Yes, but why not take those human resources and keep making product? I guess when you have all the money you will ever need for mountains of blow and acres of hookers, one doesn't care about further progress.
Where was this show when I opened my game shop in my small home town.
We got railed against by all the "good Christian people" who murmured nothing but evil rumors about us, and did their best to cause us any trouble they could. We had a church on one side of us, and a bar on the other side close, and BOTH tried causing us trouble. The bar complained if anyone stood outside our building, and the church was mental, crazy and looking for a way to burn us at the stake.
We had a cop come into the shop looking for a missing child because he heard that we played D&D there and that involved sacrificing of children to the devil.
We didn't sacrifice kids, though we threatened to if they misbehaved. It was a running joke in the shop.
I was one of those kids who grew up playing these kinds of games with my friends. I thought I was rather lucky. The crowd was very bright, a collection of some of the best minds in our school. We became a pretty tight nit social group and had a blast over the years growing up together.
It was the best social mix of people as well, we had jocks and geeks, welfare kids and rich kids, troublemakers and saints all working together and having a BLAST.
I can remember my dickheaded Dad finding my D&D books, and flipping out over the artwork. He accused me of being into Satanism and banned any of the books or anything related to it from the house and forbid me from ever having anything to do with it. Of course I just ignored him and kept playing, I just covered my tracks and didn't leave anything around for him to find.
But years later, he opened a used book shop and got some D&D books in some boxes of books he purchased. He got to thumbing through them and became interested. After he gave it a look over, he did a 180 degree turn, thought it was something cool and NOT a demonic thing. He then started selling them new and was well on his way to being a game shop when he was burglarized for all of the D&D stuff and he didn't have insurance. (small shop, very poor...) Karma got him as well, because some snotty cunt I went to school with wrote a nasty article on his devil worshiping D&D store in the local paper. I got the immense pleasure of asking him, "how does it feel?"
That's ok, he got even, I didn't get into Magic the Gather like he advise back when they weren't known by anyone and just starting. I missed vast pile of cash missing out on cards that became incredibly high priced. I didn't get in on it until Legends, but I still paid the bills with it and enough to take my card business into a full blown game shop. I just wish I had done it in a big college town where I would have more of a population and customer roll over as the students move along.
As was, I saturated the market in a 75 mile radius, and my other shop, a gift shop was failing, and I had a spouse who had no discipline in spending. Couple that with a couple of damning business mistakes, some wrong investments, a town full of religious zealots hounding you, cops harassing your customers, it all adds up to a nervous breakdown, financial ruin, and at last divorce.
You know what made it worth while? I started a gaming club, and the shop was open until ungodly hours on the weekend. I installed huge gaming tables, that we built ourselves. They weren't Vegas quality, but they were nice, clean and looked great and were HUGE and they were full of gamers. The D&D groups got so huge, I had to split them up. I wrote original content for it all and wrote material for the Dungeon Masters. We coordinated it all as one world and the groups would meet for some vast epic event. You have to break it down into smaller groups. I dungeon mastered groups of 20 plus, while they claimed to have loved it, the mechanics of it don't work out so well.
Two examples; With dungeon design, you have a lot of 10ft wide coridors to explore. When you have 20 people, you pray everyone doesn't fire at once at something ahead. I let them figure this out the hard way of course. But as a DM,
We are on our own too. Just think about it. We are the ones that ride to the rescue of people from evil stuff like this. Who's going to rescue us? Nobody, that's for sure.
I'm too old and out of shape for this shit. But my younger self would have loved it, and kicked the Revolutionary War 2.0 off already. (at least in my addled memory/imagination, it's fun to talk shit when your old) But yeah, it's coming. You can smell it in the wind almost, like before a big rumble, the calm before the storm.
Enjoy the calm, everyday little things, because if we snap and go postal on this system, the world as we know it will change, and not for the best or a long time. I think we should embrace the violence of the vote before we go to the sword. We need to redeem the system on it's merits, or else we need to throw it as well on the failed ash heap of history's failed governments. The damn thing will work because we all made it work, or not.
I'm afraid you are right though. Here's how I see it playing out as well. This coming election is a lightning rod for crazy amounts of trouble. I've never seen this country so divided. in my life and I was born in the mid 60s. I have seen some shit, but nothing like this. Neither side will be happy with the results. I am afraid that voter fraud will be rampant, then discovered, then outrage will spiral out of control fast. There is so much anger and hate, we have fed it with hate filled radio and "news". You have to go back to Nazi Germany or the Soviets to find the intensity of hateful propaganda going on. It's a simmering pot, about to boil over.
Another thing to take careful note of is women's rights. Women's civil rights are under attack in ways I couldn't believe. It's like we now have a Christian Taliban, hell bent on dragging us back to the dark ages. I know this sounds crazy, but darkness is falling on us. The shadows are growing long.
The darkest day we have had was when the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people, and their bribing was free speech. I say behold, something evil was born of this country on that day. Until we take that ground back from them, we have fallen.
