Aym Playing

Our Secret Agent George Lopez Helps Conceal Our Nefarious Terrorist Plans

Fri, 17 May 2013 17:46:17 -0400

Our Secret Agent George Lopez Helps Conceal Our Nefarious Terrorist Plans:

O Mujahid, watch as our super secret operative George Lopez uses the enemy’s own media outlets to conceal our infiltration plans!

doctorswithoutborders: Photo: Many migrants pass through Haradh...

Tue, 07 May 2013 10:27:30 -0400

doctorswithoutborders:

Photo: Many migrants pass through Haradh town on their way to Saudi Arabia, whose border is just a few kilometers away. Yemen 2013 © Anna Surinyach

Yemen: Migrants Abused, Tortured by Smugglers

Authorities in Yemen have freed more than one thousand migrants from Somalia and Ethiopia, many suffering from torture and sexual abuse while forcibly held by human smugglers.

“Many of the migrants are physically and mentally exhausted and are suffering from severe mental trauma due to the horrific conditions and treatment they experienced during their detention,” said Angels Mairal, an MSF psychologist in Haradh.

doctorswithoutborders: Photo: In the Madaoua and Bouza...

Tue, 07 May 2013 10:21:45 -0400

doctorswithoutborders:

Photo: In the Madaoua and Bouza districts of Niger, there were an average of seven deaths for every 10,000 children every day last year. More than half of the deaths were due to malaria. © Juan-Carlos Tomasi

A Vicious Cycle in Sahel

Malaria and malnutrition are closely related. This is played out dramatically in Africa’s Sahel region during the “hunger gap” months. Food stocks run low and new crops are not ready for harvest, so malnutrition is at its peak; meanwhile, the rainy season, when mosquitoes breed, is in full swing. The diseases combine in a vicious circle: malnourished children with weak immune systems can’t fight diseases including malaria; children sick with malaria are more likely to become dangerously malnourished.

As a supplement to my strategy guide for Imperialism II, I have...

Mon, 06 May 2013 22:33:00 -0400

As a supplement to my strategy guide for Imperialism II, I have uploaded saves of a game with map key Swibawys where I won at difficulty level of 400 as Portugal. One is at a point where I thought I was going to lose, and the second save is after I had won. I have also uploaded some screen shots as a Flickr set, and I’ve included some comments about strategy tips with each picture.

Imperialism II Victory on 400 Difficulty Level, a set on Flickr.

Imperialism II is an excellent turn-based strategy game. I used...

Sun, 05 May 2013 10:43:23 -0400

Imperialism II is an excellent turn-based strategy game. I used to have difficulty winning at difficulty level 35, where 100 is “normal.” This screenshot is my memorial to my victory at the highest level of difficulty, 400, which the game calls “well-nigh impossible.”

The map key is Parthyr. I chose to play Sweden. I have three saves at various stages of the game.

This is my strategy guide!

Imperialism II Strategy Guide

Sun, 05 May 2013 10:41:00 -0400

Imperialism II is a turn-based strategy game.

The official strategy guide is OK, and its suggestions allow you to enjoy the game’s diverse features, but I want to share with you a much more effective method of winning games.

The quickest way to win a game is to share a continent with multiple major powers and conquer them one at a time, all the while maintaining a strong economy by connecting your conquests to your capitol via land transport.

The most important step to winning is selecting the correct empire from the initial map. Find a large continent with multiple major powers. Why is it better to attack major powers than minor powers? Because when you conquer a major power, you already have all their developed resources and transportation network. Also, when you conquer a major power’s province, there’s a chance you acquire its technology. When you conquer minor powers, you have to build the roads and farms and mines. You do get a nice cash bonus.

Don’t think about attacking the New World unless you need a specific resource, typically tin, copper or iron ore. It’s entirely useless because you have to spend resources developing it, assign ship resources to transport the products and assign military resources to defend it.

Select a major power which borders only one major power. If things work out well for you, then, when you conquer your neighbor, you’ll be immediately able to declare war on its neighbor, and so on. Have a couple of engineers to connect the transport networks and build forts at strategic choke points.

The other factor when choosing your empire is its natural resources. The most important resource is grain, since you can’t find it in the new world and, unlike fish, you can’t build improvements like harbors to gather more.

Horses are nice, but not essential. See below.

The most important geographical features are swamps, where you’ll find tin, and barren hills and mountains, where you’ll find copper and iron ore.

You probably need about 4-6 sheep farms from fertile hills producing for you to have the military boom necessary to implement this strategy.

