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Saturday, June 14, 2003
posted by gbarto at 9:04 PM:
On the on-again, off-again gay pride bash, Taranto has it right:We have no dog in the fight over the gay-pride party, and Ashcroft's decision to cancel it does seem a bit petty. But what in the world does the Times think any of this has to do with the duties of the attorney general?As a libertarian who holds no brief for the anti-homosexual jihad, I myself wondered, Are my tax dollars really being used so Justice Department staffers can affirm their sexuality or belief in others' sexuality? How about just enforcing the law?
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posted by gbarto at 8:43 PM:
AOL is running this pitch:Top 10 AOL Studio Shows: Why Lisa Marie, Craig David and Lee Ann made the cut.
Umm... okay... I learned a neat word the other day from - of all places - the news and info scroll they run on tv sets in fast food restaurants. The word is omphaloskepsis. It means navel gazing. I'm not sure whether telling you the quaint way I learned the word in a McDonald's qualifies, but this surely does. I understand that the media and entertainment industry gives itself Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and all that and tries to package "Hollywood celebrates itself" as something other than group egomania, but I think AOL letting you know how cool these people must be because AOL chose them is either arrogant, clueless or both. How about the top three who declined to do AOL's Studio Show and their reasons? That could make for interesting reading. Except that it would involve the unscripted utterances of celebrities, but at least it would show AOL Time Warner managing some perspective about where it sits in the universe.
In any case, I just thought I'd better pass along the info. After all, if you're trying to be hip, you wouldn't want to make the mistake of favoring someone who couldn't even negotiate a win-win deal with the world's largest media conglomerate.
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posted by gbarto at 8:22 PM:
Can Peace Process Be Salvaged?Israel, Palestinians to restart talks today after week of violence killed 61
No.
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posted by gbarto at 8:20 PM:
Militants Attack Students in TehranProtesters beaten in dorm rooms in fourth straight night of violence
But, as is widely known, the only evil in the region is the US led occupation of Iraq. Right?
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posted by gbarto at 8:18 PM:
U.S. Gives Belgium UltimatumBush team threatens to move NATO from Brussels over war crimes law
Good. We really shouldn't be rearranging our foreign policy in order to calm every anti-American sentiment that sweeps through the left-wing Eurocracy. Rather, we should be informing the anti-American part of Europe that they can pay their own bills, run their own operations and take over our contribution to the UN if we're such a hindrance to world peace, love, justice and cotton candy for all, etc.
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posted by gbarto at 1:17 AM:
Natalie Solent states with perfect elegance exactly how my libertarian politics mesh with my conservative sentiments:What I want is for our customs to change, not our laws.Reagan and Bush both have changed our culture in big ways with their bully pulpits. But if our pols cannot convince the public from that bully pulpit, passing a law to make up for it is most likely to trivialize the law, trivialize the people's sentiment and trivialize the trust our pols are supposed to earn from us by temperance and intelligence in their actions. So no blue laws or other devices to enforce the public morality, please. If Teddy Kennedy and Bill Bennet can pull it together to set us a good example, I'm sure the better part of us won't find it too challenging to follow, with no laws needed.
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posted by gbarto at 12:43 AM:
French news headlines:Le Monde: Two New Israeli Raids Into Gaza. Also, on the unrest front, we have Unions Call For Another Action Day On Retirement. Says Le Monde, everybody knows the steam has gone out of the effort but they're trying to keep up pressure for a new round of negotiations. The tone does not suggest they're likely to get it.
Le Figaro: I'm going to dress up the headline: Pax Americana Tested. The reference is to renewed violence in Iraq.
Libé: A Success For the Future European Constitution, namely getting a working draft out of the 105 member commission putting it together. France takes a special interest because former President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (sufficiently famous that newspapers sometimes just refer to VGE, à la JFK) is head of the show.
Ouest-France: Same line as Libé: The Convention Adopts Its Constitution.
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posted by gbarto at 12:25 AM:
Updates from France:Says one American in Paris, the bus strikes in Paris haven't been too bad in his area as long as you keep a couple alternate routes in mind. Of course he is a student and doesn't face the usual time pressures. And he has been unable to see a friend in town because she's on the other side of town and the timing there hasn't worked.
