The Vernichtung of Berlin’s History

Berlin’s Tempelhof airport, a facility relevant to the history of the city, the 2nd World War, and the Berlin airlift is imperiled by the wrecking ball. If you can sign the petition, I urge you do so.

Ironically, I will help save an artifact meaningful not just to German history, to Berlin’s past, and to the cold war, but to American history as well.

Most importantly the Airport is a reminder of a contentious phase in the struggle for freedom from tyranny in the 20th century and asks one to reflect on a time when former enemies became friends. “Operation Vittles” as it was known, sustained the still war-ravaged population of over 2 million west Berliners that was surrounded and threatened by the Red Army by flying in everything from food and clothing to medical support and heating fuel. Oddly enough, in the years since postwar reconstruction, very little has physically changed in the immediate neighborhood around Tempelhof, preserving on a large scale the look and the feel of alt-Berlin. That of the style of street layout, the courtyard apartments, even the simplicity of form that the nearby U-bahn stations had about them, and still do.

Observing Herrman has more.

- Note too that when in Berlin a visit
to the recently established Allied Museum (in the
former Army, US MWR movie theater) is worth every moment.

Moochers of the World, Unite!

It seems that South American Marxists are beating off so much to their own anti-American chants, that the thrill is lost in all their confusion:

Daniel Ortega, the president of Nicaragua, joined Chávez in his criticism of U.S.-style capitalism, saying "the dictatorship" of global capitalism "has lost control." Three days earlier, Ortega had shouted "Long live the U.S. government" as he inaugurated an American-financed section of highway in his country.

- And the hat tip goes to Mister Happy,
who like Daniel Ortega can be bought.

Hurry! While Supplies Last!

Thank you very much for the prompt and efficient delivery of my stunning new clock. It is a wonder in plastic. Not only is it deafeningly loud but completely fails to colour co-ordinate with anything in my bedroom. Marvellous!

I would still beware the ticking.

Historically Speaking, It’s Par for the Course

It must be something in the water. On the most basic level, very few European politicos are aware of their false modesty, their unsubstantiated claims of having some sort of superlative humanism, and their hypocritical criticism of any other culture’s notion of having rights or the state of their political freedom.

I have come to expect hypersensitivity to criticism, flouting of rules, intolerance of dissent, authoritarianism. But nothing had prepared me for such blatancy.

Hans-Gert openly admitted that the behaviour of his Euro-sceptic opponents was within the rules. And he wasn’t asking to change those rules – a procedure that would take time. No, he simply wanted permission to disregard them. Permission was duly granted, by 20 committee votes to 3.

Never mind what they say, watch what they do. Their impulse is toward despotism. Next thing you’ll know, they’ll get nostalgic for a pogrom.

We Shiver Before Gaia

They’ve got Fruits and Nuts. You May NOT Take Your Pick.

Further the theme of truly eliminating bio-diversity, there are some humanoids out there looking to thin the herd. The human herd, that is – and they have it in for a Bishop.

After being asked "what is your opinion of homosexuality," by the Spanish newspaper La Opinion de Tenerife, the Bishop stated that people who had the condition for "physiological" reasons were deserving of respect, but went on to say that "it is another question if homosexuality is or isn't a virtue."

That, apparently, is enough to get you sued. Using the court as an instrument, non-authorities can play thought police – which is funny when you think about how these people who seem to hate authority so much seem to use it rather brutally.

The FELGT's complaint follows another similar complaint the group made recently against a protestant minister in the province of Galicia.  Marcos Zapata is accused of having given a talk on how to encourage heterosexual development in children.  The organization has threatened to sue Zapata and has asked the government of Galicia to investigate him because he conducts anti-drug and anti-violence programs in government schools.

It could well be that this Marcos Zapata has rubbed some “NGO” type the wrong way, especially if anti-drug and anti-violence programs crampt their style, as far as how they get a date.

Git-R-Done!

Let’s say you’re Europe. Let’s say you want to intervene in Darfur. Let’s say that even after dithering for 4 years, you’re mad that the Sudanese government is not inviting you in. Let’s say you don’t have the temerity to invade, in spite of death or walking through the desert being the only way out. How do you get them to act? Here’s a hint: not like this.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Gaza Sustainability Day

I’m not sure which is higher on the totem mole 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.

