Old Europe
Marko Amnell
"Officials in both Paris and Berlin seethed Thursday
at a characterization Wednesday by Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld that they were part of an "old Europe"
that was making itself less relevant. Germany and France
each had been "a problem," he said."
"Donald Rumsfeld ... dismissed the mounting opposition
in France and Germany, calling the two countries
"old Europe," and all but declaring that, in the Bush
White House, they no longer mattered.
Rumsfeld's comments, predictably, raised a storm
Thursday in both Paris and Berlin, with a French cabinet
minister responding by alluding to a vulgarity that
one of Napoleon's generals used when the British sought
his surrender at the Battle of Waterloo."
This is all very colourful, but I was thinking about
the phrase "Old Europe" and somehow it sounded familiar,
but I had trouble placing it. Then it came to me. I
opened the first page of the The Communist Manifesto
and read:
"A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of Communism.
All the Powers of old Europe have entered into a holy
alliance to exorcise this spectre. Pope and Czar,
Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German
police-spies."
So I wonder, could it be that Rummy is reading Marx?
Nah, it can't be. It's just me.
francis muir
f6852717.03012...@posting.google.com, "Marko Amnell"
<marko_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
*Old Europe* the name of an unadvertised restaurant in Pacific Grove, CA.
The town to which the Monarchs return each year to breed. Old Europe had
Wild Boar as the specialité de la maison and once tasted you'd never want
domestic pork again. Scrumptious. Now, alas, *OE* is defunct.
Marko Amnell
> *Old Europe* the name of an unadvertised restaurant
> in Pacific Grove, CA. The town to which the Monarchs
> return each year to breed. Old Europe had Wild Boar
> as the specialité de la maison and once tasted you'd
> never want domestic pork again. Scrumptious. Now,
> alas, *OE* is defunct.
Old Europe is also the name of a German restaurant in
Washington DC. Maybe Rummy dines there, and the name
was on the tip of his tongue (literally) when he spoke
on Wednesday about Germany (and France):
"Old Europe
Glover Park
2434 Wisconsin Ave., NW
Washington, DC
202-333-7600
Open Monday through Saturday for lunch, daily for dinner.
Washington would be a poorer place without an Old Europe
to remind us of a time when calories didn't count.
Operating in the same location since 1948, it is the
oldest remaining link to the influence of German
restaurants on the city's tastes in dining, beginning
with Loerber's and the original Occidental at the turn
of the 20th century and continuing with Restaurant
Eight-Twenty-Three and the Bavarian, another pair of
long-vanished schnitzel-and-stein places."
http://www.washingtonian.com/dining/Profiles/OldEurp.html
http://www.old-europe.com/default.htm
francis muir
The Pacific Grove, CA, Old Europe was basically Swiss, even serving some
Swiss whites which were quite delicious. By never advertising they kept a
clientčle who they knew which makes for fewer problems. And lower cost.
I think you are correct about Rumsfeldt who, after all, is presumably Kraut
ab origine. His point is well taken by me and I was surprised that the Frog
& Boche didn't see it thaqt way. There's nothing wrong with OE, it's just
not the way we think over here.
Marko Amnell
> I think you are correct about Rumsfeldt who, after
> all, is presumably Kraut ab origine. His point is well
> taken by me and I was surprised that the Frog & Boche
> didn't see it thaqt way. There's nothing wrong with OE,
> it's just not the way we think over here.
The whole thing is a diplomatic tempest in a teacup.
And Rumsfeld is right of course that NATO's expansion
into Eastern Europe shifts the political centre of
gravity eastwards in Europe. Why wouldn't it? Of
course the French and Germans are upset about losing
their old all-important place at the heart of Europe.
But times change. Today's FT gives the quote from
Rumsfeld as:
"I think that's the old Europe. If you look at the
entire Nato Europe today, the centre of gravity is
shifting to the east. And there are a lot of new members."
Seems pretty innocent to me. All the "old Europe"
brouhaha in Paris and Berlin provided considerable
amusement to me and an old friend at lunch today.
