Gay Marriage from the (Mostly) Straight Perspective

[B_crackoff]

:I'll probably go for Spanish citizenship. That "horrible socialist old Europe" country offers more freedoms than the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Tell that to Spanish Air Traffic Controllers. I was there a few years back when the Guardia Civil decided the police strike seemed like a good chance to crack a thousand copper's heads:biggrin1:

Hard to imagine for the die-hard flag wavers who think 2% of the rich in the USA should receive major tax breaks.

As opposed to the innumerable mayors & politicians languishing in Spanish jails! I see your point, but when the abogados are bigger crooks than the police...!

Just imagine a world where everything isn't a strip mall and your selections for breakfast, lunch and dinner are not limited to McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, etc. And best of all . . . No FOX News!

But it is changing really quickly there too - we got unlimited feeds on our cable hook up.

And no one has a hissy fit over the word fuck or seeing full nudity in films and on TV. emselves all over Europe.

It's hard not to inadvertently receive hardcore too.

I figure that our taxes were primarily responsible, as foreign aid, in rebuild Europe after WWII so I might as well directly benefit from all those US tax dollars. They certainly aren't doing any good in the USA.

I look forward to your kind PMs and public rants. :smile:

No tax dollars were spent on Europe. It was all printed out of thin air by the ehtirely independent Fed - & mainly paid back. Spain wasn't in WW2 - they had all their own crap before.

Catalonia's quite lovely & buzzy, but the best thing about being an immigrant, or a foreigner, is that your new country's domestic politics really don't aggravate so much.:biggrin1:

Edit: They speak Catalan in Barca, a hybrid of Spanish & French, which is bizarrely more understandable, especially if you learnt French at school, & keep using French instead of Spanish verbs.

Estrella Damm, isn't San Miguel or Cruzcampo available! All I know is that sometimes you can pick up 20cent cans from the mercado which are just as good - after 3 or 4, I even prefer the Mahon dark too as a change.

 

[B_crackoff]

Who care's what it's called?

More to the point - BRING BACK POLYGAMY! Equal rights for bigamists, & while we're at it let's get rid of the stigma associated with shagging a mother & her daughter, or in fact any infidelity, screwing while she's on the blob, cursing your mom & pop, eating pigs & prawns - & any other death sentence related to bloody Leviticus!

Most of the above wasn't even mentioned in the 10 commandments - which could not be added to.

 

[SilverTrain]

People should be able to choose who they wish to spend the rest of their lives with. The government should have no say whatsoever.

Except for pedophiles, right?

And zoophiles.

What about Yankee Fans who fall in love with Red Sox fans?

 

[midlifebear]

Crackoff cracks me up.
1. Catalán is a person, not a language.
2. Català (also known as Valencia) is a language, not a person
3. Català is not a "hybrid" of French and Spanish. Although there are many French and Spanish cognates that seem to mean the same thing as in Spanish and French, 99% of the time they don't. It is a separate language that is distinct from Spanish (Castellano), French, and Italian.
4. Catalonia is the British Twitish way of spelling Cataluña, which is more accurately spelled as Catalunya in English.
5. There are various dialects of català-valencià where it is the primary language spoken in Andorra, Aragón, the Beleaeric Islands, Murcia, and most of Sardinia.
6. Català is the "official" language of Cataluña, Iberic Isles, Valencia, and parts of the Pyrenees where the language shares equal status with Castellano (not castilian which is a dumb English corruption of Castellano). If you can't accept the idea of Castellano, you're better off just saying Spanish (which covers a lot of linguistic blemishes). And currently, there are approximately more than 4,400,000+ people who think and speak català as their first language, defaulting to Castellano and/or French as their second native language depending where they live.

As for tits and feathers, it's quite obvious that Crackoff is a luddite and unable to figure out how to block the channels received from satellite or cable that offend him. It's easier than configuring a new cell phone.

