BruceVC

Would you prefer living in a country with no snow, like South Africa? We have this probably naïve view of how much fun it would be living in a country with snow I can live with the snow. I have done so for 28 years. It's just that I don't like skiing, skating or any other activity involving snow or ice. I have very dry skin so I get rashes very easily and I easily catch a cold. It's how long it is going to stay like this that is depressing. We're looking at another 4-5 month of snow. It's dark when you wake up and dark when you come home from work. Not a very motivating time to be alive. (Last sentence is a joke.) Ros: I did immigrate but I was one year when we came to Sweden. Are you originally from Armenia? I'm not sure if its you or someone else that mentioned that

Yeah you right, it can't be pleasant ?

Would you prefer living in a country with no snow, like South Africa? We have this probably naïve view of how much fun it would be living in a country with snow

The US economy has NOT recovered nicely. The situation on the ground is pretty bad by US standards. Especially here in Michigan; although that's hardly his fault. Also, Obama is a warmonger. I have to wonder what alternate reality you live in when you say Obama has avoided conflicts. Under his leadership the US is just as interventionist as Bush; which is pretty bad. How can you say he is warmonger, seriously. I get other criticisms but not this one. He has got the troops out of Iraq ( and the airstrikes against ISIS aren't the same thing as the invasion of Iraq in 2003) He has set a deadline to pull out of Afghanistan He avoided bombing Iran around there Uranium enrichment He refused to attack Syria without the UN support He has not just sent troops to Iraq to deal with ISIS I think you seem to live in the alternate reality Rather tell me all these examples of his brazen warmongering ? But other hand he is also continued drone and special force strikes against alleged terrorist targets and even added their number to Bush administration (although he had more resources to do so as he didn't need to spent so much money in Iraq and Afghanistan) and also one could argue that his negotiation efforts in Ukraine's crisis haven't been aimed towards most peaceful solution and arming rebel/anti-government/new government factions during Arab spring and Syrian war weren't actions that were aimed to establish peace. And he also has done little to abolish AUMF. So he isn't most belligerent president that USA has had, but he also hasn't been most peaceful. Yes I agree that Obama has increased drone strikes and the usage of special forces. But I am not suggesting that the USA doesn't have reason for military intervention in certain places in the world that warrant the usage of tactics like drones, like there deployment in the tribal areas of Western Pakistan where the Taliban plan there attacks against the Western coalition in Afghanistan. Drone strikes are the only reasonable strategy when it comes to this type of situation. For example you can't invade Pakistan to deal with the Taliban and there Al-Qaeda affiliates ? But this is not the same thing as saying Obama is a warmonger as that would imply he is starting wars against governments like Pakistan in order to defeat the Taliban. Using drone is a military strategy and is not the same as a full ground invasion like we saw in Iraq in 2003 By taking military actions against Taliban, Al-Qaida, etc. organisations instead of supporting local law enforcements and keeping open ended authorization for use of military force also means that he keeps his country in warlike state and there is high change that those local law enforcements and governments lose their authority in eyes of their citizens (which can strengthen popularity of those who openly oppose them and USA [and other western countries]). Of course there are compelling reasons why those drone and special force strikes are done (which ineffectiveness and inability of those local authorities are probably most compelling ones). But such military actions come with cost that USA is seen as hostile country by many (outside of USA) and that those military actions aren't accepted by all people in USA and same time some people in USA see them as too lenient, which both weakens Obama's popularity and strengthens his opposition. It is not easy situation to him (as he is too warmongering for at least some of his supporters and he isn't warmongering enough to people in his opposition), but I am not sure if that factored very much towards result of this election, as usually foreign policy don't factor very much in elections in USA. I agree almost completely with what you are saying, the USA only uses drones in Western Pakistan because of the ineffectiveness of the Pakistan authorities in dealing with the Taliban and AQ But I can also sympathize with the Pakistanis because they have probably been the worst victims of Islamic extremists and in many respects they do try to stop there influence but they don't t control the tribal areas that border Afghanistan. These areas are mostly under the control of various clans and the Taliban has much influence in those regions So now the USA doesn't help things with drones because they do undermine the Pakistan military authority but end of the day the USA has to act to protect its troops in Afghanistan by selective targeting of Taliban and Al-Qaeda leadership