As far as faith is concerned, seeing is believing. I'm afraid you might become a believer, sadly not because of the light you seen radiating from a real Christian in your life, but instead from seeing the faces of evil and recognizing the shocking reality of it all. Not today of course, but in that fearsome future that we both strive to avoid. May we both be barking lunatics and wrong, wrong wrong.
Ha ha! Let me address my loving readers all at once here.
I always say, "Say what you want on the Internet, if you are wrong, you will be corrected with great enthusiasm." I liken it to being married.
Ok, here's my perspective. I got a Kindle. I just want it so I can read. My eyes aren't so well these days, and I can make the print big enough I don't need my reading glasses. Honestly though, for me it's still backwards. I spend most of my time on the computer and not reading a book. I haven't read fiction, (other than the news) for a long time, and most of what I am interested in, I can read off of web pages as I want it ala carte*.
So, I have read ONE book on it. So far, it's the most expensive copy of Fear and Loathing in Vegas, that I an think of. I am sure I glossed over the "highlight" stuff, but only on my way to reading the damn book. I'm sure there is plenty of bells and whistles I have skipped over, and or don't know about. But I didn't marry the damn thing, and it's here for me, not the other way around. Right.....? (Holy Shit, I didn't marry it. Did I? FUCK!!! I need to read those TOS papers after all.)
Part of my brain when I read this article was happy about the advances in tech that would help give authors feedback. But it wasn't louder than the part of my brain screaming WTF? Because that did a rabbit hole into data bases and just how much lovely data could be mined off my innocent looking Kindle, just laying there in it's cool black leather jacket, just whistling to it's self.
I then switch channels to "Who's Looking At My Data" starring Facebook, and all the rumors of everyone from the FBI to the Israelis sniffing through it from company side. Which quickly cycles through the Conspiracy De Jour that is peculating in my brain. All the while, my fingers have ran off without brain editing some post of "WTF??". And by posting early on in the tread, so there is nobody else to tank the first idiot "WTF" for me, so I can sagely stroke my beard and toss in some smart ass remark.
I set myself up for it.
Then I write a TLDR explanation of it. Sweet Jesus, this means you will read it, and have wasted almost an equal amount of time. Damn, there isn't any winning is there? It's like the Kobayashi Maru of/..
Seriously, WTF? Nice slip up there Amazon, you shouldn't let people know you are spying on us.
We need a Constitutional Amendment regarding digital and privacy rights. Of course we will have to have ragging mobs in the streets running down big brother to lynch him before they consider it. Of course they are prepared for this and it will end in shit for us as well. So get used to having your privacy farmed by these cocksuckers.
Let's say for sake of argument that this all true.
He's by far the better candidate, still.
Yes, it's all kinds of wrong, but what are the options? Republicans? Seriously? They have lost their minds. I used to be one. I didn't vote this last time for President because I was Republican and I couldn't vote for the shitbags they put up. The Bush Republicans all needed FIRED. It wasn't about voting for someone, it was about firing Republicans. How else do you think that a black man, with a name like Barrack Obama could get elected President? Holy shit, we would have elected a cartoon character over a Republican after Bush.
Then it's like we collectively woke up from a drinking bender and said "we elected who??" In the wake of this, the Republicans have been trying to gain traction and with the help of Rightwing media outlets like Fox News, drop the blame from Bush's atrocities onto this President. It's one giant case of denial as they try to gloss over the fact that this party produced one of the worse Presidents in human history.
Is Obama shitty? Yes. Do we have better options? No. We have even worse options, ones that will give you nightmares.
We are a fragmented people with our heads up our collective ass. If we ever take politics as seriously as we do sports or fashion then we might have a chance of making the correct choices for our democracy. But that isn't going to happen, we are fucking retarded collectively and will continue to be fed shit sandwiches by the powers that be until we snap and burn it all to the ground.
What we seem to be glossing over is how outnumbered we are in the world. India and China each have populations that crush ours like a bug. They are catching up to us at such a crazy fast pace. China will soon be the number one consumer on the planet as they raise their standards of living up. They will demand a lion's share of the resources.
We aren't competing. We don't even know how to compete. We have let our politicians become such whores that they have sold out to people that want our economy hamstrung. I often wonder is it because of the bankers? They have our national policies wrapped around their fingers so that they can be the world banking system. I think they fucked our dollar up so that other countries who's money was shit compared to ours, could then afford to bank with us, or use our money as their system. After all, if you have people working for pennies, you can't have the penny worth too much. Debt is slavery and control, and what does that make bankers? Ponder that and look up who runs the banks in this country. Jefferson warned us about this kind of banking system.
The politics of pure greed in this country has wrecked us as a nation. We don't think as a people. We don't compete as a people. We have no sense of community or real national identity. We are handed some shitty canned version of a national identity when it serves the purpose of those in power. They define our values. They march our poor kids off to whatever fucked in the head war they cook up to bilk the tax payers out of war dollars, and they let the oil corporations rape us to a bloody pulp. The people of this country are livestock and abused livestock at that.
