November 9
I was a little bit confused at first that Peggy was in bed with me, and then I remembered last night and I was glad that she was there 'cause the first thing I thought of was the angry man at Walgreen's, and I bet he was happy.
I wanted to go flying to help clear my head but I also didn't want to leave Peggy, although maybe she felt better after a night's sleep. And I still wasn’t sure what time it was, but it was pretty light out so I was fairly sure it was late enough to wake her up. I couldn't remember if she'd set her alarm.
And then I remembered that it was a Wednesday and so we were supposed to go trotting anyway, so I shook her shoulder with my hoof and when she woke up I said that it was time to go trotting, and she said that maybe that would help clear her mind, and she was glad now that she hadn't drunk herself to oblivion last night even though it had been kinda tempting.
So she got up and we went to the bathroom—there was only one shower but there were a bunch of toilet stalls so you usually didn't have to wait—and then she got dressed and we went downstairs and headed towards Jeff's house first.
We must have gotten her up a little bit earlier than usual, because nobody was out waiting for the bus and I thought at first that we'd missed them even though I hadn't heard the bus in the neighborhood yet, and I usually did because it had screechy brakes and a rumbly engine, and then Peggy looked at her portable telephone and said that we were early.
I guess they must have seen us out on the corner, 'cause Trinity came running out of the house and wrapped her arms around my neck in a big hug, and then Lindy came out and she was carrying Trinity's backpack.
When Caleb came out, he wanted to show Peggy the new Pokemons he'd caught, and I took Trinity down the block on my back, and then I thought I could trot back, and that turned out to be more work than I'd expected it to be. I could really feel the pavement in all my leg-bones each time they landed, and it was strange how easy it was when I was walking but not so easy with her on my back. She wasn't all that heavy.
We had extra time to hang out and talk, because they'd come out early when they saw us, and even Jeff came outside, and it was fun to just stand on a street corner in the morning and have fun.
Lindy and Trinity waved goodbye when they got on the bus, and then Caleb did, too, and once the bus had left, Jeff asked me how much longer I was going to be in America, and I told him that I was going back to Equestria at the end of the year. And he nodded and then he told me to be careful and stay safe, and then he went back inside.
I thought that was kind of a strange thing for him to say.
We went around the rest of the neighborhood, and then Peggy wanted to race the last block and I said that she wouldn't beat me. She said that she knew, but she still wanted to, so I waited until she started running, and then I started trotting and when I hit a canter I was starting to catch up and I probably could have stayed at that gait and it would have been a pretty even match, but she would know that I was holding back, so I changed to a gallop, and passed her with over a third of the block left to go.
I was panting a little bit, and Peggy was a bit winded, too, so we walked the rest of the way back to the dorm, and while we were on our way my portable telephone started ringing and Peggy answered it since she could get it out of my pocket quicker than I could.
It was Mister Salvatore, and he said that he wanted to come over and talk to me, and so I told him that I had free time between my thermodynamics class and lunch, and I told him when, and he said that he'd meet me up at my dorm room.
So I told Peggy, even though she'd probably heard some of what he said, just so she wouldn't be surprised when he showed up.
She insisted that I have the first shower, until I started to push her into the bathroom 'cause I thought that we ought to take turns at having the first shower. Even if it did take me longer to get ready in the morning 'cause I had a lot more grooming to do.
And I had to wait for Kat, 'cause she came in while Peggy was in the shower and it wouldn't be fair to steal her turn, so when I got out I was a little bit later than usual and I told Peggy to go ahead and go to the dining hall without me, but she said that she'd wait, and she even helped brush my coat while I was preening my wings, which was really nice of her.
I didn't do a thorough preening, 'cause I could tell that Peggy was getting a little bit impatient even though she was pretending not to be, and then we went to breakfast together.
Everyone at our table was in a kind of gloomy mood, and Reese said that he was never going to trust statistics again. Then Anna said that sometimes the monster scores a critical hit, and that made him laugh a little bit.
Meghan saw my wings and shook her head, then tapped her hand on her lap so I stuck out a wing and let her finish preening it. She said that when she'd seen how things were going, she'd spent the night filling out forms that would let her work in Equestria and she was hoping she'd get lucky, and Sean said that he'd heard that the Canadian emigration internet page had crashed because so many people were using it.
Christine told me to stay away from my Facebook for a couple of days, because her Facebook wall had been filled with all sorts of angry people and she thought that I probably didn't want to see it on mine. And then she said that Joe had been smart to go to Japan, and she thought that he would probably stay away for the next few years.
