Lethal demagogy

In Paris, a Chinese woman, illegal alien in France, jumped over a window from the 2d floor afraid of the Police.

The Police had apparently come to deliver an injunction to one of her neighbors.

She died Friday because of a head injury.

Ivan, a Russian teenager of 12, was also severely wounded last 9 August, after jumping during the arrest of his parents who were going to be deported because they are illegal aliens.

And old Arab woman was also arrested by the Police while she was taking a bath.

The Minister of the so-called "Integration", recently reminded Police and Administration that the deportation numbers needed to be of 25000 by the end of this year. 25000 "persons" that is, because it is never really specified clearly. Come to think about it, there is no use to specify it.

Bernard Kouchner (our Foreign Affairs Minister) should seriously stop saying that France is the country of Human Rights...

Connecting dots: from Snow in Kar to Sarko in Dakar

I have this theory: our brain's main activity during our first 30 years of life consists in collecting, storing information and learning. Then, even if we continue learning, our brain's main activity becomes connecting dots, using all the information it has stored, analyzing etc...

I have no scientific ground whatsoever to say this, but I base myself on my own experience: my memory has become a mess, and I find difficult to learn new languages. On the other hand I've been "connecting dots" more often now than ever. But maybe I'm under the influence of my every day work.

Anyhoot, here's the result of my last "dot connection".

I quoted Snow on my last post, and particularly this:

Chapitre 31

Young excited Kurd: Suppose a Westerner meets someone belonging to a poor people ; well, first he would feel towards this person an instinctive contempt. He would think right away that if this person is so poor is because he belongs to an idiotic people. And he would very probably think that the head of this person is full of nonsense and idiocy which makes his people drawn into poverty and misery.

And here's Nicolas Sarkozy's speach at the Université de Dakar the 26 July 2007:

"The tragedy of Africa, is that the African man has not entered enough in History. The African peasant, who lives with the seasons since millenaries, and whose ideal is to live in harmony with nature, only knows the eternal restarting of time at the rythm of the everlasting repetition of the same gestures and words.

In that imagination, where everything starts all over again and again, there is no place for human adventure, nor for the idea of progress.

In that universe where Nature commands all, the human being avoids the anguish of History that the modern man suffers, but the human being stays still in the middle of an immutable order where everything seems to be written in advance.

Never the human being hurls himself to the future. Never can he imagine to get away from repetition in order to invent a destiny for him.

...

The challenge of Africa is to learn to see its accession to the Universal not as a denial of what she is, but as an accomplishment.

The challenge of Africa, is to learn to feel herself the heiress of everything that is universal in in all human civilisations.

Is to appropriate human rights, democracy, liberty, equality, justice as the common heritage of all civilisations and of all men."

This speech outraged Africans and if you are not "ethnocentered" you can understand why. Achille Mbembe, a Cameroun born political science professor in Johannesburg, wrote about his outrage:

The third reason for my incredulity is the tired old vision that the new French Head of State has, at present, chosen to convey of Africa and its people. As I pointed out in a previous article, this vision descends directly from 19th century racist dogma.

The President delves copiously into this mire, without the slightest distance or irony. He repeats entire pages of the wild imaginings of Hegel, Lévy-Bruhl, Leo Frobenius, Placide Temples and other inventors of the "African soul", in the process constructing his "truth" from the off-shoots of yesterday's ethno-philosophy, just as others before him invested in ethno-zoology in the hope of discovering the "fundamentally animal essence of the negro".

But doesn't he realize that the narrow-mindedness that characterizes colonial racism - that terrorism before the word was invented - has been the object of sustained criticism on the part of African intellectuals themselves since the second half of the 19th century? Doesn't he know that respecting a friend also means referring honestly to his/her opinions?

...

After all, who still ignores today that the recourse to clichés such as "the black soul" or "African authenticity" is, above all, a part of the tactics corrupt regimes and their political and intellectual elites use to promote "cultural difference" in the effort to legitimate their brutality and venality? Isn't it true, moreover, that, since decolonization, many French networks have unashamedly "cooperated" with this spirit of venality, networks which, for the occasion, hardly trouble themselves with skin colour?"

