? Are you implying that famine and/or water shortages somehow preclude war and disease? I think they're major causes.

No, that's a myth. We have resources enough to do some amazing things if we properly apply them, not anything, and without the will to apply them, almost nothing. Having everything you need for success besides direction is a guarantee of failure.

Depends, if you remove the human factor and look only at total resources vs global need, there are still major logistic hurdles to just feeding everyone, not to mention resource problems if we want the biosphere to be healthy and not homogenized down to humans and our farm animals.

Odd, international law has been enforced since ww2 with only few exceptions with no WW3, only sanctions, bribes, and relatively minor skirmishes. I don't know where you get the idea that only a gun to the head might be coercive when a gun to the economy has worked so well for so long.

You should be hysterical. If you aren't shitting your pants over the state of the world, you aren't paying attention or you're absolutely delusional. Civilization and the habitatability of the planet are both on a clear path to collapse and people are busying themselves with arguments over will it be 50 years out or 100, or maybe 150 instead of making substantive changes to mitigate what's now unavoidable....or even prepare.
A hysterical voice is the only one I think indicates an understanding of the problem and total lack of a working solution.

i counted 6 out of 9 lives lost during that skirmish!

Good and interesting stuff in there.

I think Sharpe is right that this escalation happened for a pretty silly reason (known blowhard and mouth-runner Trump runs his mouth, news at 11), and the NFL vs Trump skirmish detracts from the root issue that Kaepernick was trying to bring attention to a year ago.

On the other hand, I kinda agree with the other guy that maybe bringing attention to that skirmish will also bring attention to the original issue, so maybe it is a net good thing.

Yeah, the owners aren't going to give a fuck until shit lands on their doorstep. Yeah, calling people a "son of a bitch" rates at about a 2 on the "Trump just said what?!" scale. Sharpe's cynicism about how we got here makes a lot of sense.

I didn't care about Kaepernick sitting for the anthem a year ago enough to pay attention. I wasn't against it. I didn't think the was trying to "disrespect" the flag / soldiers / country / whatever, but I wouldn't have really cared if he was. Aren't people allowed to be anti-war? Opposed to mindless nationalism?


Fast forward to today. The billionaires that Sharpe mentioned who donated big sums to Trump's campaign finally get upset when his shit lands on their door. His (comparably tame) "Twitter attacks" on the NFL kick off a dog-and-pony show that may possibly have been cunningly intended to distract from the much more weighty stuff that Kaepernick was trying to draw attention to in the first place, but I seriously doubt that Trump is that clever.

However, something good did come of it: I went from "meh" to paying attention. I went back and listened to Kaepernick's interview about why he was sitting for the anthem from a year ago (embed below), which I didn't watch at the time. I heard a rational, honest, and eloquent young man calmly and clearly explain what he was doing and why he was doing it.

He saw injustice, and wanted to do something about it. He had access to a soapbox that very very few of the people on the receiving end of that injustice have. So, he made up his own mind to do something to try to get conversations started. He was surprised and confused that anyone would see his actions as disrespectful towards soldiers / military, and was later persuaded (by a Navy SEAL) to kneel as opposed to sit for the anthem in an effort to make that more clear.

He seemed aware that he can only control what he does -- not how people will try to spin it, and not how people may react to it. And he also clearly accepted that his actions could have consequences, and that he didn't want to rope anybody else in to acting with him unless they were prepared to accept those consequences also.

So, yeah. Some good came of this recent escalation, even if it came for the wrong reasons. Because some of the people that get drawn in to the dog-and-pony show might decide that they care enough to go back and take a deeper look at it, like I did. And when they look deeper, they're going to see Trump's standard, everyday twitter nonsense on one side compared to a lot of more rational stuff like, say, perhaps actually listening to words of the person that got the ball rolling on the other side (Kaepernick, and others). I like the way that scale balances out.

My neighbors do this type of heavy combat (no idea about leagues, etc.). The first time I saw them practicing in the front yard it was funny for about 10 seconds, until I realized what was going on. Then I was in awe.
The frighteningly loud sounds of weapon impacts is enough, then consider the weight of the gear, and the heat. Seriously hardcore.
It's a neighborhood event now anytime they get together for skirmishes.

