Kroney

This is not the same thing. You are talking about a peopel moving to a place, gaining importance, being persecuted for it and then staying despite the persecution. I am talking about a native people, being invaded, being persecuted and then moving to the homeland of the people persecuting them.

Well if we're going down that route, you can't really prove that they did. Dead end. Given the sheer number of Irish surnames throughout the Commonwealth, including the UK, it's fairly clear that a good few of them stayed. You cannot deny that it would be very strange for a persecuted people to settle in the land that is persecuting them. And neither was religious persecution. Cromwell's faction were reactionary. The British Government of the time of the Diaspora was one that had declared religious tolerance several decades, if not centuries, ago and had outlawed slavery only a decade before. I said "not truly sovereign, I believe. Semantics, possibly, but still not an absolute. Besides and at the very least, two hundred years *is* centuries. I didn't say it wasn't ill-treatment. I said it wasn't persecution. I don't think it's provable that the British Government was out to maliciously make life difficult for the Irish people, which seems to be metadigital's angle. I think the British Government created a human catastrophe through mismanagement and self-interest, but not through an act of persecution. You could, I won't deny that. It's not true, but you could argue it. I am a Brit, as it happens, but of Scottish descent. The Scots were every bit as badly treated by the English as the Irish were, in fact the Highland Clearances could be argued to be rather more of an act of persecution than the Famine. I don't personally believe it to be so, but it's certainly a position. It's en vogue at the moment to think of the British Empire as some massive engine of persecution, which I don't believe was the case. I am wondering, however, if metadigital does. As an addendum, I would like to point out the irony in calling a link "schoolboy" and then retaliating with a wiki.

Again. Ireland in the early nineteenth century was the most densely populated country in Europe. Secondly, the Irish had ALWAYS held their land in tenancy from nobles. When the English moved in, yes by conquest, they simply took over systems already in place. Yes of course the English were blamed for it. The response to the Famine was an absolute farce. That doesn't make it a persecution. It was Governmental stupidity and an unwillingness to disrupt the cash flow they were getting from Ireland's other food exports. Incidentally, the Famine did kick-start a lot of the emigration, but you'll have noticed, I'm certain, that the emigration actually started several years *before* the Famine. Secondly, the Irish, on reached the States were treated far, *far* worse than they were at home; leading some to wish they had never left. Odd idea when you're fleeing religious and social persecution, don't you think? So the people whose lands were being stolen from them and were suffering under the yoke of religious persecution and imperialism fled to the very country that was perpetrated these crimes? Since you're a history buff, you'll already know that King Charles I raised an army from Ireland in order to try and retake his kingdom. You'll also know that from as far back as Henry II in the twelfth century, the Irish nobility and been intermingled with the English through diplomacy deals, small wars and the like. Ireland had not been a sovereign nation in centuries. Cromwell was putting down the last royal resistance. Charles I was a secret Catholic. Protestant England had faced centuries of wars by Catholic Europe because of their religion. Now Ireland was taking part too. religious persecution is a funny old game. Swings and roundabouts, almost. The emigration started during the early years of the nineteenth and ended ten years before Ireland became independant. Yes, I know the context. Ireland was heavily populated at the beginning of the nineteenth century. So were Germany and Italy. Surprisingly, the Germans and Italians also emigrated in huge numbers. Population density was the main reason, not persecution. Certainly, the English didn't treat Ireland as a whole very well, but how much the average Irishman was treated any differently to how they were under the Irish High Kings is entirely debateable. It is certainly a fallacy to claim that the Irish emigrated because they were persecuted. The colony of America had been around since the fifteenth century, Ireland was under direct English rule since the seventeenth. If the Irish persecution started under Cromwell, why then did it take 200 years for the Irish to start leaving? Honestly, reading the way you speak about Britain in this and other threads, I wonder if you might have a tiny bit of a bias against the place.

