Imperial March up in here. Somewhat unexpected.

Ha! Yep, I got SS eagle pins recommended.

Here's some my new recommendation that now show on amazon

"Rape All Girls" - https://amzn.com/B015V52VSW

Buckyballs ripoffs - http://amzn.com/B0183KNY06

Tons of Nazi items
SS deaths head pin - http://amzn.com/B00K8DBSZA

1938 2 Reichsmark coin -http://amzn.com/B008LP90MA


Nazi flag, Fascist Italian flag, Imperial Japan flag, and yes small to gigantic cheap to expensive embroider Confederate flags
http://amzn.com/B003J67I98

And digital books like Anarchist cookbook, Nazi scanned ebooks of unpublished books by Nazis that wrote after escape to Argentina, but the works were unpublished, so its scanned pages from old typewriter copy.

The strangest stuff on recommendations, also Eroge game about drugging girl and raping her for PC and a lolicon

http://amzn.com/B00PZ0SRFK

Amazon has wild shit, you can find everything in that video one trick I notice, just mispell the item and bam found

There was a lot of posturing from Star Wars fans (from stardestroyer.net, I think) for a long time, with exaggerations about the power of imperial starships. However, some fans have done an extensive (and pretty ridiculous) amount of work to make a lengthy comparison, that, while only as accurate as can be interpreted from the provided material, does come out in strong favor towards Star Trek technology:
http://www.st-v-sw.net/
So yes, NdGT is correct, and really, you don't need to do the extensive research the fans did to confirm that. Logistics in a post-scarcity civilization alone gives a significant advantage.
But this is to be expected. When you have a TV show as focused on science and technology as Star Trek, it will certainly excel.
Meanwhile, Star Wars isn't supposed to be about high end technology. For them the technology is only there to highlight the story. The charm of the Millenium Falcon is not that it's a god-like ship that can mop the floor with everyone else, but that it's some guy's souped up junker that's full of surprises. The Death Star isn't the ultimate weapon, but a weapon of fear. (A weapon that destroys excessive amounts of available resources is impractical for anything else, and that especially includes Starkiller Base.)
And if there really needs to be some sort of sci-fi-peen competition, you can go the complete nonsense route with Doctor Who, where one Dalek could probably conquer both the Trek and Wars universes with minimal effort.
Or the overkill route with the Culture, where wiping the rest out would be an idle task, pursued for entertainment.
Star Wars fans just need to chill and embrace their universe of junkers and quaint technology. Star Trek fans have already embraced the fact that their universe isn't about action and explosions. (No, we don't include the Abramsverse.)

Far different from what I would rank as Top 10 of 2015....

Especially the Top movie pick. As much as I think I quay myself a SW fan (too many expensive SW collectibles, ringtone's set to the Imperial March since my first smartphone... blah blah) this one is a minor disappointment. There are lots and lots of superior choice even for a SW fan.... if you're even slightly unbiased.

On Drachen_Jager's points: pretty much what I thought after seeing the movie. My thought is SW:TFA is right in the "middle of the road" movie, whether you look at it from a fan/non-fan perspective. It's not as good as any of the OT, but better than the prequels. And as a stand alone Sci-Fantasy Action movie.... it's a turn-off-your-brain-then-it's-good kind of movie. Too many media/fan's buying into the hype-machine to rate it that high.

Still, it's a commendable direction the new sequels is taking the franchise in the future. I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt on all the stupid fights/plotholes in this movie just so it can move further pass the OT characters so as no further sully the fond memories of these OT characters by seeing them on screens as tools rather than heroes.

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From what i understood, he wasn't complaining that the finished joint could be separated and reorientated - that's the whole point of the joint. The problem is that the joint is made by chopping bits off and gluing them back on, so the joint is only as strong as the dab of glue you used to put it back together.

