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You misunderstand. I meant it literally -- It's been established beyond any reasonable doubt that you are like a compass, unfailingly pointing towards the wrong. So if what I'm saying doesn't sit well with you, it's obviously because I'm on the right track. So your "asking first" (demanding proof of what is essentially an analytical observation) somehow gives you carte blanche to spout off random nonsense? Nice. I'll be sure to casually ask you to prove that it's gravity that makes things fall down in each subsequent post, just for kicks. Anyway, I'm not going to compile an international historical vote intention survey library for you. I have much better things to do with my time, such as dozing off. Disregard that particular point if you want, and get to work on the rest. You have your work cut out for you. Go on...

Really, I'm pissing you off? Great, I must be doing something right! And no, you haven't shown any evidence regarding your fair and balanced blanket statements about any party that isn't the CPSU. But that's okay, take your time.

Was wondering that myself. Czech Rep/Ukraine is where it's at. From a geographysicist's standpoint Africa is much worse than S. America, btw, and they have less countries with competitive soccer football teams. Lol, that is a Euro anti-tank gun.

Cool. I hope you aren't a supertanker pilot, though.

Mathemagicians, rather.

That doesn't even make sense. You are lacking a predicate. So that some evasive little **** who is losing an argument... what? Anyway, yes. You must prove it because it's neither a fundamental fact nor an obvious one -- your saying so doesn't make it so. "The Earth is obviously flat." The USSR engaged in imperialism as much as it could. Show why imperialism necessitates capitalism and how that relates to Soviet foreign policy. Ah, yes. They don't like capitalism at all... yet they are generally happier and like capitalism better still. Hey, what's the vote % for communist parties in those countries? Yeah, they sure want back on the Iron Curtain. "Help help someone demanded that I find evidence for my rancid rhetoric! The party committee guys said this wouldn't happen!" No. The question was brought up in the same document you brought up as "evidence" that people want communism back, so it's perfectly relevant. It is in fact your attempt to disregard part of the document that is dishonest. Yeah, so successful that it didn't last half a century -- and then not even violence could keep it together. Good is bad, success is failure, and freedom is oppression. I think I'm finally starting to understand.

Blah blah blah -- prove it. Yes, people that have experienced both systems have absolutely no idea what they are talking about and are at the mercy of the worldwide bourgeois zionist conspiracy propaganda. Fortunately, they have the great lof to open their eyes! He hasn't actually experienced communism outside of "Obama's America", but that doesn't matter, he's possessed of the certainty of the ineffable! When you prove yours. You can start by the bit about "every party other than the CPSU is a reactionary bourgeois power clique". No, self-referencing isn't considered a valid proof method. Thanks for a completely irrelevant piece of trivia. Other than the negative implications that this could have against the "proof" you brought up yourself, I don't know what this has to do with anything.

Short answer: *ba-dum-tish* edit: linky no worky!

Sounds like a great way to save money and look great. I think I'll add some 3500 cal per day on top of it, to put on some lean mass. Damn, I think I should hurry up and patent this ****.

You're defending capitalism, yes. Same monster, different head.Lol, no. You will have to elaborate on how present global capitalism equates to late 19th century colonial exploitation. "Facts"? I'd say that the stupefyingly mad tripe you insist in posting is more like a crack-overdose induced interpretation thereof. Everyone's entitled to an opinion, I guess. Oh, wait... Anyway, did you even read the doc before linking to it? I guess not, otherwise you'd have noticed that the title goes "end of communism cheered, but now with more reservations" -- which more than sufficiently supports what Wals said. The reservations bit isn't surprising considering that the 2009 part of the survey was conducted at about the same time the global financial crisis hit its peak; similar effects can be observed in vote intention surveys for the period. Further, the survey clearly shows that people believe they are better off today than they were when asked back in 1991, even considering generational gaps. Also worthy of note is the correlation between satisfaction, perceived corruption and economic performance in a given country. Of course, if your country is doing like **** and your leaders are a bunch of crooks, capitalism must be to blame, right? Yeah, because under communism, corruption didn't exist... Unlike you, I won't ask you to stop posting -- you make a much better case against the extreme left than I could ever hope to. Why do you hate socialism?

