American Politics 3.0 - Back to Brunch

[Coach]

Chop sticks are a much more practical utensil than our fork/knife/spoon scenario. Especially if we are trying to swap to personal usage vs toss away utensils. Easy to carry and clean. You do not eat as much because you can’t shovel the food into your mouth. And yeah a spoon for soups etc.

I eat almost all my food w chopsticks. I’m a white Canadian from Saskatchewan.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Coach

You do not eat as much because you can’t shovel the food into your mouth.

A good utensil, because it's a bad utensil!

[FormerPresJamesTaylor]

Originally Posted by Coach

I eat almost all my food w chopsticks. I’m a white Canadian from Saskatchewan.

All our jaws just dropped

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Coach

Chop sticks are a much more practical utensil than our fork/knife/spoon scenario. Especially if we are trying to swap to personal usage vs toss away utensils. Easy to carry and clean. You do not eat as much because you can’t shovel the food into your mouth. And yeah a spoon for soups etc.

I eat almost all my food w chopsticks. I’m a white Canadian from Saskatchewan.

There is no superior utensil, it all depends on the dish. Sushi, noodles, pre-sliced meat and veggies? Chop sticks all the way. But it would be fun to watch you use those to eat a full steak, mashed potatoes, or a side of peas and carrots

My brain breaks a bit when I see my Vietnamese in-laws use chop sticks to eat a plate of spaghetti on the odd night I do the cooking, even though I know there's nothing technically wrong with that

[Locke]

I dont know what chopsticks has to do with US Politics, but I will make a horrifying admission that thus far only VladtheImpaler was privy to:

To my great shame, I cannot use chopsticks. Just cant do it. I love Asian food, but the meatwads that I call hands cannot fathom the operation of chopsticks.

I am that guy that everyone who goes out for Asian food is embarrassed of when he politely but firmly asks for a fork.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Coach

Chop sticks are a much more practical utensil than our fork/knife/spoon scenario. Especially if we are trying to swap to personal usage vs toss away utensils. Easy to carry and clean. You do not eat as much because you can’t shovel the food into your mouth. And yeah a spoon for soups etc.

I eat almost all my food w chopsticks. I’m a white Canadian from Saskatchewan.

Why would you say better than a Fork?

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Locke

I dont know what chopsticks has to do with US Politics, but I will make a horrifying admission that thus far only VladtheImpaler was privy to:

To my great shame, I cannot use chopsticks. Just cant do it. I love Asian food, but the meatwads that I call hands cannot fathom the operation of chopsticks.

I am that guy that everyone who goes out for Asian food is embarrassed of when he politely but firmly asks for a fork.

I couldn't manage chopsticks for most of my life until I finally went to Thailand for the first time 10 years ago. I thought I'd be fine since I was told they use a fork and spoon for everything, which is mostly true. But when I went for breakfast at a noodle hut on the side of the road one morning, I was surprised to see only chopsticks available, not a fork in sight. So I opened youtube on my phone, typed in "how to use chop sticks", and managed to fumble my way through finishing the bowl. Now it's second nature

The key is to keep the bottom stick straight and resting on your fingers, it doesn't move. You only move the top stick when you're grabbing something

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

I couldn't manage chopsticks for most of my life until I finally went to Thailand for the first time 10 years ago. I thought I'd be fine since I was told they use a fork and spoon for everything, which is mostly true. But when I went for breakfast at a noodle hut on the side of the road one morning, I was surprised to see only chopsticks available, not a fork in sight. So I opened youtube on my phone, typed in "how to use chop sticks", and managed to fumble my way through finishing the bowl. Now it's second nature

The key is to keep the bottom stick straight and resting on your fingers, it doesn't move. You only move the top stick when you're grabbing something

No. Seriously. I think there is something fundamentally wrong with my fingers. I dont understand it because I type just fine, my penmanship is atrocious too, but when I was but a wee lad and I decided I wanted to learn how to play the guitar I took lessons and one of the first things the guy said to me was:

"I have never seen anyone so normal with such awful digital dexterity."

If you're wondering, no, I do not know how to play the guitar either. I quit.

This is my Cross to bear.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Locke

I decided I wanted to learn how to play the guitar I took lessons and one of the first things the guy said to me was:

"I have never seen anyone so normal with such awful digital dexterity."

Your story is full of holes Locke

[Locke]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Your story is full of holes Locke

It isnt.

You know what I mean, I'm not like Doctor Strange whose hands were mangled in an accident or someone whose hands were run over by a tank or caught in a wood-chipper or something. They just suck.

I'll never play the violin. Or the piano. Not well at least.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Locke

I'll never play the violin. Or the piano. Not well at least.

Cowbell it is then

[Locke]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Cowbell it is then

Or tambourine.

I can be 'that' band member that everyone hates and provides nothing but leeches off the success and talent of everyone else.

