And They Wandered In

And they wandered in
From the city of St. John
Without a dime
Wearing coats that shined
Both red and green
Colors from their sunny island
From their boats of iron
They looked upon the promised land
Where surely life was sweet
(Steely Dan (Fagen/Becker), The Royal Scam)

Other than the word "Royal" in the title, the song hasn't much to do with the post, I'm afraid. But that was too good to pass up. It appears that French socialist Segolene Royal, after losing the election for president of France is also losing her partner of more than 25 years, Francois Hollande. She kicked him to the curb after he allegedly had an affair.

PARIS (AFP) - Defeated French Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal said on Sunday she has split from her partner, party leader Francois Hollande, after accusing him in a new book of having an affair.

"I have asked Francois Hollande to leave our home, to pursue his love interest which is now laid out in books and newspapers and I wish him happiness," Royal said in an interview for the book to be published Wednesday.

Speculation about the couple has been rife for months.

In the book, Royal did not name the other woman in Hollande's life but said she and the Socialist leader "remain on good terms. We talk to each other. There is mutual respect."

She asked that Hollande no longer be described as her "partner" because, she said: "That is no longer the case."

Excerpts were released as Socialists welcomed in a better-than-expected performance in France's parliamentary elections on Sunday, although President Nicolas Sarkozy's right-wing camp won a comfortable majority.

Speaking on French radio late Sunday, Royal confirmed that she and Hollande had decided to end their relationship.

"For some time, guesses and rumours had been circulating about me and Francois Hollande. I think there comes a point when you have to clarify things and say quite simply we have decided not to be together anymore," she said.

"Like all couples, we have had our share of problems. I decided to put these problems on hold during the presidential and the legislative campaigns," Royal said. "It was also necessary in order for me to protect my children."

"Today we are moving on to a new stage. It is important to say things as they are, and to have everything out in the open."

Hollande issued a brief statement confirming the break-up, in which he stressed his efforts keep his private and public lives separate, and warned he would not hesitate to take legal action over any media invasion of his privacy.

Royal announced her plans in a book by AFP journalists Christine Courcol and Thierry Masure, "Behind the Scenes of Defeat" ("Les Coulisses d'une Defaite"), which is to be published Wednesday.

Royal, 53, and Hollande, 52, had been together for more than 25 years and have four children: Thomas, Clemence, Julien and Flora, aged between 22 and 14.

Hollande's role in Royal's failed presidential campaign has been criticised and he has said he will stand down as the Socialist Party's first secretary. Royal confirmed in the book that she is a candidate to take over.

While she remains the Socialists' most popular politician, Royal is contested by senior figures in the party who blame her for losing the presidential race to Nicolas Sarkozy.

Well, it isn't a divorce, per se. They were never married. I really don't have much good to say about Royal's politics, but this is one of those things that is hard on all of the people involved - especially the children. I hope they can work things out in such a way as to keep the kids from additional harm.

Another Father’s Day, Different Surprises

Last year, my family took me out to the local Renaissance fair, lulled me into a false sense of being "special" on Father's Day, then launched their assault by telling me they had bought a pool . So this year, I was dreading the surprise. What next? A hot tub? Fortunately, the family took mercy on me and have not - at least so far - dropped anything like that on me. But there have been some surprises. 

First, there was a brand new Weber charcoal grill out on the back deck - it had not been there the night before. I would have remembered. We have a gas grill, but there is something special about food grilled on charcoal that both my wife and I love, despite the bother. So now I can retire the old one that is suffering from too many years in the elements. Rust never sleeps, after all. Inside the grill was another surprise. A first edition copy of The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, by Robert A. Heinlein.  My youngest boy, who is twelve, had borrowed my copy of that book - also a first edition (bought on the day it was released, incidentally), took it to school and promptly lost it. He had found a copy on Amazon and bought it with his own money to replace the one he lost.

I like it better than the original copy. 

My wife had made plans to take the family out to brunch. My oldest son and his wife were going to come along, making it a real family affair. While we were waiting for them to arrive, the phone rang. And just like that, my wife had to go in to work. There was a crisis that required her presence.  She told me I had to take the rest of the family to brunch, though. So off we went. This was one of those "all you can eat" brunches, so everyone did their level best to do so. It was a good time that would have been better had my bride been there, but we made do.

