A message to Frederick From Norway and Fab

Tiffany   Tue Jul 18, 2006 8:28 pm GMT
Please be honest with yourself - this is all your opinion. And before you try and say "Yes, I know it is." - for the love of God, stop trying to pass it off as fact.

Honestly, to me, the poll you take at your hotel is starting to sound like American Pie's "And this one time, at band camp..."

I don't think you're stupid. I think you are a typical person - who thinks he knows more than he actually does. I think you are a typical person - who wants his own beliefs validated. I think you are a typical person - and you react like one.

Age is no guarantee of wisdom - at 16 or 61. The latter, however, may be more likely to have it.

Knowledge is not required - it is acquired. And that will always take some amount of time.
Tiffany   Tue Jul 18, 2006 8:31 pm GMT
LAA, I don't want to seem like I am against you, because I'm not. By all means, keep posting. But like I hope for everyone here (including myself), I hope you take something away from it.
Universal boy   Tue Jul 18, 2006 8:56 pm GMT
YOur last post shows how you are ignorant. France (and Ireland) has the highest demography in the european community.

At list, nobody in France (included Chirac) wants to rival the US. This is more complex. This shows your IQ was not very usefull when you read tabloids.

If we take a whole month off of work it is because of the climate, this is the same in Italy. In Spain, people do not work between 2am to 5 or 7pm.

At list you are an arrogant small boy, you don't have to tell us what we have to do.

I thought you were 10 years old...
LAA   Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:28 pm GMT
Excuse me? Chirac and European leaders don't want to rival the U.S.?

Which is why Chirac wants a united Europe to be a "counterweight" to American hegemony. He said that himself.

Chirac and France, after witnessing Bush defy international order by unilaterally invading Iraq, and imposing a puppet government on its people, have taken measures to combat the one sided, unchallenged position of the most dominant power in the world, the U.S. France has streghthened its diplomatic ties with the next rising power, China, an adversary of the U.S.

France is almost always vehemently opposed to any dimplomatic action taken by the United States. Since Bush took office, I don't blame them.

"If we take a whole month off of work it is because of the climate, this is the same in Italy. In Spain, people do not work between 2am to 5 or 7pm."

Boo hoo, the climate... Where I'm from, it's past 110 degrees F five months out of the year! We don't all just go on leave for a whole month, and complain about the weather. We realize there is a job to be done. If that's what people in parts of Europe want to do, then that's fine, so long as it makes them happy. But, all I'm saying is don't expect to compete with economic rivals when you only work 11 months of the year!
Benjamin   Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:42 pm GMT
110°F... I'm guessing that that would be about 45°C, right? Wow, how do you manage? I wouldn't! I think it's too hot at the moment, and it's only about 30°C here, lol.
LAA   Tue Jul 18, 2006 9:53 pm GMT
Yeah, I'm sorry Benjamin about the *F thing, I don't know Celsius.

This last week for instance, the average temperature was 115 *F. It gets to 120* sometimes. In the next state over, in Phoneix, they get the same temperatures of 110 plus, but with oppressive humidity from the Monsoons off the Gulf of Mexico. So imagine 90% humidity, along with 110 * F plus.
Benjamin   Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:17 pm GMT
So, do you just put up with it? Or do you have/do lots of little things to make it more tolerable? Or are you just completely used to it?
Anti LAA   Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:28 pm GMT
Tiffany,

STANDING OVATION.... APLAUSES!!!!
LAA   Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:28 pm GMT
Well thank God, I just moved to a more favorable enviroment on the coast of California, where it's a temperate 24* Celsius year round. I'm from L.A., but I spent three years in Las Vegas.

At first, it's miserable. You don't go outside, and you're a prisoner to air conditioning. It doesn't even cool down at night, but by that time it's not so bad, since the light energy from the sun has been removed.

You just have to drink tons of water, stay inside, and keep the air conditioning running.

When I first moved there, I found ways to get accalamated to it. For instance, in my first week, I spent five hours outside in the middle of the hottest part of the day.

You get used to it gradually, but it's still not natural for a human being.

But the bad part is, that as soon as you get used to the intolerable heat of summer and mid spring, you are rudely awakened to the dry, cold, windy, winter. Then the whole process starts all over again....
LAA   Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:31 pm GMT
And imagine being a laborer, working outside. One of the largest growing industries in Las Vegas is residental construction, as the population is just booming here, literally going through the roof. So, you can imagine all the home builders working outside during that kind of heat.

