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1. Assuming Kerry was to put a fight of course—considering his Vietnam record, a fair amount of doubt is legitimate here.

Socialized health care is just one step on the Road to Serfdom—though a dramatic one. And a deep dive down the Bureaucratic Twilight Zone of the Absurd. Take France for instance:

The much vaunted¹ French “free”², mandatory, state-run health care insurance may reimburse any patient’s second hearing aid if, and only if he is blind.

Get that? Socialistzed health care means that you will be allowed to hear only if you can’t see³. I mean, hey, you can’t have it all—there are other people waiting, you know. Selfish bastard.

And of course, the poor deaf and blind soul may get that if he first obtained the bureaucrats’ authorization to get said second hearing aid. We can’t have any sort of self-medication going on, can we?

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1. By the French state and it's lackeys. Oh, and by the myriads of civil servants who get paid off of it.
2. It's not free, of course—quite the contrary actually, as soon as you realize that you, your family, friends, employers and every single working citizen pay for it every month, all their lives and for a ridiculously small return, unless you happen to be deaf and blind, or terminally ill. (the amount you'll get for dental or ophthalmologic care is so low that it's insulting—I personally won't even bother returning the required forms to get reimbursed)
3. Provided you happen to have two ears, and be afflicted by deafness congenital or acquired. One should note that in this particular context, one-eyedness doesn't seem to make a difference in the State's health care arithmetic. Whatever the affected side.

[...] a network of hackers formed to support the democratic revolution in Iran. Our mission is to help the Iranian people by setting up networks of proxy severs, anonymizers, and any other appropriate technologies that can enable them to communicate and organize — a network beyond the censorship or control of the Iranian regime.

NedaNet doesn't have leaders or a manifesto or even much in the way of organization. We're not affiliated with any nation or religion. We're just computer hackers and computer users from all over the planet doing what we can to help the Iranian people in their struggle for freedom.

[...]

Think of me as a cut-out. I have very carefully not asked who our contacts in Iran are. I don't even know who most of the rest of the NedaNet people are, and don't intend to try to find out; they're basically just handles on an IRC channel from whom I get URLs and files. And for any jihadi interested in asking me questions face to face, I've got some bullets slathered in pork fat to make you feel extra special welcome.

"Some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."

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1. Hey, I did write vaguely related.

Oh, and the big topic of discussion for this official ROTUS¹ visit is apparently "Who Managed To Insult The Queen of England This Time? ('T'was you wot done it')".

In other news, perhaps more related to the bloody yet glorious events of the 6th of June 1944 and the days after that, the French government has decided against all evidences to award the Légion d'Honneur (Legion of Honor, one of the highest distinctions in the French arsenal) to a phony D-Day Hero.

Now, when it comes to the landing in Normandy, it's not as if there was a shortage of genuine heroes, both dead and alive (the Légion d'Honneur can, of course, be awarded posthumously) so I rather suspect the French had to go out of their way to really find that one fake paratrooper.

Apparently, his biggest feat is that he chose to retire in France². Jules Crittenden has all the dirty details:

Lowell, Mass., native/Derry, N.H., cop Howard Manoian retired to Ste. Mere-Eglise in 1985, where he is revered by the locals and has long earned free drinks, regaling tourists and reporters with tales of jumping into bitter combat with the 82nd Airborne...

The sad part is, he actually deserves honors … for coming ashore at Utah Beach on D-Day in the 33rd Chemical Decon Co., serving in a supply dump, and being injured and wounded several times in the service of his nation … just not with any glamorous leaps into darkness or desperate house-clearing ops.

Go read that, and on second thought, scratch "perhaps more related to the bloody yet glorious events of the 6th of June 1944" but ultimately don't be too upset with that latest Gallic infamy: the French bestow that legion of honor to just about any schmuck, from soccer players to third rate pop/rock singers. It's not as if it was worth anything anyway.

This 65th anniversary of D-Day is sadly shaping into a pathetic masquerade organized by a debased bunch of politicians who, be they Brown, Sarkozy or Wossname Obama, couldn't muster enough genuine respect, admiration and gratitude for the multitude that landed under fire on the beaches of Normandy—let alone the same fortitude and courage—even if their lives depended on it.

So rather than going on with the tribulations of these twats, I propose a couple of documents from my personal collection, published at a time when the French still had at least a bit of consideration for their liberators—and for some, even genuine gratitude—as the events were still fresh enough in their minds:

The 3rd part of a series of cheap "souvenir" leaflets, published in 1947, collecting Allied photos of D-Day:

Cover (click all these pictures for the larger version)

The 1946 commemoration of the landing in Normandy. The text reads: "On June 6th, 1946, it's in Courseulles this time that takes place the main commemoration of what the Anglo-Americans call "The Invasion". (To the right, some of the ships of Courseulles' artificial harbor)."

Odly enough, the leaflet opens with this picture, accompanied with the following, err, specific comment: "In the harbor of Arromanches mostly deserted by now a Florida nigger song is heard: these great grandsons of slaves, came as well to liberate us..."

