French Representative to UN explains plan Let's wait till it's all one color to solve it.
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French and German Improv Sketch Hilarity
One of the most beautiful jokes ever written, Steve Martin’s "How to be a millionaire and never pay taxes: First, get a million dollars," seems to be the premise of the new Franco-German peacekeeping solution to the Iraqi problem. As represented by the story from the AP (as seen on Yahoo!) the plan goes something like this:

How to prevent war in the Middle East:
First, get rid of Saddam Hussein.

Okay. Uh, thanks. The plan (if you can call it that) involves installing U.N. Peacekeeping forces in Iraq to effectively rule the country for several years. At the same time the U.N. would encourage Iraq’s neighbors to comply with the rules governing the exporting of Iraq’s oil and the importing of technology and weapons. And by "importing" and "exporting" I mean "smuggling" of course.

I think that the main difference between the Anglo-Americans and the Franco-Germans is one of language. In English, a "plan" is an idea in which the means to achieve a particular goal are effectively articulated. Now, in a successful plan the goal is usually the logical extension of a series of designed actions. Thus, if the goal is ‘To have a classical wedding’ the designed actions are ‘Finding a church,’ ‘booking the church,’ ‘buying a dress,’ and so forth. Now, each of these actions are dependent upon a series of other actions. Of course one may buy a dress on the Internet without ever trying it on or having it altered before the wedding day, but that would invite disaster. Furthermore, much of the planning is so commonplace as to be second nature. It would be a waste of time, for instance, to include "finding my car keys; putting my keys in the ignition; backing out of the garage," as a part of the planning to go and try on a dress. But just because they needn’t be listed doesn’t mean they are irrelevant.

In French and German, though, a "plan" seems to have a different definition. Their plan seems to be similar to our "goal." This must stem from World War II. The goal of the French and many Germans was "To not be ruled by Nazis." The plan to achieve that goal was "the Nazis are gotten rid of." Meanwhile the Anglo-Americans decided to take it back a step and start with "To get rid of the Nazis." Then the plan to do that was formulated and executed, and through intense struggle the Nazis were finally eliminated. But from the French and German perspective, their own goal and plan worked as well. They were all ruled by the Nazis, or the Vichey, and then, as if by magic, all the Nazis went away. See? There’s no need to fight. From their perspective the worst fascists and murderers in the history of the world were replaced by free and democratic republics without lifting a finger. Voila!

So with history as their guide the French and Germans have come up with a wonderful plan for a free Iraq. All that needs to happen is to install peacekeepers after Saddam’s regime goes away and it’s safe for the peacekeepers. Voila! No war!

Now that that’s resolved they can finally address the problem of AIDS in Africa. The goal is simple, an AIDS-free Africa; the plan is just as simple, distribute the cure. How can French humanitarianism succeed if the Anglo-Americans don’t discover the cure? That’s the question we should be asking ourselves.

Welcome Back Gravis!
It’s tough for those not living in occupied territory to understand the misery of us left behind. I’m a Republican-y type guy living in Santa Monica, California (registered Independent, vote Libertarian regularly). Living where I do means that on election day at around 6 pm I walked into my local polling place, stepped into a booth, and opened up ballot in which I could have voted for not only Gray Davis, but also Jerry Rubin and someone named Pro Se, whose occupation was listed as "civil rights" something or other.
In Santa Monica candidates aren’t allowed to list "activist" as their occupation. From as near as I can tell this was the platform upon which Rubin was running, or maybe it was the platform he was using to drop out of the election, it was tough to tell. Since he couldn’t be a civil rights "activist" I can only assume that Pro Se was a civil right "enthusiast." I was allowed to vote for up to three council members. I voted for none and am proud I found that many.
But the big shows were, of course, the gubernatorial race and the truly zany living wage ordinance(?) Law(?) Hell, I don’t know what it was. For what seems like years I’ve had everyone from high school girls to little old ladies begging me to pass this thing. Or was it to vote against it? I’ve yet to meet someone who could tell me, definitively, if measure JJ (Dy-NOOOO-Mite!) was good for people, bad for people, evil, civil, fair, a complicated ruse, or a basket of medicinal mary jane. In the end it seemed more like a rhetorical game than anything else, like hearing a sentence filled with double negatives and the word "bimonthly."
However, one good thing did spring forth fully formed from this election: my current overlord Gray Davis, or as I call him: Gravis. He’s a man I hold dear to my heart for he’s made my life so much more comfortable. In years past I would don your average oxford style shirt and walk to the store to buy the copious amounts of alcohol needed to lubricate my cold robot heart. Invariably I’d feel like I was coming home from Nam and walking through the gauntlet of the standard hippy execrations like "no blood for oil" or "baby killer!" After the 2000 elections I rifled through boxes of old clothes looking for a pair of huaraches and a sweater made from hemp so I wouldn’t dragged from my car Reginald Denny style.
But Gravis has changed all that. I no longer fear my neighbors nor the epitaphs of teenagers driven by a passionate history teacher who wears jeans to collect signatures on a petition for something about which they know nothing but for which they feel quite strongly. I woke up and saw Davis had won (though I suspect he himself voted for Simon) and I breathed a gentle sigh of relief. Had Simon won I’d have had to crawl back into my hidey-hole and wait for his stint to run its course, not unlike the flu. But Gravis is back, baby, and I’ve got no worries now.
Gravis make me smile; Gravis make me happy; Gravis make me spend the day listening to Bob Marley and groovin’ with universal peace. Nobody is jumping on the Gravis boat, there wasn’t a single sign stuck in a single yard asking us to vote for him. Gravis makes it okay to be a Republican now. The assumption before Gravis was that Republicans had a copy of Mein Kampf we were safeguarding in a lab where experiments designed to ruin the environment were being conducted on baby seals. Thanks to Gravis people are much more understanding about our villainous ways and are even starting to question their own belief systems. The "No blood for oil!" chants are growing less sure all the time. Now it’s more like "No blood for oil? Well, maybe some blood for oil."
Ever since last year we’ve all been preparing for a race that never came. It was as exciting as a movie about the crime of the century that ends in a plea bargain and time served. People are so bored that no one’s even brought up how creepy it is that the CIA has robot planes circling the globe looking for people to kill. That story has LA Weekly conspiracy theory written all over it and no one cares. The person we should feel the most sorry for is poor little Winona Ryder. What with the nonlection and all these Johnny-come-lately countries stealing our earthquakes she’s the only game in town. As I was drifting to sleep last night I had this great image: Winona running down Rodeo Drive, dropping pilfered mittens from under her arms, tossing frantic glances over her shoulder as a CIA Predator drone swoops down toward her in some New Millennium homage to North by Northwest. Welcome to California, the whateverist place on Earth.