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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Screw you, we're rich!
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
Wow. Nothing says the OP title like a Versailles knock-off in the suburbs. It's so taste-free, even the friends-of-Croesus neighbors think it's awful. A mere 26ishK-square-feet of awesome! Suck it, ye poor!
Planned Palace Upsets Some Neighbors
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Laura:
Suck it, ye poor!
Surely you mean the sleepless poor.
I really should get my husband to change his area of specialty.
I want one.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Organ Builder
Shipmate
# 12478
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Posted
Given that I live in a city where you can buy the White House, I have to say I've seen worse.
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How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people.--E.F. Benson
Posts: 3337 | From: ...somewhere in between 40 and death... | Registered: Mar 2007
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Organ Builder
Shipmate
# 12478
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Posted
Think "posh".
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How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people.--E.F. Benson
Posts: 3337 | From: ...somewhere in between 40 and death... | Registered: Mar 2007
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Jonathan Strange
Shipmate
# 11001
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Posted
Only 5 bedrooms? Are they each the size of football pitches?
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"Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bears his teeth, winter meets its death,
When he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again"
Posts: 1327 | From: Wessex | Registered: Feb 2006
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Organ Builder
Shipmate
# 12478
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Posted
Obviously, that doesn't include the bedrooms for the servants.
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How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people.--E.F. Benson
Posts: 3337 | From: ...somewhere in between 40 and death... | Registered: Mar 2007
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
Think of all the cleaning! (no, wait, that's what servants are for....)
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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tessaB
Shipmate
# 8533
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Posted
Looking at the description of the house the master bedroom suite seems to be bigger than my whole house!
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tessaB
eating chocolate to the glory of God
Holiday cottage near Rye
Posts: 1068 | From: U.K. | Registered: Sep 2004
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
Think of all the construction workers who will be employed to build that thing! Do you really want them to be out of work?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
If you are concerned about construction workers, MtM, you would think more lower income housing. Housing estates would employ more than a single house of even this size.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
Don't all Americans live in those kind of houses?? ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
I do think that if you're going to be obscenely rich, the least you can do is do something confident with your money- especially if, as Maarvin reminds us, it creates a bit of work. Much rather this than those awful rich people who try to insist that really, they're just like anyone else (yes, Cameron, there at the back of the class, I do mean you...)
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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jbohn
Shipmate
# 8753
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
Don't all Americans live in those kind of houses??
Of course we do. My palatial estate has a detached garage, thank you very much. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Of course, my entire home (with the garage included) would likely fit comfortably in the master bedroom suite of this display of affluence and power, as tessaB has also noted.
Amazing. Of course, I'm always amused by millionaires getting into squabbles with billionaires...
[ 24. April 2012, 16:17: Message edited by: jbohn ]
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We are punished by our sins, not for them.
--Elbert Hubbard
Posts: 989 | From: East of Eden, west of St. Paul | Registered: Nov 2004
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Jonathan Strange
Shipmate
# 11001
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Much rather this than those awful rich people who try to insist that really, they're just like anyone else (yes, Cameron, there at the back of the class, I do mean you...)
Well yes, but, as we all know, money can buy neither love nor taste nor a sense of humanity.
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"Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bears his teeth, winter meets its death,
When he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again"
Posts: 1327 | From: Wessex | Registered: Feb 2006
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Oh, that goes without saying. Far better not to have people that rich at all. But if they're there the least they can do is give the rest of us a laugh now and then.
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Organ Builder
Shipmate
# 12478
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jonathan Strange:
...money can buy neither love nor taste nor a sense of humanity.
Unfortunately, being poor doesn't guarantee them either. If I were given the choice, I'd rather be tasteless, loveless, inhuman and rich than tasteless, loveless, inhuman and poor.
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How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people.--E.F. Benson
Posts: 3337 | From: ...somewhere in between 40 and death... | Registered: Mar 2007
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
The canny church would be round the next day, knocking on the door with a welcome pack.
Ulterior motives? How can you say such a thing?
