Monday, December 8, 2008

You Could Have Heard a Pin Drop --in Europe!

Received this from a church friend today and cannot attest to the truth of these items, but they are surely interesting --food for thought. Do not use them for your termpaper, nor The Barb Wire as a research source. I chat here --and discuss the news, events, views and emails of the day.



When in Switzerland, at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the former Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of empire building' by George Bush. He answered by saying, 'Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.'

You could have heard a pin drop.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break one of the
French engineers came back into the room saying 'Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb them?'

A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: 'Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?'

You could have heard a pin drop.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a
cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers that included personnel from most of those countries.

Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, 'whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English.' He then asked, 'Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?'

Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied 'Maybe it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German.'

You could have heard a pin drop.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AND THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE ABOVE...

Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane. At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on.

'You have been to France before, monsieur?' the customs officer asked sarcastically.

Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously.

'Then you should know enough to have your passport ready.'

The American said, 'The last time I was here, I didn't have to show it.' 'Impossible. Americans always have to show your passports on arrival in France!'

The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained. 'Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in '44 to help liberate this country, I couldn't find a single Frenchmen to show a passport to.'

You could have heard a pin drop.




"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible

40 comments:

Anonymous said...

The internet provides us all w/ the means of instantly transferring information. As w/ many things, responsibility comes w/ such freedom and power.

So, to the authors of this blog, I suggest you fact check your postings, like the one on Colin Powell b/c he delivered similar remarks to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on January 26, 2003 in a Q and A session in which he responded to George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury.

You understand than when you print items that are not supported by the true facts, you call into question everything you post.

I can only pray that you can hear a pin drop.

The Loop Garoo Kid

Barb said...

Thank you for the correction --I'll take your word for it --as I did my friend who sent it from other sources to him.

Scott said...

Forgive me, and maybe I'm wrong, but every one of these anecdotes strike me as fabricated.

Barb said...

I heard that even Snopes were not reliable as sources of truth. Feel free to do the research. I wondered if the planes were really that helpful in disaster.

I figure if it can go around in email, it can land on my blog. I'm not making any claims to be a research cite. I'll preface this post thusly.

by the way, I answered you on Masoni's blog on the Bible & Sex discussion.

Anonymous said...

Amazing. I'd thought by now brain-dead Kateb would have cheered your xenophobic racist bigot post big time.

Barb said...

So you miss kateb, eh? Whaddaya know? I heard she is very busy with some properties and her business concerns. I hope she will keep coming here so you can benefit from her wisdom.

where is the racism and bigotry in this post, SS? What are you talking about? It's not bigotry to respond to the negative and critical attitudes of some Europeans toward America.

Jeanette said...

How about a post about the birth of Christ and what it means to all of us who believe and to those who, up to now, refuse to believe, such as the one post above mine.

Let's stop talking about the French Blog just as we have stopped talking about politics on my blog.

I don't give my blog address here because I am afraid I will be inundated with the spam of the sort posted above this post.

Merry Christmas, everyone! Remember it's not all about gifts for us because on the first Christmas we received the greatest gift ever given.

Jeanette said...

Well, it's the post above Barb's latest one. It was above mine when I wrote it. :)

Anonymous said...

Hummm... this Don person made a point. The stories in this post are clearly an invention of a fertile imagination that does not much good to either Americans in general, and even less to what this blog seems to advocate, i.e. Christian spirit.

If that sort of post is representative of the mindset of the publishers of this blog, I have to be blunt and reproach what I consider a very ill-founded, biased and counter-productive approach to reconcilating our nation with the world at large.

At the risk of appearing biased, I have to also agree with what Mr ShitStirrer mentions, and that is that this post is a rather disgraceful display of xenophobia and bigotry. If this factual observation is oblivious to the owners and publishers of this blog, as seems to be the case in view of the response by Barb, I can only deplore it and their (publishers) blindness to the obvious.

John

matthew said...

reconcilating our nation with the world at large.

