“The safest place to have a heart attack in Vancouver is in the back of a taxi as your driver is probably a fully qualified physician.” — Live, Tuesday: Canada’s immigrants and the job market - The Globe and Mail
Of the land which the Romans gained by conquest from their neighbors, part they sold publicly, and turned the remainder into common; this common land they assigned to such of the citizens as were poor and indigent, for which they were to pay only a small acknowledgment into the public treasury. But when the wealthy men began to offer larger rents, and drive the poorer people out, it was enacted by law, that no person whatever should enjoy more than five hundred acres of ground. This act for some time checked the avarice of the richer, and was of great assistance to the poorer people, who retained under it their respective proportions of ground, as they had been formerly rented by them.
Afterwards the rich men of the neighborhood contrived to get these lands again into their possession, under other people’s names, and at last would not stick to claim most of them publicly in their own. The poor, who were thus deprived of their farms, were no longer either ready, as they had formerly been, to serve in war, or careful in the education of their children; insomuch that in a short time there were comparatively few freemen remaining in all Italy, which swarmed with workhouses full of foreign-born slaves. These the rich men employed in cultivating their ground, of which they dispossessed the citizens.
[ from Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, Tiberius and Caius Gracchi]
The most amazing part is about ergastulæ. Any immigrant to a rich country gets to relive these gloroius days of Rome by inahbiting a modern version of an ergastula, while slaving for a rich natural citizen of this promised land.
Snowbound | www.fakenirvana.com -
A treat for mail harvesters.
Retirement age needs to be 70: think-tank -
Next year: Canadians are required by law to work till 90 and have no less than 10 kids per capita. Legal age of marriage: 12.
“Vancouver supplies E tabs to the world and consumes a lot it selff. Once you are on ectasy the world seems a bliss, hence vancouvites call their home the best place in the world” — Frommers: Vancouver is an over-rated city | Vancouver Condo Info
“Is your interest rate calculated on a daily, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual basis? It can make a difference in your effective interest rate. On a 4% mortgage, if interest is calculated daily, the effective rate is 4.0808%. If it’s calculated monthly, it’s 4.074%; quarterly, 4.06045%; and bi-annually, 4.04%. How your interest is calculated becomes a much bigger issue as you get into higher rates.” — Your line of credit just got jacked
“любовь в армии она особенная, это суровое мужское чувство. Не зря так часто солдаты нежно называют своих командиров: “Пи…сы! - и напоминают им, - Ну как же вы нас зае…ли!” — ArtOfWar. Бикбаев Равиль Нагимович. Кундуз-Гардез
“В комнате Эллы был автомат, гранаты, а на столе стволом в сторону входной двери стоял пулемёт Дегтярёва ДПМ образца 1944 года с снаряженным диском. Вместе они и коротали эти дни, пока я не вернулся из похода. Время, правда, даром они не теряли. И к моему приезду 31.12.80 уже устроились делопроизводителями на работу в вертолетный полк, который стоял на аэродроме Джелалабада.” — ArtOfWar. Смолина Алла. Из окошка девичьего модуля, или воспоминания “афганок”.
Capitalism's Self-inflicted Apocalypse
“And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?” — Matthew 12:26
The painful truth about trainers: Are expensive running shoes a waste of money?
“«Я всегда пользуюсь девизом Шарля де Голля: «честь, здравый смысл и всеобщий интерес». Когда у меня возникает необходимость решить сложную задачу, я задаю себе вопросы – что мне говорит всеобщий интерес, здравый смысл и честь, - и если на эти три вопроса я нахожу один ответ, то это значит, что я нашел правильную дорогу и для себя лично, и для своей страны»” — Live_Report