then what? What if he skips out on the vote or votes "present". Same with McCain. To be honest if McCain votes Yes and Obama skips out I would have more respect for McCain at least standing up for what he believes even if its wrong. I would rather have a politician unafraid to declare his views than to leave me guessing.
I don't care for either of them, can I vote none of the above? I guess I could go with Barr and that Libertarian party. I have already written off prosecution of telecoms based on past behavior and regardless how this bill went I wasn't overly concerned with going after them. I am willing to give them a "once" based on the fact that Congress and the Administration didn't set the ground rules and the companies simply acted out of intimidation which is how the current government operates.
I see the change in the Democratic stance as "we believe we are going to be in power and damn if we do anything to strip of us of our options". In other words, just like when they took over Congress and went earmark crazy once they have both sides locked up I can't wait to see what they try to pull. Already we have vilification of oil companies over profits causing them to shed gas stations like they have cuties. I figure its par for the course.
If they have an (I), as incumbent, next to their name they need to go. Yet how many years is it going to take for us to get these two parties out of power? How can we say we have a choice between candidates when the only two who will ever stand a chance to run are basically selected for us.
According to countrywide he got.5 off his rate because he was a US Senator. He knowingly accepted the VIP designation then tried to claim he thought it meant nothing? He serves and has served on various boards which have some power over this industry? Perhaps his party affiliation is saving him. I bet it is.
By lowering his rate they effectively handed him $60,000. In other words, Congressmen don't play by our rules. Their ability to regulate the industry means they intimidate without having to lift a finger. Considering his role in this bill and the fact he takes money from Countrywide for his reelection makes the whole thing stink.
and people wonder why crap like this little transaction law slips in. These guys are always slipping stuff in and out trying to avoid our knowledge of what they really do.
Dodd is a crook. He is a liar. He was simply caught and now is trying hide from it.
Compare any big city school system, take the total dollars spent and divide it by the number of students. For some reason many consider that unfair and want to reduce the dollars used. Do the same for some county schools. If its anything like where I live the city is nearly 3x the cost per student and the grades are worse.
Why?
Admin and feel good people. In other words not hiring teachers but hiring more cronies of friends of politicians, family members, and feed good skill sets that have no bearing on real education. Some places have more grief counselors than nurses! Look at their class sizes compared to the county schools. If they are higher in the city and they are spending more money per student then start asking questions. Considering the disrepair some city schools are in its hard to believe it gets eaten up by building maintenance.
Then we hit the fairness wall. Its not fair to give the better achieving students more, let alone let them be separate from those who cannot or WILL NOT learn. Throw in lots of zero tolerance rules about scissors, aspirin, and the like, and money is diverted to troubled schools who have more students than ever before. In some systems its not fair to celebrate the high achievers! It also isn't fair to test some students now because of race. Apparently race makes people incapable of being tested, I never knew math could form allegiances.
NCLB isn't the problem. The problem is school systems who game the system. They divert money and attention from where it should be.
That is exactly what we did in World War 2. It is why it ended in only six years. People today have taken on such an unrealistic view of the world and worse on how wars need to be fought. As we found out in the forties you cannot talk to the unreasonable. They will make their threats and when they are ready they will act on them. Of course those who thought they could talk it out will act all confused and such but the end still remains the same, the unreasonable did what they said they would and now instead of containment we have to first kick them out.
Wars only end when one side loses the stomach to fight it. That is done by demoralizing the populace which supports it. Unfortunately that means raining death and destruction on what is a civilian population.
Look, it would be nice if we could afford to not mind other people's business but unfortunately many of these countries make it imperative that someone does mind their business. Are you suggesting the world ignore Iran's leadership constant threats to wipe Israel off the face of the earth all the while telling the UN to bugger off when it comes to their nuclear program? I guess we are going to ignore China the day it overruns Taiwan too. After all its only "yellow/brown/red" people - not whites, not in our own backyard, etc.
