The BBC posts an odd story, seemingly written in code. Two boys, it seems, ran away from police in a Paris suburb, climbed onto an electrical [power?] station, and died. So local residents rioted, attacked firfighters sent to rescue the boys, and demonstrated. For two days running.

The first key to breaking the code is to examine the pictures which accompany the article. The local residents seem to be wearing Islamic head garb. And appear somewhat darker than most French people. Variants of the words "Islam" or "Muslim" of course never appear.

The second key to breaking the code requires some minimal knowledge of contemporary France: specifically who lives in many of the suburbs [Muslim immigrants], and who is the national official involved [Interior Minister Nokolas Sarkozy — a conservative, and likely the next President of France, therefore a BBC enemy].

Life was simpler when news agencies simply reported the news, rather than encoded it.

Thomas Lifson  10 29 05