[UPDATE: Added video links] As the iPhone app beside this paragraph indicates, it was kind of a big day for the Parti socialiste in France, who managed to win control of 21 of 22 regional councils in metropolitan France. Only Alsace squeaked by with a UMP majority, and overseas, the UMP won control of the [...]
Everyone in the US knows that the more removed an election is from a presidential election, with emergency special elections inhabiting the limit point away, the more turnout will be depressed. Furthermore, everyone in the US knows, since the Christian Coalition rode this pony into power, that the lower turnout is, the fewer votes you [...]
Here are a few things that I’ve read about since I wrote my generalized description of the regional elections in France last night: I wondered about the 53% rate of abstention (47% turnout) in comparison to previous elections. Turns out it’s pretty bad. The rate has been climbing over the past 25 years, though, 1998 [...]
Tonight the polls closed on the first round of the sexennial elections for the 22 regional councils in France.1 In comparison to the US, the regional councils are sort of like state governments, and their primary dossiers involve education, transportation, and land use. Rue89 has conveniently put together a “Regional Elections for Dummies” page, but, [...]
Continue reading about Quick thoughts about the French regional elections
While the big discussion in Washington (other than the snow) lately seems to have been the atavistic Tea Party Convention and the various fantasies of the American that were put on display within (I won’t link to anything since, remember, I’m no longer reading about US politics), the debate about national identity in France, an [...]
Continue reading about The pleasant death of the national identity debate
When Free came out in 1993, “The Gun and Bible” was instantly my favorite track. It’s a funny and absurd song, funny and absurd in the way that genocide is funny and absurd, that manages, by twisting and repeating one bizarre sample (discounting the coda about drinking and shooting), to efface the cold objectivity of [...]
Continue reading about The Gun and the Bible carved this nation
Libération had an interesting article yesterday about the explosion in popularity in France of foie gras that has also been certified as halal. The stuff is flying off the shelves, apparently. The issue of whether foie gras (which involves torturing the animal before killing it) can actually ever be halal aside, the readings of the [...]
