Well, rooting for St. Louis woud cause anybody to be kicked out of Olanthe. I've been to Europe, many more times then Sen. Obama, and inspite of what some may think I do not have any animosity towards anyone living there. Well, maybe the English seeing as how my relatives left Scotland to get away from those pestilental descendents of German nobility.

But like Gabriel Marquez Garcia mentioned that he could tell in an instant by watching how someone walked whether he was European or American but he admitted that he couldn't tell the difference between the countries. That the Americans, both continents, walked always toward something while the European simply retraced where he had walked before. Of course there are Europeans that are just as energetic and nonconformist as the Americans but that number seems to spend an awful lot of time trying to get tourist visas or green cards to reverse the decline.

Herodotus, probably the first tourist who came back and wrote about the colorful people he saw and their strange habits, remarked that the Egyptians he saw were not the builders of the pyramids but merely those who lived in the shadows. And the Europeans of today, the exception of course being some nifty new buildings in Paris and anythng by Gaudi in Barcelona, are living in the shadows of others. And unfortunately content to bask in any stray shaft of light that illuminates the shade.

It is nice to see that David has decided his enemies are no longer racists when he can charge them with being anti-Semites just as easily. To these ears cosmopolitan is either a chicks magazine, a drink or people that can subdue any issue by nuance and identifying the validity of the opposing argument.

During a period when the dollar had a stronger value compared to the Euro, 1.15-1.01 net migration from France was .3 per 1,000. Yet today when the Euro was briefly considered the got to currency with an almost 50% increase in value vs. the dollar, the net migration from France is five times greater than when the Euro was weak, 1.6 per thousand. The net loss of French citizens is not connected to the value of the Euro at all but appears to be more of a lack of opportunity, a moribund population and a lack of room for advancement.

Let's see I posted some facts concerning the actual Euro to Dollar ratio and the five fold increase in French emigration, which is not the same for holiday homes or study, but actually moving to a different country. And the response is basically supposition and guess work. Have the rates increased in spite of your claim that the Euro zone has created more incentive to stay or not?

Could you simply address your original claim that the strong Euro is encouraging the French to stay put? What does the unemployment rate have to do with the fact that the ratio of emigres has increased five fold in spite of an advantageous exchange rate and the highest productivity rate in Europe. Unfortunately that productivity rate is also coupled with one of the lowest per capita hours worked and a high personal income tax rate.

I should apologize and note that the change is three fold not five fold as I originally stated. The first link is to the archived CIA World Factbook from 1999 the year the Euro was adopted. While the second is to the same source but the last complete year of statistics, 2007.

http://www.umsl.edu/services/govdocs/wofact99/134.htm#people

http://www.umsl.edu/services/govdocs/wofact2007/geos/fr.html#People

These statistics are collected by the CIA from primarily the country's own numbers and those reported to the UN.

I'm not to sure what the social scientist crack was about unless it means that I didn't make up statistics from something I remember reading or hearing or something on the internet or the radio, or something!

Plus your own statement of "...yeah, I have heard that is called 'moral relativity,' well from people who recall themselves from burke enlight[en]ment." I can accept the difficulty in writing in another language but that statement appears to lump in Burke with people he looked upon as apologists for social chaos and murder. And in spite of the efforts of Jefferson the US has a representative democracy mainly because America, though initially sympathetic, was horrified to see what the followers of Rousseau had accomplished.

I don't know where you got the rather fanciful claim of 4% unemployment as I couldn't find it anywhere however the rate as of July, 2008 was 7.6% which is a full percentage point drop from the year before, 2007's 8.7%.

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ForeignLabour/flsjec.txt

But we're still at the original question of why, with a strong but weakening Euro is emigration from France 3 times higher than before the new Eurozone was created? One could assume that they have something to do with each other and probably be correct.

And you have any source other than opinion and anecdote to bolster your claim that the higher number is silly. If you had bothered to read the description of where the numbers came from then blame your own government not those who use the statistics. I provided you with sources so simply saying you disagree is not much of a reponse other than whistling in the dark. It's your turn now, provide links to sources that back your claims other than stamping your foot on the ground because you don't like the numbers.

Who said anything about 3rd World? You might also want to read your own post as it clearly has the rate as 4 in parenthesis not as you are no claiming .04%. And again why is emigration increasing when unemployment is slightly trending down and the Eurozone still is stroner than the dollar?

Puritans? There is no mention of God as the supreme authority in either the Declaration of Independence or the Preamble to the Constitution. Most of the Puritans in the Americas had essentially been absorbed by the Congregationalists and the Presbyterians by the time of Burke. And their belief that public officials were held accountable only to Christ is plainly something that the rest of the country didn't agree with.

But we are still no further from your attempting an answer to the question of why the French are emigrating faster when, as you claimed, the Euro would make it more attractive to stay? And if you really don't know anything about American history then don't try to pass off hearsay as informed opinion.

The second link is to the Bureau of Labour Statistics using the same methadology as the US which shows that in 1998 before the advent of the Eurozone unemployment in France was 11.2%. Plus the link to Eurostat was for 2006 and that rate was 8.9%. And since you don't seem to trust either the BLS or the CIA numbers then I would suggest not using Eurostat as it uses the BLS numbers. Oops!

So you don't trust the site you provided as proof that France did not have a high unemployment number in 1998 even though that site clearly showed that to be the case? So are you simply saying that regardless of the actual numbers you are holding to some fanciful number because you think they sound better? You can't simply hold your breath and get you way this time!

Good point also the UK, as noted here in an earlier post, is aggressively exporting weapons and this year fulfilled several contracts for both the Eurocopter and some of the new BAE armored transports. Which seem to have an alarming habit of not being very protective of the soldiers inside.

Try the likes of Spinoza, Nietzsche, Hume and Sartre for moral relativism or William James if you meant moral pluralism. Butke would have been astonished and offended to find himself in mentioned in the same breath.