SabreFan1

Unlike the last game, I should actually be able to watch this one with CDC. I still have a couple of the memes I saved for the last time just on the off-chance that the Sabres goalies pull their heads out of their as*es and actually play a good game.

@Squamfan I actually laughed out loud at a few of those.

Choose another player. He's been out of commission with a lower-body injury.

4-1 Canucks Canucks score first Miller gets the first goal

I wouldn't be surprised. Trump is easily influenced. That's why his frmr. chief of staff put a stop to people leaving memos on Trump's desk and required people to go through him before they gave Trump anything or went in to talk with him. I hope they do bother him. One thing good about Ivanka being close to him in the White House is that she supposedly helps to smooth out some of his rougher edges. I'll bet she had plenty to say about the shooting down of the passenger plane.

If you don't think that the US and it's military keeps the non-western world in check, you're either fooling yourself in your current US-hating zeal or you are badly misinformed when it comes to history and how the world works. Blowing those sand dunes up sent a message to anyone in the middle east who wants to attack the US again directly that there will be severe consequences to doing so. Personally, I think the same message could have been made much cheaper and cost a whole lot less in terms of lives, but the military industrial complex wants it's continuing profits. No, the primary goal is to protect US interests. Why wouldn't it be... The approval on occasion is sought so other countries will be more willing to cooperate in other things like economic sanctions against other countries. Get over it already. It's not the first time and won't be the last time. I'll bet donuts to dollars that Canadian special operations forces have participated with the US in the past on assassinating foreign figures. This time it was done loudly because there's a moron in the Oval Office. Most Americans couldn't tell you who the current US vice-president is. Betting on the general public's ignorance would be an easy way to make money. The Americans that do know Canadians were on that plane, mourn the loss. They mourned on social media and I know when I go visit with my parents and other family members this weekend, it will be a topic of conversation.

I don't think very many people actually took Trump's word on that. He did what he did because he was p*ssed about Iranian interference in Iraq and he wanted it to stop.

Not saying no one else has robust economies. France and UK are former empires that have had robust economies for longer than the US has existed. Yet only one very young country became the current modern day empire. Again, not being arrogant, just stating a fact. Stop assuming. I'm not talking about the plane. That whole situation just sucks. I'm talking about the whining people did in this thread since day 1. Not the plane thread. Then like in sports where people don't like teams running up the score, the rest of the world should do something about it. Oh wait, they can't; they let their militaries decline so they could suckle at the teet of the US for their protection and spend their defence money elsewhere. No it sucks that the plane was shot down and thinking that the US doesn't care because the mainstream media moved on from the story is a ridiculous assumption on your part.

For sure. The US a slowly dying empire. I've been saying that on CDC all along. Eventually China is going to run rampant over the rest of Asia in order to form their own empire. They aren't building artificial islands and claiming vast swaths of ocean and other waterways because they want more areas to swim in... It's not going to be pretty. China will rule it's part of the world with an iron fist. Then Russia might get nervous with an empirical China on their doorstep and reconstitute the old USSR which would put them at loggerheads with NATO and the western world. As far as history goes, we're living in a relative time of peace. That's because, outside of the middle east, the US doesn't look to forcefully take control of other countries through military means. *edit* @inane I added this edit in after you re-clicked on the thread to read this response. As for boasting about China, that wasn't my point. They can feed their people and they now have a huge middle class instead of being dirt poor and starving like they once were in the not too distant past.

Not going to happen anytime soon. Not until the US no longer needs the Saudis to control OPEC oil production and prices. Keep cheering on electric vehicle adoption. Tesla just hit another all time high again today and now has a market cap that's nearly as much as GM and Ford combined.

Well then buddy, if everyone everywhere is doing it then everyone everywhere should have a world class economy. For better or worse countries are becoming more prosperous by emulating the US. I remember when China was a p*ss poor country with a starving population. Then they made US-style free market reforms and are now on track to eventually surpass the US economically. Not an arrogant streak. I am not in government so I have zero affect one way or the other except for my vote which continues to go to 3rd party candidates as much as possible because there are a lot of things the people in the US government do that I'm not happy with and haven't been happy with for a long time. You mon frere, and some others on CDC, are on a whiny little b*tch streak about the US. The world is an imperfect place and Canada is a semi-pacifistic country that follows much more than it leads. The US is exactly the opposite of Canada in that regard whether you or anyone else here like it or not. Facts don't care about your or my feelings and I'm not going to fret over the US actually doing something in a part of the world that is chock full of people that would end western civilization if they could. In your haze of whining, you've forgotten that I've always said even in this thread, that I'm not happy in the least that the US has spent a ridiculous amount of money in order to keep the military industrial complex rolling in cash. Blowing up parts of Afghanistan looking for a guy who turned out to be in Pakistan was incredibly stupid. I hope Trump keeps looking for a way to leave even if that means making deals with the Taliban.

