« December 02, 2007 | Main | December 04, 2007 »
December 03, 2007
Sarkozy to France: Get off your derriere and back to work.
Speaking of picket lines and protests, nearly 19 million French viewers heard words to this effect in a televised interview on Thursday. WAC? still loves Paris above all places and the French above all Europeans. However, and as we've suggested, it's high time for the French--the West's high-minded guardians of culture, conscience and taste--to start working again. Between 1901 and 2002, the French (population about 60 million) won 44 Nobel prizes, fourth behind the US (pop. 287 million), UK (60 million) and Germany (83 million). Why not excel once again in the world's marketplaces as well? Begin by chucking the 35-hour work week, a madness the French president thinks is killing the country. So in Saturday's Financial Times, see "Sarkozy Urges France to Work Harder", and for a list of President Sarkozy's specific proposals, designed in large part to increase French consumer purchasing power, see Reuters.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)
Blawg Review #137 -- Blawg Review in Paradiso
This week's excellent Blawg Review is brought to you by Colin Samuels at Infamy or Praise. The Divine Comedy's third cantica, Paradiso, provides the theme for Blawg Review #137. Infamy or Praise also hosted an Inferno-themed Blawg Review #35 (2005 Blawg Review of the Year winner) and a Purgatorio-themed Blawg Review #86.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 10:26 AM | Comments (0)
Karl Rove speaks at Duke tonight.
Together at last. Get ready. Duke has a history of odd-but-fun theater at public figure speaking events; when Hunter Thompson appeared at Page auditorium in the 1970s, serious bikers got word of it and attended. HST, drunk and feisty, was pulled off the stage by a faculty member, and first amendment noises followed. For Rove's talk, which if we're lucky will be equally as demented, expect an angry-but-funny Halloween with students in orange jump suits. What really makes this interesting: Peter Feaver, an ex-National Security Council staffer and conservative Duke political science professor, will moderate. See "Protesters Prepare for Rove" in Duke's daily, The Chronicle, and The Independent Weekly (Durham-Chapel Hill-Raleigh).
Posted by JD Hull at 12:27 AM | Comments (0)