Puts me to sleep.

hi

@Nemets I've read that book about Portugal too. How did the Iberians become so dominant and the become such a pathetic backwater? After 1643 they seemed to just collapse. From then on they were a second class power. By the time we fought them they were almost third-world tier.

@american_frankenstein Hi back at you Frankie. What's your story. I see you're in California. I lived there from 1989 to 2016. I saw the self-destruction first hand.

@Nemets Have you ever read "The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road?" Amazing stuff. All the nuts and bolts of Spanish dominance. Another good one is Fernand Braudel's "he Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II." It's another very good nuts and bolts explanation of how things worked in the 16th century. Ferdinand and Isabella created the Spanish Empire by defeating the French time and time again. They were so powerful after that that the rest of Europe used to accuse them of trying to establish a "Universal Monarchy." My wife's Okie father used to talk all the time about the "blood thirsty Spaniards." He had a Spanish wife, so he was always ribbing her about that. It might have been because she tried to stab him with a butcher-knife shortly after they were married. (He took it away from her after minimum bloodshed) When I knew them, they were nice people. She was from Andalusia, and he was from Oklahoma. They met in San Francisco during "the war." The mother liked me because i worked for the newspapers, and according to her that meant that I knew all the inside stories about what really goes on. She was a real pistol. The Dad was like Clint Eastwood.

@OMGDwayne well, *do* you know the inside stories about what really goes on??

Maybe she was on to something

having talked to people who edit the news... it doesn't seem so exciting

@Nemets Oh yeah, the Spanish at the height of their power were totally divorced from reality. Just like our ver own (((neoCons))). They were living in a fever dream. The Count-Duke of Olivares almost out-dueled Cardinal Richelieu, but Spain just couldn't match the resources and population of France. The Grand Conde ended Spanish dominance at the Battle of Rocroi in 1643. After that, Spanish power collapsed like a burst balloon. That's where the U.S. is heading. The Old World will rise again. We might not.

@Salo Saloson actually I have a story. I used to work for my high school newspaper and they spent over a million dollars building this weird computer lab where the computers were literally built into the desk and for some reason this was the future. So one of the other members of the student paper just went around the lunch room and polled kids on whether they thought the computer lab helped them learn. 50% said it helped and 50% said it didn't. She wrote up a nice article about it for the school newspaper and just before it printed the principle came in the room and pulled the student and our teacher-advisor aside. Turns out the administration didn't want this article published because they had spent so much money on this computer lab on the promise it would help students and to see 50% of kids saw no difference in their learning would look really bad for them. So we shelved her article and poll and no one outside the newspaper club knew the results.

oof

@ThisIsChris I heard a lot of things in the newsroom. The main thing that was secret was any kind of sexual scandal among the politicians. the reporters knew a LOT of that stuff, but they didn't write about it. I was great friends with the photo staff, and they were gossip adicts. The photographers were like the Navy Seals of the newsroom. They were totally fearless. They paled around with people from the dark side of life. So, yes, I heard a lot of rumors about the prominent people in Sacramento. But when I would tell my wife's mother these horrible stories, she simply wouldn't believe most of what I told her.

@OMGDwayne interesting, why wouldn't they publish the stories?

@ThisIsChris There has always been a symbiotic relationship between the press and politicians. If a scandal could be directed to a Right Winger, they would publish that in a second. But a lot of these stories simply couldn't be proved, and it would cause a total clusterfuck if they were printed. To their credit, the newspaper simply wouldn't print something that wasn't provable. But now the major press organs are simply making up things to denigrate Trump and to keep this insane hatred of Russia alive. The social pathology is reaching the terminal stage.

New one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-5ZJhk9zI4

@OMGDwayne thanks! Fascinating stuff!

Patrick was reading the Discord and made a video on what we were talking about

We supply him with ideas. We should be paid.

Anyone want fortnite?

Yeah bro I'll play 🅱 ortnite

Not overwatch?

I’m already Genji

im already tracer

I’m already Winston.

I'm a pathetic personnn

I’m already Widow Maker.

more like abortnite- zoomers btfo

@Nemets thanks for the recommendation! Love reading about the colonial era.

@Max Hetling watch your tongue

ban all those who insult zoomers

@Selma deep my fair lady hours

Oy, it would be loverly

*tips fedora*

zoomers are the erratic shitlords of the future, bless up

Thank a zoomer for their service bro

I play cars

Press T to thank the zoomer race

T