The other source of amusement was what I called
"the tale of the tape", i.e. the FT's listing of
the allied and Iraqi forces lined up against one
another. I conjured up the image of a boxing match
promoter who says: "And now, introducing the principals...
In the red corner, fighting out of Baghdad, Iraq,
the Butcher of Baghdad himself, Saddam Hussein! ...
Hussein! ladies and gentlemen, let's give him a
warm welcome! And in the blue corner, fighting out
Washington DC, George W "Shrub" Bush... Getting a
warm reception from the home crowd here tonight...
OK boys gimme a clean fight, and no rabbit punching...
Seconds out!"
smw
Marko Amnell wrote:
> francis muir wrote:
>
>
>>I think you are correct about Rumsfeldt who, after
>>all, is presumably Kraut ab origine. His point is well
>>taken by me and I was surprised that the Frog & Boche
>>didn't see it thaqt way. There's nothing wrong with OE,
>>it's just not the way we think over here.
There's a long response by usual suspects (Habermas etc.) in the German
press today which argues, quite cogently, that it's the US that's
advocating "old" war.
> The whole thing is a diplomatic tempest in a teacup.
> And Rumsfeld is right of course that NATO's expansion
> into Eastern Europe shifts the political centre of
> gravity eastwards in Europe. Why wouldn't it?
Because nobody gives a shit what Ukraine (etc) wants. Duh. France and
Germany run the EU, and everybody knows it.
Of
> course the French and Germans are upset about losing
> their old all-important place at the heart of Europe.
Yeah, right. It's Portugal calling the shots now. Again, what are you
on, man?
Marko Amnell
>>I think you are correct about Rumsfeldt who, after
>>all, is presumably Kraut ab origine. His point is well
>>taken by me and I was surprised that the Frog & Boche
>>didn't see it thaqt way. There's nothing wrong with OE,
>>it's just not the way we think over here.
>
>There's a long response by usual suspects (Habermas etc.)
>in the German press today which argues, quite cogently,
>that it's the US that's advocating "old" war.
Sure. Or a new kind of imperialism. But every empire needs
vassals. And that's where Eastern Europe comes in. Many
of the Eastern European countries may seem to be currently
toeing the US line very closely, such as Poland (whose
president said that "If that's George Bush's vision, it's
also my vision") but that may not remain so forever.
And even if it does, those pro-US countries in the EU and
NATO will dilute the influence of France and Germany. It's
inevitable. And vassals are never completely without
influence on the empire.
>> The whole thing is a diplomatic tempest in a teacup.
>> And Rumsfeld is right of course that NATO's expansion
>> into Eastern Europe shifts the political centre of
>> gravity eastwards in Europe. Why wouldn't it?
>
>Because nobody gives a shit what Ukraine (etc) wants.
>Duh. France and Germany run the EU, and everybody
>knows it.
You're making it too black and white. We're talking
shades of grey here. It's inevitable that EU enlargement
into the East will dilute the influence of France and
Germany. They will try to prevent this of course (such
as through their current proposal for a "president"
for the EU, which is opposed by many small member
states including Finland, who know it would mean less
influence for small member states) but they can't change
the simple fact that there will be many new member states
with votes in the council of ministers. Exactly how much
influence the new member states from the East will have
is uncertain at this point, since the future shape of
EU institutions has not been decided yet. You can make
the case it will be a two-tier Europe, with Eastern Europe
permanently relegated to the lower tier, but it is not
certain that will be the case.
>> Of course the French and Germans are upset about losing
>> their old all-important place at the heart of Europe.
>
>Yeah, right. It's Portugal calling the shots now. Again,
>what are you on, man?
No, what's happening is that France and Germany have to
face the fact that the EU and NATO will both have more
members. This inevitably means they will lose some influence,
but just how much is yet to be decided. It depends on the
future structure of the EU institutions. The US is playing
its own game, of course, by trying to recruit all the new
EU and NATO members behind its own cause. So far it seems
to be working quite well, but that may not always be the
case.
