wow. we totally suck.

this is an article from today's Times, in which a guy named keith reinhard explains why the world hates americans. for all of his great ideas about how we can try to make them like us more, i'm more inclined to just apply for canadian citizenship.

my favorite part of the interview is where he throws out some of the numbers:

In terms of favorability ratings, we're now at an all-time low. In an 18-month period, between the summer of 2002 and spring of last year, in Britain, our favorability dropped from 75 percent to 58 percent. In France, it dropped from 63 percent to 37 percent, and in Germany from 61 to 38 percent.

so... basically, keith, what you're telling us is, before we strutted into iraq and liberated those motherfuckers, more than half of these friendly europeans actually liked us. now, the majority don't. how curious...

oh, and as a parting gift, here's one particularly cute excerpt:

In Germany, I asked an executive to tell me about his perception that Americans were arrogant. He said, "O.K., Wal-Mart makes their German employees stand up every morning and sing the Wal-Mart song. We're uncomfortable about that in view of our history."

i hear quebec city is beautiful in the fall.