"America is very famous. They control the world."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0512/p25s04-wosc.html

[thaiguest]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0512/p25s04-wosc.html
There's no limit to the loads of bull-crap that christian off-shoots like Christian Science can come out with.
The main stream churches aren't much better. Will the western world ever stop explaining the cosmos and natural law through a mixed version of myth, legend and history attaching to a relatively obscure nation i.e. the bible?
Without a doubt human kind will never prosper until all religions are dumped except, perhaps, Buddhism -but then again it's not actually a religion as it does not claim (like muslims and chritians) to be the 'only way'.

[Khor tose]

The Christian Science Monitor is not part of the religious right. While It is a newspaper published by The Christian Science church, it is far from a rag. This newspaper's contributors are often teachers, non-profit workers, diplomats who do not want their name used, and people who are actually residing in the area they write about. In certain areas like Latin America the monitor has some of the best sources for information, and it is recommended for students of this area. The CSM has been the recipient of 7 Pulitzer prizes, the most recent in 2002. Suggest you go to its on-line site and look for yourselves,

http://www.csmonitor.com/

"America is very famous. They control the world."

The sad thing is that most of the nationals of that large country either mistakenly believe it or would like it to be so!

[Wesley]

"America is very famous. They control the world."

The sad thing is that most of the nationals of that large country either mistakenly believe it or would like it to be so!

Humm... jealous ?

Wesley

I'm sure it's not jealousy. Its more likely a manifestation of the widely held belief that the US interferes with, or tries to impose it's will on, other nations to an unjustifiable extent.
Got it in one! And Americans actually believe that the world should be eternally grateful to them for such arrogant interference.

[dave_tf-old]

To hear these comments from a citizen of Vietnam or Iraq might givbe me pause. To hear them from an Englishman is laughable. American attitudes towards the world are vastly less patronizing than what was inbred in English colonialism. The 'white man's burden' is an English concept, and resulted in the humiliation and subjugation of populations and resources everywhere the sun shone. It's withered empire drew and misdrew the maps of the world leading to much of the civil strife and sectarian violence which dominates today's geopolitical landscape--everything from Idi Amin to Israel.

And all this from a country which hasn't produced a useful item on it's own since the steam engine, which glories in its own feudal past, which regards its successors on the world stage with niggling public school arrogance, and which can't get a settee properly placed on the veranda without the help of a 40-year-old brown man called "boy".

Some saw the movie 28 Days Later as a horror film. Others as a utopian fantasy. Me? I love everybody.

[cottmann]

.....And all this from a country which hasn't produced a useful item on it's own since the steam engine,....

Really? I can think of several useful items that you probably use that were invented by Britons, including toilet paper and Viagra.

[dave_tf-old]

Dr Gill Samuels headed the research team at Pfizer pharmaceutical and made the breakthrough in discovering the role of the chemical, sildenafil citrate, in the anatomy of male sexual preformance. Sildenafil citrate already had a medical role in the treatment of pulmonary hypertension.

She can be credited with the discovery of this additonal property of sildenafil citrate, but only as part of the overall team that 'invented viagra'. Pfizer was founded in the US and has it's corporate headquarters in the US.

"Official" toilet paper - that is, paper which was produced specifically for the purpose - dates back at least to the late 14th Century, when Chinese emperors ordered it in 2-foot x 3-foot sheets. I suppose the English may have come up with the same idea a few centuries later--stranger things have happened--and produced it in rolls resembling papyrus scrolls--another british invention, I suppose? Clever as monkeys, those English.

In our age, Joseph Gayetty invented toilet paper in 1857. His new toilet paper was composed of flat sheets. Before Gayetty's invention, people tore pages out of mail order catalogs - before catalogs were common, leaves were used. Unfortunately, Gayetty's invention failed. Was Gayetty English? Possibly. Walter Alcock (of Great Britain) later developed toilet paper on a roll (instead of in flat sheets). Again, the invention failed. I guess the English are too married to the past to accept such a useful invention. The English invented TP on a roll--I give you that. Then failed to use it.

