8 ms·

We are the freak show

60 points by alexeisadeski3 13y ago

visakanv 13y ago
"The personality of the United States changes periodically. Sometimes we're generous and inspiring. Other times we're total dicks. It's a complicated country. But no one thing defines the personality of the United States more than our willingness to spend ten trillion dollars - and kill anyone who gets in the way - just to put a bullet in one asshole's skull. That gives me neither pride nor embarrassment; it's just a statement of fact." - Scott Adams: http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/our_moon_shot/ http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/our_moon_shot/
edent 13y ago
This is cute - although I suspect every single country could list off a range of crazy laws and social norms which evolved over the years. In the UK you can... * Drive, pay taxes, join the army, and have children - but can't be trusted with the vote. * Become an MP even if you lose the popular vote. * Have sex when you're 16, but you can't look at pictures of people like you doing it. * Go shopping on a Sunday - although the shop won't sell you anything until an hour after opening. * Have to apply for university before you know your exam results. * Cannot copy your CD onto your MP3 player legally. * Send soldiers off to war, but have a charity pay for their care when they get home. I'd love to know what bizarre things happen in other countries.
- tehwalrus 13y ago
  > "Cannot copy your CD onto your MP3 player legally." Not strictly true anymore[1]. Additionally, I think that having a higher age of consent for appearing in pornography than simply of having sex is entirely reasonable. You may have been referring to legal ability to buy pornography, and maybe that's a fair criticism, but you phrased it such that the person depicted was under 18, which is more morally problematic. [1] http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tech/news/a446817/uk-law-change-permits-cd-ripping.html http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tech/news/a446817/uk-law-change-... << please note, I can't find a better source than this. the Daily Fail and the BBC both ran articles when the intention to make the change was announced, but don't seem to have followed up when it was enacted a year later.
- viraptor 13y ago
  > Go shopping on a Sunday - although the shop won't sell you anything until an hour after opening. Does that apply to any specific shops? I don't shop that early on Sundays, but I don't think I've ever seen this applied.
  - eterm 13y ago
    There are limited sunday trading hours. Some shops choose to get around this by opening an hour earlier but not opening the tills. It's a loophole really, and it isn't true that all shops must wait, just those that choose to use this loophole. Also it's based on size of shop, so not all shops have limits on trading hours.
    - arethuza 13y ago
      I don't think any of these Sunday trading hours rules apply in Scotland. The "apply for university before you know your exam results" doesn't apply here either. However, one of our legal oddities is that we have an extra verdict available in criminal trials, as well as "guilty" and "non guilty" we also have "not proven": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_proven http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_proven [Corrected - I said "innocent" rather than "not guilty"]
      - RobAley 13y ago
        Just for clarification, in England we have "Guilty" and "Not Guilty", there is no "innocent" here. The closest to an "innocent" verdict is probably the dismissal of charges by a judge.
  - frobozz 13y ago
    Shops over a certain floorspace have restricted opening hours on Sundays. (see: https://www.gov.uk/trading-hours-for-retailers-the-law https://www.gov.uk/trading-hours-for-retailers-the-law) Some shops exploit a loophole in that a shop isn't open unless the tills are open. If you are doing your big periodic grocery shopping in a large supermarket, then it may take you an hour to get everything into your trolley and round to the tills. So, a shop that is legally open from 1000 to 1800 can open to shoppers at 0900, because few customers would actually buy anything in the first hour of opening anyway.
- calpaterson 13y ago
  > * Become an MP even if you lose the popular vote. That's a misleading way to explain FPTP. I think a better way is: you need to win the most votes, but you're not required to have more than 50% of votes.
  - walshemj 13y ago
    I slightly bemused that some one presumably living in the UK think that we have an electoral college USA style.
- agilebyte 13y ago
  ... charity which makes money by selling you corned beef in a supermarket
- walshemj 13y ago
  But under age soldiers cant actually fight.
- vixen99 13y ago
