Despite my tummy’s strong disapproval of last night’s excesses, I shall soon be heading north for a [supposedly] relaxing week-end in the land of plentiful, cheap, yummy Indian food (been craving a real tikka massala for months now).

See ya on the other side.

… is what they say after you vote in France.
Today I voted for the first (and probably one of the last) time in my life in a French election.
Now off to the afterparty

Unfortunately, our peaceful evening on the Pont des Arts was interrupted by some sort of weird political flashmob made of supporters for French presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy.

Not only were they noisy and unsightly, but they also spent their evening, spreading balloons and political pamphlets on every single boat passing by. Doing their bit for their candidate and (literally) polluting the surroundings.

I have only one ambition in life.

Well… Two ambitions, but the other one is more of a long-term goal. For now, I just want to become the first search result on Google for my given name. This in itself being a crucial step in my larger world-domination’s plot, since we all know Google controls the world already.

As it is, I already have pole position for my old ‘dr Dave‘ moniker. But, and you read it here first, I am hereby setting in motion the switch in online identity from ‘dr Dave’ to just plain ‘Dave’.

No, I wasn’t sued by the American Board of Medicine, or any equivalent local institution. Beside, that Honorary Ph.D. in Curse Removal and Sexual Healing from Kinshasa’s University of Black Magic is all but legit.

However, crazy as the idea may sound (I have a hard time believing it myself), I might one day not too long from now be a bona fide doctorate student: it is likely that my honorary ‘Doctor’ title would by then confuse many people (not that it hasn’t already) which was never the intent. Hence the shift to unambiguous, simple, likable ‘Dave’. I’m guessing there are only a couple millions of us out there, someone has to be the one.

So, how are we doing on the Google front? Well, guess what: not so fucking bad!

Six, if you count them, six people (or things) are standing in the way to intercontinental online stardom.

Of course, I could rely on the quality of my content, my shining bright personality and ever-increasing public appreciation to slowly climb to first place. But I know better.

Instead, I have devised an infallible 6 Steps Program that shall shortly take me there, whence I will finally be able to rest and contemplate the world at my feet, laugh and move on from that Internet fad once and for all.

Please allow me to develop. Note that for obvious reasons, I cannot allow my now mortal enemies any extra link publicity and you will therefore have to Google their websites for yourself. Do it while you still can:

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L’Assassin, 99, rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, Paris XI.

So, apparently, “The Blogosphere is in deep mourning” and It has consequently decided to stop writing about Its cat for a day, “in honor towards” the latest US shooting craze victims. All that with shiny, yet appropriately sober, webtwozero buttons, because the Blogosphere likes nothing like an easy cut-n-paste mirror-effect logo to put in Its sidebar.

While some might be prompt to point at a culturally self-centred inconsequential web fad with vaguely nauseating marketing overtones, I won’t.

In fact, let’s take it one step further!

As of today, Tuesday, April 17th, the official death count for the ongoing Darfur genocide clocks in at a little over 400,000.

By my own calculation, and using the ongoing rate for online death commemoration, this gives us a mere 33.2 years, which we will round up to 30, for simplicity’s sake.

And it is therefore with great pleasure that I hereby introduce the 30yearBlogSilence initiative. Forgive me if I haven’t got the shiny web buttons ready, but feel free to set up a website for it.

As for the starting date, I think right fucking now is probably a good time: go ahead, I’ll be right behind you.

… is what this blog really needs…

A couple weeks ago, I was buried up to my armpits in Game Theory (nothing to do with Quake or World of Warcraft, trust me), Decision Theory, Cryptology and a dozen other fascinating topics. After a couple days non-stop writing/reading/studying/coding on those topics, I felt I really needed a two-hour break. Yet, feeling guilty about leaving my books for a minute, I compromised by downloading renting that award-winning movie about John Nash. I figured if I was not studying, at least watching a biopic on one of the pioneer in the field of Game Theory wouldn’t be straying too far off.

