Amentep

Yeah, no. A Randian society would just ruin its international relations, whine about everybody else having a more functional government, and eventually get literally bought by China. Yeah, no. A Randian society would just cut government to the extent that we could finally start baying off some of that ****. Rand was pretty opposed to war as well, so there's your military problem. RandianUSA: "We are opposed to war and have dismantled our military and weakend the central govenment" Canada: "Mua-ha-ha, the moment we've prepared for is here! INVADE!" :lol:

That just had me shaking my head. And '

Reminds me of a bit from The Tenth Planet: Polly: Don't you care?! Cyberman: Care? No, why should I care? Polly: Because they're people and they're going to die! Cyberman: I do not understand you, there are people dying all over your world yet you do not care about them.

Dangit, that'd be the only reason I'd participate!

Opera is obviously worse than tea. Although you have to admit the historically based (and tragic story) of the over throw of Spanish rule of Naples that ends with the revolutionary leader being poisoned by his former friend, a ruler marching an army into the revolution to save his fiance and a mute girl tossing herself into an exploding volcano is pretty stirring stuff.

And for revolution!

Personally I like prompts like this to be enabled/disabled. Sometimes its fun to see damage/xp/all that but most of the time, I'm not all that interested.

Zombies in your moat is tr

Zombies in your moat is tr

"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between." -Oscar Wilde "Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination." - Oscar Wilde "It's better to be quotable than to be honest." - Tom Stoppard

Its interesting that the vote is so close, IMO. Over the years CAPCOM has had a number of popular games and series to its credit: Street Fighter Darkstalkers Power Stone 1942 Viewtiful Joe Resident Evil Devil May Cry Megaman Breath of Fire Final Fight Ghouls n Goblins Bionic Commando Dungeons and Dragons: Tower of Doom/Shadow over Mystara Monster Hunter Omnimusha Dead Rising Lost Planet A testament to either Obsidian's reception amid gamers, or an indication of a diehard following?

Mr. Black(aka Essau aka Man in Black aka The Smoke Monster aka Smokezilla aka Smokey aka no name has been provided yet) has been able to impersonate the dead throughout the series (best example I can think of at the moment is impersonating Eko's brother Yemi around the time Eko is killed). He needs to get someone (a former candidate?) to kill Jacob by stabulating him through the chest. To do this, he fakes the resurrection of Locke to sway Ben and play on Ben's insecurities, thus convincing Ben to kill Jacob. With Jacob dead, Mr.Black/Smokey/Locke now has a chance at leaving the island.

My only problem with party affiliation is that the elected official tend to represent their party not the people who elected them. This could be mitigated by a true multi-party system to an extent given that more party choices could make parties more responsive to the people, but our current system allow the existing two parties to marginalize any new parties to non-relevance. That said I don't think electing people - as opposed to parties - is unworkable given current population. It would require some changes in process and thinking, though. But maybe I'm too optimistic on that accord.

Randomization doesn't really give choice and I think that people should be able to choose who represents them rather than arbitrary representation. Ideally IMO people would run as themselves to represent their community with no additional layers between the representative and the community. The community would choose who they wish to represent them and then the person chosen would go to represent them the best they can. This gives the community the ability to determine who it wants to represent them without having the disconnect of electing a person to represent a party that represents a large population across the nation to represent the community.

Avatar VI: The Na'vi-Ending Story Hahahah, this had me laughing out loud!

Truth is I admit to being skeptical about a good deal of "global warming" stuff, partially because the data seems to be conflicted but also because we only have data for 150 years in an environmental system that is multiple times older.

Truth is I think we need a government overhaul. Not a fix here and there but a close examination of everything that the federal government (and ideally state and local government) does, how it works, where it wastes. This includes looking at how we collect taxes, how its divided and how its used. And I think there needs to be a bill that there can't legally be any riders added to budget based bills (because frankly I think its a big problem how many things get passed because someone managed to jam it on a spending bill that the government doesn't want to hold up the government being able to pay its employees). I'd also like to see the party system abolished. None of this will ever actually happen, mind you, as too many people have a vested interest in keeping things exactly as they are, with occasional minor fixes.

Except for the Reconstruction bull, we became a stronger nation and a stronger people for it. I meant in terms of setting a precedent that the states could break up and form their own nation(s).

Indeed we all pay taxes* and in theory through representative government have a say in how those taxes are spent. Within the problems with this health care reform, as I understand Gfted1's position, is that people will get benefits from the system that far outweighs their pay in into the system (if they're paying in at all). And I think that's the crux of the problem that Gfted1 has that he will be taxed out of proportion with his use of the program to cover the use of the system by people who can't/won't cover their use of the system which outweighs any "public good" that the program might intend. *this actually isn't true as there are, in fact, a lot of people who don't.

You don't seem to know me very well, Gifted1. I want this to happen not to get the benefits, but to see this country tear itself apart. I firmly believe that this country would be better off if it was split into smaller nations. Health care is one of the biggest schism in this country. If we continue to follow schism after schism, our politicians will cause a civil war along ideological lines which the end result would be a sundered country. United we fall. Divided we stand. The LAST Civil War worked out so well, didn't it?

To be fair to Gfted1, I believe (and may or may not be correct) that the difference in this case would be that the neighbor was also paying taxes into the system that funds the fire department. I think he feels that the health care for all as designed in this bill would create a system that would benefit individuals who had no intention of paying into and maintaining the system that they're using. There's also a minor public good in containing fires rather than letting Mrs. O'Leary's cow burn down Chicago that I don't think Gfted1 sees as translatable in the same way with basic public health. If Gfted1's neighbor without insurance breaks his leg it doesn't increase Gfted1's chance of breaking his leg; this just isn't the case with a fire at his neighbor's house that could spread to his own home. The only case where it would matter would be in massive outbreaks and face it the government is going to intervene in a pandemic whether there's universal health care or not.

I don't believe I ever said it was okay to buy votes, thank you. That both sides are equally corrupt (IMO at least) was my point.

I don't think the Republicans "hide it better"; I seem to recall (although specifics escape my hazy memory at this time) a number of instances where Republican backed bills that was unpopular enough with the other side resulted in a dissection of the "backroom deals" and "riders" on a bill. I think its mostly about how angry passage of a bill makes the other side (can we get a viable third party now? Or do away with the party system entirely? kplsthnxbai).

Given the guys (and bear) profiles that have been linked, I don't think the website prevents men from joining and adding themselves to the list of payable players (whether anyone pays to play with them is an entirely different matter, but I'm not sure if it can be seen as discriminatory in the customers choose not to avail themselves to the totality of the offered services/service-providers).

I think the imminent legal challenges from the states and the potential passing of local legislation to prohibit mandatory insurance and possible other challenges indicate it will be many years before its "too late" for the genie to be put back in the bottle.