The Queen is Here

@BroadwayBk Yes, she is really getting on age and seems to be in no mood to abdicate in favor of her son anytime soon. However in England they seem to love the Royal family no matter that they crib about the cost of maintaining them. The Royal family is an endless source of news for the British tabloids which have strong sales as people continue to be fascinated by them. We may think they are irrelevant but the British people love them don't you remember the record crowds that turned up for Princess Diana's funeral procession ?

@uptowngirl Isn't Prince William all set to be the queen's successor? That's what I always understood. And the British must love them - they offer up millions of tax dollars every year to keep the family lookin' royal! Must be nice.

@NeverSleeps If I am not mistaken, the throne will pass on to Prince Charles first and then to Prince William..need to check some English Hello magazines :)

@Everybody Did you know Diana's prenuptual contract included having a minimum of two children with Charles? Yeesh.

@Uraniumfish and I thought you were not interested in the British Royals?:) No I didnt know that she was required to have two children with Charles.

@Uraniumfish - you and many English people! I've found that Conservative types - and the older generation - are very pro-monarchy, but among people of my own age most people don't really care that much.

@hhusted - on that point, I'd say plenty of English youth are interested in politics - the election over here got massive coverage. But the Queen is seen as increasingly outmoded (or rather, she herself is respected, but the monarchy as an institution is less so. The Queen is the Queen, but Charles-as-King will have a far rougher time of it. The Queen has seen world wars, prime ministers, chaos, crisis...very few people don't at least respect her gravitas. But that doesn't necessarily mean they are fierce monarchists)

Well, but politics and the circus that is the royal family are two different things.

@JenMac Fair warning, I've known a couple such geeks of the male variety who started bedding the women right and left after they published a book. Yuck. Glad I stayed away from writer types altogether, they really behaved (and still behave) so whorishly.

@JenMac and @NeverSleeps I too happen to know a few geeks who have achieved fame and fortune and are now insufferable.. as you know Indians are synonymous with IT ..in fact I am dealing with such a situation currently. I am a partner in a family business in Mumbai and before I left for the US, I had trained by subordinate a typical geeky guying in running the entire department. All was well for the last five years but suddenly last month he was arrested ..apparently the dude who was meek ,mild soft spoken had turned into a closet Lothario who had thrown his wife and two young kids out . Recently laws have changed in India and now a woman can go to the Police with a complaint of mental cruelty etc that's exactly what his wife has done and this guy is in the slammer now.. I am still in a state of shock and trying to help sort out the mess remotely.

@uptowngirl That's a fascinating story. It's hard to imagine a western woman getting her husband jailed because he left her and their children penniless, or even that he cheated on their marriage. But other social and economic forces shape the laws in Mumbai where that kind of a law makes sense? Really interesting.

@everyone: he is definitely insecure. And, he's an actor / writer / turd sandwich.

@Everyone apparently my employees father in law has important connections and has thus managed to get the guy arrested on trumped up charges. Apparently the wife now wants everything the apartment in Mumbai ( worth a tidy sum) , the ancestral lands in the village .. I know what he did is pretty common even in Indian society I am just shocked that he is facing such severe consequences. Divorce and extra-marital affairs have always existed but I think this is a case of a woman scorned who is going after him with a vengeance.

@BroadwayBK, Uraniumfish I know a couple of people in DC who wish they were in New York, but if you want a job with the federal government, for example, you really have to just be in DC. They both visit the city all the time and talk about how it's not DC.

@uptowngirl I've always wanted to visit those high-tech Asian cities - isn't Hong Kong one of them? But New York does have a certain appeal, especially for romantics such as myself.

@Uraniumfish Good question - my car gets about 30 miles to the gallon on the highway. Not bad, though it could be better. And I think I would definitely use Priceline for the lodging - I've gotten some really good deals in the past, like $25 a night at a three star hotel. I guess if you really want to do it right you should take a couple grand out on the road with you...

@uptowngirl I'm actually hoping to do a shorter trip, kind of like a trial run, this fall, and a longer trip next year.

@BroadwayBK So you're figuring a couple of grand for lodging, gas and food? What about other costs like car insurance? And anything else I'm forgetting? Since I haven't had a car for years, I'm forgetting what costs are associated with it. Triple A membership? Maybe you'd want to go out and do stuff in each of the places you visit, like go see a concert or whatever, so I guess there has to be an entertainment budget as well.

@Neversleeps And when and where you go to the bathroom. I can concur a bus trip would be way miserable.

@BroadwayBK As I said, been a while since I had a car so I'd have to do insurance an all that especially for the trip. Somehow I'd expected it to be more, though.

If I start planning now I could probably make a trip happen in the fall before the snows hit. But there are a couple of other factors influencing whether I can go or not so we'll see.

@Uraniumfish Unfortunately I dont think this transformation is going to happen anytime soon and moreover in the socialist economies as well they have been recent cut backs . If you have been following the news, you must know that there have been violent strikes in France over the raising of the retirement age from 60-62 and in the UK couples earning a combined wage of 44000 pounds a year are now set to lose their child tax credit. My sis in law is going to be affected by the child tax credit which until recently gave her 70-80 pounds a week and helped take care of her grocery bills at least. I am actually with you in the proposal of health care for all, I rather my tax dollars go towards health care rather than libraries and the other amenities that we get to enjoy.

