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53 minutes ago, Brother Blades said:

I’ve visited America a few times, mainly the southern states. It’s a very strange & confusing place in many ways. When I was working in Mississippi, the guys were the most polite & friendly people I’ve probably ever met, but every single one of them was a gun nut, quite scary getting into someone’s truck & discovering 4 or 5 loaded weapons within reach of the driver. There were a few black guys that worked there too & they were given respect & seemed to be well liked. However, any other black person seemed to be looked down on & in private, these polite people were definitely racist wankers. It was difficult to square the fact that these guys would invite you to family barbecues despite barely knowing me & yet hold such right wing views. Strangely, one time I visited, I travelled with an Indian guy that worked with us & he was also treated fantastically despite none of the guys having met him beforehand. 
 

TL;DR - The place is confusing but it’s basically a backward, over religious shitehole of a place with false manners. 

When I was a PC i spent some time doing some volunteering with a kind of youth project the division was involved in, was really good and helped raise money for charity. I go to the states alot and had seen their version of it at some of the kinda community events we’d gone to so struck up a wee acquaintance with the guy who led that group, he was a full time deputy and basically running the ‘explorers’ was his role. But essentially a 25 year veteran of the sheriff dept. Seemed really enthusiastic about learning about life in Scotland and wanted to meet up when we were over next, promising decent bbq food. I dont ever really need any excuse for brisket so met the guy for lunch.

Fucking hell, I can genuinely see why after that why the issues that exist in policing there exist. Guy was a lunatic conspiracy theorist who thought the nhs was ‘communist’ and that any concept of social policy was nothing but an attempt to turn Murica into a Obalast of Russia. I like to think im pretty aware and recognise things happening around me etc, but this fucker looked like he was on amphetamines and about to pull his gun out if anyone sneezed. The brisket was good. 

40 minutes ago, Bob in Denny said:

It was 40 dollars she got charged....

clip40usd.jpg

f**k sake. 

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41 minutes ago, Theroadlesstravelled said:

I wonder if people in Japan or Denmark sit and think about the UK and how shite the NHS is.

Japanese think "Ooh Nessie, Godzilla take no problem." Danish think "Ha ha, mugs keep buying our watery bacon..".

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6 minutes ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

When I was a PC i spent some time doing some volunteering with a kind of youth project the division was involved in, was really good and helped raise money for charity. I go to the states alot and had seen their version of it at some of the kinda community events we’d gone to so struck up a wee acquaintance with the guy who led that group, he was a full time deputy and basically running the ‘explorers’ was his role. But essentially a 25 year veteran of the sheriff dept. Seemed really enthusiastic about learning about life in Scotland and wanted to meet up when we were over next, promising decent bbq food. I dont ever really need any excuse for brisket so met the guy for lunch.

Fucking hell, I can genuinely see why after that why the issues that exist in policing there exist. Guy was a lunatic conspiracy theorist who thought the nhs was ‘communist’ and that any concept of social policy was nothing but an attempt to turn Murica into a Obalast of Russia. I like to think im pretty aware and recognise things happening around me etc, but this fucker looked like he was on amphetamines and about to pull his gun out if anyone sneezed. The brisket was good. 

f**k sake. 

Yeah, brisket is amazing!

American cops, not so much!

I spent a couple of weeks in New Orleans, I was waiting to go offshore till I received my Coastguard pass which took a long time! 
I was based within 10 minute walk of the French quarter & witnessed so much racism by cops, I was unfortunately there for Mardi Gras, when the rich, white college crowd arrives & rent apartments with balcony space over & around Bourbon St.

It was horrendous, they were drunken arseholes, worse than witnessed anywhere else on the planet. There’s a tradition of giving beads to people you like at Mardi Gras, so every little store sells them, around 50cents for a necklace, these college wankers were launching these necklaces at people walking  below the balconies- aye, full force, hitting people in the face etc & the cops did nothing! Yet, further along the road there was a group of black teenagers playing drums & busking. They were excellent btw, the cops arrested two of them and made all the others leave. Pretty sickening. 

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8 minutes ago, Theroadlesstravelled said:

The discussion is about the terrible American healthcare.

The NHS is worse than the equivalent of what other countries have. I wonder if they talk about it.

Whatever is danish for mumsnet.

Ok, our NHS could certainly do with improvements, but it’s a bit of a stretch going from bankruptcy & life ruined, to waiting in casualty for 6 or 7 hours? Surely it’s a false equivalence?

