editor Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 It must be a tough time to be a travel agent specializing in France.More riots today. At least a million people this time. And like last time, it's not confined to Paris -- it's nationwide. Airlines shut down. The Eiffel Tower shut down. The whole country seems like it's collapsing upon itself. Here's a nice little op/ed piece from today:Mob rule as usual in FranceTuesday, March 28, 2006BY CLAIRE BERLINSKI THE WASHINGTON POSTCommuters leave a train at the Gare Saint Lazare train station in Paris this morning as unions for national trains operator SNCF urged rank-and-file workers to walk off the job.PARIS - Needing help recently to move several cartons of books from my apartment to a storage room, I hired two movers and a van from the want ads. Students were in the streets protesting the Contrat de Premier Embauche Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N Judah Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 (edited) Well, I guess that's one way to make sure immigrants aren't taking your jobs.EDIT: and it looks like the immigrants are striking back. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...l=la-home-world Edited March 28, 2006 by N Judah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MidtownCoog Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 (edited) France (and Germany) need to be "Thatcherized". We once had an eCommerce development team in Grenoble. To call them lazy would be a compliment. We wanted them off the project, but that was not an option. We would have had to replace their headcount with new headcount if that were to be done. And the workforce commisson negotiations to get that done were an excercise in Eurpoean managerialism. They don't teach you stuff like that in school, that's for sure. Grenoble Edited March 28, 2006 by MidtownCoog Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJ V Lawrence Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 There's a banner in France that reads "We Shall Never Surrender"????????? There....is a banner....in France...that reads "We Shall Never Surrender"? Editor, that alone could be a tourist attraction, yes? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJones Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 (edited) ...........and we should care about France becaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuussssseeeee ???? Edited March 29, 2006 by TJones Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor Posted March 29, 2006 Author Share Posted March 29, 2006 ...........and we should care about France becaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuussssseeeee ????Food. Architecture. History. Women. Music. Mostly in that order. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mls1202 Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 This doesn't bode well for my vacation there the first week of May. Here's hoping somebody sorts this out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJones Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 Food. Architecture. History. Women. Music. Mostly in that order.Sure......Women who don't shave their pits. BLEH ! You can have 'em.Food, C'mon brotha', take the word of a Fatman, their food ain't that great........thanks for the french fries though France.French music ?.......I can only take so much of the mini acordian and violin.The Louvre.....WE should go and pilfer, I mean help France vacate it before those little lazy hethen do-nothing teenagers get a clue and decide to storm the place and destroy the artwork.I hate to think that they are gonna ask us to bail them out, yet again. I hope we won't even consider it. Maybe we would have been better off if we had let Germany just keep France back in the 40's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNiche Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 France (and Germany) need to be "Thatcherized". Brilliance! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeebus Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brijonmang Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 (edited) There's a banner in France that reads "We Shall Never Surrender"????????? There....is a banner....in France...that reads "We Shall Never Surrender"? Editor, that alone could be a tourist attraction, yes? HAHAHAHAHA!!.....that was too funny DJ V Heres to many more years of france never surrendering to ANYTHING .... EVER!! but seriously ... i hadnt even heard of this yet, the only rioting ive heard of is in CA about immigration...hopefully both will be worked out Edited March 29, 2006 by brijonmang Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N Judah Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 France needs to start a new city and define it as a free trade zone in terms of labor as well as capital. That way the immigrants can move there and get the upward mobility they deserve, and in the meantime the people of the older cities are left alone with their old ways of doing things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeebus Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 upward mobilityThey call that welfare here in the U.S. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N Judah Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 (edited) They call that welfare here in the U.S.Uh...no. Edited March 29, 2006 by N Judah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeebus Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 Uh...no.Uh...yes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaphod Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 at least the LA riots are primarily peaceful(there hasnt really been any violence yet has there?), and hey, they at least want to work... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TJones Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 I heard a great analogy this morning, "Is it ok for me to drive on the shoulder of the highway all the way into downtown ? I just want to go to work." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N Judah Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 (edited) Uh...yes.Not even close. I'm not sure if you're willfully missing the point because you're being a troll or what, but suffice it to say that Houston is a city with tons of upward mobility, and cities like Paris are not. France should build their own version of Houston to drive their economy, but keep Paris as a historical artifact and populate it with artists and bohemians. Edited March 29, 2006 by N Judah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeebus Posted March 29, 2006 Share Posted March 29, 2006 Explain upward mobility in detail. If it involves repetitive hand-outs to the same parties, I'm pretty sure its welfare. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N Judah Posted March 30, 2006 Share Posted March 30, 2006 Explain upward mobility in detail. If it involves repetitive hand-outs to the same parties, I'm pretty sure its welfare.I typed "upward mobility" into Google and found these two articles on the first page. They probably explain it better than I could:http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0127/p21s01-coop.htmlhttp://economist.com/world/na/displayStory...tory_id=3518560 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subdude Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 Link to article Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor Posted March 31, 2006 Author Share Posted March 31, 2006 France needs to start a new city and define it as a free trade zone in terms of labor as well as capital. That way the immigrants can move there and get the upward mobility they deserve, and in the meantime the people of the older cities are left alone with their old ways of doing things.They could build it at that massive illegal immigrant camp they have in Calais. It's where all the illegals trying to sneak into England (and some hope to go on to the U.S.) end up because they can't get across the water. Every few days they find a bunch of them trying to hop the Chunnel train. Sometimes they make it. Most of the time they die. Last I heard it was up to something like 20,000 people just waiting for their chance to get across the water. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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