giving fans "the first chance to play as friends Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger,
Damn... I was hoping to play WITH Hermione. Say what you want about pedophiles and all, but that girl will be HOT when she gets older (note: not now, later... after 18... or 16... depending on when she develops).
Something else that people still don't seem to understand is that DVD-ROM drives are perfectly capable of reading CD-ROM discs.
AND, DVD-RW (or DVD+RW) drives are perfectly capable of writing CD-R's and CD-RW's. I can't even count the number of times people have asked me that...
I agree with everything you said. I didn't realize all the new Dell's come with DVD drives... are they standard?
Re:That's why he won
on
Global Dimming
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
So GW Bush is smart, but consistently behaves like an idiot? That's really frightening.
You should be frightened by the fact that almost everything he does works out in the end. It's really scary that the "intelligent" crowd, mostly the teachers unions, and college professors, etc., consistently are wrong about almost everything, yet an "idiot" from Texas shows the world some common sense, and a set of balls to go with it, and he's the one that's most consistently proven correct. Truly frightening...
BTW, the facts are not debatable, but for every item you show that he was wrong about, I can show at least one that he was right about.
Aside from partisan fools, no one seriously thinks that President Bush is a dunce... far from it, he is clearly a clever and intelligent man. However, he is not in the same league as Mr. Gore.
True, but I wanted to clarify a bit. According to
this article, Al Gore has an IQ of 133-134, but no IQ data is available for Bush. It's assumed that he's around 119-125, but no hard evidence is available. Certainly by no means a dunce, considering the average IQ is supposed to be 100 (although it's more likely around 96). No matter what estimate you use, GW Bush is not an idiot. Besides, as was mentioned quite a bit in the California recall election, you don't need to be extremely intelligent... you just need extremely intelligent people advising you.
Also, as you pointed out, you don't need incredible intelligence to be successful.
At the same time, PC developers seem quite reluctant to move to DVD-ROM format, as they seem to believe that the same gamers that spend $400 on video cards won't spend $40 on a DVD-ROM drive.
I always thought that was a bit strange also. Most games come on 1-2 CD's, with a few coming in at 3. Very few have 4 or more (a couple notable examples would be Myst III: Exile, and Buldar's Gate). I believe Buldar's Gate had a separate version available for DVD, but I'm not sure about Myst III. My only assumption is that either they're concerned about too few consumers having DVD drives, or the cost to create DVD disks is higher than I would expect.
Aside from that, the gamers that spend $400 on a video card absolutely have DVD drives... probably DVD+/-RW drives at this point. However, that's only a relatively small niche market. If they're going to market a game, they want to reach the largest possible user base, and when the PC is concerned, that must be the CD drive... at least for another couple years. Eventually there will be an obvious shift away from the CD format. It'll probably happen as soon as Dell decides that the CD is obsolete, and DVD is the future. On the other hand, maybe they're waiting for the next big innovation in portable storage.
Originated in African-American vernacular (Early 90s). No longer a part of the vernacular, as African-Americans stop using slang as soon as we hear white people using it.
Damn... does that mean I have to stop saying "Flippity-floppity-floop" when I mean "in da house"?
Sure sounds like "ManHunt" is a nasty and revolting game. I'm not against vidgame violence, but I'd rather not see this one succeed.
If you'd rather not see this game succeed, don't buy it. No government has the right to control what people say, hear, or think... I don't care what anybody says. Rights are given to people simply by the fact that we all have free-will, whether you believe that comes from God, or from billions of years of evolution, you can't deny that humankind is the only species we know of that can reject our instincts, and proceed on free-will. When the government censors something, they are rejecting our free-will, especially in cases like this, where nobody is getting hurt.
If you don't want to see it succeed, don't buy it. Feel free to have seminars and conferences to like-minded individuals explaining to them why they shouldn't buy it either. But don't tell me that I don't have the freedom of choice to buy it and play it. If I immitate it and murder someone with a plastic bag, throw me in jail because I'm obviously a moron... but don't punish me for a crime I have yet to commit.
It's amazing... I point out almost the same exact thing, and I get modded as "flamebait", while you get "interesting". Sometimes I don't even know why I try...
Also, who knows how many flaws IE has; there's no bugzIE. But there are millions of random pages documenting them, probably owing to the vast user base.
I'd be VERY interested in seeing a sum total of the flaws in IE6, as compared to the newest version of Mozilla.
But the real issue is, of course, not how many flaws the browsers have, but their severity. Mozilla is specifically designed to protect the average user from malicious code where IE seems to ask for it at every turn.
