my profile pic has become relevant

Counterpoint: the worst song in the world is actually Walking In Memphis by Marc Cohn

If its anything for you there like my city than the Hasidic/Orthodox Jewish people are probably some of the strongest voices in the community speaking out against genocide in Palestine. Ridiculous propaganda angle to go for, anyone actually involved in street level community would know its bullshit.

Was looking into options here in my city in Canada recently to take a Manadarin class. Specifically I was looking for beginner courses aimed specifically at english speakers, and was surprised at how limited the options were. Then I remembered that several years ago the government went on a racist tirade where they shut down most of the Confucius Institutes in the country for frivolous (racist) reasons. Very disappointing as most of the current options seem to be more aimed at Chinese diaspora who have a background from home but need to practice. I tried before a Mandarin class that was more similar to this when I used to be in uni and struggled heavily as one of the only non ethnic Chinese people in the course. From what I recall the Confucius Institute used to offer classes geared towards adult anglos similar to the way Alliance Française does, but now that option just seems to be gone. Truly this country sucks.

Would absolutely love to see some of these interviews if they are easy for you to share !

its so true, and yet when I talk to american friends who live in smaller cities they are envious of the urban development that occurs here even. Sad state of affairs in North America

It’s really hard to fathom how quickly things have changed in China in the past ~20 years. I haven’t been there since early 2017 which doesn’t feel that long ago, but I’m planning another trip there hopefully for next year and I already know to expect massive changes since then.

Meanwhile in my city here in Canada the fact that we have built a half dozen decent residential towers and put in some bike and bus lanes downtown since then is sadly good progress compared to a lot of cities on the continent. Truly just different levels of progress in China.

I want to know how many fortified wines deep you have to be to decide that Dresden should go to the Chinese communists but Munich goes to the nationalists.

They should have just decided that Germany is the one PvP zone in the entire world. Sharpening of contradictions leads to civil war in your country ? No need to totally wreck the place, both sides just send their troops over to Germany where they can fight it out. Instead of the current civil war in Sudan displacing millions and destroying infrastructure, each side could have just sent their best fighters over to Germany to settle things. Something to think about.

I hope not I steal a lot of memes from there

I’ve done what I feel is a pretty good job ignoring US election (canadian here), but the liberal head loss over this I sadly cannot ignore. Otherwise reasonable people acting as if the world has ended when this man has already been president ? Some of the same people who agreed with me that KKKamala is not in any capacity a “harm reduction” vote acting as if martial law has just been declared or some shit ? Maybe I’m just the disagreeable asshole but I just find this behavior sad.

Obviously fuck Trump should go without saying how pathetically shitty that dude is but I mean come on. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been murdered and terminally wounded under the democrats, not trump. Roe v Wade was overturned under the democrats, not Trump. We have witnessed one of the most acute transfers of wealth to the ultra rich under the dems, not the republicans. The war in the Ukraine started and was goaded on under Biden’s admin, not Trump.

I’m not trying to say in any sense that things will get a single iota better with republicans in office but I feel like I’m taking crazy pills seeing the reactions online and from people I would consider to be rational individuals. They might even be right that these things will get worse under another Trump admin more quickly or in different ways than if Kamala won, but still I find the reaction to it ridiculous.

Not that any american needs to or should care about my opinion considering I’m relatively removed from the situation but like, am I being unempathetic or unreasonable ?

I would echo other sentiments in this thread and say go attend local non-league matches, by far the best way to experience the beautiful game.

If you gotta pick a PL side though I gotta advocate for Arsenal, been a diehard supporter for almost 20 years even though I’m from Canada. I like other commentators shout for Crystal Palace as well if you wanna follow a not as popular club, always had a soft spot for them.

Premier League football is of an amazing skill level and is wildly entertaining but imo requires a level of cognitive dissonance to enjoy, as do most treats I guess.

My coffee table is messier than that right now and I spent all last two days playing the wind waker and eating pie.

People think they can talk shit in the playoffs when they didn’t even watch any of the regular season

They just closed several in my city and have been trying to push the “its because of theft” angle which the media just absolutely loves. In my opinion they were looking for gov handouts and were going to close them anyway.

Reading this basically confirms my suspicions. They closed 711s in lower income areas not because of crime but because there are fewer and fewer people spending $5 on a soda or $25 on a pack of smokes. Who ever could guess why that might be ? Does my head in

I basically do manual labor for a living and regularly think about how much more I’d hate my life if I had to sit in an office dealing with bullshit all day, idk how yall do it honestly

basically exactly how it went down lol

A school division in my city just had to apologize for showing an anti-colonialism message in the context of Canadian colonialism and genocide of indigenous north americans at some event because some absolutely victim brained zionists complained about it assuming it was about Israel, so sadly this situation doesn’t surprise me

Agreed comrade, I am ready to enjoy a long weekend

I’m never happy to visit the state of Ohio either but outright banning discussion of it feels harsh

I just gave up on work and went home between the news today and the Champions League both popping off I was never gonna be getting any shit done anyway