The future of Europe

I felt like thinking 15 years into future this evening.

In the year 2020:

1. Great Britain politically has left Europe: Due to its historical role it feels closer to the US and the majority of its inhabitants have just voted to become the 51st state of the United States. The other European countries still resent Britain to have thrown back European unification efforts for years due to the British NO to the European Constitution referendum.
   
2. Political ties between Europe (with the exception of Great Britain) and the US have loosened more and more over the past 15 years. The NATO still exists but has lost a lot of its former relevance.
3. The UN have not yet recovered from its credibility loss in regard to genocides (like in Sudan in the beginning of the 21st century) and other genocides which were not declared as such. Actual genocides were not declared as such since none of the industrialized countries was willing to spend a reasonable sum of money nor soldiers to prevent these genocides. The UN (like the NATO) is paralized. Military actions against genocides are currently only conducted if power supplies in the US are threatened.
   
4. A European defence Ministery exists but there never was a sufficient majority of votes of the European member states voting in favor of military actions in the European neighbourhood. Millions of humans in African countries had to die for this reason. The European political and military heavyweights argue that it's been a failure of the UN.
5. Asia, Europe and Eastern Europe have made progress in regard to scientific, economic and employment aspects. The US has still to recover from its financial burdens arisen from its Armed Forces and its defence efforts against terrorism in the past years. While the US concentrated on the modernization of its military the other industrialized countries spend comparatively more money into research areas.
6. Some settlers, scientists and private investors from all over the world build up a permant station on the moon. US space pioneer Burt Rutan and his company Scaled Composites laid the basis for this. NASA, ESA and NASDA were unable to fulfill the job effectively since they were governmental institutions gulping billions of dollars without using them efficiently. Space development was thrown back for years due to this ineffectiveness as fact-finding committees unveiled.
   

Mean talking about Ronald

Ok... it's mean what I'm gonna say. You see... that's a bad habit of mine !!

I mentioned my friend Ronald the other day. Well, Ronald has a funny surname. And his surname is his real surname but it's so common (like Miller) that I can tell it here. No problem. Besides, Ronald is a funny guy himself... he always makes fun of himself so he won't mind.

His last name is Dumbfield. Yep... it's true! Now, what I always wondered but didn't dare to ask him: What's 'field' to do with 'dumb'?? Or have you ever seen a 'dumb field'? That doesn't make sense at all - and I've thought that for all the years that I know Ronny now.

But then it hit me lately: Ronny mentioned one day that some of his male European ancestors who at times became soldiers had actually little luck as such. As the story goes they usually didn't manage to see the end of the respective war in good health. They are even said to have not been of great use for their respective warlords. So... maybe as a kind of self-punishement or result of their embarassement, maybe because their former warlord forced them to, they adopted 'Dumbfield' as their family name.

Having the martial background of his ancestors in mind the riddle about my friends' surname is certainly easy to unveil: I'm pretty sure now that his ancestors were not very successful or lucky in the field of war. So... to be 'dumb in the field' explains itself: It's simply someone who is a little dumb in the handicraft of war.

Second clue for my assumption: the word 'field' from his name means actually 'feld' in German. So, a guy who was said to be 'in the field' was actually taking part in some kind of war. Funny, isn't it? Why didn't they just say: He's taking part in a war. Instead they hid his true profession by saying: He's 'in the field'.

Must ask Ronny next time we meet if my assumptions are right !

Sales and gains

A fairy tale: A sales manager once watched some of his subordinates selling some precious device. Let's say it was an expensive TV set.
He casually contentedly dropt the words: That's good for sales.

A guy, looking pretty similar to me, happened to watch the scenery and thought to himself: Is he talking seriously or is he just talking about his penis size? I always thought there was a difference between sales and gains.

But then he imagined the manager talking to one of his fellow collegues and the way people tend to show off in the presence of peers. Maybe he'd drop a line like: Boys, the sales of our branch was the biggest this month - and turning to them with a grin on his face: ...sorry for you loosers. His penis size would grow into higher dimensions.

The observer then wondered if the gains of this manager would justify his obvious arousal. He just hoped for him that it wouldn't be just a droplet. Would be too embarrassing, wouldn't it?!!