Tagged: marketing
TW15 Big Brother is a control freak
Juillet-septembre 2018
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Moi, A.B., ministre des matchs de foot
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Interview (presque) imaginaire de la ministre B. : « Si le Plan Pauvreté passe après le foot, sachez que c’est parce que, pour les pauvres, rien ne passe avant le foot. »
Après avoir dit des inepties monstrueuses sur le calendrier du Plan Pauvreté qui « dépend des matchs » de foot, la ministre B. a littéralement pleuré, selon Le Canard enchaîné, devant le Premier ministre, et Macron a eu pitié d’elle : elle reste au Gouvernement. De la société civile à la société civile en passant par la grosse erreur de casting. Si le milieu professionnel spécialisé et les cocktails mondains entre gens qui pensent pareil préparaient à la vie politique, ça se saurait.
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Help scientists run for office. (Richard Dawkins)
Yes, like Dr B., health minister of Frognce, who ends up in tears in the office of the Prime minister after telling the media: “The schedule of the Poverty Plan will depend on the results of the Frognch football team.” Brilliant! If a specialized career field plus social gatherings where everybody thinks the same were good training for politics, we’d have known for long.
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L’inscription du salafisme sur la liste des dérives sectaires a été recommandée par le rapport de la commission d’enquête du Sénat.
République franc-maçonne rime de plus en plus avec islamophobe. Bientôt on pourra bel et bien parler de République franc-mazobe.
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Ils sortent le drapeau algérien … des supporters français les frappent. (Islam&Info)
Un lâche attentat a été commis ! Alors que les bons citoyens de ce pays se réjouissaient de la victoire de leur noble équipe de balle-au-pied, des individus abjects ont osé brandir un drapeau étranger au milieu de la liesse nationale ! Les bons citoyens ont fait justice.
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Aisne : Un homme crie « Allah Akbar » et meurt après avoir été tasé. … Criant « Allah Akbar», l’homme est « allé au contact » des militaires, tapant des poings sur le capot de leur voiture et lançant des projectiles métalliques. (RT)
L’homme qui est mort aux mains de la police
1/ était « armé d’objets métalliques »
2/ a lancé des « projectiles métalliques ».
La police ne peut pas être plus précise ? C’est qu’il n’était pas dangereux. La description, bien que très vague, est certes inquiétante, à cause de « métallique », mais si vous n’êtes pas fichus de dire de quels objets il s’agit, c’est que vous avez honte de la mort d’un homme qui ne présentait pas de danger. Du genre : tué pour avoir lancé une canette vide !
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Il paraît que le cumul des mandats est une exception française. Or la détestation de la classe politique n’est pas du tout une exception française. Donc ne vous faites pas trop d’illusions avec vos réformes…
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Read Trotsky’s Revolution Betrayed about Soviet Russia, apply it to a people that eats dogs & live mice and you’ll get an idea of today’s China.
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Tunisie : 54 % des scientifiques sont des femmes. (L’Important)
Elles injectent des tas de poisons dans des cochons d’Inde, des souris, des lapins, des hamsters, des chats, les sales p***
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Why do you turn against those who work less than you when they’re the example you can oppose your boss with and you ought to turn against those who work more than you with whose example your boss opposes you?
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À propos du saphisme. Dit-on amour saphique ou amour ça fiste ?
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An American company with at least one Saudi shareholder is certain to implement an underground Islamophobic anti-Shiite policy. I have my suspicions about you, Twitter.
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« La société s’appauvrit de la perte d’un travailleur ; elle s’enrichit de celle d’un oisif. La mort d’un riche est un bienfait. » Auguste Blanqui
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Il n’y a plus qu’une issue pour Benalla : le coup d’État. Benalla Président ! (Me contacter pour les détails opérationnels) #BenallaGate
L’affaire Benalla montée par les policiers opposés au projet de réforme de la sécurité de l’Élysée ? C’est la théorie de cet article, qui titre, vengeur : Des poulets « qui le paieront cher ». Colonel Sanders, à l’aide !
