Saturday, April 19, 2008

Cheap Thrills Gone Awry

As reported earlier a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters, TF1 International director Patrick Binet is being questioned by police due to a corpse and street drugs appearing in his home. The deceased turned out to be an employee of the Ministry of Culture, a kind of institutionalized Crusade to waste funds on subsidizing public art stunts and conducting the jihad against all other languages.


TF1 has been informed of the situation on Thursday night, and it caused amazement at the network’s headquarters, where we had planned to disclose the story on Saturday. Patrick Binet the brilliant boss of TF1 International, a subsidiary group for acquisition and distribution of audiovisual rights, was placed Thursday morning in custody at the 2nd division of the judicial police.
(emphasis mine) Of the victim:
He was an employee of the Ministry of Culture and held the post of head of the office of the law firm of Christine Albanel.

A third person, who was present at the scene of the tragedy, is also in custody. According to a police source, the two men who were in the apartment of Patrick Binet had been "recruited" via an Internet site.

An overdose drug GHB, a substance also known as the "drug of the rapist," might be the cause of death.
Elsewhere of a former beebster, and tedious British import...:
CNN reporter Richard Quest will avoid jail despite being arrested in Central park on drug charges.

Quest, 46, was arrested early Friday morning with a small amount of methamphetamine.
46, and using crystal meth. What a loser.


Flunky finds his Stiffy

State media meets chemical media:

Patrick Binet, director of TF1 International, who is also responsible for distributing broadcast rights group, was taken into custody after the discovery of the body of a dead man at his home in the 11e arrondissement of Paris.

According to Le Point, police reportedly discovered the body of a naked man at the home of Patrick Binet, of rue de la Folie Méricourt in the 11e arrondissement, on Wednesday night.

Patrick Binet was held into custody all day Thursday at the 2nd division Police Station of the judicial police (2e DPJ). As of this writing he’s still incarcerated and his interrogation continues, as is the third man present that night at the home of the patron saint [appointed director] of TF1 International.

According to AFP, the first elements leave think of a "fine party" which would have degenerated, perhaps because of drug use, evidence of which have been discovered during the search of Binet’s home.
Indeed, a drug overdose due to the consumption of GHB, better known as “rape drug” could be the cause of death of the man in his forties.
"I do not know the all the facts of the matter. I have nothing to say at this time," said TF1 director general Nuncio Paolini to


- Shukran to Qbert

Our Effete, Sophisticated Friends, Part 280

Nothing Says “Racist” Like Thinking Yourself an Expert in Ethnology

A genocide that had no meaning outside of itself seems to have been benefited from the 'nuanced' support of a government that fancies itself an expert in cultures. 'Experts' so fixated on being world-beater in a field of study for its' own sake that they can't imagine people not being tribally motivated Stepford children

This month marks the 14th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, which is commonly considered to have begun on April 6, 1994. One aspect of the genocide that has received little attention in English-language media is the close relations that existed between the French military and the armed forces of the "Hutu Power" Rwandan government. In collaboration with the pro-government Interahamwe militias, Rwandan army officials are held to have been largely responsible for organizing the massacres perpetrated against the Tutsi civilian population and moderate Hutu from April to July 1994. The massacres are estimated to have claimed some 800,000 lives.
In fact that same preoccupation with the idea that placed 'professional ethnologist' Michèle Alliot-Marie to the head of the defense ministry. It's the same motive behind the inability to imagine that there are any sort of universal human values, autonomous thought, or points of moral reference. It's s sign of an even simpler sort of 'cultural ethnology': the disease of thinking you own culture is so adept at the manipulation of 'culture' that it finds it hard to account for free thinking at all.

No yelling in our faces, no pushing and nudging, no nastiness, threats, names, curses.... just true peace

Somehow, the people looked happier, the music sounded even more wonderful than usual, spirits were higher
gushed Ccpeacemovement's Karen Porter (that's brave brave Sir Robin in the background at 01:30 and 01:43).
I think the main thing was a feeling of safety that we had not felt in 6 long months under virtual siege. No yelling in our faces, no pushing and nudging, no nastiness, threats, names, curses.... just true peace.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Protests and boycott movements targeting Carrefour supermarkets in China

What you’re Hearing is the Howl of the Disempowered

Curious, on a continent where there are laws like France’s Article 49.3, and a treaty of the fate of the sovereignty of their national governments isn’t put to a vote, that these very people give themselves reason after reason to be fearful and start howling about not being able to manipulate the United States Presidential election. Perhaps it’s this very perversion of the legitimacy of their own democracies that gives them the breathing room to have impassioned opinions about the state of the state at all, because with US elections one is more likely to feel that they actually matter in a way that their own don’t.

