Ah.

That explains the ability to elevate indifference to a high art.

I thought that he didn't get re-elected because Boutros Boutros-Ghali scans about the same as "Olly olly oxen free".

Darn, you learn something new every day.

Well, the US never wanted him in there in the first place. He got the UN more involved in peace-keeping, but got a lot of flack for Bosnia, and apparently his reforms were considered too little too late.

[race]You're just hassling me because I'm a black African, you racist mofo.[/card]

I dont appreciate that one bit.

HEY NOW! Aren't we all supposed to be happy brothers in the new one world government brought to us by the UN??

I try to pay you a compliment Kofi, and this is what I get?

That's fine...you'll never see that money the US owes you anyway.

Little do you know, Syc, my lad ...

The money will come, it will just be sneaked through the Fed and laundered through the world bank.

It's never a straight line.

Shouldn't we get a discount since a) We helped create the UN and b) They do make their headquarters here? :)

On a serious note, I think the UN should have gotten that money ages ago. IIRC, the bone of contention on the US end is the discussion of family planning and abortion.

Which brings me to the SOTU address, in terms of the whole "fighting AIDS in Africa" thing. Dubya talked about new drugs that help stave it off. That's great and all, but don't we also want to stop new infections...through, oh I don't know, contraceptives? I didn't hear any talk about that.

I think their culture is different enough that most of them would never be able to accept living here. Plus, they don't speak our language.

Like that makes a difference to any of the immigrants (legal, or especially illegal) to the US ...

A lot of those folks don't fit into our culture, and many of them refuse to learn to speak English.

Admittedly, it's our own fault ... the US has never legislated a national language. It's well past time, and is probably now too late to do so. We've suffered through waves of nonsense such as bilingual eduation which does a disservice to non-English speakers.

I'm still trying to figure out the necessity of multi-lingual ballots. What gives? In order to become a naturalized US citizen, and therefore to have the right to vote, you HAVE to show proficiency in English. The rules haven't changed ... why have the ballots?

I disagree...people from all walks of life come here and "assimilate" into American culture, creating their own little piece of the quilt.

And there are places here where the language issue would not be a problem (Detroit, Chicago).

I agree that it is too late to make a national language. However, I advocate the use of more Spanish in American society. At the rate the Latino population (both legal and illegal) is growing, there will probably always be a significant number of people in this country unable to speak decent English.

Thank God for those illegals though...they help keep the costs down on a lot of the products we buy that say "Made in USA."

Anyone who comes to this country should be required to pass an English-fluency test before becoming a citizen. IQ and age should be weighted in that requirement (as less intelligent people and older people may have difficulty learning English, which is already a very hard language to learn).

True. Did you hear what that kook from Reading was saying the other day? I don't agree with multi-lingual ballots, but that guy was going about it the absolute wrong way.

English itself is an easy language to learn. It's just that we have so much slang. That's what gets people. Proper English is a snap.

juju - I disagree entirely. I'm always reading something about how some Iraqis whose family have been killed by Saddam's security forces are applying for asylum (and always being granted) in the U.S. Just last week, it was a family that had snuck across the border into Syria and <b>twenty one</b> of their relatives had been killed back in Iraq. They applied for asylum in the U.S. (which they consider to be "great" and "free") and, pretty soon, will be on a plane to their new home in Washington, D.C.

There are always going to be a ton of people that don't want to get out. But there's always a ton more who do.

I don't agree with you on the language issue, Dave. We use so many different sounds with our letters compared to, say a romance language (French, Spanish, Italian, etc.).

The only European language I've heard that is harder than English is Finnish (which is a Ural-Altaic language)...apparently, if you don't learn it growing up, you'll never quite get it.

But that's just practice with pronunciation. You're talking about speaking specifically, and I'm talking about the language as a whole. When it comes to writing, for example, English is a lot easier than, say, German.

And we have nothing on Japanese when it comes to difficulty. Thirty thousand symbols that you have to memorize with no phonetic help whatsoever.

When you get into the romance languages (and others), you come up with different genders for objects. Spanish and French have two, German has three, etc. English only has <b>one</b>.

Plus, we've simplified a lot over the years - thou, thee, etc and their different conjucations have all been left behind. English has very much been streamlined where other languages have not.

As far as speaking, yes - English is a bit more difficult because of the different pronunciations. But that's even a difference between England and the U.S. - not something that is all that different on paper (with the exception of the often-added U and the S instead of a Z on "ize" words).

I really don't think English is all that difficult when you look at just the language and its form. Verb conjucations are a snap, we only have three tenses (how many in Spanish?), we only have one gender...