Captain America

[Lil Red]

pretty much. it's a good book. by Daniel H. Wilson

http://www.amazon.com/Amped-Novel-Daniel-H-Wilson/dp/0385535155/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338315770&sr=1-2

Edited May 29, 2012 by Lil Red

[Laudate_Dominum]

They were leveraging available technology to augment his physical abilities so as to combat the greatest threat the world had ever known. It's a biotech analog of batman's suit and utility belt. And he was chosen for being amesome and throwing himself on a grenade to save others. It's amesome. lol.

[Winchester]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' timestamp='1338337606' post='2437497']
They were leveraging available technology to augment his physical abilities so as to combat the greatest threat the world had ever known. It's a biotech analog of batman's suit and utility belt. And he was chosen for being amesome and throwing himself on a grenade to save others. It's amesome. lol.
[/quote]
We made Hitler possible with our involvement in WWI.

[Amppax]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1338337774' post='2437501']
We made Hitler possible with our involvement in WWI.
[/quote]

Revisionist.

[Winchester]

[quote name='Amppax' timestamp='1338339013' post='2437517']
Revisionist.
[/quote]
It's good to revise lies and acknowledge truth.

[4588686]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1338343782' post='2437577']
It's good to revise lies and acknowledge truth.
[/quote]

I don't see how it's revisionist. I think it's pretty well accepted that Germany's defeat in WWI laid the foundation for Hitler and America helped defeat Germany in WWI.

[ardillacid]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1338132585' post='2435759']
If I could use small doses I would use performance enhancing drugs, were it not for the side-effects
[/quote]

lawl

[kujo]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1338344405' post='2437590']
I don't see how it's revisionist. I think it's pretty well accepted that Germany's defeat in WWI laid the foundation for Hitler and America helped defeat Germany in WWI.
[/quote]

It wasn't so much the defeat as it was the crushing economic and political sanctions, as well as the virtual dismemberment of the country.

[4588686]

[quote name='kujo' timestamp='1338347410' post='2437620']
It wasn't so much the defeat as it was the crushing economic and political sanctions, as well as the virtual dismemberment of the country.
[/quote]

Which was something that Wilson warned about. I think France and the UK were the main drivers of a punitive peace.


I actually read an article a few years ago arguing that the terms placed on German really weren't uniquely harsh and the cause of the political and economic dysfunction that followed were caused more by internal factors. I'll try to find it.

Edited May 30, 2012 by Hasan

[Groo the Wanderer]

ketracel white anyone?

[kujo]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1338347563' post='2437622']
Which was something that Wilson warned about. I think France and the UK were the main drivers of a punitive peace.
[/quote]

Can you blame them?

[4588686]

[quote name='kujo' timestamp='1338347611' post='2437625']
Can you blame them?
[/quote]

An obscure British thinker named John Maynard Keynes warned about the long term consequences of a vengeful peace.

Now that I've thrown that match on the tinderbox that is phatmass I'll say that no, it was unwise but I can hardly blame them. Although I'm not convinced that the terms were as punitive as is often asserted in pop culture.

Edited May 30, 2012 by Hasan

[kujo]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1338347903' post='2437630']
An obscure British thinker named John Maynard Keynes warned about the long term consequences of a vengeful peace.

Now that I've thrown that match on the tinderbox that is phatmass I'll say that no, it was unwise but I can hardly blame them. Although I'm not convinced that the terms were as punitive as is often asserted in pop culture.
[/quote]

I'd say that the harsh sanctions really turned a geopolitical affair into a personal one. It also provided Hitler with fuel for the narrative he began to push.

[4588686]

[quote name='kujo' timestamp='1338386041' post='2437762']
I'd say that the harsh sanctions really turned a geopolitical affair into a personal one. It also provided Hitler with fuel for the narrative he began to push.
[/quote]

I gave a quick look at Wikipedia and it said basically the same thing I remember that article saying. The damages levied against germany were not outrageous

I[i]n many ways, the Versailles reparations were a reply to the reparations placed upon France by Germany through the 1871 [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Frankfurt_%281871%29"]Treaty of Frankfurt[/url], signed after the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War"]Franco-Prussian War[/url]. Indemnities of the Treaty of Frankfurt were in turn calculated, on the basis of population, as the precise equivalent of the indemnities demanded by Napoleon after the defeat of Prussia.[/i]
[i]Infrastructure damage caused by the retreating German troops was also cited. In her book, Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War, [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_MacMillan"]Margaret MacMillan[/url] described the significance of the claims for French and Belgium: "From the start, [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France"]France[/url] and [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgium"]Belgium[/url] argued that claims for direct damage should receive priority in any distribution of reparations. In the heavily industrialized north of France, the Germans had shipped out what they wanted for their own use and destroyed much of the rest. Even as German forces were retreating in 1918, they found time to blow up France's most important [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_mine"]coal mine[/url]".[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#cite_note-MacMillan_p.-53"][51][/url][/sup][/i]


and could have been paid off pretty quickly and a lot of pain associated with the reperations was actually a calculated move by the German political establishment

