TRoaches

You say this like 2 decades is an exceedingly long amount of time. It is not, and most of the people who were affected by those events are still alive. In fact, it is possible that extremism in general is a cyclic phenomenon and that the reaction against those events contributed to the creation of the current right-wing extremism that you cite, much like the "blow-back" phenomenon caused by US and European intervention is arab states that is often cited as the root cause of arab dislike for Americans and Europeans. Also, the faction that currently holds power is always the one that will draw out enemies. If there were currently a right-wing president the attacks would come from the left. Would you expect the leftists to make threats against Obama? Threats against the current president is a normal part of having the job. Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan testified to congress that the number of threats made against Obama is the same level as it has been for the past two presidents. Consider that when Bush was president it was common to see protestors with signs that said "Bush lied, people died" with his picture edited to include a Hitler mustache, a noose, flames, a targeting reticle, devil horns, etc. During Obama's presidency the number of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan both have increased, but those same people somehow lost the urge to make a correspondingly aggressive "Obama lied" sign. If the wars that they were protesting worsened during Obama's presidency then it stands to reason that they weren't protesting the war as much as they were protesting the person who was running the war, and the political ideology that he was attached to. Similarly, the current right-wingers who protest anything that Obama does were silent while Bush was running the same games, and telling the same lies, that Obama is currently. Again, who are you referring to that is saying this? What notable journalist or media personality made this statement? Did they follow that statement with an encouragement of violence against the president? I highly doubt it. Are you suggesting that they stop making such statements willingly, or that they should be forced to legally? If you think there should be legal force behind it who do you think should be the judge of what is true and what is false? Who should be the censor? The people who received the letters are far from average. They are government leaders, and their job is inherently dangerous. It is impossible to please all, or even most, of the people and there will always be danger associated with the job. It has been this way throughout history. There has never been a leader who was loved by all and who lived without threat of attack, and there likely never will be. The article that you linked seems accurate, and political opinion or speculation is not mentioned at any point. I did not say that free speech means ALL free speech and ALL lies are protected, but that free speech law cannot declare a political opinion or speculation as a lie. Opinion and speculation are both unambiguously protected forms of free speech. If a political commentator went on the air and encouraged people to storm the white house with pitchforks then that would be a violation of the law, but if all he does is tell some lies and half-truths mixed with a sour opinion then it is absolutely a protected form of free speech. There are defamation laws that apply to some situations but defamation generally does not apply to opinions or speculation, is difficult to apply to criticism of public officials, and requires that the person who told the lie did so despite knowing for a fact that it was a lie. The "rhetoric" that you are so worried about is way outside of the scope of defamation.

Article 1Article 2Article 3 These articles address what I believe to be the real reason behind the hype about 3D printers being used to produce guns: Associating them with gun production is a gateway to regulating their use for everything else, because they have the potential to allow you to "pirate" nearly anything. Imagine being able to download the spec for a car part and print one out instead of purchasing it from the manufacturer and you can imagine why this is causing nervousness in some industries. For example, lets say you broke the handle of your car door and want to print a new one, but can't do so because it would infringe upon the intellectual property rights of the car manufacturer. The printer has a built in restriction that requires you to own a license to produce an object. You could purchase the license that allows you to print a limited number of them, and the cost of the license will offset the sale they lost because you printed it instead of ordering it from the manufacturer. If you think this sounds far-fetched then this whole discussion of printed guns has successfully diverted your attention from the real issue. This is exactly the sort of limitations that the manufacturing industry is planning as we speak. The manufacturers want this because it will allow them to continue to profit without the need for a factory or, more importantly, employees. If they are currently selling an item for $10 retail and are instead able to sell you the spec for $10 they will increase their profit because the cost of producing, shipping, and shelving the item is gone. That cost is replaced by a tiny bandwidth cost. Utilizing these printers to their full potential is going to require cracks and modifications, and those cracks and modifications are going to be criminalized. Printing that door handle without paying for the license will be the new piracy. Guns are not the issue. They are using the idea of printed guns to scare you into believing these printers are themselves dangerous weapons that require regulation, and people are falling hard for it. As the video of the zip gun posted earlier shows it has always been possible to build a gun from common items, and a skilled machinist can build nearly ANY weapon without ANY legal restriction, but I don't hear any calls for limiting the capabilities or requiring registration of metalworking equipment. I struggled with this drawback for a bit myself. If factories were rendered obsolete by this tech it would certainly mean fewer manufacturing jobs. Then I realized that humans are already approaching obsolescence with regard to manufacturing. A single person can run a robotic assembly line that, 50 or 100 years ago, would have required many people. Other sectors of industry that could take a hit it would include the design and maintenance of the robots, and everyone involved in the shipping-retail chain. The upside: if the printers were to available without restriction, could be a boom in individual inventiveness. The ability for a person of average finance who has a good idea to draw something in CAD and go straight to production could lead to all sorts of new and useful creations, perhaps even life-altering ones. I don't think we should worry about killing obsolete industries just because they employ people. The VCR was supposed to be the death of the film industry. The world adapts. Every new technology that has the potential to make a limited and controlled resource more easily available to the public is demonized by the people who have been profiting from their control of said resource. If you want to know what the future holds for controversy about 3D printers look here: translated biblesVCR digital music and film And here is a very cool example of 3D printers enabling a small group with relatively limited resources to quickly accomplish something they otherwise would not be able to do: And here is an article about a 3D printer being used to save a baby's life. Don't be too quick to judge the usefulness of these things. There are some drawbacks to the introduction of any new technology, but also huge potential for improving our lives.

