Unreal
Posted January 29, 2012 at 6:20pm
Queremos la revolución permanente - pero con un mes de vacaciones.
— Peter Capusotto
Posted January 26, 2012 at 10:35am
You are not allowed to visit Pheasant Island, which lies near the Atlantic Ocean terminus of the French-Spanish border. But “it can easily be seen from the Joncaux bank, on the Bay Path,” the Web site for the local tourist office [1] suggests, without a hint of irony.
For border enthusiasts, that feels like insult added to injury. They’re condemned to contemplate the tiny eyot [2] from either bank of the Bidasoa, the border river that separates Hendaye in France from Irún in Spain [3]. And they can only wonder about the inscription on the gleaming white monolith that graces the island.
— Borders in Europe are still real - but increasingly meaningless. Perhaps, soon, there will be no more.
And here is a firm, still Standard and Poor’s, whose criteria of appreciation are marked by subjectivity, as is the case for every human endeavor, one whose methodologies are not only vague, but opaque and, from the little we know of them, stamped with the seal of a singular amateurism. For, if we believe what we read in Le Monde (15-16 January), this withdrawal of France’s triple-A rating was the work of a German analyst who, seconded by a Slovene assistant, spent “a few months” gathering “public data”, blending them with the results of “some interviews” with “ministers, members of the opposition, and bankers”, and then, finally, being “bombarded with questions” during a “visioconference” by a group of “five to fifteen people”, none of whom were particularly familiar with the dossier.
— BHL has a point about finance - and S&P. Vive la France!
It is not the ratings agencies that dictate the policies of France.
— Baroin, on a day to be ballsy like that.
Posted January 13, 2012 at 4:28pm
It is easier to divorce your wife than fire your employee [in Italy]
— Italian entrepreneur
Posted January 9, 2012 at 10:03pm