Like Ringo.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

There is no superior utensil, it all depends on the dish. Sushi, noodles, pre-sliced meat and veggies? Chop sticks all the way. But it would be fun to watch you use those to eat a full steak, mashed potatoes, or a side of peas and carrots

My brain breaks a bit when I see my Vietnamese in-laws use chop sticks to eat a plate of spaghetti on the odd night I do the cooking, even though I know there's nothing technically wrong with that

Especially any noodles. I love Vietnamese food, and because pasta wrecks my gut I eat a lot of rice vermicelli with my pasta sauce. I also eat a lot of Asian food in general if I'm ordering it, and I don't want to waste the chopsticks every time so I keep them around. You can cut a steak with a knife while using chopsticks no different than a fork. Mashed potatoes easier to eat than rice. Dont cut the carrots into tiny chunks, and don't really eat a lot of peas because they are basically a net zero nutritionally (but peas and carrots feature prominently in a lot of Asian cuisine as well).

Originally Posted by GGG

Why would you say better than a Fork?

Just as far as if you're going to carry around a utensil it maybe doesn't fit as nice in a pocket. And I feel like I can eat almost anything with chopsticks as a fork. Sometimes forks suck too, like getting a hard carrot out of a salad and it slips out and bounces around. I also just find I eat slower and less. You can shove a lot of food that you dont really need to eat because you don't realize how much youve eaten so fast.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by photon

I can't believe the Republican talking point is about how the documents are staged on the floor... they truly think everyone is stupid.

Problem is these days a large portion of our citizens are stupid and brainwashed by bull****.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by driveway

This statement is false.

EU GDP is $17.09T, US GDP is $23T, combined that's $40.09 trillion.

BRICS combined is China $17.73T, Brazil $1.61T, India $3.17T, Russia $1.78T, South Africa $0.419T, which adds up to $24.7 trillion dollars or just slightly more than the United States alone and absolutely nowhere close to the US and Europe combined.

Actually, if you use the international GDP figures provided by the Bank's ICP, you will find that the BRICS have surpassed the US + EU. They have also passed the G7, and China has substantially passed the US.

The Bank has the ICP to produce internationalized GDP figures specifically because the raw GDP figures overrepresent the economic influence of the richer industrialized nations and underrepresent the economic influence the others.

In millions
BRICS = 42,158,766.71
US + EU = 40,608,797.54
G7 = 40,901,891.75

China = 24,861,343.80
US = 20,932,281.46
World Bank International GDP Data

These would be the better figures to use in comparing economic influence of nations, but even if you want to use the raw GDP figures, the point I was making about the shifting balance of power is pretty undeniable. That shifting balance is core to current tensions.

Edit: Whoops, left SA out of my sum for BRICS.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

You guys realise both China and the US are ######bags, you dont have to pick one

I wouldn’t really disagree, but I would say both the US and China have many great things about them and some quite bad things about them. Personally, I think that realism does still dominate a lot of international relations, and we should be skeptical of the motives of any nation state because they're all generally more about state security and power than they are about the wellbeing of just normal people anywhere. That includes both the US and China. Maybe not Bhutan.

I'm on the side of peaceful co-development and economic cooperation because that's generally best for the actual lives of normal people on both sides.

[GGG]

What is ICP GDP vs Raw GDP?

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by GGG

What is ICP GDP vs Raw GDP?

Standard GDP figures don't reflect purchasing power variations between contexts. As a result, nations with higher prices buying and selling goods between each other will indicate much higher GDP than nations with lower prices buying and selling the same goods. This isn't a good measure of actual contribution to economic activity, so the International Comparison Program (ICP) factors in purchasing power differences between nations to standardize across contexts and provide a better basis for measuring/comparing actual contributions to economic activity.

From the ICP

The International Comparison Program (ICP) is one of the largest, and most enduring, statistical initiatives in the world.  It is managed by the World Bank under the auspices of the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC), and relies on a partnership of international, regional, sub-regional, and national agencies working under a robust governance framework and following an established statistical methodology. At its forty-seventh session, in March 2016, the UNSC instituted the ICP as a permanent element of the global statistical programme.

The main objectives of the ICP are:
(i) to produce purchasing power parities (PPPs) and comparable price level indexes (PLIs) for participating economies; and

(ii) to convert volume and per capita measures of gross domestic product (GDP) and its expenditure components into a common currency using PPPs.  

PPPs convert different currencies to a common currency and, in the process of conversion, equalize their purchasing power by controlling for differences in price levels between economies. They provide a measure of what an economy’s local currency can buy in another economy. PPP-based comparisons of economic output differ from market exchange rate-based comparisons as the latter do not distinguish between the relative price levels of different items in economies. PPP-based comparisons are also less impacted by the potential volatility of market exchange rates.

PPPs are calculated by the ICP based on the prices of items within a common basket of goods and services and expenditure shares, used as expenditure weights, on groups of items in each of the participating economies. These data are benchmarked to a reference year for each comparison cycle. The most recent ICP results are available for the ICP 2017 cycle, with the ongoing cycle benchmarked to 2021.

So, the figures driveway provided may be correct in terms of straight dollar measurements without consideration of purchasing power parity, but they're not the best GDP measurements for doing comparisons of the actual economic contributions of nations that have very different pricing levels, as we have in the case of BRICS and the US +EU. The ICP produced GDP figures are a better measure of what we're actually talking about.

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by Locke

Or tambourine.

I can be 'that' band member that everyone hates and provides nothing but leeches off the success and talent of everyone else.

Like Ringo.

Leave Ringo alone

https://youtu.be/cqeBt5ZO4mU

[Mull]

Nm