John, are you sure you aren't actually George Bush pretending to be a concerned onlooker?

Barb said...

What is the point of posting Anonymous --and then signing a name?

John, I didn't think your comment did anything for local peace, much less world.

What if these stories ARE true? I think they very possibly could be --the first one is.

Barb said...

By the way, John --these stories may originate from the time when the French didn't support our Iraq efforts --as the google sources suggest --i couln't find either refutation or confirmation for the Rob't whiting story --not even a Snopes --but the story is on blogs and google.

Some expressed that the stories in this email were anti-French, but only 2 are related to France directly. And I would say that my experience with Europeans justifies repeating these stories. Sometimes people need to be reminded of history and truth --whether the context is fictional or not.

Scott said...

"Sometimes people need to be reminded of history and truth -- whether the context is fictional or not."

Barb, that sounds well and good, but "reminding people of history" is not the point here. Rather, the argument underlying each of these anecdotes is, "We saved these Europeans' asses in World War II, so how dare they ever question anything we Americans do."

Does the fact that Americans performed heroically in WWII mean that the people we helped then cannot question our Iraq policy today? Seriously?

Does the fact that a man stormed the beach at Normandy give him a limitless license to hold up the line at the airport because he doesn't have his papers available at the right time?

Maybe we can better "remind" others of America's greatness by actually living up to the standard set by the WWII generation, rather than acting like punks and using WWII as a rhetorical justification for our behavior.

Anonymous said...

Don,

"by actually living up to the standard set by the WWII generation, rather than acting like punks and using WWII as a rhetorical justification for our behavior."

By the way, speaking of saving European asses:

Some of the casualties suffered during WW2 (source: Wikipedia):

US:
military: around 450,000 to 500,000
civil: zero
---
German:
military: around 3 million
civil: 1.5 million
---
French:
military: 1 million
civil: 2 million
---
Russian:
Military: 18 million
Civil: 9 million

Barb, you ought to ask for repent big big time for your xenophobic, racist, bigotted, born-again liar nature.

I don't suppose you now want to talk about our heroic historical Hiroshima achievements, do you?

Woman, you have made references again and again about turning up your nose at the very sight of my nickname, but let me tell ya something: my nickname is just that, a nickname. But your mind is your mind, and I can tell you it smells real bad.

Barb said...

Context, ss --where's the context for your remark here that I commented negatively about your screen name --which you chose for yourself?

It was the smear job you did on me at Masoni's --following me over there to tell him your extremely bigoted opinions about me. Your remarks stunk to high heaven, literally! as one who stirs excrement would!

This email about Europe vs. America doesn't begin to compare to the kind of bigotry at PP. It does reflect the European scorn for America that I saw on PP.
They are 4 anecdotes that could well be true --like parables. I understand the colin powell quotation is true.

Don, I don't assume that Europe cannot ever criticize the U.S. --they certainly DO it. I just don't agree with them --duh! which is my constitutional right -- and it doesn't reflect poorly on my Christianity for me to believe in a just war and a just cause to end tyranny and oppression and aggressive terrorism wherever we find it --even though innocent lives are lost because of the actions of a nation's corrupt leaders --like Japan's bombing of Pearl harbor. I read again recently where Iraq majority and Kurds felt let down by the U.S. when we didn't help them overthrow Sadam after the Gulf War. We knew that a majority in that nation wanted help to attain freedom from a vicious dynasty.

Don, as for Robert Whiting holding up a ticket line, did he? he was 83, after all. The French have a reputation for rudeness to tourists. So Robert had his own response.

One of the Doolittle Raiders bombing over Japan suffered horribly in their prison camps --and later went back to Japan as a missionary and became a friend to his jailer --who respected Jake DeShazer's Chrsitianity even though he had been a bomber pilot. He became a Christian because Jake came back in love to teach about Christ. I daresay he knew Japan had been at fault in WWII, attacking the US.