As for Air Traffic Controllers, obviously Crackoff was not around (or self-aware) when Reagan, the great communicator, fired all of the Air Traffic Controllers in the USA who tried to unionize because of unusually stressful working conditions and being "retired" early without qualifying for their full retirement benefit so the US government could save a few bucks. It took more than 12 years for the US government to train and replace all of the Air Traffic Controllers who were fired for nothing more than wanting a pay raise and shorter working hours.

Corruption? Crackoof thinks corruption is bad in Spain? In addition to many other wrong facts I suspect Crackoff is living under a rock thumbing through a dog-eared copy of Through The Looking Glass to keep himself warm and fuzzy. Spain is frequently listed a few countries higher than the USA when if comes to world transparency and less corruption.

And point of fact, the USA kept the economies of West Germany, France, and Italy among other countries, afloat with millions of dollars (when a million dollars actually was a lot of money) from 1945 until the early 1950's by subsidizing western Europe's auto, steel, and similar major manufacturing industries. As for Spain, they "didn't have all their crap before." They avoided most of WWII by becoming a fascist state with Franco as head despot who was happy to have Germany try out it's new, modern weaponry on unprotected pueblos such as Guernica, thus tipping the end of the Spanish Civil War into his hands. (Ever see the enormous painting by Picasso rendered in black and white paint and created during the months of May and June 1937? I thought so. Most people haven't a clue that such a painting exists.) Maybe Crackoff is as old as I am and is still pissed off and insulted the Brits were when we sent, among the millions of tons of emergency food staples immediately shipped across the Atlantic after WWII, all those cases of canned corn. Apparently, Europeans regard corn as animal food and not fit for human consumption.

As for a different kind of foreign aid, the USA propped up Franco with billions of dollars as long as the US Air Force was allowed to maintain air force bases on Spanish soil that serviced B-52 bombers carrying nuclear weapons.

As for the local politics of my adopted country, I love it all. Zapatero has to create a working coalition among the Basque Nationalist Party (they never show up); the Canarian Coalition or CC (a coalition of five parties); Convergence and Union or CiU (a coalition of the Democratic Convergence of Cataluña or CDC, and the Democratic Union of Catalouña UDC. There are a few more such as Entesa Cataloña de Progress; Galician Nationalist Bloc or BNG; Party of Independents from Lanzarote or PIL; Popular Party or PP; Republican Left of Cataloña; Spanish Socialist Workers Party or PSOE; United Left or IU (a coalition of parties including the PCE and other small parties including die hard Communists).

And although the country is a parliamentary monarchy, the legislative branch is bicameral and works rather well. There's a lot more to Spain than coming down on holiday from the UK, mangling the local languages because you never really learned Spanish in school, vomiting in the streets, going to sex clubs along the Costanera Norte and Sur, then crawling aboard EasyJet with a hangover so one can return to one's life under mostly overcast skies and cities covered in soot.

And rather than worry about the local beer, most northern Euro tourists are thrilled to buy a fortified sangria call Don Ramón, because it's "fruity and costs less than a Euro a box!"

Hmm . . . what have I forgot? I know I forgot something. Oh, yeah, right: Bite me! :biggrin1:

 

[mwealex]

If gay people want to get married then so be it. It has worked out so well for straight people I'm suprised anyone wants to get married any more.

Honestly though, it's so hard to be happy let gay marriage happen and give people a shot at attaining that happiness.

 

[B_VinylBoy]

Who care's what it's called?

More to the point - BRING BACK POLYGAMY! Equal rights for bigamists, & while we're at it let's get rid of the stigma associated with shagging a mother & her daughter, or in fact any infidelity, screwing while she's on the blob, cursing your mom & pop, eating pigs & prawns - & any other death sentence related to bloody Leviticus!

Most of the above wasn't even mentioned in the 10 commandments - which could not be added to.