  What is it about driving, paying taxes or joining the army, and having children (easy if you've hit puberty) that necessarily determines that you have a sufficient grasp of the issues required to make a supportable case for voting for one candidate as against another? A bizarre decision? I don't think so though I would ensure a delay for the option of joining the army until say twenty one.
tzs 13y ago
> A couple of 20 year olds can’t legally drink a glass of champaign at their wedding In most states this is not true, I believe. They cannot PURCHASE alcoholic beverages, but only 14 states ban general underage consumption of alcohol. The rest either do not restrict it, or have exceptions for family events and/or non-public consumption.
- colinbartlett 13y ago
  That's interesting. I found this very comprehensive chart of state laws: http://drinkingage.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=002591 http://drinkingage.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=0...
- macspoofing 13y ago
  Same difference
eevilspock 13y ago
Here's another: * Our government freely collects intelligence on us while it is treasonous for us to collect intelligence on it. Yet we call ourselves a democracy with a government by and for the people.
- moocowduckquack 13y ago
  I like the bit in US elections where you don't vote for a president, but instead vote for people who promise to vote for the candidate you like, but do not actually have to. I have never been able to understand that.
  - macspoofing 13y ago
    Heh. Welcome to Canada, UK, and Australia.
  - dagw 13y ago
    Nobody find it strange when most countries elect prime ministers that way.
    - moocowduckquack 13y ago
      Is slightly different, you have a party vote/appointment for the candidate for prime minister, from elected party ranks, which is similar to the US presidency, apart from the president not having to be elected to government already. But then the presidential vote doesn't vote directly for the president, but elects electors, who then elect the president, which seems an unneccessary step given you already have the vote results from each state and only has any effect at all if an elector does not vote the way the have been campaining. I am not saying it is any more or less democratic than my government, I am just saying that this detail seems weird.
mikecane 13y ago
>>>despite the fact that inflation is running at the lowest level in decades. Here is someone who does not do his own food shopping. Food prices have exploded since 2008, when the house of cards first collapsed. I used to be able to buy 5 cans of store-brand chunk tuna for $3.00. Now the store brand is gone, replaced by a national brand, and it's $1.29 per can (up from $1.00 per can at the start of this year). And that's just the most egregious example from my own experience. Food packaging has also shrunk dramatically, another way prices actually rise while the "store price" remains almost the same.
- zero_intp 13y ago
  I would hope that tuna prices are rising. Supply and demand. https://www.google.com/search?q=tuna+population&client=firefox-a&hs=Tfx&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=NpyxUun0OKbIsATjpoDoCw&ved=0CDkQsAQ&biw=1708&bih=1305 https://www.google.com/search?q=tuna+population&client=firef...
- panacea 13y ago
  Yeah, the price of tuna is a terrible measure of inflation. Those fishy stocks are finite and we're approaching the pointy end.
- aestra 13y ago
  You know tuna can't just be taken out of the sea like that? Fish have an ecosystem. They have to be fished at the about same rate they are breeding. If they are not, they are considered overfished. If they are overfished enough they go extinct. In the meantime the supply goes down and less fish are caught. This causes prices to rise. Tuna, like most fish, are overfished. http://worldwildlife.org/species/tuna http://worldwildlife.org/species/tuna According to information collected by the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF), the Eastern Pacific stock of yellowfin is overfished and some overfishing is occurring in the Indian Ocean.The northern and southern Atlantic Ocean stocks of albacore are also overfished.The skipjack tuna, while quite resilient, could easily slip into a vulnerable state due to overfishing if improperly managed. Bigeye tuna are prized in Asia for sashimi as well as frozen and fresh in other markets. As bluefin tuna populations shrink around the world, pressure on bigeye fisheries is increasing. According to information collected by the ISSF Scientific Advisory Committee, overfishing is occurring in Eastern and Western Pacific Oceans. Bluefin tuna populations have declined severely from overfishing and illegal fishing over the past few decades –not just Atlantic bluefin tuna, but also Pacific bluefin tuna and Southern