As for me, I like Pamuk's books a lot, but sometimes I would like that fiction never meets reality to prove him right...

Snow

Love

Chapter 14

Ipek talking to Ka: In other words, you are in love with me because you don't know me at all. Is it really love, that, for you?

**********************************************************

Ka talking to Ipek: Instead of giving a negative answer, don't say a thing.

Chapter 25

Kadife talking to Ka: She finds you very handsome, but she cannot believe you. She also needs time to believe. Because the impatients of your kind don't think about loving a woman but rather about how to own her.

Chapter 28

About Ka: He remembered that he feared to be in love because of that devastating pain caused by the wait.

**********************************************************

By showing himself more ardent and more touchy, when their relationship was but starting, Ka felt that the power balance had turned against him. Fearing to appear too weak and in order to hide the suffering he had endured, he put Ipek in an ackward situation. But, didn't he want precisely to be in love to be able to share everything? Wasn't it love the desire to be able to say everything?

Chapter 33

Ka realized that what we called "family", in spite of misfortune and problems, was an institution founded on the pleasure of the stubborness of being together.

Politics

Chapter 27

Turgut Bey talking to Ka: The question is as follows: me being today a comunist, modernist, secularist, democrat and patriot man, do I have to believe first in the Enlightment or in the people's sovereignty? If I believe till the end in the Enlightment and westernization, I have to support this military coup against the religious. But if I put the people's sovereignty before anything else and if I am a democrat without concession, then, in that case, I have to go and sign that declaration. What do you reckon?

Ka: Be on the side of the oppressed and come sign this declaration.

Turgut Bey : It is not enough to be oppressed, you need to be right too.

Chapitre 31

Young excited Kurd: Suppose a Westerner meets someone belonging to a poor people ; well, first he would feel towards this person an instinctive contempt. He would think right away that if this person is so poor is because he belongs to an idiotic people. And he would very probably think that the head of this person is full of nonsense and idiocy which makes his people drawn into poverty and misery.

Chapter 35

Lazuli: For a person to be Westerner, she has first to be an individual. But, according to them, there is not a single individual in Turkey. There lays the meaning of my execution. Me, as an individual, I oppose Westerners, and it's because I'm an individual that I won't imitate them.

Excerpts from Snow, a book written by Orhan Pamuk

Neige

Amour

Chapitre 14

Ipek s'adressant à Ka : Autrement dit tu es amoureux de moi parce que tu ne me connais pas du tout. C'est vraiment de l'amour, ça, d'après toi ?

**********************************************************

Ka s'adressant à Ipek : Plutôt que de donner une réponse négative, ne dis rien.

Chapitre 25

Kadife s'adressant à Ka : Elle vous trouve très beau, mais elle ne peut vous croire. Il lui faut aussi du temps pour croire. Parce que les impatients de votre espèce pensent non pas à aimer une femme mais plutôt à se l'approprier.

Chapitre 28

A propos de Ka : Il se souvint qu'il redoutait d'être amoureux à cause de cette douleur ravageuse que cause l'attente.

**********************************************************

En se montrant ainsi plus ardent et plus susceptible, alors que leur relation ne faisait que s'esquisser, Ka sentit que le rapport de force lui était devenu défavorable. Craignant de paraître trop faible et pour cacher la souffrance qu'il avait endurée, il mit Ipek dans une situation inconfortable. Or, est-ce qu'il ne voulait précisément pas être amoureux pour désormais partager toute chose ? L'amour, d'ailleurs, n'était-ce pas le désir de pouvoir dire toute chose ?

Chapitre 33

Ka réalisait que ce qu'on appelle " famille ", malgré les malheurs et les problèmes, était une institution fondée sur le plaisir de s'obstiner à demeurer ensemble.

