To fight for liberation alongside brothers and colleagues and even see a new nation start to take shape must have been an amazing course of life!
Posts made by ZimZaxZeo
-
RE: Six participants in the real D-Day
-
RE: Six participants in the real D-Day
My grandfather fought at D-Day as a member of the Brit’s Jewish Brigade.
Like, wow. What tales has he told you? (I’m hoping he is living…?)
-
RE: …and from the "Build a Better Mousetrap Category"
That’s the last beetle from South / Central American production – they are still being manufactured in Europe as far as I know.
-
RE: Warrior Politics; A new philosophy
Yeah, brudda F_alk, it’s mutual.
Now, I dig your logic … and I would add simply that the people of the American nation either have to be for democracy, and this can only be universal democracy, or they have to be against it. Perhaps this Kaplan is using some seige mentality “warrior” reasoning that prefers to avoid messy things like differences of opinion between nations, in favor of having a nice, neat, manageable world where the US gets all the goodies while five billion other people can live under dictators and totalitarian regimes.
By the way, the biggest democracy, and arguably one of the most tolerant nation states in the world is India. (While much is made of Muslim-Hindu violence, many high offices are held by Muslims in this majority-Hindu land, for instance.) I’m sure it has been discussed in one of the forums around here, maybe on the one about the UN Security Council of the future.
Next door to India is our new best client state, Pakistan, where the US and the dictator are using each other to the utmost. Some day, he’s gonna go, and I would hope we spend the majority of our efforts there in the time between now and that day in building stronger relations with the Pakistani voices for democracy.
-
RE: Happy 4th of July to everybody!!!!!!
This is one of the loopiest threads on the whole site!
With no disrespect to the spirit in which waraxis launched it (nor to the irreverence by which F_lk er, rerouted it), the postings here remind me of a Henny Youngman joke:
“He considered himself to be quite a wit. And he was at least half right!”
-
RE: …and from the "Build a Better Mousetrap Category"
@El:
Well……yeah! I’ve got a friend I see about once a year who has worked in 4 or 5 different embassies in South and Central America as well as Cuba. He has shown me photos(he’s a camera buff) of hundreds of autos older than I am in top shape. He says they know how to care for cars better than we do. He also states they have junkers in these countries that run better than most of our cars today!
We are truly “the throwaway society” here in the good ol’ Newnited Stakes. Somewhere once I read a list of the “life expectancy” of various vehicles, appliances, etc. in the U.S. vs. typical third-world countries such as Mexico, India, etc. Like a Chevy that we Hamericans would junk in a decade or so would definitely be gliding along for 50 years in Encinada or Juarez. A refrigerator better go 100 years, a TV like 20 or 30. And a bicycle: can you dig like 300 years!!
There is a simple reason: they have to make do! We have so much ample supply and sophisticated distribution of new stuff, and such torrents of ready cash and credit here it is mindboggling compared to any prior phase in human history. No wonder our junk heaps could sustain whole civilizations for millennia – and likely will, so long as their citizens are robustly tolerant of radioactives, dioxin and oddly mutated organisms.
-
RE: TMI…...
The Car Talk guys reign supreme. Their humor may be hit or miss, but their call-in radio show (and website) can be judged on the amazing and quirky breadth and scope of the participants – like the winner of the last weekly Puzzler, who posted her winning reply from Katmandu!
Anyway, I’m disappointed. Now I recognize “TMI” as Too Much Information – but I tapped in thinking it referred to Three Mile Island. Let’s see… it’ll be 25 years (in May 2004) since the partial meltdown. Where the bleep blank blurt is our bleeping national energy policy??!?
-
RE: Warrior Politics; A new philosophy
Well, Yanny, it seems this Kaplan raises plenty of meaty issues, and stakes out some provocative (if simplistic) positions.
I certainly agree with several of the principles as you outline them. However, #2 screams out with an elitism close enough to fascism to churn my democratic (small d) guts!!
How arrogant, not to mention shallow, to proclaim that the rest of this wide blue globe is inhabited by swarms of unwashed, illiterate slobs who can’t handle democracy – and need to be ruled by a dictator. It is just so easy to make such blanket statements (and to accumulate mass “dittoes” from a contented, overfed audience), but it seems to me demeaning in the extreme to the whole ideal of humanity.
I defy anyone to point out a country or territory where there has NEVER been a democratic or populist uprising against a brutal paternalistic ruler. Time and again, in one geographic region after another, the “little people” have organized themselves, led themselves, fortified themselves within and with allies, in order to throw off various yokes they never wanted.
In this point #2 it seems to be cited that “more of the world dislikes us” than likes us. Well, there may be expressions of fear, revulsion, etc. in response to some of America’s policies and practices from time to time. But I would say nearly ALL of the world likes our fundamental principles – likes the liberties enshrined in our Constitution and institutions, because they are truly universal desires. They are articulated, in various ways, across the globe.
