Pa-the-tic. You’re not helping your country, here, dear… just shut up and let the intelligent Americans with a sense of humor tlak with the grown-ups, ok? Your understanding of the war has obviously been gathered from the wrost web sites maintained by fucked up pro lifers or something!

Lived in Paris for 10 years, back to London, now. Agrre with the frenchies here: This French bashing thing is Moronic. Yes, they do have a bad attitude, and a lot of drawbacks. And yes it’s not the most dynaminc of the biggest economies in the world. But we all have our own chips on our choulders, dude. A) try to get a wifi connection in Arkansas

b) Check out your facts about the IT world from France, dude. French IT guys are imported from all over the world because of their skills that we don;t have in our countries (US / UK) in high end engineering. All France is on 8 to 12 megs DSL not 512 silly k like us. French almost invented the net by having a thing called “Minitel” at home before your mother was born.

c) the issue with them has nothing to do with being third world, which trust me they are much less than the US (ever visited south LA, Campton, ot Queens, NY??? or Chicago’s outskirts??? Feels like dominican republic! ). The issue is that, like YOU, they think they are the best. And they’re not letting you think you are the best, and you hate that. Result: A moronic petty battle. Learn to live together my friends, come to london, where this is happening. And share your respective experiences.

Geeze! How uncool arre you guys! My French friends and my american Friends are wya cooler than you! Which shows it has nothing to do with nationality, has it?

Me (another french guy), I won’t like I hate my country, this would be wrong. Like JC (Jean Christophe) said, I hate the politicians and the leaders too. Like in most republican countries, they want people to have a standardized way of thinking, isn’t it like this in the USA ?

I think France is only different by the culture and the size, but the leadership are the same…

The problem is because leaders are in opposition, people should be in opposition… You guys from USA have bad thinkings about french people because of french leadership, and the opposite is true. There are very low people in France who agree with GW Bush’s ideas, but if I went to the US, I would make high number of friends because US people are very cool for the most.

I mean the people do not thinks like his leader. Us, the frenchies didn’t vote for Chirac in 2002 because we wanted him as a president for his qualities, but because we didn’t want Jean-Marie Le Pen as the president, wich wants to create a racist politic. Chirac has been used as an “anti-Le Pen” shield. Chirac as been president between 1995 and 2002 ans french people saw how bad he was, but we didn’t have another choice. So chirac is not representative of french thoughs.

Don’t let our leaders make us silly battling, all peoples in the world can be friends, and have much more to learn from each other. If you, US guys can come to France, don’t forget to taste the bread, the croissants, and the snails (some people like, some other don’t, this is relative to each people). And France have speciallities from each region…

Bye all

Me (a french guy), I hate french school, french “phylosophie”, french attitude, french politicians, french leaders and so on…
Why ? because they want me to believe and to do what they want ! This fuc*ing “élite” is really ridiculous.

Of course we’ve got so many drawbacks, but with a negative part comes a positive one ! I agree, it’s not obvious to discover it because it is well hidden…

November 15th, 2005 at 11:20 am
Yes, in US, hundreds died in New Orleans. In France 10 thousand died in a heatwave.”
i think you want to say hundreds white people died. about the heatwave it was in all the france, there is more 70 000 000 persons who lives in france, there is 70 000 000 persons in Nouvelle orleans? in percent in france during the heatwave there was 0.17% died the same for nouvelle orleans, speak about what you know or about what you understand little girl

I also live in London, and have an english keybd at the office and a french one at home, and i never had a problem with that – it’s really not that hard to cope with it !

As for the wifi access, we must admit that Jeff was right in saying that it is not acceptable to be in such a situation when you pay for that kind of hotel. But after all, I think Jeff should have incriminated the hotel, not the French in general ! It was probably a simple joke at the begining (i’m not sure though) – but what’s annoying is the very first comments from his US readers…

One last thing: kat > you can copy/paste whatever crap quotes you find on the internet, it’s not gonna make you look any clever ! But if you wish so, then ok, you guys saved Irak and your intervention was conducted in a brilliant way, no really i mean it. Thanks for saving us all ! Fortunately I have many US friends who don’t think like you and express themselves like you, otherwise I would be very much concerned for the future of your country (which is great btw, i can’t deny that !)

I am a French national, living in London (and before that in NY) and I’ve had no problem adapting to the US keyboard that way (or any other keyboard for that matter) ! Mind you, that requires that you don’t look at your fingers while typing. So maybe the best travel tip is to learn to type like in the good old times ? !

