Seems to me that the United Kingdom should drop the constitutional monarchy, and go for a full blown people's republic.

Britain's new Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and chums (or, as AP's Jill Lawless puts it "friends and foes alike"):

"The stern Scot's [that would be Brown -- Ed.] few public statements have been somber, measured and brief."

"(...) Brown's response to the attacks has won praise from allies and foes alike."

"On Tuesday, the head of the Muslim Council of Britain, Muhammad Abdul Bari, lauded Brown and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith for the "calm and reassuring tone of their responses to the recent attacks."

"(...) The low-key Smith also stands in contrast to her pugnacious predecessor, John Reid (...) Smith called terrorists "criminals whose victims come from all walks of life, communities and religious backgrounds." Brown has spoken of "al-Qaida" attackers but not of "Islamic" or "Muslim" terrorists." [Emphasis mine -- Ed]

Spot on Smithy! "All walks of life", that's the Brazilian Electrician Liberation Army right there.

Then you have another type of Scots, like Glasgow taxi driver Alex McIlveen — obviously forged out of a claymore and breast fed on haggis and whisky — and chums, apparently born and raised the same:

" (...) as my passenger was paying and getting out, the Jeep rammed into the airport entrance right next to us.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The guy in the passenger seat was wearing a white T-shirt. He got out carrying what looked like a petrol bomb and seconds later the Jeep was in flames.

“Then he kicked and punched a man to the ground before punching a policeman square in the face. That’s when I saw red. That sort of thing just isn’t on.

“I told my passenger to run for her life, then I went for the man in the T-shirt and managed to skelp him in the face. I followed it up by booting him twice.

“By that time some other people had joined in and it seemed like the T-shirt guy was trying to get back into the Jeep. Then the driver got out of the car. He was already in flames. It was obvious he was the real psycho of the pair.

(...) “He was going crazy, just lashing out at everyone and babbling p*sh in a foreign language the whole time. I’ve heard people say since that he was shouting ‘Allah!’ but I didn’t hear that. It just sounded like a lot of c**p to me.

“I ran for the guy and punched him twice in the face with pretty good right hooks.

“Then I kicked him with full force right in the balls but he didn’t go down. He just kept on babbling his rubbish.

”I couldn’t believe that he was still standing. I know I would have been floored by that kind of kick.“

Alex continued to take on the man, who was lashing out with his fists. He recalled: ”He was a big guy and I’m not really a fighter, but his punches were wild and I managed to dodge them and make some good strikes myself.

“Luckily, more people joined in and we managed to beat the guy down. The police apparently caught the other man. I don’t think the policeman I saw at the scene drew his baton during the whole thing. He should have given it to me - I’d have leathered those guys with it.”

Someone put the taxi driver in charge of the bloody country, quickly.

I have been a buff of all things America ever since I can remember.

The "root causes", to use a fancy terminology, are multiple. There is, in part, a very deep sentiment of gratitude, through what I felt was a personal connection, by way of my grand-parents' experience during World War II. A sentiment that never left me, up to this day.

There is also a fascination for the visceral, and nearly palpable attachment to individual liberties, personal initiative and self-reliance, one can feel by listening to or reading from so many Americans, from a wide range of social classes, wealth levels and cultural backgrounds.

As if the Frontier Spirit was part of their DNA, no matter their occupation, their school education and the size of their homes and bank accounts.

And then there are more trivial factors, like westerns (see the glint in my eye when you mention anything with the Duke in it) and WWII movies, rock music, comic books, muscle cars (Say Firebird, Camaro and Charger or tell me about "The Judge" and see me drool), and American pop culture at large.

That, my friend, is a non-exhaustive list⁽¹⁾ of course, but if I was to detail all the reasons why I love America, you'd definitely be late for the 4th of July barbecue and fireworks⁽²⁾.

Being French and unabashedly pro-American in France exacts a toll on one's social interactions – though I'm glad to report that this is a price I'm willing to pay anyway. For one thing, you can predict 9 times out 10 that you will get into a heated and potentially violent argument every time your favorite subject is raised. The said subject being the U.S.A, you can also predict very accurately that it will be raised, even in the most unexpected ways.

Most French just love to hate America.

This, however, has a positive twist in the sense that I frequently end up measuring the worthiness of both new and existing relationships (those I deem important enough that is) on the scale of the other party's positions on common issues involving the USA as a reference point, or simply as part of the equation, and their reactions to my counterarguments.

One of the statements I've heard the most, from the ignoramus and the educated alike, is that "them Americans (as a people) they don't have no History", as if, incidentally, leaving a centuries long blood trail of tribal chieftains and barbarian invasions, Lords and feuds, absolute monarchs and military despots was somehow the sign of some broadly undefined cultural superiority — but I digress.

