Guard Dog

Oh it's an art work? Well they should have said that higher up in the article Art & sarcasm, it's a beautiful blend!

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbxdnv/university-of-utah-cry-closet-stressed-out-college-students-vgtrn

Not exactly. Invading Iraq set a chain of events in motion that led to this. There were other factors along the way. You can't solve a problem by compounding the errors that created it. Fight fire with fire is popular saying but it's not logically sound reasoning. The middle east is brimming full with religious and ethnic factions that hate each each other for reasons the west will never comprehend. Left to their own devices they will do exactly what they are doing. Iraq, an artificial country from the get-go, was only held together at gunpoint. First the British, then Sidiqi, then a never-ending series of coups and revolutions until Hussien and the Baathists. George W Bush got it in his head that inside every Iraqi is a little American just waiting to get out and form an egalitarian republic in the heart of old Babylon. He was dead wrong. In the heart of every Iraqi is a Sunni, Shia, Kurd, etc. Who could be loyal to a country that has brutalized them for a half century? How could the Sunnis accept being a minority in a country controlled by people they helped brutalize? The invasion broke the ties that bound all this together. Bound in misery no doubt, bound all the same. If the Bush admin had any sense they would have broken up Iraq in three autonomous territories. But once again they failed to understand history and the region. Actually if they had any sense they would have left well enough alone. So now Iraq, Syria, parts of Jordan, are all in civil war. No matter what side the US "helps" they are aiding and abetting enemies. Help Assad you help the Russians. Help the Shia in Iraq you help Iran. Help the various Syrian factions and you are helping either ISIS or Al Qaeda. As far as the humanitarian crisis goes, no matter which side "wins" there will be a mass killing at the end of all this. There is no favorable outcome. Even if there is an armed intervention just to force a peace that peace ends they day the intervening force leaves. Just look at Afghanistan. Next year children who were born while parents were serving in Afghanistan will begin to deploy to the same war their parents fought. None of them were alive to see 9/11 and they are going to fight a war that has gone on their whole lives. It's Orwellian. And the moment we leave, the government there will collapse and all of it will have been for nothing. Once the Taliban was outed we should have let the local warlords reestablish their fiefdoms and left them to it. I know only one truth, it's time for all this to end.

In all seriousness that is not the Federal Government's problem. That is Michigan's problem. And they don't appear to be terribly motivated to fix it.

It should be noted that estimates to replace all the pipes in Flint would come in at $55M. They blew more than the cost to fix a dangerous public health issue to posture in global politics without doing anything to significantly affect the tide of the conflict. But at least Trump looks tough against "Animal Assad". Ah-ha! Found it!

I don't think that really works anymore. I disagree... to a point. If we followed his advice to the letter there would be no NATO or UN today. Their actual value is debatable but it's fair to say their existence is a net positive. But nothing in Syria or Iraq involves NATO. Nor does it implicate Israel so our joint defense agreement with them does not compel us to get involved. In other words, this is not our problem and we shouldn't make it ours. And to tell you the truth this North Korea business isn't really our problem either. Our security guarantees with the RoK involve defending them from attacks. They haven't been attacked. Even the preemptive measures we have offered they don't seem to want.

Excellent choice! Robert Shaw absolutely nailed that scene!

I have a better idea, wash our hands of the whole mess and let it go. They are going to kill each other no matter what we do. I say we just get out of their way and let them. Of course one of the big reasons this is all happening was we thought the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Another sterling example of the importance just leaving things well enough alone. What is broken by intervention can't be fixed by intervention. Maybe someday we'll figure that out.

No missile system is immune to being overwhelmed. To paraphrase Sebastian Junger, a Tomahawk Missile costs $1.4M. They are fired by a guy who couldn't earn that much in 20 years at people who couldn't earn that much in a lifetime. We used 59 of them. That's just like watching $83M that Americans worked hard to earn fly across the ocean and explode. All to punish one group of villains fighting another group of villains every one of which would happily murder those Americans. That $83M would have been better spent buying arms for both sides and hope they all kill each other off. Or better yet don't use the money you steal from me at gunpoint to go kill people I have no beef with. But that's just me.

