JFK’S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60’s when DeGaulle decided to pull out of NATO. DeGaulle said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible. Rusk responded, “Does that include those who are buried here?” DeGaulle did not respond.
You could have heard a pin drop.
When in England, at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of ‘empire building’ by George Bush. He answered by saying, “Over the years, the United States has sent many of Its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for In return is enough to bury those that did not return.”
You could have heard a pin drop.
There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break, One of the French engineers came back into the room saying, “Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intend to do, bomb them?” A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: “Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships. How many does France have?”
You Could have heard a pin drop.
A U.S. Navy admiral was attending a naval conference that included admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies at a cocktail reception. He found himself standing with a large group of officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks when a French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English. He then asked, “Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?” Without hesitating, the American admiral replied, “Maybe it’s because the Brit’s, Canadians, Aussie’s and Americans arranged it so you wouldn’t have to speak German.”
You could have heard a pin drop.
AND THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE ABOVE…
Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane. At French customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on. “You have been to France before, monsieur?” the customs officer asked sarcastically. Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously. “Then you should know enough to have your passport ready.” The American said, “The last time I was here, I didn’t have to show it.” “Impossible. Americans always have to show their passports on arrival in France!” The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained, “Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn’t find a single Frenchmen to show a passport to.”
You could have heard a pin drop.
Unlike all the other older generations who criticized the younger generation, we’re right.
“The energy needed to refute BS is of an order of magnitude greater than the effort needed to produce the BS in the first place. ”
“Rename the White House Press Room, “Richard Jewell”.
Went looking on the White House web site “We the People” for any petitions regarding a move to rename the WH Press Room (or the FBI building) after ‘Richard Jewell’. But I had no luck. There doesn’t seem to be any way to search for a existing petition on a particular issue. I don’t really think it’s likely that either building is going to get renamed, but it would be a hoot to ‘sign’ any such petition. So I don’t know if there are any existing petitions started, but I figured it would be useful to suggest they do something about the way the “We the People” site is organized.
So I did this:
Dear friends, I wanted to let you know about a new petition I created on We the People, a new feature on WhiteHouse.gov, and ask for your support. Will you add your name to mine? If this petition gets 99,999 signatures by January 08, 2020, the White House will review it and respond!
We the People allows anyone to create and sign petitions asking the White House to take action on a range of issues. If a petition gets enough support, the White House will issue an official response.
You can view and sign the petition here:
https://disq.us/url?url=htt…
Here’s some more information about this petition: Add a “Search” function to We the People website so we can find petitions we are interested in.
People who come here to sign an particular petition or check to see if there are petitions already in existence for a issue before creating another one have no way to search for petitions by subject, issue or title.
An example, I came here to see about petitions regarding renaming the White House Press Room for “Richard Jewell”. Is there already a petition? I don’t know. If there is a good reason for not having a search function, I can’t think of one.
Please add a search function or keyword index.
We’ll see what happens. And don’t forget, Clint Eastwood’s new movie “Richard Jewel” opens on Friday. It’s on my ‘must-see’ list.