Valsuelm
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Posts posted by Valsuelm
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Regarding the law, it's a State matter within the U.S.. It's not something that's like to change soon, given the amount of dogs government goons kill with impunity every year.
As for how much one spends on a dog? I could see $67k. I personally have a dog (a dachshund even) that has about $4k (at bargain pricing) into his hind legs, and have friends who spent over $12k within a few weeks, and drove 3 hours to get the best care (a university veterinarians hospital), trying to save their dog that suddenly had massive liver failure (they never did find out exactly what caused it despite oodles of tests and a lot of doctors on the case). Much like a human, what one spends depends on both the ailment and the ability to pay (there is even doggie health insurance, which like human health insurance, has limitations).
As for how I feel about my dogs? Definitely part of the family. Wo is any person who intentionally or through stupid negligence hurts them. I've had dogs loyal enough and smart enough that they'd lay their lives on the line for me, and frankly, I'd do the same for them.
Also, unless I was facing some kind of emergency and had no other option (something that so far has fortunately never occurred), I would never put any dog in any kennel anywhere. For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is I personally know two different people who dropped off young healthy dogs at the kennel and picked up very sick dogs that ultimately soon died (two different kennels in two different states). Neither sued, as neither are plush with resources to afford a lawyer for such a thing, but both wanted to.-
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I physically cringed at the end when people were chanting "Bernie" over Hillary's turn.
They were being nice. They could have been chanting 'Off with her head! Off with her head!'.
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Hardcore Henry
9.5/10 on the action flick rating scale.
If you like action flicks, do yourself a favor: Don't watch any previews and just go see it.
I didn't know what I was in for and was very pleasantly surprised.It's got almost non-stop action, a good amount of humor (some of it quite dark; I laughed more watching this than during most comedies I've seen in the last decade), a superb soundtrack, a good amount of gratuitous eye candy, just the right amount of cocaine, and a really good ending.
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Zika has been around for ages, and it's ultimately relatively harmless for the vast majority of those who contract it. It's most commonly spread via mosquito bites but there are other even more effective means of transmission. It's really not a big deal.
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The system is rigged... complained the billionaire. Heh, irony.
Well, it's okay that the financial system is rigged, because it's rigged in his favor. The primary system being rigged is bad because it's rigged against him.
Trump made most of his fortune in real estate, not via Wall Street.
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... The recent movies were certainly backed strongly by christian groups, but didn't do well enough to even finish the series.
Actually, they did quite well. The three movies made a combined ~$1.58 billion on a combined ~$560 million budget. The least profitable was the second movie and it still made over $180 million in profit.
The series hasn't been finished yet due to some unfortunate hang ups with copyrights and production rights, but there is supposed to be more Narnia movies. Not with the same production company though (due to those rights issues), and at this point very likely not with the same stars. Both also likely unfortunate things.
Odd as it may seem that's not considered profitable enough. It's 'only' 60 million profit per movie, on a blockbuster scale that's barely worth getting out of bed for when they wanted LotR numbers; ~2 times the box office on barely over half the budget.
Rights issues have a tendency to disappear when movies are profitable in a big scale, as happened with LotR -> The Hobbit. And in that case The Hobbit(s) were made despite Jackson suing New Line Cinema, who he made LotR with. Though some might wish they had been tied up in legal problems...
You misread what I wrote. They made the better part of a billion dollars in profit overall, not $60 million per movie.
The wiki entry on the series has a decent overview of the issues.
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... The recent movies were certainly backed strongly by christian groups, but didn't do well enough to even finish the series.
Actually, they did quite well. The three movies made a combined ~$1.58 billion on a combined ~$560 million budget. The least profitable was the second movie and it still made over $180 million in profit.
The series hasn't been finished yet due to some unfortunate hang ups with copyrights and production rights, but there is supposed to be more Narnia movies. Not with the same production company though (due to those rights issues), and at this point very likely not with the same stars. Both also likely unfortunate things.
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Here you have everything in one short video: Rigged electoral system, influence of the special interests of the military-industrial sector, the treatment Ron Paul, stagnated wages, the treatment of Bernie and even a nod to him for identifying the problems.
I actually went to this. It exceeded my expectations in number of ways, in particular in regards to entertainment value. I don't know who the speaker before Trump was but he was damn amusing. There was only one protester that I saw. A 50-60 something year old bearded guy standing on the side of the road into the event with a '.... feels the Bern' sign.
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International Day of Xs are downright retarded. Every single one of them is an International Day of Who the F Cares for everyone but those invested in agenda X. This is also true of Nation Day/Month of X.
