Ivan the Terrible

Here's a thought: my first inclination is to argue about the article, not it's author. Why so snappy, anyway?

*shrug*

I would say it's rather more important that the individual is question has been a political activist for many years now. It's not as if he just randomly wrote this after years of obscurity; this isn't a political report from LaToya Jackson. Honestly, this seems a non-issue. What are we arguing about?

Esquire magazine brought it up. Would you rather they said 'anonymous individual bearing the name of an ex-President takes a hard look at Bush and does not like what he sees'? Honestly, if this article was written by Joe Nobody in the middle of Arkansas, it would still be a good article.

Agreed. What does that have to do with why Ron Jr.'s beautifully written article is invalid because he's the ex-President's son?

American citizenship entitles a man to speak his opinion and be heard, so far as I'm concerned. The only qualification for getting your opinion heard in this country is an ability to state your case eloquently, and thus have people listen to you, which has quite clearly been accomplished in this case. This is not an aristocracy. Everyone's opinion means something, if people will listen to it and acknowledge it.

*shrug* Read until you get bored. It's good stuff.

Amen. Yet for some reason people voted for him anyway. Kidding aside, he is far from the only voice, liberal or conservative, which is calling out against this administration.

The Case Against George W. Bush The son of the fortieth president of the United States takes a hard look at the son of the forty-first and does not like what he sees By Ron Reagan September 2004, Volume 142, Issue 3 It may have been the guy in the hood teetering on the stool, electrodes clamped to his genitals. Or smirking Lynndie England and her leash. Maybe it was the smarmy memos tapped out by soft-fingered lawyers itching to justify such barbarism. The grudging, lunatic retreat of the neocons from their long-standing assertion that Saddam was in cahoots with Osama didn't hurt. Even the Enron audiotapes and their celebration of craven sociopathy likely played a part. As a result of all these displays and countless smaller ones, you could feel, a couple of months back, as summer spread across the country, the ground shifting beneath your feet. Not unlike that scene in The Day After Tomorrow, then in theaters, in which the giant ice shelf splits asunder, this was more a paradigm shift than anything strictly tectonic. No cataclysmic ice age, admittedly, yet something was in the air, and people were inhaling deeply. I began to get calls from friends whose parents had always voted Republican, "but not this time." There was the staid Zbigniew Brzezinski on the staid NewsHour with Jim Lehrer sneering at the "Orwellian language" flowing out of the Pentagon. Word spread through the usual channels that old hands from the days of Bush the Elder were quietly (but not too quietly) appalled by his son's misadventure in Iraq. Suddenly, everywhere you went, a surprising number of folks seemed to have had just about enough of what the Bush administration was dishing out. A fresh age appeared on the horizon, accompanied by the sound of scales falling from people's eyes. It felt something like a demonstration of that highest of American prerogatives and the most deeply cherished American freedom: dissent. Oddly, even my father's funeral contributed. Throughout that long, stately, overtelevised week in early June, items would appear in the newspaper discussing the Republicans' eagerness to capitalize (subtly, tastefully) on the outpouring of affection for my father and turn it to Bush's advantage for the fall election. The familiar "Heir to Reagan" puffballs were reinflated and loosed over the proceedings like (subtle, tasteful) Mylar balloons. Predictably, this backfired. People were treated to a side-by-side comparison

Nope. Sorry, but I hate political correctness.

you're just biased against those without a chin.

Jolee for Jedi (or pseudo-Jedi.) Master Uthar for Sith. Honestly, I thought Master Uthar was a much more effective villain than Malak. Cold, calculating, and not Chaotic Stupid.

Well, if the walkthrough trailer is to be trusted, they're actually quite eager to see you join them.. Unlikely. Wouldn't be much of a game if you could just join them.

At the present moment, I'd wager very heavily KOTOR II feature suggestions are merely for our amusement. They're moving towards balancing and debugging what's already there, by all indications; that means you needn't worry about some suggestion or other on this forum slowing them down by even a second. EDIT: Then again, if they're reading the forums in order to procrastinate from doing their jobs, I suppose we could slow them down...

Understand that by 'joining the Sith', I don't mean aligning with the guys who are trying to kill you, but rather as being identified as a Dark Side Force-user who doesn't give a good goddamn about the Republic or the Jedi and seeks to seize power in the Sith for himself.

Actually, I was referring to 'joining' as the moment when you join Bastila on the temple. You may not be leader yet, but you certainly are no longer working for the Republic and the Jedi, and everyone acknowledges that. Before, when you visited a place like Manaan, everyone would by default call you a 'Jedi' and act as if you were loyal to the Republic, even if you were chalk white, covered in veins, and wearing a solid black Dark Jedi robe. I don't think that will be the case this time around.

Depends heavily on the power. Being able to switch between Force Persuade and Force Dominate would be an exercise in pointlessness.

Now that there's no 'big mission for the Jedi council' (presumably, hopefully) and therefore no de facto obligation to side with the Republic for the first part of the game, there's no plot obstacle standing between us and becoming jan-u-wine Sith very early in the game rather than at the last minute. Hopefully, the game will thus be playable as either a Jedi trying to topple the Sith before they can fully conquer the Galaxy, or as a Sith hunted by his rivals and attempting to seize the throne for himself, ala the last segment of KOTOR only with that understood from much earlier on. Am I the only one who gets this feeling? Or is this perhaps wishful thinking on my part?

Not to mention it didn't make much sense for most worlds. Korriban, sure, but why the hell would I be intercepted by Sith fighters above Dantooine long before it gets pounded into dust?

And make me a cheeseburger while you're at it.

NO I DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT. KOTOR IS REAL, STAR WARS IS REAL, AND I'M GOING TO LEARN FORCE POWERS AND CHOKE YOU FOR YOUR LIES!!! :angry: :angry: :angry:

Because it seems unfair to me that I spent all that time redeeming Revan only to have the developers bump him off as a plot inconvenience. If they make a big deal about his downfall, then I won't mind, but if it's obvious they killed him purely to make him less problematic, then I'll be annoyed.

If they killed him, some Obsidian developers had better start wearing cups, 'cause I'm gonna start a 'kick the guy who decided to kill Revan in the nuts' society. We will not stop until the injustice is avenged.,

You choose the ending as one of your conversation options. In other words, KOTOR's ending was whichever one you choose.

Why the hell would a droid in the Star Wars universe play Bach? I think he ment "Back". No he didn't... Then what did he mean? He meant Bach. As in the composer.