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
The security guards or automated security camera system will turn all except the best sort of people away. So, no church donations. Rather, they may have religious professions (or amateurs) on their staff who will tell them how to fit themselves through the eye of the needle.
God meant there to be hyper-rich and starving poor, because he enjoys both the intellectual justification for wealth, and the suffering of the poor. Jesus did tell the rich man that he would be first in line when they are lining up for entry to heaven, right? Jesus also likes guns and bombs because with them you can increase the suffering of the poor.
![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif)
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
Here is a quote from the site. quote:
The basement alone will have a wine cellar, an exercise room, a billiard room, a theater with a concession space, a spa, a sauna, a card room, a recreation room, a gallery, a kitchen and a large guest bedroom.
What's this concession space? Are they going to sell things to their guests or to family members?
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Sine Nomine
Ship's backstabbing bastard
# 66
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Posted
Apparently a lot of people have only the haziest idea what Versailles looks like. I suppose if it were red brick they'd say it was the spitting image of Hampton Court.
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Precious, Precious, Sweet, Sweet Daddy...
Posts: 16639 | From: lat. 36.24/lon. 86.84 | Registered: Dec 2002
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Geneviève
Mother-Hatting Cat Lover
# 9098
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
Here is a quote from the site. quote:
The basement alone will have a wine cellar, an exercise room, a billiard room, a theater with a concession space, a spa, a sauna, a card room, a recreation room, a gallery, a kitchen and a large guest bedroom.
What's this concession space? Are they going to sell things to their guests or to family members?
Moo
Fabulous, I missed that ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
Maybe the kids will have part-time jobs selling stuff to their guests when the guests come down to watch a movie. or maybe sell souvenir postcards for the guests to take home
[ 25. April 2012, 00:11: Message edited by: Geneviève ]
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"Ineffable" defined: "I cannot and will not be effed with." (Courtesy of CCTooSweet in Running the Books)
Posts: 4336 | From: Eastern US | Registered: Feb 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
quote:
Originally posted by Jonathan Strange:
...money can buy neither love nor taste nor a sense of humanity.
Unfortunately, being poor doesn't guarantee them either. If I were given the choice, I'd rather be tasteless, loveless, inhuman and rich than tasteless, loveless, inhuman and poor.
Yeah, if you're going to Hell, why not live it up? Eat drink and be merry.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
OTOH you have to admit that after building the actual Château de Versailles, things didn't turn out so well for the Capet family. ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
That crossed my mind as well. Perhaps the message is "Start a blood-soaked class war, right here on my lawn!"
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Patdys
Iron Wannabe
RooK-Annoyer
# 9397
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Posted
Are there degrees of inequality?
Given 2.6 billion people do not have reasonable sanitation, WHO update 2010, do we really think there is a tangible difference in wealth between us and the palace builders?
It is easy to say 'look at that rich bastard, what a selfish prat'. And I suspect 2.6 billion people say that about every single one of us on board. So, how do you justify your richness? Me, I am just grateful. No amount of scrimping, donating, caring actually removes the basic inequaity. And all else is hair splitting.
After all, shitting into a bowl full of drinkable water is rather ostentatious, don't 'cha think? Just ask a third of the world's population.
Me, I am just grateful.
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Marathon run. Next Dream. Australian this time.
Posts: 3511 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
If it were my "Chateau de Lumiere" (hack, barf), I would be sure the servants were all dressed as French peasants out of period art. I would throw cake at them.
In all seriousness, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong about being rich (as Tevye responds to Perchik's contention that money is the world's curse in "Fiddler", "May God smite me with it! And may I never recover!"), and as noted, even some of the first-world poor are rich by world standards but I tend to the Quaker view that you are obligated to regard riches not as "mine" but as resources of which one is a steward, answerable to God or humanity or whatever. There's no rule says you have to live in a cardboard box.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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Patdys
Iron Wannabe
RooK-Annoyer
# 9397
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Posted
Yep, we borrow the world from our children, yada yada yada. I agree.
If your criticism is on purely asthetic grounds, then I have to concur. It is a ridiculous monstrosity.
