posted June 02, 2008 02:59 PM            

To the citizens of the United States of America
from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

(You should look up 'revocation' in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

1. Then look up aluminum, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

2. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour', 'favour', 'labour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be replaced?by the suffix '-ise'. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary')

3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as 'like' and 'you know' is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf.

The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.

4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can't sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not ready to shoot grouse.

6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

7. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables.

Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

8. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.

9. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

10. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting Nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

11. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

12. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body Armour like a bunch of nancies). Don't try Rugby - the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.

13. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

14. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

15. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

16. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.

God Save the Queen!

Jwhop

posted June 02, 2008 06:04 PM            

Ahhh, I don't know how to break this to you dearie but titles of nobility were abolished in the United States when the Constitution was ratified in 1791.

I suppose I could address you as Your Highness were it not for your diminutive stature.

I fear you've been reading the wrong history books. Ours say Britain lost 2 wars to the United States. Therefore, why would we accede to your demands now?

Perhaps it's a touch of the madness which follows royal families who intermarry. We've solved that problem here in America by not permitting it.

One of your ancestors was quite mad you know. Perhaps you might remember King Charles III. Mad as a hatter he was.

While we're on the subject of royal families, I wonder if your loyal British subjects know you're not even English but are rather, German?

Perhaps you thought to throw everyone off the subject by renaming your family "Windsor" in the early 20th Century but we in America remember your family name is Saxe-Coburg-Gotha or, in German, Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha.

There is something decidedly delicious about the English being ruled over by Germans, for centuries.

I think it best to treat your demands as requests and simply decline to rejoin Britain. After all, it's we Americans who have military bases occupying Britain and not the other way around.

I will however join in a "God Save the Queen". Seems the least one could do for our British cousins...whom are being ruled by a German family.

posted June 03, 2008 06:54 AM            

Lord Arrogant of Anglesey is up for grabs kid, suit you a treat!

Mannu was offered it but he declined on the grounds that he's a thinker. I dunno why he's so touchy about the British monarchy.

And no, we didn't know anything about the German connection.... Gee thanks jwhop!

posted June 03, 2008 09:49 AM            

The english-german connection is not just in the monarchy . The entire british clan are a spin of west germans. Heh you and hitler may have had the same ancestors Hahahah..

Anyhow I am not against blue blood. I accept everything in the world for the simple reason that they exist nothing else.
Buddha my favorite master was a king. But he gave it up. He gave up power. Power is meaningless to a buddha because it arises from inferiority complex deep within a being.

posted June 03, 2008 09:54 AM            

quote:

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You must be from Sussex waiting to trap Lord arrogant into marriage so that you can be Lordess , Is it? Or are you a queen anyways because you were born in Wessex

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Crikey no, Mannu - do I look like a horse??!

posted June 03, 2008 07:34 PM            

Bet you've got your favorite Iron Maiden, Thumbscrews and Rack all picked out, tuned up and waiting for me. Think I'll stay out of dungeons for a while, castles too.

posted June 05, 2008 10:59 AM            

A shareholder revolt at ExxonMobil led by the billionaire Rockefeller family has won the support of four significant British institutional investors who will call on Monday for a shakeup in the governance of the world's biggest oil company.

Guardian.co.uk has learned that F&C Asset Management, Morley Fund Management, the Co-Operative Insurance Society and the West Midlands Pension Fund are throwing their weight behind a resolution demanding that ExxonMobil appoints an independent chairman to stimulate debate on the company's board.

Exxon is facing a rebellion from its investors over its hardline approach to global warming. The firm has refused to follow rival oil companies in committing large-scale capital investment to environmentally friendly technology such as wind and solar power.

The Rockefeller dynasty, whose ancestor John D Rockefeller founded the original oil business at the core of ExxonMobil, have sponsored four shareholder resolutions demanding changes at Exxon. One of these calls on Exxon's chief executive Rex Tillerson, to relinquish his role as chairman in favour of an outsider to bring in an alternative point of view.

The London-based corporate governance advisory service Pirc intends to recommend that institutions support this proposal, which is in line with best practice on corporate boards in the UK.

F&C Asset Management's director of governance and sustainable investment, Karina Litvack, said it could pave the way for a different attitude at Exxon towards the environment.

"Despite top-notch individual directors, the company's record over the last decade, particularly regarding climate change, demonstrates that debate has been lacking," said Litvack. "By bringing in an independent chairman, the company can better leverage that creativity and challenge, and avoid over-dominance by management."

