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Well, Paris is still nifty. The Lovely is having a hard time getting back into harness - 14 hour days knee-deep in a mediation which involves a Ministerial-level contigent from a country usually prefixed with "Deepest Darkest", and on top of that a RICO lawsuit to prepare for (as an attorney, not as a respondent).
So while I get to moan about the paucity of English-language television, The Lovely is working from dark to dark (starting before the sun is up, and finishing well after it sets). So much for the cushy Anglophone-cliented role where she gets to throw her weight around like a partner...
Still, there's plenty to be thankful for - Dick Cheney's heart continues to try and save the world by quitting its job, and of course Cheney's partner-in-WarCrime Ariel Cochon has had a headache for a week or so. (Get is - that's a bit of a Frog joke... a Cochon is a pig, and I apologise to the species for the comparison).
Now before everyone goes babbling about how an attack on Sharon is anti-Semitic, I would point out two things: first, he's about as much a Semite as I am. He's an Eastern-European peasant reffo (i.e., an Ashkenazi) not a Sephard or a Semite. Second, he's a baby-killing piece of shit. He doesn't disgust me because he's (nominally) Jewish; he disgusts me becase he organised the murder of innocent civilians for half of his adult life, deliberately and with malice in his heart (what passes for a heart in a pig like him).
Now I know, France has draconian laws that violate international human rights charters, regarding freedom of expression (these laws are dolled up in the makeup of 'defaming the dead' but what they really mean is 'opposing Zionizm'). But guess what? Sharon is not dead.
I was maddened by the tut-tutting that occurred when the news people got hold of footage of Palestinians celebrating Sharon's headache - there was no such tut-tutting when Arafat was on his deathbed and it was Ashkenazi reffo peasants doing the dancing.
Anyhow - Sharon has a brain clot. It adds to the number of dead or near-dead politicians on the planet, and the deader a politician is the better I like it. I prefer my politicians dead - they can do a lot less damage that way.
Of course France is currently involved in a circle-jerk over the long-dead Francois Mitterand - the guy who ordered the blowing up of the Rainbow Warrior. Nice bloke, if you listen to he hagiographic bullshit being spouted in the press here. Still, he's dead, so that's at least one mark in his favour.
Thinking about it, I mentioned in late December that Howard and Bush had, thus far, annoyed me by failing to have major strokes... who would have thought that I would get an early New Years present (albeit the wrong politician, in some sense... Israel won't exist in fifty years).
So a fat war criminal has had a brain clot... what do you expect when you are a grat fat sweaty hog?
One thing about the French - who are a marvellous people who worked out in the late 19th century that war was a lsoing proposition (which is why they on'y ever make a token effort); they smoke like bloody chinamen, so everyone (even the presenters on telly) has grey or yellow teeth. Blyecch.
thinking About War...
I've long said that war is always and everywhere the least efficient way of garnering control over resources; trade is always vastly superior.
Thinking harder about why the French snip off the two ends of their flag whenever anyone with a gun turns up (i.e., they delete the red and blue bits, leaving a nice white flag to facilitate surrender), it seems to me that they've got it about right.
Sure, anyone with five bicycles and a couple of shanghais can take Paris, but try holding the bloody thing. Paris fell four times within the space of a hundred years (twice to the Krauts in less than 20 years), but they still speak French here.
After a thousand years of bloodshed in Europe, and their own REvolution and Reign of Terror, I reckon the French thought a bit harder about the issue; they reasoned (rightly) that the Revolution of the Masses jsut resulted in a different bunch of fat pricks living in the palaces (give a politician a job and he immediately instals himself and his mates in palaces). Liekwise, they thought a bit harder about the whole 'Empire' thing.
After all, once all the low-hanging fruit (African, mostly) had been harvested, the prospects for Empire got a bit grim. So while teenage countries like Germany, Italy and America had their Imperial fantasies, the Frogs had already had a gutful and usually employed disgruntled foreigners (the Foreign Legion) to shore up Imperial satrapies.
They appear to have got the formula right - the only sensible invasion target is one which is has invented nothing more advanced than a pointy stick. You go in, massacre the locals in a display of barbarity that will resonate in the primal consciousness of subsequent generations, and then you take their shit. It's a very low cost way of doing things (still not as efficient as trade, though).
But when your target has anything more advanced than a pointy stick, the expected return from an invasion dissipate very rapidly indeed. If your enemy can get projectile weapons, they can almost certainly fight you to a standstill (like the Maori didin New Zealand). This is the lesson that the French had already learned by the time of Diem Ben Phu, which is why they were so keen to let the Yanks fight VietNam.
the Ynks still haven't learned it yet. They are learning it now in Iraq, and if they go for Iran they will learn it ten times more quickly.
Speaking of peoples who invent nothing more advanced than a pointy stick, why is it that your average darkie can't say 'Pardon'? I notice this particularly now, since the Frogs are always saying 'Pardon' to anyone within earshot. Streets are quite narrow and people often get into each other's way. The Frogs will always say 'Pardon' as well as 'Excusez-moi'. But not the schwartzers. All they had to do to prevent their blighted condition was invent the wheel before we did... but they were too busy picking the low-hanging fruit that grows so abundantly in Africa. No use waiting two hundred years and then then carrying on like you've got something to complain about.
Racist? Mayhap. I often wonder what history would have looked like if Africans or South American 'Indians' had invented the wheel before we did. Instead of the sweep of bloodshed proceeding from Europe outwards, it would have swept the other way.