That said, yes the west generally recognizes and celebrates the first man in space. We certainly did in every astronomy, physics, and 20th century history class I ever took. And there's plenty of shows in propaganda land (ie: the 'History channel) that even have. No one credible that I've ever seen has downplayed Russia's space program.Consider your attempt at picking a fight with the 'west' a failure.
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84% 81% 650 million
Hunger Games
Your point?
I can't say what Leferd's point, but most likely we will see next decade full of movies that try to mimic Hunger Games, New Star Wars also current comic book movie trend most likely will continue. So if you aren't fan of those type of movies then you probably will not enjoy most of the big movies coming in next decade (although there is always hope for trend changer, but Hollywood isn't known to taking big risks).
Hollywood hasn't made a great movie in over ten years as far as I'm concerned. The last time I walked out of a theater saying 'Wow, that was an amazing movie' was after watching 'V for Vendetta' in 2005, which itself was a surprise to a degree as at that point it'd been some years since I saw a great film come out of Hollywood. There's been a few good movies (ie: Idiocracy (which Hollywood panned) and No Country for Old Men), and many decent ones, but nothing truly great. I am not alone in this observation, many movie stars themselves have even commented similar. Kevin Spacey and Billy Bob Thorton come to mind.
I generally agree with Drowsey's sentiment above, except I part with him on the idea that 'Star Wars' is purely for kids. While it may be primarily aimed at kids (especially after ESB, and I'd argue that after ESB Lucas lost his way to a degree in part because he started aiming his movies primarily at kids), there's some good storytelling for adults as well (at least in the Lucas helmed films, the Abrams venture is pure dung imo). Perhaps that's by accident, and a result of the movies taking inspiration from some of the greats in storytelling, but it's still the case. ie: In preparation for Episode 7, I watched the original trilogy for the first time since they were in the theaters in the late 90s (and the first time unadulterated since '91-'92 via the Harmy editions (very highly recommended)), and very much enjoyed the movies on their own as an adult, no nostalgia involved. In fact I had forgotten to a degree just how good those movies are, in particular the first two, and realized just how much RoTJ (still a good movie) falls short compared to the first two (something I didn't realize all that much as a kid watching it for the first time in the theater).
I think most of the best stories out there can be enjoyed by all ages to some degree. This is especially true of classics like from the Brothers Grimm, Orwell, Baum, and even Tolkien and Lewis (many other authors could also be named). All wrote tales a child could enjoy, some specifically aimed primarily at children, but with some very adult themes interlaced. In the case of the latter three this is lost on many, in particular in light of the movies, but very adult themes are indeed contained in those books. Lewis, somewhat famously amongst those well versed in literature, has even written about this.
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So I'm initially starting up my very first playthrough of POE, and the ego kicks in with sticking it on hard because I'm a veteran of IE games, but also because I'm a veteran of games, I'd like to know exactly what that means...
Poop tonnes of HP, turning bosses into gods with Godzilla familiars, boosting their stats, doubling their damage output, and all that. Improved AI I can reason through, and more enemies per map is great, but if any of the above is in - I'm pretty happy leaving it on with normal.
Thanks.
Play on at least 'hard'. If you're a veteran of IE games you'll find that difficulty setting a bit easier than BG1.
In general, the modern day's 'hard' is yesterday's 'easy'. Game companies have really dumbed down the standard play experience for the most part in the last decade (there are exceptions, but Obsidian isn't one of them).
I also recommend bumping the level of XP needed to level. This thread discusses how to do that. I'm personally playing my first full playthrough with a 40% increase on hard. My party is level 5-6 in Act 2 and I've not hit anything I'd say is actually hard yet (some fights were moderately challenging).
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Time consuming though it may be (and it really isn't all that time consuming in most cases), the best form of voting for a variety of reasons is in person and on paper ballots, with the option for absentee mail ins for those who really can't make it to the polls on election day.
I'd settle for just "open this week, come by 8AM to 8PM" (or 10AM to 6PM if you want it to be 8 hours...or maybe 12AM to 8PM would be better, to make sure everyone's off work by then).
(e): Some states do do it this way (or at least close to)...but not enough.
Yea... I'm cool with that.
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a) 'Remote voting' allows for many more opportunities for fraud than in person voting does.