From another:
Had a HELL of a time getting home today cuz of les grèves. Living in la banlieue is SO not cool during strikes.And a positive impression of the French, if not the strikes, from an Italian en route from Paris to Italy by rail:
I got into France; run cancelled, so I had to change metros one more time than what I was supposed too. It was really chaotic and warm, people did not seem to enjoy that! I asked a couple of people ..so what about the strike, and they were looking around and basically bitching about it! Something else besides the strikes...those French people I talked to were really nice! Isn't that unusual eheheh... I was asking in French and some words were in English and they were actually trying to speak English and make sure I was understanding, even bringing me to the train directly!
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Friday, June 13, 2003
posted by gbarto at 10:54 AM:
Socialist Deputies Denounce Bunker StrategyI'll bet they do, but after two weeks of hell, Chirac emerged, smiled and told everyone everything would be alright and suddenly the protests are no longer the top story at Le Monde. You can't argue with that. You can only get very, very p--ed.
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posted by gbarto at 10:51 AM:
Fidel Castro manifeste contre l'EuropeLe chef de l'Etat cubain a organisé, jeudi, d'imposantes manifestations pour protester contre l'Espagne, l'Italie et l'UE.
If you're not rolling your eyes, you must not read French. Here's the English:
Fidel Castrol Protests Against Europe
The Cuban Head of State organized imposing demonstrations to protest against Spain, Italy and the EU, Thursday
Oh no! Cuba's mad at us! you can hear the Europeans cry!
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posted by gbarto at 10:48 AM:
A Constitutional Plan For an Enlarged EuropeSays Le Monde, they finally have one. The question I would ask: How will this European Constitution work in, say, France, when neither the French Constitution nor resultant laws seem to have the slightest impact on whether the unions will go bing and France will be shut down? The so-called centers of the EU, France and Germany, are both a mess at the moment and both have populaces of a very independent mind; what happens when, for all the hype, the French or Germans discover that reacting to something with the sensibilities we've come to know and... know... from these two is not acceptable for the unity of Europe?
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posted by gbarto at 2:33 AM:
Dr. Weevil adds to Natalie Solent's war poetry.* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:28 AM:
Fun Den Beste post on evolutionary advantage. Don't agree with all of it, don't disagree with all of it, don't care to go into it - not my specialization. But a fun read.* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:14 AM:
French news headlines:Le Monde: Jacques Chirac returns to the social scene. At a conference in Toulouse, he assured that retirement reform was for the good of all and launched the next reform - social security (which over there refers to the health and welfare system).
Le Figaro: Jacques Chirac engaged in reform effort. Le Figaro highlights the fact his speech for reform was in the first person singular; i.e. he's put himself on the line for this.
Libé: Chirac appears and opens a new front. In the reform wars, that is, as mentioned above.
Ouest-France: It was a nearly ordinary day for the Bac. You can see our write-up on Le Monde's article on this from this a.m. here.
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posted by gbarto at 1:49 AM:
The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
| Level | Score |
|---|---|
| Purgatory (Repenting Believers) | Very High |
| Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers) | Moderate |
| Level 2 (Lustful) | Low |
| Level 3 (Gluttonous) | Moderate |
| Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious) | Very Low |
| Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy) | Low |
| Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics) | Very Low |
| Level 7 (Violent) | Moderate |
| Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers) | Low |
| Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous) | Low |
Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test
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posted by gbarto at 1:07 AM:
Checking out the server logs and stumbled on a few blogs that obviously referred mine through the "random blog" setup. But I liked this one, My Two Second Shelf Life, with lots of amusing musings from someone whose life could be going better but who seems to have an interesting perspective on it all.* * *
Thursday, June 12, 2003
posted by gbarto at 11:14 AM:
Here's Den Beste on the situation in North Korea along with a modest proposal: Let China take it over. Interesting.* * *
posted by gbarto at 10:55 AM:
78% of French oppose interference with Bac, Unions get message
Will France take a stand for itself now that it's taken a stand for its children?First Written Test in Bac Takes Place Without Problems, says Le Monde. Well, almost. On the positive side, almost all schools started the exams on time with people admitted without problems. Several unions that had announced plans to make how they felt about the government instead arrived with banners reading "Good Luck." At one school, teachers replaced their protest placards with the signs featuring standard exam questions. In Auch, the story is more complicated: The unions sealed off the city and would allow no one in - excepting people with the paperwork to take the Bac. The transportation unions even took a break from their strike to make sure students would be able to get to the exams. Since we are attached to the press, we will focus on the news - the places things didn't go right and what happened:
- At Perpigan (Pyrénées-Orientales) they tried to build rock and tire barriers to disrupt traffic. But they couldn't get enough volunteers and really only blocked one intersection.