Bruce, after all the political discussions we've had over the years is it really surprising to you that I would vote against the President and his agenda in any national election? Do you really need me to go over the reasons why... again? But, remember one thing; and If I could tell the Republican leadership anything it would be this: Hating the Democrats is not the same thing as loving the Republicans. They have a golden opportunity here they did nothing to deserve other than be the lesser of two evils. If they use that opportunity to promote smaller, more responsible government, champion personal liberty and freedom, and check Obama's dumber ideas and destructive impulses they can begin rebuilding their brand. In short, they need to listen to the libertarian caucus within their ranks. The they go out and become Democrat-lite, or empower the neo-con factions or the religious right factions or just fall apart due to infighting then they will be gone in two years. I hope they are up to the task but nothing about McConnell and Boehner's history suggests they are. We'll see. Yeah you have always been unequivocal in your position on Obama so I understand your reasons for voting for the Republicans I am also interested to see what transpires now that the Republicans control the House and the Senate and how this will effect the political landscape going forward

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/previews/12536-Dragon-Age-Inquisition-BioWare-RPG-Preview?utm_source=latest&utm_medium=index_carousel&utm_campaign=all Here is some nice input about this game, I don't think it offers anything to new that we don't already know but it does increase my excitement

The US economy has NOT recovered nicely. The situation on the ground is pretty bad by US standards. Especially here in Michigan; although that's hardly his fault. Also, Obama is a warmonger. I have to wonder what alternate reality you live in when you say Obama has avoided conflicts. Under his leadership the US is just as interventionist as Bush; which is pretty bad. How can you say he is warmonger, seriously. I get other criticisms but not this one. He has got the troops out of Iraq ( and the airstrikes against ISIS aren't the same thing as the invasion of Iraq in 2003) He has set a deadline to pull out of Afghanistan He avoided bombing Iran around there Uranium enrichment He refused to attack Syria without the UN support He has not just sent troops to Iraq to deal with ISIS I think you seem to live in the alternate reality Rather tell me all these examples of his brazen warmongering ? But other hand he is also continued drone and special force strikes against alleged terrorist targets and even added their number to Bush administration (although he had more resources to do so as he didn't need to spent so much money in Iraq and Afghanistan) and also one could argue that his negotiation efforts in Ukraine's crisis haven't been aimed towards most peaceful solution and arming rebel/anti-government/new government factions during Arab spring and Syrian war weren't actions that were aimed to establish peace. And he also has done little to abolish AUMF. So he isn't most belligerent president that USA has had, but he also hasn't been most peaceful. Yes I agree that Obama has increased drone strikes and the usage of special forces. But I am not suggesting that the USA doesn't have reason for military intervention in certain places in the world that warrant the usage of tactics like drones, like there deployment in the tribal areas of Western Pakistan where the Taliban plan there attacks against the Western coalition in Afghanistan. Drone strikes are the only reasonable strategy when it comes to this type of situation. For example you can't invade Pakistan to deal with the Taliban and there Al-Qaeda affiliates ? But this is not the same thing as saying Obama is a warmonger as that would imply he is starting wars against governments like Pakistan in order to defeat the Taliban. Using drone is a military strategy and is not the same as a full ground invasion like we saw in Iraq in 2003

Fair enough, we don't know the reality of the lives of all the people in the video But he is taking about economic marginalization of the people making comments and how this effects how they identify with themselves, he is not saying they are marginalized because they can't get women or have girlfriends

As I have said before. Our policy in Syria is dumb; we never should have backed the rebels. Our backing rebels in Libya & Syria has really backfired. I hope Washington actually gets it this time. I would love to see if a Republican come to power in America and do anything different to Obama in respect to Syria or ISIS So in other words ignoring the UN security council vote and attacking Syria directly and then somehow putting troops on the ground against ISIS Its so easy to criticize the incumbent president of any country A republican? Some republicans didn't want to back the rebels at all. I think you are referring to a neocon. Yeah, they would be even worse than Obama. I have watched numerous interviews from prominent Republicans like John McCain who have said that Obama needs to be forceful and direct in places like Iran and Syria around the military options, I'm not sure if you consider him a Neocon?

