Spring RTS Engine

@Gota

Oh, going for the "anti-semitism" barb, eh?

I'll admit that Israel faces harder scrutiny than it's neighbours, and this is somewhat unfair... but Gota, westerners don't come down hard on Israel because they hate Jews. Westerners come down hard on Israel because it's a culturally European colonialist nation. Yes, there were a lot of Jews there before Zionism, but the Zionist movement Europeanized Israel's Jewish culture.

I mean look at it, it's a democratic nation full of generally-white folks who speak English well, ruling over an underclass of brown people.

Israel's PR problem doesn't come from antisemitism, it comes from high standards because the Western world sees Israel as "one of us", and so we treat it the same as we would if France, Sweden, South Africa, the USA, or whoever did the same things.

There may be racism there, but it's not the kind of racism that Israelis like to say it is.

I think your confused.
Probably because your just unaware of pure facts.
Here are just a few:

1)There were around 800,000 jews living in arab countries.
After Israel's establishment they were all forced to leave, where were people like you, with such enlightened opinions back than?

2)Arabs living in Israel are not ruled over, they have full rights.

3)as to the land thing, Israeli arabs constantly abuse Israeli law by building private houses illegally(not tall multi story buildings but cottages) on unbought land and than running to human rights agencies when their illegal houses are destroyed by court order(this is while jewish Israelis need to work their ass off just to buy an apartment in a multi story building)

4)Arabs living in the territories are under martial law and the land is no mans land since they themselves refused the UN offer of a country(and than several times since then).

5)Israel started to border the territories and placing roadblocks only after the first intifada(mass riots in the territories) and more and more after that as Palestinian attempts to hurt Israeli civilians increased.
Before the first intifada the territory was very loosly controlled by Israel.

6)where were people like yourself when jordan ruled the territories with an "iron fist" before Israel took them over?

6)Why do people like you support the notion of moving jewish population out of their houses while moving palestinians is not allowed?
Why do people like you allow themselves to support leaders like current pal leader that say that all jews must be banished from the territories(almost half a million people would be forcibly removed out of their houses) and will not be granted Palestinian citizenship when and if a Palestinian country is established?

7)you don't mind supporting ethnic cleansing done to jews like it was done in the gaza strip and supporting Pal leaders that call for more ethnic cleansing but you blame Israeli leaders if they mention exchanging populations or if they oppose ideas of more ethnic cleansing of jews out of the territories..
can jews be moved and pals shouldn't give jews living in the territories citizenship but arabs must be respected and allowed to move population inside Israel?

Gota wrote:
As an Israeli "f*ck you".
First of all how the hell do you know that assassination was done by Israel?

im sorry, let's think about this. its not like mossad has the biggest track record of killing people everywhere (norway, germany, all arab countries) that goes almost on par with the cia, secondly someone might vaguely remember a couple of airstrikes in 80's to "halt" the iran nuclear programme. Thirdly you've captured and imprisoned your own researchers for saying out loud that you have a nuclear program. Basically you have the motives, a great track record and the capability for it

#2 Israel is not obliged by any law to allow any passage of goods into gaza from its borders.

or any other common international treaties out there (like use of white phosphorous as a weapon)

But of course your biased, as usual might i add

Yeah, we tend to have these convoes like atleast twice a year


Also why not comment on my trade idea? ;( IE

Maybe they should do a trade of sorts, israel turns over its nukes , stops its own r&d and stops the creation of gaza concentration camp.

in turn iran turns off its own centrifuges, r&d, and recalls its insurgents from iraq/'ganistan . fair deal eh?

LOL! Funny how you get, when we get to your nation's behavior, Gota.

Your statements are either very ignorant or very naive; everybody who isn't an idiot knows that your country has been contemplating a strike on Iran, including discussions of using nuclear weapons. Your air force did a full-scale dress rehearsal for it last year, I presume to demonstrate to the Iranians that your country has the capability to do it alone, even if the U.S. refused to take part.

This isn't new news, just like most of the stuff in the leaks.

If you really don't think that's going on, then you obviously need to watch less American TV shows and spend more time learning about how the world works, especially the real behavior of your own government.

It doesn't matter if the Mossad was responsible for the assassinations, anyhow. I doubt if it will prevent Iran from getting the Bomb, because it's quite clear that we aren't willing to do it, and the Isrealis are unwilling to do it without the tacit permission of their allies. This changes nothing, except for maybe the timing.

