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MOST (was Zodiacal light linked to ancient Martian oceans)
Henry Spencer wrote:
One might as well wonder why Americans persist in celebrating on the 4th of July, when the US realistically more-or-less completed becoming a nation on, um, well, perhaps Oct. 18th, or June 21st, or July 26th, or March 4th, or May 29th, or even Dec. 24th. Because that's when the US officially declared independence from Britain. The ratification of the Constitution is irrelevant, as it's not the document which established or named the United States. Neither is it relevant when other countries recognized the US, or stopped fighting against it. -- Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/ Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me. |
#2
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MOST (was Zodiacal light linked to ancient Martian oceans)
In article ,
Keith F. Lynch wrote: Because that's when the US officially declared independence from Britain. Precisely my point: that's when things formally got started, insofar as one can identify one single date for that. And July 1st, *not* Dec. 11th, is the analogous date for Canada. The ratification of the Constitution is irrelevant, as it's not the document which established or named the United States. There is actually room to argue about that. The US was "established" only in the loosest possible sense before the ratification of the Constitution. It resembled a single nation about as much as the CIS resembles one today. -- "Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer -- George Herbert | |
#3
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MOST (was Zodiacal light linked to ancient Martian oceans)
Henry Spencer wrote:
There is actually room to argue about that. The US was "established" only in the loosest possible sense before the ratification of the Constitution. It resembled a single nation about as much as the CIS resembles one today. Agreed. It's telling that before the Civil War, it was convention to refer to the United States in the plural. Only after the war did Americans begin to use the United States as a singular noun. -- Dave Michelson |
#4
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MOST (was Zodiacal light linked to ancient Martian oceans)
James Nicoll wrote:
It's an excuse to Blow Stuff Up and you can never have too many of those. The British do that on November 5, but I don't think they get a holiday for the occasion. -- Odysseus |
#5
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MOST (was Zodiacal light linked to ancient Martian oceans)
Odysseus wrote:
James Nicoll wrote: It's an excuse to Blow Stuff Up and you can never have too many of those. The British do that on November 5, but I don't think they get a holiday for the occasion. We don't. We get a feeble number of bank holidays (as national holidays are called here) every year, 8 or 9 IIRC. The rest of Europe have a dozen or more. Tim -- My last .sig was rubbish too. |
#6
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MOST (was Zodiacal light linked to ancient Martian oceans)
Tim Auton wrote:
Odysseus wrote: James Nicoll wrote: It's an excuse to Blow Stuff Up and you can never have too many of those. The British do that on November 5, but I don't think they get a holiday for the occasion. We don't. We get a feeble number of bank holidays (as national holidays are called here) every year, 8 or 9 IIRC. The rest of Europe have a dozen or more. Here in Canada it varies a bit from province to province, but employees only have a right to about eight or nine "statutory holidays"; union contracts sometimes include a few more. I believe the highest minimum vacation entitlement is three weeks per year -- again, much less than in Europe -- and is obtained after five years of service. -- Odysseus |
#7
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MOST (was Zodiacal light linked to ancient Martian oceans)
Tim Auton wrote: We don't. We get a feeble number of bank holidays (as national holidays are called here) every year, 8 or 9 IIRC. The rest of Europe have a dozen or more. What would one do if one ran out of cheese on a bank holiday? ....the Moon is supposed to be _made_ of cheese, you know.... :-) Wallace |
#8
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MOST (was Zodiacal light linked to ancient Martian oceans)
Herb Schaltegger wrote: "-- Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D. "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." ~ Robert A. Heinlein http://www.angryherb.net" Just noticed the website in your sig. Is it new or have I been blind? I hope you'll find time to put up stuff on manned spaceflight life support systems. -- Hop David http://clowder.net/hop/index.html |
#9
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MOST (was Zodiacal light linked to ancient Martian oceans)
In article ,
Hop David wrote: Herb Schaltegger wrote: "-- Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D. "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." ~ Robert A. Heinlein http://www.angryherb.net" Just noticed the website in your sig. Is it new or have I been blind? I hope you'll find time to put up stuff on manned spaceflight life support systems. The domain's been around for about a year. Not much on it yet; putting some of my old info online has been one of the things I plan on getting around to Real Soon Now(tm). Too many interests and obligations, not enough time . . . -- Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D. "Never underestimate the power of human stupidity." ~ Robert A. Heinlein http://www.angryherb.net |
#10
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MOST (was Zodiacal light linked to ancient Martian oceans)
["Followup-To:" header set to sci.space.policy.]
On 2004-07-11, Christopher M. Jones wrote: Umm, no. Read the book before passing judgment. Neither the American Revolutionary War nor the American Civil War were much about "freedom" versus "tyranny" in the modern senses of these words. I reckon I ought to. But it occurs to me that in 1789 the Bill of Rights was the law of the land in the USA, while at the same time Britain still had a monarch with substantial governmental authority. Yeah, but the Bill of Rights was the law of the land in the American colonies in, y'know, 1769 as well. In 1789 the Bill of Rights was the law of the land in the UK, and had been for a good hundred years. (Well, it had only been law in the UK for 82 years, for obvious reasons, but it was older...) You may wish to clarify which Bill of Rights you refer to when drawing that distinction, since both were documents strongly contesting the power of the executive and protecting the rights of the individual... ;-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Bill_of_Rights -- -Andrew Gray |
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