And think about all of the gardeners. Most laborers who work outside try to get an early start, so that they're out there working by 5 AM.
Guest   Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:53 pm GMT
>Not that I'm trying to be haughty or self-assuming, but for a 16 year old, I'm pretty damn smart....
You have to be kidding, or you have to have seeeerioouuss problems of self confidence inside of your head. I wish you my best.

>France and Germany's economic policies have been a proven failure, as is evidenced by their pitiful GDP growth rates. The answer for them is to cut taxes, reduce overbearing regulations, and restore a greater work ethic among the workforce who think nothing of taking a whole month off of work in the middle of the summer.
Now you are a politics expert, or the president of Arbeitsamt. What the heck do you know about working to begin with, or why do you think they do that in the first place?. Do you think this has anything to do with the economy of a land? do you have the measures of their productivity?

>If the EU ever wants to rival the U.S. in the geopolitical sphere,
Yes, or perhaps start invading the rest of the free oil rich countries. Typical American, expressing himself in terms on rivals...

>How should I take your criticism lightly, when your screen name is "Anti-LAA"????
I choose this name, because I got tired of your attitude. I put it this way: you are ALWAYS welcome to ask and discuss languages and linguistics, just don't pretend in this annoying confidence tone, that you already know everything!!! you think of yourself as a quasi-genius, then try at least to act like that, and not like a spoiled little child.
No hard feelings.
Anti LAA   Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:59 pm GMT
LAA,

Another example of what I have already posted:

>Which is why Chirac wants a united Europe to be a "counterweight" to American hegemony.
With such an undesirable "hegemony", I think every living being on this earth would be willing to counterweight it. Again, don't talk about things you don't know before you travel a little bit and have a closer contact with other people, and ask them (in their own context) what is their perception of USA and why!!!!


By the way, the post above is also mine. I forgot to sign it.
Tiffany   Tue Jul 18, 2006 11:03 pm GMT
Guest/Anti-LAA

<<Typical American, expressing himself in terms on rivals...>>

I think your typical person, regardless of nationality, would, at some point or another, express himself in terms of rivals, whether political, ecomonic, or personal.

So being American has nothing to do with this. It is a generalization. And despite what LAA claims, generalizations, stereotypes, etc are rarely true within the scope that they are presented.
Guest   Tue Jul 18, 2006 11:06 pm GMT
Hello,

Nota Bene :
First of all I would like to take distance from the posters who "attacked" LAA. Enven if I don't agree with LAA, I like him like a little brother.
I think he is just a teenager, with a quite tipical teenager, that is to say someone who wants to proove to the other people that he is someone, that he knows a lot and in the same time he's showing with his thoughs an insecurity and an obvious lack of experience of life. I won't blame him for that, it is quite normal to be like that; We should remember not so long ago we had the same kind of strange mix of arrogancy and insecurity. I would like our discussions with hims help him to face dialectics and develop a capacity of taking distance to his own pre-conceve opinions (or the others opinions he read in books). That is why I try to push him in the extremities of is logic and though, and often give exemples where the situation would be reversed to him - to take conscience of the sujectivity/vs objectivity things. that why a discussion has to be lead with arguments, and not just consists in vague feelings and pre-concieved ideas taht one doesn't want to ask the truth.
I personally thank our public school system in France where Philosophy classes are obligation at the age of 17 years. this is where you can learn not just to have learn knowledge you've read but to construct your own knowledge and get the dialectic tools that could permit to contruct it with your experiences in your adult life and confrontation with other people's argumentations.




After this let's come back to the daily subject.
Today everybody speake about temperatures... today that was quite hot in Paris, we had 36°C (about 100-105F?) in the shadow... I would have prefered to go to the beach than to work today !... ;)
But I remember my trip to death Valley, we had 50°C...
Anti LAA   Wed Jul 19, 2006 12:10 am GMT
Tiffany,

>I think your typical person, regardless of nationality, would, at some point or another, express himself in terms of rivals, whether political, ecomonic, or personal.

I agree partly with you. But this attitude is stronger in USA citizens than in people from the EU, for instance; perhaps this is due to a very single phenomenon: exposure. Exposure to work together after centuries of wars and rivality, exposure to taking decisions which sacrifice the immediate benefit for a single land, but which ensure the middle-term benefit for a larger amount of citizens (my example is still regarding the EU).

I perceive in many of statements and opinions of citizens from USA, that in their way to a super power, economy giant as it is in this historical moment, they are more in a defending (sometimes defending by attacking, intervening) position rather than in a more participative position. From a sociological view, this is normal human behaviour, but is still annoying.

But at the end of the day, it was not so important. Well Tiffany, we don't want to discuss such things here. I would rather talk about linguistics.