Monday - August 27, 2007

Cognitive Dissonance

Kevin over at The Smallest Minority has a great analysis today about the gun culture in the once Great Britain.

Cognitive Dissonance.

It raises its head once again. To quote Steven Den Beste:

When someone tries to use a strategy which is dictated by their ideology, and that strategy doesn’t seem to work, then they are caught in something of a cognitive bind. If they acknowledge the failure of the strategy, then they would be forced to question their ideology. If questioning the ideology is unthinkable, then the only possible conclusion is that the strategy failed because it wasn’t executed sufficiently well. They respond by turning up the power, rather than by considering alternatives. (This is sometimes referred to as “escalation of failure”.)

Or, as I put it:

The philosophy cannot be wrong! Do it again only harder!

We have some new stories coming out of the petri dishes of the UK Commonwealth.

As usual, he does a great job of deconstructing the various news stories and putting them together for a cohesive analysis of the situation.

Posted by Drew458     on 08/27/2007 at 03:35 PM   
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   Thursday - May 24, 2007

Free Market Regulation

I like to listen to NPR on the drive to the office in the morning.  It provides an unlimited source of conversation material for the day.  This morning, they had a story out of the E.U. talking about roaming charges between member countries.  Apparently, cell phone users are upset that when they leave their country and go to another, the roaming charges at high (as much as $8 for a four minute call!  Oh, the humanity)

So there is new legislation going through the system to regulate these charges and cap them across all member countries.

One of the people writing this legislation was interviewed and he had this quote:
“Free markets are great, but free markets need to be regulated.”

I laughed out loud and almost swerved off the road.  That statement epitomizes the left’s take on economics.  That is: “free markets” are just fine, as long as we can regulate how they operate.

Clueless.  Absolutely clueless.

Amazingly, they had a clip from one of the telecom guys who said (paraphrased) “that’s fine, but you realize that in order to keep up the level of service and features that the users demand, the money will have to come from somewhere, right?” Saying, in effect, that they will just raise other rates and the consumer will end up paying the same, or more, in the long run.

Idiots.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/24/2007 at 08:18 AM   
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   Thursday - May 10, 2007

So Long, Amigo

Say what you will about Ol’ Tony, he has been our friend through thick and thin, taking all kinds of heat for his support of the War On Terror. I hate to see him go. Gordon Brown is a murky figure to us on this side of the pond right now. I’m not 100% sure I like everything I’m hearing. Then again, he is Labour Party (read: Liberal) like his predecessor so he won’t help our Brit friends dig themselves out of their socialist nightmare.

In the meantime, I’ll bid Tony a fond farewell ... WE LOVE YA, BABE! ....

RIMDON, England (AP)

Tony Blair said Thursday he would step down as prime minister on June 27, closing a decade of power in which he fostered peace in Northern Ireland and followed the United States to a war in Iraq that cost him much of his popularity.

In a somber farewell, Blair made way for Treasury chief Gordon Brown to take the top post. The British leader looked overcome with emotion, struggling to retain his trademark broad grin as loud cheers rang out.

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, it was right, Blair said, to “stand shoulder to shoulder with our oldest ally, and I did so out of belief.”

“Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right,” Blair told party workers and supporters at Trimdon Labour Club in his Sedgefield constituency in northern England. “I may have been wrong, but that’s your call. But believe one thing if nothing else. I did what I thought was right for our country.”

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/10/2007 at 04:04 PM   
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Ann Coulter: La Belle Dame Sans Merci

_{Jerry Holbert - The Boston Herald}

C’est Si Bon
-- by Ann Coulter
_{(HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE) - 05/09/2007}

I‘m off to Paris! I hereby revoke every churlish remark I’ve ever made about those lovely Gallic people. (But in light of former New Jersey governor and current “gay American” Jim McGreevey’s latest career move, I redouble everything I’ve ever said about the Episcopalians.) With Nicolas Sarkozy’s decisive victory as the new president of France, the French have produced their first pro-American ruler since Louis XVI.

In celebration of France’s spectacular return to Western civilization, I bought a Herve Leger dress on Monday, and we’re having croissants for breakfast every day this week. This delicate French pastry, by the way, is in the shape of a crescent to commemorate the Crusaders’ victory over Islam. Aren’t the French just peachy?

“Sarkozy the American,” as he is known in France, called Muslim rioters “scum.” Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

He explained his position on Muslim immigrants in France, saying: “Nobody has to, I repeat, live in France. But when you live in France, you respect its rules. That is to say that you are not a polygamist. ... One doesn’t practice female genital mutilation on one’s daughters, one doesn’t slit the throat of the sheep, and one respects the republican rules.”

