Saturday, January 26, 2008

Not much different from the French and their "We are all Americans" bullshit

Needles and Pins.

If he had not been schooled by a French education system that still espouses Marxist theory, he wouldn't sound like such a retard

Who says that the French do not understand how markets work?

SocGen chairman Daniel Bouton almost admitted as much when he said that "these losses could have been gains if the market had climbed on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday".

One question: why doesn't he stop banging his well-off editor girlfriend and starting humping some factory worker chick?

Besancenot is looking to create a new Anti-Capitalist Party.

Terminate with extreme prejudice

The French exception. Never mind the piles of corpses piled sky high. French Maoism is alive and well and preached by Alain Badiou to adoring throngs of rag tag students. Just one more extreme example (even by French standards) of French intellectuals' continuing love affair with all things Communist.


Little White Book and user guide for Sarkozy Derangement Syndrome

The Lisbon Strategy forges onward to 2010

The Lisbon Strategy: with the goal of making the UE "the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion, and respect for the environment by 2010".

Strategic yogurt truffle production outta do the trick.

Semper Fi

French former Presidential candidate, Green Party honcho, pacifist, ultra-Left scumbag convicted of beating his main squeeze

Nothing more violent than a French Leftist.

Celui qui joue le tam-tam sur la tête de sa bonne femme

Like all French Leftists, this tough guy likes soft targets

The West is the Best

You just get here. We'll do the rest. Looks like the Bush Doctrine (which is a no-nonsense hardcore version of the Kouchner Doctrine, n'en déplaise aux pédaloïdes de gôchos franchouilles) will live on after January 2009. ... et les smicards qui bossent à Rue89.com souillent le fond de leur culotte achetée chez Tati.


Un franchouille champion du monde

Une fois n'est pas coutume.

Workers of the World, Unite!

31 year old “bidnessman” Jérôme Kerviel has been summarily fired with neither mediation or a tribunal. How dare they! On top of that there might be other heavy handed redundancies by “the man” since Crédit Agricole admitted to €250m in “unauthorized” losses, whatever the hell that supposed to not say. Since losing money isn’t illegal, even in Europe, it got to be another way of admitting to playing hide the salami with le p’ti Nannette’s savings.

They’ve got Fruits and Nuts. Take Your Pick.

EUtopians discover their “Patriot Act

"The invaders are among us. It is a story that seems like a science fiction film, but it is happening in Europe, under the worried eye of scientists who have long observed the wave of invasions, but had not imagined that it could take on such dimensions." The "invaders" in question? Some 10,670 "alien" plant and animal species. The article cites the findings of an EU-sponsored research program titled "Delivering Alien Invasive Species Inventories for Europe" -- or "DAISIE" for short -- as well as the dire warning of Ladislav Miko of the European Commission's environmental directorate, who repeats the title's contention that the non-indigenous species represent a threat to "biodiversity."
Environmentally, the place is a parking lot, and yet someone can get worked up about squirrels, jellyfish that cyclically scare beachgoers, and anything else that blew out of a ship’s ballast tanks, but fail to grasp the racism of this if you consider the other greenie paroxysm about humans being no better than any other orderly group of cells. After all, why couldn’t they also call immigrants who could care less about the cultures they’ve moved to a sort of negative form of higher order “biodiversity”? I’d love to see that “débat” on one of those horrid chat shows with weird sets. Somehow I don’t think they would really want to think that it’s A Vous de Juger given the astonishingly bigoted and naïve opinions you would really get from the governed masses.

Good luck with all that.

Friday, January 25, 2008

Muddling through

From The Economist:
Despite Mr Sarkozy's campaign talk of a "rupture" with the past, on almost every measure, from the reform of universities to pensions to the labour market, his reforms in office have turned out to be half-hearted.

Meet the Bubble Boys

One of France’s main retail banks who’s big into markets looks like a smoldering dog-pile right now, while the rumor of a potential €28bn debt write-down is still floating out there for Soc Gen, and what do the hacks at Rue89.com worry about?



