French Military Contributes To Thunderbird 3 379
fredboboss sends news about Mozilla's email client Thunderbird 3, whose release we noted last week. "Thunderbird 3 contains code from the French military, which decided the open source product was more secure than Microsoft's rival Outlook. The French government is beginning to move to other open source software, including Linux instead of Windows and OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office. Thunderbird 3 used some of the code from TrustedBird, a generalized and co-branded version of Thunderbird with security extensions built by the French military."
It's over... it's all over (Score:5, Funny)
Thunderbird just surrendered to Outlook on my computer. Now it's even helping Outlook import old messages.
I love this joke (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Among collectors of WWI memorabilia, it is generally considered that the Springfield is the superior target rifle, the Mauser the superior hunting rifle,
Continuing the naming tradition (Score:5, Funny)
TraceMonkey, SeaMonkey... SurrenderMonkey?
Re:Continuing the naming tradition (Score:5, Funny)
CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkey
FTFY
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you might be overreacting a little. Doesn't every nation have jokes made about them, and have stereotypes? I see enough negative comments about my own country (UK) around the internet without needing to get defensive. Some of them are distressingly justified, such as the way we seemed to act like little more than the 51st State the way Blair sucked up to Bush, or that we tend to overstate our current relative importance in the world.
It is interesting that the French have been landed with the "surren
Damn you! (Score:3, Funny)
Watch patriotic American geeks heads explode (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm going to love this one. How are the patriotic American geeks going to respond? US military goes with Microsoft products, French military supports open source....
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, US Dept. of Defense Creates Its Own Sourceforge [slashdot.org].
Re:It's over... it's all over (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow... really? A whole thread of bashing the French? Are you really that pathetic?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, it is a bit strong for americans to say that...
But the British say the same thing, you know that small country that fought in the same war and that hitler turned his attention to after beating the french?
Re:It's over... it's all over (Score:4, Interesting)
The difference is that the germans appeared all over france in full strength, that is, by both air and land and from a closer distance to "base" so to speak. The british pretty much had to deflect "just" (as if it was easy anyway) the luftwaffe to defend themselves due to tanks not being that good at swimming. Hardly a fair comparison.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, it is a bit strong for americans to say that...
But the British say the same thing, you know that small country that fought in the same war and that hitler turned his attention to after beating the french?
It's easy to be brave when you have 30-240 kilometers of sea between you and your enemy.... And wasn't it the British Army who ran for their lives in Dunkerque?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
American war of Independence? War of 1812?
Re:It's over... it's all over (Score:4, Interesting)
Really? I guess I missed the part were the French helped the Poles as per their treaty. Poland would have done better if they had know beforehand that France (and Britan) were not going to back them.
In fact, it wasn't until France was attacked 8 months later that they even started fighting.
Read up on the Phony War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney_War [wikipedia.org]
Hell, France lasted a little over two weeks longer than Poland and it did not have the soviet union to deal with (and had eight months of knowing that Germany was on the military move.)
I am sure France has many things to be proud of, but World War II should not be one of them.
Re:It's over... it's all over (Score:4, Insightful)
They're just hurt because the French told them to fuck off when they took the criminal, insane and stupid decision of invading Iraq and wanted their friends to "play along". If the leaders of the nations that bought the "coalition of the willing" bullshit were any democratic they would have done the same, since the populations' support for Dubya's war for oil was near zero throughout most of Europe (and in the rest of the world, by the way).
They created the shit by yourselves. Now let them roll in it.
Taking into account they owe so much to the French [wikipedia.org], these bigot jokes are extremely ingrate and rude.
I'm not French.
Re:It's over... it's all over (Score:4, Interesting)
But the main issue was the effort to preserve the peace, the effort to acceed to the "reasonable demands" of the "champion of the poor" (that would be Adolf Hitler).
Just to show you how desperate (and mind-boggingly naive and stupid) the attempts to "make peace" with Nazi Germany were. Here's the story of the start of WWII, according to wikipedia [wikipedia.org] :
On 30 August the Polish Navy sent its destroyer flotilla to Britain, executing Operation Peking. On the same day, Marshal of Poland Edward Rydz-migy announced the mobilization of Polish troops. However, he was pressured into revoking the order by the French, who apparently still hoped for a diplomatic settlement, failing to realize that the Germans were fully mobilized and concentrated at the Polish border. On 31 August 1939, Hitler ordered hostilities against Poland to start at 4:45 the next morning. Because of the prior stoppage, Poland managed to mobilize only 70% of its planned forces, and many units were still forming or moving to their designated frontline positions.