Politique

Chapitre 27

Turgut Bey s'adressant à Ka : La question est la suivante : moi, à présent, en tant que communiste, moderniste, laïc, démocrate et patriote, est-ce qu'il faut que je croie d'abord aux Lumières ou en la souveraineté du peuple ? Si je crois jusqu'au bout aux Lumières et en l'occidentalisation, il faut que je soutienne ce coup d'Etat militaire mené contre les religieux. Mais si je place la souveraineté du peuple avant toute chose et si je suis un démocrate sans concession, alors, dans ce cas, il faut que j'aille signer cette déclaration. Vous, vous penchez pour quoi ?

Ka : Soyez du côté des opprimés et venez signer cette déclaration.

Turgut Bey : Il ne suffit pas d'être opprimé, il faut aussi avoir raison.

Chapitre 31

Jeune kurde exalté : Supposons un Occidental qui rencontre quelqu'un d'un peuple pauvre ; eh bien, il éprouvera en premier lieu evers cette personne un mépris instinctif. Il pensera aussitôt que si cet homme est pauvre à ce point c'est parce qu'il appartient à un peuple idiot. Et il pensera que très probablement la tête de cet homme est pleine d'inepties et idioties qui font sombrer tout son peuple dans la pauvreté et la misère.

Chapitre 35

Lazuli : Pour qu'une personne soit occidentale, il faudrait d'abord qu'elle soit un individu. Or, selon eux,il n'existerait pas d'individu en Turquie. Là réside le sens de mon exécution. Moi, en tant qu'individu, je m'oppose aux Occidentaux, et c'est parce que je suis un individu que je ne les imiterai pas.

Extraits de Neige d'Orhan Pamuk

Are we going to fight this war?

Well, apparently we are going to war. That's what our Foreign Affairs Minister is saying...

And why ? Because Iran is getting the N bomb (the buzz is going as far as North Korea... the Evil Axis... remember?).

And that is just unbearable for France (and the US of course). My my my, our two countries have never been so close. If Sarkozy was the president in 2001, we could have gone to that horrible and disastrous war in Irak.

But hey, honestly, if I were Iran considering :

• the stupidity with which the US have handled the Irak conflict
• the greediness of the 1st superpower in terms of oil supply

just to be able to make Georgy come to his senses, if I hadn't got the N bomb yet, I would be hurrying my ass to have it!

Let's be logical here: Iran is not Al Quaeda. Agreed? So Iran is not going to "kamikaze" its people in the name of Jihad. Agreed? So they are not going to send us N bombs for the sake of religion. Agreed? If Iran is going to this extent is because if feels threatened and rightly so.

But don't misunderstand me. I'm against sharia and I'm against the State and Religion being mingled together (by the way, the US is not an example of secular country considering that Presidents have to swear on the Bible).

The only question here is: are we entitled (we the West) to kill civilians (the Iranians, because that's what war is about) in the name of our sacrosanct democracy? Or better yet: in the name of what are we going to start killing civilians in Iran? Democracy? Freedom? That has been already blown up by Bush in Irak and Afghanistan no? The control of a very important geo-strategical country? I think that's the only logical reason that could be accepted as a reason to go to war.

A logical reason is not always a good reason though...

Copy or Creation?

Do you know something that makes us superior from machines and computers? The ability to connect information, concepts, to tie them together in order to compare them and to come up with a brand new analysis out of it. The brain is great! I don't think any machine could make the links we make between all the information that we digest everyday. But is this ability a source of creation?

Orhan Pamuk keeps repeating in "The Black Book" that nothing that we could say, imagine, or create is virgin from influences of readings, conversations, education. So what is it that makes the difference between an original work and a vulgar plagiarism?

I think is the "added value" that our brain could have produced (sorry if it sounds too economical), this unexpected link between ideas and informations, that piece of thought that makes us think or wonder and that makes us in return produce some more "added value".

In other words, a plagiarism is arid whereas an original work carries the seed that will lead to another original work if it grows in the brain of the one that's reading or listening to us.