Oh, and Slekska, I know it's amusing to be living in one of the few nations that are too small and strategically unimportant to be a part of geopolitics, beyond doing minor stuff like trying to sell stealthy warships to various parties and developing AFV technology for the Russians, but if there's anything I've gotten from reading the cables and the summaries, it's that everybody's going to be touched by this.

I mean, we haven't seen nearly all of it- about 1/1000th- and we know that Finland considered taking Guantanamo prisoners off our hands, and only balked when the Chinese said that that might hurt relations, because the Chinese would like to have those folks to make very public examples of

people that say, it is a complete nonsensical thing to even think about if US might be involved in Irak, Afghanistan and so on because of oil and drugs.

These are pretty good reasons by themselves.

Without the oil, we're going to see world food stocks fall and prices rise, which would be lowering everybody's standard of living and causing massive unrest in places like India and China, but it effects everybody everywhere.

Try to think outside the silly stereotype of Americans and their gas-guzzling SUVs, please. A very large fraction of all of the oil we import is used to grow crops that feed the world, unlike, say, Germany, which is a net food importer.

Oil is being turned into food, people. Without oil, we can't grow enough crops to feed the rest of the world. Without food, the world descends into various flavors of chaos. It's a very bad situation.

I'm rather surprised that most people don't understand the basics of how the world economy works, or just why the U.S. is so sensitive about this issue. We have enough domestic production of oil to feed ourselves and keep our cars running, but not enough to do that and to grow food for the rest of the world and be an industrial powerhouse. It's not that complicated.

it is hard to believe that anyone would not know any people that do not still trust eg. the US (officials) to be "the good". then again, i may just be biased by living in an exceptionally stupid environment.

The governments of Europe are up to their necks in this stuff, as the l'affair Karachi demonstrates, not to mention Merkel's proposed sale of submarines to Pakistan (gee, that's what Pakistan needs- submarines that are nearly impossible to intercept that can be used as nuclear weapons platforms... gj German gov't).

Of course, after the flood, the Pakistanis were, at last report, forced by poverty to instead consider Chinese subs, which aren't as stealthy but are still effective enough to give us the ultimate nightmare; a state that is very unstable with military officers whose political loyalties aren't certain, in control of a stealthy weapons system that may or may not have a nuke on board, and all because they're afraid the Indians will gobble them up

Basically, if you think that America is the sole problem, wake up. The more I've read about this, the more I think it's a good thing, in the end. Perhaps this will end a lot of the hypocritical nonsense for awhile, and force the world to deal with some unpleasant realities.

Argh wrote: Oh, and Slekska, I know it's amusing to be living in one of the few nations that are too small and strategically unimportant to be a part of geopolitics

Yeah its a shame that were not making headlines warring around half of the world killing evil commies and ragheads, or forgetting any international treaties about treating prisoners of war (guantanamo, abu ghraib). But hey, youre doing a great job!

beyond doing minor stuff like trying to sell stealthy warships to various parties and developing AFV technology for the Russians,

You might want to recheck that as we do not have stealthy warships at all , we do make some nice cruise ships tho!

And the afv tech we have (xa series whose earlier models i've driven) is sold pretty much to countries like poland and baltic countries (the patria scandal in lithuania)

This might come as a surprise to you, but russia is one of the biggest arms manufacturers on earth, so you'd think they have the capability to produce their own ifv and amv's (bmp, btr series, which we've imported), instead of buying overpriced foreign vehicles when they have tens of thousands of the same type rusting away in warehouses

I mean, we haven't seen nearly all of it- about 1/1000th- and we know that Finland considered taking Guantanamo prisoners off our hands, and only balked when the Chinese said that that might hurt relations, because the Chinese would like to have those folks to make very public examples of

I dont really understand the point of this , are you saying that we are somehow evil for trying to accept abused and tortured prisoners off us hands, or that we are evil because doing that would harm our relations with a major trading partner?

And iirc it was the us that approached us (just like you wanted to trade a presidential visit to a baltic country in exchange that they take a few guantanamo prisoners)

Basically, if you think that America is the sole problem, wake up. The more I've read about this, the more I think it's a good thing, in the end. Perhaps this will end a lot of the hypocritical nonsense for awhile, and force the world to deal some unpleasant realities.

