BruceVC

man-colds are the worst, women dont realize that man-colds have been scientifically proven to be much worse than women-colds Thats why we always feel so much worse when we get flu...man-colds are MUCH worse

Tonight I having delicious German Blood Sausage and buttery mash potato

What do you mean, I have no idea what you are referring to ?

Please watch it and let me know what you think, baring in mind its a story set against the realistic horror, carnage, futility and survival of the great war So the feelings dont undermine the journey and the integration into WW1, its like Cold Mountain and some of the real dangers at the end of the Civil War the hero faces on his way home to his true love

You also get qualified Christian scientists who study and believe in science but they Christian

Its excellent, I love the characters and the Civil War links I watched a powerful and evocative WW1 movie called 1917 that is highly recommended for those that enjoy WW1 movies. I have studied WW1 and collect books on the war so I tend to always watch WW1 movies with an expectation of authenticity, this movie captures real themes accurately like the superiority of the German trenches and survivors guilt https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8579674/

Thats a good video by the way, I havent seen the new Blade Runner So I always RP and imagine my character and the party on this epic quest, similar to AD&D/D&D traditional RP so the game is just an important framework when I think of the choices and decide on the way forward as the adventure unfolds Now for me if I am on this quest to literally save the world , face death at every corner and spend months sometimes camped in the wilderness I would definitely connect and build real relationships with my companions on different levels. You then add the unparalleled beauty and seductive allure of party members like Isabella, Viconia and Morrigen to that relationship mix and Romance is not just likely its expected. Its immersive if you think about what you would be doing during those longs nights around the campfire or tavern after much revelry and drunken debauchery

Gfted1 if Scientific American says " vote for Biden " thats a considerable endorsement ...except for the dozens of other endorsements you see on both sides for there respective candidates

Im playing Mass Effect Andromeda and so far so good, I am only several hours into the game and I am using a good list of Mods. I have no real complaints around game design or technical working of components like combat or HUD design which the Mods can generally address

This was a good update, I like the way one of the designers says " we building a 3D adventure\story and Romance is part of that " ...thats very true and often a point I have raised around how Romance adds to the realism and immersive reality of most RPG around the interactions you have with your companions But the video is mostly good because it also discusses how your general party interaction between party members will be engaging and nuanced. There looks like some exciting party dynamics await us

You ask some good questions, no I wouldnt feel safe living outside a gated or secure community...no one does. But I travel and work outside these safe communities all the time Remember we have very high levels of violent crime, 50 murders a day more or less

I do strangely enough but to be honest neither of those points is true in the literal sense We have farm killings but its criminal conduct and not genocide, so some people are mischaracterizing the word " genocide " , its not genocide and shouldnt be called that And yes we have groups and political parties like the EFF who talk about land grabs but our Constitution and international laws around Property Rights prevent this so its just rhetoric and populism when people say " land grabs" ...the problem is just that rhetoric impacts negatively Foreign Direct Investment and our economic transformation https://effonline.org/ So both these points get raised but neither is true but they hurt our economy

Yes as I keep mentioning there is a pattern that is seen many countries around the degree and nature of violent protests and when they justified Oh no need to worry about me being worried about the nature of protracted and violent strikes coming to SA, thanks for the concern As I also keep mentioning SA has had violent strikes primarily due to union protest since 2005, so its a different ideological reason but similar outcomes. USA protestors wont come to SA because we are already inundated with strikes and there negative impact to our economy...no space for them and nothing to gain

You make me laugh But can we least agree its a little concerning that groups of people are taking to violent protests if they disagree with a court ruling ...its a slippery slope and worries me ?

So we now see sweeping anarchy and vandalism in several US cities, we also know 2 Kentucky policemen have been shot .....so its fair to say this is levels of unacceptable violence Two questions I would be interested in getting peoples response to Is is acceptable that going forward we normalize this type of response when we dont agree with a court ruling, so some people will only not commit violence if we happy with the court ruling? My primary concern with allowing the protracted strikes in cities like Portland to continue is you set a precedent and then going forward this becomes the expected response and we will continue to experience anarchy and violence. The number of spontaneous protests we see throughout the USA around this unpopular ruling will unfortunately be marked by violence. But do you see how the view " its okay to resort to violent protests if our cause is justified by us " is growing?

You make some good points, there are definitely people in Cuba who still support the Cuban revolution and Castro generally. There are really, good news stories around the world of the work Cuban doctors do including currently in SA where Cuban doctors have been brought in to help with the virus pandemic, we do pay them of course which is reasonable so its pure Capitalism and nothing wrong with that But both these counties have weak and poorly performing economies for different reasons and some similar around there economic policies and in the case of Venezuela what was the absolute primary contribution towards there economic collapse was the 2007 illegal, theft ( under the guide of " nationalization ) of the assets of global, oil companies that had invested in the country for over 100 years....here is an excellent article that discuses this and Chavez is directly responsible for this https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/05/07/how-venezuela-ruined-its-oil-industry/#2684bf2d7399 So even though I agree both these countries have citizens who support their socialist governments, its the socialist policies that are the main contribution towards poverty within there own borders..so you end up believing and supporting socialism but live in different degrees of poverty. Its not a very convincing objective to get me to change my mind around the current many examples of working, Democratic countries that are strong economies and have overall good qualities of life and use the free market\Capitalist system to drive their economies ?