As an aside, the best free healthcare I’ve ever encountered was in Russia. ECG, blood tests (results within an hour), chest x-rays, physio & more.

I thought I was having a heart attack & was correctly diagnosed as having pulled a muscle in my back!

All the above was done within 3 hours of arrival at the hospital & all free of charge. 

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Denmark are a bit boasty.

Quote

The healthcare system runs more effectively than other developed countries, such as the U.S. and other European countries. For instance, experts attribute low mortality in Denmark to its healthcare success. Health expenditure is high in Denmark, as the country spends 10.3% of its GDP on healthcare services. In 2014, the amenable mortality rate in Denmark was one of the lowest in the E.U. This indicates that healthcare in Denmark has proven successful. Moreover, Denmark spends relatively less money on healthcare in comparison to the USA. In 2016, the U.S. spent 17.21% of its GDP on healthcare, while Denmark only spent 10.37%. By contrast, in 2015, the life expectancy at birth in Denmark was 80.8 years, yet it was 78.8 years in the U.S. Once again, healthcare spending in Denmark proves itself to be very effective.

https://borgenproject.org/healthcare-in-denmark/

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3 minutes ago, Brother Blades said:

I don’t think they do, however it’s no stretch to think or indeed know it’s better than the US system. 

The best the US system got was the early 50's when Hawkeye MacGyver'd a tin bath into a dialysis machine.

Edited by Zen Archer (Raconteur)
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8 minutes ago, Clown Job said:

If someone offered you the chance to visit a nation that’s had 308 mass shootings so far this year

Would you accept it?

 

Yep.  I’m off to Chicago next month for work.  Never been to Chicago.  Can’t wait.

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11 minutes ago, Clown Job said:

If someone offered you the chance to visit a nation that’s had 308 mass shootings so far this year

Would you accept it?

 

Been going to the USA at least twice a year, every year, since 1997 (until Covid). The worst thing I’ve ever seen was someone in Times Square getting overly aggressive trying to sell his CDs to tourists. Haven’t seen as much as a punch up in a bar. Have been to plenty places in the USA where sticking to ‘touristy’ places is clearly the best bet, but I could list a dozen areas off the top of my head in and around Glasgow that I wouldn’t venture into. 
 

Going back for the first time since Covid in November, and can’t wait. In general, I like Americans, but sometimes as a nation, they are totally fcuked in the head. I admit that.

Funnily enough, just back a few weeks from my 2022 holiday which was a cruise out of Southampton to Denmark and Norway, with stops in Oslo and Copenhagen. How have things been in those cities recently at that gay bar and the shopping centre?

Roll of the fcuking dice. Wrong place, wrong time.

Edited by pozbaird
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It’s easy to point and laugh, but any nation that produces Walt Whitman, Groucho Marx, Orson Welles, Georgia O’Keefe, Chuck Berry, Hemingway, Miles Davis, Larry David, Billy Wilder, Aretha Franklin etc etc etc etc has something going for it.

Oh, and there’s this.

 

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1 hour ago, pozbaird said:

Been going to the USA at least twice a year, every year, since 1997 (until Covid). The worst thing I’ve ever seen was someone in Times Square getting overly aggressive trying to sell his CDs to tourists. Haven’t seen as much as a punch up in a bar. Have been to plenty places in the USA where sticking to ‘touristy’ places is clearly the best bet, but I could list a dozen areas off the top of my head in and around Glasgow that I wouldn’t venture into. 
 

Going back for the first time since Covid in November, and can’t wait. In general, I like Americans, but sometimes as a nation, they are totally fcuked in the head. I admit that.

Funnily enough, just back a few weeks from my 2022 holiday which was a cruise out of Southampton to Denmark and Norway, with stops in Oslo and Copenhagen. How have things been in those cities recently at that gay bar and the shopping centre?

Roll of the fcuking dice. Wrong place, wrong time.

Are you being serious? 
 

ETA- regards Norway & Denmark? 

Edited by Brother Blades
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11 minutes ago, Brother Blades said:

Are you being serious? 
 

ETA- regards Norway & Denmark? 

Yes, I’m being completely serious. I was on a cruise out of Southampton recently that visited both Oslo and Copenhagen. There have been shootings and folk dying in both cities over the last couple of weeks. Not sure what point you’re making. 

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