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.

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?

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 which he had tossed out of the window of 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.

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?

Court Official in France Declares Sovereignty Unlawful

Being subjects and not citizens, your votes don’t count anyway:

The Immigration Act put into law on November 20 could be rendered unenforceable by the courts. Several of its’ provisions infringe EU directives and international conventions to which Australia was a party, and were discriminatory in nature declared the High Authority against Discrimination and for Equality in a debate before the Government on Tuesday 15 January.

How to Succeed in Europe without Really Trying, Part 2

Further to the practice of guilt-tripping, legalizing, and free-riding, the makers of the Opera web browser is piling it on to Microsoft when the uptake of Opera’s own product is roughly one 12th that of Firefox which is also given away for free, and is just as compatible with websites generated for Windows Internet Explorer as anything else.

This falls under the simple heading of “If you don’t play along, I’ll sue”. Oh, and sour grapes too.

How to Succeed in Europe without Really Trying, Part 1

“We must invent new methods of intervention… we need protection, to defend national and European products in the face of foreign competition… It is time for a real European economic patriotism to be born.”

- Dominique de Villepin, French Prime Minister, in his book “European Man”

Though it has a disturbingly air reminiscent of National Socialism, it’s stood to reason what this amount to: no change in methods, no adaptation to the ways of the world that don’t involve keeping the poorest of the world aid dependant and unable to trade, and hypocritically criticizing the US’s 5% tariffing with:

The EU runs two sets of protectionist policies that could be almost designed to wreck the trading chances of those of the poorest countries that have comparative advantages in food and textiles.

First, there are the trade restrictions. Though the EU has a low industrial tariff of five per cent, its agricultural tariffs are far higher. These average 20 per cent, but rise to a peak of 250 per cent on certain products. For example, the tariff on Bolivian chickens is 46 per cent, and on Bolivian orange juice 34 per cent.

As with everything else. Which brings us to the comparatively inconsequential nature of a suit harassing an American software company. What’s even more repellant is that they see no difference between a potential rigging up of a trade restriction against a struggling farmer as they do with Microsoft. What it appears to show is that they have no passion for the concept of legality, of the possibility that there might be a bump in the road that comes with the freedom to innovate, and that that igniting an hypocritical argument over trade is a perfectly acceptable instrument to protect the secondary members of the political cartel – Europe’s industries.

Who can read this as anything other than a court demanding a bribe or tribute in the manner of a petty dictator who believes in laws only being useful toward their ends?

"'It would have been preferable if these issues could have been resolved amicably with Microsoft,' said Jonathan Todd, a spokesman for the European competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes. 'But that has not proved to be the case. Therefore we have opened these formal investigations. That does not prove there is a violation. We will only be able to come to a conclusion after investigations.' The legal battle that ended last year involved the bundling of a media player with Windows and the availability of information required to make rival software operate smoothly with Microsoft products. In September, the Court of First Instance, Europe's highest after the European Court of Justice, endorsed the commission's 2004 decision to impose record fines on Microsoft."

ETHEY state yet Spectrum as a organizational shambles created by nation-state contract manipulation, but still underestimated the over-runs by nearly one-half.

LOSER: Geopositioning

GOAL:To create a 30-satellite geopositioning -system to provide greater accuracy than GPS or GLONASS, generating income from premium services that rely on encoded signals.

WHY IT’S A LOSER: Galileo is way behind schedule and over budget; meanwhile, GPS and GLONASS are -improving, so Galileo will never obtain the competitive edge that would have made it profitable. Also, its organizational structure is too complex. To succeed, it would need a single authority with wide operating latitude.

PLAYERS: The 27-state European Union and the 15-state (not perfectly overlapping) European Space Agency

STAFF: Too numerous and too dispersed to count

BUDGET: €5.4 billion (about US $8 billion) and counting; originally €4 billion

From billions to yet more millions...

According to information obtained by SPIEGEL, industry experts together with EU finance gurus have told their superiors that the current estimated cost of €3.4 billion may be radically exceeded. The final price will be at least €5 billion ($7.4 billion) and could climb to as high as €10 billion, according to the information. SPIEGEL also writes that an expert report produced for the German government likewise claims that even in a "best-case-scenario," the Galileo project will swallow up €1.5 billion ($2.2 billion) more than planned.

