Raithe

Well, Steam is currently saying that it unlocks in approximately 16 hours from now. So that puts it around 6pm (gmt)...

Now not stricly about reading, but I thought it would add to the thread and I find it a really funky tattoo..

Well, it's a bit of a mix. The Windsor's as the House of Windsor is relatively recent. They were originally the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, but changed the name around WWI due to the germanic aspect. But it's not as if they've really been marrying outside the country that much for awhile. Queen Victoria was of the House of Hanover, and she married Albert who was of the Saxe-Coburg's.. So yes, there's a heavy mix of German in there. George V's mother was danish, and he married Mary of Teck, an English lady. George VI was married to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, another English Lady. You'll mostly remember her as the Queen Mum. Queen Elizabeth II married Philip and he's of Greece and Denmark. But yes, they're pretty much considered English.

I know there can be little quirks. No matter what I did, I could not improve my barbell shoulder press. Everything else I did improved over the years, but that one exercise just..

Heh, funny story, I ran into someone who still works at a place I did as a part-time job during university. Apparently some of the old staff still remember me, and actually consider me a raging psychopath. Mostly due to one of the guys trying to start a fight with me there and doing all the standard macho trash talk to get me to take a swing. I calmly and politely explained to him (and the surrounding friends of his) that this was quite silly, because getting into a fight would suggest I wanted to hurt him, and that if I wanted to hurt him I wouldn't give him a chance to hurt me. I'd come at him when he wasn't expecting it, with a bat and take out his knee from the side before bludgeoning the crap out of him to make sure he knew that I wanted him in pain. I made absolutely no threat, and just pointed out that if he or any of his friends really wanted to start something they should remember that for the future. I was exceptionally polite about the whole matter, never raising my voice, never swearing. And I never had any trouble from them for the remainder of the time I worked there.

Heh, when I was around 15-16 I started hitting gym regularly with a couple of friends. Established the whole routine, 3 nights a week doing 2-3 hours, specific muscle groups on each day. By the time we were in our twenties one of the guys had the incredibly toned bruce lee physique, one went overboard and literally could not cross his arms properly due to the size of his biceps and pecs, and I just had better stamina without any significant change to my body shape. Funny thing is that one of them has stopped doing any weights work and has started learning gymnastics exercises, which he says are incredibly harder and he's surprised at how difficult it is to do what are supposed to be "simple" gymnastic exercises compared to regular weights.

how many repetitions of the exercise you do within any specific set. "I did 3 sets of 10 reps at x weight" = I did the exercise 10 times, paused, did it another 10 times, paused, then a final 10 times.

My default on the internet is my default in the "real world". Wheaton's Law. Don't be a ****.

But my point is that the people that provided those taxes did so about 500+ years ago. The majority of the money the Royal Family has comes from real estate and the fee's earned via renting it out. And while you say the people gave that money to the King of the time, the point is that at that time, the money was used for a whole variety of reasons that were for the good of the Kingdom, not just the King. Why is that so different to the more run-of-the-mill capitalist uber-rich families? A service was provided, a fee was taken. Hell, the fee's taken helped provide the service. But because this original seed money was brought about via taxation of the time, it automatically makes it wrong for them to have any money now based on it?

I just find it interesting where people draw this mysterious ethical line over just what point it's all a-ok to be descendents gaining the benefit from different things that you have a modern perspective as being immoral sources of funds, and that for so many it seems that a king having taxed his subjects 900 years ago is seen as much worse then the slave trader of 200 years, or the industrial baron who wasn't bothered by working people to death a century ago..

Its a good thing you did, I would have just besmirched that lofty title with some hooker scandal. What's more liberal and philanthropic then making sure that hookers can earn money too? Making sure some young, pretty girl can actually pay her way through college and/or university and get that all important Law/Economics/Business degree?

I'm pretty sure that depends on how you look at it, the rich families that started out as Renaissance money-lenders might not be classed as "taxation" in the one sense... Also, please, the revolving door of politicians in any modern democracy make a killing via government money. They go in, spend their years as politicians making contacts, then come out to be lobbyists or work for a defence firm or some other group that swills from the government trough. Tell you what, shall we look at all the fine upstanding families that made their original fortune on the slave trade? Tell them that just because they haven't been involved in it for 200 years or so, it doesn't matter how they make their money now because the seed money comes from that, so the government has a right to take it away? Wait, shall we hit the swiss banks and do the same? Edit: By the by, didn't earn it? Do you really think it was easy becoming the first Kings and ruling a nation and protecting it from other people who wanting to crush it and add it to their domains?

