Yay Allyson!

Isn't it a WW surrender thingy.

Y' cheese-eatin' surrender monkeys

t /Groundskeeper Willie

Sorry, can't ever resist that one. But I'm pretty sure there's more to it than that.

Isn't it a WW surrender thingy.

Well, the short historian's answer would be that both countries have universalist aspirations (spreading Enlightment, Rights of Man, Freedom's on the March, blah blah blah) and thus are natural rivals. Plus, France makes a great "other" for US politicians because they have no real immigrant base here to protest that use.

But anti-Americanism or anti-French sentiments never really degenerate that much because, when it comes right down to it, the countries have been allies since the Revolution. I mean, the French were the first to send troups into Afghanistan, even if they disagreed about Iraq. And people, even if they hate the French, love France and go there in droves.

Gay Mounties!

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I seem to have broken some blood vessels from lifting up my TV stand. I didn't used to be so delicate.

Aw, cutieheads.

My cats have to learn that when I am moving furniture, it doesn't help me when they get on it for the ride.

Megan finally starts posting and gets me all hawt with the brainyness.

To complicate the issue relating to what-to-call people descended from the folks who were in Northa America before the Europeans arrived, legal issues also get involved. In American (federal) law, "Native American", "Native Alaskan", and "Native Hawaiian" all have specific legal meanings, which may or may not have anything to do with their tribal membership, or political or ethnic status.

And Gar is right in that plenty of folks prefer to be called "Indians" still; they find "Native American" pretentious and/or PC. But not everyone. Case in point: the Native American Rights Fund versus the Congress of American Indians.

No? There was no concept of "those of us on this land"?

About as much as Rome and Gaul had that concept. They were different nations, different languages, different religions, different cultures , different languages - different marriage customs, different attitudes towards slavery, different attitudes towards war. I'm pretty sure the only "us" was us people - the same us the U.S. and China have today.

And Gar is right in that plenty of folks prefer to be called "Indians" still; they find "Native American" pretentious and/or PC. But not everyone. Case in point: the Native American Rights Fund versus the Congress of American Indians.

Don't know how accurate infoplease is on this but:

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In the end, the term you choose to use (as an Indian or non-Indian) is your own personal choice. Very few Indians that I know care either way. The recommended method is to refer to a person by their tribe, if that information is known. The reason is that the Native peoples of North America are incredibly diverse. It would be like referring both a Romanian and an Irishman as European. . . . [W]henever possible an Indian would prefer to be called a Cherokee or a Lakota or whichever tribe they belong to. This shows respect because not only are you sensitive to the fact that the terms Indian, American Indian, and Native American are an over simplification of a diverse ethnicity, but you also show that you listened when they told what tribe they belonged to.

When you don't know the specific tribe simply use the term which you are most comfortable using. The worst that can happen is that someone might correct you and open the door for a thoughtful debate on the subject of political correctness and its impact on ethnic identity. What matters in the long run is not which term is used but the intention with which it is used.

Except that I find "Native American" gets me ragged mercilessly by some local American Indians.

My Little Pony Apocalypse Ponies