General Chit Chat

[Hoboh]

there were 34 homicides in Baltimore over the last 30 days

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

^^ It's the American dream innit.

[bobo the clown]

there were 34 homicides in Baltimore over the last 30 days

Which is .... or was !! ... one of America's nicest cities, certainly of those I've been to. Blimey, I wouldn't fancy seeing some of the worst.

[Beefheart]

there were 34 homicides in Baltimore over the last 30 days

Which is .... or was !! ... one of America's nicest cities, certainly of those I've been to. Blimey, I wouldn't fancy seeing some of the worst.

That's not massively over the average as fans of The Wire will tell you.

Downtown Baltimore (the harbour area) is very nice but if you wander east or west you'll find the places where these homicides take place. I had a bit of a walk around when I was there and remember going 'Oh look, that's Body's corner from the later series of The Wire...oh shit there are real drug dealers on it!'. I quickly left. Friendly people on the whole.

They also had a bust of Frank Zappa there (as it was his birthplace) which I went to see.

[Montreal Wanderer]

there were 34 homicides in Baltimore over the last 30 days

Baltimore is usually in the top 20 murder (murders per thousand population) capitals of the US. In 2013 in reverse order these were:
5 Saginaw, MI
4 New Orleans, LA
3 Detroit, MI
2 Flint, MI
1 Camden, NJ

Three were in Michigan. Detroit is usually up there every year. East St. Louis has taken over this year with 0.86 murders per thousand. New Orleans and Detroit moved to 7th and 9th respectively. Camden hung on to number two spot. Baltimore was 13th but may I suppose go up after last month. By contrast there were 28 murders in Montreal in 2014 (4 attributed to the Mafia), a rate of 0.000014 per thousand.

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

I think what Monty is saying is that America is not a very civilised place

[Montreal Wanderer]

I think what Monty is saying is that America is not a very civilised place

More that there are certain places where it is extremely dangerous to live. Other places can be quite civilized. The rush to escape the inner city to the suburbs in the last fifty years was called "White flight". This left the inner city inhabitants well below the poverty line causing many associated problems. However, in the Pacific North West and New England, as in Canada, people still live in the inner city and murder rates are low.

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

I think what Monty is saying is that America is not a very civilised place

More that there are certain places where it is extremely dangerous to live. Other places can be quite civilized. The rush to escape the inner city to the suburbs in the last fifty years was called "White flight". This left the inner city inhabitants well below the poverty line causing many associated problems. However, in the Pacific North West and New England, as in Canada, people still live in the inner city and murder rates are low.

Over many visits, I just found the place to be fairly uncivilised, even many of the so called nice bits.

[Montreal Wanderer]

I think what Monty is saying is that America is not a very civilised place

More that there are certain places where it is extremely dangerous to live. Other places can be quite civilized. The rush to escape the inner city to the suburbs in the last fifty years was called "White flight". This left the inner city inhabitants well below the poverty line causing many associated problems. However, in the Pacific North West and New England, as in Canada, people still live in the inner city and murder rates are low.

Over many visits, I just found the place to be fairly uncivilised, even many of the so called nice bits.

Fair enough although I'm not sure how we define civilized. Americans are, by and large, friendly and hospitable people outside the danger areas. There are places to visit of high culture. No America cities feature in the top ten world cities for murder rate, though Latin America and the Caribbean feature heavily. Number one is Basseterre, St. Kitts which I visited in March and seemed peaceful enough. Of course, murder rate is deceiving since only 17 people were murdered in the tiny city, as opposed to Caracas (around 24,000).

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

I think what Monty is saying is that America is not a very civilised place

More that there are certain places where it is extremely dangerous to live. Other places can be quite civilized. The rush to escape the inner city to the suburbs in the last fifty years was called "White flight". This left the inner city inhabitants well below the poverty line causing many associated problems. However, in the Pacific North West and New England, as in Canada, people still live in the inner city and murder rates are low.

Over many visits, I just found the place to be fairly uncivilised, even many of the so called nice bits.

Fair enough although I'm not sure how we define civilized. Americans are, by and large, friendly and hospitable people outside the danger areas. There are places to visit of high culture. No America cities feature in the top ten world cities for murder rate, though Latin America and the Caribbean feature heavily. Number one is Basseterre, St. Kitts which I visited in March and seemed peaceful enough. Of course, murder rate is deceiving since only 17 people were murdered in the tiny city, as opposed to Caracas (around 24,000).

I am of course generalising, but they seem more concerned with guns than access to healthcare, which seems pretty uncivilised to me.

[Bruce Rioja]

When working with American colleagues a couple of weeks ago, one of them, from South Carolina, said this to me (in a Deliverance type accent). "I can't believe that you guys don't all have guns. How come you don't have 'em?". My answer "Because we're fecking civilized" seemed to take him back a little.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

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[Montreal Wanderer]

I think what Monty is saying is that America is not a very civilised place

More that there are certain places where it is extremely dangerous to live. Other places can be quite civilized. The rush to escape the inner city to the suburbs in the last fifty years was called "White flight". This left the inner city inhabitants well below the poverty line causing many associated problems. However, in the Pacific North West and New England, as in Canada, people still live in the inner city and murder rates are low.

Over many visits, I just found the place to be fairly uncivilised, even many of the so called nice bits.

Fair enough although I'm not sure how we define civilized. Americans are, by and large, friendly and hospitable people outside the danger areas. There are places to visit of high culture. No America cities feature in the top ten world cities for murder rate, though Latin America and the Caribbean feature heavily. Number one is Basseterre, St. Kitts which I visited in March and seemed peaceful enough. Of course, murder rate is deceiving since only 17 people were murdered in the tiny city, as opposed to Caracas (around 24,000).

I am of course generalising, but they seem more concerned with guns than access to healthcare, which seems pretty uncivilised to me.

The Constitution gave them the right to bear arms and to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately, Thomas Jefferson omitted to mention universal social programs such as health care and unemployment insurance. So they bear arms because anything else would be unconstitutional.

[bobo the clown]

I think Jefferson meant things like these ...





not these ...

[Worthy4England]

Scruffy c*nt!

Lemmie take a guess as to whether you wear cufflinks....

[Bruce Rioja]

Scruffy c*nt!

Lemmie take a guess as to whether you wear cufflinks....

I do and I don't. It depends as to the requirement of the shirt I'm wearing on any given day. It's certainly not anything I'd ever get worked up about. Unlike you!

[Hoboh]

Shirts are for weddings, funerals and seeing grannie!
Never seen a bloke in a shirt do a decent days work yet, well not true he must have worked hard to get the breakfast egg on it.

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

The Constitution gave them the right to bear arms and to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately, Thomas Jefferson omitted to mention universal social programs such as health care and unemployment insurance. So they bear arms because anything else would be unconstitutional.

It would seem the first 2 are at odds with each other. The infuriating thing is that no one has the bollocks to do anything about it.

[Prufrock]

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

That first bit is pretty important. As Bobo says, pretty clear they didn't mean rocket launchers at Walmart.

[thebish]

I've just had a car insurance premium renewal quote that is over £40 LOWER than it was last year!! I don't think I've ever seen that before!