LE PANIER CASE (Or is that "La" Panier Case?)

Riot police are ready for more violence in Paris and throughout France again today.  Yesterday about 1.5 million French "students" and tadpoles were in the streets destroying property, burning cars and attacking police.   And why?  Because their place in the great French social welfare state is being threatened.  More specifically, they're rioting because they are actually facing the prospect of having to earn their jobs and work to keep them.

Here's your background.  France has a real problem with youth unemployment.  The general nationwide rate is 23%.  In some minority neighborhoods the youth unemployment is much higher.  There's a reason for this.  Young people in France don't have a work history to tout when they're out there looking for a job.  A prospective employer has no job history to review when considering a young French man or woman for employment.  If an employer decides to take a chance on a young employee with no job history, and if that young employee turns out to be a slacker, the employer is, to coin a phrase, pretty much screwed.  French law protects the slacker.  Job guarantees make it a very expensive proposition for an employer to get rid of a bad employee.  One good way for a French employer to protect himself is to hire an experienced worker; someone with a good track record.  The result?  Young workers have more difficulty finding a job.

The solution was basic, rational, logical and simple.  Remove the onerous restrictions on employers hiring younger workers, and that is exactly what France's prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, did.  Under new regulations a French employer is allowed to hire someone 26 years old and younger on a two-year trial basis.  After those two years the full range of employment guarantees would kick in.

Now you understand what the French "youth" and their labor union friends are so upset about.  These new regulations might actually mean that they will have to prove themselves at work!  No longer will these kids be able to walk into their new workplace with instant job protection.  This is so contrary to the great French social welfare state!  The government is supposed to protect these people!  They aren't supposed to have to to go out there and actually work to earn their employment status!  It's supposed to be guaranteed by the state!  Your life belongs to the state and the state must provide!  Personal responsibility!  Non! 

By the way ... you do know, don't you, that there is no shortage of people in this country who would like to see government-enforced job protection guarantees here as well.  Georgia, my home state, is an "employment at will" state.  This means that absent a contract of some type, an employer can fire a worker pretty much whenever he wants to for whatever reason is good enough for the employer.  Anti-discrimination laws come into play, of course -- but the law in Georgia does not provide for job guarantees.  This makes sense in a free market economy.  After all, just who does the job belong to?  Employers create jobs.  Workers look for jobs.  The job belongs to the employer, not the employee.  If you would like to see the situation reversed, be sure to support your local labor union.

There's actually a parallel to some goings-on here in the United States.  The Katrina "evacuees."  Those who were displaced by hurricane Katrina and who actually had a history of assuming the responsibility for their own lives have largely moved on.   They've found places to live and ways to earn a living.  What we have left, for the most part, are the parasites who were dependent on government before Katrina, and who remain dependent on government months after Katrina passed.  Every time a suggestion is made that it is time for them to stand up and take some action to insure their own future they recoil in outrage.  But ... New Orleans did have somewhat of a French culture, didn't it?

LOOKS LIKE HER 15 MINUTES AREN'T UP YET

I hope you're sitting down.  There's some bad news.  Hollywood is considering a movie about the barking moonbat Cindy Sheehan.  What's worse, news is that Susan Sarandon is expected to play the lead.  I think that we can reasonably expect that Hollywood will be sure to show Sheehan as an intelligent woman carrying on a heartfelt and intelligent campaign against war, not the certifiable loon that she is.  Would the media be giving this much attention to a mother who lost a son in Iraq, but still supported the war?  Of course not...that doesn't fit their Bush-bashing template.  Will Hollywood be making a movie about families who have lost sons or daughters in the War On Terror, but still support the mission?  Nope.

Cindy Sheehan is a creation of the left...and now we all have to live with it. I wonder if her movie will be a comedy?

This brings up so many questions. Is this soup preferred by ten dogs? Or did 10 dogs contribute to the ingredients?

GOD FORBID YOU SHOULD PAY FOR YOUR OWN MEDICAL CARE

Evidently we have a new controversy that has surfaced while I was out of town for a few days.  The Georgia House of Representatives has passed a bill that would make it harder for Georgia's Medicaid program to recover the costs of providing medical care to some of Georgia's elderly citizens.  These Georgia legislatures don't want the state Medicaid program to be able to recover dollars spent paying someone's nursing home bills from the estate of that patient.  More specifically, the law says that Georgia Medicaid cannot get any of the first $100,000 of the proceeds of the sale of a patient's house after that patient has died.  That money would go to the patient's heirs instead.

Now --- here's what that law really does.  It forces the taxpayers of Georgia to pay for a person's nursing home care, even when that person has the assets to pay for that care, or a portion thereof, themselves.  The Georgia house has passed a welfare bill.  Essentially, this bill allows the children of a Medicaid nursing home patient to pass of $100,000 of the cost of their parents nursing home costs off to the taxpayers while they take that $100,000 and spend it on themselves. 

Nice going.

IRAQ, 3 YEARS IN

Well, yesterday we hit the much-publicized 3 year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.  If you believe the media, Iraq is a lost cause...a failed adventure that has erupted in civil war.  The left's prescription for what's happening over there: we should just pull up our stakes and leave.