Sarko never issued an apology or entered rehab. To the contrary, he said: “I called some individuals that I refuse to call ‘youth’ by the name they deserve. ... I never felt that by saying ‘scum’ I was being vulgar, hypocritical or insincere.”

Is there a single American politician who would speak so clearly without then apologizing to Howard Dean? It looks like the Democrats are going to have to drop their talking point about Bush irritating the rest of the world. Evidently not as much as Muslim terrorists irritate the rest of the world. The politicians who hate Bush keep being dumped by their own voters.

At the Democratic presidential debate a few weeks ago, B. Hussein Obama carped that Bush had “alienate(d) the world community” and vowed that he would build “the sort of alliances and trust around the world that has been so lacking over the last six years.”

Democrats are terrific at building alliances. Remember how Jimmy Carter won the love of the world by ditching our ally the Shah of Iran, allowing him be replaced by a string of crazy ayatollahs? Since then, we haven’t heard a peep from that area of the world.

The smartest woman in the world sniped that she would “create alliances instead of alienation.” Yes, it was spellbinding how her husband charmed North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung and his sociopathic son Kim Jong Il by showering them with visits from Jimmy Carter and gifts from love-machine Madeleine Albright. And that was that: No more trouble from North Korea!

As I understand it, the center of the supposedly America-hating world is France. But now it turns out even the French don’t hate America as much as liberals do. Au contraire! (We can say that again!) Our Georgie is the most popular American with the French since Jerry Lewis.

All over the civilized world, voters are turning terrorist-coddling liberals out of office and voting for politicians friendly toward Bush, the world’s sworn enemy of Islamic fascism.

Those foreign leaders so admired by Democrats for hating George Bush and loving Saddam Hussein are being replaced by rulers who pledge their friendship to the United States.

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/10/2007 at 02:00 AM   
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   Tuesday - May 08, 2007

Media Vultures And Euro Jackals

Far be it from me to insult the vultures and other carrion eaters of the animal kingdom but the similarities between these creatures and the Liberal American press is astonishing at time. Case in point: the NY TIMES.

What? Did you actually think I could go an entire week without blasting these bloviating blowhards? Guess again. They are in the BMEWS radar this time because they are lazily circling in the sky above the World Bank. They are marking the spot and targeting their next meal after the jackals and hyenas in Europe snap and claw at the heels of their latest prey ... Paul Wolfowitz, who is the US picked head of that organization.

I don’t know what jungle animal to compare Wolfowitz to so you’ll have to pick your own anthropomorphism. (Is that a real word? The spell-checker passed it. Well, I’ll be. Anyway ...)

In case you went out for peanuts and beer during the last three innings, let me bring you up to date:

• President Bush appointed Wolfowitz to head the World Bank in 2005. As is customary, the US picks the head of the World Bank and European leaders pick the head of the sister organization International Monetary Fund.


• When he arrived at the World Bank, Wolfowitz immediately notified the bank’s board that there was a conflict of interest because his girlfriend Shaha Ali Riza, who had been with the bank for seven years, held a high-level position and the slightest hint or appearance of favoritism toward his main squeeze might hamper his ability to do his job.


• Wolfowitz then made arrangements to get his gal a job a job at the US State Department and, to compensate her for ripping her out of a good career at the World Bank, she was given a hefty pay raise and put on a good promotion track at State.

You would think that would be the end of it, wouldn’t you? Mais non, ma petite merde! Les Europeons cried “FOUL!” and the NY TIMES immediately seized on the story and has been running with it for a week, carefully guiding the rabid pack dogs in for the kill.

Now, let’s examine the real reason why the Euro-Beasts and the NY SLIMES have their knickers in a wad.

• Paul Wolfowitz was chosen by President Bush to be Deputy Secretary Of Defense under Donald Rumsfeld soon after Bush took office in 2001. Strike One.


• Wolfowitz is believed by the Bush-bashers to have been behind the whole “Weapons Of Mass Destruction” argument about going into Iraq and his subsequent support for major wanker Ahmed Chalabi and the initial failures to stabilize Iraq immediately after the invasion, have been pinned on him since Day One. Strike Two.


• After Rumsfeld’s departure, President Bush sent Wolfowitz to the World Bank, whose board is comprised mostly of anti-American Euro-Jackals who take offense at the drop of a hat and don’t mind whining to the NY TIMES about every little thing. Strike Three.