Well, it wasn't a very happy breakfast conversation, but at least Meghan distracted me by preening my wings and it made her happy to do it, too, and when she'd done both I leaned up and kissed her and I didn't care who saw.
Professor Brown was still teaching us about alchemical solutions. I'd figured out what chloroform and acetone and carbon disulphide were even though I didn't really need to know for the class. Humans had different ways of writing the names of alchemical compounds than we did, and sometimes it made it not obvious what it was made of. Plus there were a whole lot of them and I didn't know all that many.
He showed us how to change molar fractions in solutions and figure out what the new vapor pressure was, and it combined Raoult's law, Henry's law, and Dalton's law so that was a lot of things I had to make sure to remember.
And then he warned us that sometimes there was a place where the bubble line and the dew line met in the middle with some components, which was called an azeotrope, and that was important to know because sometimes if you were trying to purify something, you'd find that point and then you couldn't separate it anymore until you'd got past it.
We also learned the four colligative properties, which were the vapor pressure, boiling point elevation, freezing point depression, and osmotic pressure, and I used the first three of them all the time with weatherwork.
I gave Lisa my calculations right after class, and then I had to rush back to my dorm so that I wouldn't be late to meet with Mister Salvatore. And him and Miss Cherilyn were both at my door when I got there and I said that I was sorry I hadn't gotten there sooner, and they said that it was okay, and then asked if they could come in my dorm room with me, and since I'd told Peggy and she knew they were going to be coming I said it was okay.
I sat down on the bed and Miss Cherilyn sat down next to me but Mister Salvatore stayed standing. And she told me that because of the things that Mister Trump had said while he was campaigning, there were a lot of racists who had become more bold, because they thought that the election results were a sign that they were right and that they could do what they wanted to do, even if it was wrong, and she said that that meant that people might paint anti-pony messages on buildings or send me angry letters or worse, or even try and hurt me.
She said that there were always people like that and most of them hid away and stewed in their own poison until they went out and did something bad, but now they'd be a little bit more confident, and that there were people out there who didn't like ponies very much, like the angry man at Walgreen's.
Then Mister Salvatore said that despite what she said, the majority of people who had voted for Trump had done so for other reasons, and were not bad people, but he said that this election had been one of the nastiest he'd ever experienced and that there were a lot of people who were mad about a lot of things and just wanted an excuse to strike out at someone.
He said that they were going to stay closer to me, and he told me that he wanted me to promise I'd tell him whenever I was traveling anywhere very far, even if I was with my friends, and he also said that I should do my best not to be alone except when I was flying.
And he said that if I got the feeling that I was in a bad situation, I should just fly away and call him as quickly as I could.
I said that I could hold my own in a fight, and Miss Cherilyn said not if the person had a gun.
Mister Salvatore said that he knew I was smart and resourceful, and he was sure that I'd be smart and do the right thing, and he said that he hoped that in a few weeks things would get back to normal, but until then he didn't want to take any chances, and he told me again that I could call him any time, day or night.
So I told him that I was going to go to Peggy's for Thanksgiving and we hadn't really made any plans after that, and he said that that was fine, and that they were still working on what we were going to do after Thanksgiving, and that the election had changed things a little bit.
He said that I should tell Peggy that she could call him anytime, too.
I got up when Miss Cherilyn did, and I hugged her and then I hugged Mister Salvatore, too, before he left.
It was kind of hard to concentrate on my homework after they'd said all that, and I kept making dumb mistakes and losing track of where I'd been, and so I still hadn't finished it by lunchtime.
People were still kind of gloomy at lunch, and I overheard a couple of people talking about wanting to start a protest. And it was hard to be cheery when everyone else was in a bad mood, plus I was still thinking about what Mister Salvatore had said. So I wasn't really in that much of a mood to eat, and so none of the food looked very good and it didn't taste that good, either, but I think that was just me, 'cause it was the same food as always.
Peggy wanted to know what Mister Salvatore had said, so I told her, and she said that he was really smart, and she was worried about the crazies seeing this as a sign that it was okay to do bad things and she hoped that it didn't happen.
I was glad that I could walk to class with Sean, and I stayed close to him even though I didn't think that there were any bad people on campus.
Professor Pampena told us that we were going to start learning about doing triple integrals and flux and work in space, which meant three dimensions not outer space. Although I suppose they would still work in outer space.
