Friday, May 27, 2011

27 May 2011: News of the day

Top story: French youth no longer no how to drink, they get sopping drunk and die. I say: Darwin Awards for all (except for the innocents killed by drunken youth drivers).


Racist minister of the interior (police) Claude Guéant continues dog whistling (well, more like wolf whistling) to the fascist xenophobes his master Sarkozy needs to win the elections next year. One of his new lies is about the educational failure of immigrant children. First he claimed that two-thirds of school failers (whatever that means) were children of immigrants. Now he claims that it's two-thirds of immigrant children who are school failers. Neither "statistic" comes from anywhere other than his ass. A report from the OECD points to the poverty of immigrants, and the failure of the State (ahem, run by Guéant and friends) to educate them properly. In fact, when correcting for socio-economic status, immigrant children do better than natives.


The big story from the G8 in Deauville is that Carla Sarkozy is preggers, and is showing off her "baby bump" right and left. VIDEO SPECIAL IN LE PARISIEN: "Carla at the G8, visibly pregnant!".


The French have discovered PACs, or as they call them, "micro-parties". They make it easier to raise money for campaigns, but are criticized for their lack of transparency. They first made the headlines when we learned that former budget minister and friend of the rich Eric Woerth had a few.


The Socialists decided to have "American-style" primaries for their presidential candidate (be careful what you wish for). But these elections won't be run by the municipalities, as are all other elections; they'll be run by the part itself. But they somehow thought that they could get free access to the polling places and the electoral lists. Now some cities and the State prefects are being less than cooperative. While they are being uncooperative for political reasons, just what made the PS think they could make this happen?


Frozen embryos are causing problems. Even non-religious folks don't want the unused embryos they suffered so much to produce to be destroyed (or even donated). And the parliament has voted against using them for scientific research. The French are supposedly so advanced, but in anything to do with "families" they are very Catho-retrograde. Vasectomies were long illegal. Surrogacy is banned. Gay marriage remains illegal in large part because they don't want to allow gays to adopt. And so the "bry-brys" and the "little Birdseyes" remain in the freezer. This is all too gross. In other European countries, including Germany, they simply don't freeze embryos. You have to use them or lose them.


In DSK news, his luxury town-house-arrest irritates some, including Socialist troublemaker Arnaud Montebourg, who is SHOCKED SHOCKED that rich people have it easier than poor people. As if in France your wealth has nothing to do with the way you deal with the justice system. A kid steals a motorcycle, he gets a year in prison. A politician steals millions from the government, he gets a suspended sentence.


In the local section, a story on the illegal cigarette vendors at Barbès. Many buyers assume these are real name-brand cigarettes, smuggled to avoid French taxes. In fact, they're usually counterfeit cigarettes made in China.

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