I personally believe (as someone who does drink) that it wouldn't be a bad idea to start treating alcohol as a controlled substance. I know too many people who are crippled or dead due to drunk driving (and some people who weren't the ones drinking, but got hit by a drunk), so really I don't buy that as an excuse as to why drugs and prostitution should be legal. I would give up drinking if it meant getting drunk people off of our roads. Hell, our insurance rates would probably go down as well.
I agree with you that there are people who are obsessed with showing historic pride in the south's part in the civil war, and that this can definitely be construed as racism. I doubt there are as many people who feel this way as you might believe, however. It is definitely a problem though, as I live in the deep south and I can tell you with certainty that those people do exist. And when did I say it was racist to notice racism? I was basically saying don't judge a whole group by the actions of some of the idiots that belong in that group. There are racist white people in the south. That doesn't make white people from the south racist.
And as for your last comment, if I was standing in front of you, you'd have no teeth left to speak of. Thankfully for you you can hide behind your computer and make racist comments. Otherwise you'd be crying to the cops right now.
Just because prostitution doesn't have innocent victims doesn't make it right. Otherwise, I guess drug dealing is okay too because neither the dealer nor the user is a victim. But of course if the dealer slipped drugs into the pockets of someone who wasn't a user, then he'd be an innocent victim.
Adultery and Prostitution are both bad. You are basically trying to say that one isn't so bad because the other is. You must've failed logic class, right? Agreeing to have sex is one thing. Buying the right to sex is quite another, and has nothing to do with adultery. Having sex while you are committed to one person for the entirety of your life is also bad, although it really doesn't have anything to do with Prostitution other than sometimes the two happen simultaneously.
You keep throwing out the bull but fail to back it up. Show me any solid evidence that the McCain/Palin camp was pandering to racists or get a fucking life. The hate on both sides has created a very serious divide in this country, and the propaganda about Obama somehow being Arab or the next Antichrist from the Far Right is just as bad as the Far Left throwing around propaganda that the GOP is the party of racists and that they will do anything to make sure a Black man does not get into office.
But I guess attacks on Obama because of his relationship with his former Pastor were all about race, right? They couldn't have had to do with a man (his Reverend) who obviously hated his own country and the fact that despite the constant barrage of hate this man spewed in his church, that Obama attended the church for longer than a decade. Also, the only campaign that brought up race as an issue was actually Obama's. He made the comments about the dollar bill, and although later people claimed he wasn't talking about race, his own staff admits that the comment was about his race.
As far as my comments about accidentally appealing to racists, what I meant (and what you tried so hard to distort) is that you can appeal to people who are racist without trying to do so. In other words, many southern white racists happen to be pro-gun rights. So, if you as a candidate are pro-gun rights, is it fair to then call you a racist? If so, you'd have to call Obama a racist too, as he has said throughout his campaign that he's pro-gun rights. Or maybe if you are anti-gay marriage, you are a racist. Obama is anit-gay marriage as well, and only believes in civil unions for gay couples.
You simply think blindly that the GOP is the party of white biggots and will spin the debate as you see fit to try and fit that argument, all while bringing zero facts and plenty of FUD to the debate. Oh, and by the way, people who illegally enter this country are referred to as illegal aliens because they, you know, illegally circumvented the immigration process to enter this country and remain here indefinitely. It's not demonization, it's fact. Boo hoo, your PC mind can't handle that, like I give a fuck. If you circumvented the process, you bypassed plenty of people trying to do it the right way. I disagree with the process and think it needs to be streamlined and revamped, as it is way too difficult at the moment to legally become a citizen, but that doesn't make it right to break the rules and hop the fence, so to speak. I guess because of the high number of people who are having trouble finding jobs, it'd be ok for them to go steal a loaf of bread, rather than go to a soup kitchen too, right?
I don't expect you to realize this, because you don't strike me as the type who thinks too much on his own, but you do know that the entire meaning of "Southern Strategy" as used today is far different from the strategy used by Nixon, right? Even Hillary Clinton employed what is today considered the Southern Strategy, which is basically to focus on issues that target the majority of people in the south (this includes many people of all races in the south, where most people tend to have strong religious backgrounds). It focuses on pro-life, pro-guns, pro-family values, not "Hate on the black man." IIRC, the then Chairman of the GOP, Ken Mehlman, even formally apologized to various African American organizations back in 2004 for the GOP's use of the old Southern Strategy back in the Nixon era.