Experts say that the cost explosion is the result of a compromise, hammered out in November and December, securing EU-wide funding and dividing responsibilities. The agreement was hailed as the final hurdle still standing in front of the project's final completion, but one Galileo specialist told SPIEGEL that there are still many technical challenges awaiting the project.

Those “technical challenges” include, technically, having a project at all, even if it is 4 times over budget and 6 years late.

In spite of the fact that the system is supposed to benefit THOSE nation-states, and even THOSE INDUSTRIES ginning up the delay and over-runs, they still engage in a feeding frenzy no different than the one banishing farmers in the developing world to a mediocrity they can’t evade. Galileo is for THEM, and they can’t even set aside their vulgar habits.

So when the same extraordinary nagging is used in they notion of what’s acceptable in an assymetrical trade war, so to with the bleating, nagging, and hand-wringing that goes on over the predatory nature of trying to capture hearts and minds not for their own sake, but to take it away from others, and in particular against the United States, ginning up a state of false righteous indignation over extraordinary renditions that they oppose but want for their own protection, to overbearing criticisms of anything else done on the behalf of the stability of the western world of which they are a parasitic and populous free-rider. Using law and emotion as a fig leaf does nothing for the making of a good society, and just further convinces the population that their cynicism, and the lack of the patriotism necessary to develop a social contract that comes with it, is well founded.

In other words, if they don’t believe in the humanity of your decision making, why believe in anyone else’s? Sound like business as usual for something they’re trying to sex up as a brave-new-whatever of “ever closer union.”

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.

Pity the Humorless, for they Want it in Triplicate

Apparently this is hate speech:

Ezra Levant is a piece of shit JEW.
Piece of shit jews and my right to say it.
A recent quote from this fag...

My name is Exra Levant. Before the Government interrogation begins, I will make a statement.

But this isn’t. I guess it’s the lack of homophobia, or however it is that they’ve redefined reason this week, that tipped the scale in favor of a liberalism that coddles Islamists AND hates gays.

Go figure. Interesting too is Ezra Levant’s recent hearing with a Provincial “Human Rights Agent” which quite improbably contained this:

That's the point I was making. And after I made it, Officer McGovern said "you're entitled to your opinions, that's for sure."

Well, actually, I'm not, am I? That's the reason I was sitting there. I don't have the right to my opinions, unless she says I do.

I wouldn’t so much call her an agent per se, as much as I’d call her a “Human Rights Broker” in that she’s trying to figure out who is entitled to speech rights and who isn’t.

Mark Steyn is going through the same thing, even though HIS ‘hate speech’ was basically made up of quotes drawn from the people he’s criticizing. Right-o. Hate speech if Steyn says it, artful expression of man’s inhumanity to man if the fan club of murderous, drooling, intolerant fascists who wants to kill you because you aren’t a fundamentalist Muslim says it. To sum it up:

Who can doubt it? Jihadists promise to "Behead The Enemies Of Islam" and demand the Pope be executed and threaten to rain down a second 9/11 on Europe and call Britain's Tube bombers "the Fantastic Four" - and no-one ever suggests restraining their free speech. On the contrary, in London the guys calling for the beheading of infidels are flanked by constables of the Metropolitan Police so zealous in their defence of jihadist free-speech rights they threaten to arrest any members of the public who get too near.

What's at issue here is the non-jihadists' right to free speech.

And I guess They Think Oceania Will Last 1000 Years Too

In the European war of attrition against the world’s working poor, they also seem to have found the killer app of obstructive protectionism.

Mr Sarkozy urged Brussels to discuss the implications of "unfair competition" by firms outside the EU, which do not have to abide by strict European standards on CO2 emissions.

By taxing goods from counter-revolutionary non-signers of Kyoto.

But hey, don’t feel bad. It will have to stop once they realize that it will only accelerate their own decline faster than it would that of the world’s blue collar manufacturing labor, and their delusions about the United States that it’s meant to abuse.

Nonetheless, “sane provincials” are striking back at this lunacy.

Bucharest on 21 December filed a complaint at the European Court of Justice against a commission decision to slash its 2008-2018 emissions by 20.7 percent and lower its 2007 ceiling by 10 percent.

The move follows similar court action against Brussels by several other member states.

