Comments on: Advocating for English…and Against Puerto Rico

By: Kirsten

Kirsten — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 16:32:28 +0000

The debate on whether Scotland should become independent from Great Britain is also often couched in financial terms.

Anti-independence voices say that Scotland receives disproportionate subsidies (agricultural, fisheries, social improvement) relative to its population, and would therefore not be able to cope if it were independent.

Pro-independence voices often mention that revenues from large corporations within Scotland and using Scottish resources (notably North Sea oil producers) were and are taxed on a UK level and therefore benefit the UK as a whole, not Scotland in particular.

I’m not an economist so I don’t know who is right. The Scottish National Party have been the majority party in the devolved Scottish government for a while now, and have received some criticism for not calling a referendum on independence.

By: Esme

Esme — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:14:29 +0000

Missouri has one of these on its ballot. What’s interesting to note is that Missouri does not have a significant Hispanic population. What we do have is a significant refugee population, ranging from Tutsi to Bosnian. Also, for all the people who see this issue as being about immigrants not learning English: American Sign Language isn’t English. If you cannot conduct business in any language other than English, you are excluding the disabled, refugees, new immigrants, and people who reside in communities where English is not necessary.

By: Will

Will — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:37:32 +0000

I come from a “donor state” which gives more money to the Federal government than it receives back in Federal funding. In the spirit of the third graphic, can we now kick states like Alaska, Montana, and Alabama, who take in more money than they contribute, out of the Union?

By: José Muñiz

José Muñiz — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:22:25 +0000

Interesting. From the Boston Globe, “Since World War II, Puerto Rico has suffered more casualties per capita than any other US jurisdiction, and the rate is among the highest in the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Pentagon statistics.”

link to article: http://tinyurl.com/6rogso

By: Vidya

Vidya — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 06:32:26 +0000

Does that first image really say “…and became full members of AmericanS society”? HAHAHA — Grammar FAIL.

By: Lazercat

Lazercat — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 21:43:01 +0000

It’s things like these that make me wish I spoke a Native American language…

By: Elena

Elena — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 20:23:09 +0000

Looking through the list of states with Official English laws, I see a handful of names of Spanish origin in them — Arizona, California, Colorado and Florida. How ironic that Spanish isn’t recognised in Sacramento, Boca Raton or El Paso. You’d think that they’d want to preserve a sense of their history and origins.

On the other hand, if that happened in Europe, you’d have minorities demanding to make their traditional language co-official instead. Here in Spain we’ve got Galician, Basque and Catalan at the same level as Spanish in their respective territories, for example. Somehow we manage.