This all depends on how you organize your vote. Note also that I was talking specifically about voting by non-secret ballot in parliaments. It's impossible to fake votes in elections by non-secret ballot where only a few hundred people participate. Impossible? No. Very unlikely, yes.
b) 'Remote voting' makes it easy for the otherwise uninformed/uncaring voter too lazy to get off their couch to influence things. Voting should not be as easy and convenient as pressing a button on your TV remote or sending a text from your phone (as some have suggested it should be). A lot of people, myself definitely among them, do not want attention span of a rabbit couch potato voters, who will only take time out of their Kardasian marathon or Snapchat sessions to vote if they don't need to spend more than a few seconds to do it. Whatever one's political leanings, if one isn't invested in them enough to spend a little time to physically get to the polls or arrange for an absentee ballot, one should not be voting.
This is especially rich coming from an American. The US has lower voter turnout than any other country I know of. What do you say about the countries which have 80-90% voter turnout? Has their democracy been destroyed by too many uninformed voters participating? The answer is no. This really depends on the nation we're talking about, though in many cases I would argue yes, as well as say that some really don't have much of a democracy to begin with (most nations, including the U.S. are less of a democracy than many believe (a fact that is becoming abundantly clear to many who didn't realize it before this election)). Low voter turnout in the U.S. is for a variety of reasons, #1 though is probably just how disenfranchised a great many voters are. Not everyone believes in voting for the lesser of two evils, and a great many people have felt unrepresented for a long time. #2 is probably just how many people really just don't pay attention and/or really don't care. You cannot make people care, and compulsory voting for the populace at large is evil. #1 very well could be #2 and vice versa.
Besides, don't you think that if more people would participate, that politicians would be more eager to reach out to - and inform - more people? Absolutely not. Not on the national level in the U.S. anyways. There's a few reasons for this, but #1 is certainly the sheer number of people each elected person (be it house or senate (senators used to represent the States prior to the 17th amendment (one of the worst amendments we have by far)) is representing. Which has allowed for congressmen and Senators to largely ignore large swaths of the population they are supposed to be representing. [Though it affects everyone to a degree at the national level, this is a perennial and somewhat especially true situation in some places like California and New York (Californians probably have it the worst though as their state government has the same # of senators as they did in the mid 19th century, despite having by far the largest population growth in the nation).]
Repealing the 17th amendment and ratifying what was originally meant to be the 1st amendment (capping the # people each congressman represented), something that isn't like to happen soon, would go a very long way to changing this at the national level.
Time consuming though it may be (and it really isn't all that time consuming in most cases), the best form of voting for a variety of reasons is in person and on paper ballots, with the option for absentee mail ins for those who really can't make it to the polls on election day.
New technology is not always better.
You do realize that it is far easier to fake absentee mail-in votes than it is to fake votes which are certified by cryptographic protocols? No, it isn't, not by a long shot.
Also, the number of absentee ballots in any given election is generally quite low. So even if every single one of them was subjected to fraud, there'd still be much less potential fraud an election overall vs an election where a majority if not all of the voters were voting electronically. On top that, if fraud is suspected, finding it and proving it happened will be oodles easier in almost every imaginable case when a physical copy of a vote exists vs when one does not exist.
Comments inline.
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200 years ago, democracy would have required people to meet in person for votes. Technology allows for remote voting today. The only reason we still insist on the old ways is inertia.
There's a bit more than just inertia involved.Two big reasons off the top of my head:
a) 'Remote voting' allows for many more opportunities for fraud than in person voting does.
b) 'Remote voting' makes it easy for the otherwise uninformed/uncaring voter too lazy to get off their couch to influence things. Voting should not be as easy and convenient as pressing a button on your TV remote or sending a text from your phone (as some have suggested it should be). A lot of people, myself definitely among them, do not want attention span of a rabbit couch potato voters, who will only take time out of their Kardasian marathon or Snapchat sessions to vote if they don't need to spend more than a few seconds to do it. Whatever one's political leanings, if one isn't invested in them enough to spend a little time to physically get to the polls or arrange for an absentee ballot, one should not be voting.
Time consuming though it may be (and it really isn't all that time consuming in most cases), the best form of voting for a variety of reasons is in person and on paper ballots, with the option for absentee mail ins for those who really can't make it to the polls on election day.
New technology is not always better.
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Even some mainstream Republican leaning talking heads are beginning to talk about the reality of election things, just how fed up people are, and the very real possibility of armed revolution down the road:
https://www.facebook.com/FoxNews/videos/10154153972106336/
http://www.wnd.com/2016/04/what-trump-has-wrought/
Of course, they're mostly only talking about it from a Republican point of view, but whole lotta 'Independents' and a great many Sanders supporters share much of the same sentiment.
