Like I know people in the US wear shoes indoors... but in Canada and Germany they don’t. I’m sure someone has made a map of which countries do and don’t wear shoes inside.

The British government also uses “ISIL.” There’s nothing conspiratorial, its all just different versions of translation. “Daesh” is the name used by the French government, and throughout the Middle East (which ISIS/ISIL disproves of). In German they’re often just called the “IS” with terror-group sometimes attached.

“Daesh” is just the acronym in Arabic (translated to English). Incidentally ISIS rejects the name “Daesh” in their territories.

It’s nothing to do with “PC,” but rather “Levant” is the designation ISIL uses, which refers to a geographic region encompassing Syria and some areas around it. Normally you wouldn’t find it used outside an archeological context, but well, they’re invoking historical geographies beyond the modern state boundaries of…

Apparently they might expand the block to Poland and the Czech Republic depending on how the situation unfold..... There’s gonna be an EU meeting in Brussels tomorrow, and Germany is talking about pushing through legislation on refugee-sharing and threatening to defund Eastern countries that don’t participate... it’s…

Unrelated; but news tip, Germany has in a surprise move imposed border controls with Austria, and suggesting they may expand it to the Czech Republic and Poland. The E.U. is gonna have a tense few days.

Perhaps you’ve read it, but Mark Twain’s final work, the “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc” comes to mind.

Mother Jones is pretty compelling. You have to keep their fiscally-conservative bias in mind, but the Economist is also really solid.

If you want a great ‘foreign affairs’ podcast, I’d recommend “Background Briefing” by Ian Masters. He basically deals with the major topic of the day, and then calls a really great…

Meanwhile... in things that apparently aren’t threatening to police: literally pointing rifles at them.

Why is it that the professions who REALLY need to be read clearly have reputations for terrible writing? Doctors, architects, construction workers...

Y’all need to take a page from engineers and write non-cursive in all-caps. Sorry, but they do have a good thing going there.

Apparently the NHS is slated to lose alot of foreign nurses because they won’t make the salary requirements for the visa renewals, and her response was along the lines of “you’ve had a while to figure this out.” :/

Just seems like a nuts situation. I was considering studying in the UK, and even went to see schools, but…

Yeah, I feel like we had much more discussion (in Ontario) about the heroism of the pioneers, which is unfortunate.

That said, the novel “Obasan” was included to discuss Japanese internment during the war, and we did have discussions about the internment of other nationals in the First and Second World Wars. Chinese…

There’s a kinda hilarious but sad phenomena, where German teens go on exchange to a high school in the U.S., and often it’s to a small-town in say Texas... and they come away with insane ideas of the United States. They just see a really rural part of the country and that’s their whole experience....

But when you’ve…

I think it depends on country, but there’s definitely general discrimination in Western Europe against Eastern-Europeans and Russians (“they’re criminals, the women are prostitutes, they’re uneducated,” etc.), and definitely against the Roma people (“they steal from you”). There is of course even stronger…

Lang too had a scandal this past year I think... she was accused of lobbying within the CBC against a story critical of RBC, who she had a financial connection to? I just remember it sounded pretty bad.

While this comment he gave is very nice, Kevin O’Leary was an asshole troll in Canada (“Dragon’s Den”), and now he has unfortunately moved to the US to try to hit it big.

Sorry. :(

Honestly... even as an strong NDP supporter who greatly dislikes Harper, I'd still rather vote NDP and lose than vote Liberal. Trudeau as this legacy politician is pretty gross. :/

I don't necessarily agree with that premise about coalitions... I mean a super partisan American alternative where its a two-party system sounds like a nightmare. I think the rise of the Conservative Party is more complicated too- stemming from the united right-way vs all the other parties in Canada sharing the left,…

Totally- and I'd be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt if he just somehow demonstrated a kernel of something... but as it stands I kinda can't get over the basic grossness of him being a political "legacy."

Granted, I definitely won't vote for Harper... but Trudeau makes me too cynical to support the Liberals…