Setanta wrote:My goodness, O'George, doesn't all that bile combined with coffee tear up your stomach lining?
No bile at all. Just back from a morning workout, enjoying a coffee or two and joyfully recalling & expressing my admiration for an old friend and my happy contempt for those he outfoxed.
Glad to encounter you here again. I hope the eyes are OK and that you are feeling well. I can see that you have recovered your old form.
Ollie "teetered on the edge of the law" like Billy the Kid did before him.
Yes but both are enduring, fascinating and attractive figures -- just like the "Wild Colonial Boy" in the Irish song.
What's it like being a dour Scot? :wink:
Ah, but Ollie's motives were so much the nobler . . . after all, the killing was on a much more vast scale . . .
I am always greatly amused (in a black humor mode) by the Iran-Contra scam the Ray-gun pulled off, helping to arm the Persians, and then turning right around and sending Rummy to Baghdad to let Who-sane know we liked his style . . .
There's something in the wild west mindset that attracts....Brits as well as Americans. Your Pres certainly plays it for all it's worth.
But hey, dour Scots built your country, and that's maybe why I feel a proprietorial interest. I look over from time to time to see how the experiment is going.
Interesting and bizarre note: for two centuries, the Hudson's Bay Company recruited new employees in the Hebrides, when their annual supply ships made the trip to the factories on the shores of Hudson's and James Bays. However, as Royal Navy press gangs made their routine visits as well, the only Scots they could rely upon recruiting were all small men, 5'3" or shorter, as the Navy had taken everyone else. The image of small, bellicose Scots taking on the wilderness in the name of venture capitalism tickles my fancy.
By the by, the common folk tale here is that the Grand Canyon was dug by a Scotsman who dropped a five cent piece in a crack in the ground . . .
Ha. Ha.
You will have heard of a mean, thrifty Scotsman called Andrew Carnegie.
(I knew I shouldn't have gotten into this!)
Ah, there is a Carnegie Library in Columbus, Ohio . . . beautiful old building, the foundation stone for which advertizes the year MCMV . . . .
As well you should. One of the features of our success has been the positive transformation on those dour Scots brought about by the justaposition of so many Irishmen, Germans, Poles, and Italians - all seasoned by a bit of everything else in the world. It took the bitterness out of them without stifling their creativity.
Ollie, by the way, is Scotch-Irish.
Bitter, moi? I will modestly admit to being creative, though. Though not with facts.
In 1690, nine in ten Americans was native to the "British" Isles, and eight of those from England. By the time of the Stamp Act Crisis (1765), those numbers had dropped to seven and five, respectively. Non-English-speaking immigration continued to increase, and by the 1850's, non-Protestant immigration was in full swing. Meanwhile, throughout most of it's history since 1783, Canada's largest single immigrant group have been Americans . . .
Hmmmmm . . . .
Canada was the home of English slaves who continued to love their chains long after we had thrown them off. We have supplied them with a continuous stream of Tories and other like types from the lower strata of our creativity pile.
Whew, O'George . . . you gotta turn down the gain on that ray gun a yours . . . you're a corker this morning . . .
Quote:In 1791, Britain named different parts of the Canada: Upper Canada (now Ontario), Lower Canada (now Quebec) and the Maritimes (Nova Scotia including Prince Edward and Cape Breton Islands and Newfoundland including Labrador). In the 1770s, it became fashionable to own slaves so many store owners, people in the government and church officials had slaves
1819 John Beverley Robinson, Attorney General of Upper Canada ruled that people of African origins who lived in Canada were free with their rights protected by law.
In Lower Canada and the Maritimes there were no laws about slavery. The judges and courts helped to abolish slavery by protecting the rights of slaves. Although slavery was still legal, slaves who left their owners were not afraid of being returned.
Seems like Canada sent most of their slaves back to their countries of origin before our Emancipation Proclamation.
http://www.blackhistoricalmuseum.com/chronology.htm
Setanta,
Rule #3 is " All good things should be done to excess."
I believe this concept is not entirely unfamiliar to you ....
That's nice . . . and in 1838, Upper Canada became Canada West, while Lower Canada became Canada East, and the two were joined in a confederation with a single parliament . . . in 1866, in response to the Fenian invasion from the United States, Canada East and Canada West, in the persons of John A. MacDonald and Etienne Cartier proposed a larger confederation, and went to Charlottetown in Prince Edward Island to make a presentation, resulting in a Confederation Dominion in 1867, combining the two Canadas with the Maratimes. The other provinces have been added, culminating with the confederation of Labrador-Newfoundland in 1949.
So what's your point, Fox, you just indulgin' in a little pokin' of the Canajuns with a sharp stick?
McTag wrote:Bitter, moi? I will modestly admit to being creative, though. Though not with facts.
Not bitter, perhaps, but infused with a certain ... sharp focus and dour tenacity. I have no doubt that beneath that prickly Knox-lilke exterior lies a good guy like Ollie, or..... me! A little more contact with Micks, Krauts, Polacks, Dagos, and the like could polish you a great deal - just as it did your very creative, energetic cousins over here.
A senior US State Department envoy said Tuesday after meetings with German officials that the German federal experience could provide a useful model for a permanent Iraqi constitution. Citing the German structure of multiple laender [
maps and profiles] with considerable autonomy united in a federal union, Richard Jones, former US ambassador to Lebanon and now US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's top advisor on Iraq, suggested that the German arrangement could provide the basis for a stable Iraqi nation state with different regions under a single federal government.
Quote:Federal Germany a model for Iraq--US diplomat
26 Apr 2005
Source: Reuters
BERLIN, April 26 (Reuters) - Germany's federal structure could be a model for Iraq when it starts drafting its own constitution, the senior Iraq adviser to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday.
"I think Germany could potentially play a constructive role in drafting, or in helping the Iraqis draft the constitution because of your federal structure," Richard Jones told reporters during a visit to Berlin to discuss Iraq with German government officials.
"In Germany you have the 'Laender'. That is I think a model that could be a very useful model for Iraq," added Jones, who was U.S. ambassador to Kuwait until July 2004 and now coordinates Iraq policy in the State Department.
Germany is composed of 16 'Laender', or states, which have a considerable degree of independence and influence over domestic policy made in Berlin. Jones expressed confidence that a political deadlock in Iraq over the formation of a new government would end soon, allowing work on a new constitution to be completed by August 15.
He said concrete discussions on how European countries could help Iraq would likely take place at a conference in the second half of June in Brussels.
Jones praised German efforts in helping train Iraqi security forces, saying a total of 150,000 Iraqis were now fully trained and equipped. The United States has a goal of training an additional 10,000 per month over the coming year.
But he cautioned that efforts to suppress the insurgency in the country, which has grown more violent in recent weeks as political momentum generated by Jan. 30 elections has waned, would take time.
"We don't have any illusions as to how quickly the insurgency can be defeated," he said. "In fact worldwide the average insurgency lasts eight or nine years and the current insurgency has only been going two."
Writing a permanent constitution to replace the interim charter drawn up last year will be one of the first tasks facing the new Iraqi government. The degree of autonomy for different ethnic groups is likely to be hotly debated.
Germany opposed the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and refused to send troops there, but the two countries' leaders have agreed to bury their differences and have worked hard to rebuild bilateral ties.
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