Good thing they didn't invade the surrounding neighborhoods

France finally figured out a way to win a war.

Lions officials are reeling today after a surprise attack by France, in which French forces besieged and captured all Lions property within the city of Detroit.

French paratroopers landed at team headquarters at around 2:30 a.m. local time. After initial resistance, French heavy armor was deployed to the compound and quickly subdued remaining lions »”>Detroit Lions forces. By 5:30 am, the Detroit Lions surrendered unconditionally to the invading French forces.

France finlly sheds the image of "loser."

France—known in the academic world as the “Detroit Lions of War”—had been on a century-plus skid since their victory in the Battle of Fuzhou in 1884, when the French Navy destroyed a Chinese fleet made almost entirely of wood.

“We obviously wanted to shut the door on all the heartache we’ve been through over the past century,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy told SSNN. “We saw our opportunity and pounced on it. We’ve finally moved past losing Napoleon, and we’re ready to begin a new chapter of our lives in the 21st Century.

Now we can eat canned dog food

Chicagoans rejoice. Your menu choices have been restored, and foie gras is back on the menu.

The City Council on Wednesday repealed its two-year-old ban on the gourmet dish, drawing dissent from animal rights activists who consider foie gras cruel because the birds are force-fed to make their livers bigger.

But there were no worries in chef Didier Durand's restaurant, Cyrano's Bistrot.

"All of us are so excited," Durand told reporters as he held his pet duck, Nicolai, named after French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "People miss it. They used to go to the suburbs to get foie gras and stopped going to specifically French restaurants."

Durand was one of a coalition of restaurateurs who started Chicago Chefs for Choice, a movement to overturn the ban, which went into effect in August 2006. He said Wednesday that he would begin serving foie gras again as soon as the repeal goes into effect later this month.

"You might disagree with serving foie gras, but you don't do a ban and forbid everybody to have foie gras," Durand said. His restaurant was one of many across the city that held foie gras dinners in the days before the ban took effect.

You know what really puts you in that Paris mood after a really good French meal? A relaxing after-dinner cigarette. Oops, that's still banned.

Red rag bytes dust

Saturday* was the last day for the regularly printed version of the Capital Times. From here on out Madison's Progressive newspaper will be pixels and bytes. Ed Garvey will miss it. After all, they gave him a lifetime achievement award. Ann Althouse will not, having been the target of its tolerance of low-minded conspiracy theorists.

I miss the loss of almost any newspaper, and so I guess I'm sorry to see Madison reduced to one daily liberal newspaper. Perhaps if the company that ran both newspapers hadn't let the Wisconsin State Journal drift leftward there would have been room for two newspapers. But when the choices are left and left-er, something's gotta give, especially in an era of declining newspaper readership.

As the French Communists discovered in coalition with Francois Mitterrand, it sucks to be at the extreme end.

* Yep, I was two days behind, too.

This blog safe for France

Inciting unhealthy thinness may become punishable in France.

PARIS (AP) -- The French parliament's lower house adopted a groundbreaking bill Tuesday that would make it illegal for anyone - including fashion magazines, advertisers and Web sites - to publicly incite extreme thinness.

The National Assembly approved the bill in a series of votes Tuesday, after the legislation won unanimous support from the ruling conservative UMP party. It goes to the Senate in the coming weeks.

Fashion industry experts said that, if passed, the law would be the strongest of its kind anywhere. Leaders in French couture are opposed to the idea of legal boundaries on beauty standards.

The bill was the latest and strongest of measures proposed after the 2006 anorexia-linked death of a Brazilian model prompted efforts throughout the international fashion industry to address the repercussions of using ultra-thin models.

Conservative lawmaker Valery Boyer, author of the law, argued that encouraging anorexia or severe weight loss should be punishable in court.

I'm on record as supporting the occasional Big Mac, so we have no fear of being prosecuted here.

The French resistance

French protests disrupt the Olympic torch relay through Paris on the way to Beijing.

At the start of the relay, on the Eiffel Tower's first floor, Green Party activist Sylvain Garel lunged for the first torchbearer, former hurdler Stephane Diagana, shouting "Freedom for the Chinese!" Security officials pulled Garel back.

"It is inadmissible that the games are taking place in the world's biggest prison," Garel said later.

The procession continued but a crowd of activists waving Tibetan flags soon interrupted it by confronting the torchbearer on a road along the Seine River. The demonstrators did not appear to get within reach of the torch, but its flame was put out by security officers and put on board a bus to continue part way along the route.

Less than an hour later, the flame was being carried out of a traffic tunnel by a woman athlete in a wheelchair when the procession was halted by activists who booed and chanted "Tibet." Once again, the torch was temporarily extinguished and put on a bus.

The third time, security officials apparently interrupted the procession because they spotted demonstrators ahead. After the torch was put on a bus, protesters threw plastic bottles, cups and pieces of bread at the vehicle and at a male wheelchair-bound athlete.

The torch disappeared back inside the bus a fourth time shortly after a protester approached it with a fire extinguisher near the Louvre art museum. Police grabbed the demonstrator before he could start to spray.

The whole world is watching.

Update!If the torch relay is cancelled, does that mean the Olympics are cancelled?

Voila!

The French today chose to elect a pro-American candidate President. Congratulations to France and we pray for a successful term in office for Nicolas Sarkozy. With his election, France now becomes a more reliable ally in the War on Terror than Congress.

The other big news from France, Greenpeace has moved all it's yachts to neutral countries.

No I can go back to eating French Fries.

Find classic movies at Amazon.com