Just...................whatever [5]

bungobaggins wrote:http://m.imgur.com/a/Ng5dK

Desperately clutching at straws, trying to get to street vocab level at the sweet next generation of car thieves, shop lifters, shirt lifters & teenage mums. how nice. I know "waggle dagger" ,as we used to call him at school, is tough sometimes to follow but, find another accessible way other than encouraging more street slang

Is this the usual way Americans deal with something they are not happy with ? We often have, as I like to say, 'misguided' people on our streets shouting about this or that & on the whole the majority just ignore & keep walking. I thought to be honest that this young man was maybe disabled in someway ? mentally perhaps ? & that the sign & the guy holding it hit a nerve & set him off ? I thought it was a bit extreme tho ? He was border line hysterical.

I have a neighbour who once got so drunk he went out in the street and ranted at the building opposite, for being a building.

"Aye, fuck yi, fuck yi, jist sitting there, wi aw yer fucking windaes' is still one of the funniest lines I have ever heard threateningly shouted in the street.

Yeah, that is pretty funny I think its funnier when someone launches an attack on something inanimate rather than at a bodkin

 that's hilarious. is it buildingist?

I think you have a scene there any actor would love to play.

azriel wrote:Is this the usual way Americans deal with something they are not happy with ? We often have, as I like to say, 'misguided' people on our streets shouting about this or that & on the whole the majority just ignore & keep walking. I thought to be honest that this young man was maybe disabled in someway ? mentally perhaps ? & that the sign & the guy holding it hit a nerve & set him off ? I thought it was a bit extreme tho ? He was border line hysterical.

I think the kid likely had some issues

Oky doky

I was googling a question at the prompting of a friend- the question was 'why does America have no free health care?'

But when I got to 'why does America have no' google helpfully offered up what I presume are the four most common versions of the sentence starting that way.
And I'm afraid if those are the 4 most googled questions starting that way then it doesn't say a lot for the US reputation as the suggestions were-

why does Amreica have no....

official language
culture
history
morals

This requires several deep responses.

I think the fact that America has no official language is to its credit as a nation of immigrants. There have been many attempts to make English the official language as it would streamline things by not requiring multiple languages; but the very fact that other languages would be treated as un-american feels somehow unethical to us. It's a near thing between those who insist on a dominant culture (usually Christian and rather white) and those who embrace diversity. Diversity keeps winning by the skin of its teeth.

To say America has no culture is a laughingstock statement perpetrated by those who look to Europe as the only definition of culture. Our clothes (jeans and t shirts), Music (popular music around the world has been deeply indebted to if not outright stolen from America) and social technology dominates the globe. I will pass over food in silence.

History: Plenty of it, if you include the stuff not written down before 1500 or so. That one's easy.

Morals: we're prudish in many ways, outspoken about freedom (conveniently ignoring our part to play in propping up dictatorships), and don't seem to get the concept of vacations and siestas the way Europeans do. Where else but America do you see the stress-induced heart attack? The American work ETHIC is second to none.

You also get "why are there no roundabouts in America?"

We have a few. We hate'em. You have to pay attention constantly while in one, while a stoplight is a nice binary solution: you wake up when it turns green. Roundabouts are useful if you have something other than 4 roads coming together i suppose, but that only happens in old cities where chaos is the general rule. We can tame it with signs and stoplights, even when 5 roads come together.

Besides, the French landscape is simply rife with roundabouts. That's all most of us need to know.

We have roundabouts all over the place where I live (which is ironic since it's generally speaking a pretty conservative county, and roundabouts are a stereotypically liberal "wanna be like Europe" thing).  I know some people who don't but the vast majority of drivers around here are perfectly competent at them, whatever their personal feelings might be.  For my part, I like them. They're faster and more efficient than stoplights or stop signs, and more importantly they're safer.  But I dunno how well they work in cities as opposed to suburbia.

I've never understood why they're considered safer. You've got people trying to merge into moving traffic as opposed to some goofball who occasionally decides to run a red light. When used as designed, stoplights are much safer.

halfwise wrote:I've never understood why they're considered safer.

Because people who study roads and traffic patterns for a living have done studies about which is safer, instead of relying on gut feelings.

http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/intersection/roundabouts/fhwasa10023/transcript/audio_no_speaker/
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Safety/roundabouts/benefits.htm

How very un-American of them.

When I put the same start to a question into google, but substitute US for Scotland the offered results are-

Why does Scotland have no...

tuition fees
trees
king
olympic team

I like the tuition fees being first- free eduction for all- that puts us in a good light
Not sure what the buggery the tree thing is about we have millions of the buggers and a large forestry sector.
We don't have a King because currently we have a Queen! But I assume the question is broader and is more why no Monarchy- the answer to which is the Queen is our monarchy.
And we dont have an Olympic Team as we compete in the Olympics as part of the United Kingdom, not as the individual member countries of the United Kingdom, unlike in football.


