Re: Guest post - assorted Eurogloom

1

We taught them a lesson in 1918, and they've hardly bothered us since then.


Posted by: Tom Lehrer | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 5:56 AM
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Still need a few more years to get to the record of longest the world has had just one Germany and no world war.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 6:48 AM
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It's been 26 years since German reunification. The original German Empire lasted from 1871 to 1918, 47 years. I'm surprised that the ratio between them in so close.


Posted by: dalriata | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 6:54 AM
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I've certainly heard the final point made elsewhere. Probably moves to Brussels.
On the plus side, it's been super cheap to take weekend trips to London. I went to a museum gift shop and the kid wanted something, I said never buy things in a gift shop because they're always more expensive, then I checked Amazon and the price in the gift shop was cheaper. So now we have a model of the solar system hanging from our ceiling.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 6:55 AM
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It may look the same as an American solar system, but the seventh planet from the sun is pronounced "Your Anus" on it.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 6:59 AM
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6

In the grand scale of evil deeds, there needs to be a means of comparing killing to immiseration, so we can compare things like the Iraq war to what's been done to Greece and the Gaza strip. The first step, obviously, is converting everything to negative rat orgasms.


Posted by: foolishmortal | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 7:01 AM
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3: But only 43 without a world war! Just think, kids born last year could be in college when the new record is set.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 7:03 AM
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You just figure out how much of a risk of death people are willing to run to avoid immiseration.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 7:04 AM
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7: It's not really "one Germany" until they get Alsace-Lorraine and all of East Prussia back.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 7:10 AM
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If you pull the lever, $10,000 is deposited in your bank account and there is a 20 percent chance that the trolley is diverted onto the track you're tied to.


Posted by: Tom Scudder | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 7:12 AM
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10 And you get as many pulls at the lever as you'd like.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 7:15 AM
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This gets really interesting if there's another person over on another track with a similar lever.


Posted by: Tom Scudder | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 7:17 AM
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13

Mutually assured trolley.


Posted by: dalriata | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 7:18 AM
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14

"I'm rich! Oh, fuck!"


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 7:20 AM
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9: You're not helping, Moby!


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 7:24 AM
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That was the premise of an episode of some 90s time-travel TV series. The characters ended up in a world where you could get as much cash as you wanted from an ATM, and each dollar you took out was an entry in the lottery. When you won the lottery you were celebrated and given everything you wanted for a short period, then you were killed. Kept everyone healthy and wealthy because it trimmed the population. Of course the idiot character saw the ATM and thought "this is awesome!" and took out tons of cash only to "win" the lottery.
My mad google skills found it, Sliders, which now would imply a TV show about small hipster sandwiches.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 7:26 AM
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Which in turn is based on a well-known (but not to me) short story. And I guess Sliders wasn't so much time travel as multiverse-travel.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 7:28 AM
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18

Greece is the wrong place to look I think, because they are a special case due to serious corruption. Pouring money into Greece without oversight restrictions (ie loss of sovereignty for the Greek government), I cannot fault Germany and France for not wanting to do that.

EU budget by country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_the_European_Union

IMO the places to look to decide whether there's too much austerity are Spain and Portugal. For whatever it's worth, having EU oversight has in my opinion improved publicly financed government efforts in CZ.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 7:32 AM
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16 I kind of liked Sliders but I don't remember that episode.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 7:33 AM
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16 I kind of liked Sliders but I don't remember that episode.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 7:33 AM
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I am seeing an outpouring of Eurogloom on Facebook due to one person in my feed making 5 enraged posts in the last 2 hours about Shakespeare's Globe Theatre deciding not to keep its artistic director. Is this truly a victory for racists, sexists and reactionaries everywhere, or is my Facebook friend a personal friend of this artistic director maybe?


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 7:38 AM
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19/20: Same here. Peak 1990s TV sci fi. Even though it was originally on Fox it defined the feel of The Sci Fi Channel for me.


Posted by: dalriata | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 7:39 AM
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The pending collapse of the British academy is sad. We sometimes think about moving to Edinburgh, but it's really not worth considering until it becomes more clear how things pan out.


