Gromnir

On one hand, I can empathize with that. On the other hand, if by "orwellian dystopia", we mean "basically Finland or Germany", I have to say, I'd rather live in an orwellian dystopia than in the USA. are you sure you wanna use Germany as an example? am thinking gd gots some pretty compelling reasons to fear German examples o' suppression o' opinion. Touché Although I do feel compelled to point out that as far as I know, most of the laws regulating freedom of speech were coined after those examples, moreover: as a direct reaction to them. It's almost as if laws could be created and changed to adapt to the different challenges a society experiences in different times and circumstances? you can be certain that the fact that the post-war German peoples resorted suppression o' opinion to address some o' the evils o' the wartime german government is not lost on Gromnir. HA! Good Fun! ps for rostere, and not thinking you is using "ironic" correct. is hardly ironic that a jewish group, american or otherwise, would be offended by nazi propaganda. is almost the complete opposite o' irony and the very reason we got a First Amendment? is not ironic at all that an offended group would be angered and overzealous. the irony, that you missed, is that your jewish americans (cite please) were apparently successful in much of europe but not in America. also, no. hate speech laws is not same as defamation and assault. there is no need for hate speech laws where they overlap with common law crimes. use defamation if it is defamation. duh.

On one hand, I can empathize with that. On the other hand, if by "orwellian dystopia", we mean "basically Finland or Germany", I have to say, I'd rather live in an orwellian dystopia than in the USA. are you sure you wanna use Germany as an example? am thinking gd gots some pretty compelling reasons to fear German examples o' suppression o' opinion. *shrugs* european nations is far more homogenous than the US-- different problems. the US would benefit, in many ways, from having a population that were approaching the ethnic and cultural homogeneity o' germany or finland, but that ain't possible... not w/o a nightmarish and orwellian dystopia. conversely, a major issue facing the candidates this election is the rather extreme wealth inequality in the US. the disappearing middle class, unlike nazis in skokie, is a real problem. would be nice if Justices, legislators and executives would leave the freaking Bill of Rights alone, and fix some real problems. leave the blues brothers to handle first amendment quandaries? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ukFAvYP3UU HA! Good Fun! ps Gromnir would not prefer to live in Germany. we spent a fair amount o' time living in europe, and it were a kinda eye-opener. racism and bigotry gets much press here in the US, but am gonna assure you that we never were allowed to forget that we is a minority while living/teaching in europe.

as regulars o' this board is aware, Gromnir is a bit o' a free speech crusader. am always surprised by how different europeans view free speech than does Americans. seems axiomatic to us that the only speech that actual needs protection is that speech which offends. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-11254419 is a bit over-simple. *shrug* regardless, it doesn't matter if you believe that hate speech should be prohibited. the fact is that hate speech that does not rise to the level o' chaplinsky fighting words (google it) is protected by the First Amendment. as such, US lawmakers, even with best of intentions, cannot abridge such speech without changing the First Amendment. ... even so, am very disappointed in many o' our fellow Americans. just because some yutz has the right to spew hate does not mean that citizens should stay silent and allow the bigots to spew his poison unopposed. for Gromnir, the right to free speech is accompanied by a duty not only to defend the offensive speaker's right to express himself but also to respond and educate. "those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. they did not fear political change. they did not exalt order at the cost of liberty. to courageous, self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied through the processes of popular government, no danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for full discussion. if there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence." - J Brandeis (whitney v. ca) believe that the US takes free speech too far? okie dokie. we disagree, but that don't change the fact US free speech is different from most al o' europe and the only way to change such freedom is to change the Constitution. am always surprised that legislators, executives and judges need be reminded o' that fact. oh, and once again, the only speech that requires Constitutional protection is speech which tends to offend. nowadays most o' us is justifiably offended by nazis in skokie and racists in st. paul, but in the 1930s and 40s, the naacp and communists woulda' been viewed as similarly offensive by many/most Americans. the Founders were wise enough to realize that the government gots no business deciding the worth o' the content o' the speaker's message. "one man's vulgarity is another's lyric." J Harlan HA! Good Fun!

