English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

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Mitch

19:29

Why can't we all just get along...over eating cake?

I think the point is that the cake in Crimea is to die for.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt: I just listened to the latest Dan Carlin podcast, entitled Poking The Bear, which deals with Ukraine and the U.S. policy toward Russia. I thought it was interesting. If you have time, I'd like to hear your take on it.

Mitch

@JasperLoy That always confuses me...I keep thinking that that's the name of the movie Avatar. Or that movie with Nathalie Portman and the clockworks and gadgets.

Robusto

One of the things he says is that we (America) are taking stupid positions that are damaging to our own interests we (the citizenry) don't even know what those positions are. Hmm, it's almost as if we were living in a totalitarian state which promotes policies that are contrary to our express wishes and then lies to us about it, or simply conceals the truth.

And by "almost as if" I mean "definitely is like that."

Cerberus

@Mitch It generally the Crimea.

@Robusto Such as?

Robusto

@Cerb: Did you see I got OVER 9000 in threes?

Cerberus

19:42

And is it any different that the positions of, say, England or France?

@Robusto Congrats!! You win too.

That means you got at least 3000 threes...

Robusto

@Cerberus Such as covertly plotting to promote regime change in Ukraine.

Cerberus

You mean against Yanukovich?

Was that covert?

And was it against the wishes of the Western citizenry?

Robusto

It was until it got leaked.

Cerberus

So far as I know, we've always supported the opposition against Yanukovich, both in 2004 and now.

Or do you mean certain specific, drastic actions of which I am ignorant?

Robusto

@Cerberus Well, I certainly didn't know about it. And the attitude of the media here ranges from laissez-faire to "We need to sweep bad guys from power." Which (as Carlin says) is an OK position to take if the citizenry know about it and approve of it, but quite something else if we don't.

But the more important issue he's talking about is that we are needlessly antagonizing Russia, and that we do so at our peril. Almost nobody is talking about that aspect of it over here, certainly not in the mainstream media. It is quite simply not an issue.

Cerberus

19:49

I suppose you depend on Russian gas less.

But I don't think antagonising Russia is bad.

Robusto

I'm pretty sure it's not that simple.

But even if it were, at least it would make some kind of sense. What we're doing now makes no sense at all.

Cerberus

How do you mean?

I would probably do the same thing we're doing now?

Support the EU-oriented new government, but try not to get too involved.

Robusto

I mean we're looking at pushing the world back into the Cold War.

democracynow.org/2014/2/20/a_new_cold_war_ukraine_violence

Mitch

@Cerberus I always want to say 'the Ukraine' but the news says 'Ukraine'.

Cerberus

Heh.

Well, the area is the Ukraine, but the country is Ukraine...

Mitch

19:54

Well, it's over in that area.

Cerberus

@Robusto The EU is quite cosy with Russia.

Notably Germany.

Mitch

Get a room.

Goddamn you all. You made me play threes.

again.

and again.

Cerberus

Hah!

How is your score doing?

Mitch

Hah! 57!

It's hard.

Cerberus

Very good. Keep practising.

Robusto

20:00

@Cerberus Watch the video. It's not as cosy as you think.

Mitch

@Cerberus What? I have to read more. I thought it was the Ukraine. Or am I just not reading at all and just watching pretty colors?

Cerberus

Why do expert cryptographers have such odd names? Moxie Marlinspike, Irippuge Milinda Perera.

Robusto

►

Cerberus

Yeah we've all heard her.

It's no big deal.

Robusto

20:25

I'm not talking about saying "Fuck the EU." I'm talking about a leaked tape of a conspiracy to bring about regime change in Ukraine, a plot to depose the legally elected (and thoroughly corrupt shitbag) president. The point that Stephen Cohen makes in that other video, which you probably won't view, is that if this is U.S. policy then we should own up to it. If not we should back away. I mean, WTF, do we imagine we are playing the Great Game that ultimately led to the First World War?