Indeed, there can be no doubt that a President Obama would represent the most dramatic conceivable break with George W. Bush and the widespread European perception that America has turned into a trigger-happy rogue state run by a fundamentalist Christian nut job. In electing a young black politician with a Muslim father, Americans would do something that is pretty much unthinkable in any country in Europe, where politics are traditionally dominated by a white old boy's club (notable exceptions like German chancellor Angela Merkel notwithstanding). In this context, however, Europeans must not forget that Obama (despite having a very Europe-savvy foreign policy team) is not known to be an Atlanticist.
Now if they’ll only come to find some reason to have a similar faith in their own access to a reasonable form of pluralism, they might stop helplessly trying to poison our elections in the way they’ve succeeded to manipulate the political life of societies over which they have actual influence such as those of sub-Saharan Africa.

Euro-thumpers need to stop putting lipstick on a pig. The standing of solid democracy is as vacuous as the public understanding of it, and yet so many of them feel qualified and compelled to think that they want to have a hand in ours’ at the expense of the very notion on sovereignty.
In contrast the bombastic overblown popcorn rhetoric of the Constitution of the European Union is routinely debauched by a largely self-perpetuating oligarchy which mouths the mantras of democracy and transparency but which behind closed doors subverts that very same democracy. And given the deliberate obscurity and bloated nature of its language, no citizen of the Union will find himself inclined to use the Constitution as a touchstone for anything: he is, given its sheer size and weight, more likely to use it as a door-stop.
In Reality, they’re no less tyrannized by their governments as they were in the 20th century. What we’re hearing is the howl of the disempowered yearning for their own civic life to be meaningful, and they only way they know how to express that need is in the resentment of a straw man of their own making.

Our Effete, Sophisticated Friends, Part 279

I know you are, but what am I?

Drive her home while balancing a pepperoni pizza and six-pack on her backside. Now that's Art!

Expose yourself to Art.

She was a girl from Birmingham
she just had an abortion
she was a case of insanity
her name was Pauline she lived in a tree

She was a no-one who killed her baby
she sent her letters from the country
she was an animal
she was a bloody disgrace

Body I'm not an animal
Mummy I'm not an abortion

Dragged on a table in a factory
illegitimate place to be
in a packet in a lavatory
die little baby screaming

Body screaming fucking bloody mess
it's not an animal it's an abortion

Body I'm not an animal
Body I'm not an abortion

Throbbing squirm, gurgling bloody mess
I'm not a discharge I'm not a loss in
protein I'm not a throbbing squirm Ah!

Fuck this and fuck that
fuck it all and fuck the fucking brat
She don't wanna baby that looks like that
I don't wanna baby that looks like that.

Body I'm not an animal
Body i'm not an abortion

Mummy! Ugh!

Avant tout, l'OTAN est un modèle qui séduit ; le modèle russe, s'il y en a un, ne séduit guère

A Kiev, comme à Tbilissi, l'adhésion à l'OTAN est en revanche perçue par les équipes au pouvoir comme un arrimage à l'espace démocratique du Vieux Continent. La candidature à l'Alliance ne garantit pas la démocratie, mais les critères à remplir en vue de l'adhésion sont des instruments pour la mettre en oeuvre, en premier lieu dans l'armée. Dans ce domaine, l'Ukraine et la Géorgie sont à mille lieues de la Russie. Leurs unités ne voient plus les bizutages mortels qui sont le lot de l'armée russe. Leurs appelés ne connaissent plus les corvées de patates ou les réquisitions pour aller construire la villa d'un supérieur hiérarchique. Avant tout, l'OTAN est un modèle qui séduit. Le modèle russe, s'il y en a un, ne séduit guère.
Marie Jégo's surprisingly good article on why Russia is afraid of NATO is somewhat marred by the reactions of Le Monde readers… (The nasty Americans — those big simple children — are out to get …the Kuril Islands!).
Les hommes en épaulettes du Kremlin devraient s'interroger. Pourquoi donc les anciens vassaux de Moscou montrent autant d'empressement à quitter l'espace commun de sécurité ? Pourquoi, comme le rappelle Anatoli Grytsenko, l'ex-ministre de la défense d'Ukraine, "les candidats se pressent à la porte de l'Otan et non pas à celle de l'Organisation du traité de sécurité collective", le pacte militaire de l'aire postsoviétique ?

Totalement étrangère à toute idée de séduction, l'élite russe ne peut guère raisonner autrement qu'en termes de rapports de force, d'embargos, de chantages, de menaces. C'est la ligne qui a prévalu pendant les deux mandats de Vladimir Poutine, de 2000 à 2008. Nostalgique de l'URSS, le président russe, issu du KGB, ne pouvait penser autrement.