My wife did not have to stay long at work, fortunately, and she was home by mid afternoon. I made preparations for dinner - kabobs on the new grill - and generally took it easy for the afternoon. Then the phone rang. (I swear, I want that thing disconnected.) This time it was news that my younger brother, who has Downs Syndrome, was in the hospital. He lives in a group home back in New York and had suddenly passed out. I am one of his guardians; my older sister is the other one. It turns out that she is out of the country and can't be reached. So I authorized medical treatment (observation and some tests scheduled for tomorrow) and there isn't a thing I can do other than that. Oh, and I can worry. Which I am. They are checking his heart tomorrow. He is almost exactly 18 months younger than I am. 

It has been a day of both ups and downs. I hope other fathers out there have had a good day with a lot of ups and very few downs.  

Mark Steyn Twofer

Today is Mark Steyn twofer day. He's got another column up at the Chicago Sun-Times about the illegal immigration "reform" bill. And Steyn has some experience with the immigration system. He is, after all, an immigrant to this country. A legal one. Because of that particular history that he has, he notices something that is getting missed in all the rhetoric going on about this bill. The point he raises should make every, single American angry. Because there is something in the bill so fundamentally wrong, so much in violation of the American sense of fair play, that the bill should fail for that reason alone.

I wouldn't presume to speak for the millions of Americans who oppose this bill, but it's because I'm an immigrant myself that I object to the most patent absurdity peddled by the pro-amnesty crowd. The bill is fundamentally a fraud. Its ''comprehensive solution'' to illegal immigration is simply to flip all the illegals overnight into the legal category. Voila! Problem solved! There can be no more illegal immigrants because the Senate has simply abolished the category. Ingenious! For their next bipartisan trick, Congress will reduce the murder rate by recategorizing murderers as jaywalkers.

Back in the real world far from those senators living in the non-shadows of their boundless self-admiration, the truth is that America's immigration bureaucracy cannot cope with its existing caseload, and thus will certainly be unable to cope with millions of additional teeming hordes tossed into its waiting room. Currently, the time in which an immigration adjudicator is expected to approve or reject an application is six minutes. That's not enough time to read the basic form, never mind any supporting documentation. It's certainly not enough time for any meaningful background check. Under political pressure to ''bring the 12 million undocumented Americans out of the shadows,'' the immigration bureaucracy will rubberstamp gazillions of applications for open-ended probationary legal status within 24 hours and with no more supporting documentation than a utility bill or an affidavit from a friend. There's never been a better time for Mullah Omar to apply for U.S. residency.

America has an illegal immigration problem in part because it has a legal immigration problem. Anyone who enters the system exposes himself to an arbitrary, capricious, whimsical bureaucracy: For example, one of the little-known features of this bill is that in order to ''bring the 12 million undocumented Americans out of the shadows,'' millions of legal applicants are being hurled back into outer darkness. Law-abiding foreign nationals who filed their paperwork in the last two years would be required to go back to their home countries and start all over again. Not only does this bill reward law-breaking, it punishes law-abiding.

The people who are truly ''anti-immigrant'' are the folks who want to send that immigrant from Slovenia or Fiji who applied in May 2005 back to the end of the line. But then ''comprehensive immigration reform'' is about everything but immigration, including subverting sovereignty and national security. Remember the 1986 amnesty? Mahmoud abu Halima applied for it and went on to bomb the World Trade Center seven years later. His colleague, the aforementioned Mohammad Salameh, was rejected but carried on living here anyway. John Lee Malvo was detained and released by U.S. immigration in breach of its own procedures and re-emerged as the Washington sniper. The young Muslim men who availed themselves of the U.S. government's ''visa express'' system for Saudi Arabia filled in joke applications — ''Address in the United States: HOTEL, AMERICA'' — that octogenarian snowbirds from Toronto who've been wintering at their Florida condos since 1953 wouldn't try to get away with. The late Mohammed Atta received his flight-school student visa on March 11, 2002, six months to the day after famously flying his first and last commercial airliner.

The bill gives preferential treatment to those who broke the law to get here and literally penalizes those who have been trying to do it the right way. Is that really what the voters of this country want? (Hint to the Senators who cannot hear the voice of the people over the self-congratulatory voices in their heads: the polls say the people do not want this bill in this form at this time.) Americans should be righteously furious over this. My Mother's parents came to this country less than a century ago. They came through Ellis Island and their names happen to be inscribed there. They came here legally and became American citizens as soon as they possibly could. Both of their children were never taught Norwegian and were only allowed to speak in English at home - the better to help my grandparents master the language as much as for the kid's benefits.

But this sham of a "reform" would have sent them home had it been enacted back when they were playing by the rules. I'm quite sure that both of my grandparents would have been utterly and completely furious with this bill. Because they were Americans and they became citizens by following the rules and complying with the laws.

