Crisis, what crisis?

For those of you who still check in on my blog occasionally (wishful thinking), sorry for the absence. For those who were glad to see me go (again, wishful thinking), sorry for the abscess.

Happy Holding in Luxembourg

Friday, Nov. 17, 1967

"As befits a tiny country in the Ardennes hills between France and Belgium, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg has long been a hospitable tourist center of quiet pastoral charms.

(...)

Luxembourg law allows a foreign company incorporated there to transfer freely any funds under its control to its parent company, without any public disclosure. Dividends, too, can be paid to bondholders anywhere, free of withholding tax.

(...)

Luxembourg is delighted. About $10 million in tax revenue has been collected from holding companies so far, and that is insignificant compared to the benefits reaped by Luxembourg's banking community. Local banks often participate in underwriting consortia, manage bond issues and act as paying agents.

(...)

'We are the Switzerland of the Common Market.' "

(in http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,844118,00.html)

Get a Voki now!

French police and the screening of prostate cancer - the rectal touch

Regular screening of early prostate cancer offers men more treatment options with potentially fewer side effects.

I guess that's why the French police started a new pilot program to tackle this major cause of death among men over 40. The initiative was launched last Friday, at dawn, and widely covered by the media. The first screening procedure (or the "bend over and cough three times" procedure, as they call it in France) was performed on Mr Vittorio de Filippis, former director of the French diary Libération.

(more details: http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2008/11/29/journaliste-et-pire-que-la-racaille_1124889_3224.html or http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/29/AR2008112902051_pf.html)

Sarah Palin and Sarkozy

Hi, I'm Jor-El calling from Krypton...

I am African

"J.f. ch. femme pour faire du babysitting, de 10h à 20h, (excepté pers. africaines), non fum., qui ait de l'exp. av. les enfants" (in LuxbaZar).

Just in case you're interested. Place of work: the Kehlsteinhaus, near Berchtesgaden, I guess.

A small correction to my previous post

For my French-speaking readers: at least in the first French translation of Animal Farm (Les Animaux partout !, 1947 > La République des animaux, 1964 > La Ferme des animaux, 1981), Napoleon was renamed César.

In fact, according to The Times, in France it is forbidden to call a pig Napoleon.

Cold War, the sequel

The grand-grandsons of Napoleon’s mutts took over Animal Farm. And they are rich.

Let's face it and stop being naive: the Caucasus is Russia's backyard. The whole region holds an immense economical and geostrategical value for the ex/new/never ceased to be superpower. In the old times, when the vetuste, archaic Soviet Union exported almost nothing, we still could think that the problem was most of all ideological. But not anymore. It's about money.

Were the Americans really expecting that the Russians would let Tbilisi regain total control of the region? No, they weren't. They were just trying to stir things up a little, maybe to test Medvedev's strength, and at the end it's up to Europe to try to calm things down and pick up the pieces (one quarter of our energy depends on it) . And up to the Georgians and the Ossetians to bury their dead. It's "those Washington bullets again". Or Moscow bullets.

(In a country where L'Essentiel is such a success, it was very plesant to find a decent defying article about this subject here. It's the online edition of the Woxx, l'autre hebdomadaire.)

Who's afraid of Luxembourg?

To be taken seriously:

The real superpower threat

New Renault Mégane

A journalist named Bruno Thomas was jailed in France for publishing some photos of the future Renault Mégane (Auto Plus magazine). In Beijing and Paris, they have their ways with press and Internet freedom. Anyhow, it's too late, now. The damage is done. Industrial espionage. A big German carmaker is said to have started a new design department called FBG Projekt. The Fat Bottom Girls Project.

London's gas guzzlers congestion charge scrapped

London Mayor Boris Johnson scrapped not only the £25 planned congestion charge for gas guzzlers (see post and comments here), but also the exemption for cleaner cars emitting less than 120g/km of CO2. Which means that everyone is going to pay the same £8. Hybrids and electric vehicles will still be congestion charge-exempt. I don't agree with Johnson's arguments, but I'm happy with the ditching of a predictable small "breath-my-particles-before-they-empoison-the-environment" diesels frenzy.