As it turns out, the movie is not as bad as I’d expected (which is not to say it is any good). Russel Crowe is as convincing as you would imagine a hunky Australian actor playing a nerdy US mathematician to be. All along, you half-expect Crowe to draw a gladius and slice open his mathematical studies nemesis. Instead, you see him mumbling and x-ray-visioning his way into mathematical stardom and bona-fide paranoid schizophrenia.

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I promised (a long time ago) we’d talk about the other strong contender in the upcoming French presidential elections: Ségolène Royal, so here we go.

A couple years ago, when Angela Merkel was on the verge of becoming the first female Chancellor of Germany, I remember reading an article from a German magazine (der Spiegel I think it was) candidly asking if one could not consider voting for her specifically on account of her gender. The gist of their argument was that, electing a woman to such an office was in itself a considerable social advance, possibly overshadowing any measure either candidate could ever enact once elected.

It is a bit of a provocative argument, but still worth considering. Especially if you have your doubts about the effective influence of this election’s outcome on important matters of economic or international policies.

However, the comparison between both women ends there. They are from slightly opposite sides of the political board and, under their common gender, are perceived very differently by partisans and opponents alike. Angela Merkel, while I am not well-versed enough in German politics to give an extensive appraisal of her skills, is a very capable, respected politician. There is not the slightest suspicion that she may ever have relied on her gender as a prop to get by, quite the opposite: I remember reading people emphasizing her “butchy” manners (equally unnerving, as chauvinist clichés go, but at least not in the way you may expect).

The problem with the current French presidential race is that it has become extremely hard to tell whether one’s impression of a candidate is somehow attuned with reality and verifiable facts or just the result of widespread journalistic bias. Of course, this is a problem everywhere: Fox TV and other Murdoch-style news outlets do a much worse job at imitating journalistic integrity than most French media. In France, the bias is usually more subtle: few media (outside of those ostensibly labeled as following one party or the other) will directly slander their political opponents. It is more of a meticulous, careful selection of the news they report on and the tone they adopt, so as to finally envelop each politician in a caricatural persona that fits a specific political intent.

I do realize I just described the way politics and media work everywhere in the world, the thing is: the ratio of perceived versus actual personal and political traits here is simultaneously very high and rarely acknowledged by most people, it seems.

This is true of all candidates and works in either direction: I previously mentioned how Ms. Royal’s opponent, Mr. Sarkozy, is hyperbolically depicted by his opponents as some neo-fascistic brute, which is simply inaccurate: for all his sitting on the conservative right side of France’s political board, he objectively ranks left of both Hillary Clinton and Tony Blair on major issues and policies, yet any topical discussion with your average Frenchman will invariably veer into Godwin territories (unless your interlocutor is pro-Sarkozy, in which case he will hail the man as a savior of all things righteous and law-abiding in a society crumbling under the weight of rampant youth crime and illegal immigration). I dislike the man and his knack for populist securitarian rhetoric, as much as the next freedom-loving fool, but he is no Benito Mussolini, not even a Georges W. Bush.

But back to Ségolène.

What do I think of her?

When I hear Ms. Ségolène Royal talk of her projects, when I read her interviews, watch her answer questions or simply humor journalists with unsubstantial banter, all I see is one incredibly unseasoned, incompetent, borderline-stupid politician with the stuck-up delivery of a grade-school teacher and the mien that goes with (you really expect her to slap you on the wrist with a ruler at any moment). I see shameless use of her image as a maternal figure, I see a candidate who has suddenly emerged to the forefront 10 months ago and won her party’s primaries, not on a solid program, but on account that her pleasant looks, relative political freshness and high poll ratings, made her at the time the most serious contender to beat Nicolas Sarkozy.

In a word, I see practically every single misogynist stereotypes about women in politics made flesh.

Now you understand why I might be questioning my own perception through the French media. This is all depressing and ever so slightly suspicious. But unfortunately I still think this is not all made-up impressions and journalistic bias: she is that incompetent.

In the mail this morning…