Confessions of a Pilgrim

**UPDATED**

13 nights and counting and fiddlin’ gets serious at Hôtel Matignon…

de Villepin declares state of emergency…

Golly…two weeks in to this mess and you are just now considering an emergency?

“We must be lucid: The Republic is at a moment of truth,” Villepin told parliament. “The effectiveness of our integration model is in question.” He called the riots “a warning” and “an appeal.”

First thing I have to say about this is that I hope this sounded better in French. “We must be lucid”??? Yeah France…WAKE THE **BLEEP** UP! “integration model”??? What integration model??? Of course it’s in question, YOU NEVER HAD ONE!!! “Riots a warning”? “an appeal”??? What is this guy smoking?

Bloggers to blame says French Authorities…

heheheheh…gotta hate those bloggers. These guys, if it’s true that is, are no better than the thugs outside burning France to the ground.

Ya know, I’m really feeling sorry for the average Frenchmen right now. I just can’t begin to believe that all of the French are as dimwitted as the folks they put in the Hôtel Matignon…

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12 nights and counting…more cars burned…more people injured…more fiddlin’ at the Hôtel Matignon…riots spread to many other cities…blah…blah…and blah.

Oh yeah…blah.

When de Villepin decides to put down his fiddle I’ll give another update…

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11 nights and counting and more rumor/facts emerge(time will tell which is which):

In the Washington Times this morning:

Police officers, exhausted and dispirited after 11 nights of street battles, say their mainly young African and Arab adversaries have access to sophisticated weapons including grenades and could soon begin using them.

and…

French authorities have hinted that Islamic militants may be manipulating angry teenagers to defy the government, using the Internet to organize the unrest.

I’m hoping they can nail this down one way or the other. France is, by definition, a weak country politically. If this is some kind of Islamofascist thing getting started there it really would be wise to kill it now.

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Tonight makes 10 nights of “riots” in France. It’s no longer localized to the Paris slums as “riots” have been reported by Reuters in other cities:

The violence that began in Seine-Saint-Denis has escalated this week and spread to a few other towns in France — Rouen in northern France, Dijon in the east and Marseille in the south.

Reports say the “rioters” are:

…Muslims of North African and black African origin, has partly been stoked by their frustration at high unemployment and the perception they lack economic opportunities.

The “riots” are organized via the Internet says the London Telegraph:

There are now concerns that the violence is being organised by groups of youths using the internet to incite copycat incidents.

So…let’s see what we have here. Groups of Muslims “rioting” all over France and coordinating their activities using the Internet. Okay…so we have disgruntled folks(I don’t care about their religion right now) trying to make a point to the Government. We went through this in the US in the 1960’s right? Of course, I didn’t see the leaders of America’s Civil Rights movement torching old ladies(AFP):

At least two people have been badly burnt by Molotov cocktails: a fireman, and a handicapped woman unable to get off an ambushed bus. A 61-year-old was also in a coma after being hit by an assailant in a public housing estate.

or preventing rescuers from getting to “sick” folks(AP):

In one attack, youths in the eastern Paris suburb of Meaux prevented paramedics from evacuating a sick person from a housing project. They pelted rescuers with rocks and then torched the waiting ambulance, an Interior Ministry official said.

While all this is going on PM de Villepin gathers up his posse and tries to find a political answer(Telegraph).

The French prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, has summoned eight key government ministers to his offices, to try and find a political answer to France’s worst rioting in decades.

de Villepin fiddles while France burns. Sarkozy has the better approach, call it for what it is and deal with it. But we can’t expect France to change from it’s infamous past ways can we? As Wretchard points out, they have waited to long to deal with this and that’s what put the Nazis on the Champs Élysées.

We know what deVillepin will do…nothing. He will wring his hands and call more meetings. Eventually the “rioters” will either quit or takeover. Since the “riots” are spreading and are organized one has to believe there is no quit in these poor mistreated immigrants…ahem.

I’m left pondering two questions.

1) Why are these people consistently called “rioters”? In one of the comments in the Jawa Report’s piece, Mrs Aginoth compares what’s going on in France to the LA Riots(Rodney King):

The UK went through the same thing in the late 70’s/early 80’s (Brixton, St Pauls riots), the USA did it in the 90’s (the LA riots), and France will have to sort themselves out now.