Starting to get the picture yet? The story has been front-page news on the NY TIMES and WASHINGTON POST for over a week and they’re shagging this story like a horny chihuahua on a bedpost. Wolfowitz is a Republican, he was involved in Iraq, he is good buddies with Rumsfeld, Bush likes him. One more thing: Wolfowitz comes from a Polish-Jewish family. SACRE BLEU!

To paraphrase Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Ah, how do they hate thee? Let me count the ways.” Go take a look at today’s installment of “The Wolfowitz Saga” at the NY TIMES and keep the above in mind as you watch the Liberals and Euro-Peons rewrite recent events, point pudgy little fingers and make baseless accusations and hide behind a mask of duplicity and deceit. Here are a few choice excerpts:

Deal Is Offered for Chief’s Exit at World Bank
WASHINGTON (NY TIMES) — May 8, 2007

Leading governments of Europe, mounting a new campaign to push Paul D. Wolfowitz from his job as World Bank president, signaled Monday that they were willing to let the United States choose the bank’s next chief, but only if Mr. Wolfowitz stepped down soon, European officials said.

European officials had previously indicated that they wanted to end the tradition of the United States picking the World Bank leader. But now the officials are hoping to enlist American help in persuading Mr. Wolfowitz to resign voluntarily, rather than be rebuked or ousted.

Well before Mr. Wolfowitz took office in 2005, leading European countries had begun agitating to discard the custom that had existed since the 1940s of the United States choosing the bank president. The United States has that prerogative because it contributes the largest share of the bank’s financing.

The committee’s finding of guilt against Mr. Wolfowitz was tempered by a finding that the bank shared at least some blame for the failure of Mr. Wolfowitz to comply with its rules. According to people familiar with the report, it said the advice from ethics officials at the bank to Mr. Wolfowitz was less than clear and evidently subject to misinterpretation. Nevertheless, the report was clear in its conclusion that Mr. Wolfowitz breached his obligations.

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/08/2007 at 03:08 PM   
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   Monday - May 07, 2007

French Fries

Question: how can you tell if the French voters chose the best person to fix the mess they have dug themselves into?

Answer: all the “wrong people” get pissed off and start rioting and burning towns down again.

You just knew this was coming, didn’t you? When a liberal, socialist or communist wins an election anywhere in the world the rest of us just shrug, vow to do better next election and go about our business. When a moderate or conservative wins an election the whining pissants rise up and raise hell. Whether it’s Jesse Jackson rousing the rabble in the US or the African invaders and “disaffected youth” in France the result is always the same - riots, baseless claims of disenfranchisement and/or just plain passive-aggressive, psychotic behavior ... the pod people always scream bloody murder.

I am just about getting sick and tired of this. We need to start having “rest periods” after every election. Everybody goes home and shuts the heck up for one week. No ifs, ands or buts. And while we’re on the subject ... who in hell decided Americans should hold elections on a Tuesday and Euro-Peons get to take their time voting on weekends? That ain’t right!

Regardless, Sarkozy won the election in France and we shall see if he is indeed going to turn France around. It can’t get much worse. If you’re keeping count on the “World Leaders Upheaval Showcase” lately, this is only Round One. Next is Tony Blair’s departure in Britain this month or next. Then comes the big Surprise Russian Elections next March when we find out if Pooty-Poot steps aside or not. Finally, in November of next year, America goes to the polls and decides whether we’re going to be an “Obama Nation” or not.

“Interesting times”, indeed. I predict nations worldwide are about to take a definite rightward tilt in the next eighteen months and the rioters, liberals, socialists, just plain assholes and the “Arab street” are about to get a lesson in civility. The majority of the world just wants to get on with the business of making our lives better and there is just no room for this silliness any more.

That’s the thing about pendulums, whether they be in clocks or political climates ... they never stand still. They always swing back in the opposite direction after a time. The angry, so-called “deprived” of this world are just getting in the way of progress. Their train left the station months ago ....

French Police Arrest Nearly 600 People In Post-Election Violence
PARIS, May 7 (AP) - May 7 03:31 PM US/Eastern

French police have arrested a total of 592 people across the country as bands of rioters protested conservative Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidential election victory Sunday, French media reported.

The police said a total of 730 vehicles were torched and 28 police officers were injured in violent incidents from Sunday night to Monday morning. Police fought stone-throwing rioters with tear gas, but it was not clear how many rioters were injured, according to Radio France.

