Are Spaniards, the Portuguese, the French, Italians seen as Germanic in America?

The EU is interesting to observe, since it forces peoples that historically had little taste for each other, in some instances, to pretend otherwise. I thought that Germany might prefer that Turkey not enter the EU, even though some people think of it as a European country, since the end of WWI?

I personally do not think the origins of people is what matters to others, but rather the current culture, and how different it may be perceived to be. Now that would be a non-sequitor if everyone just learned English, and adopted the American culture.

A dentist always seeks the root of rot.

And by the way: is the EU becoming "too strong" for America, with the new countries tipping the balance?

That's probably one of the silliest questions ever posted on A2k.

Certainly the "new Europe" can count itself as larger, more populous and, in aggregate, having a slightly larger economy than the United States. However, the evolving EU has not yet resolved all of the political contradictions that beset it. An amazingly successful and largely pragmatic economic integration has left some still unresolved political and national soverignty issues unresolved - eventually they must be dealt with before Europe can act as a unified power in the world. Moreover, the growing dependence of Europe on Russian exports of energy and other commodities, given the still conflicting political ambitions of Europe and Russia, will remain a problem. Finally Europe faces a rather serious demographic challenge coupled with difficulties in accepting and assimilating external immigrants.

America has always been the alternative to Europe in Western civilization. I don't see that changing.

You make a fundamental error, O'George, in assuming that you can have a rational conversation with LP.

That could be an incorrect assumption that more is stronger. Based on which countries are being added to the EU in the future, the balance scales could be tipping back towards the U.S.A. Too many cooks can spoil the stew, or some such saying.

I've visited the game "Second Life" about 15 times in the last months. These are complex, though childish, virtual worlds, and the Internet connection speed is everything because otherwise the game crashes, you are stuck and can't move. Thus the game has people only from the countries where such connections exist.

I can tell you who belongs to this elite: it's a mixture of nations. Of course many of the avatars don't disclose their nationality. Anyway, the game is based in California.

No Chinese there, no Russians, no Africans from Africa, no Asians from poorer countries. I saw there Americans, Canadians, the French, Italians, Spaniards, Brazilians, British people, Germans, people from Norway, Denmark, the Portuguese. Few Poles, some Slovenes, some Romanians, maybe some Arabs. Just maybe some Koreans and Japanese, though the Japanese are strong in anime (cartoon movies) and manga (cartoon series).

The French don't want to talk English, however a translator software is available.
There's a feeling there that one belongs to an elite club.
And yes, there is a lot of sex in the game, recently gay and lesbian themes.
But my connection, though pretty fast, good for watching streaming movies, for example, is getting too slow for Second Life. Ever newer versions of the game are introduced. On the other hand, maybe it depends on the memory you have in your PC, and mine is just basic, good for texts.

The quality of pc games depends both upon your RAM and the on-board memory of your video card. If you have high-speed internet, then that's not what is slowing you down and causing the crash. You need a lot of RAM, you need to have allocated a great deal of virtual memory (i've reset the virtual memory of my system to eight times the standard to free up more cache space for games), and you need a good video card with lots of memory capacity. If you've got a high speed connection, your problem is in your computer, and not with your download speed.

Somewhat risky, according to Microsoft. Better for me to give up SL and have the computer intact for years to come. Problems with computers can turn into horror. My video card is OK as far as SL requirements go. My memory is at the minimum acceptable level.

Bullshit . . . you go into system information and reset your virtual memory, it doesn't cause any problems at all, and Microsoft does not advise against making that change. Unless you have installed a video card other than the one that came on your mother board, i seriously doubt that your video card is up to running games with an image-rich environment. I'd say the likely problem you have is with your virtual memory and your video card--those are almost always the culprits. Changing your virtual memory size does absolutely nothing to the hardware of your computer, it is just a change in the setting of the operating system. Tell me, bright boy, if Microsoft advises against it, why does the OS allow you to do it?