Who here is defending the return to British administrated India? Who here is defending the return to Soviet policies and practices? Hmm. I don't think "intellectually dishonest" means what you think it means. The same applies to "reactionary bourgeois power clique". I know that one of the pillars of Stalinism was a conscious effort to redefine as much of the lexicon as possible to minimize the very ability of people to think badly of the Party, the Leader and of communism itself. But that never worked in real life when it was attempted with the aid of mass repression, so don't expect it to work in some internet message board, lol. I thought we had already established that pulling some chart from your sleeve just isn't going to cut it. I can do that too. Why don't you go ahead and post your sources? How many of those asked had actually experienced the height of Soviet or Soviet-fostered oppression?

The rig wasn't BP's AFAIK, and they didn't even operate it, despite having some personnel on board. Some sort of lease contract, I think. I don't know who would be liable for the incident. It's undoubtedly a blow to BP in the sense that a cutting-edge, multi-million mobile facility like this can't be replaced overnight, but probably it's going to be worse for the owner of the rig and the insurance company. Just sayin'. Huh? I'm pretty certain I heard something about Obama planning to build some 20 new NPPs to deal with "energy dependence" in the US? I'll try to look it up and get back to you. Since I'm 100% drug and alcohol free, I expect to find at least something... or I'll be very worried. *ahem* Well, yes. It's difficult enough to reliably estimate the current global reserves of oil, and that's with the current development of relevant tech and the volume of prospections being done each year, so you'll excuse me if I'm a bit skeptic on estimations of retrievable Uranium deposits. The sun will also run out of fuel eventually, heh -- I remember some report from an international agency that claimed that currently surveyed Uranium deposits could provide enough fuel for the next twenty centuries. In the meantime we could make do with "fast breeders", if alternate energy sources were expensive enough. Thorium is cool too.

Do you even have a day job? Where do you get the time to play all those AND patrol the boards? For me usually gaming sessions are 2-3 hours, but most days I don't play at all. And you are into Paradox games... care to share your secret for time dilation?

This again? It was intentional. Intentional as in, one of the reasonably foreseeable consequences of collectivisation, a policy they implemented regardless. It's funny that you of all people would accuse anyone of intellectual dishonesty, mr. "any party but the CPSU is a reactionary bourgeois power clique". Why do you hate socialism?

Lol. The funny thing is that Sarko tried to pull this same stunt in 2009, but the courts shot him down. You know there's something seriously wrong when the French start teaching the Brits lessons on liberalism.

Which was my point. However, consensus plays a huge role in this and ultimately rules are made to reflect what the majority believe is moral (within reason). They are as qualified as anyone else. They are not campaigning for a censorship on the Internet as a whole. They are not imposing their morality on anyone that doesn't wish them to, and even then, it's arguable that they aren't as it's a conscious decision on the part of the customer to purchase a product which restricts access to certain contents -- so actually, it's the customer that's making the call.

Heh. It's funny this came up, as it's a very much real problem.

Because "censorship" usually carries a political overtone. And restricting free speech on political grounds is bad, what with universal human rights and all. Encroaching on free speech with a political agenda has been shown to lead invariably to generally undesirable results, so it's not a totally arbitrary rule. But then there's the censorship on moral grounds, and there the limits aren't quite so clear. Child porn is conceivably banned to protect children and by extension society as a whole. But outside of content that requires that people be harmed in its creation, your guess is as good as mine (provided that neither of us is a lawmaker, obviously). It's not possible to dismiss this sort of censorship out of hand, but I'm just thankful it's not my job to draw the lines. So I guess censorship is, like so many other things, neither good nor bad... just necessary. And oh so easy to abuse. But you said it yourself: they have a vision of what they want the iPhone to be; they are simply working to make it true. Let's not forget that Apple is a company. It's not invested of the same powers of the state and therefore it's not bound by the same rules. As long as they aren't breaking the law, I don't see why they shouldn't adopt a moralist stance and design their products accordingly. You are free to pay them no mind (and no money, hyuk hyuk).