In 1867, Thomas, Edward and Clarence Scott (brothers from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) were successful at marketing toilet paper that consisted of a small roll of perforated paper . They sold their new toilet paper from a push cart - this was the beginning of the Scott Paper Company.

In 1942, (yes that's NINETEEN-forty-two) St. Andrew's Paper Mill in Great Britain introduced two-ply toilet paper, another stunning achievement, and worthy of a hearty chorus of Rule Brittania.

[cottmann]

All right, I grant you toilet paper, but Peter Dunn and Albert Wood (both employees of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals at the Pfizer run research laboratories in Kent , England) are named as the inventors of the process by which Viagra was created. Their names appeared on an application by Pfizer to patent (WOWO9849166A1) the manufacturing process of Viagra or Sildenafil Citrate.

Other British inventions - waterproof fabric (Charles MacIntosh and Thomas Hancock in the 1820s), radar (given to the US free as part of the wartime Lend-Lease arrangements), polyester (John Rex Whinfield and James Tennant Dickson, 1940s). penicillin, and the thermos flask.

Interesting to see an American engaging in Brit-bashing after all the complaints about America-bashing on this board.


To hear these comments from a citizen of Vietnam or Iraq might givbe me pause. To hear them from an Englishman is laughable. American attitudes towards the world are vastly less patronizing than what was inbred in English colonialism. The 'white man's burden' is an English concept, and resulted in the humiliation and subjugation of populations and resources everywhere the sun shone. .....

Interestingly, the idea of The White Man's Burden, in terms of Rudyard Kipling's poem, refers not to the UK but to the USA's conquest of The Philippines. "Although Kipling's poem mixed exhortation to empire with sober warnings of the costs involved, imperialists within the United States latched onto the phrase "white man's burden" as a characterization for imperialism that justified the policy as a noble enterprise." (Wikipedia).

To hear these comments from a citizen of Vietnam or Iraq might give me pause. To hear them from an Englishman is laughable. American attitudes towards the world are vastly less patronizing than what was inbred in English colonialism. The 'white man's burden' is an English concept, and resulted in the humiliation and subjugation of populations and resources everywhere the sun shone. It's withered empire drew and misdrew the maps of the world leading to much of the civil strife and sectarian violence which dominates today's geopolitical landscape--everything from Idi Amin to Israel.

Just because Britain has a colonial past is no reason to excuse or ignore America's present attitude to the rest of the world and the widespread perception, from outside the US, that American citizens believe that other countries owe them a debt of gratitude and unquestioning loyalty for what they do to and in other countries in the name of 'democracy' and the 'war on terror'.

One would have thought that America would have learned from the mistakes of Britain's colonial ventures but, no, they are just as patronising, arrogant and misguided in their attitude to the rest of the world as British colonialism was in the 18th and 19th centuries.

"America is very famous. They control the world."

The sad thing is that most of the nationals of that large country either mistakenly believe it or would like it to be so!

Humm... jealous ?

Wesley

Jealous of getting your ass kicked by the Vietnamese, being unable to extricate yourself from Eyerack or Afghanistan. You are joking, aren't you?

[Lunchtime O'Booze]

"America is very famous. They control the world."

possibly..but what was that about hubris coming before a fall.

The sad fact is that the USA is full of wonderful people who do do wonderful things and their good name is tainted by a small bunch of nutters currently in charge. Hopefully that will change soon.

[dave_tf-old]

You won't find me defending America's imitation of England, but we've had our own progressives moving us on beyond our initial Englishness. The less any nation on earth is like the English, the better off they are. No, it's become a case of the student growing greater than the teacher--and that surely rankles an unworthy Master.

My pity is reserved for the Scots and Welsh who are forced to share a land mass (tiny and insignificant as it is) with such haughty, overbearing, insulting, rude, and paternalistic neighbors as the English. Small wonder the Scots took to Calvinism so readily--better to believe your fate was ordained by God than by the English.

The OP quoted an undereducated resident of the Thai/Burmese border appraising the US as the 'controller of the world', while also recognizing (albeit naively) that it was the US-led west and only the US-led west who could help. Long has it ever been.

