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Here's an interesting tidbit making the rounds of papers and blogs - Anne Kilkenny, a citizen of Wasilla, Alaska sent out this email critiquing Sarah Palin's career to curious friends, and it's since leaked and become a relatively big story. Also in more amusing news, turns out Palin has a history of being criticized for wasteful earmarks by an anti-pork activist by the name of... what's his name... mumbly joe?... oh yeah, Senator John McCain. I think "disgusted" is the word of the day!

Eh. I'm already aware of Palin's policy positions and they're authoritarian enough that I would dismiss her if I had any libertarian leanings. She was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she realized it was politically expedient not to be. She's been active in subsidizing the oil trade, something that no libertarian of any stripe I know supports. She's presided over the single largest per-capita pork barrel in the nation as governor. She's a fiscal ****up as well, having turned her town's budget surplus into a considerable deficit as mayor. Positively Reaganesque. Palin is libertarian in the way a fundie Paultard might be libertarian, which is to say, not very libertarian at all. Her selection was made to appease social conservatives, but at this point they're blind firing to get as many conservative types on board as they can. Given McCain's silence on the warrant-free wiretaps and support of the suspension of Habeus Corpus the libertarians I know who aren't stupid (which is most of them, actually) have sworn off McCain completely. Even if Palin was in actuality a libertarian, her selection would still be pandering without any real assertion of a line on policy. The GOP's cracked down on civil liberties and the 9/11 porn shown tonight is as good an indication as any that it's not going to stop.

Uh... That's exactly what a banned book is. I'm not aware of the government ever banning a book from being made or sold, outside of copyright infringements and other such technicalitites. When we talk about "banned books" we generally mean either books that are disallowed from distribution in public libraries, or books that aren't allowed to be disseminated or taught in a classroom setting, usually because they contain godless faggotry or curse words or other such (socialist and unamerican) things that harm our children. This sort of "nannying" is exactly the sort of thing civil libertarians rail against, but it's interesting that when Palin endorses such action it's alright and even commendable. That her constituents want books banned is immaterial. Libertarians are supposed to get their panties all twisted over tyranny of the majority in any case, if a majority really wants books banned.

lol reaganomics. I was a toddler during his presidency, but studying his politics, he was horrible. He was a terrible governor of California--he gutted the state's education and health systems--and then he did the same thing to America as a whole. People give him credit for winning the Cold War, but that's total bull****. The Soviet Union collapsed in on itself. It fell on its own sword in Afghanistan. Reagan leveled harsh rhetoric at the corpse and thus took credit for ending the Cold War. His diplomatic skills were legendarily comedic. Of course, all of that is consistent with far-right social darwinist rape politics (observe taks' use of the socialist boogeyman) that sprung up in the 80's as a reactionary response to the Civil Rights movement in the 60's. But for people who aren't belligerent, voodoo econ is the second most discredited economic system, behind communism. Also, Sarah Palin, protecting our children from the (socialist, no doubt) influence of literature.

The Department of Health and Human Services found that abstinence-only education is ineffective as a deterrent against teen sex. Data seems to indicate that oral sex increases with abstinence ed, and that's only reasonable, as either kids are smart enough to know that oral doesn't get you pregnant or just dumb enough that they don't think oral sex "counts". It's a safe bet that Bristol Palin was not taught safe sex, her mother being a rather strict social conservative and promoter of abstinence education. The father of the child was vocal about his being a "redneck" who "doesn't want kids". Given that they're not married it's probably an accident. Anybody who's lived in a college town with fraternity chapter houses knows that this sort of thing happens all the time. But, given that Bristol Palin is white and not living in an inner city she didn't really make a "bad choice" so much as "mistake". In true conservative fashion there's a shotgun wedding on the way. I give it three years, assuming Palin takes office, otherwise I'm putting money on one year.

Keep going, keep going, this is too fun! DAMN YOU PAGEBREAK

Hey look, the AP undertook some analysis for once!

Actually, once you get past 6 or 7 tabs Firefox outperforms it in terms of memory usage, and in terms of speed, depending on your memory. It's quite minimalistic, most of the features I enjoy in Firefox aren't there (yet) and goddamn, having tabs on the top bar is ****ing annoying. As it stands it's just the mongrelized, illegitimate child of Firefox and Webkit. Nothing terribly notable that would draw me away from FF at this juncture. If FF steps up their game in response then it's win/win. Also there was some concern over the EULA stating that Google retains full rights to anything posted via Chrome but apparently that section has since been removed.

The health part of this is totally invalid. You die far more often in games than you run out of ammo, even (especially!) in games where ammo is scarce. The money part is valid, but that's easy enough to get around, you just have to have design that accommodates that maneuvering. For example, in Fallout 2 but the best stuff that you want is just difficult to find, especially when it comes to small guns. In Deus Ex you can accumulate a lot of money but merchants are scarce and they only have 3 things you can buy each.