No Landslide

The political party of Nicolas Sarkozy has won the French parliamentary elections, but by a much slimmer margin than had been predicted. He did not receive the landslide everyone had predicted. Apparently, voter turnout was very low.

PARIS (AFP) - President Nicolas Sarkozy's right-wing party won a clear majority to carry out reforms in France's legislative election Sunday, but failed to secure a widely predicted landslide.

His Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) won 319-329 seats in the 577-member National Assembly, 30-40 seats fewer than in the outgoing parliament, according to projections after the decisive second round. Another 20 seats were expected to go to centrist allies.

Sarkozy's party had been expected to score a "blue wave" landslide after his stunning presidential election win over Socialist Segolene Royal in May. But amid a low turnout, the Socialist Party made a surprise comeback, jumping from 149 to 202-210 seats.

In an embarrassing blow to Sarkozy, former prime minister Alain Juppe resigned as environment superminister and government number two after failing to win a seat in his Bordeaux stronghold.

Sarkozy had brought the 61-year-old Juppe back from political exile after his conviction in a party finance scandal and given him one of the most prominent portfolios in his right-wing government.

But Economy Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said the government had scored a "historic success" in becoming the first ruling party since 1978 to retain control of the National Assembly. The UMP had 359 seats in the old parliament.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon also said France had "made a clear and coherent choice" by giving Sarkozy "a majority to act".

The socialists are spinning it by claiming voters wanted Sarkozy "checked." Actually, in a low voter turnout scenario it is whoever can best mobilize their base to get to the polls who tends to do better than expected. I rather suspect it has a lot more to do with that. In a high turnout, as Sarkozy got, there was a clear majority in favor of change. And Sarkozy still has the political muscle right now to make changes. It just isn't by as big a majority.

The Sale On Snake Oil

Here we go again with fraudulent claims. The AP is bemoaning the lack of service stations that sell E85 fuel. Because, they say, E85 is cheaper than gasoline. Here's their logic:

Steve Williams does what millions of American motorists can't: Fill up on cheaper, ethanol-based fuel from a local gas station.  

Advocates, including farmers and President Bush, have offered E85 — a blend of 85 percent ethanol and gasoline — as an affordable way to help the nation grow itself toward energy independence with a cleaner-burning fuel. They would like to see more people like Williams, who filled up his 2003 Ford Explorer with E85 on a recent morning.

But there's a big hitch for this fuel of the future. There are too few pumps. While there are about 5 million "flexible fuel" vehicles on U.S. roads that can handle E85, there are only 1,145 public stations that offer the fuel nationwide, according to the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition. Meanwhile, domestic automakers have promised to double their production of flexible-fuel vehicles by 2010.

The nation's roughly 167,000 retail gas outlets have been slow to invest the tens of thousands of dollars it takes to add E85 — especially when certification for the dispensers is in limbo and the market is so new. Many drivers don't even know their recent-model flexible fuel cars can handle E85.

"A lot of times a car is a person's largest investment, so they're cautious. 'I'm putting alcohol in there? What!? Are you kidding?'" said Christian King, whose Mobil stations in Albany and 70 miles north in Warrensburg are the only ones in New York offering E85 to the public.

E85 is cheaper than regular unleaded gasoline. King's station near the University at Albany recently retailed E85 for $2.599 a gallon versus $3.149 for regular unleaded. But since ethanol has less energy than gasoline, fuel economy drops 10 to 15 percent when cars run on E85.

First of all, the EPA itself says that fuel economy drops by almost 30% when burning E85 - not 10-15%. So let's just do a simple calculation, shall we? Let's use a base value of 25mpg for a theoretical car running gasoline. Let's be kind and assume a 25% drop in fuel economy when switching to E85. That means that car will get about 18.75mpg. Let's assume a 100 mile drive. Gas powered will use 4 gallons of fuel for a cost of $12.60. E85 will use 5.33 gallons of fuel for a total cost of $13.85. And that calculation ignores the massive energy overhead it takes to produce a gallon of ethanol. So the "cheaper" fuel isn't cheaper in either dollars or in total energy used. Then of course, there is the sharp increase in the cost of food since corn prices have already doubled and promise to climb even higher if mandates for even more ethanol production come along. And what is even worse about all this? The promise of greenhouse gas reductions are false. Even more energy is expended and more carbon released in the ethanol cycle. It merely shifts where the emission happens - there is less out your car's tailpipe, but more released upstream in producing the fuel.  