- In Toulouse, 400 protesters admitted students to the Bac but wouldn't let the exam monitors in.
- At Mistral d'Avignon (Vaucluse) 200-250 protesters locked the school gates. The police forced them open.
- At Condorcet-Belfort (Territoire-de-Belfort) 40 protesters blocked the school gates, but opened them voluntarily after a few minutes
As should have been obvious, that the destiny of France is in the hands of the French people. They can try to blame unions for everything, but the real problem is their squishiness on whether to root for the unions out of misguided sentimentality or demand that unions be treated like everyone else, facing the same responsability for their actions, the same threat of firing for not doing their jobs, the same legal sanctions for actions injurious to the public interest. This is a decision France has to make and it seems to have made it:
However upset people are about the transportation strikes, they can't bring themselves to oppose them wholeheartedly. They want to root against the authorities, to root for the underdogs, and can't figure out that looking at the scoreboard the government is the underdog and the unions have all the cards, including the keys to the safe and comfortable passing of their lives.
The French have no one but themselves to blame for the nationwide strikes, and that's been proved this morning. Because when the French people managed to get upset enough about something to drop the pieties about the idea of the unions as special, rather than one more corporate interest, they sent a message loud and clear and the unions received it: Don't strike the Bac, said the public, because it will hurt the children, and the unions backed down, not only - I think - because they knew the politics were against them but because they came to understand why the politics were against them.
The question for the future is, can the people of France next say, Don't strike against France's advancement into the 21st century, because it will hurt France?
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posted by gbarto at 12:40 AM:
Beautiful post on warring poetry at Natalie Solent. Natalie isn't sure about poets outside the English tradition, so I'll note that Victor Hugo took up arms to defend the Second Republic in June, 1848. Flaubert - a novelist, not a poet, strictly speaking - did the same in March of that year and also prepared to lead troops against the Prussians in 1870 (France fell before his unit saw action). What this is about, of course, is that poets are supposed to see revealed truth, so if you can find a pacifist poet, ta da, you've your proof that peace is the way to go. But the presence of more hawkish poets mars the picture. I guess they weren't really poets, couldn't see that revealed truth. Which ends up meaning that if you write in incomplete sentences and oppose war you're a poet. Hmmm. I'm halfway there. That said, I don't think one can seriously claim to understand poetry and dismiss the likes of Homer, Virgil, Tennyson, et al., including France's luminary Hugo. And let's not forget the Chanson de Roland.* * *
posted by gbarto at 12:23 AM:
French news headlines:Le Monde: Bombing In Jerusalem, Air Raid In Gaza. Sixteen dead in the bus bombing, seven in the air raid. On the strike front, the top headline is Baccalaureate: No Boycott. If I follow, educators are supposed to remain on strike but not interfere in the administration or processing of the tests. Word has it this policy may not be followed by radicals.
Le Figaro: Bombing Against Peace in Jerusalem.
Libé: Peace Process Undermined by Bombing. Libé says the air raid killed nine. Also, a clever headline on strike news: Risques d'embûches pour les bûcheurs du bac, which doesn't translate nearly so neatly; it means "Risk of Ambush for Takers of Bac." Specifically, not all unions are on board about staying out of the way of test takers.
Ouest-France: Retirement Debate Provokes Tension At Assembly. If only things were that sedate on the street! Still, some Socialists declare themselves offended by the way Raffarin has undertaken these reforms.
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Wednesday, June 11, 2003
posted by gbarto at 11:38 PM:
The TurkeyBlog is just beginning to get some info from folks in France, via the TurkeySister. Some interesting things (with my commentary prefaced TB) that her correspondent mentioned and which I don't think have got discussed a lot on the Anglosphere side:- It's good that the French are free to strike.