Sheesh, how many people must die before it becomes okay to act. When will people realize that proactive actions will cost lives too but more likely less than in the long run. Why is it okay to suggest intervention in darfar or zimbabwe but not somewhere else? Who decides which is which? What about Burma. I guess its okay to let nearly a quarter million die because we need to mind our own goddamn business.
Well we are doing it and they are still dieing. You can't win, you can only make losing less painful. Minding our own goddamn business doomed hundreds of thousands to death during the Hutsi/Tutsi fighting, millions are starving in Darfar, and how many hundreds of thousand do we not know about in Burma.
Turning away does not make it not happen. It sucks but its the truth
It shows that not enough people were interested in buying into another internet service being happy enough with their current service.
My problem with municipal wi-fi is, where is the need? Most businesses and even people living there have service. So this benefits who? The poor and down trodden? Most could care less about internet and those who do and are going to the library and getting good access there in a clean and friendly environment. Why would they want to divert monies they could use for shelter and food towards a computer and other hardware needed for the net? The net isn't a priority, providing for family first is. I don't understand why so many people here see the net as opening doors. The problem is that for many of the people who you claim it will open a door for don't even know they need one and many probably don't.
The internet is not a utility. The last thing I want is it to be under the control of our government, local, state, or federal. We are harp on verizon and such caving in or going to extremes we find unwarranted at every little hissy fit one state or another throws. Can you imagine how damn regulated and filtered your net will be if totally in the hands of the government and the cronies appointed by the powers that be? Think freedom of speech will protect you? It might for what you say but it will not gain you access to what you want. It will also be reduced by "for the children" laws. Combine that with actually trying to get someone to fix your service when its down and out. Its not a life threatening application its not going to be addresses fast. Hell the nearest city to me can't even keep the road patched. They have a leaky water system they haven't been able to fix in ten years. Like hell if I want to trust my internet connection to them.
The internet should not be treated as a utility, its not a right, it is not essential to life.
The biggest impasse in having affordable health care are the states and Federal government. From not being able to comparison shop across state borders to having individual plans loaded up with required coverages the majority of people will never need. Then top it off with favorable tax codes to companies offering health care, road blocks to using your health savings accounts at anything but name brand pharmacies, and double standards in care when comparing the quality of government run hospitals and private and the picture cannot be more clear.
The state (sub federal government) doesn't want you self reliant. If you are then your not beholden to them or subject to their regulation. They foster an entitlement mentality and that of reliance on government by stepping in the way of any private attempt to get the job done. My own doctor refuses new patients covered by government health agencies because the paperwork and forced low fees make even the most virulent HMO look better.
Don't worry, pretty soon besides not being able to own your own dna you won't even get to pick the doctor who does. worse, many of the people you know will happily go down that road because its one less thing they will have to be responsible for. laziness and lack of self reliance are the truest ways we lose our freedoms
Well I think they have a point, you have to have a pretty low IQ to festoon your car with bumper stickers. The things are not easy to get off, look like crap as they wear, and genuinely don't do the paint or finish any good. Putting them in the windows is just as bad as many will block line of sight.
Too many times bumper stickers are just pretentious slaps at people around the driver who has some deluded belief that they are the only righteous person on the planet. I am not speaking of religious righteousness, I am talking about that self important I am saving the world while your just killing it tripe. Still my favorites are those who put political candidate tags on their cars. Better are those who leave them on well after the fact.
Its like having a neighborhood of Prius owners who all drive their cars to work solo.
and I try and update various streaming rippers only to have it save an htm instead, tell me it cannot handle the page, or find the cache file locked to another application. Now I do cache raid IE sessions but would love to find a nearly fool proof way to get them through firefox.
Being able to accept, let alone receive criticism seems more instructive to me. I have worked with both good and bad programmers of both sexes. The most atrocious ones don't last but some do hang on for a long time. What it comes down to is the more sensitive ones are more likely to persist their bad habits because the rest are afraid to comment in fear of causing grief or having the tables turned on them for other reasons.
