John McCain is very concerned about the situation on the Iraq-Pakistan border.
Hint:
It’s a very w i d e border.
We need a president who will maintain American standards of geography
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Well, you must give the guy a bit of credit, atleast Pakistan is an actual country.
PZ you’re surprised? John McCain is 6000 years old, he was here to witness God creating the universe.
Well, dammit, if Pakistan and Iraq now have a border, it’s a very serious situation indeed.
Sort of suggests that the Iran matter is going away, though.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Duh!
Yes, let’s make sure Obama gets elected.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0807/16/ino.01.html
“Throughout our history, America’s confronted constantly evolving danger, from the oppression of an empire, to the lawlessness of the frontier, from the bomb that fell on Pearl Harbor, to the threat of nuclear annihilation. Americans have adapted to the threats posed by an ever-changing world.”
Just one bomb took out Pearl Harbor?
Foreign policy is his strength! Yay!! (We are in trouble)
Oy.
HAHAHAHA! Holy. Shit.
I expect nothing less from a man who is running for president of the Canada-Mexico border.
I think the only obvious solution is to mine the entire border.
And what are you doing here PZ? I thought you were taking a break!
noyb: Notice the header at the top of the CNN transcript: “THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.”
Here’s another transcript:
“Throughout our history, America has confronted constantly evolving danger. From the oppression of an empire to the lawlessness of the frontier; from the bombs that fell on Pearl Harbor to the threat of nuclear annihilation — Americans have adapted to the threats posed by an ever-changing world.”
Notice the difference?
Just maybe, you’re looking at a typo in a rush transcript. Unless we hear Obama repeatedly talking about a single bomb at Pearl Harbor, like we heard McCain talking about Czechoslovakia, I’m inclined to consider it a nonissue.
Oh, come on… we all know he meant the border of Iraq and North Korea. We can’t get on him for every minor geographical error he makes. What’s next, a presidential spelling bee?
WOW.
.
.
WOW.
This is at least the second time I’ve seen him publicly confused Iran and Iraq. What a perfect follow-up act for GW.
Geography is a challenge for many in the US. Miss North Carolina immediately came to mind. Maybe McCain just doesn’t have a map. Many US Americans don’t.
But look at the “border” between Iraq and Pakistan. Perhaps the US will go in and control the “border country”. I’m sure they’d love to.
Weak.
You’re going to mock Obama for CNN’s bad transcription that left off the s?
And even if it was an Obama gaffe, is that all you’ve got?
You’re all thinking too two-dimensionally! (Same mistake Khan made.) Current U.S. intelligence suggests that Iraq and Pakistan have each claimed the same stretch of the ionosphere above Iran. :P
*shakes head and cries*
I’m moving to Canada.
… of course in this case I think he was confusing Afghanistan and Iraq.
He couldn’t resist the jibe at Britain, could he?
the Iraq-Pakistan border
Fortunately for McCain most Americans won’t notice the error.
At least McCain won’t be attacking Pakistan, because he doesn’t know where it is.
lol! Bait taken, Pharyngunuts pwnd:
“Bomb.” No “s.” Singular. Not plural.
And, of course, if he really did say “bomb”, not “bombs”, it’s an easy mis-speak–provided, of course, as pointed out, that he doesn’t do it repeatedly. In any case, omitting a large and populous country to invent an entirely fictional geography is a bit more worrying; whilst it might be a mis-speak, it’s a large and significant error, the sort that I’d expect a correction (and perhaps apology) for. And is far more relevant to current and future events than just how many bombs fell over 60 years ago.
#21: Neglecting an “S” at the end of a word is nothing compared to NAMING THE WRONG COUNTRY.
noyb: Still, so what? Obama speaks in public a great deal. His prepared speech had the ‘s’. Assuming that the video is real (and there isn’t any particular reason to believe that it is), he simply misspoke.
There isn’t any kind of pattern of regularly getting this kind of thing wrong, like McCain has.
Or considering a spherical earth* it could be a point at the earth’s core that McCain is worried about. Especially since we share that same border.
* I’m assuming that McCain isn’t a Flat-Earther.
A couple of months ago, Sen. Obama mistakenly stated his great uncle had helped liberate Auschwitz. It was actually Buchenwald… but the hoots and screams from the right wing were deafening.
We’ll never hear a peep I’d bet, about this- only the latest of serious errors from McSame.
#23 wrote: “Neglecting an “S” at the end of a word is nothing compared to NAMING THE WRONG COUNTRY.”
I see an excellent campaign commercial here: “Obama doesn’t know how many bombs fell on Pearl Harbor over fifty years ago. McCain doesn’t know where the #$@% he is right now.”
The “lol pwnd” doesn’t exactly make McCain a better candidate.
…
Ron Paul either.
Oh, I see. B. Hussein gets the benefit of the doubt for a single incident of a misspoken word, but of course McCain didn’t misspeak at all. Nope. What he said is actually what he believes. Yep.
I guess that nullifies the pending invasion of Iran.
#27: Conclusion: Vote Cthulhu!
http://www.theelderparty.com/
#29: You mean Barack H. Obama.
Hey Canuck #14, it was Miss Teen South Carolina, thank you very much. Keep our teen beauty contestants straight!
You know, this probably was just the verbal equivalent of a typo. I believe he almost certainly meant the AFGHANISTAN/PAKISTAN border, and that’s the kind of verbal slip/brain fart that many of us make every day.
I could probably never be president due to my tendency to type a-r-e when I mean o-u-r. Don’t know why I have trouble with that substitution, but I proofread carefully and still let it slip thru occasionally. Uh-Oh! A non-standard spelling of “through”. Now I definitely can’t run for office.
Seriously, folks – there’s plenty of real stuff to pick on McCain for…
You’re very welcome to come, but if I may assume from the context that you’re from the US, I’d like to respectfully remind you that we’re located north of you.
Actually, he means J. Sidney.
#35:
Nice burn!
#21:
I watched the video. The audio quality is poor enough that it’s difficult to hear, but he clearly said “bombs”. Note his elongation of the word, something one would not do if it were not pluralized.
It’s the audio that is deficient in this case, not Obama’s knowledge of history.
It’s a pretty thick border, that’s all.
Are we all supposed to vote based on who is more eloquent? Errors, typographical or otherwise, are not the important issues. Let’s quit playing GOTCHA.
Betting pool for next week: What will McCain say?
1. “We must keep the pressure on the Soviet Union until the wall that divides Germany comes down.”
2. “We must maintain vigilance at the demilitarized zone which separates North Korea and Japan.”
3. “The Persian Empire must answer for the slaughter of the 300 at Thermopylae!”
I am big fan of Obama but I would not give too much attention to this. As “No One of Consequence” already pointed out he was confusing Afghanistan and Iraq. admit that is more serious than forgetting an “s” but it is still just a misspeak and not a real error. There’s more to criticize about McCain so focus on real issues.
Ira{q} – Ira{n}
bomb – bomb{s}
How are they fundamentally different mistakes? both are a single letter slip. I’m sure many people would be surprised at how often they make such slips without noticing.
note: I recall bush repeatedly calling Iraq Iran throughout a speech, that’s definitely different.
Oh, I see. B. Hussein gets the benefit of the doubt for a single incident of a misspoken word, but of course McCain didn’t misspeak at all. Nope. What he said is actually what he believes. Yep.
The youtube is even better. Obama reads “bomb” from his notes, hears it, looks more closely at his notes, and appears to decide that it’s better to move on than break the established rhythm of the delivery of his speech.
The contrast between those screaming “epic fail” over that, while Grampy McSame can’t remember how many bumblebees make a quarter, going on about wearing an onion on his belt, which was the fashion at the time, on the way to Shelbyville.
Well-poisoning? Is that seriously how you argue? Let me save you some time and effort here and suggest that you skip to the comment where you huffily declare us all to be communist sympathisers and Muslim lovers and leave.
Oh, I see. B. Hussein gets the benefit of the doubt for a single incident of a misspoken word, but of course McCain didn’t misspeak at all. Nope. What he said is actually what he believes. Yep.
Oh, but there are plenty of other reasons to vote against that misogynist old homophobe from the desert.
Satire from EGI in 2003.
US invades wrong country
McCain is a fucking moron. It’s a miracle he’s not just sitting there drooling like a chimp with some sort of brain damage.
Oh yeah. He’ll make a great leader. I’d love nothing more than to place America in the hands of a gibbering, ass-kissing simpleton who probably gets lost on his own damn tour bus.
And about 3 times in the last week-and-a-half, McCain’s referred to conditions in “Czechoslovakia.” But the media remains convinced that he’s the candidate with foreign policy knowledge.
Someone should ask him if he intends to reopen diplomatic ties with Rhodesia and Siam.
…B. Hussein gets the benefit of the doubt…
Well, now… there’s a telling epithet from noyb. Aren’t you late for an Arian Nation meeting or something?
RE: locklin post #43
“note: I recall bush repeatedly calling Iraq Iran throughout a speech, that’s definitely different.”
How is it any different?
Hey, that’s nothing, in this clip, Obama claims to have visited 57 states with one more to go! (not counting Alaska and Hawaii)
So it appears neither are geniuses at geography.
#43 – While he might have simply swapped a single letter (n for q), it’s more likely McCain meant Afghanistan and not Iran, given the context.
Oh, I see. B. Hussein gets the benefit of the doubt for a single incident of a misspoken word, but of course McCain didn’t misspeak at all. Nope. What he said is actually what he believes. Yep.
Racist asshole.
Why might it be, though, that Obama should get the benefit of the doubt here, by way of comparison? Context.
See, Obama’s reference to Pearl Harbor was merely reference, a rhetorical flourish, not essential to the content of the larger speech. McCain routinely displays staggering ignorance of basic facts about the peoples and politics of the region that represents the single most difficult foreign policy challenge the US faces. Acting like there’s no difference makes you look stupid in addition to being a bigot. No surprise, as the two almost always go hand in hand.
# 50 – that should be “Aryan Nation” of course… damn my too quick submit button finger. :/
#35
holy crap that was funny.
others:
I fully believe that leaving of the S was just a mistake. Not repeated. And the idea that if he makes the same mistake over and over (“Nucular”) then we should worry.
so, has McCain made this same geographic error more than once?
As has been pointed out, the issue with McCain is that he repeatedly makes these kinds of mistakes, mostly because he’s 10,000 years old and that’s a lot of memories to keep straight. We’re lucky he doesn’t talk about Assyria, Babylon, or the Roman Empire….
Someone get on the PA and tell PZ to get off his PC, and go to the PX PDQ, this very PM. He should buy some IPA, put on his PJs and get some ZZs.
P.S. PU.
On one hand, I find it very funny that McCain can’t keep anything straight. However, I suspect in this case it was just a misspeak, kind of like when my mom would go through all the kids’ names before she got to mine. All those countries in his mind, he’s bound to mess up.
Then again, I wouldn’t want my mom to be president, either.