Man the Barricades ! The to Investors are Coming !

If anxious EUvians see all economics as warfare, their attempts at “going asymmetrical” are becoming hilarious:

French president Nicolas Sarkozy said he wants state-owned bank Caisse des Depots et Consignations (CDC) to form part of the defence of French companies in the face of attacks by speculative funds.

'In the face of the increasing power of extremely aggressive speculative funds and sovereign funds which do not obey economic logic (France is taking) the political and strategic choice to protect its companies, to give them the means to defend and develop themselves,' Sarkozy said.

'We are going to make the Caisse des Depots a tool in this policy of defence and the promotion of economic interests essential to the nation.'

While their coddled national champions are free to seek investment in foreign companies, not to mention pillaging the third world, as fair game.

Obviously pandering to the public, I don’t think Sarko quite gets that investment from abroad might be a good thing, and money might stop pouring into their little economic booby-hatch of a country.

Another Proud Example of That “More Socialism Makes for Better People” Argument

The Subculture’s Motives Might Not Be Openly Stated, But They’re Quite Clear

Daniel Ellsberg, Mr. Pentagon Papers himself is so used to carrying around the trope of ‘questioning reality’ (any answers yet?) that he’s pandering to truthers:

“There is no question in my mind, that there is enough evidence to justify a very comprehensive and hard hitting investigation of the kind we have not seen, with subpoenas, general questioning of people, releasing a lot of documents,” said Daniel Ellsberg, PhD, in a 2006 interview with Jack Blood.

Either that or they’re getting mendacious again.

Another Great Outpouring of Peace and Love

It might be time to tot up the old FranceUnibodyCount... New Year’s Eve, it seems was more of a Smart Car Frittata than the police were willing to admit.

Quelque 878 véhicules ont été brûlés au cours de la nuit du 31 décembre 2007 au 1er janvier 2008, selon un bilan actualisé à la hausse par le ministère de l'Intérieur après la révélation de nouveaux chiffres par Europe 1 : après son propre comptage ce matin, la radio avançait que "au moins 746 véhicules" avaient été incendiés au cours de cette nuit de la Saint-Sylvestre.

Selon le ministère, le bilan est en "baisse de 9,7%" par rapport à l'année précédente, contrairement à ce qu'indique la radio, qui évoque une hausse de 10%.

Which is to say:

Some 878 vehicles were burned during the night between December 31, 2007 to January 1, 2008, according to an update by the Interior Ministry after the revelation of new figures by Europe 1 [the media outlet]: According to his own count this morning, the radio station argued that "at least 746 vehicles" had been burned on New Years’ Eve.

According to the ministry, the record is showed "a 9.7% decline compared to the previous year, contradicting Europe 1’s statement indicating an increase of 10%.

Which night-for-night is higher that the Fracifada. I mean, where are the damn truthers when there’s a coverup to look into?

The New Aryan Science

”All your history are belong to us”

He also said the symbol of Genk Municipality was a double headed eagle, and added as his conclusive proof, “In the Selçuk tribe, the same symbol was used. One head symbolized Interior Oğuz while the other Exterior Oğuz.”

Apparently, no Russian, Greeks, Etheopians, nor even Lucy were available for comment.

A Nation Asks with Bated Breath: Who Fingered Rashida ?

Severed finger mailed to French justice minister. Rubber glove at eleven. We now return you to your scheduled program.

- Thanky thanky to ¡No Pasarán! reader Shy Guy.

Welcome to readers of Jules Crittenden’s excellent Forward Movement blog. Take off your PPE, put your feet up, and stay awhile.

Embarrassing Western Civilization Since 1971

After a decade of mass evacuation the brainiac whiz kids are finally beginning to realize why Netherlands has gone from being merely dreary and pedantic to something teetering between depressing and chilling when this counts as good news:

The politically-correct elite in the Netherlands is no longer able to neutralise dissident views, according to Ayaan Hirsi Ai. "A chasm between the elite and the people has really emerged," she said yesterday in an interview with De Volkskrant.

The fact that they tried to control the at all is enough of a reason to run away, never mind even that the assumption is that Americans are the ones on a cabal-regulated drip feed of truthy news “wisdom”.

I hate You, Don’t Leave Me.

EUvians ask: where is the love?