bluefin tuna. Population declines have been largely driven by the demand for this fish in high end sushi markets. Albacore is what comes in the cans, the amount that is allowed to be taken out of the ocean was lowered in 2011 to try to combat overfishing. http://www.fishonline.org/fish/albacore-tuna-233 http://www.fishonline.org/fish/albacore-tuna-233 Albacore stocks in the Atlantic are assessed by ICCAT - the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas. The latest stock assessment of South Atlantic albacore was conducted in 2011 and including catch, effort and size data up until 2009. ..... The 2008-2011 TAC for the South Atlantic albacore stock had been set at 29,900 tonnes. In 2011, following scientific advice, the TAC was lowered to 24,000 tonnes. Oh by the way, we are rapidly approaching "peak fish." http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/critical-issues-overfishing/ http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/critical-issues-ov... Faced with the collapse of large-fish populations, commercial fleets are going deeper in the ocean and father down the food chain for viable catches. This so-called "fishing down" is triggering a chain reaction that is upsetting the ancient and delicate balance of the sea's biologic system. A study of catch data published in 2006 in the journal Science grimly predicted that if fishing rates continue apace, all the world's fisheries will have collapsed by the year 2048. In 2003, a scientific report estimated that industrial fishing had reduced the number of large ocean fish to just 10 percent of their pre-industrial population.
bambax 13y ago
No one anywhere can legally or illegally drink "champaign" as there is no such thing. The word is champagne.
- anonymoushn 13y ago
  If you find a stream in the champaign or drill a well, you could probably drink.
- panacea 13y ago
  Well there's another funny one, pedant. Champagne is produced in a specific region of France, and in most parts of the world, when you buy it, it comes from there. Except the US... where they've decided they can make their own Champagne despite none of the product having touched the ground in that region of France.
  - bambax 13y ago
    That's interesting; I wonder how they pulled that off? Producers from other regions of France produce wines that are almost identical to true champagne, but they cannot call it that. They used to print on their bottles that their wines were made according to the "champagne process" (méthode champenoise) but were eventually barred from saying even that (which is crazy, since it's all but true). They now say they use the "traditional process" (méthode traditionnelle) and I think everyone knows what it means. It could be fun to import US-made champagne in France and continue to call it champagne. But as a rule, foreign-grown wines are hard to find in France.
    - nationcrafting 13y ago
      They haven't technically "pulled it off". They just keep doing it, despite infringing US-France trade agreements, but the trade agreements keep going because France is dependent on its US trade more than the US is dependent on its French trade. It's hard to enforce a law when the person breaking it is bigger than you. That said, I personally disagree with the law of denominations itself, and I think it's pretty clear by now that French wines have gotten worse in quality ever since strict denominations have been introduced, mostly because they're just another form of economic protectionism. One of the reasons Belgium produces the best and most varied beers is that nobody dictated what exactly defines beer. So, even in highly specialised beers, such as fruit beers, some breweries put the fruit before the first fermentation, others before the second, others ferment fruit juice separately and add it later, etc. Then everyone looks at what everyone else is doing and finds a way to improve their own product. I wrote an article about this a few years ago, in which I asserted that Belgium is like the YouTube of beer: http://alexandergalle.blogspot.com/2009/12/luxury-youtube-way.html http://alexandergalle.blogspot.com/2009/12/luxury-youtube-wa...
kubiiii 13y ago
I thought the strange relationship with guns and the total mayhem that occurs when a woman accidentaly shows a nipple rather than the whole rest of her body would be in the list. BTW I love the US, maybe a little because of its contradictions (we french have a bunch of them either).
- walshemj 13y ago
  Its not that long ago that the UK law explicitly allowed for the ownership of guns for personal protection it was only post WW1 when the government of the day was paranoid about red revolution that this started to change. The "peaky blinders" series recently on the BBC made this a major plot point - Churchill freaking out over the loss of 50 BAR's

