Europeans are starting to warm up to the United States. It made me wonder how Democrats, having endured excruciating embarrassment at the uncoolness of Americans in Euro eyes, would take it.

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Tony Blair passed a heavy baton to Bush's new best friend in Old Europe.

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Israelis can sleep better tonight knowing their security is in the hands of more Fins than Frenchmen.  Finland will send 250 troops to Lebanon.  France has pledged 200 troops to defend its former colony.

Italy has offered 2,000 to 3,000 peacekeepers in Lebanon.  The Italian troops have been armored to protect against head butting before the Frenchmen run away.

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Floyd Landis won the Tour de France with a dramatic 80 mile up and down ride high in the French Alps.  It was a thrilling come from behind victory for a guy about to have hip replacement surgery.

The thrill was gone, however, when he tested positive for testosterone.

Landis explains that he's just a very manly man.  "My physiological parameters for testosterone and
epitestosterone are naturally high," …"I was the strongest guy in the stage and in that race,
and I deserved to win," he said.

Or, as James  Taranto said in Opinion Journal,  "Only the French would consider the  presence of testosterone in a man's system suspicious." 

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Frenchman, Zinedine Zidane, responded to an insult from Italian, Marco Materazzi, with a common soccer move… the header.

According to Reuters, World Cup ratings in the U.S. tripled from 2002 to 12 million viewers.  Meanwhile, a Pew poll finds that 52% of Americans have a favorable view of France, up from 46% a year ago.

Coincidence?  I think not.

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The French don't much like to work. 

A 36 hour strike began Monday night because of a new law that would allow employers to fire workers under the age of 26 without cause.  The strike was one hour longer than the average French work week which is 35 hours.  (Bush's 37% approval rating beats both.  Ha ha just kidding.) 

The current French unemployment rate is 9.6%.  For those under 26, the rate is over 20%. The point of the firing law was to make employers less afraid to hire new workers. 

Apparently, the average 20 year old in France has the same workplace security as a tenured professor at Yale.  And you know what that gets you:  Taliban undergrads.

So while the original lumpen French chopped off the heads of their betters, and modern Chinese stood up to government tanks, France's current best and brightest demand a return ticket to the government womb.

Freedom fries, anyone?

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French vehicles became the new freedom fries as Arab and North African immigrants went on a car burning rampage. French leaders proved not to be Franks, who were early German tribes, but weenies.

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Muslim head scarves were banned in French schools a while back. Europe's growing Muslim population isn't going mainstream. In the Chicago Sun Times Mark Steyn observes that Europeans have to deal with an "alienated domestic population". "All we have to do is straighten out Iraq."