lol The Irish weren't persecuted. At least, not in the common sense of the word. British yoke, indeed. I expect you're one of those people that sympathises with the IRA, right? Freedom fighters, not terrorists, eh? As a matter of historical fact, the Irish were treated far worse in the US than they were in their native Ireland. It is amazing to think that with all the persecuting us dastardly Brits were doing of the poor, down-trodden Irish people, that Ireland *still* managed to become the most densely populated country in Europe. Irish emigration

I don't disagree on any particular point, but I do disagree with the notion that my country has the right to call me up and say "right, you're going off to this country over there to fight because we think it's necessary, not particularly interested in your views on the matter." Like I said, a matter of the country's survival is a different matter and in that case I would fight. I just don't agree that it's my responsibility to answer a draft simply because I happen to be a citizen of that country. That, to my mind, is ridiculous. A draft is an absolute, last ditch, desperate measure to defend a country's sovereignty. Thus, I would have fought in WW2, arguably WW1 but that wasn't really a fight for survival. I would have dodged the Vietnam draft, however, because that was an utterly ludicrous war and the US had no right to enforce its population to fight in it. As for the question of prison, I don't believe the country has the right to draft me, so I'm hardly going to agree with their right to imprison me for it, am I?

No, I'm not saying I have no responsibilities, not by a long stretch. I'm not even saying that the country doesn't have a right to call on me to fight for it. I, like every other member of my country and like every member of *your* country, pays for the right to live in it every single day they're alive. If the existence of my country was at stake, then I would fight. It's where all the people who are important to me live. Of course I'd defend it. I'm not going to support some self-important fool's foray into another country, though. Why should I? What are your definitions of rights and responsibilities in this case? So I have the right to free speech and all the rest of it so I have to go and fight in some war I disagree with? Do my rights given to me by my country also not include the right to peaceful protest? That is, in effect, what I'd be doing. Edited for garble. Further edit: Taxes. All the "services" my country provides are paid for by taxes gathered from the population. I pay my taxes and I use those services. What else do I owe it and why? Genuinely curious.

I know you're trying to be humorous, but I don't get the reference. By the way, I have never lived in an oppressed country (though I did visit Russia, whilst the Iron Curtain was up, back before the Moscow Olympics, so I have first-hand knowledge). Second point of order, my father volunteered (under-age, too) for his service in WW2. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'm British, I'm assuming you're an American.

We already do that, or at least we did while I was in the Navy for the first Gulf war. Not only was our pay tax free while on deployment, we also received "Imminent Danger Pay" (couple hundred extra per month) and got to send our mail out without the need for a stamp (wtf?). <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That's reasonable. Especially the stamp part.

There's a similar idea over here to stop soldiers paying tax whilst they're overseas. I agree that they shouldn't be paying tax whilst they're off fighting, but for the rest of their life? I don't know about that, to be honest.

Yes, purely because the MILLIONS of free citizens who volunteered their lives in order that you might live in a free country. In their name, you owe the ideals for which they fought allegiance. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I didn't ask them to... I would have been quite happy under the "yoke of british oppression" or "Yoke of Canadian Oppression" thank you very much. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That's not possible for you to say, and is pretty immature and na

Can of French lager.

Ooo, juicy topic. This is my opinion and I have no doubt that it will ruffle a few feathers. Firstly, would I allow myself to be drafted. Would I bollocks. I owe my country nothing. Absolutely nothing. I do, however, owe my girlfriend a lot. Most importantly is the guarantee that she will continue having a boyfriend. Secondly, the justification. I am 26 years old and a British citizen. I am a loyal and proud British citizen. That does *not* mean that my Government has the right to force me into combat and potentially get me killed. At any time. Whether I believe in the war or not. The Government is there to serve *me*. I vote it in, I pay for it, it is *my* Government. I am a subject of the Queen, I am not a subject of the Ministry of Defence. Thirdly, the concept of owing a country anything. As mentioned before, I am 26. I earn a decent amount of money. My country taxes me before I even see the full load. It then taxes me everytime I spend it. I get taxed on my home, I get taxed on my clothes, I get taxed on my food, I get taxed on anything, *anything* I try and do with my money. In certain things I get taxed multiple times. The US is the same. You get taxed coming in, you get taxed coming out and you get taxed everywhere in between. I pay for my privilege of living in this country. I pay for the privilege through the nose. I pay, some might say, rather more than is fair. I pay to prop up the affluent lifestyles of the people in power and if I voted, I'd be voting to keep them in that nice comfortable position. I will not pay with my life as well. Some outdated, backwards concept of "duty" can sod right off. I have a duty to defend my loved ones. If in a position of total war, I would fight because I would be fighting to defend their way of life. Were some joker to try and draft me for the war in Iraq, I would be fighting for Tone and Georgie's pet project. No. Fourthly, the idea that I should leave my country. Seriously, get a grip. I was born here. I have the absolute right to stay in this country and to die in it. The end.