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in." (9) | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 7:39 AM
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I also kind of liked Sliders, but man was it dumb, even by primary school standards. My question, Britishers, is this: where are the Long Knives? Where are the 2/3 (?) of Tory backbenchers who voted remain? Where are the no-confidence motions? Where is the naked electoral self-interest of the Tories who aren't actually UKIP racists themselves?


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 8:23 AM
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25

People will leave in droves. Which will just continue the process the UK began in the 90s and 00s. Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland continue to kill it in science (they've already been the beneficiary of a money-driven exodus from the US), and the other European countries seem to have decided to give up.


Posted by: F | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 8:28 AM
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Speaking of science, I just got an email informing me about "the world's largest spectral database." I'm not going to read it because I know I'll be disappointed.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 8:35 AM
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27

Where is the naked electoral self-interest of the Tories who aren't actually UKIP racists themselves?

Right there on display. They're terrified of a UKIP challenge taking away their majorities, or a Brexiter cell in their constituency party deselecting them at the next election. A lot of these guys have Brexit-majority constituencies even if they aren't personally Brexit.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 8:36 AM
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26- Is that a Halloween promotion?


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 8:37 AM
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I don't think so. But it probably only has like a dozen ghosts.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 8:46 AM
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30

Some of the awful stuff in my personal life has at least resolved itself (for good or ill).

But Brexit still looms over me. I find it very hard to imagine wanting to make the UK my home in the future and a lot of doors relating to naturalisation in other EU member states are likely to close soon (Italy, for example, requires four years of residence for EU nationals and 10 for everyone else). In addition, even living and being employed elsewhere will be harder, once free movement of people disappears, which it looks likely to. And what savings I have are predominantly in sterling, which means that they are rapidly shrinking in value in terms of the places that I would like to live.

Like Mossy Character, I remain horrified that nobody on the left or the right is willing to be the adult in the room. I feel like a country that I've been uneasy with for a long time has now become a runaway train. It's probably already too late to jump off before we crash out of the EU and - what? It's really hard for me to imagine any form of upside for anybody.

It's also something that I can't discuss with people, even like-minded people, because my emotional reaction is still too strong.


Posted by: President Everything Is Awful | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 9:24 AM
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The Tories have found another reason to bite each other today, when May overrode all the objections and authorised an additional runway at Heathrow and her Foreign Secretary (Boris Johnson) immediately denounced it as "undeliverable". Fuck 'em all.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 9:25 AM
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32

Why did she do that? A desperate plea that an independent UK can still retain a globally relevant capital, somehow, please?


Posted by: dalriata | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 9:28 AM
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33

There's no way that fits on any mail truck I've ever seen.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 9:28 AM
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34

27 makes sense. And of course a National Unity government is too much to ask for, because you only form one of those when an unprecedented crisis clearly requires policies which would be electoral suicide for any party to carry out alone. Carry on.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 9:33 AM
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35

18 seems right to me.

Also the best thing about Brexit so far has been the EU insisting that the negotiations be conducted in French. I don't even want to know if that doesn't happen, it's just such a great "fuck you."


Posted by: R Tigre | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 10:10 AM
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36

If Brexit occurs, doesn't English get downgraded within EU proceedings from working language to official language, and then only thanks to Ireland?


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 10:18 AM
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37

18 is right, but good financial controls don't require austerity.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 10:19 AM
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38

Europe is depressing. South Africa is also depressing. (I didn't realize how bad it was getting until I saw a friend's panicky FB post.)


Posted by: ydnew | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 10:20 AM
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39

30 was not me, presidentially, but it could have been. Especially depressing as I moved to the UK in the first place for better prospects in my scientific field. Now I probably can't stay even if I wanted to but there's not really any place else I want to go.

Cry, cry, Researchgate, cry.

On a happier note, Sliders was super stupit but I watched it anyway because I had wicked hots for Jerry Whatshisface.


Posted by: Swope FM | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 10:28 AM
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40

Is this truly a victory for racists, sexists and reactionaries everywhere, or is my Facebook friend a personal friend of this artistic director maybe?

Whether it's any of these or not, that board must be hugely embarassed; she's been very clear about her goals and approach from the get-go. Whether I'd like her stuff personally or not, this kind of firing after her success with audiences is bewildering.


Posted by: Penny | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 10:30 AM
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26- Just got it too. Introducing the world's largest spectral database, with over 2.2 million spectra.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 10:34 AM
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42

35.2: That was indeed one of the very most gratifying fuck-yous I've ever heard of. As if the whole Cherbourg peninsula were a penis being waggled in Britain's direction.


