SteveThaiBinh

Thanls. I can probably survive without seeing that.

I can't get it to work either, and I'd quite like to see it. I don't think size is the issue - could you provide a direct link to the movie file, so I could right-click and save it?

This sentence needs to be preserved for posterity. :D I remember the IRA used to do the same kind of thing, ostensibly targetting the security forces rather than medical staff, as if the bombs could tell the difference. It is looking dangerously like Northern Ireland. That took 35 years to solve, if indeed it has been.

Why are so few of these people on the Obsidian forums? With the collapse of Troika, I thought Obsidian were the universally-acknowledged successors to Black Isle. Or are they here under different names? :ph34r:

Dictatorships of all kinds are usually more efficient, in the short term. Franco and Pinochet had tremendous economic success. They fall down in the longer term because they aren't able to adapt or release tensions within society the way democracies with elections can.

It may surprise some, but I actually agree with you. Willingness to fight does not make anyone a warmonger. Warmongers seek the fight and enjoy it. Violent is one of the things that we are. Peaceful is another. We are complex, and different aspects of our nature are constantly in tension. There are usually things you can do to reduce the likelihood of violence. If we accept that violence is inevitable, then we are letting the people who create it off the hook.

We have survived reasonably well without a written constitution, but we need one precisely now because our rights, and our sense of them, are under threat. We could argue elsewhere about the rights and wrongs of any individual measure the government is introducing to combat terrorism - the problem is that the measures are incoherent, badly written and rushed through without proper debate. I can list as many dictatorships for whom the approval of a written constitution has been the crowning moment in a process of transition to democracy. Consitutions don't solve everything, but they help, and our democracy is in trouble and needs help. I know, I can read your location fine. It wasn't meant to be taken personally. There are many good things about America, too. Both sides of this debate have people who are slinging mud without thinking and people who recognise the virtues and vices of both sides.

Do you think so? I'm struck listening to comedy shows how much more aggressive and overt the anti-French and anti-German jokes are. People are always at pains to say 'I like Americans, it's just the policies of the Bush administration I don't like', yet no-one thinks twice about saying 'I hate the French'. Britain desperately needs a written constitution and a bill of rights. Support Charter 88 now. Of course, there's always the European Constitution. :ph34r: If someone made the reverse comment, 'Anything good about America is a gift from its European founders', he would be accused of anti-Americanism. Why aren't we discussing anti-Europeanism in America - arguably that's just as big a problem? How many American commentators have turned the fact that many European countries opposed the Iraq war into an excuse to insult and denigrate the people of an entire continent?

Except the second one doesn't actually exist, so we reasonably assume that we're talking about the first. I touched a nail under my desk today and got an impression of pain and bleeding.

Very very strange. I shall always think of Fionavar as Chief Moderizzle now.

I played Civilization III, probably for the last time, as Civ4 is due out soonish, at least so we hope. I notice that Dreamfall has been put back to Spring 2006.

Sure, no problem. Provided they're not too long. I think I did a 400-question psychometric test once.

Hey, thanks! You beat the paperclip any day. :D

I heard an American comedian on the radio saying that he thought 'The Sophisticates' was a better punchline for that joke.

I'm listening to a radio tribute to the great John Peel and his musical tastes, which means I'm listening to the most unusual and eclectic mix of sounds you're ever likely to encounter.

Yes, go on, crash the censor, that should be good for a laugh. Microsoft Word has the stupidest, most basic page-numbering system - I was trying to get page numbers to work on my dissertation, so that the opening part would be i, ii, iii and so on, and then the main body would start from 1, but I couldn't persuade it to do it properly. And that bloody useless paperclip - Hugh Dennis is right, no fate is too awful for the Microsoft Office paperclip! Thanks, I feel better now.

I didn't really watch it (my sister insists on watching JAG and NCIS on video at all hours). There was a soldier and a young guy following him around, if that helps.

As soon as possible, or should I try to balance with taking levels as a fighter?

The oil wealth is in the Kurdish and Shi-ite areas. In a federal system, it would be easier for the Kurds and Shi-ites to keep that wealth for themselves. In a centralised state, there's more chance that some of it will be transfered to the Sunni areas.

I'm about to try to replay Planescape Torment again (as an evil character, if I can stick it :ph34r: ). Are there any mods or patches that people would recommend? Also, my last (and so far only) game, I was a pure fighter, and I think that towards the end of the game where you get into a lot of fighting I was lower in level than I needed to be; I found all the battles pretty hard going. Anyone have any advice for building a stronger fighter and getting more XP?

Fully-electronic would probably be an improvement. Apparently India's recent transition to electronic voting machines was a big success, according to some Indians I know. With a functioning democracy in the context of widespread illiteracy and poverty, arguably India is the greatest democracy in the world. I thought this thread was about America's image in the world, and that was why we were discussing Iraq and democracy.

Only if you (mistakenly) judge it by today's standards. I wouldn't want to live in a society which disenfranchised women and allowed slavery. But by the standards of the time it was one of the great progressive innovations of history, and we still feel its effects today. Democracy is a good thing. Democracies get democracy wrong a lot, but the idea is sound, even if the implementation is lacking. Three cheers for Francis Fukuyama. :D

I think you're probably right. Never mind - I'm sure there'll be another Iraq thread along in a week or two. There always is. There's no such thing as a fully-baked democracy. Some democracies are more - well - democratic than others. All democracies have their imperfections. Remember Florida and the dimpled chads? I saw a US congressman being interviewed on the TV and it was put to him that there were election observers coming to the US to look at the 2004 presidential election in Florida and he said "Yes, but they're coming to learn from us". I think he was serious! That just cracked me up. Please don't take this as senseless America-bashing. Every democracy has its problems, without exceptions. People who live under tyranny or very flawed democracies like Tanzania or Russia may envy US democracy uncritically, and that's understandable. Those of us in more established democracies see the flaws as well. I won't list them - we all know what they are.

I remember being quite emotional as well. I was glad that it seemed to be over, without the strong resistance and bloodshed the pro-Saddamists had been predicting, and without the use of weapons of mass destruction that the 'coalition' had been predicting. Unfortunately the predictions that the US couldn't really exercise control and Iraq would turn into a bloody mess turned out to be, at least partially, correct.