Yeah, the guy who's leaked these AND the afghanistan war docs said he wanted a global anarchy or some shit. If it werent for this latest "leak" people wouldnt even remember the first ones (afghanistan, reuters reporters, cant remember the others)

the biggest "damage" i can see this do is red cheecks on us diplomats for a couple of months, and maybe a few apologies. After that its back to your scheduled program of big brother and football

i was talking about (maybe) ying is not "the good", and your brains convert that to (maybe) yang is "the good".
not surprising, but there is some logical flaw there... try to catch it!

first wanted to use A and B instead of ying and yang, but i though that would be to hard.
awww, you know what? i even add color! having my charity day today!

you're welcome!

i was talking about (maybe) ying is not "the good", and your brains convert that to (maybe) yang is "the good".

Honestly, I wasn't quite sure where you were going with that- it wasn't very clearly written. Anyhow, I apologize for misinterpreting your statement.

Yeah its a shame that were not making headlines warring around half of the world killing evil commies and ragheads, or forgetting any international treaties about treating prisoners of war (guantanamo, abu ghraib). But hey, youre doing a great job!

I agree entirely with your statements.

I've never been happy with Guantanamo; I think that if we've caught people and we're sure that they're terrorists, we should just hold Nuremberg-style hearings in public and then shoot them, and if we're not sure, then we should let them go and hope for the best.

And I certainly do not approve of Abu Ghraib, 'extraordinary rendition', and the other nasty things we've done in the name of the War on Terrorism.

They're dishonorable actions, and my country's been tarnished by them, just as we were tarnished by similar behaviors during the Vietnam War. Like the Phoenix Project, whatever good they've supposedly done has been largely nullified by how many new recruits they've created for the enemy and how much damage it's done to our reputation, frankly, and there are probably better ways to handle the complex territorial justice system issues involved.

Anyhow, confusing the mistakes of the government with my opinion is understandable, but wrong.

You might want to recheck that as we do not have stealthy warships at all

You are quite correct; I mis-remembered the article I read awhile ago. That's Norway, not Finland. Got my Scandinavian nations screwed up. My apologies.

I dont really understand the point of this , are you saying that we are somehow evil for trying to accept abused and tortured prisoners off us hands, or that we are evil because doing that would harm our relations with a major trading partner?

That is a fair point, from a certain point of view.

But at least understand where our government's coming from.

The Obama Administration didn't make this mess. Asking for the prisoners to be transferred to somewhere else in exchange for money and a better relationship isn't an entirely unreasonable idea for fixing the issue, from the standpoint of the political problems it's causing (even if it does nothing for the prisoners who may have been denied their liberty on weak evidence); if nothing else, it shows that the Obama administration was quite serious about shutting down Guantanamo.

However, we're stuck. Nobody will take the prisoners, or they will, but it's political suicide to hand them over to the nations that have said yes, because they're either going to release them within a week (Yemen) or will probably torture them into "confessing", then shoot them.

I certainly agree that this is a mess of our own making, and that Guantanamo was a major mistake, but it's not unreasonable to ask for some help in solving it from countries that are at least nominal allies. I guess you'd prefer that we just kept them jailed indefinitely, even if they weren't major parts of terrorist cells, to avoid having to make hard choices

Yeah, the guy who's leaked these AND the afghanistan war docs said he wanted a global anarchy or some shit. If it werent for this latest "leak" people wouldnt even remember the first ones (afghanistan, reuters reporters, cant remember the others)

the biggest "damage" i can see this do is red cheecks on us diplomats for a couple of months, and maybe a few apologies. After that its back to your scheduled program of big brother and football

I'm not sure I agree with any of that.

First off, the leaks show that 'big brother' is mainly doing what it's said it's doing- keeping a lid on various messes, trying to avoid conflicts, and dealing with a lot of unpleasant stuff nobody else wants to handle. This isn't really news, nor is it particularily shocking, unless you honestly think that the world would be better if nobody stopped various places from blowing each other away.

If I'm grumpy about anything, it's that we're not doing a better job, and that we've allowed our economy to become so weak that various terrible wars may break out during my lifetime, as various parties decide that we're too weak to stop them from settling various scores.

But perhaps you're right. Perhaps we should just tell the Isrealis to do whatever they feel like, and that whether they nuke the Iranians and shoot the Gazans in job lots to solve their problems, it's none of our affair. Then we can tell the Indians and Pakistanis that we don't care who controls the region, and if India thinks it can run Pakistan better than the Pakistanis, they should feel free to invade them.

