Smog Grounds Aerial Acrobats

[evworldeditor]

The French aerobatic team, Patrouille de France, was forced at the very last moment to cancel its planned demonstration for the people of Beijing due to "heavy autumn haze" a euphemism for "smog."

The importance of this event might go otherwise unnoticed except for the fact that it is part of a 40th anniversary celebration called the "French Cultural Year in China" at which French President Jaques Chirac was slated to attend. He's in Beijing this week to mark the event, which includes a major showing of French impressionists.

More interestingly -- to Boeing's dismay -- is the announcement that the Chinese have agreed to buy 26 Airbus aircraft.

One gets the distinct impression that the French are taking advantage of America's current pre-occupation in Iraq and the 'war on terror' to forge greater economic and cultural ties with the Chinese.

http://bjtoday.ynet.com/article.jsp?oid=3870165&pageno=1

[The Traveler]

1. A new alignment

may well emerge, with China as the sun around which other nations orbit.

Worldwide perception of America has changed, and obviously not for the better. In foreign democracies, we can expect this to affect the outcomes of elections. Gradually, other nations will align themselves so as to protect themselves politically, economically and even militarily against us.

China has not been, and will not be, shy about developing such alignments. If Bush is re-elected, I expect this trend to accelerate. If Bush is "re-selected", I expect this trend to accelerate even more rapidly because the world wide perception will be that American democracy is dead.

Neo-cons, in their arrogance, believe this is impossible ("everone knows WE are the good guys") or of little consequence. It is difficult to determine what their views really are on these matters. In any event, there seems to be little, of anything, they can do about it. With a few exceptions, nobody out there trusts Bush anymore.

[Mika]

2. Maybe then we'll get Chinese outsourced jobs, here in America

Then, we'll reimport the crap we make for Chinese multinationals. :crazy:

[The Traveler]

3. Things do tend to go full circle ...