[i]The British economic historian [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niall_Ferguson"]Niall Ferguson[/url] in his 1998 book The Pity of War argued that Germany could have paid reparations had there been the political will. Ferguson began his argument by noting that all of the belligerent countries in World War I had endured significant economic losses, not just Germany, and that in 1920–21, German net national product grew at 17%.[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#cite_note-Ferguson_p._412-41"][39][/url][/sup] Ferguson has argued that the German trade deficit of 1920 was caused by speculation promoted in turn by the amalgamation of rapid economic growth in Germany and a weak exchange rate for the mark, and not by the prospect of reparations.[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#cite_note-Ferguson_p._413-42"][40][/url][/sup] Ferguson has contended that the rise in the value of the mark after March 1920 was caused by speculators buying up the mark, and this revaluation of the mark led to inflation becoming a serious problem in Germany from 1921 onwards[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#cite_note-Ferguson_p._413-42"][40][/url][/sup] Ferguson has maintained that the ratio of total German debts in 1921 to the gross national product was less than the ratio of total British debts to the British G.N.P in the same period.[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#cite_note-Ferguson_p._414-43"][41][/url][/sup] Likewise, Ferguson has argued that the total annuity of 3 billion marks imposed by the London conference in 1921, which totalled 4–7% of German national income, was far less than the worries expressed by Keynes of 25–50% of German national income being handled over in reparations.[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#cite_note-Ferguson_p._414-43"][41][/url][/sup] Similarly, Ferguson has argued that France paid 4,933 million francs in reparations to Germany between 1871 and 1873 totalling 25% of French national net income without causing national bankruptcy, and has argued that German claims in the 1920s that reparations payments threatened Germany with bankruptcy were just an excuse to try to get out of paying reparations.[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#cite_note-Ferguson_p._415-44"][42][/url][/sup] Ferguson has argued that the plan called by the Young Committee in 1929 for Germany to pay reparations until 1988 is a far less than the 163 billion marks paid by Germany to the Economic European Community between 1958 and 1998 without experiencing a drastic collapse in living standards, and as such, the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Plan"]Young Plan[/url] was not the economically unviable plan as often depicted.[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#cite_note-Ferguson_p._415-44"][42][/url][/sup] The American historian Stephen Schuker has argued that the Germans received as much in American loans, which they never repaid, as Germany paid in reparations.[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#cite_note-Ferguson_p._417-45"][43][/url][/sup] Schuker has noted that between 1921 and 1931, Germany paid 19.1 billion marks in reparations, and in the same time, took in 27 billion marks in loans from the United States, which Germany defaulted on in 1932.[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#cite_note-Ferguson_p._417-45"][43][/url][/sup] Ferguson has argued the principle problem with reparations was not that the sum, but rather that the Allies entrusted the Germans with responsibility for paying reparations voluntarily without occupying significant amounts of German territory as an incentive to pay.[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#cite_note-Ferguson_pp._419-420-46"][44][/url][/sup] Since German politicians were reluctant to raise the necessary taxes to pay for reparations, successive German governments chose to default on reparations out the hope that the Allies were not serious about collecting reparations.[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#cite_note-Ferguson_p._420-47"][45][/url][/sup] Even without reparations, total public spending in Germany between 1920 and 1923 comprised 33% of German net national product, and Ferguson has argued that even if no reparations had been imposed, Germany would still had significant problems caused by the need to pay World War I debts combined with the demands of voters for more social services.[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#cite_note-Ferguson_pp._420-21-48"][46][/url][/sup] As a result of inflation, German debts by 1922 were reduced down to where they had been in 1914.[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#cite_note-Ferguson_p._421-49"][47][/url][/sup] Ferguson has argued that German inflation in the 1920s was not caused by reparations, but rather were a conscious political decision on the part of the German government to employ this particular economic strategy to deal with World War I debts and reparations.[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#cite_note-Ferguson_p._424-50"][48][/url][/sup][/i]
[i]Under the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Moratorium"]Hoover Moratorium[/url] of June 1931 issued by the American president [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover"]Herbert Hoover[/url], which was designed to deal with the world-wide financial crisis caused by the bankruptcy of the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creditanstalt"]Creditanstalt[/url] in May 1931, Germany ceased paying reparations.[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#cite_note-Marks_p._253-51"][49][/url][/sup] At the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lausanne_Conference_of_1932"]Lausanne Conference[/url] of June 1932, reparations were formally cancelled.[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#cite_note-Marks_pp._253-254-52"][50][/url][/sup] Marks calculates that between 1921 and 1931, Germany paid a total of 20 billion marks in reparations, most of which came from American loans that the Germans repudiated in 1932.[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#cite_note-Marks_p._254-34"][32][/url][/sup] In this way, the Germans largely escaped paying for World War I, and instead shifted the costs onto American investors.[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#cite_note-Marks_p._254-34"][32][/url][/sup] The American historian [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Weinberg"]Gerhard Weinberg[/url] commented about the way the Germans used reparations to avoid paying the costs of World War I that "The shifting of the burden of reparations from her shoulders to those of her enemies served to accentuate this disparity" in the economic strength of the Allies, which struggled to pay their heavy World War I debts and the other costs of the war and Germany, which paid neither reparations nor its World War I debts.[sup][url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations#cite_note-Marks_p._254-34"][32][/url][/sup][/i]

[southern california guy]

[quote name='jaime' timestamp='1338100961' post='2435677']
I don't think they would let him in the NFL
[/quote]

Do they really go after steroid use in football? Or do they really just focus on track and baseball.. Of course all of those huge NFL football linemen are all drug free!