Humodour

That's something we can all get behind! On the subject of troops I've just been reading the BBC's debate on this, and the only person who argued for an immediate pullout was Simon Jenkins! The fatuous cretin simply said that it was expensive, and the only reason we were there was to punish the Taliban! Punish the Taliban! As if that would make all the deaths and disruption, and betrayal OK. Not to mention the fact that if we pulled out now the Taliban would be stronger than when we started. I'm fully in favour of pulling out combat troops asap. I just regard asap as being when the countries themselves can keep it together when we go. However one feels about the start of the war, I don't see how anyone can pretend to be moral while supporting immediate pullout. ...Unless they're one of these people who claims the only thing causing violence is out troops. Which is about as plausible as swapping the combined educated opinion of every professional soldier, diplomat, and academic I've ever talked to on the subject... for a magic bean which will grow into a stalk of love to a magical future Afghanistan run with harmony and candy. Afghanistan? I thought we were talking about Iraq? Because they're pretty different in most senses - especially strategic military considerations.

Martial arts is boring unless the player is a chick. Booo!

It is about a 6.6% margin so far, and Obama won by about 8.3 million votes. Which is fairly large, even when you're trying to obfuscate it with mathematics like that. But numbers themselves don't make a political realignment. You'll see that happen through Obama's performance, taks. In other news: Begich just beat Stevens in Alaska, and Berkley won Oregon a while ago, so the Democrats now have 58 Senate seats. The Senate race in Georgia is a toss-up but Martin will probably lose, while the Minnesota seat is a toss-up but Franken will probably win, leaving the Democrats with 59 senate seats. If all Dems voted along party lines that would mean they'd need only one Republican to vote with them to invoke Cloture. The Dems have an 83 seat majority in the House, at 256 seats to the GOP's 173, but there's a few unsettled races there as well. You can probably expect a 50/50 split so the 83 seat majority for Dems won't change. And I think I mentioned it here before, but Obama ended up winning some of Nebraska's electoral votes.

A lot of that is pressure from Iran. But there's a significant subset of Iraqis who desperately want the West to stay and help build infrastructure and enforce democracy. I'd say that subset is at least big as 30% to 40% of Iraqis. Moreover, of the 60% or so who want us to leave, many of them want that because they think things have stabilised - hence their opinion will likely turn out to be highly volatile. Hopefully Obama leaves a peacekeeper force behind after he withdraws fully in 18 months. Anything less would be a victory for Iran and the insurgents they back.

The problem with Iraq isn't that we're leaving, it's that we're leaving and Iran is moving in.

Damn, funcroc, can you run my life? You're like a frigging data mining machine. You've got RSS feeds to places that don't even support RSS!

If you live in Sweden, shouldn't you being using kilogrammes instead of pounds? Ye Imperial bastard. Anyway, a weight for weight basis like you suggest is pretty useless. If two things are equally radioactive, but one weighs twice as much, does that make it any less dangerous? Certainly not, especially if the more 'dilute' product is produced in much larger quantities.

LIBERAL MEDIA BIAS!! INTELECTUAL ELITES TRYING TO STEAL MAH TAXPAYER DOLLARS! Guns!

Did you know coal waste is often more radioactive than nuclear waste? Anyway, last I checked there's a heck of a lot of research and development going on regarding waste disposal. Wikipedia has some stuff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_w...atment_of_waste

Um, it costs $25 million. So it's a thing you use to power a town/suburb of a few thousand people. And lol @ the knee-jerk reactions. I must be one of the few Greenies out there who is pro-nuclear. Then again, a lot of the nitwits against clean and safe nuclear are religious freaks.

I'm not excited about it, but I have faith that it'll be an excellent game. I think it suffers the same way Planescape: Torment and Deus Ex did. They were quirky. There wasn't anything immediately appealing about them (and in PS:T's case the marketing really didn't help), even though they were epic games once you got into them. I hope Sega has noticed this, because it does seem an obvious deficit.

Racism isn't just 'different', it's plain wrong. But words are words. Somebody isn't a racist for making Jew jokes or using the word '****', and they certainly aren't murderous for using hyperbole about killing racists. In most cases I'd say neither use of language is particularly appropriate, but it's just that: language. Stop seeing the world in black and white (heh heh), Volourn.

But wait, how would Mass Effect with spies not be fun? Bioware>Obsidian!!!!! I'm sorry sir, but the set to which the elements 'Bioware' and 'Obsidian' belong is not totally ordered.

Here's why the GOP is in big trouble regardless of what ideology they try to jump ship to next: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/v...indman1109.html More here: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday...0,7258593.story Edit: And here's Arnie calling for the GOP to start listening to the people and not get stuck on ideology: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ar...0,3746979.story So I wonder, in the GOP's planned purge of moderates, will they get rid of Arnie as well?

I wouldn't mind a Michaela.

I'm playing Quake 2 now (just cause it runs on Ubuntu), but I don't have the original CD, hence no in-game music.

you mean god help the US, right? go back to australia twit. taks When you guys stick your noses into everybody else's business, don't complain when they start sticking their noses into yours. The US impacts on the rest of the world. We thus take great interest in who you guys elect. We don't want some moron like Sarah Palin running your country into the ground because then your problems will just start spilling over into the rest of the world like they are now. Now go on, take up your super-shortsighted isolationist stance, taks. It meshes really super well with your supposed free market ideology. Not. wow, such an ignorant statement. there is no such thing. this very concept means BIG inefficient bureaucracies, which is entirely against the concept of a small government. the US citizens rightly want a small government. and should the pelosi/reid/obama reign give us the opposite, GD is correct, the libertarian types will move into power. fine by me... taks Haha. Good luck with your delusions of grandeur. I wish you luck in finding this 'Libertopia' you so desperately crave. Meanwhile, the world keeps turning.

This is a lame marketing gimmick. If they want to call it 'Recoil' in English, call it that. Don't bastardise the spelling or you'll just suffer the original problem all over again.

I agree, it's a retarded name. Just call it 'recoil' if that's what they're going for. Or if they want a Swedish word, chose something that at least sounds cool in English.

Hah! After the way Arnie stupidly mocked Obama's physique as a reason he shouldn't be president, I highly doubt there's any love between the two. Still, Arnold is a green energy proponent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Schwar...onmental_record

Doubt it. I imagine Obsidian is in unbreakable funding contracts with Sega, so the only other thing is consumption, and to be honest I actually doubt that will drop noticeably. A game isn't something you buy every week - it's a unique thing. That said, the IT industry and science research in general has been and will be hit pretty hard by this because they both really on venture capital, grants and various forms of funding, which get diverted to more immediate concerns in times like this. I imagine they will cope, though. Yahoo! might collapse.

Yes, like Half-Life 1! But eh, they've still got one HL2 episode left to milk in '09, and frankly I can't blame them. It's a winning business model all round: the fans like it, there's plenty of fans, and you don't need to alter the engine or game mechanics at all. I would, of course, like to see them make some new stuff, though. Portal and Left 4 Dead seem like interesting forays into FPS gaming, but it's almost like they don't really know anything about making games besides Half-Life. But maybe that's a good thing. The people who do 'know' about making games seem to miss more than they hit, yet Valve only ever hits.

Um, what's wrong with 'Mitsubishi Pajero' or 'Ford Nova'?

Holy ****, never become a games designer. I am pumped. This'll be epic. Yeah, that's a good point. You wouldn't want to play the games of the best FPS developer out there or anything.

German and Dutch women have such a sexy accent. Rrowr.