These fuckers head us off at the pass every time we try to make positive change. God only knows how many good people they have chewed up and spit out when they made too much noise or could be a threat to these oligarchies that rule from the shadows. Politicians are either corrupted or destroyed. Judges are bought off. Filthy dirty lawyers like an army of demons waiting to strike anyone who threatens their realm. Not to mention the money and means to just make anyone disappear off the face of the Earth if all else fails.
What is sick is as the country becomes more desperate as we are sinking, they will find it easier and easier to drum us up for more idiotic wars. Our industry is war. They pissed as many of our industries away until we produce little and have few jobs. Now they just seem to want to clean up the population by purging it of poor by sending them to wars that will make them money and make even MORE poor people to send off to war.
If we have another "war" or "military action" we need to demand the draft. Perhaps when the 1%'s and the politicians children are being maimed and killed, they might pause before committing us to more warmongering.
The Recording Industries, when are they going to be chased down by howling lynch mobs in the streets? I want to know, because I want to get it recorded.
You can be a democratic socialist. Democracy means basically the majority rules. If the majority is socialistic, then you will see socialistic policies in place.
You must be from my home town. We are the crookedest little town in the known universe I swear. If the town wasn't founded on top of gate to Hell, one opened not long after it was established. Our city counsel is notorious for being uber corrupt to the point of ludicrousness. We are out here on the edge of the State and it seems nobody cares about our county. We do have great Internet, though, at least for now.
What an interesting situation, for pirates to say, "This one isn't worth stealing". I like to check out torrent traffic just to figure out what is good and what is crap. If people stealing it, getting it for free, feel strongly enough to comment about it, then they might be on to something. Consider the passion, they are willing to face the MAFIAA and their thugs to chase their love of movies and share them if they think they are good. It's a bit dark, but I like it.
I love NetFlix, they have lots of British stuff on there now and it's different from our garbage. It's a nice diversion and gives Netflix some breathing room to score some more titles for us. If we stick with them, they will produce I feel.
FUCK HULU PLUS! No, I will not pay to be plagued with Ads, sorry, fuck off. I hate ads. HATE..as in FUCK YOU I WILL NOT WATCH THIS SHIT.
No, I don't do cable TV, fuck them and their ads. I can find stuff without ads and I WILL.
Oddly, radio ads don't bother me an iota.
By the way, MY ISP is awesome. They don't care. They told me, share your router with your entire building, we don't care. Just pay your bill. It should be on a T-shirt and as a sales slogan. We don't care, just pay your bill. Mediacom the cable people, were all about setting on the phone poles and monitoring your traffic. I told them to make an aerial attempt at copulation with a rolling pastry, and got rid of them for this groovy DSL company.
So, here's the plan. We kick them right in the balls with our wallets. Not me, but you guys doing business with them. I got a great company. But if I was with them, I wouldn't be with them. I probably wouldn't be with them already, but for sure NOW I wouldn't be with them. At all, ever.
Indeed you are correct. I would have modded you up, but I wanted to reply. (that and I never mod..haha...don't give them to me)
This sets up a brutal police state mechanism. I think they will never give up their cash cow of exploiting the system for power and money. This "Drug War" was nothing but a power grab. They don't give one damn about what drugs do to you. This is their excuse and reasoning to hand to the "sheeple", as the legal system in this country is part of the glue that holds the whole corrupt mess together. It needs this empowerment.
Having some weed isn't a crime against even yourself. I feel that our diet is far more harmful to us, but you don't see State Troopers turning fat people away from McDonalds. What we have here with weed is a political crime. This is a crime, deemed a crime not by common sense or by virtue of it's negative impact upon society, but it's deemed a crime by those in power for their own whims and superstitions. It doesn't serve the common good to enforce this law. It seizes resources away from real crime, only to destroy lives and tax the system for job security and profit.
It has promoted law enforcement into such an intrusive roll into our lives, and we have accepted it. In effect, we have been conquered, but not by an outside power, but from within, and by our own system. The protectors have become predators, and their leash is held by those in power. It is not the general good public that is rightfully feared in this country, but it is indeed our own government.
This is a cancer that is eating our system up. Consider carefully how we as citizens have to be vigilant to remain free. Think of our government as the most powerful in the world. It's like a giant pit-bull that is suppose to protect us and our neighbors and friends. But as it's owners, we have to be vigilant in keeping it well minded, if it proves too much for us to handle, it has to be put down. If not, it will hurt people and turn on us.
Ponder carefully and objectively this analogy, and after you have applied it globally, consider if this subject is or isn't a sign that the pit-bull is or isn't dangerous.
My state of Iowa has been very boneheaded about the population control of deer for quite some time now. It's now like you say, and they are in town now causing accidents. People are stupid though and feed them, encouraging them even more to move into town. It's going to take someone getting injured badly or killed by one before the public wakes up.
Deer to me are no longer cute. They are vermin, big rats with horns and hooves, dangerous to property and to lives.