Haven't most civilized (read: European) countries have managed to have laws allowing the same for quite some time without imploding and/or descending into orwellian dystopias? let's not go all argumentum ad absurdum, eh? HA! Good Fun!

we knew our sense o' deja vu were weren't just the result o' that recent concussion we suffered. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/81056-agiels-all-things-military/?p=1722200 even so, is still funny. HA! Good Fun!

just as an aside, we don't actual believe that biden were more responsible for the borkings than dozens o' others... though am suspecting that Clarence Thomas might disagree. the media were also more than a bit complicit in the systemic scurrility directed at bork. regardless, such stuff needs examination with benefit o' objective hindsight. HA! Good Fun!

biden? am suspecting that many in the democratic party is gonna wanna hide biden away someplace dark and quiet until after a new Justice has been appointed. the infamous Biden Report, and the resulting Borking, is largely forgotten by most Americans. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124294934268945409 given the almost unique juxtaposition o' personages and events being made once again relevant by Scalia's death and empty seat, am gonna be surprised if we do not hear Bork mentioned frequent in the coming months... and biden's role in the borking is deserving o' attention. HA! Good Fun!

"Thanks for the musings. I was curious since the media has made such a hoopla about his comments in various cases (like throwing pot-shots to congress being too incompetent to even create any new laws) so i wondered about his competence as a justice of the supreme court from non-lay man's point of view." competence o' Scalia has been questioned by few folks who know law. *chuckle* 'but as the failed attempt to get judge bork confirmed revealed to Gromnir's generation, competence has not been the determinative factor when it comes to judging the Justices. even amongst lawyers, it is common to label a Justice as conservative or liberal in spite o' the fact that many o' the Justices is largely apolitical creatures. is few humble Justices. the Justices is certain o' their own intellectual greatness and they have lifetime tenures. Justices such as Scalia tend to follow their legal philosophies w/o much concern for liberal v. conservative. as a (con)texualist, Scalia were frequent viewed as being conservative by the media, which is understandable. review old laws and then suggest that the meaning o' those laws has not changed since the time that the privileged white men wrote those laws? (warning: am oversimplifying more than a little.) sounds a bit conservative, no? see flaws in legal reasoning o' roe v. wade. question the legal basis for affirmative action. support arizona immigration laws. etc. given Scalia's LEGAL philosophy, it were no surprise that he criticized roe v. wade, but doing so is deemed as misogynist or worse by more than a few political commentators. also, we would suggest that Scalia's (and all fed judges and Justices for that matter) were disappointed with the manner in which legislatures draft those laws which would inevitable come up for judicial review. btw, am intentional using inevitable. Scalia were much more vocal 'bout his disappointment with legislative draftings than others on the Court, but this is more enoch's area, so perhaps he can lend insights. is all too common that laws is passed by legislative bodies that is fully aware that that the law will need be... fixed. legislatures pass incomplete or broken laws cognizant o' the fact that executive and judiciary is gonna need work out the details necessary to make the law work in practice. Justices and judges is 'posed to interpret the laws. at what point does Justices and judges exceed their Constitutional authority when they attempt to save incomplete and broken laws? Scalia were offended by Congressional reliance on Judicial activism to save bad laws. Scalia were competent and consistent. is not a particularly sexy epitaph, but ain't that what we should expect from a Justice? we respected and admired Scalia even when we disagreed with him. as an aside, J. Rehnquist were always our prime example o' a dangerous Justice. no Justice active during our lifetime has received as much Gromnir vitriol as did Rehnquist. Scalia and Rehnquist were both "conservative" Justices and frequent they voted the same. even so, they occupied diametric opposed positions on our personal scale o' Justice approval. HA! Good Fun!

Politicking aside, what's your opinion about the recently deceased Scalia's "most famous" decisions in the supreme court? I am interested in hearing from someone actually practicing law. is there a case you is most interested in discussing? Scalia had a Long career and he authored many controversial opinions... though please keep in mind that while Scalia were peerless in areas o' antitrust n' such, Gromnir has no ear for such stuff. regardless o' whether you liked Scalia or hated him, he were doggedly consistent (with a couple notable and disappointing exceptions) and he were the most entertaining writer on the Court. (edit: we will insert some o' our favorite Scaliaisms from the cases noted) The purpose of Indiana’s nudity law would be violated, I think, if 60,000 fully consenting adults crowded into the Hoosier Dome to display their genitals to one another, even if there were not an offended innocent in the crowd. barnes v. glen theatre inc Displays containing some words -- odious racial epithets, for example -- would be prohibited to proponents of all views. But "fighting words" that do not themselves invoke race, color, creed, religion, or gender -- aspersions upon a person's mother, for example -- would seemingly be usable ad libitum in the placards of those arguing in favor of racial, color, etc. tolerance and equality, but could not be used by that speaker's opponents. One could hold up a sign saying, for example, that all "anti-Catholic [p392] bigots" are misbegotten; but not that all "papists" are, for that would insult and provoke violence "on the basis of religion." St. Paul has no such authority to license one side of a debate to fight freestyle, while requiring the other to follow Marquis of Queensbury Rules. r.a.v. v. city of st. paul Like some ghoul in a late-night horror movie that repeatedly sits up in its grave and shuffles abroad, after being repeatedly killed and buried, Lemon stalks our Establishment Clause jurisprudence once again, frightening the little children and school attorneys of Center Moriches Union Free School District. Its most recent burial, only last Term, was, to be sure, not fully six feet under: Our decision in Lee v. Weisman conspicuously avoided using the supposed "test" but also declined the invitation to repudiate it. Over the years, however, no fewer than five of the currently sitting Justices have, in their own opinions, personally driven pencils through the creature's heart (the author of today's opinion repeatedly), and a sixth has joined an opinion doing so. ... The secret of the Lemon test's survival, I think, is that it is so easy to kill. It is there to scare us (and our audience) when we wish it to do so, but we can command it to return to the tomb at will. When we wish to strike down a practice it forbids, we invoke it; when we wish to uphold a practice it forbids, we ignore it entirely. Sometimes, we take a middle course, calling its three prongs 'no more than helpful signposts.' Such a docile and useful monster is worth keeping around, at least in a somnolent state; one never knows when one might need him. lamb's chapel v. center moriches union free school district is not necessarily the most influential cases, but search for scalia quotes from the above and you will gets some o' the best Justice zingers o' all-time. HA! Good Fun! ps is no coincidence we chose all First Amendment. Scalia has other great stuff, but... *shrug*

