News that makes us laugh, cry, or both

[Maj]

That is so cool. The doesn't show the tapestry in full, though.



Of course, the next question is: Does it make cool armor?

[Absentminded_Wizard]

The idea is supposed to be that the lowest level is for 17-year-olds who have sex with fifteen year old girlfriends

<snip>

How to stop someone from fucking your sexy, virginal daughter? Well, the libruls made it a bad thing for you to shoot them, but we got the next best thing. Put them on the SEX OFFENDER LIST! Whoo! Ruin their lives for even thinking about touching your ripe, blossoming, forbidden fruit of a child.

Actually, the lowest level has very minor restrictions (register with law enforcement, no public disclosure, no limits on where you can live) and expires in 10 years. It's not great, but it beats being labeled a "sexual predator" for life.

[Maxus]

http://news.aol.com/article/florida-dem ... die/694295

That. Is. Awesome.

[Parthenon]

Urgh, politics. Sometimes I wish we had a dictatorship just so that we wouldn't have to hear about arguments, hypocrisy, damned lies and all this bullshit. One man (or woman), one voice, no need for explanations or public opinion.

Democracy is indeed the least worst option.

[violence in the media]

Lulzworthy article about the perils of defining sex in the dictionary.

[CatharzGodfoot]

On a totally unrelated note, why was East Germany such a shithole compared to West Germany?

They divvied up Germany after WWII. The USSR got the eastern half, and the USSR had Stalin in charge. Stalin may or may not have had a reason to care much about their welfare.

But they were Communist, right? Shouldn't the demand economy have catapulted them out of the post-war doldrums?

[Maxus]

On a totally unrelated note, why was East Germany such a shithole compared to West Germany?

They divvied up Germany after WWII. The USSR got the eastern half, and the USSR had Stalin in charge. Stalin may or may not have had a reason to care much about their welfare.

But they were Communist, right? Shouldn't the demand economy have catapulted them out of the post-war doldrums?

I'm not really sure about the rest of it, but I do know that in East Berlin, things were incredibly shitty. Supply shortages and the like. It got to the point where the US began doing air drops of food and clothing and toys and even, on Christmas, air-dropped wrapped Christmas presents to the people in East Berlin.

But as for East Germany as a whole, I don't know and I'm not in a position to do real research on it.

[angelfromanotherpin]

But they were Communist, right? Shouldn't the demand economy have catapulted them out of the post-war doldrums?

It might have, but the occupying Russians basically looted the country for years; dismantling the industrial infrastructure, 'buying' East German products at well below cost, etc. etc.

[Username17]

After the air drops gave such a PR win to the west, the Russians treated the GDR better, but by then it was decades behind the BRD.

-Username17

[CatharzGodfoot]

I see, so the Ruskies went into 'reparations' mode while the US tried to shelter German war criminals.

[Prak]

he reminds her of the person who founded her religion.

As someone who was widely considered in high school to "look like Jesus" I assure you this is not a winning girl bait strategy.

Well no, not jesus, reminding the girl of LaVey worked well for me though.

Of course, the next question is: Does it make cool armor?

My next thought is "where's the nearest spider silker, I want spider silk guitar strings!"

[NativeJovian]

I'm not really sure about the rest of it, but I do know that in East Berlin, things were incredibly shitty. Supply shortages and the like. It got to the point where the US began doing air drops of food and clothing and toys and even, on Christmas, air-dropped wrapped Christmas presents to the people in East Berlin.

That was in West Berlin, the section controlled by the Allies. Post-WWII Germany was divided up into East Germany (controlled by the Soviet Union) and West Germany (consisting of three separate sections controlled by France, the UK, and the US, respectively). Berlin was similarly divided (East USSR, West US/UK/France), but Berlin was actually in East German territory. So the USSR blockaded West Berlin by refusing to let the Allies move through East German territory, trying to force the Allies to let the USSR supply Berlin, and thus seizing de facto control of the entire city. The Berlin Airlift was the Allies' method of supplying West Berlin.

East Berlin was still a shithole, but was never airdropped supplies by the Allies.

[Orion]

Tzor, you seriously need to shut the fuck up about sex. Your uninformed misanthropy is now cluttering two threads.

Look, in the last thread you said your lack of sexual experience disqualified you from having an opinion, which would be fine if you didn't insist on spewing opinion all over the place. You can't use inexperience as a shield against judgment if you're going to moralize: if anything, moralizing is MORE blameworthy if you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Again and again you justify the sex-negative position you espouse by impugning the character and motives of people who engage in sex. It's the least effective argument you could possibly make if your goal was to change the behavior of conscientious individuals. Hardly anybody identifies themselves with the cartoonishly shallow people you lambaste, so you're harangues are unlikely to convince anybody actually to have sex. You might convince a few to be judgmental hypocrites about it though, so... profit?

But while your diatribes aren't persuasive they are highly, HIGHLY offensive. Look, I don't necessarily think sex is as important to everyone as it is to some people, or that your life is impoverished because you aren't getting busy getting down. But PLEASE refrain from claiming the right to define the experiences of those of us who are. Presuming to know how I or my fiancee really feel is the height of arrogance.

