4. The situation in France

1. Sovereignty in this country 2. Legal reasons we can leave right now 3. The principle of prerogative 4. The situation in France 5. Masterly inactivity and executive action 6. It's all about culture, not race

Forget the rhetoric, forget politicking. Here is what happened in France on 29 May 2005:

A referendum was held in France to decide whether the country should ratify the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. The result was a victory for the "No" campaign, with 55% of voters rejecting the treaty on a turnout of 69%.

The question put to voters was:

Approuvez-vous le projet de loi qui autorise la ratification du traité établissant une Constitution pour l'Europe ? "Do you approve the bill authorising the ratification of the treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe?"

Is there some way you can explain to me how this constitutes a legitimate mandate from the people to set up the EU as a state? By what legal terminology can this mean that the people voted Yes?

Here is what happened over these few days now:

Today, France’s deputies and senators meeting in Parliament in Versailles ratified by a vote of 560 to 181 the constitutional revision to allow the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon without the need for a referendum. The result of this voting opens the way for the final ratification, Thursday, first at the National Assembly, then the Senate. Out of 893 present, 741 voted. France is the 5th country after Hungary, Slovenia, Romania and Malta to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, in which they sign their sovereignty away.

I take issue with only one semantic point. France did not sign away its rights, if by France you mean the French people. They voted 55% No. Their political leaders did sign away their sovereignty and in national terms, that constitutes high treason, which Wiki defines this way:

High treason is criminal disloyalty to one's country.

Please explain how a clearly expressed view of a national people being deliberately ignored in the creation of a new state at the behest of another nationality does not constitute high treason?

Britain has been treated the same way.

[super tuesday] pass the paper bag

Obama and the Sisterhood

At a packed Obama rally in Los Angeles, Winfrey addressed a backlash from some of her female viewers, who have accused her of being a traitor to the sisterhood because she was supporting a man over a woman for US president.

"I was both surprised by that comment and insulted, because I've been a woman my whole life and every part of me believes in the empowerment of women but the truth is I'm a free woman," the world famous television talk show host said'. "And being free means you get to think for yourself."

"I will never vote for anyone based on gender or race," she said. "I'm voting for Barack Obama not because he's black, I'm voting for Barack Obama because he is brilliant."

Clinton and Her Superbowl Victory

"Super Bowl, Super Tuesday . . . we've got one down, let's get the other one!" Senator Clinton said as she jumped in the air and high-fived a group of children.

Where's a paper bag?

[hamsters in the rain] and other emergencies

For what reason would you call them?

South Wales police force has published a list of top time-wasting 999 calls during the past year in an attempt to convince people not to pick up the phone unless it's really necessary.

According to icWales, the highlight of 2007 came when one woman demanded officers come and cuff her boyfriend because he'd put her hamster out in the rain. Another caller explained: “My husband has the TV remote and won’t let me watch EastEnders.”

The list continues with the anxious citizen who admitted: “I don’t have £1 for a supermarket trolley”, and one flustered bookworm who offered: “A friend has my library card, can you come and arrest her?”

Or the bloke who enquired: “Can the police come round and take my mother-in-law away? She has been here for 18 days.”

I can think of some choice ones of my own but this is a family blog.

[punxsutawney phil] six more weeks - great

Six more weeks of it, folks!

At the curiously-named Gobbler's Knob, in the town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, just a few moments ago, the little furry form of Punxsutawney Phil cautiously emerged, sniffed around for a bit...and then quietly muttered in Groundhogese that his own shadow he could see. So according to the seer of seers, the prognosticator of prognosticators, an early Spring is out of the question for 2008.

Good thing too! I love the winter so much. You've all seen the film, of course.

[news] more and more boring every day

Yawn 1

You really wonder about the French:

Citing economic worries, 55 per cent of those surveyed said they had a negative view of his performance, according to one poll. But displeasure with Mr. Sarkozy as a person ran deeper. Three out of four people objected to what was called his “exhibitionist” style.