Running a government, especially an impoverished one, is another story – but ask the people of Indonesia for example, how much they really NEEDED that vile bastard Suharto and his vampire family to suck the living daylights out of that country for 30 years. Believe it: he GOT IN THE WAY of them climbing out of poverty – he didn’t PROTECT them from any supposed social disintegration that some clumsy democratic republic might have engendered. Wanna talke about Marcos and the Philippines? How about the wonderful job guys like Franco did in Spain, or general Zia who jackbooted it over Pakistan for a decade or so, setting up the current, nuclear-tipped debacle-nation we have there now.
“Depotism keeps many countries together.” Spare me! Saddam Hussein kept the people of Iraq together: together in mass graves and in zombie terror.
Even the celebrated case of Tito in Yugoslavia seems to become more bogus to me, when I reflect upon the pent-up, grand vendettas that were so easily unleashed after his demise. Did the guy really protect the people of his country from disintegration? Did he lift them out of misery – or deepen and prolong that misery by postponing it artificially and brutally from his despot throne?
The world is ready for democracy in the same way it always has been: inspired and informed of, by and for the hearts of individuals everywhere. It is the nations and the despots that get in the way!
((This Kaplan book does sound like an interesting read, anyway!))
-
RE: Quick question….
Certainly a nation state must always exercise caution in signing on to a protocol that diminishes its sovereignty or the “favored individual” status of its citizens at home or abroad – elsewise, why have a nation state at all?
Still, it does seem odd to me that many of our true allies (and they are true – realize that Germany and France, for instance, each have had troops working and fighting alongside U.S. forces in Afghanistan for nearly two years now) have found a way to sign on to the ICC and other supernational legal bodies. They haven’t done so with political naivety – they have likely done so in the knowledge that there will be horsetrading and negotiating all along the way, and this is yet another international forum that they would much prefer taking part in, than missing out on.
Hmmmm.
-
RE: Now CAL gov gets a chance to invalidate some signatures…
@El:
Now, now, JZ! If It weren’t for Cauliflournia the rest of the post-civilized world would be at war with the USA as the New Fourth Reich. Seig Bush!
Be grateful for the balance they bring to our country.
I, for one, am glad of the balance that lovely ol’ Canada brings to our continent – thanks y’all from up north there!
-
RE: Read any great books lately??
“The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress” by Robert Heinlein
-
RE: Crazy (but great) strat for germany
Not to ruin the Axis battlewagon party, but it takes 2 hits to sink a BB!
-
INDEPENDENCE to all y'all
A worthy moment to take some deep reflection, and spread the fruits of that exercise around to all your friends, neighbors, visitors, family.
Best wishes to all for the strengthening of each and every one’s Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness all around this battered, green, brown and blue old world.
Meditate on the blood, honor and truth that wave within that tattered flag, for it represents not only the America we know today, but the best ideals of humanity through the ages, and to come.
Stand… and speak together, and listen to one another.
How can we create a nation of free individuals, in every place beyond all borders, so that one day our children may bless the name America without misgiving, without intolerance, without ignorance, poverty, sickness of heart, without arrogance and heaven help us, without violence upon ourselves and our relatives throughout the natural world.
Peace & Justice
-
RE: Patriot Act and Patriot Act II
Try this irony on for size:
The “conservatives” in the U.S. have since 1980 squawked relentlessly about reducing government in our lives. Then comes 9/11 and now government can’t be big enough to suit them: bankrupt the economy with nonstop war, trash the various civil protections of the Constitution, spy on your neighbors, turn librarians into Big Brother recording machines, etc.Not only city and town councils - - but even LOCAL POLICE departments – have made it known publicly that they will refuse to enforce the dictates of Patriot Act II (the resistance began to Patriot Act I; this new bill is more of the same, in spades). When your local cops start saying there are some new laws and procedures they will refuse to follow – pay attention!
cc, you are incisive with your comparison to Castro. The Bush-Ashcroft administration is paternalistic. Americans are asking themselves: Do we want big daddy to tell us what to do and not, say and not, where to go and not – or are we a nation of freedom-loving individuals, ready to defend our reasonably structured civil rights with the same dedication and heat that our ancestors applied to win those rights in the first place!
-
RE: How about cleaning up the board?
Wow, as morten200 says: use the SEARCH function! I’ve hunted through many an ancient thread here, but never until now have tried that.
Maybe rather than reshape the whole site, just make the Search function button more prominent – or maybe not. Perhaps I never got around to using it because my preferred way of searching was to scroll through the forums and posts.
Anyway, speaking of cross-indexing, seems like this thread belongs under the “Website Discussion” forum, ey!?
-
Before the SIMS there was unremitting war in : SIM ANT !!
Yes, a million eons before the evolution of the Sims as we now know them, before even the development of the Sim City series, the hack mind brought forth an incredible – and deceptively simple – game: Sim Ant.
It was a War Game, me brothers, make no mistake. Red ants vs. Black ants, and you in the role of the Yellow ant, the key directing consciousness, the main point of interaction with the strange, sometimes comic, often horrible world of the cute – and vicious – little Formicidae.
