The Off Topic Topic

[Norgy]

A tax on duelling? Insanity.

[Sheilbh]

A tax on duelling? Insanity.

I know. France 

[Valmy]

Who wouldn't wanting to duel with the accompaniment of a brass band?

'Shoot your opponent across the field
show them that Valmy's here
He'll defend his honor
and then go enjoy a beer
Rah Rah Rah'

[Norgy]

I normally refrain from any activity involving brass bands. Except for the occasional book-burning and pogrom.

[Admiral Yi]

Can't be arsed to hunt down the Trivia thread.

Special question for Squeelus: what was Laventry Beria's ethnicity?

[Ed Anger]

I know that one. 

[Savonarola]

Your ideal party is Syriza, a Greek party of the left led by Alexis Tsipras.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2014/may/19/who-should-you-vote-for-in-the-european-elections

Your ideal party is the Conservative party, a British centre-right party led by David Cameron.

[Valmy]

I got the Spanish People's Party which sounds like a Trotskyite group 

[Ed Anger]

I got Franco.

[Valmy]

I know that one. 

[Sheilbh]

My own contribution to the fall of the West.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/us/warning-the-literary-canon-could-make-students-squirm.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0
Christ

[garbon]

I got: People's Party, a Spanish centre-right party led by Mariano Rajoy.

[Norgy]

Can't be arsed to hunt down the Trivia thread.

Special question for Squeelus: what was Laventry Beria's ethnicity?

Part of Stalin's clique of prison-dwellers, rapists and murderers from Georgia, I think.

[garbon]

My own contribution to the fall of the West.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/us/warning-the-literary-canon-could-make-students-squirm.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0
Christ

That said - I don't think most of the books I had to read in school were particularly worthwhile (only really changed about starting college). Certainly not Gatsby.

[Admiral Yi]

Part of Stalin's clique of prison-dwellers, rapists and murderers from Georgia, I think.

He was from Georgia, but the article I just read in Harper's mentioned a funky ethnic group that I had never heard of before.