Most paranoid men in this world can't even handle the fact that some would rather suck dick, never mind dealing with the few men who have the financial & sexual mojo to satisfy multiple women at once. You really want to open that can of worms?

 

[BobLeeSwagger]

I personally could care less who wants to marry whom. But I strongly feel that the only reason for someone to oppose gay marriage is that he/she just doesn't like gay people. The "sanctity of marriage" crap, the so-called traditional aspects of it, etc., are all just excuses that people make to discriminate against others.

I think that many Americans -- especially older and more religious types -- are in a mode where they're just afraid that the world is changing too fast for them and they want to put on the brakes. For someone who was alive when people weren't bothered by the fact that blacks were prevented from voting, the idea of two men getting married must seem crazy and disturbing to them. That's not to say that anyone should accept a delay in equal rights, just that it's only a matter of time.

 

[Drifterwood]

Follow the logic, Churches should not allow infertile people to get married. Get your barren asses out of my Church.

 

[B_Hung Jon]

I don't understand "marriage" for anyone. I don't think a personal relationship between two people is the government's business...or anyone one else's either.

 

[overninept5]

Oopsie: I answered the poll before reading the OP :redface:

Individual states can issue whatever they like, but as long as DOMA stays in place, marriage equality remains an impossible dream for Americans. It's all fine and well to say "get the government out of the marriage business", but single individuals with no dependents pay the highest taxes, and the INS/DHS forces bi-national couples either out of this country or separation. Just ask MidLifeBear.

Opps as did I. Anyway....separate is never equal. Marriage now.

 

[B_VinylBoy]

Just so we're clear, I advocate treating everyone as equals in the eyes of the state and this is nothing but ideological hypocrisy. But you believe in giving select people certain rights and others some/no rights and this "fair" because we're all different. This type of logic is behind every tyrannical regime in human history, it doesn't take a genius to realise that if you seperate citizens in an arbitrary fashion you end up living under some form of dictatorship.

Let me spell this out for you one more time.
People are born into a system of inequality. It's bullshit to preach about creating a system where people don't get "special treatment" when people are subjected to it as soon as they're out of the womb whether one wants it or not... and that is perpetrated even further depending one where a person grows up. Unless you want to start fixing things on that level and make sure that everyone who is born has the same, exact access to resources on the same exact levels, then your ideology is nothing but hypocritical garbage. You don't need a political stance to see the obvious here, although I'm sure you're going to desperately try to grasp onto yours.

I think you (deliberately?) misunderstood my point.

No... we've been through this before. Your points are small compared to the bigger picture, and I'm not here to dabble on the periods when the exclamations are much grander.

If there's any spare cash left over after the basics such as defence and the court system have been paid for the money should be redistributed evenly, like a dividend from a share. It would require less state apparatus, not more.

Sorry, that's not a fair assessment. In the most simplest of terms, that would mean people who work less will get more and that's not a world I want to live in. And considering your negative stance on things such as welfare and unemployment insurance, the fact that you'd now suggest that everyone would get an equal share of money from anything makes your stances even more hypocritical than before. Please don't think anyone has forgotten what you've said in previous threads... because we haven't.

 

[B_curiousme01]

uh-huh.

Except for pedophiles, right?

And zoophiles.

What about Yankee Fans who fall in love with Red Sox fans?

 

[Speculator]

Let me spell this out for you one more time.
People are born into a system of inequality. It's bullshit to preach about creating a system where people don't get "special treatment" when people are subjected to it as soon as they're out of the womb whether one wants it or not... and that is perpetrated even further depending one where a person grows up. Unless you want to start fixing things on that level and make sure that everyone who is born has the same, exact access to resources on the same exact levels, then your ideology is nothing but hypocritical garbage. You don't need a political stance to see the obvious here, although I'm sure you're going to desperately try to grasp onto yours.

Equality of opportunity and equal treatment before the law ARE NOT the same as equality of outcome. Why do insist on mixing up the two? This is highschool level politics, these concepts aren't difficult to grasp.

