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Can you please stop writing your posts implying I am the one who wrote the passages in question when it is an academic quote; as I find the practice to be needlessly confusing; and technically I didn't assert it, I provided evidence in the form of quotation to support my argument, the quotation is e...

I'm confused, I thought we were going to play this cooperatively online via direct connection....... And by "Panzerfahren" its German I think for "Tank driving" and is a reference to the anime " Girls Und Panzer " which is basically "World of Tanks The Anime" ...

I'm interested. Dibs on Panzerfahren.

Also YES, every upgrade for Hoi3 is worth it because it makes the game decently playable.

I presume we'll have weekly four hour sessions?

From what I've seen, the depreciation that has happened has been a boon to the US as its made their exports more competitive and helped close the trade deficit. Strong/Weak currencies have their trade offs and strengths.

What's the current speculation right now on whether the new crop of leaders are more inclined for reform or not? Corruption and environmental degradation I think is the largest issues of concern for the long term prosperity of China, and right now is the time to make strides to correct it.

First of all, it answers Blayne question about social criticism.

It doesn't, but I'll get back to this once I can get the books I reserved (they're taken) from the library. :)

I see your post, I kinda don't want it being lost in the aether and right now I'm hitting the limit as to what my e-access to my University campus library lets me to, so it may be a few more days unfortunately as I want to be able to respond to it all at once; thank you for your understanding. I'll ...

Third and forth rate militaries are third and forth rate precisely because they do not have actual billions of dollars of spend on a handful of missile batteries. Even if they did so, the Israelis would just launch standoff weapons from outside the engagement envelope if they felt like it, a few SA...

I'll respond when I get the chance (Should be by friday) as there's a lot to read and consider, sorry for not already responding sooner.

Anyone remember that one Alaskan lawyer who tried to argue that the Civil Rights Act only gave African Americans "Civil" rights and not "political" rights and actually tried to say Obama was ineligible because of it? Anyone else read the suit he filed in an Uncle Ruckus voice?

Nobody cares about such pendantry when it ignores the actual strategic situation. You may as well argue that terrorist attacks by Islamic Fundamentalists are totally sane because it makes sense from their perspective. Terrorists are not state actors and are not defined under either realism or neore...

Saying "it's rational from a certain point of view", which isn't useful. From the point of view of an ideologue, it made sense, but from the point of view of actually retaining power, it was idiocy. Sorry but that's the definition. The practitioners of strict rational choice theory never ...

The Reformation was primarily a threat against the Vatican and the Catholic Church, not the Hapsburg power base. Again, the whole conflict ended with the Hapsburgs basically granting religious toleration for the Protestants anyway (which could have been achieved peacefully), but instead it was achi...

"Rational" decisions made with poor understanding of the actual situation are useless however, to the point that they are basically irrational decisions. This isn't true though, because if I decide to open the door and I get shot but I did not know I would get shot (because I did not hear...

To Blayne, I'm not sure whether you realised that you shifted your goalposts in many of the rebuttals. I do not believe this to be the case, I am consistent in my point in that Ming did not make consistent effective use of its resources, and declined because of it; using academic sources I have pro...

In this specific case it isn't just on narrow moral grounds, its also the law of the land; in a country where (I'm not 100% sure) squads of young male vigilantes might have ganged up and beaten them on the pretext of them not covering up, there are reasons to be concerned.

Part of the problem as I see it from Israel's perspective, is that it won't be that long I think before these various "4th to 3rd rate militaries" purchase S-300's from Russia or China and then they'll make Israel work a bit harder for their 'dry runs'.

Its because the SEALS in question never went through the proper channels with the Navy to get permission to work on the project. This is really just a giant slap on the wrist to restore discipline and what not. Yeah, does the US actually have a problem with people seeing their military in action? F...

95% of my argument comes from Rise and Fall anyways, but I felt Diamond makes a good point about trends and prerequisites and sets the stage for my overall observations. China had just about every advantage Europe had geographically and biodivirsity; and in many ways had a superior potential; there'...

You asked for an example in which a movement against mercentile trade/merchant class could be overturned. Just WHAT do you call the overturning of the ban then? You asked for an example of the bureaucracy deciding something, but it not being able to take effect because it would had been overturned....

Over at SA there was some discussion regarding how/why that Colorado University model turned out to be so hilarious inaccurate. Something to do with overfitting but I'm not in a statistics class, "If you regress a formula that perfectly intersects (or even passes near) every single historical d...

I don't have my copy of Rise and Fall on me so there's a limitation as to what extent I can argue the point but I'll try my best. Library Ebooks to the rescue! Dude. Go back to my opening post. Did you read the part about the ban? I'm going to give you one guess what ban that refers to and why the ...

You always prepare a concession speech or risk angering the wrath from high atop the thing.

I'm also surprised that even Republican insiders/elders seem to have been caught flat footed within the echo chamber here.

I'm trying to glance through wikipedia about that; it seems FEMA had various preparations before hand, and there were problems, but I'm not finding specifically the criticism that FEMA was a week delayed, and only one mention of a 'delayed response' anyone know and with a source specifically how long?

Orson Scott Card also has a particularly crazy slant on the election. Which just breaks my heart as he's still my favorite living sci fi writer. While most thinking people (granted, a smaller proportion of humanity than we'd like) will figure out what Edi meant, the technically correct term in the ...