No, it's NVIDIA GeForce 6600, enough for Second Life. And I have 512 RAM, their minimum. Such components are quite cheap nowadays in Poland.
I haven't had problems even with fast actions like riding down a slope on a tube , but there have been more and more crashes, so I've decided to stop the risky behavior.
I'll add that I live in a town of 10.000, in a remote region, in the former East Prussia actually, which is one of the poorer parts of Poland. However, the regional capital is just 20 miles away, so it radiates. This is a cable connection in a 1980s apartment house district local network.

Your RAM is probably too low, but virtual memory is important, too. You can safely increase your virtual memory in control panel. If you are using a cable connection for high speed internet, you're getting just as good a service as you would over a telephone line, so that's definitely not a problem.

There were no original Europeans as they all came from Asia. Europe 2 million years ago was iced up from the last Ice Age. Neanderthals were the first to come out of Africa and occupied Europe and Asia. Then came Homo Sapiens, modern man, who either displaced them by wiping them out or interbreeding with them. There is no conclusive scientific evidence of either.

The Celts were aggressive warlike people and invaded Italy and threatened to wipe out the Etruscans who bribed them to leave. It was Gaius Julius Caesar who conquered the Celts in France. The Greek wiped out the Celts in Turkey or Anatolia. The weakness in the Celtic culture was the oral tradition and the role of the priesthood the Druids. They controlled everything but wrote down nothing. Caesar observed them and learned that by wiping out the Druids the Celts would be leaderless and vulnerable. That is why the Celts never ruled Europe.

Somehow the world with druids seems more pastoral and human. Of course couldn't oppose the progress of civilization.
But there were druids, and there were Druids, those who advised kings.
Personally, when I see that I'm on a muddy path, I go back to the point of departure.

When I'm in a dark room, I switch on the light.
Beautiful were the pastoral times before Russia and Germany took an interest in Poland. In destroying Poland.

Are you referring to Poland during the times of Boleslaw the Bold and Kazimierz the Great, Jagiellon Poland-Lithuania, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Poland prior to the partitions ... ... ?

I mean, even the last of above is more than 330 years ago.

I hear that nowadays Polish students go through Polish and world history three times, the full cycle: in the elementary school, in the junior high school, in the high school. Then, if you study history at a university, once more.
These rulers are on Polish banknotes, seen everyday by people. But don't imagine that Poles know much about them, mostly it's school, what the teachers said. Historical movies about those times are rare. It's rather this general feeling in the air that Poland was once a superpower, maybe based mainly on Sienkiewicz's Trilogy (about the 17th century).

Look, the druids were adorable creatures with their magical rituals, but nobody cries after them, because as soon as you are overcome by military might, you become ridiculous, passe.

Poland, like other East European nations, has managed to retain the national spirit - unlike the Celts perhaps - even when our countries were totally submerged by Germans, Russians, Habsburgs, Turks, but has this made us stronger? No, these countries are just shadows of their past glory. Poland was once a strong kingdom, famous for its army, and likewise Czechs, Hungary, Bulgaria. After centuries of weakening these are just shadows, like Greece. Even Russia has its best days behind her - these were in the good Tzarist period in the 19th century, which they themselves destroyed through revolution.
So Poland exists, but at the mercy of superpowers. It's not that we would like to be a superpower again, but even the basic sense of safety is difficult to achieve.
So the fate of Poland is not a positive scenario for another country. It's our geographical location mainly, and overpopulation in Germany, and the growth of Russia which now seems to recede, but don't imagine we are a strongman besides some spiritual strength and lots of "experience" gathered throughout the centuries.
It's recollecting past glory amid material problems nowadays, but we are not very materialistic. Sth like Spain, Portugal, we don't have nukes like France. But comparing us to Ireland is not correct, because the Irish were not a full European kingdom in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Baroque.

Our queen from Italy, introduced many vegetables here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bona_Sforza

Have you seen how the Polish court is presented in the movie "Ivan the Terrible"? Just about 10 minutes. Russians know very well that they destroyed a fully-fledged European kingdom. They seem to have some remorse, but we were a real threat to their existence.
In Communist times, many movies and TV series were made recalling the old Poland, especially after 1960. Well, Russians believe that every republic has the right to cultivate its past.