Bartimaeus

If she was indicted by Obama's DoJ, though, it would likely mean there's no party support behind her, and no faith in her candidacy. The Clintons, if nothing else, have been pretty loyal to the Democratic Party - I don't think she'd push ahead with her candidacy knowing it was suicide for the party.

Yeah, the whole money issue still being a problem for the vast majority of players is kind of embarrassing. The health issues being hushed up for so long is pretty embarrassing. The fact that way too many of us treat this game like it's some holy ritual and act accordingly is absolutely embarrassing. ...But we're still fans.

Eh, your brain (and its comparatively good health) would probably thank you for not being in the NFL. Your wallet, on the other hand...

All we need is a major gaffe for Hillary and he can do it. Would that be a bigger upset than Leicester winning the EPL? I don't know but it would make me laugh. Leicester winning the EPL had 1 to 5000 odds. They're calling it literally the biggest upset of its kind in all of modern sporting history, so probably not. I think Bernie's odds are a little bit better than that...but it's effectively nearly as impossible.

Hah. Yeah, so basically, I can't participate in the political or otherwise serious discussions because these people are always in them and always domineering discussion and people are always replying to and shaping the discussion around their posts. Fun.

You're a pretty different kind of troll from the others - there are different kinds - but if it makes you feel better to call me a troll back, well...

That's the beauty of the situation. Forums always have armchair moderators, each with an ironclad vision of "how stuff should be done". The hilarious twist this time is that their behavior (and others) is simultaneously the genesis of the "problems" (because they decided there is a problem) AND the results. Since were not hard enough on them they lose the ability to communicate in a civil manner. Or something. We try to keep things loose and this is not an echo chamber where we all have to agree. All opinions are welcome within the forum rules. We cannot read every post in every thread so if a post offends your sensibilities please feel free to make use of the Report button conveniently located at the bottom of every post, and we will take it into consideration. What? Alum and I have already stated what we believe the problem to be - the lack of strong rules regarding basic civility, and the lack of enforcement on what is already there. I mean, c'mon, read the anti-trolling rule - it's a complete joke, and is basically inoperable. The anti-harassment rule? Better, but still pretty weak - only the first two sentences are of actually any use, and even those aren't hardly ever enforced. So what's the result? Simple: you get a bunch of trolls or frequently troll-like people such as Bruce and Obyknven and Volourn and...who are able to freely peddle their nonsense and/or literally perpetually terrible behavior up and down the forums, and then, as a result of being around these people for a prolonged period of time, you get the malcontents like Aluminium, KaineParker, and I that are just so sick of these people that we just stop giving a crap about rules that either aren't there or aren't really enforced. I frequently disagree with the vast majority of the people on these forums on pretty much every issue imaginable...there are only a few people who literally never, ever conduct themselves in an even half-way courteous manner, and there are only a few people who are just so intellectually lazy and intellectually dishonest that there's no point in even trying to have a discussion with them - all the times we've tried, we've been stung...and yet, they keep spewing their baloney bullcrap all over the forums constantly, eliciting replies from others in these faux "serious" "discussion" threads, both of which change the direction/focus of the thread and make it an unbearable and useless mess. It just gets old. I honestly don't even know why I bother at this point. Maybe I shouldn't, and should just stick to the less serious threads I like such as the NFL threads and stuff in the tech section.

Our behavior (and other's) is more a SYMPTOM of the/a problem than anything else.

The little* UDFA guys that make it (and sometimes make it big!) are my favorites...but I am a Packers fan (where, according to statistics I heard last season, UDFAs have had the best starting opportunities since our current GM got the job in the league), so I guess that's only natural... *Okay, maybe "little" is the wrong word...

Yeah, these forums are a complete and total garbage hole when people are actually getting upset at each other*, and moderation, administration, ownership et. al. doesn't seem to care one bit. Why have rules against flaming and trolling when you can have rules against criticism of other companies? ... *Not that I haven't contributed to it being so...but hey, if the rules weren't such trash, it wouldn't be a problem to begin with.

It's just becoming pretty painful to sit through most of these threads, where it seems like discussion has gotten especially repetitive and boneheaded lately. I especially get annoyed anytime people start doing those idiotic "gotcha"s people have been posting lately every time they reply and "prove" the other person wrong. Gettin' old.

You know, this is kind of have I've been feeling about most of the "serious discussion" threads lately...

Billings has fallen like a rock down a well. Everyone made fun of the Packers for not picking him when he "fell" to them, but he literally has not been picked in the first three rounds yet...

