Propaganda in the media

[PhoneLobster]

Care to reword that in a way that makes any sense, has an over all point of some kind, or has any link with reality at all?

[tzor]

1191322253[/unixtime]]You'd think common sense prevails, that shooting guns into the sky would have repercussions.

Yes, but that what you see all the time in Mexican westerns ... it's a sacred tradition. Oh wait you weren't talking about them were you.

Time for some straight dope, " Can a bullet fired into the air kill someone when it comes down? "

[Crissa]

Please, sigma, tell me you were Grabaring...

-Crissa

[cthulhu]

1191235260[/unixtime]]Well, the American forces are pretty worn down, but that's because they're mired in Iraq and don't have any time to rest.

*grins* Problems are more endemic than that - I'll draw on the Australian case.

One of the biggest personnel shortages in the modern Australian armed forces is for *cooks* a job that is in the grand scheme of things pretty low down on the training curve. Their problems with getting and keeping instrumentation techs are to be expected, but cooks is just weird.

The problem is that all these back of house jobs like cookery, logistics etc got outsourced, so the people who do them for the military Australia wide are all civvies. Which means you cannot send them overseas on deployment. Australia is currently overseas in like 4? countries.

You see the problem here. I imagine America is in much the same boat. Cost savings in peace time are boning them later because you need all these people. Training up a new army solider takes forever - even if he is only going to be a cook.

This makes the overstretched problem worse because you've depleted your personnel reserve.

However they are still a formidable fighting force. Airforce and navy are still in fighting trim, just the army has got screwed because they wildly underestimated (and by underestimated I mean ignored) troop levels require.

[cthulhu]

1191334645[/unixtime]]

1191322253[/unixtime]]You'd think common sense prevails, that shooting guns into the sky would have repercussions.

Yes, but that what you see all the time in Mexican westerns ... it's a sacred tradition. Oh wait you weren't talking about them were you.

Time for some straight dope, " Can a bullet fired into the air kill someone when it comes down? "

The problem is not that firing a bullet into the air with a special rig won't kill you. it's that cocks fire bullets at say 20 degrees off verticle and there is enough sideways motion to pwn you in the face.

[fbmf]

[TGFBS]
Tone the aggression down. Now.
[/TGFBS]

[Catharz]

1191317190[/unixtime]]
But really. "Oooh country X has low birth rate and is being invaded by foreign people!"

That's the same paranoid and totally incorrect claim made by scary white nationalist movements world wide since the dawn of time.

Its not anything new and its been wrong every single time its been used in the past 100+ years of the recorded history of migration in western countries.

Yep, nothing like that has ever happened in America. I mean, the same native population which was here from the start have certainly more than maintained their numbers. I'm referring the the Europeans, of course. Europeans have dominated the Americas since the dawn of time.

[PhoneLobster]

Yep, nothing like that has ever happened in America. I mean, the same native population which was here from the start have certainly more than maintained their numbers. I'm referring the the Europeans, of course. Europeans have dominated the Americas since the dawn of time.

Well first up they didn't have the social, military and immune defenses of what I explicitly mentioned, you know, a Western Nation.

And secondly that was an actual massive, long term, hostile, armed invasion and genocide. To get to that position you literally had to steal their land, rape their women and kill them all. Even then it probably wouldn't have been doable without massive and mostly inadvertent biological warfare and a huge technological advantage.

Now compare it to the migrant "invasion" of a western country, not really the same thing. At all. Even a little bit.

After all the "invasion" western nations face by modern migrants is one of unarmed (and usually rather poor) civilians intent on contributing to the economy and settling into the society.

Its like British colonists turning up unarmed and disease free and offering to help with the whole buffalo hunting thing if they can get their own cool tent to live in.

Waves upon waves of peaceful migrants have washed over every western nation in the world ever since there was such a thing as western nations in the world.

They have NOT, ever, killed the "native" westerners wholesale, stolen their toys, spread disease that wiped out a significant portion of the population and thwarted resistance with their advanced weapons technology then set up a new nation on the smoking remains.