L'effet est dévastateur. Plus la Russie montre les dents, plus l'envie est grande à la périphérie de rejoindre l'OTAN.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

As if their Love or Hatred Mattered More than Anyone Elses’

A Discussion on Anti-Americanism is to be found at the EU Referendum blog and forum, and it’s getting quite rich:

As an American resident in the UK, I find that most of the 'anti-Americanism' stems from the very solipsism of which Americans are most often accused: a profoundly rooted assumption in Britain that the European approach to existence is the absolute best, world without end, amen. That Americans are accused of triumphalism and an assumption that THEIR way of life is the best becomes somewhat ironic in this light.

Quite often, I hear remarks along these lines: 'why don't you Americans [all 300 million, presumably] act more like ______?'
Prescient. Do please join in if you wish, and here as well.

- Tip 'O Hat to Strummin’ Joe

Elite European circles … play the ostrich, hoping that Americans will be more reasonable next time and elect a more civilized president

Attitudes toward the U.S. in elite European circles range from a feeling of superiority to plain anti-Americanism. At best, we see Americans as overgrown children who have not yet managed to separate from mother Europe. At worst, they are seen as ugly imperialists. This America of today is no longer a part of our Western Atlantic world. But we play the ostrich, hoping that Americans will be more reasonable next time and elect a more civilized president.
How Europeans Can Begin a Rediscovery of America by Guy Sorman, Jan. 31, 1983

The Euro-dictum: If it ain’t Bolted Down, It’s Yours’

It’s not for a lack of self-esteem, it’s that incredible lack of esteem they have for others. TF1 thinks their production is worth something, but just what value is seems to be what they can’t grasp. As an entity of the state, the only way to know would be to see what the market thinks of their radio and television output were they free to choose it on their own.

For that, there are the visible figures of how many of their clips are downloaded, such as one can discover by posting them on sites such as Youtube, Dailymotion, or LiveLeak. TF1’s stuff represents an amount so small that it’s nearly immeasurable.

So, just what is that statistically meaningless slice of Youtube’s traffic worth? TF1 thinks that’s 10 times the total amount of Youtube’s earnings. Normal people call that usury.

On Wednesday the newspaper Les Echos reported on its website that TF1 attacked the video sharing website in court. Un porte-parole de la chaîne de télévision a refusé de commenter cette informatiA spokesman for the television studio refused to comment on this information.

Le quotidien cite un porte-parole de YouTube selon lequel la plainte a été reçue il ya quelques jours en Californie, ajoutant que l'affaire serait néanmoins jugée en France, par le tribunal de grande instance de ParisThe newspaper quoted a spokesman for YouTube that the complaint was received a few days ago in California, adding that the case would be tried in France in the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris.

The video sharing site sometimes broadcasts content from television, without agreement on copyrights.

Selon Les Echos, les dommages et intérêts demandés par TF1 à YouTube, contrôlé par le géant américain Google, s'élèveraient à 100 millions d'eurAccording to Les Echos, the damages sought by TF1 from YouTube, controlled by the American giant Google, would amount to €100 million. "Dans le cas de YouTube, le montant des dommages demandés par la Une s'élève à 100 millions d'euros, soit dix fois plus que le chiffre d'affaires 2006 (de YouTube) qui atteignait 10,6 millions de dollars", peut-on lire sur le site du journal. "In the case of YouTube, the amount of damages sought stands at €100 million, or ten times more than
[YouTube’s] turnover in 2006, which stood at 10.6 million dollars".

Les Echos ajoutent qu'une autre plainte contre le site a été déposée en France en décembre.Les Echos added that another complaint against the site was filed in France in December. Le montant des dommages et intérêts demandés dans ce dossier atteindrait 39,7 millions d'euros. The amount of damages sought in this case would reach 39.7 million.
That’s 944% of YouTube’s 2006 earnings and 90% of DailyMotion’s 2006 gross receipts for something which could only garner more interest from the exposure, is aired publicly, is posted by people who pay the TV tax to begin with for people who are not very likely to live outside France where that same television tax is levied.

This, in spite of the fact that TF1 smothering-parent France TV (previously known as RTF), and “official user” promoting itself at Dailymotion has an inherent near-monopoly over content and delivery in France and a major stake in other European markets built on that former absolute monopoly. Now they’re demanding their “rights”.

Get it? Peace, love, and making the state created cartels work “for the people.” Got that. People?

- H/T à Erik

Obama is part of a long tradition on the left of being for the working class in the abstract … but having contempt for them as human beings

writes Thomas Sowell.


"The working class," said Karl Marx, "is revolutionary or it is nothing." That is, they mattered only insofar as they were willing to carry out the Marxist agenda.



Russia to EU

Grow up, thumbsuckers – and stop talking in circles already.