Bob Dorough passed away. He was the guy that wrote and created the School House Rock shorts that used to come on during Saturday Morning Cartoons back in the 70's & 80's. https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/24/us/schoolhouse-rock-creator-died-trnd/index.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFroMQlKiag

All who have power fear to lose it my young apprentice.

Apocalypse Now did better service to it's source material than a lot of movies that are based on books. I enjoyed Conrad's "The Heart of Darkness" but I like Apocalypse Now better. The Outlaw Josey Wales did too. That was lighting in a bottle for Forrest Carter. That novel (it was called "Gone to Texas" not Outlaw Josey Wales) was the only good thing he wrote. The rest was trash.

This one is good too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Sho8GETs80

My favorite movie is The Outlaw Josey Wales. The best scene is the last one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjNZT4HanZo

You go with what you know

The article also assumes that the aliens are of proportionate size to us. If they were smaller and built smaller space vehicles gravity becomes less problematic as weight and mass decrease.

I bought a bottle of Tin Cup American Whiskey. After a thorough vetting I'm afraid to say I can't give it my recommendation. First off, it's too sweet by half. Second of all the "burn" is just obnoxious for 84 proof. It's taken no character from the aging process. My guess is it wasn't aged nearly long enough. They don't put dates on the bottle so that's likely it. They don't want you to know. And the sweetness tell me the mashbill is flawed too because the yeast didn't consume enough of the sugars in the wort. And to top it off, it's a little expensive at $45 a liter. Jack Daniels actually tastes better. And I f-----g HATE Jack Daniels.

Good Luck Calax!

Interesting business idea. I wish I'd thought of it. I think I'd have gone with a different name but, it seems to work. http://theweek.com/articles/759527/rise-womenonly-coworking-spaces

It was BG I & II and FO I & II that got me into RPGs. I LOVED those games. And have since been disappointed to find out how rare they were. That's why I was so happy with PoE. And I'm looking forward to Deadfire. Games like that just don't come around very often. But if companies like Obsidian will keep making them I'll keep buying them. Even if I have to do it twice (Kickstarter). I'm the audience THAT kind of game is looking for. I want my PC to be a different kind of person at the end of the game than they were at the beginning. Not just more skilled.

I get the feeling that you're not being completely serious. They do say that "the love of money is the root of all evil" for a reason, you know? More seriously, you may be on to something. Are you familiar with time banks? JES may not want to trade you a Deadfire key for some farm fresh eggs and a bunch of tomatoes (his loss), but he could be more open to an exchange of services considering that you're an engineer that's good with... uh... engineering stuff. Crazy, perhaps, but less so than crypto, and less vulnerable to a catastrophic market crash & burn, 1600s Netherlands-style... Yeah I actually read an article about that in the WP about that a little while back. Rhode Island is using that system for community service credits. They (the article) did explore the concept as a payment system of sorts for cooperating businesses. It's an interesting concept but I'm not sure it has wheels. I know a lot of folks have made some nice money on bitcoin but I am waaay too risk-averse in investing to even fool with real currency speculation. To say nothing of something that exists only on the internet. I'm still remembering the '90s when people were going bust buying into massively overpriced stocks of companies that had no products, assets, and ultimately customers. But you were right, I was not being serious. As far as currency goes, you know the old saying "worst system in the world. Except for all the others" On another humorous note, Bitcoin explained: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dErRj6V8_xQ

Here is your daily dose of awesome https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgQPyU3J0P0

I got up, fed the critters, mowed the grass, weeded the garden, and fixed a stuck window. It doesn't sound like much but I'm pooped. I must be getting old. I've never seen the show "The Americans". Seems like a good day to binge-watch.

I say we get rid of currency altogether and go back to the barter system. Hey Obsidian, I'll trade you two bushels of carrots and some farm fresh eggs for PoE Deadfire. What do you say?

That's not true. I've had some of my opinions changed from coming here. I think a few others too. Besides, that isn't really the point. The discussion is it's own reward IMO.