It's the mere existence and willingness to use the US military that helps preserve the West's way of life. If it didn't exist, the world would be a very different place. Sure. The USA set itself up to be great on the world stage when it was mostly just a bunch of outcast immigrants. People came here to give their children and descendants a better life. The children and descendants then picked up the ball and ran with it and created an empire. When you create an empire, that usually means you worked smarter and harder than everyone else.

That's a silly way of looking at it. Post WW2, much of the rest of the western world went on cruise control with what they had militarily while incrementally upgrading. Then in the early 90's, post Cold War, much of the rest of the western world began to actively let their militaries deteriorate over time. That wasn't happenstance, it was their active choice. At that point the western world put itself in position to mostly watch what the US does on the world stage rather than actively participate. Most people in the US want the rest of the west to beef their militaries back up and join in defending the West's way of life. Even Trump has been pounding the table about everyone else modernizing their armed forces and upping their military spending. Absolutely, and why wouldn't the US have done that? The US was once a manufacturing powerhouse with a population that worked their butts off and doggedly pursued technological advances while competing with the USSR. Nowadays the US competes to stay ahead of both Russia and China technologically and militarily. As a country the US still works hard. Our GDP is over 21 Trillion dollars. We easily still could have very similar social programs as others without giving up our military advantage if we stopped giving out trillion dollar tax cuts every so often.

I've said it before on here, the US is for all intents and purposes an empire. For the most part, the US is very benevolent, especially when compared to every other empire that existed before. You don't always get "fair" when dealing with nations that are stronger than you. The US isn't interested in "fair". The US is interested in what's best for the US. That's how it should be. It's not up to the US to try and turn the world into a happy utopia where everyone gets along and has an equal say in everything. That's fantasy and against human nature. Add to that the western world has ceded it's security to the US military umbrella so they can have nice domestic programs like universal healthcare and generous public social programs. That more or less forces the US into a "police" role. Now add in a new leader with new agendas and beliefs on how to get things done gets elected every 4-8 years.

I'll bet my initial suspicions were correct. An Iranian soldier with a hair trigger finger manning a missile battery thought he heard a US warplane and fired before realizing it was a 737. All the missile had to do is clip a wing and set the fuel stored in the wing on fire and the plane would have come down ablaze.

I'd think Trump did it so in the open for political reasons. I think it was carried out because the Iranian general was an evil person and the highest level person in Iran that could be assassinated without actually breaking international law. Trump wanted to send a message to Iran to stop f***ing around with US interests and the US embassy in Iraq and he got that message across loud and clear. He at least accomplished what he set out to do.

Exactly. It's no secret that the Israelis carry out assassinations, but when they have a choice in the matter, they do it as quickly and quietly as possible.

Like I said, I'm not sorry he's dead. I just prefer that it had been done less publicly. Trump did it that way to make a statement and he gambled with other lives as a result.

The guy is dead. I'm glad he is because the world is a better place with him not in it. My only issue was the way that Trump went about it. A special ops sniper bullet, while he was in another part of Iraq, could have done the same thing and would have avoided an international incident that included missile launches. It would have been obvious that the US was behind it, and Iran would have gotten the same message without losing face and feeling the need to strike back.

I know you have a hard-on for the guy, but he is not the number one terrorist in history. Now you're just sounding silly.

How in the hell would you know if the US has tried to assassinate him in the past? We can't kill every monster on the planet.

Or you take out everyone involved. That way, there's no sequel.

My way would have made him as dead as he is now. Dead is dead. Dead people don't use drills. Is English your first language? I don't know how you misunderstood what I wrote otherwise.

We have a difference of opinion. I prefer that it be done quietly, you prefer otherwise. My way would have avoided a missile attack.

Yeah she would have sucked at the job. She is an establishment hard-line Democrat. I'm sorry for any hopeful liberal that was (or still is) desperate to get a vagina-in-chief in the Oval Office, but hers was not one that would have done well. Instead we got a 6 foot orange penis. Both choices sucked. I'm glad that Elizabeth Warren won't be headed there either. Although if Bernie dropped out, I wonder how many of his voters she would capture, and vice-versa.