Hell, we even joke about some of our raid wipes, and my guild has cleared everything up to and including BWL, with our eyes on AQ40 and Naxx. On our instance runs, we even laugh when somebody gets feared into the rest of the room, in that first big room in Scholo with all the ghosts and casters. Sure, we get pissed sometimes too, but there's a lot of laughter.
As someone in the military, I can tell you for sure that appearance and impression matters MUCH more then function or realism. It's all about how it looks or how it sounds, not what it does or how well it does it. There's a reason our fighter planes aren't called the Kitty or the Puppy. Heh heh, the F-22 Puppy, that'd be funny.
The military-grade case actually makes sense for people like me who keep letting their mp3 player fall on the floor, but able to withstand a mortar shell explosion might be overkill.
Not really overkill. You see, the Ipod is incredibly popular among military troops deployed to Iraq. Of course, you're not listening while you're out on patrol, but during your off time you see a lot of troops walking around or working out with them. Or waiting for a flight in, or a flight out, and so on. I imagine quite a few servicemembers would be interested in a hardened mp3 player.
I do that all the time to porn sites. If Ahnolds people can't figure out the relatively simply ways to protect against that, it's not anybody else's fault. If they have it on the internet and it's not protected by any sort of security, it's fair game.
There's a difference between taking charge of the matter from a remote location and FUCKING PARTYING with your political buddies at a gorram birthday party, and playing guitar for seniors! Keeping separate I can understand, but he was showing absolutely no leadership or even tact in the matter.
Come on, if the defense budget was cut would it be a "covert operation to weaken our national defense"?
According to the Republicans I've heard, that's what they accuse Clinton of having done when he was scaling back on the military after the end of the Cold War. Of course, at the time he had the support of the Republicans in Congress, but now it's considered a traitoristic action that was done to weaken our military and let the terrorists win. Or something.
Residents of Oceania must endure Two Minutes Hate each day; this is a major improvement over today's 24-hour cable news channels.
Yeah, FOX News would go out of business if they were limited to only two minutes of hate every day. They'd barely have time for Eurasia, much less the communistic liberal threat.
Think he hasn't done genocide yet? Ask how many civilians have died in Iraq. When somebody asked Bush that, he guessed and then laughed. What a sociopath.
Second, this is much ado about nothing. Bush closed the doors, which is his perogative as the Executive. Lobby your congressman to inject a few lines into a bill that requires they be open by law. Suddenly, the problem of Executive fiat in this situation is gone. It's the wonder of our republican form of government. The President's authority in this matter is limited to what Congress will grant him. Since he is presently granted fiat in closing the libraries, he closes them. Of course, there are those whose ideological inclinations support my.sig line who will balk that this would not work.
Veto and/or a signing statement. The President's got an Easy button.
I absolutely agree, and I also think you will see one or two fast food chains, probably the somewhat second string ones, that will pride themselves and advertise that they still have food prepared by humans. But yes, McDonalds, Burger King, and probably Taco Bell, and maybe others, I could definitely see as being fully automated. It's not a complicated process.
However, there are some differences here to other addictions. There is no physical addiction, and hardly any psychological one. You can put it down, and other than mild obsession (what's going on in Azeroth?), it has no ill effects. Hell, you can discontinue your account, and they keep all of your character info, so you can completely unplug, and return at some point in the future when you're interested again, much like an offline game. There's also a limit - you may play a lot to reach level 60, but then you do stop. Sure, you can join raids, get gear, but the drive to constantly improve falls away (other games, like Disgaea, are far, far worse in this regard).
Agreed. I'm in the military, so I've frequently had to take long multi-month breaks from the game with no ill effects. I had a level 60 warrior that I completely stopped playing because I don't like being an end game tank. I play a mage now because I like it. I've brought a rogue up to 40, and will probably get back to that later on too.
I've completely unplugged a couple times when I've lost interest, and I'm sure I will again in the future, and haven't had any trouble.