I won't attempt to defend American History or current American policy--except against an Englishman. Of lesser importance, this board is full of evidence of others slamming Americans for every slight major and minor--and for the most part, 'we' accept this. But criticism of American assumptions of superiority coming from Englishmen is ludicrous.

American assumptions of superiority {are} ludicrous.Indeed

[francois]

"America is very famous. They control the world."

The sad thing is that most of the nationals of that large country either mistakenly believe it or would like it to be so!

I read the article in the Christian Science Monitor. The "America is famous quote" is by a Burmese not an American. A Thai friend tells me the same-same regarding American influence in the world, at least, as he views it.

As for jet engines, they were developed independently both by the British and the Germans at about the same time, but different designs.

[pronto]

But criticism of American assumptions of superiority coming from Englishmen is ludicrous.
Very well said! Right on!

[Wesley]

"America is very famous. They control the world."

The sad thing is that most of the nationals of that large country either mistakenly believe it or would like it to be so!

Humm... jealous ?

Wesley

Jealous of getting your ass kicked by the Vietnamese, being unable to extricate yourself from Eyerack or Afghanistan. You are joking, aren't you?

I think there is more American bashing on here than pedo bashing, nevertheless to each his own opinion. its just that after 7 years of Bush I think most Americans are just tired of the same bashing as much as Smiles is tired of the Pedo trashing. I have never said that American foreign policy is all that great. However, I am still an American and I see no need to just let people go on and on about us when they don't know us as a people any more than they do the hate mongers who spew this trash on the media. No matter what the Brits did, or Bin laden, or America. You have a lot to learn about individual Americans. It is sad however, that we are so hated that when Burma is blown away there is so much hate and distrust they would not take the food and help offered by us just off shore and would rather let their people die than take help from us. yes, Mistakes have been made and probably some more will be made. You would think we were Hitlers coming out to gas the Jews in their ovens to listen to this kind of stuff day in and day out. So, I wonder; put in our position what would your leader have done with the same problem and the same power. What is the old saying about power and corruption... Well it makes me wonder if anyone would have done any better in the same situation; given the same circumstances and options. maybe... maybe not. Who can say for sure anyone could have stopped Hitler with diplomacy, do we just appease them and give them what they want. Or even more what is it they want we can't figure out.Or, maybe America should turn back in on its self and let the world go on and on with a non-interference policy. It would be interesting to see who would pop up on the world stage if all of a sudden we just took care of America. We should have stayed out of the second world war with all the thanks you get for it now. Maybe that is what the world wants and if so, maybe that is what Obamma will give them. Give it a few years maybe your kids are going to be speaking Arabic. I assure you America will still be speaking English,or some form of Spanglish.

Wesley

[Wesley]

Never thought I would get out that easy with you guys, you must have felt sorry for me!

Never thought I would get out that easy with you guys, you must have felt sorry for me!
NO, we just pity you!

[Wesley]

Pity can be a wonderful thing, the problem is finding someone who has enough heart to have it.

Wes

[cottmann]

Never thought I would get out that easy with you guys, you must have felt sorry for me!

