Queen shakes hands with IRA terrorist

[Darnell 8,478]

I agree

In Jamaica, I hired a motorbike and took a Lebanese girl (wearing shorts) up the mountain

I checked in the mirror and she had no cellulite

those Lebanese are SO westernized !

It doesn't come any more off topic than that

Was it a chinese motorbike ?

[Ban Hammer 13,342]

3 additional posts removed upon review

[Captain Oates 911]

Was it a chinese motorbike ?

It was a piece of junk

It broke down and I got a piece of string out of a field and got another motorbike to tow us back to town

They claimed they could not give us the deposit back because nobody had a key to the safe (Hoping we were flying out)

I made myself comfy in their office and said I would stay there overnight until the safe was opened

They found the key 30 seconds later

Here concludeth the off topic fork

[Rebecca Jo 1,962]

Yes, I have. My sister and I went to Ireland, and we spent part of our time in Northern Ireland. (She goes there every year - she just got back last week from another trip.) The entire island is a stunningly beautiful place - just amazing - and everyone was quite nice including in the North (even despite our tell-tale Irish names .)

So... how about you ? Have you ever been to Jamestown ? They've just built a fabulous new wing to the museum there, but I haven't had a chance to see it yet. I will on my next trip that way... one of my brothers lives in Falls Church and we're planning to take a drive down to see it.

Did you really expect people in the North to be nasty to you because of an Irish surname?

Before the husband moved here, he used to forward me joke e-mails that went around his office. I thought it was cool to look at all the different names, both first and surname alike. I've still got those e-mails. Here's the list (redacted to remove email addresses):

declan_mellon; Katrina McLaughlin; Mairead Mc Gilloway; Barr, Christine; Begley, Don; Bond, Mark; Collins, Damien; Cowley, Claire; Crawford, Allan; Deeney, Dymphna; Farren, Stephen; Freaney, Andrew; Friel, Michael; Harkin, Gerrard; Harrigan, Deborah; Hegarty, Linda; Jackson, Michelle; Keenan, Veronica; Lynch, Sean; Macken, Pauline; Mccann, Jonathan; McCleave, Bridgene; McClements, Ryan; McElhinney, Leon; Mcfarland, Laura; McGilloway, Bronagh; McHugh, Declan; O'Kane, Gerard; Pinkett, Geoff; Quinton, Frank; Rushe, Cathal; Simpson, Wesley; Whelan, Paul

and another:

McGilloway, Bronagh; Claire_Jones; Colm_McCarron; emmett_mcguinness; Gerard_Harkin; karen.mcginley; Kevin.McGilloway; Leanne_Kilpatrick; Marc_Quinn; Marilyn_Devine; Michael_Canning; Odhran_McGuinness; seanpmcguinness; Stuart_Corrigan

[Rebecca Jo 1,962]

This is what you said:

If you didn't mean to imply that, in general, Americans who are "One Ireland supporters" are uninformed, I gladly accept your clarification. And I appreciate you taking the time to make it clear.

Who is living there now in Northern Ireland ? Mostly descendants of English and other British colonists. Of course they want to get on with their lives in peace - people who are benefiting from the wrongs of the past don't want to face repercussions for what has been done, not to mention the cost of paying reparations. This is a standard colonial attitude - "It's all done, we've got it now, so why can't those losers just accept it, and be quiet about it ?"

The problem is, it's not reasonable. Human nature seeks justice. If the grievances of the dispossessed and oppressed are not addressed, it almost always boils over into violence - there are examples of it throughout the world where oppressed peoples rise up in violence against their oppressors. It's happened in Algeria, South Africa, Palestine, and the U.S. as well.

It's not about Catholic = good, Protestant = bad. There are good people and bad people in every group. It's about oppression and colonialism being bad. The majority in Northern Ireland don't actually want to leave "sectarianism" behind - they want to leave the repercussions of it behind. They absolutely want to keep their ethnically cleansed and partitioned land without any further bother. Yes, they will accept the minority of Catholic ethnic Irish who managed to remain in the area, because they're not enough of them to challenge the Protestant status quo. But they certainly wouldn't allow the cleansed to return en masse - because that would tip the balance.

Most Protestants in Northern Ireland don't want to accept a unified country with the rest of Ireland because 1.) it's full of Catholics, and 2.) it's poorer (never mind that it's poorer as a direct result of the mass murder and mass plundering that the English and later British government inflicted on them over the last 8 centuries.) Theft can be very profitable.

Opinion polls in Northern Ireland fall right along these sectarian lines - you basically get an 80%-20% split:

http://www.ark.ac.uk/nilt/2009/Political_Attitudes/NIRELND2.html

The ethnic Irish (mostly Catholic) overwhelmingly want a reunified Ireland. Despite what has been done to them, they're willing to accept all the people of Northern Ireland and the huge demographic change that has been imposed on the island.

It's the descendants of the usurpers (who now control most of the political power and most of the economic resources) who don't want a change. This is not surprising.

Anyway, unnatural partitions don't last. It will likely take at least decades, maybe even a century or more, but Ireland will be reunited eventually. Nature will take its course, one way or another.