And seriously, if you want to continue this debate without seeming like a complete idiot, try using sources a notch up from blogs. It just makes you look like you are stretching for material.
Or maybe Shatner is so senile now that in his head, the pauses are still really unnecessarily long with the emphasis on the wrong word, and the directors, seeing that he's toned down, tell him he's overdoing it on purpose so that he'll think it's just right and keep at it.
Oh I got the joke. Har har he said Lynx because it is a text-based browser, whereas Firefox would be able to show videos. Wow, omg, that was funny. Let me take a few minutes to recompose myself after that barrage of humor. *cough*...riiiight.
I never said anything about a man having sex with another man. If a man paid to have sex with another man, I'd have a huge problem with that. But if two men have sex, I have no problem with them doing that. It's their unalienable rights as human beings to do that, even if I don't agree with the lifestyle. You are taking what I said way out of context. And I don't know how I can be seen to have a prostiphobia, I just don't think it's morally right for women to pimp themselves out for money. I don't go running down the street looking for prostitutes to yell at. I just do not think that their lifestyle has any merit to it whatsoever. And you know as much as I do, whether you admit it or not, that most men use prostitutes simply because they either have a huge self esteem problem, or are physically too unattractive to get someone to sleep with them. That, or they are addicted to sex and need it OnDemand, like some sort of cable tv service. And considering that I have a son to raise and the need to teach him not to disrespect women, and to not look at sex as just enjoyment, I do have a right to judge these women. Otherwise should I just tell my son, "They are just trying to make a living, so you should help support their family if you really feel the need for easy, quick, cheap sex."
What I'd like to know is how did they keep the touchscreens so clean? My G1 has to be cleaned constantly, and I'm sure in 300 years Humans did not lose their ability to produce oils from their pores. I don't remember any episodes of TNG where someone walked around with a bottle of Windex and some non-static wipes.
IIRC, the aerodynamic designs were, in ST Science, said to improve the ships cruising warp speeds. I do remember an episode of ST:Voy where it was explained that the ship could maintain a high lvl of warp speed because of the way the nacelles scooped up during warp flight and the shape of the ship in general. Someone who is more geeky than me when it comes to all things Trek is free to refute this if they have knowledge to the contrary.
Its interesting because in the Slashdot poll of Which Trek is Best, the original series actually lost to DS9. If Slashdot isn't a place to guage this sorta thing... you couldn't do it anywhere else.
The fact that most people voted for DS9 over any of the other series tells me it was unlikely that many involved in the vote were true Star Trek fans. The whole point of the Star Trek Universe was to boldly go where no man had gone before, not sit your ass in a space station waiting for someone to sleep with someone else or the fucking Dominion to pour in through a wormhole and try to enslave everybody. It still boggles my mind that people even say DS9 in the same vein as other Star Trek shows. It's been charged that DS9 was a direct ripoff of Babylon 5 (the creator of B5 accused Paramount of taking his concept, which he pitched to Paramount, and using it to create the first season of DS9). And really, when you watch DS9 and then watch TNG or TOS, or even the later ST:Voy, DS9 doesn't seem to really fit in with any of them. I'm not saying that DS9 sucks or anything like that, but it's a stretch to even call it Star Trek other than the familiar uniforms and appearances by ships that are ST Canon. Replace the familiar ST resources with those of Babylon 5, and you probably couldn't tell much of a difference.
I'd mod you as insightful just on the basis that I live in the Southeastern US and the mock you did is actually pretty accurate of most rednecks who live down here.
As a serious Trek fan, I personally think people are getting too worked up over all this. Sometimes it's nice to get a fresh take on old stories. As long as they don't end up like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
If the focus was taken away from "Elite-best of the fleet crew" then I think the series would get a little life back into it. I think even those of us who will always love TNG and the like get a little tired of Picard, Data, Worf, and the rest of the Star Trek Dream Team dominating everyone with their awesomeness. Let's see some flawed heroes for a change.