"The personality of the United States changes periodically. Sometimes we're generous and inspiring. Other times we're total dicks. It's a complicated country. But no one thing defines the personality of the United States more than our willingness to spend ten trillion dollars - and kill anyone who gets in the way - just to put a bullet in one asshole's skull. That gives me neither pride nor embarrassment; it's just a statement of fact." - Scott Adams: http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/our_moon_shot/ http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/our_moon_shot/

edent 13y ago

This is cute - although I suspect every single country could list off a range of crazy laws and social norms which evolved over the years. In the UK you can... * Drive, pay taxes, join the army, and have children - but can't be trusted with the vote. * Become an MP even if you lose the popular vote. * Have sex when you're 16, but you can't look at pictures of people like you doing it. * Go shopping on a Sunday - although the shop won't sell you anything until an hour after opening. * Have to apply for university before you know your exam results. * Cannot copy your CD onto your MP3 player legally. * Send soldiers off to war, but have a charity pay for their care when they get home. I'd love to know what bizarre things happen in other countries.

tehwalrus 13y ago
> "Cannot copy your CD onto your MP3 player legally." Not strictly true anymore[1]. Additionally, I think that having a higher age of consent for appearing in pornography than simply of having sex is entirely reasonable. You may have been referring to legal ability to buy pornography, and maybe that's a fair criticism, but you phrased it such that the person depicted was under 18, which is more morally problematic. [1] http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tech/news/a446817/uk-law-change-permits-cd-ripping.html http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tech/news/a446817/uk-law-change-... << please note, I can't find a better source than this. the Daily Fail and the BBC both ran articles when the intention to make the change was announced, but don't seem to have followed up when it was enacted a year later.
viraptor 13y ago
> Go shopping on a Sunday - although the shop won't sell you anything until an hour after opening. Does that apply to any specific shops? I don't shop that early on Sundays, but I don't think I've ever seen this applied.
- eterm 13y ago
  There are limited sunday trading hours. Some shops choose to get around this by opening an hour earlier but not opening the tills. It's a loophole really, and it isn't true that all shops must wait, just those that choose to use this loophole. Also it's based on size of shop, so not all shops have limits on trading hours.
  - arethuza 13y ago
    I don't think any of these Sunday trading hours rules apply in Scotland. The "apply for university before you know your exam results" doesn't apply here either. However, one of our legal oddities is that we have an extra verdict available in criminal trials, as well as "guilty" and "non guilty" we also have "not proven": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_proven http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_proven [Corrected - I said "innocent" rather than "not guilty"]
    - RobAley 13y ago
      Just for clarification, in England we have "Guilty" and "Not Guilty", there is no "innocent" here. The closest to an "innocent" verdict is probably the dismissal of charges by a judge.
- frobozz 13y ago
  Shops over a certain floorspace have restricted opening hours on Sundays. (see: https://www.gov.uk/trading-hours-for-retailers-the-law https://www.gov.uk/trading-hours-for-retailers-the-law) Some shops exploit a loophole in that a shop isn't open unless the tills are open. If you are doing your big periodic grocery shopping in a large supermarket, then it may take you an hour to get everything into your trolley and round to the tills. So, a shop that is legally open from 1000 to 1800 can open to shoppers at 0900, because few customers would actually buy anything in the first hour of opening anyway.
calpaterson 13y ago
> * Become an MP even if you lose the popular vote. That's a misleading way to explain FPTP. I think a better way is: you need to win the most votes, but you're not required to have more than 50% of votes.
- walshemj 13y ago
  I slightly bemused that some one presumably living in the UK think that we have an electoral college USA style.
agilebyte 13y ago
... charity which makes money by selling you corned beef in a supermarket
walshemj 13y ago
But under age soldiers cant actually fight.
vixen99 13y ago
What is it about driving, paying taxes or joining the army, and having children (easy if you've hit puberty) that necessarily determines that you have a sufficient grasp of the issues required to make a supportable case for voting for one candidate as against another? A bizarre decision? I don't think so though I would ensure a delay for the option of joining the army until say twenty one.

