HeyYou

Patton for me too. The guy had his issues, but he had the right mindset to get the job done. War is insanity and needs to be over as quickly as possible. Eisenhower played politics with war and most likely extended it further than it should lasted. For his diplomacy he got the white house, when Patton received a grave stone. I wonder If we'd have fought a cold war and be facing Putin if Patton would have lived and more important, would have been listened too. War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/william_tecumseh_sherman.html#T6lFOJJQllZ6m10y.99 Interesting point. Patton was all for going into Russia, as he could see what the future held. Don't think we would have been any more successful than the Germans though..... at least, without resorting to nuclear weapons.....

I liked Patton. A no-nonsense, git'r'done general. He may have had his personality flaws, but, all in all, a great commander.

We have evidence that it has changed, and is constantly shifting. If the planet cannot possibly be more than 10K years old, please explain to me why we find fossils that are millions of years old on a regular basis. Or, are you going to dispute carbon dating as well?

Erm, what ya tryin' ta say here? Electromagnetism is a property of metallic mass.... no mystery there.

Not to mention that the tectonic plates are still moving, so, mountain building, etc. is still happening even today. The 'flat earthers' in this case, are running under the assumption that the earth is a static system. It is not.

Trouble is, if Russia sees itself backed into a corner via a trade war, the answer to that will be: Start Shooting.

Humanity is indeed doomed. We are NOT doing 'great', in fact, I wouldn't even say were are doing "fair", more like "poorly". There is not plenty of anything for a significant percentage of the world. Some folks do well, but, most are not even scraping by. I suppose it all depends on what your yardstick looks like.... But, from my point of view, humanity is going down the toilet, and we are on the last swirls before finally going down the tubes. Surviving a nuclear war? *snicker*, a lot of that depends on the scale of war. Number of weapons involved, and who all is shooting them off. Now, if we get into a WWIII scenario, where everyone fires off everything they have, the human race is highly unlikely to survive more than a decade thereafter. There will be nowhere on earth that won't be affected by higher radiation from fallout, stripping of the ozone layer will also increase radiation levels, once the sun can get thru the layers of dust kicked up by megatons worth of bombs..., food production will be pretty much halted, as 99% of arable land will now be radioactive.... Surface water will be undrinkable... and technology will have taken a step a six backward. No more electricity, no mass transportation of anything, the ONLY resources you will have are those that are within walking distance. And there will probably be competition for those resources as well.... so, after millions, probably billions die in the intial war, the secondary kill will be the death knell of the human race.

That seems to be the way of it though. "If you don't agree with me, you must be insane." After all, it is so much easier to simply dismiss the opposition as crackpots, and whiners, than to actually debate with them. (when there is a very good chance they have a valid point, and you are, in fact, wrong.......) There is no cooperation anymore. THAT is probably what Obama is going to be most remembered for. His polarization of the different sides, and their absolute refusal to compromise. At All. But then, Washington hasn't had 'the best interests of the country' in mind for quite a while now. Their main interest is in getting re-elected, lining thier pockets, and making sure the 'other guy' doesn't score any points. Doesn't seem to matter whether that idea is 'good for the country' or not. Not to mention, they sell us a bill of goods, telling us "This action IS good for the country." But, what they are REALLY saying there is: "This action is good for our major campaign contributors, and puts money in my pocket, and makes sure my contributors are happy with me, and will help me get re-elected....." Most of the 'social' issues that we are seeing in the news on a daily basis is simply fodder for the masses, to keep them disctracted for what is REALLY going on. The fleecing of america, by the very people we elected to run it.

They call it a 'movement' for a reason. (I would insert the term "bowel" in front of that, as it concerns progressives, but hey, that's just me.) They are trying to move society in a specific direction. Trouble is, as is typical with the human race, not everyone wants to go the same way. So, what we end up with, is those that scream the loudest, end up getting their agenda moved to the top, and society moves in 'their' direction. No society stays the same for very long, they change over time, mostly gradually, sometimes dramatically.... not all change is 'good' for the society, but, they don't figure that out until AFTER it becomes patently obvious that "hey, maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all." I just wish our politicians would learn to recognize a 'bad idea' when it slaps them in the face with the consequences. But no.... they will repeat the exact same behavior, and expect different results, and then act all surprised when the exact same consequence occurs again.....

I dont' think that part matters any more. It's more about 'winning', and satisfying that sense of entitlement than anything else.

In this case, they seek what they percieve as "equality", which means, if you run a business that provides a service, and you refuse that service to someone based on YOUR rights, they can scream discrimination, take you to court, and either FORCE you to do it anyway, or get a pile of money from you.