Weather Underground Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional Ilich Ramírez Sánchez aka Carlos the Jackal Red Army Faction Black Liberation Army Japanese Red Army These are just a few of the more notable examples of far-left extremists, but there are many more. Each one carried out attacks that did far more damage to civil society, and presented far more danger to society as a whole, than a few poisoned letters ever could. They shot and bombed civilians in accordance with the far left rhetoric that they believed in. I don't think anyone disputes that a person should be held accountable for their actions, but you seem to be arguing that a person who says something controversial should be held accountable for the actions of others. Who do you believe should be held accountable for the letters that thus far has not been? Whose rhetoric do you think should be punished? Freedom of speech does mean you have the right to lie and mislead. It means EXACTLY that, because free speech law does not distinguish between a lie and a truth as far as political opinion is concerned. One person's lie is another person's truth, and if the government is allowed to define what is true and what is a lie then there is no freedom of speech. From the US government's perspective it was an absolute truth that the Vietnam war was necessary to prevent the spread of communism, and the loss of life was justifiable. From the perspective of the returning soldiers who later protested against that war the government lied about the necessity of the war and the justification of the deaths. Many other vets, my dad among them, thought that the protesting veterans were themselves lying. If their speech was not protected by law the government could have declared their "rhetoric" as untruthful and dangerous. The point here is that the difference between truth and lie is very murky and depends entirely on the observer's perspective. This is an example of why it is important that the government does not have the power to define truth.

I can only speak for myself, but at least in my case you have a good point. For example, I tried starting a Mass Effect game with a female character and just didn't enjoy it as much. It was the same with Fallout. There was something about it that made it more difficult to put myself in the shoes, so to speak, of the character and I soon lost interest and started over with a male. I haven't played Tomb Raider since the PS1 version, but what I remember of it was that it was pretty much a platform jumper and I don't remember experiencing the same barrier because it didn't have much in the way of RPG elements or choice, so there was no impulse for me to identify with the avatar in the way that I do when playing an RPG. I suppose if there were a true RPG that did not allow gender choice and forced me to play as a female I would be somewhat turned off by that limitation. If I were female and felt the same way I would be more limited in which games I can really dig into on an RP level because there are quite a few that lack a choice of PC gender, and in most examples that I can recall the PC in those games is male.

Ada Lovelace Grace Hopper Hundreds of other examples Yes they did

You already have started! Your screenshot illustrates why you should focus on learning why you should edit things, as opposed to following a tutorial without considering the intention behind the steps. I haven't used that mod, but from what I can see it doesn't look like those are dirty edits. In the right side pane the green lines are data that is the same as the original content. The yellow lines with green text are new data that the mod is adding to that record. In this case new types of grass are being assigned to that landscape texture. It doesn't look like you should change anything there, because I would assume that is a part of the purpose of that mod. Someone more familiar with the mod may be able to correct me on this. This is why I shy away from following the specific recommendations of other users, including those given by BOSS. In your example either the mod author, the user who commented about x amount of dirty edits, or you are mistaken. When in doubt just follow the author's recommendations. The author is as likely to be correct as anyone, and by following the author's advice you can at least eliminate your own errors as a possible cause of problems, should you encounter any. Even the guy who made the TES5edit tutorial warns at the end of the video that the stuff commonly referred to as "dirty edits" may be intentional and necessary, and therefore "fixing" them could in fact break the mod. There are no universally correct answers when it comes to questions regarding mod cleaning. Just keep learning and tinkering and exploring and experimenting and discussing and it will eventually make sense.