Of course, this incident taken in isolation wouldn’t mean much. However, McCain seems to have a tendency to make these types of mistakes quite often. Czechoslovakia, Sunni/Shiite, now Iraq/Pakistan. These are not necessarily mistakes of ignorance, but more carelessness. I’m not sure that is better.
Josh@40, according to @13, J. Sidney has made essentially the same mistake before. I’ve no idea if that is correct or not. In terms of significance of the error, having a better-than-vague idea of the geopolitics of a region which is, and will remain, vastly important seems rather desirable. Whilst I concur this can, and perhaps has, descended into a silly game of “gottcha”, the USA is currently stuck with a set of quasi-authoritarian pseudo-theocrats who have shown a repeated weak grasp of many issues and facts, including geopolitics. Hence the hypersensitivity of some people to these sorts of goofs, especially when (as in this case) major, and (allegedly) repeated.
Disclaimer: As an ex-pat living outside the USA (currently in France), I’m perhaps over-hypersensitive to stupid geopolitical mistakes.
HEY! YOU KIDS GET OFF OF MY BORDER, OR I’M CALL THE COPS!
Some Nice Ugandan man needs my help on The Google, so I have to go, plus those Yugoslavians are acting up again.
Have we determined which country he was mistaken about yet? Was it Iran or Afghanistan?
As a couple people have pointed out, this is just a silly, completely mundane verbal flub. I don’t believe McCain thinks Iraq shares a border with Pakistan any more than I believe Obama believes there are 57 states.
I mean, “It’s a very wide border” is a cute quip, don’t get me wrong, but seriously these kinds of mistakes happen to everyone for any number of reasons.
Only a demonic elitist with Islamic extremist sympathies would require those who would hope to be leaders of ‘Merricun furrin’ pawlicee (TM) to show so refined a quality as geographical accuracy. Since we rule the world, everyone else will just have to locate themselves where we want to believe they are.
Does this pass the Poe test?
As far as I know, there is no candidate running who goes by the name “B. Hussein.” So, you might want to open a newspaper or something.
I wonder what will happen when retards such as you, noyb, stop being cute. You do realize that most everyone laughs at those who think like you, don’t you? You’re just comical, garden-variety, potatohead children who echo irrelevancies as though they have some sort of bearing on the thoughts and opinions of adults.
Really, man. Do the world a favor and crawl back into your cave.
Why don’t you and noyb get a room, kmerian?
You posted #52 after you blogged, “I refuse to give Dr. Myers any more attention,” didn’t you. I think you’d better go to confession, now.
Those mistakes happen with McCain as often as Bush can’t pronounce a word. Ouch.
It’s just Aging John’s way of marginalizing Iran to the max.
A bomb did fall on Pearl Harbor, and then another and another and so on. Obama wasn’t necessarily wrong or misspoken.
Just one bomb took out Pearl Harbor?
And we didn’t give up when the Germans dropped it!
BTW, that particular geographical feature of the island of O’ahu is still in existence so no bomb or bombs (not to mention all the torpedos) “took out” Pearl Harbor. Not that Obama said or implied any such thing, but if we’re being pedantic assholes here…
Someone buy that guy a globe. They’re cool.
Please show some respect for our chimpanzee cousins.
@Kmerian #52
While that’s a pretty good mis-speak, I give him a bye, as that’s the number of Democratic primary contests that had occurred to that point, including caucuses, Dems living abroad, etc.
Hell, I’m a Republican and I considered that a minor gaffe.
…
‘Course, I’m registering independent now that I live somewhere that has open primaries, and almost certainly voting Democratic this year, but still …
these kinds of mistakes happen to everyone for any number of reasons.
Incompetence (there were only half a dozen students between McCain and the bottom of his class at Annapolis) and age come to mind. He’s older than Reaagan was when he took office, and that turned out well, didn’t it?
The spin is: “it’s Iran”
What, Shiraz is in Iran? I would have guessed it was in Australia.
@George #76: And it’s a fine spin considering the one letter difference, I’ll give them that, but what is there that is so worrisome about the iran-pakistan border beyond the fact that Iran is totally apeshit (and that pakistan isn’t very much betteR)?
I’d like to hear that one from them now.
Please. Geography is just a theory.
Let’s teach both sides here, and let the kids decide.
I guess you were being Iranic.
Really? Last time I drove into Canada I was going south (on the Ambassador Bridge).
But this isn’t just a random error…it’s the specific error of confusing Iraq with Afghanistan. A while back, Pres. Bush was conflating the government of Iraq with the people who did 9/11. (Al-Qaeda, a group based in Afghanistan and dominated by Saudi and Pakistani nationals.) Partly as a result of that confusion, we wound up invading Iraq with disastrous results.
So it looks bad if Sen. McCain appears to be making the same mistake. To make matters worse, a couple of months ago, he made some statements conflating the government of Iran with Al-Qaeda.
Now, we as Americans know that this is no big deal; McCain has been overtired and he says a lot of stuff he doesn’t mean. But I’m guessing that this is playing really badly overseas…people don’t understand the situation, and they think that he’s making these mistakes deliberately; that he’s trying to propagandize for an invasion of Iran, or an escalation in Iraq. It’s causing increased tensions.
I’m not sure what the solution is, but it might help if Sen. McCain got more rest and made fewer speeches. He especially needs to spend less time talking about foreign policy; the risks are just too high.
I’ve been following McCain for quite a long time. And previously, I never got the impression that he was this stupid. But some of his statements lately, including this one….I think he’s going senile.
Granted, this particular clip is just a slip of the tongue. Clearly he meant the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. But it seems like there’s been quite a number of these, and McCain is getting quite old. Mental decline does happen with age, for some sooner than others.
#65 : I’m sorry, but no. The (TM) gave it away.
i’m glad i’m safely out of the way on the border between the Atlantic and France.
They are seriously claiming he meant Iran? That just would show that he doesn’t know what he is talking about. The border of Iran-Pakistan?
They should have just used the mom analogy I used above. Moms often have a hard time coming up with the right name, not because they don’t know the names of their kids, but because they just mix them up on occasion. Most people can relate to that. Therefore, if he just said Iraq instead of Afghanistan, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. However, I am trying to figure out why he would have meant Iran?
I feel comfortable as well knowing that there are many thousands of oldtree’s around me too. No one can single me out as “that tree there” or, “see the one with the squirrel?” But I know where the border is in the region where we seem to be so suddenly interested in their “freedoms” when we used to just enjoy the oil. Time wounds all heals.
McCain – whatta guy! Single-handedly, even before the election, he just solved the entire Iranian “crisis” … by erasing Iran.
He’s just saved us billions of dollars and a staggering world catastrophe – IF nobody contradicts him in Dubya’s hearing for the next six months.
It’s becoming apparent that these are not mere slips of the tongue. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. In that interview he looks like a kid in middle school bluffing though a book report on a book he didn’t read (I was once that kid!).
Here’s an idea for an Obama campaign slogan: No More Dumbfucks!
There is no truth to the rumor that J.S. McCain III will be making a whirlwind world tour next month, nor will he be visiting British Guiana, Dutch Guiana, Prussia, East Germany, the USSR, Czechoslovakia, Constantinople and the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, Turkistan, Abyssinia, Upper Volta, the Belgian Congo, British East Africa, French Sudan, Gold Coast, Tanganyika, Transvaal, Basutoland, Rhodesia, Zaire, Siam, East Pakistan, Burma, Ceylon, the Dutch East Indies, Formosa, or French Indochina.
The McCain campaign denies this vicious rumor, and has issued a statement that John McCain is vacationing with his wife on Somers Islands, and is expected to return to the United States in a few days.
/es
Have we determined which country he was mistaken about yet? Was it Iran or Afghanistan? Jennie
Clearly, the man doesn’t even know which country he’s misspeaking about!
“i’m glad i’m safely out of the way on the border between the Atlantic and France.”
The Azores?
ChaosEngineer (@82):
Speak for yourself! For starters, I think you’re being awfully charitable to assume he doesn’t mean it. Having seen the current administration systematically and deliberately use this very sort of geopolitical conflation as the predicate for an illegal and immoral invasion, it’s going to take me a while (like decades) before I’m willing to give any Republican the benefit of the doubt on sh!t like this. In the same way that their policies have lost our country the trust of the world, they’ve lost my trust… and it’ll take some bloody time to regain it.
But even on the charitable assumption that it was an “honest mistake,” it still has the potential to do the same sort of damage — confusing the public about our foreign policy challenges and objectives ‐ as it would if deliberate. We need our leaders to clarify things for us, not muddy the waters through their own confusion.
And being overtired is no excuse (nor any comfort to the rest of us). If McCain thinks campaigning is exhausting, wait ’til he sees what it’s like to actually be the president. If he’s going to get confused when he’s tired, that right there is a great reason not to put him in the White House.
I agree with the several posters who’ve said playing gotcha’ with every flub and stutter is a mug’s game… but McCain’s consistent misstatements in the area that’s supposed to be his greatest strength feel like more than just “typos”; the strike me — and this is particularly true of the repeated references to “Czechoslovakia” — as evidence of a worldview that’s not quite caught up to the current moment. Which is the last thing we need in a president at this particular current moment.
There have been persistent rumors that McCain is getting a little confused in his old age. Memory lapses and so on. At 72, this wouldn’t be surprising. He is too old for the office he seeks.
To be fair, some people start showing cognitive declines in their 50s. And I know a former federal official who is in his 80’s and he is still pretty sharp. Not real mobile but he spends a lot of time on the internet.
He didn’t make a mistake. Republicans confuse Iraq and Afghanistan on purpose. Where have you been since 9/11?
Maybe that’s where Miss Zarves and the 19th story of Wayside School us.
LOL. how can people buy McCain’s “expertise” on foreign policy with this kind of public gaffe, one after another, and another, and another…?
on a serious note, forget geography. forget the surge, let’s go back to first principles! read Bugliosi’s, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, and let’s take it from there.
~C
Duh, people. McCain was right. Ever heard of plate tectonics?
“The border between the Atlantic and France”? Why, that must be one of our nice sunny Atlantic beaches, of course! Good for you, alex ;^)
I thought the Iraq – Pakistan border was near Czechoslovakia?
Iran has invaded the Iraq-Pakistan border! Those bastards!
Bomb? Yes ONE bomb totally destroyed the USS Arizona killing over 1,000 Americans during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
You’re right. Plate Tectonics explains it all. McCain learned his geography during grade school on Gondwanaland where he grew up. It’s hard to remember all the changing countries now. Especially at his age :)
You know, let’s give the guy a break. People make gaffes. On a couple of occasions recently I’ve found myself thinking about current politics and accidentally thought “Osama” instead of “Obama” … and I’m not a right-wing loony, but someone who actually plans to vote for the Illinois senator in November. It happens. Get over it.
McCain saying “Iraq-Pakistan border” when he meant to say “Afghanistan-Pakistan border” is not a good reason to support his opponent; there are much more compelling reasons for that. For example, McCain has no plausible health care plan, but rather a plan that looks suspiciously like what we have already. His foreign policy will repeat obvious blunders from the past eight years, whereas Senator Obama’s is nuanced and intelligent.
