When you know nothing, you say nothing. Otherwise...

When I was a child dinners with guests were not as easy as a stroll in the park for me. I always loved to meet new people, confront myself, so the impulse was to chat, and to chat freely about everything, letting myself getting drowned into the river of the conversation. This was not allowed. The directive was to stay "mainly" silent, unless directly interviewed. At that time I took that for extreme and too strict. That was not how my father wanted me to live, it was just a lesson. I did as told, and I also did the opposite. Now I learned, but it's amazing to see how many people seems to "speak dumb". The secret is simple: never speak about something you don't know, then, it may happen that what you know is wrong and discussing you get to change your mind: that's ok. The problem according to me is when you try to speak about something you don't know: it's pathetic! A person who follow this simple rule is usually a good listener, but I can assure you that the stupid arrogant ducks squeaking around about this and that without knowing anything of what they say are the worst listener ever. I just met one, an astounding case, and after a couple of catastrophic conversations I decided to let my silence speak.
Thank you dad!

About this article, if I believe in this rule then Mr Chirac belongs to one of these 2 categories:
1. he doesn't know what he's talking about, and should be blamed twice for he has the responsibility to know what he's talking about, he's a Prime Minister for Christ sake!
2. he knows exactly what he's talking about and like Mr Bean (Zapatero) wants to play the part of the compassionate saint whilst in the meantime minding his dirty own business. Privileged economical communications between France and Brazil? Blaming it once more on globalization? I can't believe how much Mr Chirac wants to go on with that? Are French all anesthetized? Was the "Oil for Food" scandal not enough to be utterly ashamed?