Marko Amnell
Anti-Europeanism in America
By Timothy Garton Ash
The current stereotype of Europeans is easily summarized.
Europeans are wimps. They are weak, petulant, hypocritical,
disunited, duplicitous, sometimes anti-Semitic and often
anti-American appeasers. In a word: "Euroweenies." Their
values and their spines have dissolved in a lukewarm bath
of multilateral, transnational, secular, and postmodern
fudge. They spend their euros on wine, holidays, and
bloated welfare states instead of on defense. Then they
jeer from the sidelines while the United States does the
hard and dirty business of keeping the world safe for
Europeans.
Don Tuite
wrote:
Sounds good. Where do I sign up?
Don
ObBookRef&LinkToAnotherRABThread: Orr, paddling to Sweden, in
_Catch-22_.
tejas
"Don Tuite" <don_...@REMOVETHIShotlink.com> wrote in message
news:fj663vspl9hna4pdh...@4ax.com...
> On 25 Jan 2003 14:02:43 -0800, marko_...@hotmail.com (Marko Amnell)
> wrote:
>
> >Quoted without comment from the latest issue of the NYRB:
> >
> >Anti-Europeanism in America
> >By Timothy Garton Ash
> >The current stereotype of Europeans is easily summarized.
> >Europeans are wimps. They are weak, petulant, hypocritical,
> >disunited, duplicitous, sometimes anti-Semitic and often
> >anti-American appeasers. In a word: "Euroweenies." Their
> >values and their spines have dissolved in a lukewarm bath
> >of multilateral, transnational, secular, and postmodern
> >fudge. They spend their euros on wine, holidays, and
> >bloated welfare states instead of on defense.
You forgot soccer and avoiding the taxman, a la Bjorn & Benny.
>>Then they
> >jeer from the sidelines while the United States does the
> >hard and dirty business of keeping the world safe for
> >Europeans.
> >
> Sounds good. Where do I sign up?
>
> Don
> ObBookRef&LinkToAnotherRABThread: Orr, paddling to Sweden, in
> _Catch-22_.
ObBooks: BY THE SWORD (a history of fencing), A YEAR WITH VERONA and maybe,
FEVER PITCH
--
Ted Samsel
tbsa...@infi.net
http://home.infi.net/~tbsamsel
Marko Amnell
> Hey, looks like fun! Here's my try:
>
> Anti-Europeanism in Israel
> by The Other
>
> Europeans see everything as black and white, good and evil,
> cowboys and Indians. They are blind to shades of gray.
> They have no sense of the complexity of international
> relations. Despite their reverence for the Noble Savage,
> Europeans stubbornly believe that everyone in the world is
> just like them, and that all the world's problems are as
> amenable to arbitration as their own feta cheese dispute.
> They meddle in foreign conflicts which they do not
> understand and show no interest in understanding -- yet
> they insist on imposing their simplistic, ahistorical
> solutions. When these naïve solutions backfire, as they
> inevitably do, Europeans are liable to blame anyone but
> themselves, calling the parties involved "irrational".
> Europe's moralistic, save-the-world interventionism, if
> left unchecked, will lead to even greater bloodshed.
Far too analytical and long-winded to be good political
satire. Not enough snap to it. And it's clearly written
by a Likud voter. Did you by any chance help to organize
the illicit foreign loans that funded Ariel Sharon's last
election victory? But my theory is you're just grumpy
because Gretta Duisenberg (wife of Wim "Mr European
Central Bank" Duisenberg) is in too many photo ops with
Yasser Arafat. Here's one:
http://de.news.yahoo.com/030109/286/35f0h.html
Also, you're on the record in RAB as saying that in
Israel it feels as though all of culture comes from
Europe. Have you gotten over your inferiority complex
yet?
Marko Amnell
> >Anti-Europeanism in America
> >By Timothy Garton Ash
> >The current stereotype of Europeans is easily summarized.
> >Europeans are wimps. They are weak, petulant, hypocritical,
> >disunited, duplicitous, sometimes anti-Semitic and often
> >anti-American appeasers. In a word: "Euroweenies." Their
> >values and their spines have dissolved in a lukewarm bath
> >of multilateral, transnational, secular, and postmodern
> >fudge. They spend their euros on wine, holidays, and
> >bloated welfare states instead of on defense.
