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Well, they do hand out yellow cards to goalies for delaying goalkicks and that sort of thing, from time to time. But when some crybaby is rolling on the ground feigning a mortal injury, it's not so easy. I'd settle for refs keeping a close watch on exactly how long the play has been stopped, and having "injured" players be carried off ASAP, instead of letting them derail the game for so long. That way the practice would be discouraged by making it counterproductive and you don't risk seriously damaging a team. But yeah, generally the sport would be improved by doing something about the rather unsportsmanlike "dramatic" aspect. Because it never gets old:

No points, but to me the worst is no goals. I don't really count a Costa dive-triggered penalty as an actual goal. And seven goals against in two games. That's just appalling, lol! I don't know about Negredo, but I sure miss Llorente.

Being from an Euro country with great public higher education programs (read: dirty commies), I always struggle to understand this. Does this mean that getting a degree from other than "where Gromnir would want to" is worthless? Is it a reputation thing or is there really a difference in the quality of the education being offered? A matter of hiring opportunities with big names recruiting on campus maybe? Is it something that happens across the board or just with certain career paths such as law, business, etc?

You think he'd be worse than Peter Crouch?

You are splitting hairs here. They have the power to issue regulations and directives if the EP and Council delegate on them, which they often do. So they do in fact issue regulations and directives, which member countries must adhere to. This is in addition to what Nep explained, which you hand-wave simply as "any government system is corrupt to some degree". Well, duh. Regardless, the problem remains. Again, precisely how are you disagreeing with what I said? Seems to me that you are trying really hard to correct me on technicalities to suggest that what I'm saying is not true. I appreciate the corrections, but what exactly are you getting at? Dude, no. Ratification of the ECHR is essentially a standard that countries have to meet in order to qualify for accession. This isn't my opinion. It's the opinion of the European Commission. No, it's not part of the letter of the law, if that's what you are saying, but that's grasping at straws, because it's viewed by legal experts as an informal requirement. The ECJ doesn't directly overrule domestic courts, but that's not what I said, so I guess I agree. However, read the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU. Last instance courts involved in cases dealing with EU law where a point of contention is raised where no precedent exists (precedent set by the ECJ, btw) must halt proceedings and wait for a preliminary ruling which then they must apply. No, the ECJ doesn't overrule domestic courts, it simply tells them how to do their job with regards to EU law which, by the way, supersedes domestic law. From the EC link I pasted before: "All Member States of the European Union, except Denmark and the United Kingdom, are required to adopt the euro and join the euro area." The loophole used by Sweden to avoid adopting the Euro (bravo) worked for Sweden, but it's doubtful it will be allowed for new members. There's also the possibility that the requirement is waived or "applied retroactively", but it remains to be seen what the EU can do to enforce the legal imperative mandating adoption of the Euro with regards to Sweden. At any rate, changing the subject and pointing out irrelevant trivia doesn't change the bottom line that, as I said, is that the majority of EU members are also members of the Eurozone, and it just so happens that monetary policy for Eurozone members is governed from the ECB. On the subject of trading policies, the problem is that at some point the policy can benefit a certain country, but further down the road the policy may change. Fall in line or face stiff penalties. Yes, one can always GTFO. Are you suggesting that anyone concerned about the lack of transparency and democratic deficits in the EU should just GTFO? Further, read the context in which this was first raised, that is Tagaziel's rather ironic mischaracterization of anyone disagreeing with his views on the EU as "morons", supported by a vague one-liner on "what the EU does". In my reply, I posted some of the things the EU actually does. Other than technicalities, nitpicking, and perhaps unclear wording on my part, I have yet to see you seriously disagree with the substance of any of the things I said originally.

Bayern Munich Germany was pretty good, but the game was destroyed after Pepe was sent off (red card? really?). Not that Portugal made much effort, though. So far I'm liking Holland and Italy best.

That's why I said "once switching to the Euro". You can argue that Euro is not the currency of the EU until you are blue in the face, but the reality is it's the currency of the majority of its members and EU members (except Denmark and the UK) are obligated to make the change once they meet the requisites. Facts such as participation through EERMII and "countries" such as Andorra and San Marino having the Euro as their currency sure are interesting, but irrelevant in the context of what I said, to wit, that monetary policy instruments are taken from EU member countries and transferred to the ECB once they adopt the Euro. My bad. I should have worded that better. ECHR is indeed not a de jure organ of the EU—it's instead part of the even more (!) undemocratic Council of Europe. Regardless, membership in the EU de facto requires ratification of the ECHR (in the opinion of the ECJ, the ECHR is of "special importance") and this often means that domestic courts are overruled. The ECJ does in fact have the last word on EU law interpretation and application and, as per art. 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, a domestic court *must* both ask for and comply with a preliminary ruling (if it's a last instance court), which also sets precedent on the particular point of contention. Nepenthe already addressed this, so I'm just going to say that EC does have the power to issue regulations, by exercising delegated legislative power. It is also the sole actor with legislative initiative. "Agreement" implies something participants agree to. But countries don't get to agree or disagree on EU trading policy because nobody asks—it's dictated by the EU. Don't like it? GTFO. EU trading policy doesn't work like "regular" international agreements. Thanks for the objections, btw. Forced me to freshen up on EU stuff that I studied some time ago and didn't remember so well...

