[geeks] RE: Re: [rescue] God bless America

[David Cantrell]

On Sat, Sep 15, 2001 at 07:20:36PM -0400, Joshua D Boyd wrote:

> Who rules the Isle of Man?  GB?  UK and GB aren't the same thing are they?

GB == Great Britain == England, Wales and Scotland
UK == United Kingdom == Great Britain and Northern Ireland

The Isle of Man is a Crown Dependency.  It has its own parliament and it's
own laws (but also observes English common law), but the head of state
is the same parasite as the rest of Britain.  In theory it has its own
currency, but the Manx Pound is interchangeable with the UKP.  It is
represented abroad by the UK and defence is the responsibility of the UK.
This means that its situation in relation to UK is approximately the same
as that of Puerto Rico to the US.  The Manx are vociferous about their
'independence', but no-one in GB gives a shit.  And certainly as far
as every other government is concerned is is part of the UK.

Incidentally, I shoud point out that the situation regarding GB and UK is
... complex.  When I'm talking about just general international stuff, I
use UK.  But when talking about internal issues and issues between the isles
of Britain and Ireland, I am careful to use the right term.  I am one of
the very large majority of Britons who do not want anything to do with
Northern Ireland.  Only 26% of us want to keep Ulster, according to an ICM
poll conducted a month ago.

-- 
David Cantrell | david at cantrell.org.uk | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david

  Some people, when confronted with a problem, think ``I know, I'll use
  regular expressions.'' Now they have two problems.        -- jwz