You know, I love Mark Steyn and all, and I know I sound like a broken record, but I am just about tired of people's not taking the southwestern Europe heatwave seriously. Look, 900 people died in my town. It is not funny. Nor is it ironic. Yes, the French and the Catalans are, in general, ignorant loudmouths about political and international affairs, and they criticize America far too much without knowing what they're talking about. But let's not fall into Schadenfreude.

By the way, Mark, Paris is NORTH of Montreal, where M. Chirac was vacationing. Hundred-degree heat in Paris is something they are not prepared for, for good reason, whether they're Socialist or not. One spends one's insurance money (=natural disaster budget) on the disasters that are likely to happen, not on the ones that are unlikely. Like a six-week ninety-five F heat wave at forty-nine degrees north latitude.

The Spanish Health Ministry's figures of some 100 dead in Spain, by the way, are BS. They're counting only deaths from heatstroke and not including all the other heat-related deaths.