Gorth

Aw come on, that fully automated gun turret definitedly needed those meditation gloves

A pro actor couldn't have handled it better than the poor guy, and yes his expression at the beginning is priceless. I would still prefer BBC as my news provider over any other news service in the world though

Well look at that... Lordi made it to the finals :D

Lucky me managed to try HoMM 4 before shelling out the money for it. I still feel a bit sorry for my little brother who bought it though, but such is life :D

I was having visions of a US lead international occupation army with soldiers forcing danes at gunpoint down to the election booth and vote or face "removal" to that gulag thingy on Cuba for working against the interests of democracy :D I've only voted once in my life (and that was a "No" to the Maastricht treaty, a referendum, not an election), so I would probably be summarily executed for being a terrorist, actively undermining the system by withholding my vote(s) I seriously can't remember a politician, that I in any way felt deserved my approval through my vote I forgot to mention something in my previous post (sorry), but I wonder if it really is the "will of the people" which is reflected in the results ? What I'm getting at is media and the control of public oppinion and how much of a free will people really have. You actively (I suppose, correct me if I am wrong) information about events, candidates, what they represent etc. I did that too, that is, until I realised what a bunch of dirty rotten scoundrels were available to choose between and then decided that none were suitable leaders. However, how much effort does the average voter devote to keep themselves informed and enlightened ? In a pessimistic estimate based on my own prejudices, very few does and becomes voting cattle for those who control media, giving the power of government to those who controls the media (Italy being a good example). I don't have a fix for it, but I think the "system" is broken as it currently is. If you try to impose limits on who can vote (income requirements, written tests, forced indoctrination/education whatever), it no longer qualifies as a demokratia (no idea how to create funny greek letters...). In it's current form, I don't acknowledge what people seem to swallow raw as democracy as what it pretend to be, just another control tool. You just need voter booth babes, like at the E3 I think I just described my own feelings (in my own "blunt" way) above, the difference isn't really that big if you withhold your vote or you place an uninformed/misinformed vote. In both cases, it's not truly the voice of the people being heard. I don't mind compromises just out of some obscure princip, but when done habitually, it makes the available choices seems bland. Depends on the age of your culture. I remember when my highscool celebrated it's 800th birthday in 1985 (I think that was the year). Browsing through all the old books, lots of them predating Gutenberg, there was very little "democracy" in there. For some, it may be all they know, for others, it's just a recent social experiment where the outcome is researched and added to the library :cool: Thats where your personal thresholds goes, other peoples mileage may vary however. Examples of this has been seen for decades in Europe where terrorist organisations have worked against elected goverments since the early seventies in countries like Italy, Spain, UK, Germany etc. I would definitely trust you to be a member of a democratic society I'm less sure about other individuals :ph34r: Yet people voted for Hitler and disposed of democracy after WWI. I guess I'll always have difficulties trusting people to do much beyond what they are trained for :"> The resident cynic has spoken Not that I really disagree with you on what is good and bad, but you know i appreciate your point of view on interesting subjects

I got a question for you then, as your system "seems" relatively simple once the voting is done. The one of the two parties with the most votes is the "winner" and will "rule" until next election. Where I grew up, it's more like a "democratorship" where you have a zillion small parties representing a lot of occasional odd interests (one party once get a comedian elected for promising more wind in the back for bicyclists, I'm not kidding). In such a system, it's not really a majority rule, but largest minority who gets to to do it. Since the ruling minority is rarely able to get anything through parliament then, it's mostly a bunch of watered down compromises that gets passed. It also means, that you have to go back a 1890 election or some such, to actually find a politician who kept his promises and didn't compromise 90% of his program away. The end result of this is, people has grown increasingly disinterested in "democracy" and politics, as it is often like punching a pillow when trying to change things. Let's take a hypothetical example and say people lose interest completely, would it really be a "democracy" then if few people even care where they put their 'X' or would they be better off with a different kind of government ?

Rich on minerals

Isn't both earth and glass silicate based ? Not much of a difference then. It's all a matter of taste, with or without the carbon based, organic add-ons to the food

Waiting for some feedback and responses from initial buyers, then probably rushing out and getting it myself :D Heroes has been TB since HoMM II (I haven't tried the original, so I can't say)

A custom bred american hound variant. Not very likely to see one where I live

I think I'll have to look "coonhound" up somewhere. No idea what it is.

Pretty close :cool:

:ph34r:

Enforce it is an interesting choice of words. I'm not sure how things are in the UK, but in Denmark, it's generally accepted that being a democracy requires the power to be split between three entities (law making, law enforcing and the courts). For one reason or other, the military enforcing laws doesn't figure in there as part of it, being normally considered the domain of theocracies, oligarchies, banana republics, what have you Once you start delegating things away from parliamentary control, you *might* start down a dangerous slippery slope.

