Valsuelm

So Xi Jinping who is the President of China, who didn't come to power through the will of the people is not the legitimate president of China. Because you know he's also the Chairman of the Central Military Commission as well. Check. No China is not a Democracy, its a one party state and demonstrates certain characteristics of a dictatorship. So the current president does not represent the will of the people, he represents the will of the political party Don't buy Chinese trade goods then. By buying of Chinese trade goods you support dictatorship! Wait... oh shi... almost all trade goods in the world has Chinese origin... Ok don't buy any trade goods, such freeminded person as you must make such sacrifice for glory of democracy! P.S. As totalitarian Russian i prefer Chinese trade goods (just because European or US goods has worse quality with higher price). Worse quality!?!?!?! What the hell are you buying from China that is of higher quality than it's counterpart from the U.S. or Europe? I've never seen one product from there that was superior, and most are inferior. You do realize it's mostly U.S. and European companies that finances and profits from X being made in China right? About the only reason anything is made in China at all that is sold in the west is due to the super cheap labor there, that is in many cases akin to slave labor.

No. Russia and China's veto meant ****. They didn't get the help because many of the people of the U.S. and U.K. are beyond war weary and it was deemed political suicide in the U.S. and U.K. to go into Syria (overtly as we're already there in spades covertly) as even your average dolt here and there are getting to the point they aren't buying the BS anymore. The British Parliament even voted against going into Syria for a change. But of course that didn't stop them in the long run, as we now have ISIS being paraded on every major news channel daily in the push for war. The backdoor to Iran through Syria hasn't worked quite yet for the psychopaths who want war over there , but come hell or highwater they're going to continue pushing for it.

That and many people think it will never happen to them. The CDC is nothing if it is not full of hubris.

35 years ago today, this was #1 on the U.S. Billboard charts. It's one of a small handful of instrumentals to ever reach the top spot and to this day Herb Alpert is the only artist to ever reach #1 with both an instrumental performance and a vocal performance.

Unfortunately Libya is always used as an example of " look what happens when the West intervenes in regime change" when in fact they should be saying " look how the West can effectively implement regime change " The West gave the new Libyan government the opportunity to run there own version of Democracy and system of leadership. They can't be held responsible for the sectarian violence that now threatens the overall stability of the country. The West can help liberate countries but it shouldn't be also expected to now run the new governments Seriously? Really? Are you for real? I hope for your sake you're just trolling. Sadly, he's for real. If this was a more popular forum, I'd wager a chunk that he's a government paid troll. He may still be, and just happens to like Obsidian games so moonlights here. It certainly is astounding just how much he believes the BS if he actually sincerely thinks the way he does.

There is no universal standard. It's cultural and contextual.

It's very strange.

Your entire concept is ridiculous. Happiness is an intangible. A subjective. An emotion. An opinion. On top of that, government is not what makes people happy, generally unless they view the world in a really twisted and superficial manner. There are happy people in every nation on earth. There are unhappy people in every nation on earth. The sane people experience both happiness and unhappiness throughout the course of time. Your ascertains are as anchored in reality and as relevant to it as your average superficial person's facebook posts. If anything, government is source of unhappiness throughout the world, not happiness. And that's all governments, western and other. My government certainly hasn't ever made me happy. Quite the opposite. It's stolen from me, harassed me, wasted my time, spied on me, and other unfun things. At least it didn't bomb me, yet. Thought it does that to other innocent people all the time, and with the blessing of people such as yourself. I seriously doubt they are happy.