Post-scriptum. J’ai trouvé l’article dans le tweet d’un député, qui appelle ces policiers des Torquemada et dit : « Plus dure sera la chute. » Les poulets sont prévenus : vont-ils finir à la broche ?
Je veux dire solennellement aux policiers et gendarmes que la solution n’est pas dans une commission d’enquête parlementaire mais entre leurs mains s’ils sont assez progressistes. Ça s’est déjà vu : Pérou (Gobierno Revolucionario de la Fuerza Armada), Panama (General Omar Torrijos, Líder Máximo de la Revolución Panameña)…
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In newspaper Le Monde in date of July 22 one sees, from the testimony of the men of the PSIG (peloton de surveillance et d’intervention de la gendarmerie), how Arnaud Beltrame behaved like a madman, although they dare not say it quite so openly. Arnaud Beltrame went with the PSIG inside the store by surprise (they had discussed it and he wasn’t asked to go), then he disrupted the officer’s talking with Lakdim, then he said to the PSIG “Shut up, I negociate, beat it!” The men were like “WTF!!!” And while the “pensée-unique” scenario unfolded immediately (origin: media or politicians?), that Arnaud Beltrame was a hero to be emulated by his colleagues, people who openly said otherwise were ignored, when their stance didn’t call derogatory comments upon their heads.
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Loi ELAN comme donner un nouvel élan. Loi PACTE comme recréer le pacte de confiance. Plus c’est con, plus ils sont contents d’eux. À quand une loi « libéralisme et sécurité » pour une société d’ordre dynamique et ouverte, dite loi SODO ?
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Après les sans-dents de Hollande, « Qu’ils viennent me chercher » sous-entendu les sans-couilles de Macron.
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According to Ralph Richard Banks in Is Marriage for White People? (2011), Black-American women don’t find Black men with their levels of education and must either marry lower educated Black men or abstain from marrying or, as the book advocates, marry white educated men but U.S. society has a bias agains it. It boils down to this: When twice as many Black women as Black men turn lawyers, half of these female lawyers will have to marry Black plumbers or white lawyers, but as there are barriers to both they remain single.
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Twitter is limiting the visibility of prominent Republicans in search results. (VICE)
Well, as these same prominent Republicans are used to say: “Private business, you know.” How do you like your own medicine now? – Don’t bother answering, as Twitter won’t send a notification anyway.
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The entire framing of capitalism vs. socialism needs to change. Most people realize that our current system needs to evolve to account for the destruction of middle-class jobs and ongoing automation + devaluation of labor. The challenge is evolving to the New Capitalism. (Andrew Yang)
The production machine could have shrinked the workday to a couple of hours 100 years ago already, and you’ll find these estimates commented in decades-old Socialist literature; only, they stressed, the capitalist class wouldn’t have it, as it won’t have it today and will never have it as long as it is the capitalist class. Automation, big deal, really! Depletion of industry and service jobs will offer the capitalist class a magnificent opportunity to crowd their palaces with throngs of valets and handmaids and prostitutes and juggler dwarves…
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Vote par empreinte digitale au Mali (!)
Oui, l’électeur trempe son doigt dans une encre, puis appose son empreinte sur le bulletin de vote. (Ashley Leïla MAIGA)
Vous pouvez économiser sur les isoloirs, vu que vous laissez votre signature sur le bulletin de vote ! Qu’il y ait un isoloir ou pas, si vous votez avec une empreinte digitale, c’est comme de voter en signant son nom !
À l’attention de U.S. Embassy Mali : Le tweet ci-joint montre que les Maliens votent en laissant leur empreinte digitale sur le bulletin de vote. C’est comme s’ils devaient signer leur nom. Quid du principe du vote secret pour éviter les pressions ?
À l’attention de MOE UE Mali 2018 : Le tweet joint montre que les Maliens votent en appliquant un doigt encré sur le bulletin, c’est-à-dire en laissant une empreinte digitale, ce qui revient à signer le bulletin ! Quid du principe du vote secret pour éviter les pressions ?