repeated advice: is only one example o' val misapprehensions 'bout the Constitution displayed on these boards. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69988-obama-to-propose-free-community-college/?p=1556763 do not accept anything val says 'bout law in the US. is possible that he has actual read the Constitution, but am absolute certain that he doesn't understand what he thinks he read. am more shocked when he manages to mistake his way into being correct. HA! Good Fun!

admission: am not the least be interested in the novella. our pov is colored by the fact that we care not at all 'bout the novella or tim cain's recipes or enforcement o' chrisA promise to play through arcanum. nevertheless am gonna make an observation... take it for what it is worth. we got no idea what chrisA submitted for editing, but there is little motivation for obsidian to delay the release o' such a thing. no doubt some posters will posit ridiculous theories, but such conspiracy theories is more appropriate for other boards... or perhaps rt. that being said, obsidian, for obvious reasons, has not risen to numerous chrisA baiting attempts via interviews n' such since his departure from the developer in question. taking the high road can be tough and usually it involves keeping your gob shut. regardless, until obsidian has been given an option to say something encouraging or positive, we expect continued silence. eventually, if a satisfactory product is not forthcoming, obsidian will need address their failure to meet a kickstarter promise, but for now, silence don't surprise us. HA! Good Fun!

see what we mean? we get that you wanted more than an expansion, but the folks that complained of linearity o' tob then hold up totsc as a superior alternative? am getting that some folks got the rose-hued glasses problem when it comes to bg, but as you stated, tob were, "a metric ton better than almost any expansion pack out there." for an expansion it were enormous, and frequent had very clever content. the homage to text-based games via watchers keep level 5 were, all by its lonesome, more creative than anything from totsc. *shrug* we wanted bg3 and not an expansion. am in agreement with you on that point. but to compare tob to totsc or heart of winter... or "almost any expansion pack out there," is a ridiculous exercise. HA! Good Fun!

take fingerling potatoes that has been cleaned and dried and individual wrap 'em with 1/2 piece o' bacon apiece. light salt and pepper. bake 50-55 at 400 degrees. oh sure, they is ridiculous simple and delicious, but am pretty sure each one you eat increases your chance o' a heart attack by 1%. pure evil. HA! Good Fun!

if anybody got advice for catfish gumbo, let us know. am a one-trick pony when it comes to catfish. we gut/clean the fish w/o removing the head and after scoring 3-4 times vertical along length, we light egg and dredge and throw whole into an enormous deep fryer pot. honestly have not prepared catfish any other way in years. so, if anybody got advice on catfish gumbo, we will listen attentively. HA! Good Fun!