On Sunday night, about 5,000 people gathered at the Place de la Bastille, a favored gathering spot for right-wing supporters during the election. Other fights with the police broke out in Toulouse, Marseilles and Lyon.

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/07/2007 at 10:03 PM   
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   Sunday - May 06, 2007

Vive Les Frogges!

Sarkozy Takes French Presidency
(PARIS (BBC) - Sunday, 6 May 2007, 19:35 GMT 20:35 UK

Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy has won the hotly-contested French presidential election, according to projections made from partial results. Mr Sarkozy is estimated to have won 53% of the vote, compared with 47% for socialist Segolene Royal.

The turnout was the highest for more than two decades, at about 85%. Mr Sarkozy, 52, the son of a Hungarian immigrant, takes over from the 74-year-old Jacques Chirac, who has been in power for 12 years.

Thousands of his supporters in the Place de la Concorde burst into applause and wild cheering as the result came through. In his victory speech, Mr Sarkozy said he would be the president of all the French.

“I love France. I love France, just as one loves someone who is very close to one,” he told crowds of cheering supporters. “France has given me everything, and now it is my turn to render to France what France has given me.”

Mr Sarkozy said the US could count on France’s friendship, but called on Washington to take a lead in the fight against climate change. He also said he believed deeply in European integration, but appealed to France’s European partners to understand the importance of social protection. After he finished speaking at his party headquarters, jubilant supporters sang a rousing rendition of the French national anthem.

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/06/2007 at 03:40 PM   
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   Sunday - April 29, 2007

Europe’s Armory

You probably know how gun-shy Euro-Peons are and how they have so many laws to keep firearms out of the hands of their citizens, don’t you? Well, for every rule there is an exception. Recent small arms surveys showed the US to be the most heavily armed country in the world with 90 guns for every 100 citizens. Guess which country is in second place?

Hint: According to the same small arms survey there are 46 guns for every 100 citizens but the last time this country fought a major war of invasion was against Julius Caesar. The answer is under the fold ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/29/2007 at 12:59 PM   
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   Saturday - April 28, 2007

EPA Estimate: 2.5 Miles Per Cow

Euro-Peons are about to go to war ... over cows. In Britain, they’ve been processing cow guts after our little milk-producing friends are sliced and diced. They are using the gunky stuff to produce biofuel to drive “green” trains.

The peasants on the continent have different ideas. They are somewhat concerned over the amount of greenhouse gases these same udder buddies are producing ... i.e., too many farts.

Now, somehow I just can’t picture British spies sneaking into France just to find a cow who will moo “pull my hoof, mate.” Either way someone is going to have to grab the bull by the horns and squeeze out a solution. Beano, anyone?

Cows Make Fuel For Biogas Train
(BBC) - 24 October 2005

You have to tell yourself the cows are going to die anyway. Inside the abattoir at Swedish Meats in Linkoping, the cows stood patiently, occasionally nuzzling the lens of our camera. From there, it was a short walk past the white-walled butchery, down the steps to the basement where the raw material for biogas, slid greasily down a chute.

Still bubbling and burping, and carpeting you with an acrid stench, came the organs and the fat and the guts. Enough, from one cow, to get you about 4km (2.5 miles) on the train.

A tanker collects the organic sludge and makes the short journey to the biogas factory, where the stinking fuel is stewed gently for a month, before the methane can be drawn off.

The world’s first biogas-powered passenger train is taking its first passengers between the Swedish cities of Linkoping and Vastervik. And the biogas comes from the entrails of dead cows.

The boss of Svensk Biogas, Carl Lilliehook, is a proper, serious Swede. But his eyes twinkle at the biofuel “revolution”, as he calls it. You don’t have to look far beneath the number-crunching CEO to find the muesli-crunching environment-lover.

Yes, he says, the train between Linkoping and Vastervik will cost 20% more to run on methane than on the usual diesel. But the oil price is going up and up, and in any case, Swedes care about being able to pick our mushrooms and their fruit.

Nor is it just trains. In Linkoping, the 65-strong bus fleet is powered by biogas. Indeed the city boasts that it was the first in the world to try out its buses on methane. The taxis, the rubbish trucks and a number of private cars also fill up at the biogas pump, housed under a dinky green corrugated iron roof.

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/28/2007 at 01:08 PM   
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   Tuesday - April 24, 2007

Francistan

More bad news for France - it seems a large part of the increase in voters was due to the Mooslims banding together and registering to vote against Sarkozy, who called them “scum” during last year’s riots and wants to run them out of France.