To UN & UN MISNUSMA: Ballots for the election work with voters stamping one finger on it, that is, leaving their fingerprints, which is the same as signing the ballot! What about the secret-ballot principle to prevent pressures?
Your absence of reply, U.S. Embassy, is proof to me that you don’t care about democracy in Mali, as you fail to deal with the issue of secret ballot. Your aims are others, I think you didn’t “give” financial help for the election but rather you bought the ballots with voters’ fingerprints, as a population-control tool.
This is not an election but a population-control experiment. Asking voters to vote by leaving their fingerprint on the ballot is a darn joke.
Faudrait quand même être fortiche pour passer au scan tous les bulletins de vote et les comparer aux empreintes lors NINA+++. Le Mali est bien loin des moyens de la NSA. + les bulletins ne bougent pas. + vote électronique encore plus suspect à mon avis. (efomba)
Précisément, les États-Unis ont fait un « don » au Mali pour l’élection, ce qui veut peut-être dire que c’est la NSA qui récupère les bulletins et revend ensuite les analyses au gouvernement malien… #bigdata
+++NINA : Numéro d’identification nationale. La carte d’identité au Mali comporte l’empreinte digitale de la personne. Par conséquent, l’empreinte de chaque électeur est enregistrée dans un fichier national et les recoupements à partir de bulletins de vote marqués d’une empreinte digitale sont donc a priori possibles techniquement.
(La question du vote électronique est pertinente. Si, dans les pays où ce vote existe, les autorités peuvent identifier l’électeur à partir de son adresse IP ou de tout autre marqueur électronique, la problématique est alors exactement la même.)
+ poser empreinte pour voter n’est pas obligatoire, en ce qui me concerne j’ai signé le bulletin, ce qui est autorisé. (efomba)
Une signature au stylo permet également d’être identifié !
Signer d’une croix permet d’être reconnu ? (efomba)
Une croix, non. Si c’est permis et n’invalide pas le bulletin, je conseille fortement aux Maliens de faire ce choix, plutôt que l’empreinte digitale. Vraiment.
Je suis tout de même un peu étonné par cette possibilité car si quelqu’un dessine sur le bulletin, je ne sais pas, une fleur ou la tête à toto, dans la case d’un candidat, le bulletin est-il valide ?
Les cas d’invalidation d’un bulletin, autre que nul, sont rares et encadrés par la loi électorale (insultant, choix imprécis par ex à cheval entre 2 candidats…). Une croix, ou danss votre exemple une fleur, ne sont pas vraiment insultants, je pense. (efomba)
Avec un taux d’alphabétisation parmi les plus bas au monde (38,7 % selon le rapport 2015 de l’Unesco), on s’attendrait à ce que les règles pour voter au Mali soient simples, mais il semblerait qu’elles soient au contraire relativement complexes…
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Extreme Cases of Elephantiasis
Left: Anonymous woman. Right: Israeli female soldiers.
(Their ridiculous boots make these Israeli female thugs, already rather elephantine without them, look as if suffering from elephantiasis.)
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“Whoever directly or otherwise puts forward the slogan of Jewish national culture is the enemy of the proletariat, the defender of the old and caste element in Jewry, the tool of the rabbis and of the bourgeoisie.” Lenin 1913
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In mondo film Faces of Death (1978) Jewish film director John A. Schwartz presents as documentary the shootage of people eating a live monkey’s brain in a place where belly dance is performed, thus maliciously equating Middle Eastern culture with barbarity. It wasn’t documentary at all, as was revealed later (much later), and such “culinary” traditions have never been reported in the Middle East (there are rumors that it existed in China). Later, Spielberg pictured Indians eating (dead) monkey brains. Hollywood is xenophobic and malicious.