Btharumz sounds much more exciting to me than staves.

I pretty much ignore everything that BOSS tells me about dirty edits, etc. Once you understand the way the files are structured and how they affect each other you can see what needs to be cleaned using TES5edit. The problem with the BOSS reports is that, as far as I know, there isn't much of a process to verify how accurate those assessments are or how current the information is. BOSS doesn't gather any information by reading the file itself, but from a database maintained by user submissions. For this reason I think a better approach than the one you are taking is to figure out why a file needs to be cleaned. If you learn the "why" and are able to recognize potential problems in a mod when viewed in TES5edit then the "how" becomes apparent.

I think TES5edit is the best way to see what all of the other tools are supposed to do. Use it to load a simple mod, like something that edits the stats of some existing items, and poke around a bit. The meaning of some of the terms that you mentioned should make more sense after playing with TES5Edit. The UI lays everything out nicely so you can see what is being affected. After that try loading a bunch of mods in the same tool to see how they may conflict with each other. This will lead to better understanding of how to use BOSS most effectively.

You are correct, but if there if all parties involved maintain that there was no crime committed, and the officer did not witness it, and there are no physical signs of a crime there is no evidence and therefore no arrest can be made. Even if it is ridiculously obvious that a fight occurred it can be covered by a simple lie to the police. For example, if someone has a bruised face all they have to say is "I fell off my bike and bruised my face." The bottom line is that, as you stated, evidence is required. In the case of two people fighting the testimony of one of them against the other is just about the only evidence that is going to exist.