This led me to think about a controversy that arose in France this summer after Mazarine Pingeot published a novel about a mother that killed her babies and deep freezed them. Some people think that she just exploited a gruesome piece of news and interfered in the private life of a family. I have not read the book, but apparently Mazarine Pingeot did not base her book only on what happened to that French couple in Korea. And even if she had... if the book is well written, if it carries the original mark of her thoughts about infanticide, then I don't see why she should not be entitled to inspire herself on true facts!

Why Starbucks has a chance in France

Even with a strong tradition of "cafés" and "bistrots" here in France, Starbucks has been developping in Paris and spreading like mushrooms.

The first Starbucks shop opened the 16 January 2004 near the Opera. Today, it has 28 stores in Paris and 7 stores in the Parisian area.

Me, I discovered Starbucks in London and was so greatful to have found one that I took my quarters in the Starbucks store that's near the Centre Pompidou (the modern art museum called also Beaubourg) every time I have to go to Paris and work during the day.

We could think that success comes from the turistic factor and that Americans and other aliens are reassured to recognize this brand where products are standard (it surely helped me when I was in Turkey).

But you have also two other factors:

1. The fact that you can stay forever in a Starbucks store and nobody's going to pressure you to leave if you don't order something every 30 minutes
   
   
2. The French don't know how to make good coffee in general. Most of the "cafés" that you can find in France serve you a very bitter coffee made out of robusta coffee (cheaper than the arabica, but also very bitter)

My mom always recalls a scene she witnessed in Paris some years ago in a café terrace located in a very bourgeois neighbourhood. An old and very elegant lady called the proverbial unpleasant parisian waiter:

- Garçon !
- Yes Ma'am.
- Your coffee is downright lousy!
(Votre café est parfaitement dégueulasse !)

Now my brother was asking me the other day after we heard that Starbucks had to leave the Forbidden City in Beijing:

"What would you say if Starbucks opened a store in La Tour Eiffel ?"

Frankly, I don't give a damn. I don't see why a coffee shop could not open in La Tour Eiffel just because it's called Starbucks and it's an American chain. Oh well... okey... maybe not in La Tour Eiffel then...

But I like their coffee. It's better than most French coffees. And the ambiance that you find in the stores is as (if not more) agreeable than those of traditional French coffees.

So for me a venti capuccino with an extra shot of expresso !

My homage to Jacques Martin

Good Kelkians and people who don't live in France:

Jacques Martin was a very popular TV man from the 70's through the middle of the 90's.

He died today and the media of course was all over his death.

I didn't like much his programs, I thought they were too cheesy (yeah, I don't like cheesy). But apparently he was capable of a more acid humor and I did not know that:

Jacques MARTIN - TV Achat - Le Kit petard herbe
envoyé par onet57

My homage is to translate what he's blabing about...

Pierre: Hum... Maryse... Look carefully at this. What do you see? What is it?

Maryse: It's a... um... a mini-curler?

Pierre: No Maryse! Look at it again. What else?

Maryse: Hihihi... I dunno... a... mini-rolling pin in paper? Hihihi

Pierre: Let's not joke about it. No no. It is some kind of cigarette. Bigger than a normal one. And it is closed at the two ends. It's a cigarette 100% natural that only contains herb.

Maryse: Herb?

Pierre: Oui, Maryse. A marvelous herb that is brought to us from Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria... A herb that is scrupulously selected by sales representatives that deliver it in France hidden in trucks or concealed in boat holds.

Maryse: So Pierre, if I follow you well, this kind of cigarettes is absolutely not harmful.

Pierre: Absolutely not Maryse. Moreover, we are going to prove it to our viewers: you are going to light one.

Maryse: But I don't smoke Pierre!

Pierre: But it is not tobacco! It is herb...

Maryse: If you say that it is not harmful at all...

