BruceVC

Im a little unsure about what you saying, I like what I think you saying but Im not sure I do understand your broader point? When you say " societies are the sum of the individuals " what exactly do you mean? Let me use an example, their is a high level of gun violence in the US. What does this tell us about the society of the US? Surly we dont generalize about the worst aspects and criminal elements of any society and say that is a reflection of the society We must separate bad behavior from good behavior and that should be the sum of the society because if most people really believed the US was a country of mass shootings or structural racism why would so many people want to immigrate their?

Thanks for the detail, I appreciate it and you have answered my questions nicely You guys are doing a good thing helping out like this

Same as us, the global inflation is really hurting everyone in SA in an unprecedented way and as usual it hurts the poor the most I can tell you one thing, it will have to be a deadly virus with a 60%+ fatality rate before we see the level of global lockdowns again that we went through over the last 2 years Is your petrol\gas expensive, I know Iran producers oil so I imagine this type of cost is less? In SA its the most expensive its been in living memory and we also have own petrol tax which is on hold at the moment

Wow, okay. I guess things arent that bad in Afghanistan if the Taliban can return ostensibly poor quality fuel?

I never played in Al-Qadim, it gets mostly positive feedback from those that experienced it

I hear you, war can be such an inconvenience to gaming...I hope my fellow gamers are okay

When a country is invaded like we seeing with Putins War their is lots of jobs you can be recruited to do that include patrol and information gathering, engineering, repurposing of vehicles, catering, hospital work, salvaging of destroyed cities. I have seen lots of this on CNN where they interview both men and women who are actively involved in the war effort but they not frontline soldiers and they all volunteers. They dont need to be conscripted and very few of them had any military experience I would expect this when your entire country faces an existential threat. How many Ukrainians have been sent to fight the Russians without ammunition, can you provide links because I am not aware of it ?

I consider the various D&D/AD&D worlds to be very different in many ways that include history, gods, races and geography But why Im so fond of Greyhawk is because it was the first AD&D world I DM in and then I moved to FR which is my overall favorite and still is But I loved the fact that Greyhawk had the locations of modules like Against the Giants and Queen of the Spiders, these were epic modules. ( here is link to the Queen, needless to say Lolth is smoking hot ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_the_Spiders And then Greyhawk had these unique countries and regions that represented high fantasy like the Empire of Iuz which was a country where the dark god Iuz ruled on the earth https://greyhawkonline.com/greyhawkwiki/Iuz

I have a different view, I believe if your country is invaded you have both a patriotic and practical duty to defend your country in anyway you can. I know Ukrainians who are not in the army but are doing other work to assist the war effort so Im not suggesting everyone must become a soldier because we not all soldiers We all only have one country you born in and if that matters then when that country is invaded and their is a stated objective, like Putin mentioned, to raze the country to the ground you have to ask yourself what matters to you and what defines you as citizen. So I support the mandatory conscription and if I was Ukrainian and wanted to live in Ukraine I would definitely be part of the war effort in anyway possible But of course I understand why people immigrate and I dont question those reasons as long as its legal. But thats not the same as the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Some of my family in SA and UK have been following the events of Putins War. We donate money to NGO that support the Ukrainian refugees and we were talking about the millions of refugees and how East European countries have assisted in so many ways to ameliorate the reality of life for Ukrainians. You guys should be very proud of the general effort and assistance your countries have provided And not everyone can offer a room to take in refugees for a variety of practical and understandable reasons like space in a house, the costs and other reasons like having a stranger, that you may sympathize with, but you still dont know them A couple of questions were asked about taking in any Ukrainian and I thought I would get your input, these questions may sound strange but they part of the understanding of the logistics . So in no particular order of significance what language do you speak with each other, I assume English? did the student have family who stayed in Ukraine or were her family also refugees who paid for the food and other costs and if you paid was it expensive what did she use to do during the day, did she have friends and or other Ukrainians that she associated with And then did your family get on with her? I know it sounds weird but what was it like, did she use to talk about the war? Thanks

Mamie I was telling my UK family about how you took in that Ukrainian student , is she still staying with your family? I wanted to ask you some questions

My mom and stepdad have 2 pugs, I love pugs. They so cute, some people in my family dislike these dogs and think that they look like " fat hamsters "