European institutions suffered a big loss of trust among EU citizens in the last six months, despite citizens' support for EU membership reaching the highest in over a decade, according to a Eurobarometer poll published on Tuesday.

Maybe familiarity breeds contempt, or is it something else? Could this be a cyclical expression of the lot that licks the boot that kicks them?

Sebastian Kurpas from the Centre for European Policy Studies labelled the results "remarkable", but had no explanation for this outcome, in particular when bearing in mind that the German EU Presidency, which ended in June 2007, was widely seen as a success. 

Actually I find it hugely unremarkable considering the imperial nature of what’s going on. The territory of the realm is expanding through bribery and economic intimidation. After all, can you imagine Romania asking itself what its’ prospects would look like were it to ‘go it alone’ adjacent to a giant economic zone that they would be otherwise restricted from trading with under a tariff regime?

L'Irak n'a-t-il aucune dette envers la France ?

From the exceptional World Politics Review: In violation of the divine holy order of the UN Security Council’s resolution, the French government is continuing to resist Iraqi efforts to recover the financial assets of Saddam Hussein in France. According to George Malbrunot' recent investigative report in Le Figaro, some €23.48 million of Saddam's money remains blocked in French banks, withheld from the elected government of Iraq.

But perhaps the most startling revelation in the Malbrunot piece -- and the most relevant for American readers -- concerns the extent of Saddam's corporate holdings in France and, notably, in French publishing. Malbrunot writes:

Apart from the villa in Cannes and the assets frozen at the Banque de France, the Iraq of Saddam Hussein held shares in French companies via offshore corporations, based, notably, in Switzerland and Panama. One of these front corporations, Montana Management, held 8.4 percent of [the French publishing house] Hachette and 2.5 percent of [the French aeronautics and defense firm] Matra, prior to their fusion in Lagardère. The value of these shares is today estimated to be around €200 million. The former owner, Khalaf al-Dulaymi, a former Baath Party official close to Saddam Hussein, is supposed to have taken refuge in Jordan. . . . . Iraqi lawyers have demanded the seizure of the property of Dulaymi, who also possessed another front corporation named Midco, but Dulaymi has opposed the move.

Aérospatiale Matra was one of the founding members of the Franco-German aeronautics and defense consortium EADS, some 7.5 percent of whose shares continue to be controlled by Matra's parent company the Groupe Lagardère. The French publishing giant Hachette is likewise part of the Lagardère Group. In 2006, Hachette purchased Time Warner Books, thus becoming a major player also in American book publishing. Under its "Grand Central" imprint, the Hachette Book Group USA is the publisher, for instance, of comic Stephen Colbert's "I am America (And So Can You!)."

Which is about as humorless as anyone who read it twice, but that’s beside the point. Is this ideology at work, just the usual use of technicalities to grab a dead dictator’s loot, or an attempt to play ‘hide the weenie’ after Saddam’s connections came to be so widely known?

Of course a few commenter to the article in Le Figaro couldn’t just leave it at that, what with the conclusions and even the majority of comments showing some healthy anger at the amorality of holding back any funds from a post-dictatorial state in formation:

Tr.: Bravo to France

The international community recognised this Iraqi puppet regime under the American occupation, falsely sectarian regime that it is. As a product of the American occupation. This obscurantist sectarian regime lache et criminal ( escadrons de la mort) n'a aucune legetimite nationale ou Lache and criminal (death squads) has no national or international legitimacy. Iraq is the most corrupt country in the world.
France should hold on to this money for the next Iraqi nationalist regime.

and

Why you do not reclaim it from others ?

from the Chinese or Dutch

Or Danes, or Belgians, or English, or Americans, or others

Or Saddam and Bush who declare war.

It hard not to laugh at the strange absence of any moral compass, what with those who depose dictators being no better than the dictator himself, or that the same lot yelled and screamed asking why they didn’t fight in Rwanda, when life showed them something that horrified them, as long as it’s always done by somebody else. It is, after all beneath the deep intellects who find “bravitude” in acting out a minor political vendetta on the new Iraqi government as a proxy for the hate-puppet they’ve been fixated on.

That must be when some of those drive-by commenters think of as blood and treasure.

If there was only a Convention on the Torture of Statistics

I really want to know how you can torture data that gets you from here:

EU global image improving, US fading

to here:

While it is now perceived as the world's number one superpower by 81 percent of the respondents, 61 percent think the US will still be top world player in 13 years time.

