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Disaster for Ukraine. Rebels route Ukrainian forces at Donetsk

arkirk said:
I think the problems in the Ukraine are the result of outside forces drawing maps and telling people what country they must live in. When the Soviet Union dissolved, western allies (NATO) immediately started encroaching on the old Warsaw Pact countries annexing them. There was an agreement that NATO and western capitalist enterprise felt completely free to undermine and indeed even create a coups in Ukraine. Nobody should be sanctioning anybody else in this matter and nobody should be arming factions in Ukraine. They need to instead do what they can to help the disparate factions in that country settle their differences even if it results in several countries instead of just one called Ukraine. I feel that NATO is a dangerous concept and should be disbanded...just like the Warsaw Pact.
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When you have countries such as Turkey which is led by an Islamic despot in the Nato alliance something definitely stinks in Denmark!
 
barbos said:
speaking of looking stupid.
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Dropping synctatic elements from a sentence in a language that has plenty of examples of that being okay, and more than likely having picked that particular form of speech up from a non-standard dialect, isn't an example of stupidity; especially not when one's willing to consider the idea that one's wrong about it being okay. Trying to insult someone by referring to people as being "so [nationality]" but confusing adjectives and nouns in the process and then arguing that you haven't, on the other hand...
 
dystopian said:
..now I'm obsessed with figuring this out. :confused:
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It's simple. You're wrong and don't have any examples to back yourself up. What is the point of digging your heels in about such an insignificant issue?
You're getting confused because English is not your first language, and there are times in English when one uses "most" without "of" following that are similar but not the same.

Look again, even with "Dutch" there were 110,000 aginst you and none for you. Except your own mistake.
Just as an example there are 111,000 hits on google for "most of us Dutch"

But only one result, your post, comes up with "most us Dutch"
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You memory is playing tricks on you.
 
thief of fire said:
It's simple. You're wrong and don't have any examples to back yourself up. What is the point of digging your heels in about such an insignificant issue?
You're getting confused because English is not your first language, and there are times in English when one uses "most" without "of" following that are similar but not the same.

Look again, even with "Dutch" there were 110,000 aginst you and none for you. Except your own mistake.
Just as an example there are 111,000 hits on google for "most of us Dutch"

But only one result, your post, comes up with "most us Dutch"
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You memory is playing tricks on you.
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He is so dutch, that he would argue with dictionaries, native speakers, google and .... reality.
Legal marijuana must be strong in Netherlands.
 
thief of fire said:
It's simple. You're wrong and don't have any examples to back yourself up. What is the point of digging your heels in about such an insignificant issue?
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You're confusing an interest in the problem of 'why does it sound correct to me if it's wrong', with 'digging my heels in'. Of course, even if that weren't the case, it'd be a tad hypocritical to complain about someone digging in their heels about anything, given the way this thread's debate has gone.

You're getting confused because English is not your first language,
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No, that's not why; my fluency is that of a native-speaker, and that's really not the issue. The issue is that my fluency is derived from multiple different sources, unlike that of native-speakers whose grasp of the language is generally only derived from a singular dialect or set of adjacent dialects. This means that in my case, I will tend to move between many different dialects as if they were one and the same, which means that it becomes very difficult to point to a source for this particular idiosyncrasy; and that is something that *bothers* me.

You memory is playing tricks on you.
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Not likely. What must've happened is that I either adopted the form from someone using it correctly within their own dialect; or I adopted it from someone who messed it up but did so in a manner that sounded convincing to a six year old. Either way, I adopted it from somewhere. Both of these are perfectly likely explanations, me being confused because English isn't my native language, is not. Even someone such as yourself, emotionally antagonistic to me as this whole Ukraine debate has made you, must realize that apart from this little issue, my English is just as good as yours or that of any native-speaker.
 
dystopian said:
You're confusing an interest in the problem of 'why does it sound correct to me if it's wrong', with 'digging my heels in'. Of course, even if that weren't the case, it'd be a tad hypocritical to complain about someone digging in their heels about anything, given the way this thread's debate has gone.
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It's not an "interest" to keep insisting you are right on and on.
Secondly I've been digging my heels in because it's an extremely important issue. People are dying and we have renewed tensions between two nuclear powers. That you think events in the Ukraine are on a par with your linguistic blunders is revealing though.
 