I have found more women in my field with less of a chip on their shoulder than other minorities, even if they are of another minority group. Being open to criticism allows for improvement as it is the first sign your willing to change.
He was hiding in the woods with some help of strangers in the United States for FIVE years.
Its not hard to hide when most people would not recognize you. It is not hard to hide with only a few willing helpers. What exposes you is being careless. I am quite sure Osama didn't get where he was by being careless. Careless terrorists make headlines only once.
As for the nuclear plans, the problem is that too many people will ignore this issue simply because it doesn't affect them or worse because it bolsters one side versus another in the realm of politics. The fact is that some unreasonable people may now have access to weapons of mass destruction. You cannot negotiate with them. Unlike the Soviets these people actually think that they will get rewarded in death, granted they will willingly pass on that reward to followers.
the truth is, we don't know all the laws nor are we always right when we think we do.
There are many in the scientific community who are comparable to religious zealots and every once in a while someone stumbles on something that either gives us a new set of laws or changes those we have. Thats the great thing about science, its not static. It can appear to be at times but that is simply the properties of human ignorance and ego.
there always are. And I am not counting yet another new version of iTunes and Quicktime. I doubt the eye candy will not be present, probably something similar to whatever they add into the iPhone or iTV will come our way. While not giving full functionality it will be similar in look. They will have to have a "demonstration" app that takes advantage of the new features they are 'aiming' at developers. Something to lead them down the path that Apple envisions.
Figure a few more things required to use new hardware and it will become an upgrade if at least on new hardware.
Uh, but did you notice the three people he put on his VP search panel? How was that any different, there was no change. Worse one had to resign from the panel already. He has Resko to deal with as well.
He doesn't have experience but his track record is nothing to brag about. Go look at the people in his inner circle and tell me what you see. I don't see anything new. I see baggage.
They are both dishonest, that is what politicians are. Its part of the package. But citing lack of experience as a plus blows my mind as that is the primary thing many Democrats dinged Bush on. Guess what, he will get saddled with a VP who is the real power just like Bush did.
Campaign on "change". Clinton did just that in 92. Its not original.
when I saw that in game and listened to my friends experience with this game all I could think of is, were the developers so desperate to get sales that they had to have boobies?
I guess if you can't compete on gameplay and product resorting to the gutter will get you some quick cash. What an abysmal way to get players.
Obama is very much an "American Idol" candidate. What has he really said? His choice of VP is going to be very important because it will tell us if he truly will be independent of the powers of DC or just a tool run over by advisers smarter than him. He also is most likely going face a Democratic dominated Congress and Bill Clinton didn't have a good time with that situation because as of late when one party has a real majority they tend to run amok, ignoring the President even if from the same party. He isn't very good off the teleprompter with unprepared speeches or replies. It was evident during the debates but he was Kennedy to Clinton's Nixon. He is driving forward on a carefully projected personality speaking in generalizations so as not to step on toes.
What of McCain? I don't know, I don't like him for some of the same reasons I don't like Obama. I certain don't give any faith in his ability as like Obama he is from Congress and those nuts make Bush look fiscally responsible.
Frankly I think our choices suck, if you can call it a choice. When there are two parties there is no choice. They are both to similar to matter. The only difference comes in what they plan to do, not what they end up doing. What really matters is which one will stand up to Congress instead of just going along with them in the stupid hope of getting what they want some of the time.
I would have thought Clinton the better of choices for Democrats but that is simply from an experience and drive history. She is strong enough to stand up to Pelosi and Obama hasn't proven that he can or will. It is just as likely he will be run over by her.
Still by your use of "ick factor" there would be no point for any McCain supporter to respond you, you already gave clear indication that the discussion was over before it started.
There is something to say for living in rural areas. I would challenge your statement in saying it is urban dwellers who keep voting in people whose means of power is keeping them in poverty while picking good politically correct scapegoats as being the true source. In other words, it is cities which have be dieing under oppressive taxations and rules and rural areas expanded because people left. Look to the cities of the north and ask what the failing ones have in common.
