multitasking? surfing pron and modding ic dont mingle KT

yes but you always make noise for 2, so still unfair anyways, fam's got an active mod, and that guarantees fam will suck, so go right ahead

Gard (leader)
TCO (really in charge)
Ragnarokr (whines hard enough to get his way once in a while)

no way ! you should be thoroughly punished for picking up that random ! your own fault !

gee, you had to go and spoil it again didnt you Zarf?

Ah well, time for me to bow out anyways, just came by to pester Torqez about something, and thought it'd be fun to annoy some peeps with a totally silly point of view on this situation - till mr Barf had to spoil the fun and undermine my best argument My tip for everyone : stop taking things so seriously, have fun while you can, life as you think you know it will end in 15-50 years. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ … scientists

anyways, have fun with it either way

Honestly, there was more overlap between the rhetoric used by Bush jr. on the eve of the Iraq invasion and the rhetoric used by Hitler, than between the rhetoric used by Putin and Hitler. And did we stop the USA from invading Iraq? nope, we didnt, and we'll take this too, eventually. Coz, just as in the case of the Iraq invasion, theres simply nothing anyone can do about it, and noone is going to risk a breakdown of internation trade, leave alone a full-blown world war over such silly places as Iraq or Crimea.

agreed, without discussion.

In essence you're right, Russia is one huge criminal state. Question is, what shining beacon of hope do we have that DOES do it right ? China with it's maoist government known for infractions on human rights and imprisoning political dissidents, and its unchecked economic growth that pollutes the environment for generations to come? The USA that is a huge fascist police state (spying on its own population on a huge scale, patriot act, indoctrination of population with 'if youre not with us youre against us', no democracy at all - a 2-party system where you can choose between soft-touch liberalism and hard-touch liberalism is hardly democratic, Guantanamo, etcetc), or the EU that is a powerless body made up of ever-bickering countries too small to pull any weight on their own and that keeps pouring money down the drain that is the dream of a unified europe without ever really unifying? Honestly, im not a fan of Putin either, but considering the alternatives, im still convinced the Crimeans can choose to join the Russians if thats what they really want. They knew fully well what they chose for.

So is the USA and all European countries, yet we all happily keep going and putting ourselves into more debt we'll never be able to repay. Honestly, the only country that is debt-free AND has a decent sized economy/industry is Brunei. Everyone else is doing badly in either being underdeveloped or in being in the kinds of debts they'll never be able to repay.

Russia is a democratic federation. Putin keeps being re-elected, sure, but the population keeps its right to vote. Ok, granted, its not a true democracy, but neither is the USA, or even any European country. They're all particracies at best and corporatocracies at worst. Russia is just more in-your-face about it, with Putin staying in power for everyone to see, instead of hiding it behind a charade of puppets for the ones really in power.

And just to be clear : im not a fan of Putin, or his endorsement of criminal elements that are actually running his country, or the corruption that is ever-prevalent in the russian government, or the gaybashing laws there, or ... there's so much wrong there that it is really sad. Yet, theres just as much wrong everywhere else, so noone really has a right to go all holier-than-thou on the Russians without first cleaning up their own act. And i stick to my initial point, the Crimeans have CHOSEN to join Russia, knowing fully well what they were getting into, so let them.

While we're addressing the whole thing from a *historical* point of view anyways ... how about you did that for all 50 states? Technically speaking, those were all invaded and annexed. I'm sure the indigenous population (read native americans) would have something to say about that. OR, did you consult the Iñupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian and so on when you bought Alaska from the Russians? This compared to a province that was historically speaking Russian in the first place, where everyone still speaks Russian, and where everyone was consulted and voted in favor of joining the Russians ... once again, beware of being indignated when your whole country is based on one huge invasion, leading to a decimation and subsequent degradation to second-rate citizens of the indigenous population. At least the Crimeans WANT to join the Russians.

First off, they weren't invaded, the Russians allready had a huge presence in Crimea to start with. Actually it's the primary deployment site for their Black Sea fleet, as it has been for quite a long time allready. They DID however strengthen their presence there to safeguard their interests from the newly emerging, anti-russian Ukrainian government. I'm sure the USA would just hand over any military bases abroad when the government of that country suddenly turned anti-USA, right? Also, all 'aggressive acquisitions' in Crimea lately were not executed by Russian troops, but by pro-russian CRIMEAN paramilitary troops. Big difference.

And about Europe being in the Russian sphere of influence .... we still have American military bases in my country, not Russian ones, and they still even house American ballistic nuclear missiles aimed at Russia. I'm sure your assessment is correct though, since we're a little more socialist in our policies than the USA, we must all be commies. *sigh*

Get your facts straight before trying to sell them off as facts.

waiting for mods to kick out the last guy since we cant ourselves, then close the galaxy another clean swipe, see you guys next year for another one

i do o:)

this