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| Europe | ||||||
| France feels the Heat | ||||||
| 2003-08-15 | ||||||
Gay Paree -- Morgues and funeral homes in France are overrun with bodies as the country struggles to cope with an estimated 3,000 people who died of heat-related causes in the past two weeks. Government officials, including Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and Health Minister Jean-Francois Mattei, held an emergency meeting Thursday to discuss ways of dealing with what Mattei has described as a "veritable epidemic" of deaths. A "Plan Blanc" or "White Plan" has been put into action, with doctors and nurses being recalled from leave, some morgue workers called out of retirement, and further 1,000 hospital beds being made available from Friday. The head of the doctors’ emergency association, Patrick Pelloux told The Associated Press that some hospitals requisitioned kitchen refrigerators to hold the dead, while others put up tents to keep corpses before burial.
The French Health Minister is pretending to be above the fray - claiming that his Ministry has done everything right. Uh, yeah, right. He’s toast. Since people are dying, that’s as close to being a smartass as I’ll go on this one. It’s sad and amazing to a guy who grew up popping asphalt bubbles, barefooted, in the Texas heat - which was a lot higher than these temperatures. | ||||||
| Posted by:.com |
| #20 Anon1 - LOL... Allah's revenge - sweeeet! |
| Posted by: .com 2003-8-15 8:16:02 PM |
| #19 individually, I feel sorry for all the poor people whose lives have been made miserable by this. Collectively: ahahhaahahhahqaha Bwahahahahahah France can't take the heat! Maybe it's Allah's revenge for being such S*heads over the Lockerbie Payout. FOAD, France! |
| Posted by: Anon1 2003-8-15 8:03:17 PM |
| #18 Martine Flou’s 70-year-old mother’s body had to be brought to a morgue in Paris from their home 50 miles away because there was no space there. Cause summer's coming on and we're running out of ice. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2003-8-15 7:48:04 PM |
| #17 "For the work another hour I inform you that shops will be closed. Of course if your mom shops and cooks for you this is not a problem" Yeah, and if France wasn't strapped with its socialist laws (limiting the work week to 35 hours among many other examples) perhaps there would be adequate PROFIT INCENTIVE for those shops to remain open! |
| Posted by: Flaming Sword 2003-8-15 5:54:45 PM |
| #16 JFM, Spain is even farther west and doesn't see a problem with Central European Summer Time. In Barcelona they even put away with the time honored institution of the siesta. Belgians and Dutch don't have an issue with it either. Being on the same time with your neighbors isn't such a bad thing. If only to enjoy longer evenings. The economic effect of daylight saving is overrated and probably minimal. JFM, I remember a summer in Washington D.C. where people went from air conditioned offices and shops into a muggy (not dry European) heat of 45°C and survived it. Sure, we are less used to it. One hour difference may make a difference of 2 degrees maybe, office workers should be able to handle that. A hat helps, too. Shops close at 8pm here, not sure about the French ones. As for Global Warming: The effects should not be belittled but its true that "natural" climate changes are underestimated. Of course now that the world is densely populated and industrialized the effects on mankind are bigger than in the Middle Ages. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2003-8-15 4:44:58 PM |
| #15 OP / Not WP - Just to bring a little perspective to the global warming "issue"... Do these authorities acknowledge that the Time of Man has occurred during a tiny higher temp blip during an ongoing ice age? We are still in an ice age, y'know. Sorta makes a joke of much of the popular environmental science - and goes to show that we are living, from the cave man to now, on a pinhead on the timescale. Just wondering... ;-> |
| Posted by: .com 2003-8-15 4:42:04 PM |
| #14 Old Pats post about how Western Europe might be in for a few warm centuries due to increased solar activtiy is one thing that will never be mentioned by any self respecting tree hugging envirowacko. All of the focus on global warming usually tends to over look the fact that we orbit a star whose output is mildly variable. In the range of 2%. The higher outputs of the Middle Ages were followed by the Meander(?) Minimum that saw the Little Ice Age in Europe. Does that mean that the Human race cannot affect climate? Personally I think the answer is yes, we can, but not to the point that human activity is the sole cause of climate change. PS, during the Medieval Warm Period it was possible to grow wine grapes in Britian |
| Posted by: Someone who did NOT vote for William Proxmire 2003-8-15 4:28:25 PM |