Often, a choice like this comes up in technical issues. It's either security vs. accessibility. IE is definitely more accessible than Mozilla, if only the fact that it comes pre-installed on most new computers. Mozilla may be more secure, but if you have a company intranet that needs to have ActiveX scripts that modify certain files automatically, Mozilla isn't an option.
Sadly though, a solution simple enough for everyone, outside of a networked, administered environment, has yet to be created in my opinion, and the problems of these security flaws will continue to plague thousands.
Until recently, I would have suggested Red Hat... but now that Red Hat Linux is gone, and Fedora apparently has no automatic updating system (I could be wrong), we're back without a choice. We need a Linux-based distro that's easy on the eyes (yes, cartoony, like Windows XP) so that children and senior citizens can use it, with enough features pre-installed to rival anything Redmond could think of. It also has to be configurable so that you can change almost anything, but those configurations have to be kept somewhere where the Average Joe won't mess with them and screw everything up. It also has to have enough software to do everything we can think of, and a free updating system that we could set to automatically download and install patches from a server we control. It's a hefty order, but I think someone out there can fill it... someday.
Does it have fewer flaws, or does it have fewer users to report the flaws?
How the fuck is this flamebait? If you have 1,000,000 people testing 1 product over 1 year, they WILL find more flaws than 100 people testing the same product over 1 year! It's simple math, people. I point out that it generally takes more people less time to perform one task, and it gets moderated as "flamebait"? What a crock of shit!
Sorry, can't do that as long as the US keeps the Iraqi casualty numbers secret.
That's because if they released the numbers, if even 1 person died in the past 6 months, the democrats and the other opponents of the war would jump all over it saying that we shot an "innocent civilian", and that because we're there, that person will never grow up or have kids or whatever. There's no good side to releasing those numbers, even if it proves that I'm right, and you're wrong... if you actually need proof that is.
I do find it greatly disturbing that you'd rather trust Saddam Hussein, a man who stayed in power for over 30 years thanks to the reign of terror in his country, than George Bush, who was elected by the people of this country, 3 years ago... and hopefully will be re-elected next year. It occurs to me that you truly believe that Iraq is worse off today than it was when Saddam has his secret police throwing people off buildings if they said "Saddam sucks", or beheading them in public squares, or torturing their children to death while they watched. Have you forgotten (or do you choose to ignore) the fact that Saddam murdered his own son-in-law in the 90's, after promising him safe haven?
Still this seems like a major flaw - For the last 3 months I've been recommending to all my friends and family to start using Mozilla. Not saying it's perfect but there's a lot less flaws than IE.
Does it have fewer flaws, or does it have fewer users to report the flaws?
I'm not playing childish yes/no games, if you want to convince me that I'm lying, please prove it, don't just say so.
I'm sorry to say that you're incorrect. The facts don't support what you're claiming they do. You haven't yet given any links to evidence that Saddam was disarming, or that there weren't any terrorists in Iraq, or that there are more people dead in the last 6 months than the previous 6 months.
The best question posed by the Anonymous Coward is "how do we negotiate and reach compromise with Saddam and the terrorists?" It's a reasonable question. If force isn't a viable option, what is?
There are no reports that say that, and you know it. However, there are reports that state in very certain terms that Saddam was disarming prior to the US invasion.
That's the point. It was taking him too long to disarm. The original resolution in 1991 gave him something like 2 WEEKS to disarm, AND prove how he disarmed. Obviously, he never did that.
There is so much disinformation being spread that opinion polls show 70% of the American people believe things about Iraq and Saddam which Bush himself (when forced) stated to be untrue.
If, by that statement, you're referring to the State of the Union, you are incorrect. The famous 16 words said that British Intelligent has learned that Saddam tried to get Uranium from Afraica, and as it turns out, he did, and the British STILL stand by that assessment. If you're not referring to that, please explain.
And I'm sure he will be internationally condemned for it again. There is no such thing as a legal regime change to protect your interests.
Then what's a "legal regime change"? Genocide? Apparently trying to kill every Jew in Europe was enough to get rid of Hitler... or was it that he invaded other countries? Would you just let him go forever if he never invaded Poland? At what point would you permit military action?
The whole f*cking UN debate is about the US trying to legalize its regime changes, while in the past the US itself co-founded the UN to avoid exactly this kind of unilateral descisions to topple foreign governments.
Apparently you're buying into the whole disinformation campaign that says that 60+ nations in the world is "unilateral".