I stated this in a previous post, but I'd love to see something more in a Firefly-like vein, set further in the ST future, where a rogue element that has no support from a big collective force such as the Federation is featured. You could bring elements of traditional ST into it (like encounters with Federation ships, Klingons, etc) but really make it more Frontier-like than even ST:Enterprise.
ST:Worf:UFC ftw. Everyone who was a TNG geek back in the day loved it when Worf layed the smackdown or Data showed how incredibly physically powerful he was even compared to Worf, in almost a whimsical "I'm not even trying and I can overpower you" sort of way. Worf versus Data (or in this case, B4) every week and I'll DVR it.
Actually, he should be modded as insightful and you as troll. There is no new trailer, as of yet (even though it appears likely that there will be one for the opening of the new Bond movie), but this article makes it appear as if there is a new trailer available. A better title for the article would have been "First New Trek Movie Footage Shown Behind Closed Doors."
Cannot disagree with you more on Kirk. I had a hard time imagining them pulling a young Shatner-looking actor to play the role without making me smirk (and not in a good way), but I think Chris Pine totally looks the part. I will hold judgment on whether he acts the part until I at least see some footage of the movie.
I actually would've liked to see a new series based after TNG, DS9, and Voyager, and go in a completely different direction than those shows or Enterprise. I know, it's a pipe dream, but with new writers and instead of having to rewrite cannon, you can create new cannon that does not alter the past shows. Maybe something more along the lines of Firefly, where you focus on a rogue element rather than a part of the Federation.
I think one of the things that happened to the franchise to cause it's spiral downward is too much sticking to the same formula. I am probably one of a very few who hated DS:9 and actually enjoyed Voyager simply because it tried to break away from the standard format and go in a brand new direction. In all of the older series (TOS not included of course), the featured ship pretty much always just went on various missions (or in the case of DS:9, was a hub around which various missions or events took place) or had your random "Holodeck goes nuts and safeties are locked out" or "Holodeck characters take over the ship" moments. Voyager always had an overarching goal, which was to find a way to get home. Almost every episode focused on this in some way, whereas there wasn't an overarching goal in most of TNG or DS9 (other than the Dominion Wars plot, which I feel was just created to bring in non-fans due to increased number of action scenes).
In reality, DS9 had very little in the way of resemblance to old school trek, and was merely a darkish soap opera in space. Indeed, it felt more parts Babylon 5 or Battlestar Galactica than it did Star Trek, other than the familiar ships and uniforms. You could've probably swapped out those elements with those of BG or B5 and many people would not have noticed much of a difference.
Despite the flaws in ST:Voy, it tried to branch out more from the standard Star Trek formula than any of the other shows post TOS other than perhaps ST: Enterprise, which IMO was a refreshing change in the ST universe but perhaps the writing just wasn't that good. I will say though, the one failing of ST:Voy was its reliance on the Borg as a story crutch in the second half of the series run. Seasons 1-3 were much more fresh feeling than the later seasons, and if seasons 4-7 were more in the vein of those first three seasons, I suspect there would be a lot more people who consider themselves fans of ST:Voy
I wonder where you are getting those numbers. Here's some numbers
from the USAF a few years back. The average age of the Officer Force is 35 (probably about the same now) and the average age of the enlisted force is 29 (maybe slightly lower now, but this is after 5 years of post-9/11 recruitment). I know the numbers will vary based on service branch, but these are likely relatively indicative of the other services. A destroyer commander at 25 is rare but not impossible, and a general at 33 is definitely possible although also rare. Also keep in mind that there are far more officers who never make it past O-4 than there are officers who jet up to O-6 and beyond early in their careers. Note also in those stats that only close to 13% of officers in the USAF are under 26.
It was my understanding early on when ST:XI was announced that Kirk and Spock were in the Academy. Couldn't the "bridge" scenes that we see primarily be simulators? All of the screens I've seen strike me as something you'd see akin to the episode of ST:Voy where all the young crewmen and women were the focus. I could most definitely be wrong, but it seems to me as if it's all just Starfleet Academy mockup simulators.
Slashdot Mirror
Which is why Blizzard really doesn't care about the distribution of their games. They care about the distribution of the serial keys.
