America and France Brother and Sister

France and America

1. Are the only two countries in the world with operational aircraft carriers. That's 'operational' , as in working.The  Chinese ex_ukranian bathtub won't be  fully operational for at least two years and the Russian Ad Kutnetsov breaks day twice a day and limps from port to port.  

2. Are both obsessed with food  - yet have no idea what to do with a simple potato

3. Are both No 1 and 2 food exporting nations in the world

4. Both have the largest subsidized agricultural sectors in the world

5. Are both pioneers in Aviation Wright brothers Lindbergh Earhart Bleriot Montgolfier First parachutist male and female were French

6. Both are staunchly Republican yet deify ‘celebrities’   Michael Jackson Gerhard Depardieu in a manner that only India comes close to.

7. Both of them, out of the same monumental cussidness ,  run second rate health systems because the Brits have implemented the one that works. The Americans put Accounts payable between the patient and the doctor the French put a Kafkaesque bureaucracy between the patient and the doctor

8. Both countries waste public space - probably because there is so much of it , yet neither appreciate the economic ramifications of doing so.

9. Both Americans and the French favour form over content. In both cultures what you say is not important but rather the way you say it which is important. . In any kind of discourse with either Americans or French pose takes precedence over prose.  Which explains the last dozen or so American and French presidents.

10. Both use foreign troops to fight their most dangerous wars. The French have their foreign legion , the Americans use my brothers in PMC's. South Africans are the third largest contributer to the body counts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But like casualities in the Foreign legion they cause no political ripples. They don't exist on anyones political landscape.  

11. Both countries had their arse’s kicked by the Vietnamese and the Arabs.

12. Neither the French not the Americans do irony.

13. France and America are both approximately the same age. US 1776 France 1798  ( Apres le Ancien Regime )

14. Both the US and France have Disneyworlds

15. Neither fully realized their dreams of Empire and world domination and both hate the Brits with equal ferocity on that account.

16. Neither the French nor the Americans will answer another person’s phone in their absence.

17. In India one farmer commits suicide every 30 minutes. India is a developing country. In France and the US , developed countries ,  more than one farmer  commits suicide  every day. In the UK it is barely once a week. The high suicide rates of French and US Farmers takes place in spite  of ( or maybe because of according to some analysts ) the fact that both countries have instituted bodies to mitigate suicides amongst farmers . In France it is the ‘Mutalite Sociale Agricole’ and in the US it is the Federal Farm Support program.  Both employ bailiffs who push the farmers over the edge and then employ  councilors to ‘help’ the grieving widows. So whilst neither does irony they both do cynicism – in spades.

18. Mayonnaise was invented in both France and the US as were  sewing machines and clothing irons

19. Both countries have an element named after them , Francium and Americium ( and yes Polonium named by a Frenchman well )

20. Both America and France were and still are pioneers in the nuclear industry.

21. Both America and France were pioneers of the Personal Computer. In fact the worlds’ first was French  -- the MICRAL in 1972

22. Both Americans and French love grandiose job titles. Eg I am ‘Ingenier Base de Donnees’ what a laugh. I worked for an American company once as a Cost and Scheduling Engineer -  lol – I was a planning clerk.

23. Both express faux shock and horror at any mention of each other yet they are the only major countries today (and yes Portugal and the UK but it is a moot point whether Portugal counts as a major country anymore) who have never ever been at war with each other.

24. In both cultures it is important to ‘emote’.

25. Both countries have an extensive collection of islands in the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean.

26. Have both had revolutions.

Just how much more alike can two countries be ?????? 

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A replica of the statue of Liberty on the Seine