Well george and set, dont forget that if it wasnt for us brits you would all be cheese eating surrender monkeys
Well, that's probably true. Besides we Irish would have a difficult time of it without you to criticize.
georgeob1 wrote:Well, that's probably true. Besides we Irish would have a difficult time of it without you to criticize.
I always wondered why Set calls you O'George...
Both parents born there. However, I have always been cautious about Setanta's appellations. One never knows for sure what motivates them. He is of the grumpy Irish -- I am more cheerful. (At least, that's the way I see it, and I'm not changing my story.)
The French election got only minor coverage in the US.
I heard that things have been relatively calm. After the election results were announced, some 700 cars were torched, but by tonight it was down to 200 per night. I am making those numbers up, can't source them, but that is what I hear. My first question is, why in France are cars the target?
Seriously, I am hearing that the folks causing the trouble are not the immigrant "scum," but rather "young, white, native-born" French who are not happy.
What am I missing here?
Walter Hinteler wrote:Murawiec's view is significantly opposite to the actual voter's anylysis (see e.g. quotes above).
Besides that, he is wrong re Bayou's party, which most clearly isn't becoming a "Christian-democratic" party - that role is already filled by Sarkozy's (and before that de Gaulle's and Girac's) UMP
(Seriously: I totally doubt that the UMP will leave the Christian Democrat International only to support Bayou's new party. Besides that, the name for new party is already known and trademarked.)
If Leftists (Euro or otherwise) are good at anything it is distancing themselves from Reality through romantic notions of what SHOULD be.
Walter, the Left is fatigued and almost spent. It is being propped up by dilletantes. The 68'ers.
I respect you perseverence, but it is devoted to a empty cause.
(Using Blackberry and so spell-check is not available. Be kind)
Don't know about the cars, johnboy, but .... it may have historic reasosns - from La Bastille up to the cars of today.
Setanta wrote:..........Many, many English soldiers and officers commented on the compassion with which the French treated them in that first horrible winter as they slowly starved and froze thanks to the insane mismanagement of their logistical evidence. The French would find reasons to invite their English comrades to dinner in their well-heated bunkers........
Damn! All those years I wondered about what caused the disaster immortalized by Tennyson >
Quote:
...................
'Forward the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Some one had blundered:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
...................
> now thanks to this thread I at last figured it out, they were cold and hungry! Still, they should have thought of their horses.
Lord Lucan's cavalry division consisted of two brigades, the Heavy Brigade and the Light Brigade. Having so little cavalry, Lord Raglan had not allowed them to directly engage the Russians at the battle of the Alma, nor to pursue them after that battle. Raglan had only used them for outpost duty, and the troopers were disgusted. The began to call their commander Lord Look-on, meaning he would rather watch a battle than participate. Lucan and Lord Cardigan, who commanded the Light Brigade already despised one another, but as morale in the Division declined, each blamed the other, and they began to cordially hate one another. Cardigan found Lucan so insufferable he requested and received permission to lodge on his yacht off the coast south of Balaclava, further alienating the two, and alienating Cardigan from the Light Brigade.
After the Anglo-French army had marched to the Alma to Sebastapol, and had begun the investment of the city from the south and east, Menshikov hovered to the southeast of the city, waiting for an opportunity to assault the allied line. Because of the chance of the march, the smaller, less well equipped and less well supplied English army ended up on the Allied right, and therefore exposed to Russian attack. They used Balaclava as their port of supply.
Balaclava was to prove a nightmare, but the English weren't freezing and starving in October and November, when the two battles of Balaclava took place. There was a road which ran southeast out of Sebastapol, and there was a series of hills, which were called the Causeway Heights, upon which the Turks, under English command were rather lazily building some redoubts. The Royal Artillery provided some offices and some 9-pound guns. On the morning of October 24 (maybe the 25?), the first battle of Balaclava took place. About 40,000 Russians came slowly into the valley (which was probably worse than a sudden attack, because it gave the Turks plenty of time to panic) north of the Causeway Heights. They took two of the redoubts from which the Turks fled, and then the Turks put up a little more fight, but as about 5,000 Russian cavalry began to move northwest along the road, they fled as well. The port of Balaclava was now open to direct attack--almost. The 93rd Highlanders were there, and they managed to hold of a half-hearted attack by a few thousand Russian cavalry--and earned the undying sobriquet of "the thin red line of heroes."
More and more Russian cavalry were filling up the road over the high ground, and therefore continued to threaten the English base at Balaclava, so General Scarlet with about 600 troopers of the Heavy Brigade launched an incredible attack, what seemed like a suicidal charge, and managed to cut their way through the packed and milling (and now disorganized) Russian cavalry, which ended any attempts by the Russians to advance toward Balaclava.
Lord Raglan was early on the scene, but couldn't advance any infantry to confront the Russians until French troops came to replace him men in the line. The inevitable hurry up and wait seemed to be endangering the English line, and the Russians were about to haul away the 9-pounders left in the abandoned redoubts. Raglan sent orders to Lord Cardigan to charge the guns to prevent that. The message was sent with Captain Nolan, who hated Cardigan and was hated by him. When Cardigan haughtily asked him what guns (from his position at the mouth of the valley, he couldn't see the redoubts), Nolan flung his arm over his shoulder, and said: "There, Sir, there are your guns." All Cardigan could see was the huge Russian artillery position at the head of the valley, which was a suicidal order, but he was a completely, cold-bloodedly courageous man, so he ordered his roughly 600 troopers forward. Nolan saw the error, and rode out in front of the Brigade to attempt to turn them. Cardigan ignored Nolan, because was really bad form and an insult to his honor that this "black" captain (Nolan was born in India) had ridden in front of him. Before Nolan could make himself understood, a shell exploded, and he was killed by the shrapnel, his horse carrying him back through the advancing ranks.
