Dominique Strauss-Kahn stark naked (2)

Q: So, what does it all mean?
A: The end of Strauss-Kahn's (DSK) career, of course, and more.
Q: He could deny it; then it's his word against hers.
A: Well, first, he left his cell-phone behind, so he fled the scene. Equally important, a famous person is always guilty until proven innocent, especially in America.
Q: Could it be a conspiracy?
A: Sure, as always. He was the most important threat to Sarkozy's bid for a second term, so Sarkozy could have tried to engineer the whole thing. However...
Q: ...however...?
A: It would have been difficult for Sarkozy to do so, even with the French secret services at his disposal. It's unlikely the maid was an agent, since she was working at the hotel on a permanent basis (presumably), and it was unforeseeable that DSK would stay there...well, who knows, changing my mind, perhaps he's always staying there, in the same suite, in which case they actually could have planted her there, perhaps paying off the service manager to have her assigned to this suite (soon to be dubbed the Kahn suite). And so on and so forth.
Q: But the cell-phone?
A: Élémentaire, cher Watson. DSK will deny this is his phone, but the records, oh là là, the records, the most beautiful cell-phone records in the history of the French secret services.
Q: We're in full conspiracy mode now?
A: I'd say 60-40.
Q: Which way?
A: Don't know yet.
Q: Will the Euro collapse?
A: It's in the cards. Expect a weakening of the Euro tomorrow, just for starters.
Q: Why?
A: Sarkozy's ratings are the lowest in the history of the French presidency. He's unlikely to get re-elected, even if the whole thing was his conspiracy. So it's either a socialist next time (to our American readers: DSK was a member of the Socialist Party, no, the SOCIALIST party), but, with the exception of DSK himself, all other contenders are unreconstructed dinosaurs, real tax-and-spend ideologues, all of them, or it's Marine LePen from the Front National. France's standing as a debtor will be weakened, and the markets might fear its collapse, comparable with other members of the Club Med.
Q: This could mean the end of the Euro.
A: Yes, if France does not get its act together, the Euro will collapse.
Q: How about the extreme right?
A: Yes, good question. Marine LePen, the new, charming leader of the Front National is collecting followers left and right with her compassionate xenophobia and an economic program from the dark ages.
Q: How so?
A: Her economic program calls for France leaving the Euro, and for erecting high import barriers to save domestic jobs. To do that, France would have to leave the European Union.
Q: Is that going to happen?
A: Possibly not, since the French farmers would lose their European subsidies, and so on. But I would not rule out a debt spiral triggered by weakening French credit scores (rising interest rates on French sovereign debt raise the deficit, etc), which leads to France's exit from the Euro, the end of the Euro, the end of the European Union...
Q: The end of the world as we know it?
A: It looks bad. But 500 years from now, the only thing we will remember is that the 3rd world war was caused by a man stepping out of his bath room stark naked.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn stark naked (1)

A former minister of finance of France, he had been married to one of the most beautiful, intelligent, and richest women of the country: Anne Sinclair, who ran her own prime time talk show before they tied the knot. Nicolas Sarkozy, upon taking office, got him the top job at the International Monetary Fund, evidently to rid himself of a dangerous future rival for the second term of his presidency,  but failed, as DSK grew in stature abroad and was topping the French polls in anticipation of the presidential elections of 2012.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK)	"We have our spies"

And then, around 13:00 local time yesterday, a chamber maid entered Room 2806 of the Sofitel New York, 44 W Street — believing it unoccupied. The suite, which costs $3,000 a night, has a foyer, a conference room, a living room, a bedroom — and also a bathroom, from which a starkly naked Domique Strauss Kahn emanated and "attempted to sexually assault" her. "He grabs her [according to her account] and pulls her into the bedroom and onto the bed." Then, according to NYPD's Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, he locked the door to the suite. (We think something is wrong with the sequence of events here, but never mind). "She fights him off, and then he drags her down the hallway to the bathroom, where he sexually assaults her a second time."

The woman breaks free, however, flees, tells another maid in the hallway who calls the police. When the police arrives, DSK has left, apparently in a hurry, since he left his cell phone behind, next to other DNA-relevant evidence, as the NYT darkly reports.

It quickly transpires that DSK is on an Air France plane. The plane is held at the gate, and an officer of the New York Port Authority arrests the IMF president in the First Class section of the plane (10,000 USD for a one-way ticked to Paris).

DSK was to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel today in Berlin, but the meeting has been cancelled.

Davos man (2)

So, Samuel P. Huntington discovered the Davos Man in the '90s in his article (later book) on the Clash of Civilizations, an answer to Fukuyama's book The End of History. Fukuyama had ventured that the end of the cold war implied the world's ascent to a plateau of civilization characterized by representative democracy, market economy, and other features mostly associated with the developed western world (earlier post here).

