Humodour

poo

I'm sure they're mind-numbingly loyal and happy to die for Dear Leader, but they'll still basically be using spears against tanks.

Religions suck, including Wicca. Silly distractions from important problems in our world. And charity is a product of humanity not religion.

Who? Well Australia will shoulder some of the burden as we always have. And xenophobic racist elements will complain about it as they always have. And they'll be overruled by commonsense as they always have been. He probably puts people who disagree with his conspiracy theories on ignore.

North Korea's army is useless. Apparently only 1/10 of them have real guns - the rest are wooden replicas. You can't compare armies without also comparing defence expenditure per soldier head and other things. And when your soldiers don't have real guns you can bet the expenditure is low.

Piracy is not a equivalent to stealing and never can be. It could probably be associated somewhat with opportunity cost, but again, that's not stealing.

lolowned

Guys, Batman Arkham Asylum is $10 on Steam for 18 more hours. Buy it NOW!

I have to wonder why China even bothers with NK. What's so worthwhile in defending it? There's a few easy to figure out reasons, the biggest one being it makes China look more civilised and humane when you've got such an atrocious, ****ed up state nearby. It also distracts the Western military in a similar manner. That said, China no longer has control over the situation and it has become damaging to their reputation and their regional goals. 1) it galvanises and unites Western and Asian nations into a cohesive force which is exactly the opposite of what China wants - China prefers its neighbours scattered and isolated as they are more pliable and easy to intimidate... and heck now China has to deal with US-SK join naval exercises, that has really angered them apparently, and 2) China looks politically impotent for not having any influence over North Korea whilst also hindering any Western efforts to reign them in. But I talk of China as a holistic entity. It is actually governed by multiple conflicting factions - in this case North Korea's biggest supporters are the Chinese army. Not exactly a faction that is easy to overrule.

I bet you'd look good on the dance floor.

Gorth is on the money - apparently the North Koreans are starving again (actually I think they've always been dying from starvation, since their government has not done anything about it besides outlaw commerce and trade, and constantly pisses off the people who would supply food aid): http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/...ord-experts-say

Well here's my chance to buy AP.

I was actually trolling; I had no intention of starting the 'religion causes war' debate, although in hindsight it was a natural evolution of what was being said. I'm just glad that the Pope (and one of the most conservative ones at that!) has drawn the obvious connection between condom use and "Thou shalt not kill" - leaving aside the fact that the Vatican ignorantly sees prostitutes (male or female) as immoral - it's pretty self-evident that by not using condoms you are risking the lives of others in many situations, and thus violating one of the ten commandments.

Yes, I'm aware of Benedict's edict. But it was random given that really, it has little to do with the pagans and their treatment in Glastonbury. Agreed, the world would be better off with more spirituality and less religion. You don't know many hippies do you? I'm pretty sure myself and most of my friends would qualify as hippies. Lovely people. I'm atheist mysaelf of course but if people want to believe in airy fairy bull**** then at least spirituality is very individualistic and not at all aggressive or authoritarian (kind of the opposite with religion).

Hahahaha! I didn't have to think hard to see this would happen, so how come the decision to halt rare earths to Japan happened in the first place? Are the people in charge of China's foreign trade really that mind-numbingly stupid that they value short-term chest-beating over long-term prosperity? Japan signs permanent long-term rare earth supply deal with Australia, backs it with hundreds of millions of dollars of government-backed money in mining investment China restarts shipments of rare earths to Japan straight after (having stopped them as a tool of political pressure on Japan over islands China wants to take from Japan)

Yes, I'm aware of Benedict's edict. But it was random given that really, it has little to do with the pagans and their treatment in Glastonbury. Agreed, the world would be better off with more spirituality and less religion.

Not random at all, good sir! Conservatives at odds with Vatican over condoms

mkreku, I think you've got a bit of a naive idealised picture of these regimes. Pacifism is nice and all if there's reasonable chance your opponent follows common sense. Breaks down quite rapidly when they don't.

The Pope loves condoms 'cause he doesn't wanna catch STDs from his male prostitutes.