My favorite would be looking for Bin Laden but would not be looking for Saddam, since it is very clear (by presidential statement) that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, and the (weapons) experts say he was not stocking up WMD either, but rather was disarming. Get it into your head that Iraq is nothing like Afghanistan. There were valid reasons to invade Afghanistan, but what the coalition is doing in Iraq is simply wrong.
One at a time. First, I'm glad you're with us in Afghanistan and Bin Laden. That tells me that you're not beyond hope, and maybe you're simply not getting the pertinent information regarding Saddam and Iraq. Second, the president has only ever said that we have no clear-cut direct evidence that Saddam was involved with 9/11, but there is more than enough circumstantial evidence to convict him in financing terrorism against the US. Third, even if he was disarming while the inspections were going on, why would he kick them out after 7 or 8 years? If he was doing all he could, he would have nothing to hide (and according to the UN resolution, he shouldn't have tried to hide anything). Fourth, Iraq is, fundamentally, exactly like Afghanistan. They are both harboring terrorists and need to be "cleaned". The only reasons Iraq is being protested, is because certain nations have been proven to have a financial stake in Saddam's regime staying in power (France, Germany, and Russia sold him weapons in the 90's, after the first war, and several other countries had loans out to him, and contracts for oil, etc.).
The way I see it, it's two groups of fundamentalists holding the world hostage. I'm one of the hostages (because if I'm not with you, I'm against you), and I don't like it.
Interesting point, and one I hadn't really thought of. I suppose the reason for it is that, in my view (and I'm simplifying greatly, for reasons of brevity), if you have all the facts and you don't agree that removing Saddam from power is a Good Thing, then you have some interest in seeing the terrorists succeed, at least to a degree, or some interest in keeping Saddam in power. Either way, it's fundamentally anti-US.
You're arguing that guns are more humane killing devices than a knife or a bat.
My point is that anything can be a deadly killing device. If I wanted you dead, and I didn't have a gun, I'm sorry to say that I'd find another way to kill you.
OK, here's a challenge for you, since you're obviously so intelligent when it comes to international law and foreign relations, especially concerning third-world countries that consistently lie and murder. Find me ONE United Nations report that says Iraq does not, and has not, since 1991, had WMD's. If you can't do that, then SHUT UP BECAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. Everything you say is pathetically misinformed, or more accurately, just plain nuts. Nobody EVER argued that Iraq didn't have WMD's. The only argument was what to DO about it. If you can't even acknowledge THAT, then you're completely hopeless, and I hope you have a nice life in your personal fantasy world.
Strangely enough, Gaddaffi is still very much in power today.
And you're the one that says "wrong analogy"? Maybe you didn't get a copy of the memo, but this is a war on terrorism, not just on Iraq or Afghanistan. If Bush thinks Gaddaffi poses enough of a threat to the US, or its interests around the world (most people that agree with you forget this minor part), I'm sure he'll do something about it.
Not that you really know what you're talking about anyway. It's fairly evident you're giving pieces of information to make it seem like you're informed, when you're actually just spinning everything to your advantage. If you're so high and mighty, why don't you tell me what YOU would have done about Saddam? Or, even better, how would YOU find Bin Laden, or would you even try? More relavent question, would your preferred presidential candidate TRY to look for Bin Laden or Saddam?
Sony, on the other hand... the lady at the local game rental store told me what happened when she plugged a PSOne without a converter: *POOF* It stopped working immediately, and black smoke came from it. Pathetic!
Two points. First, it was her own fault that she plugged it into the wrong type of outlet. If you live somewhere weird like that, BUY CONVERTERS FOR EVERY OUTLET IN THE HOUSE AND NEVER TAKE THEM OUT. I did it when none of the outlets had a ground, so you can do it too.
Second, you seem to be amazed that it stopped working when you plugged TWICE the amount of power into it. No shit, Sherlock. Obviously you're not an electrical engineer. Here's a good test. Stick a fork in a 110 outlet, then stick another one in a 220 outlet, and let me know if you feel twice as dead. No offense or anything, but if you fry your hardware because you try to fit plug A into socket B, you deserve not to have the hardware.
Note, however, I'm not arguing a personal position on guns. Just saying I'd much rather face a guy with a sharp or blunt object than a.44
Point taken. May I ask you a serious question though? If I was sworn to kill you, and you couldn't stop me, no matter what you did, would you rather me shoot you in the head, or beat you to death with a baseball bat, or slash and stab at you with a knife?
Well I can think of stuff like the Magic the Gathering tournaments... Never heard of someone pulling a gun there.