I mean, are we a nation of laws or aren't we? Those words either mean something or they don't. And if they don't, then we're all pretty much fucked right now.

Cerberus

@Robusto I will watch the other video later. But what's so new about this one? This is just regular diplomacy? Exactly as one might imagine it is handled?

Robusto

@Cerberus I would substitute fear for imagine in that sentence.

Cerberus

But why?

The choice is between not getting involved at all on the one hand, and supporting the pro-European factions on the other.

Both choices are defensible, I'd say.

Robusto

You don't remember the Cold War, I'm thinking.

Cerberus

That's a fallacy.

Robusto

20:38

That's a shotgun response. What is a fallacy?

Cerberus

Look, there was a huge campaign going on in favour of boycotting the Russian Olympics here. Lots of protests, the public opinion hates Putin and his anti-gay laws and his whole corrupt mafia clan. Most countries did not send anyone important to the Games. And whom do you think our government sent? The PM, the King, and the Queen. All for business, supposedly.

@Robusto That.

Robusto

I need more.

Cerberus

It's just an example of cosiness.

Robusto

I just realized you have no idea what I'm talking about. We can talk later after you've watched the video.

Cerberus

Former German Bundeskanzler Schröder is supposedly a friend of Putin's, he works for Gazprom now, I think, or maybe Rosneft.

I'm just explaining how the EU establishment is not so anti-Russian as it might appear in public. Maybe that wasn't what you were talking about.

Robusto

20:43

No, it isn't.

Cerberus

> As Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder was a strong advocate of the Nord Stream pipeline project, which aims to supply Russian gas directly to Germany, thereby bypassing transit countries [notably Ukraine! Russia loves Nordstream, while it opens up Ukraine to Russian blackmail about gas prices].
The agreement to build the pipeline was signed two weeks before the German parliamentary election. On 24 October 2005, just a few weeks before Schröder stepped down as Chancellor, the German government guaranteed to cover 1 billion euros of the Nord Stream project cost, should Gazprom default on a loan. …

Stack Exchange

20:58

Limerick Machine: There wasn’t much she could do She’s tried tape, putty and glue It still fell...

posted on March 01, 2014 by sgdi

There wasn’t much she could do She’s tried tape, putty and glue It still fell apart Perhaps it was art She decided she’d start something new

MετάEd

21:18

There was a young lady from Norway / Who hung by her heels in a doorway. / She told her young man, / "Get off the divan, / I think I've discovered one more way".

Spam at: english.stackexchange.com/questions/80987/canadian-spelling-why/…

And at: english.stackexchange.com/questions/80987/canadian-spelling-why/…

Cerberus

21:48

@MετάEd If you flag the first one and vote to delete it, we can get rid of it now.

Second one is already gone.

tchrist

Sudetenland

I call dibs on British Columbia.

Cerberus

You know what happened in Georgia...

They could have easily run them over.

But you know what a huge pain in the derrière that part of the Caucasus already is that is part of Russia...

tchrist

There’s nothing to be done.

Or at least, nothing that will be done.

That’s a given.

Or a gimme.

Same thing.

Cerberus

22:03

It seems likely at this point that the Crimea will become a vassal state of Russia.

Just like South-Ossetia.

The majority even seem to desire this, they are ethnic Russians.

Of course the same applied to Sudetenland.

tchrist

You know, Texas has a lot of ethnic Mexicans, too.

Cerberus

Well, what if they majority wanted to join Mexico?

If the majority of, say, Brabant wanted to join Belgium, I'd say, let them.

tchrist

There is no contingency for that in the Constitution. To the contrary, in fact.

Cerberus

Then it should be amended, perhaps.

tchrist

If they like Mexico so much, they can go back there.

Same with the Russians in Crimea, eh?

Otherwise it’s as idiotic as Israeli settlements in Palestinian lands.

Cerberus

22:21

Well, invaders should not be counted as voters, no.

So that is the problem: if you send people some place in a hostile way in order to colonise another country, that shouldn't count.

The question is, did Russia do that? I don't think so.

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