What they have in common is politicians promising more benefits further trapping people in the endless cycle of relying on government to solve their problems. This requires money which in turn indirectly raises the cost of living in the city further putting the very same people being helped further behind or barely holding on. Instead of seeing a real need to help themselves they maintain the status quo because it is easier and less risky.
Given the choice, which I do have and have made, I will not live in any urban center. The elected officials in my county are far more responsive to our needs because in many cases we know them. Even in the large county I live it they reflect more on the average person. We have less burdensome governments which are the only expanding workforce in the US for the most part. These employees are pretty much dead set into keeping the people providing them jobs in office.
There are some luxury SUVs (read: FX50, X6) that can get to 60 in around seven seconds and hustle through the quarter mile in less than fourteen seconds. What I always found amazing is that people would buy them even when gas was over two dollars a gallon and they still sold at three dollars.
I have as of last week seen new SUVs on the road. People are adjusting to the gas prices already and they will give up their lattes and expensive cell phone plans for cheaper ones. Giving up the car is a bigger step than most will take, there are many ways to adjust their expenditures to drive what they want.
Still, series hybrid technology will usher in a new age of the SUV and they will probably not be small ones
They should first concentrate on what WOW did right. Looking for mistakes in WOW is going to devolve into being saddled down with personal nits. In other words if they look for what WOW did wrong they will not get a good picture simply because what was done wrong is so overshadowed by what went right.
I have nothing wrong with trying to make a better WOW, but you don't do that by trying to find out what is wrong with it. The only thing really wrong with WOW is that its size hobbles other companies trying to compete in the fantasy genre. If anything that size stifles others as VC money is more likely going to examine what happened to recent offerings like LOTRO and DDO and say "if they couldn't make a dent or sizable population what could?"
UO also showed everything wrong with PvP. I was there on day one and even before. If it wasn't a new exploit to gank people each week it must have been because servers were down too much to matter.
Romanticize about it all you want but the real problem was that anarchy does not make a good mmorpg. That what it was for a big amount of time. Insta kill guards didn't help as many knew ways to exploit that and get unsuspecting players ganked by guards. Look, it does not parallel the real world because there was no effective punishment system to prevent some of the stunts people would pull to gank people. They weren't doing it for money/profit, most did it to piss people off.
That is why real PvP isn't suitable to MMORPGs, there is no repercussion. Don't fall back on that excuse of "the players will make the repercussion" because unless the game designers give then a method nothing works. Characters were throw away. It wasn't hard to gear out and if you ran up a bad name you could just reroll. Newer games allow people to transfer off their server and rename themselves to avoid any black marks associated with their actions. Plus most weren't out for the challenge, hell they avoided any risk they could. Half the time I see PvP advocates crying over changes or such is because the risk went up.
Sorry, anarchy does not make for a good game. I know all the good stories of "good pvp" encounters in many a mmorpg but they are always out weighed by the bad examples, of people quitting over the harassment and such. When I want PvP I go to games created from the get go with real balance, none of this play for X levels totally protected, or just being better geared for being their six months.
Sorry, I didn't find UO's original PvP any better than any other MMORPG. It was just first compared to many and highlighted many problems upcoming MMORPGs had to counter to make sure they could retain players over the long term.
PvP in a mmorpg is like the short bus in the realm of PvP. It is much more challenging to play a FPS where your only benefit for playing a long time is skill with your character.
Slashdot Mirror
then what? What if he skips out on the vote or votes "present". Same with McCain. To be honest if McCain votes Yes and Obama skips out I would have more respect for McCain at least standing up for what he believes even if its wrong. I would rather have a politician unafraid to declare his views than to leave me guessing.
I don't care for either of them, can I vote none of the above? I guess I could go with Barr and that Libertarian party. I have already written off prosecution of telecoms based on past behavior and regardless how this bill went I wasn't overly concerned with going after them. I am willing to give them a "once" based on the fact that Congress and the Administration didn't set the ground rules and the companies simply acted out of intimidation which is how the current government operates.