TB: This is a right we also take for granted here but while it is too often used for extortionary purposes, it has its place and things could go the other way without it. - Nonetheless, the strikes are getting to be a bit much.
TB: This person has been caught in Paris the last two days because the trains to her home have been canceled. One supposes that others are noticing the inconvenience. - While transportation strikes have the most profound impact on the country, this isn't their fight. The national railway system and the Paris regional transport system have special government retirement packages.
- Educators may be right to not want regionalization to go too far, as this would leave Marseilles, France's second largest city, at risk of having its education program run by the Front National, Jean-Marie Le Pen's hypernationalist and seemingly bigoted party.
- Teachers have it rough, true, and so it's good that other unions are coming to their defense. But masons and carpenters have it pretty rough too, and presenting teachers as the most suffering group in France may leave a bad taste in some mouths.
- In her opinion, France has to wake up and realize retirement reform is necessary, a fact with which most EU nations came to grips some time ago. While the Fillon plan may not be perfect, these unions haven't found a government left or right that could come up with plan to satisfy them.
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posted by gbarto at 1:27 AM:
Be sure to visit Common Sense and Wonder at its new home, where it has, as always, lots of good stuff. At the moment, that includes an EU assault on the internet, an attempt by the Liberals to ransack Canada's treasury for its campaigns and lots of good stuff on why the peace process in the Middle East is so bad.* * *
posted by gbarto at 1:19 AM:
Wonders Marcus, if showing smoking in movies is so deleterious to the intellectual/social health of children, what of sex, violence, etc?But Marcus fails to understand: Just as the left is chary of instructing youth in the lining of the pockets of large corporations and their shareholders, so it is eager to assure their exposure to the dysfunctions by which the lower classes are to act out in order to a) offend traditionalists and b) demonstrate the need for more governance by the left for teaching "safe" methods for the commission of self-destructive behavior.
As such, the hardline conservatives and hardline leftists are on the same track, both angling for control over society. By the nattering of their extremes, they always seem to give the other just enough ammunition to keep the battle going, which is why the TurkeyBlog, notwithstanding his sympathy to the conservative understanding of some of this, takes a libertarian line when it comes to the application of state power to the problem. Offensive though both be, if the alternative is a government commission on "good tv," then show the smoking, show the screwing and, for God's sake, show such whining parents as you may find on either side how to change the channel if they don't like what their kids are watching.
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posted by gbarto at 12:59 AM:
Thoughts on emotional exhibitionism and how it ought be paid at A Dog's Life.* * *
posted by gbarto at 12:50 AM:
French news headlines:Le Monde: Blockage on Retirement, Advances on Education. So retirement negotiations remain stalled. "Advances" are, as the TurkeyBlog predicted, capitulations. Which does not, in your humble correspondent's opinion, bode well for France getting real retirement reform. We'll see where things come out but it looks like the Raffarin government just chose impotence over challenging the education unions to really stand for education.
Le Figaro: Raffarin holds strong; Sarkozy demined. Says Le Figaro, Raffarin did well in making his case for retirement reform at the Assembly. As for Interior Minister Sarkozy, the verb déminer refers to clearing a minefield, but it is not clear at this time if that means he has been defused or the situation has been defused for him. A little of each, I reckon, which, as I said, may not bode well, at least in the view of those who hoped France would at long last take its situation seriously.
Ouest-France: The "War" of the Bac Will Not Take Place. Because the government buckled on decentralization and the education unions said they wouldn't walk out of the Bac after all. The title, incidentally, is a silly reference to Giradoux's The Trojan War Will Not Take Place.
Libé: Retirement: The Street Marches Before the Doors of Parliament.