I haven't lied. But there have been some whoppers over at PP lately --and at Masoni's about me. Truth is on my side.

Jeanette said...

SS seems to think like the European Socialists he associates with.

He quotes numbers of dead Americans and other countries' dead soldiers and civilians.

Maybe his head is so full of what he stirs he cannot remember we had no reason to go to war in Europe at all except to help those ingrates save their own countries. But of course his buddies don't believe in borders.

To him everyone who thinks differently from him is brain dead, stupid, xenophobic, bigoted etc. Fortunately he's a small minority in my world and in yours too, Barb.

It looks like you will need to get a few roach motels and figuratively let them check in but not check out.

For any French woman reading this my previous paragraph means you buy a roach trap called a roach motel where visitors check in but they don't check out.

Rob R said...

But your mind is your mind, and I can tell you it smells real bad.

Before you go commenting on other's oders, I would check your upper lip. It's quite frothy from those smoothies you've been blending up.

but let me tell ya something: my nickname is just that, a nickname.

Actually, it's been a way to insure that each post you write has something that is both true and useful. Unfortunately, it's so well established as to what your primary contribution is, it's no longer useful.

kateb said...

One of the best things about being an American is the pride that I feel in our history of helping people who are under the thumb of the world's greatest bullies.

I absolutely love that we are the point of accountability for the world's worst tyrants that prey upon weaker people.

I do not care how the rest of the world sees us. You can bet that in '40 when the Nazi's marched on Paris - the French were glad to see us.

You can bet that after millions of people died at the hands of the Nazi's in concentration camps - the ones that survived were elated to see American uniforms and those of our allies.

I couldn't care less what the criticism of anyone might be. I am the proud daughter and sister of soldiers. My George lied about his age to go and fight in WWII after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

There are those that are willing to risk everything to fight for freedom and to protect the down trodden. And then there are the cowards who do not do this much and choose instead to criticize and lie about those who are noble enough to lay it all on the line.

And I don't talk to cowards.

Scott said...

"There are those that are willing to risk everything to fight for freedom and to protect the down trodden. And then there are the cowards who do not do this much and choose instead to criticize and lie about those who are noble enough to lay it all on the line.

And I don't talk to cowards."


There you have it.

Anyone who criticizes U.S. foreign policy is a "coward" and their opinions are therefore unworthy of recognition, much less discussion.

Thanks for underscoring my point.

Jeanette said...

Don, I for one, am not asking any person from any country to not criticize us. I'm not even asking them to appreciate us because then they come back with France saved us in the Revolutionary War. They did. So now we're even.

What I do object to and find very offensive is people like SS, Microdot and Mudrake who go over to PP and say nothing good about America and they are Americans. Politics stop at the water's edge.

Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton are two great examples of prominent Americans running their mouths while in foreign countries. Bet they won't do that now that the false messiah is going to be president and I'll bet things will be perfect in the worldview of SS, Microdot and Mudrake, who somehow has the money to take his family to the inaguration.

BTW, I won't be watching the inaguration or the inauguration balls, and any news about our new president will be turned off unless it is hard news and not just feel good stories about his kids or the dog he might get.

I didn't watch national news about Clinton unless it was policy and I managed to live through those 8 years.

I won't even watch more than the first sentences of the State of the Union, when then President Obama will say the state of the union is weak. Maybe he'll say it's strong.

I have my own blog which I do not publish on this site or on PP because I don't want any of those people lurking and posting their foul language there, but I will post what Obama does right and give him credit and will post what I feel he is doing wrong and criticize him. The difference is I will not search blogs based in another country with people from other countries to paint a picture of the US being such a terrible place.

We have our problems, especially now, but what I'm seeing here is that the American people are caring and doing for others right now.

My hometown is iced over and has no power. Family with whole house generators are inviting strangers to stay with them so they can stay warm and be able to take a warm shower. They are sharing their food.

Who does that in Europe? Maybe some, but I never hear about it.

