Daniel,

>>A dutch journalist who was the dutch correnspondant in washington for over 8 years said the following: Europeans tend to attack a problem by thinking idealogically about possible solutions and create policy. Americans otoh, tend to have an idealogical solution and then search for practical problems to fit into this.

>What a nice, convenient way to dismiss everything Americans do as so much garbage.

Not at all. This dutch journalist who was a well respected washington correspondant for 13 years, wrote a book (Guess where I did get the facts from) with a very extensive referenced list of literature. And to the contrary what you'd expect this journalist is PRO - american. Yes you heard it right PRO american. He lives in the US and wrote the book "Americans are not crazy". He describes the difference in culture between europe and the US. Het describes in details how the american society lives and generally he likes it. With lots of background information. It describes Bush, baseball, Crime, Millionares, churces, educations, casino's, sex and politics. I bought this book on recommendation of peter de valença, while I was to fly to Canada. It did give a negatives and positives (as I have outlined in a number of messages) to americans.

But of course were are discussing the negative, because there is not much to discuss on the positives.....

Can you think of a better person (as he has extended knowledge on both) to describe the difference between american and european culture ?? Personally I cannot.

Walter,