First debate between VP Harris and Trump...The only one? Tues 10 Sept 2024, 9pm EDT

The party of stochastic terrorism:

This should be covered at every media outlet. Calls for Vance to step down should be imminent. He doesn't care about his constituents. The rhetoric he continues to regurgitate has lead to terror threats against a town hall & 2 schools in the state he is supposedly representing.

— History Matters (@politicallatino) September 13, 2024

 

Nah, it's fine. I know things like this are meant as a joke but I'll explain how the French approach this stuff anyway because English-speakers generally misunderstand the French mentality.

First, the French are often scared to try and speak in another language because in class their classmates make fun of them when they make mistakes. As such, they are horribly self-conscious about speaking another language (even when they are fairly conversant).

Second, the French appreciate it when non-native speakers try to speak French and generally want to help them speak it better because they know it is difficult. As such, they will often correct you when you make mistakes. It's not meant to be critical, but instead helpful. This is often misinterpreted by English speakers as being critical.

 

That's definitely important. One of my older French cousins always called her neighbor "Madame DuBois" and never used her first name even though they knew each other for over 30 years.

Saying hello and thank you to shopkeepers is extremely important (big department stores is a little different, but still ...). Not doing it would be like spitting on the floor in a store in America and saying "******** you" to the employee.

 

We definitely don't want him to step down!

Although it is hard to think of someone competent the orange fascist would replace him with.

 

Then you're even dumber than everyone has said you are. And @charlie15 was wrong: don't prepare to be disappointed, prepare to be betrayed - at the drop of a hat.

The economy will be just like his real estate business: great until the inheritance ran out. If he'd taken the money half-billion or so he inherited from his father and put into a portfolio of index funds and spent the last 45 years fcuking C-grade models and cheating at golf - it's why his country club employees nicknamed him Pele - he'd have more money than he says he has now.

Border security? The Chamber of Commerce and the ketamine-addled incElons in Silicon Valley will say "no" and he'll lose interest. And anyway, "why should I hire American busboys at Mara Lago and pay Social Security? I'll hire **************s for half the pay and no social security!"

Peace deals in the Middle East? He'll bomb Iran before running away the second retaliation drives his polling down. Israel is special to him? Just like Melania was before McDougal and she was before Marla and she was before Ivanka, right?. We already knew he'd throw Ukraine under the bus and he's talking about Taiwan right now. Why would Israel be any different?

As for the Palestinians, he uses the very word as a slur. We also know that, like you, he's spiteful and cruel. Once he engineers Bibi's departure - he thinks he betrayed him and he's famously vindictive - he'll encourage Tel Aviv to step up the bombing.

But hey, what's a few 1,000 more dead compared to owning the libs. Right?
.

 

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-forecast/north-carolina/

In the past fourteen days, polls have the following:

H+1, H+3, H+0. H+3, T+1, T+2, T+1, H+0, T+1, T+1

Averaged out, that is an unadjusted Harris lead of one tenth of a percentage point. If turnout matches 2020 exactly, that's a Harris lead -- statewide -- of 5,525 votes.

That's not a lead.

Don't take something that small -- vastly within the margin of errors for polls -- and treat it as a lead.

It's a tie. IF the polls are correct. Which they're not. It could be anything. Harris could win by 5 or lose by 10.

 

Trump will be bad for the economy.

If he implements his tariff plans, and the US remains roughly one-quarter of global GDP, then he will reduce global economic output by approximately 2-2.5 percentage points.

That would be a larger drop in global output than the Great Recession.

I guess what I'm trying to say is you're full of shit.

 

Trump vows to deport documented, law-abiding immigrants. There ya have it. https://t.co/q8VwqxJlqf

— Dan Froomkin (PressWatchers.org) (@froomkin) September 13, 2024

 

Very poor countries produce very good cuisine.

Necessity being the mother of invention and all that.

 

Well, if the food's great, I can put up with crap service.

Then again, I'm Irish so desperation for decent food is a given

 

Generally, people appreciate it when you try to speak their language, even if you're not very good at it. It shows that you care enough about their culture to try. In Germany, I've found that a lot of people will answer no if you ask them if they speak English, since they aren't 100% fluent, even if they speak it very well. A street vendor in Bosnia asked me if I was Slovenian, so I must have gotten the pronunciation at least somewhat accurate.

I was in Paris last summer and did not see any "attitude" from people there. A lot of people do speak English, but if you address them in French (even if you only know a few words) it goes a long way.

 

Six or seven years ago, they were my first port of call in the morning.

Definitely conservative but reasonably balanced and certainly demanding about what they linked to. Now they're QAnon-curious.

And useless

 

It's true that the Auld Alliance never saw French cooking do anything for Scottish cuisine.

Thank Christ it never saw Scottish cooking do anything for French cooking either!!!!

 

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Scottish cooking's crowning achievement - the deep-fried Mars Bar!

 

Yes, many in Paris will speak decent English, but don't necessarily expect that in other regions. Based on conversations with my cousins, it's common for school kids to have some education in 2 different foreign languages, with English often being one of them. Many will choose another language based on the closest neighbor (hence Spanish, Italian, German, or Dutch). It's not unusual, depending on where in France they are, that they will be better in that other European language than they will be in English, unless there are a lot of English-speaking tourists.

But always try to speak French when in France.

That said, when in Belgium always use English as the default unless you know what language the other person speaks. I've gotten into "trouble" a few times resorting to French when I was in Bruxelles, given the people were Flemish. While most Belgians are wonderful people, there are those who are very uptight over the language divide there.

 

A statement I can confirm.

 

If you don't like that, there's always the well fired roll:

 

Well...

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8er5Rft/