The French Air Force One, 2009

The French Air Force One, 2009

Air Force One, version France

June 11, 2009

****Important: A clarification from October 23, 2010, thanks to J.L. Harel

It is known that the President of the United States has a specially equipped 747.

The American Air Force One flying over Mount Rushmore

It is on a national scale. Below, you can see Mount Rushmore, where the faces of the main American presidents have been sculpted. It should be noted that these Mount Rushmore are located (unless mistaken) in the heart of the Sioux Indian reservation of the Black Hills, which had been assigned to them after Indian wars, by treaty, signed by the President of the United States. However, later it was discovered that the region contained gold deposits. The Indians, who had there lands suitable for hunting, were driven away and ended up confined to harsh lands, condemned to a miserable existence dependent on government subsidies. This was done despite the treaties signed. After the gold deposits were exploited, the Black Hills region became a very active tourist center.

This sculpture has something symbolic because for the Sioux (who are not called the Sioux but the Lakota), Mount Rushmore was sacred. Over the years, Americans made a point of naming all their war weapons with Indian names, despite their protests. The Tomahawk cruise missile, the Chinook attack helicopter, etc. (the list is ... endless &&& a reader will provide it to me).

In the USA, the "melting pot" also has a "grinder" side. Although it must be recognized that one cannot build a nation as a patchwork of separate ethnicities. I am old enough to remember the time when blacks in the USA were still victims of exclusion, especially in the southern states. Let's credit the Americans for having made such a leap forward in the field of integration (a black president!). Forty years ago, Spencer Tracy was the star of a film called "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" whose theme was the marriage between a white and ... a black. Since then, much water has flowed under the bridge.

But color is not a guarantee of virtue. Look at this dear "Condoleezza" (Condoleezza Rice), very likely aware of all the secrets related to the events of September 11. A woman of unyielding cynicism.

Regarding gestures that are considered sacrilegious, it should be remembered that scientists at the heart of the creation of American atomic bombs, Oppenheimer at the head, did not refrain from it. The first explosion of an A-bomb, at Alamogordo, received the code name "Trinity" (the Trinity). The first test of a hydrogen bomb was given the code name "The Kaaba". All of this is not by chance and those who chose these names would never have called these instruments of death "The Ark of the Covenant" or something similar.

Back to this presidential aircraft. Our president Sarkozy is completing the fitting out of an aircraft worthy of his megalomania.

You will at least know where your money goes. Here is the wonder:

The interior of the Airbus 330 for President Sarkozy. On the left, the American Air Force One

**After the American president, Sarkozy is the only head of state to have such an external sign of ... **(you put the qualifier of your choice)

Here is the cost of this fantastic project. The stick of the fool and the crook of finance, dear to Alfred Jarry, must be part of the onboard equipment.

:

*Investment value, presented by the Elysée: 178 million euros.

The machine is valued at 8.9 million (€)... so there would be **121.1 million euros **for the "commercial reconfiguration".

The worst is not the cost of the machine, which is a used aircraft, but that of its operation, maintenance, and "exploitation". It costs 50,000 euros per hour. It's ... staggering.

Faced with this new King of France and his "court", we have the happy group of the "opposition", with its latest failure in the European elections. The elephants will soon become mammoths. And, in the background, the confused group of environmentalists. We really get the impression (even just after watching the film Home) that the Earth resembles a kind of Titanic, with the disadvantaged wandering, dazed, in the lower decks of the ship, and on the other side the people of the first class who have their luxurious cabins renovated.

What are these people thinking about when they get old? Probably nothing. Watch the film depicting the last moments of Mitterrand, going through many books containing "historical words" of famous characters, searching for "a final word" of a historical word that never comes. Mitterrand disappearing into the annals of history. A man who carefully "staged" the photo of his corpse, in a double page of a magazine (unfortunately, the Louvre does not accept photos. The image ended up in the waiting rooms of dentists). As Einstein would say, for these people, a brain would have been of no use, a cerebellum would have sufficed. A cerebellum that reacts to the slightest rustle of money, and where the focal point of the program is "to dominate, to appear". What head of state, what political leader will be inspired by an epic spirit, will see further than the borders of his class, ethnic, or religious ideology? What are our brilliant scientists thinking about, except for their careers, even when cancer is eating them and they already have a foot and a half in the grave? The Nobel Prize has never made anyone immortal.

An example is Von Neumann, the creator of "ENIAC" which allowed calculating the parameters of the hydrogen bomb, which Edward Teller called "my baby"! Von Neumann, dying of cancer until...