Wrath of Dagon

I give you Somalia and the retreat thereof. I also give you Kosovo / The Balkans where the US army adopted their infamous Force Protection doctrine. Not that the UN covered itself in glory in the Balkans but one expects a bit more gumption from the US Army. The reason for that was our interests weren't involved, at least not to the extent that anyone plausibly explained. Somalia was a humanitarian operations, no one signed up for heavy casualties. Also it was Clinton still learning the ropes and probably getting bad advice. The Balkans again, no one knew what the hell we were doing there, it was already unpopular, significant US casualties and Congress would demand an immediate withdrawal. I assume you didn't really mean to question the gumption of the US army, it was purely a political decision, nothing to do with the military.

If anything I thought Clinton was too agressive where our interests weren't involved, like in Kosovo. Anyway, I think Clinton would've handled 9/11 OK, may be better than Bush. The thought of Al Gore as president at that time scares the hell out of me though.

You should look into Age of Decadence, if you haven't already.

I don't think either Kerry or Gore would've gone to Afghanistan, let alone to Iraq.

KOTOR 2 had the best inventory system I've ever seen. I don't understand why RPG's don't just use that instead of constantly screwing with different idiotic implementations. I'm not including Bioware in this, as they don't even try to make RPG's any more.

And yet you bought ME2 after ME1, how do you explain that?

I'm glad our politicians are bought instead of inherited.

I'm not sure what you're asking, if you're saying people turned against "hope and change", then yes, since there's no hope and they didn't like the change. However Obama also failed to sell his program because he failed to sell himself as a credible leader.

It's not a bad strategy to point out the faults of your opposition, the problem is when the President himself dwells on it, not his underlings or other people in the party. People like their leaders to take resposibility instead of making excuses. Well, not really, virtually no Republican incumbent lost. It's more correct to say it's anti party in power. If the country doesn't dramatically improve, Obama will still get most of the blame.

Was there a Nigerian prince involved in there somehow?

The President doesn't control everything, in fact his power is very limited contrary to popular belief. Nevertheless, even stipulating that a lot of the problems were Bush's responsibility, constantly blaming your predecessor only diminishes one's own stature and makes you look weak and defensive. You didn't see Ronald Reagan constantly complaining about what a mess Jimmy Carter left him, whether that was justified or not.

It's not what normally happens, there hasn't been that many seats to change since the 40's, it's a historic moment. There're a lot of reasons for this, but Obama is certainly a major one. Constantly whining how it's all Bush's fault and critisizing your own country abroad just doesn't make you look like a leader, and people pick up on that.

Don't think that's how it's going to work this time, Republicans have to make a stand or they'll lose all credibility. If the revenue varies wildly, there should be some money in current accounts, the debt ceiling is about long term debt, not short term fluctuations. Governor Moonbeam is back!

Here's an article which shows the responses, not just the questions: http://kotaku.com/5679655/highlights-of-to...video-game-case Quite interesting, it's actually a thoughtful discussion. The court is having a problem with the vagueness of the law, which I thought was the industrie's best argument.

There's a saying in Texas that no one's life or property is safe while the legislature is in session. Thus the legislature is only allowed to meet every two years.

The movie industry is backing the video game industry in this. Also it's not just California that passed this kind of law, it's just that the California case got to the Supreme Court.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101102/ap_en_...ent_video_games Interesting that this may not be the usual liberal/conservative split.

You and the entire male tea party membership.

Never underestimate the dumbness of politicians, especially the ones elected by mad as hell voters. Having said that, I still think a shut-down is unlikely, for the reasons you stated. But refusing to increase the debt ceiling wouldn't cause a complete shut down, it would just suddenly force the government to operate with a lot less money, which probably does mean some kind of partial shut down.

Judges who are elected normally do belong to a party. Certainly there are problems with election of judges, but there are problems with election of any officials. I still prefer that to the judicial tyranny on the federal level. May be the answer is to appoint lower court judges, but elect the superior court ones, who are the ones that control how laws are interpreted. Then again, because judges are elected here, they tend to be very tough on criminals, which is something that I like.

Republicans are expected to win big in the House, but Democrats are expected to hang on to the Senate. Should be the start of some exciting fights. Here's probably the first big one, increasing the debt limit: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44528.html

Read it again, it doesn't say that. It's saying that was the reasoning of lower courts, but for some reason the Supreme Court wants to take another look. They could've just accepted the Ninth Circus decision and that would be the end of it. Edit: I bet if you polled legal experts before the corporate free speech decision, most would have said the court would rule against the corporations. Btw, it's interesting that the people who were against corporate free speech are probably the same people who say games are protected free speech. But aren't games made and sold by corporations?

I'm not sure they're actually claiming games are different from other media in First Amendment protection, just that the law applies to games only at this point. Here's what looks like an objective legal analysis, althought I haven't had a chance to read the whole thing yet: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6191...on_and_the_.php

Saw this earlier. Now don't you feel dirty being in bed with Rush? (btw, I'm not a big fan, the guy is too much of a blow hard) Edit: I noticed the caller misrepresented the case also, he never mentioned the games are only being regulated with respect to children buying them, not that they're not protected under the First Amendment.

Yeah, I never actually said it's a good idea. Actually I'm pretty neutral on the law, because I don't think it's much more than a political statement. I just tried to objectively correct some of the distortions and scare tactics I see in the gaming media on this subject.