Payback's got a great point though, with a 3D printer it might be possible to put it to good use. I say 3D print these type of joints as sockets into which you stick some wood or metal. A bit like old fashioned tents or gazebos that have plastic sockets to connect the poles. Could be a good way of building large amounts of shelters very quickly, maybe for things like the huge refugee camps we've got going right now due to western imperialism in the middle east.

The foreign policy of both Russia and the US is far more motivated by domestic policy than "imperialism" or "cold war tactics".

Putin just needs to appear to be winning. Winning wars, media arguments, just winning anything. Crossword competitions, ice hockey games, fishing, push-ups, literally anything. With not much to be gained in Ukraine quickly, he can switch to helping Assad to quash rebels and appear to fight the IS. Russian air support and logistics will have small losses and big PR gains. Putin is clever so he will avoid direct confrontation with the IS leading to a long stalemate and much destruction, in Iraq mainly.

Obama needs to do stupid unworkable things like "spread democracy", "help Israel no matter what", "broker peace in the middle east" and "support 'friends' of the US, some of them as bad as Assad" - its nearly impossible for him to have a sane middle east policy. There is nothing Obama can do in the short term in Syria. He probably cant reconsider his position on Assad and there is no reasonable path to topple Assad gracefully. Also no direct path to fight IS - Turkey will fight Kurds before fighting IS, Israel has to be careful.

Is Iran the key then? Iran is definitely not to be trusted http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/11903290/Eight-of-Irans-womens-football-team-are-men.html

yea fantastic summary - cuts through all the bull.

It's pretty easy to watch Putin's recent video's on the sift where he is very persuasive in getting you to think it's all about American imperialism - but he's just as complicit.

I never said to rely on Putin or RT solely. I just tried to explain that ignoring him and RT because of stupid reasons like that is not very wise, because the west isnt much better. You have to see all the sides to make a proper judgement.

A, B and C are irrelevant. Ownership is irrelevant because the western media is also "owned" by people with an agenda. But even between those different people there is a common agenda. You can see that in Germanys media right now very well. They are outright lying collectively to the people just to stay politically correct.

Reputation also is irrelevant because objectivity > reputation.

Funding is also irrelevant, as you said yourself. You can see it very well that it doesnt change much where they get their money from. The agenda matters. Also very well observable lately.

Putin first and foremost is a counterweight. He makes the western mistakes more obvious. He also has very good points when defending his own countries actions. Even the homosexual ones, if you ever listened to him on that topic. Yes, as a political leader he is of course manipulating, but he makes much more sense, actually uses facts and doesnt nearly lie as much as any politician I have ever seen.
You of course need to have and acknowledge those facts to realize that. But you made it clear that you arent. Comparing Russias imperialism with Americas shows just how much. Its pretty much clear the USA was involved in that coup detat once again. Now imagine how the USA would have reacted if Russia did that in Canada or Mexico. Or imagine how the USA would react to being completely surrounded by Russian military bases, having decades of history of destabilizing and overthrowing countries and whole regions, breaking and ignoring international law, even threatening the country where the international court sits to never dare to bring one of their before their court and then Russia claiming that the USA is the aggressor.

Actually Russia has long been very passive about the eastern expansion of NATO and they forgave that bleeding out of Russia towards the west in the 90s. Something like that happening at their doorstep actually justifies much MUCH harsher reactions, but they didnt use them. Instead they actually took another (hypocritical) slap in the face rather passively and silently with those sanctions.

Syria... I am surprised you even bring that up, because thats just stupid to use that for your argument. Syria has been a long ally of Russia and they asked for help after the US and NATO started bombing their infrastructure instead of ISIS. The war in Syria is even more obviously an externally funded war, not a civil war, while in the Ukraine you can actually see parts of a civil war, it started like that, because those people didnt want the new government. Also again mostly due to America and their support of other totalitarian regimes in that region.
You should read this:
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/05/31/holes-in-the-neocons-syrian-story/

1 - Well let me deconstruct that a bit. Presumably you rely on news, how can you rely on any of it to be trustworthy? Several ways obviously, I would say the main are (A) Ownership, (B) Reputation and (C) Funding.