I see the change in the Democratic stance as "we believe we are going to be in power and damn if we do anything to strip of us of our options". In other words, just like when they took over Congress and went earmark crazy once they have both sides locked up I can't wait to see what they try to pull. Already we have vilification of oil companies over profits causing them to shed gas stations like they have cuties. I figure its par for the course.
If they have an (I), as incumbent, next to their name they need to go. Yet how many years is it going to take for us to get these two parties out of power? How can we say we have a choice between candidates when the only two who will ever stand a chance to run are basically selected for us.
According to countrywide he got .5 off his rate because he was a US Senator. He knowingly accepted the VIP designation then tried to claim he thought it meant nothing? He serves and has served on various boards which have some power over this industry? Perhaps his party affiliation is saving him. I bet it is.
Read up on it, http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/top-5/2008/06/12/Countrywide-Loan-Scandal
By lowering his rate they effectively handed him $60,000. In other words, Congressmen don't play by our rules. Their ability to regulate the industry means they intimidate without having to lift a finger. Considering his role in this bill and the fact he takes money from Countrywide for his reelection makes the whole thing stink.
and people wonder why crap like this little transaction law slips in. These guys are always slipping stuff in and out trying to avoid our knowledge of what they really do.
Dodd is a crook. He is a liar. He was simply caught and now is trying hide from it.
#2. Get posted to Slashdot and Digg...
Damn if I type this a thousand times.
Compare any big city school system, take the total dollars spent and divide it by the number of students. For some reason many consider that unfair and want to reduce the dollars used. Do the same for some county schools. If its anything like where I live the city is nearly 3x the cost per student and the grades are worse.
Why?
Admin and feel good people. In other words not hiring teachers but hiring more cronies of friends of politicians, family members, and feed good skill sets that have no bearing on real education. Some places have more grief counselors than nurses! Look at their class sizes compared to the county schools. If they are higher in the city and they are spending more money per student then start asking questions. Considering the disrepair some city schools are in its hard to believe it gets eaten up by building maintenance.
Then we hit the fairness wall. Its not fair to give the better achieving students more, let alone let them be separate from those who cannot or WILL NOT learn. Throw in lots of zero tolerance rules about scissors, aspirin, and the like, and money is diverted to troubled schools who have more students than ever before. In some systems its not fair to celebrate the high achievers! It also isn't fair to test some students now because of race. Apparently race makes people incapable of being tested, I never knew math could form allegiances.
NCLB isn't the problem. The problem is school systems who game the system. They divert money and attention from where it should be.
I wonder how many of those games they took screen shots from were purchased versus borrowed.
If they purchased them they opened themselves up to heap a trouble.
If they "borrowed" then they opened themselves up to a heap of trouble.
Really amazing, how did it ever get to distribution? Do the people who run these companies not play games themselves?
That is exactly what we did in World War 2. It is why it ended in only six years. People today have taken on such an unrealistic view of the world and worse on how wars need to be fought. As we found out in the forties you cannot talk to the unreasonable. They will make their threats and when they are ready they will act on them. Of course those who thought they could talk it out will act all confused and such but the end still remains the same, the unreasonable did what they said they would and now instead of containment we have to first kick them out.
Wars only end when one side loses the stomach to fight it. That is done by demoralizing the populace which supports it. Unfortunately that means raining death and destruction on what is a civilian population.
Look, it would be nice if we could afford to not mind other people's business but unfortunately many of these countries make it imperative that someone does mind their business. Are you suggesting the world ignore Iran's leadership constant threats to wipe Israel off the face of the earth all the while telling the UN to bugger off when it comes to their nuclear program? I guess we are going to ignore China the day it overruns Taiwan too. After all its only "yellow/brown/red" people - not whites, not in our own backyard, etc.