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Tuesday, June 10, 2003
posted by gbarto at 5:06 AM:
From Le Monde: A UN Rep has seen Aung San Suu Kyi; and in the breaking news box, we learn - presumably of the same person - that The UN Envoy Has Demanded the Release of the Opposition Leader.* * *
posted by gbarto at 5:03 AM:
Newest headline at Le Monde: Raffarin Opposes His Majority to the Strikes. That is, of course, a parliamentary majority; polls are split on whether the protesters have majority support but Raffarin doesn't. Nonetheless, this piece makes it sound like he intends to proceed carefully, according to procedure, doing what needs to be done because it needs to be done, and that's that. No mention of consequences for him. This sort of bloody-mindedness may well be exactly what the situation calls for: Calling your reforms historic, then leaving it understood that you'll go down defending them because they're more important than you, makes it a little harder for the unions to threaten Raffarin and makes it a little easier for him to appear noble over what is, in the end, politics. But this is good to see, because for all the bile with which we hurl that word, "politics," it is in the end about finding a process for deciding the relationship between the people and the government, in this case a government of the people. Raffarin means well, which is nice. He seems to understand this, as opposed to being ready to confess to his awfulness, which is better. One other striking thing: In his belief that more needs to be done for the economy, he is pushing for tax cuts - cuts the EU would forbid as fiscally irresponsible. Chirac and friends made Iraq a pain in the ass for us, but if they're just as zealous in defending what they perceive as in France's best interest in spite of the EU, this could be fun. Provided they can hold it together long enough to get there. In any case, the absence of government capitulation has me feeling a little better about the situation. The unions may make a hash of things; the question is whether the public will be blackmailed, since the government doesn't seem interested in backing down. Which means that for all the manageering of France by governments, it is the people who will decide this one in the end. Provided the government holds firm, I hope the people will have the sense to stand by it, if only by staying back and trusting in this seemingly imperturbable leadership to do its thing absent the public's joining the unions in the streets.* * *
posted by gbarto at 4:42 AM:
French news headlines:Le Monde: Retirement at the Assembly: The Moment of Truth. The strikes and marches are still continuing, and spreading. It's the 11th day for the education strikes, transport strikes continue and there are now warnings about banks, post offices, telecommunications, hospitals, police and more.
Le Figaro: The Longest Tuesday for Raffarin - with the opening of debate on retirement reform, with a roundtable on what to do with education and with the news of the growing list of demonstrations and strikes.
Libé: The Street Pounds the Pavement, Parliament Debates. Notes Libé, the retirement reform proposal reached the Assembly virtually unchanged, despite questions.
Ouest-France: Retirement Reform Before the Deputies.
It's looking like the government is holding the line, amazingly enough, and they don't seem to have buckled just yet. The big question is whether the unions will shut down French society before the government caves or if the government will manage to hold it all together. One thing that is unfortunately missing - from what I see - is a coordinated campaign to separate the unions from toute la France in asserting that the Chirac/Raffarin movement is the true defender of the latter. There are shades of this thinking in some of the individual statements made, but it's a theme that might need hammering home. Still, it is reassuring to see that so far the government has not issued an announcement that it has come to grips with its existence as an evil empire that, however well meaning, was evil and is changing its ways to admit of the sunniness and light that is the CGDT's understanding of the world. Only one thing to note: Raffarin is a sharp guy and Chirac's about as cagey as they come; the duo might pull it off. I'm not optimistic, but I'm less pessimistic than I'd probably be with anybody less clever about saving their own bacon than Chirac.