The US economy has NOT recovered nicely. The situation on the ground is pretty bad by US standards. Especially here in Michigan; although that's hardly his fault. Also, Obama is a warmonger. I have to wonder what alternate reality you live in when you say Obama has avoided conflicts. Under his leadership the US is just as interventionist as Bush; which is pretty bad. How can you say he is warmonger, seriously. I get other criticisms but not this one. He has got the troops out of Iraq ( and the airstrikes against ISIS aren't the same thing as the invasion of Iraq in 2003) He has set a deadline to pull out of Afghanistan He avoided bombing Iran around there Uranium enrichment He refused to attack Syria without the UN support He has not just sent troops to Iraq to deal with ISIS I think you seem to live in the alternate reality Rather tell me all these examples of his brazen warmongering ?

As I have said before. Our policy in Syria is dumb; we never should have backed the rebels. Our backing rebels in Libya & Syria has really backfired. I hope Washington actually gets it this time. I would love to see if a Republican come to power in America and do anything different to Obama in respect to Syria or ISIS So in other words ignoring the UN security council vote and attacking Syria directly and then somehow putting troops on the ground against ISIS Its so easy to criticize the incumbent president of any country

I'm not sure understand your point, are you disputing the analysis of the professor based on the context of the original video? The first video irrefutably does show the women walking through areas of NY that are not necessarily upmarket and the comments do seem to be from people of a certain less privileged background ?

This is a very good article about how serious really is this issue around harassment in big cities, I particularly like the part below " Professor Cooper also noted that in the New York video, heckling men appeared to be loitering on the street and were potentially from a less privileged background. "There's actually an ethnic dimension there, which strikes me as being about men that belong to a more marginalised group ... asserting masculinity because it is what they have to assert - they don't have other social status to assert." So in other words, and we touched on this, that initial video about the women in NY is really a skewed view of this problem because they based the results on the responses of people who are in a certain social and economic situation. This doesn't reflect the reality of every area or person in NY and in the Auckland video you can see a totally different response from people. And the main difference is the type of area the women walked through

I really think LinkedIn is one of those strange forms of social media that I question it effectiveness and real value at times I regularly get people endorsing me for technologies I don't know and I get people I hardly know expecting me to endorse them on something I don't know they are really competent on There are some good work based forum discussions I use on LinkedIn and I use it to remind me of certain peoples names and there job function. Also I have had some initial job offers through LinkedIn so its not all bad

" of hypocritical holier than thou carpet baggers from the Old World" I have to say that is one of the funniest descriptions I have ever heard to describe Western investors But you wrong, the Chinese are worse than Western investors because they don't expect good governance from African leaders so they help to perpetuate corruption and also certain African leaders are giving the Chinese major mineral right concessions so its a form of colonialism all over again as far as abuse of African resources is concerned

Baroth there are factors outside of what I mentioned that have negatively impacted the economic transformation of Africa and you have accurately touched on some of them. I am not denying these. For example during the Cold War both the West and the USSR fought numerous proxy wars throughout Africa and also supported, in some cases, brutal dictators because they claimed ideological loyalty to one side or the other Subsidizes are still a contentious point, but the problem with blaming factors like colonialism and capitalism is what they do is absolve the current leaders from fixing what needs to be fixed within there own country as the reason for the failure is some emotional and nebulous factor that happened decades ago. Certain African leaders love to play the colonialism card to justify there own corruption and mismanagement of there economy., So I'll give you two modern examples In 1990 Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe embarked on radical economic policies of Indigenisation and nationalisation in order to stay in power. He basically destroyed any foreign economic investment when he took over any white owned farms without compensation and wanted to implement a policy where any foreign company had to give 51 % of its ownership to local Zimbabwean. Now just think about that for a moment. You are foreign investor and have invested money in Zim, you have also hired people and trained them and you also pay taxes. Now you get told you must "give 51 % of your business away " to some local person who has done nothing to ever grow the business? Why would anyone want to invest in a country like that? This move by the Mugabe government lead to a massive flow of capital out of the country and most investors understandably not being interested in investing in Zimbabwe And what did Mugabe do? Instead of backing down on these radical policies he blamed sanctions on the state of the economy. But there were NO sanctions that ever prevented any foreign business from investing in Zim, this is a very important point. For example South African and Chinese companies have continued to invest in Zim but its not enough to grow the economy because most investors are not interested in the economic investment proposition that Zim offers. And the economic woes of Zim have not effected Mugabe and his cohorts as he has benefitted from the private resource deals and lives a life of opulence while the majority of his country lives in poverty. So Zim is an excellent example of what is wrong with Africa. There you have a dictator who has managed to convince many people that he is a victim of the West but in fact its his own policies that have lead to the state of the economy of his country And then Burkina Faso, the president has ruled for 27 years and wanted to extend his rule indefinitely. The people rioted and said " no way " and he has fled his country. So the country is now in a state of political flux and a military junta has stepped in to govern. But who is really to blame for the instability? Surly the ex-president thinking he could rule for life ? And another contentious point is how did the AU allow him to rule for so long and ignore the principles of Democracy. The AU charter explicitly says " governments must adhere to Democratic elections ". So the failure of the AU to enforce its own rules is another major reason for the failure of Africa to achieve its full transformation I can give many more examples but I think you get my point In summary the main reason for the failure of Africa to uplift itself is really about the failure of certain counties and the AU to enforce policies and systems of good governance that will allow this African renaissance. You can blame certain things on colonialism and capitalism but they aren't main reason for the state of Africa

