Happy Ramadan, man !!!

Straight talk

Kouchner to French preSS correspondants: with regards to Iran, if the word "war" scares you, I won't use it anymore. That doesn't mean that bombs won't be involved somehow.

What's Behind the Straight Talk

The new French "firmness" begins with a terminological overhaul

writes André Glucksman.

It rejects euphemisms and linguistic taboos. If there is a risk of war, it should not be euphemized. Rather, it should be clearly stated and talked about, precisely to stop any escalation, before reaching the "catastrophic alternative."

… Essentially, Kouchner has invited the Europeans to go beyond Moscow's stalling maneuvers at the UN, if necessary. It is said that when the wise man points to the moon, imbeciles only see his finger. When Kouchner talks about "war," many Europeans feel that it is a dirty word fired like a handgun into the subdued atmosphere of respectful negotiations.

Speaking of "the implacable strategy of the scorched population", Glucksman goes on to point out that

We think we know what we are talking about when we speak of "insurgents" and "Iraqization," but we err.

The Spanish guerrilla war against Napoleon, the resistance against Hitler and the anti-colonial insurgencies were first and foremost directed against a foreign army, secondly against "collaborators" and lastly and only sporadically against the people in order to mobilize them by intimidation.

In Iraq, the order of the targets is inversed. American troops are no longer the priority targets. The Americans lost 3,700 of their own in four years. During each of the "hot months" though, over 3,000 Iraqis lost their lives, mainly women and children, blown to pieces not by Americans but by the so-called insurgents. The Americans' frustration is due to the fact that they are facing an adversary who can kill as many of their own as they like, indefinitely, true to the motto "the more of our own we kill, the more you loose."

…Today, homicidal and suicidal bombers are creating the implacable strategy of the scorched population. This is neither a resistance against an invader nor even a civil war, but, more diabolically, a war against the civilian population.

None of this moves the Iranian mullahs, who, through the "moderate" former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, have declared themselves willing to sacrifice 15 million of their own for the theological glory of eradicating the Zionist entity, the necessary sine qua non for the universal hunting down of all crusaders and infidels.

The sacrifice of one's own and oneself, the systematic self destruction of a whole people, are not a new and unknown pathology in history. However, none of these butchers, in their fury, had our modern nuclear toys at their disposal.

To recognize this reality is to recognize why Kouchner was right to talk of war.

Bof, on est tellement mieux avec la variétoche franchouille de merde style Voulzy

Led Zeppelin, live in Paris, June 1969 ...

The Aborigines are Behaving as Badly as ever

I demand a two-state solution:

Geneva - Racism in France is "alive, pernicious and most of its victims are French citizens from visible minorities, not immigrants," the UN's independent expert on minority issues said on Monday.
"Because of the colour of their skin, their religion, their surname or their address, these young people in France see no chance of social mobility" said Gay J McDougall, after a ten-day visit to the country.

Why One Marine Supports the War

Marco Martinez explains the five reasons why he supports the war in Iraq. (They are good enough for me…)

Liberals often like to say that "violence is senseless."

That’s wrong.

Violence isn't senseless. Senseless violence is senseless.

Pegasus Prepares for Project 65

The Normandy bridges linking Ranville to Bénouville were the objective of the British 6th Airborne glider infantry, six of whose gliders landed noiselessly shortly after midnight on D-Day, i.e., six to seven hours before the actual seaborne landings started on June 6, 1944.

Two years to go, and already the Brits are planning to celebrate the 65th anniversary of Pegasus Bridge with Project 65.

Blackwater to the rescue

When the going gets tough, the private sector gets going.

Music to the ears of the left and their preconceived notions about poverty, crime, and military service in America

Jesse MacBeth's answer was music to the ears of the left and their preconceived notions about poverty, crime and military service in America, writes Benjamin Duffy.

Avant garde

Pride and joy and showcase for the late, great EU Lisbon Declaration, Galileo is now so hobbled that it will probably be obsolete before it ever reaches critical mass, if it gets launched at all. Kinda like the EU itself.

Croisade vers la Terre Sainte

Un nouvel extrait de Général Leonardo, Tome II :

Après avoir "embrigadé" un Leonardo réticent et réquisitionné ses inventions militaires pour une nouvelle Croisade, les forces du Vatican, commandées par le général Scharano, mettent les voiles vers Rhodes, bastion chrétien du Proche Orient assiégé par la redoutable armée ottomane. Mais les soldats du Saint-Siège ne sont pas aussi invincibles que ça, et… il y a comme des airs de trahisons…

Publié aux Éditions Paquet, Croisade vers la Terre Sainte (Général Leonardo, Tome II) est mise en dessins par with le talent exceptionnel de Dan Greenberg, secondé par les couleurs magiques de Fred Vigneau (See the cover in real size and order the book from Amazon)…

(PS: in the process of reading the book, don't be too surprized if you chance upon a couple of semi-hidden references to Leonardo the painter's portraits, paintings (famous and less famous), and other works…)

Un autre extrait se trouve en bas de cette page…

État actionnaire et voyou

It's like a French Enron, except that when the French PreSS talks about it, they never use the words "Enron", "capitalism", "greed", or any of the other vocabulary they routinely roll out for their anti-American screeds. ...and remember, when business is booming EADS is a French company, when it's in the crapper it's a European consortium.

