Valsuelm

I can recommend going to Austin and take a dip into Barton Springs. Very refreshing when it is 104 degrees. I can also recommend spending a few days in Galveston. Dallas seemed nice. Avoid Houston though, it has to be the most soulless place in the US that i have visited. Austin and Galveston are awesome. Austin is one of my favorite places in the U.S.., many great restaurants, an awesome music scene, and generally good fun loving people, despite it being the center of politics in Texas. Modern Dallas and Houston are generally the opposite of what most folks consider Texas to be, they've largely become a Mecca of sorts for socialists, have a great many dependents on the state living in them while at the same time have some extremely wealthy and powerful entities there, and the modern culture there by and large sucks, I'm not really a fan of either of them, but there is some good history to be found in both cities. Both cities would really be more at home in a state like Illinois or Massachusetts, they are islands and anomalies in the State of Texas. San Antonio is better, but it's slowly going in the direction of Dallas/Houston. El Paso isn't much to look at, but I do recommend a visit there at some point. And yes, Amarillo has some exceptionally great Steakhouses in a land where great Steakhouses are fairly common. I'd say Hollywood is the most soulless place the U.S. I've been, by far.

No apology warranted. Next time post the links with your accusation. Come on Vals, you called his bluff and he proved you wrong. You need to have the maturity to apologize or at least say " I am wrong, you were right" I have said this before but there is a serious problem on these forums with some people not being able to accept they are wrong on any point or concede that someone may be right about something that they dispute There was no bluff called. He came here initially trolling and I called him on it. To his credit he came back and took off his troll outfit. Wow, you are now on my ****ing **** list. Lower your ego and learn how to be a better person. It's four goddamn K's. My apologies. I accepted BruceVC's 'NKKK' and didn't look closer for myself. I should have known better than to take what BruceVC ever writes as being something from reality.

Isn't it wonderful when folks call people racist and don't substantiate? Take your trolling elsewhere please. Are you kidding? It's all over the news. The guy is nuts, but if you've spent much time in Nevada, that should not surprise anyone. It doesn't really change the whole case though. It just makes it clear that everybody involved is terrible. I lived in Vegas for a year a little more than a decade ago, and have been through Nevada innumerable times for work and play. I currently still have family living there, and will likely visit them later this year. I've also made the drive up/down interstate 15 between Vegas and Utah (it's a nice drive), which goes right by Bunkerville a great many times. No doubt you think I'm nuts. Are you really implying that the people of Nevada are by and large nuts while simultaneously claiming one of it's residents is racist for some remarks that aren't necessarily racist? If so, look in the mirror for the bigotry you think others suffer. You've spent that much time in Nevada and you haven't noticed there are a lot of crazies there? I don't dismiss groups of people in the millions as crazies as you do. The majority of what I'd say is crazy that I saw in Nevada was perpetrated by tourists, of which there are a great many. This, from someone who has admitted they haven't actually been to most of the places in the U.S.. Having been to all of these places, repeatedly, even having lived in two of them for some time, you have an incredibly skewed and bigoted view of the people in these places. I hope during your vacation this summer you take the opportunity to get to know some of the locals and it enlightens you a bit.

Western logic. If victim of crime is racist this is mean everything is ok. You can rob, rape or kill him. As we known in South Africa such behaviour considered as normal ( massacres of farmers blah-blah, nobody worrying). It's not surprising when people of ex-USSR don't want such "democracy" at home. It's not 'western logic'. There's no logic to it. It's also not unique to westerners to have such thoughts. Emotional stupidity and shallow depth of thought can be found throughout all cultures and societies in humanland, it's sadly quite common.

More truths in 8 minutes here than you'll find in any 8 minute segment of any mainstream media claiming to be a news source, and Mel Gibson.

Honestly can you explain how he was trolling? I don't understand how you guys can throw this term around when it comes to some people...NKKK said Bundy was racist. Why is this trolling? 'Trolling' is a subjective term to a large degree. I'll admit that it is not the best of terms to describe what he was doing, because of it's subjectivity. What one person may view as trolling another may not. If it pleases you I'll redefine my view of what he did with his initial post, as in light of his later post it's easier to do this. NKKK initially just came into a thread discussing the problems, trials, and tribulations of the Bundy Stand-off in Nevada and what all has lead to it, and where it might be going, etc, to make a statement that Bundy was racist (something that even if he is has zero bearing on the issues discussed), and because of this he lost of sympathy for Bundy (so it's ok for racists (real or perceived) to have their rights run over and be subject to what's basically military action within the U.S. borders? And someone thinking this thinks others have hate issues?). This added zero to the discussion being had, and was initially unsubstantiated (which adds nothing good to the conversation), hence me using the term 'troll', as it is part of the m.o. of a forum troll to make posts that add nothing good to the conversation and attempt to derail it. An aside. It's mildly ironic that a guy going by the moniker NKKK, is accusing other folks of being racist. New Ku Klux Klan? I don't think so, but he's wide open for that misinterpretation.

