Various interesting stuff

dumb website wrote:

http://www.returntoorder.org/2017/05/the-three-crucial-issues-at-the-pope-trump-meeting/

"The third thing the Pope and the President might agree on is the need to turn to God at this crucial period of history. All the efforts of men might appear great but they are nothing in the face of an almighty and infinitely benevolent God who desires the eternal salvation of sinful man.

How much good can be done if they would proclaim that the ultimate solutions to the world’s problems lie in getting it right with God, and then put action to their words. Again, this is an obvious conclusion since the complexity, gridlock and disproportion associated with the present crises far exceed the capacity of world leaders to resolve them.

Nor would such a declaration depart from tradition. From time immemorial, American presidents have called upon God to bless America. In this special Fatima year, it would be especially appropriate to do so again, formally, in such a privileged forum."

Yeah nah fuck you.

ThePhilosopher wrote:

dumb website wrote:

http://www.returntoorder.org/2017/05/the-three-crucial-issues-at-the-pope-trump-meeting/

"The third thing the Pope and the President might agree on is the need to turn to God at this crucial period of history. All the efforts of men might appear great but they are nothing in the face of an almighty and infinitely benevolent God who desires the eternal salvation of sinful man.

How much good can be done if they would proclaim that the ultimate solutions to the world’s problems lie in getting it right with God, and then put action to their words. Again, this is an obvious conclusion since the complexity, gridlock and disproportion associated with the present crises far exceed the capacity of world leaders to resolve them.

Nor would such a declaration depart from tradition. From time immemorial, American presidents have called upon God to bless America. In this special Fatima year, it would be especially appropriate to do so again, formally, in such a privileged forum."

Yeah nah fuck you.

*passes the lube*

I think the basic premise that anything meaningful can come out of a discussion with Trump is fundamentally flawed.

Dragatus wrote:

I think the basic premise that anything meaningful can come out of a discussion with Trump is fundamentally flawed.

Well, he is kind of... Special... But he build a bushiness empire, so he can't be as hopeless as the media paint him to be. He comes off as a Ventrue with Mental Flaw: Eccentric where I would have preferred a Lasombra a la Putin, but it is still better than Hillary. Ask the Haitians.

Pretty sure he inherited it rather than built it himself.

When Vegas banks don't trust you enough to offer a small loan open a casino. . .

He inherited a lot of money from his father and he supposedly is less wealthy than he would have been if he simply invested all that money into a fund and never touched it again. He allegedly made some good deals initially, but things turned around in the 90s. He reported a 916 million USD loss to the tax office in 1995. My point is that perhaps a young Donald Trump was someone you could have a meaningful discussion about politics with, but those times are gone.

I was also referring to how he doesn't actually lead his country. He has no idea what he's doing and he has a few advisors that he trusts and whose suggestions he follows when he isn't busy tweeting nonsense. And it's they who actually run the country for the most part. That's part of the reason why president Trump is so different from candidate Trump. Though it may also well be that candidate Trump simply had a different team of advisors than president Trump. Actually I know that's at least partially true, because Steve Bannon played a key role in the election campaign but who later lost much of his influence. For example he was removed from the National Security council shortly before the 59 missiles were launched at that Syrian air base.

What else is new? What bothers me is how quickly he changed his plans after getting into the office.

Also, would you think differently of him, if he was the media's favourite?

Probably to a degree, but not fundamentally.

Chaining the subject: http://historycollection.co/medieval-african-kingdoms

I'd be a bit suspicious of some of the numbers though. Like one province of Kongo's kingdom to be able to field 400K soldiers seems a bit much given how according to Wikipedia the kingdom at it's height is suspected to have had 500K people.

I only cursory perused the text during my lunch brake, but there are several errors indeed. 400k is a nonsense, Kongo was in fact very decentralized state based on royal marriages, which is why it's rulers never got baptized even despite a close alliance with Portugal. Dissmising 1000+ wives of a king ment de facto dismantling the state. Sofala is in Mozambique, not Kongo. Other side of the continent. Portugal traded with Kongo in slaves and ivory, not gold. It was conquered by private company owned by King Leopold of Belgium, not Portugal. Intermarriage was the trait that Portugese always did in the colonies and wherever they traded, ask Philo. Currying favors? More of Catholic missions and sailors/settlers marrying local women.

And that is for Kongo alone.

I sense a pattern there. Not worth reading then.

Feral wrote:

I only cursory perused the text during my lunch brake, but there are several errors indeed. 400k is a nonsense, Kongo was in fact very decentralized state based on royal marriages, which is why it's rulers never got baptized even despite a close alliance with Portugal. Dissmising 1000+ wives of a king ment de facto dismantling the state. Sofala is in Mozambique, not Kongo. Other side of the continent. Portugal traded with Kongo in slaves and ivory, not gold. It was conquered by private company owned by King Leopold of Belgium, not Portugal. Intermarriage was the trait that Portugese always did in the colonies and wherever they traded, ask Philo. Currying favors? More of Catholic missions and sailors/settlers marrying local women.