Sheesh, how many people must die before it becomes okay to act. When will people realize that proactive actions will cost lives too but more likely less than in the long run. Why is it okay to suggest intervention in darfar or zimbabwe but not somewhere else? Who decides which is which? What about Burma. I guess its okay to let nearly a quarter million die because we need to mind our own goddamn business.
Well we are doing it and they are still dieing. You can't win, you can only make losing less painful. Minding our own goddamn business doomed hundreds of thousands to death during the Hutsi/Tutsi fighting, millions are starving in Darfar, and how many hundreds of thousand do we not know about in Burma.
Turning away does not make it not happen. It sucks but its the truth
It shows that not enough people were interested in buying into another internet service being happy enough with their current service.
My problem with municipal wi-fi is, where is the need? Most businesses and even people living there have service. So this benefits who? The poor and down trodden? Most could care less about internet and those who do and are going to the library and getting good access there in a clean and friendly environment. Why would they want to divert monies they could use for shelter and food towards a computer and other hardware needed for the net? The net isn't a priority, providing for family first is. I don't understand why so many people here see the net as opening doors. The problem is that for many of the people who you claim it will open a door for don't even know they need one and many probably don't.
The internet is not a utility. The last thing I want is it to be under the control of our government, local, state, or federal. We are harp on verizon and such caving in or going to extremes we find unwarranted at every little hissy fit one state or another throws. Can you imagine how damn regulated and filtered your net will be if totally in the hands of the government and the cronies appointed by the powers that be? Think freedom of speech will protect you? It might for what you say but it will not gain you access to what you want. It will also be reduced by "for the children" laws. Combine that with actually trying to get someone to fix your service when its down and out. Its not a life threatening application its not going to be addresses fast. Hell the nearest city to me can't even keep the road patched. They have a leaky water system they haven't been able to fix in ten years. Like hell if I want to trust my internet connection to them.
The internet should not be treated as a utility, its not a right, it is not essential to life.
The biggest impasse in having affordable health care are the states and Federal government. From not being able to comparison shop across state borders to having individual plans loaded up with required coverages the majority of people will never need. Then top it off with favorable tax codes to companies offering health care, road blocks to using your health savings accounts at anything but name brand pharmacies, and double standards in care when comparing the quality of government run hospitals and private and the picture cannot be more clear.
The state (sub federal government) doesn't want you self reliant. If you are then your not beholden to them or subject to their regulation. They foster an entitlement mentality and that of reliance on government by stepping in the way of any private attempt to get the job done. My own doctor refuses new patients covered by government health agencies because the paperwork and forced low fees make even the most virulent HMO look better.
Don't worry, pretty soon besides not being able to own your own dna you won't even get to pick the doctor who does. worse, many of the people you know will happily go down that road because its one less thing they will have to be responsible for. laziness and lack of self reliance are the truest ways we lose our freedoms
Ad block and no script are the only addons functioning.
and while I like many parts of this new release I know a few others who have already renamed "awesome bar" into "annoying bar"
Well I think they have a point, you have to have a pretty low IQ to festoon your car with bumper stickers. The things are not easy to get off, look like crap as they wear, and genuinely don't do the paint or finish any good. Putting them in the windows is just as bad as many will block line of sight.
Too many times bumper stickers are just pretentious slaps at people around the driver who has some deluded belief that they are the only righteous person on the planet. I am not speaking of religious righteousness, I am talking about that self important I am saving the world while your just killing it tripe. Still my favorites are those who put political candidate tags on their cars. Better are those who leave them on well after the fact.
Its like having a neighborhood of Prius owners who all drive their cars to work solo.
and I try and update various streaming rippers only to have it save an htm instead, tell me it cannot handle the page, or find the cache file locked to another application. Now I do cache raid IE sessions but would love to find a nearly fool proof way to get them through firefox.
Being able to accept, let alone receive criticism seems more instructive to me. I have worked with both good and bad programmers of both sexes. The most atrocious ones don't last but some do hang on for a long time. What it comes down to is the more sensitive ones are more likely to persist their bad habits because the rest are afraid to comment in fear of causing grief or having the tables turned on them for other reasons.
