Short and sweet, formalizing plans for Saturday PM. Thinking we start the apero at 18h30 at Le Dalou, 30 Place Nation, Metro Nation (of course).

I have reservations for 8 at 21h30, at l'Inédit Café, Angle rue de la Lancette et 4, rue Taine. Very good food and cheap (everything under EUR 10) We can walk from Nation or, if lazy, take the metro. Metro is Daumesnil.

 

Well, not exactly. Instead, we had the Olympic torch come to Paris only to be doused by those who would pursue their own political agenda at the expense of those of the proper center of attention: Olympic athletes.

Today, the Olympic flame came to Paris, and an opportunistic mayor, who likely wants to someday be President, joined with a craven party, which went so far as to call into question French participation in upcoming Olympic Games. I mean, what the fuck? We see now a political faction in France obviously bent on exploiting, for domestic political purposes, the world's premier showcase for personal struggle in pursuit of achievement, for fairplay, for human triumph over adversity and, ultimately, peace. I can't wait to see what the clueless fucking morons come up with next in America while they continue to not give a shit about the millions of women and children who are still homeless in that country due to their chosen economic system.

And I don't even want to go into the behaviour of the Greens, chosen marketing partners of the PS. Holy shit. Given the behaviour their leadership today I would have thought fuckin' McDonald's opened up a Soylent Green restaurant at Montparnasse. Except wait wait, Noel Mammaire (faute d'orthographe faite expres) would probably approve of the latter over the former,  on grounds of, in combination with soixante-huitard style free love, it's a renewable resource and cuts down on global overpopulation.

We may as well just quit putting on these games.

Today, the spirit of the Olympics, a flame lit at Mount Olympus last week as it was two thousand years ago, and carried around the world, this year to Beijing, has been pissed on by the unserious left in France.  As in Socrates days, those who never did so well at sports were out in force in the streets to spoil that spirit and participate what they are good at...being anti-social and disruptive.

So, the cocktail weenie circuit, military version, has descended upon Bucharest today. Nato yet again extols the virtues of the outdated alliance, now repositioned to fight wars in "the south" all the while, inexplicably to Russia, expanding eastward.

For the next couple of days, Washington will try to cojole other Nato members to ante up some more troops to die in its forgotten war in Afghanistan. In fact, perhaps some of our atlanticist "contributors" have already made their way to the cheerleading section of the gala?

Thankfully, we have Dimitri Rozogin, Russia's ambassador to Nato, to cut through the bullshit.  

It's funny, living in America, I seldom get the impression, watching the news, that anything is fundamentally and severely wrong with the state of Anglo-American capitalism in the US. The candidates are not really talking about it. The business pages, to be sure, talk about the housing crisis here, the credit crunch there, but you have to listen hard because every other day, we also hear about a rally which shows that the fundamentals are really strong, corporate profits as a percent of GDP are really quite good and so on.

So as you crane your neck and listen hard, you can and do hear about different dots in the matrix of the unfolding financial crisis in US markets, but rarely does anyone in America connect those dots.

Fortunately, we have the IMF to cut through the American press bullshit...

Over the past few years, the likelihood of a significant financial crisis in Anglo-American financial markets, and consequent economic stresses centered in both countries, has been a topic of regular commentary and analysis on these pages. In fact, a collaborative topical discussion of the matter and likely outcomes was published here on ET shortly after the long out-of-power Democratic Party was installed in both houses of Congress in the United States. To the surprise of many commentators back then, America's so-called opposition took the reins of power in the halls of its legislative branch. Alas, this power has been used to little, if any, effect on the fiscal, social and economic matters we often discuss.

In light of recent market events, and the first bank failures in decades, first in the UK and then in the US, it would be a good time to revisit that discussion.

Back then, we were discussing how the Euro had surpassed the dollar in terms of circulation. Now, we're observing that the US is no longer the largest economy in the world. All of this quite predictable, and predicted.

