World War III

[Stefan Mikes]

Interesting to read opinions on the McD in the home country of that fast-food network. Whenever I was in Europe (but mostly in Poland), I found McDonald's restaurants pretty standardized, and all of them were selling food as advertised. Perhaps people in Europe do care? IDK.

An anecdote: On our 2021 Lithuania holidays, I was not impressed with that country very much. Yes, a very clean country. The agriculture was in far worse shape we had it in Poland, and at least half of food was imported (mostly from Poland). The landscapes were boring for me (except of the Curonian Peninsula, which was just magic). Yes, the cities of the history intertwined with the Polish one were interesting. I specifically disliked the food we could get at restaurants.

One day, we were in Klaipeda, the only sea-port of Lithuania, planning to get a hotel room in the Curonian Peninsula (expensive and hard to get in the high season). And we ate at a McD restaurant.
-- Honey -- I said to my wife -- The first good thing I got here. The Big Mac is just delicious! Far better than I could get in Poland!
-- My poor boy -- my wife replied -- How hungry you must have been! Trust me: This Big Mac is identical to what we are getting in Poland!

 

[ChezCheese:)]

Fast food joints are blank spaces in the landscape to me. I don't even see them.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Fast food joints are blank spaces in the landscape to me. I don't even see them.

Chez: Let me say one thing.
Wherever you are in Europe, McDonald's will ensure the place is clean (save Denmark*!), and you won't get sick because of the sanitary conditions
In 1990, I developed a stomach illness in Germany (the reasons are irrelevant). McD was the only such a delicate food to let me survive till the end of my contract there.
---------------
*) In the merry Denmark, the labour cost is such high the restaurant is only cleaned once in 24 hours.

 

[ChezCheese:)]

I just don't eat that kind of food. Beef doesn't actually taste like anything anymore, not even the grass fed. Moreover, I try to avoid industrial factory food, and food-like substances. And I would rather spend my money at individually owned establishments owned by real people who make real food, than at corporate feedlots staffed by people that aren't paid enough to give a damn.

"No, really, Chez - - tell us what you really think..."

 

[Gordon71]

I have not eaten out since the pandemic started. After all that time I find that I don't miss it one bit and can find other more rewarding things to spend my money on. I also have not had a cold or flu since before the pandemic. Silver linings.

 

[Taylor57]

Fast food joints are blank spaces in the landscape to me. I don't even see them.

I need a good cheeseburger or greasy burrito every now and then..

 

[ChezCheese:)]

Make your own then. It will be better.

 

[Cowlitz]

Chez: Let me say one thing.
Wherever you are in Europe, McDonald's will ensure the place is clean (save Denmark*!), and you won't get sick because of the sanitary conditions
In 1990, I developed a stomach illness in Germany (the reasons are irrelevant). McD was the only such a delicate food to let me survive till the end of my contract there.
---------------
*) In the merry Denmark, the labour cost is such high the restaurant is only cleaned once in 24 hours.

I used to think that they were clean. Then, I went into the bathroom of a McDs in Yuma, AZ. I turned around and left and went elsewhere to eat.

Our local Burger King, which I've never been to either, made the news a bit ago. A customer called 911 to report that her fries they gave her were cold.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

I used to think that they were clean.

In the parts of Europe I visited, McDs are the paramount of cleanliness. You can always see an employee cleaning the tables, the floor, sweeping outside. In Denmark, the toilets are clean, only the eating part of the restaurants is only cleaned once per day. I have never been to McD in countries like Italy or France, and I have never been to Spain or Greece so I do not know. In the Polish McD, you will often meet an "usher" now, a person making you feel better, opening the door for you, talking to you, etc.

I know it might be quite different to the United States.

In Subway, I'm fed up with all the question related to what my sub should be. I have learnt this litany by heart:

• Full sub
• White bread
• Bacon only
• "Vegetables from these four containers, a little of jalapeño please"
• "Mayonnaise"
• "A lot of salt".

 

[tomjasz]

Nonsense.

Here in a city of 27,000. 3 stores within 2-3 miles of each other. Blech!

 

[Taylor57]

I used to think that they were clean. Then, I went into the bathroom of a McDs in Yuma, AZ. I turned around and left and went elsewhere to eat.

Our local Burger King, which I've never been to either, made the news a bit ago. A customer called 911 to report that her fries they gave her were cold.

In and Out here in CA (Nevada and AZ me tinks too) have fabulous burgers and they are sticklers for cleanliness...

 

[Handlebars]

Hundreds more nazis now surrendering at the Azovstal factory.

 

[chunk]

In and Out here in CA (Nevada and AZ me tinks too) have fabulous burgers and they are sticklers for cleanliness...

I must be the only person in California that thinks In and Out burgers suck. To me they are just greasy, salty. gut bombs. But to be fair, the last time I ate at a fast food joint was probably at least 30 years ago, if not longer. I went with a plant based diet about then, long before it was a thing.

 

[mclewis1]

Now if we're all finished discussing fast food ...

Vlad the Impaler ...

Check out this cartoon

Editorial Cartoons from The Week

theweek.com

 

[Mulezen]

This response to a Washington Post story, and the BBC link was very enlightening. The credible Russian commentator on a popular Russian show will have an impact

“The article fails to properly contextualize retired Colonel Mikhail Khodarenok and the significance of his appearance on a national TV broadcast.

