Did they settle in California while it was still controlled by Spain? Or did they move there from somewhere else in former New Spain?

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See WoW in a way you've never imagined it.

"He came to Ahn'qiraj for the strife... instead, he found a wife! She's my qiraji love-bride, next on Sick Sad World of Warcraft!"

As far as I know, they left Spain and moved to California when it was still under Spanish control.

And now, random internet folk know more of my family history then most people I know IRL.

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So where do you live now?

You say "southwest" like you're afraid to admit we might be neighbors...

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You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake.

It must be interesting to see such ethnically mixed people all around in the US, one of the countries stronger points I'd say. Also from what I've noticed the people of the US have a much greater emphasis on their roots, even white people, then people back in the old continent; I presume that is due to an attempt to save their identity from the great American melting pot.

Here it is quite the opposite, 99% of the people I know are pureblood Serbs, and I know very little about my family history, I don't even know 3/4 of my grand-grand parents.
Though I do know that our family, the male lineage which passes on the last name that is, fled from present day Bosnia in the 18th century to escape from the Turks, who had designated that entire region as a military frontier and were conducting forced conversions to Islam because of it, which my family wanted to avoid obviously.

The posts are coming within the house!

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"All right, I'll get that kid to eat. Where's my screw driver and my plumber's helper? I'll open up his mouth and I'll shove it in."


The Alliance's three rules on faction conflict:
1) You can't win.
2) You can't break even.
3) You can't leave the game.

On my father's side I'm German, Irish, English and Dutch. My last name is Irish, and when my family first arrived in the 1800's the assholes at immigration changed the spelling of our last name.

On my mom's side I'm German, Irish and Italian. The Italian side of the family is the most recent to move to the U.S. and that was back in the late 1920's, I believe. They weren't fans of Mussolini.

Plus his name wasn't too appealing.

The only Irish heritage I have name-wise is my middle name after a very famous Irish Saint.

I'd really like to learn Gaelic. Fucking boss of a language.

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"Yeah, a sheltered and overly idealistic son of an absolutist monarch, set to inherit the whole nation and continue to rule it as an autocrat.

A beloved archetype of modern era!" - Kir the Gul'dan

Gaelic seems fun, but fuck Welsh. Fuck it hard.

And if you desperately want to know where I live with such a burning passion, try New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment. I think I might have mentioned it before.

And now this thread is officially derailed.

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Is Shroomie a Mushroom?

New political thought.

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"Yeah, a sheltered and overly idealistic son of an absolutist monarch, set to inherit the whole nation and continue to rule it as an autocrat.

A beloved archetype of modern era!" - Kir the Gul'dan

Actually yes, yes I am.


Me with my new haircut.

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A buddy of mine is a Japanese-American who first visited Japan for the first time a few months ago and ran smack-dab into one of those neo-fascist propaganda vans within the first day. It's like Japan is the polar opposite of modern Germany, which is so ashamed of the war that they won't let anyone mention it with the slightest bit of levity, modern Japan loves to pretend that it wasn't "that bad" if they even acknowledge some of its atrocities. It's really chilling that a modern, liberal democracy can just forget a period of recent history like that.

EDIT: Maybe one day I'll regale you with the stories of my ancestors' migration to create the wonderful hellspawn that is moi.

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Well, unlike Germany the Japanese government wasn't really "punished" besides no domestic army and some troubles of domestic economy, which the US helped build up in a few years.

It didn't literally become the epitome of their lives, unlike in Germany to where the East was critical of the war, hateful of those whom were participating in it, however did offer rehabilitation after some time.

The West was not as critical, hired these former Nazi and SS troops to fight against the communist east, but it pretty much Drastically changed the entire face of Germany.

World War II destroyed Germany as a nation, as a people, and ultimately reduced their legitimacy among nations and, due to the Cold War, cost them their neutrality and sovereignty.

Plus, doesn't really help that this would be worse than World War One. As now Germany had the bloodstains of all those that died, be they Jewish, POWs or just innocent civilians that simply were in the way or at the wrong place.

But, Japan got 1/3rd of the punishments Germany did. Hell, to this day Japan has not paid reparations to China, Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines or most nations they occupied.

Plus, Japan's internet culture has become nearly fucking fascinated with Fascism, Nazism and all that shit.

Brah, you got cheated out of a hair cut. It's already there.

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"Yeah, a sheltered and overly idealistic son of an absolutist monarch, set to inherit the whole nation and continue to rule it as an autocrat.

A beloved archetype of modern era!" - Kir the Gul'dan

I don't know, I always thought Mussolini sounded like a delicious pasta dish.

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Thank you! I'm glad Im not the only person that thinks that!

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(Created by Unstable Portal)

Woah, woah, WOAH.

Don't you god-damn start a Mussolini-fetish on the internet and new porn.

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"Yeah, a sheltered and overly idealistic son of an absolutist monarch, set to inherit the whole nation and continue to rule it as an autocrat.

A beloved archetype of modern era!" - Kir the Gul'dan

Regarding Japan:

Japan's current status regarding its history is a bit more complicated than is often assumed. For one, Japanese textbooks usually do cover the Rape of Nanking and other atrocities committed during World War 2.

Now, you could argue that this isn't sufficient, but the fact remains that people are at least aware of these crimes, even if the full gravity of them isn't appreciated.

Though Japan has not made reparations, it is the second-largest aid donor in the world. This aid has helped build up the economies of many of the same countries it occupied.