Au cas ou vous l'avez pas encore vue...

Sorry, too much here is untranslatable....

Late Spring 1992 found Denmark in a tight spot, having in early June that year narrowly rejected, in a referendum, the Treaty of Maastricht. And, what may have been even more importantly for many regular Danes, the promising home side had only just failed to qualify to that year's European Cup tournament in neighboring Sweden, classed behind war-torn Yugoslavia in group qualifying play. The prospect of the coming summer looked as dull and grey as January on Fyn.

But Denmark's luck was to turn in a matter of a few short weeks. First, political  turmoil in Yugoslavia prompted its football side's expulsion from the tournament; Denmark were in. The political situation, however, appeared a bit more intractable. Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, Denmark's outspoken  centre-right Foreign Minister, who had spearheaded European efforts to recognize the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and, in so doing, set the tone for EU relations with the former Soviet Union for years to come, was headed to Lisbon to salvage Maastricht.

On Gay Marriage and Revolution: The Metamorphosis of the Western Family

Essay by Michel Onfray, originally appearing in Libération, fall of 2003. Translated from French by Redstar

When Maréchal Pétain took down the French Republic in 1940, he discarded the slogan, inherited from the Revolution, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," preferring a new trilogy: "Work, Family, Fatherland." I would suggest that one can see, more or less, to the Right as well as to the Left, (that is to say when the left are not trying to pass themselves off as the right, as has often been the case since May 1981) a certain faithfulness, to this day, to these contradictory conceptions of the world.

Those who loved a Pétain who, as one well knows, liked neither Jews nor communists nor homosexuals nor intellectuals, had both a date of birth and, fortunately, a burial. Its genealogy is judeo-christian, to be precise, the 1st century of our era, beginning with Paul of Tarsus - one in need of convincing might read his appalling series of epistles if one sees fit. In France, its passing is Parisian, in May of 1968 on the barricades; please refer for details to Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus .

Yes, you heard that right! You can vote in the upcoming US election. See below for details.

As some of you may know, I've never been all that thrilled with voting in the US. I know it'll get you tarred and feathered in left-blogistan to say this, but the fact of the matter is that Ralph Nader, whatever his imperfections, was right when he said the following while announcing his candidacy for President in 2000:

The unconstrained behavior of big business is subordinating our democracy to the control of a corporate plutocracy that knows few self-imposed limits to the spread of its power to all sectors of our society. Moving on all fronts to advance narrow profit motives at the expense of civic values, large corporate lobbies and their law firms have produced a commanding, multi-faceted and powerful juggernaut. They flood public elections with cash, and they use their media conglomerates to exclude, divert, or propagandize. They brandish their willingness to close factories here and open them abroad if workers do not bend to their demands. By their control in Congress, they keep the federal cops off the corporate crime, fraud, and abuse beats. They imperiously demand and get a wide array of privileges and immunities: tax escapes, enormous corporate welfare subsidies, federal giveaways, and bailouts. They weaken the common law of torts in order to avoid their responsibility for injurious wrongdoing to innocent children, women and men.

A million homeless children in the US. 82 million Americans who lack or have woefully inadequate healthcare insurance. Healthcare spend, at 16% of GDP, is 65% higher than neighboring Canada (universal, government-run).  Hundreds of thousands continue to die in Iraq. We understandably look with a mix of disappointment and disgust upon our ruling elite in Washington, who cannot get modest versions of popular bills enacted on the our behalf.

Looking at the facts on (and in the ground] it's hard to see progress being made for working people. One almost wants to give up and say pox on the entire political elite. But that would be wrong. In fact, it is possible to, like Obama says, bring people from both parties together to get things done. In fact, a lot of progress is being made, locally and at the state level. You just have to look in different sections of the newspaper than you are accustomed to looking.

But since it is apparently now ok to post blank diaries with diacritical marks for titles, I figured what the hell.