No apology warranted. Next time post the links with your accusation. Come on Vals, you called his bluff and he proved you wrong. You need to have the maturity to apologize or at least say " I am wrong, you were right" I have said this before but there is a serious problem on these forums with some people not being able to accept they are wrong on any point or concede that someone may be right about something that they dispute There was no bluff called. He came here initially trolling and I called him on it. To his credit he came back and took off his troll outfit.

Isn't it wonderful when folks call people racist and don't substantiate? Take your trolling elsewhere please. Are you kidding? It's all over the news. The guy is nuts, but if you've spent much time in Nevada, that should not surprise anyone. It doesn't really change the whole case though. It just makes it clear that everybody involved is terrible. I lived in Vegas for a year a little more than a decade ago, and have been through Nevada innumerable times for work and play. I currently still have family living there, and will likely visit them later this year. I've also made the drive up/down interstate 15 between Vegas and Utah (it's a nice drive), which goes right by Bunkerville a great many times. No doubt you think I'm nuts. Are you really implying that the people of Nevada are by and large nuts while simultaneously claiming one of it's residents is racist for some remarks that aren't necessarily racist? If so, look in the mirror for the bigotry you think others suffer. You're right about one thing: whether or not Bundy is racist has zero bearing on his dispute with the Federal government. Public opinion might be swayed a little by his remarks, but his arguments concerning Federal power overreach are sound, and he's not remotely alone in making them. And in regards to his remarks. At least the ones I've seen (I hadn't yet tuned into the propaganda machine to see what's coming out of it before I came to the forum today, but have since done some research), his remarks do not indicate he is a racist. Is he? I don't know. I'd wager not, especially since listening to him discuss and clarify his comments, in which he says a number of things a racist person likely would not say, as well as says he's not racist. But whether Bundy is or isn't racist really doesn't matter in the context of his dispute other than to serve as to marginalize him in the eyes of the unthinking or overly sensitive to vernacular. What I've seen that he's said: These are not racist remarks, and he's making an observation that a great many people, both black and white, have made about the plight of many people in the black community, who are indeed in many situations very arguably modern slaves of a different sort. Here's one recent example of a black person, who isn't a moron and shows the ability to discern between racist and non-racist comments, addressing Bundy's remarks.

No apology warranted. Next time post the links with your accusation.

Isn't it wonderful when folks call people racist and don't substantiate? Take your trolling elsewhere please.

WTB 'Thread ignore' feature on these forums.

Nice.... haven't listened to early Crüe in too long. First three albums were the best, and the second is my favorite. Used to rock out to this a lot. http://youtu.be/PLBfMmDS8q4 Crank it!

Transcendence. In order to avoid spoilers, I'll just say: Good Flick.

Of course FDR is ranked high by most academics. Most modern academics are communist/socialist/statists, FDR was like a godsend to them. He also presided over WW2, and many historians are enamored with war leaders of all types throughout the ages, no matter how evil they really were. So you dismiss the majority of highly educated scholars. Brilliant. Yea.. actually I do. I've spent enough time in Universities to realize that the academics there don't magically have a higher intelligence than those not there, that to an extent many of them live in a bubble that has little to do with reality (especially those who never left academic life, which is a sizable amount of academia), there are agendas that don't meet the average eye by those financing academia, and there are egos amongst academia that drive agendas and squash real scholarship. My apologies that I don't look at academia as a group of clergy as so many do. Professors are just as fallible as the rest of humanity, especially when considered as a group. In regards to FDR specifically. The guy was an evil MFer, who had zero respect for the Constitution and served the financial interests in New York and London first and foremost. I have a great deal of respect and desire for the liberty of man, FDR did not, and neither do a great many modern academics in the US (who I already mentioned are socialist/communist/statists).

I'm curious. What got you kicked off and banned on the FreeRepublic forums? Vals how many forums have you been banned from...I imagine its a long list Zero.

For BG2 and ToB, there was Gromnir, Mencar Pebblecrusher, Del, and Lanfear. I may be forgetting a few. But there were definitely a lot of crybabies. Including Lanfear herself, who couldn't quite get a joke. ...Typical humorless German not understanding American/Kanedan making funny. Lanfear is a name of a fairly major character in The Wheel of Time books, which were extremely popular books in the 90s (and 00s) if you're somehow unaware. It would be a very safe wager that the forum user took her/his name from these books, and that bioware did as well. And on that note, I'd wager that most of the names you guys are thinking were taken from forum posters that made it into games were really not, and the game creators were just taking the name from the same place the forum poster got their name from, wherever that was.

I'm curious. What got you kicked off and banned on the FreeRepublic forums?

