Cops: "Where are you from?"
Interviewed man: "I'm from Armenia."
Cops: (alerted) "Albania!?!? So you speak Albanian?"
Interviewed man: (taken aback) "No, it's - it's - I1m from Armenia!"
Cops: "What's the difference?"

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

These polls are not built on any sociological bias like regular polls are (ie. regular polls try to get a perfect balanced match of chosen people), but the website maintains an up to date listing of voter info (like region, sex, salary etc and it seems that overall the left and right wing balance is accurate, though social group, age and sex is not well balanced out ... ie. there are way more men, and the young middle class is more represented).

The good thing is that there are sometimes up to 6000 respondents to any given poll, and that we are told when someone will be provided with the results (ie. we're told "results will be transmitted to this Minister" or "this Union leader" etc)

It's all in French, of course:
www.expression-publique.com

The Louvre Museum is not at the Bastille, last I checked.

How many times have you read an article in a paper (say, LE MONDE, LIBERATION, LE FIGARO) about a subject you really know, and said to yourselves, "this is rubbish."

Now if that rule applies to all the other articles in the same paper......

The American press used to be A LOT better at fact-checking in the 80s.  Since the mid-90s there's been a steady deterioration of the quality and accuracy of information you get in the papers. (And I'm not talking politics).

I once wrote to the LA TIMES to point out that the sun didn't set on the Pacific in Argentina.

Most French and British journalists, for example, still can't write a single article about American television (what the French call PAF, paysage audiovisuel) that is not half-filled with rubbish.

As a result when the subject comes up, I spend a lot of time (like Jerome) debunking misperceptions.

Back to the article, I'm somewhat shocked the H-T copyeditors didn't catch that one.

François Hollande, leader of the opposition Socialist Party, said Chirac was "not on a path to appeasement."

Given the negative connotation of "appeasement", it might have been better to translate "apaisement" by "calming things down" or "cooling things off", which is all Hollande meant.

On the one hand - a European philosophical tradition of rational enquiry, public debate and reality checking.

On the other - it's cartoon time. And this time it's political.

The really sickenning aspect of this is that the folks at the NYT truly fancy themselves the cultural elite of America and they unboubtedly jaunt off to gay Paris for fine dining and shopping trips, and just because they can.  Of course, when all your travels consist of hopping in cabs and saying "take me to X", you don't have to bother yourself with the trouble of actually learning your way around the place on your own.  Though this screw up surely has more to do with lousy reporting than lack of geographical knowledge.  Christ, if there is one place in Paris every American tourist knows the location of it's the Louvre.  The Louvre and the Eiffel Tower.

On a not bitching note, I've been reading the Cara Black mysteries and if you want some serious insider Parsian geography lessons, this is your gal!  Love it.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. -Voltaire

"on the Rue de Rivoli near the Louvre museum at the Place de la Bastille"

can be read as "on the Rue de Rivoli at the Place de la Bastille, near the Louvre museum."