Pierre: That's right. You will see. You won't feel no nausea at all. And you won't have... (lights a match) that unpleasant odor of chain smokers... (lights the spiff) there you go... I only advice you: inhale the smoke, keep it in your lungs as long as you can, an exhale only when you can't hold it.

Maryse: (Inhales, holds, exhales) Oh yeah...

Pierre: So... is it tobacco?

Maryse: No... hihihi

Pierre: Is it pleasant?

Maryse: Hihihihi...

Pierre: Do you have the taste of tobacco in the mouth?

Maryse: ...

Pierre: So now Maryse you are going to ask me: What is the use of this Pierre?

Maryse: What is the use of this Pierre?

Pierre: Very good question Maryse and I will answer that it's very useful! You can use it to clean your house everyday without complaining. To be able to bear your husband, no matter his mood, no matter how many years of marriage, the worries of life, the shit of every day life that you have to stand day to day, without feeling the stress that goes with it.

Maryse: Hahahahaha

Pierre: So I turn to you Maryse and I ask you, how do you find this herb? And you answer me...

Maryse: Hahahahaha !!! and I answer: it is goooood!!! it's good! it's good!!!

========================================================

And for those who have been good, the bonus:

On Turkey, the EU, the war on Islam and other matters

Here's an interesting article I read on BBC:

Turkey's soul unveiled

Internationally acclaimed writer Elif Shafak says women's bodies have become a battlefield for competing views of modern Turkey.

Just because I spent my holidays in Turkey I've become an "expert" on Turkish matters for a lot of people. They ask me what I think about the AKP victory and the fact that Gul is the new president of Turkey. Media here in France have been calling Gul an islamist, the more moderate ones a "former islamist".

I think kinda like Elif Shafak, and I'm not that worried. So basically I say to people here in France:

• Wait and see, the AKP has proved to be a pro-european party in the past. Gul is not going to change the way the AKP has been leading the country since 2002.
  
  
• Turkey is a secular country and I'm confident it will remain a secular country (but that also will depend on how Turkey is considered by the West in the next years methinks, because if we enter in a West/Islam conflict... I dunno).
  
  
• Turkey is also a muslim country and it is not because there are women covered that automatically you have to think that fundamental islamism is spreading wildly. Not once, in Istanbul or in Izmir (and yes I know those cities are the most liberal but still), did I felt weird or object of open or less open criticism because I was not covered or because I was wearing "light" clothes and it's not because people knew I was a tourist, because a lot of people actually thought I was Turkish.
  
  I know that there is pressure from radical islamism, but there is pressure all over the world, even in western countries, and this is linked to the way the West is overreacting to terrorism by considering that all muslims are potential kamikazes.
  
  
• Europe would be making a terrible geopolitical mistake not to continue the negotiation about joining Turkey to the EU and Sarkozy is a demagogue dumbass.

The geopolitical stake has been underlined by the International Crisis Group in a report issued the 17 August 2007: "Turkey and Europe: the way ahead"

"Europeans who attack the prospect of Turkish membership of the EU underestimate the damage they do to European interests. The mistrust generated already has caused Turkey to reduce its contribution to Europe’s common security policy. Ankara is showing signs of independent military policies over which Europe has diminishing leverage. Europe’s energy security is not being advanced."

I think some pressure from other Western leaders and also from the business world prompted Sarkozy to change his position about the Turkish membership the 27 of August 2007 :

Here is what he said about it:

"If this essential reflection about the future of our Union ("What kind of Europe for 2020-2030 and what kind of tasks?") is launched by the 27 (members), France won't oppose that new chapters of negotiation between the EU and Turkey could be opened in the months and years to come, under the condition that those chapters are compatible with the two possible visions about the future of their relationship: membership or close association without going as far as the membership. I won't be hypocritical. Everyone knows that I only favor the association. It's the idea that I defended all along the political campaign. It's the idea I defend since several years. I think that this idea of association will be recognized one day as the most reasonable. In the meantime, like Prime minister Erdogan, I wish that Turkey and France take up again the privileged ties that they have woven over a thread of a long shared history."

