lol @ American law enforcement

[Coito ergo sum]

I'm not sure they just accidentally ended in a bad neighbourhood by chance ...... seems unlikely to me ???? Still they should be able to go buy drugs without being shot !

I agree.

[egbert]

Talk to a chap? Without confirming if he can trace his ancestors back to the Norman invasion? Are you stark staring mad?

I don't know... I can't even trace my Scottish ancestry precisely to James III or IV, and even though I'm pretty sure My Norman ancestors have been there since Rollo and were in the crusades, they really appear in the picture no earlier than 1599.

I can get back to about 1600 with documents, but most everything before that was lost in the Blitz when Hitler bombed Edinburgh and destroyed the archives. I could do some parish church records research, but I have a lot of trouble trying to read old English script and haven't had the time. Maybe one of these days I'll get back to Scotland with some more time on my hands.

I just go right ahead and assume I'm a Pict, so I rub blue mud in my belly button once a year, put on my kilt and go throw telephone poles and rocks around.

Such ancestry should, at the least, qualify for membership in the American Kennel Club.
No doubt your Blue Blood lineage garnered an invite to the Royal Wedding. A shame you shipped the Hummer off to New Zealand for your impending tour, but no doubt when you land the family jet at Heathrow, the Royals will send round a carriage, or at least a Range Rover.
We members of the lazy, dependent class look forward to seeing you on the tely, in the front row, resplendent in that Scottish skirt, with that log on your shoulder, all ready for the after the wedding games.
Will you be doing interviews with the BBC?

[Coito ergo sum]

Are you a Brit? If so, you have no place making comments about "blue blood," Mr. "White Man's Burden." By all means, say hello to the Queen and all the Lords and Ladies at the wedding on Friday....

[Aos Si]

Are you a Brit? If so, you have no place making comments about "blue blood," Mr. "White Man's Burden." By all means, say hello to the Queen and all the Lords and Ladies at the wedding on Friday....

You really do have a chip on your shoulder about most of Europe. It smacks of an inferiority complex, or perhaps a Napoleon complex. I'd work on that, because it comes across like you are just bigotted towards anyone who is not American in the Western world which I'm sure is not the case, but you've clearly declared you find lying and libelling an entire race of people amusing, which worries me, and now you are referring to a countries history as if someone born hundreds of years after the fact bears the weight of blame for it? How bizarre and convenient that you act as a colossal apologist for anything your own nation does and denigrate others who don't and wouldn't even begin to indulge in apologetics. You are most definitely extremely nationalistic, I'm trying to figure out if that makes you a racist too, or your just a hypocrite, I haven't decided yet. But you clearly have some serious issues. You must lug a round so much cognitive dissonance that it clouds your reason.

Anyway on topic I really think you are blowing up what was a perfectly civil discussion into some socialist crime.

[stripes4]

Saying 'dude' just spoilt that a bit. Could you edit it out?

[hadespussercats]

Dude.

[Svartalf]

and dudettes

[Coito ergo sum]

Are you a Brit? If so, you have no place making comments about "blue blood," Mr. "White Man's Burden." By all means, say hello to the Queen and all the Lords and Ladies at the wedding on Friday....

You really do have a chip on your shoulder about most of Europe. It smacks of an inferiority complex, or perhaps a Napoleon complex. I'd work on that, because it comes across like you are just bigotted towards anyone who is not American in the Western world which I'm sure is not the case, but you've clearly declared you find lying and libelling an entire race of people amusing, which worries me, and now you are referring to a countries history as if someone born hundreds of years after the fact bears the weight of blame for it? How bizarre and convenient that you act as a colossal apologist for anything your own nation does and denigrate others who don't and wouldn't even begin to indulge in apologetics. You are most definitely extremely nationalistic, I'm trying to figure out if that makes you a racist too, or your just a hypocrite, I haven't decided yet. But you clearly have some serious issues. You must lug a round so much cognitive dissonance that it clouds your reason.

Anyway on topic I really think you are blowing up what was a perfectly civil discussion into some socialist crime.

Not at all, not about Europe. If I have a chip on my shoulder, it's about self-righteous smugness.

I'm confronting bigotry toward Americans, and you think that's me being bigoted toward anyone who is not American. There's that self-righteous smugness rearing its ugly head again....

I've never declared that I find lying and libeling an entire race of people amusing. I've never lied about or libeled any race. I did, however, defend Clinton Huxley, a Brit, when he was rabidly attacked for making a joke about the French. I stand by that. If Clinton Huxley libeled and lied by joking about the French not being particularly brave, well, you'll have to take that up with him. However, my defense of him doesn't make his offense mine.

And, do they teach you folks anything in school? You think that Britain's offenses lie 100s of years in the past? Are you kidding me? Do I really need to educate you on your own country's history?

And, I haven't apologized for anything. Not being willing to put up with the smug finger-pointing from folks who are in no position to talk is not apologetics. Britain's foreign policy has been in lock-step with the United States for the last 75 years, for example, so whatever offenses you are claiming I'm apologizing for are likely Britain's as well. You can't disavow events your country participated in yourself.

And, I've not mentioned socialism in the least.

[Svartalf]

What was that incident with clinton the usurper ruled already? I've had so many clashes with him that I don't remember that particular one.

[Coito ergo sum]

What was that incident with clinton the usurper ruled already? I've had so many clashes with him that I don't remember that particular one.

CH made a joke about the French being cowardly. Aos Si had a hissy fit about it, and stated that CH was being "racist" by sullying the whole French people with what Aos Si believes to be an unfounded accusation. He initially thought CH was American and went off on a tangential rant about how it's the fault of the Americans and peculiar practice of Americans, particularly "rednecks," to sully the entire French race as cowards and keep belaboring that tired joke.

