Nintendo Kid posted:

Huh, I wonder what counts as premium?

Vivian Darkbloom posted:

From the NYT last month

freebooter posted:

So, hang on, wait - Kabul and Kandahar are both behind enemy lines now?

Oh, whatever, it doesn't matter, who cares.

Dr. Watson posted:

IN the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and was already deep in the enemy's country. I followed, however, with many other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new duties.

The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a pack-horse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines.

Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to the base hospital at Peshawar. Here I rallied, and had already improved so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little upon the verandah, when I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse of our Indian possessions. For months my life was despaired of, and when at last I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak and emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be lost in sending me back to England. I was dispatched, accordingly, in the troopship "Orontes," and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal government to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it.

quote:

I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis

DrSunshine posted:

Guavanaut posted:

That doesn't change that raising prices doesn't work when you're dealing with an addiction (otherwise nobody would use heroin) and all it achieves is milking as much money as possible from addicts and casual users alike.

Quorum posted:

And if I'm reading this post correctly it argues that the US isn't a democracy because it's a republic, and it isn't a republic because it's a democracy.

Torrannor posted:

What technicalities disqualifies the USA from being a country? Is it that sovereign individual states bullshit?

What about being a democracy? Is it because the minority could win the House, Senate and Presidency if the stars align?

But I'm really stumped about technically not being a republic.

Jerry Cotton posted:

Well there's a box labeled "does not matter much"

PittTheElder posted:

On the topic of democracy vs. republic, it has recently become a thing as isolated idiots try to insist that America isn't a Democracy but is definitely a Republic. They say Democracy is bad because of mob rule, and Republics are good, because reasons. But the underlying reason for all of this is because Democracy sounds like Democrats, and Democrats must be bad, while everyone knows Republicans are good. Which is hilarious, because these people have apparently forgotten that the USSR/Russia was/is also a Republic.

If you want to be silly and pedantic about it, the most descriptive way to describe it would be to say that the United States is a Democratic Constitutional Republic.

PittTheElder posted:

On the topic of democracy vs. republic, it has recently become a thing as isolated idiots try to insist that America isn't a Democracy but is definitely a Republic. They say Democracy is bad because of mob rule, and Republics are good, because reasons. But the underlying reason for all of this is because Democracy sounds like Democrats, and Democrats must be bad, while everyone knows Republicans are good. Which is hilarious, because these people have apparently forgotten that the USSR/Russia was/is also a Republic.

Uncle Jam posted:

Alright here is one

Why the United States...

Why is the United States (spelled) "rice country"?
Why does the United States favor Israel?
Why the United States needed Adolf Hitler... (name of some conspiracy book)
Why did the United States drop the atomic bomb (on Japan)?
Why (doesnt?) the United States decrease the amount of guns? (Another book)
Why is the United States strong?
Why did the United States drop the atomic bomb? (again)
Why does the United States (use) English?

LimburgLimbo posted:

This one is actually "why has cancer decreased in the USA"

Guavanaut posted:

Jesus will save us from Mormons and Jews at the expense of a fair number of Southern Baptists and Catholics. Maybe He's a Lutheran.

Quorum posted:

No this is super wrong sorry! A union of states can become a nation-- just look at Switzerland, or Germany! Typically it involves a new governing document indicating the transition, or else a constitutional crisis in which a 'new' interpretation of the original document wins out. Guess which one we had!

And if I'm reading this post correctly it argues that the US isn't a democracy because it's a republic, and it isn't a republic because it's a democracy.

You are correct about not technically being at war though.

DrSunshine posted:

the jizz taxi posted:

From what game is this?

Lord Hydronium posted:

I went looking for a map of the Thirty Years' War and found what might be one of the worst maps I've seen:



Oh, and there's more.

Gorau posted:

Don't look at 16th and 17th century political maps. They'll drive you insane slowly. Trying to actually understand all the little baronys and archbishophrics and counties and duchies will drive you to drink.

Letmebefrank posted:

Mind map is a map?



