> Also having that step with all your poop on it just sitting there is unpleasant, at least to me.
That's wildly exaggerating it. Normally the brush isn't really dirty and you can soak it in soapy water every couple of weeks/months and you are fine. The water pressure seems higher in Europe (or at least in Germany, where I lived before moving to the US). After you cleaned the toilet, you would normally still be able to clean the brush off with the water of the current flush (should that be needed).
In fact, I find it bewildering that there is normally no brush in the US. It is unavoidable for almost all toilet types to get dirty and I find it frustrating if I can't leave the toilet how I would like to find it (clean), because there are still traces clearly visible in the toilet and no brush is available. Especially when I am visiting somewhere or we rent a vacation house with friends. Really awkward to see traces in the toilet of people who were in there before you (or the other way around).
Is that so? Europe seems to have slightly more than 10 million square kilometers in area and the US slightly less than that. Europe is certainly more fragmented, but looking at thetruesize.com, one can use a better area preserving map projection and it seems that Europe has more space.
(I still agree with your points in general though.)
It still carries a lot of weight if the president says something like this. Legal or not. And since it doesn't seem to be legal it is actually worse that the head of a country uses this sort of language.
> “Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.”
What a weird tone. Is that a thing in the US? Can the president (legally) order companies "home"? Doesn't sound like "land of the free" to me.
For me: I grew up in Europe in times where the wall came down in Germany, a shared currency was established (Euro) and all European borders within Europe where suddenly passable without passport, visa checks, money exchange, someone judging you, etc.. Of course this caused other problems to solve, but the general feeling of freedom and being able to go some other country and even being able to live and work there was very liberating for me and motivated me to travel a lot (easy and relatively cheap in Europe by railroad). I don't want to argue whether or not this is possible for the whole world and what it would take, but it surely is a dream for me to live in a (global) society that makes this possible.
You can click on the little "web" link below the HN link to the article above the comments. This will search Google for the article's title---opening it from there won't bring up the paywall.