Before I start this, I should apologise, I'm in a really narky mood today, and I'm just looking for something to rant about.

Re:Nasa. It might interest you to know that the European Space agency puts up more satellites than Nasa. Whilst I find the Shuttle impressive, I was far more impressed with the Apollo moon landings. Given the technology available they are very impressive. The shuttle is not really the success it was intended, it is not a quick turn-around reusable craft. The fuel tank is dumped and it has to be refurbished before each flight.

Nasa also deserve alot of credit for the Hubble telescope, that is a very impressive use of all those funds.

As for Einstein flourishing, he went to A merica to retire. He did the vast majority of his work before he went there. But you raise an interesting point, Americans consider themselves American when it suits them. I worked with a number of Russians and Americans just after the end of the cold war, and one of my colleuges commented that the only difference between the two is that "the Russians know they have a very skewed and narrow minded view of te rest of the world", his implication was obviously that America didn't realise that the things taught as being fact in America are infact very heavily skewed to show the achievements as being American.

Most other countries embrace other nationalities and recognise their achievements. When I worked in the states I noticed alot of things that were taught as 'fact' in America where plainly wrong. The USS Constitution is the oldest warship in the world, The american president is the leader of the free world (***??), America won the war of Independence un-aided, America bailed out Europe in the second world war, Commies and reds want nothing more than to kill capatilist americans and eat their babies, America invented democracy (*** again), americans are the only nation with true freedom of speech (the truth is it is one of the most oppressed when it comes to free expression), pearl harbour (a military target) was an attrocity yet Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Civilian targets) where not... the list goes on.

When you talk about size you change to influence of the economy. it may be the size of Europe, but it is a much smaller economy than Europe. I think America's in for a very nasty wake up call if the European Union ever gets it's act together.

I mistook you on the USS Nimitz, I was thinking about the USS Missouri for some reason (the one's the Japaneese surrendered on) (don't ask me, it must be the drugs). Yes, all of those super carriers are amazing achievements, both from a technical point of view and a logistics one.

As for Olympic gold (you have a pool of 350 million people to pick from) of course you are going to win more (now that the Russians are putting their cash into boring things like food and shelter). This is not something to be proud of, it's just a statistical cerrtainty. Which raises another point, American athletes have a reputation aroiund the world for being very poor losers. What other nations cry their eye's out like some spoilt child when they don't win (we see it all the time with Americans). They're the first to try certain new inventions, but when other natons introduce new inventions they scream 'cheat' and try to get it banned. When approached on television as to why the head of the American Olympic committe was trying to get a new british bike banned from the cycling but was advocating a new american shoe that aided in the high-jump, his reply was "The Olympics is played off the field as well as on it, we will do everything in our power to make sure that we give our atheletes every advantage" or some such. Now, this doesn't really seem in the spirit of sportsmanship does it.




Like I say, sorry to rant and rave, but I'm in a bad mood, and I have to say this has made me feel alot better. Thanks. I don't dislike America, I originally started this post to say the things I liked about it, but then the true American spirit always arises and shows it's very constricted view on the rest of the world. Americans should be forced to travel and visit other countries (I'm sure you're government is terrified that they will).


Thanks again, and no offence meant to the Americans as individuals you are very nice people.

SD (happier after his rant)