I tried to make some sense on who is bombing who now.

HEY GAL posted:

come on, this is great:

DrSunshine posted:

I unironically love looking at this map. It's fascinating to look at in the same way that a fractal pattern is interesting. Worlds within worlds...

DrSunshine posted:

I unironically love looking at this map. It's fascinating to look at in the same way that a fractal pattern is interesting. Worlds within worlds...

freebooter posted:

It reminds me of a ridiculously gerrymandered American city map. Like, tap "Birmingham AL" into google and look at the resulting stupidity. I've never understood why American cities do this.

freebooter posted:

It reminds me of a ridiculously gerrymandered American city map. Like, tap "Birmingham AL" into google and look at the resulting stupidity. I've never understood why American cities do this.

HEY GAL posted:

come on, this is great:

Letmebefrank posted:

Mind map is a map?



I tried to make some sense on who is bombing who now.

twoday posted:

some things never change

quote:

When I first arrived in Indochina in 1953, the French were mainly fighting in the Red River Delta. This was the key French area in North Viet-Nam, . . . [with a] fortified French battle line. The French headquarters city was Hanoi. When I arrived I checked in with the French briefing officer and asked what the situation was in the Delta. He said:

Well, we hold pretty much of it; there is the French fortified line around the Delta which we call the "Marshal de Lattre Line"--about 2200 bunkers forming 900 forts. We are going to deny the communists access to the 8 million people in this Delta and the 3 million tons of rice it produces. We will eventually starve them out and deny them access to the population.

In other words, this was the strategic hamlet complex seen five thousand times bigger. There were about 8,000 villages inside that line. This fortified line also protected the rice fields then, whereas now the individual strategic hamlets do not protect the same fields. "Well," I said, "do the communists hold anything inside the Delta?" The answer was, "Yes, they hold those five black blotches" [on a map]. But at the University of Hanoi, which was under national Vietnamese control, my fellow Vietnamese students just laughed. They said that their home villages inside the Delta were communist-controlled and had communist village chiefs, and just about everybody else said the same thing: that both the French and the Vietnamese Army simply did not know what was going on.

Most of these villages were, in fact, controlled by the communists and I decided to attempt to document that control. It was actually very simple. To the last breath a government will try to collect taxes. So I used a working hypothesis; I went to the Vietnamese tax collection office in Hanoi to look at the village tax rolls. They immediately indicated that the bulk of the Delta was no longer paying taxes. As a cross-check on my theory I used the village teachers.

The school teachers in Viet-Nam were centrally assigned by the government. Hence, where there were school teachers the government could be assumed to have control. Where there were none, there was no government control. [I produced a map that showed] the difference between military "control" and what the communists controlled administratively, which was 70 percent of the Delta inside the French battle lines! This was one year before the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, in May 1954. In fact, the [official military situation maps--showing only small, isolated areas believed to be less than 30 percent French-controlled-- were] complete fiction and had absolutely no bearing on the real situation inside the Delta. Of course, when regular communist divisions became available to attack the Delta in June 1954, the whole illusion collapsed. . . . The last French battle line before the ceasefire [lay deep in a zone that was, in fact, solidly] communist-infiltrated and, of course, it collapsed overnight. That is revolutionary warfare. You now have seen the difference between the two.

HEY GAL posted:

come on, this is great:

C.M. Kruger posted:

Suggestions:
Terrorism might need to be a both-ways arrow for the Kurds and Turkey.
A "opposed" or "foes" line between Iran and the Saudis.
Connections for the Saudi entanglement in Yemen.
Connections for Jordan, Israel and Lebanon/Hezbollah. Possibly also African connections such as Libya, Egypt and Sudan.

Undead Hippo posted:

It would be a lot cleaner with a key, rather than labels on all the coloured lines.

Letmebefrank posted:

Something like this http://i.imgur.com/ggkVIuM.png ?

Letmebefrank posted:

Something like this http://i.imgur.com/ggkVIuM.png ?