Exxon maintains that present green technologies are not financially viable. But critics on Wall Street and in the City fear that the company's reluctance to explore alternative energy will prove to be bad business judgment in the long run as rivals such as BP seek to capture public affection by re-branding themselves as environmentally sensitive enterprises.

The Rockefellers point out that Exxon has $25bn (£12.77bn) of capital investment planned in carbon-based fuel but its environmental commitment is centred pn a relatively modest $100m to fund a Stanford University project on climate change.

If the rebellion continues to gather pace, Exxon could suffer an embarrassing defeat at its annual meeting in Dallas later this month. At last year's meeting, 40% of investors' votes were cast in favour of a similar call for an independent chairman and the Rockefellers' involvement this time has raised the profile of the battle.

In the US, three advisory firms – RiskMetrics, Glass Lewis and Proxy Governance – have urged fund managers to support the Rockefellers' resolution. The result of the vote is not binding on Exxon but the company has said that its board will reconsider any of its policies challenged by successful shareholder resolutions.

An Exxon spokesman last night responded to the British institutions' stance by re-asserting the company's position that its board is better placed than investors to decide on the leadership structure.

posted June 05, 2008 11:58 AM            

There is no oil shortage.

They also know something else which eludes most and that's the fact that a real alternative for oil produced fuel is 15-25 years in the future.

In the meantime, restricting exploration for oil, refusing to build and invest in developing oil fields, building new refineries, building nuclear power plants, building hydroelectric power plants, drilling ANWAR and drilling off the West Coast and off the Gulf Coast means a rising curve in gasoline and diesel prices at the pump...which lines their already swollen pockets.

None of this even incorporates building plants to convert shale to oil or coal to oil technology which already exists. These 2 energy sources of which the US has the largest deposits in the world represent almost 500 years of energy use at current US levels.

Beyond that, there is abundant natural gas deposits which would power America for about 2000 years and these are within the United States.

Cap and Trade and restricting the use of oil to provide fuel to combat so called global warming is a solution in search of a problem which doesn't exist in the first place.

It's a money making scheme and a tax scheme which will drive energy prices through the roof. American tax payers are going to pay for this scheme with sharply rising prices for food, energy and everything else which depends on energy production to power America.

The use of corn to make ethanol is already starving people on the edge of starvation already. There have been food riots in various parts of the world over rising corn prices and rising prices for corn products and still, Congress doesn't seem to give a damn nor does Algore and the rest of the oh so compassionate leftists behind the "global warming hoax".

Perhaps the best US policy would be to declare US energy deposits, production, refining and delivery to be "essential US industries" and make them off limits to foreign investment. Ditto for US food production.

posted June 05, 2008 04:14 PM            

I think people have become a little overly zealous about this subject. It's kind of crazy. What do you expect the world to do? It can't just change at the blink of an eye because we've made some sort of "realization". I think it's great that we're becoming more and more open to consider and debate the effects of our current civilization on the environment, but why are we expecting the whole world to change without any repercussions? We are so eager for change that we are letting this feeling permeate our mentalities. We want our ideas to manifest before they are worked out. We want our leaders to profess this change without really coming to an understanding of their perspectives or their plans, if any.

quote:

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...a real alternative for oil produced fuel is 15-25 years in the future. -jwhop

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That is a great point, jwhop.
The inner feeling of the coming of great change is certain and should not be ignored, but to pretend to be as precocious as the idea itself can be just as harmful as ignoring the idea altogether.

posted June 05, 2008 06:43 PM            

These include Water vapor, CO2, Methane, Nitrous Oxide and miscellaneous other gasses.

Of the major green house gasses, CO2 is the least of the greenhouse gasses in effect.
Water Vapor and Methane are each more than 30 times more effective than CO2 as a heat sink/trap.

The total of man made CO2 in earth's atmosphere is only 0.117% of the total CO2 in earth's atmosphere, that's nominally 12/100th of 1% of the total CO2 concentration in earth's atmosphere.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

We're supposed to believe that human activity which causes the 12/100th of 1% of atmospheric CO2 IS the cause of global warming. The idea is absurd on it's face.

Neither is CO2 an air pollutant. Without good concentrations of CO2 in our atmosphere almost all plant life of earth would die..quickly and with very few exceptions.