Deer are also awesome eating! We could feed a lot of poor people with them and I feel people should be eating them down to a controlled population.
I find the remarks of people who obviously have no idea where food comes from to be amusing. If they saw all the animals that die everyday to feed them, and had to process that food themselves, I fear they might starve to death. Of course there is a savagery that comes with the territory, but that is part of getting the job done. In a primitive situation, just keeping everyone fed and clothed is a full time job for about everyone.
I can understand city folks not understanding hunting. They have no way to relate to it. Weapons of any kind are dangerous in proximity to such high populations, so it's not hard to understand a dislike for them. But if you were to be raised around them, and in a culture that can go produce food for its self out of the wilds, you can have a deep appreciation for their utility. If you live out in the heart of the wilds, you might consider it insane not to have a gun handy. From what I know of the people that prowl the back roads at night looking for things to steal or someone to prey upon, it's indeed insane not to have a gun handy.
Not all hunters are Princes. What I really don't care for are fat cat rich city people who come tearing up the countryside with their big SUVs. They get drunk and are dangerous on the roads, they are dangerous to livestock and people while they are infesting the area. They throw money around like their weight though, hence they are tolerated.
I've met "poachers" before. Poor people, just feeding themselves and others is all they were. I've never seen such efficient processing of deer until I met them, they never wasted a thing from the deer. City fat cat hunters will often just take a rack from the deers head or just a cut of the meat, leaving the rest. It's disgusting to find this rotted and wasting away, feeding coyotes.
Is there an "insanity" to the kill in hunting? I think people are just afraid of what they don't understand. Hunting is a primal activity, and it's something we have instincts for. To deny a basic part of us to me is insanity. You can't keep nature bottled up. A good "hunt" is cathartic, a good outlet for stress. But with that said, some people shouldn't be out hunting with anything more than a Nerf Bat, they are dangerous to themselves and others armed with anything else. Not everyone is a "natural" for it.
We send the poor kids off to war. Face it, the rich kids will never face the horrors of war unless they volunteer for it.
I was just thinking about how we need "digital rights". This needs to be established. But instead of establishing the rights and liberties of citizens, it seems our government is instead whoring itself out to corporate and big money interests. With this kind of job performance we the people have to say to the collective of politicians; You're Fired.
Seriously, they have to go. All of them. They are just one big ratball of filth and corruption. All of them have to go and we have to start from scratch, parties that are held accountable to the people. We need to watch them far closer than these school officials watch these kids. We have to take it back.
But that isn't going to happen now is it? If we aren't working ourselves to death, we are far too lazy to get off the couch and make a sandwich, let alone inspire a political revolution. The less we have to fight with getting a cold beer open, the happier we are. All we need now is for them to figure out if they let us have weed, we will really not care what they do with the country.
Don't worry, they might not have the authority now to bring in the thug cops and wring your little girl's login and password out of her. (Wait, they just did, I guess that makes it OK for the rest of them to do it, right?) But just wait, they will legislate that into law soon. After all, bullying is terrorism, and we are at war with terror.
America's War on Terror: They don't want to be afraid of anyone or anything again. This includes their own people, justice, not being bribed enough, etc...
Of course, who wouldn't? Looks like a lot of fun, not to mention we might have some scientists in some fields make some discoveries. If we have any scientists, do we still do that or did we outsource?
Bravo, well said. But it falls mostly on deaf ears, and shackled minds. Observe how this mindset you are trying to reach is self perpetuating and serving to those up the food chain in this system. I understand this system, it served well in older times, when the world was still large and needing tamed. But the world is small now, and getting smaller by the nano second.
We must evolve our thinking out of this self serving animal instinct. If we don't work as a collective, one of these asteroids are going to turn this rock into a smoldering cinder. This is how the universe hatches worthy species. If they can't work together enough to make it into the cosmos before a cataclysmic collision occurs in this galaxy sized pinball machine, they are weeded from the universal gene pool.
Face it, if you can't get along with your neighbors who look just like you except for a few colors, and think just like you, separated by only details, you will not make good citizens of the universe. Look at how we treat our own planet and the denizens of it. What advanced species in their right minds would help a violent, evil natured species such as ours? We're lucky they don't genocide the lot of us on principle if they discover us.
Aliens? They stopped by looking for intelligent life; they kept going.
The music and movie industry has an outlandish sense of entitlement that I think need jammed straight up their tailpipes. I had this argument today with a friend and I told him both of these industries are failing because their time has passed, the digital age has not only toppled their tight fisted distribution systems, but it's open the doors for the masses to be creative. Hence their days, like the stage coach before cars and highways, has passed.
Neither of these archaic industries are worth sacrificing the freedoms of the Internet for. I guess we will have to put them against the wall when the times comes as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but why not take those human resources and keep making product? I guess when you have all the money you will ever need for mountains of blow and acres of hookers, one doesn't care about further progress.
Where was this show when I opened my game shop in my small home town.