It doesn't. It is not the purpose of the law. It is like asking "How does forcing a land lord to evict a heavy metal drummer who practices from 3-5am supposed to improve his drumming?". It is not meant to addresss domestic violence, it is meant to address repeated criminal complaints at a property regarding a particular tenant. I still think the law is a bad idea, but to say that fails to do anything to help violence victims is to miss the point of the law. This is true, but "probable cause" does not exist without evidence. If the officer responds to a neighbor's 911 call that the Smiths are fighting again, but upon arrival there is no evidence of a fight and both of the Smiths mantain that nothing happened where is this probable cause? An officer cannot arrest someone without evidence, no exceptions. A prosecutor will not charge someone without evidence, no exceptions. If the Smiths see the police roll up and they collect their heads and move out to the porch to share a quiet smoke and greet the officer there really isn't anything the police can do. It is an uncomfortable and unpopular thing to place some of the blame on to the perceived victim in this sort of thing, but the fact is the assumption that the woman is ALWAYS the victim is false, and quite sexist. Sometimes when two people are fighting there is no victim, just two criminals. If I fight another man and lose I am still breaking the law even though I lost. To hold women to a different standard is to deny their equality. If it really is a one sided attacker-victim scenario the tools are available to the victims of this situation but are useless if they choose not to use them. If they choose not to use them they cease to be victims to some extent and become one of the criminals because they are aiding the attacker to hide a crime. I grew up surrounded by this stuff. You'll learn a lot about domestic violence that may not be in the textbooks if you spend some time in the horizontal ghettos.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that everything in your rant was a fact. Even if this were true, it is still only of peripheral relevance to the topic of the thread because domestic violence is not the root cause of poorly drafted legislation. Even if we were to arrive at some consensus on what the root cause of domestic violence is, we would then have to move on to the next question: What is the root cause of the root cause of domestic violence? And, after we determine that, we would have to do it again to find the root cause of the root cause of the root cause. We could do this forever. If you reduce every question to "what is the root cause" we never get anywhere, because we are eventually reduced to the question "what is the root cause of reality?". It is an unanswerable question. I will now, per your request, refute each one of your "facts": Yes, I do. Assuming they are doing things "by the book" the police will only arrest someone if there is evidence of a crime. If they arrest a person without evidence they have violated the rights of the person being arrested, and that person may then take whatever legal recourse is available to them, including a civil lawsuit against the arresting officer and the city that employs them. If they choose not to exercise their rights in this way that is their choice, and their problem. The police do not create government agencies. This is not a real syndrome according to any medical classification. It is a psuedo-legal premise that has been used utilized in the defense of people who acted out after being abused in some way. Whatever either of our opinions may be regarding its legitimacy it has been successfully utilized in this way. If you find this to be an incorrect application of the law you should start working towards becoming a judge so that you may overturn it. Your statistics rely on the assumption that all violence is reported. It would be safer to assume that a fair amount of violence is not reported, and if this assumption is correct it means your statistics are inaccurate Also, all statistics become inaccurate when viewed critically. If any person hits me and I am inclined at the time to do the right and legal thing I will first defensively remove myself from the situation, then report the action to the police. If I feel that my safety is in danger I am allowed to defend myself, but the goal of any self-defense situation should be, above all else, to remove yourself from it. Anything else is offense committed under the guise of defense. Society's view of my actions is of little relevance compared to the lawfulness of my actions. If the cops show up and I'm in the front yard screaming insults at the house I am not acting in self defense. If you lose everything in a divorce you were not robbed. You were legally beaten in court. Not all men lose everything in a divorce, and the ones that do either had poor representation or made critical mistakes at some point. There are plenty of refuges for people regardless of gender. Just because it does not have a sign out front that says "battered men's shelter" does not mean that a battered man cannot use it as such. Likewise, there are plenty of mental health services available to a man in this position. It is his choice whether to utilize them or not, but they are there. The opinion of a single person, regardless of their accomplishments, is not relevant if we are discussing facts. Again, this assumes that all violence is reported and included in your statistics. If we were actually able to answer this question wouldn't it just lead to another "what is the root cause of this root cause?" question? And, if that is true, doesn't this illustrate that your initial "root cause" was not actually the root of anything? Because human emotion is not always based in rational thought. In fact, it almost never is. If it were then nobody would ever get married. From a purely rational and materialistic point of view marriage or domestic partnership of any kind is always a losing proposition for at least one of the parties with very little chance of material