Davos, NGOs, self-service at Ikea, movie reviews, and their peevish notion that they’re “grooming” Barrack Obama. You will note that they ran the goofiest looking picture of his equally inexperienced opponent that they could. A trip through the way-back machine reminds one that this is how Pravda illustrated any prominent American while it dodged-and-burned the horrendously ugly Leonid Brezhnev into a noble-looking figure. They have since resorted to full time fevered lunacy.

Update: it only took them 36 hours, but they did finally mention SocGen about 24 hours after we and just about every smartass with a blog did. The hitch is that they just happen to mention Société Générale while engaging in anecdotal class-hatred whining about the fact that Nick Leeson is selling his book, and charges a fee for interviews. Strangely enough, those people who run Rue89 even sometimes get paid.

They put it under some loony society column type piece wondering why there aren’t any of the usual dial-a-mob protestors at Davos right now, and why the press is ignoring anti-globalization protestors. Hello! McFly! Here’s a hint: check the weather, and then try to see if they actually have anything to say.

In Turns, both at Fault and Inconsequential

Funny (ha-ha), don’t you think, that the U.S. is somehow the virus that gives Europe a cold when it sneezes? This implies that the US is somehow responsible for economic affairs in the U.S., despite the fact that every morning in New York, traders have to wake up to Europe’s mid-day jitters more often than not.
After all, even Christine Lagarde, who is nearly as North American as she is French, is adding the usual pedantic continental commentary as a show at home to be taken seriously and appear to have social depth while effectively demanding something from others one is largely unable to do oneself.

French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said Tuesday that U.S. President George W. Bush should explain how the 140-billion-U.S.-dollar stimulus package will work to revive economy.
Who’s economy does she think Bush should primarily be concerned with anyway? Suddenly, suddenly the U.S. is commanded to stick to its’ role as the fuel in the locomotive pulling the global economy along, while the caboose only conditionally considers easing up on its brakes if you’ll indulge their delusions, but otherwise act in their interest.
When asked if a U.S. recession will implicate Europe, Lagarde said there are big economic differences between the United States and Europe.
She explained that unemployment rate is on the rise in the United States but is declining in Europe and U.S. economy has begun a slowdown while Europe grows at a steady 2 percent.
Which is especially funny, because they virtually never experience rates of growth as high as 2 percent, while the world worries about the U.S. having that yearly rate now, and ironically trying to call that a “recession.”
The minister also said a U.S. recession will not be a "tragedy" for France as bilateral trade between the two countries only accounts for 8 percent of France's total foreign trade volume.
Hypocrites. Which is to say that they really want the U.S. push through stimulus, give other central banks enough information to profit off of the sectors that it dwells on, but hey!, ya know what? No problem here! We’re BETTER than that! We call the inflation rates/ unemployment rates/ growth rates in France a stellar success, while those same rates in the U.S. are a sign of decay, meltdown, and an inadequate amount of nagging crypto-marxism. Right-o. Got it.
At the same time the Bank of France (whose real authority has been ceded to the ECB) chose a different tack while going into blame mode.
French regulator sees 'partial decoupling' of U.S. and EU economies
While there is increasing evidence that the eurozone economy is slowing, most of the factors that are contributing to the bleak outlook in the United States are not present on the Continent, according to the governor of the Bank of France, Christian Noyer.
See? Different! That’s a sign of the breadth and richness of their broadmindedness. That famous continental touch, if you will. Their failure to jump onto a decade-long global economic expansion goes unmentioned and nearly never discussed. Their lack of abject stagnation for 2 years somehow points out the failure of two decades of systematic growth in the U.S., and yet if it didn’t, the cultural buzz would try to say that American growth is somehow inimical to humanity – an eco-sin and a decadence of reactionaries that they choose not to take. Until they experience some growth themselves, and get some relief from the state of stagnation normal to their way of life. No, THEN everyone else on earth is an idiot for some other reason.

