This has always happened with varying degrees of tragedy. The reality is that showing up to a war zone as a foreign ideological fighter is a good way to either be accused of espionage, or used as cannon fodder because you're a foreigner no one cares about, and who has no training.

This dude is wearing a bright blue,…

So many hits to the crotch.

Hey now, don't scare her/him- Montreal very bilingual... you might slightly annoy some grumpy old person, but Anglophones are a pretty significant community in the city, and that aside tourism is big for Montreal. Having a few stock phrases to be polite would go very far (this is Canada after all: manners).

Totally in agreement... I mean yeah, I don't even like sci-fi as a genre, but Pacific Rim took and did it properly. Way more exciting than the cliche crime-drama that was American Hustle.

A friend of mine moved the other way- from Latin America up north in his mid twenties. He did a university degree, then a Masters, and now a PHD in Communications (100% in English). It's totally possible. Even in the short term, think about all the international university students who study at school - yeah some…

It's been a while since I visited, but the major public art galleries are quite legit.... I think it was the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts that I remember. In terms of music, Foufounes Electriques was pretty popular for alt-rock/underground type stuff.

Also, you can make the most of the winter and go skiing or…

Boo EDEKA! Netto forever!

THIS. "Well it can't be that bad, this is Canada." Canadian police have been appalling racist towards Native people, sexist towards female officers and negligent towards sex crimes, and we've had so many publicly reported incidents of extremely excessive force (taserings constantly, Montreal cops every other week, G8…

I think it depends what you want to do... like if your end objective is to be a freelance illustrator or a working fine artist, then basically alot of my friends just got flexible minimum wage work until they could get enough of a reputation going that they made their income from commission work, and also eventually…

Yeah, the inevitable descent from "Hahaha, ________ is sooo craaazy," to "Jesus Christ, _______ is actually insane."

Yeah, one hand I completely support the need of the girl to have a service animal, and expect that the neighbours be accommodating, but horse aside, keeping a variety of fowl, pigs, and dogs on an urban property in close proximity to neighbours is awful. Some friends had neighbours that kept fowl and dogs together in…

He's started real dialogue about information security and espionage; because of him Europe is poised to start hosting its own more secure servers, and over the world has chilled alliances between alot of countries as it's revealed intelligence programs that pose a risk to national and economic insecurity. Yeah, we…

That's such a great compliment, haha. I'm pretty cynical about politics, but gosh I remember when he came to the university, and friends had photos doing Irish Carbombs with him- it's a cliche expression but he was such a grounded man of the people, and with a goofy sense of humour. Canada is a colder place without…

I suppose the big issue is that patriotism within the country implies that some fellow citizens are not patriotic, untrustworthy, or even traitorous. Especially in an election... like no one in any party is literally working for Al Quaeda, it's just a disagreement over politics, and patriotism is a childish ruse and…

The German's don't even really use the German flag so much anymore... bars with too many flags in the windows are kinda code for "very right wing" and something similar applies to people who fly flags on their houses.

Here is Merkel taking a flag away from one of her colleagues during an election celebration:

The issue with it though is that a pretty sizeable number of people still feel threatened by the flag as a symbol of hate, and whether you like it or not, it still does carry racist connotations, as people are still alive from the Civil-Rights era were the South was especially notorious for being racist. The…

Yep, just arrived over here from the Gawker.

You know how people often come away from the Olympics with a better perception of the host, or a new desire to see some city you hadn't really thought of? Yeah that's not gonna happen here.

It took forever for us to get Netflix for this reason... and even now it's still a problem for alot of people who would potentially use Netflix, but don't have cadillac internet access at a high cost.

It's a pretty interesting phenomena- and as a fellow Canadian I wonder about the direction we're headed with our own increasing rhetoric about the armed forced (Denmark too is in an increasingly patriotic mood after Afghanistan). Contrast this with Germany, where people chuckle about army guys walking around in…