Terminally obsessed with Welmacht, the report is titled “Who Rules the World”. The title and its’ motives alone offer far more veracity than it’s contents or conclusions.

The US is still seen as the world's number one superpower, while the EU ranks fifth

This, after saying that they are behind Russia which has one third the population of the EU, and that unimpeachable Mother Theresa human-rights, China. Actually it should say that China and Russia’s global image is improving – displacing the EU, but that would be unthinkable. More amusing still is who they asked:

Respondents to the survey from within the EU are the most optimistic about the bloc's future as a global actor, with percentages ranging from 80 percent in Germany, to 70 percent (UK), and 38 percent (France).

And they go on to suggest that some Russians imagine themselves a power, and so forth. In other words, far from being a survey on others’ image of EUtopia, it’s a survey that tells you just how in love people are with their own countries, and how thoroughly they believe the image constructed by it. The only people convinced that the EU is a “global actor” for a positive future of humanity are Europeans who think that it acts at all. It doesn’t. It does comparatively little compared to its’ wealth and writes a exposé every time a sac of rice is sent to someone they’re using to prop of their image of themselves. They bury the fact that of the 8911 people in this survey, only 1000 are from the EU or the US, and the don’t innumerate any further. They also absurdly call respondents “the world population” when they refer to the entire sample which come from 9 countries, 3 of which are in the EU. Not taking population into account, the 1800 Russian respondents reflecting half of the population of the US are at least 4 times as numerous.

Cloying for both pity and for someone to lick their boot, the motives behind ginning up this kind of non-story, one need look no further than the following emotional set-up. In fact this survey by Bertelsmann Stiftung discussed with Josef Janning both seem unnaturally preoccupied with improving Europe’s image by trashing America’s. Instead of quoting Janning, I’d rather quote a blogger who puts the motives and the methodology into some perspective with an emotional hostage-taking of her own:

At this time of year Ms R normally wants to go all Eastern European, gaze out of the window and say things like,“The frosts are early this year, there will be no apples," whereupon someone will put their head in their hands, a grandmother will start to sob uncontrollably and a small, disturbingly happy child will play with a broken musical toy.

Thanks to a very good friend, Ms R won't be indulging in this somewhat Chekovian tableau. Oh no. For the next week Ms R will be living like an European aristocrat or at least the Eurotrash lover of a Hedge Funder.

Unlike the desperate beings at Bertelsmann she’s actually self-aware enough to know the difference between sarcasm and a lie. This leads me back to the study which is actually only about the EU.

Whereas the majority of the Japanese population are undecided when it comes to cooperation with Europe (though the vast majority of those who can make up their minds is in favour of greater cooperation), the British population is especially sceptical about greater cooperation with the EU–almost a third of the British are against it, and only 60 per cent are in favour of the idea.

The population of the U.S. thinks differently. Here 78 per cent are in favour of greater cooperation with Europe. However, an interpretation of the results needs to take into account the level of cooperation which already exists with any particular country.

In other words the more familiar any of the people question are likely to be involved with the EU, the LESS likely they are to like the idea of cooperation with them – which makes one woder about the puff-pieces put out in the press about it: where did they find anything in the poll supporting ANY of their conclusions?

Just One Little Window in Their New “Kristallnacht”

New York Defender est un nouveau venu dans le monde des jeux Flash à thème sérieux.

[ ... ]

Le jeu lui même est sans envergure, mais il suscite néanmoins un débat intéressant.”

Note the shallowness of “seriousness” with which it’s taken. Just one of their precious little possible « débats » that they’ll imagine they’re enlightening the world with. If Americans really wanted to reciprocate, they would have to advocate the destruction of European cities on Arab satellite TV channels.  That's how far that goes:

Remembered as one of the worst days in American history, countless millions believe Sept. 11, 2001, should never be duplicated, not even in a video game. 

Apparently, a group of French Internet video game makers never got the message, and now families of victims from that horrid day are enraged with the notion that children get to replay the tragedy over and over again.

"It's horrible what happened. People shouldn't see it again and kids should not be playing games like that. It's just not funny," said Lauren Zaifart, a Battery Park resident.