I joined a guild that was already running around in a lot of their tier 1-3 stuff. I'm behind them all now, but since they're already there, I don't have too much pressure to catch up. Nobody expects me to be geared like the guild leader or some of the officers right away, and most nights I'm entertaining myself by taking lower level guild members through low-level instances for gear. Lots of fun.
Movie ticket: 1.5-2 hrs of entertainment.
Book: 6-10 hrs of entertainment
WoW monthly subscription: 100 hrs of entertainment.
WoW is more economical. Even if all you're doing is fishing in Feralas, or PvPing in AV, WoW is cheaper.
Crazy hell, I'd do it, there's no reason for them to know that stuff. Wait till everyone goes home, then drill a big hole through the disk drives. Or set up a nice big electromagnet.
I'm only an enthusiast! Woohoo!
I'm not addicted. Every so often I deliberately take a night off to relax, I work out five times a week, have a job in the military, newly and happily married, all that fun stuff. My wife plays, significantly more casually then me, and it's a way to keep in touch when we're apart. I also keep in touch with old friend I made IRL a few years ago because we all play on the same server now.
I'm not addicted, but I am very involved in it, and I take it a bit more seriously than I probably should. I want to have at least one character with bitching gear for when the expansion comes out, and having just hit 60 on that character I am very focused on being the best player I can be for instances and raids. I make it a point to know my character inside and out, and to know the characters others play, so I can maximize my contribution. I hate raiding or running with overly casual types, because far too often (though not in the case of my wife, she understands her class very well) casual gamer = idiot gamer. Priests are the worst for this. So I am an asshole, I don't waste time in groups that clearly have no idea what they're doing, and I will leave a group after a couple wipes to cut down on my repair bill. I figure hey, they can improve on their own time and get back to me after they learn to play.
In short, I'm not addicted, but I am an enthusiast, and I do take it seriously. On this character at least. My alts I let myself have a little more fun on, and I have fun with my main on instance farming runs.
COLUMBUS - The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.
O'Dell attended a strategy pow-wow with wealthy Bush benefactors - known as Rangers and Pioneers - at the president's Crawford, Texas, ranch earlier this month. The next week, he penned invitations to a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser to benefit the Ohio Republican Party's federal campaign fund - partially benefiting Bush - at his mansion in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington.
The letter went out the day before Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, also a Republican, was set to qualify Diebold as one of three firms eligible to sell upgraded electronic voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election.
Blackwell's announcement is still in limbo because of a court challenge over the fairness of the selection process by a disqualified bidder, Sequoia Voting Systems.
In his invitation letter, O'Dell asked guests to consider donating or raising up to $10,000 each for the federal account that the state GOP will use to help Bush and other federal candidates - money that legislative Democratic leaders charged could come back to benefit Blackwell.
They urged Blackwell to remove Diebold from the field of voting-machine companies eligible to sell to Ohio counties.
This is the second such request in as many months. State Sen. Jeff Jacobson, a Dayton-area Republican, asked Blackwell in July to disqualify Diebold after security concerns arose over its equipment.
"Ordinary Ohioans may infer that Blackwell's office is looking past Diebold's security issues because its CEO is seeking $10,000 donations for Blackwell's party - donations that could be made with statewide elected officials right there in the same room," said Senate Democratic Leader Greg DiDonato.
Diebold spokeswoman Michelle Griggy said O'Dell - who was unavailable to comment personally - has held fund-raisers in his home for many causes, including the Columbus Zoo, Op era Columbus, Catholic Social Services and Ohio State University.
Ohio GOP spokesman Jason Mauk said the party approached O'Dell about hosting the event at his home, the historic Cotswold Manor, and not the other way around. Mauk said that under federal campaign finance rules, the party cannot use any money from its federal account for state- level candidates.
"To think that Diebold is somehow tainted because they have a couple folks on their board who support the president is just unfair," Mauk said.
