It looks like they dropped the issue after they found about the ESL dimension- because like you say I think that is a big part of it. For a native speaker to use the word "retarded" for example shows a pretty callous disregard for social manners and disrespect (and one I think on par with "dead and dumb"), while from…

That language is pretty offensive though- I don't think this is a stretch of "PC culture", and I think their acceptance with the resolution here shows that they were understanding that this incident was the result of a second language issue rather than malice.

It punishes the fans and the pocketbooks of the team. Makes them take the offence seriously.

Someone explained to me once that German is a language that starts at high difficulty and then gets easier, while English starts easier and then gets difficult. I guess the problem with English is that it has alot of irregular exceptions, but on the plus side one can ride the inescapable wave of British/North American…

Actually this used to happen to some extend with English... there are turn of the century Canadian pamphlets praising the "Farmer-ettes" of the prairies. I think 100% percent though, just like the German children in another comment, English speaking children would make automatic assumptions about the gender of…

This is admitably a bit condescending... but I think alot of older people (of the age who would be top editors and calling the shots on Vogue articles) don't entirely understand how social media works, and they confuse the medium with the content. I mean I worked once on a website design for a client, and they had no…

They're usually pretty punctual in Germany... but I think it's probably just a cultural intolerance to even slight lateness.

Nah... in Ecuador at least people I heard some pretty ignorant comments, someone asked me if in North America "Asians are stealing all your jobs." :/

*J, for Joint Task Force 2

The problem with putting NATO troops on the ground is that it really ups the ante- it makes an unstable situation within an unstable situation, where a terror attack or any incident could potentially start a war between NATO and nuclear armed Russia. What if Russia thinks it can call the bluff?

I'm not American, but…

Will Sigur Ros be contributing to the score?

Nah man, elitemoon11 is closer to the mark. The higher Canadian dollar was a product of the world financial recession, where the Canadian economy faired well against against the plummeting US economy, and so our dollar held value while the US dollar shrank: we weren't actually really booming, just doing ok while…

Because Quebec has more inclusive social services... i.e. Quebec university tuition is significantly lower for Quebec students than out-of-province, but yeah, the taxes have to be higher to pay for that.

You know I think this comes up alot though (I did some Stormfront reading research for school)... like I've seen other topics where people basically concluded that Spanish people from Spain (South America specifically excluded), were white, and then people proceeded to post photos of "hot spanish chicks" who of course…

It's consistent, and has the right timing for kinda sleazy nostalgia. I think his personality is also obviously a big part of it: it's work about the adventure of the photographer, and the character of Terry of Richardson being this mobile sleazy party who is incredibly charismatic and gets these awkward, funny, and…

Top Chef Rural Canada.

"Everything that is possible is inevitable." -William Carlos Williams

I always thought her work was boring... and I don't know if it's the trained photographer in me, but I hate how fake her scenes look. I feel like my parents would be totally into her work, but maybe to a younger generation we just see the CGI very obviously. :/

The racism in Slapsgiving3 was soooo random (and terrible). I'm glad they kept that side of their "humour" under wraps for nine seasons. :(