First off Khodarenok was a critic of the war in early February and publicly and presciently predicted a military disaster.

Secondly the TV show he appeared on is hosted by a very vocal Putin cheer leader and war enthusiast who sat mute while Khodarenok explained why Russia was not only going to lose the war but also lose politically by mobilizing the West and suffer economically for generations as the mainstay of their revenue stream, O&G, is cut off by their main customer, the EU.

Khodarenok sees this war as a monumental act of stupidity and hubris that is going to subject Russia to third world conditions for the foreseeable future leaving only its nuclear arsenal as a reminder of the super power status Putin intended to restore.

The most significant aspect of his national TV appearance is that he was there at all as his views were well known to the Kremlin as he was and is an unrepentant and vociferous critic of both Putin and the war.

In a much more nuanced article on the BBC it was speculated that his appearance was vetted by the Kremlin as a preparatory step to ease the way into rationalizing the inevitable failure to the Russian public and that this marks a significant turning point in the broader thinking about the consequences of losing much more than the war itself.

The BBC article is a must read for those who take an active interest in this stunning political/propaganda development:”

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61484222

 

[indianajo]

Thanks for quote mulezen. I'm cut off from bbcnews.com now since they require my birthdate to read it now. Bbcnews are welcome to hire a private detective to get it if they want it that bad. Same with Facebook, Twitter etc.
Wondered how that Colonel with the bad news got on the Russian TV, anyway.
Today Russians bombed a Ukrainian grain warehouse. **** off the whole hungry world! There are already food +fuel riots in Sri Lanka. UP BNSF CSX or NS needs to go in Ukraine under contract, containerize the 2021 harvest, and haul it out to European ports by the trainload. Yeah, Ukraine is a different gauge than Europe. That's why containers & container transfer machines. UP has fuel tenders now, their diesel sets can go 2000 miles without fueling. Deutsche Bundesbahn runs passenger schdules like a corps de ballet but the Ukrainians probably know more about the urgency of a grain harvest. First Biden team needs to protect east-west rail lines from missiles+planes. Even if US has to buy missiles from Israel, the #1 air defense team.
Read how US Army rail teams supplied the US Civil War. I live a mile from the US depot in Jeffersonville, IN where the ammo+food+supplies exited the trains from NYC+Philly+Boston+Baltimore+CIncy(pork city), crossed the Ohio on barges, and headed off to Tennessee+Georgia+SC+NC by mule train.
I actually thought of visiting the Hermitage museum in Leningrad/StPetersburg one day for the pictures, in the 00's. They can burn it down now for all I care. The special exhibition of some of the pictures in London under Putin didn't tempt me.

 

[Mulezen]

^Sherman was a master of supply lines…one historian I read said the only two genius‘ of the CW were Sherman and the Rebel general (?) who founded the KKK and was well known for executing black POWs

 

[Mr. Coffee]

^Sherman was a master of supply lines…one historian I read said the only two genius‘ of the CW were Sherman and the Rebel general (?) who founded the KKK and was well known for executing black POWs

You're thinking of Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Executing surrendered black soldiers was pretty common practice in the Confederate Army:

Douglass’s assertion, equating military service with manhood and citizenship, was not lost on Confederate authorities. The Confederacy could not treat captured black soldiers in the same way that it treated whites, for to do so would be to legitimize them as both soldiers and men, and to implicitly accept the Emancipation Proclamation. Therefore, eight days before the Emancipation Proclamation was to go into effect, Jefferson Davis stated: “All negro slaves captured in arms be at once delivered over to the executive authorities of the respective States to which they belong.” A resolution later adopted by the Confederate Congress provided that all “negroes or mulattoes,” slave or free, taken in arms should be tried for inciting servile insurrection and be subject to the death penalty.

 

[Handlebars]

(....) the Rebel general (?) who founded the KKK and was well known for executing black POWs

Democrats

"Founded in 1865, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) extended into almost every southern state by 1870 and became a vehicle for white southern resistance to the Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for Black Americans. Its members waged an underground campaign of intimidation and violence directed at white and Black Republican leaders. Though Congress passed legislation designed to curb Klan terrorism, the organization saw its primary goal–the reestablishment of white supremacy–fulfilled through Democratic victories in state legislatures across the South in the 1870s. "

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Secondly the TV show he appeared on is hosted by a very vocal Putin cheer leader and war enthusiast who sat mute

I could see the extended programme. She was trying to slight his views but he was insistent to present them. For instance, he was saying the high morale of the Ukrainian Armed Forces combined with the readiness of the soldiers to die for their country was an important factor in that Army's professionalism; she said "the wish to die does not seem to be professional?" So he quoted the classics of Marxism-Leninism and said "they were not stupid in this matter".

Yes, I was surprised myself such a material could be presented in the Russian TV.
Necessary to mention my generation were all taught Russian, and I had Russian lessons for some 10 years (grades 5th to 8th of the primary school, grades 1st to 4th of the high school, and two years in the University). We didn't want to learn "the language of the enemy". My passive understanding of Russian is very good (reading is easy for me, listening comes next). I can to some extent speak Russian but have never learned writing good. What I can say is Russian and Ukrainian are very different languages. Listening to Russian is easy for me, and I need to focus when I try understanding the Ukrainian even if the latter is more similar to Polish.