Cuteness

There is some kind of French Cuteness Authority that rates villages. At the top are the villages rated Plus Beau, then villages of Character, villages of Charme, and finally (I guess) the dreaded Unrated.

This one is Saignon, which is Plus Beau in my book.

A Fine Phrenzy

I am preparing to leave this coming Sunday for Utopiales, Europe's largest SF con, where I am one of the guests of honor. After which I will spent a couple weeks wandering around France, basically kicking the tires and looking for cool stuff to write about. (A previous trip to France produced a Nebula-winning novella, so there's hope.)

While in France, I will eat about a pound of butter every day, washing it down with a couple bottles of wine and one of cognac. My mental and physical health can only improve on such a regime.

France is the country that Real Americans are supposed to hate, but I confess that I always have a wonderful time there. They've got a first-rate train system, health care that works, mass transit ditto, wonderful food chuck-full of locally-produced, gloriously flavorful ingredients, splendid beer and wine, enormous natural beauty, centuries of history, art, and architecture--- and all this and they only work 35 hours per week, with 3o paid days of vacation per year plus 10 national holidays! (One-quarter of American workers get no paid vacation at all.)

Of course, one in five French voters think it's okay to plonk down their ballots for the National Front, so it's hardly paradise.

And you know what else? We can get our swine flu shots over there! While the American system has been creaking and groaning and is only now producing limited amounts of vaccine, communist countries like France, Australia, and Japan have been immunizing their people for five whole months now!

When the swine flue kills all Americans, only the commies will survive! (And us, because we'll have had our shots.)

But not all is golden, not yet. Because I have to finish a novel before I go!

There are only two nights left! I have only a couple scenes to go!

Anyone want to bet either way?

Avalé This!

The week's mail brought copies of the new l'Atlante edition of Implied Spaces, translated by our very own Jean-Daniel.

The title seems to translate as "Pocket Worlds."

Or maybe "The One Who Gobbles Worlds."

It has to be admitted that either meaning would fit the story.

I have a feeling the Benjamin Carré artwork isn't going to do sales any harm.

1929

I was in DC when the financial crisis began to play it out. Every evening I'd turn on CNN and listen to some new horror: Lehman Brothers gone, the Treasury refusing to bail out AIG at twenty billion and then deciding to bail them out once the price had risen to eighty-five billion; Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs on the ropes; and now a seven hundred billion dollar bailout covering every single bad money market decision that anyone has made in the last half-dozen years.

If your bank goes belly-up, you're only insured for the first $100,000. But if you've got billions in bad mortgages, the government will totally cover your ass.

The worst of it is that even if this plan goes into effect, the crisis isn't necessarily over. This could only be the beginning.

One can get a certain sardonic amusement at watching our stalwart free-marketeers turning into a bunch of whining socialists. A few years ago they were saying, "Deregulate the markets! We demand that you let us take on more debt! Everyone in America has the right to own a house! The markets decide what is right! If the markets decide you made a bad investment, you should suck it up and take it like a man! No bailouts, no government interference in the marketplace, never! Let the markets rule!"

Now the story's a little different. Now it's, "Oh jeez, the markets say we suck! We've got billions in losses! Please please pleeeeeeeeease bail us out! We demand that you nationalize us immediately!"

Personally I don't think we should bail out a single business until their entire board of directors comes before the public, waves red flags, and sings "The Internationale." "Arise, ye prisoners of starvation . . . " Then they can bow, kiss a copy of Das Kapital, and be sent into the countryside for re-education.

Bruce Sterling's blog pointed me at this excellent article from Time: How We Became the United States of France. The opening section is so delicious I have to quote it here.

This is the state of our great republic: We've nationalized the financial system, taking control from Wall Street bankers we no longer trust. We're about to quasi-nationalize the Detroit auto companies via massive loans because they're a source of American pride, and too many jobs — and votes — are at stake. Our Social Security system is going broke as we head for a future where too many retirees will be supported by too few workers. How long before we have national healthcare? Put it all together, and the America that emerges is a cartoonish version of the country most despised by red-meat red-state patriots: France. Only with worse food.

Admit it, mes amis, the rugged individualism and cutthroat capitalism that made America the land of unlimited opportunity has been shrink-wrapped by a half dozen short sellers in Greenwich, Conn. and FedExed to Washington D.C. to be spoon-fed back to life by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. We're now no different from any of those Western European semi-socialist welfare states that we love to deride . . .

Tant pis, y'all.