That's a literal translation: the author writing in a France that what was still the center of a colonial empire, did use the French word for "nigger", and not "negro" (that does exist in French too). Here's the catch: in French, the disrespectful epithet is négro (negro), and not nègre (nigger).

Still, in contemporary France, this man would be lead at a Gendarme's gunpoint straight to the closest Sensitivity Training Station.

Next, on a lighter³ note and maybe for the benefit of those modern illiterate Frenchies who deplore the time when mine was a bilingual blog where they could fault the "Anglo-Americans" for not speaking anything else than English⁴, a 1944 "practical language" manual: Parlez l'Américain en 10 minutes ("Speak American in 10 minutes"), yours for the ridiculous price of 10 (1944) Francs.

This is amusing on several levels. First the editor cared to provide his readers with a sort of phony phonetic version of each English word and sentence. It's the avec prononciation indiquée mention on the cover, which means roughly, and quite ambitiously, "including pronunciation". Sort of a "So it is written, so it shall be spoken" technique. Goes like this:

aujourd'hui = today (toudé)

The idea is that the French learner in this 10 minutes American crash course would pronounce the "word" between parenthesis, and would instantly sound exactly like Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther.

And I do mean exactly.

The other funny thing is that this condensed 10-Minutes-American manual, though short as it is, is crippled with various grammar and vocabulary errors. Take the casual conversation section for instance:

Merci beaucoup = Thank you very well (Zènnk you vèri ouèll)

Merci beaucoup translates usually as Thank you very much. At least that's what I was taught. Considering that my first teacher of basic English was a gorgeous, classy Tippi Hedren look-alike whom I still remember fondly nearly 30 years later, trust me: I was paying attention.

Parlez lentement, s.v.p. = Speak slouly, please (Spîk slauli plîze)

Parlez lentement translates of course as Speak slowly. I don't know what slouly means.

Etes-vous Américain ? = Are you Americanish ? (Are you Amérikénich)

Hey, don't ask me. I suppose the scholar behind that entry figured that if the English could also be called the British, then surely the same rule would apply to Les Américans.

Lastly, this beautiful confusion-starter:

Voulez-vous une cigarette ? = Have you a cigarette? (Hève you e saïgarètt)

Ouch. Voulez-vous une cigarette translates in fact as Would you like a cigarette. Imagine the number of G.I.s confronted with these legions of unaware Gallic beggars, and ask yourself: is that enough to explain Europe's reputation as parasites and freeloaders with respect to Uncle Sam's largesse from WWII on?

Yeah, maybe not. But things like that surely didn't help.

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1. Resident Of The United States. I'd really appreciate if you could at least pretend that you're trying to follow, than you.
2. Admittedly quite an exploit, indeed.
3. I know what you're thinking, but no: no pun intended. Please head towards the closest Sensitivity Training Station.
4. By which they meant of course "not French" as they don't care about speaking anything else themselves.

"Until the Right realizes that we’re in a propaganda war and we’re losing, we’ll be on the losing end of this debate." Andrew Breitbart

[...] the Pink Lady has found a sponsor to cover flight insurance costs for 2008, and so she will continue to fly this year. Next year is uncertain however. The problem is that (as I covered in an earlier post) the insurance costs in France for this aircraft have been multiplied by 8 in recent years, thus bringing her into the same category as the other, more modern Boeing, the 767 passenger jet...Indeed, it costs 7,000 euros per meeting.

[...]

Concerning the state of the aircraft, she is in absolute prime flying condition. Indeed, she even underwent a major overhaul a few years ago, and has never missed a meeting due to any mechanical problems.

Something bewildering to us Americans, is that she cannot be capitalized in order to cover insurance costs. In France, article 1 concerning historical aircraft states that the aircraft can only have on board people that perform a specific on-flight function. Consequently, it is impossible to pay for her flight costs by giving tours during air shows, something commonly done in the US for b-17s. As she receives no help from the French government, all her insurance costs must be paid for by sponsors.

Therefore, given that mechanically she is in pristine condition and that there is no shortage of qualified pilots, it is clear that it is only the French government (whether by inappropriate insurance costs, absence of funding, and idiotic laws) that is doing everything possible to assure she is grounded, for she will fly as long as the ATV can cover insurance costs.

UPDATE

Image: Patrick Henry's "Treason" speech before the House of Burgesses by Peter F. Rothermel, 1851.

"To give a particular account of the ravages of the troops as they retreated from Concord to Charlestown, would be very difficult, if not impracticable. Let it suffice to say that a great number of the houses on the road were plundered and rendered unfit for use; several were burnt; women in childbed were driven by the soldiery naked into the streets; old men, peaceably in their houses were shot dead; and such scenes exhibited as would disgrace the annals of the most uncivilized nation.

These, brethren, are marks of ministerial vengeance against this colony for refusing, with her sister colonies, submission to slavery, but they have not yet detached us from our royal sovereign. We profess to be his loyal and dutiful subjects, and so hardly dealt with as we have been, are still ready with our lives and fortunes to defend his person, family, crown, and dignity. Nevertheless, to the persecution and tyranny of his cruel ministry, we will not tamely submit. Appealing to Heaven for the justice of our cause, we determine to die or be free."