In fact, what worries me the most is:

1. The fact that the World is rearming, specially the Middle East with weapons sold by the US:
   
   46 billion euros in the next 10 years, said Condoleezza Rice the 2 August. Who are buying? Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, Bahrein, Qatar, Oman and the UAE. At the same time, we learn the 15 August that Washington is gonna raise by a quarter its military aid to Israel: 30 billion dollars over ten years.
   
   France is not the last either in this mortal business: France should sell more than 6 billion euros worth of weapons in 2007 - 3.38 billions in 2004 — said a spokesman of the French army the 18 September 2006.
   
   See SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) Yearbook for 2007:
   Chapter 8 - Military expenditure
   Chapter 9 - Arms production
   and specially Chapter 10 - International arms transfers
   
   
2. The second point that bothers me is the tendency of West leaders to amalgam Islam and fundamentalist islam
   
   See for example the speech Sarkozy gave to the French ambassadors the same day he said he did not oppose to negotiating with Turkey:
   

   "The first challenge (that the World faces at the beginning of the XXI century) -and without doubt one of the most importants- is how to prevent a confrontation between Islam and the West."
   

   and then he goes on talking about Al Quaeda...

I would reply happily to him: the first challenge is the overwhelming poverty of the majority of humans in the World, and I mean poverty in the West and the underdevelopped countries alike, compared with the insolent wealth of so few.

If we could try to solve this challenge, even a little, then the confrontation that radical islamists are seeking would lose its fuel.

In this particular, the SIPRI Yearbook has become my own private Bible-Coran-Torah-HolyMollyBook. Allow me to cite it:

"Governments allocate large sums of money to their military sectors with the stated purpose of providing security for their citizens. The rationale that underlies this is based on a narrow traditional concept of security that links it to the risk of organized violence. Recent security analyses—taking different and broader definitions of security—call into question how far military measures can go towards providing security. They recognize a range of non-traditional security risks that cannot be addressed by military means. (...)

8 million lives could be saved annually for an annual investment of $57 billion in basic health interventions, and the cost of attaining the Millennium Development Goals has been estimated at $135 billion. These levels of investment are small compared with the level of world military expenditure, which amounted to $1204 billion in 2006.

While economic scarcity and competition for resources are potential sources of conflict and violence, using the world’s resources constructively to address hunger, environmental factors and poverty—including by transfers from the richer countries to the high-mortality developing countries—is likely both to improve human survival directly and to strengthen international security indirectly."

So my worries 1. + 2. = III WW... So needed in time of economical crisis, some would say... but are we really in economical crisis?

You think I exagerate maybe, but by 2020, the number of deaths and injuries from war and violence will overtake the number of deaths caused by killer diseases such as malaria and measles.

Now, thinking it over, wouldn't it be better for our Planet that we exterminate each other and leave Mother Nature happily and savagely alone?

My name is Flor. I am an alcoholic.

But I'm not going to rehab...




and don't forget to check the other crazy alcoholics on You Tube because they rule!!!

The advantage of having a demagogue as a President

I was thinking this morning under my shower: in the end, it's a good thing that Sarkozy is a demagogue.

Considering the fact that we don't have a perfect democracy (I think the good people of France are manipulated by media) and considering the fact that Sarkozy does not believe in anything else but for him to stay in power, he apparently has heard what his Masters told him :

"Europe needs to keep Turkey by its side for economical reasons but also for security reasons.

So now that you are elected... Stop your demagogic bullshit for Christ's sake!"

International Herald Tribune: Sarkozy offers a proposal on EU-Turkey talks
Bloomberg: Sarkozy says he's willing to back Turkey-EU talks

Of course Sarkozy defended himself for changing his mind by saying that he has not changed his mind:

"Recalling that he backed the option of closer association, Sarkozy said, ``I have not changed my mind and I think it will one day be recognized by everyone as the more reasonable one.''

Yeah, right... Well, time will tell little Nicolas. In the meantime don't bite the hand that feeds you.