World punditry was shocked, shocked, that history could come to an end like that. I've actually seen not a single pundit recalling the simple fact that Fukuyama wasn't the first to propose the end of history, and that one Georg W.F. Hegel had already proclaimed it in sight of the Prussian state in its emanation of 1830 (semi-constitutional monarchy with strong feudal elements, early capitalism)---a fact that should have served as warning (in my days, the "end-of-history" hypothesis was one of the first things one would know about Hegel, and Hegel was one of the first philosophers one would know, but never mind). The idea in itself is much older, of course; Jesus himself believed that his father had sent him to alert the world to the impending last judgment.

So, Huntington disagreed with Fukuyama. History would continue, and it would do so through a clash of civilizations, the most important one being the conflict between the West and Islam. Very prescient! A few year later, NineEleven.

Kaboom

And the Davos man? Well, the Davos man did not know. The Davos man represented the new world elite, which, according to Huntington, was highly westernized (Harvard, The Economist, Davos World Economic Forum), and so full of itself (the elite) that it was unable to recognize that under its thin veneer of 55 million people (Huntington's estimate), other human layers were actually making up a world population more than 100 times as large. And these people could have very different ideas, and no commitment to the ideals of modern liberalism at all (liberalism here in its European meaning; the American meaning of "liberal" was introduced by FDR, who sought to take a middle ground with his auto-qualification ("I'm a liberal") by distinguishing himself from "radicals" on the one side and "conservatives" on the other). And while the Davos man continued to agree with himself, the rest of the world wouldn't, and could do funny things, like stoning adulterating women, dreaming of a new caliphate, hating minorities, and so on. (Just in case you don't know: Restoring the caliphate is the corporate goal of Al Quaida).

We know now what the Davos man does when he's not in Davos---he runs the world. But what does he do when he is in residence? Good question. Stay tuned. Thread continues here (in a sense).

PS: A propos caliphate: now we have it, ISIS proclaims itself as such with a new Caliph in charge.

News from Kazakhstan

The washed-up scriptwriter sends this picture...

...and writes: "Found this picture while searching for images of operating rooms that I need as mental models for the next scene in the Freedom Fries novel, where Brüno (you haven't met Brüno, but anyhow) is going to be brainwashed in a serious way with novel equipment invented by Alberrt."

And he continues:

"I've always found writing difficult, and remember my dear father, who tended to complain: 'I'd be a great poet if mother would only let me and stop clanging with the pots in the kitchen.' In fact, I remember him vividly right now, my father, as the students outside in the street are trying to storm the palace of President Breftzerk. Breftzerk called me this morning (remember, I have been appointed court poet), via the secret telephone line that still works, and urgently requested new hymns on his presidency that are to be read from the palace balcony to sway the revolting masses, but I have a writers block.

Hitler interrupts Obama's speech (reposted)

Plateau de Calern above Grasse

North of Grasse, at ca 1200m altitude, the Cote d'Azur features a plateau of surprising dimensions, built into the mountains, as it were, and split by the Gorges du Loup, the local version of the Grand Canyon. We've never heard of it, but Doris & Dirk, who own a house just above our's in Le Trayas, go there at least once a year. 

The plateau hosts the French Astronomical Society and its telescopes, which are now used for the detection of stray asteroids (that could hit the planet on a bad day), and the eponymous gamma bursts, the most violent events in the know cosmos (one telescope can swing to any part of the sky within 10 sec, which is important since the gamma bursts don't burst very long).

"As much as I appreciate the cosmological dedication to Gamma Bursts," Doris comments on the spot, "I do regret that black holes are apparently low on the astronomical shopping list." And then she goes on and tells about a friend of her's, Monica, who got almost caught by a black hole in the vicinity of Willem-Voltaire on the Swiss border. As Doris elaborates further on Monica's sex life, her emigration to Texas, her disappointments in Texas, more on Monica's sex life---especially during Monica's travels to Africa where she meets extremely shapely Kenyans whose skin glistens in the sunlight when they are aroused---as Doris elaborates further, the elves of the plateau conspire into fluffy gray clouds and dance across the sky.