I personally believe (as someone who does drink) that it wouldn't be a bad idea to start treating alcohol as a controlled substance. I know too many people who are crippled or dead due to drunk driving (and some people who weren't the ones drinking, but got hit by a drunk), so really I don't buy that as an excuse as to why drugs and prostitution should be legal. I would give up drinking if it meant getting drunk people off of our roads. Hell, our insurance rates would probably go down as well.
I agree with you that there are people who are obsessed with showing historic pride in the south's part in the civil war, and that this can definitely be construed as racism. I doubt there are as many people who feel this way as you might believe, however. It is definitely a problem though, as I live in the deep south and I can tell you with certainty that those people do exist. And when did I say it was racist to notice racism? I was basically saying don't judge a whole group by the actions of some of the idiots that belong in that group. There are racist white people in the south. That doesn't make white people from the south racist.
And as for your last comment, if I was standing in front of you, you'd have no teeth left to speak of. Thankfully for you you can hide behind your computer and make racist comments. Otherwise you'd be crying to the cops right now.
Just because prostitution doesn't have innocent victims doesn't make it right. Otherwise, I guess drug dealing is okay too because neither the dealer nor the user is a victim. But of course if the dealer slipped drugs into the pockets of someone who wasn't a user, then he'd be an innocent victim.
Adultery and Prostitution are both bad. You are basically trying to say that one isn't so bad because the other is. You must've failed logic class, right? Agreeing to have sex is one thing. Buying the right to sex is quite another, and has nothing to do with adultery. Having sex while you are committed to one person for the entirety of your life is also bad, although it really doesn't have anything to do with Prostitution other than sometimes the two happen simultaneously.
You keep throwing out the bull but fail to back it up. Show me any solid evidence that the McCain/Palin camp was pandering to racists or get a fucking life. The hate on both sides has created a very serious divide in this country, and the propaganda about Obama somehow being Arab or the next Antichrist from the Far Right is just as bad as the Far Left throwing around propaganda that the GOP is the party of racists and that they will do anything to make sure a Black man does not get into office.
But I guess attacks on Obama because of his relationship with his former Pastor were all about race, right? They couldn't have had to do with a man (his Reverend) who obviously hated his own country and the fact that despite the constant barrage of hate this man spewed in his church, that Obama attended the church for longer than a decade. Also, the only campaign that brought up race as an issue was actually Obama's. He made the comments about the dollar bill, and although later people claimed he wasn't talking about race, his own staff admits that the comment was about his race.
As far as my comments about accidentally appealing to racists, what I meant (and what you tried so hard to distort) is that you can appeal to people who are racist without trying to do so. In other words, many southern white racists happen to be pro-gun rights. So, if you as a candidate are pro-gun rights, is it fair to then call you a racist? If so, you'd have to call Obama a racist too, as he has said throughout his campaign that he's pro-gun rights. Or maybe if you are anti-gay marriage, you are a racist. Obama is anit-gay marriage as well, and only believes in civil unions for gay couples.
You simply think blindly that the GOP is the party of white biggots and will spin the debate as you see fit to try and fit that argument, all while bringing zero facts and plenty of FUD to the debate. Oh, and by the way, people who illegally enter this country are referred to as illegal aliens because they, you know, illegally circumvented the immigration process to enter this country and remain here indefinitely. It's not demonization, it's fact. Boo hoo, your PC mind can't handle that, like I give a fuck. If you circumvented the process, you bypassed plenty of people trying to do it the right way. I disagree with the process and think it needs to be streamlined and revamped, as it is way too difficult at the moment to legally become a citizen, but that doesn't make it right to break the rules and hop the fence, so to speak. I guess because of the high number of people who are having trouble finding jobs, it'd be ok for them to go steal a loaf of bread, rather than go to a soup kitchen too, right?
I don't expect you to realize this, because you don't strike me as the type who thinks too much on his own, but you do know that the entire meaning of "Southern Strategy" as used today is far different from the strategy used by Nixon, right? Even Hillary Clinton employed what is today considered the Southern Strategy, which is basically to focus on issues that target the majority of people in the south (this includes many people of all races in the south, where most people tend to have strong religious backgrounds). It focuses on pro-life, pro-guns, pro-family values, not "Hate on the black man." IIRC, the then Chairman of the GOP, Ken Mehlman, even formally apologized to various African American organizations back in 2004 for the GOP's use of the old Southern Strategy back in the Nixon era.