Got it. We’ll see how different the public zeitgeist looks when thing are different, and America is called another sort of demon.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Everyone knows that the French are too clever to lose money in the markets

When a US bank takes a knock because of subprime investments, the French snicker and say that those Americans got what was coming to them. When the French bank Société Générale (which had previously declared a minimal exposure to US subprimes) gets sucker punched with $7 billion in subprime losses, it declares itself to be the victim of fraud.

Our Gang Comedies

French youths do the Gaza thang at Villiers-Le-Bel... again! French officials assure us that the situation is under control.

International Harvesting

In spite of the fact that in France, that the who-owns-who delusion of Renault-Nissan puts Renault in front of Nissan, Le Monde is abuzz about Renault “introducing” an electric car to Israel, when in fact as the dessin de Pessin gets far more accurately, Nissan is buying up an asset in a market that’s been further along in its’ development that Europeans have.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

The Euro-zombies that Play Along


The recent Cuban ‘election’, that great fethtivity of pluralism and demonstration of individual will, actually involves going into a booth and voting for the one listed candidate for each position, or not going at all.

Radio Netherland Wereldomroep’s espaneesh language website and radio channel transmitted to the Americas by satellite. Fails to actually mention this directly.

Children play a special role in the elections in Cuba. When Carlos Lage deposited his ballot in the ballot box, children make the military salute and shouting "INFO!"
Children wear their school uniforms that have the colors of the Cuban flag. In the era of dictator Fulgencio Batista, had the military side of the polls. Now they are innocent children that oversee the proper conduct of the polls. The vice president, Carlos Lage, insists that the elections are democratic in Cuba.
No sign of dictatorship THERE!
At the end of the day the polling stations close and the counting begins.
In a location in Old Havana, the first box is emptied out: 150 votes for the "united vote." An official said he was had no objections. There were 20 blank votes and 7 annulled because there are things written on them. En una de las papeletas se lee: "Abajo Fidel". On one of the ballots read: "Down with Fidel". On another ballot, scissors are drawn in the circle of the "united vote."
And the only comment the item received was from someone criticizing the election process in the US because it costs something. In fact what the Cubans do by pretending that they’re having any sort of election at all is a waste of resources, were it not also the case of even the lies they tell Cubans being nothing more than a profunctory drip-feed that would give them an aneurism should it ever stop.
It is sad that in this country (the USA), which calls itself a champion of democracy, the chances of a candidate to win the presidential election are directly proportional to the amount of money at his disposal to move the propaganda machinery of mass distribution. It's like selling a bad product and then trying to convince the consumer of its’ great quality. The commercials can sell ice to Eskimos! " "People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones"
Underscoring this guy’s absurdity is that there is no mention of the US in the article. With people like this, one can only assume that were it not for his irrational hatred of the US, with that very decadent idea of having more than one candidate to chose from in an election, that he is very likely to pay any attention to the Cuban backwater and its’ abused and abased population.




Then again, what do you expect? Journalism?

March of the Chocolate Makers

21 Jan 2008: EU official urges end to Chad peace force delay

29 Nov 2007: EU deployment in Chad delayed

17 Jul 2007: Chad: Peace Force Planned

15 Oct 2005: EU deployment force set for Darfur border

Mr Solana wrote to AU Commission chair Alpha Oumar Konare during the week ending July 1 to say that EU member states had now consolidated a package of support to the AU offered at an international pledging conference in May (see also Europe Information 2965). He sent the message that the EU was "ready to go"...

- 06 Jul 2005- EU/SUDAN: UNIONS AT ACTION STATIONS
FOR EXPANDED DARFUR MISSION



... and so forth. I wouldn’t count on them. I hope there’s someone left to protect when they get there.