We got railed against by all the "good Christian people" who murmured nothing but evil rumors about us, and did their best to cause us any trouble they could. We had a church on one side of us, and a bar on the other side close, and BOTH tried causing us trouble. The bar complained if anyone stood outside our building, and the church was mental, crazy and looking for a way to burn us at the stake.
We had a cop come into the shop looking for a missing child because he heard that we played D&D there and that involved sacrificing of children to the devil.
We didn't sacrifice kids, though we threatened to if they misbehaved. It was a running joke in the shop.
I was one of those kids who grew up playing these kinds of games with my friends. I thought I was rather lucky. The crowd was very bright, a collection of some of the best minds in our school. We became a pretty tight nit social group and had a blast over the years growing up together.
It was the best social mix of people as well, we had jocks and geeks, welfare kids and rich kids, troublemakers and saints all working together and having a BLAST.
I can remember my dickheaded Dad finding my D&D books, and flipping out over the artwork. He accused me of being into Satanism and banned any of the books or anything related to it from the house and forbid me from ever having anything to do with it. Of course I just ignored him and kept playing, I just covered my tracks and didn't leave anything around for him to find.
But years later, he opened a used book shop and got some D&D books in some boxes of books he purchased. He got to thumbing through them and became interested. After he gave it a look over, he did a 180 degree turn, thought it was something cool and NOT a demonic thing. He then started selling them new and was well on his way to being a game shop when he was burglarized for all of the D&D stuff and he didn't have insurance. (small shop, very poor...) Karma got him as well, because some snotty cunt I went to school with wrote a nasty article on his devil worshiping D&D store in the local paper. I got the immense pleasure of asking him, "how does it feel?"
That's ok, he got even, I didn't get into Magic the Gather like he advise back when they weren't known by anyone and just starting. I missed vast pile of cash missing out on cards that became incredibly high priced. I didn't get in on it until Legends, but I still paid the bills with it and enough to take my card business into a full blown game shop. I just wish I had done it in a big college town where I would have more of a population and customer roll over as the students move along.
As was, I saturated the market in a 75 mile radius, and my other shop, a gift shop was failing, and I had a spouse who had no discipline in spending. Couple that with a couple of damning business mistakes, some wrong investments, a town full of religious zealots hounding you, cops harassing your customers, it all adds up to a nervous breakdown, financial ruin, and at last divorce.
You know what made it worth while? I started a gaming club, and the shop was open until ungodly hours on the weekend. I installed huge gaming tables, that we built ourselves. They weren't Vegas quality, but they were nice, clean and looked great and were HUGE and they were full of gamers. The D&D groups got so huge, I had to split them up. I wrote original content for it all and wrote material for the Dungeon Masters. We coordinated it all as one world and the groups would meet for some vast epic event. You have to break it down into smaller groups. I dungeon mastered groups of 20 plus, while they claimed to have loved it, the mechanics of it don't work out so well.
Two examples; With dungeon design, you have a lot of 10ft wide coridors to explore. When you have 20 people, you pray everyone doesn't fire at once at something ahead. I let them figure this out the hard way of course. But as a DM,
No respawn either, unless you are the Dev's kid.
Move to China? Nah, we'll just put you against the wall with your masters.
We are on our own too. Just think about it. We are the ones that ride to the rescue of people from evil stuff like this. Who's going to rescue us? Nobody, that's for sure.
I'm too old and out of shape for this shit. But my younger self would have loved it, and kicked the Revolutionary War 2.0 off already. (at least in my addled memory/imagination, it's fun to talk shit when your old) But yeah, it's coming. You can smell it in the wind almost, like before a big rumble, the calm before the storm.
Enjoy the calm, everyday little things, because if we snap and go postal on this system, the world as we know it will change, and not for the best or a long time. I think we should embrace the violence of the vote before we go to the sword. We need to redeem the system on it's merits, or else we need to throw it as well on the failed ash heap of history's failed governments. The damn thing will work because we all made it work, or not.
I'm afraid you are right though. Here's how I see it playing out as well. This coming election is a lightning rod for crazy amounts of trouble. I've never seen this country so divided. in my life and I was born in the mid 60s. I have seen some shit, but nothing like this. Neither side will be happy with the results. I am afraid that voter fraud will be rampant, then discovered, then outrage will spiral out of control fast. There is so much anger and hate, we have fed it with hate filled radio and "news". You have to go back to Nazi Germany or the Soviets to find the intensity of hateful propaganda going on. It's a simmering pot, about to boil over.
Another thing to take careful note of is women's rights. Women's civil rights are under attack in ways I couldn't believe. It's like we now have a Christian Taliban, hell bent on dragging us back to the dark ages. I know this sounds crazy, but darkness is falling on us. The shadows are growing long.
The darkest day we have had was when the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people, and their bribing was free speech. I say behold, something evil was born of this country on that day. Until we take that ground back from them, we have fallen.
