K Lo, Those Nelson Mandela comments you posted yesterday were abominable. I’m heartened, however, to see some foreign leaders appreciate the United States. At the White House yesterday, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi had this to say: “We will never forget that we owe our freedom [and] our wealth to the United States of America. And our democracy. And we also will never forget there have been many American young lives that were lost and sacrifice themselves for us. So for us, the United States is not only our friend, but they are the guarantee of our democracy and our freedom. And I already has the opportunity to say this to President Bush, every time I see the U.S. flag, I don’t see the flag only representative of a country, but I see it as a symbol of democracy and of freedom.”