>
> You forgot soccer and avoiding the taxman, a la Bjorn & Benny.
Small potatoes. There's plenty of corruption and double
dealing at the very top of the world of European finance,
as exposed by Bernard Connolly in "The Rotten Heart of Europe",
a book that got him fired from his cushy Eurocrat job.
Here's Amazon's take on it:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0571196810/202-2286729-9592647
I found this book to be an amazingly good read, and still
one of the best books about recent EU politics. Connolly has
his own axe to grind , of course, in attacking European
monetary integration (he's a conservative British Eurosceptic)
but he writes very well, and uncovered lots of enlightening
facts about European integration. I found it very funny in
places, which is unusual for a technical book in finance.
David E. Latane
On Sun, 26 Jan 2003, tejas wrote:
> You forgot soccer and avoiding the taxman, a la Bjorn & Benny.
Euroweenies are so dumb they blam Americans for inventing the word
"soccer."
D. latane
Mazzolata
mean
football ("futbol"). "Soccer" is actually only used correctly to describe
English football.
tejas
"David E. Latane" <dla...@mail1.vcu.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.SGI.4.33.0301261...@neptune.vcu.edu...
Well, at least the Food Network is having a Two Fat Ladies marathon to
compete with the StuporBowl. I hear oddsmakers will take wagers on the $
loss caused by the roiting in Oakland whether the win wnd whether the lose.
"What about them 'Boys?"
ObBook: NORTH DALLAS FORTY by Peter G"h"ent
Sam Culotta
"tejas" <tbsa...@infi.net> wrote in message
news:b119pv$7kl$1...@slb1.atl.mindspring.net...
> Well, at least the Food Network is having a Two Fat Ladies marathon to
> compete with the StuporBowl. <
Damn! and I thought *I* had coined the term StuporBowl. Nothing new under
the sun, hey?
Sam
>
David E. Latane
No it's not--it's used correctly to describe the football game played
according to Association rules -- you know, the ones favored by Juventus
and DC United -- as opposed to those favored at Tom Arnold's school.
D. latane
francis muir
Pine.SGI.4.33.0301261...@neptune.vcu.edu, "David E.
Latane" <dla...@mail1.vcu.edu> wrote:
Whereas you will know that the "-er" affix was almost certainly started at
Haileybury from which Public School it gravitated to Oxford.
Robert Lange
> "Officials in both Paris and Berlin seethed Thursday
> at a characterization Wednesday by Defense Secretary
> Donald Rumsfeld that they were part of an "old Europe"
> that was making itself less relevant. Germany and France
> each had been "a problem," he said."
I personally do not care about the "old Europe". But calling
certain countries (or peoples or persons) "a problem" is
inappropriate if not insulting. Problems are to be solved. If a
country (or people or person) itself is a problem then the only
solution is to eliminate that country (or people or person). How
would you feel beeing called "a problem"?
-- Robert
Marko Amnell
> > Also, you're on the record in RAB as saying that in
> > Israel it feels as though all of culture comes from
> > Europe. Have you gotten over your inferiority complex
> > yet?
>
> I really said that? When?
I couldn't find the article by searching on Google, but
I remember you said something like that. Maybe it was
more along the lines of "it feels in Israel like
European culture is superior to Israeli culture."
Something like that. Anyway, it struck me as a peculiar
thing to say, and surprising given all the great Israeli
writers out there (like Amos Oz, for one). That is, it
sounded to me like an inferiority complex.
smw
Marko Amnell wrote:
Along similar lines, it struck me as somewhat odd that Ash, in the
article you kinndly provided, thought the US attitude towards Europe
didn't contain envy and war marked by contempt. That's what the Bushies
want to believe, and want everybody else to believe. But on the strength
of everyday experiences, I don't buy it.
I had a very upsetting scene about the war with my ex the other day...
