Velour is just stretch velvet. Subject to abuse like any other fabric, it also makes up two or three of my favourite dresses.

I think (if I recall from the paperwork I went over) that if you were the bastard child of a Canadian mother, you were hoopless. It was all very strange.

Bastages! Or, apparently, not.

If you join the French Foreign Legion, they give you a new identity--which you can keep and become a French citizen, no questions asked at the end of your service.

Seems like an awful lot of work.

Lindsay Lohan takes on Michelle Tractenberg, whom, I may add, is only identified in headlines as "Buffy's sister."

Don't you also run into the complexities of dual citizenship with folks born overseas but of American parents (or vice-versa?) I've never quite understood that.

Isn't the deal that if you go into the American armed services you have to renounce your citizenship of your birth country (if it was a country that conferred citizenship on people born there thus making you a dual citizen)? I seem to remember something about that from talking to my friend who was born in Mexico to US citizens. She did not give up her Mexican citizenship and actually moved down there after college and rowed crew for the Mexican national team (in the Olympics! Twice!).

Tea with milk is just differently healthy.

But still? Really, really gross. *defiantly throws in wedge as door is closed*

I think (if I recall from the paperwork I went over) that if you were the bastard child of a Canadian mother, you were hoopless. It was all very strange.

I did have to produce my parents' marriage license, so there may be some truth to that.

(Which was possibly the highlight of the whole process, since it led to the discovery that in Canada in the 1960s, my father was considered a divorcé, while my 26 year old mother was a spinster.

My mother was not best pleased with her home and native land when all this came up.

At least one of his parents is American, though, right? I think Nutty was trying to clear up the soil thing.

Oh, I see -- I misunderstood the question.

Dear Jackass,

When you make a request and the information you provide is incorrect, don't bitch me out for setting up the accounts with the incorrect information.

Die,
shrift

One of my cousins was born in Ireland, to American parents. Her father was in medical school in Cork at the time. She had dual citizenship until she was 18, but then gave up the Irish citizenship. (As far as I know, it never gave her any benefits other than winning an Irish Baby beauty contest in Boston when she was about 2.)

I like "die" as a closing salutation. It's direct and declarative.

ION, I dig Dr. Nina Jablonski and her polymath ways. This point she makes was also interesting.

***********

Q. In a nutshell, what has your research shown about why humans have varying skin colors?

A. That it’s not about race — it’s about sun and about how close our ancestors lived to the Equator. Skin color is what regulates our body’s reaction to the sun and its rays. Dark skin evolved to protect the body from excessive sun rays. Light skin evolved when people migrated away from the Equator and needed to make vitamin D in their skin. To do that, they had to lose pigment. Repeatedly over history, many people moved dark to light and light to dark. That shows that color is not a permanent trait.

************

I didn't realize lighter skin evolved to produce more Vitamin D.