I used to ridicule the tenants of such "definitive" argument by slapping them with the evidences of their own stupidity: pointing briefly at the fact that they assumed:

• First, that "them Americans (as a people)" were a totally homogenous entity, when they've been flowing to the New World from all latitudes on Earth and for a solid couple of centuries,
• And second, that they assumed "them Americans" somehow appeared in Northern America out of thin air — or maybe, dropped from an alien spaceship — while, if you look at the bottom line, they are merely folks who moved around for different reasons and incentives, like folks have been moving around ever since the first monkey a bit cleverer than the rest dropped his banana, figured that those opposable thumbs of his were the key to space travel⁽³⁾ and set about conquering the world⁽⁴⁾. Ergo, folks coming from some other place, bringing along their own sets of values, customs, traditions and, guess what, History.

But I don't do that anymore, as I find it vastly more entertaining to begin with a faked agreement on those premises, in order to maximize the returns on my schadenfreude investments. It goes more or less like this:

"Okay, you know what? You're absolutely right. Them Americans (as a people)? Bah, newbies in the great Civilization game! They've been around like, what? Hardly more than 200 years⁽⁵⁾? Peanuts indeed. In fact, they're so green that if you take any American at random, you'll be sure to find he's still wet behind the ears with Boston tea."

"And yet…"

"Starting from scratch, on a vast continent still stuck in the stone age, and in hardly more than 200 years⁽⁵⁾, them ahistorical Americans managed not only to catch up with us but to surpass us in nearly every ways, and reach the top of the Civilization shelf out of their own merit. They built tremendous cities and buildings the likes of which had never been seen on the face of the Earth. They've created, invented, improved so much, from the light bulb to the artificial heart, and they've broke so many barriers in so many disciplines, from fashion to transportation⁽⁶⁾ that if you take any field in any Human activity, you will find "them Americans" in the pole position — and if not, at least in the tight, short top list.
To top it all, they've managed to do it without stumbling from Tribalism to Feudalism, Monarchism to Imperialism, and to Fascism or Communism like we did — demonstrating that even in Political Science, the rootless cowboy is way smarter than his Historically Aware European counterpart."

"And I'm just scratching the surface here."

"What's more, they're not done yet. In fact, my intimate conviction is that they're only warming up. No matter how long a past you're convinced you have my friend, when I look at America, I see a nation with a future — which is much more than I can say of mine."

"However, when all is said and done, and when one looks beyond the Bill of Rights, eye surgery or the Pontiac Firebird, do you want to know what really fascinates me about "them Americans"? Do you want to know what makes me admire them with so little restrain and yearn to become one of them one day?"

"It is that thing which I have not seen in any other nation, it is the defining edge they have over the rest of us. It is that painful understanding for every anti-American the world over, although they will never admit it: in short, it is that feeling I have that Americans are not so much interested in having a 'History' than they are in actually making it."

And over these mere 200 years(5), they made and shaped History probably more than the rest of us put together.

It is the Fourth of July, happy birthday Americans.

(As America celebrates her birthday, we are given the opportunity to witness the timeless relevance of Thomas Jefferson: from Afghanistan to Iraq, the tree of liberty is refreshed, yet again, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. I wish that in this day of celebration we remember and honor the former, and hail the fall of the latter.)

Expect (even) light(er) blogging today: I've got both an ophthalmologist and a dentist appointment. I've called to get these appointments 7 months and 6 months ago, respectively — and these were the quickest I could find (yeah like many people here, I called several practitioners in both disciplines, securing appointments all the way until I could find the shortest waiting line).

I expect to let go a couple hundreds of Monkey Monies⁽¹⁾, that I'll have to pay on the spot. On these, Social Security racketeers will "generously" credit me back with a few tenths of the same currency — notwithstanding the fact that they've been taking a fair share of my income, coercively of course, ever since I've started to work and will continue to do so until the day I die. But then, I've also got a penalty for not picking a specific practitioner, as ordered requested by my local Social Security Komissariat, and stick to him, no matter what(2), me filthy antisocial right-wing anarchist me(3).

Personal message to Michael "Thicko" Moore: give me a call when you'll have a chance. There's a thing or two I wanted to tell you about Socialist socialized health care, and bald face lying jokumentary directors.

Latest search query on Google, (hilariously) landing the dissident frogman on the first result page: need+help+french+administration

I couldn't make that up.

... For the bad guys, that is: Mike the Marine fathered a son.

Welcome and congrats to Mom, who pulled all the hard work. Honorable mention for Mike though (Yeah right, you think you know about sleep deprivation?)