213374U

Cool, can you do Bolivia now please. For some reason potted rants about the evils of socialism never address Bolivia and I'm wondering why. I wait, with 'bated breath. Technically "he" could, since it's straight from the CIA World Factbook. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ve.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/bo.html I thought it was Harvard or bust. Is CIA an accredited academic institution now?

I think Volourn does in fact enjoy the butthurt, though.

"Yo Obama, I'm really happy for you, and Imma let you finish, but Trump attracted the biggest crowd of all time. OF ALL TIME!"

It's Kaiserreich. I hadn't played it before, and I'm starting to understand why it's so highly rated. It has way more events than vanilla and the outcomes are more variable. In three games, I had three different outcomes for Russia by '41 for instance: social democratic under the Tsar, steamrolling Germany; Nazi superpower facing off against commie France, and a continuation of the Russian Civil War with the Soviets controlling the European part. I'm loving it. Ah, I've been meaning to check that out - I play with The New World Order 2, which does a pretty good job of simulating the cold war. If Soviet Russia and America wins of course. Yes! I tried NWO2 a while ago, but I found the HOI2 engine not very well suited for handling the Cold War era with all the insurgencies, smaller scale conflicts and increasingly economic nature of the struggle, despite the amount of work the mod makers put into it, which is why for instance the Israel scenarios in vanilla are so boring. It was also very buggy back then. I tried to download it again recently, but the links were down :/ Man, I was crushed that East vs West was canned. A Clausewitz Engine Cold War grand strategy game? takemymoney.jpeg

But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connection with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connection that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head. For example, the Ministry of Plenty's forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at one-hundred-and-forty-five million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the usual claim that the quota had been overfulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was no nearer the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than one-hundred-and-forty-five millions. Very likely no boots had been produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew how many had been produced, much less cared. All one knew was that every quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot. And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain.

I thought you were done? Poor impulse control much? Anyway, pretty funny to see you falling back to the old "I refuse to engage with someone conducting themselves in such a manner", after showing that it's you who apparently has no compunctions casually disparaging people who don't share your persecution complex with "the left" and Islam: Yup. Much as I hate repeating myself: get off your high horse already.

You give them awkward man-hugs to creep them out and make them leave the country and never talk about that situation ever again. How did you know? But actually I hanged them. You get +2 IC in two provinces in exchange for like 10% dissent, so it's a no brainer really. It's Kaiserreich. I hadn't played it before, and I'm starting to understand why it's so highly rated. It has way more events than vanilla and the outcomes are more variable. In three games, I had three different outcomes for Russia by '41 for instance: social democratic under the Tsar, steamrolling Germany; Nazi superpower facing off against commie France, and a continuation of the Russian Civil War with the Soviets controlling the European part. I'm loving it. They just wouldn't pay for the wall...

I'm sorry, who died and made you a moderator? The debate can and will continue, with or without you, until the thread is locked. But I'm starting to get a good idea on where you stand regarding free speech, so if nothing else, at least I got that out of this pointless exchange. Heh. For someone who absolutely can't waste any of his valuable time talking to us militant SJWs, you sure seem to be a fixture in certain topics. Does this self-important routine of yours work anywhere else?

Ah. So not only are your hyperbolic tales boring as watching paint dry, on top of a penchant for acting high and mighty and demanding that others conform your political sensibilities -- you also have a gift for misrepresentation! Or a really ****ty memory. This is the "grafitti": And you were crying bloody murder because hate speech laws were cramping little poor PEGIDA boy's style. Totally unfair! It's art I tell's ya! Yeah. You didn't answer because the comparison was outlandish. Not at all because I called you on your bull**** claims that complaining about immigration in Sweden will land you in jail, no sirree. Sorry, was I supposed to be scared by the insinuation that Abu Hamza or the likes of him will suddenly jump out of a smoke cloud and visit grievous harm upon me? Appreciate the sentiment mate, but in the unlikely event that happens, I can take care of myself.

It was just another sunny day in the freest country in the world, when suddenly! God is with us: Libruls and cucks fall before the might of real red-blooded Germans Italians Americans: #MAGA

A swing -- and a miss. I'm all for your family inheriting their forebears' assets and the state getting zippo. Problem is people nowadays are increasingly likely to be worse off than their parents were through no fault of their own... unless they are one percenters, evidently. So no more working 9 to 5 to buy a house to leave your kids -- that dream's dead, Jim. More like, work your ass off to make a miserable living, die in some hole, and leave debt to your children. That's where the increasing inequality is leading us. And when the likes of Christine Lagarde are starting to get worried about the side effects, you know ****'s gonna hit the fan. It's baffling, really. People get really bad rashes about this because "muh wealth redistribution". What do you think is happening but wealth being redistributed upwards? If not being perfectly happy with the results of the Thatcherite strategy of socializing losses and privatizing profits makes me a "militant SJW", then so be it. Used to be called simply angry at being conned, but these days we need these lame shorthands for everything, it seems.