My mom was talking to him about the war, and about being a six-year-old
during the bombing of Dresden and seeing the roasted, unrecognizeable
corpses piled high in the streets. She wanted him to understand that the
word "war" means something very different to her generation of
Europeans, that it's not that thing you watch on TV. It was a
straightforward emotional appeal, and she asked him something like, "how
would you feel if Leon had to go to war?" His response -- "I'd be
proud!" struck me as so much posturing bullshit, and offensive in this
context for so many reasons (my brother died a year ago, so Leon's my
parents' last male descendant). Well, things got worse from then on.
Anyway, I found the whole thing shocking, the blind recycled rhetoric
not backed up by any experience, Bushie-talk with a straight face, like
"you Europeans don't understand the meanning of FREEDOM!" Not new, but
too close to home, so to speak.
Anyway, enough rant.
>
Marko Amnell
> > "Officials in both Paris and Berlin seethed Thursday
> > at a characterization Wednesday by Defense Secretary
> > Donald Rumsfeld that they were part of an "old Europe"
> > that was making itself less relevant. Germany and France
> > each had been "a problem," he said."
>
> I personally do not care about the "old Europe".
> But calling certain countries (or peoples or persons)
> "a problem" is inappropriate if not insulting. Problems
> are to be solved. If a country (or people or person)
> itself is a problem then the only solution is to eliminate
> that country (or people or person). How would you feel
> beeing called "a problem"?
Well, I'm pretty thick skinned, so I wouldn't mind much.
I would take it as a mild insult, sure. And I might
retaliate verbally somehow. But more importantly, it's
a breach of diplomatic protocol for the US Secretary of
Defence to call France and Germany "a problem". That is
why they objected so forcefully. They don't want him to
do it again and make a habit of it.
Marko Amnell
> Along similar lines, it struck me as somewhat odd that
> Ash, in the article you kindly provided, thought the
> US attitude towards Europe didn't contain envy and war
> marked by contempt. That's what the Bushies want to
> believe, and want everybody else to believe. But on
> the strength of everyday experiences, I don't buy it.
Well, this is what Timothy Garton Ash wrote about that
issue in his essay "Anti-Europeanism in America":
"There is, I think, one other, deeper trend in the US.
I've mentioned already that for most of the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries American suspicion of things
European was mixed with admiration and fascination.
There was, to put it bluntly, an American cultural
inferiority complex. This has gradually faded. Its
fading has been accelerated, in ways that are not easy
to pin down, by the end of the cold war and the United
States' consequent rise to a unique preeminence. The
new Rome no longer feels in awe of the old Greeks.
"When I first went to Europe in the 1940s and 1950s,
Europe was superior to us," a retired American diplomat
with long European experience wrote to me recently.
"The superiority was not personal—I never felt demeaned
even by condescending people—but civilizational." Not
any more. America, he wrote, "is no longer abashed.""
(http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16059)
Unlike you, I'm willing to accept that many Americans,
even educated Americans who are fully aware of the true
greatness of European culture, no longer feel that
modern American culture is inferior to modern European
culture. I would date the beginnings of this change
to the post-WWII period, to the ascendancy of American
political, military and economic power caused by victory
in the Second World War.
This is not so much because post-WWII American culture
is better than pre-WWII American culture, but because the
overwhelming military and economic superiority of the
US after 1945 makes Americans much more self-confident,
and thus they value their own cultural contributions more
than before the Second World War. Obviously, the US
victory in the Cold War, and the disintegration of the
Soviet Union in 1991, provided a further boost to
American self-confidence.
When you compare William James, Dewey and Charles Pearce
to Quine, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Rorty, there is no
clear improvement in American philosophy. When you compare
Henry James, Mark Twain, F Scott Fitzgerald, and Hemingway
to Norman Mailer, Updike and Pynchon, there is no clear
improvement in American fiction. And when you compare
John Singer Sergent, Winslow Homer, and Whistler to
Jackson Pollock, Jasper Johns, Mark Rothko and R B Kitaj,
there is no clear improvement in American painting. But
educated Americans are more proud of these post-WWII
philosophers, writers and artists today than they were
of their predecessors before the Second World War. So
they're less liable to think American high culture is
inferior to its French and German counterparts.