Griggy said in an e-mail statement that Diebold could not comment on the political contributions of individual company employees.
Blackwell said Diebold is not the only company with political connections - noting that lobbyists for voting-machine makers read like a who's who of Columbus' powerful and politically connected.
"Let me put it to you this way: If there was one person uniquely involved in the political process, that might be troubling," he said. "But there's no one that hasn't used every legitimate avenue and bit of leverage that they could legally use to get their product looked at. Believe me, if there is a political lever to be pulled, all of them have pulled it."
Blackwell said he stands by the process used for selecting voting machine vendors as fair, thorough and impartial.
As of yesterday, however, that determination lay with Ohio Court of Claims Judge Fred Shoemaker.
COLUMBUS - The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.
O'Dell attended a strategy pow-wow with wealthy Bush benefactors - known as Rangers and Pioneers - at the president's Crawford, Texas, ranch earlier this month. The next week, he penned invitations to a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser to benefit the Ohio Republican Party's federal campaign fund - partially benefiting Bush - at his mansion in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington.
The letter went out the day before Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, also a Republican, was set to qualify Diebold as one of three firms eligible to sell "upgraded" electronic voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election.
Blackwell's announcement is still in limbo because of a court challenge over the fairness of the selection process by a disqualified bidder, Sequoia Voting Systems.
In his invitation letter, O'Dell asked guests to consider donating or raising up to $10,000 each for the federal account that the state GOP will use to help Bush and other federal candidates - money that legislative Democratic leaders charged could come back to benefit Blackwell.
They urged Blackwell to remove Diebold from the field of voting-machine companies eligible to sell to Ohio counties.
This is the second such request in as many months. State Sen. Jeff Jacobson, a Dayton-area Republican, asked Blackwell in July to disqualify Diebold after security concerns arose over its equipment.
"Ordinary Ohioans may infer that Blackwell's office is looking past Diebold's security issues because its CEO is seeking $10,000 donations for Blackwell's party - donations that could be made with statewide elected officials right there in the same room," said Senate Democratic Leader Greg DiDonato.
Diebold spokeswoman Michelle Griggy said O'Dell - who was unavailable to comment personally - has held fund-raisers in his home for many causes, including the Columbus Zoo, Op era Columbus, Catholic Social Services and Ohio State University.
Ohio GOP spokesman Jason Mauk said the party approached O'Dell about hosting the event at his home, the historic Cotswold Manor, and not the other way around. Mauk said that under federal campaign finance rules, the party cannot use any money from its federal account for state- level candidates.
"To think that Diebold is somehow tainted because they have a couple folks on their board who support the president is just unfair," Mauk said.
Griggy said in an e-mail statement that Diebold could not comment on the political contributions of individual company employees.
Blackwell said Diebold is not the only company with political connections - noting that lobbyists for voting-machine makers read like a who's who of Columbus' powerful and politically connected.
"Let me put it to you this way: If there was one person uniquely involved in the political process, that might be troubling," he said. "But there's no one that hasn't used every legitimate avenue and bit of leverage that they could legally use to get their product looked at. Believe me, if there is a political lever to be pulled, all of them have pulled it."
Blackwell said he stands by the process used for selecting voting machine vendors as fair, thorough and impartial.
As of yesterday, however, that determination lay with Ohio Court of Claims Judge
Diebold has actually specifically refused to provide a paper trail. Given that they make ATMs, it shouldn't be that hard for them to learn how to print a receipt.
I'm sure it will be readily available in a filing cabinet in City Hall under a sign down in the basement with the stairs missing behind the locked door with "Beware of the Tiger" written on it.
"Beware of the Leopard", Mr Dent /nitpick
Agreed on the rest.
"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."
Well what the hell do you expect us Democrats to do? We don't have a majority in the House or Senate, the Republicans haven't and won't listen to us, and any attempt to stop Republican policies from being steamrolled through Congress gets blasted as being obstructionist. There is NOT a whole hell of a lot you can do when you're not in control of any of the three branches of the government, it's like getting pissed off at somebody for not trying to destroy a tank with an M-16.