We're on a mission from God. Also, The Daily Show is always at its best during the conventions (scroll down for video)

Can we even confirm that you'll be getting loot in AP? Obviously you'll be getting cash as the game progresses, but that we won't be able to pick up fallen enemies' weapons casts some doubt on the question. We can't pick up the guns the enemies have but those enemies just happen to have useful modifications for the custom weapons you possess? It has to make sense.

I'm something of a pragmatist when it comes to this. None of this pregnancy stuff is at all relevant to the election, that much is obvious. But then, neither is Barack Obama's religious background, neither is his propensity for wearing American flag regalia, and both of those things have been tried (and both failed) against Obama by the Repubs and their homeboys at Fox. I like to think of how this all would have played out were it not "Bristol Palin" but "Chelsea Clinton". It would be an unmitigated ****storm. All us liberal types go on and on about "running a better sort of campaign" than the Republicans, but it's all smoke. Voters respond to negative ads. They make decisions based on sound bites and irrational slogans and slanders. That's why the Republicans seem to be so much better at politics. ****, this isn't even on the same level as the rumours that Bill had 23 people murdered. The dems needs to start throwing punches, mercilessly. They can't expect any less from their opponents. The High Road is going to get us nowhere. The only trick of it will be doing it entirely through the DNC and keeping Obama's image clean, which I think is certainly doable. All advantages must be exploited. Repub lawyers will have boned up on election law come November, hoping to negate as many democratic votes as possible for minor infractions or by simple bullying. For ****'s sake, this election is a matter of global security. Either we continue the last 8 years of policy or we don't. Either we make Iraq a permanent holding or we don't. 4 more years of republican executive power has got to result in at least another 15 years of blowback in the Middle East. Dignity and self-respect are small sacrifices in the face of so much potential suffering. Also of note, the Oscar-nominated documentary No End In Sight is streaming for free on Youtube until 11/5 (the day after the election). By most accounts it's the best of the Iraq-centric documentaries to have come out so far.

Winston Churchill said that the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter. It's really true. We can squawk all we want about policy but aware and politically minded people won't decide this election. They haven't decided anything since about 1960. Truth is, McCain has a good shot at the Presidency. He's a safe bet. It's the people who aren't really that into politics and only get involved when an election comes around (and only mildly involved then) who will make the swing that will win it for either candidate. The lazy and the retarded will win this election, and the Republican party will always have the lazy / retard voter bloc locked up. It's a sizable part of their base, and decades of practice have made them masters of herding. Why do you think the news media talks so much about "patriotism", even now, even when any intelligent person doesn't really think patriotism is an issue, and wouldn't be even if you could measure it somehow? Conservative politicos have made a science of creating straw men and shadow puppets and getting their dim-witted constituents worried about them. I think there's about a 90% chance that when the chips are down, as a candidate's melanin count increases his "looks like a Commander In Chief" count will approach 0, and appearance counts for a lot. McCain is promising more of the same that we've gotten the last 8 years. Most voters don't really like the way the country's been going, but a candidate who promises lots of change like Obama is still going to be intimidating to Dumb**** Q. Voter. It's not a rational thing. People will go with the devil they know, even if it happens to be the most unpopular devil in the history of the United States of America. Also, weeeeeee

starvin' the beast. Here's hoping this all turned out to be a mistake and McCain actually chose Glenn Danzig as his running mate. Here's some help from a homeboy.

Don't forget Fable!

A BLOO BLOO BLOO

Also **** you guys, we've got already.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Smart move though, probably. It's not like this election's going to be decided on policy. Don't see it going terribly well with fundies, but they'll fall in line sure enough.

So what is the purpose of this thread? Don't we already have a perfectly good "gripe about Fallout 3" thread?

They say a foolish insistence is the hobgoblin of small minds, Grommy. But I know you're being purposefully thick. It's okay. I wasn't even aware you could go that way in the Opera level. I always knocked out the construction worker in the lobby bathroom, got the prop gun, put it in the worker's toolbox, snaked my way through the basement to backstage, hid in a cabinet and switched out the guns when the time was right. Then ran up to place the explosives and killed the second target that way. Pretty awesome that they let you use the music as a cover. Total Hitch**** reference. Really a great game. Still, I could never figure out how to get through the boat level without running and gunning through the second half.

Morrowind's up there, though. At least in Bloodlines your melee attacks always hit if you were within range. The only auto hit in Morrowind was magic, if I remember correctly.

Man, blast from the past. I remember when that was like the Crysis of its day. I pushed my rig so that it could... very... slowly... render... the modular trailer... falling on... the T-Rex. And it had physics! First game physics I ever saw. And what's not to love about magic health tit tats? So you risk death to look down at your health bar. Whatever. It's on your tit! Wowee Zowee!

AHL?

Jericho? Halo 3? Good? Jericho had the worst level design I've ever seen. Perhaps I have not huffed enough gasoline.