Yanks elect police officers and judges. They also allow corporations to openly bribe politicians and call it lobbying. Somehow, those “corruption index” reports always say the US is clean.
What I’ve noticed is while there’s absolutely corruption at high levels in America, amongst the rich, there’s almost no situation where (say) you have to sneakily hand over an extra $20 at the DMV to get your driver’s license. Or slip your nurse at the hospital an extra $50 to make sure she cares for you appropriately. Or get a lavish gift for teacher so you can get the grade you need to get into the right school.
I mean, here or there people can try that stuff, but it’s still a legit scandal if it happens, it’s not baked into society.
Whereas that sort of casual greasing-of-hands with an extra $5 here, extra $20 there $50 there at every single level even amongst not-rich folks can supposedly be common in heavily corrupted societies.
Yeah, there’s corruption–but it’s pretty over-our-heads for everyday stuff. It’s not baked into everyday interactions we have if we go down the street to the grocery store, or want to get a Passport done.
Police officers don’t get elected, but the sheriffs do. I think this is mostly a holdover from when the only real law within a hundred miles of a town was the sheriff.
I do agree that electing judges is odd. My state doesn’t even allow us to vote on electing them anymore, but just on retaining them in office. I’ve always voted “No” just because I don’t think it’s appropriate.
Now if you want to get really weird, most areas also elect their coroner and there usually is no skill or education requirement to be elected.
Colonizing. I mean, I kinda get that their stupid island had no good spices. But why colonize the world to get all the spices and then never cook with them? Makes no sense.
Being forced to see a GP before a specialist even when you clearly know you have an ear problem and you’ll end up being referred to the specialist anyway. money grab policies!
Luckily this one is easyish to get around. Some insurance plans don’t require a referral for a specialist; you can just make an appointment to see them directly. You just have to look for the policy when you pick your plan (assuming you have insurance available to you, but that’s a whole 'nother issue)
Those plans usually have a more limited network and a higher out of network charge, though.
My work subsidizes both our CCHP and PPO at exactly the same amount. They’ve made it clear that it’s almost always cheaper to go with the CCHP no matter how much healthcare you need in a given year.
Everytime US users call their country ‘America’ it sounds weird. America is a continent, not a country.
It’s both. Same way Australia is both a country and a continent. I know it can also be called Oceania.
As for shortening United States of America to just America, it’s no different than los Estados Unidos Mexicanos shortening it to just Mexico.
Take it up with Wikipedia. like someone else pointed out there is not really a consensus as to what is specifically called a continent or even how many continents there are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent
Oh look Australia has 2 pages, one for the country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia
and one for the continent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_(continent)
Should you find it weird when any Australian calls themselves Australian and not Commonwealth of Australian? Because as you can see that’s the full name.
I’m from Colombia and thought it was weird at first since in Spanish you refer to Americans as Estado Unidenses. Which in hindsight is the weird thing because you don’t really do that for other countries. You don’t call people from la Republica de Colombia “Republicanos” you call them “Colombianos”.
If people from the United States of America want to call themselves Americans, then it makes 100% sense since the “America” in the name of the country is the only part that’s actually a proper name and not a descriptor.
Linking here the demonym from people for the United States of America is Americans because United Statetians? would just be weird. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonyms_for_the_United_States
It’s not both though. America isn’t a country, and neither is Oceania. America is the name of the continent, and a nickname for the US, and Oceania incoporates several countries, including New Zealand and Papua New Guinea
True that continents are defined differently in different parts of the world. In Europe, there’s America and Oceania as continents. In “America”, America is a country, and so is Africa :p
(jokes aside, it’s true that in the USA continents are defined differently than Europe, for example. There’s North America & South America as separate continents, and yes, Australia as a continent).
Drink tea with hot milk, like wtf? The milk sweetness destroy all that good light bitter flavor of tea.
Milk in tea is only universal for English/Irish breakfast tea(idk how popular they are outside wester Europe but in England/Ireland if someon says tea they mean breakfast tea and will specify otherwise)for something like chai or eal grey 1/3~(anicdotally) of people who drink it wouldn’t have mik, and the milk isn’t hot it’s normally fridge-cold to room-temp the tea bag is steeped in just water, the point is to sweeten the rea and cool it down
If it’s milk being added to tea that surprises you, it is a regular drink in south and south-east asia, not unique to the west. The latter especially has this drink called “teh tarik” that uses condensed milk and is awesome but diabetes-inducingly sweet.
American. I normally drink my tea black, but milk is nice with earl grey on occasion.
And typically, the milk isn’t hot. You pour it in already steeped tea, like you would if you drank coffee with cream.
That said, I do occasionally steep my earl grey entirely in steamed milk and add a little vanilla and it’s just a nice treat. But I’m not looking for a bitter flavor at that point either.
Honestly, I thought putting milk & sugar in your tea was bonkers until I tried it from my British friends. It works with traditional English teas, but not really with American/orange pekoe teas.
There are some English teas that are so bitter that they need sugar in order to be palatable.
You’re posting from an Indonesian server, so this is a particularly hilarious take.