To this greater level of American self-confidence, we have
to add, frankly, the loss of confidence among French and
German philosophers, writers and artists today, when compared
with their pre-WWII (and immediate post-war) predecessors.
Compare the world-wide influence and renown of Sartre with
its comical counterpart today, Bernard Henry Levy. And where
are the French novelists today who have the same stature as
Camus? A Russian who writes in French wins the top literary
awards in Paris! French literary journals are full of articles
bemoaning the present sorry state of French literature, and
attacking best-selling authors like Michel Houellebecq as
entirely ignorant of the great tradition of French letters.
And where are the German philosophers to match Heidegger,
Adorno, and Habermas? Where are the movements in European
painting to match Impressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism? It's
the Americans who invented the most notable new movement in
painting in the immediate post-war years, Abstract Expressionism.
But the main reason for increased American cultural
self-confidence is not these achievements in high culture
(and relative decline in European high culture), but the
confidence that goes along with the global superiority of
American military force and capitalism. You can see this
from the fact that at the level of popular culture, ordinary
Americans are as proud of Hollywood movies and the latest
pop music as Americans in the culture elite are proud of
the achievements of American high culture.
To all this we have to add the enormous development of
American science and technology after 1945. Notice that
it was Germans like Heisenberg and Schrödinger, and
Frenchmen like Dirac who invented quantum mechanics,
but it was Americans like Feynman and Gell-Mann who
developed quantum electrodynamics, and the theory of
quarks. The symbol of this geographic shift in the
leading edge of science is the brain drain of German
scientists across the Atlantic after the Second World War,
who, amongst other things, helped to found NASA.
tomca...@yanospamhoo.com
an American. You can't go overseas and swagger.
francis muir
"tomca...@yaNOSPAMhoo.com" <tomca...@yaNOSPAMhoo.com> wrote:
> The problem with Dubya's crusade is that he's ruined the fun of being
> an American. You can't go overseas and swagger.
Au contraire. Don't take any notice of the street rabble - they're paid to
burn flags. In the places that count Americans are more welcome than they
have ever been. "You got stick" is a powerful message.
Petter Settli
> The problem with Dubya's crusade is that he's ruined the fun of being
> an American. You can't go overseas and swagger.
Has Rick's Cafe Americaine, closed or moved to a new location?
ObWar: The French Foreign Legion is still kicking ass.
--PS
---
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.445 / Virus Database: 250 - Release Date: 21.01.2003
Sam Culotta
news:b164dd$fml$3...@news1.radix.net...
> The problem with Dubya's crusade is that he's ruined the fun of being
> an American. You can't go overseas and swagger.<
My son and his bride were in Scotland and Italy on their honeymoon last
October. ( He's from an Italian family, she's from a Scottish background. )
They said they were treated well in Scotland but treated poorly in Italy.
There was even grafitti on their hotel wall in Rome suggesting that
Americans go home.
Now I read that Italy has pledged their support to the war in Iraq so maybe
the kids would be better received these days.
Sheeesh! it used to be that the only thing you had to watch was the damn
exchange rate!
Sam
smw
Sam Culotta wrote:
> <tomca...@yaNOSPAMhoo.com> wrote in message
> news:b164dd$fml$3...@news1.radix.net...
>
>>The problem with Dubya's crusade is that he's ruined the fun of being
>>an American. You can't go overseas and swagger.<
>>
>
> My son and his bride were in Scotland and Italy on their honeymoon last
> October. ( He's from an Italian family, she's from a Scottish background. )
> They said they were treated well in Scotland but treated poorly in Italy.
> There was even grafitti on their hotel wall in Rome suggesting that
> Americans go home.
In big tourist cities, all tourists are treated poorly. Used to be,
USians went to Europe, especially France, _in order_ to be humiliated.
To bring home their very own French-Waiter-Story.
Sam Culotta
news:3E374356...@ameritech.net...