I have found more women in my field with less of a chip on their shoulder than other minorities, even if they are of another minority group. Being open to criticism allows for improvement as it is the first sign your willing to change.
So now we have Soylent Green Oil?
Oh yeah, time for Stephen King to right a new book.
Then again, combine this with other stories about the possibility of real "Jurassic Parks" and we can do the whole dino to oil thing in a day.
Simply look back on the case of Eric Rudolph.
He was hiding in the woods with some help of strangers in the United States for FIVE years.
Its not hard to hide when most people would not recognize you. It is not hard to hide with only a few willing helpers. What exposes you is being careless. I am quite sure Osama didn't get where he was by being careless. Careless terrorists make headlines only once.
As for the nuclear plans, the problem is that too many people will ignore this issue simply because it doesn't affect them or worse because it bolsters one side versus another in the realm of politics. The fact is that some unreasonable people may now have access to weapons of mass destruction. You cannot negotiate with them. Unlike the Soviets these people actually think that they will get rewarded in death, granted they will willingly pass on that reward to followers.
the truth is, we don't know all the laws nor are we always right when we think we do.
There are many in the scientific community who are comparable to religious zealots and every once in a while someone stumbles on something that either gives us a new set of laws or changes those we have. Thats the great thing about science, its not static. It can appear to be at times but that is simply the properties of human ignorance and ego.
there always are. And I am not counting yet another new version of iTunes and Quicktime. I doubt the eye candy will not be present, probably something similar to whatever they add into the iPhone or iTV will come our way. While not giving full functionality it will be similar in look. They will have to have a "demonstration" app that takes advantage of the new features they are 'aiming' at developers. Something to lead them down the path that Apple envisions.
Figure a few more things required to use new hardware and it will become an upgrade if at least on new hardware.
Uh, but did you notice the three people he put on his VP search panel? How was that any different, there was no change. Worse one had to resign from the panel already. He has Resko to deal with as well.
He doesn't have experience but his track record is nothing to brag about. Go look at the people in his inner circle and tell me what you see. I don't see anything new. I see baggage.
They are both dishonest, that is what politicians are. Its part of the package. But citing lack of experience as a plus blows my mind as that is the primary thing many Democrats dinged Bush on. Guess what, he will get saddled with a VP who is the real power just like Bush did.
Campaign on "change". Clinton did just that in 92. Its not original.
when I saw that in game and listened to my friends experience with this game all I could think of is, were the developers so desperate to get sales that they had to have boobies?
I guess if you can't compete on gameplay and product resorting to the gutter will get you some quick cash. What an abysmal way to get players.
Obama is very much an "American Idol" candidate. What has he really said? His choice of VP is going to be very important because it will tell us if he truly will be independent of the powers of DC or just a tool run over by advisers smarter than him. He also is most likely going face a Democratic dominated Congress and Bill Clinton didn't have a good time with that situation because as of late when one party has a real majority they tend to run amok, ignoring the President even if from the same party. He isn't very good off the teleprompter with unprepared speeches or replies. It was evident during the debates but he was Kennedy to Clinton's Nixon. He is driving forward on a carefully projected personality speaking in generalizations so as not to step on toes.
What of McCain? I don't know, I don't like him for some of the same reasons I don't like Obama. I certain don't give any faith in his ability as like Obama he is from Congress and those nuts make Bush look fiscally responsible.
Frankly I think our choices suck, if you can call it a choice. When there are two parties there is no choice. They are both to similar to matter. The only difference comes in what they plan to do, not what they end up doing. What really matters is which one will stand up to Congress instead of just going along with them in the stupid hope of getting what they want some of the time.
I would have thought Clinton the better of choices for Democrats but that is simply from an experience and drive history. She is strong enough to stand up to Pelosi and Obama hasn't proven that he can or will. It is just as likely he will be run over by her.
Still by your use of "ick factor" there would be no point for any McCain supporter to respond you, you already gave clear indication that the discussion was over before it started.