I know it can be a bit hard for some of us white folks to trust in, since after all a long time ago our ancestors in many western countries established the local western nation franchise through standard colonial genocide. And heck, we KEEP trying the whole violent colonialism thing on and off around the world to this very day.

But until the colonial forces of the Great Iranian Empire from mars lands its armed colonists on the shores of our nations (in god damn UFOs no less) flying the Muslim Union Jack equipped with laser rifles, pandemic bird flu and an intent to take the lands from the primitive and backward savages that inhabit them in exchange for a handful of mars beads and a face full of death ray...

Anything short of that is a ludicrous alarmist meme spread by the latest generation of the same people who told us all Australia was doomed to bend knee to papal authority with a mere handful of generations.

[Draco_Argentum]

Cultural invasions are totally possible though. Look how many McDonalds there are around the world.

[PhoneLobster]

Cultural invasions are totally possible though. Look how many McDonalds there are around the world.

A) That is an example of how virulent Western culture is.

B) That is an example of how virulent Fast Food culture is.

C) And no, the presence of McDonalds or of a house of kebabs is not the same as a total overthrow of society by a hostile invasion of outsiders. In fact its pretty much that whole peacefully collaborating with western society thing. Heck the kebab house contributes more to health and nutrition than the McDonalds does...

Really McDonalds is hated by many and for good reasons, but most of those involve its symbolism as a face for far greater evil forces, or at least its actual unethical practices.

I've however never heard of or considered that anyone might hold McDonalds up as proof of a hostile Muslim takeover of France.

Salvador Dali would surely be inspired.

[Draco_Argentum]

Food just seems to be the part that sticks. The Italian takeover of Australia seems to have resulted in Italian restraunts and not a lot else. In 50 years people will be bitching about whatever culture is omgz evil at the time while I'm eating kebabs and lasagna.

To be less of a smartass, western culture is, as you put it, virulent. Its not that cultures don't get spread and change the local one. Its not even that people don't notice western culture spreading since that gets complained about everywhere outside the US. As far as I can tell the only point people have when they complain about their culture being taken over is that they don't happen to like whatever the other culture is.

[tzor]

1191382174[/unixtime]]The problem is that all these back of house jobs like cookery, logistics etc got outsourced, so the people who do them for the military Australia wide are all civvies. Which means you cannot send them overseas on deployment. Australia is currently overseas in like 4? countries.

As opposed to the U.S. where most of the contractors are being sent overseas, like Blackwater et al.

Fast food is an interesting study. Apparently Sushi is considered "fast food" by Wiki. There are just as many sushi resturants where I live on Long Island as there are McDonalds. Of course they are not a single mega corporation but that is a different issue.

McDonalds, it should be noted, is also one to quietly regionally adapt as conditions require. I believe they serve wine in France and beer in the UK. The menu in India is radically different from other places and many regions have their own special things added to the menu. KFC originally had to substitute french fries for mashed potatoes when it entered the Japan market, as another example.

[Falgund]

McDonalds, it should be noted, is also one to quietly regionally adapt as conditions require. I believe they serve wine in France and beer in the UK.

While France have specific salads, burgers, brands of coffee, ..., the wine is an urband legend

[tzor]

1191428459[/unixtime]]While France have specific salads, burgers, brands of coffee, ..., the wine is an urband legend

Oh well, not that I was ever thinking should I ever visit France I need to stop at a McD and try the McWine, but still ...

I mean what wine should go with a Big Mac? :tonguesmile:

Meanwhile, it should be noted, that when I was in Key West Florida there was a Miami Subs. On the menu was (and I'm not kidding you) Dom Peringnon at $100 a bottle. I can just see getting a Gyros platter and a bottle of Dom Peringnon. No I just can't see that at all.

[Username17]

KFC originally had to substitute french fries for mashed potatoes when it entered the Japan market, as another example.

KFC still offers french fries instead of mashed potatoes here in the Czech Republic. Also, when you order chicken strips you get the choice of dips:

• Barbeque Sauce
  
• Ketchup (?)
  