Just so you know, the exact event is that the French Foreign minister convinced the Polish ministry of defence to give a demobilization order, 1 hour and 15 minutes after Hitler's attack had started at full strength (after the switch from sabotage operations, false-flag attacks and covert operations into full-scale open warfare, Hitler had already been attacking Poland for weeks covertly, something the French knew). After the war it would be shown that the French foreign ministry was well-informed about the state of German troops, and while they didn't find out about the attack order until about 7 AM, they did not feel the need to inform Poland (again this was done "to preserve the peace", according to archives).
The French believed they could acquiesce to Hitler's demands, and thus avoid a conflict. The reasons are that they really, really did not want to fight. The reasons for that included that at that time, Hitler was the hero, both of French Nazi's and of the French lefties, including socialists and communists, and even (quite large) parts of "center" parties. With the center parties Hitler was mainly seen as a preferable alternative to communism. While the "rightist" party was not convinced, even they found the "alternative" to communism a compelling part of fascist ideology.
Those center politicians saw Hitler as someone who could bring social justice without bringing the well-known disaster that communism was. This was, however only a real argument in the center parties. He was (in 1940) not openly anti-capitalism, he just insisted on "controls" on management and ownership. He was not openly anti-religious (he even attempted to ally himself with the Pope, who refused, and allied himself with the muslim "caliph", who jumped at the chance, Aymin al Husseini of Jerusalem, who would later help him create the SS and the extermination camps, providing sites, food and troops. Yes one of the dirty secrets of WWII is that the islamic religious establishment created several extermination camps, in addition to providing logistical and even military troops to others. The muslims did this, knowing full well what the camps were for (or at least, the upper echelon knew)).
Because no-one fully realized what national socialism stood for, and what Hitler was capable of to achieve his "social justice" (that's what it was about for him). Hitler was not a good speaker, but he did realize one thing : a politician should make speaches that convey little meaning and not discuss policy or make clear statements under any circumstances, because if people don't know your ideology, it allows people who were mortal enemies (religious parties and communists, for example) to both vote for you. He pionieered the "victimhood rhetoric" that is so prevalent today, accusing any and all political opponents of "hating" the poor, muslims (yes
Re:It's over... it's all over (Score:5, Insightful)
The French believed they could acquiesce to Hitler's demands, and thus avoid a conflict. The reasons are that they really, really did not want to fight. The reasons for that included that at that time, Hitler was the hero, both of French Nazi's and of the French lefties, including socialists and communists, and even (quite large) parts of "center" parties
Cut the crap. The reason why France did not want to fight was because they fought an extremely bitter war with Germany few decades earlier and they hadn't yet recovered from it. To give you some scale: UK lost 2.19% of it's population in WW2. Germany lost 3.82%. France lost 4.29%. Not to mention the fact that the fighting in the West happened mostly on French soil.
But still they went to war. And they were defeated (together with UK) by the most powerful military force in the world. Should they feel ashamed by that? Hardly. Only thing that saved UK from the same fate was the Channel. And in the end it took the combined force of UK, USA, USSR, France and Canada to ultimately defeat Germany. Yet France is supposed to feel ashamed because Germany defeated them?
For comparison, USA lost whopping 0.13% of it's population in WW1.... In fact, USA has had it amazingly easy in it's wars. Look at Winter War [wikipedia.org]. Had USA suffered similar casualties as Finland did, it would have meant losses of over 1 million men in a war that lasted 105 days.
Re:It's over... it's all over (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. There is no reason to single out the French as cowards, or generally to attribute military skill to national character. Experience is what makes the difference. The difference in British performance in 1940 and in 1944 makes that very clear, I think.
Poland was occupied fairly quickly in 1939 by Germany and the Soviet Union because of the sheer military strength of the aggressors, even though soldiers at both sides were green and performed comparably. Contrary to the impression German propaganda has created, this was a trying experience for the German army.
In 1940, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France were overrun quickly one after the other by increasingly experienced German veterans. Most of these armies fought too short (or not at all in the case of Denmark) to have the time to absorb the lessons given by the Germans. Most individual soldiers and most army units never fought the Germans in more than one encounter. Importantly, the British in 1940 performed no better than the continental armies they cooperated with. In all armies there are cases of exemplary courage, and of units that fought above expectations, and cases of the opposite.