No... we've been through this before. Your points are small compared to the bigger picture, and I'm not here to dabble on the periods when the exclamations are much grander.

As far as I can tell your philisophy revolves around making sure people don't aim nasty words at each other, if that is the bigger picture I'm really not missing much. Actually this might not be so bad, you and your ilk can carry on deciding what type of words we're allowed to use, it limits the damage you inflict on the rest of us.

Sorry, that's not a fair assessment. In the most simplest of terms, that would mean people who work less will get more and that's not a world I want to live in. And considering your negative stance on things such as welfare and unemployment insurance, the fact that you'd now suggest that everyone would get an equal share of money from anything makes your stances even more hypocritical than before. Please don't think anyone has forgotten what you've said in previous threads... because we haven't.

Why do keep referring to what's been said in previous threads, or not what I'm saying but what you think I'm thinking? Just deal with the point, these ad homs are wearing a little thin.

In the simplest terms those that work the least right now help themselves to the largest share of the pie, in the UK the benefits system -one that is supposed to help the vulnerable- has turned thousands into professional benefit scroungers. As long as you have kids, no matter what your income level, you can expect a generous handout from the state. Many middle class adults have decided to pack in work after having children because the cost inflicted with the removal of benefits didn't add up, yes that's right, we're effectively paying skilled people not to work.

Oh, and let's not forget the housing market either, which acts as the single most exploitative wealth distribution mechanism in the history of capitalism. The housing market is basically a benefit system for the idle rich, and they've been gorging these past few years. Every single $ "earned" from house price appreciation is money that could have been used in the real economy, instead the wealth stacks up with monopolists that use the real estate market as a vehicle for increasing their own bank balance at the expense of those that have to work for a living.

You moralistic outlook is really clouding your judgement, try and think with your logical brain, not with your emotions.

 

[houtx48]

not being able to marry is special treatment.....Right?

 

[B_VinylBoy]

Equality of opportunity and equal treatment before the law ARE NOT the same as equality of outcome. Why do insist on mixing up the two? This is highschool level politics, these concepts aren't difficult to grasp.

There is no mixing of the two here.

As far as I can tell your philisophy revolves around making sure people don't aim nasty words at each other, if that is the bigger picture I'm really not missing much. Actually this might not be so bad, you and your ilk can carry on deciding what type of words we're allowed to use, it limits the damage you inflict on the rest of us.

Oh please, Mr. "I feel I should have the right to use the n-word".
You can say whatever nasty thing you want to me. However, if it's too raunchy you'll know what will happen to you around here because there are rules even you have to adhere to in order to be a member. The same goes for me as well, so this notion that I'm part of some "ilk" that want to limit your speech is bullshit. Try another whine tactic.

Why do keep referring to what's been said in previous threads, or not what I'm saying but what you think I'm thinking?

Because all of your actions and statements add up to the entity represented by your moniker. Whereas I can go through your post history and back up anything I say about you, the only thing you've done is accuse me of the very thing you do with everyone you debate with... you try to guess what the next person is thinking. Do you look in a mirror when you create responses that are supposed to be about me?

Just deal with the point, these ad homs are wearing a little thin.

Now which "point" do you want me to repeat myself over? Either way, I'm not going to retype it so dust off your comprehension skills and re-read what I've stated to whatever "point" you think you have.

In the simplest terms those that work the least right now help themselves to the largest share of the pie, in the UK the benefits system -one that is supposed to help the vulnerable- has turned thousands into professional benefit scroungers. As long as you have kids, no matter what your income level, you can expect a generous handout from the state. Many middle class adults have decided to pack in work after having children because the cost inflicted with the removal of benefits didn't add up, yes that's right, we're effectively paying skilled people not to work.

You really don't know a thing, do you?
At least here in the United States, the benefits given to a couple or adult with dependents is minimal for what is essentially a LOT of work & responsibility.

