olivier in france

Racist and xenophobic talk is not legal and considered a crime in France for more than 2 decades. You may think it's against freedom of speech but you will not find many frenchmen to agree with you.

Brigitte bardot is one of the most stupid people on earth. A PETA loony that think animals are better than men and a racist and fascist ... i'm not gonna be the one defending her right to insult people as it's all she does for about two decades... it's the 5th time she's fined for "incitation to racial hatred" all because the muslims kill sheep for their big holliday (sorry i don't know the correct spelling of that holy muslim feast) and that she finds its cruel for the poor animals... and two weeks ago she was asking for economic sanctions toward Canada because of the seal hunting...

Just saw Altidore just signed with Villareal of the Spanish league..

i've never said i was not elitist or pretentious!! and well i'm not sure we're not as sick today... (i'm just back from vacation in Britanny i've learned incredible stuff about the Vendee wars...)

yeah but you underestimate the local, state, racial and community complexity of the US voters compared to the simpler "identity" of the french voter ... The political spectrum is more complex in France that's sure but the nature of the voters is much more complex in the US

i would too

exactly... especially now that there's at least a couple of europeans each year in the NBA champion team!

Makes me wonder why the canadians don't refine themselves their oil... what's the point to transport those sands from Alberta to SD?

Does that mean you think american politics are easier to analyse, predict, explain than the french ones? and so that american political "scientists" are more accurate than their french colleagues? ... I really doubt it. Different beasts or not, i don't think one is less complex than the other...

Finally after about ten years on this forum and hundreds of "surrender" and "coward" french jokes, i see "french" linked with the word "combative"! I did not think i'd see that day ! "Sarcasm and Disagreement" should be on our Public buildings instead of "Liberté Egalité Fraternité"!!

Back in April 2002 when Le Pen finished second in the french presidential race... After a full year of political analysis 7/7 24/24 of the presidential campaign in all the media, not ONE expert, poll, "scientist", analyst, researcher had forecasted Le Pen will be there for the second round. And the next day they were all back in their seat on national TV, on talk show radio studios, in our "opinions" newspaper pages analysing what had happened and how they should have know it was going to happen because there was that sign, that figure, that poll...

Come on the guy is no different of the lessons givers i see on TV, listen on the radio or read in the paper every single day with their great titles, their "research" jobs in Blablaba Institute, their blablabla University Doctorate and their non stop figures spinning the way they want them to spin. And of course they say they have much more serious things to do than to write or speak in the media while they are actually there everyday! At the end once in a while they are actually right and live on the reputation of their lucky forecast for the rest of their career...

So writing a story for the Wall Street Journal is not "work for the media"? Or do you consider the writer of your link as a "unreal" political scientist?

Listen you can not watch 5 minutes of news TV without seeing one of those political "science " or economical "science" "experts" explaining us the stupid voters/ consumers how everything that happens was so easy to forecast because the exact same thing had happened that year or that other year... forgetting the ten other times the exact contrary happened. Political scientists are like Monday Morning QBs at the nearest sports bar... lot of talk and nothing else...

corrected

Where was Black Rock? north of dowtown Buffalo on the river?

It depends... lot of national differences... in northern (flat!) Europe, the traffic on rivers like the Rhein, the Meuse, the Thames, the dutch and german canals is huge ... In France only the Seine (till Paris) and Rhone (till Lyon) are used with important volumes; in Italy or Spain there's about no river traffic. (and few makable projects) Problem is lot of rivers that were used in the 19th century can not be used anymore because of dams... But sure we'll see projects coming back soon with the current boom on oil price... some are yet on the table... They gonna built a "train highway" (trucks on express trains) line from Lyon to Torino under the Alps, here in Basque country they are talking about a "sea highway" (express cargos full of containers) from the Santander/Bilbao/Bayonne ports to English/Dutch/LeHavre/Hambourg ports ...

the way the economy and transportations costs go if i had money to invest i'd put few dollars on the river and canal transportation business... Even us in the fashion industry we are working on transit plans to use some vessels on the Rhone from Marseille Fos to our warehouse near Lyon. Too bad the French government has lost decades and decided 5 years ago to stop the Rhin-Rhone Canal project, i bet in about 5 years they gonna bring it back to the table...

Did not know about the Benton Harbor portage... it made sense... The South Bend area could have become a big metropolis instead of the Chicago area... Where is your work situated exactly? At the end of the Calumet river?

In fact like most NE and Midwest american and canadian towns, Chicago is where it is BECAUSE water (in the case of Chicago at the end of the shortest road to go from the Missouri bassin to the Great Lakes system). Problem is when towns were founded later in the West, water was no longer the easiest way of transportation and the natural environment was no longer important to choose where to built a new town.)

Never saw anybody drink water in NO... That must be the reason!

At least the Romans were smart enough not to build cities in the middle of the Sahara...

exactly! (and the original New Orleans spot was perfect... the French Quarter is about the only district that has not been flooded...). We have the same issue here with millions of people moving on the mediterranean coast and now facing huge water supply issues!... People think sun is costless..

Where does Altidore play in club, never heard about him sorry...

oh yes escuse me i was not aware you're american and have such incredible political scientists in your two big parties that can manipulate voters at will!! i'd better take care of my third world country old school politics .... (sarcasm)