There's no will happen again about it. It's already going on in the innumerable violations of the various fundamental liberties laid out in the Bill of Rights. Probably most notably in the systematic violations of the fourth amendment by the TSA, NSA, et al. All justified in the minds of the evil and brainwashed under the absolute BS excuse of protecting the populace from the boogie man, aka Terrorists. Justice Scalia just recently affirmed that this is somehow ok, voiced his opinion that the SCOTUS really shouldn't be deciding whether or not it's ok for the NSA to continue violating the fourth amendment, and interestingly suggested that rebellion might be a good idea down the road if taxes get too high....

Of course FDR is ranked high by most academics. Most modern academics are communist/socialist/statists, FDR was like a godsend to them. He also presided over WW2, and many historians are enamored with war leaders of all types throughout the ages, no matter how evil they really were.

You are operating from the mistaken impression the federal government gives a sh-t about the environment. The people in the government don't care about land they don't live near. They care about their money, their power, their continuation in office. If they have to run agricultural or other interests off that land to sell it to someone else so be it. And if they can cloak their business dealings in the pseudo-morality of helping the environment then that would just be the icing on the cake. The Bundy situation is pretty close to matching that description to a T. One of my favorite quotes is "Government is small minded people grasping for power under the guise of advancing high minded ideals". That kind of sounds like a campaign push for Al Gore Al Gore's dirty little secret is that he does not really give a damn about the environment either. It was just something he used to stay relevant after he lost the election. Oh.. and to make many many many many millions of dollars. Can't forget that.

Updated SCG video in regards to the Reid/Bundy connection:

Please confirm you aren't serious. I doubt he is joking I don't think Val is saying it has never been done, but it is not joke that the ability to do it right this minute does not currently exist. If there were a compelling reason to go it could be put together in a few years time with sufficient funding no doubt. The main reason Apollo was cancelled and no other programs created is that it is prohibitively expensive to stage manned moon missions with not a lot of benefit to justify the costs (aside from exploration for its own sake) This is precisely why we have to militarise space. The only way to motivate humans to organise for the long term. Savage self-interest. I'm only 20% joking. Militarizing space, will likely guarantee humans won't ever see Kepler 186f up close and personal, or even the far reaches of our own solar system, or ever come close to having to worry about the Sun theoretically eating us up in a few billion years.

I find astrophysics is extremely interesting, and most people are interested at some level or another (it's safe to say everyone reading this thread has at least a passing interest). The problem is when folks start accepting theory as fact. ie: Most people these days accept the Big Bang theory as fact. They shouldn't, it's a theory. Not only does accepting the Big Bang Theory as dogma quash imagination into theories other than the big bang (or whatever theory that's become dogma we're talking about) it creates in the minds of some conflict (as it's a theory with many holes the more one looks at it) to the point they just want to ignore or outright dismiss it altogether and just 'leave it to the physicists'. As in modern times, who are you to dare to question the Big Bang? Who are you indeed? (The bias in universities and our culture these days in regards to some theories that have become dogma is incredible, stifling, and overwhelming to the point that many will think you a kook if you question them). Who wants to be a considered a kook? Not many, so lots of people don't get involved or speak up who otherwise would. Not a good thing for science is this. As for third best? It's arguable that maybe aside from mathematics (if we consider that a science in and of itself), physics is the first science, as all other sciences depend on it, at least in the physical world.

Nothing the U.S. has done militarily since 1945 is even remotely comparable to what would need to be done if WW3 or war with any major power broke out. Just about all of the BS economic numbers would mean poop at that point. What would matter is current infrastructure, how fast could new be built, how many trained manufacturers you have in your populace, how fast you could train more, and your local resources. And while WW3 will not be fought entirely the same as the previous WWs were, in the end (if we don't all nuke ourselves to bits with ICBMs) industry will still play a very large role, if not the largest in determining who is victorious. Right now, unlike in WW1 and WW2, the U.S. does *not* have a robust manufacturing base, nor is it out of reach of enemy action as it was in the first 2 WWs. The modern average worker is also skillless in regards to manufacturing, and so many other intangibles pertinent to survival in a war, which was not the case 70-100 years ago,. We do have resources aplenty though in our backyard. Considering even most mainstream thinkers believe that China would be our enemy if WW3 broke out, the fact that we've pissed away our industrial base to the very nation that might one day fight us is downright insane. This wasn't done by accident though. There are some real evil MFers out there, and some of them run the world bank. As things stand right now, in 2014, I don't like the odds at all for the U.S. if a major war breaks out, and the current trajectory for those odds is to get worse all the time as time goes on. In very real terms we have pulled our pants down around our ankles while we bomb the hell out of people in tents in deserts under the guise of freedom and democracy (*cough* *choke* *puke*) but the real unfurled banners of corporate imperialism that has no loyalty to any nation and is greatly endeared to communism/fascism loom large for anyone with their eyes open.