Timber’s useful, but you can almost always buy timber on the market. If you don’t conquer New World provinces, you won’t need a lot of timber to build ships and New World infrastructure.

Site your capitol in a manner which maximizes your initial resource supply. Sometimes, the empire will be in a great location and have the correct mix of geographical features, but the absence of a good capitol location (rivers!) should force you to request a new world map.

On 400 level, you won’t have enough food to support a 3-ship navy. Destroy one ship. Send the other ship to explore the New World. This will allow you to expand sources of raw materials in the market, and, in the unfortunate circumstance where you’ll need to conquer a province, you’ll have some idea where to go.

You also won’t be able to afford a 2nd explorer. So just keep the 2 pieces of paper with which you start off and sell them when the demand for them in the market peaks. Or use them for spies to speed up your technological research.

Buy the resources you need most. I always start with iron ore. I also buy finished materials if I really need them (cast iron to complete a road to the iron ore mine) or if the price drops below $250 and I still have money. For example, bronze is frequently at a low price at the beginning of the game.

Keep expanding your population until you’ve maxed out your farms and ranches. Assuming you’ve got shipping capacity, fill it with a harbor and its fish. You’ll want to have a fish surplus, because you may get blockaded or need to reduce your fish transport in order to sell items to finance your war efforts.

The key to this strategy is to be extremely stingy with your money, which you’ll need to conquer your neighbor. The biggest waste of money is research. The only time to spend money on research is when you cannot “mooch” research that you need for a military campaign from the other powers. When you are choosing technology to research, choose technology highlighted in green. Those are the technologies which lead to your research goal. If none is available, choose a technology which at least 2 major powers have already acquired.

If you have horses, set your research goal to Horse Artillery. If not, set it to Musketeers. Musketeers are better units, but most often you’ll need to invest money in researching it because the other powers will seek Horse Artillery first. You’ll need 8, but preferably 10 (to get a general), of either unit and about $1800 to begin your conquest.

When you conquer your neighbor’s capitol, you have a couple of immediate priorities to sort. Should you conquer the remainder of your neighbor’s provinces? Should you declare war and conquer the minor powers (in the Old and New Worlds) who had designated your neighbor as their favorite major power? Should you conquer its New World provinces?

In general, I like to conquer contiguous old world Major Power provinces first. I know that, if my economy is strong, I can always solve my money problems.

If I have a navy and I can get to a diamond- or emerald-producing province before the other Major Powers, I’ll do so.

If there is a geographically contiguous Minor Power without a Major Power patron, I immediately declare war and conquer it. I take its money and send the builders and engineers to incorporate it into my economy.

Problems and solutions:

Where do I get $1800 if I’m acquiring raw materials through the market and I don’t have any valuable minerals from the New World?

If your population is large enough, it will almost always produce finished goods which you can sell through the market. It only takes the sale of 7 items at $270 to give you enough to get started.

My territory does not include a valuable resource.

The best solution is to buy the resource or the finished product on the market. The next best solution is to find it in a New World province and conquer it. The least best solution is to use a merchant and develop it in a minor power.

Early on, as your are developing your farms and ranches and transportation network, your problem is typically iron ore. Later, you’ll need bronze, made from tin and copper.

My neighbor has allies.

It does not matter that much. When you have a massive army, some of the allies will break their alliance when you declare war. (Remember to declare war at least one turn after you’ve mustered your army.) If your declaration of war provokes other nations to declare war against you, it won’t hurt you unless they can open up multiple fronts and spread your forces thin. The other thing that can hurt you at this point is a naval blockade and then threats of naval invasion.

Try to capture your neighbor’s capitol quickly so that you don’t have to worry about its counterattacks. One empire’s elimination is often the first step to an alliance’s dissolution.

When a blockade occurs, end your trading and shipping so that your ships are not captured. When a naval blockade does not result in captured ships, the blockading empire is more receptive to your requests for a peace treaty.

You can also offer your neighbor a peace treaty after crippling it by capturing a province which interrupted its food supply. Your defeated neighbor will typically accept the peace treaty, thus breaking the alliance. Then make peace treaties with its former allies. Build forts along the border and connect the newly conquered provinces to your capitol’s transportation network. Then declare war again on your wounded neighbor and finish it off.

If you’ve gotten enough food, rebuild your population.

After you’ve conquered your first neighbor, you probably will have stolen enough technology for Galleons, and six Galleons will make you a naval superpower until the Frigate age.

Forts are useful when there is a fighting front, but don’t waste your wood and bronze on forts. As soon as your population permits, build a 6-Galleon navy and that will end any threat from your neighbor’s allies.