Remember, World War II consumed 60 million humans, raged for roughly a decade, and altered the shape of our societies.
But the ANT WARS have seen the butchery of untold Trillions, been fought with no break for more than 100 million years, and altered the ecosystem of the entire planet!
Anyway, the game Sim Ant started as a probe of “artificial intelligence” or at least of how complex patterns can emerge from simple instructions and simple interactions. You learn as you play.
The game has many scientific accuracies, and it also happens to have various parallels with Axis & Allies! Consider:
Ants are wired to make war and expand their domains. Here is a dictionary definition:
<<ant :=“” any=“” of=“” a=“” family=“” (formicidae)=“” colonial=“” hymenopterous=“” insects=“” with=“” complex=“” social=“” organization=“” and=“” various=“” castes=“” performing=“” special=“” duties.=“”>>The game Sim Ant gives you the opportunity to:
- select different units – worker, warrior, queen – that have different energy requirements (= ipc cost), offensive and defensive ratings, etc.
- your queen (=industrial center) churns out eggs (ipcs) that mature into new ant forces to deploy
- you must establish and maintain supply lines
- your attacks and counterattacks succeed better when you get more troops into the battle at the right moment than your opponent
- you must defend your nest while you seek out the enemy army’s nest
- key to defeating the enemy is locating their royal chamber (capital) and defeating the queen
- you can periodically establish new queens (industrial centers) and leverage your local success into broader strategic gains
- scattered across the map you must avoid such hazards as ant lion pits (neutral countries) and spiders (rogue states)
– you get to use savage weapons that range from crushing jaws to paralyzing acid sprays.
The ultimate winner in Sim Ant not only defeats the armies of his Formic rival – he gets to go interspecies and attempt to chase the humans out of the yard and out of their own house!
Anyway, it’s the bomb. First came out around 1991… anybody here ever play it?</ant>
-
RE: USSR newbie
@cystic:
this was regurgitated on another post.
my opinion is here:Eww. Regurgitated arguments. You know, maybe we evolved from ants – that’s how they keep their ground forces going: pass along the nutrition via regurgitation. I think this calls for a new thread under the “Other Games” forum, namely a discussion of the game that started the whole SIMS crop of interactive world-construction: Sim Ant. (see you at “Other Games”)
-
RE: What is the best way to stop germany?
@cystic:
The problem with 3 lines of defence (instead of only 2 say - a frontline and a line to recover the front) is that it thins out the troops. With half the troops there is a better chance that they would be wiped out in the first round or two with a concerted German attack, keeping casualties for the Germans lighter. With 2 lines the Germans would sustain much heavier losses initially as it is more likely to go to 3-4 rounds - thus making it easier for the clean-up line.
does this make any sense? Back me up here Ghoul.Yeah, Mr. Ghoul, explain to cystic crypt how big blobs in Belorussian and Ukraine are all SOV player needs to mop up the Axis invasion (hee hee).
What makes this game so interesting to me is that how a player directs movements of forces can tip the balance to one side or the other over the course of the game, and how the outcomes can change from one game to the next. A three-line defense can work better for some styles of play, but a Soviet player with a different style could do better with a two-line defense – against a German player of a certain style, but not against a German player who maneuvers his forces differently.
Also, it is interesting to compare what happens on the board to the actual history of the war. The German army didn’t suffer such heavy losses in its first campaigns across Russia. In fact it was the supply line problems – and trying to cover so much newly gained territory from counterattack – that undermined their huge gains. I think on the board the parallel would be that the Soviet player accepts Axis penetration to a “second line” or “corridor” and then as Mr. Sneppie says hits the German much harder with the extra forces from the third line.
It is two sides to the same coin. Which player is going to “waste” its forces on the attack – and open the way for the opponent to deal severe punishment in the counterstrike? I find the game is reasonably well balanced, so the outcome sometimes depends on the dicerolls of the last few units…
-
RE: Russian infantry and artillery
((cystic crypt: I’m not EVEN going to ask how you feel about Soviet buying naval units!!))
Well, getting back to the original question here, YES I think it would be smart to pepper your purchases of infantry with some artillery. If you don’t buy at least a few artillery, then you will blunt your own sword (ouch) by limiting the power of your counterattacking infantry.
If SOV buys nothing but infantry & artillery over the first 5 turns let’s say, that will put something like 30 unis onto the board. Used carefully, these can bog down the Axis. The grand outline that cystic crypt describes seems accurate – but there are times when Russia can act more aggressively, and there are times when UK & US air force will not supply as much for the Great Patriotic War effort. Sometimes the moves of the Axis player create different challenges for the Allies, and opportunities for the Soviet to attack.
Also, sometimes the dicerolls run a certain way, creating new vulnerabilities on the Axis fronts.
-
RE: What is the best way to stop germany?
Sneppie, I think the locals must call you Field Marshal Sneppie!! That sounds like a master strategy!
Of course, I’d like to punch a few holes through it. Maybe you would like to play as Soviet or Allies vs. me as Axis sometime…