Gorgon

The party chooses whomever comes out the stronger after the primaries, I thought you meant running as a third party candidate. They are mostly remarkable for being able to siphon off votes from the 'real' candidates and affect the outcome.

I firmly believe in proportional representation, I don't think the federal system is better or more suited to the US, but fundamental political organization doesn't change overnight, or maybe at all, without a revolution or some such, so it doesn't really matter.

'There are other places where a candidate has virtually no chance if he's not selected by the party to run on the ballot' When was the last time an independent won the presidency in the US.

I didn't compare the electoral college with Chavez, we were discussing democracy and non democratic practices. Chavez's power grab is an entirely unrelated topic within the same realm.

Is the CMOS chip replaceable, as in it pops out and can be refitted ?. Just a general question.

I know you just spent a post explaining how America isn't exactly a democracy, but the way you chose your president is decidedly undemocratic. Not only do you discard the mandates (electoral votes) of the losing side ,which are supposed to represent voter influence, you give those mandates to the enemy. So if a state has been 60% democratic for the last decade, it is a defacto democratic stronghold where republican influence, on the presidential level, is nonexistent. It's not so much one man one vote, but one man 2 votes one place, and 0 in another. Does it really matter that much where you live, and are the differences between the states in cultural and political tradition so great as to make this necessary. I know everything to do with the constitution and its organization of the political system is a holy cow in the US and will continue in its antiquated state indefinitely, but still.

This doesn't really have anything to do with denying people a serivice, however, drug users and their problem children are first on the list of 'undeserving poor', and I'll wager there are a lot of those in these intervention programmes. Of course it's staggeringly invasive, but this demographic doesn't have a lot in the way of political clout, so, they have to put up with more than anyone else.

I believe the official term is yobs and chavs.

Cool

That's a really interesting study in how to conduct a coup using media staged events and confusion. Certainly looks sophisticated enough to be a CIA job, only they aren't supposed to be doing that kinda stuff anymore. It's interesting to note that while it was a militarist coup, the army didn't fall behind them completely, in the end information spread faster than their disinformation. It's not so easy to create your own reality through control of the media anymore. Whatever people might say.

I agree, nothing good can come of revolutions, just look at the US.

Well he is right of middle from a European perspective, all American presidents since maybe FDR have been, that part is all true. Certainly not a socialist anyway.

Obama is not nearly so good as you think. He has lied (a lot) over the course of his career, and his politics are best described as center-right or far-right. Guantanamo Bay is getting worse, he's stepping up the war in Afghanistan (where our "ally" is a brutal, fundamentalist, misogynistic regime) and the list goes on and on. I could continue, going in depth on his policies towards homosexuals, suspects' rights, big business, labor, et cetera, but I think you get the idea. He is only a leftist from the bizarre American viewpoint, and that viewpoint is a complex product of myriad social factors, most notable of which is the fact that whoever is the lefter candidate is assumed to be a leftist. From your link He stressed the mistreatment did not appear to be directed from above, but was an initiative undertaken by frustrated U.S. army and navy jailers on the ground. As for Afghanistan, price of doing business, do you propose fighting the Taliban there without propping up the regime ?. In foreign policy national interests always trump civil rights. Always has, always will.

I wonder what the republican talking heads are thinking. This, and repeated warnings that Obama is going to turn the US into the USSR. I dunno, seems like they are shooting themselves in the foot here, why not be a little more on point and a little less concerned with winning over people who were going to vote Republican anyway.

And many people, like myself, only use Steam when forced to or when there is too good of a deal to pass up. Steam is nothing more than another DRM scam and it should be treated as such. Also, as far as requirering a constant connection, that is pure bull**** and chips. Actualy, that's accourding to the EULA - something that is, at best, a grey issue as far as the law in concered. Just now steam produced a popup ad for Monkey Island 3, and it keeps spawning a reminder for me to 'join the steam community' inside the friggin' game. That pissed me off so much I uninstalled it. It can work in offline mode for a while though, at least a week or so.

I swear if I ever get cancer I'm going to hamster away a means to do myself in with no pain, morphine or something, just in case. My stepmother who nursed my father was/is a nurse, so she was on the inside track. It made it easier for him to decide to give up on the chemo, and also getting straight answers from the doctors.

Yeah it just kept getting better, of course Vic Mackey gets away with it.

Hitachi, makers of the 'deathstar'. I'm not sure the differences are that great, I've heard horror stories from all kinds of manufacturers, including Western Digital and Seagate. Maybe solid state technology will actually lead to something of a breakthrough in reliability.

That shouldn't happen. Have you ever had an 'ahem' less than perfectly legal version of the game installed on your 3d computer.

There must be good money in coming up with this crap. My dad used to do the lecture circuit, he said the real money was in teamwork seminars and inspirational speak.

Edit : Wrong thread.

The trading screen should involve clicking once to transfer one gold piece (a healing potion costs 2000 gp give or take)

Nobody's perfect. (Is that actually allowed or am I describing a perfect belonging to Nobody)

I've changed my mind, these people are just plain stupid and need the company of other stupid people to fit in.

To be clear, I'm not saying 'brainwashing' is any kind of broad problem for Christianity, but you do wonder about peer pressure in very religious communities/families. Some people, I'm willing to bet, simply play along to fit in. Of course there are plenty of bonified Christian cults like Jehovah's Witnesses whose practices are potentially lethal. (they don't believe in blood transfusions, so if you have been in a serious accident or the like you are basically out of luck)