tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post9193541940056093704..comments2024-03-28T02:54:46.537-04:00Comments on The TOF Spot: The Importance of GeographyTheOFloinnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14756711106266484327noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-74605566786729773302018-04-10T07:40:24.183-04:002018-04-10T07:40:24.183-04:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05113011726015879936noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-28274383548899065742013-11-21T19:37:39.802-05:002013-11-21T19:37:39.802-05:00Obviously you know you have said something repulsi...Obviously you know you have said something repulsively wrong and disgusting. Out of the fullness of the heart - or of some other anatomical parts, in your case - the mouth speaketh. If we call what you did speaking.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-17507448101339176612013-11-21T19:32:51.177-05:002013-11-21T19:32:51.177-05:00Sorry, your history is terrible.
The area of Germa...Sorry, your history is terrible.<br />The area of Germany where you point out the largest number of rivers - the north and north-east - is historically the poorest, and remains so to this day. Italy was the richest country in Europe from at least 700AD to at least 1600AD; in the year 1500, Venice was regarded as the mightiest power in the West, to the extent that a perceived Venetian attempt to expand their north Italian territories brought about the first Grand Coalition in European history. Almost all the great European powers - Castile/Spain, France, the Holy Roman Empire, the Pope, plus Milan and Mantua, with the king of Hungary coming up behind - forgot their traditional enmities and gathered together to stop Venetian expansion, as they would do later against Louis XIV, Napoleon and Hitler. And unlike these, Venice <i>won that war</i>. Italy remained among the richest parts of Europe until 1796, after which scientific looting by the renegade Italian Napoleon, followed by deliberate and conscious misgovernment by Austrians and Bourbons, caused Italy to fall backward just as the industrial revolution was picking up speed, missing its first three generations. When Italy rejoined the civilized West in 1861, she suffered not only from the atrocious backwardness deliberately inflicted by governments that thought it <b>better</b> for their subjects to remain illiterate and without prospects, but also from a terrible shortage of capital and from a complete lack of raw materials other than food. The three problems were interrelated: poverty could not be cured without industrialization, and every step of industrialization demanded scarce capital to be sent abroad for raw materials to process and for the skills needed to process them. Even so, in 150 years Italy managed to get rid of the curse of illiteracy and become one of the world's ten or so leading industrial powers. Not bad for someone doomed not to do as well as Germany because we have less rivers.F.P.Barbierihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06758644014524735007noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-82297487382299935382013-11-21T19:18:26.436-05:002013-11-21T19:18:26.436-05:00I don't have the time to treat you as you dese...I don't have the time to treat you as you deserve, you sad, miserable piece of racist scum, but I will just point out that the day that the ethnic group you disgrace, whatever it is, can produce Thomas Aquinas, Dante, Michelangelo, Tiziano, Garibaldi, Caesar Baronius, Vivaldi, Arduino, Galvani, Volta, Verdi, Luchino Visconti, or Francesco Guccini, you could speak. But since speaking is at any rate only a very benevolent and positive description of what you do, I will just tell you to make sure, next time, to clean your orifice with the appropriate paper and flush well.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-51992671414689527582012-04-15T15:11:38.610-04:002012-04-15T15:11:38.610-04:00Images broken ...Images broken ...The Ubiquitoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08395703772492059721noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-53149755786374370522011-11-10T16:44:00.923-05:002011-11-10T16:44:00.923-05:00Italy was richer than Germany for a *lot* longer t...Italy was richer than Germany for a *lot* longer than Germany has been richer than Italy. If you count only from the rise of Islam, Italy still has at least 11 centuries ahead of Germany vs. Germany having maybe 2 ahead of Italy.<br /><br />For that matter, southern Germany was more economically developed than northern Germany for many centuries longer than the reverse has applied.<br /><br />I really don't think geography is going to get you very far as an explanation here.Craighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03191412235339403625noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-80407343033968741472011-11-10T12:54:15.172-05:002011-11-10T12:54:15.172-05:00Hmmm... Italy used to be full of Romans, now it...Hmmm... Italy used to be full of Romans, now it's full of Italians, whom Mussolini proved are not the same.thefederalisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17514099991587503764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-80143106974000504362011-11-10T08:44:12.547-05:002011-11-10T08:44:12.547-05:00Germany is more productive because it's full o...Germany is more productive because it's full of Germans.<br /><br />*ducks*Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-6088921133452149612011-11-09T20:18:01.177-05:002011-11-09T20:18:01.177-05:00What if a dramatic event like a major earthquake s...What if a dramatic event like a major earthquake significantly changed the path of one of these rivers? What difference would that make in a region's trade and politics?Janehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03893341464969743583noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-447603865959500290.post-79994125114514175392011-11-09T16:21:50.889-05:002011-11-09T16:21:50.889-05:00One could almost write an SF novel about this, dev...One could almost write an SF novel about this, developing a predictive fundamental cliology based on geographic features and population grids.<br /><br />:>)<br /><br />JJBAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com