AlanC9

Yep, WotC own it. It's the original D&D setting.

What's wrong with the LS ending? Other than being a straight ripoff of Episode 4's end scene, that is.

From what I've heard, it sounds like the game makes more sense if you played KotOR 1 to the DS ending. Aren't the Sith winning when KotOR 2 starts? That's a lot more consistent with the DS path, though it doesn't explain why Revan's not still in charge.

Yeah, you're right -- I don't think there's any reasonable definition of "widely" that would be true when talking about US citizens recognizing Wicca as a religion. I'd be shocked if even 20% of the population gave anything but a blank stare when asked the question.

Doesn't this argument depend on what you mean by "widely-recognized"? It's not like that phrase has any objective meaning. And of course Bush doesn't know what he's talking about when he talks about Wicca. I'd have been stunned if he did, given his cultural background.

Sounds like someone's watched Starship Troopers a few times too many.

Not all of them, maybe. But a lot of them are factual. It's possible to argue that Iraq had WMD until just prior to the war (when they were shipped to Syria, presumably -- if terrorists had them they'd have been used by now). But it's not possible to argue that the Duelfer report reached that conclusion, or that a majority of experts believe that Iraq had WMD. Both statements are verifiably false, and a majority of Bush supporters polled believed that those statements were true. What's amusing is that many Bush supporters don't seem to even listen to Bush and his administration. 75% of Bush supporters believed that the Bush administration is claiming that Saddam Hussein was providing major support for al-Qaeda or was directly involved in 9-11. The administration is making no such claims. That's not a knock on Bush supporters, incidentally; Kerry supporters are even more wrong on that question. A majority of Bush supporters are also wrong about on how unpopular the Iraq war is abroad, both in the world at large and in the Islamic world in particular. But this isn't a big deal; many Bush supporters don't care about world opinion in the first place, so there's no reason to expect them to know the answer to that question. And majorities of the Bush supporters polled do not know Bush's policies on specific issues; Kyoto, the ICC, the land mine ban, etc. You see this effect wherever Bush's policies are not supported by his supporters. They simply assume that Bush agrees with them. Kerry's supporters are much better at knowing what their candidate's policies would have been. Whether this is good or bad depends on how you think people should choose their leaders. Edit: I want to clarify that I was being facetious before: I do not support secession. At this time, anyway. :D

But people are screwed either way. Right now neither side can get what they want. Truth is, the social conservatives are the ones who should be pushing secession. Their agenda is going nowhere; this whole gay marriage flap just points out how far gay rights have come in the past decade. And yoking themselves to the free-market capitalists was a hideous strategic mistake. Capitalism doesn't preserve traditional values; it undermines them.

Gosh, Eldar, what's wrong with secession? We wouldn't be having any of these political problems if the War of Northern Agression had gone the other way, after all.

I'll tell you why they stopped being winning issues. A lot of people who would be sympathetic to that sort of thing see the Democrats, with some justification, as the party of social engineers and identity politics; still more who believe in these freedoms also believe in a more minimal state. If the Dems want to attract those voters, they'll have to pitch some members of their current coalition over the side. Which might not be a bad idea. I'm not sure the New Deal coalition is viable anymore. Remember, there simply isn't that much of a threat to a lot of people, even if they do believe in personal freedom. What's the worst that conservatives can do? Overturn Roe v. Wade? Wouldn't change a damn thing in New York, California, or a lot of the other blue states.

Oh, great..... now Volourn's lecturing me on how to have a civil conversation. But yeah, it's a fair point. Somewhere along the line I've lost the ability to pretend to respect viewpoints that I don't actually respect. Too much time on boards like this, I guess.

Well, as Governor Tarkin said, "I think you overestimate their chances." Though come to think of it, he was wrong.

Assuming Dakoth's actually advancing a coherent position here. I have my doubts. ~Di, at some point we ought to just let the babies have their bottles. This "under God " nonsense is really meaningful to these twits for some reason. I don't think it's really worth getting into a political fight over.

Actually, this is a good thing. That kid's going to be alienated from his fellow countrymen all his life. He might as well find out young. The big problem would be alienating the kid from the USA, which is what happened to me. But I eventually recovered --- more or less.

Care to put it to a test? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> If you can come up with one, sure. All I can say is I don't see anything wrong in New York. Edit: I wish we had more problems, actually; might drive some of the riff-raff out of the city. Pity the crack epidemic's burned out. Then again, most of the suburbs round these parts are pretty cool too.

Maybe that just shows there's a problem with Chicago.

Well, let's hope that not everything the social conservatives abhor will be commonplace. They're not wrong 100% of the time, after all.

Just move to New York or California; you don't need to go as far as Europe. The churches around these parts are innocuous enough that you can ignore them.

I've got a strong suspicion that Saddam didn't have WMD, but he thought he had them. Good thing too. Given the way things went, any WMD that were in Iraq would have been in terrorist hands by now.

They blew economic development, not foreign policy. Foreign policy went just fine until they got into WW1, but that was a 20th century mistake.

Sure; whenever some country gets to be too much more powerful than all others, there's a backlash. The question is how you manage it. Louis XIV blew it; the 19th century British were pretty successful. But it'll all blow over by the end of the century, when China surpasses the U.S.

But he's the important cog. It's not like **** Cheney could have won the election without him.

I'm with you, r.e.g., but it looks like a concept album was a bit much for some of their fans. I never suspected Billie Joe wanted to be Pete Townshend.

Exactly. Churches can marry anyone they please in the U.S. I know a lot of married gay people. But the laws don't recognize those marriages. So what's likely to happen in a lot of placs is "civil unions," which is basically most of the civil rights of marriage without the label. Bush himself came out in favor of that -- very quietly.

\ Indeed. I'm starting to think that we may see the two parties turn into mirror-images of their 50s selves. There's no rational reason for the Democrats to be the party of income redistribution through the federal government. All that ends up doing is transferring money from the blue states to the red ones. The average New Yorker or Californian would be better off if federal taxes were zeroed out (or as close to that as practical.)