I agree with you that Ireland will one day be united. And that it will take a long time.

I don't agree with you, however, that it will fall along the line of Protestant/Catholic. For all your familiarity with the facts, you fail to mention that the Catholic population is rising in the North. At the last census (ten years ago) the population was 53 percent Protestant/47 percent Catholic. So we are getting pretty close to "even", don't you agree?

People will go where the money is and where life is good. Northern Irish, Protestant and Catholic alike, don't want to live with the boys ringing up in the night about where the next bomb will be. They don't want to go back to Omagh or Claudy or Greysteel. They don't want to go back to no investment in their country because of these things. They don't want to go back to bombed out buildings, no commerce and no jobs.

They also aren't crazy to head South right now either. You can drive over the border into Donegal and see the countryside littered with empty, half built houses from the death of the Celtic Tiger. Dozens of them. There are cranes in the streets of Dublin dangling over incomplete projects. You've been to Ireland? Ever been to Ballymun? Everything south of the border isn't paradise.

All this rant about the oppressed and ethnic cleansing and yada yada is just sabre rattling. Smell the bacon burning, WOM. People who live in the North want it to be OVER.

3 additional posts removed upon review

Power goes out in West Virginia and whaddya know I miss a whole bunch of silly.

[Ban Hammer 13,342]

Power goes out in West Virginia and whaddya know I miss a whole bunch of silly.

sure took them a long time to get it turned back on! that was 3 days ago!

[Rebecca Jo 1,962]

sure took them a long time to get it turned back on! that was 3 days ago!

Hmmm. Let me see. Power went out at approximately 6:30 pm Friday night. Came back on about 9:30 Sunday night (for us - there are still thousands of people without power as I write this).

Pretty much everything for 100 miles around was shut down. No banks, no ATM's, no gas stations, no grocery stores, no restaurants. As gas stations came back up, there were lines blocking traffic for blocks. As grocery stores opened back up, the stock was limited because everything fresh or frozen had been thrown out. By the time our power came back on, I had 1/4 tank of gas left in my car and everything in our fridge and freezer had spoiled. Plus I had a husband who had been half sick the entire time from not being able to breathe in the 90 degree temps.

So VJ really wasn't the first thing I did, ya know?

Read the paper, Charles. There really is a life out there beyond VJ.

[Ban Hammer 13,342]

Hmmm. Let me see. Power went out at approximately 6:30 pm Friday night. Came back on about 9:30 Sunday night (for us - there are still thousands of people without power as I write this).

Pretty much everything for 100 miles around was shut down. No banks, no ATM's, no gas stations, no grocery stores, no restaurants. As gas stations came back up, there were lines blocking traffic for blocks. As grocery stores opened back up, the stock was limited because everything fresh or frozen had been thrown out. By the time our power came back on, I had 1/4 tank of gas left in my car and everything in our fridge and freezer had spoiled. Plus I had a husband who had been half sick the entire time from not being able to breathe in the 90 degree temps.

So VJ really wasn't the first thing I did, ya know?

Read the paper, Charles. There really is a life out there beyond VJ.

read newspapers? someone still prints those?

around here we have personal generators. and a good supply of gas, just for situations like that.

[Rebecca Jo 1,962]

read newspapers? someone still prints those?

around here we have personal generators. and a good supply of gas, just for situations like that.

You've got such a great community spirit Charles.

For the rest of you who might care about what your fellow man is going through:

http://www.weather.com/news/weather-severe/derechos-five-extraordinary-20120703?pageno=6

[Ban Hammer 13,342]

You've got such a great community spirit Charles.

For the rest of you who might care about what your fellow man is going through:

http://www.weather.com/news/weather-severe/derechos-five-extraordinary-20120703?pageno=6

from kansas to west virginia is a long ways for "community"

80 mph winds? welcome to kansas!

Edited July 5, 2012 by charles!

[^_^ 5,021]

I've been seeing headlines about power outages but I always just assumed they were in places far far away in some distant galaxy somewhere.

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

My mom was on her way to Charlottesville, VA on Amtrak from CT when the train was stopped at Philadelphia due to a tree on the line. No alternative transport was offered, and she and four other passengers ended up hiring a car and driving the rest of the way. Took them an additional 6 hours.

Not really THAT far away from civilization, you know.

[^_^ 5,021]

My mom was on her way to Charlottesville, VA on Amtrak from CT when the train was stopped at Philadelphia due to a tree on the line. No alternative transport was offered, and she and four other passengers ended up hiring a car and driving the rest of the way. Took them an additional 6 hours.

Not really THAT far away from civilization, you know.

Philly? That's pretty far.

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

Philly? That's pretty far.

65 miles (I'm assuming) from you? That's nothing out here in SoCal. That's like from here to Ventura, and I'd think nothing of doing that as a spur of the moment day trip.

[^_^ 5,021]

65 miles (I'm assuming) from you? That's nothing out here in SoCal. That's like from here to Ventura, and I'd think nothing of doing that as a spur of the moment day trip.

I wouldn't dream of it.