If Sarkozy is defeated, the Decline And Fall Of Gaul will proceed at breakneck speed, thanks to millions of Mooslims living off of state welfare, burning down the cities when the mood strikes them and socialism for all.

The future of Europe may be decided on May 6 when the runoff elections take place. Will it be the beginning of Socialist Eurabia? This bears watching closely - from a distance ... a great distance.

France’s Ghettos Hope to Beat Sarkozy
_{CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, France - April 23, 2007, 2:24 PM EDT}

Many blacks and Muslims in the troubled neighborhoods ringing French cities voted for the first time, saying they were motivated by one desire: to stop law-and-order, tough-on-immigrants Nicolas Sarkozy from becoming president.

Sarkozy, the front-runner after Sunday’s first round of voting, is deeply unpopular in housing projects populated largely by second- and third-generation immigrants, many of them Muslims from former colonies in North Africa who live mired in poverty and joblessness.

Voters in several poor districts favored Segolene Royal, the Socialist campaigning to be France’s first woman president. She was second in the overall vote, finishing ahead of 10 other candidates and earning a spot in a May 6 runoff election against the conservative Sarkozy.

Sarkozy’s campaign has been haunted by his use of the word “scum” to describe young delinquents days before widespread riots erupted in 2005 in the bleak suburbs on the outskirts of the country’s cities. Some youths took Sarkozy’s comment as a declaration of war.

“If Sarkozy wins, there will certainly be riots here in Clichy and all over France,” said Mohammed Saidi, a first-time voter who was born in Morocco. The 43-year-old electrician and father of four voted in Clichy-sous-Bois, where the riots broke out and spread nationwide. Another first-time voter, 20-year-old Fatma Celik, said that if Sarkozy wins the runoff May 6, “people are going to go crazy here.”

Sarkozy has reached out to minorities by promoting a policy akin to affirmative action. But many in France’s housing projects—and beyond—despise the tough police tactics he instituted as interior minister, his uncompromising language and his sometimes roughly executed drive to send illegal immigrants home.

The favorite in poor neighborhoods was Royal, who casts herself as a maternal figure in sharp contrast to Sarkozy’s law enforcer image. Final results nationwide gave Sarkozy 31 percent of the votes to Royal’s 25 percent, but she won more than 40 percent in towns like Clichy-sous-Bois and others where Sarkozy’s sometimes abrasive rhetoric touched a nerve.

Voter registration was up throughout France, rising 3.3 million to a total of 44.5 million voters, and few areas experienced as dramatic a rise as the poor suburbs. In Seine-Saint-Denis, the rough region where Clichy-Sous-Bois is located, registration rose 8.5 percent—more than twice the average nationwide increase of 4.2 percent, the Interior Ministry said.

After the riots, suburban neighborhoods were targeted by an extensive voter registration campaign as one way of drawing in young minorities who feel France has never accepted them.

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/24/2007 at 06:35 AM   
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   Monday - April 23, 2007

French Runoff

No, “French Runoff” does not describe military strategies of France. Well actually it does but this post is about an election, not a war. The field has been narrowed down to two and France is headed for a runoff election between the conservative candidate and the socialist candidate. Sarkozy will probably win but I wish Royal would win. Why? She would continue to lead France down the self-destructive road of socialism and before long France would cease to matter at all on the world stage. Then we could kick the Frogs off the UN Security Council and the EU could ignore French attempts at leadership. The Downfall Of Gaul, so to speak.

PARIS (INTERNATIONAL HERALD-TRIBUNE) - Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal triumphed in the first round of the presidential elections Sunday, giving French voters a clear choice for the May 6 runoff: The next president will either be a center-right Atlanticist who wants them to work more and pay fewer taxes or a woman with a leftist economic program and a declared ambition to modernize her Socialist Party.

It was an affirmation of France’s traditional left-right divide over new and fringe rivals. Sarkozy, the tough-talking former interior minister whose presence in the runoff was widely predicted, won 30.49 percent of the vote Sunday, according to preliminary results from the interior ministry. Uncertain until the very end of whether she would make it, Royal ended up with a strong showing, getting 25.03 percent and moving one step closer to becoming first French female head of state.

Sarkozy told a cheering crowd of supporters in central Paris that the result was a “victory for our democracy.” “By placing me into first place and Madame Royal in second position they have clearly marked their wish for a debate between two ideas of the nation, two visions for society, two value systems and two conceptions of politics,” Sarkozy said.

François Bayrou, a centrist who briefly looked like he might actually overtake one of the main party contenders, fell short in the end. But his block of 18.35 percent of voters could hold the key to the outcome of the May 6 second round - and is certain to be courted.