Obama doesn’t make as many gaffes because he’s a better speaker than McCain, but that isn’t what’s impressive about him. If you want to be really impressed, see CNN’s foreign policy interview with Obama – it’s worth the whole read. Sure he makes no major gaffes, but what’s more impressive is that he seems to really know about global events, and can reply to specific questions and criticisms. He seems to enjoy discussing policy, criticism and all. It’s a quality that makes him the polar opposite of President Bush, and despite all of McCain’s experience, he can’t do it nearly as well.
So sure, have a laugh. But this gaffe really shouldn’t be news any more than the lapel pin “controversy” should have been. McCain loses on substance, not temporary slip-ups.
Just wait until Obama and McCain debate. Obama is going to make McCain look like the senile old man he is.
However, give the guy a break. How many times did your grandpa call you by one your cousin’s names? Man, when my grandma was in the nursing home, she had trouble recognizing her own kids, let along the grandkids. Senile dementia is not something to make fun about. You may be a presidential candidate one day, and you might not be able to remember your wife’s name. At least McCain knows his wife’s name is cunt.
You think was bad, wait till he starts lecturing us on the Austria-Hungarian alliance, Archduke Ferdinand and the problems of the Sudatenland.
Bomb? Yes ONE bomb totally destroyed the USS Arizona killing over 1,000 Americans during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
That was a modified 16″ naval artillery shell not a bomb.
P0wnz0r3d! A11 yOur ide010gez Be10n6z t0 uz n@w!
Bostonian: So sure, have a laugh. But this gaffe really shouldn’t be news any more than the lapel pin “controversy” should have been. McCain loses on substance, not temporary slip-ups.
Yup, but it does boil down the fact that McCain is another dumb-ass legacy who couldn’t make it on his own.
Since politics is about massess of people, a crucial encapsulation is necessary to get it into the zeitgeist. The kind of thing people can talk about at a barbecue while having a few beers.
This reminded me of a quote:
“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.” -Ambrose Bierce.
If we simply invade Iran John McCain will learn his geography. Come on, you didn’t really think they were going to use the WMD argument again?
The first bomb that fell on Pearl Harbor provided the crisis for the US entry to the war, and can reasonably be mentioned in the singular form, without implying that only one bomb fell.
A better phrase might have been “the bombing of Pearl Harbor”, but hey.
If slips are important in the US, how on earth did Bush even get close to being reelected?
John Sidney McCain III has repeatedly confused the Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam, and on two occasions during an overseas trip microphones picked up Joseph Lieberman trying to correct him. That’s not a one letter sound substitution.
I think it’s more likely he’ll be ranting about the Australian-Hungarian alliance, Il Duce, and the problems in Eden, Garden of. Which is somewhere near Iraqistain’s border with Checkoslovakia and Luna.
Come on, PZ, haven’t you ever heard of “foreshadowing”?
Okay, we’re getting reaffirmation every day that we must vote for Obama, but this is basically the most amusing reaffirmation yet.
This election in November will be as close to a shutout as you can get in national politics.
In last week’s installment, it was the comments about Muslims, and then the completely botched apology, that got my attention… And it was as much by who said it as what was said. It was one of the Swift Boat members who said it. A lot if people noticed that.
I’m just siked on the Simpsons reference I saw up there earlier, comparing McCain to Grampa Simpson.
Abe: Now, my story begins in 19-dickety-two. We had to say “dickety” ’cause that Kaiser had stolen our word “twenty”. I chased that rascal to get it back, but gave up after dickety-six miles…
I had to read that about five times before I got Iraq and not Iran.
echidna: If slips are important in the US, how on earth did Bush even get close to being reelected?
This is a really interesting question – I’ve never thought about it in those terms. Bush’s presentation is terrible. In the end I think it’s not the slips that cause a loss, though. Kerry and Gore were better than Bush in many ways, but people were sold on Bush’s imperfect, regular guy image. The occasional gaffe actually fit into that image. He became more Teflon-coated in Clinton ever was. Kerry and Gore, on the other hand, presented themselves as established political stiffs. Their gaffes stood out to many voters, far more than Bush’s did.
Rob: Just wait until Obama and McCain debate. Obama is going to make McCain look like the senile old man he is.
I’ve been waiting for this since Clinton was still in the running. It was the one thing about Obama that convinced me he was the better choice in the Democratic field. He knows his stuff, and he faces difficult policy questions very well. McCain can’t touch him in a real debate, and even in an American joint press conference (we still call it a “debate,” but it’s a not much more than a press conference) Obama will do a far better job.
I’m even more convinced of this since McCain played the good sport and appeared on Saturday Night Live a couple months ago. He was funny, but he was (dare I utter the cliche?) … old. Whenever I think of John McCain, I picture “2000 Election” McCain. In reality the man has aged. That certainly doesn’t disqualify him, but I think it will affect the perceived outcome of the dabates.
While we’re here, can y’all Americans please stop saying EYE-rack and EYE-ran. It really really bugs me!
The Azores?
That reminds me of a certain horrible limerick.
Duh, it’s code for Iran. The wingers get it.
No, I’m pretty sure it was quantum tectonics.
I’m with El Herring @ 118. It bugs me too, big-time. It speaks to a lack of foreign policy experience :>)
“…please stop saying EYE-rack and EYE-ran. It really really bugs me!”
Okay, but the EYE-talians are gonna feel lonely.
I die a little every time Bush says “nookyooler”, and not in a good way.
A single misspoken word? An innocent difference between the words “Iraq” and Iran”?
Me thinks McCain meant to say “the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.”
Not a misspeak. Not a problem with a single letter.
Afghanistan != fn(Iran)
(and I’ll let you come up with just about any wild-ass Soundex function to make that equation equal! ;)
Canuck @ 14:
To be fair, a map wouldn’t do him much good. I don’t think there are many politicians out there who could find their fundaments with our without one.
And a compass.
#52
You have to be joking right. He obviously meant 47 states, one to go, excluding Alaska and Hawaii. Which comes out to a grand total of 50 states. Try using a little logic and some basic math next time please.
At least Obama writes his own speeches and takes blame for his mistakes.
The Azores, as I understand it, are very nice EYE-lands.
Bostonian: This is a really interesting question – I’ve never thought about it in those terms. Bush’s presentation is terrible. In the end I think it’s not the slips that cause a loss, though. Kerry and Gore were better than Bush in many ways, but people were sold on Bush’s imperfect, regular guy image.
Hmm, I think you miss the point. You can sell anything to anywhere, given adequate resources. The problem is that the Presidency is for sale — and the Bush cronies bought it.
He was a peculiar case of the American people being laughed at. He was the worst possible candidate — and they could still sell us.
The only thing that’s changed is that at high-levels, the Bush cronies are no longer trusted by Wall Street and the rest of the establishment.
It’s about the alliances at the top. Do not be deluded by the trappings of democracy — they are fundamentally irrelevant when politics and the sales of cola are being driven by the same process.
The drum-beat of “Bush is a regular guy, Bush is a regular guy…” wasn’t a grass-roots rhythm, but a manufactured rhythm. If he’d sounded like Gore Vidal with a pinkie in the air, they’d have just changed the slogan — and he still would have “won”.
Wow, the right fantasises about invading Iran so much, it just disappears in their minds and Iraq and Pakistan then snap together nicely with nothing in-between them!
By the way, I used to call myself Elwood, but (on PZ’s site at least) I decided to de-woo my own name. It had to be done.
Ah well, there’s this blog that keeps track of all of McCain’s gaffes :
http://doubletalkexpress.wordpress.com/
Check him talk on his education…
http://doubletalkexpress.wordpress.com/2008/07/16/john-mccain-on-his-education/
And about president Putin of Germany !
http://doubletalkexpress.wordpress.com/2008/07/12/john-mccain-on-his-trip-to-germany/
Or when he completely mistakes basic historical facts
http://doubletalkexpress.wordpress.com/2008/07/11/mccain-mistates-the-factsagain/
Or talk about Czeckoslovakia, a country that doesn’t exist anymore…
This is an ignorant fool, and make no mistake, he’d be as catastrophic for the USA and the rest of the world as the current president.
*headdesk*
“how on earth did Bush even get close to being reelected?”
It’s importany to understand that despite the animosity of the hanging chad debacle and Supreme Court validated election of Bush, most Americans were relieved that Gore was not the elected President after 9/11. Gore and the rest of the Democratic party were considered too soft. The Republicans played on the voter’s fears that changing horses in midstream would ensure failure in Iraq.
Shrub has always been seen as a “c” student with less oratory skills than his malaprop prone father, and a bit of a dilettante. His Vice President, advisers et al were considered to be his strength until Average Joe Blow realized how corrupt and inept the were/are; everyonel except the Neo-cons and the misguided-boot-licking-jingoist Bubbas here in Texas that think the patrician Kinnebunkport Bushes are just like them.
Short answer?: The US is filled with gullible dumbshits.
It’s all true, though. I had homosexings with a sleeper cell of well-oiled Trotskyist Shi’a fellows just this weekend. We used the santorum froth as shaving cream to shave their beards and other bits. Then we robbed a liquor store and used the money to buy flag lapel pins.
Yeah, I pretty much hate freedom.
this debate about the candidates, what they said and what they really meant reminds me of dan quayle 20 years ago. he said a lot of things that cast doubt on his presidential competence.
although, i must admit, he *did* have a grasp of geography:
“Hawaii has always been a very pivotal role in the Pacific. It is IN the Pacific. It is a part of the United States that is an island that is right here.”-Quayle, in Hawaii, 4/25/89 (reported in Esquire, 8/92)
I had homosexings with a sleeper cell of well-oiled Trotskyist Shi’a fellows just this weekend.
As Margaret Cho said about an incident with email death threats and stuff, “It was like I’d unleashed a sleeper cell of Al-Gayda!!!”
Bringing America to it’s knees, one soldier at a time! (Throw my legs in the air and call me a Marine!)
If you see the video where Obama talks about ’57 states’ it is obvious by the way he stumbled over it that it was a slip of the tongue.
The Sunni/Shia mistake bothers me a lot more than this or Czechoslovakia.
But really, it seems that these slips/gaffes are really in the eyes of the beholder. To McCain haters, these are awful, but to the supporters, they are nothing. Just like ‘bomb’ and ’57 states’ nothing to Obama supporters, but awful gaffes to McCain supporters.
In the ’88 campaign, Bush Sr. was giving a speech, then stopped midway and began ad-libbing about the anniversary of Pearl Harbor on SEPTEMBER 7. He eventually caught himself and moved on. The general reaction was that it was no big deal, and he goes on to win the election.
Advance to 1996, Bob Dole gives a speech and he talks about the no-hitter that was thrown in Colorado by the BROOKLYN Dodgers, and I kept hearing about how this just shows his age, and maybe he isn’t all there.
Fortunately for McCain most Americans won’t notice the error.
