Epaminondas

The tax plan looks like it might make it so I no longer itemize. Having had my home for some time, I usually just take the standard deduction anyway, but it's close enough depending on charitable contributions and the like that I sometimes end up itemizing. Being middle class, I can tell you that if the tax bill has everything in it as I understand it, then we will get more of our taxes back. A lot more. I can also say that, if the bill is as I understand it, friends who are bitching about this bill being a tax increase on them (good God, do these people even read anything other than leftist blogs?) will benefit greatly. A couple of them maybe not. Depends on things like what happens with medical expenses. I do have one friend who has a civil engineering company and a big house who might end up eating it depending on what happens with SALT. *Probably* not, but he just bought a house and I expect it was in excess of a million. That might put him over the edge. Other than a cancer survivor friend and a 'rich' friend, I honestly don't think that anyone in my circle of middle class friends anyone will not see a tax decrease and some of them substantially. The news about the tax plan hasn't just been fake. There have been outright lies about it. Problem with that is that when it takes effect and people find out it doesn't harm and, even more, they benefit, it will come back to haunt people resorting to deception about it. Stick with "it helps big corporations and rich people more than you!" That's been a winning argument and, at the very least, while it's kind of deceptive, it's technically true in a few senses.

If your state can't guarantee within reasonable bounds easy access to an ID card for citizens in good standing while protecting the public trust, then you shouldn't be railing against voter ID laws. You should be railing against your state's DMV or whoever issues them. There might be some people who have a more difficult time, that's true, but that difficulty shouldn't be insurmountable. The student ID is different. I can see using student IDs in specific cases, but ideally out of state students should vote absentee in their home of record. There must be people who've served in the military here and that's standard practice for them.

I thought about MMORPGs, but I decided not to put them on the list. I enjoyed LotRO, but I would have to nod to WoW. Still, I left them off my list. I had criteria that I used in order to bound the list in a reasonable way. At least, reasonable to me.

Thanks, will probably come to nothing though. Well or result in me getting fired Then again, it might be the pathway to riches! ...Or at least more cool swag. Good luck, mate.

Good God, I hope you actually went to the appointment! That's hypertensive crisis there, brother. I would have thought they would admit you for readings that high. I hope you're feeling better and, more importantly, your blood pressure came down. EDIT: I'm doing nothing today. I plan on doing nothing I don't want to do for the next few weeks. Probably won't work, but that's what I'm planning.

In the short time I've been here, I've met a few people. ...But I seem to have argued with all of them, one sent my file to Agent 47, and I think another posted photoshopped pics of me doing unsavory things in My Pretty Pony. ...But I hope we get more people into your pet project. It's a good one.

If you're the bad guy, and the people you work for don't even provide life insurance. Then I don't think I have much sympathy. Think about savescumming as payout of your life insurance That's what I love about some games like Blood Money. No saves. Get the entire mission right or don't get it at all. Some of them are crazy hard to get SA. On the other hand, I actually like that you can get some save game forgiveness in Dishonored.

To be fair, injurai has a point with some of these people not being sympathetic. I ended up really liking the Daud character quite a bit, but if you took him from the first game, killing him in that story certainly wouldn't make you a bad guy. He was dangerous and uncontrollable. That said, I want my pacifist run in this game. I might try a middle of the road game. I tend not to enjoy high chaos or evil bastard runs. However, I got a kick out of the idea of killing one of the bad guys early in order to put aside any worry about killing someone later. guffaw! I tip my hat, sir!

Ugh, I someone managed to kill off someone in my "The Good Doctor" run on Dishonored 2. I don't think I accidently dropped someone in sitting water, so must have dropped someone from too high and they ended up daid. I restarted it. I mean, it's a pain, but these things go faster after you know where things are.