dystopian said:
Not likely. What must've happened is that I either adopted the form from someone using it correctly within their own dialect; or I adopted it from someone who messed it up but did so in a manner that sounded convincing to a six year old. Either way, I adopted it from somewhere. Both of these are perfectly likely explanations, me being confused because English isn't my native language, is not. Even someone such as yourself, emotionally antagonistic to me as this whole Ukraine debate has made you, must realize that apart from this little issue, my English is just as good as yours or that of any native-speaker.
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I suspect that this formulation of words is correct for some forms of English, but not for others. US English isn't the most common form out there, and many people use something else.
 
barbos said:
thief of fire said:
It's simple. You're wrong and don't have any examples to back yourself up. What is the point of digging your heels in about such an insignificant issue?
You're getting confused because English is not your first language, and there are times in English when one uses "most" without "of" following that are similar but not the same.

Look again, even with "Dutch" there were 110,000 aginst you and none for you. Except your own mistake.


You memory is playing tricks on you.
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He is so dutch, that he would argue with dictionaries, native speakers, google and .... reality.
Legal marijuana must be strong in Netherlands.
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Just to note that being a native anglophone certainly does not guarantee a perfect command of the English language. In fact, I have encountered many ESL who demonstrate a better command of and proficiency in English than some native anglophones do. Especially ESL who come from an educational system in their country of origin where English is being taught as a first foreign language to be pursued throughout superior education, meaning College.Especially the same ESL who were instructed in British English versus American English.

Anyhow, the notion that an ESL individual's communicated thoughts are to be invalidated based on his/her ESL status reeks (especially in this specific case regarding the omission of "of") of resorting to low blows rather than addressing the points which retain semantic correctness despite of a grammatical failure.

I was greeted earlier by a similar speculation that my ESL status is impairing my communication :

http://talkfreethought.org/showthre...orces-at-Donetsk&p=73545&viewfull=1#post73545

I realize English is not your first language, but you need to reword this.
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"This" referring to :

However you declaring the "government illegal" can only be caused by a dismissal of which branches constitute the government
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It appears it is now open season in this thread for 2 identified posters (you and Thief of Fire) to use an ESL poster's status as ESL to justify not addressing the ESL poster's communicated points. Especially as those points were already previously explained and detailed.
 
Togo said:
dystopian said:
Not likely. What must've happened is that I either adopted the form from someone using it correctly within their own dialect; or I adopted it from someone who messed it up but did so in a manner that sounded convincing to a six year old. Either way, I adopted it from somewhere. Both of these are perfectly likely explanations, me being confused because English isn't my native language, is not. Even someone such as yourself, emotionally antagonistic to me as this whole Ukraine debate has made you, must realize that apart from this little issue, my English is just as good as yours or that of any native-speaker.
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I suspect that this formulation of words is correct for some forms of English, but not for others. US English isn't the most common form out there, and many people use something else.
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When I came to the US in 1982, Togo, my years of studying English ( 7 years in the lower French educational system plus 3 years in my University, in Nice, France, specialized in Applied Foreign Languages) had been focusing on British English. As a result, I was relying on British grammar (such as the conjugation of irregular verbs and concordance of tenses) and was often "corrected" by Americans who thought they detained a copyright on grammatical correctness.

Anyhow, well traveled Americans who have resided in other anglophone nations, are usually familiar with and tolerant of the reality that "US English isn't the most common form out there".
 
Sabine Grant said:
As a result, I was relying on British grammar (such as the conjugation of irregular verbs and concordance of tenses) and was often "corrected" by Americans who thought they detained a copyright on grammatical correctness.
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I've experienced this from both Americans and Britons; although Britons have seemed less interested in 'correcting' and more interested in 'taking the piss' about certain things. As a young child, I learned the language entirely from watching TV, playing videogames, and reading the occasional English-language novel. This was before commercial tv-stations were legally possible here, so my exposure to the language was split about 50/50 between stuff from the UK and stuff from the US (children learning it the same way I did today probably wouldn't have any British influences at all). As a result, people from both countries have seen fit to be annoyed by my use and spelling of various words. "What, you don't use a U on the word "color"!? But I've seen you write "shan't"! You can't just mix and match British and American English! It just isn't done!"
 