Okay, Wesley, IтАЩll bite. This is not intended as America-bashing but as a reasoned response to your posting.
1. In my opinion, I think that you should distinguish between тАЬAmerican-bashingтАЭ and тАЬAmerica-bashing.тАЭ This may seem casuistical, but many of us (myself included) who post on this Board have American friends with whom we disagree about the policies and practices of the US Administration.
2. It IS sad that the Burmese distrust the US armed forces, particularly the Navy, so much that they wonтАЩt allow US ship to land aid, but the Burmese government is a military one whose members have been subjected to severe unilateral sanctions by the US administration. The Burmese junta is composed of uneducated, superstitious peasants who have clawed their way to the top. In those circumstances, why should they risk have US armed personnel land in their country?
3. In my opinion, again, I think that the seven years of Bush Jr. are not the cause of anti-US feeling, merely the culmination of years of frustration with US government policies of interference in the affairs of other nations. The present situation in Iraq, coupled with the ongoing one in Afghanistan, has simply brought matters to a head. You asked: What is the old saying about power and corruption... Well it makes me wonder if anyone would have done any better in the same situation; given the same circumstances and options.тАЭ The quotation, from Lord Acton, is тАЬPower tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.тАЭ While this observation implies that a personтАЩs sense of morality lessens as his or her power increases, it obviously applies to nations as well.
4. In another thread, on the Russians, catawampuscat refers to the book тАЬThe Ugly AmericanтАЭ by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick. Although the book was published 50 years ago, such behavior is still continuing (e.g., US athletes' behavior at sporting events such as 2000 Sydney Olympics). I don't know of any other nation which has such an epithet applied to it - and maybe you should wonder why.
5. You suggest that тАЬmaybe America should turn back in on its self and let the world go on and on with a non-interference policy.тАЭ I think that the US has not had a non-interference policy throughout most of its history тАУ first it interfered in MexicoтАЩs internal affairs, and then in the affairs of other nations in the western Hemisphere (under the guise of the Monroe Doctrine). From the end of WWI the US has largely pursed what might be termed the Wilsonian Doctrine - which states, crudely, that since the world was no longer safe for the American democracy, the American people are called upon to to make the world safe for the American democracy. In order to do this, the principles of the American democracy have to be made universal throughout the world тАУ whether the rest of the world likes it or not.
6. The US canтАЩt turn its back on the world without major changes in its lifestyle тАУ it is too reliant on imported oil not only for gasoline but for all the petrochemical derivatives.
7. You say, тАЬWe should have stayed out of the second world war with all the thanks you get for it now.тАЭ A familiar refrain from US citizens but you might want to read some modern history books, such as Robert B StinnettтАЩs "Day of Deceit" (The Free Press, New York, 1999, $26). Stinnett is a retired US Navy veteran. This book (and others) show how the US provoked JapanтАЩs attack on Pearl Harbor with, amongst other actions, deliberate flouting of international law including the dispatch of US naval task groups into Japanese waters on three occasions. The US can be seen as being as culpable for the war in the Pacific as the Japanese, because it was pursuing its own interests.
8. You said, тАЬGive it a few years maybe your kids are going to be speaking Arabic. I assure you America will still be speaking English,or some form of Spanglish.тАЭ Again, a familiar refrain that is racist at its root.

As I said, at the beginning of this post, this is not intended as a US-bashing post but as a response to your challenge.

[Wesley]

Your post was and is so well thought out it would press me to go back to grade school to pick up all the doctrines and post-scripts to such great people. It astounds me as to how to reply with out having to actually get serious about the question. As you could see in my first response it was not meant to be taken serious. Now that the question has been taken serious I am not sure I am the American to post a relevant post to such a wide range of quotes and historical admonishments. I guess, I ask for a response and I got one, the one question that was not answered was my main question, put in our situation what would your leaders have done in the same position with the same power and ability to inflict ones will on a people after the 9-11 attack. My real question is what you would do or how would other world powers react if they could have the same ability to react as we do. As I have said, I absolutely admit we are not perfect so it seems you have it all figured out. If as it does look like we plan in the next decade to finally wean ourselves off oil and go green? If the message of Change from Obamma really does take hold and things do change inwardly, not only would our economy go bust but as well as many others behind us like a row of dominoes. It would not be a western depression but a world depression should we by some reason default on all our loans.

So, my question is not to argue about the past, I fully admit we have had 7 years and you have so eloquently pointed out a couple of hundred years of pushing people around and I cannot say you are wrong, history speaks for its self. You forgot the poor native Indians that we took away to reservations and starved while we flourished off their land. So, my question is, since we cannot change the past; it is already written, then What would you or your government do to fix it if we just pull back or at the very least stop interfering in the political stage. So, just what do you want us to do, what would you do and would your government have done any better than we have. We cannot get in the some wonderful time machine and go back to fix our mistakes. So, where to from here... It seems so many can find so much wrong but no one has any answers to the real questions of change. May I propose that you do this, or should I wait for another?
Btw as I had noticed before your name or handle on this board is meant to suck some sucker in, and then you nail him. My dear Mr. Booze, you are a misnomer.

