I've heard Finnish is fairly easily, actually. Well, not heard. I've just always assumed it is. It's quite phonetic; if you can pronounce the letters/letter combinations, you can read Finnish.

I'm not sure about how hard it is to actually understand spoken Finnish. I'm only just learning a language other than English (American Sign Language).

I can say "excuse me", though. I think.

Oh my God, this is TERRIBLE!
 

One of my friends sent me an article about a MUCH bigger threat than Iraq ...

I saw this and thought "Cellar"
 

The Difference Between The Liberal and Conservative
"Debate" Over The War


Question: You're walking down a deserted street with your wife and two small children. Suddenly, a dangerous looking man with a huge knife comes around the corner and is running at you while screaming obscenities. In your hand is a Glock .40 and you are an expert shot. You have mere seconds before he reaches you and your family. What do you do?
___________________________________________________

Liberal Answer

Well, that's not enough information to answer the question! Does the man look poor or oppressed? Have I ever done anything to him that is inspiring him to attack? Could we run away? What does my wife think? What about the kids? Could I possibly swing the gun like a club and knock the knife out of his hand? What does the law say about this situation? Is it possible he'd be happy with just killing me? Does he definitely want to kill me or would he just be content to wound me? If I were to grab his knees and hold on, could my family get away while he was stabbing me? This is all so confusing! I need to debate this with some friends for a few days to try to come to a conclusion.

________________________________________________

Conservative Answer

BANG!

____________________________________________________
Texan's Answer BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

BANG! click...
(sounds of clip being ejected and fresh clip installed)

Wife: "Sweetheart, he looks like he's still moving, what do you kids think?"

Son: "Mom's right Dad, I saw it too..."

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

Daughter: "Nice grouping Daddy!"

Thanks for posting that bit of silliness, Dagney! I've gotten that several times recently in my email, but I had never seen the "Texas" variation. Good one!

Awww you're welcome Wolf....Hope you're feeling better!

Dags

Crap they found us out. :)

Re: I saw this and thought "Cellar"
 

This is the Conservative Question:

Here is the Liberal Question:

Question: You're walking down a deserted street with your wife and two small children. Suddenly, a dangerous looking man appears and gives you the raspberry. Ten years ago you beat him up for punching his neighbor. Since then, you hired a P.I. to watch him, and haven't heard anything conclusive yet, but one of his other neighbors punched you about a year ago. He is unresponsive to your requests for him to show you his knife. What do you do?

The answers are the same. :)

Speaking from the middle, the question is:

You're walking down a cul-de-sac with your domestic partner and dependents when suddenly you realize that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction has made the world much less safe, because it has given the ability for a relatively small number of people to do great amounts of damage.

As you walk, your partner says that it used to take a productive government to create such a device - and productive governments are more responsive to diplomacy, as well as to their own people. You remember it is rare for such governments to wage war against each other. In fact you remember that no two democratic governments have ever waged war. But now proliferation has led to unproductive governments getting these weapons, governments that are unresponsive to diplomacy and unchecked by even any notion of decency.

Finally you come to the question. How can the world remain safe and free while nuclear weapons proliferate to dictators who run death camps and drink champagne from gold spigots in marble-tiled halls while their people starve?

Actually the question is way off base with regard to the Iraq thing.

The real example is:

You're walking down the street with your family and see someone who looks slightly different than you in a fight with his neighbor. You see a bulge in his coat pocket that may or may not be a weapon.

What do you do?

Democrat: Walk up, get involved, and try to talk it out. If that doesn't work kill them both.

Republican: Shoot the guy dead because the bulge in his pocket MIGHT be a weapon. Then treaten his family and prevent them from getting food or medicine resulting in many of them dying. Then wait a few years and kill more of them because you never did get a weapon. Even though nobody in the family has threatened you or associates with anyone who has threatened you or ever attacked you, kill them pre-emptively to defend yourself from future hypothetical situations while at the same time pissing off every other member of his family, his neighborhood, etc.

Libertarian: Mind your own fucking business. Nobody is attacking you or threatening you. Go about your life without interfering. If the fight does spread and come to you, defend yourself at that time.

Why do people feel compelled to categorize themselves politically? Are there really people out there who're for every single thing that a political party is also for?

[sarcasm]Another example of someone that voted for Bush and is supporting the admin in the current crisis. Glad to have you onboard Radar. :) [/sarcasm]


I know, I know, I'm a stupid cock smoker, you've forgotten more....yadda, yadda.....

Lighten up Francis.

Sadly, yes.

There are about 25 million of them right here. If they don't agree with *everything* I run a power drill into their genitals and set them on fire.

Back to languages...
 

I had actually thought that English was fairly difficult to learn, because (after having been conquered by their speakers) we have melded so many different languages together to form our own, and we have adopted rules (and conjugations?) from many of them.