A Hare Raising Tale

Milan, Italy is having a bad hare day - or year, as the case may be. The Animal Uprising™ has hit upon a scheme to shut down the Milan airport by using the most vicious weapon in their arsenal: oversexed hares.

MILAN, Italy - Wild hares at Milan's Linate airport seem to have only one thing on their mind, and their excessive mating and growing numbers have blocked takeoffs, landings and radar systems.

Officials on Sunday mounted a daylight raid to keep these furry creatures off the runways, part of a twice-annual capture to keep the airport population under control.

"There are always hares at the airport, the problem is that lately there were too many, and they cause problems with the radar and sensors that monitor the airport," said Nicoletta Angioni, spokeswoman for SEA, the company that operates Milan's airports.

Blowing whistles and waving their arms frantically, some 200 volunteers spooked the hares out of their holes and into waiting nets. The animals — 57 hares and four wild rabbits — were put in wooden crates and transferred to a wildlife preserve, officials said.

Now it may seem to the uninitiated that a hare looks just like a rabbit, but there are subtle differences. Hares have long ears, big feet and fur while rabbits have long ears, fur and big feet. Notice the fine hare-splitting difference? But we digress. Hares also breed like rabbits, which is bad news for the Milanese. We're afraid the hare-raising events have just begun for them. Pretty soon they'll have to admit defeat and simply turn over the hareport to the animals.

Last Action Hero

Mark Steyn has another grand slam column out this week. This time he looks at the current rage to make the government the "last action hero" for a number of things, including "global warming" and the justifications for taking away individual rights. This one is a must read.

Everyone's "dealing with" global warming now. The G8 nations just devoted their summit to it. Time magazine has a big story this week headlined "The New Ac-tion Heroes." It's about Michael Bloomberg in New York and Arnold Schwarzenegger in California, photographed together looking either like a couple of mob enforcers or a gay couple who've just been told the church was double-booked for a Jerry Falwell memorial. But, either way, this heroic duo is not like these do-nothings in Congress, mired in partisan bickering. They're men of action, and they're getting things done.

What are they doing? Why, Bloomberg was "opening a climate summit" and "talking about saving the planet." All of it, including the bits west of the Holland Tunnel. And Schwarzenegger was "talking about eliminating disease. All of them. "I look forward to curing all these terrible illnesses," he announced.

As Madame Cornuel observed, no man is a hero to his valet. But fortunately it's a lot easier to be a hero to your typist, especially when it's Time's Michael Grunwald. "They're tackling not just the climate," he says, anxious not to give the impression they're a couple of slackers sneaking off for golf after lunch. No, sir. These action heroes are "doing big things that Washington has failed to do." Bloomberg, coos Grunwald, "also enacted America's most Draconian smoking ban and the first big-city trans-fat ban."

At one level, Bloomberg and Schwarzenegger have a point. Why wait for national or international action when a mayor or governor can just get on with it? But the assumptions underpinning Time's paean to the new action heroes all operate in one direction – in increased government regulation and restraint on individual judgment.

The argument for this is that the state has an interest in a healthy workforce: If you're poor, and you get lung cancer, you'll be filling up hospital rooms at public expense. If that's true, then the state arguably has a greater interest in you continuing to smoke and dying young: The ever-aging population of the Western world will be the biggest burden on state resources in the coming decades.

But in the broader picture it might be truer still to say that the individual, unlike the state, therefore has an interest in stopping and reversing the government annexation of health care – because that argument can be used to justify almost any restraint on freedom – and, in the end, you may not get the health care, anyway. Under Britain's National Health Service, smokers in Manchester have been denied treatment for heart disease, and the obese in Suffolk are refused hip and knee replacements. Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, says that it's appropriate to decline treatment on the basis of "lifestyle choices." Today, it's smokers and the obese. But, if a gay guy has condom-less sex with multiple partners, why should his "lifestyle choices" get a pass? Health care costs can be used to justify anything.

The nanny state is coming on strong - but if we examine places where it has been firmly in place for a number of years, we can see where it leads. Rationed health care and denial of services for people who choose to do anything the nannies deem wrong. There is rampant fraud in the "carbon mitigation" schemes the UN and the EU are running. There is deforestation going on at a staggering pace - in the name of saving the planet, mind you. Orangutans and humans are being killed so more biofuel can be produced. All in the name of what is good for the planet. As Steyn points out, a government that swears it is unable to stop the flood of illegals entering this country now appears bent on "fixing" the climate. Steyn also read what Vaclav Klaus wrote this week: "What is at risk is not the climate but freedom." You need only look at the "accomplishments" that Bloomberg brags about as proof of where this all leads.

