You’re comparing apples and oranges.
The Maori were never a nomadic people, and they actually fought a war with the colonial government of New Zealand -the conclusion of which required a drawn-up treaty.

And ask your typical Maori rights activist how well their people are “treated”. You’ll get a different answer to one provided by the average smug, delusional white New Zealander

The number “0? comes from India.
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At least we can all agree that one… is the loneliest number… yes one is the loneliest number… ‘Cause one is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do…

One is the loneliest number, worse than two…

It’s just no good anymore since she went away …

Wayne:
The number “0? comes from India.
http://www.wonderquest.com/zero.htm
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Actually despite what this website claims it is far from that simple. The Sumerians millenia before what is claimed on your website as the invention of zero used first a blank space then a shell to denote a zero. The Mayans ALSO had the zero also interestingly a shelllike shape. What does seem to be different is the Hindu zero is more like what we think of a zero today as it meant nothing instead of simply being a placeholder. As I said it really isnt that simple

So if an English speaker reproduces with a nonEnglish speaker, what are the odds that the progeny will exhibit the evil fighting phenotype? Isn’t there like a simple Punnett square for this sort of thing?

Well, as the Roman symbol for 1,000 is ‘M” then the expression for the bailout would be MMMMMMMMMM, probably followed by a question mark. So I;m not sure the Arabic zero is particularly useful in this case. :)

I don’t believe this and sincerely hope it isn’t true. I think the concept of “good” nations and “evil” nations is put forth by their respective governments in an attempt to unify the people. Some buy it, but certainly not all. Growing up I heard so much about how “evil” Russia was, but the concept that Russians are evil people has always seemed preposterous to me.
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I probably could have phrased that better. What I meant to say is that no country thinks of themselves as “evil”. And when a country finds itself in conflict with another country (for whatever reason), the mindset is “we’re good — they’re evil”. The United States smugly thinks of itself as virtuous and our enemies as evil, but the reality is that there are many countries who see US as evil.

I didn’t mean to imply that every country actively looks for evil to fight. Many countries have governments and leaders who don’t feel they need to pick fights for political gain. Those who do (like the United States) do indeed put forth the concept that our foes are evil, as you said. This is not only done to unify the people, but to ramp up their fear to keep them unified.

As to understanding English-spoken English, I’ve been in the States so long I now sometimes have a hard time understanding my fellow countrymen and on occasion resort to the subtitles on certain British DVDs.
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Occasionally some of the Brits I knew would slip into Cockney rhyming slang and I’d have to have it translated for me. And as for all the words English/American vacuums up from other languages, that’s prolly what makes English both hard to learn and so pervasive at the same time. We just co-op words from all over the place.

Fer instance… ***pause*** … the word “honcho”???

Very common slang for boss?

It’s actually Japanese, or so I’m told. American military personnel in the Pacific picked it up from Japanese soldiers and brought it back to the States, where it now is an English word as far as most folk think.

…Indonesia, is the largest Islamic country in the world. And it’s very important what’s happening in Indonesia, the democracy that’s taking root there, but the commonality of the committment of those English speaking countries and the fact that they fought together over the years to defend freedom…

Oh yes the English speaking United States really fought for freedom in Indonesia and East Timor over the last 40 years. Close friend and ally of the US, Indonesian president Suharto was a true believer in democracy and freedom and that why the freedom loving US administrations supported him.

/sarcasm

September 27th, 2008 at 2:32 pm

The Arabs gave Mathematics the zero (’0′). If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t be able to say that this financial crisis could cost the taxpayers over $1,000,000,000,000. I don’t even know if the Romans had any way to represent numbers over 1,000. They would have just said “We’re in a myriad of debt,” and left it up to us to wonder just how much that was. So we should be thankful to the Arabs, for helping us understand just how screwed we are. ;)

Indeed, though it might be more correct to say that it was ‘modern’ knowledge that they added and preserved until the geo-political landscape shifted.

“I’m not entirely convinced that the language spoken in the US can be properly called “English”.

Republic of Stupidity says:

I worked w/ some Brits about ten years ago. When they got excited about something and started talking fast, not only did I NOT understand the slang phrases, I had trouble w/ the accent too. We DO NOT speak English.

(We speak American, actually.. a derivative of English…)

American English isn’t ‘illegitimate’ (as it were) but it does often take extremely unhelpful liberties with the language–it often seems to subtract as much as it adds.

In this bit of nonsense…For myself, after a hard day’s kayaking I’ll blitz down the frog and toad to the rub-a-dub for a libation and a butcher’s at the pundits on the box and chortle at their non-sequiters.…there are the following:

Kayak (Inuit) blitz (German), frog and toad, rub-a-dub and butcher’s ( Cockney rhyming slang), pundit (Indian) chortle (invented by Lewis Carroll), and non-sequiter ( Latin). It’s all English! :)

As to understanding English-spoken English, I’ve been in the States so long I now sometimes have a hard time understanding my fellow countrymen and on occasion resort to the subtitles on certain British DVDs.

“I’m not entirely convinced that the language spoken in the US can be properly called “English”.

Republic of Stupidity says:

I worked w/ some Brits about ten years ago. When they got excited about something and started talking fast, not only did I NOT understand the slang phrases, I had trouble w/ the accent too. We DO NOT speak English.

(We speak American, actually.. a derivative of English…)

One hundred and ten years of U. S. imperialism in the third world, starting in 1898, with the war to steal and colonize Spanish possessions in the Caribbean (Puerto Rico and Cuba) and the Philippines in the Pacific.

These people are absolutely crazy and the problem is there are so many who are equally crazy that actually believe this nonsense. They are dangerous.