"The world is twice as crazy as it's ever been."
–Maurice Sendak
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Today's trivia question (it does have significant political ramifications for the future):
India.
2nd on India..
HEY! You should post the Arlington staue answer before you move on to the next one.
China.
We have a winner!
Interesting. I wonder about that, though. Thanks to colonialization, English is basically a native language in India now. But China was never colonized, outside of outposts like Hong Kong and Macau. So they must be learning English as a second language.
It makes me question the definition of "English speakers." Unless it's a primary, every day language for a large number of Chinse, the way it is for many Indians, I wouldn't accept it as truthful.
I want to change this sentence:
to this:
look it up
They speak English better than a lot of 'mericans
And in absolute numbers, CHina has "the most" of a lot things. It's th eper capita measure that is …more compelling
In India pretty much every person with a college degree, or a child in a family with educated parents, speaks English. But India still has a ton of poor people and they tend to only know their local language.
In China they're now teaching all kids English – starting in Kindergarten. It's the all kids being taught that puts them first.
ps – Funny story. When the Indian parliment first met after kicking the British out, they discovered that they had to conduct business in English because it was the only common language. For the first couple of decades the plan was to phase out English, but they finally gave up on that and made English an official language.
Yeah, they had to, because there's something like 15 distinct languages native to the subcontinent. English does almost as much to unite India as their common culture.
Too lazy to look it up- but at the time they had something like 1800 spoken languages in India
I'm not sure worldwide 1800 languages are going to make it into the next decade. And, fwiw, I see the decline in variety as a good thing. Globally there are less than a dozen bridge (super) languages that connect us all. I look forward to when there will be even fewer.
Bet more people in India speak English as a first language and far more fluently than the superior number of Chinese English speakers, most of whom I would bet are far from proficient, much less fluent. There's a big difference between being a true language speaker and knowing a language only through school courses while rarely speaking it in your every day life. I suspect China is the correct answer only if you define English speaker as someone who knows some but is far from fluent.
I think very few in India speak English as a first language.
I talk with a lot of developers in both India and China and in both groups they tend to be equally fluent. In both cases they are pretty comfortable in English so they clearly converse in it a lot.
As their first language? Yes, that's true – I miswrote.
Anyway, I went looking on our good friend, wikipedia, and China is barely mentioned on the page about the English language. I did find this, though:
Also, per this article, it appears that the US is the # 1 country, followed by India.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language
I think he was referring to me and I still say many in certain classes do grow up with English as at least one of their first languages. Unlike Americans in many countries it's totally normal to be fully bi or tri lingual pretty much from birth.
Even with a small percentage of Indians in those classes that's still plenty of people. I'd still bet there are more truly fluent, don't have to translate in their heads, English speaking Indians than Chinese.
If the so-called
customer service'' agents who answer all sorts of calls are any guide, definitions of English-speaker are far too generous.
When young and in europe, though, Ikept meeting Dutch kids who not only spoke fluent English but with the American style accent. .Why don't they outsource to Holland?
Yesterday's answer – Field Marshall John Dill
BTW – someone else needs to post the Saturday morning Russian Music videos the next 2 Saturdays (I'll be in Sweden seeing it live!!!).
Will you be without internet access?
This Saturday I'll be landing in Copenhagen, taking the train up to Malmo, and then falling asleep. Next Saturday is the final. So Internet access yes. Time no.
Besides, I'm curious to see what is posted when I'm gone. Ralphie had good selections last time.
I assume a ferry must be involved? Or do they actually have a bridge or causway linking Denmark and Sweden now?
Google and ye shall find….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%98resund_Bridge
Yeah – super cool. It's a 20 minute train ride from the Copenhagen airport to Malmo. Going to be fun going over the bridge and then under the water.
You're kidding…right?
I wholeheartedly agree:
… Syria is very much like Iraq. A dictator leaving a vacuum in a half-liberated country? Check. A sectarian war we cannot understand let alone direct? Check. A Sunni insurgency increasingly allied with Jihadist elements? Check. Nebulous accusations and counter-accusations about WMDs, without hard proof of much at all? Check. A conflict swayed by interference across the region – from the Sunni monarchies to the Shi’a powers? Check.