As far as faith is concerned, seeing is believing. I'm afraid you might become a believer, sadly not because of the light you seen radiating from a real Christian in your life, but instead from seeing the faces of evil and recognizing the shocking reality of it all. Not today of course, but in that fearsome future that we both strive to avoid. May we both be barking lunatics and wrong, wrong wrong.
Ha ha! Let me address my loving readers all at once here.
I always say, "Say what you want on the Internet, if you are wrong, you will be corrected with great enthusiasm." I liken it to being married.
Ok, here's my perspective. I got a Kindle. I just want it so I can read. My eyes aren't so well these days, and I can make the print big enough I don't need my reading glasses. Honestly though, for me it's still backwards. I spend most of my time on the computer and not reading a book. I haven't read fiction, (other than the news) for a long time, and most of what I am interested in, I can read off of web pages as I want it ala carte*.
So, I have read ONE book on it. So far, it's the most expensive copy of Fear and Loathing in Vegas, that I an think of. I am sure I glossed over the "highlight" stuff, but only on my way to reading the damn book. I'm sure there is plenty of bells and whistles I have skipped over, and or don't know about. But I didn't marry the damn thing, and it's here for me, not the other way around. Right.....? (Holy Shit, I didn't marry it. Did I? FUCK!!! I need to read those TOS papers after all.)
Part of my brain when I read this article was happy about the advances in tech that would help give authors feedback. But it wasn't louder than the part of my brain screaming WTF? Because that did a rabbit hole into data bases and just how much lovely data could be mined off my innocent looking Kindle, just laying there in it's cool black leather jacket, just whistling to it's self.
I then switch channels to "Who's Looking At My Data" starring Facebook, and all the rumors of everyone from the FBI to the Israelis sniffing through it from company side. Which quickly cycles through the Conspiracy De Jour that is peculating in my brain. All the while, my fingers have ran off without brain editing some post of "WTF??". And by posting early on in the tread, so there is nobody else to tank the first idiot "WTF" for me, so I can sagely stroke my beard and toss in some smart ass remark.
I set myself up for it.
Then I write a TLDR explanation of it. Sweet Jesus, this means you will read it, and have wasted almost an equal amount of time. Damn, there isn't any winning is there? It's like the Kobayashi Maru of /..
Don't shoot, I surrender!
Seriously, WTF? Nice slip up there Amazon, you shouldn't let people know you are spying on us.
We need a Constitutional Amendment regarding digital and privacy rights. Of course we will have to have ragging mobs in the streets running down big brother to lynch him before they consider it. Of course they are prepared for this and it will end in shit for us as well. So get used to having your privacy farmed by these cocksuckers.
Let's say for sake of argument that this all true.
He's by far the better candidate, still.
Yes, it's all kinds of wrong, but what are the options? Republicans? Seriously? They have lost their minds. I used to be one. I didn't vote this last time for President because I was Republican and I couldn't vote for the shitbags they put up. The Bush Republicans all needed FIRED. It wasn't about voting for someone, it was about firing Republicans. How else do you think that a black man, with a name like Barrack Obama could get elected President? Holy shit, we would have elected a cartoon character over a Republican after Bush.
Then it's like we collectively woke up from a drinking bender and said "we elected who??" In the wake of this, the Republicans have been trying to gain traction and with the help of Rightwing media outlets like Fox News, drop the blame from Bush's atrocities onto this President. It's one giant case of denial as they try to gloss over the fact that this party produced one of the worse Presidents in human history.
Is Obama shitty? Yes. Do we have better options? No. We have even worse options, ones that will give you nightmares.
We are a fragmented people with our heads up our collective ass. If we ever take politics as seriously as we do sports or fashion then we might have a chance of making the correct choices for our democracy. But that isn't going to happen, we are fucking retarded collectively and will continue to be fed shit sandwiches by the powers that be until we snap and burn it all to the ground.
Preach it! Yeah!
What we seem to be glossing over is how outnumbered we are in the world. India and China each have populations that crush ours like a bug. They are catching up to us at such a crazy fast pace. China will soon be the number one consumer on the planet as they raise their standards of living up. They will demand a lion's share of the resources.
We aren't competing. We don't even know how to compete. We have let our politicians become such whores that they have sold out to people that want our economy hamstrung. I often wonder is it because of the bankers? They have our national policies wrapped around their fingers so that they can be the world banking system. I think they fucked our dollar up so that other countries who's money was shit compared to ours, could then afford to bank with us, or use our money as their system. After all, if you have people working for pennies, you can't have the penny worth too much. Debt is slavery and control, and what does that make bankers? Ponder that and look up who runs the banks in this country. Jefferson warned us about this kind of banking system.
The politics of pure greed in this country has wrecked us as a nation. We don't think as a people. We don't compete as a people. We have no sense of community or real national identity. We are handed some shitty canned version of a national identity when it serves the purpose of those in power. They define our values. They march our poor kids off to whatever fucked in the head war they cook up to bilk the tax payers out of war dollars, and they let the oil corporations rape us to a bloody pulp. The people of this country are livestock and abused livestock at that.