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Monday, June 09, 2003
posted by gbarto at 3:40 AM:
Be sure to visit Den Beste's site for lots of stuff on the crumbling of France. Den Beste is positing a collapse of the French system, possibly followed by a revolutionary government. I sincerely hope he's wrong. A few things to keep an eye on. Presumably even as I write, negotiations are taking place to make sure the Bac comes off. If it doesn't, universities and students won't know who's eligible to start college next year. If we're lucky, tomorrow's news will only inform that the French education system is in tatters. Successful negotiations would imply a) Raffarin's reforms aren't going, b) Raffarin is weak, c) the unions don't need to worry about the retirement reform battle because they'll win in the end. In an ideal world, tomorrow would conclude with a Reaganesque announcement that the Bac will be given and any teacher not present is not a teacher, hence is fired, à la the Air Traffic Controllers' strike resolution. That won't happen. But if things are still looking very ugly indeed, there is some hope that the unions will be made to back down.Chirac has been playing some very dangerous games this year and this is far and away the most dangerous. If he wins, he'll do what his idol, DeGaulle, couldn't: buck public opinion and make himself master over it anyway. If he loses, we may be back to May 1968. May 1968 does, incidentally, need to be remembered, if only because it involved a very messy situation where France managed not to drag the European continent into war. But, as Den Beste notes, people aren't uniformly as thrilled with what the union movement has been doing as in the past. And while the unions hold a lot of veto power over France doing anything, in the long run they do risk the wrath of the French people. To close down the Bac is to turn off a lot of students with aspirations, not to mention their families and their friends. And as "peace protesters" in San Francisco found out this year, keeping people from getting to work may show your power, but it doesn't always win you friends. The question is whether Chirac and Raffarin can hang on long enough that more people have been hurt by union excesses than helped by unions; the time necessary to do so may not be as great as some might think. So from these shores, the TurkeyBlog's best advice, should Mssrs. Chirac and Raffarin be desperate enough to consult this page (all bets are off for France if it gets that bad!) is to hang tough, keep hanging tough and wait until teachers are angry that there's no bus service to take them to their marching point, bus drivers are angry that their kid's shot at college next fall just went out the window, etc. It's going to get ugly. The question is whether the government will let it get ugly enough for the populace to see what's going on, or whether they'll cave and let the Arlette freak show and other horrors pretend to have saved for today what they'll have surely destroyed for tomorrow.
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posted by gbarto at 2:41 AM:
I'd recommend this A Dog's Life item if it weren't so damn depressing. He reports on animal cruelty. You are excused from reading so long as you are sure to hug your dog, cat, hamster or whatever. And the neighbors'.* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:31 AM:
Good news!Calif. Girl Found Alive After Kidnapping
Nine-year-old found two days after man took her from San Jose home
No word on how she's doing or what's up, but she is safe. Walked into a convenience store crying Sunday night.
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posted by gbarto at 2:23 AM:
New at The Hugo Pages (TheHugoPages.com):Les Misérables in miniature: "Melancholia"
Hugo began work on a book called Les Misères in the mid 1840s, but the 1848 Revolution and other tangles got in the way of his completing what would become Les Misérables. In the meantime, he wrote this poem which he read to his family on Christmas Day, 1855, after which he said that it contained the basis for the book that would become his greatest novel.
I have translated the poem in full and have roughly half of it posted. The rest should be coming soon (by the end of the week).
Also a major reformatting of The Hugo Pages Blog.
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posted by gbarto at 1:07 AM:
The French news is below, but I wanted to highlight the lead editorial for today's Ouest-France. Below are excerpts of a commentary on the social mess:EditorialOne wonders how long it will take the rest of France to wake up, but it is good to see a nice regional daily like Ouest-France running this sort of analysis.
by Jean Boissonnat
Tension
The social crisis sweeping France is anything but a surprise. It would have hit any government, right or left, brave enough to attack the problem of retirement. Of course the diagnosis was made twenty years ago by the first reports on the subject. For five years, all the possible solutions have been on the table. One can always prolong discussions and negotiations. They would not lead to a miraculous solution, outside extending the time one must work, increasing the rates of taxation or lowering the level of the pensions.
Now we're at the moment where we must make decisions. Most European countries did this before us because they have traditions for social dialogue that we lack. But this didn't happen, all the same, without difficulties. From Italy to Sweden, passing through Austria and Germany, there were protests, conflicts, strikes. Governments had a rough time of it. Chancellor Schroder, for example, had problems rallying his party last week in Berlin. In France, at the very heart of the Socialist Party which is comfortably set up as the opposition, some old leaders like Michel Rocard and Jacques Delors courageously warned their friends against demagogic attitudes.
...
"Make the rich pay."
As for "Make the rich pay," traditional anthem of the populist left, it's hardly the obvious solution when the markets have fallen by half in two years and a recent report of the Council for Economic Analysis (set up by [former Socialist Prime Minister] Lionel Jospin) denounces excessive corporate taxes as the biggest fiscal handicap of France.
...
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posted by gbarto at 12:40 AM:
French News Headlines:Le Monde: Mahmoud Abbas Tested By Extremism. He's the Prime Minister of the Palestinian territories. He's facing four terrorist groups that have vowed to work together to kill his peace initiative. And the Nat'l Sec. Adv. of the US has said that Palestine must meet its requirements in the peace process if Israel is to be expected to comply for its part.