It doesn't matter what part of the planet we go to, frankly- there are all sorts of animosities and feuds that are largely held in check because of 'big brother'.

Or you can watch the Russians take your country over again. After all, the only reason why they stopped rolling over Georgia is because we said, very plainly, "stop". As you've pointed out, they still have more than enough military to roll over most of Europe, if they weren't worried about the consequences. And while they're certainly a lot less threatening than they were at the height of the Cold War, that doesn't mean they're a happy, prosperous democracy. They're a country where people talking as frankly as I've done here 'disappear' or have 'terrible accidents'.

You seem to live in a world where this stuff isn't happening, or imagine that all would be well if we left everybody alone. I wish it was that simple, but it's not.

Moreover, there will probably be a lot of changes caused by the data revealed. The idea that it'll just be "business as usual", like our State Department started to say in today's news (which I found fascinating- it's like they read what I said) is rather naive.

In the Middle East, for example, a lot of the usual humbug, which we knew was humbug, was laid bare in a way that the people of the region cannot simply ignore. If nothing else, it may change the relationships between the regimes and their citizens- hopefully in a positive way, but who knows, perhaps there will be riots in the streets as further information becomes public.

Al Jazeera's being rather supportive about the information leaked, in fact- I'm a bit worried that its main offices will get shut down, because of the tone of its commentaries. That would be tragic; even as silly as it sometimes is, it's the least-biased publication in the region, and it's popular enough that it makes a real difference.

And of course, there's that pretty bald quid pro quo about North Korea; that will certainly factor into everybody's thinking from now on, and I for one was pretty happy to see that the Chinese have moved so far on this issue, and would welcome any peaceful solution and an end to that tyranny.

And gosh, that's just a tiny sliver of the documents, which will cause ripples and changes.

I suspect that by the time it's over, it'll be a pretty big deal, and not an unhealthy thing. We're likely to be embarrassed, but I think that transparency is probably a good thing for the world at this juncture.

i'll just leave this here.

Aw, jackals need lovin's too, why be hatin'?

@ ARGH: Now that makes perfect sense, we ship oil around the globe, drive it through powerplants to make fertilizer and use a little part of it for the machines and grow food. Food we ship back to starving countrys (which starve because they cant afford oil)

Do you know that your food for the starving is seen as a big, hidden (oh noes, but hey its not that socialistic if its US&A) Subsidy - and that many of those country could be selfsupplying if they were not regularly flooded with underpriced goods?

Germany is a net importer, because we make a lot of machinery vs natural goods trades - and no we usually try to avoid american food, because most of it is genetically altered, and you have to print that on the package in the european union (which nobody would buy)

Also Israel and Iran have both there hands dirty, and had that before (read up on the bureaucracy in the territorys GOTA, most people dont rage without a reason) But still, Israel is a democratic country and has a supreme court, and if it can avoid a civilwar (Secular vs Jeschiwotniks/ Apartheid Realpolitics vs demagogues) it could be a lighthouse of the middle east. There is just no cheap excuse that in israel even the rocks grow flowers, while in arab countrys only the demographics and extremism grow.

Im a firestarter, twisted firestarter, way to late in this.
Were there is fire, there is heat, the heart is were the heat is, so the fire is the boiler of the spring comunity, we should sit around in this cold winter.

Why is Britain in the bottom left?

falkland islands

*

Argh wrote:
I've never been happy with Guantanamo; I think that if we've caught people and we're sure that they're terrorists, we should just hold Nuremberg-style hearings in public and then shoot them, and if we're not sure, then we should let them go and hope for the best.

The easiest way for us to stop terrorist attacks against us would be to stop dicking around in the area.

What comes to countries like north korea and iran it's very easy to say "NUKE EM AND BE DONE WITH IT". But you have to realize that a average north korean or irani person is just as evil as a citizen of any other country. The optimal reaction/result for such places and countries would be 1800's 1900's style rebellion, and you cant help that cause by constant threats and military/economical/political pressure. it just helps those in power.

What comes to real terrorists, ie people who purposefully kill civilian populace and destroy infrastructure, the russian method has proven to produce results. But to keep people who are possibly maybe somehow related to a possible terrorist group plotting a possible terrorist attack is in pretty shaky legal ground.

