What's your country best at?

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Winston


Popular support of royalty.

Bah! You can't even come close to Thailand or Bhutan.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Footie Mad
Thinking we're the best at everything when actually we're not.

I don't know how to tell you this, but the word preceding Sweden in your title is a rather low-brow Hindi word for penis.

[Winston]

Originally posted by aneeshm
Bah! You can't even come close to Thailand or Bhutan.

Thailand and King Bhumipol actually did cross my mind when I wrote that. Let's say we're tied with Thailand then.

I don't know how to tell you this, but the word preceding Sweden in your title is a rather low-brow Hindi word for penis.

The city of Lund used to be Danish until Sweden took it away from us 350 years ago. Look what those bastards did to us!

[Ben Kenobi]

We are the best waiters.

The average Canadian gets out of bed and rather then brew his own coffee, drives 20 minutes out of his way to wait in the drive thru for a double double at timmies.

Then we wait in line at the bank to deposit our cheque in the atm.

Then we go to the grocery store and wait in the tills before we pick up some fast food while waiting in the drive through along with everyone else trying to get home.

Then we wait until 7pm when the hockey game is on, where we watch a period and then wait through the intermission just so we can listen to Don cherry.

No one waits as long as we do for basic surgery like hip replacements!

When we get slow service at a restaurant, we politely wait instead of complaining.

[Saras]

Drake, re:French haute cuisine - would you agree that just because Italians happen to make Ferraris it would be wrong to say that Italy has the best cars?

[Drake Tungsten]

It's a bad analogy. Car makers all over the world don't study Italian designs to learn how to make cars. Chefs all over the world do study French cuisine to learn how to cook, however.

[FrostyBoy]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
It's a bad analogy. Car makers all over the world don't study Italian designs to learn how to make cars.

Ferrari won't let them. If they opened their doors, I bet the rest will come flocking.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
It's a bad analogy. Car makers all over the world don't study Italian designs to learn how to make cars. Chefs all over the world do study French cuisine to learn how to cook, however.

Loathe as I am to wade into this: no, they don't. French cuisine hasn't been the focus of culinary training for about 20 years or so. Moreover, it wasn't the focus of international training in any sustained way until after WWII. So at best you're looking at 40 years, total, in which French cuisine dominated international training -- and that was, ironically, due in no small part to the influence of an American, Julia Child.

Against that you have to weigh the fact that French cuisine itself pretty much sucked until Marie de Medici broght her Italian chefs with her when she married Henry IV and transformed the cooking in the French court -- into wannabe Italian cuisine.

Edit - Now baking, on the other hand, is all French, all the way.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


Against that you have to weigh the fact that French cuisine itself pretty much sucked until Marie de Medici broght her Italian chefs with her when she married Henry IV and transformed the cooking in the French court -- into wannabe Italian cuisine.

Historical revelation : Before 1600, French cuisine sucked, and after it was Italian.

[TheStinger]

The Uk is best at post pub burger vans

[Meticulous Man]

Originally posted by aneeshm


I don't know how to tell you this, but the word preceding Sweden in your title is a rather low-brow Hindi word for penis.

Lund University

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by aneeshm

The Greeks didn't have the guts to attack the heartland.

Hilarious. The Macedonians travel from their homeland, overcoming one of the era's great empires (which itself had 'guts' enough to have Indian provinces and subjects) and fight to what was believed in their time to be the edge of the known world.

Could you explain to us eager Westerners where exactly this Indian 'heartland' is located ?

I'm sure we'd all be thrilled to find out.

(The Mongols) Another border problem. Didn't touch the heartland.

Hmm. Actually there were a series of invasions of the Indian sub-continent by Mongol forces, with seizures of cities such as Lahore and Multan and sieges of Delhi.

Eventually Timur (who claimed descent from Genghis Khan) sacked Delhi and caused the collapse of the Sultanate based there (itself ruled by a Turco-Mongol Muslim aristocracy).

Babur the first Mughal emperor also had Mongol ancestry.

(The Portuguese and French) Insignificant victories - too small to count.

Significant enough for the empires of Vijayanagar and the Moghuls to conclude treaties with the Portuguese- the Portuguese shipping Muslim pilgrims to Mecca and horses to Vijayanagar- enabling the Hindu state to fight the Muslims on their own terms.

Uhh..... you are aware that a MAD scenario exists between us, don't you? In all wars, and the current border problem over Kargil, we've pwned the Pakis.

He could have mentioned the Chinese. India was completely crap at fighting them.

Then there were the Iranians and the Afghans and Turks, the White Huns and the Kushans...

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by notyoueither


What's funny?

The fact that the first time my wife watched somebody die from lack of access to medical care was when she moved here.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by notyoueither
No, nobody dies...

Anybody with aggressive cancer goes to the front of the line. Anybody with cancer that can wait, does wait. Simple enough.

It's called triage, and it works quite well.

[Arrian]

"Cancer that can wait" ??

I understand the concept of triage, but cancer doesn't tend to wait nicely for doctors to get around to dealing with it.

-Arrian