In 1941 the Germans overreach themselves by attacking the Soviet Union. In 1943 and 1944 the British and Americans open additional fronts by invading Italy and France; British are by now mostly considered veteran by their German opponents, while the American units are mostly green when first fielded. Because the balance of power now favors the Allies (more firepower, air superiority), green Allied units now do survive their first encounter without falling apart or surrendering and do gain experience fast.
The outcome of 1940 has little to do with courage and a lot with political choices in 1937-1939. I don't believe at all that the US, if it had been on the European continent, would have acted very differently.
Re:so where were you for the first 2 years of the (Score:4, Informative)
At the time, there was a lot of anti-another-goddamn-EuroWar sentiment in the U.S. The Japanese were seen by many as not threatening anyone with death except the poor Chinese and other Asians. The reports of Nazi atrocities were not given the moral relevance they clearly should have. One could argue that WWII woke up the Americans to not neglecting evil in the world and resulted in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq (regardless of whether evil was actually there in the case of Vietnam). Mind you the antiwar crowd was and still is not weak, however the leaders in Washington appear to break on the side of kill'em now so we don't have to kill'em later...well, some of them. There is also a segment of "gee, if the U.S. gets another 9/11 while I'm in office, I'll be out of office shortly." The anti-war crowd seems convinced the world would be a bunny world if the U.S. just left it alone.
So the quick answer, if it is an answer, they are all wrong and right, but not in equal measures.
By the way, as long as we are assigning blame, Europe, sans Germany, is also responsible for WWII. Starting with not stepping on Hitler early on, to the non-Germans aiding the Nazies, to Switzerland which was just so neutral it had no balls when it would have counted.
It means a lot when Defense systems move over (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It means a lot when Defense systems move over (Score:4, Interesting)
MS has a reputation for adding security as an afterthought, which almost always makes for very poor quality security. The whole "secure by design" concept just isn't part of their general dev cycle. Looks like this TrustedBird is taking an already solid base and hardening it, which is not necessarily the ideal way to go, but certainly beats the alternative of trying to harden something that's very soft to start with.
Kudos to them for open sourcing it.
Re: (Score:2)
MS has a reputation for adding security as an afterthought, which almost always makes for very poor quality security. The whole "secure by design" concept just isn't part of their general dev cycle.
Supposedly Microsoft "learned their lesson" back in 2002, and Bill Gates loudly trumpeted Microsoft's "Trustworthy Computing" initiative back then...
“As problems with [its approach to software development] have surfaced over the years, Microsoft patched the utility or application in question rather than reconsidering the basic architecture which left these avenues of attack open,” comments Dan Kusnetzky, director of worldwide operating environments for IDC. “Since Microsoft users have been
Re:It means a lot when Defense systems move over (Score:5, Funny)
French women have exceptional skills in that department.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Shh, don't tell the BSD license fans, the GPL works as intended.
Choice of Commandos (Score:4, Funny)
That's not saying much.
Britney Spears underwear is a lot more secure than Outlook.
French thunderbirds rock (Score:5, Insightful)
Take a look at some of the footage of those French fighter jocks doing terrain avoidance at a few feet high. Incredible.
As for thunderbird the email program, I like some things about 3, and not others. I'm glad the devs allow you to switch the old toolbar back on. Much better than the Mozilla Firefox attitude of forcing you into changes you don't want to make.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm glad the devs allow you to switch the old toolbar back on. Much better than the Mozilla Firefox attitude of forcing you into changes you don't want to make.
They force you to upgrade?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Security fixes aren't around forever for old branches, so essentially yes.
Re: (Score:2)
You can't expect them to maintain old versions forever. Besides, you're always free to backport FF3's applicable security fixes to FF2 on your own, if you really want to keep using FF2 that much.
(I don't usually like "do it yourself" as a response to "it's missing a bugfix/feature/whatever", but in the case of no-longer-supported open source software I think it's acceptable.)
Re: (Score:2)
Haven't the time or the programming chops, and I don't care enough to pay someone to maintain an old branch.
It's a bit different with, say, Debian, who will happily apply security fixes to old software for a few years, but when one is running Windows (in an institutional environment, say), that's not really an option.
Re:French thunderbirds rock (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a balance between "maintain old versions forever" and "Firefox attitude of forcing you into changes you don't want to make."