Sabine Grant said:
It appears it is now open season in this thread for 2 identified posters (you and Thief of Fire) to use an ESL poster's status as ESL to justify not addressing the ESL poster's communicated points. Especially as those points were already previously explained and detailed.
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I didn't start this I merely pointed out the irony of someone lecturing another person about the English language and making a mistake themselves.
If you go back you'll see it was an attempt to lighten things up. http://talkfreethought.org/showthre...bels-route-Ukrainian-forces-at-Donetsk/page47
Anyway I'm goi9ng to put him on ignore which should alleviate some of the tension.

Anyhow, the notion that an ESL individual's communicated thoughts are to be invalidated based on his/her ESL status reeks (especially in this specific case regarding the omission of "of") of resorting to low blows
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It's called irony. How you can twist this to say I was invalidating anything is beyond me.
 
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barbos said:
By the way, Nobel laureate Dr. Doom agreed with russian "propaganda"
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At least Dr. Doom stays in Latveria and doesn't invade neighbouring countries.

As for this guy, he seems hardly swayed by Russian propaganda:
This goal is not surprising: declining or not, Russia has always seen itself as a great power that should be surrounded by buffer states. Under the Czars, Imperial Russia extended its reach over time. Under the Bolsheviks, Russia built the Soviet Union and a sphere of influence that encompassed most of Central and Eastern Europe. And now, under Putin’s similarly autocratic regime, Russia plans to create, over time, a vast Eurasian Union.

While the EAU is still only a customs union, the European Union’s experience suggests that a successful free-trade area leads over time to broader economic, monetary, and eventually political integration. Russia’s goal is not to create another North American Free Trade Agreement; it is to create another EU, with the Kremlin holding all of the real levers of power. The plan has been clear: Start with a customs union – initially Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan – and add most of the other former Soviet republics. Indeed, now Armenia and Kyrgyzstan are in play.

Once a broad customs union is established, trade, financial, and investment links within it grow to the point that its members stabilize their exchange rates vis-à-vis one another. Then, perhaps a couple of decades after the customs union is formed, its members consider creating a true monetary union with a common currency (the Eurasian ruble?) that can be used as a unit of account, means of payment, and store of value.

As the eurozone experience proves, sustaining a monetary union requires banking, fiscal, and full economic union. And, once members give up their sovereignty over fiscal, banking, and economic affairs, they may eventually need a partial political union to ensure democratic legitimacy.

Realizing such a plan may require overcoming serious challenges and the commitment of large financial resources over a period of many decades. But the first step is a customs union, and, in the case of the Eurasian Union, it had to include Ukraine, Russia’s largest neighbor to the west. That is why Putin put so much pressure on former President Viktor Yanukovych to abandon an association agreement with the EU. It is also why Putin reacted to the ouster of Yanukovych’s government by taking over Crimea and destabilizing eastern Ukraine.
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Also in this interview he pretty much predicted that Russia was going to invade and destabilize Eastern Ukraine.
 
Jayjay said:
Also in this interview he pretty much predicted that Russia was going to invade and destabilize Eastern Ukraine.
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LOL, predicted in April 28, right after it was "predicted" by every talking head in the West.
And Russia has not invaded Eastern Ukraine yet, humanitarian aid despite US administration proclamations does not constitute invasion, even Jon Stewart knows that.

Anyway, What I meant by Dr. Doom agreeing with Russian "propaganda" is his critical view of NATO actions with respect to Russia.
As for your link, I don't think Putin would disagree with it much.
 
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=123425
“The demands on the Army will only grow more diverse and complicated going forward. Threats from terrorists and insurgents will remain with us for a long time, but we also must deal with a revisionist Russia -- with its modern and capable Army -- on NATO's doorstep.”
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Russia on NATO's doorstep? really?
Revisionist Russia? really? have you checked on West Ukraine?
 
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