There is something to say for living in rural areas. I would challenge your statement in saying it is urban dwellers who keep voting in people whose means of power is keeping them in poverty while picking good politically correct scapegoats as being the true source. In other words, it is cities which have be dieing under oppressive taxations and rules and rural areas expanded because people left. Look to the cities of the north and ask what the failing ones have in common.
What they have in common is politicians promising more benefits further trapping people in the endless cycle of relying on government to solve their problems. This requires money which in turn indirectly raises the cost of living in the city further putting the very same people being helped further behind or barely holding on. Instead of seeing a real need to help themselves they maintain the status quo because it is easier and less risky.
Given the choice, which I do have and have made, I will not live in any urban center. The elected officials in my county are far more responsive to our needs because in many cases we know them. Even in the large county I live it they reflect more on the average person. We have less burdensome governments which are the only expanding workforce in the US for the most part. These employees are pretty much dead set into keeping the people providing them jobs in office.
Tom Cruise wants revenge.
There are some luxury SUVs (read: FX50, X6) that can get to 60 in around seven seconds and hustle through the quarter mile in less than fourteen seconds. What I always found amazing is that people would buy them even when gas was over two dollars a gallon and they still sold at three dollars.
I have as of last week seen new SUVs on the road. People are adjusting to the gas prices already and they will give up their lattes and expensive cell phone plans for cheaper ones. Giving up the car is a bigger step than most will take, there are many ways to adjust their expenditures to drive what they want.
Still, series hybrid technology will usher in a new age of the SUV and they will probably not be small ones
They should first concentrate on what WOW did right. Looking for mistakes in WOW is going to devolve into being saddled down with personal nits. In other words if they look for what WOW did wrong they will not get a good picture simply because what was done wrong is so overshadowed by what went right.
I have nothing wrong with trying to make a better WOW, but you don't do that by trying to find out what is wrong with it. The only thing really wrong with WOW is that its size hobbles other companies trying to compete in the fantasy genre. If anything that size stifles others as VC money is more likely going to examine what happened to recent offerings like LOTRO and DDO and say "if they couldn't make a dent or sizable population what could?"
UO also showed everything wrong with PvP. I was there on day one and even before. If it wasn't a new exploit to gank people each week it must have been because servers were down too much to matter.
Romanticize about it all you want but the real problem was that anarchy does not make a good mmorpg. That what it was for a big amount of time. Insta kill guards didn't help as many knew ways to exploit that and get unsuspecting players ganked by guards. Look, it does not parallel the real world because there was no effective punishment system to prevent some of the stunts people would pull to gank people. They weren't doing it for money/profit, most did it to piss people off.
That is why real PvP isn't suitable to MMORPGs, there is no repercussion. Don't fall back on that excuse of "the players will make the repercussion" because unless the game designers give then a method nothing works. Characters were throw away. It wasn't hard to gear out and if you ran up a bad name you could just reroll. Newer games allow people to transfer off their server and rename themselves to avoid any black marks associated with their actions. Plus most weren't out for the challenge, hell they avoided any risk they could. Half the time I see PvP advocates crying over changes or such is because the risk went up.
Sorry, anarchy does not make for a good game. I know all the good stories of "good pvp" encounters in many a mmorpg but they are always out weighed by the bad examples, of people quitting over the harassment and such. When I want PvP I go to games created from the get go with real balance, none of this play for X levels totally protected, or just being better geared for being their six months.
Sorry, I didn't find UO's original PvP any better than any other MMORPG. It was just first compared to many and highlighted many problems upcoming MMORPGs had to counter to make sure they could retain players over the long term.
PvP in a mmorpg is like the short bus in the realm of PvP. It is much more challenging to play a FPS where your only benefit for playing a long time is skill with your character.
Just because it makes some tasks easier does not mean we are getting dumber or lazier.
It frees us for more fun things, like, uh, using google for porn.
Even calculators didn't make us lazier, hell if anything it gave me time to figure out hard math but making the simple math automatic.