Durandal a sword said to be indestructible, the sharpest of all blades,
once wielded by the knight Roland under Charlemagne, and thenceforth
stuck in stone for 1,300 years, has disappeared from a French village.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/france-excalibur-like-sword-durandal-disappears-after-1300-years/

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 16:39:47 +1200, Titus G wrote:

Durandal a sword said to be indestructible, the sharpest of all blades,
once wielded by the knight Roland under Charlemagne, and thenceforth
stuck in stone for 1,300 years, has disappeared from a French village.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/france-excalibur-like-sword-durandal-

disappears-after-1300-years/

This seems to be the Year of France. The Olympics, the completion
of repairs to Notre Dame (scheduled for December), the snap election
which my favorite newspapers are telling me is Very Important, etc.
Qu'est-ce que tu as d'autre ? (What else ya' got?)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

In article <pan$15ada$b17b006b$8e4dfa06$a66d03cf@cpacker.org>,
Charles Packer <mailbox@cpacker.org> wrote:

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 16:39:47 +1200, Titus G wrote:

Durandal a sword said to be indestructible, the sharpest of all blades,
once wielded by the knight Roland under Charlemagne, and thenceforth
stuck in stone for 1,300 years, has disappeared from a French village.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/france-excalibur-like-sword-durandal- >disappears-after-1300-years/

This seems to be the Year of France. The Olympics, the completion
of repairs to Notre Dame (scheduled for December), the snap election
which my favorite newspapers are telling me is Very Important, etc.
Qu'est-ce que tu as d'autre ? (What else ya' got?)

Le Pen is up on charges, although this does not seem to be a new
experience for her. Alleged embezzlement in the most recent case.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 07:59:02 -0000 (UTC), Charles Packer
<mailbox@cpacker.org> wrote:

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 16:39:47 +1200, Titus G wrote:

Durandal a sword said to be indestructible, the sharpest of all blades,
once wielded by the knight Roland under Charlemagne, and thenceforth
stuck in stone for 1,300 years, has disappeared from a French village.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/france-excalibur-like-sword-durandal- >disappears-after-1300-years/

This seems to be the Year of France. The Olympics, the completion
of repairs to Notre Dame (scheduled for December), the snap election
which my favorite newspapers are telling me is Very Important, etc.
Qu'est-ce que tu as d'autre ? (What else ya' got?)

It'll be interesting to see how the winner-takes-all Parliamentary
system copes with a situation in neither the Left, the Right, nor the
Center has control. No winner, no gummint?

Perhaps another snap election? Perhaps this will the start of the
Decade of Snap Elections, kind of like the periods where the Romans
went through 10 or so Emperors in two years or so, at least in terms
of social stability.

From what I have read, the evil Right was only defeated by many self-sacrificing candidates withdrawing so as to concentrate the
anti-Right vote on whoever else was on the ballot. Sounds like
cheating to me, but then, I am not French and so not aware of how they
regard it.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

In article <sdbt8j9mj5q85mi9uqaboqrebt7o5phjf8@4ax.com>,
Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 07:59:02 -0000 (UTC), Charles Packer ><mailbox@cpacker.org> wrote:

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 16:39:47 +1200, Titus G wrote:

Durandal a sword said to be indestructible, the sharpest of all blades,
once wielded by the knight Roland under Charlemagne, and thenceforth
stuck in stone for 1,300 years, has disappeared from a French village.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/france-excalibur-like-sword-durandal- >>disappears-after-1300-years/

This seems to be the Year of France. The Olympics, the completion
of repairs to Notre Dame (scheduled for December), the snap election
which my favorite newspapers are telling me is Very Important, etc. >>Qu'est-ce que tu as d'autre ? (What else ya' got?)

It'll be interesting to see how the winner-takes-all Parliamentary
system copes with a situation in neither the Left, the Right, nor the
Center has control. No winner, no gummint?

Perhaps another snap election? Perhaps this will the start of the
Decade of Snap Elections, kind of like the periods where the Romans
went through 10 or so Emperors in two years or so, at least in terms
of social stability.

There are limits to how often snap elections can be called. Next
one has to be at least a year from now. Macron seems to have traded a
situation where he was more or less in control, with storm clouds on
the horizon, to one where he is moderately fucked. Who dares, wins!

France has had a hung national assembly before. It is still possible
to pass legislation via 49.3, which "allows the government to impose
the adoption of a text by the Assembly, immediately and without a vote,
which the Assembly cannot oppose without toppling the government through
a motion of no confidence under Clause 2." Obs this requires some group
to be recognized as the government.

A vote of no confidence would trigger an election, but I guess not one
that meets the definition of a snap election.

From what I have read, the evil Right was only defeated by many >self-sacrificing candidates withdrawing so as to concentrate the
anti-Right vote on whoever else was on the ballot. Sounds like
cheating to me, but then, I am not French and so not aware of how they
regard it.