Posted by: Swope FM | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 10:38 AM
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43

36: If I remember correctly, neither Ireland nor Malta made any motions for English to be an official language as there was no need; they only pushed for Irish and Maltese respectively. But I'm sure as soon as they need to they'll make sure it's included, though.


Posted by: dalriata | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 10:41 AM
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44

35. Agreed, and with May holding her breath until she turns blue about it it seems possible negotiations will never (for a while anyway) start.

Hilarious if it wasn't tragic.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 10:48 AM
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35, 37. Je crois qu'on peut write in Franglish here in support.

German (and I think largely European as well) alternatives to Merkel as a leading voice are worse. Juncker is not great, always proposes more top-down Europe. German economic policy is austerity- and export- obsessed, change from that would be nice, but there are no politically significant Germans who agree.

France is having primary debates for right-of PS candidates, I think not as much of a clownshow as the US but not great, scandal-ridden, blind, and racist are a attributes that completely cover the possibilities. One, a former finance minister, underestimated the price of pain au chocolat by a factor of 10.

A free trade pact with Canada years in the negotiating just fell through because of Wallonia, population 4 million.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 11:04 AM
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46

Chris y weighed in the other day that 45 last was actually good news, and I am going to take his word for that.


Posted by: Penny | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 11:20 AM
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47

18, 35 I do not buy, for two reasons:

a) Plenty of countries are corrupt without depression levels of unemployment for the indefinite future. India, China, Greece before the crash, hell, most of the world. Corruption does not cause what you see in Greece and austerity does not fix corruption.
a) The debtor entities are not declining to pour money in to bolster Greece's economy, but rather are draining money out to maintain the fiction that Greek debt will be repaid.


Posted by: foolishmortal | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 11:23 AM
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Where are the 2/3 (?) of Tory backbenchers who voted remain? Where are the no-confidence motions? Where is the naked electoral self-interest of the Tories who aren't actually UKIP racists themselves?

The remain vote was concentrated in places where Tory MPs are not.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 11:25 AM
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43: What I really really want to happen is for Scotland to leave the UK and join the EU and pick Scots (not Scotch Gaelic) as their official language and then for Ireland and Malta to decide that they're fine reading Scots.


Posted by: Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in." (9) | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 11:33 AM
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IME the Germans I know are super personally offended that Greeks don't pay taxes. They also feel Greece joined the Eurozone under false pretenses by cooking their books. I know an economist who was part of the original team analyzing the Greek economy, and he feels personally lied to. The Germans are more levelheaded when it comes to Spain and Italy, but with Greece they're out for blood.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 11:42 AM
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51

Blood they have.


Posted by: foolishmortal | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 11:46 AM
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Further to 47 regarding 18: Had Europe been interested in ending the depression in Greece, Greece would have accepted onerous oversight.

In support of that statement, I offer the fact that Greece accepted a significant dimunition of its sovereignty anyway, even though no offer to end the depression was ever put on the table.

Further, the EU was happy to strangle non-corrupt member economies, so corruption can't have been a particularly decisive part of that decision.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 11:53 AM
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IME the Germans I know are super personally offended that Greeks don't pay taxes. They also feel Greece joined the Eurozone under false pretenses by cooking their books. I know an economist who was part of the original team analyzing the Greek economy, and he feels personally lied to. The Germans are more levelheaded when it comes to Spain and Italy, but with Greece they're out for blood.

OK, well, after a centrist Greek government under which the depression gets worse because the Greek government can only do what German bankers tell it to do, and then a leftist Greek government under which the depression gets worse because the Greek government can only do what German bankers tell it to do, Germany is now going to be dealing with a right-wing extremist Greek government. All the while continuing to not pay taxes, this time because there is no economy instead of because of fraud.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 12:06 PM
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For ~6% of the defense budget we could erase Greece's debt.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 12:09 PM
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55

But then who would defend Greece from the Germans.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 12:12 PM
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56

55: Not the British.


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 12:19 PM
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57

Let's just speed things up and have another War of the League of Cognac.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 12:20 PM
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56:

Any idea whether the breakdown of communications between Blamey and the Australian PM, Menzies about the operation and the commitment to it had any impact on the fall of Menzies' government at the end of the year?