It’s not open to debate, that eating a live non-human monkey’s brain was a culinary delicacy in China. The screaming of the monkey was part of the entertainment of it. (William Snow Hume)
I thought so, yet my last internet check of it reads: “It is unclear whether monkey brains have ever been served in a restaurant or whether the practice itself is an urban legend” (Wkpd: Monkey brains) and this for dead brain! They add: “Initial confusion over a translated term for the edible mushroom hericium may have played a part in the belief, as this mushroom is called hóu tóu gū (simplified: 猴头菇; traditional: 猴頭菇; lit. “monkey head mushroom”) in Chinese.” Mushrooms can scream, apparently…
Anyway, as this article shows (graphic content), the habit of eating live animals is something real in China: fish, snakes, living duck embryos, mice (“three squeaks” delicacy)… As to live monkeys, “The dish was banned in China.“
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Uyghurs in Cannibal China
Uyghurs must escape this hell of a country named China before it’s too late! Links:
“Dogs being boiled alive and conscious in China”
“Fully conscious pet dog has all four legs severed before being skinned”
Cat Meat Restaurants (China) from Google Images.
“Eight animals eaten alive in China”: fish, snakes, live duck embryos, mice (“three squeaks” delicacy), live monkey’s brain, you name it. (Not mentioned: live squid, I saw it on TV).
“Abuses against animals in traditional Chinese medicine markets in Southern China”
They are going to eat the Uyghurs alive! Stop it!
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Cannibalisme chinois en Afrique
Le président chinois poursuit sa visite en Afrique. Après Dakar, Kigali. Au centre de ces déplacements : le renforcement des liens économiques. (Le journal Afrique, TV5 Monde)
Les Chinois veulent manger des Africains, c’est pour ça qu’ils viennent, mais ne leur vendez pas, s’il vous plaît !
Les Chinois veulent manger des Africains car ils sont convaincus que leur chair noire est succulente et possède des vertus régénératives et toniques. Prenez garde au cannibalisme chinois ! Ils veulent ouvrir des restaurants secrets !
Si le cannibalisme s’est maintenu plus longtemps en Afrique, c’est parce que la viande est meilleure. Les Chinois l’ont compris !
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Et si on se servait du capitalisme pour combattre l’exclusion ? (A. L. et I. S., HEC 2015)
Ce n’est pas toi qui te sert du capitalisme mais le capitalisme qui se sert de toi (et crée l’exclusion). Lao-Tchoum
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Grosse érection aujourd’hui, à l’occasion de la Journée de la femme.
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J’ai regardé hier The Commuter/The Passenger avec Liam Neeson et j’ai calculé qu’à la place du personnage je serais mort cinquante et une fois.
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« Les grèves ont coûté beaucoup d’argent. » « Elles viennent un peu impacter la croissance », dit le porte-parole du gouvernement. (BFMTV)
Le porte-parole du gouvernement vient d’apprendre ce qu’est la grève. Quelle belle école, le gouvernement ! Continuez de faire les c*** et les travailleurs ne se priveront pas de faire la grève.
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Le travail des femmes a réduit la mobilité du travail car un travailleur au chômage ne peut désormais quitter son lieu de résidence pour se rendre là où on lui fait une offre, que si sa conjointe (ou vice-versa) accepte de partir chercher un nouveau travail là-bas.
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When you look for hashtag #Fredericton on Twitter to know more about the circumstances of Fredericton shooting, you learn nothing but that people afterwards made a human chain in sign of #FrederictonStrong. Well-meaners make TV necessary for one’s information.
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Freedom Here and There (#saudicanada)
The Saudis are absolutely right to stress that Ernst Zundel was a political prisoner in Canada (and Germany). And it is out of fear of possible state repression that Westerners are reluctant to say that depriving a “Holocaust denier and Nazi sympathizer” of his freedom is an act of political repression.
To the #saudicanada discussion. Situation in Canada is that one may be deprived of his/her freedom for:
-protesting abortion;
-claiming land for indigenous populations;
-denying the existence of gas chambers for the extermination of jews in WW2.
