World Tax proposed by France's PM Chirac (Big Barf alert)

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - French President Jacques Chirac will urge world leaders to launch talks on a new international tax to fight world poverty, sources with him at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg say.

The sources said Chirac rejected the existing "Tobin Tax" proposal to raise levies purely on foreign exchange transactions but would call in a speech to the summit for discussion on a wider tax on wealth generated by globalisation.

"It could be a tax on airplane tickets, on carbon dioxide, on health products sold in industrialised countries, and indeed on international financial transactions," one source said.

"The idea of wanting to hold back a small share (of global wealth) to relieve poverty is not a mad idea at all. But the debate has been polluted by the campaign on the Tobin Tax," the same source added.

The Tobin Tax, championed by non-governmental groups as a way both to raise funds and to deter financial speculation, attracted much interest particularly in Europe last year but since appears to have fallen out of favour.

European officials have noted possible problems with the tax, proposed by U.S. Nobel Prize winner James Tobin in the 1970s. One is that financial markets would simply move to those countries that chose not to apply the tax.

World leaders began arriving at the World Summit on Sustainable Development on Monday hoping to settle differences over an action plan to end what South African President Thabo Mbeki called "global apartheid" between rich and poor.

The sources close to Chirac, who was due to speak in Johannesburg around midday local time (11 a.m. British time) on Monday, pointed to studies suggesting global development aid would have to be doubled to around $100 billion (64 billion pounds) to really fight poverty.

I think we need to refresh ourselves on a good insult against the French, the finger!

The first documented 'finger' insult occurred in ancient Greece, when the playwright Aristophanes made a crude visual insult using the middle finger to represent a penis. In that context, 'The Finger' was used as an aggressive, phallic put-down.

By jabbing a threatening phallus at your enemy, you are belittling him and making him your sexual inferior.

When the Romans imported the art, music, and culture of the Greeks, the finger came along too. Roman Emperor Caligula, a pioneer in perversity, frequently shocked his citizens by forcing them to kiss his middle finger instead of his hand. One of his bodyguards, Cassius, whom Caligula often taunted as being too effeminate by jabbing his finger at him , finally had enough humiliation and assassinated him. Clearly, 'the finger' insult was not to be taken lightly!

During the Middle Ages, the finger went underground. It was still known, but the Catholic Church frowned upon its use, as the middle finger was supposed to be holy in the Mass. The unholy insult lurked deep within the hearts of filthy- minded folks everywhere, hiding from sight until the 19th century when it began to crop up again thanks to the invention of photography.

In 1886, Hall of Fame baseball pitcher Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn slipped his little finger fastball into the Boston Beaneaters team picture. The split-second art of photography could turn the once boring painted portrait into a spontaneous work of rebellion, humor and spunk. Americans everywhere quickly got into the act.

In the immigrant mish-mash of early 20th century America, the finger was the one symbol every man, woman and son of a bitch could understand. With the invention of the automobile and the following invention of bad driving, it could be delivered from behind the safety of the wheel.

Hence, the finger became the great universal insult. All it needs to deliver its punch line is a clear line of sight!

Fuck France, from an American baby with guts.

and how France lost its middle finger Cancerous penis replaced with finger

From courtesy of US patriots ....

Fuck you France.

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