The Duke

[john4]

tried to attach photo, was too large so couldn't

[john4]

tired again, gonna have to try something different

[corndogggy]

This is the lamest thread ever so far. :D

[trust me]

Save the picture, resize it down to reasonable size, then try it.

[AteUp]

I love Coach K!

[john4]

see if I got it now

[john4]

I love Coach K!


No, it's Tubby is the best coach Kentucky ever had :) :)

[AteUp]

No, it's Tubby is the best coach Kentucky ever had :) :)


Absolutely. I hope they never get rid of him!! About the English thing though. I used to think the same but I now realize that a lot of other countries have English signs and most speak English. If you saw video of Iraq when we first invaded, you would see most road signs had english translations underneath them. I do believe that if you come here to live you should learn English. But we are probably the most ignorant nation when it comes to foreign languages. I'm heading to the Netherlands tomorrow and they say most everyone speaks English along with their native tongue. I suppose we just don't have as much need for learning a foreign language because we have so few foreigners. Some countries overseas are so small it would be like every state here spoke a different language.

[trust me]

Absolutely. . I suppose we just don't have as much need for learning a foreign language because we have so few foreigners. Some countries overseas are so small it would be like every state here spoke a different language.

Exactly! I got in an argument with a German about that very thing. He bragged about being fluent in 4 or 5 languages, and how Americans only speak one. I told him he had to know several languages because if he missed his highway exit, he'd be in another country in 15 minutes or so. We can drive for days and not leave the USA!

If I lived in Texas or Arizona, I'd speak espanola. If I lived in close proximity to French speaking Canucks, then I'd speak a little francais. But I live in Jerkwater Kentucky, and we barely got a handle on English, and if I did speak another language, where would I use it? I'm not exactly a globe trotter, you know. I stay home because the good ol' USA provides everything I need. I don't have to leave. My kids are learning Spanish, and that's a good thing. Our Mexican cousins are coming to stay, not visit. If you want to do business with them (and get their money), then it pays to speak Mexican.

English is becoming the universal language. Partly because Mother England invaded/colonized half the world back in the 18th-19th centuries, and mainly because of the USA being so globally active. We buy/sell all over the world, and if anybody else wants to share in our immense, incalculable good fortune, they necessarily should speak our language.

Part of what makes other nations so resentful of us is that we have made them virtually irrelevent. Most countries in Europe can't match the economy and trade of one of our states, let alone the whole country. That pisses them off. They view us as the asshole cousins that won the lottery and suddenly show up with fast boats, loose women and easy money. We're rude, crude, and socially unacceptable. They don't like the fact that free trade and hard work can make us a virtual overnight success. And in terms of global history, we are an overnight success. Barely 230 years old, and America wasn't even a real player until the early 20th century, and in the last 100 years we have in many ways, taken over the world. Need medical advances? We do it. Need computers and technology? We do it. (The Japs do it cheaper and better, but we do it first.) Want to go see what is going on on the back side of Mars? We do it, and we don't need no consortium of neighboring countries to do it, either. Need to fight a worldwide war on two fronts 10,000 miles apart, and carry the brunt of the cost in lives and money? There's only one country that could do that. Our country.

We may be braggarts, we may be unrefined, and we may have some visible weaknesses, but if we suddenly disappeared overnight, it would leave a void the whole world would feel and be unable to fill. That's the reason the rest of the world speaks our language.