We started with triple integrals, and it was a lot like double integrals but we had to be careful not to get confused about what went where in our equation, and we had to determine an order to integrate in.
He drew us a picture on the markerboard and solved an equation to show us how it was done, and I tried to keep one step ahead of him while still paying attention to what he said, and then when he was done he said that we didn't like how the answer looked and it was better to use polar coordinates. And in space polar coordinates were cylindrical coordinates instead, but they were pretty much the same.
Professor Pampena told us how to figure out mass using triple integrals, and how we could calculate the center of mass, and the moment of inertia which he said was easier in three dimensions, and then he did an equation on the markerboard for us.
Me and Sean did our homework together in his room again, and when we were done, we watched a Numberphile movie where Matt Parker built an adding machine that worked by knocking over dominoes, which was really clever, and he explained how the logic gates worked. The computer was in binary, and that was an even smaller number base than decimal, but that was all that computers could think in so that was what they had to use. And Sean told me how my portable telephone and my watch and my radios all worked like this on the inside, too.
Then Sean said that he'd love it if I watched the new Star Trek movie with him this weekend. He said that we could go to Christine's suite and make it a party, which did sound like it would be fun. And I still wanted to, but I also wanted to have fun with Aric and Meghan, and it was hard to choose which I should do.
I went back to my room and finished up my thermodynamics homework and then I got out the World War One book and read some more of it.
The Germans attacked Verdun in an attempt to make the French use all their troops defend it until they ran out of soldiers elsewhere, and the British had a million men volunteer for the army but it wasn't enough so they started to just make people join. And Portugal had stayed neutral but kind of sided with Britain, so Germany declared war on them.
The Russians tried to divert the Germans but it didn't work, and the Irish rebelled against the British, since the British were busy in Europe, but their Easter Rising didn't work.
The Arabs launched a revolt against Turkey, and the Germans and British fought a major sea battle and lost more ships but won the battle because the Germans ran away. And the Russians finally broke through the lines in the east, and the British tried it in the west and had 57,000 casualties in a couple of hours.
Romania declared war against the central powers and advanced into Transylvania, but didn't get much further than that, and the Germans finally gave up at Verdun, after seven hundred thousand people were hurt or killed between both sides.
The allies advanced only ten miles at Somme, at the cost of a million dead and injured, and they thought that that was a winning strategy. And during that winter, when they couldn't have big battles because of the snow, a bunch of leaders on both sides got replaced. Woodrow Wilson, who was the President of America, tried to get the countries to make peace but they wouldn't.
I didn't understand how people could think that the war was worth fighting. Nobody had really gained anything by it, and it seemed like most countries had actually lost more than they'd had at the beginning of the war. And when I looked at the maps, I couldn't understand why countries like Portugal would even want to get involved, especially after a few years when it became obvious that the only thing the war was good for was killing people. Did nobody have any sense?
I ate a light dinner so that I wouldn't have a full belly when I was cheerleading, and me and Peggy walked back to our room together, and I just sat on my bed and watched Peggy doing her homework until it was time for me to go to practice.
She said that she could walk down there with me if I wanted, and I said that I'd fly, and so I went downstairs to the boardwalk and I glided down the quad and then the rest of the way down Academy Street.
Sandra had me warm up with everyone else even though I couldn't do all the same stretches that they did, and they didn't have wings to stretch out. Then Sandra helped me put my cheerleading uniform on, so that I could practice while wearing it. It was important to find out now if it was going to get in the way when I was thrown in the air or if I might accidentally step on the skirt when I landed, and we also had to practice with the pom-poms, 'cause I needed to know how to shake them just right and also find out how quickly I could get them on and off.
And I even got to be thrown in the air with them on, which was fun. I could shake them while I was flying, and then tuck them in before coming in for a landing.
After we'd practiced for a while, I wasn't liking the uniform very much 'cause it held in too much heat, and I wasn't used to that. I couldn't even get a good breeze under my tail, since I was wearing the underwear, too. They had lots of water and Gatorade too, and so I drank some at every opportunity because getting too thirsty while exercising could make you faint.
I hoped that it was going to be a cool day on Friday.
It felt like practice was longer than it actually was, and I was happy when Sandra said that we were done. And I didn't even think about it but I went right into the locker room and tried to pull off my cheerleading uniform and the skirt and underwear wasn't too hard but the vest was more of a challenge and I finally had to have Jessica help me.