Yeah - I think they struck that balance fairly. They only issue critical security fixes for Firefox 2. They don't force the upgrade through code. They don't pop up warnings saying "OMG UR FOXFIRE IS TEH OLD".
My point was, if there was sufficient demand out there for Firefox 2, someone would fork the codebase and continue developing it under some other name. That's how the open source community works.
It's not obnoxious to point out that it's silly to refuse to let the developers take their project in the direction they want to take it. You don't have to like it - use some other browser, if it's that important to you.
You can maintain only one version AND give everybody the UI they love, just make it an option.
... unless the two UIs have sufficiently different code, in which case you are asking them to maintain two essentially distinct versions, and of course maintaining two separate UIs can make UI-related bugs much more difficult to fix.
I'm not disagreeing with you that a lot of people like the old toolbar. But while it may be arrogant of the Firefox team to arbitrarily choose a new direction for their UI (though it is, you know, their project, so if anyone has a right to determine its course, it's them), it's at least equally arrogant of you to expect them to maintain two separate UIs just because some users happen to like the old one.
There is more than one way people could get the old behavior back. Maybe a plugin. Maybe a fork. But guess what - that's the beauty of the open source world. If you don't like the direction a project is taking, you have other options - nobody forces Firefox 2 users to use Firefox 3 (ceasing security updates is not "forcing people to upgrade", no matter which way you paint it). Nobody forces you to stay with Firefox at all.
If you don't like Firefox 3's awesomebar, there's nothing wrong with that. Switch to Opera, or Chrome, or Safari, or (shudder) IE, or any of the other dozen web browsers out there. It's not like there's a lack of choices when it comes to browsers.
I'll be honest - I didn't notice any significant UI changes between FF2 and FF3. I can't think of any behavior of the old toolbar which the new toolbar doesn't do. For my usage patterns, at least, the new toolbar works exactly like the old toolbar, but more... awesome. Maybe I'm atypical, but isn't it possible that the Firefox 3 devs think I'm typical? Isn't it possible that the Firefox 3 devs are catering to people with my usage patterns? Maybe they have some usage pattern data that they're basing their decisions on. I highly doubt it's just arbitrary.
No they nag you into upgrading. (Score:3, Informative)
They force you to upgrade?
Install Firefox 2 and see how often you get nagged to upgrade. Then there's the fact that security fixes are only released for the latest browser, extensions don't support the old version etc.
I'd love to have Firefox 1.0 co-exist with 3.0 but it'd be a pain in the neck to run with all the nagging.
At Least... (Score:5, Interesting)
If only more could see that! With every new user, especially military organizations and government agencies, there are more bug fixes, more patches and more useful features added into the open source projects they use. That in turn makes the projects more appealing, more competitive and generally better, which closes the loop by enticing more to adopt it. We just need to get the ball rolling and, most importantly, to break old notions of open source being garage-geek-type material; I think we've seen all around us that we've evolved from that point.
Re:At Least... (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't mention OpenOffice while talking about how secure, stable, and worthwhile OSS can be. This is really only meaningful because people are starting to wake up and realize there are superior alternatives out there. But that doesn't apply to OO - OpenOffice is freer but it's not better. OpenOffice is a total mess of staggeringly bloated Java components. It's by far the most sluggish, memory-devouring application on my machine and integrates badly with my GTK theme. And there aren't any good ideas in OO, it's like someone bought Office 2003, made a list of features they saw, and tried to implement as many as possible throwing everything together without any kind of purpose or vision other than to take as much market share as possible away from MS office.
Gnumeric and AbiWord, on the other hand, are actually usable. The project knows what it wants, and continually refines toward that purpose, while OpenOffice scrambles to throw in new features every time someone discovers a use case that Office handles and they don't. A good sign that a project is maturing is when someone asks for a relevant feature that makes sense, and the project says no. I don't think openoffice has ever said no.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
A good sign that a project is maturing is when someone asks for a relevant feature that makes sense, and the project says no.
That doesn't sound very mature to me.
Re:At Least... (Score:5, Interesting)
"Gnumeric and AbiWord, on the other hand, are actually usable."
+1 on Gnumeric. It's the best spreadsheet app I've used (and I tend to use a lot of numerical and symbolic math stuff for work).
AbiWord, on the other hand, does have some potential, but they're still missing fundamental features like the ability to actually write using CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) scripts, something just about every other app of any kind out there can handle by now.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
OpenOffice is a total mess of staggeringly bloated Java components. It's by far the most sluggish, memory-devouring application on my machine and integrates badly with my GTK theme.
