Wrath of Dagon

Yes, it tips my hand that I know history.

Probably not too many people here play Combat Mission, but if you do you might know it badly needs an operational layer in addition to the tactical layer which it already has (which is excellent btw). Well, here's a small Kickstarter for an operational level game which might link to Combat Mission in the future if all goes well : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/490387448/combat-operations

The Civil Rights Act is a completely phony example here because the 14th Amendment was specifically passed to protect the rights of blacks and gave Congress the right to implement whatever laws were necessary to that end. Sodomy on the other hand was illegal in every state at that time.

Yes, I am much more comfortable with the Supreme Court interpreting laws than a country clerk from Kentucky. Yet it is the Supreme Court whose foremost responsibility is maintaining the rule of law, and nothing undermines that like making decisions based on their "feels". He already demonstrated in another thread that he either doesn't know or doesn't care about any of those things, so long as he gets his way, so much for him not being a liberal. A system of laws can be so morally unconscionable that it has to be overthrown through extra-judicial means, which is what happened in the Civil War.

Yet you were fine with the Supreme Court doing exactly that. You didn't seem to object to Obola's illegal amnesty either. I guess it's a case of "Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi", the height of hypocrisy. The clerk can be impeached, probably by Kentucky legislature, but they agree with her, so why would they do that? A judge can not remove a public official, all he can do is enforce his ruling by sending her to jail or assessing a fine for every day she's not in compliance, which is arguably worse. He really can't just let her get away with disobeying the court.

http://reason.com/archives/2015/09/04/remember-the-law-is-only-sacred-when-it

I just saw there's a big sale on Focus Home Interactive games on Steam right now, in case anyone wants to try a Cyanide or Spiders game.

The story is stronger than the gameplay, so the story is told through cutscenes to a large extent. And the cutscenes at the beginning is what's supposed to get you engaged in the story. Worked for me, even though I've neither read the books nor saw the show. Also I thought cutscenes were broken up by game play pretty well, although I prefer a slower pace anyway.

So the clerk has to follow the law, but illegal aliens don't.

I did that too. Westeros - the North Korea of fantasy land. I was a big fan. I heard nothing but bad about it, but I really enjoyed it. Looking up the endings, there really isn't any "happy" endings either. I really liked Alester until his revelation. Yeah, I don't understand why reviewers never like Cyanide and Spiders games. Must be some kind of mind control Bioware is doing on them. Or may be it's the blow and hookers.

Finished Game of Thrones. Might be the best story I've seen in an RPG, but what a downer! Mors is a very cool character, kind of like Carth and Canderous rolled into one, except 10 times tougher than either!

I was doing good at first, but finally missed 3.

I consider China a dangerous enemy, so their economy doing bad is good news. Last time we weren't particularly affected by the Asian financial crisis, so hopefully it'll be the same this time.

Very precious.

Good reason not to answer the question.

Let's not pretend that either of us are constitutional lawyers. But the Supreme Court did not make any laws here. They looked at the laws that were designed to keep gay couples from marrying and found them unjust. I actually think there is a case for the fact that this opened the door for a lot of possible religious freedom issues, and you can argue that the Supreme Court did not do a good job of clarifying the extent of this ruling. That would be a logical argument. But trying to argue they've set aside the Constitution and have gone mad with power smacks of shock jock radio tactics. You don't need to be a constitutional lawyer to understand that what you claim is in the Constitution just isn't there, you just need basic reading comprehension. And what kind of a citizen are you to claim you can't even understand the Constitution? And you a history teacher too, no wonder out country is so screwed up! Do you ever teach your students about Marbury vs Madison or do you only teach them gay, transgender and minority victimization history? Current law is that someone's religious freedom can not be abridged unless there's a compelling government reason for doing so, and it's done in the least restrictive way possible. Also you'd have to show it's a sincerely held believe, not just something you made up on the spot. Anyway, how many people would openly patronize a nazi run business? Edit: It's already established you can't discriminate in a public business based on race, religious objections or not.

No, Constitution doesn't make that quite clear at all. I suggest you read it before spouting off. The Supreme Court exists to interpret laws, not to make them. What's unjust to you may be perfectly just to someone else, that is not how jurisprudence works.

Then why bother with democracy and laws and Constitution at all? Why not just appoint a just dictator?