“For the traditionalist and right-wing electorate, he was just too much,” François d'Orcival, an editorial writer at the conservative magazine Valeurs Actuelles, said in an interview with Europe 1 radio. “He broke with their image of what the presidential family should be. So this marriage – even though it's his third marriage – could help calm the waters.”

Mr. Sarkozy's ex-wife, Cecilia, refused to move into the presidential residence after his election last May. She made a point of dismissing the role of first lady as boring, saying she had no intention of being “a potted plant.”

OK, so it's all over - personally I think she's wrong for a First Lady but maybe she'll grow up and surprise.

Yawn 2

So Eli Manning brought his team back to score with 35 seconds to play with a 13-yard toss to Plaxico Burress. Big deal.

Yawn 3

Wendy Alexander cash donations. What the hell does it matter where the money comes form? Why is everyone all tied up in knots over this issue when they could save time and money concentrating on real issues like Nationalism in Formula 1? And are you really interested in Hain?

Anticipation 1

Super Tuesday tomorrow. McCain v the other two:

On the Democratic side, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama were enmeshed in a tough national fight, illustrated by polls showing the race had tightened both nationally and in key states voting on Tuesday where Mrs. Clinton had once enjoyed a comfortable lead. They include California, Missouri, New Jersey and Arizona.

Not so foregone for Clinton as supposed. She really is hated, isn't she? Question of course - can McCain defeat either?

More important than this is the worried scrutiny of countries such as Russia for whom the election of one candidate over another thousands of kilometres away is of enormous significance, despite anything said publicly. The U.S. puts itself about the globe so aggressively that their choice of leader assumes enormous importance, as it does with all the rag tag smaller countries.

I always liked that one about the big countries acting like gangsters and the small ones acting like prostitutes.

[rudolf] and the pc army

There is the Swearblogger who is also a sharp and erudite pundit, such as DK, Mr. Eugenides, Reactionary Snob and Longrider [the latter a little tame of late].

A variant on that is the Creative Swearblogger like Flying Rodent.

Then there are the straight pundits with a twist of wry like Iain Dale, Steve Green, Cassilis and Harry Haddock.

There is the soft blogger, often a lady and the special purpose blogger.

Then there is the whimsical such as Beaman, Bryan Appleyard and Deogulwulf and you either like that or you don't. Personally, I really like the latter's series of Fewtrils which I've posted a few times. Here is a selection of his latest offerings:

Helvetica is rightly deemed the typeface that best typifies modernism: it is bland and functional. Of its aesthetic qualities, others say otherwise:

The Helvetica Medium lower-case ‘a’ . . . is the most beautiful two-dimensional form ever designed. Its luxurious sensual curves are balanced by points of crisp tension. Its lovely counter makes me think of Mozart. [1]

The pretension is by-the-by, but what gets my goat is that the name of Mozart is doomed to suffer from its invocation by blighters wishing to impart the aura of aesthetic genius to ugliness and insipidity.

Fewtril no.231

History is no keen judge: the silliest affairs can become the profoundest events, and the weakest ideas the strongest currents.

Fewtril no.228

I’ll never fit in; I have trouble faking outrage.

Fewtril no.226

Some might say we are blessed by political moralism, in that for every matter about which one might feel guilty, there are a thousand unconscionable ways in which one might feel absolved — so long as one remains an adherent. Yet even if one were to succumb to this graceless convenience, guilt would find its own way, attaching itself at last to one’s own existence and advantages.

and a little contribution to the PC [ugggh!] debate:

Rudolph the Valued Member of the Reindeer Community

“[I]nclusive school programming may allow children to perceive . . . reindeer such as Rudolph as a reindeer, not as a ‘red-nosed reindeer’.”

Susan Gately, “A Textual Deconstruction of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: Utilitarian, Mechanistic, and Static Constructions of Disability in Society and in Schools” Essays in Philosophy, Vol. 9:1, January 2008, wherein we happily learn that “Rudolph eventually rejects the institutionalized notion that one with a red nose has no worth.”

Lord preserve us from people who use titles like Destiny's Child.