It was pointed out to him that CH was a Brit, and that the whole "bash the French" motif in humor was pretty much perfected, if not invented, by the Brits in the first place, but he ignored that part. Since I defended CH's joke, and suggested that such humor can, in fact, be funny and is, in fact, not per se "racist," and that many comedians tell actual racist humor and it is, in fact, funny (e.g. Chris Rock, Sarah Silverman, Ricky Gervais, Margaret Cho, Dave Chappelle, and the list goes on and on...). Heck, it was pointed out to him that even the Monty Python group did jokes about the French.

He then pointed the finger at me, and continues to do so, claiming that I was the one making the French-are-cowards joke, and he continues to point is finger at me in that regard when it wasn't me at all who made the offending joke. I just defended the Brit that made the joke.

[Wumbologist]

I've always thought the "cowardly Frenchman" stereotype is pretty silly, considering how rich of a military history they actually have. Hell, even in World War II, which is widely considered the source of the whole thing, the French Resistance was remarkably successful and the government's surrender was actually the only sensible option for a nation that still hadn't recovered from the last world war and only had one solid line of defense that had been compromised.

[Svartalf]

What was that incident with clinton the usurper ruled already? I've had so many clashes with him that I don't remember that particular one.

CH made a joke about the French being cowardly. Aos Si had a hissy fit about it, and stated that CH was being "racist" by sullying the whole French people with what Aos Si believes to be an unfounded accusation. He initially thought CH was American and went off on a tangential rant about how it's the fault of the Americans and peculiar practice of Americans, particularly "rednecks," to sully the entire French race as cowards and keep belaboring that tired joke.

It was pointed out to him that CH was a Brit, and that the whole "bash the French" motif in humor was pretty much perfected, if not invented, by the Brits in the first place, but he ignored that part. Since I defended CH's joke, and suggested that such humor can, in fact, be funny and is, in fact, not per se "racist," and that many comedians tell actual racist humor and it is, in fact, funny (e.g. Chris Rock, Sarah Silverman, Ricky Gervais, Margaret Cho, Dave Chappelle, and the list goes on and on...). Heck, it was pointed out to him that even the Monty Python group did jokes about the French.

He then pointed the finger at me, and continues to do so, claiming that I was the one making the French-are-cowards joke, and he continues to point is finger at me in that regard when it wasn't me at all who made the offending joke. I just defended the Brit that made the joke.

One I didn't notice... well, if I had to feel insulted by every comment clinton makes, I'd have to actually sue him for libel

[Coito ergo sum]

Apparently, lots of European countries have negative stereotypical views of the French: http://www.understandfrance.org/Paris/D ... cre1914385 But, of course, it's an American thing. Darn 'merkins fault, as usual.

[Coito ergo sum]

What was that incident with clinton the usurper ruled already? I've had so many clashes with him that I don't remember that particular one.

CH made a joke about the French being cowardly. Aos Si had a hissy fit about it, and stated that CH was being "racist" by sullying the whole French people with what Aos Si believes to be an unfounded accusation. He initially thought CH was American and went off on a tangential rant about how it's the fault of the Americans and peculiar practice of Americans, particularly "rednecks," to sully the entire French race as cowards and keep belaboring that tired joke.

It was pointed out to him that CH was a Brit, and that the whole "bash the French" motif in humor was pretty much perfected, if not invented, by the Brits in the first place, but he ignored that part. Since I defended CH's joke, and suggested that such humor can, in fact, be funny and is, in fact, not per se "racist," and that many comedians tell actual racist humor and it is, in fact, funny (e.g. Chris Rock, Sarah Silverman, Ricky Gervais, Margaret Cho, Dave Chappelle, and the list goes on and on...). Heck, it was pointed out to him that even the Monty Python group did jokes about the French.

He then pointed the finger at me, and continues to do so, claiming that I was the one making the French-are-cowards joke, and he continues to point is finger at me in that regard when it wasn't me at all who made the offending joke. I just defended the Brit that made the joke.

One I didn't notice... well, if I had to feel insulted by every comment clinton makes, I'd have to actually sue him for libel

Don't worry, it's American bigotry anyway....

[Svartalf]

I've always thought the "cowardly Frenchman" stereotype is pretty silly, considering how rich of a military history they actually have. Hell, even in World War II, which is widely considered the source of the whole thing, the French Resistance was remarkably successful and the government's surrender was actually the only sensible option for a nation that still hadn't recovered from the last world war and only had one solid line of defense that had been compromised.

Well, the thing is that frome the 1860s to WWII, we seem to have fostered some generations of remarkably crappy officers and high command, in particular ones that were always thinking in terms of what happened in their youth even though war was evolving at a tremendous rate, and even when some arms of the military were actually assimilating those evolutions quite well...

We had better armament, and supposedly a perfectly organized and supplied military in 1870... that moron Bazaine still managed to get trapped in Sedan with our largest and best troop corps, and lost us the war by surrendering before a secondline could be set up.

Our high command was utterly unprepared for the trench war that WWI became, and wasted tens of thousands of lives (as well as millions worth of ammo) by misusing artillery strikes and ordering whole regiments to bayonet charge in the face of withering long range rifle and machinegun fire

Similarly, in WWII, they utterly trusted the Maginot line and did nothing to plug the gap when Hitler attacked Belgium, and while we had tanks that were as good as the >Germans', and some people who had good ideas as to the best way to use them, we just used them for infantry support... of course, that didn't work agains German advance tank columns.

Properly speaking, we had recovered a lot better than the Germans had, we just did not make good use of it.