And that is for Kongo alone.

You're confusing Kongo and Congo.

The core of the kingdom of Kongo was actually in modern Angola. And I think I found the source of the claim that Sofala was part of Kongo. It appears to be a misreading of an unclear paragraph of The Kongo Nation and Kingdom by John Henrik Clarke.

"The rich gold mines at Sofala (now a port of Mozambique) attracted the Portuguese to the East Coast of Africa. They used intermarriage with the Africans as a means of gaining favor and pushing into the interior of Africa. In turn, the Africans gradually lost their anti-Christian hostilities and gave in to being converted to Christianity. And thus Christianity was introduced into the Kongo before 1491. The Mani Sogno was the first Kongo nobleman to embrace the Christian faith. The Moslems, coming into the Congo from the East Coast, prevailed upon the Africans to resist being converted to Christianity, telling them that Christianity was a subtle method used by the Portuguese to take over their country. This warning notwithstanding, Christianity continued to spread in the Kongo."

The paragraph doesn't actually say that Sofala was part of Kongo, but someone who hasn't looked at the map could easily get that impression from the way it's written.

Dragatus wrote:

Feral wrote:

I only cursory perused the text during my lunch brake, but there are several errors indeed. 400k is a nonsense, Kongo was in fact very decentralized state based on royal marriages, which is why it's rulers never got baptized even despite a close alliance with Portugal. Dissmising 1000+ wives of a king ment de facto dismantling the state. Sofala is in Mozambique, not Kongo. Other side of the continent. Portugal traded with Kongo in slaves and ivory, not gold. It was conquered by private company owned by King Leopold of Belgium, not Portugal. Intermarriage was the trait that Portugese always did in the colonies and wherever they traded, ask Philo. Currying favors? More of Catholic missions and sailors/settlers marrying local women.

And that is for Kongo alone.

You're confusing Kongo and Congo.

The core of the kingdom of Kongo was actually in modern Angola. And I think I found the source of the claim that Sofala was part of Kongo. It appears to be a misreading of an unclear paragraph of The Kongo Nation and Kingdom by John Henrik Clarke.

"The rich gold mines at Sofala (now a port of Mozambique) attracted the Portuguese to the East Coast of Africa. They used intermarriage with the Africans as a means of gaining favor and pushing into the interior of Africa. In turn, the Africans gradually lost their anti-Christian hostilities and gave in to being converted to Christianity. And thus Christianity was introduced into the Kongo before 1491. The Mani Sogno was the first Kongo nobleman to embrace the Christian faith. The Moslems, coming into the Congo from the East Coast, prevailed upon the Africans to resist being converted to Christianity, telling them that Christianity was a subtle method used by the Portuguese to take over their country. This warning notwithstanding, Christianity continued to spread in the Kongo."

The paragraph doesn't actually say that Sofala was part of Kongo, but someone who hasn't looked at the map could easily get that impression from the way it's written.

I have to look more into it. The one on Kongo was one I read while sipping blood of the virgin students tea, so I may need to reread it.

As for a secondary note, I rolled a new character in VtMB. A Tremere. I was so moved, It reminded me of the times I was a teen.

Having to reread something because you were sipping tea while reading it? Something's fishy

ThePhilosopher wrote:

Having to reread something because you were sipping tea while reading it? Something's fishy

Not at all, it was an honest concoction of hot water extracted tea leaves.

I was reading it at work during my lunch break. I had no chance to concentrate (pesky students, drying samples and all that) and might have mixed some African countries like Draggy suggests.

ThePhilosopher wrote:

Feral wrote:

extracted tea leaves

Nah, not those. We had a governmental permission to grow those for research in canabidiol (painkiller, not one to make you giddy), but the student in charge of a project never thought about the tiny fact that plants need to be watered. When we found out, it was too late...

Besides, why autocorrect corrects canabidiol to Canadian? I see no connection?

Many of the letters are shared between the two words.

Also this: https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/this-german-metal-festival-is-building-a-massive-beer-pipeline

A beer pipeline . . . that's a lot of really cheap beer with no variety.

malak wrote:

A beer pipeline . . . that's a lot of really cheap beer with no variety.

I think the beer there would still obey the German beer purity laws, no?

Dragatus wrote:

Many of the letters are shared between the two words.

He Dragatused it again.

ThePhilosopher wrote:

malak wrote:

A beer pipeline . . . that's a lot of really cheap beer with no variety.

I think the beer there would still obey the German beer purity laws, no?

At this volume, I wouldn't get my hopes up.

Jad.3 wrote:

Dragatus wrote:

Many of the letters are shared between the two words.

He Dragatused it again.

ThePhilosopher wrote:

malak wrote:

A beer pipeline . . . that's a lot of really cheap beer with no variety.

I think the beer there would still obey the German beer purity laws, no?

At this volume, I wouldn't get my hopes up.

At this volume, I would actually put my hops down.

http://badum-tish.com

Now this got me thinking:

Our software apparently isn't optimized for calculations.