The US, UN & Iraq III

georgeob1 wrote:

I was dead wrong and I was loud about it.

George is saying that he was dead wrong, and that when he was wrong, he was loudly wrong. What's the matter Habibi, wasn't he contrite enough for you. You can't read an admission on his part of having been wrong in that? I begin to wonder just how poor your reading skills are . . .

Well...I'm now working on a rewrite of the Membership Agreement and a clause like the one I suggested above will soon find a happy home. So you might as well start applying it now, along with another that's in the works where all responses to my posts are prefaced with "Brilliant!".

"Freedom fries"....of all the zero-brain lunacy that has gone down over the last year or so, that one tops it for me.

"Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia.

I heard that the International Air Show being held in Paris was a bust this year. Apparently, none of the US manufacturers cared to participate because it was being held in France. I guess maybe it's not just the government.

LE BOURGET, 14.06.03, France (swissinfo/Reuters) - The 45th Paris Air Show has kicked off without the presence of a single top executive from a leading
U.S. defence contractor.

Lockheed Martin, the world's top arms maker, confirmed last week that its Chairman and Chief Executive Vance Coffman had pulled out of
the show, citing scheduling conflicts.

Coffman had been the only CEO of a top U.S. aerospace or defence firm planning to attend the show, the world's leading gathering for
aerospace executives, military brass and flying fans.

Lingering U.S. resentment over France's staunch opposition to the war in Iraq has led the U.S. Defense Department to scale back sharply
on its participation and, according to Washington insiders, put pressure on U.S. companies not to attend.

U.S. exhibitors will total 183, down from 350 at the last Paris show in 2001.

This year's event, which starts this weekend and runs until June 22, comes amid a sharp downturn in demand for air travel which has sent
some leading U.S. airlines into bankruptcy and forced the top jet makers to scale back production.

Still, several large contracts are expected to be announced over the course of the next week, including an order for about 60 aircraft from
Dubai-based Emirates on Monday, expected to be split between European jet maker Airbus and its U.S. rival Boeing and to include a
purchase of Airbus A380 superjumbos.

Qatar Airways is seen buying about 30 planes from both manufacturers and Thai Airways could finalise plans to buy eight A340 Airbus
wide-body jets.

But those contracts are unlikely to herald a renaissance in aircraft demand, with most analysts saying a genuine recovery is still up to two
years away.

"Orders at Paris could be a spark but expect a weak summer," said analysts at SG Cowen in a research note on Friday.

Boeing has scrapped plans for its futuristic high-speed Sonic Cruiser, the star of the 2001 show, and will be talking up its latest project -- the
super-efficient 7E7 which it hopes to begin delivering to airlines in 2008.

Airbus, which has been grabbing market share from its U.S. rival in recent years, has its own flagship in the works -- the 555-seat A380,
which has already garnered nearly 100 orders and is due in 2006.

"Do you end up going down the 7E7 route or the A380 route? We are in no rush to make up our minds," British Airways CEO Rod
Eddington told reporters on Thursday. "In the next two or three years we will get real clarity on where this debate is going."