First, the qualifying child rules always take precedence over the qualifying relative rules. So if someone can claim a dependent using the qualifying child rules, then no one else can claim the same dependent using the qualifying relative rules. Secondly, both sets of rules are designed to award the dependent to one and only taxpayer. For example, under the qualifying child rules, the child must live with you for more than half the year. Under the qualifying relative rules, the taxpayer must provide more than half of the dependent's total support. While a bit complicated, these rules are designed to eliminate confusion over who gets to claim the dependent. Thirdly, the IRS will always audit tax returns where two or more taxpayers attempt to claim the same dependent. Only one taxpayer will win. The taxpayer who loses might also lose the related tax breaks such as child tax credit, earned income credit, or Head of Household filing status. What that means, is that the taxpayer who loses the IRS audit will have to pay additional taxes, plus penalties and interest. That makes dependent audits one of the most expensive audits that a taxpayer can endure. They also have to be under 19 years old, or under 24 and be a full time student in college, or completely disabled and fully under your care. This is just to start.

And what is the tax benefit for this? An exemption of roughly $3650 per dependent. Do you know how many dependents any taxpayer would need in order to engage in what you consider to be "not work" and live primarily on the generosity of the government? To be ranked as middle class in this country under those stipulations, you'd have to have at least 8-9 dependents and most people aren't going to do that much to your rhetorical chagrin. But that would only apply to the person filing the taxes, as such a yearly amount on a family level would barely be at or above the poverty line. On top of this with the average size of families being about 3.14 in this country (which is far below the 8-9 people necessary for a taxpayer to obtain a middle class wage just on government assistance alone), your gripes about this particular way of living and how it's unjust or unfair to you is nothing but pure bullshit like I've told you many times before in previous threads. Your ideology doesn't mean a thing without facts to back them up... and I'm sick of hearing people like you preach about matters when it's clearly obvious you don't think about what you say but want to condemn others who do.

Oh, and let's not forget the housing market either, which acts as the single most exploitative wealth distribution mechanism in the history of capitalism. The housing market is basically a benefit system for the idle rich, and they've been gorging these past few years. Every single $ "earned" from house price appreciation is money that could have been used in the real economy, instead the wealth stacks up with monopolists that use the real estate market as a vehicle for increasing their own bank balance at the expense of those that have to work for a living.

That's a completely different issue that really has NOTHING to do with this thread topic. Although we've both veered off topic to some degree, at least a discussion regarding children could be related to the subject matter since children are usually a direct product of marriage and starting a family, which should be granted to every person regardless if the couple is gay or straight.

You moralistic outlook is really clouding your judgement, try and think with your logical brain, not with your emotions.

Don't get mad if I can fuse logical reasoning with emotion to get my points across and you can't. Besides, politics have always been a personal issue. You can try and act cold hearted all you want, but nobody harbors a political or ideological thought without contemplating what that means for themselves and how they live. That doesn't mean they may have thought about it long, as demonstrated by your continued distorted beliefs about equality and how you only seem to complain about how other people get money or "special rights" for things and you don't. So if I can't use emotion to fuel my arguments, you can't use your shrouded sense of greed to propel yours. But since I know that won't ever happen, you know where you can shove your last line of nonsense as well.

 

[B_crackoff]

Crackoff cracks me up.
1. Catalán is a person, not a language.

Says who!
Catalan language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
2. Català (also known as Valencia) is a language, not a person
3. Català is not a "hybrid" of French and Spanish. Although there are many French and Spanish cognates that seem to mean the same thing as in Spanish and French, 99% of the time they don't. It is a separate language that is distinct from Spanish (Castellano), French, and Italian.

Of course it is. By hybrid I thought it was plain that there were clear elements of both.