(according to pro-Saudi account Beauty of Queen)
I invite Saudi and other media to get acquainted with the way the University of Western Ontario dealt with Dr Wilson Bryan Key after he published his books on subliminal advertising. A shame.
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Lonah Salpeter, Israeli athlete of Kenyan origin, after winning gold medal on 10,000m, is the first athlete in history to lose a race for failing to count the laps and stopping one lap before the end, at the 5,000m race. #Berlin #EuropeanChampionship2018
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Quand le géant de la restauration Mc Donald’s (27,5 milliards de dollars de chiffre d’affaires annuel) fait de la pub à la TV canadienne, ça donne « chocolat fondan »…
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Quand le géant Inditex (18 milliards d’euros de chiffre d’affaires annuel, devant H&M), propriétaire des magasins Bershka, fait des soldes en France, ça donne « Premiére Dèmarque »… M***, payez-vous des gens qui savent écrire, quoi !
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Alors celle-là je ne vais pas la rater : le supergéant Google aux 110+ milliards de dollars de chiffre d’affaires annuel vous fait sa pub : « Inscrivez-vous maintenant et bénéficier de etc. » Payez-vous des gens qui savent écrire !
Publicité de Google sur le site de Le Monde : faites un effort, quand même. #orthographe (R. Barrow)
Ils n’ont pas assez d’argent !
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Faute d’orthographe sur les voitures de police au Mexique ! (Polícía! estatal) (Photo août 2018, source : le journal mexicain Reforma)
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Starbucks => Sturb X
for wankers only
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Anarchists drop IEDs here and there in Italy with little damage, but for a #GenoaBridgeCollapse you don’t need anarchists, you only need capitalists.
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Monsanto, which got massive product placement in film Treurgrond (2015) by Darrell Roodt has just been fined 289M dollars by a U.S. court for a terminally ill man’s cancer. A farmer. How many Boers and their workers suffer from Monsanto’s glyphosate? Just asking. As an aside, if you wish. [The film deals with farm murders in today’s South Africa, a phenomenon often described as the racially motivated targeting of White farmers by Black gangs.] Monsanto is bad publicity for the Boers.
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“Delights of Islam… I fell in love with veiled eyes.” Timothy Leary, High Priest, 1968.
Turn on, Tune in, Drop out.
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Explain to me how come, after the previous generation’s #LSD craze, millions and millions of Westerners turning on with lysergic acid, the Western world is still as cramped as ever, even more so.
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Koevoet South-African counter-insurgency unit in South-West Africa during the Border War (Grensoorlog) – When dumb Israelis show you Arabs in their army so, they say, Israel isn’t an apartheid state… #rubbish
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The Federal Islamic Republic of the Comoros (1978-1989) supported the Union of South Africa by allowing her to foil the international arms embargo through Comoros and to use the archipelago as a logistic base for military operations in Mozambique and Angola. #BobDenard
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Somalia: 2 Al-Shabaab fighters killed by U.S. military in an airstrike in the north of Kismayo. (ESISC)
Two Al-Shabaab fighters killed by U.S. hillbilitary.
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Ich sage: Es reicht! Wie viele Opfer soll diese Asylpolitik noch kosten? #Offenburg (Alice Weidel, AfD)
Mannn musss nichtt mit Messssern Scheisss treibben! #Offenburg
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And now, ladies and gentlement, top European country for homicide is… RUSSIA! the fondling of European Islamophobes and other rightwingers! 15,561 intentional homicides in 2016, 43 per day, 10.82/100.000 inhabitants! #Putin (Wkpd List of countries by intentional homicide rate)
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Big Brother is a control freak.
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Imran et Bushra
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Imran Khan’s wife number three. It’s like we’ve gone back to the Middle Ages!
French colonialist occupation propaganda in Algeria had the same discourse exactly [about the veil].
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“Islamic veil is oppression of women.” Position of French authorities #NiqabBan 👎 #BigBrother
Bushra Bibi: “Prior to her marriage with Imran Khan, she had been his spiritual mentor (murshid).” (Wkpd) He married his oppressed mentor!
