metadigital

Marx, Stalin, and to a lesser extent Lenin, were against organised religion because it represented a potential threat to the authority of the State. That's why Stalin threw all the Russian Orthodox priests in the Glag -- until he needed them to stamp their legitimacy on his doctrine.

I almost laughed out loud at this one. Come on, if there ever was a system that was guaranteed to bring about open warfare, it's libertarianism. Unless the poor all starve to death first and there are robots to do the menial labour, then it should be just fine. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> So you propose some flavour of autocracy? I don't understand. Sure the poor get a raw deal: they always have (and probably always will -- though I do hope for a Star Trek future). The point is the underclasses should have mobility opportunities. (And, more controversially, the rich too: though a fool and his money are easily parted anyway :cool: ) this is seperate from the ability to express ideas without prejudice and live with the minimum constraints possible. That's what I want: no one telling me what to do. (It's pathological. :D )

Continue to let them live in a purposeless world? For what purpose? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> My self-determined purpose is the pursuit of knowledge. No idea what yours is.

I dont think so, I am not going to say gay couples would grow up gay people but it would confuse the child at some point over the sexuality (that is unavoidable) witn makes less preferable as a single person wanting to adopt. Adoption is not (and sould not be) easy, there is a list and a bunch of requirements that dictate

Why I don't like this is the (purposefully or not) implicit notion that homosexuality is a communicable disease: the children will somehow "catch" homosexuality from their gay parents. That is prejudice. Lord knows ( " ) (I spent most of my early adult life in nightclubs, which are de facto immersed in the gay scene (thankfully, otherwise they wouldn't be enjoyable) and I didn't "catch" homosexuality.) And there is another darker corollary to your premise, too: that it is possible to socially engineer homosexuality out of the society. The primary concern for parents is to make sure that their children are happy and capable of living in society and thriving. I understand your issues with the unknown long term effect on the wellbeing of children brought up in non-standard, non-nuclear families; I agree we should be exceedingly cautious about who can adopt children, but I don't see gender as a deal-breaker. (It presents a neat catch-22 impasse: sort of like testing medication of humans; how can you determine if something is safe for human consumption without testing it on them first?) I see good parenting skills as the most important -- and I've seen far too many heterosexual who were poor parents. What we really need is a madatory individually-reversible mass sterilisation programme at birth, with licenced procreation. Now flame that!

Not that I want to start a holy war ( " ) or make an odious comparison, but Hitler's National Socialists received a larger popular vote than Tony Blair's Labour party ... :ph34r: I personally believe that to do a job properly, do it yourself. That means a smaller government. Minimal interference, and none of these pseudo-governmental quangos that seem to be such a fetish for British politics. I can see the depression that will be hitting the UK economy (not that I wish to talk it down) because of Brown's blatant redistribution policies (government regional spending is over 60% of the GDP, as apposed to around 30% in London, for example) and artificial employment (over a million extra middle management government positions since 1997) together with the added tax burden (my tax rate went over 50% after the last election, as a Company Director), raiding the superannuation funds for

There are about a gazillion open source programs around so I would be very surprised if there isn't a firewall and spyware blocker, or twenty. I swear by a hardware firewall -- much better than software firewalls. Never really had a problem with spybots (mustn't be frequenting the same nefarious sites " ). The Micro$oft spy program is apparently pretty good, except it allows all the popups on MSN to work by design. As for firewalls, I too found Zone Alarm impractical. I just use BoG-standard Norton. As I don't use Micro$oft's Outlook/Exchange mail application, I have never had a worm (and Idon't download any executables from email, except by prior arrangement). I also have a redirection mail service filtering my internet email (about US$20 a year) so I get very little spam (Baley's forum posts still get through " ).

That's hardly an indication of any single issue, especially abolishing tax!

So, I guess we have a consensus that the poster of this topic -- and those that share the point of view -- are in need of succour as their self-esteem is obviously lacking. Intelligence does not have a strong correlation to the adoption of religious faith. End of Thread.

People not residing in the north American continent, and younger than a certain age, would probably miss the significance of your remark.

hint hint nudge nudge :ph34r: <{POST_SNAPBACK}> They would probably have to get special permission from LucasArts to do that. So it might happen, sometime in December. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> They could always leave it on a honeypot server with a small ad on a warez site ... " (Or, failing that, on Gabe Newel's pc ... )

No aliens, though. I quite liked "The Man who Ruled the Universe" (early Alan Dean Foster novel -- not writing a novelisation of someone else's film, for a change). Rcommended reading (a bit like Machiavelli meets Asimov). Interesting socio-political thriller with green tenticular aliens (think Simpsons).

He was a little curmudgeonly in that baby film -- whatever it was called, y'know, the one about IVF?

Ahhhh - playing it through now!!! *Averts eyes*

There are so many different areas of science that corroborate the tenets of evolution that to call the evidence circumstantial is pedantic in the extreme. There is no disputing the general tenets of evolution. all that may happen is the hypothesis may have more detail added over time.

It was pure class warfare, nothing else. All pretence at animal welfare was beneath contempt and credulity. The present government is changing the fabric of the parliaments and the legislature into unpredictable (and unplanned) territory. I fear they are acting on a plan that has as much forethought as their post-invasion of Iraq. And here comes the depression ...

Try jumping: there is this "moon gravity hop" performed by your PC. Also picking up and throwing objects is totally out of context with the physical aspects of the said objects. Ah, memories! *gazes off into the distance thinking of the good times when Duke and Quake ruled the CPUs*

Yep. I'd caution about Steam, though. Steam is used to unlock all the files before you can play the game for the first time: so it is a mandatory pre-requisite that you have an internet connection on your games machine. And the installation process takes a couple of hours (even if you buy it on DVD). Apart from that, it's cool.

True. But HK-50 is a droid. (:D) And droids are not permissible (which is was why everyone was so fooled; they didn't expect him to disobey orders).

Really?Hmm Well I'd rather take over Asimov's Robots and Foundation Universe Tho SW would do :cool: <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yep, Picasso died a pauper and Sunflowers sold in the last decade for

How dare you say that about Canderous? Canderous is god. o_O But he would get his ass kicked by Exile and Revan but he's my favorite character. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Candyman is only good for sharing Mical's joie de vivre.

Just now noticing this, huh? You must be new. Welcome to the KOTOR community. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> ... and the joy of stream-of-consciousness word association. :D

Chaotic Good. :D

Yes yes yes. I liked the elements of Pergasus. I liked the polish and the depth. I didn't like having to jump through every hoop every time. The narrative was singular until we left got to the Ebon Hawk. no choices. No branches. Just jump through all the hoops.

... Their lightsabers definitely are.