[Username17]

I see, so the Ruskies went into 'reparations' mode while the US tried to shelter German war criminals.

Pretty much. But by "tried" we really mean "the heads of IG Farbin lived out their lives in the US as important executives of profitable US companies and never spent a day in prison for any of it."

-Username17

[Murtak]

After the war West Germany was plundered by the allies while East Germany was plundered by the Russians. However West Germany did get to benefit from the Marshall Plan while East Germany got to sell it's products at a loss. As far as I know after a while (say twenty years) both of these ceased, but until then West Germany was pretty much subsidized by the USA while East Germany was basically in the situation many third World countries are now in.

[Username17]

After the war West Germany was plundered by the allies while East Germany was plundered by the Russians. However West Germany did get to benefit from the Marshall Plan while East Germany got to sell it's products at a loss. As far as I know after a while (say twenty years) both of these ceased, but until then West Germany was pretty much subsidized by the USA while East Germany was basically in the situation many third World countries are now in.

We had a very similar situation with North and South Korea. Save that South Korea is still being subsidized by the US and North Korea is... well... North Korea.

-Username17

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Rant rant

I feel bad that I'm actively saying that women are a malevolent force and I'm fond of saying that the only thing women are good FOR they aren't good AT, and Tzor gets ranted at. This is a dark day indeed for attention whoring.

[violence in the media]

I was kind of wondering where that came from, or what it was related to, myself.

[Username17]

Rant rant

I feel bad that I'm actively saying that women are a malevolent force and I'm fond of saying that the only thing women are good FOR they aren't good AT, and Tzor gets ranted at. This is a dark day indeed for attention whoring.

Look dude, we know you hate women. Honestly, people are entitled to hate whoever or whatever they want, for any reason or no reason at all. That's your rights as a human being.

But Tzor recommends specific actual policies based on his fucked up misogyny, while you just rage about yours periodically in an empty hand wavy fashion. When you start implementing or advocating actual action to back up your irrational hatred, then it becomes an actual attack. Until then, it's just your opinion, which like your asshole is something you are entitled to have.

-Username17

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I suppose that's a good point. I feel that any sentient being should be allowed to achieve anything their ambition and talent allows them to. And really, putting forth action to keep women down would make me as bad as they are, and I have no desire to become what I hate.

[Orion]

I was kind of wondering where that came from, or what it was related to, myself.

Read the Gibberish thread. I realize my rant isn't timely, but I was traveling over the last week with enough time to read and be angered by that thread but not enough time to formulate a good post.

Basically, he asserts on the basis of what his bishops tell him that large swaths of human sexual behavior are intrinsically selfish and unloving, willfully disregarding the self-understanding of people who participate in that behavior, which is way outside the norms of polite discourse.

[violence in the media]

I was kind of wondering where that came from, or what it was related to, myself.

Read the Gibberish thread. I realize my rant isn't timely, but I was traveling over the last week with enough time to read and be angered by that thread but not enough time to formulate a good post.

Basically, he asserts on the basis of what his bishops tell him that large swaths of human sexual behavior are intrinsically selfish and unloving, willfully disregarding the self-understanding of people who participate in that behavior, which is way outside the norms of polite discourse.

Gotcha. It was the timing that threw me off.

[Orion]

I was actually responding this post:

"First of all, they are not retards. There are good reasons in general for looking at 17 year olds having sex with fifteen year old girlfriends in a negative light. In the first case those few years can be a major difference in a person’s life. For the girl, this could be the freshman year High School and for the guy the senior year. What then are the motives for the guy (and why isn’t he dating girls of his age or class) and what are the motives for the girl (is she looking at this senior guy more as a father figure). These things are important because the frontal cortex has not fully developed at that age to dampen sudden impulses.

Fathers are generally overprotective of their daughters because on the one hand, they were boys once and on the other hand they know that boys don’t get pregnant."

from page forty-seven of this thread and didn't bother quoting because it was one of the most recent posts when I drafted my post. I guess I got massively ninjaed.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I remember I worked with a girl who was 15 a few years back who chased after men on the college baseball team. She got away with this by lying about her age to these men.

I told her that if she really liked these guys, she wouldn't try to get them in trouble like that. She responded that in the middle ages, it was okay for girls her age to marry adult men. I tried to convince her that in the middle ages, she would have literally been sold to the highest bidder and would have no say in whom she was married to.

She called me a prude and changed the subject. Then again, she LOOKED 15, so maybe those guys should have known better. Still, trying to trick men into commiting felonies is not cool in my book.

[Username17]

I will never forget a night I was out playing live action vampire (I was 17 at the time), and this girl in a nightgown and no shoes came up and started hitting on me, hard. I was flattered and confused, but I assumed under the circumstances that she was a fellow player who was deeply immersive in her role as a Malkavian temptress and I played along making damn sure to never make direct eye contact lest the Dominate challenge I thought was coming rear its head.

...And it turned out that she was a 14 year old who lived in a halfway home and she was running around the back alleys of downtown late at night in nothing but a shift because she had broken out for a while. So glad I kept it in my pants.

-Username17