Blamey's position as Australia's senior military man seems to have been more secure than the PM's. Ironic in a sense then that the man who he'd have to contend with in the ensuing years was his American equivalent in that unimpeachable preeminence, Douglas MacArthur.


Posted by: idp | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 12:33 PM
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59

And I thought a Yard of Ale was a big drink.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 12:37 PM
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60

<rimshot>


Posted by: foolishmortal | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 2:01 PM
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61

The German hypocrisy is pretty stifling here when you remember that the only way Germany joined the euro was by cooking its books (it had been breaking deficit limits all through the 1990s to fund reunification, and doesn't that seem like a bad idea now...)


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 2:39 PM
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TBH everything in the EU right now makes sense in terms of everyone having to try and make good on some act of massive hypocrisy and/or duplicity.


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 3:09 PM
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63

Also, the institution itself seems bent on gratifying the fantasies of its bitterest critics. Yes, why not announce some more austerity and a bigger bill and pick a stupid flag-size fight about official languages so an especially shit French government can feel big? That's *exactly* what everyone who doesn't dream in blue and yellow spots thinks about the EU.


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 3:12 PM
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Well, as Sir Humphrey reminds us, the French went in to protect their ludicrously inefficient farmers, the Germans went in to cleanse themselves of genocide and apply for readmission to the human race, and we went in to screw the French by splitting them off from the Germans. Everyone else is in it for what they can get out of it.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 3:13 PM
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***LOON TRIPLE POST****

given what it's managed to get up to since 2010, it's a fucking miracle I actually went out and knocked doors for the EU.


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 3:16 PM
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Update: My Facebook friend has now posted 3 more rants about the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, for a total of 8 rants today. Usually she posts no more than one rant a week, except the time she got upset about British theatres selling tickets to epileptic people without warning them about flashing lights.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 3:48 PM
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9: Revanchist. Why don't you bring up the Oder-Neisse while you're at it? Did the Poles buy you off?


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 4:26 PM
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27:

Kind of pleased that this thread went in the direction of Greece more than Brexit, but to follow up on the point about naked electoral self interest, we always knew that May was a muted Remain voter - it now turns out that before the vote she was giving speeches to GS, setting out the economic dangers of leaving the single market. (As well as discussing creepy police state reasons relating to the Home Office, of course.)

Added to Johnson's "backup Telegraph column" (plus Cameron's decision to call the vote in the first place) and you're free to draw your own conclusions about whether the senior leadership of the UK is acting out of a principled desire to serve the interests and desires of their constituents, even as they conflict with their own, or whether just possibly they're near sociopathically self interested monsters.


Posted by: Seeds | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 5:43 PM
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That said, David Davis strikes me as someone who has deeply held principles and abides by them (the resignation over ID cards and detention of terror suspects, for example).

It's just a shame that many of his principles seem to be completely fucking barmy.


Posted by: Seeds | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 5:48 PM
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66. Thanks for the update, I'm now guessing your friend is a superfan!


Posted by: Penny | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 8:06 PM
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71

They're terrified of a UKIP challenge taking away their majorities, or a Brexiter cell in their constituency party deselecting them at the next election. A lot of these guys have Brexit-majority constituencies even if they aren't personally Brexit.

Huh, that sounds familiar. Do you guys have a functional and well-organized center-left party ready to take advantage of the dysfunction of the center-right party to take power? Because that really helps make the best of this sort of situation.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 8:07 PM
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72

No, they fucked that up beyond recognition.


Posted by: R Tigre | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 8:13 PM
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73

Yes, I know.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 8:14 PM
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74

66. Clips of Midsummer Night's Dream look pretty fun. Wonder what happened there.


Posted by: Penny | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 8:22 PM
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http://bbc.in/2cH3Mtz

I haven't watched it, but this appears to be the whole thing.


Posted by: Penny | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 9:55 PM
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76

Oh yikes, not my thing after all. Still glad to have spent time investigating Meow Meow the cabaret performer.


Posted by: Penny | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 10:03 PM
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77

Oh yikes, not my thing after all. Still glad to have spent time investigating Meow Meow the cabaret performer.