The soundtrack for Quake is/was awesome. But, yeah - I really got into even heavier music than I was into already at the time and would listen to that while playing any number of multiplayer Quake mods.

The segment about Threewave CTF (with the grappling hook) really shot a wave of nostalgia through me. Aside from some really unique Ultima Online guild skirmishes, Threewave CTF for me takes the cake for best multiplayer experiences I've ever had ; and to lesser extents Doom 2 over dialup and WoW.

Dead gambits are the worst, but when you understand the concept you usually see it coming.

Like being lured in SC2 while you're picking off units during skirmishes; you think you're doing SUCH a good job killing the enemy units, but you over extend and BAM, literally dead end. Some people just aren't ready for the flank. Gotta learn when to back off.

This is also how trolling on the internet works.

I'm not really all that sure what to make of the United States responses. It seems like to me they're trying their best to say the right things and continue to do the things they want, like voting to fund Israel during this latest skirmish.

They do seem to be under a lot of pressure to say the right things though and that's interesting. As usual with these situations it might not become all that clear until a year or years afterwards.

Thing is everybodies propaganda stream is in complete fucking overdrive. You see it on here or any social media, people leaping in and rewriting history and facts left and right. Sober analysis probably won't come till later.

Kitty-kickin's! That cats fine PP, he needed some chiding for pickin' that skirmish....it did look like the man got bit. Strange cat bites me indoors....he gets a wall-bouncer!! A domesticated cat that bites a human???...Half-feral and in need of discipline!

Good kittehs don't bites peeeps!!

Damn that was a serious sea skirmish

Yay, they scored a goal, unit, basket! Go squadron, do good! Beat the opponents, soundly, in the skirmish!


>> ^direpickle:

>> ^deathcow:
Quite a lady drought we got going on here.
I guess we should... discuss sawzalls?

How about that local sports team? I hear they had a game. They certainly played.

I was expecting platoons of ants marching on each other in formation. This is a skirmish, at best!

As dumb as the little law is, that's all this video is about. Some people breaking a dumb little law and being arrested for it.

Now if one of the cops had said, "Hey, you know what? This is AMERICA.. F the court's decission.. dance all you want!" that would have been awesome.. but in the end, this is not indicative of massive opression or anything. There is some dumb logic to this law (the keep it a place of tranquility.. as it reads in the court order), and the cops in this video didn't go around tazing everyone or being overtly rude or belligerent.

Infact the guy who pretended like he didn't know he was breaking any law annoys me. If you're going to break the law to make a statement, don't play ignorant when it's obvious you're perfectly aware of what you're doing. Weakens your stance, imo.

It's good to keep one's eyes open for stuff like this on a more broad scale, but as it stands this is a skirmish over one idea of what should be allowed in a specific public area vs another's.. and I can see both sides. I totally side with the dance freedom though myself.

Also this is a city-state, so I would bet federal judges like to flex their muscle here and there amongst DC.

But was he still effectively a threat against America? Wasn't he essentially hobbled already? Holed up, unable to communicate?

Arvana is right, I think -- it is revenge not justice.

However, if I am wrong, if he has been actively and effectively planning attacks against others in the world, then yes, attempt to capture him and if he dies in the attempt, fine with me.

I wish Obama had been stronger in stating that there was an attempt to capture him.


>> ^NetRunner:

@bareboards2 I'm all for the general principle that people have rights and all, but I think when it comes to Osama bin Laden, who very, very clearly wanted people to know that he was behind the 9/11 attacks, I'm willing to settle for him being killed in a skirmish with special forces.

@bareboards2 I'm all for the general principle that people have rights and all, but I think when it comes to Osama bin Laden, who very, very clearly wanted people to know that he was behind the 9/11 attacks, I'm willing to settle for him being killed in a skirmish with special forces.

>> ^Retroboy:

What I found interesting was how stable the big mess of pre-German states was after the Holy Roman Empire disintegrated. I would have expected that whole region to be a colossal mussy bloodbath.


But it wasn't stable, and it was a colossal mussy bloodbath! They fought each other basically every other week in small skirmishes. But since they were small scale they usually didn't led to anything consequential.

Much like Japan's Sengoku Jidai period or the Warring Italian states during renaissance, from the surface the borders looked relatively calm but there were always constant action.