I felt a lot better when it was off, 'cause now my body could cool itself off, and I trotted into the showers. Some of the girls were already there and I found a showerhead that wasn't taken yet and turned on the cold water and rinsed myself off, and the girl next to me complained 'cause some of the cold water was splashing her, which I hadn't meant to. But instead of having shower-columns like in Hoben, they were all arranged on the wall, which meant that you were more likely to splash your neighbor. Also it wasn't as friendly, 'cause you had to turn your head to look at anyone else.
I hadn't brought any shower supplies, but I hadn't expected for it to be so much of a workout. But just rinsing off made me feel a lot better, and when I was done, I went into the changing area so I could shake off without splashing anyone. And I wasn't sure if I should stay until they were all done with their showers, too, but I decided that I would because I didn't really feel like flying with wet wings, and since Jessica lived in DeWaters, I could walk back with her.
I started to walk across the parking lot and I had never realized how many shadows and hiding places there were in a parking lot and it started to make me nervous, so I flew up to the boardwalk and let myself in that door, and then I went upstairs to my room to say goodnight to Peggy before I went to Aric's house.
I nuzzled her and told her that I'd see her at lunch tomorrow, and then I got my flight gear and went to Meghan's room.
We walked to Aric's house together and when we got there Aric had beer, and Angela and David were sitting on the couch with him and complaining about the election, so we joined them and we wound up staying up kind of late, probably later than we should have, 'cause no one was really paying attention to the time. And it was finally Meghan who noticed when she went to the bathroom and saw a clock in the kitchen, and she said that she ought to get some sleep before tomorrow.
The three of us went upstairs and got undressed, and neither of them really felt like having sex, so we just all cuddled together, and I liked that 'cause I was in the middle, although it got a little bit too warm after a while and I had to push the covers down some and stretch out my wings over them so that they'd stay warm.
Domino computer!
It just came to me but has Silver Glow been writing her family often during her stay? Plus it does make me wonder just what the current political situation is like between Equestria and Earth and it's countries?
Are you saying the Equestrian emigration website hasn't already been snowed under all year?
(Okay, after several months, they would've gotten higher-capacity servers, so...)
Mr Salvatore is looking at kevlar flight vest with gel form backing. Call it the a10 option.
Silver Glow: "What did we do last night? Wait, nevermind."
Aww yiss, Meghan's Journal!
(Please!)
Well, when everyone's angry, no one is thinking sensibly.
Wonder if Silver Glow will move on to WWII next. =x
I feel like the handlers might have overreacted with their talk to SG about protecting herself, but then again it's their job to anticipate and plan for any wrongdoing, no matter the likelihood.
Not sure if this is on topic or not but I imagine that in this story The Fermi Paradox is still in effect with the exception that now it reads "Why is it only Equestria that we have located?"
I'm having trouble imagining anti cute fuzzy alien racists.
What? They would be against the teddy bear planet aliens too?
Ha, called it.
Everyone always thinks it will be a short victorious war. It's history's sucker bet. In the USA Civil War the 1st Battle of Bull Run was fought in part because Union forces were only enlisted for 90 days & Lincoln wanted to end the war before the army went home. Edward III started the Hundred Years War because he thought he'd win quick.
The Austrians thought they'd beat the Serbs quickly & things snowballed.
7861303 An in-depth look at The War To End All Wars (WWI) shows a remarkable bunch of generals who seem to have been rewarded according to how many of their own men died in assaults. The American Civil War was staggeringly bad, but WWI broke all kinds of records for How Not To Do Things. Still, when WWII broke out, there were a number of officers who had gone through WWI and rose in rank afterwards who were just *determined* to fight it the same way, all over again. Thankfully, they were mostly pushed aside for more modern officers. Not so thankfully, it happened on all three major sides. Stalin was a case study in Russian Weirdities. He had his successful officers thrown into prison back in the early 40s/late 30s, which meant they survived the initial German attack, but went from prison to commanding armored columns once they were needed to fight against their once-ally. (Russian pragmatism. A bullet in the back of the head is hard to reverse if you need the person again.)
7861303 To be fair, Lincoln called up troops for ninety days because that's all he could do until Congress convened. And he had to call a special Congressional session for June... because before the war the newly elected Congress didn't meet until DECEMBER. That said, there was a lot of idiocy in the American Civil War... but nothing like the sheer blithering incompetence of almost all the high commanders in the First World War.