Le Figaro: The Pope Calls For Family Values while touring in Croatia.
Libé: Johnny and Company Always On the Road. That's French rocker Johnny Hallyday, seen in the film "Man on a train" over here, and famous for his French remakes of American rock and roll hits. He's on tour right now - yet again - and is crowning it with a big show on his birthday, June 15 (also the TurkeyBlog's birthday, for the record) that the President of France, among others, is expected to attend.
Ouest-France: Baccalaureate Exams: The Threat Is Clearer. Specifically, two teachers unions have threatened to walk during the national exams if they don't get their way. Negotiations tomorrow.
We also learn that Poland did indeed join the EU. The hostility we read about yesterday translated into non-participation, rather than a close vote. Notes Ouest-France: 58% participation, 82% in favor - Poland: A Soft "Yes" to the EU
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Sunday, June 08, 2003
posted by gbarto at 2:18 PM:
The fine folks at Common Sense and Wonder have moved to Moveable Type and their own url, http://commonsensewonder.com. Knowing that, wouldn't this be a great time to visit them at their new site?* * *
posted by gbarto at 4:59 AM:
Natalie Solent writes here and here about California's efforts to destroy a couple old folks in their late 80s (one with Alzheimers) because they ran a dry-cleaning business before people knew the dangers such things posed and therefore may have polluted. We must inform Natalie that such things are not so odd. In the small town where I grew up, a widow in her late 80s spent years tangling with the state's environmental bureaucracy which wanted her to pay to clean up the site where here husband had had a car dealership. The state admitted that the contamination was a heavier machine oil, not standard motor oil, and that no one would assert more than occasional spillage at the car dealership while people who had worked in the factory that preceded the car dealership remembered pouring barrels of machine oil down the drain. But that was not important. What was important is that the factory had gone bankrupt and its owners had never recovered, whereas the car dealer's widow had money left over and the state environmental agency had been embarrassed by the failure of its litigation arm to make polluters pay. They thought they had an easy kill; fortunately they lost in the end but they made things a lot harder for a family friend before admitting after ten years of harassment that they didn't really have a case.Funny, I think, that for all we hear about scams to bilk old people, the same governments ever on the lookout lest a little old lady spend an extra penny for her grapes at the local market will pull these stunts without even blushing.
Incidentally, this happened in Michigan. I think place is less important than the mentality which makes one think that becoming a lawyer is the way to save the environment.
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posted by gbarto at 4:34 AM:
Militants Lay Deadly Challenge to 'Road Map'Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade claim joint responsibility for shooting attack on Gaza army post that killed four Israelis
So, will the world listen now that we have it on good authority that Israel and parts of the PA will consider serious concessions for peace but a select group of Palestinians is so full of bile that they would rather see their own people perpetually occupied than give up their hope of finishing Hitler's final solution. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al Aqsa and Hezbollah (surprisingly not on the list) are not political parties or entitities; they are manifest evil, quite literally hell bent on destroying a people. It is sad that Europe - France in particular - has shown itself incapable of understanding the gravity of this, but there's something about the French that leaves them ever ready to say, "It's just a train ride, what's the fuss?" as they do their little part to feed the Auschwitzes of the age.
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posted by gbarto at 4:07 AM:
French news update:Le Monde: Bac threatened by call for strike. That's the national exam that determines whether a note goes in your file that you attended high school or you actually get a certificate for your efforts. It's also like the SAT/ACT in that it determines if you get into college. And it is the most nervewracking experience a lot of French people will experience in their lifetime. The government, shrewdly, is declaring it "unacceptable" to put students in the crosshairs like this. The question is whether the government will take a hit if the exams don't come off or if it will convince the people that the education unions don't care about anything - including students - except their own agenda. This is a dicy situation for Chirac because it could prove to be for France like Reagan's firing of the air traffic controllers: a change in the balance of power between unions and the rest of society that sidelines the latter in a very real way.
Ouest-France: Will the Polish choose Europe? The fate of the referendum to join will be played out across the countryside, says Ouest-France. The last polls say it will pass with 54%.
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