You are an American philistine. You do not display the proper respect to the more mature and cultured European societies. The concept of a diode is lost on you. Criticism only goes one way. For example, a Euro leader may compare Bush with Hitler. A Euro may deride a US President (not all presidents, just one in particular) for seeming lack of intelligence. A Euro may denigrate a US President, likening him to a cowboy. The latter perjorative is particularly annoying to Euros because instead of being upset, many mainstream (i.e. non-Hollywood, non-academic and non-urban sophisticate) Americans actually take pleasure in the attempted insult. But woe betide an American who simply states defensible fact framed in language that illustrates an unpleasent truth. That's an international incident.

Some of you may get great enjoyment out of Den Beste's opinion on the German issue. Or even better, speculative thoughts on various possible French motivations for their behaviour.