We have a lot of needy children in my grandchildrens' schools as well as the school where my daughter is the head of the Language Arts department.

A friend from New York asked for a name and sent the package for this little girl all the way to SC, and has a lot of packages in the boxes.

My daughter's family have adopted 9children and her children have each adopted 2 in addition to the shoe boxes.

We got an enmail from our church the other day because we were the drop off location for four counties for Operation Christmas Child, telling us they need help in Charlotte, NC, (across the state line for us) because they had received so many more shoe boxes with gifts in them this year than in the past.

My 64 year old husband will probably go up there to do work that will hurt his back again, but he gets much satisfaction doing what he can. These packages will be sent to foreign lands to children who have nothing.

Don't criticize our patriotism. We haven't criticized yours.

I didn't even tell you what we've done for the poor this season and other times throughout the year. That would be blowing our own horn.

I told you all of this to see that Americans are still the most loving and generous in the world.

So stop being so defensive about your questionable actions.

Anonymous said...

OK. Do I have your complete attention? Let us pray. This is your blog, Barb, so listen well.

I do not give a rat's patoot about any of your opinions. Express what opinion you may. If they are ill considered and unsupported by facts, then any dispassionate reader will consider such opinions silly or stupid.

It is said: "Ignorance can be cured, but stupid is forever."

Barb wrote: "I figure if it can go around on e-mail, it can land on my blog."

I respectfully suggest that if that is your position, please discontinue this blog.

You consider yourself a Christian so let me remind you of the 9th Commandment: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."

Obviously, much has changed since Exodus. The ability of an individual to harm by publicizing false information has expanded far beyond what might occur in a bucolic village.

Your disregard the facts and therefore the truth, Barb, is disheartening.

If you get an e-mail then it is mean and right to publicize it without determining its veracity?

If you receive an e-mail, then it's OK? Then it is true?

For once in your life, think about the effect of your actions.

You fail to check the facts, you print and publish on line, then it grows exponentionally.

And then you take no responsibility. And you call yourself a Christian?

Either check facts; stop publishing; or kill yourself.

Guess what? Think about facing Jesus after your heart stops ticking and trying to explain all of the lies you spread. Do you think you will get to exalt among the Cherubim and Seraphim? Or will you spend eternity w/ the Liar?

Am I coming through here?

The Loop Garoo Kid

Jeanette said...

TLGK,

Why don't you post such a post as your last here on Porquois Pas to the writers on that blog?

Tell them to "Either check facts; stop publishing; or kill yourself." as you said here.

"I respectfully suggest that if that is your position, please discontinue this blog.

You consider yourself a Christian so let me remind you of the 9th Commandment: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.""


I love it when non-believers quote the Bible. The Bible also said Satan knows the Bible. I would say you have studied it enough to think you can judge believers, but not enough to save your own soul.

Let me turn your own question on you since you hang out with liars and plagiarists: "Guess what? Think about facing Jesus after your heart stops ticking and trying to explain all of the lies you spread. Do you think you will get to exalt among the Cherubim and Seraphim? Or will you spend eternity w/ the Liar?

Am I coming through here?"


I urge you to seriously consider that last quote and apply it to yourself.

You are not the judge of Barb's or anyone else's soul. That job is for Jesus and Jesus alone. I believe Barb will pass the test.

She said these came from email. That doesn't make them true or false and she couldn't verify them, but thought it would be interesting to post.

It's her blog and she can post what she wants. She doesn't have to answer to you.

Go back to PP where you are loved and appreciated and if you don't like what you read here stop visiting. It's that easy. And I thought you were smart.

Jeanette said...

By the way, TLGK, I seriously doubt any born-again person looks forward to spending time with the cherubum and seraphim, but to be in the Presence of God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost and have fellowship with our Triune God and other people who have gone to heaven.

What a glorious place that will be! I doubt we'll have wings as the angels do, but God did say we are higher than the angels and will sing a song even the angels do not and will not know.

kateb said...