4. Catalonia is the British Twitish way of spelling Cataluña, which is more accurately spelled as Catalunya in English.
5. There are various dialects of català-valencià where it is the primary language spoken in Andorra, Aragón, the Beleaeric Islands, Murcia, and most of Sardinia.
6. Català is the "official" language of Cataluña, Iberic Isles, Valencia, and parts of the Pyrenees where the language shares equal status with Castellano (not castilian which is a dumb English corruption of Castellano). If you can't accept the idea of Castellano, you're better off just saying Spanish (which covers a lot of linguistic blemishes). And currently, there are approximately more than 4,400,000+ people who think and speak català as their first language, defaulting to Castellano and/or French as their second native language depending where they live.

We're speaking English here! As you must know the USA is not called that in Spanish.

Do you not now what an exonym & an endonym are!:biggrin1:

As for tits and feathers, it's quite obvious that Crackoff is a luddite and unable to figure out how to block the channels received from satellite or cable that offend him. It's easier than configuring a new cell phone.

You're quite a thickie here - who said anything about blocking? The point was you can solely have terrestrial & receive the other hardcore channels simply by being near another receiver.


As for Air Traffic Controllers, obviously Crackoff was not around (or self-aware) when Reagan, the great communicator, fired all of the Air Traffic Controllers in the USA who tried to unionize because of unusually stressful working conditions and being "retired" early without qualifying for their full retirement benefit so the US government could save a few bucks. It took more than 12 years for the US government to train and replace all of the Air Traffic Controllers who were fired for nothing more than wanting a pay raise and shorter working hours.

So?:smile: My point was current - ATCs were forced back to work under armed guard! As I saw on the BBC: "persuaded & helped". Reagan was a happy puppy in comparison.

Spanish air traffic controller:

Corruption? Crackoof thinks corruption is bad in Spain? In addition to many other wrong facts I suspect Crackoff is living under a rock thumbing through a dog-eared copy of Through The Looking Glass to keep himself warm and fuzzy. Spain is frequently listed a few countries higher than the USA when if comes to world transparency and less corruption.

What, in Spanish textbooks?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/oct/26/corruption-index-2010-transparency-international#data

And point of fact, the USA kept the economies of West Germany, France, and Italy among other countries, afloat with millions of dollars (when a million dollars actually was a lot of money) from 1945 until the early 1950's by subsidizing western Europe's auto, steel, and similar major manufacturing industries.



As for Spain, they "didn't have all their crap before." They avoided most of WWII by becoming a fascist state with Franco as head despot who was happy to have Germany try out it's new, modern weaponry on unprotected pueblos such as Guernica, thus tipping the end of the Spanish Civil War into his hands.

Exactly how many priests did the communists kill - 10,000? Not exactly a great choice! The Spanish certainly had all their shit before.

(Ever see the enormous painting by Picasso rendered in black and white paint and created during the months of May and June 1937? I thought so. Most people haven't a clue that such a painting exists.) Maybe Crackoff is as old as I am and is still pissed off and insulted the Brits were when we sent, among the millions of tons of emergency food staples immediately shipped across the Atlantic after WWII, all those cases of canned corn. Apparently, Europeans regard corn as animal food and not fit for human consumption.

Contemporaneously the Brits dropped their rations & fed the Dutch, suffering hardship for others in a worse state. What helpful chaps.

As for a different kind of foreign aid, the USA propped up Franco with billions of dollars as long as the US Air Force was allowed to maintain air force bases on Spanish soil that serviced B-52 bombers carrying nuclear weapons.

That's not a loan - that's a Quid pro quo.

As for the local politics of my adopted country, I love it all. Zapatero has to create a working coalition among the Basque Nationalist Party (they never show up); the Canarian Coalition or CC (a coalition of five parties); Convergence and Union or CiU (a coalition of the Democratic Convergence of Cataluña or CDC, and the Democratic Union of Catalouña UDC. There are a few more such as Entesa Cataloña de Progress; Galician Nationalist Bloc or BNG; Party of Independents from Lanzarote or PIL; Popular Party or PP; Republican Left of Cataloña; Spanish Socialist Workers Party or PSOE; United Left or IU (a coalition of parties including the PCE and other small parties including die hard Communists).

