World Cup!

Mallery, I was suggesting that Indian innovation is superior to that of Chinas, not that it is superior to the US.

The US may have some old ghost towns, but they don’t build brand new cities on credit for a 1/4 of million people that are never inhabited.  Or the worlds largest shopping mall that is 99% unleased.  Only a centrally planned corrupt government can pull this off.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/chinese-hackers-breach-key-u-weapons-designs-133849940.html

@Jermofoot:

@Gamerman01:

Oh, and the umpiring left something to be desired.  Nothing egregious, but as a whole it seemed to heavily favor the Cards.

That blown tag at first was a terrible call in game 3. That call would not have been blown had one of the top storied teams been in the series.

I’ve always thought MLB was backwards in its thinking about instant replay. Had a guy the other day defend MLB by saying it would lengthen the games. I replied, have you watched a baseball game, it has plenty of time. Give each team a certain amount of replays for fielding calls, one replay would work for me, just something. Don’t think you can touch pitching calls.

I knew this was going to be Monty Python, but figured it would be from “And Now for Something Completely Different”.

@frimmel:

I think that your are incorrect on the schedule regarding length of playoff series.  :| The schedule is made assuming all playoff series go the distance isn’t it?

I’m not sure, and couldn’t find anything detailing it.  But from what I’ve seen the World Series schedule didn’t get released until after the divisions finished.  Check this link for an example:

http://ballhype.com/story/mlb_world_series_schedule_released/

@M36:

Speaking of Korea though, it is true that South Korea is an immensely prosperous nation, while North Korea languishes in poverty. South Korea became “Americanized” and now places that where once rice patties and dusty mountain roads are prosperous metropolises. ( I know this because my sister is serving in Korea with the Army engineers) Without our intervention, South Korea would have been conquered, and would be no better off than North Korea is under the heel of communism. The Korean conflict was one of our more noble military ventures.

Sure, military means money.  S. Vietnam had a huge jump in economy when we were there that mostly collapsed after we left.  It would happen no matter where we go.

However, the state of Korea today has less to do with them being dirty communists, and more with the disintegration of the USSR and a horrible famine during the 90’s.  They simply could not support themselves because their primary trading partner disappeared and was unable to supply what they needed, only to be subjected to a series of disastrous floods and drought.  Of course, it’s not helped by their military-oriented economic policy, but we do similar and still sustain ourselves (but we’ve got the goods).

But we took a number of casualties in Korea, was it worth that sacrifice of American lives? As a Marine I believe we are all expendable to accomplish our mission, but the call is yours. How many of us will you sacrifice to accomplish the objective? You should be willing to sacrifice all of us. That kind of resolve no longer exists in America.

Tough to say.  As an elite group of fighters, I wouldn’t send Marines in frivolously.  When it comes to Korea, we are exactly where we were after WW2 (except no skirmishes and such).  So did it do any good?  I guess so, primarily economically.  Are your lives worth promoting the economy of another country?  Are anyone’s?  Especially when that country actually competes with our own?

But here’s the thing: we installed an unpopular dictator in S. Korea that resigned.  A military coup followed that was just was tyrannical and ruthless.  It really goes unnoticed because the economy surged and we “saved” them from communism.  But I don’t think we accomplished all that much.

I’m not sure when or where you guys should be deployed.  Hopefully never, but that’s a pipe dream.

I hope I am not the only one here going to the WBC this year. The week long gaming convention features literally hundreds of incredibly fun boardgames. Axis and Allies is among the largest game played there, with scores of players participating in a 6 game swiss match.

The WBC lasts from Tuesday, July 29 to Sunday, August 3. The Axis and Allies matches are played throughout Wedsday and Thursday. Its a blast, and I highly encourage anyone who is free that week head down.

The convention is held outside of Baltimore, Maryland, at the Hunt valley Inn. information about signing up and joining can be found at:

http://www.boardgamers.org/index.htm#wbc

If your going, reply here. I’d love to get a game going between site members.

@TG:

Yeah, those “hard” deadlines for one. cough cough

OK, I was saying a “US-style” “hard” deadline, rather than the “UN-style” “you’ve got 15 days…ok 60 days…ok 1 year…ok 12 years” “hard” deadline. Ya got me :roll: …

Re: “survival of the fittest” I meant DasEwokSS’s suggestion that its ok for powerful nations to swallow weaker ones because that’s somehow the natural order of things. May work for Ewoks, not for humans. I assume he was being tongue-in-cheek…

Ozone27