As I said, I consider anyone, anyplace who's country received the services of American men and woman for their freedom who then attacks America as though it's NOT deserving of respect - a coward. Rational people do.

And I think the other posts are really not worth the read other than to state that this is Barb's blog.

If people are SOoooo distressed by reading what others or Barb think on HER blog - if you're so distressed that you lose all control of your behavior and advocate the suicide of another - quit reading. She doesn't have to quit blogging - YOU are the one with the problem. Control YOUR behavior.

This blog does not belong to you.

If you aren't satisfied with the blog - get your own. You're not as entitled as you think.

And we're in America. Where we fought for OUR freedoms of speech. In spite of intolerants such as yourself.

Am I coming through here?

kateb said...

Save those IP addresses. The actual legal line was crossed when your physical location was published.

Constructive request has been served that he cease and desist.

Mayhap he has chosen not to stop.

Save those addresses :-)

Barb said...

I edited and re-posted the following:

Loopy Kid --(Sorry, CA, I can't help but mess with screen names! It's not cruel or even unkind --unless some guy really asks for me to think of something clever to counterract his insults of me....and then I'm still just poking fun --but I know, soreheads don't tease well.)

I just looked it up and learned:

Loop Garoo Kid is a character in a novel, "an African-American cowboy who practices the religion of Neohoodooism, and describes his struggle against established religion and cultural oppression." Wikipedia

Does that describe you, TLGK?

NOW YOU LISTEN WELL, LOOP: (as you told me to do)

OF COURSE, I WOULDN'T PRINT JUST ANY OL' EMAIL THAT COMES ALONG! What do you take me for, a member of PP? At least I don't claim to have received emails that people never wrote to me. You took a statement out of context.

I certainly try to keep defamatory lies and vulgarity and cruelty and threatening material off my blog. NOt that I wouldn't join in a civil suit with Kateb if certain lines are crossed here locally that suggest someone is getting dangerous.

It is hypocritical of you Loop, to cry "foul" here about my little parable-like stories that ARE true in what they say about our country--which stories I said I don't know if they are literal -or parabelic (new word) --when the most atrocious lies about people and distortions of what they say go on at other blogs you frequent.

I would retract any lies if I printed them --and I certainly would apologize for them.

I've apologized on some occasions and tried to make peace with contentious bloggers for saying some things that WERE true --just because it wasn't nice to say they were true--even though they were true.

But I can't deny the truth that many many damaging lies and distortions have occured to my name and others by SOME (too many, but not all) bloggers whose shared characteristic and basis for fellowship is mostly their shared, agnostic/atheistic liberalism.

It's not unethical to pass on an email of THIS nature through a blog. Just because it IS email doesn't discredit it automatically.

My blog is not a termpaper source --it's sometimes chat --and these little stories here are interesting whether literally true or just true of America's history --which I still believe they are--true about our nation's history.

Meanwhile, you have someone at your favorite blog saying America is the Whore of the West in the Bible --and surmising why. I would surmise that to be one possibility among many, also. But it's a pretty huge insult! Much more anti-American than this little blog topic I posted here was anti-any-one-country. IN fact, this blog topic was more PRO-American and defensive than anti-any-country.

Your favorite blog is filled with anti-American rhetoric, so what's the problem with my comparatively innocuous email post here?

Where's the fairness, the objectivity? you'll never see on my part the vitriol and hatred here that you see there.

but you will see truthful defense when needed.

Jeanette said...

The lash laroo kid is the one who made the comment on Porquois Pas that you and I should be forgotten and ignored, yet he seeks out your blog to make his comment. I don't know if he has said it or not, but they surmise he is a lawyer. He's from Connecticut and lives in Colorado.

Microdot's answer to his suggestion they forget about us is to consider us dead and buried or some such nutty stuff.

It's Christmastime and the fruitcakes are coming out of the woodwork.

Even the blog owner is visiting your blog.

Anonymous said...