I wonder if Bush would sign a "consolidation of American ethnicity" ? :shifty:"

Battles in real life are usually fought as multiplayer engagements, not leaving it to the poor commanding officer to instruct each and every grunt in who to point his gun at Try pitting two chess players against each other for a game of real time chess

*Sigh* I don't even have a home right now. Much less a computer to take pictures of, it being taken apart and put in storage in a few different countries. Ah well, once the australian immigration authorities decides to finish processing my visa/work permit, I might participate with a "home" desk picture. Before deciding to migrate this was the place I spent all my time: I spent more time there than at "home" anyway :blink:"

They must be like Napoleons Old Guard... :D With an average life expectancy of 3 weeks for front soldiers in WWI, lets just assume that only those who were drafted in 1918 had a real chance of surviving. Lets assume their average age was what, 18-19 ? They would be between 39-40 when WWII started, bringing them up in their mid forties during the war

I still hope that somebody (are you listening Obsidian ?!?) will do a decent Warhammer/WH40K crpg some day...

Is this what you were thinking of? [quote name='Karl von Clausewitz (Prussian soldier and military theorist)' date=' 1780

I *think* I said something in that direction (but you know, I'm not always eloquent enough, so I resort to bluntness), if it came up close and personal, my self preservation instincts would most likely take over, but also, that I haven't been put in such a situation and therefore can't think of anything from the top of my head that I would go out and die for. No noble causes, bring peace and justice and c++ to the rest of the world etc. It would be easy to sit here in the comfort of a soft chair, a glass of red wine in my hand and claim that I'm particularly righteous and would do this and that for the sake of goodness if I wasn't too old to join an army somewhere, but truth is, I wouldn't, so I just stick to being honest about it. :">

I think we can agree on that one

Computers... they predate that particular war. The internet, it came after it, although it has it's roots in the cold war, but wouldn't that be more of a political conflict than a military one ? >_

Yes and no. All in my oppionion and all that disclaimer stuff, but... Hasn't the last two decades seen a rapid growth of all kinds of technology without the necessity of the countries involved fighting for their very existance ? My theory being, that war promotes technology advances allright, but usually the kind that requires human sacrifice (virgin or not), whereas peace brings a different kind of technology. To me, it looks more like existing processes and ideas gets streamlined and made more efficient during times of war more than becoming "innovative". You have to make "Gadget X" before the enemy, and there is no shortage of resources to develop it, nor opportunities to test it, either on "them" or "us". The ancient romans believed that the ballista was such an awesome weapon, the weapon to end all wars, because how could anybody stand against the might of the roman army when equipped with ballistas >_ As for Verdun, the picture wasn't chosen randomly, because it shows one consequence of leaving peace in the hands of politicians. All the major european powers of their time were convinced of their own cultural and historical superiority and were busy making a tangled network of treaties to ensure that when (not if) conflict came, theirs would come out on top. In the end, one shot was all it took to set off the chain of events that lead to war on a massive scale (for glory of etc.), leading politicians, who had never been at the business end of a gun themselves, to send millions of young men to war. So to answer the original posters question, no I would not look down upon somebody who shirks away from taking up arms, unless they are a truly firm believer themselves in what they do. Not just obey instructions blindly beacuse somebody else tell you that it is the right thing to do for the glory/benefit/expansion of "the cause".

Well, it made you write this constructive post, which can now be used for a (hopefully) constructive reply. I'm a manipulative SOB sometimes... :cool: It's all hypothetical at the moment, as I was born too late for the last war on danish territory. The thousands of young danes fighting abroad at the moment are all volunteers. Their reason for volunteering eludes me (apart from it being a paid job offering some fringe benefits in the form of training, education, good references etc.) If I were to grossly simplify my attitude towards what I would fight for right here and now, it would be survival. Not particularly glorious, but the truth. Again, I know other peoples mileage vary and they get all upset about politics, religion and power structures in other parts of the world. My passions are more mundane (Sp?). The very same lack of passion for the previously mentioned things makes it hard for me to understand the mindset of people who both die, kill and commit atrocities for them. Deep down I'm still a primitive being though, if threatened enough, I *suspect* some kind of adrenaline induced behaviour would take over and make me excessively violent. Thats what all participants in a war says If they happen to be born on the right side of a line on the map, the line on the map being where it is for whatever reason, they may have that option. Last time I checked, citizenship was a requirement :D I always did and always will consider war an incredibly waste of human resources, and I'm not talking about money. Perhaps the guy that survived another fifty years did more to contribute to the wellbeing of his fellow country men/party members/faithful/ethnic group ? Death is such a final thing, so we can only speculate, was the bottle half full or half empty. Did his dying or his living contribute more ? >_ Was it Clausewitz (Sp?) wrote something along the lines of war being too serious to be left to politicians, they give up peace way too easily (not a precise quote).