I don't think that we'd be in a "War on Terror", or a "Long War", or a "Global World War" (I've recently heard a 3-star general refer to it by all those terms over the course of an hour speech), if it wasn't for the Republicans being in power. It is impossible to wipe out terrorism completely, due significantly to the fact that our methods of fighting terrorism are just as likely to create new terrorists.
If the Republican party kicked out the war profiteers, religious wackos, and nanny-state privacy encroachers, I'd be a lot more supportive of them. Of course, if they did that, they'd be Democrats. I don't see the Republicans as being anything other then God, Guns, and Gays for a while, largely because the Christian Far Right is such an easy and viciously fervent voter base to pander to. They believe in overbreeding, so you know you've got a big crop of future voters down the road, and they believe it's a holy duty to get out and vote for God's candidates, as opposed to the Democratic voting base, who are lucky if they find a polling place in biking distance.
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Hell, we even joke about some of our raid wipes, and my guild has cleared everything up to and including BWL, with our eyes on AQ40 and Naxx. On our instance runs, we even laugh when somebody gets feared into the rest of the room, in that first big room in Scholo with all the ghosts and casters. Sure, we get pissed sometimes too, but there's a lot of laughter.
As someone in the military, I can tell you for sure that appearance and impression matters MUCH more then function or realism. It's all about how it looks or how it sounds, not what it does or how well it does it. There's a reason our fighter planes aren't called the Kitty or the Puppy. Heh heh, the F-22 Puppy, that'd be funny.
Not really overkill. You see, the Ipod is incredibly popular among military troops deployed to Iraq. Of course, you're not listening while you're out on patrol, but during your off time you see a lot of troops walking around or working out with them. Or waiting for a flight in, or a flight out, and so on. I imagine quite a few servicemembers would be interested in a hardened mp3 player.
I do that all the time to porn sites. If Ahnolds people can't figure out the relatively simply ways to protect against that, it's not anybody else's fault. If they have it on the internet and it's not protected by any sort of security, it's fair game.
There's a difference between taking charge of the matter from a remote location and FUCKING PARTYING with your political buddies at a gorram birthday party, and playing guitar for seniors! Keeping separate I can understand, but he was showing absolutely no leadership or even tact in the matter.
Come on, if the defense budget was cut would it be a "covert operation to weaken our national defense"?
According to the Republicans I've heard, that's what they accuse Clinton of having done when he was scaling back on the military after the end of the Cold War. Of course, at the time he had the support of the Republicans in Congress, but now it's considered a traitoristic action that was done to weaken our military and let the terrorists win. Or something.
Yeah, FOX News would go out of business if they were limited to only two minutes of hate every day. They'd barely have time for Eurasia, much less the communistic liberal threat.
Think he hasn't done genocide yet? Ask how many civilians have died in Iraq. When somebody asked Bush that, he guessed and then laughed. What a sociopath.
The levee system was in disrepair because the federal funding for upkeep had been slashed to pay for the war in Iraq.
The Louisiana National Guard were all deployed to Iraq, stationed at Camp Liberty in Baghdad, while Katrina was ravaging the area.
Bush is the commander in chief and the Army Corps of Engineer fall under him.
Responsibility is his.
A 30 day vacation while a major city drowns comes to mind. He was also eating cake and playing guitar in Arizona while New Orleans drowned.
Veto and/or a signing statement. The President's got an Easy button.
I absolutely agree, and I also think you will see one or two fast food chains, probably the somewhat second string ones, that will pride themselves and advertise that they still have food prepared by humans. But yes, McDonalds, Burger King, and probably Taco Bell, and maybe others, I could definitely see as being fully automated. It's not a complicated process.
