A friend e-mailed this to me, but since I'm so inept at all the fancy computer stuff, I'll just retype it here. It's food for thought:

BETCHA DIDN'T KNOW THIS

Ever heard of Lagardere SCA? No? Well, maybe because it's a French company.

OK . . . have you ever heard of Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S.? Probably not, but Hachette Filipacchi publishes some magazines you may have heard of.

Those magazines would be Elle, Car & Driver, Women's Day and others. Now it's getting familiar, isn't it? OK, so we have Car & Driver which is published by Hachette Filipacchi which is owned by Lagardere SCA which is a French Corporation.

So . . . are we finished here? No, not quite. It seems that a man who has been in the news quite a bit of late owns around two percent of Lagardere SCA. About $90 million dollars worth. His name? Saddam Hussein.

I've heard of both companies, but I didn't know that Saddam Hussein was a part owner. :eek: I have a subscription to Elle, but I have already paid for it. I am pretty shocked to learn this.
MSKKG, where did you learn this? I consider myself a pretty informed person so this news surprises me.

Cream, a friend of mine just sent me the e-mail. I can neither confirm nor deny its validity. I just thought it was interesting. Even if it turns out not to be true, it's the kind of thing that could be. Follow the money, and people's motives will make more sense.

:eek: And the plot thickens!! <dramatic music> Dam-Dam-DUMMM!</dramatic music>

I am not sure how to confirm this information, either. I know that there are many investors in publishing companies so it's possible.

If we went through the stockholder lists of a lot of companies, we'd see a lot of names that would be surprising. 2% isn't that much--and it's a private company. Interesting, but hardly shocking.

That is soooo true. That's why I don;t understand the whole "boycott France in response to the war" idea. But I digress...

I just found out that Saddam Hussein was given a "key" to the city of Detroit. (This was back in the the early 80's I believe).

Can't wait to see how that plays out .

What does this mean?

this whole thing remind me of wwf (sorry, wwe, i don't like wwe) mentality of patriotism and politics. A little sound bite, a couple politicians who should be more concerned about their constituents, and you got freedom fries. Nevermind congress should be mroe concerned about crimes in the inner city, the raising college tuition (SUNY is thinking of raising their tuition by 25%), inner city schools in need of repairs, etc.

FRENCH, what cha going to do when freedom fries goes wild on you?

In days of old, this was the highest honor given by a city to a distinguished visitor, essentially making him an 'honorary' resident of that particular city or town. (The 'key is actually a plaque with an ornate key on it, in many cases).

It's still done once in a while, but it's a tradition that seems to have disappeared from the larger cities in the U.S. of A.

I went to a French restaurant for dinner Saturday night. I ate French onion soup, filet mignon, French fries, and profiteroles and drank Cabernet Sauvignon. It was delicious. I am not about to jump on the French boycott bandwagon. :)

Cream! Why, I never have been so offended! :mad:;)

I'll send you my leftovers next time. :)

eh...french fries/freedom fries...who the hell cares? if americans wanna vent frustration against the french that way, fabulous. it's better than us disrupting the peace over here (or going over there) and starting a hate france rally. ya know? i mean, i will more than likely still call french toast "french toast", and i don't ever really think i used the full term "french fries"....but i can speak french somewhat well, so hey. it's not that big of a deal to me, i've got other things to worry about than whether or not it is now PC to call something by its french term.

really and truly, "freedom fries" is almost cute, though. ;)

Tthanks for the explanation. :)