Yeah, and until this week, you've never heard of someone pulling a gun at a video game competition either, have you? Besides, I'm fairly willing to bet there's been more video game competitions than Magic the Gathering tournaments.
I mean for christ sake, this is like pulling a gun on someone because Word crashed.
Yeah, that was pretty funny... in South Park the movie... Bill Gates got shot in the head by the military dude...
Because it was the US itself which (rightly) saw the need for a multigovernmental organisation to avoid (large-scale) wars after WWII; and subsequently co-founded the UN. So the UN has authority over the US because the US gave it that authority; not only by founding it but by signing various treaties also.
Yeah, and I wouldn't have agreed to it 60 years ago either, just like I wouldn't have agreed to the League of Nations (wonderful idea there too). The problem with the UN is that they assume everyone wants the world to be a peaceful, wonderful place, and as 9/11 proved, some people just want to KILL YOU.
Do you have even the slightest idea about international law? What you are saying here is akin to "What if the US government desides to extradite all colored people?"
Yes. That would never happen, would it (*cough* Rwanda *cough*)?
1) Those figures are getting higher and higher. Perhaps it would be wise to wait until the dust settles until we make a judgement about how many people he got killed?
OK, let's do a little math, shall we? It's already been proven (found the bodies) that he murdered 300,000 people over his 35 year reign. Given that most of those deaths actually happened in the last 15 years, we'll use that number. That's 300,000 deaths over 15 years, which comes to 20,000 murders per year, or 1,667 (rounding) murders per month. Since we're discussing the reasoning for ousting him, it's relavent to note that not even 3,000 people have died since the beginning of May... 6 months. So, by my math, we're still 7,000 people ahead.
Oh, and BTW, even if you took the WHOLE TIME he was in power, we're still 1300 people ahead, and that's assuming that 3,000 people died since May 1. Before you ask, I'm not counting the deaths of the Iraqi military because it's not relavent. The relavent figure is the number of civilians murdered over a period of time, NOT the number of military deaths who never would have died if Saddam wasn't so bad in the first place.
2) Iraq is a sovereign nation, just like the US. A nation has no right to mingle in the internal affairs of another sovereign nation. Just as the French can't do a regime change in the US because Bush is a tool, the US can't do regime change in Iraq because Saddam is the devil in person. As long as Saddam and Bush do their stuff on their own territory, another nation can't do anything about it. Simple, isn't it?
Oh, quite simple. *cough* Rwanda *cough*... *cough* Kosovo *cough*... *cough* Bosnia *cough*... *cough* Somalia *cough* . I think you might want to amend your thinking of the whole "sovereign nation" thing to say that a sovereign nation is only sovereign until the UN decides that it's unhealthy for them to do what they want to in their own territory.
No, not really. Iraq never followed the UN's resolutions, over 12 years, and more than 17 resolutions about it... each one basically saying that the UN knew about Saddam's weapons, and wanted him to prove he doesn't have them anymore, and how he destroyed them... never happened. Eventually (thankfully), the US got sick of the UN's mindless, never-ending babbling about how wonderful diplomacy was that they decided to enforce the UN's own resolution without them. Once again, the US has proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it can, and will (given the necessity) drag the rest of the world, kicking and screaming, through the dark times and hard decisions, and make the world a better place overall.
All your references are to racing or FPS games... so that narrows it down a bit. However, don't forget about Call of Duty for the PC... that's a good game. Or Beyond Good and Evil (if it ever comes out) is a good game for the consoles... I can assume it's going to be good for the PC.
You should try the consoles. They might just surprise you at how good they can be.
However, I also agree in part that the failure for that is due to a lack of leadership from the United States.
I hardly think we can blame the downfall of the United Nations on a "lack of leadership from the United States". We might be able to blame it on the United States leadership that puts other priorities above the UN's... or the US leadership that has doesn't blieve the same things you do... but certainly not a "lack" of leadership. Hell, we effectively eliminated one of the biggest dictators in the world thanks to the leadership of the US (right?).
Iraq: a soveriegn body thrown into a state of anarchy by a sudden, violent overthrow of it's psychotic government.
Yeah... and like it wasn't violent for the last 30 years or so... even less than it is today, as a matter of fact. Not that you'll ever find the facts because most of the paperwork was burned by Saddam's henchmen. You'll probably find the hundreds of thousands of bodies though. Good luck. Let me know how that works out for ya.
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giving fans "the first chance to play as friends Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger,
... depending on when she develops).