Why single out the Royal family as if just because they're Royal it makes it worse then all the others you're totally happy with. Say "let's kick em out and take their money" all you want. Just be perfectly valid and say "Lets get rid of the Kennedy's!" or pretty much EVERY family group that's been rich for a century.

That depends how far back in history and how you define their own personal fortune. It gets a bit mixed when you look at any of the Royal Families throughout Europe. Think about it, the early Kings built treasuries from the taxes paid directly to them by the people they ruled. From that, they provided the security and government and wotnot. They used those treasuries to build castles, palaces, establish towns, pave roads, get flashy crowns and all that jazz. Rent from lands they owned added to their treasuries. After 500 or 1,000 years, it gets hard to figure out exactly what finances came from what. As was previously mentioned, for the previous 300 years, the royal family turn over what amounts to a bit over £200 million each year to the government in the form of the Crown Trust. Which is pretty much all the profit and income from the family land holdings. That is entirely seperate to whatever income is generated via tourism. The other side of it that tends to get ignored, is how they get used as free-floating Ambassadors of goodwill around the world. Frankly, it might be silly to many, but a lot of people react more to a visit from the Queen or Prince Charles then they do to a visiting President or Prime Minister. You can say "get rid of them" as much as you like, but people react to them. They aren't here and gone in 4 or 8 years. They grow up involved in it, they get decades of experience in handling those duties, and they keep doing them. Heh, and ill-gotten gains? Just how much money gets chiselled away in one form or another by most leading politicians? How many Presidents and Prime Ministers leave office with bank accounts the same size or smaller then when they started? Hell, should we look back at all the really rich families that made their money in the dark or middle ages? The Rothchilds and money lending which in those days.. yeah. Hell, shall we look at the "robber-barons" of the 18th century in America and just how they made fortunes on what are now totally illegal methods? The Rockefellers and their current fortune...

Technically, the queen also has to sign all changes to law. Out of curiousity, for those saying their land holdings should be appropriated.. What makes that right? As in, how many generations of family building landholdings / ownership of real estate is too many? So, if you say the monarchy should have their real estate re-possessed just because they're monarchy, or should we start saying any family that's been having large bank accounts and real-estate for more generations then x should have it re-possessed? For the wacky approach, should we look at the Kennedy's and the Bush's and say "Oh, well, you've been involved in government politics and getting money from the people for generations, we're going to take your real estate because you've had it too long"...

Eh, I wouldn't say I love the Royals. I'm pro-monarchist, yes but I don't follow them like some folks do. Mostly it just bugs me when people ignore the history and the actual facts of how it's established and what they do, so that they go on and on about them being parasites who do nothing and only leech money from the Government and should be booted out because of it.

It's no real different to family members of various presidents/prime ministers serving in the armed forces. We've got the tradition of it, they don't get to completely bypass it, and frankly if you're out there in the sandbox that close to the front line the only way you're going to be safe is be buried in a bunker and never go out. Which didn't happy with the princes. It didn't with their father when he was on ship during the Falklands. There's not much in added security you can really do in those situations. And really, what would be to the court case? They legally own the land they have. It's not a legal requirement for them to transfer the money. Each monarch in turn voluntarily does it, so technically any change in monarch can stop it happening and keep that real estate luchre and not take the government pay packet. And if the government can suddenly take possession of legal ownership, what's to stop them doing that with any other rich landowner because they want extra income?

Right, so say we do stop giving them the £40 million a year and kick them out.. What they can do is then take that £200 million that they give to the treasury, and walk away with that and the land they own. How many of the "political aristocracy" over in the US would give up most of the earnings of their real estate holdings to the government treasury? And the military service bit, here's a fun fact for you, the UK news services knew about both the princes being involved in Afghanistan and being out on the front lines. They were asked (politely) not to put it out there because it might cause more danger and make the princes and the units they worked with bigger targets then they already were. Then of course after a couple of months, some of the American and other world services managed to find out about it and splashed it out there for everyone to see. So it's not like they purely went out there for the pr coup, and everyone in the Armed Services over there freely admits that it's not like either of them were hidden away and not doing their job. Both Harry and William fought to make sure they took the same risks as the guys they worked with when they were out there.