Ah, such a simple, beautiful dream. You know it's time to wake up and smell the coffee when even technocrats acknowledge the problem, though:

Yup. And I've got this here bridge you might be interested in. http://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/ufe/legacy_url/410/BornOnThirdBase_2012.pdf http://www.lse.ac.uk/economicHistory/workingPapers/2013/WP181.pdf http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/assets/documents/abs_mobility_summary.pdf

So the US authorized itself, therefore it was legal. In other words, "might makes right". Can't really argue with that. Great philosophy while you're top dog, not so great when you cease to be.

I like the way they do it in CK2.

FTFY

No, you didn't comment on it, which is precisely what rubbed me the wrong way: "once the shooting starts no questions whose side I'm on right or wrong". Those were your words. I might have misunderstood what you meant there, but it sounds like you'd take "our boys'" side regardless of what they did, because they wear the same uniform you did. That's not patriotism. As for the bangers, being part of an armed service in a combat zone does not *in theory* afford you impunity to commit illegal acts, even though it usually does in practice. The big question is if the Iraq war was illegal to begin with. If it was illegal, what is the moral difference between your average jarhead and a common thug? Again, no conscription. Frankly, I'm surprised that you think that following proper procedure would have yielded any results, especially considering your wider stance on Congressional dereliction of duty, executive overreach, etc. So Manning should have followed the rules knowing that it would have amounted to nothing? Even considering that the leaks were open and public, what has been done about them? The only person to go to jail over the whole affair was Manning. Honestly, what do you think the outcome would have been if some commission had been tasked with "reviewing" the claims made by some nobody analyst with serious issues? I'll have faith in the rules and the system when the people who actually put the lives of servicemen and intelligence assets at risk are made to face the music. Fat chance that Dubya, Rummy and Cheney will be indicted though, so I guess I'll keep rooting for "lawbreakers".

Yeah. You do know that kind of reasoning was thrown out by the US in, er, the Nuremberg Trials, right? Following orders is not a valid defense to justify supporting illegal wars or wartime acts, let alone some twisted interpretation of "patriotism". And by the way, unlike in the US, there was conscription in Germany. Dat victor's justice doe I guess, following the same logic, that you'd be on the side of All-American gangbangers mugging and killing foreign tourists, "once the shooting starts". Provided they proudly wear the US flag on their shoulder, ofc.

Why are you annoyed? Does (s)he get tax breaks that you don't for having a court recognize him as a woman or something? Only affects him*, really, which is why your King of England analogy doesn't hold water. That being said, if you can get the British Parliament to recognize you as the King of England, I'll be happy to address you as befitting your station. Let's imagine for a second that tomorrow gene therapy allows these people to have their chromosomal endowment rearranged. Would you still be uncomfortable referring to him a she? *to be fair, it affects everyone, because the whole pronoun thing is a total cluster****

That guy's butthurt spat with Bill Ayers and his lame bomb jokes were equal parts fun and sad. Trying to get under someone's skin using something that happened over 40 years ago? Better not remind him that the US lost in Vietnam, I guess. Haha, what a tool.

Particulars notwithstanding, "presidential" pardons are an anachronism that is difficult to justify today. Good for Manning, but I think the government more than made its point already.

Always found it funny that people actually believe that having a gun would give them a fighting chance in case the government comes for them. It's not the 18th century any more. "You'll have to pry my guns from my cold, dead fingers" sounds way more glamorous than something like "you'll never take my ammonium nitrate and aluminium powder while I draw breath" though.

With no term limits, politicians are always up for reelection "soon". But yeah, she is. Legislative elections in ten months.

Obligatory: I'm "that guy" whose favorite Trek show is actually Enterprise. Come at me bros

It kinda is, at least in the way Meshugger has been framing it in the last umpteen threads. He's not so much referring to quaint little local "traditions" like, say, tomatina, as to stuff like separation of Church and state, respect for dissenting opinions and individual freedoms, and at least a general semblance of formal democracy... at least in juxtaposition to Saudi Arabia or Iran. Those things are supposed to be incompatible with the mindset/culture of refugees. The more radical version of the resolution of the culture clash scenario foresees a nondescript Brave New World-esque dystopia with no values other than consumerism, and no discernible races as everyone will be brown untermenschen created through miscegenation, all under the perpetual rule of Jews by means of supranational structures like the UN or EU, as per Kalergi. And then we shall have peace. Digressions aside, you get a similar reaction out of many Americans when discussing anything socialism, because everyone knows that the smallest bit of socialism can turn any country into a revival of the Soviet Union under Stalin. Something about going against one's cultural identity and whatnot.