I think this is a bit of an exageration. I use OpenOffice on XP at work and OSX at home and find that performance is at an acceptable level. Everything that I need to do in an office suite I can do in OpenOffice and I've found with each release it's slowly improving.
And there aren't any good ideas in OO, it's like someone bought Office 2003, made a list of features they saw, and tried to implement as many as possible throwing everything together without any kind of purpose or vision other than to take as much market share as possible away from MS office.
There are a lot of good ideas, they're just not original ideas but this is not unique to OpenOffice. It's not as polished as MS Office but I don't find it as thrown together as you're implying.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
OpenOffice is written in C++. The Java bits are optional (I don't use them, though I use Gentoo and it may be harder to disable them completely on other platforms).
Now, I'm not saying OpenOffice isn't a bloated mess, but have you tried MS Office? It's kinda another bloated mess.
Re: (Score:2)
> If only more could see that!
Careful. If it becomes very important to them they may decide they need to control it.
How About a Plain Text Mode? (Score:5, Interesting)
Doing away with all of the potential HTML, javascript, Java, Flash etc vulnerabilities by having a forced plain text only mode would sure help with security and privacy issues.
Re:How About a Plain Text Mode? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You already can set Thunderbird to run operate only in text mode (for 2.0 at least).
ToolBar -> view -> message body as -> Plain Text
+
Tools -> Options -> composition -> General -> Send Options -> Text Format = Convert the message to plain text
(or = Send the message in both plain text and HTML)
Open source software and govt's (Score:5, Interesting)
This [archive.org] is a letter written by a representative of Peru's government to a representative of Microsoft in 2002, explaining to MS exactly why the government feels that free software is necessary on their computers. Not only does it provide some insightful reasons as to why they're using FOSS, but you get a chance to laugh at the Microsoft rep's arguments.
Re:Open source software and govt's (Score:5, Insightful)
> Access to source code is necessary in order to ensure that secrets remain
> secret and the software is up to any custom tasks the government might
> require.
That is, unfortunately, not a strong argument for Free Software as governments (and other large organizations) often can and do purchase access to proprietary source code.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, if a government really can buy access to source code, you could just file this as yet another expense saved by using open software. I can't imagine Microsoft charging a government a trivial amount for Windows source code.
Re:Open source software and govt's (Score:4, Interesting)
So let me ask you this, when Microsoft or Adobe, etc give these governments the "source code" do they allow compilation of the resulting binary from the given source... with deployment of that binary as production-level binary?
The whole "shared source" concept fails when it comes to security because you can't VERIFY the source code is what you have in your binary unless you have the entire toolchain necessary to build, execute, and formally test the binaries you will deploy in your organization.
Re: (Score:2)
> So let me ask you this, when Microsoft or Adobe, etc give these governments
> the "source code" do they allow compilation of the resulting binary from the
> given source... with deployment of that binary as production-level binary?
Why don't you ask the governments? They (nor Microsoft and Adobe) are certainly not about to tell me. I do know that some other software vendors do allow this.
Personally, I use Free Software wherever I can, which is almost everywhere. However, I don't let my support fo
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
That is, unfortunately, not a strong argument for Free Software as governments (and other large organizations) often can and do purchase access to proprietary source code.
The key word there is "purchase" - with open source software the source code is (by definition) free. If $ORGANIZATION mentions "we can purchase access to Office 2003's source code", the simple response is "why purchase something you can get for free?" (Obviously that won't always work, but it's a counter-argument, at least.)
That isn't what the article said (Score:2)
The military found Mozilla's open source design permitted France to build security extensions, while Microsoft's secret, proprietary software allowed no tinkering.
So the French Military do not seem to have this access to the source code that you are talking about. Do you have first hand knowledge of Microsoft sharing Outlook code with governments and allowing them to build modified versions?
That explains... (Score:3, Funny)
why it keeps quitting unexpectedly whenever I receive emails from Germany ;-).
Re: (Score:2)
That's more inventive than the obvious "surrender" jokes. :-)
France: going OSS like the rest of EU but better (Score:5, Informative)
Re:France: going OSS like the rest of EU but bette (Score:5, Informative)
Being french and working with various agencies, I can give a few more information.
First, you should know that it's the military police (the gendarmerie) that switched to ubuntu, not the civilian police. The military have been using open source for years now and switching the gendarmerie is only one big step in a much bigger plan to move away from proprietary software. The justice department has not switched yet as far as I know.
