News I live for…

Every so often when combing through news and blogs I find an article which so reinforces my prejudices it makes me giddy.

After leading the silence for the London bombings at an Élysée Palace garden party, M Chirac was asked about France’s losing streak and what is seen as Britain’s triumphant prosperity under Tony Blair.
He said: “I have a lot of esteem for the British people and for Tony Blair. But I do not think the British model is one that we should envy.
“Certainly, their unemployment is lower than ours. But if you take the big elements in society — health policy, the fight against poverty, . . . spending involving the future — you notice that we are much, much better placed than the English.”

The fall of the Soviet Empire destroyed the left’s hope that capitalism could ever be usurped. The immanent (within 10 years) economic collapse of France -- the standard-bearer of the European nanny state -- will permanently discredit socialism’s half-breed descendant: progressivism. After old Europe’s fall what will be the left’s model state? China? With such an execrable track record, how can leftist intellectuals continue to push policy based on such an obviously flawed ideology? You can only distance so many f’d up relatives as “black sheep”.
In 1980, France, Germany and the US had a per-capita income that was roughly equal with the UK trailing far behind. Since then Thatcher and Reagan have left old Europe in the dust.

UPDATE: God's piling on.