And although the country is a parliamentary monarchy, the legislative branch is bicameral and works rather well. There's a lot more to Spain than coming down on holiday from the UK, mangling the local languages because you never really learned Spanish in school, vomiting in the streets, going to sex clubs along the Costanera Norte and Sur, then crawling aboard EasyJet with a hangover so one can return to one's life under mostly overcast skies and ...

...cities covered in soot.

Have you actually been to the UK in 30 years! Soot?! You'd need an industry for that, & we haven't got one. Mangling the language - doesn't everyone mangle their own? The place I know best drops the es from the start of every word in speech.

Odd, in a country called Espana.


And rather than worry about the local beer, most northern Euro tourists are thrilled to buy a fortified sangria call Don Ramón, because it's "fruity and costs less than a Euro a box!"

Hmm . . . what have I forgot? I know I forgot something. Oh, yeah, right: Bite me! :biggrin1:

I'd steer clear of any wine less than a Euro, even in Spain. Soberano 8 & a coffee will do me fine.

I don't see how my original post was confrontational. Hopefully, I've now addressed this.

I have actually posted before that I used to have a business concern in Spain for over 2 years, & I flew over every fortnight, & dealt with the local authorities & lawyers, so I do have a reasonable insight from which to form an opinion. I still go 4 times a year, so I do actually like the country, & have indigenous friends & also family there!

I'm sorry to say that I haven't been sick on the streets yet:frown1:

Cheer up MLB!

 

[helgaleena]

Follow the logic, Churches should not allow infertile people to get married. Get your barren asses out of my Church.

Quit giving the 'fundies' Ideas that might work, Drifter!

 

[B_Marius567]

why get marry you may loss everything you own in a divorce then have to pay alimony?

 

[B_crackoff]

why get marry you may loss everything you own in a divorce then have to pay alimony?

Too right. Ban gay marriage/civil unions AND everyone else's.

Then we'll have equality!:wink: It'll also put all those wedding planners out of business, get rid of mum & dad's painful dancing & spoil the party for everyone!

And just think how many lawyers would now have to go & get a useful life!

Court time freed up, frilly dresses & morning suits banned - & best of all, no more bloody questions like "when are we getting hitched". I dream of the day when all men (& women)can be free!

 

[midlifebear]

Completely off the thread subject, and only for Crackoff:

I'm quite happy, el Crackoffo. My GHI is still a solid 8 today.

You had a business in Spain for a whole two years? I started my first business in BCN in 1998. I now have formed 5 very successful SA's in this very supportive capitalist country. I pay a load of taxes, but what I receive in exchange is a lot more than the bang for my buck in the USA.

Yes, I have been to the UK. And I was there recently. I finally took a two week "vacation" which started in London and from which I escaped from London. Although the sun was shining most of the time everything looked as if it needed a good scrubbing -- except around the Salisbury Plain. At least in the USA cities such as Detroit the local governments are tearing down and clearing out blight and replacing it with green space to be used once again if and when the cities need to grow back. I can't say the city fathers of Manchester or Sheffield are of the same mindset. Sorry, but giant Ferris Wheels do not a city make.

