Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid...

This story makes me laugh. I found it on a convenient (and aggravating) website that gathers a lot of information from the world press on what everyone is writing about America - WatchingAmerica.com.

Apparently some French business and diplomat types are worried that the Big Brother Americans are spying on them. So, they are being told that they can't use their Blackberries anymore. It turns out that the information from the Canadian-built Blackberry is routed through the U.S. and the U.K. (You know how there are those things that some people do so they think everyone else does them too..?) It seems to me that there are any number of ways to spy now days - there is a lot of technology out there.

It got me thinking that it really riles some Europeans to no end that so much of the technology, innovations, and just plain stuff they use every day originates in the U.S. Let's review what they're thinking:

1. Personal Computers - Guys, we really shoulda came up with this one. I mean these were some college-dropout Californian losers hanging around in their garages for Chrissakes!
2. Microsoft - How come every day I turn on my computer I have to see that damn "Windows" screen! Why doesn't anybody use Linux around here? There must be something evil that the Americans are doing to be on everyone's computer so let's sue the crap out of 'em and try to put a stop to this. We sure don't have Jack to enter in the race.
3. GPS - More nasty American military technology that we use on a daily basis. This really pisses us off. We can do better, right guys? Let's put our own satellites up there - it's easy right? They must be spying or something too. You know that they will probably just turn it off if there is a war or something... We would never do that.
4. Boeing - We are sick and tired of always flying on those damn American jets. They have been so bad for the world. Moving millions of people all over the place since, well for a very long time. Let's get our own company and build the biggest freaking jet in the world. Of course we will have to use government money, but we are gonna kick their asses...
5. The internet - No, no not that too! OK we know it came about because of more nasty military inspired reasons but we really use this one a lot. We woulda done this ourselves right? Uh, maybe not because we don't have a military - armies are so... crude. And our track record with the whole "world war" thing is not great.. Not sure we can make our own.... How about we ignore this one?
6. Ipod - Again with these innovations! Apple must be evil too. They have a monopoly, yeahh, that's it. Their songs don't work on everyone else's MP3's! How can we stop our young people from buying this stuff? Let's sue them too.
7. Google, Yahoo, et al. - Guys, I can feel it coming. Google's going to be bigger than Microsoft and I'm not sure this suing them thing is gonna work... And our people really, really like Google. I don't think we're going to be able to tell them to just not use it...
   
8. The English Language - I guess Esperanto is not going to work out, and it doesn't look like French is really the language of diplomacy. Well, English is really from Europe.. It's not that bad. And everyone knows that English spoken with a British accent is much better than that low-class American babel.

I don't know but it seems to me that when a European company comes up with something better and kicks our asses in the market we just say to ourselves, "Alright, they kicked our asses, let's try harder..." It does not inspire a huge inferiority complex that then turns into paranoia.

I really hope Europe is successful with the airplanes, the GPS, etc., and I'm even willing to take the chance on them getting a military someday too. We could use a break. And just for fun, I want to see protests in front of the EU embassies. By the way, are there EU embassies?