Damn... I was hoping to play WITH Hermione. Say what you want about pedophiles and all, but that girl will be HOT when she gets older (note: not now, later... after 18... or 16
Something else that people still don't seem to understand is that DVD-ROM drives are perfectly capable of reading CD-ROM discs.
AND, DVD-RW (or DVD+RW) drives are perfectly capable of writing CD-R's and CD-RW's. I can't even count the number of times people have asked me that...
I agree with everything you said. I didn't realize all the new Dell's come with DVD drives... are they standard?
So GW Bush is smart, but consistently behaves like an idiot? That's really frightening.
You should be frightened by the fact that almost everything he does works out in the end. It's really scary that the "intelligent" crowd, mostly the teachers unions, and college professors, etc., consistently are wrong about almost everything, yet an "idiot" from Texas shows the world some common sense, and a set of balls to go with it, and he's the one that's most consistently proven correct. Truly frightening...
BTW, the facts are not debatable, but for every item you show that he was wrong about, I can show at least one that he was right about.
Aside from partisan fools, no one seriously thinks that President Bush is a dunce... far from it, he is clearly a clever and intelligent man. However, he is not in the same league as Mr. Gore.
... you just need extremely intelligent people advising you.
True, but I wanted to clarify a bit. According to this article, Al Gore has an IQ of 133-134, but no IQ data is available for Bush. It's assumed that he's around 119-125, but no hard evidence is available. Certainly by no means a dunce, considering the average IQ is supposed to be 100 (although it's more likely around 96). No matter what estimate you use, GW Bush is not an idiot. Besides, as was mentioned quite a bit in the California recall election, you don't need to be extremely intelligent
Also, as you pointed out, you don't need incredible intelligence to be successful.
At the same time, PC developers seem quite reluctant to move to DVD-ROM format, as they seem to believe that the same gamers that spend $400 on video cards won't spend $40 on a DVD-ROM drive.
I always thought that was a bit strange also. Most games come on 1-2 CD's, with a few coming in at 3. Very few have 4 or more (a couple notable examples would be Myst III: Exile, and Buldar's Gate). I believe Buldar's Gate had a separate version available for DVD, but I'm not sure about Myst III. My only assumption is that either they're concerned about too few consumers having DVD drives, or the cost to create DVD disks is higher than I would expect.
Aside from that, the gamers that spend $400 on a video card absolutely have DVD drives... probably DVD+/-RW drives at this point. However, that's only a relatively small niche market. If they're going to market a game, they want to reach the largest possible user base, and when the PC is concerned, that must be the CD drive... at least for another couple years. Eventually there will be an obvious shift away from the CD format. It'll probably happen as soon as Dell decides that the CD is obsolete, and DVD is the future. On the other hand, maybe they're waiting for the next big innovation in portable storage.
Carmack said: "All your FPS Belong to Me"
Oh for Christ's sake, if you're going to make a joke, get the punchline right. It's "All your FPS are belong to me".
Originated in African-American vernacular (Early 90s). No longer a part of the vernacular, as African-Americans stop using slang as soon as we hear white people using it.
Damn... does that mean I have to stop saying "Flippity-floppity-floop" when I mean "in da house"?
Sure sounds like "ManHunt" is a nasty and revolting game. I'm not against vidgame violence, but I'd rather not see this one succeed.
If you'd rather not see this game succeed, don't buy it. No government has the right to control what people say, hear, or think... I don't care what anybody says. Rights are given to people simply by the fact that we all have free-will, whether you believe that comes from God, or from billions of years of evolution, you can't deny that humankind is the only species we know of that can reject our instincts, and proceed on free-will. When the government censors something, they are rejecting our free-will, especially in cases like this, where nobody is getting hurt.
If you don't want to see it succeed, don't buy it. Feel free to have seminars and conferences to like-minded individuals explaining to them why they shouldn't buy it either. But don't tell me that I don't have the freedom of choice to buy it and play it. If I immitate it and murder someone with a plastic bag, throw me in jail because I'm obviously a moron... but don't punish me for a crime I have yet to commit.
It's amazing... I point out almost the same exact thing, and I get modded as "flamebait", while you get "interesting". Sometimes I don't even know why I try...
... someday.
Also, who knows how many flaws IE has; there's no bugzIE. But there are millions of random pages documenting them, probably owing to the vast user base.
I'd be VERY interested in seeing a sum total of the flaws in IE6, as compared to the newest version of Mozilla.
But the real issue is, of course, not how many flaws the browsers have, but their severity. Mozilla is specifically designed to protect the average user from malicious code where IE seems to ask for it at every turn.