Prince Charles and Camilla in mortal danger (2)

We've posted on this before. FF's position is unambiguous: a Rolls Royce is the only proper car for an evening out at the opera, in particular if it's a Phantom Mark IV from 1976. And while the Waleses are on their way, properly attired (how does one call the fact that one is properly be-car-ed?), the students---who are so blind-sighted not to understand that the tripling of tuition fees is in their own best interest since the bonuses of the Financial Sector have also tripled---the students are making threatening gestures towards the future sovereign and his consort, and we are appalled, and the Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard) has now identified two or more anonymous terrorists, and asks for your help, as the British Telegraph reports. If you have any clues, please contact Buckingham Palace at +44 (0)20 7766 7300

This brings to mind a report in the Dutch Telegraaf (a Dutch down-market imitation of the Telegraph) from a long time ago, I would say late 70's (this is all from memory, no internet backup) as to the adventures of the Dutch Princess Christina, who had married the Cuban Jorge Guillermo a few years earlier, and was now chauffeured by him in a Rolls Royce into downtown Salzburg, Austria, during the Salzburg Festival, in order to attend the opera, and the police stops them because downtown Salzburg is closed to cars during the festival, and we (the Telegraaf) are shocked, shocked, how a Dutch Princess could be encumbered by the police in her operatic pursuits while being chauffeured  in a Rolls Royce by her consort, and he, stopped  by the police now, is forced to explain that we are a Dutch Princess, and it's all so embarrassing, especially for the cops, to learn that they've just encumbered a princely couple in their operatic pursuits, and one officer drops dead out of pure shame, and the Princess is also embarrassed but keeps her cool and says, "let them eat cake," and the Austrian Minister of the Interior (responsible for the police) apologizes to the Dutch Crown, and the Dutch Queen gracefully acknowledges the apology.

Princess Christina

A second officer drops dead after having been force-fed some Austrian cakes that Marie-Antoinette had left behind when moving to France to wed Louis XVI (we know how that ended), but eventually everything is forgotten, until we learn 20 years later that the Princess and her consort are no longer on speaking terms, and he grabs the behinds of the catering ladies, and chides her for her awkwardness in public (she is practically blind since her mother had contracted German measles during the pregnancy), and the whole nation feels terrible about it, and they sleep in separate bedrooms, and even highbrow broadsheets like the NRC (don't ask) now allude to the suspicion that he married her for her money,* and a divorce is eventually arranged, and he gets a huge settlement, perhaps more than Guy Richie, and no reference is ever made to the Salzburg event 20 years earlier. And, oh yes, we love monarchy.

* which, as we are learning now, she is prudently keeping out of reach of the Dutch taxman in the offshore jurisdiction of Guernsey.

What happened before the Big Bang?

The big bang mystery (what happened before the big bang?)
may have been solved by Roger Penrose (an old friend of FF) and his coworkers at Oxford University. Penrose starts with established notions about an ever-expanding universe subject to the laws of thermodynamics, i.e. entropy.

"At first the universe becomes less uniform as it evolves and objects form within it. Once enough time has passed, however, all of the matter around will end up being sucked into black holes. As Stephen Hawking has demonstrated, black holes eventually evaporate in a burst of radiation. That process increases uniformity, eventually to the level the universe began with."

Now---this is Penrose's creative assumption---past a certain level of uniformity, the Higgs field may disappear. The Higgs field imbues particles with mass; without it, all particles would be massless and, by Einstein's relativity theory, forced to travel at the speed of light (as behooves photons, for example).

"That (as Einstein showed) means that from the particle’s point of view time stands still and space contracts to nothingness. If all particles in the universe were massless, then, the universe would look to them to be infinitely small. And an infinitely small universe is one that would undergo a Big Bang."

HAHA!

Even better, Penrose's new theory comes with testable predictions. Black holes would occasionally collide during the later stages of the universe's evolution, and gravitational waves would result. These waves would survive the big bang à la Penrose; they would be witnesses of the bing bang's prehistory.

AND?

YES!

Corresponding gravitational waves have now been found (pictured above).

"KASSA! KASSA!" would Samuel Fisher say.

-"This is such a good idea, it must be true."

Destination: Kazakhstan

We've posted his censorship alert 6 hours ago, but nobody cares. Visits from Le Monde or any other of the elite French newspapers...forget it. Nobody is interested. Nothing but the usual, lechery visits of our site for our naked girls from...(don't ask).

I informed Sacha about this unfortunate turn of events (is it a "turn," actually?), and he decided to let it go, and leave the country, leave France, leave the old, tired continent, and look for uncensored pastures elsewhere. And there he is, on his way to Kazakhstan---the only transcontinental destination available at this late hour by train (8:36pm, the train is late, of course), pictured above. Fortunately, it's a non-stop ride that will take only 6 days and 6 minutes.

Bye bye, Sacha, we will miss you!

Keep your powder dry, especially in Kazakhstan! And send us a picture of the rotating golden statue of President Breftzerk. And quit smoking at an appropriate moment in the future---especially cigarettes that look suspiciously like something more.

-"Uncensored pastures, that sounds like a flip from the washed-up scriptwriter."
-"Come to think of it, we haven't heard from him in a long time."
-"Well, he was supposed to have disappeared in the Mediterranean, off Cannes."
-"Perhaps he is in Kazakhstan now, and works as a poet for President Breftzerk."