So when lefty asks “why do they hate us?”, they need look no further than the fantasies of Europeans that have been exported to the third world fever-swamps that their own colonization and resource wars created.


Those complaining about this are not overreacting. The game was designed to demonstrate from abroad an argument to Americans about their own actions, not those of the terrorists. The French game designer told the Denver Post in 2002 that there is no way to win the game.

The sole purpose is to illustrate the ultimate impossibility of fighting terrorism – a fight the United States is still waging in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere throughout the world.

Just One Little Window in Their New “Kristallnacht”

New York Defender est un nouveau venu dans le monde des jeux Flash à thème sérieux.

[ ... ]

Le jeu lui même est sans envergure, mais il suscite néanmoins un débat intéressant.”

Note the shallowness of “seriousness” with which it’s taken. Just one of their precious little possible « débats » that they’ll imagine they’re enlightening the world with. If Americans really wanted to reciprocate, they would have to advocate the destruction of European cities on Arab satellite TV channels.  That's how far that goes:

Remembered as one of the worst days in American history, countless millions believe Sept. 11, 2001, should never be duplicated, not even in a video game. 

Apparently, a group of French Internet video game makers never got the message, and now families of victims from that horrid day are enraged with the notion that children get to replay the tragedy over and over again.

"It's horrible what happened. People shouldn't see it again and kids should not be playing games like that. It's just not funny," said Lauren Zaifart, a Battery Park resident.

So when lefty asks “why do they hate us?”, they need look no further than the fantasies of Europeans that have been exported to the third world fever-swamps that their own colonization and resource wars created.


Those complaining about this are not overreacting. The game was designed to demonstrate from abroad an argument to Americans about their own actions, not those of the terrorists. The French game designer told the Denver Post in 2002 that there is no way to win the game.

The sole purpose is to illustrate the ultimate impossibility of fighting terrorism – a fight the United States is still waging in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere throughout the world.

Warm Fuzzy Blackmail

How goes the verse? Green skies at night, capitalist take flight...

EU environment ministers meeting in Brussels on Thursday (20 December) agreed that restrictions should be put on carbon dioxide emissions from air planes from 2012.

Under the proposal, all airlines coming to and leaving the EU bloc of 27 member states, as well as intra-EU flights - will be included in an emission trading scheme, something that has already been applied to other polluting sectors in the Union.

Airlines would be able to meet pollution-reduction quotas either by reducing their own emissions or buying credits from other industries.

European Industries, or more precisely the racketeers trading in the credits. (It will only work if you BELIEVE. Just BELIEVE!)

Of course the whole thing involves forcing private enterprise, much of it non-EUvian, to “do something” has only one purpose. So Eurocrats like pre-cambrian Marxist coocoo Tony Benn can say:

"This is a bold step by Europe ...”

Which, of course, it really isn’t. It’s a bold step for someone in Brussels who never learned to touch-type, and what he was really trying to say was “bend over, or else”. It’s a subsidy – not for the Airline industry as the Greenie crackheads cited in the article say it is – but one for the “carbon credit” racket. And those credits are allotted by EU governments, not those imaginary hordes of “Eco-enterpreneurs”.

Only if we can Carpet-Bomb Your Cities

Brussels Journal: ”Liberal Europeans Demand Right to Vote in U.S. Elections”

American presidential elections are not “home affairs.” American decisions have repercussions all over the globe. The American mortgage crisis affects banks in Europe. The insatiable American demand for oil makes the Arabian sheiks rich.

Actually Europe gets most of its oil from the Arab world and is propping up a charming little ex-KGB station chief in Moscow. The U.S. is addicted to domestic, Nigerian, and Venezuelan oil.

The American refusal to care for the environment causes the North Pole ice to melt and coastal areas in Asia to flood. A weakened dollar and an immense budget deficit affect the global economy.

Sounds more like their nocturnal emissions... Let me see if I can understand this one – the EU’s carbon emission grow at more than twice the rate of the US’, and they persist in trotting out this stale old saw. Quick question: have you ever SEEM anyone use those pretty little multi-compartment recycling dust-bins in blessed out EUtopia? Have you ever wondered why by comparison, a photo from outer space of the US makes the EU look like a parking lot? Probably not.

