Quote of the day

If you are going to look back to Rome as an example of how Europe should be (or Europeans in general):

The Roman Empire was one of history's most successful melting pots. In comparison to some of history's more recent super-powers, Roman society was relatively tolerant of foreign cultures and religions, provided they did not disturb the peace. Issues of skin color and physical characteristics, as far as can be told, were of little or no importance in the Empire, presumably due to the cosmopolitan nature of its major cities from the early Republic.

By the 1st Century AD, inscriptions and historic writings attest to the many cultural and national groups represented amongst the political and military elites of the Roman Empire. Gaulish chieftains were serving in the Senate at least as early as the reign of Claudius. Jews, Greeks, and Syrians were holding military commands from Egypt to Britain. Some of the most rich and powerful men in 2nd Century Rome were Africans and Spaniards, many of whom still spoke their Latin with Celtiberian or Punic accents.
It's not surprising that, by the 2nd Century, most of the Caesars were not even Romans - if one defines a "Roman" as being an Italian born in Rome or in the traditional Roman territories of Italy. In fact, most of the Emperors after the Julio-Claudians were provincial, or at best non-Roman Italian in origins.

Wow, I like this map of Europe animation better than the other one

Next time some person who thinks Europe is better than other cultures shows up--show them this! It's still somewhat truncated, but it does a better job of showing how other cultures (e.g., Asian and Arabic) influenced European Culture. Not as much illustration of how Africa influenced Europe as I would like, but you can't have it all.

For those of you who may have missed it...

The current political map of Europe is fairly recent.  I would add that this doesn't even cover the ethnicities which one finds in Europe:

They get it in the EU...

From Deutsche Welle

Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem has said the EU can "no longer watch on without acting" as 1,000 Europeans are killed in gun violence each year. She is proposing unified, stricter rules for the whole bloc.

A little comparison here, the EU Comprises 28 nations and has a 2012 population of 507,890,191 whereas the US has a population of 316,915,000. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, killers used guns to murder 11,000 people in 2010 in the U.S., the latest year for which statistics are available. Twenty-thousand others used guns to commit suicides that year, and another 73,000 people were rushed to hospital emergency rooms for gunshot wounds (Source VOA).

Using those numbers, the EU has a larger population, but 9% (0.090909)  of the gun violence, yet they admit there is a problem. Although officially, the US admits it has a problem as the VOA article I mentioned about is titled: Experts: Gun Violence Is Public Health Crisis in US.

The DW article goes on:

The EU's home affairs commissioner wrote that one problem with the open-border bloc was "the danger that criminals try to get hold of their guns in the countries with the most lax laws" on gun ownership.

Let's also put out this bit of info:

The annual Small Arms Survey report in 2007 sought to estimate gun ownership per capita around the world. According to these results, Germany had 30.3 registered firearms for every 100 inhabitants – putting it above average in European Union terms, but behind countries like Finland (45.3), Cyprus (36.4) and Sweden (31.6). The US topped the global list by a considerable margin, averaging just under one gun per person, according to the research institute based in Switzerland.

The rule changes which are reported to be under European Commission consideration include revising which guns are eligible for home ownership, tighter regulations for the sale and ownership of antique weapons and air rifles or air pistols, and a possible ban on selling weapons or ammunition on the Internet.

I know the usual excuse is to blame the Second Amendment, but any interpretation that goes against the public welfare goes against the spirit of the constitution (and you don't need to go too far into the document to see that). 

16 Ways Europeans Are Just Better At Life than Americans

Huffington Post

10. MEASUREMENTS

Europeans:

Europe uses the metric system. If you can multiply by 10, you now have the next highest unit. Boom. Done.

Americans:

There are 3 teaspoons in a tablespoon, 16 tablespoons in a cup, 2 cups in a pint, 2 pints in a quart and 4 quarts to a gallon. There are 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard and 1,760 yards in a mile (or 5,280 feet, as is more commonly known). There are 144 square inches in a square foot and 43,560 square feet in an acre. There are 16 ounces in a pound and 2,000 pounds in a ton.

This list excludes such fun units as picas, furlongs, fathoms, nautical miles, survey townships, bushels and hogsheads. Yup. A hogshead is a unit of measurement and not a Harry Potter character. Look it up.