And seriously, if you want to continue this debate without seeming like a complete idiot, try using sources a notch up from blogs. It just makes you look like you are stretching for material.
Or maybe Shatner is so senile now that in his head, the pauses are still really unnecessarily long with the emphasis on the wrong word, and the directors, seeing that he's toned down, tell him he's overdoing it on purpose so that he'll think it's just right and keep at it.
Both at once. They are Duo Can(n)ons, kind of like the Core 2 Duo.
Oh I got the joke. Har har he said Lynx because it is a text-based browser, whereas Firefox would be able to show videos. Wow, omg, that was funny. Let me take a few minutes to recompose myself after that barrage of humor. *cough*...riiiight.
I never said anything about a man having sex with another man. If a man paid to have sex with another man, I'd have a huge problem with that. But if two men have sex, I have no problem with them doing that. It's their unalienable rights as human beings to do that, even if I don't agree with the lifestyle. You are taking what I said way out of context. And I don't know how I can be seen to have a prostiphobia, I just don't think it's morally right for women to pimp themselves out for money. I don't go running down the street looking for prostitutes to yell at. I just do not think that their lifestyle has any merit to it whatsoever. And you know as much as I do, whether you admit it or not, that most men use prostitutes simply because they either have a huge self esteem problem, or are physically too unattractive to get someone to sleep with them. That, or they are addicted to sex and need it OnDemand, like some sort of cable tv service. And considering that I have a son to raise and the need to teach him not to disrespect women, and to not look at sex as just enjoyment, I do have a right to judge these women. Otherwise should I just tell my son, "They are just trying to make a living, so you should help support their family if you really feel the need for easy, quick, cheap sex."
So does that mean we can expect a Dead Cow Level to be hidden in an included Windows 7 app, a la Flight Sim hidden in Excel 97.
What I'd like to know is how did they keep the touchscreens so clean? My G1 has to be cleaned constantly, and I'm sure in 300 years Humans did not lose their ability to produce oils from their pores. I don't remember any episodes of TNG where someone walked around with a bottle of Windex and some non-static wipes.
IIRC, the aerodynamic designs were, in ST Science, said to improve the ships cruising warp speeds. I do remember an episode of ST:Voy where it was explained that the ship could maintain a high lvl of warp speed because of the way the nacelles scooped up during warp flight and the shape of the ship in general. Someone who is more geeky than me when it comes to all things Trek is free to refute this if they have knowledge to the contrary.
Its interesting because in the Slashdot poll of Which Trek is Best, the original series actually lost to DS9. If Slashdot isn't a place to guage this sorta thing ... you couldn't do it anywhere else.
The fact that most people voted for DS9 over any of the other series tells me it was unlikely that many involved in the vote were true Star Trek fans. The whole point of the Star Trek Universe was to boldly go where no man had gone before, not sit your ass in a space station waiting for someone to sleep with someone else or the fucking Dominion to pour in through a wormhole and try to enslave everybody. It still boggles my mind that people even say DS9 in the same vein as other Star Trek shows. It's been charged that DS9 was a direct ripoff of Babylon 5 (the creator of B5 accused Paramount of taking his concept, which he pitched to Paramount, and using it to create the first season of DS9). And really, when you watch DS9 and then watch TNG or TOS, or even the later ST:Voy, DS9 doesn't seem to really fit in with any of them. I'm not saying that DS9 sucks or anything like that, but it's a stretch to even call it Star Trek other than the familiar uniforms and appearances by ships that are ST Canon. Replace the familiar ST resources with those of Babylon 5, and you probably couldn't tell much of a difference.
I'd mod you as insightful just on the basis that I live in the Southeastern US and the mock you did is actually pretty accurate of most rednecks who live down here.
As a serious Trek fan, I personally think people are getting too worked up over all this. Sometimes it's nice to get a fresh take on old stories. As long as they don't end up like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
If the focus was taken away from "Elite-best of the fleet crew" then I think the series would get a little life back into it. I think even those of us who will always love TNG and the like get a little tired of Picard, Data, Worf, and the rest of the Star Trek Dream Team dominating everyone with their awesomeness. Let's see some flawed heroes for a change.