7861261
Indeed. I've had it in my head that Meghan was already planning on going to Equestria even before meeting Silver. I'd like to think Aric would go too but he probably already has plans/commitments he needs/wants to see through first. And Cedric surprises everyone when he announces his plan to permanently move to Equestria to be with the mare who holds his heart.
ICR who said "Generals are always prepared to fight the LAST war -and this time, by God, they'll get it right."
Bravo people! I applaud you all. This story looked like it was going to turn into a political shouting match ...but it didn't.
The election has come and gone. No horrors or disasters have befallen us or are likely to do so.
Let there be peace. Let the healing begin.
The other thing that Mr. Salvatore should have brought up is that getting into a fight could get Silver Glow into legal trouble. Just because the other guy started it doesn't mean that the cops will believe you.
Not being able to go home because you're under indictment won't make for a good time.
Many rightwing nuts do not understand the purpose of the protests. The purpose is to tell Trump that with only 46% of the vote, 2% less than Clinton and 3 million fewer votes, he has no mandate, so do not try to fuckup the country by carrying your ProPutin Agenda.
7861449
Come to think of it; that has kind of already happened. Silver had been detained when she tried to help with the house fire a while back. IIRC, the officer thought she might have started the fire and had her wait in the back of his patrol car.
7861117 I was just thinking one difference between this world and ours is there are probably a lot less people saying they will move to Canada, and a lot more people saying they will move to Equestria instead. A bunch of irritated Canadians put out articles saying "Stop treating Canada like your safety school," I wonder if snarky Equestrians did the same in this story?
I love and adore this story, but I think I'll skip the comments for a while.
And if I was the SG, I'd be nervous too. Nice to see our feds caring about their feathery girl like they do (I know it's their job, but still).
Holy crap, slow the f**k down. I haven't read much of this story for awhile now because I was off fimfic for some time but it's approaching 800k words, nearly a million. And I thought RD Flies East and Background Pony were incredibly long stories. This is basically 4 times longer than RD flies East and double background pony. Les Miserables is only about 650k words. You my friend, have written a great many words.
7861226
They might. After all, bears are godless killing machines, and teddy bears are no exception.
7861453
Is that why a bunch of libtard college students marched through my city's downtown yelling "Not my President! Not my President!"? It's not because they were all butthurt that their favored Fuhrer didn't single handedly take the entire election and rule the country for her own needs? The "rightwing nuts" you're bitching about wouldn't have even tried protests like these whinging kids were. Loud grumbling, like how it was for Obama twice maybe, but not the whole bitch fit that the rest of November experienced. Clinton doesn't even represent the other half of the country, so what about everyone else? You wouldn't give a shit if your favored candidate won, but now you do because a populist came along to smash through both political parties like a wrecking ball and took the campaign for himself because half the country didn't like the corrupt status-quo career politician. If California didn't exist or the huge ideologically Leftist echo chambers there, Trump would have bulldozed over the entire election.
And "ProPutin Agenda". That's a double laugh. Trump is an American Nationalist. He doesn't give a shit about Russia. The thing that hinged on Clinton or Trump is with Syria, when American interests wanted to build a pipeline through it towards America friendly places, but Russia and the local government didn't want it. America helped secretly destabilize Syria by funding ISIS-esq rebels . Trump wanted the fighting to stop altogether. Hillary wanted to impose a military No-Fly Zone, which had a great possibility of starting what would effectively be World War 3 with Russia. And if you do actually believe that the election was rigged by the Russians and the DNC leaks were from them, you're believing in fairy tales concocted by the Clinton campaign, the mainstream media in her pocket, and anonymous CIA agents with no evidence whatsoever. Russia would have had to rig every county in the US, even the ones without voting machines, and the DNC was leaked by a DNC employee. You people are fucking crazy conspiracy theorists. Oh god, I can't believe people believing in this shit still exist.
Again, not going into any further detail than saying I enjoyed this chapter... when a chill wasn't running down my spine.
7861689
*Sighs and flips the "Days Without Rude, Hateful Politcal Arguing" sign from 1 back to 0*
Darn. We were doing pretty well. I thought we were going to get through this one.
7861899 Hon, I've been called a rape apologist for being against Feminist ideas of masculine shaming and male hatred, been called a Neo-Nazi for being against mass/illegal immigration, a part of the Alt-Right for saying it's black peoples fault themselves for creating a toxic culture that glorifies hatred of white people and the police while ignoring real issues within their communities like broken fatherless homes, and even an Islamophobe for saying it's Islam itself that has also helped fuel the daily terrorist attacks and Western hatred within Islamic communities. I've been laughed at, made fun of, dismissed, blocked, shamed, and shouted down.