Everyones motivations are different. Some seek power, some just seek to get along in life, and many variations on both themes. Its the power mongers that are trouble. Unfortunately, they tend to be the loudest, most outspoken, and most visible representatives of their proffessed veiwpoint. They also tend to be the most annoying.....

Guess some folks are just more equal than others. When exercising MY rights (which have been defined for generations) is overruled by someone else screaming dsicrimination, there is something basically wrong there. Trouble is, there isn't a fix for it. Someone is going to lose. What troubles me about that is, the MINORITY wins that one. I think we have become far too politically correct.

You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile......... Yeah, I hear ya on that one. You either agree with them completely, or, they have a string of somewhat less than complimentary adjectives for you.

Break up with your girlfriend. It isn't up to other people to make you happy. You MUST be happy in and of yourself first. Get your own place (if you don't already) conentrate on getting YOUR life together, and being happy being yourself. If you aren't happy with yourself, you are never going to be happy with anyone else.

The ideologues don't scare me nearly so much as corporate america pretty much owning our government. With the advent of contribution limits being removed for many types of campaigns..... the supreme court has just handed the 1% the keys to the kingdom. Not to mention the deed.....

Society is going to hell in a handbasket. :D

From where I am sitting, it appears that the minority groups are asserting themselves far more of late, than they have in the past. Various issues are now more openly brought up for discussion. The only trouble is, if your opinion isn't in line with what these minority groups think they should be, you are a hater, a bigot, "stuck in the past", etc. They tend to respond to anyone with a different opinion than theirs with bile and anger. Personally, I find it abhorrent. Now, it has become a contest of who has more 'rights'. Seems that if your religion dictates that you shouldn't support some activity that whatever minority group thinks you should, it immediately becomes 'discrimination', and the lawsuits start flying. What's even worse is, our government sides with the minority, against the religious. Personally, I think a serious economic collapse, or major world war, would be doing us a FAVOR. Things would change dramatically, it would be important issues that were being talked about, not the fluff we see today.

That is what elections are all about. Voting for someone to make decisions for you. A referendum is expressing your own opinion DIRECTLY. Should you choose NOT to express it, why should anyone worry about your opinion?

My bad. SSME

EnbBoost, and SIMM work really well together. Might try adding that too.... (alters how memory is handled.) Also, is your anti-virus running when you fire up the game?

Still, a majority voted to join russia. I am not all that familiar with the situation on the ground. I would just like to avoid a war here, no matter who is involved.

I think there was something in their constitution about seccession, that make it pretty much impossible under normal circumstances.... and that is contributing to the west having issues with it. Personally, I think Putin did exactly what he thought he had to, to protect not only the people in that area, but also, their naval base..... Given that (apparently) 90% of the residents there voted to join russia. I don't see a problem with that.

I gave up expecting anything that even remotely resembles 'intelligent behavior' from the american government. They have more than adequately demonstrated (many times...) that when it comes to foreign policy, they don't have the first clue. We overthrow a government, so that we can fight al-queda in one country, and then supply them arms in another. We overthrow legitimate, if distasteful... governments, that actually provided some semblance of stability, install our puppets, and mayhem, and sectarian violence ensues. In EVERY SINGLE country we have 'intervened' in, chaos and violence have followed. We give billions of dollars to countries that hate us. We spend billions on weapons systems that don't meet the design criteria, and the pricetag more than doubles before they are even half-way thru the initial testing phases. (and more often than not, they are failing most of the tests.) We have economic policies that favor the top 5%, at the expense of the rest. They outright refuse to deal with actual problems, and only poke around the periphery, dealing with symptoms, while ignoring the disease itself. We are so politically divided, that one half of the country considers the other half dimwitted morons. At best...... And the most depressing part? The american people KEEP ELECTING the SAME crooks. And those crooks are getting filthy rich, and laughing up their collective sleeve at the stupidity of the american people. We have a few intelligent individuals here, but, taken collectively, americans have got nuthin' on a box of rocks. Yeah, and we are supposedly "the leaders of the free world'.... If that's actually the case, my thoughts are: The world is in deep feces.

Don't recall bringing the american government into it, or stating that I thought they were 'intelligent'. The fact remains, that Putin is using the same arguments Hitler did in the late 30's to justify his annexation of various neighboring states. Do I see Putin rounding up jews, and putting them in gas chambers? Certainly not. He has successfully added Crimea to the Russian Empire. (or, maybe more accurately "Re-Added".....) Now he is making noises about Estonia. Will he repeat the same exercise? We shall see. The actions of the american government could have their own thread, though, I don't think it would really be much of a 'debate', as I think most of us are on the same page on that score. :D