https://thecradle.co/Article/columns/11133 @Darkpriest You will find this link interesting Here is a good read that discusses one of the attempts to create a non-aligned Western new world economic order but it also highlights its greatest failure because without a meaningful and powerful economy like China to support this type of initiative it will have limited success. To quote from the link " "Russia-China, though, is a much more complex matter. Extremely fearful of provoking US sanctions, Chinese banks are refraining – at least for the moment – to increase their deals with Russian banks, which brings us to the case of UnionPay: The Chinese bank card provider – increasingly popular, especially across Asia – declined from partnering with Sberbank even before Russia’s largest bank was excluded by the EU and the US from the global bank messaging platform SWIFT. UnionPay also canceled plans with other Russian banks to issue UnionPay cards linked with the Russian Mir payment system, profiting from the exit of Visa and Mastercard from the Russian market. This is still a careful balancing act for China. Earlier this year at the Boao Forum in Asia, President Xi Jinping was adamant in opposing the “wanton use of unilateral sanctions.” And over 80 percent of Chinese companies already established in Russia appeared to continue their business as usual. Yet in practical terms, there are serious problems. The Bank of China and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) have restricted financing for Russian commodities. Even the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), absolutely essential for sustainable development projects, linked or not with BRI, decided to freeze all lending to Russia and Belarus in early March to “safeguard” its “financial integrity.” On the financial front, cautious Chinese banks, with enormous western exposure, are always balancing the fact that nearly 80 percent of global cross-border transactions are still in dollars and euros, and only two percent in yuan. So the Russian market is not exactly a priority "

If you were in charge of finding a way to end Putins War what would you suggest? Lets say you could force both Russia and Ukraine to agree to certain terms what would you implement ?

Gorthfuscious !!! That sounds very anarchistic ....remember we dont like to unfairly criticize large, global corporations unless we have evidence or links because we dont want to create negative sentiment? Interestingly enough its not dividend payment that sometimes motivate unethical or criminal behavior but the objective of making the yearly target that is obviously critical to the company being sustainable And what you often find is performance bonuses for the C level and or board that is contractually agreed to based on the company making its target and yes their are cases of corruption because of this. But companies dont always pay dividends because the profit is often utilized elsewhere But its not profitability that is the problem, all listed companies and non-listed companies have to be profitable for several reasons and when a company makes its target that is generally a sign of the company being well run Unlike the public sector SOE (state owned entities ) which normally dont have to be profitable. They shouldnt run at a loss but even if they do most governments will bail them out with taxpayers money ...so its much easier to sit on a public sector board knowing you dont have to worry about a target that is critical for the survival of the company I am just explaining the real pressures and responsibility that private sector corporations are always under compared to public sector ...Im not justifying corruption

What about demands to end inequality by nationalization, violent protests and blaming the " evil, Capitalist system " for all our societal woes Do you think these will still be around

I hope its Greyhawk....I really do

https://qz.com/india/2171314/the-us-overtakes-china-as-indias-top-trade-partner/?utm_source=YPL&yptr=yahoo The US is now India's biggest trade partner. @Darkpriest Another blow in the new Russian economic world order? But the good news is Russia still has countries like Syria, Venezuela, NK, Eretria and Cuba as allies in this exciting new union of prosperity and trade

Please take photos and share them next time, I love the entire culture of Comic-Con....oh and dont forget the cosplay and booth-babes

Thats kind of what I mean, unfortunately when you take cameras into a courtroom you must realize it will immediately draw some of the SM\Internet\armchair activists into the commentary and for some people its not about the actual court case but about their own ideological views Thats not the end of the world because the actual outcome should be decided on the evidence and not the publics personal opinion. But for me it gets annoying because of how a case like this becomes a media feeding frenzy for people on both sides

I dont think the media should be allowed in courtrooms, I just think the courtroom shouldnt become another theater of the left vs right ideological culture wars. I think it creates a distraction I havent really been following this Depp vs Heard case but from what I have seen I dont know who to believe? They both come across as deplorable people

https://briefly.co.za/world/europe/127972-putin-engages-talks-german-french-leaders-ukraine-demands-sanctions-end/ The audacity and arrogance of Putin never ceases to amaze me. The Russian navy is blockading Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea and preventing millions of tons of wheat from getting to mostly third world and impoverished countries But Putin wants Western sanctions dropped before he will allow the wheat to leave Ukraine. I thought Western sanctions didnt matter and Russia was going to create a " new world economic order " ?

Im still waiting for the US and EU economies to collapse because of the sanctions against Russia, when is that going to happen?

Thats great news, I never DM in the Spelljammer universe. I created campaigns mostly in Forgotten Realms about 80% of the time but we also played in Greyhawk, Dragonlance and Ravenloft So Spelljammer is something that I have never experienced

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/breaking-anc-cuba-r50-million-donation-why-latest-updates/ https://ewn.co.za/2022/03/22/court-halts-sa-s-r50-million-donation-to-cuba This is an ongoing SA specific story but relevant to the dangers and realities of any socialist state and its economic failures SA was going to give R50 million ($3.3 million) to Cuba in the form of supplies and food aid This has been blocked by our courts but it was incredibly frustrating to think of the limited money we have that a failed, socialist experiment like the Cuban government should receive anything Any aid like this needs to go to African countries and specifically countries on our border like Zimbabwe so they can rebuild their broken economy and the millions of illegal Zimbabweans can go home. This is what they want to do as well but they cant go home if their are no jobs or their government has no money to rebuild the economy