EDIT: tl;dr: Cheese off, ya bunch of rat bastards! That's the funny thing about this place that I've noticed. Someone says something in one place and you hear it somewhere else almost immediately. I've always said that there would be a consequence higher up on the food chain. That might even have serious consequences at the bottom. However, it might not. People are taking for granted that worst case scenarios are going to play out and anyone who suggests otherwise can expect some ridicule or *shudders* internet schooling with several pages of internet proof. I get that the argument is that the move to rescind NN went farther than a return to prior to 2015, but we're not exactly sure where all this will end up. No one is sure how any of this will pan out and the only proponent who even acknowledges that fact that I've read here is ShadySands. The article that made a passing reference to 500 year old medieval bridges was mostly balloon juice but, like the devil whispering in your ear, it can be hard to untangle hard truths from half truths mixed with conjecture and frantic hand wringing. Look, I'm all ready to leave the field. I doubt any of this matters. What will matter is how this will all pan out. Maybe I'm just an unwitting shill who bought into Pai's evil machinations. (I'll be surprised if someone snips out that one sentence and uses it oh so cleverly in a response.) However, assuming I'm a reasonably educated person with approximately average intelligence and an interest in the issue, let's assume I'm trying to make principled arguments on behalf of my position. So, I'll say this and then step back to read any responses word for word. 1. I'm worried about how this will all play out. Using my own argument, NN didn't have a huge impact on me immediately, and so I was also worried about speculative problems with the NN plan. Just a nod to the other side. 2. Everything about this has been speculative on the end user level. The higher level will undoubtedly change, but it's really hard to see those effects without seeing consumer response. That will tell the tale. 3. My internet has been one of the most stable 'utilities' for years. The pricing has been good, the speeds have been good, and the availability has been good. It would be easy for me to join the 'sky is falling' crowd, and certainly the vast majority of my real life friends are against me, but I don't see the incentive of the FCC to create the sorts of problems for the end user that people propose here. If it really ended up as bad as people contend, then we would actually get legislative action. That would be the best case scenario for the NN proponents anyway. That's a leftist dream. Create a problem so bad you have an excuse to use the government hammer and then it doesn't matter which administration comes to power. 4. If I'm around, even as a ghost, long enough to see this stuff go down the crapper, I'll own it. With the powers arrayed in favor of NN, I won't exactly take responsibility for rescinding it. Clearly, I was in a small minority, but nevertheless I will admit the mistake. 5. This is the big one, people want it. It's has pretty broad support among the population and things that enough of the public wants long enough tend to be accommodated one way or the other. Net Neutrality has been a big issue for me since I first heard of it over a decade ago, otherwise I probably wouldn't even be in here duking it out in a one sided battle where I get the feeling I might be in the minority. At least a little. With that said, no hard feelings for any scorn thrown my way. If you're mean to me, I'll cry on the inside but I'd still buy you a beer. I might smack you on the head with the bottle when you were done drinking it, but we'd still have a beer together.

Depends, how much of a discount did you receive after NN went into effect in 2015?

Yeah, I didn't want to post it because I didn't want to come across as gloating. However, I'd offer two things to you, one of which I don't like at all: 1. You're very likely to get your way on Net Neutrality in the 'near' future. Say within the next two or three presidential election cycles. The left is great at selling it and the right is idiotic in how they fight it. 2. It might not be the end of the world. Think of this time that Net Neutrality has been in place and, over the next few years, think about how your internet changes. I'm neither talking petty small nuisances that you wouldn't have noticed if not for this debate nor am I talking about things that you've heard or read on the internet. You, personally, do you see a difference? All that said, since I think my side lost this battle for the next generation and I won't be around to fight it in the one after, I can tell you that the best argument against number 2 is that changes that occur on such a scale as the internet won't necessarily be readily apparent to the end consumer, even if they do have a detrimental impact. Of course, I'd use the same argument for bureaucracies, but I know most folks want ammunition against businesses. So, theoretically, the big differences at the top of the chain might still be unhealthy later on down the chain in ways that individuals don't notice immediately but nonetheless result in less access, higher prices (especially occurring slowly over time), and restriction of competing ideas. I don't believe it, but what the hell, it's hard to argue things like that don't happen.

Reminds me of my friends who hate cats. ...except mine of course. Mine are cool. hehehe I have a feeling somewhere along the line I'll break down and buy FO4. Why? I've bought every other Fallout title. Not only that, but I actually enjoyed Fallout 3 quite a bit. I firmly believe New Vegas outshone it, but it was still fun.

only because thegame isn't all that. :D

I feel the same way about IWD (the original). There's just no way to create a list like this without forgetting something great. I'm happy with my list, but on any given day there would be some changes. The top five, however, are the top five in mine. I allocated 55 points to the top five and then tinkered very little with the rest of the distribution.

I've been there brother! Once, I did a couple of projects for a research methods class. The prof went through my first project and was very pleased. However, he told me the first paragraph of the abstract was extraneous and he deleted it. He explained, quite reasonably, that it was superfluous information for the abstract which should be short and concise while observations and other analytical statements should be reserved for the introduction or the discussion. I completely agree. That's why I didn't put that paragraph in there. When he saw the abstract the first time, he told me to include a few sentences to contextualize the abstract. The irony? He literally deleted what he told me to add and thus my official project, completed and ready to present, had the exact same abstract I turned in as my preliminary draft. the presentation was well received at the conference, so I guess there's that. Anyway, I have over a grand in books coming to my house because I purchased the discounted bundle from the bookstore and fedex requires a signature. Meanwhile, since my insurance has changed three times over the past five years, I finally have an appointment to see my doctor about something that's been bothering me, the NP really, and that's been scheduled for today for some time. So I put a note on my front door telling the fedex guy that my neighbors will sign for it. I have to leave in about ten minutes, so I can always hope the packages come before then. The combined packages together weigh in excess of 50 pounds, so I hope my neighbors don't have to lug it around.

Decided to try the whole infused beets thing. I actually like beets, which seems to be rare among my friends. I've pickled them in the past, but I find the time I set aside for brewing pickles is best served in other quasi-related endeavors. I used Rangpur gin and three beets. Damned near a fifth. It's already almost purple in the jar and I plan on using Shady's template of 3 days on it. We'll see.

