If you have not seen the 1982 movie, do so. It is a great movie for youngsters as well. Who doesn't like Anthony Andrews, Jane Seymour, Ian Mckellen?
Saturday, 14 July 2012
My idea of a hero, albeit fictive, of Bastille Day
The flower, the Scarlet Pimpernel, blooms in July, and here is MY idea of a hero on this Bastille Day.
If you have not seen the 1982 movie, do so. It is a great movie for youngsters as well. Who doesn't like Anthony Andrews, Jane Seymour, Ian Mckellen?
If you have not seen the 1982 movie, do so. It is a great movie for youngsters as well. Who doesn't like Anthony Andrews, Jane Seymour, Ian Mckellen?
Bastille Day...Boring as French toast
Well, there will be no cake today, maybe French toast, I think. Hollande is on an austerity kick with his own ministers, as he wants to break, what the French called, the "bling-bling" presidency of Sarkozy. Here is a bit from an article on this.
Official cars have been diminished in size and in luxury. Mr. Hollande has given up the presidential Citroën C6 for a smaller but hardly shabby Citroën DS5 diesel hybrid. He has reduced the ranks of his official drivers to two from three, and they are now supposed to stop at red lights. Mr. Ayrault gave up his C6 for a cheaper Peugeot 508. Cabinet ministers have also traded down, and the housing minister, Cécile Duflot, an ecologist who was criticized for wearing jeans to an Élysée Palace meeting, has ordered four official bicycles.
Champagne at receptions has largely been replaced by Muscadet, a considerably cheaper white wine, and prices at the official cafeterias for ministerial employees, always a bargain, have been raised modestly.
Even security has been put to the knife, at least a little. Junior ministers no longer get bodyguards, and the number of security workers attached to the presidency has been reduced by a third.
However, the cuts affect others as well. And, there is some concern that taxes for the rich will cause France to slide back into economic doldrums. Can someone spot the funny here?
There are few Socialist ministers with any business experience. Ms. Parisot said that their plans instilled “a palpable anxiety and an immense worry for every entrepreneur,” because they are “disconnected from company life, from what a company can bear,” especially in a period of minimal growth and high unemployment.
And there is more ideological symbolism--The traditional July 14 garden party, which used to be a way to honor distinguished people from all walks of life from all over France, was canceled by Mr. Sarkozy in 2010 to symbolize belt tightening. Mr. Hollande will not dare resurrect it, although the Élysée gardens will be open to the public on Saturday afternoon.
Mr. Hollande has decided, however, to maintain the July 14 military parade, with jet overflights, armored vehicles and hundreds of military personnel, an extraordinarily costly affair. And like a good politician, he has decided to restore a nationally televised presidential interview on Bastille Day. But given the low viewership expected on a Saturday evening in mid-July, he will do it at lunchtime.
Sad, but what will Hollande have for lunch? Socialist are so obviously moral about other people's stuff....ick. This will be a five post day.
Heads-up
Check out A Reluctant Sinner, another British blogger, on my blog-list. His article yesterday is fantastic.
Freedom of Speech and Communication Will Vanish
America is no longer the land of the free. DHS emergency powers give the president to control your cell phone provider in an emergency.
Why?
Not because of an emergency, but to control the population and make it harder for free men and women to act. Make no mistake, this is tyranny. If you do not think this is really serious, read the entire article of which this is a snippet. America is fading into a bloated, communist government.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet A. Napolitano....(said) “shall … satisfy [federal] priority communications requirements through the use of commercial, government, and privately owned communications resources.”
“The previous orders did not give DHS those authorities over private and commercial networks,” Ms. Stepanovich said. “That’s a new authority.”
“This should have been done by Congress, so there could have been proper debate about it,” she added. “This is not authority that should be granted by executive order.”
Ms. Hayden said the legal basis for the order is Section 706 of the 1934 Communications Act. The section authorizes the president to “cause the closing of any facility or station for wire communication” and gives him “control of any such facility or station” if a state of war, or the threat of one, exists.
The new order “extends Section 706 powers to the Internet,” said James Harper, an electronic-privacy advocate at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
The authorities “might have made sense in the 1930s,” but now the communication networks are too complex and interdependent, he said. “If you try to seize control of the Internet that way, you will break it.”
Under the previous executive orders, communications providers have long established priority access programs for federal users. In the telephone system, a special code the user inputs before dialing a number automatically tells the phone companies’ equipment to give the call priority.
“Mobile phones, the Internet, and social media are all now integral to the communications landscape,” Ms. Hayden said.