These fuckers head us off at the pass every time we try to make positive change. God only knows how many good people they have chewed up and spit out when they made too much noise or could be a threat to these oligarchies that rule from the shadows. Politicians are either corrupted or destroyed. Judges are bought off. Filthy dirty lawyers like an army of demons waiting to strike anyone who threatens their realm. Not to mention the money and means to just make anyone disappear off the face of the Earth if all else fails.
What is sick is as the country becomes more desperate as we are sinking, they will find it easier and easier to drum us up for more idiotic wars. Our industry is war. They pissed as many of our industries away until we produce little and have few jobs. Now they just seem to want to clean up the population by purging it of poor by sending them to wars that will make them money and make even MORE poor people to send off to war.
If we have another "war" or "military action" we need to demand the draft. Perhaps when the 1%'s and the politicians children are being maimed and killed, they might pause before committing us to more warmongering.
Obligatory: Our amps go to 11.
The Recording Industries, when are they going to be chased down by howling lynch mobs in the streets? I want to know, because I want to get it recorded.
You can be a democratic socialist. Democracy means basically the majority rules. If the majority is socialistic, then you will see socialistic policies in place.
Relax Francis.
You must be from my home town. We are the crookedest little town in the known universe I swear. If the town wasn't founded on top of gate to Hell, one opened not long after it was established. Our city counsel is notorious for being uber corrupt to the point of ludicrousness. We are out here on the edge of the State and it seems nobody cares about our county. We do have great Internet, though, at least for now.
Please sir, may I have some more gruel?
What an interesting situation, for pirates to say, "This one isn't worth stealing". I like to check out torrent traffic just to figure out what is good and what is crap. If people stealing it, getting it for free, feel strongly enough to comment about it, then they might be on to something. Consider the passion, they are willing to face the MAFIAA and their thugs to chase their love of movies and share them if they think they are good. It's a bit dark, but I like it.
I love NetFlix, they have lots of British stuff on there now and it's different from our garbage. It's a nice diversion and gives Netflix some breathing room to score some more titles for us. If we stick with them, they will produce I feel.
FUCK HULU PLUS! No, I will not pay to be plagued with Ads, sorry, fuck off. I hate ads. HATE..as in FUCK YOU I WILL NOT WATCH THIS SHIT.
No, I don't do cable TV, fuck them and their ads. I can find stuff without ads and I WILL.
Oddly, radio ads don't bother me an iota.
By the way, MY ISP is awesome. They don't care. They told me, share your router with your entire building, we don't care. Just pay your bill. It should be on a T-shirt and as a sales slogan. We don't care, just pay your bill. Mediacom the cable people, were all about setting on the phone poles and monitoring your traffic. I told them to make an aerial attempt at copulation with a rolling pastry, and got rid of them for this groovy DSL company.
So, here's the plan. We kick them right in the balls with our wallets. Not me, but you guys doing business with them. I got a great company. But if I was with them, I wouldn't be with them. I probably wouldn't be with them already, but for sure NOW I wouldn't be with them. At all, ever.
Indeed you are correct. I would have modded you up, but I wanted to reply. (that and I never mod..haha...don't give them to me)
This sets up a brutal police state mechanism. I think they will never give up their cash cow of exploiting the system for power and money. This "Drug War" was nothing but a power grab. They don't give one damn about what drugs do to you. This is their excuse and reasoning to hand to the "sheeple", as the legal system in this country is part of the glue that holds the whole corrupt mess together. It needs this empowerment.
Having some weed isn't a crime against even yourself. I feel that our diet is far more harmful to us, but you don't see State Troopers turning fat people away from McDonalds. What we have here with weed is a political crime. This is a crime, deemed a crime not by common sense or by virtue of it's negative impact upon society, but it's deemed a crime by those in power for their own whims and superstitions. It doesn't serve the common good to enforce this law. It seizes resources away from real crime, only to destroy lives and tax the system for job security and profit.
It has promoted law enforcement into such an intrusive roll into our lives, and we have accepted it. In effect, we have been conquered, but not by an outside power, but from within, and by our own system. The protectors have become predators, and their leash is held by those in power. It is not the general good public that is rightfully feared in this country, but it is indeed our own government.
This is a cancer that is eating our system up. Consider carefully how we as citizens have to be vigilant to remain free. Think of our government as the most powerful in the world. It's like a giant pit-bull that is suppose to protect us and our neighbors and friends. But as it's owners, we have to be vigilant in keeping it well minded, if it proves too much for us to handle, it has to be put down. If not, it will hurt people and turn on us.
Ponder carefully and objectively this analogy, and after you have applied it globally, consider if this subject is or isn't a sign that the pit-bull is or isn't dangerous.
You are pretty proud of snitching someone out for wanting to eat. May you get what you deserve.
My state of Iowa has been very boneheaded about the population control of deer for quite some time now. It's now like you say, and they are in town now causing accidents. People are stupid though and feed them, encouraging them even more to move into town. It's going to take someone getting injured badly or killed by one before the public wakes up.