Often, a choice like this comes up in technical issues. It's either security vs. accessibility. IE is definitely more accessible than Mozilla, if only the fact that it comes pre-installed on most new computers. Mozilla may be more secure, but if you have a company intranet that needs to have ActiveX scripts that modify certain files automatically, Mozilla isn't an option.
Sadly though, a solution simple enough for everyone, outside of a networked, administered environment, has yet to be created in my opinion, and the problems of these security flaws will continue to plague thousands.
Until recently, I would have suggested Red Hat... but now that Red Hat Linux is gone, and Fedora apparently has no automatic updating system (I could be wrong), we're back without a choice. We need a Linux-based distro that's easy on the eyes (yes, cartoony, like Windows XP) so that children and senior citizens can use it, with enough features pre-installed to rival anything Redmond could think of. It also has to be configurable so that you can change almost anything, but those configurations have to be kept somewhere where the Average Joe won't mess with them and screw everything up. It also has to have enough software to do everything we can think of, and a free updating system that we could set to automatically download and install patches from a server we control. It's a hefty order, but I think someone out there can fill it
Does it have fewer flaws, or does it have fewer users to report the flaws?
How the fuck is this flamebait? If you have 1,000,000 people testing 1 product over 1 year, they WILL find more flaws than 100 people testing the same product over 1 year! It's simple math, people. I point out that it generally takes more people less time to perform one task, and it gets moderated as "flamebait"? What a crock of shit!
Sorry, can't do that as long as the US keeps the Iraqi casualty numbers secret.
That's because if they released the numbers, if even 1 person died in the past 6 months, the democrats and the other opponents of the war would jump all over it saying that we shot an "innocent civilian", and that because we're there, that person will never grow up or have kids or whatever. There's no good side to releasing those numbers, even if it proves that I'm right, and you're wrong... if you actually need proof that is.
I do find it greatly disturbing that you'd rather trust Saddam Hussein, a man who stayed in power for over 30 years thanks to the reign of terror in his country, than George Bush, who was elected by the people of this country, 3 years ago... and hopefully will be re-elected next year. It occurs to me that you truly believe that Iraq is worse off today than it was when Saddam has his secret police throwing people off buildings if they said "Saddam sucks", or beheading them in public squares, or torturing their children to death while they watched. Have you forgotten (or do you choose to ignore) the fact that Saddam murdered his own son-in-law in the 90's, after promising him safe haven?
Still this seems like a major flaw - For the last 3 months I've been recommending to all my friends and family to start using Mozilla. Not saying it's perfect but there's a lot less flaws than IE.
Does it have fewer flaws, or does it have fewer users to report the flaws?
I'm not playing childish yes/no games, if you want to convince me that I'm lying, please prove it, don't just say so.
I'm sorry to say that you're incorrect. The facts don't support what you're claiming they do. You haven't yet given any links to evidence that Saddam was disarming, or that there weren't any terrorists in Iraq, or that there are more people dead in the last 6 months than the previous 6 months.
The best question posed by the Anonymous Coward is "how do we negotiate and reach compromise with Saddam and the terrorists?" It's a reasonable question. If force isn't a viable option, what is?
There are no reports that say that, and you know it. However, there are reports that state in very certain terms that Saddam was disarming prior to the US invasion.
That's the point. It was taking him too long to disarm. The original resolution in 1991 gave him something like 2 WEEKS to disarm, AND prove how he disarmed. Obviously, he never did that.
There is so much disinformation being spread that opinion polls show 70% of the American people believe things about Iraq and Saddam which Bush himself (when forced) stated to be untrue.
If, by that statement, you're referring to the State of the Union, you are incorrect. The famous 16 words said that British Intelligent has learned that Saddam tried to get Uranium from Afraica, and as it turns out, he did, and the British STILL stand by that assessment. If you're not referring to that, please explain.
And I'm sure he will be internationally condemned for it again. There is no such thing as a legal regime change to protect your interests.
Then what's a "legal regime change"? Genocide? Apparently trying to kill every Jew in Europe was enough to get rid of Hitler... or was it that he invaded other countries? Would you just let him go forever if he never invaded Poland? At what point would you permit military action?
The whole f*cking UN debate is about the US trying to legalize its regime changes, while in the past the US itself co-founded the UN to avoid exactly this kind of unilateral descisions to topple foreign governments.
Apparently you're buying into the whole disinformation campaign that says that 60+ nations in the world is "unilateral".