Naturally, this would be a mistake.  Several hundred billion dollars and several thousand American lives would have been spent in vain.  We would be turning over the keys to Iraq to Zarqawi and his bunch...ready to use their new country as a base for which to launch attacks on America and Israel.  So we can't just leave.  We pay the price now and accomplish our goals, or we pay a much higher price later.

The administration says things are going well in Iraq, that we're making progress.  So who do you believe?  As is almost always the case, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.  No, Iraq is not in the grips of a civil war.   In fact, the majority of the country is at peace.  And yes, the country is vastly better off than they were under Saddam Hussein.  Despite what you read, there is more electricity, clean water and schools now than there was 3 years ago, prior to the invasion.

Right now is a critical time in Iraq, as a new government is formed.  Things could have been done differently and better after the invasion.  Things may well have gone better if the coalition had secured the support of France, Germany and Russia, and if Democrats at home had not been so determined to destroy Bush at virtually any price.  I believe, though, that America is safer because George Bush invaded Iraq and overthrew Saddam Hussein.  If we had not gone in there, Saddam would now be presiding over a government that was a state sponsor of terrorism, was flush with cash from illicit oil profits and working on a nuclear weapon.

You do know that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, don't you?  Shocker!

MORE TOLERANT, PEACEFUL ISLAM

Just days after 9/11, President Bush went down to a local mosque in Washington D.C,. took off his shoes, met with officials and then held a press conference.  Upon taking to the podium, Mr. Bush declared that "Islam is peace."  And it's been down hill ever since.

Take your pick...Muslims rioting in France...Muslims rioting all over the world, over a cartoon.  Muslims shooting kids in the back in Beslan, Russia.  Muslims taking hostages in Iraq and sawing their heads off.  PR-wise, it hasn't been a good couple of years for the followers of Allah.

So now we have yet another example of just how peaceful and tolerate the Islamic religion is.  Afghanistan, a country which we liberated, still practices Islamic law.  Right now a man faces death there for committing a heinous crime.  Did he kill somebody?  Nope. Steal somebody's goat?  Nope.  What could he possibly have done to deserve the penalty of death?

He decided to become a Christian.  41-year-old Abdul Rahman converted to Christianity 16 years ago.  This is an offense punishable by death.  Is  this some sort of crazy sentence handed down by a kangaroo court out in the desert somewhere?  Hardly...in fact, check out this quote from one of the Supreme Court judges in Afghanistan: "We are not against any particular religion in the world. But in Afghanistan, this sort of thing is against the law.  It is an attack on Islam.  The prosecutor is asking for the death penalty."  That's right...an attack on Islam.  Once again, the extreme core of that violent religion is exposed for all to see:  all non-believers must be killed.

Now ... let's all sit back and wait for the Muslim community in this country to speak out against this outrage.  Are you ready to step up to the microphones and denounce the idea that someone who converts from Islam to Christianity should be killed?  Come on!  We're waiting!  We're all waiting to hear from the religion of peace!   

Actually, I'm not waiting.  I'm not waiting because I expect nothing.  The silence is and will continue to be  deafening.  And they wonder why Americans have an unfavorable view of Islam.

REDNECK SCRAP BOOK

Best watch your toes in this jacuzzi. More in the Redneck Scrap Book.

READING ASSIGNMENTS

Robert Novak says according to his sources, Al Gore plans to take one last shot at the presidency in 2008, which means he'll be squaring off against The Hildabeast in the primary. Novak says the outcome may hinge on who can raise the most money.

More Hollywood actors who have no idea what they're talking about.  Richard Belzer says 19 and 20 year old U.S. troops couldn't get a job and are just too uneducated to be expressing support for the war.  And why is that?  Because they don't read 20 newspapers a day.  So all you supporters of the war...start reading.

More hot air from Ted Kennedy: the Senator from Chappaquiddick says illegal immigration is a national security problem that needs to be fixed.  Even thought he would never support the idea, he did bring up the concept of deportation.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called George W. Bush a donkey and an alcoholic yesterday.  Chavez seems to have things backwards...the Democrats use the donkey as their symbol, which means he's really talking about Teddy Kennedy.

The evidence continues to roll in of Saddam's connection to Osama Bin Laden, all of it ignored by the mainstream media.  The Weekly Standard highlights a 1995 meeting between Bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence. 

Senator Dick Durbin said on 'Fox News Sunday' yesterday that Democrats want the troops to come home.  Of course, this would mark the first time several years that Democrats actually give a rip about the well being of our troops.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld takes on the doom and gloom crowd over Iraq and points out the good news.  He says the terrorists are losing in Iraq and those who say otherwise are just repeating the words of Al-Qaeda.

Why are President Bush's numbers so low if the economy is doing so well?  Larry Kudlow attempts to answer that question and says the stock market is a good barometer right now for the economy.

Speaking of Bush's low poll numbers, George Will offers some advice to the president on how he can dig himself out of the problem.  Will is not exactly a supporter of the war, by the way.

Not only is the media ignoring the good news in Iraq, but one soldier even goes so far as to say what is being reported bears absolutely no resemblance to what is happening on the ground.

Ben Stein says that there wasn't one moment spent, one word uttered to recognize the sacrifice of our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq at the Oscar ceremony.  There's a surprise here

Want to know what has Isaac Hayes and Tom Cruise's boxers in a bunch? Watch the South Park Scientology episode in it's entirety online.

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