ralphwiggum

LOL ok seriously, let's not go off topic here. I haven't banned anyone for a while and don't give me a reason to.

I'm still around. I log in once a day, but due to real life interfering, can't stay for long

Don't look at me if you suddenly end up eing labeled as GW Bush Let's give thisiKonboard a good rest it deserves. and as a precaution, I'd ask others to save the profiles just in case.

I was specifically responding to a comment that someone else made about gun politics, and I had no reason to suspect the issue was off-limits. I guess I didn't read far enough back to catch that bit. Now I know though. Even responding is part of discussing the topic. Furthermore, you had chance to read. You had two posts before I gave you warning. Plenty of time inbetween. wolfrung and scubaman, both of your posts are good, except for a few low-level name calling. Keep that part out.

keep it civil. or I'll have to take some actions. General Barron, consider yourself warned, as I explicitly said no gun politics discussino here. Billybob, watch out. I'm really tempted to chage your member title.

knock it off with gun arguments. We've had it before and it never went well. No more gun politics talk.

4 years ago some people here complained about all the "liberal" postings here and wondered if Department of Defense, the one who bought VBS, would appreciate such treasonous behavior. I wish I kept list of those people.

It was some sort of voting theory. IIRC it goes something like this. In a 2 party system, requirement for winning in popular vote is to capture a bit more than 50%. So it is easy for each party to position themselves closer to the middle. In a 3 party system, in order to get more than the 1/3 for each party, at least one party will overlap with other parties, and that will cause loss in the one of the other two parties.(or both). In other words, say party A had 1/3 of the votes. In order to increase their votes, they can adopt policy stances that overlap with party B which will cause one of two things. 1. party A loses some of its vote to party B, or 2. party B loses some of its vote to party A. In both scenarios one party will dominate the game(say party A gained B's vote), so B will either become obsolete or have to merge with C. And that means we will end up with two results 1) A and B dominating, and C is marginalized(like US, you have GOP, Dem, and others) 2) A will still be standing, but have to face coalition of B & C, which is practically two sides fighting for votes.

Oh I look forward to seeing you eat crow.

Let's start the thread. We only get this once per 4 year. Keep the politics out of the thread.! first gold goes to... Katerina Emmons http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008....cnn=yes Czechs...Beer woman, and guns...and games.

don't bump.

They took it down ASAP. So you probably missed it. The opening ceremony was good. It would definitely be difficult for London to top it, but who knows?

So Russia wants to be #1 while China wants to be #1. Sooner or later, Russia and China has to fight each other. And when east is done, time for west.

Good. don't come back to this forum. And Russia being No.1 is not exactly a balance of power. China and Russia had enough arguing between each other, and although current situation is no worse, in the past there were time when they wanted to punch and kill each other. Who knows what will happen in future. Maybe China wants to be No. 1, which they have to fight Russia to get to.

Ok, I've had enough of your talking. Last time I asked you to provide source for some other argument which you conveniently ignored.

Basically you admitted that Russia should be allowed to do whatever it wants to do. Bravo. you just confirmed a lot of people's argument. Perhaps Russia can be a bully, but it needs to stop whining like a baby when smaller regions that were once part of Soviet Union gets its independence. If power respects power, when Chinese over run Russians, don't fret over it. When chechens run Russians off, when mongols run russian off, it's all the same. So whoever has the power can do whatever he wants, right? Chechenya?

I don't. I support Russia as the regional power and safeguard of stability in theatre. And this is exactly why Russians are not welcome. They want to rebuild the empire that they once had, and don't give much considerations for others. Georgia wanted no part of it(in other words don't want to be Russia's slave) and now Russia is bullying Georgia through SO.

Then study some history. They had their share of downs but they had some chance of getting it back together, until Soviets decided to meddle in. Last time, yes, this time, no. They are adding more fuel to fire and is doing it with clear mind. And this is exactly why Russia is starting current conflict. They have misconception and is now taking out like a bully. Exactly how Russians think about Georgians. They don't care, they don't care about Georgia's soverignty.

Again, Czechs were not happy about Nazis, and small group of them did not constitute the whole Czechs. Apples and oranges. How about you actually supporting Georgian independence and their soverignty over SO? Looking at how Russia fretted over other parts breaking of from Soviet Union, Russian don't have much in terms of gaining moral grounds. Why do you support autonomy of SO when you don't support it for Afghanistan? I side with common sense.

You gotta be kidding me. Autonomy is not so great? How about China beats snot out of Russia and make it their subjects. That wouldn't be bad because Russia doesn't need autonomy. The warlord situation was quite recent development. Of course, it's always easier to vilify them then to look at the history itself. There weren't much of refugee to begin with so your argument fails on that account. Historica alliance does not mean you start a potential WW3, Humanitarianism is something Soviets gave up when they let Georgia take SO. You are trying to portray SO as the bad guy, then attempting to portray your position as better position. So since you believe autonomy is over rated, I guess equal concepts like humanitarianism, historical alliance, and regional stability are also over rated. Considering your post, I say this argument actually works as you support conflict that is to stick fingers to Georgians. No, Russians are just pissed that Georgia is doing well and they cannot do much to screw it.

Here's what you posted a few pages ago. This was your support to the argument that Czechs invaded Soviet as aggressors. Actually it was the other way around. Czechs made it difficult for Nazis to the point where Nazis leveled a whole village. So contrary to what you belive history says Czechs don't like Nazis. And you were not really realizing that ethnic German Czechs are not the whole Czechoslovakia. Don't waste my time trying to portray Czechs as Nazi symphatizers. That obligation was no where to be found when Georgia went for independence and got SO. Now they are just trying to gain back the territory they had little or no interest in.

Keep denying the reality. Under Soviet invasion, things were worse than the times before when there were at least some chance of autonomous Afghanistan, which was crushed by Soviets. And why do Russians have to stick there nose in Georgian problem? Because Moscow has been poking Georgia, and this is just one of them.

Afghanistan has never been "going well" ever. It would have been if Soviets stayed out of there. Which just shows that Moscow needs to stop poking Georgia like this. Notice that the word YOU USED was "SOME" Not "most" or "all". You can't prove that Czechs were supporting Nazis.

Beats being indiscriminately massacred for being Russian or Jewish. And Czechs did that?