The rest, as they say, is history.
georgeob1 wrote:Perhaps I don't understand what you two mean. My impression is that Bayrou intends to establish a powerful centrist party that, based on my understanding of his expressed views, would compete primarily (but not exclusively) with the Socialists for the allegiance of voters. It also looks to me as though, at least so far, he has been decidedly unsuccessful in that endeavor.
Today's Le Figaro report ...
La création du Mouvement démocrate a été approuvée hier, en l'absence des nombreux députés UDF qui ont rallié la majorité présidentielle. ...
.... and below the one
from the Independent
Quote:
Bayrou founds a new party but deputies join Sarkozy
By John Lichfield
Published: 11 May 2007
The French centrist politician François Bayrou split with the majority of his own members of parliament yesterday and launched a new political party, the Mouvement Démocrate.
M. Bayrou, 55, who had once seemed capable of springing a surprise in the presidential election, said that he was creating a "new, independent political force" of "free men and women".
By a show of hands at a conference in Paris, grass-roots members voted overwhelmingly to dissolve M. Bayrou's old party, the Union pour la Démocratie Francaise (UDF).
However, 21 out of the 29 UDF deputies in the national assembly repudiated M. Bayrou. They have bowed to pressure from France's president-elect, Nicolas Sarkozy, and agreed to join a "centrist" section of his centre-right party, the Union Pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP).
M. Bayrou, who took 18.8 per cent of the vote in the first round of the presidential elections on 22 April, portrayed the decision as the start of a historic re-alignment of French politics.
"Nothing can be more important" he said, than building a "free, anti-establishment force in France". M. Bayrou said that his new party would refuse all alliances with the existing power blocs of right and left.
This is precisely what worries M. Bayrou's former followers in the national assembly. They know that they owe their seats to electoral pacts with M. Sarkozy's UMP. Apart from a diehard bloc of eight (including M. Bayrou himself), they have decided to stand as part of the "presidential majority" in the two-round parliamentary elections next month.
M. Bayrou was unabashed yesterday. He said that his new party had been flooded with at least 20,000 demands for membership. "We are not interested in the outgoing members of parliament but the incoming ones," he said.
One opinion poll yesterday predicted M. Bayrou's new party would win between eight and 13 out of 577 members in the National Assembly - an excellent performance for a new party, but hardly an "anti-establishment force".
Yesterday's birth of the Mouvement Démocrate is part of a struggle for personal power on the centre-right of French politics going back to the 1970s. The UDF was originally created as a counter-force to Gaullism by ex-President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. Most of its members were gobbled up by the UMP - an alliance with the Gaullists inspired by President Jacques Chirac - in 2002.
Besides that, there's a - in my opinion - reaaly good report in yesterday's Economist: Does France know what it has voted for?
Nicolas Sarkozy's victory: The Gaullist revolutionary
Oh, and France's next "second lady" is likely to be a Welsh mother of five:
report :wink:
Very interesting article. Coming from the Economist it's no wonder it's favorable to Sarkozy but it's good anyway.
Walter, are you French?
I see, my bad.
Well, u seem awfully well informed about whats going on here. How do u feel about the election?
Do u think its a positive result, that Sarkozy will be successful, if the UMP wins the Parliament, in solving France's problems?
I, personally, would have preferred Bayrou to be elected; Although i traditionally lean more to the left, I, for some reason, felt Royal would not have made a good job as president.
I cant tell precisely what is the PS' main problem (maybe u can give me ur opinion about it), but right now it doesnt get my vote. I feel its too "old", but I can't tell exactly what's "old" in their position that bothers me. A guy like Montebourg, for example, seems more politically attractive to me.
Uhm, well, ehem, Bayrou would have been the best choice for the country.
Personally, I would have voted for Royal - used to mess in left parties since quite a long time by now.
As to being informed about France: it's our neighbour country (and I'm going there - nowadays only for trips - at least once per year :wink: ).
Walter, Are you pleased with the results Angela Merkel's government has achieved in Germany?
No. But at least, the influence of the Social-Democrats is greater than I'd thought.
(And I must admit that she's doing quite well re foreign relations .... with a surprisingly very well doing Social-Democratic minister for foreign affairs.)
Walter Hinteler wrote: No.
I can't imagine why. Unemployment is down; the economy is growing at an improved pace; Germany is exercising more and more beneficial influence in Europe and other areas. What of the late, unlamented Schroeder government could you wish to restore?
Westphalian Social Democrats may well be unreformable.
The ham . . . the ham in Westphalia is really good (i like the salty taste). I doubt that the Social Democrats are going to ruin Westphalian ham, so you needn't worry, O'George.
Setanta wrote:The ham . . . the ham in Westphalia is really good (i like the salty taste). I doubt that the Social Democrats are going to ruin Westphalian ham, so you needn't worry, O'George.
Well, it is certainly clear that there is at least one ham in Westphalia that is unaffected by all the change, however beneficial it may be.