Know what? Fuck all of you and your mindless America-bashing. You got a problem with things, go out and fix them. Until them you’re just lazing around the teacher’s lounge sucking one another’s dicks all day. Losers. Without tenure many of you would be panhandling.
Know what? Fuck all of you and your mindless America-bashing. You got a problem with things, go out and fix them. Until them you’re just lazing around the teacher’s lounge sucking one another’s dicks all day. Losers. Without tenure many of you would be panhandling.
blah blah blah blah
Capital Dan spewed: I’d love nothing more than to place America in the hands of a gibbering, ass-kissing simpleton
Gee, I didn’t know *you* were running. Is it on the Shithead ticket?
With the sorry state of American education, McCain maybe maintaining the stadards of American understanding of geography. He was only one country away!
PZ, as a resident of the Gopher State, you surely know Minnesota is surrounded by Missouri, Montana and Michigan!
Or is that when you alphabetize them?
57? That sounds very Manchurian Candidate.
Well, the fact that McCain can’t tell one country from another is nothing compared to the fact that he can’t tell his wife (and meal ticket) from a “cunt.” He is one very confused and angry man.
Calm down, you freak. There’s nothing anti-American about noting that most Americans lack geography skills, particularly around Asia and Africa. It’s just a fact. It’s an unfortunate fact, but, you imbecile, facts cannot be anti-American (or pro-American).
Bostonian: He became more Teflon-coated in Clinton ever was.
Say what? I’m *totally* not voting for you!
And wasn’t it Monica who was coated *in* Clinton? :-) And it sure as hell wasn’t Teflon. :-D
VOT LOLZCATS ON 2008!1!1 KTHX!
Z @ 141:
Suffering from “P” envy?
No One Of Consequence: This is at least the second time I’ve seen him publicly confused Iran and Iraq.
Does McCain confuse his tenses? Or did you forget an “about?”
I’m just sayin’ :-)
Z:
Yes, how dare you all bash mindless America? Don’t you know it’s wrong to argue against people who’re too stupid, like Z, to defend themselves?
Speaking of gullible dumbshits – Hello Z!
Awww, did we upset your sense of order and propriety?
Just calm down and wipe the spittle off your screen (I think it’s spittle) before you have an aneurysm.
(Z hurls junior high expletive laden insults as fast as his fat little fingers can type, so I’ll give him a response appropriate for his level) I know YOU are, but what am I? Nyaa, nyaa, nyaaaaanaaaa.
I agree with Bostonian:
I know the difference between Iraq and Iran. In the early 1970s I was in both countries, so I better know the difference. Only today I said Iran when I meant Iraq.
I will not be voting for McCain for a simple reason. I don’t believe he will make a very good president. He doesn’t have a workable plan about what to do with the economy (his presumptive selection for Treasury Secretary, Phil Gramm, characterized the recession as “whining by Americans). His health policy appears to be same old same old, let the insurance companies continue making profits while more and more Americans go without insurance. I won’t talk about his Iraq policy, because it makes me too angry to discuss coherently.
While I have some problems with Obama, I do believe the man cares about the welfare of the country and its citizens. It’s not even voting for the lesser of the evils, because I don’t see Obama as being evil.
I don’t care if McCain makes verbal slips. I won’t be voting for him but not because of any geographic confusion on his part.
#139 –where is this exciting teachers’ lounge of which you speak?
Ugh. I’m really not looking forward to the swimsuit competition part of this election.
Z’s noncontribution to the thread is wreaking the possibility of meaningful discussion. Let’s see if that can be undone. Some thoughts on “anti-Americanism”:
#139 –where is this exciting teachers’ lounge of which you speak?
I’ve seen a few movies……
WRMArtin: Afghanistan != fn(Iran)
(and I’ll let you come up with just about any wild-ass … function to make that equation equal! ;)
Afghanistan – Afghan + Social – Socialist + Irradiated – radiated = Iran
If slips are important in the US, how on earth did Bush even get close to being reelected?
He was neither elected nor reelected. Those corrupt thugs stole two elections, aided and abetted in the first case by the Supreme Court and the reticence/incompetence of Gore and his advisors.
If McCain winds up President in similarly shady circumstances, I think it’s time to seriously consider options beyond the electoral process. However, I’ve a feeling this one’s going to be too lopsided for shennanigans to have a significant effect on the outcome.
We could solve so many of the world’s problems if we could just resolve the issues in the Rhineland–Rhodesia-Siam border region and thereabouts.
Maybe we all have it wrong. Maybe after McCain bomb-bomb-bombs Iran, it will be incorporated into greater Iraq! He is just getting ahead of himself!
. There’s nothing anti-American about noting that most Americans lack geography skills, particularly around Asia and Africa. It’s just a fact. It’s an unfortunate fact, but, you imbecile, facts cannot be anti-American (or pro-American).
Is it? Come on then, let’s see the statistics.
Josh meet MAJEFF, MAJEFF meet Josh. He’s in Philadelphia, you know.
They must not be allowed to acquire newkyuhlur technology.
I can haz edumacated prezdent?
J:
Don’t you know 43% of all statistics are made up?
Here ya go, J
MAJeff: This is the way I would put it: Throw my legs in the air and call a Marine (or two…). But that’s just me.
Sure J, since Google is obviously too complicated for you, here’s a taste:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/05/02/geog.test/index.html
Thirty-three percent of respondents couldn’t pinpoint Louisiana on a map.
Fewer than three in 10 think it important to know the locations of countries in the news and just 14 percent believe speaking another language is a necessary skill.
Six in 10 could not find Iraq on a map of the Middle East.
Forty-seven percent could not find the Indian subcontinent on a map of Asia.
Seventy-five percent were unable to locate Israel on a map of the Middle East.
Nearly three-quarters incorrectly named English as the most widely spoken native language.
MAJeff: This is the way I would put it: Throw my legs in the air and call a Marine (or two…). But that’s just me.
See, i’d rather have the foot-over-face marine.
A bit late, but to gg #16: Same mistake Khan will make.
You’re just not thinking four-dimensionally.
Why certainly J. Here you go.
I’m finding it rather amusing people keeping saying, or in a few demented cases, yelling, “Americans” when they mean “USAians”. The Canadians, Mexicans, Brazilians, Argentinians, Costa Ricans, Cubans, et al. are also Americans; there’s two entire continents full of the creatures. Of course, USAian doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, and the non-USAian Americans are rather used to it, but still… it is kindof funny!
OK, StuV, since the concept of a control is obviously too complicated for you, I’ll explain why it’s necessary here.
You singled out America. Specifically America. Therefore you’d better have good reason for believing that America is below national par when it comes to knowledge of geography. The statistics you cite do absolutely nothing to support this point of view, as it is certainly conceivable that knowledge of geography is in general poor all over the world.
Ted Dahlberg,
You haven’t given much reason for believing it’s fair to single out American ignorance of geography. For instance:
It was the American youth that did so poorly, according to your survey. So you’re drawing the wrong conclusion, and in any case, one study doesn’t prove anything.
Now, we’re dealing with an American electorate and a candidate for the American Presidency trying to appeal to that electorate. And, we had someone make a joke that the mistake by said American candidate would not harm him among the American electorate because most of them are ignorant of geography. Why would specifically mentioning the American public in this context be anything to get all fussy about it? Americans in general are ignorant of geography. That’s not a comparative statement, nor is it anti-American.
Wow, that last linked article said the UK adults scored in the same statistical range as US adults. Looks like we have more in common with the Brits than I dreamed.
The worst part of all this is that there’s still a good portion of the American populace that would still vote for this geezer. Whether it’s their racism, fear, gullibility, sanctimonious belief structure, or all of the above, there isn’t much McCain can do to appear worse to the rest of us, but he’s still going to get a decent number of votes. A democracy works well only under an educated public. If half the country believes the Earth is created by some imaginary Force that also is gravely concered about their sex lives and crackers, then we’re just going to continue having greater problems. It’s only when voters can be allowed to vote by taking a simple junior high equivalent science and geography exam, that perhaps things may start shaping up.
E.V. #123: Please tell me you don’t pronouce Italy as EYE-taly over there!
From Elwood (in EYE-ngland)
Yeah, J — it’s also an illusion that Americans are quite monolingual compared to the rest of the developed world.
Do you actually know any of us? And why do you think we need your pommy-ass defending us? (see — I know some Australians and NZ’ers! Hope I used that right)
StuV: Six in 10 could not find Iraq on a map of the Middle East.
I’ve often wished that election ballots in the US would adopt the use of random, very basic, non-controversial trivia questions on them that, if answered incorrectly, would lead to the ballot being discarded. Again, nothing controversial, like which tax rate is correct or whether certain things should be legal or illegal. Just basic, “verifiable fact” trivia challenges, like an unlabeled map with an X on Iraq with choices to identify the indicated country, or a question about which year the Declaration of Independence was written, or a “Which of the following rights is not guaranteed by the First Amendment?” type question. Maybe a “Who is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?” to really weed people out.
Imagine what the last eight years of our history would have been like if we had ballots like that.
Do I need to remind people that Obama was born and raised in Hawaii and will naturally be much more aware (than the average mainlander) about BOTH Pearl Harbor and what is the 50th state?
J:
Of course, a couple of sentences after the bit you quoted, the article says:
But hey, why put things into perspective, that just ruins the whole quote mining. No, one study does not prove something. But it gives an indication. And the indication here seems to be that Americans (and Brits, to take your quote into account) are not good at geography when compared to people from other nations.
You wanted statistics, you got statistics. I’m not here to satisfy your goalpost shifting demands.
I am a geography lover, and there isn’t much that can stump me on this subject. But when I see and hear examples of geographical ignorance it more than annoys the hell out of me. It’s a wonder he didn’t announce that the papist is currently in Sydney, Austria. They should lose him somewhere on the New Jersey-Indiana border. Feed that moron crackers until he gets his bearings straight!
Yeah, J — it’s also an illusion that Americans are quite monolingual compared to the rest of the developed world.
Ah, but I wouldn’t contest that particular statement. Obviously Americans are “quite monolingual compared to most of the rest of the developed world” — and for good reason, too.
This has nothing to do with geographical knowledge.
Did you stop to think that maybe Americans are being singled out because they are the ones who get to vote for McCain, and therefore their reaction to errors is more relevant?
That’s why BobC wrote “Fortunately for McCain most Americans won’t notice the error”, not “Fortunately for McCain most Zimbabweans won’t notice the error”
Actually, frog@177, the Irish are perhaps even more monolingual then the USAians. The British are pretty bad too, and I’ve been told (but have no personal experience or other knowledge) that the Japanese are not so good either. Nonetheless, the USA is astonishingly monolingual, it’s just not quite as unique as you imply.
Where it is pretty damn near unique is in using the imperial system of jokes, er sorry, measurements, for everything. That’s just inexcusable, albeit the monolingualism and geopolitical ignorance (and arrogance) are perhaps more serious.
NO, no, no. Absolutely not.