The government as last action hero is the last thing we should want.

The Problem With Democracy

Or, more specifically, the problem that the Democratic Party has with democracy. Ronald Asmus, a former Clinton official, takes a hard look at the party that once believed that the spreading of democracy and human rights was their core duty. His conclusion? Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman and John Kennedy must be reaching very high rpms. Because Democrats have abandoned those core principles.

In 1995, democracy promotion was one of the three central pillars of President Bill Clinton's first National Security Strategy. Rereading the document today, with its call for "a more secure world where democracy and free markets know no borders," I'm struck by how the idea of expanding democracy's reach permeated official Democratic thinking a decade ago.

No more. Today, it's hard to say where the Democratic Party stands on the issue of promoting democracy. The party's 2004 presidential nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry, never spoke directly to the issue. When Senate Democrats issued their March 2006 national security blueprint, entitled "Real Security," it did not even mention the word democracy. Democratic think tanks in Washington churn out reports criticizing Bush administration policies and laying out Democratic alternatives on various matters, but few if any of them explain how — or whether — we would advance democracy abroad if we again won the White House.

You can look in vain for major legislative initiatives on the issue from Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; you have to strain to hear clear statements from our leading presidential candidates — Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards — or even to find a mention of democracy in their campaign Web sites' foreign policy sections. The party's leaders have gone quiet in the larger discussion about values, liberty and human rights; they seem to see no broader purpose for U.S. foreign policy other than self-interest and an end to the Iraq war. When democracy activists from around the world (including those from center-left parties) visit Washington, they often find it easier to get the time and attention of Republican senators than of their Democratic counterparts. Democracy promotion, they are sometimes told, has become "their" — i.e., the Republicans' — issue.

Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy must be turning in their graves. Using U.S. power to promote freedom and democracy was central to their foreign policies and legacies. Even Jimmy Carter, a far less successful Democratic president, can be proud of making human rights a major U.S. foreign policy objective. And Bill Clinton's interventions in the Balkans and drive to expand NATO were all about consolidating democracy in Europe's eastern half. There was a time, not too long ago, when Democrats were proud of their track record on democracy promotion — and rightly so.

Asmus makes the case pretty strongly here that the Democrats have completely lost their way on this because of straight-up partisan politics. They have completely ceded the issue to the Republicans. They loathe Bush more than they love their own history and principles. But that principle - spreading freedom - is a core of the party. And the Democrats are losing that which makes them what they are supposed to be. And it is very dangerous for them.

What looms above this reversal of principle is Iraq. Democrats who are disgusted with the fruits of Bush's reckless, values-based foreign policy must avoid the temptation to embrace a heartless, interest-based foreign policy devoid of values. The past few years teach us several lessons — including that some things are true even if George W. Bush says them.

An interesting criticism. I've long pointed out - as have many others - that the term "liberal" does not apply to what the left has become. Asmus is warning the same thing here. And it could cost the Democrats more than they realize.

The Usual Suspects

Police tend to actually know quite a few of the trouble-makers in the communities they patrol. The same people get into quite a lot of trouble when left to their own devices. This is especially true in smaller communities, a bit more difficult in large urban areas, of course. So it really isn't a surprise that a sheriff's deputy in Richland Parish, Louisiana recognized a miscreant the moment he arrived on the scene of a crime. What makes it unusual is that the miscreant wasn't human.

RAYVILLE, La. - The chief deputy of Richland Parish didn't just capture the 8-foot snake that had stopped highway traffic. He recognized it. That let Chief Deputy Terry Thompson reunite the one-eyed boa constrictor with its owner, who had lost it when he moved to Rayville in March.

Thompson said that when he got to the spot where the snake had been spotted Friday morning, he was told that a driver had tried to run over the boa and shoot it.

A man and his wife stuck around to make sure the snake did, too.

One look told Thompson it wasn't poisonous. "I caught it by the tail, pulled it out, and picked it up and put it into a pillowcase," he said.

Then he looked it in the face and realized they'd been introduced.

Last year, Thompson said, Chad Foote brought the snake into investigators' office to show it off. Foote had recently bought it at a good price because of the missing eye.

Our informants tell us that the snake, named Sammy, was kicked out of the Animal Uprising™ because of a serious gambling problem. In fact, Sammy lost the eye in a fight over a game of craps. The pot included a pair of Gucci high-heel ankle-strap sandals and Sammy accused the other players of cheating when he didn't win. (We've written about the weird fascination that snakes have with shoes before.) Sammy is now safely back behind bars.