You think I'm a rude or hateful person? I know I am incredibly blunt, not the most articulate, or even the most knowledgeable on many subjects, but I have never received or seen as much hate in my life as I have as someone who express opinions that go against Progressive or very hard Leftist politics. I've seen people who got it a lot worse with internet hate mobs harassing people off the internet or destroying businesses, governments cracking down on free speech that goes against their Progressive politics (UK, Germany, and Sweden), people being persecuted into silence by "social justice" kangaroo courts (Canada and most Western universities), and the News smearing and lying about anyone that goes against their corporate politics.
The gloves came off a long time ago and I will call out bullshit when I see it.
7861689 Thank G-d there's another Trump supporter here.
7862272 Look out! Wal-Greens man is back! Hide your women! Hide your minorities!
7861689
Yes.
President Obama had a mandate of over half the vote each time. That is a pretty good indication that most Americans wanted him to try his policies. President Elect Trump has no mandate. If his is smart, he will preserve the status quo and balance the budget by cutting the fat and raising taxes on the super rich. He could try to be Bush # 2:
President Bush did not accept his lack of mandate, barely won reelection as a War-President and left office with an approval rating in the 20s. One needs at least a plurality for a mandate and a majority (over 50%) for a full 1st 100 Days.
President Elect Trump should put off his borderwall until his 2nd term, if he wins over 50%, or else, he is likely to have most Democrats and a fair number of Republicans in the House and Senate, for over 50% of both houses rejecting the wall, on costs. He could probably save face by scaling back the wall to barbed wire, which can be defeated with boltcutters.
⸘Do you honestly believe that Russia would start a nuclear war over a no-fly zone‽
Both the CIA and FBI agree that Russia manipulated the US-Election. I understand you not trusting J. Edgar Comey, because he is a partisan hack, but if anything, he would try to legitimize Trump, but ¿do you also believe that Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., and the Director of the CIA John O.Brennan are untrustworth? If you do not trust the Central Intelligence Agency, Director of National Intelligence. and The Federal Bureau of Investigation, ¿who do you trust?
7861226
Eh, I don't know enough about the Care Bears to be able to refute them.
A better base for computers is Balanced Ternary. Ternary has the lowest radix-economy of any base (number of numerals in a base times the number of numerals need to represent an integer). Balanced Ternary has the lowest carry-rate of any base. I balanced ternary one has numerals representing negative powers of 3, 0, and positive powers of 3:
TT:
4
T0:
3
T1:
2
T:
1
0:
0
1:
1
1T:
2
10:
3
11:
4
τ:
1T0.10TT0T1100T110TT0T1TT000001
6.28318530717959
Both the Soviet Union and the United States of American experiment with computers using Balanced Ternary, but the technology was not quite ready. Computer-Manufactures would be wise to make experimental 81-Trit computers using Balanced Ternary for determining wither the technology is read now.
Speakiing about bases, Miss Silver Glow uses Duodecimal (Base12). That is a better base than Decimal (Base10), but I prefer Sexagesimal (Base60) because 60 is both an highly composite number and the least common multiple of all natural numbers up to 6. I would make the currency based on 30 because the sequence of denominations 1, 3, 10, and 30 has a low Radix-Economy (we could lower the Radix-Economy of our Decimal (Base10) currency if we would have the denominations 000.01, 000.03, 000.10, 000.30, 001.00, 003.00, 010.00, 030.00, 100.00).
7862215
*Sighs and flips the sign back again. Then sighs even deeper, turns to the "Days Since Someone Argued for Two Wrong Making A Right" sign, and flips it back too.*
7862331 Trump would have had the mandate if there was no cheating or votes from illegal imigrants.
*sigh* I love this story, and I believe its view at the college level is probably pretty accurate (thouygh perhaps toned down.) And that fact itself is immensely saddening.
Yes, because yesterday the world as all blue skies and singing birds, but Trump's electoral victory threw a magic switch, and suddenly we're in a film noir 1930 Germany, about to be shoved in cattle cars as the rain pours down on us. Trump's election was clearly the signal to all the crypto-facists and secret Double-KKK members to rush out of their homes and start raping minorities!