Posted by: Penny | Link to this comment | 10-25-16 10:03 PM
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78

Is Meow Meow the cabaret performer an allusion to Miaow Miaow the illicit substance / briefly fashionable UK tabloid scare story?


Posted by: Seeds | Link to this comment | 10-26-16 2:10 AM
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76: saw her live in London a few years ago - very entertaining.

71: yes, that would be a nice thing to have. We used to have one but apparently everyone decided they were too creepy and unified and well-organised. So we put an end to all that nonsense!


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 10-26-16 2:32 AM
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I keep thinking how much Milliband -- who I liked just fine as a leader, but wasn't rah rah enthusiastic for at the time -- would have crushed them on some of the current stuff. Just in terms of having a fucking grip on how to do shit in Parliament, win votes, be a functioning opposition.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 10-26-16 3:32 AM
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80 is very true, but I wouldn't have trusted the hard line neolibs not to fuck him over anyway.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 10-26-16 4:09 AM
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Everybody was cooking their books to a certain extent in the run-up to monetary union. Key questions included whether there would be more or less cooking afterward, whether that cooking was more or less like everyone else's, and whether that cooking was going to prove a problem for larger financial markets.

It was widely understood that Greece was cooking their books considerably more than other nations aiming to join the euro. It was thought that they would make efforts to reduce the amount of cooking, in their own and in their partners' best interests. And it was thought that their cooking would become more like other countries'.

Greek governments had the better part of a decade from the time that exchange rates were locked until the financial crisis really got going in 2008 to make progress in all (or indeed any) of those directions. Did they?

Also, given Greece's financial and political situation compared with Italy, Portugal and Spain, it would have been clear to Greek leaders that they would be getting the shittiest end of the stick if a crisis came. (Though the contest might have been close with Portugal.) Again, improving their relative position does not seem to be what Greek leaders spent 1999-2008 doing.

Brexit, on the other hand, is an entirely unforced error. EMEA might well move to Munich. The European Patent Office is already there, and it's the continent's second-largest biotech hub, behind southeast England. I'm not sure that Munich can accommodate the headquarters of large UK pharmaceutical companies, but those companies are so thoroughly international that any restriction on free movement is going to be a huge problem for them. The Swiss are being very slow about implementing a referendum on restricting immigration, not least because of companies like Roche and Novartis that draw on a global pool of people.


Posted by: Doug | Link to this comment | 10-26-16 5:28 AM
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Yes, pharma is very international. I think I'm more cost effective than the guys in India even though they get less per hour and, probably, don't fuck around on the internet as much.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-26-16 5:34 AM
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If I get paid more just because of the residual effects of hundreds of years of racism, nobody tell me.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-26-16 5:37 AM
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85

Anyway, Germans support me in email.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-26-16 6:07 AM
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86

It's very convenient that we won World War II because it's harder to work with foreign people who don't speak English.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-26-16 6:11 AM
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If only we'd lost the battle of Plassey the Indian guys would all speak French and wouldn't be competing for your job anyway.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 10-26-16 6:35 AM
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88

Margin by which the United States won various wars as determined by how well the adversaries speak English, in increasing order:

Korean War - North Korea
Vietnam
Korean War - China
World War II - Japan
World War II - Italy
Mexico
World War I/II - Austria
Civil War -- American South
World War I/II - Germany
Revolutionary War/War of 1812 - Canada
Revolutionary War/War of 1812 - U.K.

(I stopped at Vietnam because my metric requires enough time to raise a new generation and see how well they speak English.)


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-26-16 6:36 AM
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78: I think her name pre-dates that, and is an old nickname.
Meow Meow at Joe's Pub
Al, I'm glad you're health and girl x's is getting better. I'm not going to advise because I'm too afraid of setting off what would be, in me, the contrariness switch. I do sympathise with you, and like Emir, wonder if sil feels an undercurrent. I like the way you're naming all the things, as you do.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 10-26-16 6:41 AM
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88: not to nitpick, but didn't you guys lose Vietnam?


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 10-26-16 6:45 AM
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Losing is negative winning.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 10-26-16 6:48 AM
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It was a draw.


Posted by: Tom Scudder | Link to this comment | 10-26-16 6:52 AM
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88 is excellent, notwithstanding the negative victories in Vietnam and 1812.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 10-26-16 7:16 AM
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