Sarkozy's new video: France 3 off-air footage

This time I'm not posting the video. Off means off.


“One of the greatest victories you can gain over someone is to beat him at politeness.”
(Josh Billings)

Referendum in Ireland: "NO" to the Treaty of Lisbon

That's why democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.

The Irish voted "No" against the end of restrictions on abortion, and to keep the country’s traditional neutrality and the low tax rates responsible for the rise of the Celtic Tiger. Not against the Treaty. Now what?

Tramway invading Limpertsberg

According to L'Essentiel, the "syndicat du Limpertsberg" is protesting against the fact that the tramway is going to corrupt their very nice neighbourhood. They were not consulted, and they call it "an invasion".

At the same time, at http://service.vdl.lu/forum/read.php?4,4102,4103#msg-4103 (the City of Luxembourg online forum) someone is asking for a direct bus line between Limpertsberg and Kirchberg. Others demand for more peripheral direct connections (meaning: if you don't live near Centre Hammilius or the Gare, chances are that you'll have to take two different buses to go anywhere).

Me, I've never been to the Limpertsberg village. I'm a city guy and I fell sick in deserted open spaces, full of cows and ticks, but I do believe that if people have chosen to live in the countryside, away from the turbulent city centre, they should be respected.

More posts about the tramway here.

Globalisation: To kill a Chinese

Guilt, moral and distance.

In The Genius of Christianity, published in France in 1802, Chateaubriand formulated one of the most repeated questions of the XIX century: would you agree to the killing of an old, sick Chinese mandarin in distant China, just by wishing it, to inherit his immense fortune?

Today we don't kill the Chinese, nor the Indians, nor the Uzbeks - we eat them. We feed ourselves on human flesh, we dress ourselves on human skin, and our houses are made of human bones.

"Go, buy yourself another pair of jeans", said the fake priest to the fake blind man.

"O conscience ! ne serais-tu qu'un fantôme de l'imagination, ou la peur des châtiments des hommes ? Je m'interroge ; je me fais cette question : « Si tu pouvais par un seul désir tuer un homme à la Chine et hériter de sa fortune en Europe, avec la conviction surnaturelle qu'on n'en saurait jamais rien, consentirais-tu à former ce désir ? » J'ai beau m'exagérer mon indigence ; j'ai beau vouloir atténuer cet homicide en supposant que par mon souhait le Chinois meurt tout à coup sans douleur, qu'il n'a point d'héritier, que même à sa mort ses biens seront perdus pour l'État ; j'ai beau me figurer cet étranger comme accablé de maladies et de chagrins ; j'ai beau me dire que la mort est un bien pour lui, qu'il l'appelle lui-même, qu'il n'a plus qu'un instant à vivre : malgré mes vains subterfuges, j'entends au fond de mon cœur une voix qui crie si fortement contre la seule pensée d'une telle supposition, que je ne puis douter un instant de la réalité de la conscience." - François René de Chateaubriand , in The Genius of Christianity

Tom Waits in Europe (San Sebastian, Barcelona, Milan, Prague, Paris, Edinburgh and Dublin)

Run!

"European tour dates are as follows:
DATE - CITY - VENUE - ON-SALE INFO
July 12 - SAN SEBASTIAN, SPAIN – Auditorium Kursaal - Ticket Hotline 902 10 12 12. International enquiries +34 933 262 946. Tickets also available online from http://www.telentrada.com/. Tickets on sale Monday 2nd June at 9.00AM.