Only if you define "tyranny of the majority" as "I didn't get my way, no matter what the laws and the Constitution says". If you don't like a law, work to change it, the courts are not a legislature. That's because most Republican candidates are owned by corporations, and even for the ones that aren't this isn't a real vote getter issue. You'd first have to explain what TPP does, and there are much more visceral issues to talk about. Edit: Interesting aside, I just installed Windows 10 and their Edge browser doesn't let me quote posts. May be some security setting I have to change.

I already said that by Kennedy's legal reasoning you can find a right to anything, so yes, it's a bad decision. This is a case of the Court acting as an unelected legislature, which it's done since 1930's. So what we have in this country is the tyranny of the judiciary.

Found a few problems in Cyanide's Game of Thrones. For one there's a game breaking bug in Chapter 9 where you have to sneak through a dungeon and there seems to be no way out, so I ran around and around and couldn't figure it out. Turns out from watching walkthroughs there's a guard that's supposed to be patrolling so you can sneak past him but he's just standing in one place, blocking the way. Finally figured out if I reload the start of the dungeon I could quickly go there and trigger him normally. Then there's a long timed fight (the only timed so far and hopefully the last) that's easy to fail, plus it gets tough at the end so you're likely to die, and no saves anywhere. I got frustrated and did it on easy, hate repeating long sequences. In one place there's a long sequence of several conversations and cutscenes and no saves allowed until after a tough fight that follows. Very douchy. But still a great game overall.

If you're still talking about America, there wasn't any bill that was passed, it was decided by one man. And you can come up with any right you want using his logic. As far as Socialism, it means the government has a monopoly on the means of production, so there can be no free market in a monopoly. The government decides what's to be produced and how much it will cost. There can be no freedom either, because everyone works for the government and is completely dependent on the government, so no one can go against it. As far as our system of government, yes it is more of an plutocracy/oligarchy than a democracy, but that's entirely because of the ignorant and apathetic voters who are easily swayed by any commercial they see instead of thinking for themselves. The Founders of the Republic said democracy wasn't possible without educated voters, and they were right.

Venezuela is an excellent example of what would happen here if Sanders and his ilk ever took over. Remember, Venezuelan government was also elected, perhaps with some fraud, but we have lots of fraud here as well. And Obola is already completely ignoring the rule of law. The existence of a private sector requires repression and authoritarianism. Edit: Where's my avatar? In what way are you being repressed? OK, so using the alternative definition social democrat = socialist so your making a distinction earlier is redundant. No one argues he wants a violent overthrow of the government or Stalinist repression. But government is always coercive, so once he establishes a confiscatory level of taxation whoever refuses to pay will still go to prison, just like the guy in my quote (of course he'd need a like minded Congress and I don't see that happening soon, but that seems like a poor argument for electing someone President). You already go to prison if you don't pay taxes in the US. See Wesley Snipes. But we don't have confiscatory levels of taxation yet. So how would you explain Scandinavia ranking better in competition, ease of making buisness, lower corruption, democratic participation and on and on...? We've had much much stricter government oversight and taxation than you guys for basically 150 years. Shouldn't we have devovled into totalitarian states by now? By your definitions... Edit: in any case - I'd love to see an America with much more power given back to the individual states.. Your strength is your pluralism, centralization doesn't seem to fit you as well as us of a more Germanic mindset.. Perhaps its some of that Italian ancestry, they never could handle it either.. Your second paragraph is spot on. Scandinavian societies are small, homogeneous, and have a completely different culture from US. Also you don't have actual Socialism, just a smaller private sector supporting a larger public sector through high taxes which you apparently don't mind paying.

OK, so using the alternative definition social democrat = socialist so your making a distinction earlier is redundant. No one argues he wants a violent overthrow of the government or Stalinist repression. But government is always coercive, so once he establishes a confiscatory level of taxation whoever refuses to pay will still go to prison, just like the guy in my quote (of course he'd need a like minded Congress and I don't see that happening soon, but that seems like a poor argument for electing someone President).

http://iremember.ru/memoirs/tankisti/vershinin-nikolay-petrovich/ What does this have to do with Sanders? He's trying to paint Sanders as a Tankie while the reality is that Sanders is a Social Democrat. Then why does he call himself a Socialist and not a Social Democrat? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy Does he not know what Socialism means, or is he lying? And why was he a member of the Socialist party? Edit: Btw, the Liberty Union party he started his political career with not only endorsed candidates from the Socialist party but even the pro-Stalin Workers World Party, although I don't know to what extent he was still affiliated with LU at that point.