Royal needs Bayrou’s votes more than Sarkozy’s. The combined far-left vote, along with the Greens, amounts to 11 percent, bringing Royal’s voter base to about 37 percent. Sarkozy has 14 percent to draw on from the far-right, giving him a total reserve of about 45 percent.

In a field of nine other candidates, the far-rightist Jean-Marie Le Pen took 11.20 percent of the vote. Le Pen, who said he would not run for president again, stunned France in the 2002 election by unexpectedly making the runoff.

The shock and shame of the 2002 result seemed to have resonated this year. On a sunny spring day, the balloting was marked by a high turnout across France. About 84 percent of the country’s 44.5 million registered voters cast ballots.

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/23/2007 at 09:38 AM   
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   Sunday - April 22, 2007

Frogs Choose Head Toad

Not that anybody on this side of the pond really gives a damn but the French are choosing a new President today. They are going to the polls in record numbers, according to AP, to choose a replacement for Jacques Chiraq, Yassir Arafat’s little buddy. I will be glad to see Chiraq depart the scene. Twelve years of his anti-American, pro-terrorist, EU-promoting bullshit is enough. Perhaps he and Bill Clinton can get together with Jimmy Carter and have a “Useless Has-Beens Convention”?

Polls Open In French Presidential Vote
PARIS (YAHOO) - April 22, 2007

France began choosing a new president Sunday after a frenzied campaign among a dozen contenders in a race with unpredictable results. Only four of the candidates, including conservative front-runner Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Segolene Royal, placing No. 2 in polls, had a real chance of making it to a final round of voting May 6.

The new president will replace Jacques Chirac, ending 12 years as head of state at the close of his second mandate. With unusually dynamic front-runners and a suspense-filled campaign, the election was bringing in voters who sat out the 2002 election or cast protest votes for the extreme left and right.

Sarkozy, blunt, reformist and pro-American, was frightening to many French. Royal presented a smiling, feminist mother-figure. Scholarly farmer’s son Francois Bayrou could pull off a surprise win, and the anti-immigrant nationalist Jean-Marie Le Pen was still counting on big support, in hopes of repeating his shock 2002 second-place finish.

Turnout was likely to be high, with voter registration numbers up nationwide — especially in rundown immigrant neighborhoods wracked by rioting in 2005. The successor to Chirac must steer a nuclear power in an insecure world, revive a large and listless economy, invigorate a downbeat work force, incorporate alienated young Muslims.

- More ...

So what are the Frogs going to stick the rest of the world with for at least the next six years? Take a look at the three faces below. One of them will be the face of France for some time to come. Sarkozy is leading in the polls but Le French could easily choose Royal as their first female leader (as opposed to previous male leaders who acted like women). The dark horse candidate is Le Pen, who believes France should be for the French and all Muslims need to just go back to wherever they came from. You can probably guess who my favorite candidate is. I encourage all French persons who have any sense at all to stuff the ballot boxes with votes for Le Pen.

Nicolas Sarkozy Conservative	Segolene Royal Socialist	Jean-Marie Le Pen Nationalist

France Looks Ahead, and It Doesn’t Look Good
EDITORIAL (NY TIMES) - April 22, 2007

Today the French will begin to vote for a new president, and soon Mr. Chirac, the 74-year-old incumbent, will pass from the scene unmourned. Over a political career spanning nearly five decades, during which he was mayor of Paris, prime minister (twice) and president for 12 years, Mr. Chirac appears to have achieved little.

As mayor from 1977 to 1995, he oversaw a steady rise in political corruption and municipal graft (albeit both at insignificant levels by American big-city standards). As president, he abandoned his promises to resolve shortcomings in France’s employment laws and social services in the face of street protests. And he has done little to redress the grievances of France’s minorities or the anxieties of young people. On both sides of the Atlantic, Mr. Chirac’s political obituary is being written in distinctly unflattering terms.

But is the French situation really so dire? From every quarter one hears calls for “reform” to bring France more in line with Anglo-American practices and policies. The dysfunctional French social model, we are frequently assured, has failed.

In that case there is much to be said for failure. French infants have a better chance of survival than American ones. The French live longer than Americans and they live healthier (at far lower cost). They are better educated and have first-rate public transportation. The gap between rich and poor is narrower than in the United States or Britain, and there are fewer poor people.

Yes, France has high youth unemployment, thanks to institutionalized impediments to job creation. But the comparison to American rates is misleading: our figures are artificially lowered because so many dark-skinned men aged 18 to 30 are in prison and thus off the unemployment rolls.