Gaza Sustainability Day

I’m not sure which is higher on the totem pole of leftist pedantry – Gazans being without power, or the vulgar use of ‘fossils’, that so called ‘energy’ (hisssss) to power their televised revolution. Nonetheless, I did find one thing amusing: an excitable Gazan denier-or-anything type was being interviewed by telephone from Gaza. He was trying to assert that there was NO power at all in Gaza, except for the 5-7% of the population served by transmission lines from Egypt, who have also closed their border.

The assertion he was trying to make was that the land-lines from Israel which provide them with 60-70% of their power was cut off too. In other words, the blackout wasn’t just in the areas served by the oil-fired plant in Gaza that had its’ fuel which comes over the border from Israel when it isn’t closed.

No, the really funny thing about this interview was that the BBC guy just wasn’t buying it – it was that one could hear a ringing land-line telephone in the background. This, in a place where the interviewee insisted that Hospitals and essential services also didn’t have power to run generators either. There’s also no way to tell from the Gaza based Palestine Satellite Channel, as their net feed comes in and out.

Too-ra to their fellow travelers too.

I guess that the least we can assume is that the earth goddess, that sparky mamasita, was powering up the telephone exchange. It has to be true because the scientific consensus said so.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Yeah, but it’s just a “League Table,” Right?

Britain now scores below 80 points on a range of key indicators, dropping into the "mostly free" camp with Germany, Japan, Bahrain, Armenia and Trinidad.
The government’s hunrgy , mauling orifice is nearly 45% of the nation’s GDP, and like the days of Callahan, power outages and incessant striking, it once again feels like people want to relave “weak” socialism with “strong” communism. Aren’t they just so cute?
Two eurozone shockers are Italy (64), and Greece (80), now ranked lowered than most of the old Communist bloc.
Surely, Albanians must be surprised.

Excuse Me, Is this Box Car Taken?

In old Europe it looks like old habits are hard to break. Of course that isn’t everywhere. There are places where it isn’t so much a case of behaviour modification, but rather that of role reversal. Right after that ugly business of right and wrong are expelled from the zeitgeist:

Minors burn mayor’s car

Two boys of 14 and 16 years age suspected of arson on January 12 the car of the mayor of Noisy-le-Sec (Seine-Saint-Denis) were referred yesterday to the prosecutor of Bobigny, according to a police source.

Two cars parked near the city hall were burned, including that of the mayor, Nicole Rivoire (Modem) while 200 people were demonstrating in support of an undocumented Algerian who could be sentenced to a 30 year prison term on suspicion of trafficking narcotics after jumping out of a window in his home during a search.

Arrested Wednesday and Thursday, these two young people in Noisy-le-Sec "admitted to burning the mayor’s car" in "retaliation" for the attitude she took to the tragedy.

Residents accused the mayor, Ms. Rivoire, for having shown a lack compassion for the family.
This hybrid “medieval/1941” outlook is rather amusing. From afar, at least.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Willy Wonka Nation

Plant workers display cultural openness, demonstrate why France is so appealing to foreign investment and business startups:

The British director of a French ice-cream factory was held hostage overnight by employees angry at job cuts, and was only freed after police stormed the building.
Such plucky forbearance, I frequently find myself thinking. I mean - for a minute there, they actually owned the means of production, at least the part of it that their sabotage made unproductive. Now, of course, somebody owes them.
"Some employees, despite being caught flagrantly holding a man hostage, physically opposed the police," said Yves Guillot, the local prefect.

"They tried to block a door. The police had to push to get through. There was a scuffle."

However, Alain Didelot, a union representative, said his members were "scared" and shocked" by the police action, adding that they "charged people like myself, aged 57".

A spokesman for Mr Prakesh, who was unavailable for comment, said that he "has been through some very difficult moments" and intented to press charges against one unionist for "xenophobic insults".
European trade union lefties have so much to illuminate the rest of humanity about racism, don’t they? Please, Mistress, may I have another lecture? Just shout me down one more time?

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Nitrogen-Rich Politics

”Have i mentioned my eco-sainthood©®™ today?”



If they “care” that much, why did they chose an
Incandescent bulb for their backdrop?