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Shaivist sadhus of India celebrate Imran Khan’s election in Pakistan and the niqab of First Lady Bushra Bibi with amazing feats of penis yoga!
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Is it true, as petty-bourgeois scholars claim, that common sense believes in freewill? The proletariat doesn’t believe in free will. Psychologists as a whole are not even able to aptly describe the content of common sense, in front of which they so vehemently posit their own science. Proletarians have never believed in free will.
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To the nations with working weeks longer than 35 hours, in the name of the world proletariat: You will know the taste of nuclear storm.
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Selon Charles Maurras, on peut dire que Dreyfus n’a pas été « condamné parce que juif » mais innocenté parce que juif. [Voir mon billet Dreyfus innocent ?]
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Strindberg’s Hollow Earth (Concave Earth) quote [again, see Tw6]
“Att jorden kunde vara konkav, visar sig vid luftsegling, då horisonten följer ballongen, han må stiga aldrig så högt; likaså med hafshorizonten, som alltid är i jämnhöjd med ögat, äfven om man stiger uppåt en höjd å stranden.” (En Blå Bok, 1907) Translation: “That the earth may be concave is shown by balloon flight, as the horizon always follows the balloon no matter how high it goes, and likewise with sea horizon, which remains at eyes’ level even if one steps up a mound on the beach.”
If the man was an idiot, then stop calling him a genius.
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Denmark was the first country in the world to legalize pornography in 1969 and now they say niqab is a danger to their culture. Sure: When porn is your culture! #StoptheNiqabBanInDenmark
Niqab is a danger to Denmark’s culture all right because Denmark’s culture is pornography, the vilification of women.
What a brilliant homage to free CUNTries! [This last tweet was in reply to some guy who later, not being able to endure the strength of my reasoning, blocked me after he had wanted to contradict me. I must rephrase his objections from memory as I can’t read his tweets now that he has blocked me. He was saying that porn is legal in all free countries, hence my applauding his homage to free countries.
Then he said that ‘‘most of us’’ do not have a problem with sex and that ‘‘maybe’’ I should consider leaving Europe as I can’t stand women’s emancipation.]
Porn is not sex but sex for money. Don’t you see the difference? You may argue that sex for money is still sex, all right but the question isn’t how people view sex but how they view sex for money. Given your tweet I assume you aren’t familiar with the views of feminism, which is funny for someone claiming to be concerned with women’s condition.
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They say Israel has the right to live and defend herself. It is entirely wrong. According to the very compacts of international law, a colonialist state is a barbarity and has no right to exist at all.
They say Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. How is it relevant? Britain, France and other colonialist states were democracies and yet they had to stop being colonial powers.
Israel somehow continues to exist anyway.
Even if, coming from Israel, there was such things as purely defensive actions, they would still be criminal offences according to the sacred law of the united nations.
That sounds like a law worth ignoring if someone is Israeli.
It is a fact that Israel ignores the law of the united nations, which is precisely the reason why this nation is a reprobate. Small-talk witticisms notwithstanding.
The United Nations cannot enforce its laws, and therefore these laws don’t count for much. Disagree? Ask Crimeans, Syrians, Rohingya etc.
In the present state of international affairs, still mired in darkness and barbarity, it is up to anybody to draw the consequences of the dictamina of international law, the common law of the united nations, and in the present case it means, among other things, #BDS.
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« Paris : agression antisémite sur le pont Alexandre III »
Nos invités répondent à la question : Pourquoi l’empereur Alexandre III était-il antisémite ?
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When people go through traumatic events because of someone they may choose the most severe form of punishment as revenge, well then “the most severe form of punishment” should be lifetime imprisonment not taking away someone’s life which I consider to be sacred. (S. Al-Qassemi)
Definition of the sacred is that its violation calls the severest form of punishment. As one punishment is severer than lifetime imprisonment, no other punishment than capital punishment is conceivable for homicide if human life is held sacred.