Citizens in poorer areas are deliberately prevented from having all the information they need to judge most topics. You would be compounding this problem, not resolving it. “Since they can’t vote now anyway, why bother funding their schools?”
These same citizens, though, are quite capable of understanding that diverting money from the poor, to the rich, is an attack upon them and most of the rest of us. That’s not a difficult issue, and it happens to be the only relevant issue in the long run (because if it’s not resolved, and we are all made into debt-slaves, nothing else will matter).
Follow up: Can you imagine the mess he would make out of the “Stan” countries other than Pakistan and Afganistan? I wonder where he places New Zealand and Nauru? Nauru? Oh, you mean that Indian guy that Churchill liked to shit on? Our possible next president? From the state of Mexico. Duh.
You wanted statistics, you got statistics. I’m not here to satisfy your goalpost shifting demands.
Hilarious. You produced a vague summary of a dodgy study, which even contradicts itself. It claims that American adults scored slightly higher than British adults, and then goes on to say that, after all, only Italian and Mexican adults did worse than American adults. I am not impressed.
But your article does say, in plain words:
Thus the scores among adults from the United States and Canada are signficantly different, while those in the United States and the United Kingdom are not.
If this little crummy study is going to be taken as the Gospel, you’ll have to accept that the British are essentially just as bad.
But how many nations in that survey did statistically significantly better than America? You don’t even know, do you?
That doesn’t even make the slightest bit of sense.
Really, man. If you’re going to try to be a troll, could you at least make a little bit of sense.
Seriously. Take a look at what I wrote. See it up there? I even italicized it for your pleasure.
Now, take a look at your comments.
The two statements don’t seem to dovetail in their coherency to the point where it would be any sort of insult, and as a result of that massive fail, you’ve only proven to us all that you are nothing more than an illiterate, cave-dwelling, potatoheaded yokel who’s desperately trying to be a troll, but you’re just too damn dimwitted to pull it off.
I mean, really. Put some pride into your work. You’re an embarrassment with these feeble, poorly thought out, utterances.
“believing that America is below national par when it comes to knowledge of geography.”
J: I believe the word you are looking for is “international”.
We as a nation tend to be solipsistic and aren’t too concerned about anything that we don’t percieve as affecting our daily lives. How is that un-American? Are we more or less solipsistic than any other nation? Who cares. We keep the jingo propaganda going about how we’re the best at everything and all other cultures (as if we are one monolithic culture) are second rate at best.
So when we our performance does not match our self defined reputation, what? – We just shoot the critics? I have never understood jingoists and nationalists.
Ted, I have a helpful suggestion for dealing with J. It never lets me down:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/4107
Giving the man the teensiest shred of a doubt, he probably meant Afghan-Pakistan border but figures Iraq and Afghanistan are equally FUBAR and mixes them up in his head. I’m pretty sure if he got called on it he would have corrected himself then and there.
That said, seriously, WTF man!
Did you stop to think that maybe Americans are being singled out because they are the ones who get to vote for McCain, and therefore their reaction to errors is more relevant?
So attack them for their being liable to vote in a stupid tosser like McCain. Do not go after them and them alone over their supposedly deplorable geographical ignorance (which seems to be common to most nations).
I should clarify that script requires Greasemonkey:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748
blf #184
This is one of my pet peeves. Unique does NOT mean rare, or unusual. It means one of a kind. You cannot have degrees of uniqueness. Something cannot be uniquer than something else. Something can be possibly unique, almost unique or definitely unique, but it cannot be pretty unique.
/rant
The number 85 is coming to mind here.
No El. (noel):
No Italy is Italy but for some reason a lot of Bubbas say EYE-talian when mention the people or the food. Just remember we are a nation of many dialects and subdialects. There are 4 distinct subdialects in Texas alone.
As a resident of Baltic coast of Norway, I heartily agree.
There. Fixed.
Shiraz is indeed in Iran and is a grape variety: Persia had a long history as a wine-producing region before the Islamic Revolution.
Overtired? You make him sound like a cranky toddler. When McCain was a cranky toddler, Ramesses was on the throne of Egypt.
Electoral fraud.
Haha, thanks Grammar RWA, I’ve had the pleasure of arguing with him before, so I really should know better.
And J, just one thing before I start ignoring you… I find it utterly delicious that you say:
Your “contradiction” is answered by your own damn quote form the article, the difference between the UK and the US is not statistically significant. To quote the sentence before the one you picked, “To be considered statistically signficant, differences in scores among all adults must be at least six-tenths of a point apart.”
There. I’m done with you know, you dishonest little weasel. Sorry if that sounds harsh. I’ve actually got nothing against weasels.
Actually, frog@177, the Irish are perhaps even more monolingual then the USAians.
Hmm, what about Irish? (I know, only a minority of you actually use it very often, but still, I would expect it to have some effect on the statistics)
From the Princeton WordNet, “unique, highly unusual or rare but not the single instance.”
This just in:
Obama is responsible for rising gas prices? Really! I didn’t know he had that kind of power! On the other hand, perhaps the McCain campaign misspoke.
Oh, why didn’t I get a killfile before this? It’s going to do wonders for my blood pressure, and may alleviate my SIWOTI syndrome. Thanks again, Grammar.
You’re very welcome, Ted. I can’t say the killfile has done anything for my SIWOTI, but it really does make casual blog reading more enjoyable.
Your “contradiction” is answered by your own damn quote form the article, the difference between the UK and the US is not statistically significant.
Then the article is deliberately misleading. Britain’s score of 8.5 is worse than USA’s 8.6, yet it says that only Italy and Mexico fared worse than USA. It does not say “statistically significantly worse”. I have no idea how many other nations in the survey ended up in America’s band of statistical significance. It’s very fuzzy.
You’re acting as if that silly, worthless article provides solid evidence that America is well below average par in national geographical knowledge. This makes you the dishonest one out of the two of us.
J,
it’s also an illusion that the American mainstream TV news media is much more focussed on the USA than their European counterparts are focussed on Europe. You obviously never have watched and compared the equivallent TV shows in a few countries. Even in sports for chrissakes, the only really big shows are those where they play against themselves.
Probably because in the US school system, kids start learning a 2nd language at age 4/5 and a third at age 12/13, unlike Ireland… No, wait…
For sure, the Dutch and the Swedes (for example) put us all to shame: all English-speaking countries are pretty bad in the multilingual stakes, but based purely on personal experience and without a shred of empirical evidence, I’d be amazed if Ireland is worse than the US or the UK.
So would I! I’m very open to correction here, but as far as I know, it “doesn’t”. Almost all of the Irish-educated people I know claim to not be able to remember much of anything about Gaeilge. (Gaeilge is spoken natively by a very small number of people, c.50,000 at most, less than 2% of the Republic’s population.) The usual reason is because the teaching, whilst done at about the right age, is either by rote or concentrates on fine points of grammar et al., with the result it quickly(?) becomes boring and un-interesting for most kids.
However, all that’s very much second-hand reporting (I have no experience of Irish education myself), and I could very easily be mis-stating or at least mis-leading. Nonetheless, the claim the Irish are even worse than the notoriously bad USAians (or British) is, as far as I know, common currency–albeit I don’t know if I can back that up with any statistics. Having lived in Ireland for awhile, I tend to agree with the belief (but of course that is not data or much of anything in terms of evidence).
You obviously never have watched and compared the equivallent TV shows in a few countries. Even in sports for chrissakes, the only really big shows are those where they play against themselves.
And you’re obviously pulling random assumptions out of your ass crack. I live in Europe and I have seen both European and American TV shows, and in any case, this has little to do with geographical knowledge. There’s very little geography to be gleaned from the vast majority of TV shows.
Wow, wow, WOW!! Although, sadly, I can’t say that I’m very surprised. This McCain dude seems like quite the dumbass to me, and frankly I have met many Americans who have no geographical skills whatsoever, even (and probably especially) regarding Canada. For instance, on my honeymoon last month I met a couple from New York City who were shocked beyond belief to learn that Ottawa (where I live) is only 6 hours north of their city, and that we get temperatures even above 20 in the summer (and for the record, it can get up to 40ish here in the summer).
It’s just incredibly sad that a man can be in contention for the US president position while being one of these ignorant dumbasses.
It’s a prescriptive/descriptive thing. From the Online Etymology Dictionary:
MaJeff said “See, i’d rather have the foot-over-face marine.”
I have no idea what that means.
#50 mentioned an “Arian” nation. That would be more preferable than the so-called “christian” nation we have now.
CJO@210, thanks for the clarification! And thanks for the link to the Online Etymology Dictionary, which I’d never run across before. Cheers.
blf,
No sweat. It’s a good resource. Win bar bets! Impress your friends!
J: #182
Yeah, J — it’s also an illusion that Americans are quite monolingual compared to the rest of the developed world.
Ah, but I wouldn’t contest that particular statement. Obviously Americans are “quite monolingual compared to most of the rest of the developed world” — and for good reason, too.
This has nothing to do with geographical knowledge.
Ah, I’ve let you suck me in! J, you’re just an idjit. It’s part of our entire world view! We, in general, don’t give a crap about the rest of the world, except insofar as we become convinced that you people are a pain in our ass. Did you miss the little blow-up last week, when Obama had the temerity to suggest that it would be in our interest to train our children to speak our hemisphere’s dominant language?
If you’re German — you have to care about the rest of the world, because you’re surrounded by the world.
We, on the other hand, are like islanders — think Britain writ large. The only countries we have on our borders are Mexico and Canada — and despite weak protestations by the two (sorry, but geopolitically true), they are basically colonial possessions. We don’t want to learn geography — why should we?
Instead of muttering about irrelevant statistics, come visit the USA. We’re mostly pleasant folks, but we are very parochial — in a way that is very different from Europeans. European parochialism comes from a very strong attachment to local ways of doing things, but with an awareness of other ways. American parochialism is that we don’t even believe you exist!
However, don’t be surprised by folks who comment on how good your English is for a foreigner.
(Yes, yes — all generalizations — but they all go to our culture, not to individuals)
This issue, and the debate surrounding it is trivial. It is mildly amusing when people make mistakes, but it’s certainly not an indication of anything meaningful.
I am far more concerned about whether McCain will go to war in Iran. I’m concerned about what his plans for the war in Iraq are. I’m not concerned about what he calls those two countries.
I joke about how 3 out of every 10 Americans can not find Canada on a map, and that 4 out of every 10 Americans agree with me about that with no questions asked.
It makes me want to cry that not only does everyone agree with me, to the point of refusing to think it’s a joke, but, also that Senator McCain is apparently one of those 3 Americans…
John McCain Sept 2007 beliefnet interview –
“I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation.”
Barack Obama June 28, 2006, speech before the Call to Renewal organization –
“Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation. At least not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, and a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.”
McCain’s geographical gaffe is unfortunate, his intentional pandering to the Christian fundamentalists and dominionists is inexcusable.
