psyssi
Adolf Hitler, Kaiser Wilhelm, Charles XII, and Napoleon were all men who thought they could conquer Russia in the winter.

Robert
Karl XII did not loose vs russia due to the winter. He lost because of an incompetent general, who led the last battle, and who surrendered with the bulk of the army intact, and thus because of the low morale of the army. Winter was never a matter of defeat for the swedish army vs russa.

deathtokoalas
it seems as though you need to add barack obama to that list.

José Ignacio Panario Güenaga
+Robert More to the contrary, actually. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Narva_(1700)

deathtokoalas
i don't really want to get into this, but the great northern war is fundamentally different than the invasions pushed by napoleon, hitler and, now, it seems, obama. it's not a good idea to do direct comparisons. 

The Basileus
Aha yes congrats to the mongols they are the true winners they conquered a land full of A: a whole load of nothing of other incompetent horse lords and a bunch of Russian principalities that were incompetent the only nations that were challenges for them was the Muslims and the Chinese and well the mongols are the master race right look at them today lets all face it people over glorify the mongols the European powers rocketed way above the mongols and the mongols will forever in history be known as a scourge and cancer had the mongols faced a united Russian empire under someone competent

deathtokoalas
the mongols were unable to conquer japan, despite several tries over several centuries.

Nickrr1992
+psyssi To be fair to Napoleon he did reach Moscow or what was left of it. Russia adopted a scorched earth tactic, so when the French army arrived there was no supplies or anyway to maintain the army also the Russian army was raiding supply escorts and coupled with the extreme cold the French army had a massive problem. Napoleon lost due to widespread disease, malnutrition and lack  supplies to continue forward so was forced to retreat

deathtokoalas
+Nickrr1992 i think the underlying context that everybody missed - and continues to miss - is that russia has never been a wealthy country. a look at the map can be misleading. when the rich parisians and berliners made it to the heart of the transcontinental empire, they seem to have been unprepared to adjust to the frugality of existence that is necessary at the northernmost tip of civilization.

the romans never conquered arabia. it wasn't because they couldn't - it was that they felt the land was useless.

jessica murray
think it through, guys. would a group opposed to a pipeline due to the threat of spills decide to blow one up, thereby spilling oil everywhere? does that make any sense? i've been involved with these groups, and let me tell you that "highly disorganized and mostly on welfare" is the actual truth of it. unfortunately, people end up drawn to activism after they've failed at something else, and there's consequently a substantial problem with a lack of education. under that, there's a core of utopian socialists and quasi-anarchists that keep it running through creative use of limited resources. the highly organized and well-financed movement (with foreign backers) is the petroleum industry.

www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/rcmp-documents-warn-environmental-groups-could-pose-threat/45699/?ddlMonth=month&ddlYear=2016 

MH
Sure, just like the FBI saying the same about Martin Luther King and his fellow "communist" Civil Rights Workers, and the RCMP planting evidence to claim Ludwig Weibo was planning to bomb pipelines. These activists aren't "anti-Canada," they're anti-the oil and gas companies who own Harper & the Tories and will stop at nothing to increase their profits. It's Harper & his cronies who are "anti-Canada"; they'll destroy the Canadian environment and sicken or kill Canadians to make that profit.

jessica murray
if these groups had any money or structure, they'd use it to lobby parliament, like every other well-funded group (including the petroleum industry) does in our money-buys-influence "democracy". street protests are always the behaviour of the disenfranchised.

reality:
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-top-lobby-groups-in-ottawa/

KW
The groups do have substantial funding. Vivian Krause has documented the money trail at http://business.financialpost.com/2010/10/14/u-s-foundations-against-the-oil-sands/ $6 Million is not chump change to fund protest groups. As for the risk of terror activities, one only has to look at Daniel Johnson formerly on the Green Party of Sask. executive as he demonstrates how to cause train accidents through sabotaging of signal lights. http://www.genuinewitty.com/2013/08/18/saskatchewan-green-party-executive-promotes-train-sabotage-feat-daniel-johnson/

jessica murray
keith, the kind of foundations you're talking about do exist, but the purpose is largely to fund business opportunities in renewable energy and whatnot. activists on the ground consider these groups to be working against their interests in actually ending the fossil fuel economy. the anti-pipeline groups i was involved with (who advocated forms of civil disobedience like what was seen in new brunswick last year) were actively campaigning against both the green party and the ndp. that's part of the reason they're being targeted. so, the error is in connecting these groups to the protest groups. these are two very different things, with very different goals, and you can't conflate them.

one of the dominant aims of the american military establishment right now is in blocking petroleum exports to china. the article that keith posted has a little bit about that. that's not environmentalism, it's trade obstructionism. you can see some of this in the ndp's line on the pipelines, as well. it's willing to support pipelines that are connected to local refineries, and opposed to pipelines that export oil to us refineries. that's not an environmentalist position, it's a position meant to create union jobs. the grassroots organizations pushing the visible protests mostly understand all of this stuff, although they may get tricked sometimes.

the longer you think that police exist to protect the citizenry, the longer they will oppress you. that's the lie that allows the oppression to function.

the police exist to uphold class relations, and particularly to protect private property. their function is to protect the rich from the poor.

mass consciousness of this point is an absolutely necessary prerequisite to dismantling the police state.

the sad truth is that this was the second highest selling single in the us in the 60s. the only thing that outsold it was i want to hold your hand. and while it's depressing that that tune is the biggest beatles hit, it's even more distressing that this outsold all the anti-war music. by leaps and bounds.

the 60s, as they have been sold to younger listeners, are mostly a lie. the beatles were very popular. but you need to go way, way down the list to get to dylan or mitchell or anything else with any kind of social conscience. the reality is that it was a fringe counter-culture.

but, you've probably never heard of this before, have you? the counter-culture was fringe then, but it became dominant because the fringe had the balls (with all due respect to the women involved) to stand up against the market and wave it's freak flag high. now, the 60s mainstream is lost in obscurity. you wouldn't recognize more than half of the most popular songs of the era, but you'd recognize all kinds of stuff that didn't sell at all.

people complain that the market doesn't respond to a counter-culture anymore. but it never did. building a counter-culture is not a profitable business venture. if it sees a financial reward at all, it's not going to happen for years or decades. it's about changing attitudes.