The Off Topic Topic

[katmai]

Must be a shitty school.

[Eddie Teach]

It's in Tennessee and not named Vanderbilt.

[Lettow77]

 He's cracked the case!

Mr. Russel makes an excellent point, though; Forrest as a Little Girl within the wider pantheon of confederate generals as Little Girls would be a superior paper, and I wish I could turn it in. I can't, but languish has not heard the last of the idea; I will eventually have some completed project of it worthy of the high concept.

A brief sketch of what we know so far:

Forrest, our hero, is a brash and angry girl. She speaks in hakata-ben, (obviously, all of our cast speak japanese) which earns her the ridicule of more polished girls. She is forceful and prone to violence- for narrative purposes, she is shorter than the rest of the cast. The odds of her having red hair, twintails, or both is rather high. Forrest is an honest and sincere girl who gets frustrated with others' inability to communicate their feelings, and detests villains.

Lee is a very reserved girl, with white hair in short-to-medium bangs. She participates in tea ceremony, and is extremely elegant, admired by all. Although she is the most ladylike character, she is not arrogant, but criminally aloof. She always seems happy, albeit in a restrained manner, but is frustrated by her inability to be understood by those around her; she will place great forethought into subtle actions and the creation of a specific atmosphere to convey her feelings indirectly, but inevitably be misunderstood except by the girl who loves her the most.

Jackson is a shrine maiden, with long black hair in a traditional hime cut. She has spent so long sweeping her mountain shrine that she seems oddly disconnected from the world; her eyes burn with purpose in pursuit of demons that aren't there, and she goes from great enthusiasms over inexplicable things to detached indifference at the material world. She is uncomfortable with change, and privately struggles with her forbidden feelings of desire that she feels are the last link she has to the defiled world.

  J.E.B is an ojou of high breeding, with blonde hair in curls. She is extremely comfortable in refined society, but cannot be properly said to be refined, as she bears her greatness poorly- She is very prone to laughing loudly behind her hand at those beneath her (Everyone but Lee,) and brings a keen sense of social place and hierarchy to any environment that makes others uncomfortable. Terribly vain; her attempts to impress Lee and assert her superiority over the others are characterized by inept disaster, such as burning an impossibly large cake or a blatantly fabricated and increasingly elaborate story about a boyfriend.

Hood is a girl who was once quite active, and full of dreams, but has sustained repeated accidents. She has the prerequisite eyepatch and bandages, and when she moves at all, does so on crutches. She frequently re-injures herself by pushing herself too hard, to the despair of those who care about her (everyone, as she is an honest and earnest girl)

[Eddie Teach]

That's great! So how would you depict the main Union generals?

[Lettow77]

  the union does not exist, obviously

Edit: but to give it more consideration than it deserves, if it DID exist:

McClellan is a diligent, class-representative type girl, with glasses. She struggles with her vanity, but in spite of her arrogance and sense of hard work, is unable to catch the attention of the one she loves. She privately looks down on her company, and admires the people she'd like to be closer to from a distance. Keeps a lover observation diary that would doubtlessly unsettle its subject.

Grant is a washout from an all-girls school she attended with Sherman. She is a 'depraved woman', precociously drinking and acting like a "yankee girl" to convince herself and others of her maturity. She is violent with others because she dislikes herself and finds hitting easier than reflecting.

Sherman is a "prince" type girl, with short hair and a masculine manner. She has many admirers, and plays Tennis. She thrives on the affection of others, and uses girls who have fallen for her, and casts them aside. She laughs at the love letters she receives in her shoe locker, but has grown dependent on the affections of others and has received a twisted view of love based on dominance.

[Eddie Teach]

Missed opportunity.

[Ideologue]

What strange system did y'all come from? I am in Martin, TN. One of the slavering Forrest apologists I am citing heavily, Lonnie Maness, was the previous head of the history department here.

  I have been selected repeatedly by the history department for prizes singling me out as their top student- this year I won a nifty something or another for best senior in the history department.

I don't lie or fabricate evidence in any of my papers, and my writing is of course in beautiful lettow english that right-thinking professors, after being forced to contend with the sad-sack submissions of the rural bubbas, seize upon like a dehydrated man after water.

Maybe I should have went to a school whose faculty had a greater love for air war.  At least that would be righteous.

[Razgovory]

You guys live in the South, you are lucky you can even read.

[Eddie Teach]

Indeed, without that knowledge we'd miss all your brilliant quips.

[Razgovory]

Indeed, without that knowledge we'd miss all your brilliant quips.

I feel sorry for people who can't read English.

[Josquius]

Just got flash working on my kindle fire.yey

[Liep]

So they fired our vice president because he broke the company's ethic guidelines... and, you know, the law. He's still getting 11 months severance pay as per his contract.

[CountDeMoney]

So they fired our vice president because he broke the company's ethic guidelines... and, you know, the law. He's still getting 11 months severance pay as per his contract.

That's quite a lot of Little Debbies in the commissary.

[Admiral Yi]

Question.

Does a country with a falling population need GDP growth? Would GDP shrinking slower than population not be similar?

This begs the question whether a country *needs* GDP growth, but I'd say you're OK with rising per capita GDP.  As long as you scale down public spending proportionally.

[DGuller]

When it comes to quality of life, rising per capita GDP is what you need.  If you want to maintain a powerful military or economic might, however, then absolute GDP is what you need.  That said, I wonder if at some point growing GDP per capita diverges with the goal you're trying to achieve.  Once individuals get beyond a certain income level, their happiness and well-being is defined by less tangible things.  The same has to be true for a country at some point; what good is the high GDP per capita if people have to work on average 60 hours a week for it?