Nobody will buy my products, and I’m going to run out of money.

Conquer minor nations to loot their treasury. If a major power is a Top Trade Partner, then it will join that empire when you declare war on it, so that won’t work, in general. If that major power is fighting other major powers, then it may not choose to provoke a war with you, so you might try it out. Another trick is to declare war on the major power. Blockade its port some, and soon it will plead for peace. Accept the peace, and then declare war against the minor nation. The major power will generally not want to resume war against your empire.

Some sample games

e60: The hands of the Best Closer in Baseball! Watch E:60....

Sat, 04 May 2013 17:40:40 -0400

e60:

The hands of the Best Closer in Baseball!

Watch E:60. Tuesday @ 7pm ET on ESPN.

"One could just as easily say that about 70 percent to 75 percent of the people described as..."

Thu, 02 May 2013 13:16:51 -0400

“

One could just as easily say that about 70 percent to 75 percent of the people described as committing violent crimes, could also be described as generational victims of racist policies, like the ones Kelly and Bloomberg are promoting. One could just as easily say the vast majority of violent criminals in New York city hail from neighborhoods that have — over many generations — been the victims of a national wealth transfer, the remnants of which are with us even today.

We don’t say that. Writers and intellectuals on the Left would much rather talk about class. Same as it ever was. But this isn’t going away. We aren’t going away.

”

- Ta-Nehisi Coates on the explicit racism of Stop and Frisk (via theatlantic)

Guantanamo Prisoners by codepinkhq on Flickr.

Thu, 02 May 2013 08:11:59 -0400

Guantanamo Prisoners by codepinkhq on Flickr.

Solidarity with Guantanamo Hunger Strikers, a set by codepinkhq...

Thu, 02 May 2013 07:47:16 -0400

Solidarity with Guantanamo Hunger Strikers, a set by codepinkhq on Flickr.

See how the strategy game Imperialism II captures the spirit of...

Wed, 01 May 2013 21:12:23 -0400

See how the strategy game Imperialism II captures the spirit of humanitarian intervention and Responsibility to Protect!

Today in Spanish class someone asked if "azucar" came from an Islamic word.

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:45:43 -0400

arabicproblems:

What I said was, “the Arabic word for ‘the sugar’ is ‘as-sukkar.’”

What I wanted to say was “ISLAM IS NOT A LANGUAGE.”

Introspection: Hypocritically Imposed on the Weak and Defeated, but Useful Nonetheless

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:48:00 -0400

Jalees Rehman claims that German introspection after World War II resulted in a better Germany, and that USA Muslims should adopt this introspection in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings. An obstacle to introspection is “perpetual victimhood.”

Citing psychological studies which showed that exposure to historical incidents of oppression of one’s group or nation led study participants to judge their own group’s misdeeds less harshly, Dr. Jalees Rehman suggests:

[I]t might be important to study whether Muslims who are continuously reminded of historical or ongoing collective victimization - being victims of “Islamophobia” or of military actions in Palestine, Kashmir or Chechnya - could promote a justification for violent acts …

Obviously, there is a lot to admire about Germany since World War II. Although, in my mind, paying reparations to the colonialist state of Israel is not one of them.

Thinking on this further, it seems like only (defeated, anti-USA) Africans and supporters of the defeated nations of World War II are indicted as war criminals. USA-sponsored terrorists and assassins all over the world are regularly protected by United States courts and police. The best examples of these are the anti-Cuban terrorists and anti-Nicaraguan Contras. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are mostly celebrated in the USA.

But it’s not just the USA, obviously. Has Great Britain paid reparations to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh for its colonial control? Has France paid reparations to Algeria for its direct rule?

But back to Dr. Jalees Rehman’s contention, namely that a more balanced view of historical injustice would lead to more introspection and that would be good for Muslims. And I say, yes, most certainly.

But the Boston Marathon bombings should not be foremost in the minds of the introspecting Muslims this week. How about the total disregard for worker safety in Bangladesh which has led to a factory fire and a building collapse, killing hundreds?

The top two candidates for introspection in the first decade of this millennium have to be the genocide in Dar Fur in Sudan and the lethality of sectarian violence in Iraq and Pakistan and elsewhere.

Twentieth century nominees would include the Pakistani civil war, the Iran-Iraq war, Sudan’s civil war, Algeria’s civil war and Afghanistan’s civil war.

Certainly the most essential topic of introspection for the next several decades must be gender roles.