Agreed. I'm in the military, so I've frequently had to take long multi-month breaks from the game with no ill effects. I had a level 60 warrior that I completely stopped playing because I don't like being an end game tank. I play a mage now because I like it. I've brought a rogue up to 40, and will probably get back to that later on too.
I've completely unplugged a couple times when I've lost interest, and I'm sure I will again in the future, and haven't had any trouble.
I joined a guild that was already running around in a lot of their tier 1-3 stuff. I'm behind them all now, but since they're already there, I don't have too much pressure to catch up. Nobody expects me to be geared like the guild leader or some of the officers right away, and most nights I'm entertaining myself by taking lower level guild members through low-level instances for gear. Lots of fun.
Movie ticket: 1.5-2 hrs of entertainment. Book: 6-10 hrs of entertainment WoW monthly subscription: 100 hrs of entertainment. WoW is more economical. Even if all you're doing is fishing in Feralas, or PvPing in AV, WoW is cheaper.
Crazy hell, I'd do it, there's no reason for them to know that stuff. Wait till everyone goes home, then drill a big hole through the disk drives. Or set up a nice big electromagnet.
Any other ideas?
I'm only an enthusiast! Woohoo! I'm not addicted. Every so often I deliberately take a night off to relax, I work out five times a week, have a job in the military, newly and happily married, all that fun stuff. My wife plays, significantly more casually then me, and it's a way to keep in touch when we're apart. I also keep in touch with old friend I made IRL a few years ago because we all play on the same server now. I'm not addicted, but I am very involved in it, and I take it a bit more seriously than I probably should. I want to have at least one character with bitching gear for when the expansion comes out, and having just hit 60 on that character I am very focused on being the best player I can be for instances and raids. I make it a point to know my character inside and out, and to know the characters others play, so I can maximize my contribution. I hate raiding or running with overly casual types, because far too often (though not in the case of my wife, she understands her class very well) casual gamer = idiot gamer. Priests are the worst for this. So I am an asshole, I don't waste time in groups that clearly have no idea what they're doing, and I will leave a group after a couple wipes to cut down on my repair bill. I figure hey, they can improve on their own time and get back to me after they learn to play. In short, I'm not addicted, but I am an enthusiast, and I do take it seriously. On this character at least. My alts I let myself have a little more fun on, and I have fun with my main on instance farming runs.
"Somebody should tell the administration that 1984 is a warning and not a guidebook" was my internet signature for a long time.
Diebold has actually specifically refused to provide a paper trail. Given that they make ATMs, it shouldn't be that hard for them to learn how to print a receipt.
"Beware of the Leopard", Mr Dent
/nitpick
Agreed on the rest.
"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."
Well what the hell do you expect us Democrats to do? We don't have a majority in the House or Senate, the Republicans haven't and won't listen to us, and any attempt to stop Republican policies from being steamrolled through Congress gets blasted as being obstructionist. There is NOT a whole hell of a lot you can do when you're not in control of any of the three branches of the government, it's like getting pissed off at somebody for not trying to destroy a tank with an M-16.
I don't think that we'd be in a "War on Terror", or a "Long War", or a "Global World War" (I've recently heard a 3-star general refer to it by all those terms over the course of an hour speech), if it wasn't for the Republicans being in power. It is impossible to wipe out terrorism completely, due significantly to the fact that our methods of fighting terrorism are just as likely to create new terrorists.
If the Republican party kicked out the war profiteers, religious wackos, and nanny-state privacy encroachers, I'd be a lot more supportive of them. Of course, if they did that, they'd be Democrats. I don't see the Republicans as being anything other then God, Guns, and Gays for a while, largely because the Christian Far Right is such an easy and viciously fervent voter base to pander to. They believe in overbreeding, so you know you've got a big crop of future voters down the road, and they believe it's a holy duty to get out and vote for God's candidates, as opposed to the Democratic voting base, who are lucky if they find a polling place in biking distance.
And all the people voting doesn't make as much of a difference as who is counting the votes.