It's already happening, which in my opinion is a violation of both privacy and the right to free speech. What a person writes on social media in his spare time is no bussiness of his employer or that employers bussiness partners. He never sent anything to Gabe Newell. All of his comments were made in his own twitter feed. Valve only found out about it when someone who subscribed to that feed took screencaps and emailed it to them. While I generally agree with most of what you say, and wouldn't mind myself if Gabe choked on a hotdog, I'll argue as vehemently for freedom of association as I will for freedom of speech. In a free society Valve is perfectly within it's rights to terminate their relationship with the guy for whatever reason they wish. If they violate a contract then the guy can lawyer up to seek damages. The guy did post a tweet, which is not the same thing as writing something in a private email or speaking in a private conversation. It is more akin to standing on a podium and shouting. This shouldn't be news. Twitter sucks and represents the worst of what the internet has brought us.

Read the Terms of Service. Some of the many complaints people have about Steam, including some that encompass that, are laid out there. But who reads the Terms of Service you say? Believe it or not, some do, but a whole legion of people who think Valve is benign don't.

Most people are far too indoctrinated in other thinking to see the light. But this is amusing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHh6N0dMKtU

I always thought Bruce was Oby's dark half.

You misunderstand me. I'm not mad and I'm quite calm. See how easy it is to misinterpret black and white text alone? Next time, just make it clear you're joking.

This is disproven by the fact that Germans have an absolutely phenominal GDP given their modest population, yet they're some of the biggest **** and most miserable people on the planet. Maybe being big **** makes them happy? For real, there are happy and miserable people everywhere. I certainly met some very happy Germans that were anything but **** when I was there. Take your racism elsewhere or keep it to yourself please. ...But I AM German. :D If you were Jewish the ADL would label you a 'self hating Jew'. Good thing for the world we have only one such mislead and ridiculous organization. As I said though, there are happy and miserable people everywhere. People have both good and bad reasons for being both. I don't know your circumstances, but there are happy Germans somewhere not far from you. Go find and be with them. 'Misery loves company.' Escape those people if you need to. Man, calm your ****. I'm a dual citizen, and I cannot tell you how many times I've had German friends travel to the USA (my other country) and come back saying "omg everyone's so nice and people are actually friendly and happy!" Yeah no **** Germany, that's what happens when you don't treat people with an attitude and tone that says "I'm only speaking to you because I have to." Of course there are miserable people everywhere, and I doubt Germany's anywhere close to the most miserable country given all the corrupt and war-torn countries out there devoid of basic human rights. But hell yes I'm gonna poke fun of Germany for being needlessly more miserable on average than needs be, especially when I can cross multiple borders and find countries with better attitudes in no time at all, and especially when I'd dare argue things are far worse in the USA and yet average American handles that stuff like a champ. But now here I am explaining a joke and thereby killing the joke because omg let's be politically correct.... Political correctness has nothing to do with it. You made a statement that is pretty much only likely interpreted as racist if taken by itself. Had you had 'Germany' listed as where you hailed from or also stated something that indicated you were joking (albeit a bad one), there'd be no issue. There is no tone, inflection, facial expression, etc on an internet forum, so what might be meant as a joke can be taken as something entirely different by someone else in black and white text.

In addition to the Haiti example, here's an example from Africa: http://www.globalresearch.ca/libya-from-africas-richest-state-under-gaddafi-to-failed-state-after-nato-intervention/5408740 This thread should be subtitled: 'Ignorance is bliss!'

This is disproven by the fact that Germans have an absolutely phenominal GDP given their modest population, yet they're some of the biggest **** and most miserable people on the planet. Maybe being big **** makes them happy? For real, there are happy and miserable people everywhere. I certainly met some very happy Germans that were anything but **** when I was there. Take your racism elsewhere or keep it to yourself please. ...But I AM German. :D If you were Jewish the ADL would label you a 'self hating Jew'. Good thing for the world we have only one such mislead and ridiculous organization. As I said though, there are happy and miserable people everywhere. People have both good and bad reasons for being both. I don't know your circumstances, but there are happy Germans somewhere not far from you. Go find and be with them. 'Misery loves company.' Escape those people if you need to.

