Question: Which of the

following countries exists?

a) Ambrosia

b) Ruritania

c) Ruthenia

Answer: None of the above

Which of the following people is real?

a) Billy Liar

b) Tintin

c) Professor Ivan Turyanitsa, Prime Minister of the would-be nation state of Ruthenia (currently known as Transcarpathian Ukraine)

Answer: You guessed it

Question: Is he a chicken short of a Kiev?

Answer: Not necessarily

Whence they came, no one can tell. Nobody knows exactly who, how many or where they are. They live in six states and in none. They are loyal to each of these states, and to none of them. Their language is written in five different versions; in the Cyrillic, but also in the Latin alphabet. Some regard themselves as Ukrainians, others as Slovaks, others again as Poles. Or Romanians. Or Hungarians. Or Yugoslavs. But many insist they are "Rusyns", or "Carpatho-Rusyns", or rusnatsi. Or, they throw up their hands and give the ancient answer of the peasant from Europe's Slavic borderlands: "We're just from here."






FOR connoisseurs of obscurity, the Republic of Carpatho-Ruthenia takes some beating. in 1939 on March 15th, it enjoyed its sole day of independence—declared in the morning amid the Nazis' dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, snuffed out in the evening by an invasion from neighbouring Hungary. Its leader, Avhustyn [Augustin] Voloshyn, died in a Soviet jail in 1945; so did many others. Before the world had even noticed its existence, independent Ruthenia disappeared into first the Nazi, then the Soviet empires.

Ruthenians have had little joy since. A list of famous Ruthenes begins and pretty much ends with Andy Warhol: the artist did not himself speak Ruthene, though his parents did. He once said he had "come from nowhere". Many Ruthenian activists feel that way, too.

A million-plus by the most generous count (but far fewer according to sceptics), Ruthenians are scattered through the Carpathian regions of Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine, with another bunch in former Yugoslavia. Some are Orthodox, but most are eastern-rite Catholics. That prompted savage suppression in the communist era

Many doubt the Ruthene claim to any form of national identity. Even the placename is disputed. Czechs and Slovaks, looking east, tend to talk of "Sub-Carpathia"; Ukrainians, looking west, talk of "Trans-Carpathia". Communist rulers denied Ruthenes existed at all. Ukraine recognised them as an ethnic minority only in 2007. The language—sometimes called Rusyn—is dismissed as a mere dialect of established Slavic tongues, even by some who speak it.

But the Ruthenian cause is stirring. In western Ukraine, Ruthenian revivalists have demanded self-determination. One group has even declared independence. Their self-proclaimed prime minister, Petr Getsko, told a Russian government newspaper in December that the "lion's share" of Russian gas exports to Europe pass through pipelines across Ruthenia.


Ruthenia was once independent, for one day. Now Ruthenes are getting restive


In Slovakia, self-declared Ruthenians are more numerous, but shun the separatist strivings across the border. Overshadowed by Slovakia's much larger Hungarian and Roma (Gypsy) minorities, they would be happy with just a little more schooling and broadcasting in their fragile language.


The man who reseached most of this article has family living in various parts of the Zakarpattia Oblast. His information is that about 70 to 80%-of population speak rusin. Why would Ukrainians speak rusin? The estimate is that in towns 60-70% of the population is rusin, in the mountains it is much higher.

I can propose two reasons for the differences: first the rusin speaking people often don't know that the name ruthen exist. In the soviet era there was no information about ruthens.

Second, I maintain my reservation towards the goodwill of polling people actually making the census. The same as I do not trust polling people in the United States. Simple tricks, like asking if they are Ukraine but not proposing the option of ruthen, can extremely simply bias the results. In the pre WWI Hungarian census, 70% of the population was ruthen. Where did this people go? Nowhere, they were just simply influenced to become Ukrainians.

From Memory of a Nation - these are war survivors who remember how their nations were torn apart

I chose this example because the Albrechts are in my family tree.

Lieutenant Vladislav Albrecht

"I wish the youth searched their souls a little more these days, didn't do drugs, kept together and understood what patriotism is."

Vladislav Albrecht was born in the village Český Boratín on Volyně on April 25, 1923. Volyně was part of Poland at that time. However, the region was annexed to the Soviet Union in 1939. The Germans came in 1941; Mr. Albrecht remembers both occupations. In March 1944 he joined the Czechoslovak troops in Rovny where he served as a brigade observer. He participated in armed operations in Slovakia, the end of the war found him in Bohemia. He served in the army after the war for a short period of time, thereafter he worked in an agricultural cooperative farm. He never joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. He has got five children with his wife and he lives in Horní Řepčice.

Obama to Appeal Detainee Ruling

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Friday that it would appeal a district court ruling that granted some military prisoners in Afghanistan the right to file lawsuits seeking their release. The decision signaled that the administration was not backing down in its effort to maintain the power to imprison terrorism suspects for extended periods without judicial oversight.

In a court filing, the Justice Department also asked District Judge John D. Bates not to proceed with the habeas-corpus cases of three detainees at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul, Afghanistan. Judge Bates ruled last week that the three — each of whom says he was seized outside of Afghanistan — could challenge their detention in court.

Tina Foster, the executive director of the International Justice Network, which is representing the detainees, condemned the decision in a statement.

"Though he has made many promises regarding the need for our country to rejoin the world community of nations, by filing this appeal, President Obama has taken on the defense of one of the Bush administration's unlawful policies founded on nothing more than the idea that might makes right," she said.

AGAIN - which administration and did they say President George Bush III?

there have been several deja vu moments - I sometimes have felt there was no election and that the more things "change" the more they stay the same. When you are dealing with politicians any change is bound to be minimal.

I do understand why there is not a category specifically for politics - there is already one for humor so why duplicate

THINGS WE SHOULD KNOW BUT PROBABLY DON'T


1. Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of cotton.

2. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp (marijuana) paper.

3. The dot over the letter i is called a 'tittle'.

4. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.

(that makes my day!)

5. Susan Lucci is the daughter of Phyllis Diller.

6. 40% of Mc Donald 's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.

7. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.

8. The 'spot' on 7UP comes from its inventor, who had red eyes. He was albino.

9. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents, daily. (Just as I suspected)

10. Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.



11. Chocolate affects a dog's heart and nervous system; a few ounces will kill a small-sized dog.

12. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.

13. Most lipstick contains fish scales (eeww)..

14. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants. (The Little Perv.)

15. Ketchup was sold in the 1830's as medicine.

16. Upper and lower-case letters are named 'upper' and 'lower' because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the 'upper case' letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the smaller, 'lower case' letters.

17. Leonardo Da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time, hence, multi-tasking was invented.

18. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.

19. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.

20. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan; there was never a recorded Wendy before!

21. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, or silver!

22. Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors. Also, it took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa's lips.

23. A tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion will make it instantly go mad and sting itself to death.

24. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original 'Halloween' was a Captain Kirk's mask painted white.

(how many thought it was a hockey goalies mask? - that was not used until part III.)

25. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar. (good to know.)

26. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand

(and you thought this list was completely useless.)

27. The phrase 'rule of thumb' is derived from an old English law, which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

28. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was the Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.

29. Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. It's the same with apples.

30. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying!

31. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.

32. "Guinness Book of Records" holds the record for being the book most often stolen from public
Libraries.

33. Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a space suit damages it.

I NEED TO REMEMBER THIS.

34. George Carlin said it best about Martha Stewart.

"Boy, I feel a lot safer now that she's behind bars. O.J. Simpson and Kobe Bryant are still walking around; Osama Bin Laden too, but they take the ONE woman in America willing to cook, clean, and work in the yard, and they haul her off to jail..