Also, for those that like so say they're idle, lazy and entitled layabouts.. Ok, back to a George again. George V was king during World War I, and while he did provide a good figurehead and did a lot of work in public, he and his first son (who would one day be Edward VIII) did still fulfill the image of the idle rich. However, by this point the tradition of the royal sons joining the armed forces was well in place. Both sons (the other one would become George VI) fought in WWI. While the elder was a bit of a wastrel, the younger (his first name was actually Albert) didnt even live in any of the palaces. He married a noble daughter, not royalty, and as the second son he was expected to work for a living… Mainly what he did was public work though. He supported charities, carried the good name of Britain around the world and so on. Think of him as a mix of public philanthropist and ambassador. He was never meant to be king… That is until George V died and Edward VIII decided he had to marry a divorced, American Catholic. It’s too long for me to explain why the divorced and Catholic parts are bad, but suffice to say Edward abdicated and suddenly Albert (crowned George VI) was king. Yes, the same guy from The King’s Speech - awesome movie, worthy of all it’s Oscars. Now, George hadn’t been raised to be idle, so he wasn’t. Neither was his daughter (Elizabeth II), her sister (Princess Anne), or any of his grandchildren. ALL the British princes have served in the armed forces, Charles was in the navy and saw combat in the Falklands war, Andrew was in the Air Force, William is still a naval helicopter pilot and Harry (crazy bastard that he is) insisted on joining the Army and serving on the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq… Every one of the current royal family works constantly for the public, in both charitable and ambassadorial capacities. In fact, that $7 billion is largely due to the fact that, because of the efforts of the royal family, the rest of the world LOVES GIVING US THEIR MONEY!!!! How, in the name of Satan’s butthole, is that idle?

Well, actually here's a thing for you.. since besides all the love there's still floating a lot of hate and people saying that the Royal family is a waste, and give nothing to the county in return for taxpayers money.. So here's a short rant: History lesson time! First if all, by dint of being old and having passed land and money down the line for generations, the British royal family has apparent assets in excess of $400 milli...on - about $200 million of which is land. They are the largest land owners in the UK (followed by Cambridge and Oxford Universities). Some of the land they own actually dates back over a thousand years. Now, it wasnt all lawfully obtained - plenty of it was taken from barons, lords, other kings, retaken from the Danes, the French, passed back and forth and generally had its provenance muddied. However, lets not start taking about the legality of it’s ownership… After all, the entire of the US and Canada was basically stolen from the people who were already here. We just started doing it earlier.. Now, back in the 1700’s George III (the crazy one who was king when the war of independence happened) owned almost as much land as the current royal family. However, he was massively in debt and the rents weren’t cutting it for him. So, he made a deal with the parliament of the day. In exchange for voluntarily giving all the profits from his lands to the treasury he would receive a yearly income from the government. This arrangement has continued ever since, with each successive monarch voluntarily giving the proceeds of their land holdings to the treasury. This is called the Crown Trust. These days, that amounts to over $200 million. Now, the queen and the royal family get about $40 million from the taxpayer every year. Everything else they make or own is private holdings… With a few exceptions. This includes the 2 residences the queen owns (not any of the places you might think of - those are all owned in trust by the monarchy and cannot be changed, sold or rented without the government’s approval - this includes Buckingham palace, St. James’s palace and almost everywhere that the royal family lives or works), private collections of art, jewelry and stamps(!!!) as well as a pretty massive stock portfolio. So far the royal family contributes about $160 million to the British purse. That’s about £2.50 each for every person in the UK. That’s not the big thing though. It’s true that the royal family costs the taxpayers in other ways. The wedding of William and Kate for example cost approximately $64 million, the christening of the new baby will undoubtably cost more again, the Queen’s public itinerary is partly funded by the public and so on. So yes, that $40 million is only part of it… However, guess how much tourists spent in the UK in 2012? $7 BILLION Yes, you read right, that’s a 7 with nine zeros after it. And the primary reason they spent that money? Yep, seeing the royal palaces, the castles and a whole bunch of other royal associated junk. Now, other countries have castles and palaces and stuff, but they don’t have a functioning monarchy and as a result people (Americans especially) are a lot less interested. Lets say for arguments sake that if we kicked out the Windsors tomorrow that those tourist revenues only fell by 10%. Thats still a loss of $700 million… Oh and if we did that, I’m sure they’d stop giving all the proceeds of their land holdings to the treasury, so that’s actually a loss of $860 million. They make the UK more money in a year than the GDP of several nations.

I thought the whole reason the yanks had their war of independence was so they wouldn't have to worry about the royal baby... But they seem even more obsessed with it then us over here in the UK..

Woke up from one of those "falling dreams" and my back is tensed and locked solid. Sloowly stretching out over the morning trying to get rid of that.

Just watched the "Scientifically Accurate DuckTales".. oh my bleeding eyes. My brain will not unsee.

Man, reminding me just how long it's been since I last danced the tango with a pretty girl.. http://youtu.be/Xr8vYWlHvWw

http://youtu.be/9WpJcFEXASY