You can argue that this could have somehow been prevented. I doubt it. You could also argue that the United States has an interest in an outcome that is neither Assad nor the al Nusra brigades. But no one can explain to me how to get from here to there. This is their regional war, not ours’. And our only reliable ally in the region seems perfectly capable of protecting itself and its own interests, without even informing us in advance.
Please, Mr President: just say no. You were elected to end this kind of hubristic, short-sighted, if well-intentioned military intervention. We did not elect you over McCain in 2008 merely to watch you follow that unreconstructed neocon’s advice, which is always to intervene first and figure out what to do once we have.
You know better. Trust your instincts. Do as little as possible.
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/05/06/israels-strike-on-syria/
But if only….Syria (and Lebanon) could come back to the world.
Remember the discussion on whether or not Cruz qualifies as natural born? According to most constitutional scholars yes but not according to birther Cruz who obviously didn't think his future ambitions through while jumping on the wacko birther band wagon. Good thing sheer stupidity isn't a disqualifier because he's my dream candidate for 2016 (never happen, though):
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113135/ted-cruz-2016-hes-his-own-worst-birther#
can you be "natural born" if you don't have an assault weapon and belong to the NRA?
Of course! The true measure of "natural born" is one's politics.
I guarantee you that many birthers were once people who supported amending the Constitution so that they could run Arnold Schwarzennegger for president. (It seems like a lifetime ago, but he was once considered the brightest rising star in the GOP.)
Yes and no.
The NRA membership is optional.
Doctor decries "reproductive slavery" at medical conference:
And before the righties get hysterical over comparing the miracle of childbirth to slavery and start in on the evils of abortion, let's point out that everyone on the choice side prefers safe effective birth control to abortions. They aren't fun and most would really rather not go through them.
Let's also point out that these same righies are the very ones who want to make safe effective birth control uncovered by insurance and hard to come by for low income women (while getting indignant about having to give their tax dollars to a social safety net for them and their children if they do have more children than they can support) and even seek to ban most of these means as the equivalent of abortion even though the overwhelming majority have used these very means for family planning themselves.
The rarity of eight+ child rightie families, even among Catholics whose hospitals are crying fowl over employees getting birth control coverage that the hospitals don't even have to pay for, is proof that the 90+% of Americans (including 90+ % of Catholics) who have used or are using birth control very much includes both the most reliable means and most of those fighting sensible birth control policies.
Apparently they wish to enjoy sex with their spoises without having a kid every year or two but don't want low income women to be able to do so. Another thing that's just tough luck for you if you are one of those good for nothing takers. And they don't mean the well subsidized rich when they say that.
Exactly.
From an excellent interview in The Hill with Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards:
Or this piece from Salon about the true opposition to Planned Parenthood, and how it has nothing to do with abortion:
Make no mistake: The fights against contraception and reproductive rights are not about religious liberty, unless your religion believes that women must be second class citizens and deprived of the medical care which keeps them from doing anything about it.
T"…he fights against contraception and reproductive rights are not about religious liberty, unless your religion believes that women must be second class citizens and deprived of the medical care …"
Sheesh. It is a religious discussion because information about a woman's personal healthcare decisions shouldbe a private and serious conversation between her dr and her husband. (And in the Bible if she was a virgin, she had to marry her rapist. We don't do that anymore.)
But only if it was a “legitimate rape.”
In which case, don't forget, there would be no pregnancy. Only sluts who enjoy it get pregnat from rape, right?
er, pregnant.
I'd say it's more than out of touch. It's active hypocrisy and they know exactly how hypcritical they are being. With stats for birth control use, most of which they publicly label abortifacient, and average family size among some of the loudest GOP birth control atttackers being what they are, the majority of those throwing up road blocks can only be doing so as a do as I dictate to you, not as I do kind of thing.