On the global stage, he has been perhaps the most outspoken major world leader on global warming, warning that “humanity is dancing on a volcano.” And, of course, he initiated and led international opposition to President Bush’s war in Iraq.

Let’s not forget the hysterical Francophobia of 2003: not just the imbecilities of “freedom fries” but xenophobic outbursts from Congress, the Bush administration and the mainstream American press, where prominent commentators called for France to be thrown off the Security Council and offered to let French “weasels” hold our coats while Americans once again did their fighting for them.

It wasn’t only Americans who objected. When in 2003 Mr. Chirac told the Eastern Europeans who backed Mr. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain on Iraq that they had “missed an opportunity to shut up,” his blunt talk upset a lot of people and did little for France’s popularity.

But in all of this, he has been proved right. By standing up to Mr. Bush and instructing his representatives at the United Nations to block a rush to an unprovoked war, the French president saved both the honor of the United Nations and the credibility of the international community.

- More (requires subscription) ...

[Chiraq] “saved both the honor of the United Nations and the credibility of the international community”? I think I’m going to gag. Somebody help me, please. Before we move the United Nations to Khartoum we need to move the NY TIMES to France. Now there’s a marriage made in hell.

Keep your eyes peeled on today’s Frog election, kiddies. This is just the first of four changes in world leadership that will occur over the next eighteen months. Next, we will have to worry about what the Brits are going to stick us with as Tony Blair steps down next month. Then Vladimir Putin will be stepping down as Russian leader (maybe) and finally Bush will be departing the White House, leaving all of the Bush-bashers with nothing to do. As Bob Dylan sang a long time ago, “The times they are a-changing”.

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/22/2007 at 05:09 AM   
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   Tuesday - April 17, 2007

European Hysteria Over Firearms Begins

Surprise! Europeans think Americans are wild and wooly, bloodthirsty, gun-totin’, suicidal madmen, ruled by the NRA and driven by a wild west mentality to run around the streets and into schools as nothing more than wild gunslingers. (LINK: Der Speigel) Euro-Peon newspapers have spent the entire day today psychoanalyzing the American mentality and pointing out all of our obvious defects - as opposed to their “civilized” gun laws over there.

Need I remind our Euro-Peon friends that if the Jews in Germany in 1934 had owned guns, the Holocaust probably would never have happened and those crazy, gun-totin’ Americans would not have had to trot over the ocean to stop the bloodshed. Besides, with Euro-Peons disarming the public in recent years, crime rates have soared. People who live in glass continents ... etc. ...

THE INDEPENDENT (UK)

“The passionate feelings of the gun lobby may be traced to the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, enshrining ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms’. Although the provision stems from the times when ‘well regulated militias’ were deemed necessary to protect against a British attempt to regain the lost colonies, it is the default position of any argument against greater gun control here.”

“As such, it has trumped every other consideration, not least the fact that on any given day about 80 people are killed by firearms, the vast majority by murder or suicide. Gun violence may cost $2.3 billion each year in medical expenses, but it is a price, gun supporters believe, that is worth paying to protect a fundamental freedom ...”

TIMES OF LONDON (UK)

“The trauma of the death of the students at Virginia Tech that will spread across the university and the whole country will be magnified by the feelings of so many people who feel that they should have been able to prevent it.”

“Doubtless there will be a call to review the availability of firearms. The National Rifle Association’s (NRA) response is predictable too. They will point out that events such as this are not carried out by a rifle-wielding member of a weekend militia. There is no doubt that access to rapid-action shotguns makes these events even more destructive but as we have seen with suicide bombers, who are closer to spree killers than is often realized, if a person really wants to take their own life and kill others in doing so it is exceptionally difficult to prevent it.”

LE MONDE (FRANCE)

“The shooting at Virginia Tech ... is a dramatic episode of school violence that fits into a long series of such episodes, a series topped by the drama at Columbine, the school attacked by two adolescents in 1999 ...”

“If Columbine left such a strong impression, that was because it was one of the first dramas of school violence that received broad coverage in the media. Americans were informed of what was happening in real time, via TV and the radio. The students called their families or CNN even as the killers were still roaming the corridors of the schools. ...”