Same Old Story?
Activists and human rights organizations have expressed outrage,
but not astonishment.
     “This story is as old as the sanctions, as old as the oil-for-food
program,” said Rend Rahim Francke, executive director of the Iraq
Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit, non-governmental
organization working for human rights in Iraq. “We have documentary
evidence of Saddam Hussein selling medicines to Lebanon. Glaxo
Wellcome [a British pharmaceutical firm] recently stated that
15,000 units of asthma medicine, targeted mainly at children, had
been re-exported to Lebanon.”
     Saddam has also been accused of illegally smuggling some
150,000 barrels of oil through the northern border to Turkey. A
further 50,000 to 100,000 barrels are smuggled daily through the
Persian Gulf from its southern border, the document claims.
     Yet another 100,000 barrels of Iraqi oil are sold to neighboring
Jordan, although these sales are not viewed as illegal. The United
Nations has not authorized this trade, but neither has it criticized it.
     Iraqi smugglers have been known to take the oil from Iraqi
ports, into the territorial waters of Iraq’s neighbor and former
enemy Iran, and thus, beyond the reach of the international
interdiction force.

Cigarettes for Rich, Hunger for Poor
The Foreign Office report also details incidents such as Saddam’s
recent birthday celebrations. The descriptions of a nearly
10-foot-high cake, while tens of thousands of Iraqi children are
starving, is a striking contrast between the luxury enjoyed by
Saddam and his inner circle and the poverty elsewhere in the country.
     Iraq’s child mortality rate, once comparable to the figures in
the industrial world, has now reached alarming rates. According to
UNICEF, 8,000 Iraqi children die monthly, joining more than a million
that have died since the sanctions were first imposed.
     “If Saddam Hussein feels free to sell precious medicine for
Iraqi children to acquire luxuries for his inner circle, he is a hypocrite
and a murderer,” said Francke. “He is not buying alcohol and
cigarettes for the ordinary man on the streets. The ordinary Iraqi is
starving. These goods are targeted for the elite, they have all the
food they want.”
     Francke also said that the fact that the government has been
importing alcohol and cigarettes, gives the lie to the belief, in many
parts of the Muslim world, that Saddam is a champion of Islam.
“Unfortunately many Muslims, not just from the Arab world, believe
Saddam is the one who can save Islam from the Western devil. I
personally, am more concerned with the fact that he’s diverting
money for the elite, but this view of Saddam as a saviour of Islam
has gained a lot of currency in the world.”

Impatience With Sanctions
The disclosure comes as international impatience with the
U.N.-imposed sanctions seems to be growing. As the price of oil
soars internationally, Britain and the United States have found
themselves isolated in the international community in trying to keep
the sanctions in place.
     This week, a rash of flights from France, Russia, Morocco,
Yemen and Jordan have landed in Baghdad’s newly opened Saddam
Hussein Airport in what is seen as a protest against the ban on
flights imposed on Iraq. While most countries had their flights
approved — albeit grudgingly — by the United Nations, Russia and
France challenged the sanctions procedure by not waiting for
authorization from the U.N. committee.
     The Foreign Office admitted the information had been released
to the press in an attempt to counteract the growing public opinion
opposing the sanctions. “This information doesn’t change our picture
of the regime, but it might change the picture for the media,” said a
spokesman. “Over the last few months, Iraqi propaganda has been
gaining currency in the media, so we have provided the information to
the media to change this view.”
     There have been reports, in the international media, that many
Western countries, especially France and Russia, are eager to
resume diplomatic relations with Iraq. In August, Iraqi Deputy Prime
Minister Tariq Aziz became the first Arab official to be received by
Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
     The growing impatience with the sanctions have come even as
the U.S. State Department recently announced it had concluded a
cooperative agreement with the Iraqi National Congress providing $4
million to advance the Iraqi National Congress’ ongoing operations and
establish new ones. The Iraqi National Congress is one of the Iraqi
groups funded by the United States, that opposes Saddam.
     However, U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen recently
conceded that Iraq had been successful in its battle to win
international public opinion for lifting its sanctions.
     ”It’s been very clear to me that he has been successful in
waging a propaganda campaign certainly within — among the Arab
population, to say, ‘Look at the harm that these sanctions have
inflicted upon the Iraqi people,’” said Cohen at a news briefing in
Washington on Monday. “And the answer is, there’s been one person
who’s inflicted the harm upon the Iraqi people, that’s Saddam
Hussein.”
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report

Could we please stop this bashing and discuss about something else or I’m sure we will soon discuss about Yorktown – 1781 ^_^

The good point is that now Jeff knows what to write to have comments on his blog…