folks do recall that tob were an expansion, yes? criticize linearity is always a bit silly in our estimation 'cause we suspect that folks don't actual mean what they says. wanted more optional and tangential sidequests available in a sandbox kinda game setting? fine. "linearity" is not what folks is actual railing 'gainst. nevertheless, complain 'bout lack o' the optional side-quest content or sandbox for an ie game expansion is silly or misguided or just plain stoopid-- take your pick. as to gaider, am thinking that like so many immediate recognizable crpg writers/developers, he takes too much blame from critics, and likely gets too much credit from fans... and am certain that the work he is most proud of is not the stuff that is most often discussed by fans or critics. *shrug* am suspecting that one thing that made gaider so well liked is also the reason why other folks hate his writing. "boiler-plate"? no. that being said, gaider always were responsive. gaider listened to fans. heck, you could see how his romance characters (which Gromnir loathes regardless o' who wrote 'em) evolved. gaider clear listened and responded to feedback between writing anomen in bg2 as 'posed to fenris in da2. gaider cared 'bout fan opinions and wanted to give 'em what they desired. 'course Gromnir has always warned that giving folks what they want is a mistake. as a writer you gotta surprise folks to make 'em appreciate you. give 'em what they actual ask for and many/most will complain that you is offering boring and cliché. nevertheless, gaider were responsive. strength and weakness. HA! Good Fun!

more validation o' how belief in this conspiracy is a meaningful litmus test. HA! Good Fun!

poe did indeed have features that were less than fun, but sadly such stuff were necessitated to appease the reactionary and vocal element that wanted poe to more closely resemble bg. with each build poe lost some fun in favor o' conciliation. poe fighters made sense as durable front-line combatants, and paladins were ideal suited to be a low-maintenance support class. unfortunately, the bg fans wanted more dps from fighters and paladins. why? is not that paladins were bad support or that fighters were bad as a tanky class. sadly, the irrational but predictable expectations o' the fanbase forced the developers to incrementally skew the game towards something more closely resembling bg and its offspring. token xp grants to appease bg and ie game fans were an utter waste o' time and resources. the inexplicable anger regarding the developer goal o' eliminating dump stats were a comical but constant obstacle. the poe elimination o' pre-combat layering o' immunities that made so many bg/ie game combats a forgone conclusion were a positive change that unexpected drew ire o' bg purists. etc. poe lost some o' its fun 'cause the developers were responsive to fans. one wonders what poe mighta been like if the developers had been able to build their best game rather than weighing it down with ie game trappings. is 'cause for regret, but am understanding why the developers felt the need to mollify the grognards. that being said, we will once again note that beamdog coulda' motivated Gromnir to pay $100 per game if they had done the ee games with the iwd2 rules. that "single" improvement woulda' been worth a franklin. black isle's implementation o' 3.5ish for iwd2 were such a vast improvement over the other ie game mechanics that we woulda' paid considerable money play a bg2 with 3.5e... which were kinda an incremental step towards rationality o' poe rules. HA! Good Fun!

with a level 7-8 party, Gromnir is functionally barred from progressing any deeper than level 7 as last night we ran into the meatgrinder battle you identify. on second try, we managed to kill 1/2 foes before wiping. with healthy use o' scrolls and food, we might be able to survive this battle with luck and a half dozen more attempts, but am not seeing the point. will level a bit before trying again. we have not noticed any major changes or increases in difficulty for particular battles previous to this point. HA! Good Fun! ps we don't mind the increase in difficulty, but the brobdingnagian scale o' the change comes w/o warning and is complete disproportionate to other combat encounters on the same floor of the cad nua endless paths.

y'know, particular for a catfish gumbo, am thinking we would go with crayfish heads (or shrimp heads) and catfish parts for the stock. next week will experiment. HA! Good Fun!

give the catfish a go, though catfish is a bloody fish and blood is bad for the stock. our biggest mistake when making stock o' any variety is that we tend to overdo all the secondary elements. am needing to remind self that we ain't making soup or gumbo or whatever. for stock we need mirepoix, a bit o' white wine, salt, peppercorns, bay leaves, parsley and thyme (typical we do a cheesecloth herb bag for peppercorns, parsley and thyme and simple pick out the 4-5 bay leaves we use) but we is always itching to add... more. *shrug* HA! Good Fun! ps we only use the herb bag 'cause we is lazy. the stock is gonna need be strained with a fine mesh given all the little fish bits that is gonna in the liquid. what is point of herb bag if you is straining anyways? 'cause you is also gonna wanna skim the fish foam whilst simmering w/o removing too much o' your herbs... which is harder than it sounds. thyme leaves, in particular, float on top o' the foam.

haddock for heads. split the heads open lengthwise. cod or even sole is worthy replacements for heads. haddock seems to give us most flavorful head goo. 2 big heads should be good... use additional heads if smallish... less than 5". use an additional 4-5.5 lbs o' flatfish bones/tail cut into 2-3" chunks. am not too picky with our flatfish choice. usually whatever they got available: turbot, sole, flounder or whatever the guy behind the counter suggests when we ask for 6lbs o' flatfish bones. again, am making a gallon o' liquid gold, so it only seems like a considerable amount o' fish remains. get as much o' the extraneous blood globules cleaned from bones and heads before adding to your pot. HA! Good Fun! ps your house should not be too fishy after you is finished. this is fish stock rather than chicken or beef. time simmering is reduced. pps oily fish such as salmon is bad for obvious reasons. or 'least, the reasons should be obvious. weren't obvious to Gromnir til after the firstest time we tried with salmon.