I stated this in a previous post, but I'd love to see something more in a Firefly-like vein, set further in the ST future, where a rogue element that has no support from a big collective force such as the Federation is featured. You could bring elements of traditional ST into it (like encounters with Federation ships, Klingons, etc) but really make it more Frontier-like than even ST:Enterprise.
ST:Worf:UFC ftw. Everyone who was a TNG geek back in the day loved it when Worf layed the smackdown or Data showed how incredibly physically powerful he was even compared to Worf, in almost a whimsical "I'm not even trying and I can overpower you" sort of way. Worf versus Data (or in this case, B4) every week and I'll DVR it.
I'm shocked it took this long for a Sylar reference. Personally when I saw the pic of Spock choking Kirk, I was picturing him saying "I can fix you."
Actually, he should be modded as insightful and you as troll. There is no new trailer, as of yet (even though it appears likely that there will be one for the opening of the new Bond movie), but this article makes it appear as if there is a new trailer available. A better title for the article would have been "First New Trek Movie Footage Shown Behind Closed Doors."
Cannot disagree with you more on Kirk. I had a hard time imagining them pulling a young Shatner-looking actor to play the role without making me smirk (and not in a good way), but I think Chris Pine totally looks the part. I will hold judgment on whether he acts the part until I at least see some footage of the movie.
I actually would've liked to see a new series based after TNG, DS9, and Voyager, and go in a completely different direction than those shows or Enterprise. I know, it's a pipe dream, but with new writers and instead of having to rewrite cannon, you can create new cannon that does not alter the past shows. Maybe something more along the lines of Firefly, where you focus on a rogue element rather than a part of the Federation.
I think one of the things that happened to the franchise to cause it's spiral downward is too much sticking to the same formula. I am probably one of a very few who hated DS:9 and actually enjoyed Voyager simply because it tried to break away from the standard format and go in a brand new direction. In all of the older series (TOS not included of course), the featured ship pretty much always just went on various missions (or in the case of DS:9, was a hub around which various missions or events took place) or had your random "Holodeck goes nuts and safeties are locked out" or "Holodeck characters take over the ship" moments. Voyager always had an overarching goal, which was to find a way to get home. Almost every episode focused on this in some way, whereas there wasn't an overarching goal in most of TNG or DS9 (other than the Dominion Wars plot, which I feel was just created to bring in non-fans due to increased number of action scenes).
In reality, DS9 had very little in the way of resemblance to old school trek, and was merely a darkish soap opera in space. Indeed, it felt more parts Babylon 5 or Battlestar Galactica than it did Star Trek, other than the familiar ships and uniforms. You could've probably swapped out those elements with those of BG or B5 and many people would not have noticed much of a difference.
Despite the flaws in ST:Voy, it tried to branch out more from the standard Star Trek formula than any of the other shows post TOS other than perhaps ST: Enterprise, which IMO was a refreshing change in the ST universe but perhaps the writing just wasn't that good. I will say though, the one failing of ST:Voy was its reliance on the Borg as a story crutch in the second half of the series run. Seasons 1-3 were much more fresh feeling than the later seasons, and if seasons 4-7 were more in the vein of those first three seasons, I suspect there would be a lot more people who consider themselves fans of ST:Voy
I wonder where you are getting those numbers. Here's some numbers from the USAF a few years back. The average age of the Officer Force is 35 (probably about the same now) and the average age of the enlisted force is 29 (maybe slightly lower now, but this is after 5 years of post-9/11 recruitment). I know the numbers will vary based on service branch, but these are likely relatively indicative of the other services. A destroyer commander at 25 is rare but not impossible, and a general at 33 is definitely possible although also rare. Also keep in mind that there are far more officers who never make it past O-4 than there are officers who jet up to O-6 and beyond early in their careers. Note also in those stats that only close to 13% of officers in the USAF are under 26.
It was my understanding early on when ST:XI was announced that Kirk and Spock were in the Academy. Couldn't the "bridge" scenes that we see primarily be simulators? All of the screens I've seen strike me as something you'd see akin to the episode of ST:Voy where all the young crewmen and women were the focus. I could most definitely be wrong, but it seems to me as if it's all just Starfleet Academy mockup simulators.