Hardcore nationalists are still present in Japan, but they're around in Germany as well (and just about every other country). The Japanese nationalists are disturbing mostly due to the historical weight, but so far they've been less harmful than the Chinese nationalists who rioted over the Senkaku/Daiyou controversy a few months ago.

Of course, there are still issues like the Yasakuni Shrine controversy. The shrine honors all of the war dead, which is may be one reason Japanese are reluctant to abandon it. From the perspectives of other Asian countries, however, this is a rather petty distinction since common Japanese soldiers were often enthusiastic participants in the worst crimes.

This goes back to what I said about Japan being aware, but perhaps not sufficiently. Still, it's unfair to say that the country is oblivious. Japan makes a convenient target for China's grandstanding, since pretty much all the other Asian countries hate Japan, even though they no longer have much to fear from it (at least, not for the foreseeable future). Japan contributes to this through things like the Yasakuni Shrine, but even if they were to tear it down, I imagine the anger would continue.

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See WoW in a way you've never imagined it.

"He came to Ahn'qiraj for the strife... instead, he found a wife! She's my qiraji love-bride, next on Sick Sad World of Warcraft!"

Not a lot of people were, and it kind of snowballed towards the end there.

I'm in the opposite camp, I think his name was pretty awesome.

It sounds powerful.

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"Make work your favorite. That's your new favorite."

I'll be honest and say that, as an American, a lot of the actions in many controversies and protests between China, Japan and Korea seem disturbingly juvenile. The rioting over a few tiny rocky islands in China, the demonstrations where Koreans will tear apart live pigs, the denial of WWII atrocities (they cover, perhaps not sufficiently, the Rape of Nanking but how much do you think Japanese citizens know about Unit 731 when compared to Germany's knowledge of Mengele?)... it all seems rather petulant. I'm not saying some of the complaints are unjustified, but the way both parties deal with them, by throwing destructive tantrums in China and Korea and Japan sticking its fingers in its ears and going "lalalala" is very strange when compared to the way American and European states treat international issues- renaming fried potatoes.

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And renaming hunks of meat, too!

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"All right, I'll get that kid to eat. Where's my screw driver and my plumber's helper? I'll open up his mouth and I'll shove it in."


The Alliance's three rules on faction conflict:
1) You can't win.
2) You can't break even.
3) You can't leave the game.

I went somewhere the other day that was still advertising "freedom fries".

It's been a fucking decade, move on!

That said, I kind of like "Justice toast" but only when it's thrown at the person.

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"Make work your favorite. That's your new favorite."

Well... judging from studies in the last few years Germany still isn't that keen on telling kids what happened - a massive amount of german teenagers apparently didn't know what happened in WW2, that Nazi-Germany was a dictatorship and at least one kid on screen thought a picture of Hitler was displaying Jesus Christ because german history-classes seem to silently ignore the whole timeframe. Actually i'd like to know how that went for german folks here. Maybe it has changed a bit in recent years but at least when my german-teachress was but a schoolgirl over there they didn't teach WW2 AT ALL. Like it never happened.

I want to know what exactly is going on with that one kid who thought a picture of Hitler was Jesus.

They went to the street and asked random folks the names of politics on picture-cards. Almost all of them were currently in office (and almost all of them were unrecognized by pretty much everyone) - with one exception.
[interviewer holds picture in front of a teenager] "Who's this guy on this picture?"
[teenager thinks for a moment]
"No idea?"
[teenager, rather hesitant] "... Jesus?"
[teenager is shown looking at a photograph of Adolf Hitler.]

I'm trying to find that clip. Can't find it yet but it's german anyways.

So they would skip over Nazi Germany like it never happened?

You go from talking about Hindenburg and the Weimar Republic to Germany suddenly being split into two countries (Republic/Communist).

What about in Austria? Did they skip over it as well? They were pretty happy about the anschluss, from what I have read.

That's quite a memory hole. But the old Soviet Union was the pros at earasing Soviet history that they no longer agreed with.

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"Happy" is a complicated thing in this regard. One the one hand, the whole Third Reich-thing hadn't REALLY started yet. Getting back together with Germany was something to be desired as the World Empire Hungary-Austria used to be was well within the lifetime of most people who survived World War One (after WW1 Austria was cut down until it's the size it is today - roughly key-shaped and has less population than WoW subscribers). For most people it was just a way to matter again in world politics.
On the other hand it's not like they had a choice either. Germany walzed in with tanks and basically took over; that Austria wasn't just swallowed was really only because Hitler, as an austrian in exile, had kind of a soft spot for it. And if the feeling of "you know, can't hurt, not like we have a choice" wasn't enough - the kind german soldiers pointing their rifles at you made reasonably sure to vote "YES!" when the population voted whether or not it wanted to join Germany.

As for WW2: it was the main theme of pretty much the last two classes of school. My german history teacher made damn sure we knew everything that went on, up to and including the whole thing... you know... about the "Anschluss" and Austria's position as "Germany's first victim". (to be blunt - even if it had had a choice, Austria most likely would have joined willingly. Probably not had they knew Hitler was keen on a world war, but you're always smarter afterwards) But it's not just my class. Austria doesn't really have a problem with teaching WW2, the before and the after; in fact we probably do it too much, mainly because we simply know more about this time than, say, the french revolution, due to being (in historian terms) relatively recent and well documented.