Hence, the world should be given the right to vote. Because the current situation is a blatant case of taxation without representation, against which the Americans rebelled in 1776. But of course the world will not be allowed to vote. The best we can hope for is that the Americans choose a leader who is deeply aware of the U.S.’s responsibility, as a superpower, for the rest of mankind.

And they think themselves capable of actually being responsible for anything positive in the world after spending 5 centuries screwing it up, of course. Sure. They were going to get to that next week. Right after they realized that Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, and Mao Tse Tung leaned all about their “healing, inclusive philosophy” at the Sorbonne.

It’s all part of the old “internationalism” schtick. They make themselves the sort of entrepot of these alphabet soup talking shop operations, find a few people who don’t look like Europeans to play the part of the shepard in the nativity play they scripted for themselves, and go to town. Ever heard them criticize Russian or Chinese capital punishment? Of course not.

This silliness has gotten to the point that they’re trying to form a nation which can count itself 25 times over in all of these international babble-fests, and try to call that a sort of “internationalism”. Why they love pluralism so much that they see the UN as a governing entity when all it really is, is a forum to speed up their own loony pronouncements for the rest of the world.

The answer in short is NO. You can’t vote here, so stay in your little playpen. You don’t understand democracy, individual responsibility, or even the basic notion of government by the people, let alone the difference between being a subject and a citizen, or being ruled rather than being governed.

Earth to Europe: go pound sand. Just because the US actually fights what you happy to just fear, doesn’t mean that we have to listen to your Borderline Personality Disorder talking to us.

Gee Pancho, You’re Such a, like, "Rebel"

Euro-reasoning 101: cultish hatred can be useful to create your own “facts on the ground”.



... Yeah, but at this moment, I’m still the most popular Republican of the 21st century ...

In other words, even if Bush has been chosen as America’s most admired man, Pancho’s notion of “news” is to simply smear the object of his ire with a polar opposite. This cartoon was titled “The Primaries have started!”... as if they would ever otherwise care. Bush can’t run again, but since this “Euro-übermensch” needs to periodically fondle his little plushie toy of hatred to keep the threads of his tender ego together, he trots out his best Georges Boosh.

Russian Politics Finally Matures to the Continent’s High Standards

Putin mutates into Vladimir Zhirinovsky to find the sort of political dramatus personae Europeans will actually pay notice of . Some recently elected to Russia’s electoral body are young, firm, and fully packed with that form of intellect and idealism reserved for political environments where nothing they do could possibly matter:

ALINA KABAYEVA , A rhythmic gymnast known for her extreme flexibility.

The 24-year-old said: “People often asked me if I got offers to be pictured in erotic magazines such as Playboy. Yes, it did happen but I answered no each time. I know about ethical issues.
“I first of all consider a woman’s beauty from an aesthetic point of view.”

I can sense your relief at that great ethical stand. If that doesn’t give Euro-politicking a stiffie, I don’t know what will.

Paying Others to Bravely Fly in the Face of Adversity

Weeks and weeks later: unwilling to free up 10 helicopters out of a fleet of 2400 to support the UN/AU cum UN/AU/EU operation in Darfour, grotty Gordo proposed checkbook diplomacy:

Mr Mitchell called for tough sanctions to be imposed on the Sudanese government and said that Britain should offer to pay countries like India or China for the use of vital helicopters in support of the UN-AU force.

Let me see if I understand this: Blackwater bad, paying India good. The Corporatist continent sees contract security as mercenary, but bribing governments to do the same thing as not. It’s almost charming in its’ naïvité:

"The UN and EU should now set clear benchmarks and a clear deadline for the imposition of sanctions, unless the UN-AU force is allowed to deploy in full. The sanctions should include asset freezes and travel bans on key figures in the Government of Sudan and on rebel leaders who impede the deployment of the force."

Which are the very travel bans that Germany opposed, the sanctions that various figures in the EU called inhumane, and the force was one lefties kept chiding the US was required in 2001 in lieu of the one that deposed the Taliban. In other words ANYTHING but what’s needed WHEN it’s needed.

Harmless Fun "like Scouts or Cadets"

The UK: stranger than fiction:

An Electrician accused of being a Muslim holy warrior claimed he was hunting Nessie during an alleged jihad training course.

- Thx to EUdada

Prescience

Mad Magazine, 1977: a.k.a. Europe, 2008