Uh…Mrs. Aginoth…what are you talking about? The LA Riots happened because a bunch of thugs took advantage of a bunch of cops going alittle over the line(yeah, understatement). If they wanted to protest the beating of Mr. King, why would they burn down their own community? Try to kill innocent people just because they were white? If the two events have anything in common it is the “thugs” and the mentality that says, “hey, here’s an opportunity to raise some hell!”

If their anger is against the government then destroy GOVERNMENT PROPERTY if you must destroy something. Don’t torch old women and interfere with the rescue of the injured and sick. That behavior is reminiscent of the activities of other barbarians in Falujah.

2) It has been reported, albeit reluctantly, that the thugs involved in this rebellion are Muslim. The constant undertone to that, among some in the New Media, is they are Islamofascists. If this is the case can we expect to see more serious attacks in the future? If this is the case will NATO have to come to the aid of the pathetically incapable French Government to quell this rebellion? Will it be, once again, the US to the rescue of the French? I think we’ve repaid the French several times over for their assistance at Cowpens.

PM deVillepin is convinced he can find a political answer by gathering up the thugs and everyone just having a big group hug. I say send in the RDP and the Legion and END. THIS. NOW. If they don’t, this will continue to spread and will eventually destabilize an already unstable France. I really don’t want to see US Forces once again on French soil. We’ve been there many times and many of our boys are still there.

It seems that Microsoft sees folks like Google and Yahoo and sees yet another threat. Since they can’t really reverse engineer web applications they have to try and beat their adversaries through traditional means…in the market place.

The company will offer “Office Live” to help small and midsize businesses use and maintain the suite of software used for applications such as e-mail, scheduling, spreadsheets and word processing.

Let’s see what we have here. Microsoft offering web applications that will help small and midsized businesses. I’d bet my next paycheck these applications will require Internet Explorer so they can exploit the vulnerability known as ActiveX. So, the technology responsible for these kinds of spyware, trojan, and other illegal installations should be trusted when users are entering their business information? Not sure I would go there myself.

No thanks guys…I’ll continue to use Firefox. Since you guys have “upped the anty” on Google and Yahoo I’ll just wait for one of them or someone else to beat you at your own game. You did know that OpenOffice is open source right? How long do you think it will take for someone put that up on a webserver for us all to use? That is if it hasn’t been done already.

Dump ActiveX or at least make it SAFE for the masses who don’t know how to avoid the bad guys out there.

Richard Cohen’s piece “A War without Winners” is something I would expect to find as part of a Creative Writing class.

In some respects, Jordan is not having a bad war.

Jordan? At war? With who?

In some other respects, the war is not going well at all. The neighborhood — one of the worst in the world for a small country — has gotten considerably less stable since the war began. It is true, of course, that Saddam Hussein, the mad bully of the region, is locked up — and that is not an inconsiderable achievement. Although it is often overlooked, ridding this area and the world of a dictator who started two wars and savaged his own people has to be cause for a certain amount of cheer.

Vodkapundit has some fun with the “certain amount of cheer” comment. I could almost see him dipping his olive just before he wrote that.

The bit in Cohen’s piece…and oh what a piece it is…that really set me off is:

In short, and not taking into account the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, the war in Iraq has hardly made this area more stable. It’s true, of course, that nothing catastrophic has yet occurred in the region, but the casual assurance that nothing will happen must now be held to a new post-Iraq standard: Just about everything Washington said was happening (weapons of mass destruction) and would happen (an easy occupation) has turned out to be utterly false.

While I admit that the post-fall-of-Baghdad occupation has not been easy, I don’t think any one that has read alittle military history expected the occupation would be easy. Hussein’s plan was to fall back, give the country to the “kafirs” and then start this little guerrila action. Fear not, Mr. Chamberlain…er…Cohen, our boys and girls in uniform along with the Iraqi people will continue to open up cans of whoops-@ss on these barbarians and before your little appeasing heart knows it, Iraq will be a solid democracy.

The thing that climbed under my skin is this tired meme that BUSH LIED! BUSH LIED! BUSH LIED! Chimpy McBushitler LIED for OIL! oh…wait…that’s not right…Chairman Dean? What’s the talking point again? Sorry, he’s busy practicing his scream.