To our eternal fucking shame, outside Gaeltacht areas, the reaction to spoken Irish in Ireland is pretty hostile. It certainly was the case until very recently that no Irish young person would be caught dead doing anything as uncool as speaking Irish. As far as I can tell, the “Irish” that is now cool amongst a certain set of middle-class young people is a bizarre patois of Irish and English: essentially English grammar, syntax, and idioms directly translated into Irish words. It’s very easy for me to understand, but it’s nothing that a native speaker would recognise.
The vernacular for the huge majority of Irish people, including me, is English. They’ve historically tried to teach Irish as if it were a parallel to English (including reading classic literature and so on) rather than as a second language (which is what it is to most of us) with emphasis on communication. This has been a colossal mistake, and (in the curriculum I was taught) I was never taught a damn thing about Irish grammar because prescriptive grammar was out-of-fashion at the time I was in school.
The end result is that huge numbers of Irish people leave school understanding less Irish, after 13 years learning it in school, than French/German/Spanish, after only 5 years, and they feel quite awkward and tentative about speaking it.
Strangely, though, most Irish people have an affection for the language and, although they leave school hating it, then regret not speaking it better after a few years. The suggestion of learning another, more useful, international language in school at an early age instead of Irish gets very little support. Quite a few people sneak a peak at TG4 (Irish language TV station) to try to improve.
Even stranger still, though, most Irish people speak/understand a hell of a lot more Irish than they even realise themselves. I occasionally speak Irish with other Irish people who “don’t speak Irish” when I want to say something that I don’t want overheard (I live in Sweden) and they understand me 95% of the time. It’s pretty common for Irish people to do this: people who wouldn’t speak a word of Irish from one end of the year to the other will switch to Irish abroad when they want to say “the barmaid has fine tits, but the waiter is a rude bastard who smells like a goat”.
Posted by: JeremyO | July 21, 2008 8:02 PM
So mistakes like that made on national television news are of no concern to you? You certainly do have a low standard for your politicians. Personally, I’d rather have a President who is eloquent enough to at least express himself without erring on such a simple piece of knowledge, especially since he is running on the platform that holds him up to be the candidate most expereinced and knowledgable on foreign affairs. Also, this is not the first time he has made such a mistake – he seems to do it monthly. What makes anyone think he’d be any better during a term as President?
And if I have a President who walks into the United Nations or any other sort of international conference where he is charged with speaking for all of us, I’d rather him not fumble-fuck around with information that should be second nature to a person in his position.
Yay, Killfile!
Thanks Grammar. You’re a sanity saver.
The problem with McCain — of which this is a reflection — is the legacy-kid problem. Like our current boss, he lacks intellectual curiosity. Why? Because like Bushy, they never stood on their own.
Every job either one got was a legacy job — every advance they ever got was for being connected. In that case, intellectual curiosity and real individualism has a high cost — it’s the worst of the good ol’ boy network. You’re just about networking — you can never risk offending by showing substance, so you can never develop substance.
And no — being tortured doesn’t develop that kind of character, necessarily.
The problem with McCain — of which this is a reflection — is the legacy-kid problem.
There’s one step beyond the legacy. The it’s-my-turn factor. That’s how Dole got the nomination. The DC press corps is basically taking that approach to McCain: It’s his turn now. Indeed, that seems to be the only reason he should be President: it’s his turn now.
It’s not like John McCain can’t just turn on a computer, open a browser, google the app Google Earth, download and install it and spin the globe a bit, with an eye-in-the-sky view in order familiarize himself with the geopolitical landscape in the region we’re sinking so many billions of our grandchildren’s income into.
Well, at least he has people for that. John McCain’s wife is teaching him how to use email.
McCain is a friend of the Discovery Institute. That alone is enough to call him unqualified to be president of anything.
Everyone in the US knows that American (here I’m talking about USAians) public school curriculum does not include one course on geography–not a single one–with the expected result that most adult Americans have few clues about the rest of the world. Give them a globe with no names on it and most couldn’t even identify the continents, much less the countries of the world.
When I was a high school senior (half a century ago) in a decent private school in Texas (virtually all students went on to college and professional careers) our history teacher gave us a multiple choice test on world geography. Out of sixteen students in the class, only one student scored 100%, and the next best score was below 70%, and he went on to Annapolis and rose to become a captain before retiring (I don’t know if he ever got lost at sea). The entire class averaged below 50%, which I suspect was better than the American average then and much better than the average today. Incidentally before becoming president, George Bush had only visited two other countries, Mexico, a near neighbor to Texas, and China, when his father was ambassador there. I suspect even today he couldn’t find Iraq on a world map unless someone led him to it.
All those years in a Korean POW camp will do that to ya.
Man, J is still around proving he’s an idiot?
Some things never change, I suppose.
Nice to have a “secret code,” isn’t it? When my wife and I were teaching English in Korea, we learned Han-gul, the Korean alphabet (which is a true phonetic alphabet, even though Korean looks like it’s made up of ideograms). We never learned Korean (the grammar is very different from English, and we spent most of our time with students who weren’t supposed to be speaking Korean anyway), but we got in the habit of writing notes to each other using English words spelled phonetically in Han-gul. To our fellow English speakers, it looked like Korean; to Koreans, it looked like gibberish. Great fun.
We never used this method to discuss the barmaid’s tits, though.
The same thing happens in Finland to native Finnish speakers who are required to learn Swedish (it’s an official language). The existence of a whole another country full of Swedish speakers changes the odds a bit, but not as much as you might think.
There’s a Finnish guy who blogs in and advocates for the Irish language, maybe you’d like to take a look. I don’t know any Irish but his current post seems to be about Cthulhu!
May I suggest you all take your off-topic conversations over to the “rolls eys” thread? We’re trying for another 1000-post thread to make PZ cranky and I gotta get some sleep. Thanks!
Obviously McCain was referring to Greater Iraq after the Iranian problem has been… neutralised.
Sarcastro #107
That was a modified 16″ naval artillery shell not a bomb
It was dropped by an airplane not shot from a naval gun. FWIW the first bombs were mortar shells and hand grenades hand thrown/dropped by the pilot or other crew member(s) during WWI. When they come from an aircraft, they are called bombs.
The big bunker buster bombs used during Oil War I were called bombs even though they were a piece of a cut down artillery barrel. They worked by being DROPPED from an airplane —-
See: http://science.howstuffworks.com/bunker-buster.htm
The finished bomb is known as the GBU-28 or the BLU-113.
Has a conclusion been made as to whether McCain meant to say Iraq or Afghanistan yet?
It can’t be because he has trouble with maps. He is a pilot. Therefore he is a navigator. Navigators know maps.
It can’t be because he is senile or demented. Simple observation shows that. It must be something unexpected and seemingly unrelated. I think I just figured it out.
McCain would most likely be familiar with that old Stevie Wonder song that starts out with some random scat that includes the phrase, “. . . you know, Iraq, Iran . . ..” That quote may not be absolutely true to the actual lyrics because, by their nature, song lyrics are notoriously hard to recall correctly. I have frequently reversed the order, “Iran, Iraq,” when recalling the song (what the name?).
Consider how easy it would be to misinterpret that old Beach Boys song. The lyrics really say, “Ba-ba-ba, Ba-ba-bra Ann.” But for years, every time you turn around you hearr, “Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran.”
Heck, I even once thought they were singing, “. . . Bomber ran.” But not for long as the rest of the lyrics didn’t contain anything related to explosions. I’ve therefore chosen to recall the part of the song that goes, “. . . you got me rockin’ and a reelin’ . . ..” I can get that right repeatedly with high confidence. And I’m closer to McCain’s age than to, say, the average voting demo graph that is the main target of this presidential race.
The upshot is that public persons are in the public sphere and all that they say is either recorded or reported. Even the slips. Imagine your own self in such a position. You surely see that within a day you would have mangled a phrase, uttered a Spoonerism or said something quite possibly impolitic.
Yet such normal malfunctions of speech are the lifeblood of the media. And such trivia gets such a reaction from party faithful and those with just a little knowledge that the media are convinced that they have found important news and so . . .
Well, we don’t have to imagine how such a feedback loop could end up making lots of people look and sound very silly.
E Pluribus Unum
ahahah I did it myself. Don’t vote for me! I meant to say Iran.
Remembers me when I was studying in the States. As I was driving a bike with a belgian license plate, some people asked me if I came riding… One day I said: Yes, I tied two barrels to the bike and oars to the rear wheel… Hell of a ride :-) Thanks to Cthulhu I made it :-P
—
El Guerrero del Interfaz
Read a book by an Italian tour guide who said that he had some Yank tourists up in the North of Italy once who said to him that the border fence with Austria must be huge. He asked why and they said to keep the Kangaroos out.
Another story I heard was the tourist who declared, on leaving Firenze, that Firenze was damned fine but he’d still like to go to Florence because he’d heard so much about it.
We need a president who will
maintainreclaim American standards of geography, history, politics, honour, honesty, human dignity, secularism, anti-war-profiteering, fairness, open-mindedness, intelligence, education, democracy and a whole bunch of other things we expect of our leaders.Fixed.
It’s an oldie I heard in Europe:
If someone who speaks 3 languages is trilingual and someone who speaks 2 languages is bilingual, what do you call someone who speaks only one language?
An American.
Was I the only one disturbed that George Dubya had never left the country before becoming president? With his family’s wealth and power , what excuse can there be for not seeing the world?
#238: You’d better be infinitely prolonged if you’re going to wait around for *that*.
E.V. I am also disturbed! That is pitiful. Georgie’s a dumbass too.
# 226: Did you mean a Vietnamese POW camp? If you are talking about John Sidney McCain III, his plane was shot down over Vietnam.
Keanus @225: Is it safe to assume we are chatting with the 100% scorer?
With his family’s wealth and power , what excuse can there be for not seeing the world?
why travel the world when he already had quick access to all the blow and alcohol he could ever need?
*sigh*
GW ain’t alone when it comes to travel and owning a passport. According whatever source you use as few as 7% and as many as 20% of Americans even own a passport. Compare that to Australia where we possibly have a passport ownership rate of more than 50%. According to some figures I’ve seen in 2000/1 almost 20% of Australians went overseas. At any one time we have more than 1 million Aussies overseas out of a population of 21 million.
Not saying that if you’re more travelled you’re more worldly but it sure would help. That being said we see the ugly Aussie almost as much as the ugly yank and ugly pom when OS. The ugly German is the Eurotrash version and can be seen often in France, Spain and Italy.
#242: Did I say Korea? Sorry I meant Japan. He was shot down over Tokyo returning from a bombing mission over Dresden. I think he saw out the war in the Bangkok Hilton.
Chris, #240:
Yeah, should change my title to ‘The Infinitely Optimistic’, wouldn’t I?
But it’s nice to dream. Heck, I’m not even an American; I’d just like y’all to do better than the low-hanging fruit you’ve got now.
J:
Try this quiz. Let us know how you make out.
http://caveat.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2008/1/6/3450926.html
Wasn’t it the torpedoes that really were the decisive factor in Pearl Harbour?
