Wachenroder,

Some people here are like brick walls when you try to explain some basics about communism. The concept that there are more sides than “evil” on Communism is completely lost on them. And please don’t tell them what Marx or Engels thought when they invented communism – they know better :rolleyes:

It’s good to have you here though. I like your quotes on the PRC – i was there two years ago, and recognised a lot of it even though i only saw one demonstration (even though that was a Falun Gong one, under police escort) 😉

In general, “The” in front of a geographical name refers to the region rather than the country. “The Congo” usually refers to the entire basin covered by the Congo river, which entails both Congo-countries (those with Kinshasa and Brazzaville as capitals). The same with “The Gambia”: again this refers to a certain river’s basin, this time it covers the countries Gambia and Senegal.

Something similair can be said about Ukraine. While it is a country now, it got it’s name for being “on the border”. Way back in Czarist days, it was the border region (a real borderline didn’t exist) between Russia and the Turks/Tatars around the Black Sea in the South, and the Poles in the West.

She was a great singer, and back in my pre-bachelor days her music was the background for quite a few nice memories. Love her for that 🙂

Silly though that most of her music which is known here in the Netherlands got populair because it was the background tune for commercials. Ah well, anything to educate the people…

Originally posted by ELP
Does Fokker have any similar meaning to above ?

Yes. ‘ Fokker’ is Dutch for breeder, as in someone who breeds dogs or turkeys or whatever kind of livestock/animals.

You are all just products of my imagination. I was drunk when i made up Geforce though.

Originally posted by LukeEGTE
(The man who told me the origns of the word f*ck – hey thats been usefull 😀 )

Not the Fornication Under Consent of the King-bit i hope? That’s a populair legend, but not true. F*ck is simply an old Germanic word which has always ment what it did. In German the word is ‘Ficken’, while in Dutch it has become ‘fokken’ which has shifted it’s meaning to ‘breeding’.

Just to make sure 😉

Good luck to your dad Ja.

Typical planespotter’s disease 😀 Sauron is right, ticks wait on grass and plants for mammals to walk by, and if one does grab ’em and start sucking blood. Often (but not always) ticks carry lyme disease infecting you in the process.

The best precaution is to keep your legs covered – no shorts, and closed shoes. Of course, there are always people with extraordinary luck… one time i was spotting in Hungary with a few buddies, the weather was nice so all of us bare one wore shorts. He even wore his army boots. And guess who managed to score a tick in his leg? That’s right – probably a strain of grass managed to enter his trousers, and gotcha. Later we had lots of fun trying to get the tick out – alcohol (palinka of course), cigarette butts, pliers… we did get the tick, but it’s jaws were stuck (tough little buggers!) in the poor guy’s leg

IIRC, he got a number of injections from which i’m not sure if they were a cure against Lyme, or profilactic. Either way, those injections weren’t of the kind which make you all happy and wholesome.

However, the disease itself sucks even more. The actual sickness (which can be very severe, enough to put you out of work) can only come up after a number of years – although not everyone gets it. However, with a quick response this shouldn’t happen.

Didn’t your watch have one of those nice bleeping alien-detectors? 😀