Get a life, dude

Vieux ringard s'indigne qu'un autre ringard ne va pas chanter en langue française lors d'un concours de chanson ringard.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

The Type of Comments That a Frenchman Deems Racist, Unacceptable, and Beyond the Pale

An American known as 2Brixshy found out the hard way what type of comments, attitudes, and behaviors a Frenchman like the one known as SuperFrenchie deems is racist, unacceptable, and beyond the pale. In a comment banned from the SF blog, 2Brixshy did little more than note the double standards seemingly at play there (okay; so he did use a couple of strong words). What he found "interesting" was that
it's okey dokey for all the frenchies to without fail mock Americans for various shortcomings [or alleged shortcomings], but when one of us bumpkin Yankees turn it around on the french, suddenly it's a very serious thing [and everybody goes ballistic].
As for Frank P. Hart, he found it "hilarious" that SuperFrenchy
(with the support of 55% of his commenting community) equates rank censorship with good blog content. And to think he's got sycophants from his site coming here to call some of us Nazis! When one defines oneself as the bien-pensant, one cannot possibly be wrong, n'est-ce pas? I'm pretty sure the Nazis thought that way of themselves, too...
Pat Patterson noted the double standards at play here:
The part of the comment policy was a trifle confusing in that racist rants are not allowed except they are directed against someone SF or his fans call a racist. And then not allow that person to repond because obviously no racist rants are allowed.

It is his site and one must play be his rules but the rules seem drawn up by a guy that deep in his heart knows someone is going to take his birthday soccer ball from him with no resistance whatsoever.
French "rules" (in a generalized way) being, of course, the whole raison d'être of No Pasarán!

Note: I found (what I believe is) the very last instance of a comment of mine on the SuperFrenchie blog (two comments, actually); their having been published on the SF's comments page at the time (ten months ago), they have remained in draft form on NP all this time, that is, until today; the interested reader (and the unbiased and the detached one) can determine how much (or how little) of the content of the original comment and the follow-up is owed to racism and prejudice and how much (or how little) is owed to thought and research…

"How I painfully became an American citizen"

Stupid French broad decides to become a naturalized American citizen, not because she really wants to, but because she's afraid of being thrown out of the country on a technicality and losing her green card. The entire naturalization ceremony, arranged in an inhospitable Los Angeles suburb, is described as a Big Brother type get-together run by menacing guards. She attempts to avoid the Pledge of Allegiance by hightailing it out of the room but is sent back by an official. The bitch is seriously sick. Someone strip her of her citizenship, please.

Looking for some of that Good Old-fashioned Communism?

Well, here it is!

So just where ARE those “Truthers” when you find a real false flag operation?

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Over-simplified yet Baffling

Feeling feeble? To make a meaningless life even less interesting, France has introduced new signs for those who like life too-ordered, oddly categorized, and simplistic.

La Baf Proceeds to Send a Bailiff to Seize the Deficit-Prone French State's Assets

When somebody is going bankrupt or defaulting on their taxes, the courts are known to intervene by sending a sort of bailiff on behalf of the state.

On the basis of that precedent, La Baf asked itself, why shouldn't the government be subject to the same rules? The answer was to send un huissier de justice to the French state (specifically, its coin museum) to seize its assets and pay for its deficit, while prohibiting it from asking for taxes until it gets its finances into shape.

Our Effete, Sophisticated Friends, Part 278

Monday, April 14, 2008

Caption Contest

Berlusconi defeats a man compared to Barack Obama by the BBC and others for no apparent reason. But that’s not important right now. I’ll kick off the caption contest...

“Welcome to Baltimore.”

Update: to date, Crank takes the poertzelki hands down.

As for culture, he tends to appreciate Paris


Doesn’t Plantu Makes Everyone Gag, Though?


The attempt to organise a boycott (via) of Danish products in Saudi Arabia is still rumbling on and Hatim Misfir, a government official in the country, has trotted out the old canard about freedom of press and expression being okay as long as no-one uses it.

Last week, French cartoonist Plantu appeared to endorse this position, expressing concern over renewed tensions between the West and the Islamic world after the republication of the cartoons.
Of course he’s all about tolerance, so long as he’s completely intolerant of the branch of civilization that tolerates him. His intellectual limits are obvious:
After the 2006 controversy, he had launched the initiative "Cartooning for peace" with caricaturists from around the world to promote tolerance and mutual understanding between cultures.
his isn’t a philosophical position, it’s a payoff and an exchange. While he has friends cartooning in the Arab world, their fate isn’t the matter at hand what Euro-lefties wring their hands about getting their own societies to hold some people to a different standards as others. No, what compels them to this is a sort of bigotry that makes them unable to distinguish between Arabs and Islamists. In particular those Islamists who wouldn’t tolerate his cartoons for a moment.

Typical Leftist Bigot