Can anyone imagine this happening with a French warship?

It makes me feel a little better about driving a BMW.

Actually I can, Rand.

A few years back I was skiing in the French Alps. Because I wanted to do photography, I told my friends to go off without me. One of the people I wound up sharing a chair lift that day was French military. When he realized I was an American with a very poor command of French, he switched to English and said wonderful things about the time he was posted to our country.

Yes, there are a lot of assholes in France. Apparently including the current political leadership. But I suspect that, in the long run, the good people will triumph. It is still a free country -- and the truth will eventually come out.

I suspect that even if French sailors wanted to behave in kind, they'd be afraid that Mssr. Chirac would have them keelhauled...

I worked with many countries during the cold war doing anti-submarine warfare missions. These include, UK, Spanish, Dutch, German, Japanese, Aussies, New Zealanders, and the French. Every country except one preformed their duties with the highest skill and all saw the "Big Picture" that the mission comes first. Whatever it takes to launch aircraft and find the bad guys, it's done. Need I say which of the countries listed above put their needs above the mission and in one case, refused to launch aircraft because they hadn't finished eating lunch.

I've never met a bigger bunch of useless people in my life. I'm going back 25 years here folks.