My favorite would be looking for Bin Laden but would not be looking for Saddam, since it is very clear (by presidential statement) that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, and the (weapons) experts say he was not stocking up WMD either, but rather was disarming. Get it into your head that Iraq is nothing like Afghanistan. There were valid reasons to invade Afghanistan, but what the coalition is doing in Iraq is simply wrong.
One at a time. First, I'm glad you're with us in Afghanistan and Bin Laden. That tells me that you're not beyond hope, and maybe you're simply not getting the pertinent information regarding Saddam and Iraq. Second, the president has only ever said that we have no clear-cut direct evidence that Saddam was involved with 9/11, but there is more than enough circumstantial evidence to convict him in financing terrorism against the US. Third, even if he was disarming while the inspections were going on, why would he kick them out after 7 or 8 years? If he was doing all he could, he would have nothing to hide (and according to the UN resolution, he shouldn't have tried to hide anything). Fourth, Iraq is, fundamentally, exactly like Afghanistan. They are both harboring terrorists and need to be "cleaned". The only reasons Iraq is being protested, is because certain nations have been proven to have a financial stake in Saddam's regime staying in power (France, Germany, and Russia sold him weapons in the 90's, after the first war, and several other countries had loans out to him, and contracts for oil, etc.).
The way I see it, it's two groups of fundamentalists holding the world hostage. I'm one of the hostages (because if I'm not with you, I'm against you), and I don't like it.
Interesting point, and one I hadn't really thought of. I suppose the reason for it is that, in my view (and I'm simplifying greatly, for reasons of brevity), if you have all the facts and you don't agree that removing Saddam from power is a Good Thing, then you have some interest in seeing the terrorists succeed, at least to a degree, or some interest in keeping Saddam in power. Either way, it's fundamentally anti-US.
You're arguing that guns are more humane killing devices than a knife or a bat.
My point is that anything can be a deadly killing device. If I wanted you dead, and I didn't have a gun, I'm sorry to say that I'd find another way to kill you.
Wrong analogy.
OK, here's a challenge for you, since you're obviously so intelligent when it comes to international law and foreign relations, especially concerning third-world countries that consistently lie and murder. Find me ONE United Nations report that says Iraq does not, and has not, since 1991, had WMD's. If you can't do that, then SHUT UP BECAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. Everything you say is pathetically misinformed, or more accurately, just plain nuts. Nobody EVER argued that Iraq didn't have WMD's. The only argument was what to DO about it. If you can't even acknowledge THAT, then you're completely hopeless, and I hope you have a nice life in your personal fantasy world.
Strangely enough, Gaddaffi is still very much in power today.
And you're the one that says "wrong analogy"? Maybe you didn't get a copy of the memo, but this is a war on terrorism, not just on Iraq or Afghanistan. If Bush thinks Gaddaffi poses enough of a threat to the US, or its interests around the world (most people that agree with you forget this minor part), I'm sure he'll do something about it.
Not that you really know what you're talking about anyway. It's fairly evident you're giving pieces of information to make it seem like you're informed, when you're actually just spinning everything to your advantage. If you're so high and mighty, why don't you tell me what YOU would have done about Saddam? Or, even better, how would YOU find Bin Laden, or would you even try? More relavent question, would your preferred presidential candidate TRY to look for Bin Laden or Saddam?
Sony, on the other hand... the lady at the local game rental store told me what happened when she plugged a PSOne without a converter: *POOF* It stopped working immediately, and black smoke came from it. Pathetic!
Two points. First, it was her own fault that she plugged it into the wrong type of outlet. If you live somewhere weird like that, BUY CONVERTERS FOR EVERY OUTLET IN THE HOUSE AND NEVER TAKE THEM OUT. I did it when none of the outlets had a ground, so you can do it too.
Second, you seem to be amazed that it stopped working when you plugged TWICE the amount of power into it. No shit, Sherlock. Obviously you're not an electrical engineer. Here's a good test. Stick a fork in a 110 outlet, then stick another one in a 220 outlet, and let me know if you feel twice as dead. No offense or anything, but if you fry your hardware because you try to fit plug A into socket B, you deserve not to have the hardware.
Note, however, I'm not arguing a personal position on guns. Just saying I'd much rather face a guy with a sharp or blunt object than a .44
Point taken. May I ask you a serious question though? If I was sworn to kill you, and you couldn't stop me, no matter what you did, would you rather me shoot you in the head, or beat you to death with a baseball bat, or slash and stab at you with a knife?
Well I can think of stuff like the Magic the Gathering tournaments... Never heard of someone pulling a gun there.
