Sorry we don't suck?

I want JaimeR banned for his disgusting comments.

Ten random facts about the Congo:

1. Taking pictures is ill advised. Locals get very upset, for they believe that “capturing a person’s image” removes his spirit.

2. The Belgians brew one of the best beers in the world. But the Congolese won’t let their beer-guzzling ex-masters take all the credit. The Simba beer is not only big in taste, its bottle – which is often rundown and bears a crude lion logo – is nearly twice the size of most beer bottles around the world. Those who have tasted the beverage claim it has a bready flavor. And there are even those who say that it has a better taste than the more popular Budweiser.

3. Despite being a poor and conflict-ridden country, the DRC boasts a space program. Privately financed by the Développement Tous Azimuts (DTA), with significant government support, the Troposphere rockets are expected to send cargo to outer space in the near future.

4. Belief in witchcraft is so common that children are sometimes accused of being witches. Some of these kids get beaten, and others are even killed. But most become homeless after families abandon them in the streets.

5. At 2,344,858 square kilometers, the DRC covers a land area larger than the combined territories of Spain, France, Germany, Sweden, and Norway. Congo is the second largest country in the African continent.

6. Kinshasa and Brazzaville in the next-door Republic of Congo are the closest capital cities in the world (with the exception of Vatican City and Rome). A bridge across the Congo River still needs to be constructed to connect the two political centers.

7. The great apes, such as the bonobos and the eastern lowland gorillas, can be found only in Congo. Both species are endangered due to pollution, deforestation, and bush-meat trade. It’s possible that these creatures – the closest primate links to humans – may become extinct in a decade.

8. Mobutu Sese Seko, the DRC’s second and longest-reigning leader, was so corrupt that he chartered a Concorde airplane to take his family from his hometown in Gbadolite to Paris for shopping trips. He had even decreed the construction of a large runway to accommodate such plane at the expense of his starving people.

9. Because of two devastating civil wars and decades of economic stagnation, ATMs began appearing in the DRC only in 2010.

10. The DRC used to have a very strange form of currency. It’s called the Katanga cross. The metal is made of copper and is shaped in the form of an X. A single Katanga cross, which was used for trade in the 19th and early 20th centuries, could buy 10 kilograms of flour and six chickens. Double the cross and it could buy a gun.

11. They eat people down there

bo_sox48, you have been silenced for 48 hours for pretending to know shit about the Congo.

Straddling the Equator, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the third largest country in Africa (after Sudan and Algeria). The mighty Congo River flows north and then south through a land rich in minerals, fertile farmlands, and rain forests. The country has a tiny coast on the Atlantic Ocean, just enough to accommodate the mouth of the Congo River. The forested Congo River basin occupies 60 percent of the nation's area, creating a central region that is a communication barrier between the capital, Kinshasa, in the west, the mountainous east, and the southern mineral-rich highlands. As many as 250 ethnic groups speaking some 700 local languages and dialects endure one of the world's lowest living standards. War, government corruption, neglected public services, and depressed copper and coffee markets are contributing factors.

In 1960 the Belgian Congo became independent as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Gen. Joseph Mobutu came to power in a coup in 1965; he changed his name to Mobutu Sese Seko and the country's name to the Republic of Zaire. Mobutu's corruption-ridden government continued in power until 1997 when rebel forces led by Laurent Kabila—supported by Rwanda and Uganda—took Kinshasa and changed the country's name back to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A rift between Kabila and his former allies caused a new rebellion in 1998, backed by Rwanda and Uganda. What became known as "Africa's world war" started as Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, and Chad sent troops to support Kabila. The war claimed some three million lives, with all sides plundering the country's natural resources—especially diamonds from south-central Congo. A UN-supported peace agreement in 2002 and the formation of a transitional government in 2003 brought an end to the five-year conflict.

In 2005, voters approved a new constitution by referendum, and general elections in 2006 gave the presidency to Joseph Kabila, son of Laurent Kabila, who was assassinated in 2001. There has been relative stability in the country since the elections, but violent flare-ups between government and rebel militias have continued, particularly in border regions.

Stop it bo!!! Dammit, my eyes are bleeding now.

"Congo is the second largest country in the African continent."

"the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the third largest country in Africa"

Clearly, you don't know shit about the Congo.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (/ˈkɒŋɡoʊ/; French: République démocratique du Congo French pronunciation: ​[kɔ̃ɡo]), also known as DR Congo, DRC, Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, DROC,[5][6] or RDC (known as Zaïre 1971–97), is a country located in Central Africa. It borders the Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, and South Sudan to the north, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania to the East, Zambia and Angola to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. They eat people alive down there.[1] It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world. With a population of over 75 million,[2] the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the most populous officially Francophone country, the fourth most populous nation in Africa and the nineteenth most populous country in the world.

Ghug, please put that in there for real.

I say we kill him.

@KC ... yes, the National Geographic one is outdated. Sudan split in two, so it's now the second-largest nation on the continent.

The National Geographic one is the second post...

You can help add to the drama by joining my arranged live game (in the thread below).

I think that banning multis and politely requesting that people not launch into personal attacks against other members represent DRASTIC and DISGUSTING overreaching of power by the mods.

I move to alliow all members the same rights and powers as mods. Anarchy is utopia.

free draugnar

What are mod flame wars?

Can it be that the simple solution to all the mod angst was bo_sox' demotion?