Ivan Rybkin now claims that his disappearance wasn’t entirely voluntary after all. Just to be on the safe side, he’ll stay abroad till the elections are over. (From the BBC.)
Monthly Archives: February 2004
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If Der Spiegel has its facts right, Elizabeth II is a pretender and the true King a beer-drinking Australian farmer. If so, this would clear things up for the Scots, who wonder how they can have an Elizabeth ‘the second’ when they never had a first one: Good Queen Bess would’ve had as little claim to the throne as her latter-day namesake. The putative King Mike I, though, would just as soon stay on in Oz with his mates. (Report in German.)
On ‘understanding’ evil
This post is a follow-up to the one below on Hannah Arendt and the notion of the banality of evil. I fear, from one or two of the comments, that the reservations I expressed about her arguments may have led to misunderstanding. My point was certainly not to suggest that one shouldn’t try to understand and explain why and how these horrors happen, how people can come to commit, or be indirectly involved in, them. This is why I said, for example:
We have to understand what they [the perpetrators] did precisely as a fact about the evil human beings can do. Not only were they not devils or monsters psychologically speaking; for the most part they were not even abnormally sadistic or inherently brutal, or killers ‘by nature’, and so forth.
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The European Commission has approved the merger of Air France and KLM
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Britain’s Conservatives have agreed a deal to remain within the EPP-ED group in the European Parliament
For shame
See Martens, S. (passim) for insightful analysis and thoughtful commentary on the French headscarf controversy. For my part, may I say simply that the majority in the National Assembly is scandalously, monstrously, shamefully wrong.
The French treasure la?cit? as a safeguard of the republican values of libert?, ?galit? et fraternit?. And so it is. All the more perverse, then, that libert? be abridged under the banner of la?cit?.
And that’s all I have to say on the matter for the moment.
France and the Headscarf: Now the real fighting starts
Yesterday, the French National Assembly voted for a ban on “conspicuous religious symbols” in public schools by a majority of 494 in favour to 36 against. With the bill polling at 70% favourable among the French public, neither major political formation saw any gain in opposition.
Votes against came from several quarters. Alain Madelin – the sole serious Thatcherite in the French government – voted against, as did Christiane Taubira – the first black woman candidate for the French presidency and the first candidate from an overseas department. The biggest block to vote against came from the French Communist Party where 14 members voted against, 7 for, and 3 abstained. The Communists are the only party whose leadership has consistently opposed this law. Back in November the PCF leadership concluded that: “Nous sommes contre une loi qui, sous couvert de la?cit?, aurait comme cons?quence de stigmatiser une population.” We are against a law that, under the cover of secularism, would have as its consequence the stigmatisation of a population.
Normally, I would say that any bill that is opposed by both Alain Madelin and the PCF has to be a good idea. But this time, the fringe politicians are right, and the mainstream is wrong.
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From the BBC: headscarf ban passes in French lower house by huge majority.
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Ivan Rybkin wasn’t ‘disappeared’, it turns out. As the BBC reports, he simply disappeared of his own accord for a few days. Odd thing for a presidential candidate to do; what’s the ‘backstory’ here, one wonders?
There’s something about Laetitia
I’ve noticed that, after the front page, the consistently most hit posting on AFOE is this one. Somehow, I doubt that my shining prose is the reason.
Also, we get quite a lot of traffic from people looking for sexy weman. Well, this is certainly the right place. :^)
What lessons should we be taking from this? Do we need more T&A at AFOE?