Strauss-Kahn's wife confirms split - FRANCE - FRANCE 24

Anne Sinclair, wife of former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, on Friday indirectly confirmed she had separated from her husband, after having stood by his side throughout a series of sex scandals extending from New York to Paris. By News Wires (text)  

AFP - Dominique Strauss-Kahn's wife Anne Sinclair indirectly confirmed Friday that she had separated from the former IMF chief engulfed in an ongoing sex scandal.

She was asked in a newspaper interview how her personal life was going "since your separation from Dominique Strauss-Kahn", and replied that she was doing very well.

"I'm in good form, I've been on holiday, I'm working hard, I'm focusing on the American elections," Sinclair, a journalist who currently heads the French edition of the Huffington Post news website, told Le Parisien daily.

The grape harvest in France will be "exceptionally small", with volumes due to be the lowest since 1991, the country's agriculture minister has warned.

This year's harvest is expected to yield 42.5 million hectolitres, of wine, compared to 51 million hectolitres last year, a 17 per cent drop, Stéphane Le Foll told wine experts, adding that the situation was much the same around the world.

French wine makers have had a tough year with many vines damaged by frost and hail earlier this year and cooler, rainy weather in recent months.

The figures came two weeks after reports that Champagne was suffering its worst grape-growing season in decades due to an "unprecedented" blight of frost, hail and mildew, cutting yields in the famed appellation by a third.

Hopefully it will have a good quality.

Hitler's Plan to Invade Switzerland « Now I Know Archives

While Hitler was apparently repeatedly interested in invading Switzerland, he never gave the go-ahead to invade -- and we don't know the precise reason why.  There are many theories. Perhaps he was too busy focusing on other battles -- the final Operation Tannenbaum plan was completed around the same time Germany lost the Battle of Britain, and just a few months before Hitler decided to invade the Soviet Union. Maybe others convinced Hitler that Swiss neutrality was a valuable asset, or that the fact that the Swiss had 20% of the adult male population under arms meant that any invasion would simply be too costly.  Or perhaps he never got around to it.

Regardless, if Hitler had his way, Switzerland would not have been a neutral sovereign; it would have been a German territory.

Here a correction to the Telegraph article - Switzerland is not between France and Germany - but between Germany and Italy. So a directer connection to Mussolini must have been of interesst to Hitler.

The Swiss believe this is one of the main reasons that Hitler never invaded Switzerland.

National Redoubt (Switzerland) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Guisan plan

General Henri Guisan developed a strategy for the defense of Switzerland that recognized Switzerland's limited resources in equipment and manpower compared to its potential adversaries. Guisan proposed a delaying strategy in the broken terrain of the borders to keep an invading force out of the open country in the central plateau for as long as possible, allowing an orderly retreat to the secured Alpine perimeter. Once the retreat to the Alps was complete, the Swiss government could remain in hiding for an extended time. Accordingly, the border fortifications were improved with major programs along the Rhine and at Vallorbe in the Jura. The strategic Alpine nodes of Saint-Maurice, Saint Gotthard and Sargans were identified as the primary points of access to the Alpine redoubt for a potential aggressor. While Saint Gotthard and Saint-Maurice had been previously fortified, the area of Sargans was newly vulnerable, owing to a drainage program of former wetlands along the Rhine that would now provide easy access to the eastern Alpine gateway at Sargans.^[2]

Debate continued over the extent of the Redoubt under the Guisan plan. A proposal was developed by officers from German-speaking cantons, advocating a more compact redoubt. This was overcome by a proposal, authored by Guisan's chief of staff, Colonel Samuel Gonard, whose plan ratified the Saint-Maurice - Saint Gotthard - Sargans strategy, prefaced by a defense in depth. Additional impetus was provided by the fall of France in June, 1940. Two days after the French surrender, on 23 June, the border zones were reduced in priority in favor of the "advanced position" or Army Line. The army was shifted to the center of the country, leaving industries and population centers relatively unprotected. The final Guisan plan, adopted on 12 July 1940, defined an organized retreat to the Alps, where supplies would be stocked for an indefinite resistance with no thought of further retreat. On 25 July 1940, the Swiss defensive plan was disseminated, dictating a fallback to the Alps in the event of an Axis attack, focusing in particular on the Gotthard massif and destroying all access points as necessary once inside.^[4]

Lululemon Athletica, the retailer of yoga pants and hoodies, has long decorated shopping bags with slogans that appear to have been lifted from self-help books. But this month its bags have asked a question that some may find more provocative: "Who is John Galt?"

The question is the opening line of "Atlas Shrugged," the novel by Ayn Rand that was published in 1957. Followers of Rand's free market philosophy, which promotes the idea of individuals living for their self-interest and dismisses altruism, sometimes use the question to signal their allegiance.

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"Only later, looking back, did he realize the impact the book's ideology had on his quest to elevate the world from mediocrity to greatness (it is not coincidental that this is Lululemon's company vision)," the blog post stated, adding: "Our bags are visual reminders for ourselves to live a life we love and conquer the epidemic of mediocrity. We all have a John Galt inside of us, cheering us on. How are we going to live lives we love?"

i had not realized the everything on the net was continually in motion, nor that it's going to get worse. At the same time, i am truly refreshed to be able to watch the Giants on the cinema display while video skyping on the laptop running a film in the background overlapped with a Zuckercrack (new word for face crack) feed, plus i still get emails.

in other words, i hadn't know computing and the net had "advanced" so much since i was state of the current 6 years ago.

say what you will about technology, i'm thankful for the opportunity to thrive again, though one of my best friends doesn't ask me how i like the new laptop, she asks me how my body is adjusting to the new part.

ET, well, it has content. For which i'm also thankful. i suppose when you navigate ET with your thoughts while others still use the 3-D touchscreen, then we'll have something.

Why do they always joke to me about the mind-laptop duality?

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

As focus moves from arguments between Greece and its EU partners to a possible bail-out for Spain, it is becoming clear that in efforts to solve the eurozone crisis EU leaders are missing the wood for the trees.

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Piecemeal, short terms fixes cannot replace permanent long term measures. For far too long European leaders in most EU capitals have shied away from articulating a vision for Europe, explaining it to their citizens and engaging in an honest, fact-based discussion with them about the direction the EU needs to take if it is to continue its successful path.

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The eurozone needs European politicians to deliver European solutions to European problems. It needs pan-European political leadership. Who is up for the job?

The writer is Chairman of the European Movement UK.