So anyone else- just start typing 'Why does (insert your countries name here) have no' and see what the top four options google gives you for completing the sentence are.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/15/us-southkorea-northkorea-defector-idUSKBN0OV04W20150615

A teenaged North Korean soldier walked across the world's most heavily militarized border on Monday in a bid to defect to South Korea, South Korean Defense Ministry officials said.

While there are more than a thousand defections from North Korea to South Korea every year, most defectors come via China and it is rare for a North Korean to crossing the heavily mined Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The last such crossing was in 2012.

The soldier approached a remote South Korean guard post in Gangwon province's Hwacheon county, in the central area of the peninsula, at about 8 a.m. on Monday, one Defense Ministry official said.

There was no exchange of fire or warning shots as the soldier clearly expressed his desire to defect, the official said. The soldier was being held in custody while officials ran checks.

Stretching across the Korean peninsula, the DMZ is 4 km (2.5 miles) wide and is fortified with landmines and barbed wire. There are telephones on the South Korean side for defectors from the North to call seeking help.

Yonhap News Agency reported that the North Korean military had been laying landmines along parts of the border this year, in an apparent move to prevent defections, citing a South Korean government official.

South Korean's defense ministry declined to confirm the report.

Later on Monday, the South's Unification Ministry said North Korea had agreed to repatriate a South Korean married couple held for what it said was illegal entry.

The North said in a notice signed by its Red Cross chief that the two South Koreans who had entered the North on May 11 would be handed over at the Panmunjom truce village on the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) border, the ministry said.

The ministry said the pair, a 59-year-old male and a 51-year-old female, had gone missing near the border between North Korea and China where they were traveling. It gave no further details.

Four other South Korean citizens are known to be held by the North, including two men who confessed to having spied for the South, and a 21-year-old New York University student who is a U.S. green card holder.

Eldorion wrote:

halfwise wrote:I've never understood why they're considered safer.

Because people who study roads and traffic patterns for a living have done studies about which is safer, instead of relying on gut feelings.

http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/intersection/roundabouts/fhwasa10023/transcript/audio_no_speaker/
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Safety/roundabouts/benefits.htm

Still hate'em.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I was googling a question at the prompting of a friend- the question was 'why does America have no free health care?'

But when I got to 'why does America have no' google helpfully offered up what I presume are the four most common versions of the sentence starting that way.
And I'm afraid if those are the 4 most googled questions starting that way then it doesn't say a lot for the US reputation as the suggestions were-

why does Amreica have no....

official language
culture
history
morals

If Google has to ask those questions its remarkably ignorant. I should imagine English is the official language seeing as how the president and government all speak English as do the majority of Americans as far as I have seen over the last 100 years or so. America has a long and rich culture, as Halfy said even recent pop culture has dominated European culture for the last 50 years, but before that Black Americans have been totally integral to music, Hollywood is the epitome of cinema, the list is endless and I find it mind blowing that the cultural importance of the US is in doubt. This seems like an exercise in ignorance coming from a place of 'massive chip on shoulder'. As for morals, he who is free of sin can throw the shitty bucket with impunity.

I appreciate your kind words, Mrs Figg. ^_^ Technically though the US doesn't have an official language at the federal level. In practice, certainly, it's English all the way, but it's never been enshrined in law despite periodic attempts to do so.

But we still don't have an official language.

Its not much better if you replace America with England Figg, then the result is

Why does England have no...

King
unified penal code (who would have thought that was a popular search?!)
active volcanoes
northern Ireland (I think it got confused here as its taking the first two letters as the 'no'!)

Why does norway have no..

national debt
butter

Why do people think you dont have butter?! Or don't you?

Mrs Figg wrote:

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I was googling a question at the prompting of a friend- the question was 'why does America have no free health care?'

But when I got to 'why does America have no' google helpfully offered up what I presume are the four most common versions of the sentence starting that way.
And I'm afraid if those are the 4 most googled questions starting that way then it doesn't say a lot for the US reputation as the suggestions were-

why does Amreica have no....

official language
culture
history
morals

If Google has to ask those questions its remarkably ignorant. I should imagine English is the official language seeing as how the president and government all speak English as do the majority of Americans as far as I have seen over the last 100 years or so. America has a long and rich culture, as Halfy said even recent pop culture has dominated European culture for the last 50 years, but before that Black Americans have been totally integral to music, Hollywood is the epitome of cinema, the list is endless and I find it mind blowing that the cultural importance of the US is in doubt. This seems like an exercise in ignorance coming from a place of 'massive chip on shoulder'.  As for morals, he who is free of sin can throw the shitty bucket with impunity.

It's all on account of stupid people on the internet (and real life, too). They'll bitch and moan about everything we do. And yes America makes mistakes and has done some bad things, but when it comes down to it, when something bad happens the world looks to us and wrings its hands. So sick of this attitude on the internet and IRL.