Why you insist on spreading this sort of misinformation is beyond me. It's either irony or malice at play that you blame it on ignorance and "the population being morons", seeing how, as evidenced by the Ukraine thread, you either don't know how the EU siphons sovereignty off member states and towards the Union structures or are, rather dishonestly, downplaying it. But I'm the FSB shill. Again, member states are obligated to: relinquish control over monetary policy once switching to the Euro (handled at the Union level by ECB) acknowledge rulings and domestic ruling overturns by the ECJ and ECHR obey regulations and directives issued by the European Commission (secondary legislation, I'm sure you know what this is) fall in line with the common trading policy or face severe penalties If that all sounds familiar, it's because you already read and glossed over it in the other thread. The structures and organisms responsible for the above are eminently undemocratic and suffer from transparency and accountability deficits. The argument that the EU doesn't micromanage countries is deceitful because what it does is hand out high level objectives for countries to legislate towards, and then sets deadlines for said legislation, leaving only the wording and execution up to member states, while monitoring both and penalizing any deviation from the directives issued. It's not that people believe that some sort of EU nationality is in danger of supplanting whatever their passport currently reads—it's that they correctly surmise that the democratic process is being rendered increasingly irrelevant by the slow but sure transfer of power from their elected representatives to a supra-national organization they have no reason to trust and whose interests, motivations and inner workings are, at best, opaque.

Well, that's unsurprising. Unless they actually start suggesting collectivization of agriculture, nationalization of means of production and the works, which sounds a bit leninist for most voters' sensibilities, the economic policies of most parties with a strong populist-statist streak (read: authoritarian wannabes) are difficult to tell from one another, regardless of whether they market themselves as right- or left-wing. It doesn't get much more right-wing than ol' NSDAP, and by the standards of any liberal democracy, their economic policy was seriously left-wing: Huge public works to bandage the rampant unemployment, direct state control over strategic economic sectors, price controls, reining in small businesses, etc. It's all about the degree of control, and the window dressing is tailored around the voter target they intend to make suckers out of, really.

You mean young people in Finland are taught how elections really work in school? I'm genuinely impressed. Do you also get basic legal and fiscal education? And, by the way, there is no popular legislative initiative at the EU level, or EU-wide referenda. So no participating, at all.

Note that you made no mention of a common currency. How shrewd. Not quite the way it seems to be going, anyway.

Oh, but police brutality isn't even at the centre of this case. The conviction designed to intimidate the people by making an example of her to discourage resistance is, but you missed that somehow. I guess you didn't bother reading the whole thing. And since you're asking, I'd rather have an intelligent conversation. Failing that however, I'll settle for that cookie.

I love you guys.

Hey, bro. You might want to take a look at this, too. Only in Russia(n-speaking areas) right? Wake up. Never suggested otherwise, but we were talking about Ukraine. Are you capable of talking about this without deflecting with examples of US brutality, of which I'm sure there are many. Seems to me a lot of people are stuck in a simplistic binary view here. Everyone tries to manipulate the media, they aren't all this ham fisted about it though. Excuse me, who died and made you the sole authority on what "we are talking about"? The narrative is that Sloviansk's "People's Mayor" and his thugs were arresting journalists in an effort to intimidate the press. This deserves strong condemnation. It does indeed, but to issue a condemnation you need a modicum of moral integrity. Stuff like what I posted completely destroys any illusion that such integrity exists. Or are you suggesting that the reason why her case isn't relevant is because everyone agrees that the downward spiral towards a police state the US is on is self-evident and therefore no exploring it is necessary? Didn't think so. Problem is, it's not even comparable. Ostrovsky was released after three days, largely unharmed, except for his own account of being beaten. McMillan's mistreatment is well documented and she will go to jail for a long time unless the sentence is overturned in appeal. The authority of Sloviansk's "People's Mayor" isn't recognized by anyone, not even Russia, while the system that abused and convicted McMillan is actually the freaking US judiciary. I just figured that, in your outrage, you might be interested in this blatant violation of civil rights. I guess I was wrong, which makes your comment about a "simplistic binary view" all the more ironic.