I find it easy to slip into the 'damn wastrel rich' mindset though and this I struggle with more. Because it is a subjective measure in which we all fall short by others standards.
But even with the first argument, I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder... But... Bugger me, it's ugly and out of place though.
[ 25. April 2012, 01:57: Message edited by: Patdys ]
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Marathon run. Next Dream. Australian this time.
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Patdys
Iron Wannabe
RooK-Annoyer
# 9397
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Posted
Sine, a man with your gentility may die in whoever's home he chooses.
It's more a question of whom he is prepared to be associated with once deceased. Next Tuesday is good for me BTW. I have icecream forks.
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Marathon run. Next Dream. Australian this time.
Posts: 3511 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
The late Molly Ivins quoted a Texas saying about similar McMansions; "Like God would build if he had money..."
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sine Nomine:
Rich people can afford to die in their own home. By that standard I am certainly not rich.
Me neither. On the other hand, I'm not rich (or crazy) enough to have a bespoke incompetent doctorish creature to give me anaesthesia for sleep issues. So I'm grateful for that.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
Well all you poor buggers should move to Australia.
We're all rich enough to die in our own homes.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Matariki
Shipmate
# 14380
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Posted
As my old Mum would say;
"Money doesn't buy taste."
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"Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accompanied alone; therefore we are saved by love." Reinhold Niebuhr.
Posts: 298 | From: Just across the Shire from Hobbiton | Registered: Dec 2008
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
I wouldn't wish another war on anyone, but it was a huge wake-up call to those in large houses when they were requisitioned (for use as schools, hospitals, military billets, etc.).
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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jbohn
Shipmate
# 8753
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
I wouldn't wish another war on anyone, but it was a huge wake-up call to those in large houses when they were requisitioned (for use as schools, hospitals, military billets, etc.).
In the U.S., requisitioning homes for military billets is right out- the Third Amendment to the U. S. Constitution expressly prohibits it. In the other cases, my expectation is that compensation would need to be paid, as in the use of eminent domain to take over land for a government project. It's not as simple as requisitioning them.
Bill Of Rights
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We are punished by our sins, not for them.
--Elbert Hubbard
Posts: 989 | From: East of Eden, west of St. Paul | Registered: Nov 2004
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by jbohn:
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
I wouldn't wish another war on anyone, but it was a huge wake-up call to those in large houses when they were requisitioned (for use as schools, hospitals, military billets, etc.).
In the U.S., requisitioning homes for military billets is right out- the Third Amendment to the U. S. Constitution expressly prohibits it. In the other cases, my expectation is that compensation would need to be paid, as in the use of eminent domain to take over land for a government project. It's not as simple as requisitioning them.
Bill Of Rights
No involuntarily assigned billets in "times of peace". In time of war, it says laws may be made to accommodate such necessity. But, yeah, there would likely be monetary recompense unless all our rights went to hell in a hand basket. And during war, that would be just the time that might happen- in the name of Patriotic Duty, no doubt. ![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
[ 25. April 2012, 16:53: Message edited by: Lyda*Rose ]
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
No involuntarily assigned billets in "times of peace". In time of war, it says laws may be made to accommodate such necessity. But, yeah, there would likely be monetary recompense unless all our rights went to hell in a hand basket. And during war, that would be just the time that might happen- in the name of Patriotic Duty, no doubt.
Given the current state of the Fourth Amendment, I have no doubt the Third wouldn't stand a chance.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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jbohn
Shipmate
# 8753
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
No involuntarily assigned billets in "times of peace". In time of war, it says laws may be made to accommodate such necessity. But, yeah, there would likely be monetary recompense unless all our rights went to hell in a hand basket. And during war, that would be just the time that might happen- in the name of Patriotic Duty, no doubt.
Point well made.
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
Given the current state of the Fourth Amendment, I have no doubt the Third wouldn't stand a chance.
To say nothing of what's left of the First, Ninth, and Tenth...
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We are punished by our sins, not for them.
--Elbert Hubbard
Posts: 989 | From: East of Eden, west of St. Paul | Registered: Nov 2004
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sine Nomine:
Apparently a lot of people have only the haziest idea what Versailles looks like.