I knew that about France and I'd certainly heard of poor treatment in Rome,
but I guess I was disappointed to hear that they weren't treated very well
in Pisa or Florence either. But as I now recall, Rome was the main culprit
so I guess that was to be expected. When (if) I go, it will be to Sicily. At
least if anyone treats me like crap I can come back here and tell their
families :-)
Sam
M J Carley
>My son and his bride were in Scotland and Italy on their honeymoon
>last October. ( He's from an Italian family, she's from a Scottish
>background. ) They said they were treated well in Scotland but
>treated poorly in Italy. There was even grafitti on their hotel wall
>in Rome suggesting that Americans go home.
Given the American record in Italy, are you surprised? Tourists don't
deserve to be ill-treated because of the actions of their government
but that's what happens.
ObGraffiti: Italia fuori di NATO, NATO fuori d'Italia.
--
`Al vero filosofo ogni terreno e' patria.'
BHaLC #6
No MS attachments: http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
Home page: http://staff.bath.ac.uk/ensmjc/
Stephen Hayes
The Other wrote in a message to All:
TO> Gretta Duisenberg may be a little ditzy, but she's got balls.
TO> She's more respectable than your average European, if you ask me.
What happened to her ovaries?
Keep well
Steve Hayes
WWW: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/steve.htm
E-mail: haye...@yahoo.com
FamilyNet <> Internet Gated Mail
http://www.fmlynet.org
Leons Petrazickis
The correct spelling is "StupourBowl", you bloody colonials.:D
P.S. Yes, I am Canadian. You are still colonials though.:)
Leons Petrazickis
import java.lang.disclaimer;
Paul.
"Marko Amnell" <marko_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:f6852717.03012...@posting.google.com...
> From today's International Herald Tribune:
>
> "Officials in both Paris and Berlin seethed Thursday
> at a characterization Wednesday by Defense Secretary
> Donald Rumsfeld that they were part of an "old Europe"
> that was making itself less relevant. Germany and France
> each had been "a problem," he said."
>
> in France and Germany, calling the two countries
> "old Europe," and all but declaring that, in the Bush
> White House, they no longer mattered.
> Rumsfeld's comments, predictably, raised a storm
> Thursday in both Paris and Berlin, with a French cabinet
> minister responding by alluding to a vulgarity that
> one of Napoleon's generals used when the British sought
> his surrender at the Battle of Waterloo."
>
> This is all very colourful, but I was thinking about
> the phrase "Old Europe" and somehow it sounded familiar,
> but I had trouble placing it. Then it came to me. I
> opened the first page of the The Communist Manifesto
> and read:
>
> "A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of Communism.
> All the Powers of old Europe have entered into a holy
> alliance to exorcise this spectre. Pope and Czar,
> Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German
> police-spies."
>
> So I wonder, could it be that Rummy is reading Marx?
> Nah, it can't be. It's just me.
It's no laughing matter; despite her insularity, France still plays a part
in any future plans for the defence of a united Europe. If Bush's rhetoric
and Rumsfeld's comments lead to both France & Germany pulling out of any
future NATO committments it will tear the heart out of that organization.
We may be seeing it's effects sooner than you think; those tanks the British
are pulling out of Germany; do you think the German government will allow
them back in afterwards?
The UK following Bush so slavishly has catalysed French and German
impatience with British fence-sitting that the European Community now orbits
a new bipartite barycentre based upon those two nations to the exclusion of
Britain from the decisionmaking procedure. No matter what we do now, history
has been irretrievably altered and to Britain's extreme detriment by the
impetuous rush to war and the immoderate pronouncements of Blair, Bush &
Donald Rumsfeld.
Paul.
Paul.
The UK following Bush so slavishly has so catalysed French and German
impatience with British fence-sitting that the European Community now orbits
a new bipartite barycentre based upon those two nations and to the exclusion
of Britain from the decision making procedure. No matter what we do now,
history has been irretrievably altered and to Britain's extreme detriment by
the
impetuous rush to war and the immoderate pronouncements of Blair, Bush &
Donald Rumsfeld.
