières |
| En désuète Ripoublika Franska, les pédés l'ont dans le culte. |
Be Not Afraid
From “The Best of the Web”, a story originating from the IHT which would never appear on the BBC’s “Have Your Say” section under something like “The Pope: your memories…” George Weigel, the theologian who produced John Paul II's masterful authorized biography "Witness to Hope," has a new slender volume out that addresses Europe's sickness of the soul. In "The Cube and the Cathedral," Weigel begins with a series of questions that limn the problem: 
In a corner of the [train] station, she sat. Nobody looked at her, a girl in the striped and numbered uniform of a prisoner, late in a terrible war. Unable to move, Edith waited.
Death was approaching, but a young man approached first, "very good looking," as she recalled, and vigorous. He wore a long robe and appeared to the girl to be a priest. "Why are you here?" he asked. "What are you doing?"
Edith said she was trying to get to Krakow to find her parents.
The man disappeared. He came back with a cup of tea. Edith drank. He said he could help her get to Krakow. Again, the mysterious benefactor went away, returning with bread and cheese. . . .
"Try to stand," the man said. Edith tried--and failed. The man carried her to another village, where he put her in the cattle car of a train bound for Krakow. Another family was there. The man got in beside Edith, covered her with his cloak, and set about making a small fire.
His name, he told Edith, was Karol Wojtyla. . . .
I do not know what moved this young seminarian to save the life of a lost Jewish girl.-That was no mere display, it was a passion for the support of life and a defiance of the devil. It was a matter of morality, not a “those were the days” things. Evil was as real then as it is now. So what to make of our actions? American commentator Mona Charen touched on it in a recent column pointing out that we are faking our emotions as we’ve seen with the impersonal outpourings for a pop-culture type like Princess Diana, but are at something of a loss when we deal with the death of a man who every action and reminder point to a well developed relationship with moral precept:Culture, Weigel argues, determines civilization. Without its distinctly Christian history, Europe would not be what it is. To cite just one example, Weigel recalls the 11th century "investiture" controversy between Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII. The pope won, and the victory established an important principle that would have profound consequences for the development of what would later be called "civil society." The principle established was that the state "would not occupy every inch of social space."
She also quotes Weigel thus:
«What accounts for disturbing currents of irrationality in contemporary European politics? Why did one of every five Germans (and one third of those under 30) believe that the United States was responsible for 9-11, while some 300,000 French men and women made a best-seller out of 'The Appalling Fraud,' in which author Thierry Meyssan argued that the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed by the U.S. military.»
Hey look! It's «Hitler on ice!»
... and NDP crackheads will be dressed up in Penguin suits...
Base residents: meet your new neighbor.
Adulating in good old fashioned ignorant cultural hatred, the German skinhead NDP party is setting up it’s national hatred center (presumably to dress up like a beer hall and play “let’s putsch, leibschen” right next to a US military family housing area.
Un-freaking-glaulich. David’s Medienkritik reports.
From *spit* their statement:
Un-freaking-glaulich. David’s Medienkritik reports.
From *spit* their statement:
«"On the occasion of the separation of the USA from Great Britain on the 4 of July (so-called Independence Day) we plan on Sunday evening, July 2, 2005 to inaugurate our liberated zone with a large anti-American culture festival.»
«Motto: "No to slavery, the rule of money and imperialism: Dissolve the USA now!" Further major events are planned."»
They must be so proud of themselves - spewing hate on the spouses and children of American service personnel, and spouses and children of civilian DoD employees - many of whom are German. As a frienf told me: they stick their tongues out at American citizens knowing that they won't return the hostility. Brave, very brave.
Never mind the fact that they are so arrogant, narcissistic, and self-centered that they think that they have the right to dissolve a nation becuase of their precious little feelings.
Can you imagine that – neo-nazis supremacist types tch-tching ANYONE about capitalism, and accusing the US of having slavery and being imperialistic. Who were those people in the Koncentrationslagern?, and why where they there nearly a century after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation? They’re truly grasping at straws to find a popular issue. They think they may have found one in the ubiquitous anti-americanism in Germany, but may find themselves linking German Anti-Americanism to Neo-Mazism itself. Fine – knock yourself out, arsheleckern.
Hop on over to Medienkritik and read the whole thing.
| Race to the bottom | Même face, même race |
| Paris race riots are nothing new. It's just getting harder for the press to cover them up. Riots in nearby suburbs routinely go unreported and those that are reported quickly vanish down the memory hole. In early 2001 gangs erupted during a weekend afternoon in the shopping center of the 'La Défense' business district and fought with knives and axes. Although the event was reported at the time, the French | Les émeutes raciales autour de Paris ne constituent pas un phénomène nouveau. Il est juste plus difficile pour la presse aux ordres de les ignorer. Les émeutes en proche banlieue ne sont pas mentionnées et celles dont les bruits arrivent jusqu'à la presse nationale s'y évaporent aussitôt. Un weekend du début 2001, des bandes rivales ont surgi en plein jour aux Quatres-Temps de la Défense, où ils ont livré bataille avec des haches et des couteaux. Bien que l'incident ait trouvé un certain écho à l'époque, la |
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Understanding Iraq in a Nutshell
Reporting on the new developments at the head of Iraq, Le Monde's main article describes a country "at war" while the editorial laments "Iraq's chaotic situation, in which violence has not let up since the end of the American war". Apparently, there was no violence before the onset of the "American" war, and the situation at the time (i.e., when Iraq was not "at war") was in no way chaotic. As for Courrier International, that weekly shows, with this week's title ("Iraq after two years of occupation"), how much the lucid French have understood about Iraq and on the feelings and viewpoints of its inhabitants…
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