France 2012: the official thread

[tpfkaw]

I doubt that someone like Le Pen would ever be able to get anywhere near 23% in the US...

[tpfkaw]

I doubt that someone like Le Pen would ever be able to get anywhere near 23% in the US...

uhm... George Wallace carried the entire south,.....

Not the entire south, only 4 States plus he only got 14% of the vote while doing so.  He might have gotten 23% or more in 1968 if we had a two round system like France, but we don't have such a system and it isn't 1968.

This, and I mean in the year 2011, obviously.

[tpfkaw]

DSK has a whole lot of empathy and compassion for working-class people, it seems.

Anyhoo, with him out of the picture, looks like 2002 all over again.  Who'da thunk?

[tpfkaw]

Several blogs I read, written by radical libertarians, seem to be on DSK's side.  Strange bedfellows, eh, Tony?

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2011/05/case-for-imf-chief-dominique-strauss.html

[tpfkaw]

I hope Hollande wins, given Sarkozy's a creep and turning France into the next Italy might finally achieve some success in discrediting leftist economics over there.

[tpfkaw]

I hope Hollande wins, given Sarkozy's a creep and turning France into the next Italy might finally achieve some success in discrediting leftist economics over there.

Hollande probably won't govern particularly from the left. I can't imagine him being in any sort of position to unyoke the Franco-German arrangement.

Given that his whole platform is based on reversing (and beyond) all of Sarkozy's cuts at the same time as France is being downgraded, France would risk default upon his election (assuming he's being honest about his platform).

[tpfkaw]

What's with Sarkozy/Hollande voters?  Just statistical noise?

[tpfkaw]

(...which comes as a confirmation of the fact the French are morons, but that's besides the point)

I'm sure Phil will have no trouble agreeing with that

Italians are even dumber, however.

I don't know if they are dumber but I always laughed with an anecdote a friend of mine told me when we were in the Navy:

-What book you won't find in any library of the world, even the biggest and more prestigious ones?

-"Italy's Military Triumphs".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire

[tpfkaw]

Well let's check the record; the reunified Italy actually won most of its wars (if only because they tended to pick on weak opponents or choose the winning side).

Won:

Austro-Prussian War (on a technicality)
Occupation of the Papal States
Occupation of Eritrea
Boxer Rebellion
Italo-Ottoman War
World War I
Second Italo-Ethiopian War
Occupation of Albania

Lost:

First Italo-Ethiopian War
World War II

[tpfkaw]

I stand by my position that either Hollande is lying about his campaign promises and he'll in fact cut deeper than Sarkozy, or France will default under his rule.