gain. You presume to understand the complexities of other people's emotions, and the decisions that they make regarding them. I propose that your understanding of what causes other people to do what they do is limited to your own perception of their lives and colored by your own cumulative experience. I think even you would have to admit that this is an over-simplification of emotional human interaction. If this sort of thing were dictated by rational thought I would have cut off all contact with my little brother when he chewed the face off of my He-Man doll when we were children. As it were, I forgave him because he probably didn't even realize who He-Man was, was unaware of the damage that he was causing, and because I love him. the emotional component of our relationship is much deeper than the rational one. The same could be said for any issue involving the interaction of human minds, but judges and bureaucrats are the only ones who are in a position to pass legislation and apply it. If you have a better suggestion about who should have the power to intervene I would love to hear it. Because they are angry, emotional, irrational beings. In other words, because they are humans acting like humans. The specific reasons for an individual's lapse in judgement or lack of morality would be something that only that individual could ever hope to truly answer, and the answer would be different in each case. In reply to the first part of the statement refer to my previous point. Regarding child-abusing women being the "greatest group of abusers" refer to my earlier statement regarding the fallibility of statistics. This may be true, but a correlation does not constitute a causal relationship. If having a crazy mother caused one to become a psycho or a dictator then there would be a lot more psychos and dictators in the world. If someone thinks their mother was perfect then they never knew her that well. Again, you seem convinced that you have the emotional interaction between fallible humans all figured out. To reduce the complexities of human interaction down to a finite set of conditions is arrogant, and is debunked by finding a single exception to the stated premise. Assuming that we did find the psychological causes of these problems, what would you propose as a pre-emptive response? Shall we criminalize specific emotions, then forcibly drug people to suppress them? Should there be an oversight committee that approves a coupling as compatible before they are allowed to spend time together? There must be some pre-emptive action that you have in mind, since you oppose dealing with it after it has already happened and I would love to hear what it is. Moving on to your next post: I need to really drive this home to you: I understand you just fine, but I don't agree with you. More importantly, I found your post to be entirely devoted to a completely different topic than the one that this thread was meant to discuss. Even if I had never heard the term "battered woman syndrome" I could do a web search for it and figure it out if necessary. Your repeated statements that others disagree with you due to a lack the understanding that you possess sounds a lot like.... I've heard of this one too, but I actually did look up the classification to refresh my memory. Here are a few highlights that you may find personally relevant: Reacting to criticism with anger, shame, or humiliationExaggerating own importance, achievements, and talentsRequiring constant attention and positive reinforcement from othersLacking empathy and disregarding the feelings of othersBeing obsessed with selfTrouble keeping healthy relationshipsBecoming easily hurt and rejectedSetting goals that are unrealisticWanting "the best" of everythingAppearing unemotional "People" is a very big group. I wouldn't presume to know what "people" are looking for. You do. See the prior point. Then you should involve yourself in some way. Maybe you could start that battered men's shelter that you think is lacking, or donate your time to helping the child victims of domestic violence. I haven't felt a need to call you dumb for some time now. I don't point to the sky either and spread the news that it is blue. And your last post: I can, but just barely. If I swallowed a handful of sedatives and hit myself in the head with a hammer a few times it would probably make more sense, but I can't guarantee it. Yes, I did. I stand by it. I know what you are talking about. This may come as a surprise to you, but none of your points approach anything resembling a lofty intellectual premise. It all sort of blends together in your case. I just wonder what the root cause of poor spelling is. I WANT TO GET TO THE ROOT OF IT ALL!!! I hope this post addresses these "facts" to your satisfaction. Nah, it wasn't immediate. I read the other post in this forum that you managed to get locked, and formed my opinion based on that. Not on everything. Just the things that interest me. Debating isn't always about determining who is right and wrong, but learning a little about the viewpoints of others. That is what I was enjoying with Marxist Bastard: I was providing a viewpoint that MB had perhaps not considered, and MB was sharing a viewpoint that I had perhaps not considered. We were learning from each other by challenging each other. You seem to be determined to be unanimously declared the winner of the debate, and that's really not what its about. I would love to talk about that. Let's talk about the the big bang, and whatever preceded it. Is matter a precipitate of thought, or the other way around? Once we have that figured out we can move on to the nature of time and how it relates to, or is an illusory by-product of, perception of reality. But wait, what is real? Ok, once we have that figured out we'll be able to work our way towards a discussion on municipal legislation. So there you have it. Point by point, "fact" by "fact". I hope you are satisfied that you have been given the attention that you deserve, and are now willing to allow the original discussion to continue.