So Muslims should do introspection, not because they are the only ones who need it or because they are the worst people or the most guilty, but because it is an essential step in moving forward.

My only caveat is that Muslims’ introspection should not be spurred by the demands of (partially White Supremacist) USA, but by evaluation of material injustices and moral harms.

Nor does introspection mean USA Muslims should accept second-class citizenship and cease defending themselves.

P.S. Dr. Jalees Rehman seems to have a problem with the term Islamophobia. I disagreed with him somewhat when he wrote about Occidentophobia, but that’s a topic for another time.

Ruin Their Labor Markets and Flood Their Healthcare Facilities

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:05:58 -0400

qaidausainfiltration:

While we plan our operations which fill them with terror, we must also work long-term to destroy their societies. Therefore, we must do all we can to send to the United States “illiterate, unskilled, low-skill workers” and our sick, elderly relatives and put them on “supplemental security and Medicare.”

My face 90% of the time in Arabic class...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:40:03 -0400

arabicproblems:

Our Operative Wael al-Kuwayti is Active in Southwestern USA

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:41:00 -0400

qaidausainfiltration:

One of the reasons for our training bases in Mexico and our efforts at entering the United States through its border with Mexico is to connect our operatives with Wael al-Kuwayti, who has been active in the enemy’s southwestern deserts for over six decades. When our operatives reach him, he will instruct them on the use of dozens of important weapons systems.

Andrew Sullivan Misunderstands Word Jihad

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:28:00 -0400

Andrew Sullivan, Founding Editor of The Daily Dish and former editor at The New Republic, responded to Glenn Greenwald’s column criticizing calling the Boston Marathon bombing attacks terrorism based on publicly available knowledge.

And when will they grasp that a religion that does not entirely eschew violence (like the Gospels or Buddhism) will likely produce violence when its extremist loners seek meaning in a bewildering multicultural modern world? This was an act of Jihad. That does not mean we elevate it above crime; it means we understand the nature of the crime. It only makes sense in the context of immediate Paradise, combined with worldly fame. And those convinced of the glories of martyrdom – of going out with a bang – are the hardest of all to stop.

I have two objections to this passage. One, the idea that adherents to Islam are more prone to violence than adherents of Christianity or Buddhism is an assertion that requires evidence.

Second, even if investigations prove that Tamerlane and Dzhokhar deluded themselves into think that they were doing an “act of jihad,” which is a meritorious act in Islam, wishing does not make it so. The vast majority of Muslims, especially religious scholars, have condemned acts of terrorism as hiraba, a term that covers piracy and highway robbery, definitely unmeritorious acts.

So I hope that Mr. Sullivan would at least change the sentence “This was an act of Jihad” to “The brothers thought they were doing an act of Jihad.”

ردي على مقالة "المساواة لا تعني التماثل .. ليس الذكر كالأنثى" لعبدالحميد أحمد أبو سليمان

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:37:00 -0400

هذه المقالة تبرر النظام الأبوي و كراهية النساء

أولا الكاتب الأمريكي فوكياما ليس ححة و بالذات يبالغ في انفكاك الروابط العائلية في الدول الغربة و له معارضون كثيرون من علماء الإجتماع

ثانيا الرجال لا يسرفون على أسرهم في بلاد كثيرة و من ضمنها بلاد معظم سكانها مسلمون مثل مصر حيث تعمل النساء المتوزجات بنسب عالية لتوفير القوت لأسرهن و ليس ذلك نتيجة الدعوة إلى تماثل الذكر و الأنثى بل هو تتيجة الظروف الإقتصادية و حمل المجتمع المرأة مسؤولية رعاية نفسها و أولادها

ثالثا مطالبة المرأة بأتجيل العمل الوظائفي في مرحلة الأمومة تجعلها في موقف ضعيف في الشركات إذ تعتبر أي أولية خارج الشركة نقطة ضعف

و الأهم من ذلل أن كاتب المقالة لا يذكر وسائل تحديد النسل و لا حق المرأة في الحضانة و لا الإجهاض أي القضايا التي تسمح للمرأة أن تحدد لنفسها مرحلة أمومتها

urheritage: Dr Abbas Husseini, of Qadissiyah University, makes...

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 12:01:33 -0400

urheritage:

Dr Abbas Husseini, of Qadissiyah University, makes a Friday visit. He excavated the great Babylonian temple at Marad, so his advice is especially useful.

urheritage: Plumbago. Iraq’s answer to forget-me-not.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 12:00:34 -0400

urheritage:

Plumbago. Iraq’s answer to forget-me-not.