Parable: A parable is a brief succinct story in verse or prose that illustrates a moral or religious lesson.

"You could hear a pin drop," whatever it is, does not constitute a parable.

I freely confess that the immediate transmission of "truthiness" rather than facts is a great annoyance to me personally and a great disservice to everyone generally.

Even if I do not care for your opinion, I will suffer no abridgement of it.

But no one gets a hall pass if they publicize items which appear factual and are not. This does not relate whether France in particular or Europe as a whole should be greatful to the United States for pulling their chestnuts out of the fire. This relates entirely to personal responsibility.

It is undeniable that the publisher of this blog and many of those who comment here profess themslves to be Christians, a profess that personal responsibility is a tenet of their faith.

Therefore go and sin no more. Check your facts. It is the responsible thing to do.

Regards.

The Loop Garoo Kid

kateb said...

Let's just make sure to make it clear for any lurkers.

We Christians do indeed profess personal responsibility.

Only a large ego would assume it was to THEM rather than God. This bloated sense of self-importance and entitlement is what birthed the 'God Complex'.

Our responsibility is to God and to Jesus Christ.

Jeanette said...

Lash Garoo,

I second what kateb said, and since you want to forget Barb exists I suggest you stay away from her blog so you can forget her.

Unless you are looking for salvation, that is.

She wrote a post saying it was from her email. I do it all the time. Her disclaimer was it was from her email. Get over it or discuss it at PP if you wish, but give her some peace from you and the other lurkers from that site.

Jeanette said...

Lash Laroo,

In case you missed the preface to the stories told in the post, let me put it here for you.

Received this from a church friend today and cannot attest to the truth of these items, but they are surely interesting --food for thought. Do not use them for your termpaper, nor The Barb Wire as a research source. I chat here --and discuss the news, events, views and emails of the day.

Rob R said...

loop, I've told mom not to publish emails for the very concern of veracity but the addendum to consider the point made aside from the historicity is not unreasonable.

As for your literary analysis of the nature of a parable, it leaves much to be desired.

Anonymous said...

Rob R.

Sound advice.

As for the definition of a parable, I went for a brief one, but remain happy to discuss it w/ you.

TLGK

Barb said...

Loop --do you give hall passes to people's lies? It's one thing for you to suspect a story is fictional though telling truth --another thing to tell lies and pass them off as truths.

I don't intend to do the latter. I often see it done in places where you don't find as much to criticize as you do here. Why that different standard? Are non-Christians not held to the same standard of honesty where you are concerned?

kateb said...

How does it serve the Lord if one who has been offered the Gospel and refused it can post a remark and derail us from his service?

I'm just asking :-)

Because I heard there was some that had not 'heard'.

Maybe time could be better spent.

kateb said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
kateb said...

That was a duplicate4 post - not sure why.

And FYI where I come from anonymous is synonymous with being a coward.

Barb said...

I think, Kateb, that it's OK to suggest that people THINK. I don't feel derailed. For sure, you and I have busy lives outside the blog --but I feel I have a little time to deal with Loop Garoo and his challenge to me to be honest because I'm a Christian--while he is not challenging non-Christians to be similarly honest --

after the big whoppin lie that was posted not long ago here and elsewhere, I think it's a valid question for Loop --for I don't think he's one being dishonest --but he's more concerned with what he thinks is my dishonesty for posting this thread --than he should be.

As Jesus would say, Loop strains gnats where I am concerned while he swallows camels elsewhere. Let he who has ears to hear, hear.

Jeanette said...

As far as posting anonymously on this or any other blogspot blog, there are not many choices.

You have to have a google ID, another blog or you have to post anonymously. I suspect that's why people do that and sign their names at the bottom.

Anonymous said...

You don't have to post anonymously- I don't. But I don't have a google id either (well I do, but I'm sure as anything not going to put it out here for the trolls to get their hands on), so I sign using the same name every time.

Anonymity is not necessarily cowardice, but it certainly can be.