On the civil departments side, there is a division (the DCSSI http://www.ssi.gouv.fr/archive/en/dcssi/index.html) that push for open source software and good practices in use by the government. All departments are ordered to follow those recommendations where it makes sense. They don't recommend to drop existing proprietary solutions unless it saves money. They do recommend new solutions to be open source though. It seems they changed their name again in the recent months though, but their mission statement remains the same: http://www.ssi.gouv.fr/site_rubrique88.html
Another impact this is having is the creation of various websites for public use. For example there is a website about computer security aimed to the general public: http://www.securite-informatique.gouv.fr/index.html
In the central government the move to open source is already well in progress. But I can't say it's the same nationwide, yet.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Thats a very smart move... (Score:2)
...know the software your enemy is using - then you can know your enemy.
Bias much? (Score:2)
Gee, I wonder what this Mr. Roques' bias might be...
Cheers,
Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begin (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is one thing that is certain in this world, its that if someone says "The French" or "France" within hearing of any US Citizen, the immediate response will be an endless string of "Surrender" or "SurrenderMonkey" Jokes.
Caveat: I am not French just to clarify that. I am (English) Canadian, and I don't even particularly like the French myself.
It gets awfully tiring to be reminded of just how fucking bigotted the US is in this way. You should get over yourselves already.
Yes, the French got their asses kicked in WWII, whatever. Any nation invaded by Germany at that time would have suffered the same fate (and many of them did). You got your asses kicked in Vietnam, even if you don't want to admit it. You pulled your forces out before anyone had to surrender of course.
All these jokes serve to accomplish is to remind me just how fucking ignorant, narrow minded, bigotted and offensive the US can be at times. They make you look like nothing more than a nation of assholes. Then you wonder why the peoples of many other nations find Americans offensive.
Of course none of you seem to have enough education or enough wit to recall that during the Napoleonic period, France was the most respected and feared nation on earth. They conquered pretty much all of Europe and it took the combined might of England, The Austro-Hungarian Empire, Prussia, Russia and others to eventually defeat them after 20 years of warfare. At that point in time the US couldn't even carry out a successful invasion of Canada, and we (as the British) burnt the White House in response.
I for one would like to see this fucking "meme" be laid to rest. It was always present but seems to have been resurrected when the French decided not to commit forces to the first Gulf War (because it wasn't authorized by the UN I believe).
Now, queue all the responses from people calling me a "liberal", "faggot", "commie", "pinko" etc, because I criticized the US (I am none of those things by the way). What I am, is tired of seeing US citizens act like a bunch of fucking ignorant assholes, and then wondering why people think they are a bunch of fucking ignorant assholes :P
Yes, yes I have met many very decent and nice Americans, they just don't seem to post in response to their fellow citizens offensive shit that crops up like this every few days.
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:2)
NICE TRY. You can't restart a dead meme that easily, especially when the article is positive about France.
Mod parent DOWN.
Re: (Score:2)
... except the two dozen "surrender" jokes above your parent post suggest otherwise.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes, a joke is just a joke. No strings attached, no intent to offend, no distaste for others, just a comment made in jest. The same people that make the surrender jokes will often make fun of their own nation just as quickly.
Try removing your head from your ass, you might see things a bit more clearly.
Re:Uranian Head Cheese (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:5, Insightful)
I, like the GP and most people with half a brain are sick of the same tired old "France surrenders, huh, huh" jokes trotted out when even so much as a croissant is referenced. I saw one about Thunderbird crashing whenever it receives a message from Germany and thought that it was semi original enough to justify a funny rating but for the most part such comments are uninspired, unfunny, tired old surrender jokes being trotted out time and time again which we've all heard before.
Maybe the comments are in jest, maybe someone has an anti-France agenda but if you do make derogatory comments in jest make sure they are funny, otherwise they just become annoying.
BTW, at least don't display an ignorance of history, the French resistance did far more harm to the Nazi's then the Vichy collaborators did good for the Nazi's. Much of the early war intel, including several parts of "Ultra" came from resistance fighters who risked their lives and families lives to get that intel.
Naaaah (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah , but Americans are pretty fucked when it comes to derogatory jokes about them. Like how they are such pussies they can't even go to war unless they pick on a country that can't defend itself against air power - and even then pimply nerds do most of it by remote control.
