From today’s Guardian:

”A public prosecutor in Paris said yesterday that 12 past and present officials from Jacques Chirac's UMP party would appear in court next year after allegations of vote-rigging in the capital in the days when the French president was its mayor. In a 196-page report which could further damage Mr Chirac's reputation, the prosecutor said the officials, including the former mayor of the third arrondissement, Jacques Dominati, and his two sons, should be tried for "fraudulently influencing" the outcome of a poll.”

Jacques Chirac, some people may recall, has been a little, well, critical of US efforts to bring democracy to Iraq. Perhaps he should start looking a little closer to home.

And, oh yes, the same Guardian report contains this little nugget:

“Meanwhile, it emerged yesterday that expenditure by the Elysée palace has increased hugely since Mr Chirac was elected president in 1995. The revelation came a day after French MPs approved a 2005 presidential budget of €31.9m (£22m). The daily Le Monde said in 1994, the final year of François Mitterrand's presidency, that the Elysée had spent (in equivalent terms) €3.3m. Allegations of runaway spending under Mr Chirac are not new and were countered yesterday by his office, which said the budget increase was mainly due to a shortfall due to the abolition, in 2001, of the "special funds", an unaudited and hidden multi-million-pound slush fund that the French state allocated itself for "extraordinary expenses". Income to offset the cut appears in the presidential budget. “

There’s one place, and one place only, for this destructive and useless individual.

Jail.

Warning – this post may violate French law.

The ‘revelation’ that France’s new EU commissioner, Jacques Barrot, was in the past convicted for his role in a political funding scandal (because Barrot later benefited from an amnesty, mentioning this conviction is, apparently, a crime), is beginning to cause trouble in Brussels. Incoming EU president Barroso is now saying that no-one ever told him that the French nominee had had these legal, ahem, difficulties in the past.

Um, Barroso, old chap, have you ever heard of Google?

Regrettably, the post of an EU Commissioner is an important one. If we are to believe Barroso, it seems that not even the most rudimentary check was made on the background of Chirac’s nominee (given who was doing the nominating, a little caution might have been appropriate). For that lapse alone, Barroso should resign.

And he should take the collection of thieves, cronies, timeservers, lightweights and has-beens that he has the gall to call a commission with him.

Via the invaluable Zachtei blog

“A student of the Dalton Scholengemeenschap in The Hague was beat up after giving a presentation about Islam and the murder of Theo van Gogh, by a group of Moroccans who hadn't even heard the presentation. According to his classmates, they were acting on behalf of a girl who had, and who thought the lecture was insulting. Neither the classmates nor the teacher were able to identify anything offensive in the presentation.”

And, one might add, even if they had, that would not have justified this thuggery.

From the London Times

”GEERT WILDERS, the Dutch MP and controversial critic of Islam, has two policemen by his side even when in his high-security parliamentary office in case someone tries to decapitate him. Each day, he does not know where he is going to sleep that night, as he is taken from safe house to safe house in a convoy of armoured cars. He was taken into hiding when police investigating the murder of the film-maker Theo van Gogh on November 2 uncovered a network of radical Muslims with advanced plans to kill Mr Wilders, and other “enemies of Islam”. A video circulating on the internet offered 72 virgins in paradise to any Muslim who beheaded him.”

It has come to this.

From the Daily Telegraph:

“Churchgoers risk lung cancer because of unhealthy air caused by candles and incense, researchers say.”

The solution, as Antoine Clarke over at Samizdata notes, is obvious: The EU must “immediately ban all church-going for children, impose a tax on adult church-goers, put health warnings on the outsides of all churches….”

And, over here, I’d expect Nurse Bloomberg to do the same.

Well, mayor, why not?

Cruise was great fun, but exhausting for a hermit like me. Lucy had a grand time. The first panel I was on, included Bernard Lewis and Victor Davis Hanson, which is a bit like having me follow Yo Yo Ma and Itzach Perlman so I can play my kazoo. The second panel was quite fun, though it descended into a fairly intense metaphysical conversation between myself, Derb, Dinesh D'Souza, Ramesh and John O'Sullivan. I thought it was pretty interesting even if I'm not positive I know what it was all about. I think it would probably have been better in the original Greek.

One last thing before I retire for the evening: Charles' post about Middlebury. I have several close friends who went there in the late 80s and early 90s. They all said that the PC stuff never really penetrated there. Maybe it's like a tropical disease which dies as it approaches more northerly climes. Nevertheless, having visited a couple dozen campuses in the last couple years, I can attest that the left-wingyness of academy endures.