| #13 TGA, I didn't blame the Germans. I blamed the French politicians who absolutely want us to use the same time than the German time like in 1940. In summer 1995 I was in a office who was oriented full south, whose windows could not be masked from the sun and where there was a big computer (not a PC) who generated lots of heat. Temperature was largely in excess of 40 C. You just sweat all the day, not a problem. But going from an air conditioned office to 38 C is an entirely different thing. For the work another hour I inform you that shops will be closed. Of course if your mom shops and cooks for you this is not a problem |
| Posted by: JFM 2003-8-15 4:10:57 PM |
| #12 Geez, guys, can we find the thermostat and turn it up a couple dozen more degrees. Last spring during the diplomatic olympics prior to our liberation of Iraq, I said that I hoped the Frogs burned in Hell for their machinations in the UN.....little did I know the Big Guy was listening.........or maybe he had the same thoughts.......... |
| Posted by: SOG475 2003-8-15 4:03:55 PM |
| #11 I used to get upset at all the European carping at the US, but just right now I had a revelation. You guys bitch at each other all the time! I almost feel like part of the family now. |
| Posted by: 11A5S 2003-8-15 1:52:26 PM |
| #10 LOL, JFM managed to blame it on the Germans, that's rather cool. Forcing daylight saving onto the French made poor French employees step out of office too soon and get struck down by the murderous French summer like flies. Just a recommendation: Work an hour longer and live! Just a note: Germany has been as hot as France for the last 4 weeks and I don't have air condition at home (not many people do). But maybe it's just a cunning plan to prevent U.S. troops from getting to interested in France? You know, the brutal French summer... |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2003-8-15 1:36:58 PM |
| #9 From Best of the Web (opinionjournal.com): Might it be noteworthy that the French are claiming almost the same number of deaths from the heat as America suffered on Sept. 11? A popular lunatic conspiracy theory on the "European street" has it that George W. Bush is to blame every time the weather is bad. Don't be surprised if the America-haters' next talking point is that by renouncing the Kyoto Protocols Bush killed as many people as Osama bin Laden did. If anyone has the balls to say this in public (Michael Moore get ready) I am gonna go BALLISTIC. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-8-15 1:07:25 PM |
| #8 One of the websites that I visit regularly is the Center for the study of CO2 and Climate Change. The biggest plus for going to this website is that they have an archive of just about any article written on global warming and the effects of carbon dioxide on the world. A couple of recent articles don't bode well for western Europe. One predicts a new warm period, similar to the Midieval Warm Period, where average temperatures climbed by as much as ten degrees Fahrenheit all over the Earth. That climb is related to a periodic increase in solar output. If the data holds up, France may be in for about 200 years of such temperatures. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-8-15 12:50:18 PM |
| #7 Yeah .com, I live in Texas too, and 95 degrees is pretty normal and we don't have folks croaking left and right. You give the old folks fans, and the rest drink more water and take it easy in the sun. Weanies. |
| Posted by: Bill 2003-8-15 12:33:13 PM |
| #6 I don't think the French could handle a couple of days of heavy rain. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-8-15 10:37:36 AM |
| #5 I've read elsewhere that the 3000 estimate takes a huge extrapolation from a small number in Paris, and is inflated to match the WTO number dead....don't know if that's true, but anybody clumsy enuf to think Woody Allen spearheading a "we love you American tourists - now bring your stinkin' dollars and take the abuse like you always have" campaign would be a healing tool is stoopid enuf to do this as well |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-8-15 10:01:00 AM |
| #4 Quagmire? |
| Posted by: Canaveral Dan 2003-8-15 7:47:18 AM |
| #3 All of these deaths. Shouldn't the UN be doing something about this. It's obvious that a regeime change is needed. |
| Posted by: Jim K 2003-8-15 7:27:45 AM |
| #2 French have not the "heat culture" of Spain, Italy or Texas: they don't eat and drink the right things, their activity is at the wrong hours, their houses are unadequate and they are not good at heat management. To compound that, the French apparatchik class has decided to keep the hour at Summer Time for the sake of hamonization with Germany. But when a German leaves his office at 6pm it is 5 pm at the Sun. Given that France is further west a French leaving his office at 6pm will walk into the heat of 4pm solar time. The transition between a cooled office and the heat of the street at 4pm (solar time) can be deadly. |
| Posted by: JFM 2003-8-15 6:57:32 AM |
| #1 They should try my neck of the woods,116(F)Monday. |
| Posted by: raptor 2003-8-15 6:45:15 AM |