[Which is to tell Mr Al-Qassemi, although I preferred to let him infer it by himself, that I deny he is holding human life sacred, as I deny those so-called lenient penal systems of ours in Europe hold anything sacred. As a matter of fact, nothing is sacred to Europeans.]
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« Je demande des efforts aux Français », déclare le Premier ministre (BFMTV)
Les travailleurs français doivent faire des efforts pour parvenir aux salaires de misère et longues journées de travail, à l’exploitation infâme des travailleurs chinois, sinon les capitalistes français ne peuvent pas faire de profits. Des questions ?
Subliminal XV: From Dubai to the Planet Mars
Travel diaries from 29 Aug to 2 Sep 2016, Dubai & Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.
Views from the Burj Khalifa (555m)
……………Vulgar Pillow Talk at the Radisson
In my room at the Radisson Blu Hotel, this qibla sticker on a bedside table. Part of the sticker’s was torn away, as if someone had attempted to remove the sticker from the table with his or her nails.
On the same table a placard invites customers to specify their needs as to their pillows. A most gracious attention. But then it comes under the head “Pillow Talk,” a vulgar, tasteless double entendre. I say tasteless because on school playgrounds, when a pun is so self-speaking and flat, to make it is considered shamefully humorless. Taste is knowing not to make ludicrous double entendres, and that is what marketing people are badly lacking. A world in which marketing has become ubiquitous would be a suffocating quagmire of bad taste.
As appears in the second picture, the qibla points toward “Pillow Talk.” Subliminal blasphemy! Again, in religious and sacred matters, taste implies not to utter (in any fashion) double entendres, associating sacredness with profanity. Carelessness is not congruent with taste nor with faith, and it should be sanctioned, for otherwise every wicked individual could cover and excuse his wickedness by carelessness.
My friend X is wont to say, “A ban on bad taste is long overdue. By which I also mean banning the US from the world.” Truly, when one sees Emirati citizens, dressed in their dignified traditional dishdashas (males) and abayas (females), beside American tourists in tee-shirts and shorts and thongs and herds, one’s taste is so shocked by the contrast that one is moved to call the American tourist an aesthetic pollution.
As you know by now that my friend X is a man of wits, he also said once: “Western women are sluts, and I talk from experience.”
A last word on my hotel room. Hotel Information said: “A copy of the Holy Quran is placed in all rooms.” I searched for my copy but could not find it (room 312). Perhaps the same person that tried to scratch the qibla sticker took the Quran away?
(Note. I blackened the upper right part of the first picture and in the nect picture, below, to conceal reflections of light. The sticker’s rim as it was can be seen on the other picture.)
…………….Inside World’s Largest Mall
The picture above is taken from the Dubai Mall Guide, which I picked up in the mall (it was not handed to me), and presents the Mall’s “courtesy policy.” The first sign asks customers to “wear respectful clothing,” and especially that “shoulders and knees should be covered.” The second sign shows a man and a woman holding hands, and the comment reads: “No kissing or overt display of affection in the mall.”
It is only after leaving the mall, leafing through the guide afterward, that I was made aware of this courtesy policy, so I guess most tourists do not know these regulations more than I did when I first strolled through the mall. I came back the next day (to see the dancing fountains show) and tried to see whether these rules were followed. I did not carefully look at the clothes, in fact – but I am certain that most tourists wore shorts –, concentrating on couples’ behavior. I saw a couple (tourists or resident foreigners) holding hands, without being disturbed, and even another one (tourists or resident foreigners) holding each other by the waist, without being disturbed either. After that, I stopped focusing my attention on that point because I thought that was enough evidence that the courtesy rules were not applied. Yet I must say that I had expected to see more couples holding hands and that it took a little time to spot these two pairs, despite the large crowds. Moreover, the pair holding each other by the waist were walking at an unusually fast pace, as if these people were fearing some reaction; it may have been some kind of provocation on their part.
