Meshugger

Come think of it, then yeah, it really has the L.A. Confidential wibe.

It's quite possible. Swearing the oath on the Bible was actually introduced in the 1950's, I believe. A flagrant violation of separation of church and state, but nobody did anything about it because they were too busy preventing black people from eating at the same restaurants as white people. Where can i find this law concerning the bible under oath? Or is it just tradition/policy?

As i said, there should be a 'civil service' for those who are pacifist or do not wish to wield a weapon. I do not see a draft as an act of cowardice, it rather requires greater judgement of the statemen to wage war since they and their relatives will be in it as well. From my point of view, using the military in any other way than self-defence is political hackery. Soldiers and servicemen ultimately become tools of the governing body to conduct wars as a political game. That is cowardice, IMO.

As an atheist, if i would become the president of the United States, i would demand to swear my oath on the tenents of the Bushido Code, since they are holy to me, while the bible is not. Is that possible?

Awesome thread! Aside from Oliver Reed, Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, John Wayne, Lee Van Ceef, Fonda and so on.. i think you guys have peaked. Maybe some warheroes from the past or some characters from anime (Alucard, Kenpachi) would be a nice addition, but other than that, this thread is complete.

I saw the speech and the whole parade while having dinner. The speech itself was as i expected: pretty empty, but it is quite rare that an inaguration would be anything remotely inspiring. I, for one, happen to support such a draft. A nation with a private army creates a class of citizens that are considered in a higher regard than the rest, or so to say, more patriotic. Having a mandatory draft, Israeli style, diminishes such a class and thus, all are equal. Also, if everyone has a military background or have relatives currently serving, it makes the military less of a political arm of the congress, president and the senate. A policy of pre-emptive strike would be more seriously questioned by the public as well. Serving in the military is also an important social contract for the citizens, it creates a better bond in society and a greater understanding of the potential sacrifices that the common citizen would face. For every empty rhetoric "But it takes away freedom!" the retort is: You already pay taxes, and you have to have an education, homeschooled or not. Military draft falls in the same social contract. If you're a pacifist, then there should be the option of doing a non-combatant civil service.

Hmm, true. History shows there's a bad track record there. Who would you suggest? Japan? They may look nice, respectful and a bit docile now, but we have to remember that this is the same country that invaded half of Asia not so far ago. It is also the country which has sprung the bushido code, has Samurais and Ninjas as a part of their culture (i have the emphasize this again: Samurais and Ninjas are part of their culture), also worth mentioning is that they have tentacle rape hentai for leisure. Never, ever let a Japanese soldier outside of its border again.

Lara has always been attractive to girl gamers. If you're talking about the 'realistic proportions' some people claim Lara now has... Well, I assume those people are all male. Guilty of that part myself. But i have standards goddammit, double D boobs aren't that hard to find on skinnier girls, you just have to look around. On the other hand, hyper-masculine games such as Gears of War have 'realistic' proportions as well; the guys look more like shaved gorillas than humans. But ofcourse, i have seen similar shaved gorillas in everyday life. And about the 1.5 million sales of Tomb Raider being dissapointing, it is more or less the shareholders own fault for having ridicolous expectations. The devteam pretty much got selfowned for agreeing on such terms. Poor them.

hehe, that's what's nice about CO. cold isn't a big deal, at least, not when the wind is gone. smoke breaks during pool nights in a t-shirt, even in single digit weather, are pretty easy to manage. doesn't hurt to have some of that anti-freeze in your system, as i typically do on pool nights, but still... taks True, true. Adding the mental regression into the caveman state of "Only pu**ies feel the cold" mantra when having a couple drinks makes it even more apparent

Had -18 degrees C (-0,5 F for the yanks) here this morning. Finally getting some normal wintertemperatures here. A week ago, it was several degrees warmer here (same latitude as Greenland) than in Rome.

Hypothetical situation: Israel and the Palestinian government body(whoever that is) agrees on a Two-state solution according to the 1967-borders, and Jerusalem becomes a divided capital between both countries. But how will this scenarion become a practial solution? 1) Will the 800 000 palestinian refugees accept the new "home"? 2) How will Israel handle the traffic between Gaza and The West Bank? 3) Will Hamas put down their weapons by then? 4) Jerusalem is important for both states and respective religions, how will the governments manage to keep the streets calm?

No support for 1600x900 or 1920x1080? Boo!

As expected, a pile dung.

Has anyone brought up the radiant response menu, and its consistencies, yet? A great improvement in ME2 would be that the player would actually know his or her response. Sure, it wasn't unpredictable to 100%, but there were enough situations were my character simply didn't act accordingly to my choices. Abstractions can be good, but less abstraction on dialogue next time thankyouverymuch.

I think that the whole MotB mythos is pretty much done. I would rather have another expansion with the same quality as MotB though.

What i have learned from this thread is that dissecting a game into components and extrapolate your own experience from them gives great pleasure and argument basis. So, any report ME2 yet? And more importantly, has Bioware said anything on what they what to improve upon in ME2?

Frankly, i don't really understand his reasons either. As you said, maybe less nitpicking. You assume too much. I just didn't like a game that i played.

Marijuana should be mandatory in the middle east. At least 5 joints per day per adult person. Peace would arrive immideatily, since the people wouldn't take life seriously anymore. Everyone appologize for thinking that the holy land mattered, and all foreign aid would be replaced to cookies, brownies and pizza. Imagine that. (I am a bit bored with the WHO IS WORSE-propaganda that is spreading, such things doesn't go anywhere)

My appologies, i meant mine interest, as in me.

In order to answers Hurlshot's question: I also found ME to be incredibly unintersting and dull compared to KotOR. KotOR was a cheesy game with a cheesy Star Wars mythos. It didn't try to be something else, which is the reason why it succeeded. Morality was a very simplistic concept, dressed in black & white. Good, bad or really bad, the characters in KotOR were characters, like a homage, like the characters of Leone's westerns were to those of Ford. It simply 'clicked'. Mass Effect however, was serious. Very serious, almost stoic. It tried to be grand and larger-than-life. Instead, it was C.S.I. in space. Bland, boring and it failed to keep anyones interest, which was also reflected on the art design and on what kind of races and respective history that existed. It doesn't matter if there are choices of sacrifice or whether a character shows some development, since they failed to be interesting in the very first place. who? and fate was decided with a coinflip, and i don't even remember the rest. I cannot recall the times when i wanted to see some raw emotion from these guys, who more resembled teenagers who try to act calm, cool and 'mature'. If a character like the joker would've appeared during mid-game and carved a smile on their faces, i would've laughed hysterically and applauding Bioware for introducing a setting as a practical joke. But that didn't happen of course, which in turn didn't make it to 'click' for me. RPG-elements, level-design and combat is irrelevant if the game fails on its very core fundamentals (for me). I am all for trying to set a serious or more mature tone, but that ME failed utterly and completely on that part. KotOR wins despite of Carth. At least i hated the guy instead of not giving a damn at all.

I said it once and i will say it again: If true, then i call shenanigans.

Satanic ritual murder? Nah. Semi-pedophilic homosexual crime of passion? Sounds more like it. Not that it really changes the super-egoistic nature of the crime.

I am not counting on it, but it sure would be fun. Turkish military personnel tend to more than just frown over missiles being shot over the border. The Kurds can function as first eye-witnesses on that part.

Hey you lazy bastards, the beta is now officially out and i want numbers. How's the performance in games and applications? 32 or 64-bit? Bokishi?

urr, hamas vs. israel? Anyone? Unless someone digs up the "Women of Hamas: Battlefront edition".