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enjoralls:

i was talking to my american friend today and something occurred to me 

out of sociolinguistic interest, 1) where are you from? and 2) if someone from the same country as you started talking about ‘the war’ (without any context as to which), which war would you assume they meant?

theroselegends:

tropicaljohn:

kristoffblogman:

lowkey terrified of ever visiting the usa because i have no idea how tipping works

If you are in a sit down restaurant with servers, it is polite to tip 15-20% of the bill at the end of the meal. Waitstaff are paid a pittance wage on the expectation it will be made up in tips. This is extremely fucked up but that’s how it is. Please do not withhold tips to American servers unless the service was truly horrible.

If you have food delivered to you at home or hotel or something, it’s polite to tip the delivery person a few dollars. They usually make minimum wage and don’t get much for gas/wear and tear on their vehicle.

Quick service fast food places like McDonald’s and Wendy’s are generally not tipped.

Some delis, coffee shops, and other small independent establishments may have a jar on the counter labelled TIPS. It is not required to tip but if you want to drop a dollar or your change in because you like the place they appreciate it. The tip jar is typically split up by the workers at the end of the day.

I don’t know how many followers I have outside the US, but I’m a server and I appreciate someone putting this into simple words without bias. Just for information’s sake.

readableposts:

halfdesiqueen:

friendly reminder that the whole “when you’re arrested you have one phone call” thing isn’t real it’s a thing that tv crime dramas made up

you have a constitutional right to an attorney and you can have as many phone calls, smoke signals, carrier pigeons, etc, as it takes to contact your attorney.

contacting anyone else (a partner, a parent, a babysitter, whatever) isn’t actually a right that can be denied to you, 

but it might be more trouble than it’s worth to ask cops for a phone for these purposes, 

so when your attorney shows up, you can use their phone to make those calls. there’s nothing that legally prevents you from doing so

[spaces added for accessibility]

“

To date, ISIS has killed four Americans, a horrible tragedy for those people and their families. But since the idea of the group’s threat to America is at this point entirely hypothetical, we should be as specific as we can when we talk about that threat. Do we think they’re going to try to hijack planes or send agents here to set off bombs? And if so, what do we need to do to counter those threats that we aren’t already doing? If we’re going to expand our military involvement in the Middle East, is there a way to do it that won’t create more problems than it solves?

Those are simple, obvious questions, but so often they’re overwhelmed by people waving their arms and shouting “We’re all gonna die!” In the days and years after September 11, Republicans repeated that al Qaeda was an “existential threat,” a notion that was utterly insane yet seldom examined. And we certainly acted as though the very existence of the United States of America was indeed in question. Congress gave the federal government a slate of new powers to spy on its citizens. We created a surveillance apparatus of gargantuan size and scope. We deployed a network of secret prisons as sites for a program of torture. And we all got used to the idea that the War on Terror is forever.

”

— A couple of hundred thousand Americans die every year from preventable medical errors and the response from the government amounts to “Gee, that’s too bad,” but all it takes is a few videos of brutal executions 6,000 miles away to spur a wholesale reexamination of American foreign policy. (via wilwheaton)