I find it amusing that if you cross the street to avoid a half dozen blacks guys wearing gang colors and tatoos, stalking down the street like they own it, you're an evil racist xenophobe. But if you assume that all the redneck hicks in flyover country are a bunch of bigoted racists just waiting for an excuse to go burn some crosses and string up some furriners, then you're a well educated liberal with common sense!
7861453
Soooo.. You mean that the purpose of protests is to make it clear that you're a block of voters that will never, ever, ever support trump or Republicans... And thus there is absolutely no reason to court you, try to change your minds, or buy your votes. Thus ensuring that your opinions, goals, and desires can be completely ignored by the current regime? If that's the goal of protests, then congratulations! You're doing it right! If the goal is to convince people in the middle that your side is correct, and should be returned to power as quickly as possible... Well, less good news there...
You might want to check out this entertaining little video. The part between 6:55 and 8:00 or so. That's one of the sections on democracies...
Really? Because I, honestly, do not recall mass protests or violent riots after either of Obama's elections. But please, list some examples if you would. I'm sure you can provide a few. I also doubt they compare to the tidal wave of madness we've see over the last two months. As for calls for conservative states to secede, I'll agree that's rather goofy. Of course, Liberals are calling for California to do the same, so I'll call that a wash.
I love the way you say "Objectively" and then state an opinion. No, many of us found Obama's policies to be just as scary or scarier than Trumps. He promised to "Fundamentally Transform America." And he has! Just not for the better. I'll give him this, he HAS kept his promises... Which is exactly what conservatives feared he'd do. He's expanded the government, increased regulations, weaponized every federal bureau he could reach against his enemies, gone a long was towards socializing the health care system, and generally driven the ship of state towards the shoals of Socialism. All of that is QUITE scary.
But I tell you what. I believe we can find a piece of common ground amidst all this turmoil. I will cheerfully stand beside anyone who will agree with me to help reduce the size, scope, and power of the federal government and all of it's branches. There is one way in which a Trump presidency is scarier than Obama... Trump has inherited federal government and bureaucracy that is unprecedented in scope and power. And unless we start trimming things down, his successor will inherent the same. You're so worried about Trump? I'll be more than happy to help you hobble his administration... So long as those hobbles are permanent and get passed on to every administration that follows.
Secondly, whether or not you dislike Obama's policies, he was objectively not as scary as Trump. To think that Obama's presidency would threaten democracy as we know it requires you to believe that everything he ever said was a lie. To think that Trump's presidency will do so only requires you to believe that he meant the things he said.
7861367
Both Civil War and WW1 commanders had similar problems: Technology had advanced by vast leaps while tactics had not kept up, resulting in commanders trying to reconcile advances like quick-firing artillery, machine guns, repeating rifles, and poison gas with tactics that would not have looked too out of place to Gustavus Adolphus.
Also, these advances heavily favored the defender, while by WW2, the automobile and armor had advanced sufficiently to restore mobility to the battlefield.
7863301 Thing is, the WWI generals had no real excuse. The French high command was dedicated to the idea that a spirited frontal assault could break any defense, and they stuck to this idiotic notion until Joffre was finally given his walking papers after two years of blind idiocy. The British succeeded a couple of times in breaking German lines, but had zero plans for how to follow up that success, leading to failure of the offensive and massive casualties. The Russians and Austrians never learned how to supply their own soldiers. And the Germans, whose entire war plan was based on the premise that Germany could not win a prolonged two-front war, insisted on pushing on for total victory even after that war plan failed, not relenting on their goal of conquest and total continental hegemony until their defeat became truly inevitable after the failed 1918 offensives. And, of course, too many old, blatantly incompetent generals were kept in place in every army, allowing them to get their own soldiers killed again, again, and again. Say what you like about American Civil War commanders, but most of the deadwood got weeded out, and the remaining generals learned from experience.
I really like this story and the fascinating commentary it manages to make on human society without ever being as annoying about it as its own comments section.
7862660
⸘Did you just cite a piece of fakenews so ridiculous that it does not pass the giggletest‽ ¡You are batshit crazy!
7862946
No. The protest indicate that he has no mandate. He should think twice about things like taking away insurance from those with preexisting conditions because he has little support for his policies.
7861059
Neither AND nor XOR are functionally complete. I want to see NAND or NOR
Do not actually see that much difference with Trump and Clinton (this is coming from Iceland:P) neither should have been in the running for a president. Glad I was not born in the greatest country in the world (USA in my opinion still), since the election would be like asking me to choose to either eat a pile of shit with a flower on top or a pile of shit with a mushroom on top-.-
7864065 The things I have done with NAND gates man...I design memory decoders for a living.
7868563 yes, that was the first time the Americans had a Mexican - Style election
The day After... I love that title!