July 14 & 15 - BARCELONA, SPAIN – Auditorium Forum - Ticket Hotline 902 10 12 12. International enquiries +34 933 262 946. Tickets also available online from http://www.telentrada.com/. Tickets on sale Monday 2nd June at 9.00AM.
July 17, 18 & 19 – MILAN, ITALY – Teatro Degli Arcimboldi - Ticket Hotline – valid only in Italy – 892101. International enquiries +39 0584 46477. Tickets also available online from http://www.ticketone.it/. Tickets on internet presale on Friday 23rd May at 9.00AM and all other outlets from Monday 26th May at 9.00AM.
July 21 & 22 – PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC – KCP - Tickets available on http://www.ticketpro.cz/ with ticket@ticketpro.cz handling enquiries from English and German speaking customers. Tickets on sale on Friday 30th May at 9.00AM.
July 24 & 25 – PARIS, FRANCE – Grand Rex - Ticket Hotline is 0890 39 01 00 – accessed from France only – with +33 (0)1 46 91 57 67 for international enquiries. Tickets on sale as an internet presale here on Monday 26th May at 9.00AM, with all other outlets from Wednesday 28th May at 9.00AM.
July 27 & 28 – EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND – Playhouse - Ticket Hotline on +44 870 606 3424 and online from http://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/. On sale at 9.00AM on Tuesday 27th May.
July 30, 31 and August 1 – DUBLIN, IRELAND – The Ratcellar, Phoenix Park - Ticket Hotline is 0818 719 300 – accessed from Ireland only – with 0870 243 4455 for the UK and +353 1 4 569 569 for international enquiries. Tickets also available online from http://www.ticketmaster.ie/. On sale at 9.00AM on Tuesday 27th May.T"

(in http://www.antilabelblog.com/?p=246)

Human rights in Burma

"As hold-ups continue in the supply of foreign aid to Myanmar, Asian leaders have been urged to pressure the country's military rulers into taking swift action to address a growing humanitarian catastrophe. Amnesty International believes that by deliberately blocking life-sustaining aid, the government of Myanmar may be violating the right of the population to life, food and health."
(in http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/asian-governments-urged-pressure-myanmar-20080513)

Is it the beginning of the end for the London Congestion Charge ?

Boris Johnson, London's new mayor, plans to drop the £25-a-day traffic congestion charge for "urban" SUV (> 225g of CO2 per km), that was due to be introduced in October. Crikey !

"Bring the boys back home !" (with choir)

Labour Day at the "Familistère"

Thanks to TF1, I've spent the last holiday at the Godin "Familistère" (Guise, near St Quentin, Aisne). The "Familistère" or "Social Palace" project was started in 1859 by Jean-Baptiste André Godin, a disciple of Charles Fourier's utopian socialism. Godin, a wealthy industrialist, founder of the famous stove factory that bears his name, transferred his foundries to Guise in 1846 and decided to follow his heart and his dreams of a better society, offering his workers a decent place to live and to raise a family.

"work facilities […] were linked to a communal settlement to form an harmonious society, equipped with all the necessary amenities: residential buildings, a pool, cooperative stores, a garden, a nursery, schools and a theatre (the temple of the Familistère community). This experiment lasted in cooperative form until 1968." (in http://familistere.com/site/english/utopia/prog_utopia.php)

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)

Tempelhof referendum

After this weekend’s failed referendum, forced by Berliners wishing to keep it open, Tempelhof, the Berlin Airlift airport, used during the Cold War to support the Western part of the City, landlocked by the Soviets, will be closed in October. It’s reasonable: it’s too close to the City centre, surrounded by residential areas, and the runways are too short for modern jets. The terminal, one of the biggest buildings in Europe, built from 1936 to 1941 by Ernst Sagebiel (according to Albert Speer’s plan for rebuilding Berlin, or "Germania", the new world’s capital), should be preserved.

Full employment in France

Mr Sarkozy said it loud and clear tonight, on TF1: "Plein emploi". Full employment. Looking for something to illustrate this post, I've found this excellent video, and I've also found out that Mr Fillon had already used those two magic words.



Let's recapitulate: we have a president that was elected because of its liberal program. He was going to put France to work. He and his prime minister. Work more to earn more, they say. At the same time, he also tried to convince us that he was the one who could talk Mr Mittal (above all people...) to keep Gandrange open, and this is not very liberal-like, it sounds more like populism. Cheap populism, which is what you get when you try to marry 400 years of Colbertism with freshly found liberalism in a country accused by sacrosanct Liberal England of wasting half of the European budget on its cows. And now they've also discovered Mr. Maynard Keynes. All in one year or, by the Luxembourgish calendar, between 2 Schueberfouers.