Name a time and a place and a weapon of choice for bludgeoning.

I hated Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, but then again.. that's exactly what I did. I mean, you could not swing a dead cat without hitting a ledge full of deadly barrels, a wall full of spikes, an orc balancing on the edge of a bottomless pit, etc. The game never felt clever or made you feel clever for finding ways of using your surroundings. No, instead if threw everything in your face and basically forced you to kick people into spikes. I mean, the choice was between sluggish melee combat with a chance of dying after three minutes of struggling, or just push the win-button for an instant kill. Yeah, completely opposite experience to me. It's like when somebody comes along and tries my favourite beer (Kilkenny, incidentally) and says it tastes like cat urine. It's hard not to feel personally offended.

And Western countries don't oppress their people? Can you show me a Western Country where the people are free and not oppressed by degrees of tyranny. Tyranny is a form of absolute rule of a single individual who usually wrestles power from more legitimate government. Since democratic institutions are by definition opposed to such abuses of power I'll say that various forms of representational government do not tyrannize their people. In the end the concept of rule of law and representation implies that any action strongly opposed by people will lead to a change of elective representatives and by extension their policies. No such possibilities exist in the likes of China. If you honestly believe that the difference between democratic and autocratic/authoritarian government is insignificant then I doubt it's possible to change your mind by the means of discussion. Except that even in the current US system we're having troubles because of how entrenched the two political parties are in the system that you don't really choose between a whole pile of different views and ideologies, but variations on two viewpoints. With no other viable choice, at all. Basically instead of just having the one communist party, you have the Dem and Rep parties. Irrelevant, though, really? America's ****ty electoral system has no bearing on this discussion's main point: there are plenty of countries out their with electoral systems which function to promote democracy rather then enforce two-party rule (e.g. New Zealand, Australia, much of Europe). But even two-party rule tends to be far superior to totalitarianism because it means there is an opposition to hold the government of the day to account.

And Western countries don't oppress their people? Can you show me a Western Country where the people are free and not oppressed by degrees of tyranny. What rot! It's the 'degrees' as you put it that are so crucial here. Fining somebody for smoking pot for example (Australia) is totally different to murdering them for it (China)! Fining (or in bad cases gaoling) somebody for tax evasion is totally different to murdering them for it (China)! And further, in Australia these laws can be changed through elections if the people decide they don't suit them (which is why the civil libertarian parties of the Greens, Liberty & Democracy Party, and the Sex Party are so successful right now - young people are flocking to them in droves, and so are quite a few older adults). In China, fat ****ing chance of even seeing movements like this, let alone parties with power to change government. No, that's not strictly true - you'll see these movements for a brief few days occassionally before the dictators swoop in and mop up any elements of dissent. God, if China could just get a functioning, consistent legal system not subject to alteration and the making up of new laws when the Chinese government wants to eliminate/silence somebody would be a big ****ing start. You know, a fully independent judiciary.

China does not need to start a war in defense of North Korea. It's economical influence is such that it can punish those deemed responsible for undermining it's interests without resorting to warfare. China can of course impose economic sanctions but the thing about that is reciprocity. Japan, America, the EU, Australia, can **** China over with reverse sanctions just as easily (which happened recently between China and Japan). If China uses economic manipulation too much, they'll risk isolating themselves economically in a rather detrimental way: countries and businesses will start to seek permanent alternatives with better investment certainty and stability (as happened with rare earths - America and Australia have reopened their old rare earth mines at the behest of Japan and Europe, so now China will lose its 97% monopoly on them due to using them as a political tool). Moreover, when China imposes economic sanctions it by definition is hurting it's own economic growth in the process, typically, as trade is self-evidently a mutual process. The thing is, if North Korea is deemed as enough of a threat or problem, the West (including South-East Asian countries) will forge ahead no matter how many economic threats China throws around because of the sheer number of countries weighed against North Korea (and by extension China, if they deem it necessary to puff their chest up).

I also stopped watching around season 6 or 7, but only because it became really ****ing ****. First seasons were semi-decent though.