This is for you, my Lord Valve, and for you, Patrick. -- AJ

On Feb 4, 12:18 am, "Edward Dolan" wrote:

This is what comes of being the world's policeman. If other nations would
pull their share, we could sit back and enjoy the good life like the
Europeans do.

Have you gone quite mad, Edward? We Europeans enjoy the good life that
General George Marshall, blessed be the memory of his Plan, promised
us *precisely* because the US taxpayers fund the major defense
expenditure of NATO, for which we would otherwise have to reach even
deeper into our own pockets. Our politicians can *afford* to disdain
the US, and spray moralistic little homilies over its President like
spittle from a ticket tout's mouth, precisely because we live in the
umbrella of its security. Why, idiots who'd be shot in the back by
their own comrades if we had to maintain decent armies can earn a good
living sneering from the stages of clubs and halls at the homely
virtues of President Reagan, who removed the nuclear Damocle's Sword
from over our heads by splashing out liberally of your money on the
poker game of SDI.

Of course, Americans do have certain advantages. They can still buy a
large 1970s car and fit a small block Chevy engine to it, while the
biggest selling car in Europe is the Fiat Punto, a stylish but gutless
little thing that runs 50 miles on a rubber band. And why, in the
States even a black man can carry arms on his bicycle, as we heard the
other day, while a European who merely wants to keep a shotgun for
shooting loud crows in his backyard must go beg some poncey magistrate
for a license, which will no doubt be refused.

I beg you, my dear friend, don't disturb a status quo with so many
advantages all round.

Now get off your fat arse and go do something useful so we can
criticize you for it, and demand that you do it better while at the
same time denying you the means to do it at all. Another little war
would be good.

Andre Jute
I'm not joking