Wesley

[cottmann]

....Btw as I had noticed before your name or handle on this board is meant to suck some sucker in, and then you nail him. My dear Mr. Booze, you are a misnomer. Wesley

Oh dear, "Curious" is convinced I am "homintern," and now you seem convinced I am "LunchtimeO'Booze." I can assure you that I am neither of those posters.

[Wesley]

I must admit that is a lot cheaper, So why is bin Ladiin still about . I assume after all the bombings in Europe you guy es have as much reason to get him as any one.

Cottonman, sorry about your name, I mixed it up with another post where I simply followed the line to the wrong person. It was not intentional it was late here. I was almost asleep, then I got a phone call late and I am still up. I think solving the problem is much more important than pointing the finger. That is what I am getting at. Its not that your intelligence does not show though. Its just that is not what the world needs is another history lesson it needs a leader that operates in an appropriate way. I don't deny the mistakes from way back but in the election here I see a lot of finger pointing but no one has real solutions and people hit on us guys in the USA and point the finger but I never see any solutions to the problems. Not that we would listen but it would be good if some one gave us some real advice. Obamma says he will find Bin Ladin and kill him.

I only resent the assertion I am racist when I have spent most of my life working and helping people of other colors and as best I can remember of every color. My Compassion is blind. I was making a statement that with out someone taking some action there will be one world religion and one language and it very well may be Arabic. My snip about Spanglish was an attempt at some humor. Call me what you like but not a racist. I have made the same statement about WW2 and everyone speaking German. I am simply making a point, unless someone stands up to them we will be assimilated.

Wesley

[Marsilius]

We should have stayed out of the second world war with all the thanks you get for it now.

You had no choice in the matter, Wesley. You were attacked by Japan. And then Germany declared war on you (not the other way around).

[cottmann]

.......Its just that is not what the world needs is another history lesson it needs a leader that operates in an appropriate way. I don't deny the mistakes from way back but in the election here I see a lot of finger pointing but no one has real solutions and people hit on us guys in the USA and point the finger but I never see any solutions to the problems. Not that we would listen but it would be good if some one gave us some real advice. Obamma says he will find Bin Ladin and kill him.Wesley

From my perspective, it is now difficult to sat what the right way would have been because the US and its close allies - Howard and Blair - pre-empted any other response and closed off all other options. On Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden was the US's creation as CIA asset 'Tim Osman.' You (i.e., the US) trained him and used him as its proxy in Afghanistan. The response to the attacks on 9/11 - to declare war on Afghanistan because it was sheltering him while ignoring the fact that most of the 19 hijackers were Saudis (of course Saudi Arabia has oil and Afghanistan does not) is simply incomprehensible. Similarly, the attack on Iraq was unprovoked and based on lies, lies and more lies, so much so that the US administration has shift ground frequently on why it found it necessary to invade. Saddam Hussein was no threat to anyone (except the Iraqi people) and kept the lid on Sunni-Shia rivalry.


.......I only resent the assertion I am racist when I have spent most of my life......Wesley
I didn't say you were racist - I said the refrain was racist at its root.


...... I have made the same statement about WW2 and everyone speaking German. I am simply making a point, unless someone stands up to them we will be assimilated... Wesley
But the reverse is also true - the rest of the world doesn't want to be assimilated into the US lifestyle. Modernization, yes. Americanization, no.

But the reverse is also true - the rest of the world doesn't want to be assimilated into the US lifestyle. Modernization, yes. Americanization, no.
Well said and the vast majority of non-Americans would wholeheartedly agree.

The trouble is that a large number of Americans are so up themselves with unjustified but inflated self-worth and arrogance that the opinion of the rest of the world is ignored or it completely passes them by as they sit in their ivory tower. The average American just doesn't realise how detested their country and much of it's ethos really is and when they do realise it they start bleating like Wesley about unfair characterization.

Perhaps, Snowcat, but you have to only look as far as Eurovision to see which nationality holds no.2 position of nationalities viewed in that light. Even radioactive poisoning Russians seem more popular.

