(no subject)

[theweaselking]

Zimbabwe ends ban on "witchcraft".

Also,


Also,
2 out of 3 Americans don't know the words to their own national anthem.

Also,

You need a permit to do everything in America. You even need a passport to buy a drink. But interestingly you don’t need one if you wish to rent some guns and some bullets. I needed a 50 cal (very big) machinegun. “No problem,” said the man at the shop. “But could you just sign this assuring us that the movie you’re making is not anti-Bush or anti-war.”

Also, you do not need a permit if you want — as I did — to transport a dead cow on the roof of your car through the Florida panhandle. That’s because this is banned by a state law.

[...]

You find this a lot in America. People way down the food chain are given the power to say yes or no to elaborately prepared plans, just so their bosses can’t be sued. One expression that simply doesn’t translate from English in these days of power without responsibility is “Ooh, I’m sure it’ll be fine”.

And, unfortunately, these people at the bottom of the food chain have no intellect at all. Reasoning with them is like reasoning with a tree. I think this is because people in the sticks have stopped marrying their cousins and are now mating with vegetables.

a writer for The Times on how in the US, the bureaucracy and service industries are populated mostly by free-range Soylent Green.

Comments

[thormation.livejournal.com]

So that's what American life looks like when viewed by a furriner?

Sounds about right. What the author fails to realize is that there's a War on Terra going on here, so anything that deviates from routine is suspicious, and that anything that is suspicious is a sure indicator of immanent terrorism. *Especially* when done by furriners.

Does America == The Holy Roman Empire? Discuss.

[lurkerwithout.livejournal.com]

I used to know the incomplete version of "The Star Spangled Banner" but since I don't go around singing it, I doubt I could do more than incoherantly hum along nowadays. Is it that much different for Canadians? Are you saying that more than 30% of your countrymen know all the lyrics to your anthem?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I strongly suspect yes.

In two languages.


But I couldn't tell you for sure without a similar test.

[thette.livejournal.com]

"The words to the second verse of all national anthems are the same" or something like that.

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

I don't know the words to my national anthem either -- especially not all 14 verses, but not even the abbreviated 2-verse version.

It's basically a fighting song idolising our Father of the Fatherland, William of Orange, written during the war of independence against Spain. It professes loudly, even in the abbreviated version, that he's a German, and loyal to the king of Spain[1].


[1] The doublethink is that we were revolting against the local representative(s) of the king, rather than the king himself. Giggle for the Duke of Alva and the Conseils Des Troubles, aka the blood council, for good and sufficient reasons *why*.