Be that as it may, the text under the sign does not say that it is forbidden to hold hands, but that it is forbidden to “kiss” and “overtly display one’s affection,” whatever the latter might mean. The sign with the pair holding hands may be merely a kind of graphic euphemism, a mild way to represent what is not allowed, but the gesture thus represented may be per se not prohibited. This interpretation may sound farfetched, yet if one bans pornography one will not publish this policy by showing hardcore sex in a TV screen, even crossed by a red line, will they?
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From the Dubai Mall Guide, on page “Fashion – Children,” I found these boutiques, among others: Armani Junior, Burberry Children, Cacharel–Kidspace, Dolce & Gabbana Kids, Gucci Kids, Monsoon Kids, Ralph Lauren Kids, River Island Kids, Roberto Cavalli Junior, Tommy Hilfiger Kids… Ah, you thought you could make do with dressing your children with Petit Bateau, but it’s over! (Anyway, for the Petit Bateau boutique, it’s 2d floor, F6.)
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On page “Fashion – Arabic,” these boutiques with good old Arab names: Bon Chic, L’Amour, Les Foulards, Monte Bianco…
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First floor, K6, “multi-brand fashion and lifestyle stores based in Dubai,” the brand S*UCE (tel quel!) – a name that French tourists are not likely to forget.
…………….Subject Chewing Gum
In Dubai I realized chewing gum is a nonsubject for Western media and politics.
This little sign from Dubai metro can teach us a lot about the meanders of international trade. For I made an internet search and found that such a policy was first adopted in Singapore in order to prevent the defacements and damages committed by gum-chewers sticking their gummy refuse anywhere they find convenient. To that effect, Singapore even prohibited gum import. But that was overlooking the US’s stand on the matter, for which chewing gum remains as vital an export good as it is strategic. Under their pressure Singapore had to accept a compromise, according to which the country accepts to import… therapeutic chewing gum. And so it is that now Singapore physicians are entitled to prescribe chewing gum to their patients.
What Singapore got in exchange, I do not know, but I am in favor of banning chewing gum, which makes extremely costly waste, in France too, if only to compel the US to negotiate on a sounder basis with us.
……………Emirates Mars Mission
Excerpts from Mission to Mars: The Emirates Mars Mission and Mars Hope (2015), copyright by The Executive Office of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
“The behaviour of water in Mars’ highly volatile desert environment is of particular interest to the UAE as a desert nation.”
“Today, almost all of our understanding of climate comes from scientific studies of the atmosphere here on Earth. Mars is a valuable laboratory for atmosphere science because conditions there are very different. The insights and data we gain from understanding the Martian climate will add new dimensions to human knowledge about how atmospheres work.”
“Recent research has found evidence of human habitation as long as 125,000 years ago [in the peninsula] and it is now believed that modern humans moved out of Africa to the rest of the world through Arabia. … These early humans would likely have inhabited – and travelled through – an Arabian peninsula that was cooler and wetter than it is now, with a land bridge linking Arabia and Africa through modern-day Yemen.”
“An enormous amount of work is taking place to coordinate and foster cooperation between the world’s leading space capable nations, and the UAE’s membership of the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) is part of that work.” (p. 65) Yet on the ISECG’s website the membership list (as of 2016: 14 space agencies) does not include the UAE. UAE’s agency must have associate member status or something like that.
And, from a poem by Sheikh Al Maktoum, this elegant testimony of the Sheikh’s social Darwinism: “This ever-spinning universe cannot stand still / or look back at those slipping behind. / It has always been so impelled, / positive energy being the source of its life.”
(There exists a collection of Sheikh Al Maktoum’s poetry translated into English, which preface is by Paulo Coelho. When I bought Mission to Mars at Kinokuniya bookshop, Dubai Mall, one of Coelho’s books was on display by the cashier’s desk.)
……………Sharjah Art Museum (متحف الشارقة الفنون)
Sabra and Shatila (صبرا وشاتيلا) (1984), by Bashir Sinwar (بشير سنوار)