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A superconcise look at France this week II

by Alex in Toulouse Tue Sep 26th, 2006 at 08:45:45 AM EST

Week from September 20th to September 26th.

Previous installments:

Week I - Tuesday, September 19th


Most uneventful event of the week

Seen September 24. Revisionism.

Marco Materazzi in a commercial spot for Nike. The reference to France should be obvious to all. Click on picture for YouTube video.


Most sordid event of the week

September 23-24. Poetry.

Not only are these people animals, not only are these people racists, but they also can't even draw a nazi cross correctly.
Saturday night in Quimper (Britanny) and Carcassonne (South West), 2 mosques were the targets of racist graffiti. The Quimper mosque was also set on fire but fortunately a neighbour alerted firemen very quickly. The Carcassonne one was blessed with remarkable poetry, at the level of astounding Farsi poet Khwajeh Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi: "France for the French, ragheads out, death to Islam". Abib Bamou, the president of the Aude département's Islamic Association said this: "I have lived in Carcassonne since 1969. Here all communities respect each other, Jews, Muslims, Christians. This is the first time that such a thing happens here.


Quote of the week

September 25th. Better late than never or why it's always convenient to wait for there to be fewer veterans around.

"Jacques, il faut faire quelque chose"! ("Jacques, we must do something!")

Said Bernadette Chirac to her husband, Jacques, while they were watching the movie Indigènes (click for French trailer) Edit: trailer in English, by Franco-Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb, about the 230 000 colonial troops who fought the nazi occupation of France in WWII (and were treated as second-class soldiers). Jacques Chirac announced shortly after watching the movie that he would re-index all veteran pensions (so that a veteran in Tunisia who earns 61 euros, will now earn as much as a veteran in France, who currenly earns 600+ euros).



Number of the week

September 22nd. Be a sport, read the news.

47.4% - the percentage of +15 years old French people who read a daily newspaper.
Once again l'Equipe, a sports daily, comes out on top as the most read national daily in the country. However, regional dailies skyrocket on top of overall reads.

The study (in French)



Picture of the week

Septembre 22-25. Rare European wind thriller.

It could have been an unforgettable moment, as extratropical hurricane Helene waltzed high up North and headed East, hesitating between Ireland, the UK or France. It was forecast to arrive here as a tropical storm! However, it apparently got better, it stopped being depressed.



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France is right up there with Norway, Hungary and Finland.

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Tue Sep 26th, 2006 at 09:59:24 AM EST
I've got to know: Has a tropical storm ever hit Ireland or the UK?

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.
by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Tue Sep 26th, 2006 at 01:38:45 PM EST
Occasionally, though they're generally pretty sad when they get here. We do get hurricanes, just about.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Tue Sep 26th, 2006 at 01:40:27 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I don't know, but it sounds improbable given where they usually form combined with the Earth's revolution's direction, no? However if the Atlantic gets warmer ...

But I'll let the experts talk, I'm just speaking from a very rough and basic knowledge of these beasts.

by Alex in Toulouse on Tue Sep 26th, 2006 at 01:45:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]
According to Wikipedia, it is indeed rare (but not impossible):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane

Rarely, a hurricane can reach western Europe, including Hurricane Lili, which dissipated over the British Isles in October 1996,[14] and Tropical Storm Vince, which made landfall on the southwestern coast of Spain in September 2005.
by Alex in Toulouse on Tue Sep 26th, 2006 at 01:47:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Hmmm...  Just wait till global warming really hits its stride.  No one will be safe!

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. -Voltaire
by p------- on Tue Sep 26th, 2006 at 07:39:54 PM EST
[ Parent ]
That was my fifth diary on ET: Tropical Storm Vince to hit... Spain! (Updated) by Migeru on October 10th, 2005

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Sep 26th, 2006 at 07:56:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Hurricanes or what is left of them come here pushed by throughs, so rotation doesn't count, what counts is surviving the transition to colder zones: hurricanes are driven by evaporation thus cold seas kill them, and strong high-altitude winds blowing over them kill the vertical convection that makes them work. So while the remains of a lot of Atlantic hurricanes reach the region between Iceland and Ireland, almost all do so transformed to an extratropical cyclone (which is driven by frontal systems).

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Wed Sep 27th, 2006 at 03:07:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I don't think anybody has ever come up with a correct word for what hit S england in 1987. But we refer to it as "the hurricane" cos no other word in common usage really gets the emotional impact.

It was a very destructive high wind born of unusual atmospherics.

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Wed Sep 27th, 2006 at 04:08:58 PM EST
[ Parent ]
is that pretty much every single anti-semitic incident is recorded and publicized in France.

Racist incidents - not so much (or the threshhold for indignation is quite a bit higher)

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Tue Sep 26th, 2006 at 02:42:54 PM EST
Is good documentation the source for the whole "France is an anti-Semitic country" smear that goes around? I was shocked when I finally tried to find the evidence, it seems France is one of the least anti-Semitic nations on earth. Paris has one of the largest Jewish populations in the world - I believe the third largest (Tel Aviv, NYC, then Paris).
by Jett on Tue Sep 26th, 2006 at 06:41:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]
No, it's not good documentation, it's campaign by Zionists in Israel and the USA who thought France's politics are detrimental to their goals (this was in Iraq war times). Antisemitism is worse here in Hungary and much worse say in Poland, and it is documented, but you don't hear about it, you hear "New Europe" rhetoric instead.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Wed Sep 27th, 2006 at 03:00:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Latest example:

Le Monde: Court orders closing of Tribe Ka website

Le juge Emmanuel Binoche a estimé que M. Seba a "d'évidence excédé les nécessaires limites de la liberté d'expression en stigmatisant les juifs présentés comme responsables de la traite des noirs, de telle manière qu'il puisse en résulter troubles et violences".

"En évoquant la nécessité d'+éradiquer cette mafia sioniste+, le fait que +la pieuvre sioniste détruit tout sur son passage en asphyxiant toute trace de dignité humaine+, le défendeur (Kemi Seba, ndlr), en reprenant la thèse imaginaire du complot, ne peut sérieusement pas contester qu'il entend bien stigmatiser un groupe de personnes en raison de leur appartenance à une confession, et aussi une race", ajoute la décision.

  Judge Emmanuel Binoche found that Mr. [Kemi] Seba [leader of Tribe Ka, a black extremist fringe group dissolved at the end of July] had "obviously gone beyond the necessary limits of the freedom of expression by stigmatising Jews as being responsible for black slavery, in a way that could result in disturbances and violence".

"By citing a necessity to 'eradicate this zionist mafia' and a notion that 'the zionist octopus is destroying everything in its path by smothering every trace of human dignity', the defendant (Kimi Seba, ed. note), by reiterating the fanciful thesis of such a plot, cannot seriously deny that he clearly means to stigmatise a group of people based on their religious affiliation, and also a race," the decision adds.

Translation and errors of translation my own.

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
by marco on Tue Sep 26th, 2006 at 09:04:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I love these, Alex.  Please keep them coming.

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
by marco on Tue Sep 26th, 2006 at 07:51:51 PM EST


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