Yeah, and until this week, you've never heard of someone pulling a gun at a video game competition either, have you? Besides, I'm fairly willing to bet there's been more video game competitions than Magic the Gathering tournaments.
I mean for christ sake, this is like pulling a gun on someone because Word crashed.
Yeah, that was pretty funny... in South Park the movie... Bill Gates got shot in the head by the military dude...
Because it was the US itself which (rightly) saw the need for a multigovernmental organisation to avoid (large-scale) wars after WWII; and subsequently co-founded the UN. So the UN has authority over the US because the US gave it that authority; not only by founding it but by signing various treaties also.
... *cough* Kosovo *cough* ... *cough* Bosnia *cough* ... *cough* Somalia *cough* . I think you might want to amend your thinking of the whole "sovereign nation" thing to say that a sovereign nation is only sovereign until the UN decides that it's unhealthy for them to do what they want to in their own territory.
Yeah, and I wouldn't have agreed to it 60 years ago either, just like I wouldn't have agreed to the League of Nations (wonderful idea there too). The problem with the UN is that they assume everyone wants the world to be a peaceful, wonderful place, and as 9/11 proved, some people just want to KILL YOU.
Do you have even the slightest idea about international law? What you are saying here is akin to "What if the US government desides to extradite all colored people?"
Yes. That would never happen, would it (*cough* Rwanda *cough*)?
1) Those figures are getting higher and higher. Perhaps it would be wise to wait until the dust settles until we make a judgement about how many people he got killed?
OK, let's do a little math, shall we? It's already been proven (found the bodies) that he murdered 300,000 people over his 35 year reign. Given that most of those deaths actually happened in the last 15 years, we'll use that number. That's 300,000 deaths over 15 years, which comes to 20,000 murders per year, or 1,667 (rounding) murders per month. Since we're discussing the reasoning for ousting him, it's relavent to note that not even 3,000 people have died since the beginning of May... 6 months. So, by my math, we're still 7,000 people ahead.
Oh, and BTW, even if you took the WHOLE TIME he was in power, we're still 1300 people ahead, and that's assuming that 3,000 people died since May 1. Before you ask, I'm not counting the deaths of the Iraqi military because it's not relavent. The relavent figure is the number of civilians murdered over a period of time, NOT the number of military deaths who never would have died if Saddam wasn't so bad in the first place.
2) Iraq is a sovereign nation, just like the US. A nation has no right to mingle in the internal affairs of another sovereign nation. Just as the French can't do a regime change in the US because Bush is a tool, the US can't do regime change in Iraq because Saddam is the devil in person. As long as Saddam and Bush do their stuff on their own territory, another nation can't do anything about it. Simple, isn't it?
Oh, quite simple. *cough* Rwanda *cough*
A bit of circular reasoning here?
No, not really. Iraq never followed the UN's resolutions, over 12 years, and more than 17 resolutions about it... each one basically saying that the UN knew about Saddam's weapons, and wanted him to prove he doesn't have them anymore, and how he destroyed them... never happened. Eventually (thankfully), the US got sick of the UN's mindless, never-ending babbling about how wonderful diplomacy was that they decided to enforce the UN's own resolution without them. Once again, the US has proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it can, and will (given the necessity) drag the rest of the world, kicking and screaming, through the dark times and hard decisions, and make the world a better place overall.
All your references are to racing or FPS games... so that narrows it down a bit. However, don't forget about Call of Duty for the PC... that's a good game. Or Beyond Good and Evil (if it ever comes out) is a good game for the consoles... I can assume it's going to be good for the PC.
You should try the consoles. They might just surprise you at how good they can be.
However, I also agree in part that the failure for that is due to a lack of leadership from the United States.
I hardly think we can blame the downfall of the United Nations on a "lack of leadership from the United States". We might be able to blame it on the United States leadership that puts other priorities above the UN's... or the US leadership that has doesn't blieve the same things you do... but certainly not a "lack" of leadership. Hell, we effectively eliminated one of the biggest dictators in the world thanks to the leadership of the US (right?).
Iraq: a soveriegn body thrown into a state of anarchy by a sudden, violent overthrow of it's psychotic government.
... and like it wasn't violent for the last 30 years or so... even less than it is today, as a matter of fact. Not that you'll ever find the facts because most of the paperwork was burned by Saddam's henchmen. You'll probably find the hundreds of thousands of bodies though. Good luck. Let me know how that works out for ya.
Yeah
Damn, I wish I had some mod points. The parent deserves to be a +5 insightful / informative.