Yeah, I'm agreeing. It's not an especially pleasant position to be in. Need to upgrade but can only upgrade to stuff that'll last maybe six months before depositing you right back to where you started. And so do I.

Mammaries?? Er, anyway. I currently have Athlon 64 3200+, AGP Geforce 6600GT, 1 gig DDR RAM and most things are still playable, although the system is starting to run out of legs. One option is the cheaper max-out-available-tech route which would end up with me buying a 939 socket dual core Athlon, a not all that much more powerful GPU and another gig of rapidly-becoming-obsolete RAM. On the other hand, I could take the crippingly expensive completely new tech overhaul. Intel Duo, new motherboard, PCIe GPU, DDR2 RAM. For my budget, and most of the "cheap" alternatives mentioned in this thread would be well over 500 pounds, I probably wouldn't end up with a noticeably faster machine. It's all a bit difficult. At any rate, anyone planning to upgrade at this time of year should wait until after Christmas. That's only common sense.

The funny thing is, Quebec has provided most of our political leaders. They have run the government for a good portion of its history. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Same with the UK and the Scots. Westminster is full of them.

Good points. Were the Irish colonising America at one point, as the French were colonising it? French-Canadians exist because France, as a condition for a peace treaty with England some 200 years ago(don't remember the year), had to concede its colonies on the new continent to the English. The English, instead of eradicating the French that had been living in eastern Canada, allowed them to live and keep some of the traditions and ways of living, such as their religion(they could've imposed Protestantism but didn't). I don't think France thinks of us as silly, more likely they don't care. They moved on with their history but we seem to still be living in the past, holding very old grudges against our conquerers, which I believe to be completely pointless. Anyway, looky here! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> No, the Irish never had colonies, they did have a bit of a diaspora to the colonies during the potato famine, though. I'm referring more to the habit/desire/whatever of former colonials to try and hang onto a past that isn't really theirs anymore and the European attitude to it. If some American told me he was English because his great, great maternal grandfather came from Shropshire I'd say "yeah, whatever you say mate" and walk off. The same goes for the French. In fact, I'm not certain, but I'd be willing to believe that the French attitude to Quebec is pretty similar to the general English attitude to the US. Faint guilt, stronger embarrasment and even stronger dislike of the way they've mangled the language. As I understand it, a lot of the nationalism grows out of Quebecois resentment over being ruled by an English-derived Government. There's always been simmering dislike in Quebec over being dominated by England, much in the same way as there has been in Wales. Or anywhere else, really. The trouble with nationalism in this context is the rather blinkered attitude they tend to have. Does Quebec have any *serious* idea of how they'd survive as an independant nation? Probably not. I suspect they probably think they'd still get subsidies from the Canadian Government. FYI, I'm pretty up on British history, including her colonies. There was earlier mention of Spanish involvment in Florida being relatively recent. It's not, Florida was another colony we stole from the French. Before that it was Spanish.

I'm 99% sure that the French find the Quebecers silly. Much in the same way that the Irish do Irish-Americans. The Old World tends to view New Worlders hanging onto a past that isn't really theirs in a rather antipathetic light. This sort of thing's not unusual, though. Three out of the four nations in the UK have a healthy seperatist movement. The net result of declaring independance would be the same. Economic collapse in short order. I can easily see that it would also be the case for Quebec. The girlfriend's Nova Scotian, incidentally, that's why I'm replying. I hear a lot of this stuff off her.

