Your Daily Black Book

Recently I came across the expression "relais de croissance" quite many times in French newspapers, only to discover that the meaning of it was not as clear as its English counterpart "Growth area". Indeed, each time the term was being used in a article, it meant some economic model distortion enabling the report of better activities on a define exercise... Well, more clearly, it was intended to hide the fact the company didn't do so well, due to the market or to its own lack attractiveness blah-blah..., by dodgy methods, which market analysts can't see through..
Well, it's still not really clear: let's find an example, like mobile phone companies that have bad result for the first three quarters of 2007, say, they can easily implement news fees for ring tone downloading, as these things are all too obscure anyway, then increase the price of hot lines, no toll free hot lines and things, and eventually call it "maximizing the company's peripheral sources of revenue". Added to the fact that it's always better to assume that when your company does not do well it has more to do with the market short-term evolution than the strategy, and HERE, you're covered! Mazel Tov!
Eventually, it appeared to me this wicked meaning seems to be just another frogginess as most U.S web sites refer to growth area as meaning only... growth area!
And to prove I'm not only reading USA Today & Le Parisien, I found this sweet Nietzsche's quote, somewhat related to today's subject: "That immense framework and planking of concepts to which the needy man clings his whole life long in order to preserve himself is nothing but a scaffolding and toy for the most audacious feats of the liberated intellect ".

Ok the movie was released something like two years ago already, but I got to read a past review from the French newspaper (left wing oriented) Libération ( http://www.allocine.fr/film/revuedepresse_gen_cfilm=58349&note=1&ccritique=18448772.html ; the short critic is from a French website so ...enjoy folks! )in which the critics wrote that Hitler was depicted as human, almost agreable; hence the controversies in Germany. Aside from that it was also considered that Bruno Ganz, impersonating the nazi dictator, was a dumbass actor: for the record, Bruno Ganz became, in 1996, the recipient of the Iffland-Ring, a mysterious award for the best German-speaking actor of his time (source: IMDB)...
So, today, I wandered around websites related to Sir Ian Kershaw, the acclaimed nazi Germany scholar and Hitler specialist, and ended up finding an article from the Guardian giving his first impressions, not only on the storyline consistency and accuracy regarding History, but also his thought on the quality of the movie in itself. This results in a massively referenced short article which legitimately dismisses all of the past criticisms, even though Kershaw is no movie specialist. He deserves his title considering his ability at taking many points of view and perspectives into account to finally render up a clear picture of the controversy that arose. To read the article click here: http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,11710,1306497,00.html
Kershaw recently released a mind blowing study of 10 major decisions that shaped the 20th century, "for your consideration" as they say: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Kershaw and don't forget to check his masterpieces on Hitler's persona and other studies!