@ Jaime

Guernsey :)

@ Octuviant:

Guernsey and Jersey (and, as it happens, the Isle of Man) are part of the British Isles, but not part of Great Britain.

It's quite simple really.

@
"The UK is a state
Great Britain is an island
Britain is a nation
England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are countries"

Maybe you could help matter by calling scotland 'Northern Britian', Wales 'Western Britian' and England could be subdivided with northern england as Central Britian, Cornwall as South Western Britian, and London plus the south east as South Eastern Britian?

(Just like Northern Ireland, everybody know it is part of the island of Ireland; even those who aren't clear that there are two states on this island - like it would be confusing if we called Northern Ireland Ulster...)

Also The Isle of Man, Island of Ireland, Island of Britian, and all the smaller islands off Ireland and Scotland, Angelsey and and the Isle of Wight etc...

Are collectively described as the British Isles (though certain Irish Nationalists and possibly wikipedians prefer the term 'Western European Archipelago')

Meanwhile Guernsey and Jersey are part of the so called 'Channel Isles' because they are across the Channel - and should geographically belong to France...

But i forget whether that are part of the UK or just Crown dependencies.

Like the Isle of Man has it's own democracy, but has agreed to let the UK handle external affairs and defence. (And it has pegged it's currency to the Pound sterling on a one-to-one basis...) I suspect they could declare as a country and apply for UN memership if they wished.

That's lovely, Jamie. Give yourself a mince pie as a reward.

The Channel Islands are definitely British, regardless of their somewhat unusual status. Depending on your point of view, they are the most British of all of us. We were all conquered by the Normans, after all, and they are the last remnant of old Normandy. England, Scotland et al are essentially just colonies of Guernsey.

Well I'd be very sceptical about a poll produced in the frenzy of electioneering that's probably been done to further a political agenda

I see your point JECE, but 10% of voters in US primaries is not 10% of the US population. Using voting turnouts in the actual presidential elections, where about 40% or less of registered / eligible voters actually vote, then maybe it's only 3% or 4% of the population who'd agree with a nonsense proposal
And it's conceivable that 3% or 4% of any nations population would agree to any similarly daffy proposal

And just for Jamiet99uk, what point I'm trying, or not trying to make eludes me as well as any readers of my posts, snafu.
As the charming Octavious has remarked, I'm an idiot

@ orathiac: "Maybe you could help matter by calling Scotland 'Northern Britain', Wales 'Western Britain' and England could be subdivided with northern England as Central Britian, Cornwall as South Western Britain, and London plus the south east as South Eastern Britain?"

What are you, some kind of Liberal Democrat?

Did I call you an idiot, Maj? What was that for?

@Jamie, i try...

Just reading up on the Isle of Man, i think it is the most interesting, plus i've never been there. It is one of the few parts of the British Isles which is not part of the EU. Thus Isle of Man citizens - despite having 'British Citizens' on their passports, can't work in the EU without a Visa (but they are entitled to travel, and live across the EU)

Still, i think the relationship is far closer to independence than, say, Scotland (who can't legally seceed without approval of Westminster) while I suspect the Isle o Man could apply for EU/UN membership with... well less fuss. (except they don't want to)

@Jeff "This is not to say that the UK is not one of the strongest nations on the planet--it surely is. It's just not as strong as it used to be when it was the clear #1 (now #4 behind USA, Russia, China)."

China is an economic power, not a military one. Russia is a (regional) military power with an economy which is suffering.

Britian is strong both militarily and economically. It can project it's military force globally - and as part of an alliance with the US, can do anything that the US is ok with.

It is very hard to rank these nations in some simple linear system. And not at all clear what #2 is - the US is still #1 in GDP, and military spending. (more military spending than the next 9 countries combined - and 6 of those are allies, Russia, China and India being the three who aren't) The US also accounts for over 1/3 of the global military spending.

You can measure these things in US dollars. But that doesn't show things like, soft power (which the EU employs, because there is no EU army to allow them use hard power) and the effect of economic sanctions - currently seen globally as a continuation of warfare...

Octavious, I think it was for my original Boers/Boers/Boers post, but I assumed it was for simply being myself. Or it may have been my don't use the Nazi insult rantings, where I said it was OK to call me an idiot, just please don't call me a Nazi idiot, or idiot Nazi.
It's quite OK, the fire breathing MemSahib, Her Indoors regularly uses language that would make a sailor blush when roaring her sweet endearments in my general direction.
I'm confident that you used it with genuine affection

I think you'll find that was someone else. I do recall thinking you were being a bit of an idiot at the time, but I don't think I actually said it. Dipstick, possibly... nincompoop perhaps?

@Orathaic
So does my proposition that in order to be a superpower a strong economy is required to generate the wealth needed to fund the military resources required, as well as giving the superpower economic influence to use as part of it's diplomatic efforts seem a valid proposition ?

Or to put the proposition another way, a superpower with declining economic performance risks losing it's superiority to nations whose economic performance is better

nope. You could be a super power the way the mongols did it.

No economic production, just dominate the trade of everyone else and enforce a tribute system. Project power across continents and fear. Pure military might without any of the troubles.

Ah, the good old days. We should go back to that.

Maybe in the future mega-corps with 'private security' will be more powerful than states... That is the one area where state and private enterprise (in the US) have divergent interests... Whereas in not America, there are still places where militaries own countries rather than the other way around...

I can never tell when you're being serious,
and when you're being satirical Orathaic

Uuumm, Octavious, the mince pie for Jamiet99uk,
There's a pies and pasties thread that Jamiet99uk started......
Was that a clever cross thread comment,
Or were you using rhyming slang ?
Mince pies being eyes
Now you might think I'm being a merchant banker......

A merchant banker who's a member of the Berkeley Hunt, perhaps? Rhyming slang and a seasonal reference in a crossthread extravaganza! You are truly being spoiled.

Truth be told I think the Berkeley's have been most unfortunate with that particular piece of rhyming slang. They're really very nice people.

I wonder if really conservative Republicans would support bombing places within the US that they see as full of too many communist/ socialist/gay rights agitators etc