https://www.google.com/search?q=define+rant Notice the word "anger" does not appear in the definition. Neither does any word that is synonymous with "anger". I wouldn't usually stoop to critiquing someone's grammar or spelling, but since you directly insulted my intelligence (popularity contest, dumbing down) I'm going to have to point out that you seem only partially literate. Further evidence is your misinterpretation of "peripherally related" to mean "isn't relevant". They are relevant, but only peripherally. The topic being discussed was not "what causes domestic violence?", therefore to attempt to steer the discussion in that direction is to hijack it. If that is the discussion that you want to have you could just start a new thread. To say that you want to "go to the root" implies that the answer to the initial question about nuisance evictions would be answered if we could only eliminate domestic violence. Following the same logic, any discussion would eventually end up at "why do bad things happen?", at which point you have long departed from politics and entered the domain of philosophy. Its a shame, because I was enjoying the exchange with Marxist Bastard and looking forward to continuing it before you decided to join in.

um......nobody implied that you are angry. I'm not responding to the points because they are, at best, peripherally relevant to the topic being discussed.

Boaresa, you have shown an impressive knack for taking a valid point and making it sound really dumb by digressing into a convoluted poorly constructed rant. You should consider a career in talk radio, or perhaps as someone's press secretary.

You are misinterpreting my point. I was not arguing in favor of the nuisance law. I was supporting the notion that this is what one should expect when they allow their government to meddle in their private business affairs. The point I was trying to make is that there is often a big difference between the original intent of a law and its end result. The relationship between a landlord and tenant is a civil contract between consenting parties. If one or the other decides that the relationship is no longer beneficial they should have the right to end that contract, but no outside entity should be allowed to FORCE them to do so. Do you really think the city council dedicated their time to drafting a law with the intent of further victimizing the victims of violence? If so, what is their angle? What does a politician have to gain by forcing the eviction of a criminal victim? I think if far more likely that they thought it looked and sounded good on paper, but are uninformed about the reality of the situation. The nuisance laws are wrong because they violate the rights of the landlord to exert control over their own property, and this in turn leads to a victim of violence becoming a victim again, this time of a stupid ill-conceived law. You are looking at this from a simplistic viewpoint of "landlord = villain, tenant = victim". Your mention of Rand (super boring, I'm not a fan at all) is funny given that your handle is a reference to another famous political author, one who expressed a view of the world that rested on a similarly simplified villain/victim paradigm. If a landlord has a genuine nuisance tenant, or a tenant who is in a relationship with a nuisance and has refused to utilize the law to their benefit to force that person out of their life, and the situation is driving business away from the landlord's property, is the landlord not a victim of the circumstance as well? To say that both the landlord and the tenant are victims of the situation is not to reduce the victimhood of either. They are both victims of a stupid law, and the central point is that asking the government to regulate evictions (or any other civil matter) by removing all control from the parties involved is to invite this kind of stupid law. We all have a tendency to view this sort of thing as a binary good vs evil situation, but in real life there are never only two sides to a story that affects thousands of individuals.

Boaresa's point is similar to my initial thought when I read the OP, so I'm going to elaborate on it before he has a chance to dumb it down like he did in that other thread. When the government grants itself the power to intervene in anything it can only do so by reducing someone's legal rights. In this case, goal is to "protect" the rights of the landlord and the neighbors, but it achieves this by removing the power to handle their own business from both the landlord and the "nuisance" tenant. Before these laws were passed there was a system already in place that allowed the landlord to evict a nuisance tenant. There were also protections for a tenant who felt they were being treated unfairly by a landlord. A landlord who evicts a tenant for any reason, valid or invalid, is going to look like a villain to the person being evicted and most observers, but it is their property and they should have the right to manage the property as they see fit. In most cases the landlord is probably more informed about the laws regarding tenant-landlord relationships and will have the upper hand. This invokes the sympathy of people who should have no say in what happens to that property, and laws are passed that make it more difficult to evict. This removes some of the landlord's rights in favor of the tenant. In response, the landlords push back and you get yet another misguided law intended to help the landlord's to evict "nuisance" tenants, but it does so by removing rights from both the tenant AND the landlord to resolve the issue privately. If I could push a law right now it would be one that prohibits the use of catchy slogans as the titles of laws, because the names of bills often have little to do with their content, or are intended to actively mask the content. Many would argue that the Patriot Act was not very patriotic at all, but the name of the bill makes for a great sound bite as it passes from the lips of a polition to the ear of a voter who has never read the bill. "My opponent OPPOSED the Patriot act! He is not a patriot!". In this case, a person reads "Nuisance Property Ordinance" and would assume that it deals with criminal tenants when it actually makes no distinction between a criminal and a victim when defining who is a nuisance. Similarly, the Violence Against Women act sounds like a fine thing. Who would oppose such a heroic law? The ACLU, in fact, opposed it because it considered it a violation of the rights of the accused regarding the collection of DNA samples. The supreme court also overturned part of the law as an unconstitutional violation of the rights of the accused. I know it is a repugnant thing to defend the rights of accused rapists, but it is essential that we do so in a lawful society. Their willingness to take a principled stand in even the most offensive cases is the main reason that I hold the ACLU in very high regard.

NK does not trade with anyone, so they have no real friends in the world that would be willing to do anything beyond publicly condemn aggression against them. The UN doesn't really have the power regulate wars. The security council is the only UN organ that can actually send troops anywhere, and it exists in a state of permanent stalemate by design. I think the only group that would object in a forceful way would be the NK people, and that China would have the best chance of occupying NK with the least amount of civilian revolt and bloodshed. Sending US or SK troops into NK would likely cause battles with half starved, untrained, ill-equipped, and severely indoctrinated civilians. It would be devastating for everyone involved. The civilians-turned-insurgents would be massacred, and the troops on the winning side would be traumatized from the experience even more than soldiers usually are from war. They would be forced to fight people who are not traditional soldiers, like children and the elderly. The people there seem to be very serious about fighting to the death if it comes to that. I can't imagine even the most hawkish of generals sending his troops into that kind of fight. If China invaded they could at least lean on their historical ties to lessen the culture shock. The people would probably be less willing to go to war with Maoists than they are with capitalists. The history between China and NK is very complicated, and I'm not sure how fond the NK people really are of China, but I assume they would be more accepting of a Maoist government than the one that would be put in place by the US.