That said, it seemed upon my viewing of the clip that Obama was anticipating that a WWII reference would refer to Hiroshima, as he said “bomb” (or “bombs”), then looked down to see what the next couple of lines were, then soldiered on through.
As for McCain, I am much more disturbed by his changes of attitude than by any Freudian slips (yes, it was likely a true {as far as anything which Freud posited can be said to be true} Freudian slip).
When Kerry changed sides on an issue, it was because further information made him change his mind- an admirable trait in a politician, if not so much by Kerry, who had simply ignored evidence until it was thrust upon him. McCain changed sides on the issue of the United States government using torture to extract confessions, and implicitly, weather those confessions should be allowed to be entered as evidence in criminal cases!
Let me be very clear; John McCain now endorses confessions obtained under torture to be valid evidence of guilt.
John McCain now endorses confessions obtained under torture to be valid evidence of guilt!
HOW THE FUCK IS THIS MAN A CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT?
Since people have mentioned it on this page, here’s why Bush was elected from a rhetoric’s point of view:
http://www.figarospeech.com/talk-like-bush/
Summary:
and
I recommend reading the full page at the link, it’s pretty interesting.
Sorry if I am offending anyone, but my impression is that US politicians don’t give a damn about foreign politics (or foreign countries, for that matter) because US citizens don’t either. So don’t be surprised.
Keanus in 225 said
Sorry to rain on your parade, but I went to public high school in Missouri ’94-’98 and had a required course in geography freshman year. We had to learn not just the locations of other countries, but also some relevant statistics like per capita GNP (now GDP?), infant mortality, major industries and such.
One thing you have to remember when discussing the USA public school system is that there are few national standards and no national curriculum. Each state sets its own standards and decides the basic curriculum. For example: when I was in high school Missouri required that contraception be taught in high school health class. Abstinence was stressed, but we did learn about contraception. That could have changed by now. I no longer live in Missouri.
I, like Pygmy Loris, was required to take geography in High School. It was a brutal course, and our teacher forced us to draw all maps from memory and label capitals on them. Not fun. Thanks Mr. Johanson….
Keanus Statement in post #225 might be true today though, things have gone down hill since “no child left behind” came into play. I find my little brother struggling in school because they don’t teach concepts, they teach how to take tests. The reason for this is that testing leads to money. Lovely.
It’s severely ironic to see people defending McCain’s ‘gaffe’ by saying he meant Iran rather than Iraq. If he actually meant the Iran-Pakistan border, then he comes off even worse because there’s no ‘situation’ on the Iran-Pakistan border. In contrast, the Afghanistan-Pakistan border is the source of extremely severe policy headaches not the least of which being that it’s become al Quaeda’s new base of operations.
The fact that McCain doesn’t know the situation on the ground–that Pakistan-Afghanistan poses a severe security risk while Pakistan-Iran is benign–well enough correct his mistakes on the spot speaks volumes about his actual qualifications on foreign policy.
McCain: “What’s the sitrep re Afghanistan? We are still supplying weapons to the Mujahadeen aren’t we? Damn Russkis! They’ll be after Iran next. Somebody call the Shah and let him know we have his back.”
@Pygmy Loris, Jennie
As a current high schooler at a well ranked public high school, in Illinois- geography is a elective. And I live in a town where other kids get cars for birthday presents, and stay-at-home moms are the norm. The last required geography course I had was in elementary school. Standards have dropped, I think. The closest thing we have to geography course you described is the Geography elective, or the International Studies/Current Issues electives (1 semester each), which covers world history, then (theoretically) hot issues internationally. I think we have two teachers covering both those subjects, but I can only confirm the existence of 1 of them. I can’t state with absolute certainty that my school is the norm, not the exception in this, but it certainly seems likely.
Emma,
I can completely believe standards have changed. And like I said, they vary from state to state.
@ Caveat #248
I can’t get past level 10 because my stupid touch pad won’t go exactly where I need it to be…why don’t I have a mouse on me?? Why?!
frog #177:
It should be pommy-arse for strict authenticity but you get a shitload of points for giving it a red hot go.
Hey, that’s nothing, in this clip, Obama claims to have visited 57 states with one more to go! (not counting Alaska and Hawaii)
So it appears neither are geniuses at geography.
A moron like you is no judge of who is a genius. Obama, who was very tired after spending numerous long days campaigning, said “57”, a “portmanteau” of “50” and “47”, the latter being what he meant; no big deal. But McCain, whom the corporate media and the Republicans and other lying assholes repeatedly portray as some expert on foreign policy just because he managed to get his plane shot down, “misspeaks” a non-existent border, a non-existent country, and a non-existent alliance between Iran and Al Qaeda. Even if they are “gaffes”, they undermine the absurd narrative about McCain, and thus the media hardly mentions them, unlike, say “bitter” or “really proud” … which were actually blameless.
Hey the last time us folks here in Airstrip One tried to fix some major geopolitical problem (with our friends from gay Paris) we got heavily slapped down by your El Presidente who made it plain our economy would be toast if we persisted.
Can we now take it as read that we can like, do stuff on our own now? Um can we have the targetting of our nukes to ourselves then? Sorry, yes I understand, baby steps. yessir.
If he actually meant the Iran-Pakistan border, then he comes off even worse because there’s no ‘situation’ on the Iran-Pakistan border. In contrast, the Afghanistan-Pakistan border is the source of extremely severe policy headaches not the least of which being that it’s become al Quaeda’s new base of operations.
He was asked about Afghanistan, so that’s most likely what he meant. But saying “Iraq/Pakistan border” strongly suggests that his “expertise” is quite shallow, the way that foreign language speakers make mistakes that are too absurd for any native speaker to make.
BTW it is plain why McCain is thought to have furrin policy experience. He has lived overseas after all. He has experienced the hospitality (and hospitals) that furriners can display.
Sorry if I am offending anyone, but my impression is that US politicians don’t give a damn about foreign politics (or foreign countries, for that matter)
Why would anyone else be offended by your absurdly wrong impressions? U.S. politicians care a great deal about foreign politics and foreign countries, because they have resources to steal and people with yucky colored skin to keep out.
Wasn’t it the torpedoes that really were the decisive factor in Pearl Harbour?
No, the decisive factor was that it was a massive surprise attack (employing both bombs and airborne torpedoes, as well as a small number of torpedoes from mini-subs).
//Sorry if I am offending anyone, but my impression is that US politicians don’t give a damn about foreign politics (or foreign countries, for that matter)//
This is an american thing tho,is it education,or just the attitude of thinking you live in the most relevant country in the world,nothing to do with politicians,although embarassing of course for a potential future leader.
Its like the Christians thinking their god is practically an American and cares about America alone….
http://caveat.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2008/1/6/3450926.html
I crapped out at level 6 with 28207 pts, 182107 total, Traveler IQ = 93. Given how much higher the geography points are than the time points, I think I could have done better if I had gone a little slower.
Also, the quiz seems to care too much about distance and not enough about geography; I accidentally clicked on France instead of England and it told me “Very nice!”, but when I put Toronto in the wrong Canadian province, I got 0 points.
truth machine,
Im impressed,
got to level 6 with 176000 and IQ 92 !!
truth machine,
Im impressed,
got to level 6 with 176000 and IQ 92 !!
Fortunately for McCain most Americans won’t notice the error.
Regardless of cretinous red herrings by Z and J(eremy), this is simply a fact … if for no other reason than that only a small fraction of Americans will ever know that McCain said it.
175993:92 – by the time I got the hang of it it got tricky.
Well, not only does the US education system ned a boost regarding geography, but its seems to be very funny, that there seems to be a theory, that US education could help South African education:
I did all my schooling in South African state run schools:
Did the test, and final score 497493, finished level 11 and IQ 124
So mutch for the thought that the US could help South African education…..
BY the way: I have a theory why the French and the US don’t get along. Both “know” they are the natural world leaders (and how wrong both of them are…)
I did all my schooling in South African state run schools:
Did the test, and final score 497493, finished level 11 and IQ 124
So mutch for the thought that the US could help South African education…..
And yet you can’t spot the hole in your own comment.
I can’t get beyond level 11 yet, but what really lets me down is my knowledge (or absence) of China. Australia and tiny islands. If the map was bigger it would have helped on some of the questions.
“Ira{q} – Ira{n}
bomb – bomb{s}
How are they fundamentally different mistakes? both are a single letter slip. I’m sure many people would be surprised at how often they make such slips without noticing.
note: I recall bush repeatedly calling Iraq Iran throughout a speech, that’s definitely different.”
Um, I hate to burst your bubble but iran does not border pakistan either. Well at least we know his supporters are as smart as he is.
Level 10, 113 IQ. And I’m half asleep.
<mutter>
You guys are making my IQ detumesce.
Developer Developee
Um, I hate to burst your bubble but iran does not border pakistan either. Well at least we know his supporters are as smart as he is.
Yes it does. Did you not look at the map?
And as noted by other people the problem is not the Pakistan/Iran border, but the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. This is not a single letter slip. McCain probably misspoke, but he seems do it consistently.
John Stanley McCain III, is an awesome spokesman for the working man.
He flew a multi million dollar jet and was shot down by outmoded third rate crappy soviet built anti aircraft guns.
That’s a War Hero.
Funny how they never had any grunts or foot soldiers in the Hanoi Hilton.
Please ignore above.
Thank You
Ronald Reagan/George Bush/LBJ Institute of warrior heroism Inc.
#199 “Hmm, what about Irish? (I know, only a minority of you actually use it very often, but still, I would expect it to have some effect on the statistics)”
The speaking of Irish is still quite localised to the Gaeltacht (Irish Speaking) regions although alot of young adults from Dublin etc spend their summer breaks in Irish language schools where I am (An Spideal), so there is a real push on to keep the language alive.
wow
speak of the Irish,
there ya go
I met some people who spoke Jew, but they couldn’t understand anybody who spoke Mexican.
Fun geography quiz. I did it twice with about the same score each time. It does change the questions which is nice.
Ciao
How do you know it wasn’t one bomb? Where you there??!!1!11!1
/creation apologist
I think that McSame’s individual remarks could be considered gaffes, but he keeps making them. I believe it points to a bigger issue, like is he daft or senile? And why wasn’t Rape Gurney Joe there to correct him (yet again)?
As far as airplanes go, McSame wrecked what, 4 planes BEFORE being shot down. I would consider that and his academic perfomance to say he ain’t no navigator.
Piloting: Ur doing it rong
Fun Quiz. I got to level 10, Travel IQ 110. My African geography sucks. The only Australian place they asked was Byron Bay – wtf? Not even a state capital.
I got to level 9 with an IQ of 103, but it shows that I really need to get some glasses.
BF
415807 / 10 / 116. And Scooter, there such a thing as the Irish language.
Oops, sorry, McStain only wrecked 3 aircraft – the 4th one, he was shot up by an errant US missile – while on the flight deck.
Cath,BF and windy,I dont believe you people,you practiced !!
CCC,Byron is kinda a state capital in a way,dont you think,if only the one of free love and drugs LOL
Good old times in Tweed….