Goddamn Leftists, it's as if all they ever thought about was money

Commie slush fund.

Limp dick nation

Someone get the viagra. Message to the French: get used to it, it's structural.

France, Whose Credibility (and Opposition to Uncle Sam) Is Indispensable to World Peace

Au fond, seul le rapprochement avec Washington donne à la diplomatie de Nicolas Sarkozy un semblant de cohérence. A l'heure où l'Amérique remet en cause ses choix de politique étrangère, à l'heure où le rapport Baker prône une nouvelle approche fondée sur le dialogue plutôt que sur le rapport de force militaire, à l'heure où même nos amis britanniques marquent leurs distances, Nicolas Sarkozy fait le choix de l'atlantisme. C'est une décision lourde de conséquence et pourtant, là encore, nulle explication, aucun débat au Parlement.

Ségolène Royal publishes an op-ed article in Le Monde.

Le président de la République serait bien avisé de se ressaisir et de s'inspirer de cette sage recommandation du rapport Védrine : amis, alliés mais pas alignés. C'est en ne cédant pas à la tentation des surenchères et de la politique spectacle que la France, dont la crédibilité est indispensable à la paix du monde, disposera d'une diplomatie forte et écoutée, avant qu'il ne soit trop tard.

When the News Seems to Reflect Negativaly on a Part of Former France, "Louisiana" Becomes "The South"

Remember Hurricane Katrina?

Then, in the French press, it was all about Louisiana, all about the former French state, all about the poor helpless victims.

Now that the news concerns alleged racism and racial discrimination (within Louisiana as opposed to from without, i.e., by Bush's federal government) — relating to the Jena 6 — suddenly Annick Cojean reverts to "the South" and to "Southern justice" in the process of spending an entire page assuring us that nothing less than "America's" racism is at work here while using less than half a sentence to write about the arrest (emphasis mine) "of six black high school kids, accused of beating up a white male".

Sleaze-o-nomics

With nary a peep on the sacred continent itself, and never to be heard over the bleating about Wal-Mart, the same old secretive practice of hiding the weenie:

Just when Airbus looked to be finally flying high with a new management structure and a new order from British Airways, dark clouds began to gather Wednesday with the opening stages of a major insider trading investigation.

Et encore avec le winky-winky, there are sure to be mentions of it having "shades of Enron", but definately not the fact that even before there was an Enron and for time immemorial, European business executives would steal anything that wasn't bolted down, no matter what harm it did to the economy, and the very society they lived in.

the investigation will focus on 21 executives across the three companies involved, who apparently sold EADS shares with insider knowledge that mounting delays and manufacturing problems in 2005 were becoming insurmountable. When the damage became public in mid-June 2006, after the executives had allegedly completed their stock sales, it caused EADS' share price to fall 26% in one day.

The irony is that the people who are screwed by this are mainly small investors and retirees in Europe, and that more than half the reporting on this item comes from outside the "magical kingdom of Shengen."

Peur de Rien

In fact for one lone bookseller far from the beaten
path, the comparisons get even better.

More Subtlety than you can Shake a Stick at

The next time you hear some Euro-oration about how different they are that the Americans, accept the fact that it’s true:

Retired general Romeo Dallaire slammed France today during testimony at a landmark war crimes trial, saying the country helped those responsible for Rwanda's genocide escape to freedom.

Everybody now, sing it! We are the world! We are the children!

Testifying at the trial of Desire Munyaneza, a failed refugee claimant on trial for participating in the genocide, Dallaire said the French "push-back" force ended up helping the killers escape into neighbouring Congo.

Meanwhile, back in charming Quebec, a Frenchman meets the welcome wagon which also has yet to do with anything in the US, but then again France Duh, and France Cinq have yet to report air it as the daily feel-good story at the end of the news.

Gestures, Selfish Acts, Refraining from Thinking Pragmatically, and Feeling Better About Oneself: When Conservatives Act With a Liberal Mindset

Every time someone allows the perfect to be the enemy of the good, they do the cause they espouse damage,

writes Christopher Cook.

It has been credibly estimated that when the Bush drunk-driving story broke on the weekend before the 2000 election, some four to eight million evangelicals stayed home. Rather than stopping to think clearly about what a Gore presidency would mean in its totality, they just picked up their marbles and went home over that one issue. They were thinking more about their personal status vis-a-vis sin than they were the good of the country. They were thinking, I can't support someone who would sin in that way. I judge his actions to be sinful. My vote would be an endorsement of such behavior. How would that look for me before God? I, me, my. Me me me.