Okay, that is quite serious...Im seriously disappointed, I am going to find out why and comment later

The Moderators are really fine on this forum, they also very fair around how they raise issues and complaints people have against you I also think the general debating environment is very cordial and not abrasive in any real way. Also you cant allow yourself to get upset with occasional perceived rudeness or name calling, I have been called a troll so many times I have lost count... imagine if I allowed myself to get upset every time someone said " BruceVC is a troll " , I would be upset at least once every 2-3 weeks unnecessarily and I have been active on this forum for 10 years As Gfted1 said its a common response mechanism to a debate when a person cant respond in a mature or informed way to malign the person " you dont agree with me ...you must be a troll " In life when you engage in certain political and ideological debates you must learn to not take things personally and just avoid being distracted by meaningless debates that are not informative but emotional

You make some good points and it adds to an overall better understanding of the US political machinery to listen to different political views.....we dont want to live in some echo chamber listening to repeats of any political view. Its really unhelpful especially when the echo chamber is wrong, like the last 2016 when I thought Hilary Clinton was going to win I learnt a big lesson that day about not bothering to understand all ideological views and general sentiment on the ground Anecdotal stories help to also understand the complex tapestry of the US political system and all the groups of people who live in the USA. Many members share anecdotal and its always appreciated. Like your very interesting post of your journey from Cuba, thanks for sharing that. I learnt loads and you can easily agree who someone has different views on certain topics but similar views on another topic For example I have always been concerned with the insidious risk posed by far left " political " movements that sometimes are vociferous but politically weak, for example in SA we have this one trade union who is unintentionally responsible for contributing towards our deep debt, erosion of labor working contribution and profitability and our massive, unacceptable public sector wages bill. Our public sector wages consumes 30 % of our total yearly taxes, 30 % of total taxes !!! And we have the second highest paid public sector relevant to GDP in the world.....yet we have huge failures throughout the country around municipalities who consistently fail to deliver services and all our SOE are basically running at billions of rands of losses each year consistently for the last 6 years. Yet this one union decides its going to create its own political party called the " Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party " and instructed all its members to vote for it in the last election in 2019...yet it only got 20k votes and was an epic failure..check there website https://www.srwp.org.za/ So modern day " socialist " movement have these incongruous, nebulous objectives around addressing inequality yet they are happy to benefit from the " evil, Capitalist " system when they demand bonuses and above inflation increases ...and you wonder why I think old school socialism and these modern day ideas of socialism are flawed And you coming from Cuba have direct lived experience with how ideological views like socialism can destroy economies and force citizens to leave there country to find livelihood elsewhere like the USA. I am glad many Cubans have found an new home in the USA and particularly Florida and the US Cuban community is an important community that contributes to the overall economy and growth in the USA In closing you can see how different people from different countries, like you and I , can easily agree on many issues like the risk and danger of socialism as we have experienced and seen its harm in different ways

This is no surprise at all and should be an effective incentive for the mayors in these cities to instruct the police to do there jobs and....stop people breaking the law The article contains the list of failures of law the cities have failed to enforce and it all looks reasonable. But the quote below summarizes the actual reason for this ruling " We cannot allow federal tax dollars to be wasted when the safety of the citizenry hangs in the balance,"

Its very is controversial and I am very surprised the Swedish Central Bank is expecting not sharing the full information of the Blackrock as normal All the people raising criticism you will notice work for Swedish asset managers and financial companies that work in the bond market and they do understand how any normal purchasing of bonds and the value of the bonds must be transparent which is true in all financial purchase like bonds You can trust the Swedish Central Bank and you can trust all the Swedish companies to honor the bond value under normal circumstances but there is real risk that by not sharing the Blackrock report with the public when requested or more important the asset managers in the article you are creating real concern around the actual core calculation of interest bond and the values of the bonds Worst case one of the companies is not able to pay back the bond value at maturity date and in the case of these Swedish companies that realistically could only happen if the company has gone out business. In any normal time these companies would be fine but under the global virus economic shutdown we dont know how many companies are going to go into liquidation, its unprecedented in the history of our global economies So now the bond debt wont get paid by the company which means the payment burden falls on the Swedish Central Bank...which means it falls more or less on tax payers. So they need to share the Blackrock report just so the overall debt burden is understood. I must be honest I am surprised this is not mandatory in some Swedish financial transparency law?

This is valid point that I see as part of the current examples where numerous governments are expecting SM platforms to monitor and delete fake news and ideologically hateful comments...but who decides what is blatant fake news and hateful comments ....I bet you only right wing comments have been deleted but extreme comments from anyone on the left or certain offensive BLM will be left alone

But Cuba is a one party state, people dont vote there in any meaningful way so social media is meaningless.....you cant manipulate a system like a vote where there is only one party to vote for? But Belarus is different example of a deeply flawed Democratic outcome because in Belarus you had legitimate opposition parties and people voted for them but the actual counting of these votes was ignored so when they announced the " results " they lied about who voted for who and claimed Lukaszenko was the winner But fake news on social media is not the reason these elections are false or undermined

Its not you, I am also confused but Achilles should clarify now .... its very rare I am confused by his points

Im confused by your point and how this applies to what GD is suggesting, Im sure he is saying that this fairly common view that exists in the USA that says " fake news through social media is destroying our societies due to xxx " has not so far lead to the collapse of our Democratic institutions " But then you bring up Cuba and the undemocratic rule of Fidel as an example of how countries can be broken or failed but they never were Democracies ? Is that what you saying? If so I dont see how the 2 are connected because the USA and its issue around abuse of social media wont crash or destroy anything unless government acts on it which is highly unlikely But fake news didnt cause the economic or societal problems in Cuba...there economy has been weak and problematic since Fidel came to power and they implemented a form of socialism and economic policy that had no logical or economic way to actually grow or sustain any economy ...it wasnt fake news but pseudo-economics and that means you are trying to create your own understanding of critical financial metrics that somehow will allow economic growth and sustainability What am I missing with your view ?