Oh, I don't doubt it. I freely admit that I have peculiar tastes. Could never get into PST or Arcanum either. I'll probably give it a serious try at some point.

After trying—and failing—to get into TW1, I'm trying to set up a BGT installation with ~30 mods. The Big World compatibility document is more than 300 pages, and they apparently recommend using an automatic installer because it's such a headache and chances are good that doing it manually will break something. I checked the EE forums to see if the mod scene has picked up the slack, but some of the best pieces are still not compatible (Spell and Item Revisions, for instance), so it's still a no-buy for me. It's funny because it's almost as if this was a Bethesda game. If it doesn't work or I get bored while trying to sort it out, I'll probably go for a second playthrough of NWN2. The good thing about a forgettable OC is that it'll be like playing it for the first time again.

Hey, bro. You might want to take a look at this, too. Only in Russia(n-speaking areas) right? Wake up.

Don't make non-combat builds. Yeah, pretty much this. Or alternatively pick a clan that has Celerity and faceroll ALL the things.

That's a question you should ask Paul Wolfowitz, methinks. At any rate, the whole point is that Bruce is unhappy with the Nigerian gov't progress at dealing with Boko Haram. By comparison, the Americans swooping in and "dealing" with them would be, in his mind, quick and easy indeed. Because if it wasn't quick and easy, why the hell would he be suggesting it? You are right. Your info is out of date. America did not "wipe" the Viet Cong. America first shifted the burden of the fighting to ARVN after Tet, and later withdrew completely. The massive losses sustained by VC during Tet would have rendered it a phyrric victory if the South could have mounted a counter attack and destroyed them, but that simply didn't happen, as they still had the NVA to deal with. After the communists won the war, VC was dissolved as it no longer had a reason to exist. I guess my definition of "practically" is simply different. As for the Tamil Tigers, yes, that is, as I noted, one of those rare occurrences where an insurgent movement with significant popular support is defeated largely by force. The fighting had raged for more than three decades and in the end a permanent solution was as much political as it was military. That's, er, the point I was making. LOL "the US pacified Iraq".

You should go back and read the previous page to see how Valorian was insulted and baited by Drowsy and Sarex for expressing his opinion. Then comment on who is being rude to who I'm sorry, you mean before or after he said Serbs should be thankful for the NATO bombings?

What do you mean? I got it from GOG. I avoid Steam whenever I can. I can't tell if you're being facetious... but SR uses the Unity engine.

^ That's some quality baiting there, champ. I'm tempted to reply myself, and I'm not even Serbian! edit: Serbian? Serb? Whatever

Yes of course! An "effective" military campaign can do it, because if it fails to solve the problem for good, it wasn't "effective" to begin with, and your argument will emerge intact still, right? Only historical occurrences seem to suggest that military campaigns rarely can finish insurgent movements. No, not even in some magical "African context" where apparently force works where otherwise it wouldn't. A very progressive attitude, by the way. Oh, and the insurgency in Mali isn't over by a long shot, and we'll see what happens when the French pull out completely. The Sierra Leone civil war lasted for a decade. Quick and easy, right?

Seriously, "the Americans have the capacity and resources to deal with Boko Haram"? Like they have dealt with the Taliban? Like they dealt with insurgency in Iraq? Like they dealt with the Viet Cong? Read up on irregular and asymmetric conflicts: the Tamil Tigers, FARC, Naxalites, PKK, Shining Path, etc. In the (few) cases where conflicts involving guerrillas have been settled, it has taken decades of concerted economic, social, political and, yes, military efforts to reach a permanent solution. I simply can't wrap my mind around the fact that, after the military approach as been proven ineffective pretty much everywhere it's been applied, you keep suggesting that America must go in and fix it by force. Because hundredth time's a charm, right?

Nah. It's just that it's pretty much a given that abducting schoolgirls is a bad thing and so some folks here don't see the need to jump on the OMG bandwagon—others have that part well covered already. Rather, it's a matter of WHAT does the West do, how we do it, and most importantly, *why*. I have a right, nay, a duty to protest illegal or unethical actions my government takes because they are doing it in my name, but that doesn't hold true for foreign actors. One can go all Sir Charles Napier over this (seems to be what Bruce's calling for), but that implies that Nigerians are not ready to handle their own affairs... and thus Western tutelage is warranted. We all know where that line of thinking leads. At any rate, I'm not too sure what the point of this thread is... though I raised an eyebrow at the suggestion of incompetence on the part of the Nigerian authorities. It's not like the West has a magic wand for dealing with mass kidnappings or situations that involve entrenched gunmen and hostages, especially if the gunmen are keen on becoming martyrs. It's a **** situation no matter what flag is hoisted.