A Return to Monarchy

With all the crap going on in SE Europe & Russia rattling it's sabers, fucking Romania, a republic, Is talking about going back to being a monarchy.
I honestly don't know how precedented this is but it does fall in line with the rise in nationalism throughout Europe & the rest of the world.
It would certainly be a real life Conservative thing to do. Wonder if the royalty would take over the church, too?

Read more at The Romanian Insider

Read even more at >The Romanian Insider

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This is what I'm Talking about

Romania's prime minister is looking at eliminating and merging 92 taxes and fees. While the overall cost to the taxpayer & the revenue collected by the state won't change much the accounting & time wasted dealing with all the individual charges will be vastly reduced saving the citizens time, money and promoting more investment which should generate more revenue for the state.
When people whine about the American corporate tax rate, they ignore the fact that the USA has fewer taxes than most countries. The USA overall tax rate is actually very competitive but it's still mired by bureaucracy that stifles investment.
Increasing and creating new fees, as Cincinnati's Mayor John Cranley has proposed, is absolutely the wrong way to go.

Queen of Romania Takes U.S. by Storm

Queen Marie of Romania arrives in NYC 10/18/26This kinda baffles me. Apparently, Queen Marie of Romania was kind of a royal celebrity in the early 20th century - maybe like Princess Diana of Wales was in the late 20th century.Born Princess of Edinburgh to Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, she married Prince Ferdinand of Romania and ascended to the throne in 1914 - just in time for WWI.
She adopted the Romanian people & became a bit of a war hero - a Soldier Queen. She oversaw the 4th Rosiori Regiment, worked to devise a defense against the German army, secured a military loan from the U.S. and, after the war, she attended the Paris Peace Conference & expanded Romania's land by 80%, taking back land from Hungary & Russia and uniting the Romanian speaking peoples once again.Marie embraced her new country and with her charm, beauty & leadership she became an international role model for women. One of the first women to appear on the cover of Time magazine, she was the first queen to appear on a cover in 1924. Dubbed the most beautiful queen in Europe, she also endorsed beauty products, further cementing her influence with women of all strata.
So, when she landed in the US, she was an instant hit.The Queen of Romania traveled through the US & Canada for a month at a fairly grueling pace. The entire trip is summarized here. She dedicated museums and made radio broadcasts, visited Indian Reservations & military installations.
It seems pretty weird nowadays that an eastern European royal could cause such a stir in the U.S. but a lot of that is due to the Soviet occupation & subjugation of eastern European nations after WWII. Prior to the war, eastern Europe was not far behind western Europe, but after being a battlefield for Germany & Russia & the consequent decades of Commieism established under the fairly psychotic Stalin, these countries fell behind economically & culturally and fairly disappeared from the western world - hid behind the Iron Curtain.
There's more on this woman's celebrity here

Exhuming Rosia Montana

In a recent post I brought up the rape of the Carpathian Mountains & the Rosia Montana gold mining scheme. It appears they are quite happy disturbing the dead in their quest for treasure. One of the issues here is that the Romanian Orthodox Church doesn't really allow graves to be moved around like they are in Ohio. They can be exhumed for ritual cleansing but only after 7 years.
When you find out about the dubious past of this plan to destroy forests, mountains, beasts & cultures, nothing is too surprising.
This history of the Rosia Montana scheme that actually goes back to Romania's communist days is rife with people with lel in their eyes.
It looks like the mining operation will be blocked by the current parliament but these ghouls seem patient.

Rosia Montana

The densely wooded Carpathian Mountains are rich in history and myth. They are also one of the last ancient forests of Europe. Besides being the home of many tiny remote villages, the forests are also home to lynx, wolves and brown bear.
But there's gold in them thar hills & the timber has $$$ in some people's eyes. The Roman Empire coveted the gold back in the mid second century but the worst thing they did was enslave people & work them to death. ok, and rape, pillage & make their captives engages in deadly sports...
But the good old days are over. With modern technology, businesses are stripping the woods, leveling the mountains & creating vast pools of cyanide contaminated water.In an open letter to The Prince of Wales, Rupert Wolfe Murray wrote:"

The proposed gold mining project at Rosia Montana will erase three pristine villages and four mountains from the face of the planet, creating a sterile zone the size of a small city that will be contaminated for millennia.
The investors plan to build a 185 metre high dam (higher than the Three Gorges Dam in China) that will contain 214 million tons of cyanide waste.

What could go wrong?
Besides destroying the habitat of countless plants & animals and besides destroying the culture & communities of people, a dam failure would be devastating. The Canyon Lake dam in South Dakota was nowhere near as large as this dam being proposed in Romania & the lake wasn't polluted with poisonous chemicals when it failed and flooded Rapid City. They won't be building any parks if this dam fails.

More on Wild Carpathia

Wild Carpathia
Sorry, no sweet transvestites from a probably not transsexual Transylvania, but it does have Prince Charles' rapier wit.
Anyway, I bring this up because Romania & other countries in Europe are facing a problem of massive land grabs by a small number of private entities subsidized by governments that have cut spending in many other areas.
See more at arc2020

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Daco-Romanian Continuity
I almost feel sorry for the text reader - voice simulator program thingamabob. Anyway, the debate over the history of this area is pretty interesting.

A Christmas Tale

from The Queen of Romania's Fairy BookQueen Marie of Romania was born in Kent in 1875 & later married to Prince Ferdinand of Romania in 1893. They later were made King & Queen of Romania. Queen Marie is considered directly responsible for Romania's military, well, not getting totally creamed, in WWI & subsequently making substantial territorial gains after the war. Later she took to writing & in 1923 published 'The Queen of Romania's Fairy Book'.
Chapter 4 was titled A Christmas Tale.

This is a very strange tale I have got to tell you today. It is about a mysterious well - a deep, deep well which lay in the centre of a dark forest. It is also a Christmas tale. No one knew why that well was there, nor who had dug it, nor how old it was.
The peasants from the villages around stood in great awe of this well, because from its depth a weird sound could be heard, a sort of moan, half sob, half gurgle, and sometimes a sound as though someone were knocking against its sides, which made you think of a lost soul in distress, perhaps held captive down there and unable to get out.

You can rad the whole story here

More on Queen Marie here

Decoding Dacia
Decoding Dacia, a film or series about ancient Romania & Transylvania by Kogainon Films & National Geographic is scheduled for release sometime soon. Scheduled being the key word. Any word on the BBC's Brittain's Wicca Man?
UPDATEThe Romanian Insider reports the movie (not series) will make it's US debut 11/15/12 in historical Boston. Still no word on widespread release.
Romanian Insider article here

Preservation / Conservation

Count Kálnoky & The Prince of Wales discuss preservation & conservation in sunny Transylvania. Charles also discusses the over harvesting of Scotland's timber, something Haiti has become the poster child for. This is from an English Travel Charnel show, Wild Carpathia, which discusses the size, history & significance of the forested mountain range - home to 40% of Europe's bear population & lotsa wolf & lynx. You can snag a DVD of the episode (in PAL format) here.

Alternative Casino Design

image by Anjil119
Utilizing Romanian anti-grav technology, a casino with traditional old school architecture could hover over Broadway Commons while preserving the current ambience of the neighborhood and preserving the parking facilities as well.