Monte Carlo

Why do people think that Democracy is monolithic? Why do people feel that their influence and/ or participation is once every 'X' years at a polling booth? If you don't like George W Bush being president, there is a stack of things you can do about it. The most fundamental, of course, is that you don't vote for him. However, you could also: * Start your own website/ newsletter/ discussion group/ lobbying group * Join an alternative political party * Join the Republican party and agitate for an alternative * Become the CEO of MegaCom and not support the Democrats/ Republicans/ Whoever * Become the Director of Wealthy American Vegans for Justice and do the liberal version of what the CEO of MegaCom just did * Be a war hero, come home and decry the war you just fought in * Put on a batman costume and cheekily penetrate the security of an Important Place * Choose not to buy certain products and services for ideological, moral or ethical reasons (this applies to those on left, right and centre BTW) * Get involved in the Media * Get involved in a pressure group * Stacks of other stuff None of these things will, necessarily, dethrone George Bush Jnr. But you'll have had your say. Done your bit. Moved, in a tiny way, the debate in a certain direction. Who knows? You could have, via your efforts, persuaded a half dozen people in Florida to vote for the Democrats, prompting genuine hanging chad apocalypse. You could have, without knowing it, helped a new Republican faction nudge their way slowly towards power, usurping the Neocons. My point is that participation is the essence of civic democracy. It is what sets the West from the rest. Chinese people share a fraction of these freedoms, for which millions have fought and died. I'm not an idealist: our flawed democracy is the "best worst" system. But where would you rather live? Iran? Russia? China? Thought not. Cheers MC

Well, not really, seeing as my real name is Monte Carlo. ;_;

Easily, by far, the silliest and most offensive thing I've read on the Internet this month. Cheers MC

..... ROFL. How can a country with a forty-plus percent base rate of income tax be Americanized?

The heavy-handed modding is getting worse. Bioboard culture, I have said, is coming to a forum near you soon.

The problem is, Mark, that the kid's going through his fire and brimstone lefty phase. It'll pass. He's only addressing the points I make that he's comfortable with and ignoring the others. Please, address the salient points, don't tell me I'm "wrong" so blithely and get with the programme. The intellectually lazy, left-wing, reflex anti-Americanism on this little corner of the forum is like a child's sandpit full of shiny but, ultimately, pointless objects. If you can't at least try to see the argument from the opposing point of view (I can clearly understand, with some sympathy, Allende's position in the early 70's) then you've got no chance of cogently making your own.

OXYMORON ALERT!!!

Who edited my contribution to this thread?

Who wrote your history book? Why don't you question it, doubt it's veracity, test it's sources, read an alternative point of view? Uh, that is communism. You say "take back the land" and I say "sieze property unlawfully from it's legitimate owners." Communists say "progressive elements" and I say "terrorists". Communists say "Vanguard of the Proletariat" and I say unionised bully-boys. Communists say "redistribution of wealth" and I say "theft". See where this is going? Quite clearly I read it in a history book rather more accurate than the one you read. Ha ha ha. 70's Latin American socialism, if anything, was even more red-blooded than centralized soviet communism, actually. Death squads ahoy! Oh, sorry, I suppose in your history books only right-wing juntas have death squads, right? Why is is that madmen so often seem to conveniently be part of extremist ideological cults of both left and right? To try to separate Stalin's terror from Russian communism would be disingenious. No, it definitely isn't. Is blaming the Holocaust on the NSDAP shallow? Is blaming Year Zero on the Khmer Rouge shallow? Heck, is blaming 9/11 on AQ shallow? I don't think so. I was around the last time "The Kids" got this upset about the world. It's OK, it's cool. Just try to, occasionally, look beyond your furious self-righteousness. Then ,when it's all over you won't feel like a manipulated jerk. Cheers MC

Allende was a hard-line socialist who had every intention of abandoning democracy in Chile and replacing it with a Soviet-style regime. The Nixon administration wasn't going to tolerate Chile and Cuba going Red, and I can't say I blame them. They couldn't invade, not with the Vietnam imbroglio. No, they would use a home-grown proxy. If you are going to discuss and consider history, try putting yourself in the shoes of the protagonists....enter the forces of reaction. Pinochet thought he was a patriot rescuing his country from Communism. Allende would have eventually ushered in a political regime just as repugnant, but the Left generally hear/ see/ speak no evil when a totalitarian regime is from the left-wing end of the spectrum. Look at Stalin. Murdered millions. Made Hitler look like an amateur. Yet kids wear "CCCP" tee-shirts, or pins with Lenin's head on. I find them as offensive as swastika vests or Eichman badges, personally. The winners write history, or, in the "post historical" world, the Media/ Political complex that is made up of overwhelmingly urban liberals. Cheers MC

Blade 2 was, like, an ultra-violent screen saver. Ron Perlman was the best thing in it, really. I like Snipes as an actor and an action movie hero, actually, but this wasn't his finest hour. What bothered me was that the Bloodpack was this ill-disciplined bag o' ****. If the vamps have become this ultra-slick corporate entity, wouldn't their covert warrior elite be more like some sort of glam special forces outfit? Not a bunch of scruffy goths/ Marilyn Manson fans armed with melee weapons? So, yeah, half an hour into it the torpor set in. It's as if they have a "please the kids" flow chart of stuff they have to have. BTW, I haven't seen Hellboy yet. Is it any good? Cheers MC

Discuss!