Well, the Buccaneers took a kicker with their second round pick - would you have preferred that?

Yeah, good luck with that. Could turn out good...but I know if the Packers had taken him, he would've never turned out never because the injury risk players we take always do.

What a weird draft. But they usually are.

Titanite/Prowling Demons are jerks, yes. Bed of Chaos is just bad, and it's, from what I've heard, one of the bosses designed as development time was running out. It sucks.

Was she supposed to look different? I mean, I didn't imagine her skin would suddenly look 20 years younger because of additional protection of the DNA. I thought the idea was just to protect the DNA from random damage/mutations.

Why? If the commissioner "then used the power to discipline" poorly, bad terrible awfully and inappropriately, of course I expect the NFLPA (and other fans of football) to complain. I would say most of us, assuming Hurlshot wasn't the one to personally negotiate the terrible deal himself, or assuming that the Teachers Union was unaware of how poorly the school would handle their responsibilities. I don't think it's outrageous to suggest that there should be no reasonable expectations of competency or fairness. That's generally not how a good working relationship (business or otherwise) works. By my estimation, the commissioner is clearly not performing that part of the job with either of those.

Because they didn't know for sure what their "king" would do with the power given entrusted to him. In most avenues of life, each of us are entrusted with certain responsibilities and abilities: that does not give us license to use those powers how we wish with no regard for the wishes of our inferiors, peers, and superiors. If the way Goodell is handling these scandals is not how the NFLPA expected him to (and I don't believe it is), then I absolutely do sympathize with them and expect there to be some blowback when the renegotiation comes. A better analogy, perhaps, would've been our Congress and the President: if Congress gives the President some powers they did not previously have (or the President becomes aware of powers that they, and/or former presidents, did not previously use), and the President uses those powers in a way that the majority of Congress does not approve of, then of course I expect it to be an issue between the two groups. Depending on the exact powers and how they're being (mis)used, I may sympathize with either Congress or the President - in this particular case, it's Congress.

Then we'll have to agree to disagree. When you frame it that way, I can't help but think of a newly-crowned king...with the powers granted to him by his position, he might make a great king, even if he does wield absolute power and authority. He might also make a truly terrible one. The nonsense that was "Spygate" should've been warning enough to the NFLPA, I agree, but the following baloney that have been Bountygate, Deflategate, Noisegate, the Ray Rice scandal, et cetera...have illuminated more than enough about the "greatness" of Goodell in this regard.

Man, I am so tired of seeing Prince garbage. Living in Minnesota, you'd think he was the (previously) living reincarnation of Jesus or something - it just never ends.

Yeah, it sucks. I imagine this will be an issue when they renegotiate the players association union agreement with the NFL in 2020.

In the sense I was using it, as in a "get to the point" sort of way, Bruce absolutely has points. Hillary is a great presidential candidate, romance in video games are great, there's absolutely nothing weird about a 40+ year old man hanging out with teenage girls, etc. Those are some of his points. Are they points I agree with, or think he's able to support in a sufficient manner? Well, we already know the answer to that, don't we? Yes, well, the 3 or 4 friends I have that are Germans and that live in Germany do not share your posting mannerisms...and the needless thoroughness and redundancy is making it impossible for the rest of us to read your posts. Your choice, though. As much as I hate to say it, I wasn't even really trying to offend you, Bruce: in a technical sense, you write horrifically. You use punctuation wrong more than you use it right (when you use it at all), you often erroneously place spaces where they should not be, your sentence structure generally leaves much to be desired, your word usage is...actually, pretty much just fine. What I said had no bearing upon the quality of your arguments or your thoughts (though I routinely have very negative feelings about both of those as well, but it is a separate matter) - merely the quality of your writing. I also did not say it with the expectation that you'd like, magically get any better or anything - I don't expect anyone to understand English to any great degree at all, as a matter of fact. So, my apologies for you using as an example - you're just what came to mind.

It's super annoying because you otherwise write superbly in a technical sense (as an aside, it's hilarious to me and also ironic that the "technical writing" class I mentioned earlier is actually the opposite of what I mean when I say it here, even though I'm correct in both cases). In contrast, Bruce writes like complete and utter garbage in so many different aspects of his posts (but generally manages to get his point across clearly, albeit almost always poorly supported and not always as concise as it could be) - you, on other hand, write near perfectly in a technical sense (with that one exception of having 2-4 returns seemingly randomly in between paragraphs), but you are literally probably the absolute worst I've met at getting across your point, nevermind writing it in a concise manner. So really, you've got worse things to worry about than the random returns...but they're still annoying to me, yes.