I’d put McPaine’s war heroism right up the with Jefferson Davis.
How the hell could Arizona spawn an asshat like that crook. Google Keating Five.
Who pretend to the legacy of Goldwater ?
I seem to remember that Goldwater served and was not shot down, nor rolled over under torture, nor ripped off thousands of senior citizens for their life savings.
I guess I’m old fashioned that way.
I was just remembering how I was once shot down during World War II
OOOPS I was just remembering a speech by Reagan, sorry.
Back to Hollywood.
-s
Pygmy Loris #103, Some mild corrections.
Just “Gondwana” is preferred. It means “Land of the Gond(s)”
When Pangæa split up into Gondwana to the south and Laurasia to the north, the nascent North American continent was in Laurasia and South America in Gondwana. There was a pre-Pangæa continent of Gondwana too, but it never included parts of N. America.
So McCain would probably be Laurasian. OTOH, he was born in Panama, and I couldn’t say where the precursors of the isthmus were, so Gondwana could be right. [OT, I love the name ‘Tethys’.]
level 8, 103 iq, 288130
meh, disappointing how off I was on a few of them.
# 287
Yup and I can’t unnerstand those Guatemalens cuz they speak Mexican.
The language is called Gaelic by those who read books.
Walk into a Dublin Pub and ask if anybody speaks Irish, and see what slaps up the side of your head.
Probably an empty pint of Guiness, waste not, etc. but times change.
God save the queen, and don’t forget to wear your Union Jack T-Shirt for luck.
–
-s
I have more trouble with McCain singing, “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran”. How stupid can a presidential candidate be to do something like that? I simply can’t believe that this idiot won the nomination.
Well, that does it!
Earlier this year James Dobson had said he could not in good conscience vote for McCain.
The only thing I felt McCain had going for him was the fact that Dobson opposed him.
But yesterday, in the greatest conversion of faith since Antony Flew, Dobson announced that not only would he vote for McCain, he said-
“While I am not endorsing Senator John McCain, the possibility is there that I might.”
I guess that the “possibility” depends on how much more McCain is willing to kiss Dobson’s dominionist ass. But seeing how desperately McCain has been sucking up to the Religious Blight(tm), the question may be more whether McCain can slip his geographically challenged tongue far enough up Dobson’s ass to touch Pope Dobson’s flip-flopping, God-filled heart.
I simply can’t believe that this idiot won the nomination.
But did you see the rest of them? C’mon, Huckabee was basically the runner-up.
Ah, argument from pub violence. Fuck you too, shithead. Do they also beat up Irish academics who claim they study a language called Irish?
Epacris
I was just using Gondwanaland because it’s more familiar to me and to reinforce the idea that McCain is really freakin old. On a more serious note I think the increasing number of mistakes makes is telling us something: McCain’s mind isn’t as sharp as it used to be.
nino,
You must “know” many French people to make such a statement. I’m French, and I don’t personally know many of us who “know” that we are the natural world leader.
I think you’re confusing with chauvinism and a certain inflated sense of the role their country plays on international politics.
Which you would find similarly present amongst British, Italians, Japanese, Russians, etc…
Also, you might want to make a statement about the French and the Americans, and not the US.
Then, before you start coming up with some “theory” of your own, you might want to ask yourself, who amongst Americans, do not get along with the French, and vice versa.
Then you might also want to ask yourself if you are not just continuing to reinforce the same pathetic prejudices created by the neocon administration as a result of the French leadership in trying to stop the Iraq war in the united nations.
So, I’d like to ask you :
do you know anything about the French ?
do you speak their language ?
do you know many French personally ?
have you ever been there ?
longer than a short tourist visit ?
I haven’t got past Level 10, have played the game about 10 times or so. I’ve come close but no cigar.
Be careful, it’s addictive.
The map is quite small, which is why the game cuts you slack if you’re off by a few hundred kliks.
I am not good at Africa, I will admit, except for the north and south. Too many new country names since I memorized the map as a kid. The middle of the continent tends to confound me. The game is great though because you not only play, you learn.
Game.. promo.. same thing here. It’s neat.
For Richard Harris:
Look up synecdoche chuckles.
blf @ 170:
I hate that stupid argument. People from the United States of *America* are called *Americans* because the US is the country who put the freakin’ word *America* in the name of its county. As such, citizens of the USA are *Americans.*
The continents you mention are *North* America and *South* America. So, it would be appropriate to call, for instance, Canadians and Mexicans (and Americans) *North* Americans, while, say, Colombians and Brazilians would be *South* Americans, but not Americans.
The US is the only place (AFAIK) that uses *America* without the North or the South, and thus are correctly called Americans.
Re: the geography quiz: level 10, IQ 112, score: 374,511
Final score 504,645
Level 11
Travel IQ 125
We should get that Ms North Carolina girl to teach him all about maps and where the Iraq and such as is.
mooglar@303,
I never thought of it that way, but you seem to be right. Damn – there goes one of my favourite ways of teasing
UsaniansAmericans!Re Geography quiz
I tried again and was only 338 points from the 50,000 to get to level 11…I’m really bad with Africa apparently.
Anyway I thought it was funny that I had Vatican City, Vatican City; Rome, Italy; Pantheon, Italy; and the Colosseum; Italy. Not right in a row, but during the same game play sequence…huh, knowing a bunch of stuff in Rome is apparently the important thing.
Got to level 12, iq score 127. Only scored 1/2 the points required to pass 12. Some of those places were — just click the country.
mooglar @ #303
My impression is that the USA isn’t the only country in the Americas that has America in its name. It’s just the only one who does that in English. /end of hearsay
I think I’ll go look this up, just to check if this is wrong or right.
scooter @#293,
No, the language is called “Gaelic” mainly by foreigners who don’t know any better.
And most will say “Yeah, a bit, but not very well” and you might get one or two who are quite fluent. OTOH, go in and ask if anyone speaks Gaelic, and you’ll probably be asked “Do you mean Irish?” or “Who let the Yank in?” ;o)
“And most will say “Yeah, a bit, but not very well” and you might get one or two who are quite fluent. OTOH, go in and ask if anyone speaks Gaelic, and you’ll probably be asked “Do you mean Irish?” or “Who let the Yank in?” ;o)”
And someone will tell the stupid fucking yank he is in Cardiff, not Dublin.
According to the native country names listed in wikipedia, none of the countries have America in their name. I really need to stop listening to disgruntled South Americans.
Anyway, wouldn’t it technically be correct to also call the inhabitants of the Americas as Americans, the same way people in Eurasia are Eurasians? Or would one always have to use the form “The people of the Americas”, even if one doesn’t mind confusion as the context would make it clear which of the two one is talking about?
Dammit. All this talking about Gaelic makes me want to listen to the Gaelic Song by Arrogant Worms. Crazy song and oddly catchy.
251,915 points; Level 7; Travel IQ 100.
Australia and Canada got me in “Cities (Hard)” plus a random brain-fart made me click in the middle of Brazil for Lima! :(
Emmet, that’s what I suspected too, perhaps I should have been more understanding of the Yank. But you know what us Finns are like (have you learned Swedish yet?)
” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G9j-i6uXvA ”
o_O;;
Jag måste ha tappat mitt sinne för humor. Det där var bara korkat. But then again I’m the kind of weirdo who gets annoyed when fellow Swedes make too many stupid jokes about Norwegians/Finns/Danes.
#293: I’m pretty sure that you are a world of wrong. The name, in English, of Ireland’s native language is “Irish”. I was quite vigorously corrected by a friend from Cork for calling it “Gaelic”. The word for the Irish language in Irish is “Gaeilge” but that is neither here nor there.
Nice use of the “drunken violent Irishmen” stereotype, btw.
@316: I admit the knife and Koskenkorva jokes get old after a while… but somehow I like that vid.
So, I’d like to ask you :
do you know anything about the French ?
do you speak their language ?
do you know many French personally ?
have you ever been there ?
longer than a short tourist visit ?
He’s obviously wrong in his assumption that the French assume they’re the “natural world leader”, but I can’t help finding amusement in your egregious double standards. Apparently, sweeping statements about Americans are fair game, but to say anything about the French one has to speak French and have lived there.
Unless you have reliable evidence, sweeping statements about any nationalities are unfair. That includes unsupported speculation about American geographical knowledge.
windy @ #318:
Well, the sketch definitely has a lot of potential. They used a lot of interesting characters. The creators just managed to kill the funny for me halfway through or earlier, unfortunately. I’ve never seen that show before, so I suspect a lot of the things I reacted at was related to not being used to show itself. Things out of context often become less funny if one doesn’t have the right mindset in beforehand.
windy,
Thanks for the tip for the Hiberno-Finnish blog earlier: very interesting. Irish is a pretty interesting/bizarre language and there are quite a few Germans, Finns, even Koreans whose Irish is better than mine!
Unfortunately, my Swedish still sucks. My coursework is entirely in English, everyone here speaks perfect or near-perfect English, and as an “International Master’s” student, you neither qualify for SFI nor for the freebie courses that the Erasmus students, who are only here one semester, get. I can’t really afford the Folksuniversitet courses, so I’m pretty much entirely self-taught: I can read pretty well, say more-or-less anything I want to say, albeit with some circumlocution to get around my small vocabulary, but I need a lot of practice listening to full-speed Swedish. I’m at a stage where I’m asking people to repeat what they said, then after they say the first word, I understand what they said the first time: it just takes a few seconds to percolate through my language filter :o)
If Pakistan and Afghanistan border each other, I think our soldiers can now leave Iraq.
Um, I hate to burst your bubble but iran does not border pakistan either. Well at least we know his supporters are as smart as he is.
What a fucking moron. It takes extra special stupid to get so much wrong at once.
If Pakistan and Afghanistan border each other, I think our soldiers can now leave Iraq.
???
Here’s some hard evidence about American geographical knowledge and attitudes:
… (where “hard” = anecdotal, cherry picked, intended to get J(eremy)’s goat)
Darkly amusing slip … but the reference link doesn’t go to the right story. The link given, http://amygdalagf.blogspot.com/2008/07/very-serious-situation.html , goes to someone asking for money because s/he has painful gout … odd in its own right, perhaps, but at least the gout-disabled person isn’t running for US President!
Does anyone have the right link?
Travel IQ:
score: 415470
level: 10
IQ: 116
Complete non-issue. People mis-speak, it happens. Hell, the now-famous 57 states comment by Obama is pretty much the same thing. I don’t think ANYONE believes that Obama doesn’t know that the US has 50 states.
The same is true here.
Frankly, it’s embarrassing that you would post this as if it was worth discussing.
I think that’s what they call a buffer zone.
You’re not getting your money’s worth.
.
I agree with #329. Do we really need hundreds of blog readers competing in the clever sarcastic internet olympics over this? Where’s the beef guys?
I cannot believe nobody has caught on to another possibility! To “drop a bomb” can also be used metaphorically, as in: “We were in the middle of dinner when she dropped the bomb… she was leaving me!”
But, like, whatever! I’m not even IN that country. ;)