213374U

1v1 me irl faget i rek u m8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condor_Legion If that wasn't an invasion back then, you'd need to prove that the level of Russian material support and deployed men is greater in scale than that was, to even begin to talk about an invasion.

Heh. When I was younger, me and a friend were fooling around with a replica gun in a park. Some local cops walked up to me and calmly and politely asked if they could see it. I was startled and, of course, handed it over. After inspecting it they explained that I needed a license for it and I couldn't wave it around in public like a complete idiot, as I was doing (they didn't actually call me an idiot). Apparently some concerned citizen had called in. It was resolved quickly, professionally, and most importantly, no one died, for which I'm obviously grateful. Of course, this was a few years ago, in a country without such extreme social tensions and where the police are still subject to the rule of law for the most part. But the fact remains that nobody is forced to take up a badge. If you can't handle the pressure and stress associated with policing in a high-risk environment, perhaps consider finding a safer job. Normalization of force as a work tool of law enforcement is fundamentally incompatible with an open society. Then again, so is stuff like this. As I've said before, you guys really need to take back your country.

I think I have the same laptop. I was having massive vlag spikes in SWTOR warzones (like the game freezing for 1 second) and general poor performance, and Humanoid is right on the money — it's your graphics card throttling down. Apparently the manufacturer went a bit overboard with throttling to make power consumption manageable. I tried downloading a software override to disable throttling and the laptop ended up shutting down once due to the inbuilt overheat protection. So in my case I also had to take the thing to a local workshop to have it cleaned out. They showed me the crap they pulled from the fans and I kid you not, I was embarrassed. The metal fan support was also warped due to the heat. My vlag problemas have disappeared since. TL;DR find a manufacturer-certified laptop repair business and get them to clean out the fans and replace the themal paste. Haven't played Torchlight, so I'm not sure if that's good or bad. I don't really have a problem with grindy, if the actual matches are fun and the game allows for sufficient character customization (I don't mean aesthetically) and different playstyles to provide variety to keep things interesting past the first 20 games or so. I have a feeling that ME3MP was kind of a fluke, though.

So, after skimming through the first few pages and feeling a connection with Gromnir's feeling of disconnection, I've decided I cba to read through 7+ pages of the same old for the nth time. But since I'm going to play this game at some point, I would like to know your opinions on the MP, PC specifically, if anyone has tried it. I played ME3MP much more than I did the "main" game, so this may be the key selling point for me — otherwise I'll just wait for a price drop two years from now or something. From what I've read in the MP FAQ, they are making emphasis on lessons learned from ME3MP and stuff... but I have enough experience with BW's PR talk from SWTOR to take it with a grain (or a ton) of salt. So whaddaya think?

If you look at that list of nations, the abstains pretty much represent those thoroughly under the UK/EU/US banking cartel's thumb, the 'yes' votes pretty much represent those nations who would be free of that oppression if they could, and then you have the U.S..... what a disgusting disgrace that vote. You see this is exactly what I knew you guys were going to say and what 2133 was actually alluding to. But he can't really be bothered to explain further You guys think its a conspiracy, that certain countries only abstained due to some sort of surreptitious influence from the USA or Western banking circles. But sometimes there is no conspiracy, just what a particular country thinks is best for its own national interest. And in this case they are obviously more concerned with the Islamic extremist element within Hamas than the loss of Palestinian lives. Because a Yes vote is really a vote to support Hamas, even if it seems unfair And I'm not unconcerned with the loss of Palestinian civilians, I am just trying to be realistic Ah, yes, the conspiracy handwave. I'm sure that programmed reaction helps you sleep, but it does nothing for people in Gaza, really. It must be nice to live in that world in which free markets are actually free, the media don't lie through their teeth, and "free and democratic" countries don't commit war crimes. Wish I could go back, but alas. Of course, it's pointless trying to reason with you, as you have, in this thread and others, implicitly agreed that the ends justify the means. This is fundamentally incompatible with the principles of international law and human rights. Until you stop recognizing my right to blast you to pieces for whatever random reason I can think up (whether you agree with the reason is irrelevant), we have nothing to talk about. Good day sir.

And I imagine you need to read and think before you post. The stated purpose of the inquiry is to investigate *ALL* int'l law and human rights violations in Gaza since the start of military operations, not just Israel's. "Don't owe the USA anything", lol. Wake up and smell the coffee. Bah, why do I bother.

I haven't seen this posted ITT, which is surprising. US Stands Alone in Vote Against UN Inquiry Into Gaza Assault (and, of course, its cowardly Euro retainers abstain in the latest vomit-inducing display of servilism)

Awesome first half by Ghana, I'm impressed. Give them a forward that can avoid getting caught offside every ****ing time and they could seriously rain on Germany's parade...

Well, generally people are better off together, except when they aren't. No doubt there are advantages to having close ties with neighboring tribes/ethnic/religious groups, but ultimately I believe humanity hasn't yet sufficiently progressed past the tribal mentality to indefinitely enable cohabitation under a common legal framework that will in fact (and not only on paper) guarantee equality, justice, and respect for minorities. And since you brought it up, the Ukrainian historical claim to the Donbas, as presented, is born out of a mixture of historiographical factors, 20th-century nationalism and half-truths, and doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. Facts, unsurprisingly, are more difficult to fit into a single, clear cut interpretation. From my understanding, from the modern era, the eastern part of the Wild Fields was a frontier land sparsely populated by Cossacks (Zaporozhian and Don mostly, but also others), while Russian lands proper were more to the northeast (Grand Duchy of Moscow) and Ruthenians were to the west, in the Kievan Voivodeship which was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, until Catherine incorporated the area into the Russian Empire in the late 18th century, alongside Crimea. The Donbas was an ethnically diverse area with a population that increased quickly, as you noted, due to immigration, and the development of the coal-steel industry in the region, but this process began well before the Soviet era (now-Ukrainian Donbas pop in 1897 was <700k, and it had grown to ~2M by 1920). The current ethnic composition of the region is a result of Russian Empire- and Soviet-era migration which in turn is a consequence of a myriad factors such as the unique relationship of the Cossack communities with their neighbors, the Catholic/Eastern religious schism, the revolution of 1917 and the development of heavy industry in "the Russian Ruhr". Russians have as much of a claim on the Donbas as Ukrainians, if we are using history to determine the legitimacy of territorial claims, which is another can of worms. In addition, Putin's support or his status as an autocrat (an exaggeration btw, cf. Teodoro Obiang, King Abdullah, Islam Karimov, etc; "our bastards") are completely irrelevant to the legitimacy of the claim of either side—it may well affect the outcome, but not the validity of the claim itself, which is a legal, social, and ultimately academic issue. Not that it matters, at any rate. My reply was more aimed at highlighting the ever-present double standards with regards to certain "fundamental principles"—in this case, self-determination—in world politics, which in my mind, is one of the biggest obstacles to peace and a working international legal framework. I'm not against the dissolution of an artificial post-colonial Middle-eastern state that has been kept together only by means of brutal oppression and mass murder into its constituent nation-states.

Maybe that is so for the English, but over here it's BAWW all over and a huge pissing contest, seeing who to pin the blame on, etc. The navel gazing is still going strong, it's just a different, much more bitter, flavor.

u wot m8?

To be honest, the idea of a unified "EU army" scares the living **** out of me.

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.