Paris, Texas now the same as Paris, France

[Lux Interior]

Welcome to the US of France.

The sarcasm is a bit thick in this one.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/...68,00.html

[mrbigstuff]

That is hilarious, worthy of a blanket email to my friends.

[Seacrest]

Merci, merci, merde.

[guitarist]

If we're gonna become France, we should embrace the good parts, and reject the not so good parts. France's unemployment rate is permanently bad. They're so regulated, they can't fire or hire people. If you have a job you get cradle-to-grave security, if you don't have a job (if you're not native french) you're on welfare forever. The increasing Arabian and disenfranchised Muslim populations in France have become seething ghettos. And besides being cowardly and disturbingly cozy with tyrants and mass murderers, the French can't figure out how to bake bread that's not stale a day later.

On the other hand, they are more energy independent, have modern nuclear power plants, they make the finest perfumes and most exotic lingere, their workforce is productive, yet get to vacation for the entire month of August. And have lots of time to sit in cafes writing books about how much they hate themselves, eating the world's finest cuisine. They've produced arguably the world's most stunning actress, the latest Bond girl, who takes all her clothes off in French movies, instead of dragging bed sheets around to cover her national treasure. What's not to like?

[mrbigstuff]

guitarist wrote:
...the French can't figure out how to bake bread that's not stale a day later.

I agree with the majority of your sentiments about the French except for the above. Americans have not figured out that bread is supposed to be stale a day later.

[MacMagus]

Not France.

It's more like with the devaluing of the dollar, the debt we're taking on, and the destruction of civil liberties the U.S. is gonna become the world's biggest 3rd world banana republic.

[Lux Interior]

mrbigstuff wrote:
I agree with the majority of your sentiments about the French except for the above. Americans have not figured out that bread is supposed to be stale a day later.

In fact, it's illegal to make bread that wouldn't be stale the next day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baguette

French bread is required by law to avoid preservatives, and as a result baguettes quite frequently go stale within a day of being baked.

This is an understatement. Baguettes are classified as bludgeoning weapons within 24 hours of removal from the oven.

[guitarist]

Reviewing this, and considering all the financial mega-plate-shifts in the last eight or nine days, makes me wonder if it's not a bail out at all. It's a power grab.

Not unlike Roosevelt's lend-lease deal with Europe, when it was going broke fighting WW2 and starved for supplies and treasure, before the U.S. officially declared. As a direct result of economic bailouts made during that time, the U.S. emerged from that deal with the balance of economic and diplomatic power having permanently shifted in favor of the U.S. federal power. Europe has been a military dependent and economic client ever since.

I suppose it could even be argued that the speculative market has no business being in the business of something as fundamental as housing, shelter. If the federal government (we as a society, taxpayers, policy makers) wants to promote mass home ownership as a symbol of stability, domestic tranquility and national economic security, then we should all own it and distribute the risks, as a nationalized institutional enterprise, instead of leaving it to big-stakes casino owners and depraved gambling addicts.

I'm not saying I believe this hypothesis, or support a nationalized housing market, just thinking out loud. Is it a massive social-federal power grab, disguised as a market bailout?

[$tevie]

mrbigstuff wrote:
[quote=guitarist]
...the French can't figure out how to bake bread that's not stale a day later.

I agree with the majority of your sentiments about the French except for the above. Americans have not figured out that bread is supposed to be stale a day later.
Heck, most Americans have not figured out that bread is not supposed to be a squishy milk-white substance filled with high fructose corn syrup, mono and diglycerides, exthoxylated mono and diglycerides, sodium stearoyl lactylate, calcium iodate, calcium dioxide, datem, calcium sulfate, ammonium sulfate, dicalcium phosphate, diammonium phosphate, and calcium propionate.

[freeradical]

Preservatives do not keep bread from going stale - fat added to the dough is primarily responsible for that.