• Mayonaise (?!)

Dipping fried chicken in mayonaise. I'm not even kidding. They point blank ask you if this is your plan and offer to assist you if it is.

-Username17

[Crissa]

I would've assisted you with that, Frank.

-Crissa

[Catharz]

I for one would be ecstatic if the Taliban culturally invaded the US and left a legacy of food. Taquerias are certainly an improvement on standard midwestern fare, but Afghani fast food is second to none.

I'm hopeful that this is really happening. I ate at an Afghani restaurant on the east cost which is apparently run by the brother of one of the former big Taliban leaders.

Middle eastern food will hopefully also make an impact on what the French call their "cuisine". Indians certainly made eating in Birmingham (England, not Alabama) tolerable, and I figure that the Arab Invasion has a better chance of making things more edible in Paris than the "Polish Plumber" invasion which was all the rage a few years ago.


Oh, and Phonelobster: You're certainly right about the differences between cultural invasions. For one, diseased Europeans or Mongolians really aren't the same problem they once were, and people seem pretty much contend to wage genocide exclusively on their own countrymen.

[CalibronXXX]

What about the recent influx of cars in China? This has resulted in increased accidents, of course, but also in general health decrease as air gets polluted and less people bike and walk to wherever they need to go. As more people buy cars it may also lead to the partial breakdown of public transportation in China. This seems like an objectively bad case of cultural influence, though a big part of this particular example is a burgeoning economy.

Am I totally off base with that example or what? As far as I can see most people in China don't need cars. For the most part they either live in the city and can walk or bike to wherever, or take their perfectly good public transportation if their destination is across town, or they're rural farmers and can't afford cars in the first place. The only time someone would need a car is if they're moving, or vacationing across country. So it seems to me to be a cultural influence as much or more than a financial one.

[JonSetanta]

http://www.google.com/search?q=Grabaring

Does not exist. Sorry, can't answer that one. >_<

But Western culture = virulent? Maybe.
But certainly a paradox.
The usual dilemna I read or hear, abstractly, is "I hate America(ns)! Hey pass the fries and Coke? *snarfscrumpfsmack*"

My favorite food is Indian. Pav Bhaji, to be exact. It's junk food and I realize this, but I'm a curry addict. Indian buffet are also fantastic; the masala makes me high.
I enjoy this cultural import without any consideration to the average American political/economic/religious opinions concerning India, and I expect that most people in this world simply don't give a shit where their food originated, but rather how good it tastes. This is both curse to cultural vanity/pride as well as waistlines, and a blessing to cultural diversity IMO.

I agree with you wholeheartedly, Catharz. I want more 'exotic' foods normally found in short-lived specialty restaurants to become 'local' like the kind you can go out and buy in the grocery store.
While there aren't any "Afghani" sections yet, I guarantee I will try some the day it arrives, which it most certainly will. Just wish it would come sooner.

Unfortunately it seems Taliban doesn't want to date our women or try our foods; we Westerners are the alien ones to them, by right of their own self-written zealotus dogma (it's not even Islam... I know, I've read the Quran). They want us dead and broken, or converted.
That makes me sad because I'd like to try their food.

[Draco_Argentum]

1191439352[/unixtime]]

• Barbeque Sauce
  
• Ketchup (?)
  
• Mayonaise (?!)

KFC burgers have white sauce that is suspiciously like mayo one them over here in AU. A dipping version doesn't suprise me that much.

[PhoneLobster]

Sigma, for the 655th time I find myself reading a post of yours and asking the question.

"WTF?"

I really do not wish to be impolite here, but seriously.

Just this once.

"WTF?"

[tzor]

Btw as a pointless fact, mayo is currently the topping for the new McDonalds Deluxe Agnus 1/3 pounder burger, which is, in point of fact, not bad.

[Cielingcat]

I used to put mayo on something like that. I can't remember though...

[JonSetanta]

tzor, we're all about pointless facts.

Personally can't stand mayo though.