The French might not agree on what they want but they were very clear
on what they didn't want, and how to avoid it. Strategic voting is
an accepted practice in French elections.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Titus G wrote:

Durandal a sword said to be indestructible, the sharpest of all blades,
once wielded by the knight Roland under Charlemagne, and thenceforth
stuck in stone for 1,300 years, has disappeared from a French village.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/france-excalibur-like-sword-durandal-disappears-after-1300-years/

The mythological Roland blew his horn, the Olifant, to signal
Charlemagne. The sound carried for thirty leagues (90 miles). Such
effort begot bright blood from Roland's' mouth as the veins in his
temples and neck burst.

Perry Rhodan faces a similar situation on the planet Roland, where
Perry's small squad must endure physical pain to send a gravitational
wave SOS:

Perry Rhodan placed his finger on the small piece of
metal. "Here goes," he said. "Hold your breath. We don’t
know what will happen!"

Rhodan increased the pressure of his finger. He felt the
little lever begin to yield. For one second Perry Rhodan
wondered why absolutely nothing happened. Then suddenly
it felt as if someone had landed a powerful blow on his
shoulders. His arm sank, his hand with it, and in the
process his finger pulled the little lever all the way
down.

Somebody screamed. Perry Rhodan felt like screaming
himself. Something was pushing him down with overpowering
might. He lunged forward and tried to brace himself with
his hands but a few moments later his arms buckled under.
He fell headlong to the floor. The fall took away his
breath and conjured a colourful world of fiery circles
before his eyes.

The pressure did not lessen. It squeezed the air out of
Rhodan's lungs, making it almost impossible to breathe.
Rhodan realized with painful clarity that he would have
to undertake something if he were to avoid becoming
unconscious.

When he had depressed the lever he had anticipated so
many things that he needed a few seconds to properly
evaluate the effect it had actually produced.

The organ was an antigrav generator. Pressing the lever
resulted in a five or six-fold intensification of the
artificial gravity field within the subterranean room.

PR80 "Caves of the Druufs"

"Do Gravitational Waves Exist?" (Einstein and Rosen)

Einstein Versus the Physical Review

Einstein stopped submitting work to the Physical Review after
receiving a negative critique from the journal in response to
a paper he had written with Rosen on gravitational waves later
in 1936. That much has long been known, at least to the editors
of Einstein's collected papers. But the story of Einstein's
subsequent interaction with the referee in that case is not well
known to physicists outside of the gravitational-wave community.
Last March, the journal's current editor-in-chief, Martin Blume,
and his colleagues uncovered the journal's logbook records from
the era, a find that has confirmed the suspicions about that
referee's identity. Moreover, the story raises the possibility
that Einstein's gravitational-wave paper with Rosen may have
been his only genuine encounter with anonymous peer review.
Einstein, who reacted angrily to the referee report, would have
been well advised to pay more attention to its criticisms, which
proved to be valid. ...

Einstein submitted this research to the Physical Review under
the title "Do Gravitational Waves Exist?" with Rosen as coauthor.
Although the original version of the paper no longer exists,
Einstein's answer to the title question, to judge from his letter
to Born, was "No." It is remarkable that at this stage in his
career Einstein was prepared to believe that gravitational waves
did not exist, but he also managed to convince his new assistant,
Leopold Infeld, who replaced Rosen in 1936, that his argument was
valid.

(excerpt)

<https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/58/9/43/399405/Einstein-Versus-the-Physical-Review-A-great>

Danke,

--
Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 20:38:54 -0400, William Hyde
<wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:

Paul S Person wrote:

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 07:59:02 -0000 (UTC), Charles Packer
<mailbox@cpacker.org> wrote:

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 16:39:47 +1200, Titus G wrote:

Durandal a sword said to be indestructible, the sharpest of all blades, >>>> once wielded by the knight Roland under Charlemagne, and thenceforth
stuck in stone for 1,300 years, has disappeared from a French village. >>>>
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/france-excalibur-like-sword-durandal-

disappears-after-1300-years/

This seems to be the Year of France. The Olympics, the completion
of repairs to Notre Dame (scheduled for December), the snap election
which my favorite newspapers are telling me is Very Important, etc.
Qu'est-ce que tu as d'autre ? (What else ya' got?)

It'll be interesting to see how the winner-takes-all Parliamentary
system copes with a situation in neither the Left, the Right, nor the
Center has control. No winner, no gummint?

Perhaps another snap election? Perhaps this will the start of the
Decade of Snap Elections, kind of like the periods where the Romans
went through 10 or so Emperors in two years or so, at least in terms
of social stability.

From what I have read, the evil Right was only defeated by many
self-sacrificing candidates withdrawing so as to concentrate the
anti-Right vote on whoever else was on the ballot. Sounds like
cheating to me,

It isn't. It's not even suspect.

If the British had followed the same practice (assuming for the moment
that they have a two stage election), labour's seat total would be about >300, as opposed to 400+. Still a majority, but more representative of
the vote in which left and centrist parties got a bare majority.

In that event (purely hypothetical, as you point out), I would have
accused them of "not playing the game".