[Wesley]

I have lived the last 11 years in other countries that certainly were and are not Pro American. It has never been some stroke of enlightenment that fell on my head while reading the post that people hate us. There are a few Ivory towers other than the US and there has been for centuries. I hate to be equated with some poor goat that all of a sudden realizes he is in front of a truck and has no time to get out of the way. I am fully aware and have been fully aware of how people feel about us. Its just that like the pedo problem how much and how often does it have to be repeated before you have simply overstated your point. At first I didn't care what people thought and mostly still feel that way. I have personally killed no one nor have I set any foreign policy. So I go about my own way doing what I do. So, when is enough, enough, how many times do you have to say it before its one time to many. I personally feel we need to with draw all American aide and the billions paid out to the rest of the world and come home. We have enough problems at home to keep us busy with out taking care of the world. In such situations as we find our self in now we used simply American ingenuity to think our-self out of seemingly impossible situations. So, its not enough to invade Iraq now we are on Mars. So, I guess I can sit back in my Ivory tower and enjoy life from afar. maybe all Americans should discover America again and stay here to spend money , stop all trade. We made it though one depression with any luck we will make it though this one in tack. I am sure the world will get along fine without us. Seems Putin has plans to enlarge the boarders again. maybe we should just let him go. You guys out of all of this have offered no real solutions to the world problems because you like us have no idea how to fix things. So, we come home the middle east falls to Iran Russia marches into the EU, the Baltics and Central Asia is eaten up again and China collapses when we default on all our loans. So. we can sit in our Ivory towers and watch the original depots run things again. We are young compared to you guys. with any luck we will stop just short of the middle ages again. The exception this time its not the church that is corrupt its Islam that has gone beyond what it was originally intended to do. If you think the crusades were bloody watch what will come. I guess Its time you had your turn at it again and see if you can talk yourself out of the end result of our protectionist policies when Obama is in office. I am sure the world will look great in the new Muslim clothes. Maybe there will be some nuclear baby. LOL

Wes



Wesley

You guys out of all of this have offered no real solutions to the world problems because you like us have no idea how to fix things.
I'm glad you admit you have no idea how to fix things - refreshing and unexpected candour, pity your leaders don't accept that they also have no idea.

America, however, seems to think it does have the answer --- impose American style 'democracy', Christian values and economics on the rest of the world, quite often by overwhelming military force, whether those countries want it or not and whether such a flawed policy is suitable or viable for that country. In so doing it acts as an ideal recruiting sergeant for the terrorists and Islamic radicals and ensures there are even more converts to radical Islam than there would otherwise have been.

Might, and the American way, is not always right!

As for suggesting a solution to the problem - it beats me! So many more intelligent and better-qualified people than me have tried and failed. One thing is certain, the rest of the world will have to accept that they have no answer to the inexorable spread of Islam whilst men, women and children are prepared to sacrifice their lives as martyrs to their cause.

Might, and the American way, is not always right!

I think we need to recognise that some Islamists and some Communist would also like to impose their "way"
and it's kinda no bad thing that the septics aren't prepared to let them.

[dave_tf-old]

I'm at a bit of a loss to understand what this "Americanization" is that is allegedly forced on the world. I'll grant a long history of political intervention (along with competition with Soviet-style authoritarianism and expansionist dictatorships like the Nazis and Japanese). If by the term you mean softer 'policies' like the appreciation of liberal societies, it seems clear to me that homegrown progressives in nations NOT invaded by the US military have found much of their inspiration in the existence and progressive History of the US.

If you are referring to simple cultural icons like McDonald's and Coca Cola, rhythm and blues and Hollywood, then as a traveler, I also would prefer that peoples retain more of their culture, but accept that free people in free economies will gravitate to whatever appeals to them and need no force to do so.

Like Wesley, I also wonder what the rest of the world would do if the US abdicated it's role in the world. Like Wesley, I fear that vacuum would be filled by powers and forces that most of the world would find more difficult to endure than perceptions of American hubris.

