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Indeed they are plenty of innovations available ! If big tech companies was not that much innovations focused it would be best ! Check this http://ventilons.canalblog.com... you'll discover solutions for our world ! Cheers !

You are talking about French Gaullist tradition (from Charles de Gaulle), and yes, French geopolitics was relatively independent from the US.

Since Sarkozy they have made a 180-degree turn. They are now one of the most pro-US countries in Europe, beating UK in some issues.

http://www.economist.com/blogs...
http://www.economist.com/node/...
http://fablognewsweeker.canalb...
http://www.economist.com/blogs...

Hollande, though from the rival socialist party, follows entirely the path paved by Sarkozy.

You mean like these ones?
It's hard to receive money from jerks!
Having diner with assholes.
Pope 23 and his three dadies.
The Talmud is horseshit.
Will do anything to get new customers!
Next week, I will show you the resurrection trick

Yeah, these guys went down on the extremists of some religions (the Christians, The Muslims and The Jews, the current largest in France) just as much as they did on politics, celebrities, social conflicts and others...
Growing up there, I saw plenty of these cartoons. Some are not very funny, some are, some are very intelligent, some very dumb... but if the one thing I remember is that : if it hurts you at some point, it means that there is a layer of truth deep down.

Monde de merde...

http://tnrequinh.skyblog.com/ http://tnrequins.over-blog.com/ http://vibramflow.skyblog.com/ http://vibramkso.skyrock.com/ http://vibramsprint.skyrock.com/ http://vibram.flow.over-blog.com/ http://vibramkso.over-blog.com/ http://vibramsprint.over-blog.com/ http://vibramflow.canalblog.com/ aerhgaerg sethae

http://tnrequinh.skyblog.com/ http://tnrequins.over-blog.com/ http://vibramflow.skyblog.com/ http://vibramkso.skyrock.com/ http://vibramsprint.skyrock.com/ http://vibram.flow.over-blog.com/ http://vibramkso.over-blog.com/ http://vibramsprint.over-blog.com/ http://vibramflow.canalblog.com/

(See? We men aren't useful for much except for fixing cars and hauling around heavy objects. ;)

"It sounds to me like we're making a classic stupid military mistake: we keep on defending ourselves, at our homes, schools, and workplaces".

I don't think there's that much to worry about. RIAA/MPAA are fighting a battle that is very difficult to win in the face of rapidly reducing costs of information storage and dispersal and no means to prevent it.

It's not that much unlike Viet Nam or Iraq. Robert S McNamara's book "In Retrospect" talks about how much redundancy the North Vietnamese supply chain had, and how small the quantities of supplies were that they needed to carry on resisting. Carpet bombing had not a hope of working, despite more bombs being dropped on Viet Nam than in all of WWII.

The only way the fight could be taken to the enemy's home turf was the occasional image or story of what it took to wage the war. This has similar effect to the stories of grandmothers and children being taken to court for file sharing. It may have helped stop the war, but even in the absence of this it did not make the war able to be won.
http://servumpecus.canalblog.com/images/Vietnam_na palm_19721.jpg

And a lot of the effects of the MAFIAA's war waging efforts is just natural selection - prosecute enough people and the remnant will find a way to share files without an IP address being easily traced, without servers, etc.

Copyright prior to the early nineties was much more effective because it was much more expensive to be a pirate. The only way it could be done effectively was to run it as a business, and as a result it had to be done very furtively. The average person could not transmit an exact copy of a given piece of media to a friend, whereas they can today.

Of course, the fight against file sharing can go on as long as the MPAA/RIAA has money coming in from their monopoly, just like the War on Terror could conceivably go on for as long the US cares to throw billions at it. It doesn't mean that it can be won, any more than Iraq or Viet Nam could be won. (Well technically I suppose the MAFIAA could convince someone to turn the world into a glass parking lot, and it might make them happy but then they would not have funds to continue their fight.)

However, I don't have the same interpretation as you on the fact that "filming your local police officers beating people up remains legal". You can be damn sure that if a nearby cop catches you in the act, you better run faster than him. 'Cos you can be sure he won't let you produce your movie in court...

And I also see this as a more general trend in France, particularly from Sarkozy and his political side, to suppress any dissentive media, be they newspapers, magazines, TV networks, blogs or even music bands. Just ask Google for "Sarkozy censure", you'll get countless different reports. IMHO, Nicolas Sarkozy is clearly abusing his powers as Ministre de l'Intérieur (i.e. Minister of Domestic Affairs, in charge of the police) to favor his own campaign and suppress any dissent.

A few links:

• A movie clip censored by MySpace under pressure from Sarkozy
• A blogger compelled to withdraw public documents from his blog under pressure from the police
• Publisher cancels a book about Sarkozy's wife under pressure from the Ministre de l'Intérieur