LE FIGARO (FRANCE)

“It was all too easy easy for the elected representatives of the United States, from the White House to the Congress, to express their sadness yesterday; America’s problem with fire-arms represents a political issue for which they share responsibility. Here is a country that represents the vanguard of development and democracy while it is legal to carry a gun in 45 of 50 states, as long as the gun is not loaded. ... At the end of 2004, the Republican-controlled Congress allowed a law to expire that prohibited the sale of semi-automatic and military weapons. Thereafter, legal changes were made to protect the producers and vendors of fire-arms from being held responsible for the actions of gun owners.”

“Contrary to what one would imagine, this backward stance is not something left over from the Wild West. It goes back to the creation of the United States and the War of Independence against the English. ... While most states have issued laws designed to control the sale of arms, the NRA ensures they remain inefficient or are not applied. Strongly linked to the conservative fringe of the Republican Party, the NRA spent $400,000 a day to prevent the election of the Democratic candidate John Kerry during the 2004 presidential elections ...”

IL MESSAGGERO (ITALY)

“The bloodbath on the university campus is the work of a suicide killer—an American suicide killer who, differently from Muslim killers, did not act out of religious motives but was driven instead by the unrest affecting broad layers of US society. America is a nation that has for some years been in danger of becoming more and more unloved in the world, especially in the poorest countries. During the period following World War II, America was seen as the guardian of democracy and was equated with the defense of liberty; today, America is a superpower that begins wars and lives with the constant necessity of having to defend itself against the enemy—whether this enemy be called Islam or whether it bears the face of the neighbor who has done you wrong.”

EL PAIS (SPAIN)

“The president of Virginia Tech called it a tragedy of monumental proportions. But similar comments could already be heard following previous tragedies of this kind. The shooting spree at the Columbine high school in Colorado, for instance, revived the debate on the necessity of better controlling access to weapons. This led to some laws being toughened and security at schools being improved. But the measures are decided by the individual states and are constantly side-stepped by means of an exaggerated interpretation of the US constitution.”

BILD (GERMANY)

“Now we will probably begin discussing the overly lax gun laws in the United States. There, buying a machine gun is often easier than getting a driver’s license. And a new ban on violent games and killer videos will also be put back on the agenda. But in the end, nothing is likely to happen. And the next killer already lives somewhere among us. But we have little reason to point an accusing finger at the Americans. Despite strict gun legislation, we (in Germany) have experienced the school shootings in Erfurt and Emsdetten. We have to consider the problems in our society. And we have to take care of our fellow humans.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/17/2007 at 01:41 PM   
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   Saturday - April 14, 2007

The French Are Depressed

I just got back in from another afternoon down at the NRA Annual Meeting and Exhibit. The freezing rain and almost-snow kinda put a damper on things but the Americas Center was crowded both days. I picked up a ton of literature from vendors and got a peek at some new firearms for 2007. Lots of other goodies too for the hunter/sportsman.

I didn’t get any pictures for you wankers. Sorry. I didn’t see anyone else taking pictures so I put the camera back in the Jeep at lunch yesterday. Then I got too busy talking to vendors and even spent some time in a few training sessions. The general feeling I got from the crowd was it was mostly middle-class, well-dressed, polite people just interested in something they like. The questions and comments I overheard at the booths were informed and informative.

Which is why I needed some comic relief when I got home. I got it at AP News a few minutes ago in a news article entitled “France Wrestles With Its Own Decline”. Somehow I couldn’t visualize France joining the WWE so I had to read on.

“It’s a feeling of lost glory,” said Perrossier, sheltering under the arch from a spring squall. “The French have lost the aura they once had, and France—barring a few small exceptions—no longer occupies the place it used to internationally.”

Philippe Souleau, a history teacher shepherding a party of schoolchildren, was gloomier still: “France no longer has military strength worth speaking of. It is no longer economically competitive, and all this means is that it has become a second-tier nation internationally and diplomatically. Its voice is no longer heard by all.”

Chirac sparked a brief uptick in French confidence by going toe-to-toe with President Bush against the war in Iraq. “It was a moment when France looked at itself in the mirror and found itself beautiful,” says Emmanuel Riviere of the TNS-Sofres polling agency.

But the war went ahead, anyway, and some believe that the strain in relations with Washington was too great.

“In France, there is a particular strain of melancholy,” political philosopher Chantal Delsol said in an interview. “The British tell themselves, ‘We are no longer a great power, so we will live as a middling one.’ But the French don’t say that. They say, ‘We are intrinsically a great power, so why isn’t it working in reality?’ For a while we try to shut our eyes, but that doesn’t work for long. When reality truly dawns, then the first phase is extreme sadness, and that is the phase we are in now.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 04/14/2007 at 05:35 PM   
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