This is disproven by the fact that Germans have an absolutely phenominal GDP given their modest population, yet they're some of the biggest **** and most miserable people on the planet. Maybe being big **** makes them happy? For real, there are happy and miserable people everywhere. I certainly met some very happy Germans that were anything but **** when I was there. Take your racism elsewhere or keep it to yourself please.

Funny thing about that. The Nazis did such things. One of them is generally referred to as 'The Transfer Agreement'.

'Kill The Messenger' A largely accurate, slightly incomplete story of the saga of Gary Webb. If you don't know who Gary Webb is, I highly recommend seeing the movie and then further researching the information you'll learn from watching it. If you already know the story, it's a pretty good rendition of it. This movie falls under the rare category of 'I'm surprised Hollywood made this movie'.

Do you sit around trying to come up with most inane superficial bull**** that you can think of that matters to no one that can critically think before you post things like this? The subject matter may as well be 'People confirmed happier after eating Chocolate Ice Cream' or 'Being able to write your name in the snow in urine proves male virility' or 'Survey proves my High School is better than your High School.' Who care? No it doesn't. And I prefer mine dry not shaken so I'm better than you! And as usual you absolutely miss the point and refuse to see the facts , there is critical thinking that goes into these surveys. Its based on accurate and real metrics, I can't explain it any other way In your view how would you measure if the citizens of a country are happy because obviously the global and accepted way of doing it isn't relevant to you ? What facts? The ones you subjectively choose to pretend are there that reinforces your disposition? A survey on happiness is never going to be anything but subjective. One man's treasure is another man's trash, vice versa, and the same goes for something intangible like happiness.

Do you sit around trying to come up with most inane superficial bull**** that you can think of that matters to no one that can critically think before you post things like this? The subject matter may as well be 'People confirmed happier after eating Chocolate Ice Cream' or 'Being able to write your name in the snow in urine proves male virility' or 'Survey proves my High School is better than your High School.' Who care? No it doesn't. And I prefer mine dry not shaken so I'm better than you!

It is hopelessly defined because trolling is subjective and has variation in degree based on a large range of factors, principally based on how the recipient responds and whether it was even intended as trolling in the first place or is just labelled as such by the recipient. To illustrate, let's say that I think someone, let's call him Bob, posts stuff to get a negative reaction, you think someone, let's call him Ivan, posts stuff to get a negative reaction but neither of us thinks that both are trolls. And if we asked either they'd both say they aren't trolling. So are you right, or am I, or are neither of us? Are we going to go through some objective check list to determine whether your troll induced butthurt or my troll induced butthurt is objectively reasonable, or if either of us should be butthurt by both 'trolls'? Do we take the 'trolls' statements about their intent as gospel or do we assume they'd lie about being trolls, or indeed lie about not being trolls (the classic 'say something stupid, then claim to be trolling' defence of having said something stupid)? The only answer I can come up with is that none of those questions actually work to determine anything objectively. Base stuff on self identifying trolls and assume the trolls are being... honest and upfront- I think everyone can see the inherent problem in that proposition- or base stuff on what you personally think constitutes trolling, in which case it isn't objective either. Hogwash! Where's your peer reviewed study?!? Nothing is legit unless some incestuous academes who have yet to enter the real world and probably never will say it is so. We need bonified PhDs or their minions to verify your statement, and they better be from the Ivys, Berkeley, Oxford, or Cambridge or it still is questionable. None of them seem to be on your side so you must be a crazy conspiracy theorist!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYJZbiEciGE

You guys keep bringing this topic up, and it's clear that some of you don't understand what a troll is. The articles linked in the OP most certainly were written by someone popping too many pills. Here's a couple of examples of real trolls. I can't say I've seen any real honest to goodness trolls on this particular forum, even though many accuse others of being such fairly often, and some make some really bad attempts at trying to be one. Some of you guys are like kids who think babies come from Storks trying to discuss the finer points of Kama Sutra when you talk about trolls. http://youtu.be/Kwu50xCtMME