Naturally the political discourse of this board will vastly improve upon the evaporation of all lingering reluctance to recognize that Canada is the best nation on Earth.
Was that ever in doubt?
I mean by anyone whose opinion actually matters.
You’ll have my Central Heat when you Pry It From My Cold, Dead Hand!
Just be grateful we haven’t declared war on you for Celine Dion and Justine Bieber.
And both Thickes.
I hadn’t thought of them.
:: begins packing for a trip to Capitol Hill ::
I thought she died in the first movie…
I’ve been BUSY.
I fully agree with this statement.
<--------- Damned proud to be a '99er. 1899, that is.
Why, back in the day, Uncle Beer would fire up the Magic Lantern and we’d all sit around, sipping hot cocoa and watching the latest offerings from Slug Signorino.
Then Pappy Gus would read the latest column by Cecil Adams, famed wit and omniscient, from The Chicago Tribune.
( d&r )
ETA: I actually agree with this theory. As is the case with a LOT of other areas of interest, we are slicing and dicing our time and attention more heavily than ever before. The Dope is but one small victim in a vast ocean of splintered attention. When’s the last time you saw a parent pushing their 6 month old in a stroller and actually talking to them, opposed to pushing with one hand and buying things on Amazon Prime from their iPhone™ with the other? 
Let us not forget William Shatner.
Shatner IMHO is one reason we haven’t declared war on the Great White North.
We didn’t do so well last time.
:rolleyes:
Pjen, I don’t really have an answer for you, as everything’s subjective. Your background and your experiences give you a different world view than others, and what seems obviously repulsive to you is not always an issue that others will identify with. They’ve learned to live with the “devil you know.”
One thing I’ve always admired about the humor of the British is that they can sound and seem polite and cheerful, yet manage to deliver deeply penetrating snarks. Every time I try that, I get frozen out. Maybe the Brits are brought up with a more ingrained sense of civility and artistic expression than Americans, because you’ve had royalty that goes back thousands of years. We’re infants compared to you, but because of that, we think nothing of bypassing barriers and assuming equal footing with whoever claims to be in charge. We are taught to respect our elders and so forth, but at a certain age we determine the old ways no longer work. Maybe that’s what you’re seeing.
There’s also the adage, “Americans think a hundred years is a long time. The British think a hundred miles is a long distance.” Geography has a lot to do with it. We have enough land to develop every need or want. The Brits don’t, and built empires based on the concept that they were bringing civility to the savage world. They still carry that attitude to some degree.
:):D:p
All the way back to the Ming emperors and Genghis Ricardo Montalban KHAAANNNN! the 1st. While what do we poor benighted USers have? Why, nothing before Germany bombed us at Pearl Harbor, that’s what!
I came here a long, long time ago from Usenet, which was a mess even in 2001. This board was much better than that (and back then only moderated places like talk.origins and places no one bothered to spam were readable.) If anything SDMB is locked down tighter now than then.
As for the world outside, the mass media has just recently discovered that trolls exist on the interwebs. Oh, the humanity!
My daughter spent a year at a university in Germany. During that time she and her friends visited somewhere over a dozen countries without spending a lot of money. My wife and I spent five days driving and made it from California to Missouri.
You left out: Strolling into the PSA terminal and hopping on to the next flight to SFO…Flying within California used to be as straightforward and convenient as getting on a city bus.