As for corruption, someone is obviously paying to tip the scales regarding the Transparency Index. I never had to pay someone for a job in Spain. I've yet to be held up for "multas" along the autopistas. But my personal professional experience as a US Citizen has taught me that corruption in the EE.UU. -- "you" people call it the United Sates (and often times worse things) -- well, I've yet to encounter any extortion in BCN that I've ALWAYS encountered dealing with city, county, and state government in the USA. Two years ago while back in the State of Nevada I was denied a final inspection on a garage because I refused to pay off the county building inspector. I hired an attorney, filed a formal complaint with the county, suffered through depositions, and before I could have my case heard before a "court of my peers" the final inspection certificate magically showed up in my mail. "Off the record," I was told I should have paid off the building inspector, because it would have been less expensive. The building inspector is still happily working for the county. Imagine that? And that is only a minor example of corruption that is much deeper in large US cities. Try getting all of your licenses, inspections and paperwork done in the State of Ewetaw if you're not a mormon. Corruption? Ever been to Las Vegas? I encourage you to go sometime. Want to be thrown into jail just because you're not heterosexual? San Diego's Finest (it says so on the side of their police cars) are happy to oblige if you kiss your same sex partner within their eye sight. It has something to do with "lewd conduct," the charges for which are suddenly dropped after you've been dragged of to jail and paid bail (they don't return bail money).

If, as a member of a big pee pee site, you're so bent out of shape regarding nudity and pornography invading your Television airwaves -- turn the fucking channel. Is that so hard? And sorry that you live in a world where direct high definition digital reception is not an option (or that you're too cheap to spring for it).

As for 20th Century Spanish History, you're not terribly well informed. You might want to revisit that area before claiming -- How many thousands of Catholic priests? -- You realize, of course, that the majority of Spanish citizens were shocked and pissed off that after WWII the European Allies allowed Franco to remain as head of the only Fascist government in Western Europe. Those billions of US dollars were not quid pro quo, they were a bribe to install US military out posts on Spanish soil. And it might be worthwhile to remind you that when the USA throws millions/billions of dollars at a country and identifies all that "fake paper" as foreign aid, it is foreign aid -- not a loan. When the USA promises to loan millions/billions of dollars to a country as a loan, it is a loan and the Chief Executive -- along with Congress -- expects it to be paid back (but they rarely throw a hissy fit when it isn't). Just look up how much "foreign aid" has disappeared in the black hole known as Iraq. Now that I think about it, the British and the Germans were the first to enter the regions of (then) Persia and what is now Iraq fighting for the oil in both WWI and WWII. The USA always seems to be willing to get sucked into what is left over of the UK's bad empire building. In my humble opinion, sacrificing 4,000+ American lives and counting is too much to pay for interfering with bad UK diplomacy simply because we speak a dialect of the same language. But that's just my personal opinion and a completely other thread.

Finally, a little Wikipedia is a dangerous thing. Nowhere in the Wiki article does it state or claim that català is a hybrid of French and Spanish. You should really quit pulling pseudo facts out of your hidy-hole. Not only is it unseemly, it smells bad. Catalá is its own, completely separate language related to Spanish and French only because it is recognized as a "romance" language. Your claim that it's a hybrid (which, in linguistics, we recognizes as a creole which is a stabilized form of a pidgin language created by two or more speakers of different languages to conduct commerce. For example, Swahili is now a verifiable modern creole language which did not exist several hundred years ago based primarily upon Kiunguja, which is a ancient African language that almost no one remembers today -- although there are a few native speakers left -- but not many. Català has been a complete, independent language with origins more than a thousand years old. And Franco was happy to have anyone who printed pamphlets, posters, books, newspapers or gave public speeches in catalá arrested and killed up until his death in 1975. Yeah, Franco was a prize. The prison (now a quaint fort) at the top of Mont Juic (sorry for the lack of a umlaut over the u) was in practical use up until Fracisco F. gave up his last breath. They don't do that anymore -- kill folks for speaking catalá. In fact, if you return to Barçelona there are plenty of free classes in catalá taught almost every hour and every day of the week sponsored by the city government.

Whoops! There I go again showing off those hard earned advanced graduate degrees in Linguistics and Anthropology from the University of Texas. My bad.


So, have a "special" day Señor Crackoff.

From your special friend, Midlifebear, faculty emeritus of la Universtat de Barçelona. :smile:

P.S. I'm sorry. I forgot to add, "Bite me!"