In my experience, the people you play with is what makes or breaks an MMO. If you can find a group with similar interests and playstyle, you might as well write off the next few months of your social life. Otherwise, those games are boring as ****... or worse.

Um, well, yes. Censorship is bad and all, but people like their porn, too. It's not just a question of taking the high moral ground and proclaiming it's an attack on freedom... it's also a question of Apple cutting their customers off from what is certainly a wildly popular and very demanded portion of Internet content. I mean, if Apple said they weren't going to allow access to arXiv.org, how many people do you think would raise a stink about it? I'm not sure I understand where you're coming from -- in one sentence you seem to defend Apple's legitimacy in choosing contents, but in the next you say you see them "growing mad with power"...? I think Wals was spot on earlier with his bookstore example. If you really need or want it so bad, there are alternatives. There's nothing to suggest that Apple hasn't considered this.

Yeah, that. I never cease to be amazed at how people's sensibilities can be hurt by basic physiological functions. I mean, stop eating that sandwich, you're offending me! In other words, yes, they should. Grow a thicker skin/mind your own business etc. America, F*** yeah!

Yes, and I'm still not going to do it. I have no interest in holding your (or his) hand through this, and the sole suggestion of "winning" an argument on the internet is enough to make me want to log off right now. If you want to see how things are the way I'm saying, go look up the throw-weights for US and Soviet MIRVed ICBMs during the 70's, and how this relates to first-strike decisiveness. If not... that's your problem. I have no special desire to save you the time. Oh, and by the way, he hasn't provided any evidence for his arguments either. The "dead hand" system was intended to preserve retaliation potential for the Soviet Union in the event of suffering a first strike -- but this doesn't necessarily mean their strategy was defensive in nature, merely that it was a contingency they had accounted for. But somehow, you never demand that he supports his arguments adequately. That's not how you maintain a fa

Strawman. I didn't say they were planning to nuke the world. After all, a nuclear wasteland cannot be made into a worker's paradise, right? So can you try being less obnoxious or do we start flinging poo? It's pretty cool how you twist **** around. Where you say "have strong nukes", I say keep a nuclear arsenal that places an emphasis on the offense. Where you say "maintain military bases on allied countries", I say enforce Soviet interests by means of direct military occupation dating back to the "liberation" at the end of WWII. See DDR 1953, Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968, etc and how Tito kept his country out of Soviet control thanks to the fact that Yugoslavia was never "liberated" by the RKKA. So... what do I need to cite, exactly? The throw-weights for Satan and Peacekeeper rockets? The bomber-based to ICBM nuke proportions for US and Soviet arsenals? The number of Soviet troops deployed on DDR (~400,000 men in 5 motorized armies in '87, not counting air force)? Those are all in the public domain. Do your own research. You didn't answer the question: why do you hate socialism so?

I'd say fanon. Unless "vespaz" is a BIO employee. Which he could probably be, given his skills.

Hmm, no. The Soviet nuclear arsenal was part of a policy of stand-off with the West until they could attain a technological edge, that would nullify the threat that American, British and French nuclear weapons posed to the offensively deployed GSFG (the term "arms race" ring a bell?). So, in fact, it's the other way around. But nice try. Oh, wait. That's not even all of it, as it was the Soviets who in fact held the advantage with regards to first-strike capability, with their super-heavy MIRVed ICBMs and SLBMs. For a time at least. Yes, "rational self defense", as in "kill the fascist bourgeois pigs before they have a chance to blink". Now tell us, lof. Why do you hate socialism so?