Your fear of China is childish. They do not view the west as devils, and they are not interested in preventing western presence in China. If that were the case this list would be much shorter: http://www.jiesworld.com/international_corporations_in_china.htm That looks like a fairly strong foothold to me. I'm sure you can dig up some hawk-ish quotes from Chinese generals or politicians that support the notion that they hate the west, but a few hawks exist in the margins of every government. Their opinions matter very little compared to the influence represented by the above list. Imagine the economic fallout they would experience if those factories were shuttered. I think it would be more likely that China, with the support of US, will one day invade the North themselves and annex it for the sake of stability.

There are plenty of safe countries in the world, but none of them are places that I would want to live. You are very unlikely to be assaulted, murdered, or robbed in a place like North Korea or Saudi Arabia but that security comes at a huge price. I know a man who immigrated from Italy after WWII. He speaks admirably of Mussolini's reign. He said that his village had a problem with livestock thieves, but when Mussolini came to power they had a few public executions of chicken thieves and suddenly the the thefts stopped. I fought the urge to debate the merits of fascist government with him out of respect for his age. I have another friend who is from Syria and has no admiration for the government there. He moved to the US and never looked back. He comes from a wealthy family and lived in relative comfort in Syria, was going to inherit a family business and basically would not have to do much work for the rest of his life if he had stayed. He said trading that easy life for the one he has here (owns a small business, works long hours selling gyros to drunks on the street) was an easy choice when he wanted to start a family because he did not want his children to grow in a place where they would be afraid of imprisonment and torture for reading the wrong book or saying the wrong thing. If you really want to know the answer to the question of trading liberty for security just ask people who come from a place that has already made that trade. It has benefits, like lower crime, but comes at a great cost. It should be noted that the Italian came from a very remote village, and perhaps did not feel the effect of the regime to the same extent that those closer to the cities may have. His experience with Mussolini's regime was brief and limited to his childhood, so that may have something to do with his rosey recollection. The Syrian was born and raised to adulthood near Damascus, is by any measure more educated and analytical than the Italian, and has nothing good to say about the Syrian government. He is also quite critical of the US government because he sees disturbing similarities between our current policy trends and those he grew up under in Syria.

This doesn't surprise me. I have thought it was strange that people sometimes assume China would support NK with anything more than a few kind words and some humanitarian aid. These arguments usually dive into an analysis of who has the stronger military, but I don't think that is really the determinant. China could choose to support a nation that has no real economy of its own, no relevant science or culture to share, and no ability to return the favor should China need military aid it in the future. Or, they could side with the South, condemn the North with no negative repercussions, make new friends (customers) and reinforce old friendships with the rest of the world, and further increase the strength of their already very strong manufacturing export economy. I don't see anything for China to gain from supporting NK. I think that people who assume they would support NK based on a shared communist ideology are assuming ideology trumps economic interests, which is a laughable. Neither the US or the UK have ever had a problem with dictators who quote a good price on oil, and China loves nothing more than a greedy capitalist who is considering investing in a Chinese factory. This is the same thought that I have when someone suggests that we should fear a war between the US and China. The US relies on China for cheap clothing, electronics, and some food. China relies on the US as a place to export a very large portion of their manufacturing output. This puts China in the more advantageous economic position, so they have more to lose if the US-China relationship fell apart. If anything, after the initial shock to the economy and the relative hardship period that would follow, the US would perhaps benefit in the long term from a severing of that relationship because it would force us to start manufacturing again.

Hunger Games itself borrows heavily from earlier sci-fi. It wasn't a bad film, and being a derivate of its own genre is to be expected, but it is true that there is hardly an original idea to be found anywhere in that film. If something seems to reference an element of Hunger Games it is likely that both Tomb Raider and Hunger Games are referencing the same previous work.