in a non-fantastic show, such elements would remove folks too far from the realm o' the plausible. unbelievable were hardly a damning criticism o' the adams family. am thinking it is obvious why removing family drama from any tv drama would be crippling, though am understanding the seeming irony. that being said, we has suggested more than once that if all children in the world were raised by loving and supportive parents, all o' humanity's social problems would disappear in a generation. more than anything else, the world needs more o' gomez and morticia. HA! Good Fun!

Gah. I was going to beer braise mussels yesterday but my fish market ran out. Used clams instead. Still pretty good but not the same thing. there is one decent fish market in sacramento. one. if sunh were located in the bay area, it would not even deserve mention, but there simple ain't another genuine option for us. customer service is inconsistent, though typically excellent. o' more serious concern, while has only happened a very limited number o' times in the past decade, Gromnir has been disappointed with the quality o' their product. am making our monkfish gumbo tomorrow and friday. is two days 'cause we got no fish stock on hand. today we will be picking up from sunh what is essentially fish garbage to make a gallon o' stock. we feel no guilt over freezing stock, so we always make extra. unfortunately, our extra is all gone. am having fingers crossed in hope that we get good crayfish and monkfish. first friday after ash wednesday/carnival, we always makes monkfish gumbo. ... y'know, given how predictable is Gromnir, we would be extreme easy to assassinate. HA! Good Fun! ps the key to good fish stock is quality fish heads... which we suspect sounds a bit odd. the white-grey goo that leeches outta the fish heads as they steam is what makes for a flavorful fish stock, and good fish stock is the most underappreciated element o' good gumbo. so, don't forget the fish heads. haddock heads, properly cleaned and de-gilled (is "de-gilled" correct? sounds wrong in our head) is our 1st choice for our fish stock. if you want a less... fishy(?) stock, just use flatfish bones. pps don't forget to de-gill heads. *shudder* made that mistake once. am not sure what exactly is in gill, but it makes the stock foul.

Situation D: It's "working" but can't get past the Van Allen belt, though we will tell everyone that it can. Situation E: It's "working" but we know that micrometeorites will make Swiss cheese out of it. Situation n: It's ''working" but we can't get past some problem so will stay quiet about it. I don't know how the moon landing program worked but it wouldn't be a stretch to say that it was compartmentalized, going by previous operations done by the US. Everyone would do their part and know about their part only. I thought we had put the radiation exposure from the Van Allen belt to rest already. *sigh* Explain to me how the International Space station has survived for 15 years (and counting) but the Apollo missions lasting less than 12d and 13 hrs were doomed? Or how the New Horizon spacecraft has managed to survive for nine years after launching in 2006 and take pictures of Pluto? Or any other of the myriad of space probes launched in the last 50 years. Surely all of those space probes should have been utterly destroyed by now, right? Edit: And that would mean that the Chinese, Indian, Russian and Japanese lunar probes would be destroyed as well. 'cause the conspiracy theory videos claimed otherwise. all conspiracy theories tend towards weird, but the moon stuff is the strangest from our pov. videos and blogs makes largely unsubstantiated claims that some small handful o' folks find believable 'cause they don't have the science to be rightfully dismissive regarding such theories. is ok to not understand the science, 'cause so few folks do... which we suspect is why this utter ridiculous conspiracy theory has lasted so long. the conspiracy theory appeals to the folks that already have a firm held belief that the government would lie about a moon landing if they could get away with it. 'course, continuing to believe the theory ignores the actual scientists who near universal disagree with the conspiracy... 'cause they is either government puppets, or they were simple tricked by sleight o' hand? is the litmus test. this is one o' the easiest conspiracy theories to refute given the mountains o' evidence that the conspiracy theorists cannot hope to explain. it persist nonetheless. HA! Good Fun!

Fun fact, if we did it now we'd be able to do it cheaper, and get a LOT more stuff up there. fun fact: in 2004, President Bush recommitted the US to serious space exploration along with a 2020 goal o' a return to the moon. Obama took the moon off the table in 2010. am knowing it is ez to dislike Bush, but it were democratic Congress getting stingy with nasa money that functional disabled any return-to-the-moon plans, with the final deathblow being delivered by Obama. HA! Good Fun!