The French surrendered against a kind of warfare that had only appeared very shortly before their invasion and then fought a very successful underground campaign against the aggressors, much like the Iraqis have done. Good on them. Beats a bunch of wusses that don't even have the balls to surrender properly to a bunch of midgets in black pajamas when they are licked, despite having all the jets, agent orange and napalm.
I too know plenty of decent Americans, but this vocal peanut gallery makes me sick, especially this anti-French bullshit. Even Kiwis don't generally hang the same level of shit on them. You guys go on and on because they won't join you in your international armed robbery? Good on them for having some balls, even if they are the stinky cheese ball variety.
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"Yeah , but Americans are pretty fucked when it comes to derogatory jokes about them."
Thanks for proving GP's point.
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"The same people that make the surrender jokes will often make fun of their own nation just as quickly."
Bold claim, backed up by NOTHING, followed by insults. Anonymous, no less. Why does that not surprise?
But while we're at it: what is "just a joke"? What meanings and functions can a joke have, which do apply here? "It's just a joke, shut up now" is just a feeble attempt by weak intellects to shut down any pondering/discussion of that.
Specific members of the French military contributed specific code to Thu
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, you don't hear many jokes about Poland, The Netherlands or Belgium being invaded by the Germans. Perhaps the French history as a great nation and the cultural arrogance that comes from that makes them more of a valid target to joke about.
But with that said: the French were absolutely right about standing up to Bush against an unnecessary war. All they had to do was commit a symbolic number of troops to "fight" in some relatively peaceful outback region like other countries did. If only more people stood up to the false claims...
Now, years later, we know that the primary achievement of the whole Iraq war effort has been to transform their country from a secular dictatorship to a theocratic dictatorship. This at the mere cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, thousands of US military lives and tens of thousands of civilian lives.
So much for them Freedom Fries, eh...
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, years later, we know that the primary achievement of the whole Iraq war effort has been to transform their country from a secular dictatorship to a theocratic dictatorship.
It's worth mentioning that most American foreign interventions before Iraq had been for the purpose of removing democratically elected politicians and replacing them with pro-US dictators. The missions don't always succeed, but the outcome is always disastrous for the inhabitants.
Next time a anyone mentions "liberating" a foreign country, think about the Philippines, Chile, Indonesia, El Salvador, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, Vietnam, Laos, Afghanistan, Guatemala, the Seminoles, and Haiti.
I've probably missed a few in there, but anyone with a grasp of US history with regard to foreign interventions should be quite skeptical of any claims of "liberation" or "promoting democracy" abroad.
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But with that said: the French were absolutely right about standing up to Bush against an unnecessary war. All they had to do was commit a symbolic number of troops to "fight" in some relatively peaceful outback region like other countries did. If only more people stood up to the false claims...
If this is the French version of standing up to Bush, then perhaps they deserve what other people say about them. A recent-ish survey I cannot currently locate claims that the French hate themselves more than anyone else does, so perhaps further they know something we don't. There is a lot of bad blood left over from war between the English and French, and Americans are more British than they know, having retained many of the attitudes and prejudices of that past. I can't help but notice that the USA and th
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:5, Interesting)
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The thinking (according to this article or whatnot) was to keep up morale after such a disastrous outcome by essentially claiming that any other nation would have managed to fight them off but that the French are weak and gave up without a fight.
It helps that this apparently was pretty much true. In the book, Collapse of the Third Republic [wikipedia.org], by William L. Shirer, the author not only discusses the military defeat in 1940, but also a number of political factors, some of which (eg, the Dreyfus affair [wikipedia.org]) preceded both world wars. My impression is that France became so politically divided (between liberal and conservative forces, much as is present in most if not all democratic countries) in the 30's that defeat of the political opposition was considered a
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:5, Informative)
--Coder
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually I think you'll find that Kiwis, Aussies and especially the Brits enjoy the "surrender monkey" theme just as much. All of us (including Canada of course) sent troops to France on D-Day so I think we're entitled to a little fun. Perhaps Canadians are just too polite - eh?
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It gets awfully tiring to be reminded of just how fucking bigotted the US is in this way.
Apparently isn't not bigotry if you're the one doing it, right? Way to go.