It would certainly be easier come election time to choose our own leaders without a whiff of concern for the rest of the world. YOU try being a citizen of a Super Power who's going to be heckled and damned whether they DO or DO NOT.

In the US, we tend to think of Ivory Towers as bastions of academia where proposals are debated and fingers are wagged, not where the nuts and bolts of action and the dirty work of leadership takes place.

Currently, we've lost our way--but we KNOW we have. There will be years of political strife in the US regardless of who wins this election.

Finally, I would still rather endure a lecture on 'attitude of superiority' from the French over one from the English.

[francois]

So, its not enough to invade Iraq now we are on Mars.
Wesley

Regarding Mars, the recent landing on Mars by another US spacecraft does exhibit a technical achievement that is the envy of the world. An achievement that few if any other nation has accomplished. Credit where credit is due.

[cottmann]

So, its not enough to invade Iraq now we are on Mars.
Wesley

Regarding Mars, the recent landing on Mars by another US spacecraft does exhibit a technical achievement that is the envy of the world. An achievement that few if any other nation has accomplished. Credit where credit is due.

True, but we should acknowledge the part played by the ESA's 'Mars Express' in providing continuing support for NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, surely? See http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/index.html

[cottmann]

....Finally, I would still rather endure a lecture on 'attitude of superiority' from the French over one from the English.

I'm not English, btw.

[Wesley]

....Finally, I would still rather endure a lecture on 'attitude of superiority' from the French over one from the English.

I'm not English, btw.


and you are from where...?

Wes

[cottmann]

....Finally, I would still rather endure a lecture on 'attitude of superiority' from the French over one from the English.

I'm not English, btw.


and you are from where...?

Wes

Rathaspeck, County Wexford, Ireland.

[Wesley]

Sorry I left a post that was a put down so, I decided to edit it out. I hope you enjoy you life in Ireland. I'm sure it is a beautiful country and has a rich and full heritage.

Wesley

[cottmann]

Sorry I left a post that was a put down so, I decided to edit it out. I hope you enjoy you life in Ireland. I'm sure it is a beautiful country and has a rich and full heritage. Wesley

I do; it is; it has.

[dave_tf-old]

I'll endure a lecture from the Irish. The first one in THIS thread, however, came from an Englishman.

You may now resume your lives.

[Brad the Impala]

Sorry I left a post that was a put down so, I decided to edit it out. I hope you enjoy you life in Ireland. I'm sure it is a beautiful country and has a rich and full heritage. Wesley

I do; it is; it has.

So much for the Blarney stone!

[Marsilius]

Maybe cottman has been too busy kissing other things!

[Wesley]

Sorry I left a post that was a put down so, I decided to edit it out. I hope you enjoy you life in Ireland. I'm sure it is a beautiful country and has a rich and full heritage. Wesley

I do; it is; it has.
So much for the Blarney stone! Blarney Stone - The 'Gift of the Gab' those damn Leprechauns, they are at it again!

[cottmann]

Sorry I left a post that was a put down so, I decided to edit it out. I hope you enjoy you life in Ireland. I'm sure it is a beautiful country and has a rich and full heritage. Wesley

I do; it is; it has.
So much for the Blarney stone! Blarney Stone - The 'Gift of the Gab' those damn Leprechauns, they are at it again!

Although kissing the Blarney Stone is believed to give one the gift of the gab, it actually conveys the gift of flattery and the ability to placate with soft talk or to deceive without offending.

See, it works.

[Wesley]

Sorry I left a post that was a put down so, I decided to edit it out. I hope you enjoy you life in Ireland. I'm sure it is a beautiful country and has a rich and full heritage. Wesley

I do; it is; it has.
So much for the Blarney stone! Blarney Stone - The 'Gift of the Gab' those damn Leprechauns, they are at it again!

Although kissing the Blarney Stone is believed to give one the gift of the gab, it actually conveys the gift of flattery and the ability to placate with soft talk or to deceive without offending.

See, it works.

I was deceived by flattery and the kissing of the castle stones of Blarney, so all the gab, was just gab and deception. My, my those damn Leprechauns

Wes