Bottom line is simple. Every nation on the planet KNEW Hussein had chemical weapons. We saw the results in Halabjahand Iran.

UN Security Counsel Resolution 687 said in clear and unambiguous terms:

8. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of: (a) All chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities;

[emphasis added]

After 9/11, President Bush held Hussein’s feet to the fire and forced the UNSCR into resolution 1441 which said:

Recalling that in its resolution 687 (1991) the Council declared that a ceasefire would be based on acceptance by Iraq of the provisions of that resolution, including the obligations on Iraq contained therein,

Decides that Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations under relevant resolutions, including resolution 687 (1991), in particular through Iraq’s failure to cooperate with United Nations inspectors and the IAEA, and to complete the actions required under paragraphs 8 to 13 of resolution 687 (1991);

Decides that false statements or omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq pursuant to this resolution and failure by Iraq at any time to comply with, and cooperate fully in the implementation of, this resolution shall constitute a further material breach of Iraq’s obligations and will be reported to the Council for assessment in accordance with paragraphs 11 and 12 below;

Recalls, in that context, that the Council has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations

God Bless Secretary Powell and his staff. He tried to get the UN to use harsher words than “serious consequences” but the Frenchies and Russians couldn’t bear to part with their Blood for Oil money and forced us into loosening the language. Everyone around the table knew what it meant though.

If Hussein no longer had his WMD then he had the responsibility under UNSCR 687 to TELL the UN what he had done with them and SHOW THEM the documentation of the destruction. He didn’t. Now we are faced with the question where did they go? We haven’t found anything more than a few hundred missiles designed for firing binary agent chemical weapons along with several hundred barrels of the precursor chemicals for Sarin and Mustard gas.

If President Bush lied, then so did virtually every member of the US Congress along with the leaders of every western nation. If we are going to impeach the President for lieing then let’s clean out the rest of the Congress and start over. Not a bad idea, that.

This is a great idea by the Politburo Diktat! Should be an amazing list once it’s done…if it will EVER be done!

He’s asking who your blogparents are and if you have any blogspring. Interesting…quite interesting.

For me…I come from a broken home I guess.

Blogfather1: Royalrodent.com
Blogmother: asmallvictory.net

but wait…I can’t leave out my other Blogfather: Smash

Blogspring: Doubtful any with the possible exception of Singlemind but you’ll have to ask him.

…or something.

Mrs. Pilgrim and I have been watching this thing for a while now. We keep hearing about how bad this thing could be…millions dead…pandemic. Then we hear the current “Butcher’s Bill”…somewhere well below 100 victims WORLD WIDE. Golly.

And now this from the Internation Herald Tribune by way of Alec van Gelder of the Boston Globe:

With all the hysteria surrounding the possible mutation of the avian flu virus into a form that puts humans at risk, policymakers have subjected us to everything – except common sense.

HOORAY!

It seems that only the incredibly poor are threatened by this thing and even then they pretty much have to swap spit with the foul fowls.

Those most at risk are people who work closely with poultry in unsanitary, cramped conditions: By definition, these people are poor.

And then there’s this bit that is a GREAT comparison:

So far, there is no proof that a strand of H5N1 can spread between humans, nor that it will. Yet the hysteria surrounding avian flu far surpasses that which accompanies the yearly arrival of a new flu strand, which regularly kills hundreds of people. And it far surpasses the attention given to other diseases, such as diarrhea, which claim at least 3 million lives a year in poor countries.

Mr. van Gelder goes on to make some excellent points on how we should best deal with this not quite emergent threat. Currently the hysteria is about “possibility” of a cross species infection and the attendant threat to the human species. His bottom line point, after much excellent groundwork, is that the pharmaceutical companies working on antivirals for this thing should be encouraged to continue their work. How? Well, for starters we make it clear that no governmental entity will violate their patents of their product.

But the most important role for government is to uphold private property rights and ensure that the rule of law applies – which means protecting rather than breaking patents. The alternative – the rule of the mob – would truly be devastating.

Gee…the most important role for government is to uphold the law? Novel idea.