Sticks and Stones may break my bones, and names will get you three years at Saint Marguerite Prison

PARIS — France’s National Assembly approved Thursday night a proposal to add “psychological violence” to a law intended to help victims of physical violence and abuse, despite doubts that the law is specific enough to have much impact.

Carefully covering both genders, the proposed law stipulates that letting a wife, husband, partner or concubine “act or repeatedly say things that could damage the victim’s life conditions, affect his/her rights and his/her dignity or damage his/her physical or mental health is subject to a three-year jail term and a 75,000 euro fine,” about $102,750.

Danielle Bousquet, a Socialist, and Guy Geoffroy, a member of the ruling center-right Union for a Popular Movement, wrote the draft law, supported by 30 other legislators. It received backing last November from the government and Prime Minister François Fillon, who called it “very significant progress.”

Ms. Bousquet...you are old. Your face is shaped like a horse, and those glasses make you look like a poor child's homemade version of Mr. Potato Head. Notice...I said "Mr." On top of that, Ms. Bousquet, your thighs cause so much friction when you walk, that people cringe everytime you stop at the petrol station. Oh...and you are a classic idiot.

Come and get me facists. I just broke your precious little "sticks and stones" law. Gosh, the French are filled with such pseudo-eruditical nonsense that is self-proclaimed as civility. It makes my teeth hurt.

French soap opera...Fantastique!!

After years of struggling and study and success in several other cultural disciplines, the French have finally mastered the art of the television soap opera.

(...)

There is the Marci family, which owns the Bar du Mistral; the Nassri family from Algeria; the Torres family from Spain; the Lesermans, whose matriarch survived the Holocaust and is a Communist; the wealthy Frémonts with their shady business dealings and lesbian daughter; the Chaumette family, transplanted from Paris; the Estèves, with their son, who divorced, has a daughter and loves a man; and the Castellis, who, as the show's Web site says, are "living to forget the past."

The interrelationships among these families — their disputes, love affairs, business dealings and tragedies — both transfix the French and educate them, at least a little, about cultural differences and social issues like racism, drugs, teenage pregnancy, Islam and homosexuality, even the police.

Ah...and you didn't think you would ever see the words "French" and "soap" in the same sentence. Shame on you.

To keep the plot rolling...how about a Pakistani family with a wayward son who lights cars on fire every time they make him eat les petits pois?

Je me rends!!!

PARIS: A French appeals court on Tuesday overturned terrorist conspiracy convictions of five former inmates of the Guantánamo prison camp who were tried and convicted in 2007, after they had been returned to France.

The court ruled that testimony gathered by French intelligence officials in interrogations at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, violated rules for permissible evidence and that there was no other proof of wrongdoing.

None of the men, captured in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002, is currently in jail, having been given time off for time already served.

But the case is likely to be seen as a precedent as more inmates are released from Guantánamo Bay, which President Barack Obama has vowed to shut down. Various European countries have expressed willingness in principle to take some of the inmates, depending on their potential for dangerous behavior and whether the United States also accepts some of them. Some European countries prefer that the European Union come up with a unified position, so Washington cannot play one country against another while trying to negotiate placements.

Just wait until one of these little monkeys (not a racist reference...just one of denigration towards murderous asswipes) does something nasty and we all pay the price. Those pushing this appeasement are going to understand the concept of "repercussions" I'm afraid...

Who knew they could read?

ATHENS: Masked youths attacked the French Institute in Athens with firebombs on Friday, while Greek union members and university professors geared up for anti-government rallies outside Parliament.

Some windows of the French Institute, a cultural and educational center, were smashed but the interior was not seriously damaged in the attack by about 20 people, police said. A nearby bank ATM was also damaged, but nobody was injured.

"Spark in Athens. Fire in Paris. Insurrection is coming," read one slogan spray-painted onto the building's walls in French. Another, written in Greek, read "France, Greece, uprising everywhere."

Too darn convenient if you ask me. Yesterday, the International Herald Tribune published a piece based on an interview with a French Socialist dim-wit warning that France could see the same violence that Greece has been experiencing. The very next day the French Institute in Athens gets firebombed.

There are no coincidences...only patterns on this big blue marble...in my opinion.

French Socialism...the New Coke...

PARIS: Firebombs and breaking glass, tear gas and burning cars. The images from Greece this month were enough to put the fear of youth into the hearts of European leaders.

That dread was palpable in France when President Nicolas Sarkozy abruptly delayed for one year a plan to overhaul France's high schools, after students from Bordeaux to Brittany took to the streets in protest.

Those demonstrations haven't turned violent yet. But French history, and the example of Greece, suggests they might. At least that is what people like Laurent Fabius, a Socialist Party leader, are saying on French radio.

"What we see in Greece is not out of the realm of possibility in France," Fabius said on Europe "When you have such an economic depression, such social despair, all it takes is a match."

French "demonstrators" don't need an excuse to go on with their usual car burning shennanigans. They just need a Quran and a few bottles filled with petrol. They also need a press that ignores the true basis for their acts...and how they are nearly all associated in a "religious" way.

Of course, Laurent Fabius thinks Socialism is the way to go to avoid "economic depression and "social despair." Let's see how that worked out in the past...

1. Hitler called himself a Socialist, and was by definition a Socialist. And, for a while there...the German economy looked pretty good until the rest of the world flattened it due to some of Hitler's other indiscretions.

2. Stalin, absolutely, was a Socialist. In fact, he exiled nearly 8 Million people to "Northern Camps" due to their "lack of cooperation" in transforming the Soviet Union to an agricultural based economy. Over 1/3 died as a result. The inept application of this new "collectivism" killed many, many more.

3. Mao Zedong was a Socialist. His institution of the "Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution" in China could be responsible for an many as 30 Million deaths due to famine...and other creative...applications. It is estimated that Mao was responsible for as many as 70 Million deaths.

You have to love the French Socialist...they never give up the cause, or let history get in the way of saving the rest of us from...life and its inalienable rights.