A - Ownership - RT (and it's web of shadowy news sites pretending to be local) are owned by the Kremlin or clearly Kremlin linked oligarchs. Their incentives should be clear, promote the Putin narrative. When all independent TV news has been shuttered within Russia or taken over, you would expect these outfits to be heavily biased towards propaganda. I would similarly have to be suspect of outfits like Voice of America (US government funded). Corporate news sources have their own incentives. I happen to like the Economist but I'm mindful of its ownership involving the Rothschild family and Eric Schmidt (Google) being on the board for example. After all, every news outfit is owned by someone.

B - Reputation - This is the main one to me. You can say what you will about Western media, but there is a cultural expectation among its people and its reporters of the freedom to report newsworthy stories. There are obviously biases and those form part of the news source's reputation. We know TV news tend to be short on fact and sensationalist. Equally, we know Fox News to be right wing. We inevitably find these things out because no matter how much a news owner might want to control its message, freedom of speech sees the reputation leak out. We have reports (regarding Fox for example) that memos go out to use specific language like "Climategate" or we have controversies such as when photos of NYT reporters were photoshopped with yellow teeth.

C - Funding - Advertising vs Subscription, but that's not really relevant here.

My main point is, relying on Putin directly or any of his web of 'news' to get information about Russia or America is particularly silly. We know their ownership, reputation and thereby incentives. Or any state backed news. For corporate news, ultimately any bias from ownership, reputation or say government influence will leak out.

2 - I don't see him as any more politically effective or intelligent than necessarily any other major leader. If I've expressed anything here it should be that what Putin says is just as calculated and manipulative as any politician. Just because it has a veneer of 'speaking truth to power' or recounts some truths does not mean it is true in its entirety. Bluster and waging wars is politically popular in Russia, he is simply playing to a different audience. I would say any notion that he is more 'objective' is farcical. After all the kind of imperialism that he decries of America is the exact kind he's engaged in in Ukraine and now Syria!

@Asmo

Don't really want to get a more general argument about the history of US foreign policy, I was talking more about the present day. The US's rationale for intervention during the Cold War was an exaggerated sense of the spread of communism and later to prevent anything that might precipitate an oil price spike like in the 1973-74/79. Nowadays with greatly expanded US shale oil supply and no Cold War I simply don't see any real incentive, if anything with the furore over debt, quite the opposite.

@enoch

Successful US intervention in the previous century generally involved large sums of money, whether it be propping up a government (Zaire/Congo) or funding an insurgent militia (Guatemala). Same thing with the USSR (North Korea). The ability to influence public opinion or mount credible propaganda campaigns in my opinion is generally exaggerated especially in a large, modern and educated country like Iran. It's also the conspiratorial myth that repressive regimes (like Iran, Russia) frequently turn to when they need to discredit dissent. A good example is:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/pomegranate/2013/11/arab-conspiracy-theories

I mention Russia because this is the line pushed aggressively to both his domestic audience by it's wholly state controlled television media and to a mix of foreign and expatriate audiences (of which Russia Today is most successful) through a web of shadowy funding and home grown sounding organisations (see link below for a nice overview, e.g. http://www.globalresearch.ca/). It's pretty important to view what he says as part of a narrative to vastly exaggerate US and western intervention in Ukraine and previously Georgia, because that allows him to construct his myth of being a counterbalance to present day western imperialism.

https://criticusnixalsverdruss.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/propagramm3.jpg

@Asmo

On your comment:

The CIA's role in the 1953 Iran ouster is generally exaggerated. Several things - (1) by 1953, the Islamic clergy supported Mossadeq's ouster, something they have been suppressing ever since in inflating their anti-US stance (2) by the time of his ouster he also lacked the support of either his parliament or the people, (3) prior to it that year, he deposed his disapproving parliament with a clearly fraudulent 99% of the vote in a national referendum, (4) strictly speaking Iran was still a monarchy and the shah deposed his PM legally under the constitution, something that Mossadeq refused to abide by.