Or how big it is. Its maybe thirty times the size of this house.
It might look a little less unlike parts of Blenheim Palace. Only parts of course, because that's also twenty or thirty times the size. The ground floor area of Blenheim might be, in American money, about six acres. And set in three square miles of garden.
Ostentations displays of wealth are not unique to the USA.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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mark_in_manchester
not waving, but...
# 15978
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Posted
quote:
After all, shitting into a bowl full of drinkable water is rather ostentatious, don't 'cha think? Just ask a third of the world's population.
To this habitual and self-justificatory inverted snob, that's a powerful image. Thanks.
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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)
Posts: 1596 | Registered: Oct 2010
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Ostentations displays of wealth are not unique to the USA.
We always try to learn from our betters...
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Sine Nomine:
Apparently a lot of people have only the haziest idea what Versailles looks like.
Or how big it is. Its maybe thirty times the size of this house.
It might look a little less unlike parts of Blenheim Palace. Only parts of course, because that's also twenty or thirty times the size. The ground floor area of Blenheim might be, in American money, about six acres. And set in three square miles of garden.
Ostentations displays of wealth are not unique to the USA.
But...but...Blenheim Palace is a World Heritage Site. Surely it can't also be in bad taste? Say it ain't so. ![[Tear]](graemlins/tear.gif)
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Anna B
Shipmate
# 1439
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Posted
I like how the headline specifies that "some" neighbors are upset.
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Bad Christian (TM)
Posts: 3069 | From: near a lot of fish | Registered: Oct 2001
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poileplume
Shipmate
# 16438
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Posted
We have a friend who is a real estate agent who tells us that couples who buy lavish houses often cannot afford to buy enough furniture furnish them, they sort of camp out in the middle of the oversized rooms.
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Please note I am quite severely dyslexic
Posts: 319 | From: Quebec | Registered: May 2011
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
quote:
But...but...Blenheim Palace is a World Heritage Site. Surely it can't also be in bad taste? Say it ain't so.
Blenheim Palace has been there for about 300 years - the neighbours have had time to get used to it.
Ironically, the first Duchess of Marlborough thought it was too grand and wanted something smaller...
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by poileplume:
We have a friend who is a real estate agent who tells us that couples who buy lavish houses often cannot afford to buy enough furniture furnish them, they sort of camp out in the middle of the oversized rooms.
To me that is a cockeyed idea of what a house is for. The kind of house I want is the kind that I enjoy living in. I'm not interested in impressing others at the expense of my own comfort.
I feel the same way about people who attend social or cultural events they don't enjoy because it enhances their status.
I only have one life. I want to enjoy it as much as possible.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by poileplume:
We have a friend who is a real estate agent who tells us that couples who buy lavish houses often cannot afford to buy enough furniture furnish them, they sort of camp out in the middle of the oversized rooms.
Isn't that what interior designers describe as 'minimalist'? I'm sure people feel comfortable with a fashionable term to describe the 'I can almost see another chair from this one' look.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Geneviève
Mother-Hatting Cat Lover
# 9098
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Posted
In line with the above post I remember interviewing for a position in a church in a very very wealthy Connecticut area. The rector informed me that quite a few people in the town had big mansions and no furniture because they couldn't afford it. And this was back in about 2001 or 2002 I think, before the recession hit.
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"Ineffable" defined: "I cannot and will not be effed with." (Courtesy of CCTooSweet in Running the Books)
Posts: 4336 | From: Eastern US | Registered: Feb 2005
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Sine Nomine
Ship's backstabbing bastard
# 66
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Posted
Yes, that's a comfort to me when a glossy new Infiniti or BMW passes my beat-up elderly Altima - "Humph. At least mine is paid for." I love to imagine my betters are drowning in debt whereas I am shabby but solvent.
(Plus I have hair too. No debt and a full head of hair. That means more than it used to.)
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Precious, Precious, Sweet, Sweet Daddy...
Posts: 16639 | From: lat. 36.24/lon. 86.84 | Registered: Dec 2002
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