Free Republic

IN 1977 the American public saw its first television commercial for bottled water. Orson Welles crooned about a place in the south of France where "there is a spring, and its name is Perrier," and the response was feverish. American sales of Perrier went up more than 3,000 percent from 1976 to 1979. "I remember thousands of us running in Perrier T-shirts in the 1979 marathon," said Johanna Raymond, a New Yorker. "Perrier was the coolest thing then. It was more than water." Since Perrier's introduction, the American market for bottled water has grown from almost nothing into the world's...

WASHINGTON, Feb 12 (AFP) - Furious with France over its opposition to military action against Iraq and its embargo on genetically modified food, US House Speaker Dennis Hastert on Wednesday raised the specter of sanctions on French wine and mineral water. Hastert's spokesman, John Feehery, said the powerful speaker was running the thought by his Republican colleagues to get a fix on whether such a move were feasible."The speaker is exploring whether the US should require bright orange labels" on French wine bottles warning their contents may have been treated with powdered beef blood to alter the colour", he said.But...

the heading says it all.