PS: I should change the subtitle of my blog to "the anti-Sarkozy blog" ;)
PPS: I should stop procrastinating... NOW!!!

Women are doing it for themselves

Read on the news today:

In the suburbs (which in fact are ghettoes) of the big cities in France, women have found a way to have access to big amounts of money that banks would not lend them.

In France, the system is called "tontine".

Basically: a group of friends chip in every month a certain amount of money (from 50 euros to several hundred). Then they draw by lots who is gonna get the whole kitty (sorry if my English is aproximative, but my vocabulary on money matters is very limited).

This way, every month, one woman can have enough money to pay large things she could not pay if she had to depend on herself alone. Of course she cannot be drawn again until everybody is drawn. And of course the advantages of this system and the fact that it is based on trust but also on luck make it reliable.

I think this is brilliant!!!

La deuxième vie de la tontine
LE MONDE POUR MATINPLUS | 05.09.07

©

Les chats ne font pas des chiens

Lu dans Le Monde du 5 septembre :

Jean Sarkozy, 20 ans, l'un des fils de Nicolas Sarkozy, fait l'objet d'une citation directe, le 11 septembre, devant la 10e chambre du tribunal correctionnel de Paris.

Selon l'assignation, le 14 octobre 2005, place de la Concorde à Paris, il aurait heurté avec son scooter l'arrière d'une BMW conduite par M'hamed Bellouti. Il ne se serait pas arrêté et aurait eu " un geste offensant " à l'intention du conducteur.

La compagnie d'assurances de M. Bellouti aurait relancé à trois reprises Jean Sarkozy, sans obtenir de réponse. M. Bellouti réclame 260,13 euros pour des frais de réparation, ainsi que la somme de 4 000 euros à titre de dommages et intérêts. L'Elysée n'a pas souhaité réagir.

Réaction d'une copine au clavardage :

putain

encore un petit con

Ma réponse :

Les chats ne font pas des chiens...

Translation (read on Le Monde of 5 September 2007) :

Jean Sarkozy, 20 years old, son of Nicolas Sarkozy, has been notified to a hearing the 11 September, before the 10th chamber of criminal matters of the Tribunal of Paris.

The notification says that on 14 October 2005, place de la Concorde in Paris, he supposedly hit with his moped the back of a BMW driven by M'hamed Bellouti. He did not stop and apparently made an "offensive gesture" against the driver.

The insurance company of M. Bellouti wrote three times to Jean Sarkozy, without any answer. M. Bellouti asks 260,13 euros for repair costs, and 4 000 euros for compensation. The Elysée did not want to react.

A friend's reaction :

Shit, another little asshole

My answer :

Les chats ne font pas des chiens... (French expression meaning litteraly that cats don't give birth to dogs... I don't think you need more explanation).

Act of Contrition

The meaning of words is not something to play with.

Hereby I'm making my act of contrition: Sarkozy is not a fascist. Sarkozy is not a racist.

But I believe he is a man who is only driven by his crave of power. I think he has no ideology. He could be a communist if that would lead him to be President of France. I also think that he does not respect democracy and don't give a damn about people or about France. He only cares for himself. He is clearly a demagogue.

I don't think he will ever be a Napoleon either, even if he has the height. You need more than craving of power to be an emperor. You need to love your people or your nation or your continent or your planet or something else than yourself to be an emperor.

But as I've been saying lately: what the hell do I know? Time will tell...

Le bon mot

Lu ce matin sur la lettre électronique des abonnés du Monde :

"Larry Craig, sénateur républicain antigay, était (plagions Guitry) contre les homosexuels, tout contre. Nul homme (citons Camus) n'est hypocrite dans ses plaisirs."

C'est le bon mot d'Hervé Le Tellier.

In English is difficult to translate... So let's be a tradditore:

"Larry Craig, antigay republican senator, was (let's plagiate Guitry) against homosexuals, pressed against them. No one (let's cite Camus) is hypocrite in one's pleasures."