In fact, if CO2 concentrations were 4 times what they are now, plant life would blossom into full health, crop yields would skyrocket and that luxurious plant life would replenish and freshen our oxygen supply in the atmosphere.

So, now the blockheads in the Congress of the United States are preparing to make war on American consumers and businesses by raising the price of everything we buy..mot to mention everything which is made; all based on the gigantic hoax which is man made global warming.

Every one of these blockheads should be thrown out of the Congress of the United States. If not for stupidity, then for deliberate intent.

The Congress is well insulated from the effects of rising prices associated with the legislation they pass. They get a new car...of their choice. In addition they get their insurance and fuel costs paid out of the Treasury of the United States and a per diem allowance for food and other necessities, also from the Treasury.

It's even more offensive to me that Congress passed legislation to pay a higher subsidy for corn production to be used for ethanol. This is a deliberate policy and no accident. This policy is going to starve people in poor nations who have no options and it enrages me to know it's deliberate US policy.

posted June 05, 2008 08:53 PM            

The dirty secret of the environmental movement is how indifferent it can be to the poor.

Consider the widespread ban on DDT. As environmental groups celebrated the recovery of bald eagles, parents in poor countries buried 20 million children who died from the ensuing malaria outbreak.

Now we see another crisis looming from the fight against global warming. Food riots are breaking out in poor countries as motorists in wealthy countries burn grains and oils in gas tanks.

We are green for one simple reason: We can afford it.

But what if that changes? What if the pain of going green creeps into America's working and middle classes?

People are not starving here. But they are paying a lot more for food out of tight family budgets, with a third of that increase blamed on biofuels. Meanwhile, more and more experts are questioning whether ethanol even reduces greenhouse gas.

Likewise, our restrictions against drilling for oil are becoming harder to justify. Many energy experts predict oil shortages when demand outpaces supply. The market rations gas by price, a system that favors the affluent.

Not only can they afford gas at $5 or more a gallon, they also can afford hybrids. They can afford to live near urban centers.

People trying to raise families on $35,000 a year cannot. They don't have the option of trading in the 1993 Ford Explorer for a 2008 Prius. They can't afford to leave the entry-level house in the suburbs for a bungalow in Delaney Park.

They are stuck. And as food and energy prices go up, they get more stuck and more stressed. If we can help them by drilling for oil, is it fair not to do that? And by what rationale are we not doing it?

There hasn't been an offshore-oil-well blowout since 1969. The onslaught of Gulf hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 ripped apart drilling rigs and pipelines, but not one drop of oil made landfall.

So why do we block energy companies from exploring many of our offshore waters for oil, including Florida's Gulf Coast?

The debate over drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has been going on for years.

Environmentalists say it would destroy the refuge, just as they erroneously claimed drilling would destroy Prudhoe Bay.

The wildlife refuge is 19 million acres. Only 1.5 million would be open to drilling, and of that only 2,000 acres actually would be paved.

When the wells ran dry, the equipment would be pulled up and the refuge would heal the small wound.

No, we can't drill our way to oil independence. And more domestic oil would not bring down prices.

But it could bring some stability and smooth the transition to an economy that depends less on fossil fuels. It could give us at least a small buffer against major disruptions in oil supply, disruptions that could push many working-class people off an economic cliff.

Here in Florida, Charlie Crist is praised for his global-warming initiatives. What people don't understand is the huge power bills this will bring as utilities abandon coal for more expensive natural gas. And one reason it is so expensive is that we can't tap into massive natural-gas deposits offshore of Florida.

Once again, guess who suffers?

The green agenda is turning into a regressive tax on people who are increasingly incapable of paying it.

posted June 06, 2008 12:55 AM            

In this case, there's only one but it's huge and ignores the markets which are based on perceptions and not on reality.

"No, we can't drill our way to oil independence. And more domestic oil would not bring down prices."

I disagree completely with this statement.

The day permits are let to drill in ANWAR, off the Pacific coast and off the Gulf coast; that's the day OPEC and the speculators are going to wet themselves and the price of crude oil will take a major tumble.

It's no secret that the US has the reserves in oil, natural gas, oil shale and coal to be truly energy independent of OPEC and the rest of the world. So far, it's been a failure of will and not of energy resources.

Add to that, building 15 to 20 nuclear and/or hydroelectric power plants and it's a calamity for OPEC and the rest of the oil producers...and speculators in oil futures contracts.

With this, I totally agree: