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#41
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"Mark Jones" wrote in message ... And this has what to do with ballooning? Hang-gliding? Homebuilt? IFR? Damned nonsense and OFF TOPIC, I agree. Tex |
#42
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"Tex Houston" wrote in message ...
"Paul Lee" wrote in message om... FYI: Government corruption rating scores are given at http://www.icgg.org/ (http://www.icgg.org/downloads/Univer...Release_04.pdf) for different countries. France 2004 corruption index is 22 - down from 21 in 2000. For USA it is 17 - down from 14 in 2000. The best score it given to Finland at 1. The worst possible score is 145 for Bangladesh tied with Haiti. Tell ma again where this has a rec.aviation balloon content? Tex You are right. These threads should not be in these groups. I just reacted to unfair ethnic bashing. That was my first posting in the thread and I did not start this thread. So why pick on me? However, if I was you, I would not get my baloon parts from Bangladesh or Haiti. |
#43
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I'm sure this discussion has nothing to do with hot-air ballooning, but I
feel I should react, being a Dutch balloonist living in France (who got his first balloon piloting lessons from an American more than 20 years ago...). Certainly the French are still grateful to the Americans, British, Canadians, Australians etc. who helped them liberate their country from the nazis. To set the record straight, there were also French troops who landed in Normandy, and shortly after that an almost equally large landing was executed in the south of France, near Marseille and Nice - mostly by the Free French and by troops from the North African French colonies and allies (Algeria, Morocco etc.). The only reason why this landing did not take place the same day as famous D-Day was a lack of ships. France was eventually liberated in a pincer movement from both west and south. The French themselves liberated Paris: the tanks of the French 1st armoured division under general Leclerc raced into the city after long and heated discussions with the Allied high command, who wanted to detour the French capital (and had that happened, France would have been a political non-entity after the war, and Paris would have been in ruins as the Germans were on the verge of destroying all its historical monuments, including the Louvre, the bridges over the Seine and the Arc de Triomphe). According to allied high command after the war, the French resistance who busied themselves cutting of communication lines, blowing up railways and bridges and openly fighting the Germans in several areas, counted for something like 20 infantry divisions in the vital weeks after D-Day. So to state that the Americans saved the worthless asses of the French is, to put it mildly, not exactly correct. And 30 years ealier, in WW1, the Americans arrived only at the very end of the war and could not really make much of a difference. Just look at the war monuments in each and every small town in France to realize how many young men they lost in both world wars. The French did indeed fight with the Americans in the revolution against the British, and some French officers receieved the highest decorations for valour in battle by Abraham Lincoln. When the US celebrated its 100th anniversary, the French gave them the Statue of Liberty that now stands so proudly in New York (it was built by Gustav Eiffel, the same who built the Eiffel Tower, and a smaller copy is to be found in Paris near the Seine river). French troops fight with the Americans in Afghanistan at the moment. What seems to be the case lately it that, under mr. Bush, the US government no longer respects allies who do not agree with everything they say and do. France is an independent nation, with strong sympaties towards the US, but with a permanent seat in the UN Security Council and with strong principles regarding adherence to UN mandates. France refused to enter into the Irak adventure without a clear UN mandate, and American restaurants renamed French Fries into Freedom Fries. Grow up ! There are only a few nations left on earth that play a strong role in international politics and that are actively involved with their military in other countries. The first is, obviously, the US. The British follow the US rather lamely these days, the Russians mostly stick to their own turf and the Chinese are to busy becoming capitalists to bother with far-away places. Meanwhile, France has troops in several troubled African countries, where French, not English, is the primary language. French is the world's second most important language in international politics, even before Spanish; it is spoken in large parts of Africa, Asia (Cambodia, Vietnam? Ring a bell?) and even in North America (Quebec). French gendarmes (military police) helped to restore order recently in Haïti, and French troops were forced to intervene in Cote d'Ivoire (Africa) to protect the French citizens living there - and they did so with a UN mandate. France has nuclear weapons (they did 193 nuclear tests on Mururoa in the Pacific), nuclear strategic subs, its own hi-res spy satellites and listening stations *independent* of the US, it builds fighter planes that can outfly almost anything the US has in the air at present and it runs the most succesful commercial space launcher in the world, Ariane. It invented the TGV bullet train. The French Institut Pasteur is presently producing a million doses of avian flu vaccine for the US, which the US itself cannot produce in such quantity. A French multinational, Aveza, is the largest constructor of nuclear and conventional power stations... in the US. The next world-scale experimental nuclear fusion reactor is a European initiative (although Japan, China and lastly the US jumped on that bandwagon too) and will most likely be built in southern France. France has, in contrast to most other European countries which are often old monarchies, a president who is chosen seperately from parliament, its legal system is largely similar to that of the US... in short, it may be the most American-like or American-equal of all western nations. It also has a president, Jacques Chirac, who goes around the world radiating as much or more worldly statesmanship than mr. Bush (and who dares to go into the crowds and shake hands with Muslims and Israeli Jews alike, famously shaking off his Israeli security guards and telling them to go to hell during a state visit to do so). Altogether, this must be quite irritating to many people in charge in the US. France is basically the only Western European nation that the US helped liberate which has maintained a large degree of independence towards the US after the war, even though there is a friendship between the two countries that goes back more than two centuries. True friends should be able to disagree. Certainly in a democracy. And among friends, one does not bully the other. Neither should one accept being bullied. That is something the American leadership seems to have forgotten lately. |
#44
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In article , "Frank Schweppe"
writes: I'm sure this discussion has nothing to do with hot-air ballooning, but I feel I should react, being a Dutch balloonist living in France (who got his first balloon piloting lessons from an American more than 20 years ago...). Certainly the French are still grateful to the Americans, British, Canadians, Australians etc. who helped them liberate their country from the nazis. Good post! Many Americans agree with your words and that is what makes a democracy. Let's hope that better national relations are ahead. Chuck |
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