Real life isn't sad or happy. 99% of the time it is utterly boring, with the only truly memorable parts being the extremes of happiness, sadness, fear, and anger. Neutrality is also boring. Fiction, even that which is intended for small children, relies on conflict. WIthout conflict there is not a story. I am also a generally happy and content person, but I don't want to read about, watch, or play characters who are happy and content because there will be nothing to do and nowhere to go. Nothing will motivate them to act. Even the Sims has conflict. I don't think sad endings are inherently superior to happy ones. I'm just putting myself in the shoes of a plot writer who has been gaming since childhood and wants to make something original and creative. If that person made a list of cliches to avoid in their writing, given that most of the games ever made have happy endings, many of those cliches would involve pure and unwaveringly moral heroes, saving the world, and getting the girl. If that writer were to purposely avoid all of those things their final product will be darker than it would have been had those cliche elements been included. I just think the whole thing is a reaction against plot cliches, and that this reaction is a symptom of artistic maturation in a very young medium.

I was thinking more about this and feel like sharing. History shows that any monarchy or dictatorship, no matter how loyal the subjects may appear, stands on very thin ice. Dynastic power transfers are never guaranteed to happen the way that the ruler wants them to. Any ruler can be toppled by the people who control his military. In feudal Europe a king relied on the other nobility for military and financial support, and there are plenty of examples of kings who lost their support and were ousted as a result. I realize that the NK people have had an incredible level of deep-clean brainwashing applied to them over the years. The assumption that is often made is that ALL of the NK people are so loyal that they would follow any order given to them, no matter how suicidal it is. This is probably true for the average soldier or civilian, but what about the highest ranks of the military? Would Generals, who are no doubt educated students of war even in that society, really follow that suicidal order? The defeat would have to be an obvious outcome to the people at the top of the military who are truly informed about the situation, more so perhaps than any other citizens in the entire country. Maybe their intelligence agency is another propaganda department and just pumps out reports that say "everyone else sucks, we rule!". I doubt it, considering how useless such a department would be. What if the Dear Leader calls his brass into the war room and announces that the attack against the imperial capitalists shall commence immediately, and the top boss dude's reply is "Yeah....about that.....here's the thing about that....um....I'm not sure how to tell you this, Glorious Leader, but that is a really stupid idea and we're not doing it." ...to which the agast dear leader replies "How dare you question my orders?!?!? GUARDS!!! Take this man to the camps!" ...to which the General replies "No...that's not happening either. The boys and I have already discussed this, and we're not going to let you get us all killed just because you believe your own nonsense. That crap may work on the drones in the hivemind, but I'm not a drone. Also, coup." Then they hold him down and poison him, and the next day everyone learns that the Dear Leader passed gracefully and without distress. In his final statement just prior to his death he reminded everyone that North Korea is best Korea, then named a successor. The king is dead, long live the king! I could be giving these Generals too much credit and underestimating the power of their propaganda machine. I just figure that they are probably more informed than the average citizen because they are likely granted necessary leeway as far as outside information is concerned. The top ranks must be allowed to view things that others are not allowed to view and have discussions that others are not allowed to have if they are to be competent in their duties. If the top ranks are just as brainwashed as the rest of the citizens then they can't possibly be competent, and if they are competent they can't possibly be brainwashed.

Doesn't all of that artillery sort of vaporize when the guided missiles come into play? I'm no military strategist, but it seems like the side with the live satellite coverage linked to the massive over-funded naval fleet loaded with flying computerized explosive-tipped long range supersonic death bots would have a fairly solid advantage as far as artillery is concerned. If artillery is the North's main offensive asset it would be near the top of the "Things that shall receive the gentle caress of ordnance" list if a fight broke out. Thats not to say they wouldn't get some shots off and do some damage, just that they wouldn't get very many off before the missiles start landing. I suppose there is the chance that an EMP weapon could be used but it seems unlikely that a modern nuclear military wouldn't take some steps to protect itself to some extent against such a tactic, or maintain a readiness plan to deal with such a situation. I imagine that the person who runs the computer that controls a produces the firing solutions for a given missile platform is also required to know how to find those solutions with a pen and paper if he really has to. I'm confident that the South knows the location of every single big gun on the other side, watches from the sky as they move them around and cover them with camo, and has been fine-tuning a plan to systematically destroy them as quickly as possible if/when necessary for about the last 60 years.