As to the French, perhaps they will move on to their 6th Republic.
After, perhaps, a third (?) Empire or even another Restored Monarchy.
French political history is nothing if not varied.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 08:55:39 -0700, Paul S Person
<psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 07:59:02 -0000 (UTC), Charles Packer ><mailbox@cpacker.org> wrote:

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 16:39:47 +1200, Titus G wrote:

Durandal a sword said to be indestructible, the sharpest of all blades,
once wielded by the knight Roland under Charlemagne, and thenceforth
stuck in stone for 1,300 years, has disappeared from a French village.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/france-excalibur-like-sword-durandal- >>disappears-after-1300-years/

This seems to be the Year of France. The Olympics, the completion
of repairs to Notre Dame (scheduled for December), the snap election
which my favorite newspapers are telling me is Very Important, etc. >>Qu'est-ce que tu as d'autre ? (What else ya' got?)

It'll be interesting to see how the winner-takes-all Parliamentary
system copes with a situation in neither the Left, the Right, nor the
Center has control. No winner, no gummint?

Perhaps another snap election? Perhaps this will the start of the
Decade of Snap Elections, kind of like the periods where the Romans
went through 10 or so Emperors in two years or so, at least in terms
of social stability.

From what I have read, the evil Right was only defeated by many >self-sacrificing candidates withdrawing so as to concentrate the
anti-Right vote on whoever else was on the ballot. Sounds like
cheating to me, but then, I am not French and so not aware of how they
regard it.

I'm not sure that anybody is under an obligation to run for
election...

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 12/07/24 03:53, Don wrote:

Titus G wrote:

Durandal a sword said to be indestructible, the sharpest of all blades,
once wielded by the knight Roland under Charlemagne, and thenceforth
stuck in stone for 1,300 years, has disappeared from a French village.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/france-excalibur-like-sword-durandal-disappears-after-1300-years/

The mythological Roland blew his horn, the Olifant, to signal
Charlemagne. The sound carried for thirty leagues (90 miles). Such
effort begot bright blood from Roland's' mouth as the veins in his
temples and neck burst.

Perry Rhodan faces a similar situation on the planet Roland, where
Perry's small squad must endure physical pain to send a gravitational
wave SOS:

To summarise. Perry Rhodan dislodged the sword using a gravitational
wave. Einstein argued that gravitational waves did not exist. But the
sword has disappeared, therefore gravitational waves exist.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 12 Jul 2024 12:56:22 +1000, Mad Hamish <newsunspammelaws@iinet.unspamme.net.au> wrote:

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 08:55:39 -0700, Paul S Person ><psperson@old.netcom.invalid> wrote:

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 07:59:02 -0000 (UTC), Charles Packer >><mailbox@cpacker.org> wrote:

On Wed, 10 Jul 2024 16:39:47 +1200, Titus G wrote:

Durandal a sword said to be indestructible, the sharpest of all blades, >>>> once wielded by the knight Roland under Charlemagne, and thenceforth
stuck in stone for 1,300 years, has disappeared from a French village. >>>>
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/france-excalibur-like-sword-durandal- >>>disappears-after-1300-years/

This seems to be the Year of France. The Olympics, the completion
of repairs to Notre Dame (scheduled for December), the snap election >>>which my favorite newspapers are telling me is Very Important, etc. >>>Qu'est-ce que tu as d'autre ? (What else ya' got?)

It'll be interesting to see how the winner-takes-all Parliamentary
system copes with a situation in neither the Left, the Right, nor the >>Center has control. No winner, no gummint?

Perhaps another snap election? Perhaps this will the start of the
Decade of Snap Elections, kind of like the periods where the Romans
went through 10 or so Emperors in two years or so, at least in terms
of social stability.

From what I have read, the evil Right was only defeated by many >>self-sacrificing candidates withdrawing so as to concentrate the
anti-Right vote on whoever else was on the ballot. Sounds like
cheating to me, but then, I am not French and so not aware of how they >>regard it.

I'm not sure that anybody is under an obligation to run for
election...

These were already on the ballot and had participated in the first
round.

They withdrew after the first round but before the second.

So clearly they were not under a /legal/ obligation to stay the
course, but I would wonder about an ethical obligation to their Party
and supporters. Well, I would if they were not French, anyway.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Titus G wrote:

Don wrote:

Titus G wrote:

Durandal a sword said to be indestructible, the sharpest of all blades,
once wielded by the knight Roland under Charlemagne, and thenceforth
stuck in stone for 1,300 years, has disappeared from a French village.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/france-excalibur-like-sword-durandal-disappears-after-1300-years/

The mythological Roland blew his horn, the Olifant, to signal
Charlemagne. The sound carried for thirty leagues (90 miles). Such
effort begot bright blood from Roland's' mouth as the veins in his
temples and neck burst.

Perry Rhodan faces a similar situation on the planet Roland, where
Perry's small squad must endure physical pain to send a gravitational
wave SOS:

To summarise. Perry Rhodan dislodged the sword using a gravitational
wave. Einstein argued that gravitational waves did not exist. But the
sword has disappeared, therefore gravitational waves exist.

Perry gravity waved the sword away, IOW.

ROTFLMAO.

Danke,

--
Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)