Stupid Americans! -- Stupid... Stupid... STUPID!!! __________-+__ ihuvpe

"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

"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.

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.

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