VIVA LA FRANCE!!!

The French people showed the elitist fools of the Chirac Government that they still want to be French, not Europeans.

So today, there will be no French jokes, nothing rude to say about them, and I may buy my first bottle of French wine since The War in Iraq.

Here is the story from the Washington Post
:

Unhappy French voters on Sunday derailed plans to further political and economic integration in Europe, decisively rejecting the proposed European constitution and thumbing their noses at the country’s governing elite, which had pleaded for approval of the measure.

The turnout was heavy and the margin of defeat was wide, with about 57 percent rejecting the constitution and about 43 percent voting for it. Opposition leaders harnessed widespread disenchantment over a variety of issues, including the unpopularity of President Jacques Chirac, the weak French economy and fears that the country would lose its clout to a strengthened European central government.

The French defeat throws into confusion — for now — the campaign to fashion a constitution for Europe, since each of the 25 nations that belongs to the European Union must approve the charter before it can take effect.

“There is no longer a constitution,” said Philippe de Villiers, leader of Movement For France, a nationalist party that warned France would lose its identity if the European Union continued to expand its borders to include nations such as Turkey. “We need to reconstruct Europe. This vote says there is a real difference in this country between the institutions and what the people really want.”

In a brief televised address shortly after the polls closed, Chirac said he accepted the will of the voters, even though he had lobbied heavily for approval of the constitution. “I’ll defend in Brussels the message from the French people,” he said.

Freedom isn’t Free

GM Roper has the answer on the only folks who think it is free.

Typically I do not link blindly to something, but this is definately worth the click thru.

We are the Bloggers, the Pests.

blockquote dir=”ltr” style=”MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px”>

The old assumption was that opinion media — such as the National Review, the Nation and the New Republic — offer a slant on current events, but that major news outlets, outside their designated opinion sections, do not. This commitment to disinterested reporting — and along with it the public’s trust in mainstream media — has been shattered in recent years.
-Victor David Hanson

This article in today’s Washington Times captures the essense of why the media has fallen down. The Mainstream media wants the public to believe that they are non biased and non partisan. They actively repeat this every chance they get. But the reality is they typically lean to the left, and it comes out on a regular basis.

With each expose the harm has been cumulative, driving the public away from a stained mainstream media. News purists mock the yelling of conservative talk radio, hypersensitive renegade bloggers on the Internet and cable news’ sharp elbows. They shouldn’t. All provide an antidote to “disinterested” High News the public no longer entirely believes.

And there is the rub. The public knows the media leans liberal. The political world knows this. Yet the press feels that they can convince the public that they are not.

So they come across as snake oil salesmen. They are betraying our trust and lying to us. In the past all we could do is write a letter to the editor. The press had the power to print this or not. The public could not respond in the past.

Now with weblogs we can respond and point out their inconsistancies, lies, and inuendos.

And the press hates it.

But that is too bad, they are stuck with us, the bloggers, the pests, the first level of accountability they have faced in a long, long time.

TN State Senator John Ford; A Scandal Too Far

After months and months and scandal after scandal, Operation Tennessee Waltz put Tennesee State Senator John Ford over the brink. He resigned yesterday from a state Senate seat he had held for three decades.

Word of Ford’s resignation on the legislature’s last scheduled day in session sent shockwaves through an already punch-drunk General Assembly that has four of its members, including Ford, facing extortion, conspiracy and bribery charges. It also prompted Gov. Phil Bredesen to say he might call the legislature back to Nashville this year to tackle a political ethics overhaul.

I guess when one makes comments like the following comments during a recorded FBI sting one has no where it go but resignation.

Ford said if he caught someone trying to set him up he would shoot that person, kill them, so that there would be no witnesses.

[Ford] asked if [and undercover agent] and his “partner” were okay, because while he did not mind shooting the partner, he did not want to shoot [the undercover agent].

Senator John Ford’s indictment can be seen here.

Ford’s letter of resignation was short and sweet. He didn’t have to stay up too late at night writing this one.

Bill Hobbs states that Ford quit the Senate before they had a chance to throw him out on his ear. As the Tennessean reports:

Ford’s resignation comes just as the Senate’s Ethics Committee was preparing a six-count complaint against the Memphis senator that almost certainly would have lead to his impeachment.

“We would have had the votes to oust Sen. Ford from office,” Senate Majority Leader Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville, said. Ramsey also said the ethics committee, which he chairs, came to this decision after months of research and hundreds of interviews.

After three decades in politics and all the sudden ethics scandals that swirled around Senator Ford one does wonder what else may have occurred over the years that was never discovered?

Michelle Malkin brings up an interesting point that the AP seems to have neglected to mention what party affiliation of Senator Ford.

State Sen. John Ford, a member of one of Tennessee’s most powerful political families, has resigned after being placed under house arrest facing charges from a two-year FBI sting, the lieutenant governor said Saturday.

Scared Monkeys is willing to tell its readers that John Ford was a DEMOCRAT. His nephew is Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. a DEMOCRAT as well who is looking to run for TN Senator Frist’s seat in 2006.

I am sure this was just a deliberate act over sight on the part of AP.

Update: 1754 Blog has some findings about the questionable reporting as well. Tomahawk, can we give CNN & Fox the benefit of the doubt that the Holiday staff is on this weekend? Nah.

Yes, Harold Ford, Jr. is the nephew of John Ford that we posted on Friday and spoke of his filing for the TN US Senate seat in “Timing is Everything“. Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall at this weekends Ford Memorial Day picnic?

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FBI Sting, Operation Tennessee Waltz, in the Volunteer State

Erectile Dysfunction Drugs; No Growth

Even before the announcement last week regarding a possible connection of Viagra to blindness; one might say the erectile dysfunction drug market was soft.

A sales plunge tied to Friday’s revelations isn’t expected because the incidence of blindness is so rare. The Food and Drug Administration said it has received a total of 42 reports of blindness, 38 among users of Pfizer Inc.’s Viagra, 4 among Cialis users and one for Levitra. In contrast, over 23 million men have taken Viagra while 5 million have used Cialis.

During the first quarter, both sales and prescriptions for the drugs grew only 1 percent in the United States, according to IMS Health, a pharmaceutical marketing and consulting company.

When Cialis and Levitra debuted in second half of 2003, joining market leader Viagra, analysts expected the market would expand as their makers poured money into advertising in the hopes of drawing more of the approximately 30 million American men with erectile dysfunction into doctors’ offices.

These are the most over-advertised medications on the market. I cannot go through one TV show anymore without seeing an ad for erectile dysfunction. I am still trying to understand marketing this product to individuals and not medical providers. To attain these drugs one needs a prescription from a physician not just your typical ad on the TV where the consumer just goes and buys the product themselves. Ease up on the ads as they are a waste of money and have been proved to have “no bang for the buck”.

The advertising flood materialized: erectile dysfunction drugs were the second most heavily advertised category of drugs last year with a total $382 million spent. But there have not been large numbers of additional patients, turning the market into a turf war to grab the limited number of males who want treatment.

“We thought that given the number of untreated men, we really thought there would be more use of the products,” said David Moskowitz, an analyst at Friedman Billings, Ramsey, who now expects total prescriptions to advance only 1 percent to 2 percent this year.

This industry thinks their market is weak now, wait until state’s Medicaid programs stop reimbursing. Now that’s going to leave a mark.