I certainly agree that this is a mess of our own making, and that Guantanamo was a major mistake, but it's not unreasonable to ask for some help in solving it from countries that are at least nominal allies. I guess you'd prefer that we just kept them jailed indefinitely, even if they weren't major parts of terrorist cells, to avoid having to make hard choices

Or use the standard legal procedure of accusing them -> aquitting(not sure if proper term) or prosecuting them -> paying them and offering them a chance to stay or find political asylum somewhere else.

Trying to sweep them under the rug by spreading them in a hushed manner to allies seems hardly decent

First off, the leaks show that 'big brother' is mainly doing what it's said it's doing- keeping a lid on various messes, trying to avoid conflicts, and dealing with a lot of unpleasant stuff nobody else wants to handle. This isn't really news, nor is it particularily shocking, unless you honestly think that the world would be better if nobody stopped various places from blowing each other away.

agreed

But perhaps you're right. Perhaps we should just tell the Isrealis to do whatever they feel like, and that whether they nuke the Iranians and shoot the Gazans in job lots to solve their problems, it's none of our affair. Then we can tell the Indians and Pakistanis that we don't care who controls the region, and if India thinks it can run Pakistan better than the Pakistanis, they should feel free to invade them.

I think this could fall into the US "delusion of grandeur" , while the US is a superpower and has hands in many things, the current political map of the world is hardly kept on by US alone.

Or you can watch the Russians take your country over again.

Quick (nationalistic) course in history!

Finland was taken by russians from the swedes in 1800's , after that we declared independace with the approvement by lenin and fought ~6 conflicts against the russians, during the bloodiest of them (continuation war)Finland was forced to ally with the nazi germany to secure material aid to combat the ussr, because the US was too busy supplying the soviet union with weapons and vehicles to be used against the finns(iirc we recieved ~5000 thompsons, some rifles and artillery ammo as loot of war). Finland ultimately lost ww2, conceded some territory and money, but was (and has never been since the declaration of independance) never occupied, unlike how you assumed. If anything, the current situation in finland is not "because" of US , but rather "despite"

After all, the only reason why they stopped rolling over Georgia is because we said, very plainly, "stop".

The reason why the conflict started in the first place was because of US supplying and training the georgian military so that they'd be able to regain control of south ossetia. You might remember that for the first 1-2 weeks the russians were accused of starting the conflict, and it was mainly the effort of european politicians (sarkozy got some publicity in this, along with the finnish stubb) that the conflict didnt escalate.

As you've pointed out, they still have more than enough military to roll over most of Europe

The russian military in its current state is in no position to roll over anything. That is the prime reason why putin/medevev are pumping oil money to the army like no tomorrow

You seem to live in a world where this stuff isn't happening. . .

Moreover, there will probably be a lot of changes caused by the data revealed. The idea that it'll just be "business as usual", like our State Department started to say in today's news (which I found fascinating- it's like they read what I said) is rather naive.

"this stuff" has been revealed time and time again, and the common trend seems to be that the news make stories about the "GREAT REVELATIONS" for a couple of weeks and then change back to the more fresh and juicy stuff

Remember the NK shelling of South korean island a few days ago? the press loves to make these things look bigger than they are, because it gives them the most profit. Actual factuality or the value of information is of no matter to the media.


Basically my point is that this "cablegate" had good goals and intentions, but that does not justify the means (espionage, possible hacking).




* long posts are long and filled with random rants. everything said here is mere opinion and only a fool would take any of this as a cold hard fact

interesting co-incidence... just now on the news they said that wikileaks was experiencing DDoS attacks today. wonder who it was?

KaiserJ wrote:falkland islands

O

Argh about your comment that Israel wants to stop Iran's nuclear program..
Yes thats obvious but as this leak shows so do most other countries in the middle east and beyond it.
Perhaps if your accused of a crime in the future we can just lock you up right away without a trial cause you happened to be in the crime's vicinity.
Obviously if some newspaper article makes an assumption it must be true right?...

Sleksa wrote:regarding the iran's nuclear program there's no need to hurry since the israelis are already doing what they do best

Makes me wonder if stuxnet was just a prototype, and the long term plan is to cause reactor meltdown or other containment breach...

wikileaks is crap. we know since a long time that putin is alpha male and berlusconi is dumb noob... everyone know that ! meh boring.

Only 291 of the 251k documents are released and already youre declaring the 250k unreleased documents based on the content of barely 0.001% of the total material? Most enws reports arent even based on the wikileaks material theyre based on teasers released beforehand to make news agencies wait and report when they finally did release documents