Paul.
;
Marko Amnell
Paul. wrote:
> It's no laughing matter; despite her insularity, France
> still plays a part in any future plans for the defence
> of a united Europe. If Bush's rhetoric and Rumsfeld's
> comments lead to both France & Germany pulling out of
> any future NATO committments it will tear the heart out
> of that organization.
France may yet decide to take part in the invasion of
Iraq. It has left the door open for that, unlike Germany,
which has ruled out any possible participation. The French
government would like to ensure that French oil companies
can have access to Iraqi oil after Saddam is gone. France's
Total Fina Elf and Russia's Lukoil currently have the
two most valuable contracts of any foreign oil companies
in Iraq. So, I don't see France pulling out of its NATO
committments over Iraq.
> We may be seeing it's effects sooner than you think;
> those tanks the British are pulling out of Germany;
> do you think the German government will allow them back
> in afterwards?
> The UK following Bush so slavishly has so catalysed
> French and German impatience with British fence-sitting
> that the European Community now orbits a new bipartite
> barycentre based upon those two nations and to the
> exclusion of Britain from the decision making procedure.
Perhaps the UK will have a more difficult time getting
its voice heard in Brussels. But despite Blair's alliance
with Bush on Iraq, the European Commission said a couple
of days ago that it is willing to bend the rules of the
stability and growth pact, and allow the UK to join the
euro despite the fact it exceeds the pact's limits on
budget deficits. And this morning's FT reports that Blair
is set to announce a major new thrust towards deeper
UK integration in the EU. So the UK is certainly not
getting the cold shoulder from the European Commission,
nor is Blair reducing UK participation in EU institutions.
> No matter what we do now, history has been irretrievably
> altered and to Britain's extreme detriment by the impetuous
> rush to war and the immoderate pronouncements of Blair,
> Bush & Donald Rumsfeld.
--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG
David J. Loftus
"tomca...@yaNOSPAMhoo.com" <tomca...@yaNOSPAMhoo.com> wrote:
> The problem with Dubya's crusade is that he's ruined the fun of being
> an American. You can't go overseas and swagger.
I don't know why you'd want to.
I never go overseas in order to swagger.
My problem, whether in Estonia or Senegal or Greece, has been with the
locals thinking more highly of the U.S. than I do -- or for the wrong
reasons. At least the Japanese act like it's no particular big deal
that I'm from the U.S. . . . or are too polite to say so.
David Loftus
Anatoly Vorobey
>> Anyway, it struck me as a peculiar thing to say, and surprising
>> given all the great Israeli writers out there (like Amos Oz, for
>> one). That is, it sounded to me like an inferiority complex.
>
> a great one? He's big overseas, but you know sometimes when a prophet
> hath no honour in his own country, the no-honour may be deserved.
That's an odd thing to say about Oz. I'll grant you he's bigger
overseas than he's in Israel, but "no honour" is overdoing it quite
a bit.
--
Anatoly Vorobey,
my journal (in Russian): http://www.livejournal.com/users/avva/
mel...@pobox.com http://pobox.com/~mellon/
"Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly" - G.K.Chesterton
Anatoly Vorobey
> Yeah, I was exaggerating pretty much there. Couldn't resist the urge
> to quote the Bible. Still, I think Oz's popularity in Europe is
> mostly due to good P.R. Do you know anyone who thinks he's a really
> good writer?
Yeah, I know a few people who think so. I think he's a good writer,
myself; but I won't extend that to "really good".
Michael Richard
: In article <lyy9544...@circe.aeaea>, The Other wrote:
: > Of all the writers to choose from, you picked Amos Oz as an example of
: > a great one? He's big overseas, but you know sometimes when a prophet
: > hath no honour in his own country, the no-honour may be deserved.
: That's an odd thing to say about Oz. I'll grant you he's bigger
: overseas than he's in Israel, but "no honour" is overdoing it quite
: a bit.
Can you describe some of his work? I've been vaguely interested,
but not enough to read anything as yet. A bit of buzz may help.