And in light of recent dust-ups on the nature of the world as viewed through here a scientist there a humanities lens, I figured it might be useful to examine just how different people from the variously  hostile philosophical traditions really are. And what better way to examine this than by observing how each group confronts that very prosiac puzzle which is the changing of a lightbulb.

Here on the lefter shades of the web dial we constantly hear about how the grotesquely huge budget deficit is a GOP, Bushite-inspired wingnut disaster. Profligate "borrow & spend" policies are bankrupting our children's future, or other similar liberal whingeing. It's causing the dollar to plunge as furriners refuse to bankroll our public debt, interest rates are about to go through the roof and don't even talk to me about inflation!

Meanwhile, over in wingnuttia, we are told that Dear Leader's tax cuts have reduced the US deficit to a mere 1.2% of GDP,  lower than the post-war average.

How is an honest, economic-minded and politically-plugged in person to evaluate these competing claims? Well, I'm here to tell you that it doesn't matter.

There's been much talk lately on these pages about how the state of real estate markets in the US, and the "meltdown" of mortgage-backed securities, are crises in American Capitalism. Jerome here on ET and bonddad over on dKos are sounding off on how crappy the US economy is performing, and how the US real estate meltdown is turning into a crisis of epic proportions.

Ever the contrarian, I'm not seeing this as the disaster that either make it out to be. Nor do I think the real scandal has anything to do with the actions of the big swinging dicks at Merrill Lynch, Countrywide or Citigroup.

Don't get me wrong, these guys are scumbags, and the weather outside is indeed frightful. But these guys have always been scumbags, that's why they run investment banks and not Secours Catholique. And there's no more a crisis in financial markets today than observed in the past, to wit, the US currency crisis in the 1970's, Black Wednesday, the S&L crisis in the US or the Japanese real-estate bubble of the '90's. Bad stuff, but no economic paradigm shifting event.

Promoted by Migeru

Yes, thank you Dr. Wolfowitz.

Bear with me here, folks, I know it's counter-intuitive, but I think we might be missing the forest so as to better focus on that greasy-haired worm-infested tree of a man that is Paul Wolfowitz. How's that, you say?

Well, because Paul's doing us a big favor. Every day the pissant holds out in his barricaded World Bank office causes serious damage to that institution. And that's a good thing.  Paul, you see, may be morally on par with one of Nero's sycophantic advisors, holding the fiddling tyrant's violin case while the latter watched Rome burn. But unlike Rome, the World Bank is worthy of fire.

Perhaps under the radar for many, but some interesting things are going on in Poland these days, the timing of which seems rather odd. Poland's government has whipped up a Red Scare, which seems modeled on America's initial de-Ba'athification efforts in Irak. They seem intent on clearing the entire civil service of anyone associated with the former Communist regime, in even quite ambiguous ways, and on prosecuting, again, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, a former Communist-era dictator, responsible for imposition of martial law in Poland in 1981.

The driving force behind it? President Lech Kaczynski, and his twin brother Jaroslaw, two far-right, homophobic and xenophobic demagogues who rose to prominence fighting corruption and are now fighting charges of cronyism themselves.

Poland may be volunteering to point missiles at Moscow (er... I mean Teheran) for Washington, it may be running secret prisons for the CIA, it may be violating the European Convention on Human Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by participating in extra-ordinary renditions, and it may have extra time left over to cover up CIA use of its landing strips from EU Parliament investigators, but that doesn't mean they don't have time, nearly twenty years on (and despite the fact that prosecutions have already taken place), to go on a good old fashioned purge of former Communist party members. Vigorous government, indeed (there's Kaczynski right here):

The Post had a rundown of the witch-hunt over the week-end, below the fold.