Did the UK put economic pressure on Iran when it threatened to nationalize its oil and usurp its remnants of imperialism? Sure. Did the UK then convince Eisenhower to mount a political and propaganda campaign against Mossadeq? Sure. Was that instrumental in fomenting a popular uprising of the parliament, the clergy and large portions of the 20m general population against him? Probably not.

Also I listened to it. Really, it's a meandering, probably scripted (the parts where he feigns surprise at the questioning is particularly humorous) that tries to generalize US actions, some of which were obviously harmful and support his argument. Putting Stalin in a positive light relative to the willingness of the US to use the bomb is, amusing? I'm not sure what to call it.

That the US needs a common threat to unite against holds some grains of truth in the present day but is really part of a wider narrative by Putin to construct the US as imperalist and domineering when by all accounts since the end of the Cold War, excluding GWB's term, it has been pulling back. It hardly needed to invent Iran's covert nuclear ambitions in the early 2000s, NK's saber rattling or China's stakes on the South China Sea islands.

Modern US foreign policy largely relies on reciprocation. The US provides a military alliance and counterweight to China's military for small SE Asian nations at a hefty cost to itself, and presumably gets various trade concession and voting support in various international agencies. The key word being reciprocation, something that Russia could learn a fair bit from in its own foreign policy.

I'd buy into the whole 'Stormtroopers can't aim for shit' except in episode IV, when they attacked the Jawas and tried to make it look like Sandpeople, Ben Kenobi problaims "Only Imperial stormtroopers are so precise." http://www.moviequotedb.com/movies/star-wars-episode-iv-a-new-hope/quote_29886.html

The sad thing, it won't make a lick of difference.

I listen to ppl in Aus bemoaning the loss of a local manufacturing industry and other jobs because everything is getting outsourced to cheaper China or India. But they won't spend an extra cent than they have to to buy the quality product and support locals.

We are victims of our own making. If a person bullies you, you either stand up to them, ask for help, or allow it/run away from it. We sate our desire for freedom by purchasing more things we don't need, filling our lives with junk that doesn't make us happy, but distracts us momentarily from the state we are in. We don't take responsibility for allowing the rich, the corps, the gov running over us and taking away our rights. We complain on the internet but won't take to the streets, and feel like we've made a difference even as we get soaked as the hurricane blows our piss back in our face.

We are the problem. The US was founded on the grass roots movement against British imperialism. I'm an Australian and I understand that. It's not until US citizens get that and actually decide to do something about it that anything will change.

And when nothing changes and we're slaves to the corporate machine with no recourse, we'll blame everything but ourselves.

This was also not the only man involved, and not the only concern that applied. This quote is his, not that of half a nation.

While I agree that the south had racist and white supremacist behaviors, I simply point out that the north was little better.

Both were plenty racist, and both cared a lot more about their money/power than they did about slaves. Rich white people in charge today don't give 2 shits about poor black people, I find it very unlikely that the rich white people in charge way back then cared any more.

Let me illustrate the 'champion of liberty' spin with an unrelated example :
Take the ww2 pacific theater for example. Japan teaches WW2 as a war to free Asia from western colonialism. U.S. teaches WW2 (pacific) as a war to free Asia from imperial expansion and oppression by Japan. Both are telling the truth, and both are full of crap. For neither was altruistic in their motivations, but both spin themselves as champions of liberty. For you will always have people on your side if you tell them you are standing up for liberty. (A concept well illustrated in The Prince - one of the earlier 'game theory' (from before it was called that) studies of governance.)

On a side note,

Keep in mind that slaves from Africa were usually purchased from black slavers.

And just a few generations ago, my own great grandparent's era, they and their peers were white peasant property of local white counts.

Things are not really all that 'black and white' (no pun intended).

-scheherazade