Deer to me are no longer cute. They are vermin, big rats with horns and hooves, dangerous to property and to lives.
Deer are also awesome eating! We could feed a lot of poor people with them and I feel people should be eating them down to a controlled population.
I find the remarks of people who obviously have no idea where food comes from to be amusing. If they saw all the animals that die everyday to feed them, and had to process that food themselves, I fear they might starve to death. Of course there is a savagery that comes with the territory, but that is part of getting the job done. In a primitive situation, just keeping everyone fed and clothed is a full time job for about everyone.
I can understand city folks not understanding hunting. They have no way to relate to it. Weapons of any kind are dangerous in proximity to such high populations, so it's not hard to understand a dislike for them. But if you were to be raised around them, and in a culture that can go produce food for its self out of the wilds, you can have a deep appreciation for their utility. If you live out in the heart of the wilds, you might consider it insane not to have a gun handy. From what I know of the people that prowl the back roads at night looking for things to steal or someone to prey upon, it's indeed insane not to have a gun handy.
Not all hunters are Princes. What I really don't care for are fat cat rich city people who come tearing up the countryside with their big SUVs. They get drunk and are dangerous on the roads, they are dangerous to livestock and people while they are infesting the area. They throw money around like their weight though, hence they are tolerated.
I've met "poachers" before. Poor people, just feeding themselves and others is all they were. I've never seen such efficient processing of deer until I met them, they never wasted a thing from the deer. City fat cat hunters will often just take a rack from the deers head or just a cut of the meat, leaving the rest. It's disgusting to find this rotted and wasting away, feeding coyotes.
Is there an "insanity" to the kill in hunting? I think people are just afraid of what they don't understand. Hunting is a primal activity, and it's something we have instincts for. To deny a basic part of us to me is insanity. You can't keep nature bottled up. A good "hunt" is cathartic, a good outlet for stress. But with that said, some people shouldn't be out hunting with anything more than a Nerf Bat, they are dangerous to themselves and others armed with anything else. Not everyone is a "natural" for it.
So he wasn't perfect, but other than that, he was a great American.
Terrorist is the new word for cash cow in budget increases.
We send the poor kids off to war. Face it, the rich kids will never face the horrors of war unless they volunteer for it.
I was just thinking about how we need "digital rights". This needs to be established. But instead of establishing the rights and liberties of citizens, it seems our government is instead whoring itself out to corporate and big money interests. With this kind of job performance we the people have to say to the collective of politicians; You're Fired.
Seriously, they have to go. All of them. They are just one big ratball of filth and corruption. All of them have to go and we have to start from scratch, parties that are held accountable to the people. We need to watch them far closer than these school officials watch these kids. We have to take it back.
But that isn't going to happen now is it? If we aren't working ourselves to death, we are far too lazy to get off the couch and make a sandwich, let alone inspire a political revolution. The less we have to fight with getting a cold beer open, the happier we are. All we need now is for them to figure out if they let us have weed, we will really not care what they do with the country.
Don't worry, they might not have the authority now to bring in the thug cops and wring your little girl's login and password out of her. (Wait, they just did, I guess that makes it OK for the rest of them to do it, right?) But just wait, they will legislate that into law soon. After all, bullying is terrorism, and we are at war with terror.
America's War on Terror: They don't want to be afraid of anyone or anything again. This includes their own people, justice, not being bribed enough, etc...
Of course, who wouldn't? Looks like a lot of fun, not to mention we might have some scientists in some fields make some discoveries. If we have any scientists, do we still do that or did we outsource?
Sadly, that is the sugar coated nice version of what is to come.
Bravo, well said. But it falls mostly on deaf ears, and shackled minds. Observe how this mindset you are trying to reach is self perpetuating and serving to those up the food chain in this system. I understand this system, it served well in older times, when the world was still large and needing tamed. But the world is small now, and getting smaller by the nano second.
We must evolve our thinking out of this self serving animal instinct. If we don't work as a collective, one of these asteroids are going to turn this rock into a smoldering cinder. This is how the universe hatches worthy species. If they can't work together enough to make it into the cosmos before a cataclysmic collision occurs in this galaxy sized pinball machine, they are weeded from the universal gene pool.
Face it, if you can't get along with your neighbors who look just like you except for a few colors, and think just like you, separated by only details, you will not make good citizens of the universe. Look at how we treat our own planet and the denizens of it. What advanced species in their right minds would help a violent, evil natured species such as ours? We're lucky they don't genocide the lot of us on principle if they discover us.
Aliens? They stopped by looking for intelligent life; they kept going.
The music and movie industry has an outlandish sense of entitlement that I think need jammed straight up their tailpipes. I had this argument today with a friend and I told him both of these industries are failing because their time has passed, the digital age has not only toppled their tight fisted distribution systems, but it's open the doors for the masses to be creative. Hence their days, like the stage coach before cars and highways, has passed.
Neither of these archaic industries are worth sacrificing the freedoms of the Internet for. I guess we will have to put them against the wall when the times comes as well.