tzs 13y ago

> A couple of 20 year olds can’t legally drink a glass of champaign at their wedding In most states this is not true, I believe. They cannot PURCHASE alcoholic beverages, but only 14 states ban general underage consumption of alcohol. The rest either do not restrict it, or have exceptions for family events and/or non-public consumption.

colinbartlett 13y ago
That's interesting. I found this very comprehensive chart of state laws: http://drinkingage.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=002591 http://drinkingage.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=0...
macspoofing 13y ago
Same difference

eevilspock 13y ago

Here's another: * Our government freely collects intelligence on us while it is treasonous for us to collect intelligence on it. Yet we call ourselves a democracy with a government by and for the people.

moocowduckquack 13y ago
I like the bit in US elections where you don't vote for a president, but instead vote for people who promise to vote for the candidate you like, but do not actually have to. I have never been able to understand that.
- macspoofing 13y ago
  Heh. Welcome to Canada, UK, and Australia.
- dagw 13y ago
  Nobody find it strange when most countries elect prime ministers that way.
  - moocowduckquack 13y ago
    Is slightly different, you have a party vote/appointment for the candidate for prime minister, from elected party ranks, which is similar to the US presidency, apart from the president not having to be elected to government already. But then the presidential vote doesn't vote directly for the president, but elects electors, who then elect the president, which seems an unneccessary step given you already have the vote results from each state and only has any effect at all if an elector does not vote the way the have been campaining. I am not saying it is any more or less democratic than my government, I am just saying that this detail seems weird.

mikecane 13y ago

>>>despite the fact that inflation is running at the lowest level in decades. Here is someone who does not do his own food shopping. Food prices have exploded since 2008, when the house of cards first collapsed. I used to be able to buy 5 cans of store-brand chunk tuna for $3.00. Now the store brand is gone, replaced by a national brand, and it's $1.29 per can (up from $1.00 per can at the start of this year). And that's just the most egregious example from my own experience. Food packaging has also shrunk dramatically, another way prices actually rise while the "store price" remains almost the same.

zero_intp 13y ago
I would hope that tuna prices are rising. Supply and demand. https://www.google.com/search?q=tuna+population&client=firefox-a&hs=Tfx&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=NpyxUun0OKbIsATjpoDoCw&ved=0CDkQsAQ&biw=1708&bih=1305 https://www.google.com/search?q=tuna+population&client=firef...
panacea 13y ago
Yeah, the price of tuna is a terrible measure of inflation. Those fishy stocks are finite and we're approaching the pointy end.
aestra 13y ago
You know tuna can't just be taken out of the sea like that? Fish have an ecosystem. They have to be fished at the about same rate they are breeding. If they are not, they are considered overfished. If they are overfished enough they go extinct. In the meantime the supply goes down and less fish are caught. This causes prices to rise. Tuna, like most fish, are overfished. http://worldwildlife.org/species/tuna http://worldwildlife.org/species/tuna According to information collected by the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF), the Eastern Pacific stock of yellowfin is overfished and some overfishing is occurring in the Indian Ocean.The northern and southern Atlantic Ocean stocks of albacore are also overfished.The skipjack tuna, while quite resilient, could easily slip into a vulnerable state due to overfishing if improperly managed. Bigeye tuna are prized in Asia for sashimi as well as frozen and fresh in other markets. As bluefin tuna populations shrink around the world, pressure on bigeye fisheries is increasing. According to information collected by the ISSF Scientific Advisory Committee, overfishing is occurring in Eastern and Western Pacific Oceans. Bluefin tuna populations have declined severely from overfishing and illegal fishing over the past few decades –not just Atlantic bluefin tuna, but also Pacific bluefin tuna and Southern bluefin tuna. Population declines have been largely driven by the demand for this fish in high end sushi markets. Albacore is what comes in the cans, the amount that is allowed to be taken out of the ocean was lowered in 2011 to try to combat overfishing. http://www.fishonline.org/fish/albacore-tuna-233 http://www.fishonline.org/fish/albacore-tuna-233 Albacore stocks in the Atlantic are assessed by ICCAT - the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas. The latest stock assessment of South Atlantic albacore was conducted in 2011 and including catch, effort and size data up until 2009. ..... The 2008-2011 TAC for the South Atlantic albacore stock had been set at 29,900 tonnes. In 2011, following scientific advice, the TAC was lowered to 24,000 tonnes. Oh by the way, we are rapidly approaching "peak fish." http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/critical-issues-overfishing/ http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/critical-issues-ov... Faced with the collapse of large-fish populations, commercial fleets are going deeper in the ocean and father down the food chain for viable catches. This so-called "fishing down" is triggering a chain reaction that is upsetting the ancient and delicate balance of the sea's biologic system. A study of catch data published in 2006 in the journal Science grimly predicted that if fishing rates continue apace, all the world's fisheries will have collapsed by the year 2048. In 2003, a scientific report estimated that industrial fishing had reduced the number of large ocean fish to just 10 percent of their pre-industrial population.