..re: Well Excuuuuuuse Meeeeeeee! (Score:2)
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Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:5, Interesting)
Not that I think the jokes about the French are generally either funny or anything other than counterproductive, but they don't spring from Americans being "ignorant, narrow minded, [or] bigoted." They spring from the fact that France basically has never come to terms with the reality of what happened in WWII (see "Paris se libere!" [bbc.co.uk]), the rabid anti-Americanism which de Gaulle exhibited, and the many ways in which France has done things which are not only to its allies' disadvantage but also to its own disadvantage- for no other reason than to try to stick it to the Americans (and sometimes the Brits). I think the Macmillan paraphrase from that article is relevant- "France, he said, had made peace with Germany, had forgiven Germany for the brutality of invasion and the humiliation of four years of occupation, but it could never - never - forgive the British and Americans for the liberation."
You can't really even make much of an attempt to joke about what happened to most of the countries Hitler invaded. But the French pride, arrogance, and rewriting of history have in the past made it easier for people to find jokes about the French to be palatable.
Everyone is Arrogant and Superior (Score:3, Insightful)
I am not an American, I'm actually from Zimbabwe. I promise you that Zimbabweans are as nasty and arrogant and superior as Americans in spite of all the s*** they are in at the moment. :-) I live in Britain and the British are arrogant and superior too, particularly going on all the time about how non arrogant and nice they are and how awesome their own sense of humour is. I see it because I am a foreigner and because when I go back to Zimbabwe I realise I have become a foreigner there too.
You often don't n
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Oh, I think you're pointing too much at the US here. We British have been doing anti-French jokes for a lot longer than that. Hardly something to get all excited about, and I'm sure the French have plenty of jokes of their own.
Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi (Score:5, Insightful)
[Patrick Stewart voice] Gods! What a moron! [/Patrick Stewart voice] If the French are to be blamed for anything after WWI, it is for being too *aggressive* against the Germans. They crippled the German economy with vengeful reparations. They invaded and occupied the Ruhr. If it hadn't been for the post-WWI aggression of the French, Adolph Hitler would most likely have remained a unknown, raving anti-Semite and an artistic and political failure.
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the countries where we did stop Communism are markedly better off now, in particular North vs. South Korea.
This might have something to do with the war killing 1/4 of all North Koreans and utterly destroying all of its infrastructure, followed by economic sanctions that would bring any country to mass starvation.
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I'm proud to be an American.
I'm proud to live in that dot over here. My friend wishes he had been born on the dot on the other side of the map, though. If only.
'best in the world, no exception' (Score:2)
More secure than Outlook? (Score:5, Funny)
Encryption ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Not really here nor there, just something to mention.
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Please down vote parent, encryption up to 128 bits is allowed it's what's higher that's illegal (but not really enforced).
Please ignore cowardly comment above, GP was talking about the past, where (as per link) it was formerly, even fairly recently illegal to use any kind of encryption whatsoever. French SWAT teams wear opaque masks [ebay.com] (where a clear one [armorus.net] performs approximately as well) so that they cannot be recognized in court. France has a poor record on privacy and personal rights. Not that the USA doesn't mind you, but the comment is at least slightly relevant — and entirely true.
Which just goes to show... (Score:3, Insightful)
Jules & Vincent Vega (Score:5, Funny)
Vincent Vega: Thunderbird's Thunderbird, but they call it "le Thunderbird".
Jules: "Le Thunderbird"! Ha ha ha ha! What do they call Outlook?"
Vincent Vega: I dunno, I didn't use Windows.
Re:Well, at least we know it'll run well... (Score:5, Insightful)
everyone hates the French (Score:5, Funny)
They imposed ridiculous penalties on Germany after WW1 and allowed Germany to remilitarize, giving birth to Nazi Germany.
They defeated the British Army in the Revolutionary War and provided financial aid to the Continental Army, giving birth to the USA.
Basically the French are directly responsible for the two most hated nations in living memory.
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I think it's safe to say we've paid them back more than once over.
When DeGaulle told Lyndon Johnson he wanted all the American soldiers off of French soil. LBJ responded "When you say you want all American soldiers out of France, General, does that include the ones who are buried here too?"
While the French government has always been odd, the people are generally nice; they just hate the way Merkins speak that Frenchie jibber-jabber.
If you read the battle history of the French Army in WW2, on the whole their reputation as cowards is undeserved. Had there been a land bri
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I went on the mozilla.org ftp site and found a beta of 1.0
But they should have warned us that lihtning was not compatible (yet) and that there is NO built in calendar (as advertised)
I hope they have the calendar built in for Thunderbird 4 (as well as it being waterproof to great depths)
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