I've been a Finland a fair number of times, and I think this lack of confidence is quite common. I took a tour of a castle, and I was the only native English speaker in the group - the tour was advertised as being in English. The guide spoke wonderful English, and the whole group, (including some Spanish, German, Italian and a Finn) could all understand it. But she kept looking over to me asking me to correct her or supply a better word.

I think that although the Finns can understand English very well (because of the TV and movies already mentioned) outside of the big cities they don't get much practise to speak it. And, this is key, they don't realise how globalised English is these days; a typical native English speaker hears English in a wide variety of accents, and so is used to non-perfect English. But I think minority languages (Including French! :-)) are not so used to this, and thusly speakers of those languages feel a great lack in confidence because they can only speak English 80% as well as they can speak their own language.

As a good friend of mine (who is a linguist and speaks 4 languages fluently and several others enough to be able to struggle through a novel) put it: "The French language is always spoken perfectly, but the English people need to suffer people torturing their language".

Aw jeez, I wish I had mod points!

What the hell are you talking about? Standard American is completely comprehended by native speakers of English. Actually, I would say it's understood more often than some of the dialects from the UK.

I disagree. The US was (is?) veering towards it, but nothing as bad as, say, Saudia Arabia. Are there states you would care to name as Christian fundamentalist?

Actually, I reckon that for many of the countries it is for domestic consumption. Quite a few countries on the list are 'friendly' Islamic states, but with a large minority of muslims who would like to see a more strict brand of Islam. Having someone (rightly or wrongly) say critical things about their religion might stoke things up bad enough so that the liberal version of Islam gets pushed out of power.

This is the value of talking shops like the UN- the governments get to say they are taking steps to protect Islam but nothing has really changed.

I know where you are coming from (that these countries are not exactly poster-children for human rights) but it is worth pointing out that the US and UK (and by extension 'the west') are in the eyes of the rest of the world, also now included in this 'credible bunch'. The moral high ground has been removed thanks to Gitmo.

Maybe so, but the point was that someone is allegedly being prosecuted for pointing something out which is an accepted fact by large parts of Islam.

To use your example, it would be like someone being prosecuted for saying Washington kept slaves.

And, of course, the biggest difference between Washington and the Mohammed guy is that people are not claiming Washington to be a holy inspiration of how to live life NOW.

Emacs.

So what? That was then, this is now. In those days, the Christian states were the fundamentalists.

Mod parent down!

Utter rubbish - *LONDON* has not had snow for decades, the UK certainly has. Actually even the link you provide says that. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/interesting/28_30october2008/ has more details.

Perhaps your recollection of the articles in National Geographic are as inaccurate as your recollection of the Telegraph article?

Incidentally the Met article suggests that the recordings of snow/not snow happen at 9am every day, so it is entirely likely that there HAS been snow in the last 74 years, but it wasn't measured because it melted by 9am.

Still totally untrue. *London* might not have had snow for decades, but the *UK* sure has. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/interesting/28_30october2008/ "The last occurrence of sleet or snow being reported across these areas was October 2003." and later on in the article "A number of stations across the climate district of SE & Central S England reported a day of snow on 28/29 October 2008, including Reading University, Whiteknights (Berkshire), Hampstead (Greater London) and Odiham (Hampshire). The last previous date that any snow was recorded during October over this climate district was 29 October 1974, but in London it was 31 October 1934."

you may change your mind, if you are 80 years old and largely infirm. It's not a coincidence that Japan - with a large percentage of old people, and a famously long-lived society - is developing this sort of technology.

The Soviets did NOT have the technology - their first bomb was detonated in 1949.

Also, I have a hard time believing that they had the bomb and didn't use it against Germany.

Very good point, well made. Look at the former USSR countries in Europe; they couldn't wait to get away from the Russian sphere of influence. The Western European countries, however, remain firm US allies, with enough differences of opinion (e.g. over Iraq) to show that they are voluntarily allies, not coerced.

Nobody messes with the Russians?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis

And the whole Georgian War which happened recently could be viewed in a similar fashion.