bambax 13y ago

No one anywhere can legally or illegally drink "champaign" as there is no such thing. The word is champagne.

anonymoushn 13y ago
If you find a stream in the champaign or drill a well, you could probably drink.
panacea 13y ago
Well there's another funny one, pedant. Champagne is produced in a specific region of France, and in most parts of the world, when you buy it, it comes from there. Except the US... where they've decided they can make their own Champagne despite none of the product having touched the ground in that region of France.
- bambax 13y ago
  That's interesting; I wonder how they pulled that off? Producers from other regions of France produce wines that are almost identical to true champagne, but they cannot call it that. They used to print on their bottles that their wines were made according to the "champagne process" (méthode champenoise) but were eventually barred from saying even that (which is crazy, since it's all but true). They now say they use the "traditional process" (méthode traditionnelle) and I think everyone knows what it means. It could be fun to import US-made champagne in France and continue to call it champagne. But as a rule, foreign-grown wines are hard to find in France.
  - nationcrafting 13y ago
    They haven't technically "pulled it off". They just keep doing it, despite infringing US-France trade agreements, but the trade agreements keep going because France is dependent on its US trade more than the US is dependent on its French trade. It's hard to enforce a law when the person breaking it is bigger than you. That said, I personally disagree with the law of denominations itself, and I think it's pretty clear by now that French wines have gotten worse in quality ever since strict denominations have been introduced, mostly because they're just another form of economic protectionism. One of the reasons Belgium produces the best and most varied beers is that nobody dictated what exactly defines beer. So, even in highly specialised beers, such as fruit beers, some breweries put the fruit before the first fermentation, others before the second, others ferment fruit juice separately and add it later, etc. Then everyone looks at what everyone else is doing and finds a way to improve their own product. I wrote an article about this a few years ago, in which I asserted that Belgium is like the YouTube of beer: http://alexandergalle.blogspot.com/2009/12/luxury-youtube-way.html http://alexandergalle.blogspot.com/2009/12/luxury-youtube-wa...

kubiiii 13y ago

I thought the strange relationship with guns and the total mayhem that occurs when a woman accidentaly shows a nipple rather than the whole rest of her body would be in the list. BTW I love the US, maybe a little because of its contradictions (we french have a bunch of them either).

walshemj 13y ago
Its not that long ago that the UK law explicitly allowed for the ownership of guns for personal protection it was only post WW1 when the government of the day was paranoid about red revolution that this started to change. The "peaky blinders" series recently on the BBC made this a major plot point - Churchill freaking out over the loss of 50 BAR's