Playing dishonored. Have a slight headache today, so I'm just kind of floating around trying different things. I need to haul this body somewhere and if anyone, even neutral folks, sees me, they cause a huge fuss. Makes sense, but now I'm vexed as to how to transport the stiff to the lady who apparently has skin in the game.

If my comments don't reflect a proper response to your statements, I would suggest not feeling guilty about them. :shrug: Anyhow, I do agree, the Republicans have fallen into an abyss also. I was uncharacteristically enraged over Donald Trump being nominated. Aw well, to dwell more on this would be depressing and serve no purpose. As to you, Malcador. Fair enough. I would suggest that avalanches start in a narrow path. Clinton normalized skeevery by attacking the accusers. At any rate, I still have a little fight in me, but perhaps a little too much beer. I'll come back to brawl later if I feel up to it. If not, I'll think mean things until I get back on later. EDIT: ...And good luck for Moore winning, the skeeving scumbag.

Heh, ok. Not really a response. The left only recently decided that *maybe* Bill Clinton might not be worth defending. Personally, I won't offer to blow Roy Moore if only he keeps abortions illegal. Trust me, while I can get laughed uproarious laughter here for my statements, it doesn't matter until the end. ...And if anyone thinks Moore is the endgame, he's probably a fool.

It's a shame to see the liberals gloating since they are clearly bereft of conscience over the past few decades. However, if this is what it takes to get things on the straight and narrow, then so be it. Moore is a skeeve. I don't say that because of the allegations against him. I say that entirely based on some of his earliest responses to the allegations. Trust me, I'm not a bandwagon Moore detractor. I wasn't for him long before all this came to light. I don't even want to revisit the latter day accusations against Bill Clinton. The Democrats have finally decided that the person who has the most credible allegations against him by a large number of women for the worst acts is finally not worth their defense. Fair enough. I'm curious how long that will remain so. Don't get ****y about this, though, Democrats. You can't afford to double track much more now. If you don't keep up with this current realization of moral significance, then it *will* come back to haunt you. I feel in my bones the ghosts that are waiting out there. Be done with Moore. I had nothing for disdain for him before he ran for the Senate and, mooreover, I actually knew who he was, what his stances were, and the type of rhetoric he employed. Yeah, I was never a Moore fan and I regret the fact that Strange, who always seemed eminently reasonable to me, couldn't make it past the primary, but this may teach Republicans a lesson. ...And, you can think me a fool, but I don't think the larger issue is over. I'm happy to clean my house because I think there's more dirt in my neighbor's. It's not going to end here. Worst case is, we lose the next two cycles, but if the other side thinks that's a cause to embrace rampant leftism, then to say the victory is pyrrhic will be an understatement. The world is a much more fluid place than even several decades would suggest and people like me have *always* been forced to take the long view. All that said, in the end, I won't lose any friends over this. I mean, I think some of my friends have briefly stopped following me on one platform or another for my statements over Net Neutrality (not elections), but I won't ask a friend who shows up at my door at 3am "are you a Democrat or Republican?" before I open the door, let him (or more probably her) in, give him a hot meal, and then offer him a place to sleep. There are values that transcend politics, as important as those are. However, I congratulate the Democrats in Alabama. Perhaps this is the first in a long trend that will change the political landscape for the next fifty years. Maybe not. We'll see.

bwahahahaha I was playing Dishonored 2 and I come up to talk to Blanchard who says, "You scratch my ass, I'll scratch yours." My wife says, "That's so *rude!* Gosh!"

hmmm Interesting. I looked this up and found dill infused vodka. I love dirty (gin) martinis. I might have to try this, although from what I can tell I've been making infused spirits for years. I just need to infuse more than overnight.

And that would be the important thing. I'm going to replay it. I'm actually not certain the ending is the end, if you get me. I don't mind having some questions unanswered. I've played several games that don't answer everything. I just prefer to have some form of actual closure. Might not be how everyone sees it, but that's how I see it. INSIDE, in the end, was a fun romp and I'm convinced that there were things I missed. The puzzles weren't super hard, but I like having a game I can play to unwind, which means I'll get use out of the game starting next month when I won't have the time to play games like dishonored and whatnot. I think of it more as a movie than music, though, which means I want to have an ending that isn't entirely speculative. As for what I'm playing now, I was teed off a little by the way Dishonored 2 started. It does seem to have replay value for all that, however. I had no idea why I wouldn't want to return my magical powers. I was kind of wondering, "is there a story reason I'd say no?" Still, the graphics are improved and the game still has fun stuff going on. Yeah, the gradual return of what you'd already had was hokey and ham-fisted, but aw well, it works out in the end. The one thing about dishonored and dishonored 2 is that I don't think you should get chaos for certain kills. Guards and the like? Yeah, spare them. Even bad people like that one guy holed up in his mansion in the Daud campaign? Yeah, probably have a good side sparing him. The witches? Off with their heads! Daud in the story I was playing didn't act like a goody two shoes, which is how I played him. He killed the Empress and then tried to kill me... AGAIN! Send his sorry shriveled soul to the abyss!

Eventuallly