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Well that's a relief. If a CIA director says it, it must be true.
Vals you have to start learning to trust institutions like the CIA, end of the day they have your best interests at heart
You dont need to know anything about them to respect the hard work they do
Bruce, the CIA has my best interests at heart as much as Ebola or a Great White Shark does.
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Well that's a relief. If a CIA director says it, it must be true.
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Hello everyone, I will be using this video to rant about something I happened across online today. Check this out. Check the video from the OP, then read the entire comment thread I link.
This absolutely sets me off. You want a group of people that's not well understood by society? The mentally ill or in some cases even the mentally disabled. It's very understandable, but it'd also be nice if society were slightly more educated on the matter, thus people know what steps to take to get such people help or how to defuse a situation involving them rather than escalating it.
And here we are with this bitch sitting at her computer talking about how this man deserves no mercy, compassion or understanding because he's a misogynist. I'm sorry, how the HELL is he a misogynist, based on that clip? He's a nutjob. He needs help. And your concern is he offended a woman...?
Holy ****ing **** dude, I'm so pissed. That just drives me up a wall, because to me? This perfectly embodies how some people prioritize feeling like a special snowflake over ACTUAL progressive movements to try and cater towards disparaged groups of people. You want a group that's disparaged? Go out on the street with schitzophrenia while hearing voices, and you better believe you're just as likely to get the snot beat out of you as you are to actually receive help. With a bit of googling I could potentially find and link 1-2 stories I recall over the years where a mentally disabled person died because police that were called to make an arrest because the guy in question was acting up did not have a proper enough understanding of how to work with people with mental disabilities and either ended up accidently killing the guy or escalating the situation to a point where one of them felt using his gun was neccesary.
But no, let's disregard that. You and your glorious vagina got a ****ing boo boo because he called a woman attractive. That's clearly more important than the tragedy that is mentally ill/disabled people spending their entire lives without receiving proper care. Stupid bitch.
If you let stupid or crazy people set you don't even know set you off, you're going to be 'set off' quite often in life as stupid and/or crazy people make up the majority of the population.
Also, drugs #)@( people up, bad. I'd wager a lot that the guy in that video has been on some for quite some time (unless he's actually a very talented actor filming something, which I doubt). My experienced guess would be Ritalin or similar.
Also, most of reddit isn't much better than 4chan, and that's mostly adolescent sewage.
The whole thing is not worth getting upset about. Really.
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Disney is going to milk this cow beyond undeath
A large part of me hopes they push it so far that the franchise finally busts
Overall, that's not possible. At least for a few decades.
It already has busted for a lot of people, myself included (for me, the series ended with dancing Ewoks, and Luke looking over to a smiling Obi-Wan, Yoda, and an old Anakin on Endor). But there's no shortage of fanbois and gals out there who will slobber up anything and everything Star Wars. It's a franchise that arguably has the largest fan base in the world. Busting the franchise for all those people would be hard to do even if you tried.
The profit margin may go down (I'd wager a lot it will) from J.J. Abrams movie, but it will still be there for a very long time to come.
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Oby is a girl...surly not, he posts pictures of girls ?"Just stay away from South Africa because you not really welcome :)"
leaving a frail young woman like oby to fend for herself outside the gated community is too cruel
You're so closed minded Bruce. Falling for typical bigoted stereotypes. Just because Oby posts pictures of girls doesn't mean Oby isn't a girl, or imagines himself to be one 'trapped' in a man's body.
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Boston Globe's front page covered in propagandic BS.
Yes, I know, this isn't anything new. This time however, they're actually admitting it's BS.
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Guys I havent read this whole thread but please dont tell me someone is seriously suggesting Communism can work in the year 2016?
Don't be lazy, and don't waste our time.
Read a thread before you comment or get out of it please.
Vals why you being so nasty....I have a headache, if you had a headache I would explain the general points?
Bruce, nasty is not having respect for and wasting other people's time.
If you have a headache, drink some water and go lie down. Come to the forum when you're capable of dealing with it, to the best of your abilities.
What is a pet worth?
in Way Off-Topic
Posted · Edited by Valsuelm
Extremely similar arguments were made in regards to slaves at one point. I would wager a lot you'd have made them if you lived at that point.
You are a fool if you truly think a living being is ever only a possession, no matter what the feelings of the possessor are towards it.
Also, if you broke my $200 TV and didn't voluntarily fix or replace it yourself, you can bet that $200 plus some kind of compensation for taking up my time is coming out of your pocket or if need be hide in some manner.