From the diaries - whataboutbob

Interesting news item came across the screen this AM over here in North America for which I found the write-up. See, there's been this controversy here surrounding the sport of hockey and the prevalence of fighting in it, with the head disciplinarian of the NHL, North America's Elite hockey league, publicly announcing he's looking into banning it like they do in more, shall we say neutered parts of the hockey world. He does says this because there've been a few high profile injuries due to fighting, such as what resulted from this one:

Where's the political connection in all this? Well, as is usually the case with such controversies, someone's come out and done a poll, and the results are quite interesting. Fortunately, the polling outfit saw fit to put a little political spin into the
questionnaire, the results of which can be found below the fold.

Not satisfied with the War on Terra (tm), the US government, with its allies in the New Europe(tm), plan to re-open the Cold War (hat-tip to my Dad's paper).

Putin will no doubt have some thoughts on what follows below the fold (as would any Russian leader, though expect to see the Americans play "Russia's descent into undemocratic authoritarianism" card to the hilt on this).

Dodo wrote up today's historic news of the new TGV speed record. I wanted to say a bit more about this, because aside from taking pride in Europe and France demonstrating once again our capacity to be world beaters, there's a backstory to this that is equally compelling and which dovetails with what many of us hold as values dear to us.

Not only did we push the technological envelope here, but we did so in a way which validates our socialist values. How's this? Because each TGV success is by definition the success of a State/State-owned/Private partnership which has for decades continued to produce technological advances in the service of mankind, providing a welcome antidote to the neo-liberal screeds of how State intervention in the economy = hopelessly inefficient = Soviet bread lines.

Now, we all know this is specious, but that's not the point. The point is the dominant political-economic narrative found in the Wall Street Journal, the FT and even, via Eric Le Boucher, Le Monde, doesn't have space to describe this development accurately.

Le Monde has an excellent opinion piece on this today, translated below the fold, the sort of commentary which points to why Le Monde is not just the definitive paper of record in France, but in all of the West. I'll leave the parsing of the Anglo-american neo-lib treatment of this achievement to others.

From the diaries - afew. Edited by Jerome to replace fuzzy image by video snap above.

We're often talking about how lamentable is the state of journalism, particularly in the (currently) dominant language of the so-called "West," which if you need me to be explicit, happens to be English. How do I know this? Because when Thierry Haye is doing his Revue de Presse on Télématin, I see the Herald Tribune all the time (circulation in France - approx. 25,000) and never La Marseillaise (French circulation, roughly 50K) or for that matter, Var Matin, (which tells us what Brigitte Bardot's dog ate this morning, French circulation, roughly 75K), despite the fact the latter two are actually French.

And we all ascribe different reasons to this state of affairs, running from natural and not particularly malignant bias of the ruling classes who tend to run these organs, to the more leftist shades of interpretation, involving accusations of more blatant propaganda generation, evidence of which is quite ample in America in the aftermath of the 4th estate's behavior in the lead-up to the Anglo-American war on the Iraki people.

Currently in Chicago, we get a bit of a peek at what makes the Titans of Anglo-American "journalism" really tick. Conrad Black, ran a media empire which included, at various times, England's Daily Telegraph, Canada's National Post, Global TV, CH TV and dozens of regional newspapers as well as Israel's Jerusalem Post. He is now on trial for shareholder fraud. It should be noted, this is not the first time Black is accused of fraud - in the 1980's, he was accused of stealing from his employees' pensions and ordered to return money he took from those pensioners to their fund. As usually happens in these cases, stealing from workers is not considered a crime worthy of more than restitution, though now that shareholders have been similarly duped, jail time may actually be mooted as a possibility.

Naomi Klein, in the current issue of the Nation, has the details, below the fold:

From the diaries - afew

Fortunately, we have American journalists at the Associated Press to explain to us how the real left works, what we represent, and our role in the '02 fiasco. (Via the Seattle Post-"Intelligencer.")

And it's a good thing they set about to deconstruct us, for it provides source material to deconstruct "them".

Leftists could tip French election
By ANGELA CHARLTON
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

Ah, those rascally lefties below the fold...