Everyone should have been most as I didn't check all characters as I only glanced at them. Put it down to being euphoric at winning easily at what was a hard encounter. I've now gone back to that previous save and noticed my lowest level character is about 1/2-3/4 on 27 which is the Higgins character who was out of the battle. It's why I didn't pick up on it before. The characters on level 28 is nearing 3/4 on level 28. Pizepi hit level 29. At any case, my point still stands. There's up to a 3 level spread at level 30. And that point spread is increasing. Geez Hiro, you know you can admit you are wrong sometimes ? No one is going to think less of you .....

Obviously older people are bored and have nothing better to do than to vote ?

Yeah it is, thanks

What do you believe are the reasons for the current state of Africa? Sorry for the belated response, I somehow missed these questions Yes the reality of the state of Africa is that colonialism and capitalism has very little to do with the state of the economies of many African countries nowadays. Most African countries got there independence in the 1960's and by the 1980's they were bankrupt and needed loans from the IMF. The reasons for this economic collapse vary from country to country but there are several common themes They rejected the principles of Democracy and African leaders became " Presidents for life" and there was no political accountability African leaders only enriched there tribe or close circle of supporters There were bloated and completely ineffective public sector institutions so there was very little service delivery. There was massive and profound corruption around business contracts and access to resources, basically only the people in government benefited Many African leaders tried to drive there economies through programs of nationalisation and those inevitably failed So in other words the main reason that Africa is in the state its in is due bad policies, corruption and lack of service delivery. This was all self-inflicted and cannot be blamed on colonialism or capitalism

I'm really excited about GTAV and this first person mode is just a bonus

This looks like an interesting link, my page is saying " data not available ". I suppose it will update later?

I know the voter turnout for my state was pathetic. I'm involved through work, with various Registrar of Voters, and spoke with election officials from three different counties in Northern CA, and this is the lowest turnout of any general election on record. Very interesting, so we are talking about voter apathy amongst the youth and the Republicans energising there voter base and getting people to vote? Or has the Republican turnout also been bad ?

Watching CNN several commentators are saying that a major shift towards the Republican side from voters is the perceived lack of action around ISIS and Ebola Is that really what is considered a failure of the Obama presidency? Or rather a lacklustre response...what more do people expect? Must the USA ground troops to fight ISIS?

So I won't deny that I'm disappointed with the results. The Republicans appear to have taken the House and Senate, this was predicted by many political pundits so its not a complete surprise But my question is really towards those people who voted for the Republicans. I am interested in the main reasons why? Is it because the USA economy isn't doing well..no it can't be that because the USA economy has recovered nicely. Is it because Obama is some kind of warmonger....no he has avoided conflicts. And then I want to ask what is the political objective of the Republicans winning the House and Senate..what does this mean? And I see Oregon has voted to legalize recreational Marijuana. Third state to do so