Not high. This imposter must be stopped.

If "support" means "woo, you're doing a great job; keep on killing, lads!" well then they're not going to get any from me. I sympathise with them because they're in a difficult position being shot at and everything, but you don't sign up for the Army without expecting to be deployed to a warzone at some point. Not if you're British, not if you're realistic. Nobody forces you into the armed forces and nobody pretends that there isn't a chance of you being shot at. I don't support the war, I don't support the reasons, I don't support who we're fighting it for and that necessarily means that I don't support the war effort. It is unfortunate for him, but he is not fighting in my name.

Haha, wow, what a thread to come across! For those posters wondering who the mod was who spacked out on the Interplay boards and started banning people left, right and centre, it was Corith. Caelis: I remember you, good to see you're doing ok. Hope you're enjoying Italy. Aram: Last I heard of you, you'd just come out of hospital, how are things with that? Fully recovered, I hope. I'm sure there's something small and furry that needs its head blasting off In fact, I've just noticed that Charcoal's turned up, too. I see Gfted's kicking about as well. Aww, I'm feeling all fuzzy.

You know, it always annoyed me that through the BGs and IWDs, it was always the party leader according to formation that spoke. Surely the PC would be by default the party leader and main spokesman no matter what position he took up in the formation? Always seemed daft that your highly intelligent, charismatic, learned Mage who needed to hide in the back due to not wanting to have the crap kicked out of him would also shrink back from conversations because he wasn't far enough forward.

I've been playing w/ge cards ever since VooDoo went defunct, and have had very few serious problems. It's always interesting to observe how people with the same vid. cards can have no problems or tons of problems, and how the card often is blamed. One has to remember that pc's aren't made of video cards (or RAM) alone. There's a gazillion other software/hardware combination factors that can cause errors when cobbled together. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> This is perfectly true, but since his GPU was out of date when Morrowind came out, I think we've found the culprit.

I only looked at AMD because I understand their upgrade path, it's really got nothing to do with brand loyalty at all. If someone could post some specs or times or something I'd be happy to consider Intel. Wait a minute, once DX10 comes along, I'd have to upgrade the motherboard again to be able to install a DX10 GPU? I'm not going to buy two GPUs now, I wanted to have the slots for *future* use. That's cool, so what would be the rough equivalent to the 4200 from AMD? I lost track of the comparisons between the two after the Pentium 4. Does the 4200 still refer to the equivalent Intel processor it claims to beat or is that not the case anymore?

Doesn't SLI require 2 Nvidia GPUs? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Does it? So Crossfire is for Radeon? Ahhh, I wondered what the difference was.

What exactly do you define as high-end? A $300 Intel E6600 that beats the socks off a $700 AMD FX-62? Or a $180 Intel E6300 that shames a $280 AMD X2 4800+? Sorry to use a confrontationist tone, but from the specs you have just posted it looks like you are going for a full (mobo + CPU + RAM + graphics) upgrade. You've also mentioned that you do not care much about a long-lasting upgrade path. Given these facts there's absolutely no reason to go AMD at this point in time except for brand loyalty (which I do not understand but do respect). In fact, since it has been demonstrated that a quad-core Kentsfield will usually just snap into a 965 socket, you have a pretty darn nice upgrade path with Intel too. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> If you read the spec post again, you'll notice that the first sentence says "I'm *now* thinking". Meaning my aims have changed. You don't want to sound confrontational, but you'll use a confrontational tone anyway. Uh huh. If you respect brand loyalty, which you're assuming at this point (given that I've already stated that brand loyalty doesn't have much to do with anything in my judgement) why are you questioning it in a confrontational manner? Your post baffles me. Edit: I've also said I'm looking at future-proofing it for the two years. That is a fairly long-lasting upgrade.