True story. I also recall a few people around me talking about moving to Australia, since it was the furthest possible from Trump. But I think it was mostly joking.
7863390 The commander in the American civil war learned from their mistakes you say? Took them about as long as the one from WWI. The tactic during the WWI evolved all long the war.
Both war are sadly very comparable. WWI just had a bigger scale and some more advanced killing method.
7861081
Probably not as much as she should, but she has occasionally. College kids aren't all that good at writing home.
It probably varies somewhat, but overall Equestria is pretty neutral with their various relationships. Some of that is surely still being negotiated, and everyone's moving slowly. I think that Princess Celestia has enough experience to not just go rushing into bad treaties.
7861117
Are you saying the Equestrian emigration website hasn't already been snowed under all year?
Heh, yeah, it probably has.
If they thought of that. Depending on how computer-literate the ponies are (which is probably not very), they might just be thinking that it's faster than actual mail, therefore it's good.
7861180
You've got to imagine that the Air Force is wondering how much ammunition a pegasus can carry. And that there are probably treaties in place that prevent them from finding out.
7861181
We shall see.
That's quite true, unfortunately.
She probably won't get to it during her time on Earth--there isn't enough of the year left.
7861185
For better or worse, since this story covers (mostly) current events, it's bound to carry over in the comments.
7861197
Yeah, it was almost certainly an overreaction, but they're of the mind that it's better to be safe than sorry.
7861226
It really depends on who found who, and how many other planets they know of. It's canon that the ponies are aware of EqG-verse, and the comics have Starswirl and Celestia going through the mirror portal to other worlds . . . We don't know if those are different planets, or different timelines, or what, but I think it's entirely possible that the ponies could have told the humans about a lot of other worlds that they knew about.
The teddy bear planet aliens are mean bastards, everybody knows that.
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7861303
Well, how can the politicians sell the war if they're truthful? "Yeah, we want to start a war that's going to drag on for a decade and in the end there won't be a clear winner . . . what do you mean you don't support that?"
7861347
Given that in a large part that WWI was a war of attrition (like, that was the actual strategy) I suppose if more of the enemy died than your troops, that was a successful battle.
And the military especially seems really good at training for the last war while not really having a good idea of how to fight the next one.
Yeah, the Russians are something else. You've got to admit, though, that fighting a retreating battle then waiting for winter to come and finish off the Germans was an effective strategy in WWII.
7861367
I think that the one thing that was really different between the Civil War and WWI was that the war started because people were fighting for things that they believed in, not because they wanted to come to the defense of their ally. At least, that's my opinion of it.
Also, love your Cherry Berry avatar.
7861394
Yeah, it's not a new plan for her. She was probably thinking about it from the moment of first contact.
I don't think Cedric would, to be honest. Maybe, though.
7861443
Not as much as I kind of expected, anyways. And that's a good thing.
7861449
Exactly. Silver Glow (and really everyone in general) is better off walking/flying away from a fight.
Well, odds are that they'd just deport her, unless she murdered someone or something like that.
7861489
Yup, just because the cop was kind of a jerk and a bit dubious of her story.
That makes me think, though: obviously, we have racial profiling here in the US. Do the Equestrians have cutie-mark profiling? If there's a house fire, are they going to take the pony with a match cutie mark into custody on principle?
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Is she an instant suspect in any axe murder?
7861496
I suppose it would depend on what Equestria had to offer besides cute ponies. I mean, for some the lack of technology would be a really big turn-off (I assume that Canada has moose-powered internet, whereas Equestria has none).
Or for that matter if there is some talk of allowing humans to emigrate to some of the nastier parts of Equestria. I could see that being something that fraudsters might take advantage of, and if they're particularly bastards, they could ensure that the new arrivals go somewhere that a monster would get them pretty quick, and then they could bring in a fresh batch of humans without worrying about negative Yelp reviews.
Hydra's gotta eat, after all.
7861596
Might be the safest thing to do.
I think that the people they choose to be handlers are the people who are going to love their pony and go above and beyond to keep her (or him) safe.
7861658
Fear not, we're getting close to the end.
Isn't all of RD flies East well over a million words, though? I mean with all the sequels and such?
And I'll be honest, I'm as surprised as anyone that it's gotten this long. I do tend to be verbose. . . .
7861679
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