When I broke my rib in Germany and had to go to the emergency room, the bill that I got a couple of months later? 70 euros. I was the only person in the emergency room and got seen within minutes.

Think about how much an equivalent emergency room bill would be in NYC? And how likely are you to be out of there in less than 12 hours?

@Everybody, I read online yesterday, that the new Speaker of the House (what is his name) said that he is going to reverse everything Obama has done so far including health care reform. He claims the health care reform bill will cause loss of jobs and ruin a really perfect health care system. When I read that I thought to myself what drug was he on.

@hhusted Indeed. The only people who don't want health care reform in the US are about 50 people sitting in Congress. I believe the drug they're on is kickbacks and campaign contributions from private insurance companies.

Wait...you mean if we don't have to pay astronomical amounts for medical care - a basic human right - that doesn't in fact make us evil communist traitors?

I think you're right @uptowngirl, that the US is in need of some reinvention, but instead this country seems eager to under-educate most of the population and send its best/richest minds to Wall Street where they can trick people into signing people up for home loans they can't afford.

People should be demanding health care, not calling their president a weak communist Muslim terrorist for trying to give it to them.

@uptowngirl Outsourcing was the new frontier for a while, but actually a lot of big companies have realized it can be a major disaster. Especially in areas like customer service, the cultural and language barriers start to really put a strain, and a couple of companies I can think of have started to limit their outsourcing, it just doesn't pay and loses customers who are angry about not being able to speak to someone who understands.

@Uraniumfish: I agree with you. When I called a company not too long ago, I got an Indian woman on the phone. No offense to you Uptowngirl, but this woman could barely speak English. Her accent was so thick I couldn't make out what she was saying, so I demanded that she transfer me to an American, who I can understand. It took her 5 minutes before she got on the phone again and requested I give her my information. I said forget it and hung up. I called back and this time I got someone who actually spoke English well and I could understand.

Thought this was an interesting read: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1945955,00.html It's from last year, but times haven't changed much since then, except perhaps in terms of how many acting Republicans are in Congress.

This weekend I met one of those fabled people that truly believe Obama is a Muslim, a whack job Brooklyn cab driver who was giving us a piece of his twisted political mind our ride home at 5am. I've read that there are plenty of Americans out there who believe in such things, but somehow I just couldn't bring myself to believe it. And there was no reasoning with this guy!

@NeverSleeps unfortunately nowadays rabid, uninformed and ignorant and brainwashed people in America abound. They are affronted that Obama is in the White House and will do / believe anything just to get him out of there. Yesterday my Ipod ran out off battery just as I was starting my work out at the Gym I was subject to an hour of CNN where Jeb and George Bush were being interviewed by Candy Crowley .. excruciating.

@NeverSleeps; I hear ya. I have a close friend who worked with the Obama campaign and she found out about Obama and his life story. Here is a link to his bio.

http://www.biography.com/articles/Barack-Obama-12782369

When you follow that link, you will find out that Obama's mother was born in Kansas and left for Hawaii, where he was born. So Obama is a legal citizen of America. As for his religion, Obama stated time after time that he was a Christian and went to a Christian church for 20 years. His father and grandfather were Muslim, but he is not.

Meanwhile CONGRESS IS GETTING RICHER, y'all:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Members-of-US-Congress-Get-cnbc-1255923366.html?x=0

Now tell me what reason these super-rich congressmen have to do a damn thing for any of us as far as: 1) health care reform and ensuring access to affordable care for all, and 2) making any kind of compromises with Obama so that he can actually institute social policies that will actually make life a little better.

What congressmen do in a day is: 1) take naps, and 2) spread stupid rumors about Obama being a Muslim, global warming not being something the "believe" in, etc which the rest of the sorry ignorant population is only too willing to believe.

Okay, I'm in a testy mood.

@Uraniumfish. That's so depressing. I hate that whenever I'm abroad, my English/etc. friends ask me why Americans are doing/saying x, y, and z and I honestly can't give an answer that doesn't make my countrymen sound like extras in a school play of Oklahoma

@BroadwayBK He didn't use the word ignorant but this is what he said:-

I think in America we’ve got to stop blaming the Chinese and blaming everybody else and take a look at ourselves,” Bloomberg said while addressing a meeting on climate change in Hong Kong.

Bloomberg warned that the habit of making scapegoats out of other things can backfire badly.

“If you look at the US, you look at who we are electing to Congress, to the Senate – they can’t read,” the New York mayor said.

Americans tend to not travel, they tend to not learn foreign languages, and America is very isolated from the rest of the world. I think what Mayor Bloomberg said is true – they do not read, they do get most of the news from the TV,” he stressed.

“It is unfortunate but the educational system is where America has to focus, get better educated and competitive,” he added.

“The US is in a global economy and they have to compete like everyone else and not look for excuses.”

@uptowngirl: Bloomberg is right about a couple of things. 1) We are living in a global society, so we are all in competition with each other, 2) many people can't read. Illiteracy is very high in America. Maybe he wasn't talking about that, but was referring more to people not taking the time to read. That is probably true.