The sixties, eh? LSD is the only credible explanation for that. The tunes kinda catchy though, dontcha think? Cheers MC

How do you square this with Islam, where the notion of secularity doesn't even come into the equation?

Oh, and that monster is clearly a Fiendish Skorpion Sharkfish which features in the new 3.5E splatbook, Poorly Illustrated Beasts of the Realms. Cheers MC

LOL! Have you figured out some kewl crate animations yet? Or Aribeth boobies?

Phosphor speaketh much wisdom. Indeed, the fell power of the pyramid seems a logical conduit for dark forces. A d10, OTOH, seems faintly benign. In any case, the cover art on the Keep on the Borderlands sent me finally on a downward spiral. Destination: Hell. Conclusive proof of the evil inherent in fantasy role-playing games.

Being a Judeo-Pagan-Atheist I have a great deal to comment upon this matter. 1. Christianity is very old. OK, you have V1.0 and V1.1 but really Catholicism urgently needs a dogma upgrade. It's views of contraception and homosexuality are just two of the many things that are making it increasingly irrelevant to modern people's lives. If I were shivering in my mud hut in Calabria in 1198, utterly convinced of Original Sin then maybe I'd Believe. But I ain't and I don't. Sorry. 2. My wife went to a convent school. She was from a Church of England family, but like many young English women sent for private education she attended a convent. They provide excellent value for money. Like many young English women educated by nuns, she left with a rather sceptical view of religion in general (not confined to Catholicism). I personally find any religion that espouses celibacy as dogma to be inhuman. I also think it explains some of the unfortunate scandals that hit the Catholic church in the US. Let me make it clear: the offence was bad enough. It was the subsequent cover up that made the matter utterly unforgivable. Straight to hell, in fact. 3. Saying that, I actually rather enjoy the company of clergymen. They are usually self-effacing, charming and liberal (three things I manifestly am not). The Church of England has always been a quietly recognised haven for gay men, something which I find rather quaint. A gay friend suggests that it's the dressing up and being a martyr that appeals. 4. Being a lapsed Jew (well, my mother was Catholic so technically I remain Goyim but I went through all the hoop-la as a kid) I have to say that you really can't beat afternoon tea with a Rabbi. Maybe, living in London, we have pretty laid-back rabbis but the ones I've met crease me up. 5. The younger people I know (i.e. early twenties up) seem to me to be actually more spiritual (as opposed to religious) than I was at their age (I find my atheism quite depressing sometimes, to the point where I'd like to make the leap of faith to being an Agnostic but cannot). However, their spiritual needs are clearly not being met by the established religions. The only young people getting fired up about religion in the West are young Muslims. Problem is, that is also linking into to other tangential social problems (racism, unemployment, the international situation). An Islam ain't just a religion; it's a definitive program for political, spiritual, temporal and social life. You don't "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and render unto God what is God's" in Islam, because the definition simply doesn't exist. 6. Churches are my favourite buildings in the world. Little medieval English ones, sitting in a field in Sussex. Cheers MC

Actually, it was D&D that made me a Pagan Goat Killer. One minute I was a nice god-fearing Jewish boy, then five minutes after taking the shrink wrap off of my D&D basic set in 1978 it was POW! PAGAN GOAT KILLER! Damn your eyes, Gygax! DAMN YOUR EYES! Although I suspect it was the novelty of playing with a d4 for the first time that really did it. Cheers MC

We welcome converts from all denominations and faiths into my Pagan cult. It's fun. Well, it can get a bit chilly dancing naked around a menhir in January, but the heavy drinking and orgiastic rites make up for it. Cheers MC

Well, I sacrificed the goat (with a house brick, which was a tad noisy) and had a quick look-see at the beast's steaming entrails. The neighbours were a bit shocked, but I'm sure they'll get used to a 6'3" 175 lb pagan living next door. Good news! The shiny pancreas tells me that tenure is assured for Eldar in the department of his choice. Furthermore, the silky smooth liver revelas that his study will be shared with the flaxen-haired Nordic scholars Ingrid and Helga who are studying for their doctorates in Sapphic Studies on attachment from the University of Stockholm! Lastly, the goat's slippery but pounding heart was of superlative quality....what this tells me I will reveal later! Cheers MC

How dreadfully ignorant. Spoken arabic varies immensely, from North Africa to the Levant and from the Gulf to sub-Saharan Africa. The "modern standard" (which is what most Westerners learn) is alien-sounding to English speakers but it isn't "foul." Consider the word jameel. It means "beautiful" which, spoken and pronounced properly it is. Or aswad (black) or latif (charming). Even mundane items like manjoo (mango) or samak (fish) sound more interesting to my ear. Many English words come from arabic, my personal favourites being bantaloon (pantaloons, which became trousers). I think the reason why the language sounds harsh is because of the "ch" sounds of some letters words, and ghayn (which has no English equivalent). It sounds to me curiously Welsh, actually. As for arabic script, I defy anyone to describe it as foul. It is beautiful to my eyes and I enjoy writing the looping, curved script for no other reason than to enjoy looking at the result. Cheers MC

I'm just popping out into the garden, right now, to sacrifice a goat in Eldar's honour, as he perilously staggers into the fusty, corduroy-jacketed realms of academia. Cheers MC

I am a native Briton, but I speak a tiny smattering of French and have conversational Arabic. My written Arabic is better, though. Cheers MC

Ha ha ha. You have an irony deficit, methinks.