Aileron

I've noticed on TV that some government agency did a study. Apparently, they have found that children less than the height of 4 ft 9 inches should use a carseat. I'm just wondering what they were smoking. There are quite a few adults who are shorter than 4' 9". Should a 40 year old woman be sitting in a carseat when she's driving to pick her kids up from school? These studies annoy me. Why? I'm a math major. These studies are carried out by ppl who have BS in Math and Statistics, and those are the types who get a lot better grades than me. I'm just saying colleges should include common sense abilities when they hand out grades, because at the moment a lot of these ppl are so smart that they are stupid.

No, that's not it. Actually in this case its a case of people !@#$%^&*igning "moderate" to the local median. Basically in the whole wide world you might be moderate but amonst that smaller group you might be on the fringe. Actually this is because the group itself is on the fringe, which usually is the case actually. Usually when groups isolate themselves they are pulled away from the wider whole.

Wait...you forum killers have to pay guild dues? !@#$%^&*, first you are being exclusive, then you charge ppl to stay in. With all that elitist crap you'd think you'd atleast be good but you aren't.

When you post, you get points. Hence...spam You can use points to buy healing items. Green can heal yourself, wheras the others are better used to revive others.

This is a bad joke you know.

Whatever Witchie...we all know the only reason why you are posting is to earn points to buy revives for your dead guildmates.

I'd say the rulers are the group with the most ppl in the top 5.

This forum is gonna explode from all the spamming needed for the new battle system.

keep quoting each other for the !@#$%^&* out of each other lol been there, done that. i win weeeeeeeeeee here we go again sweet

And in other news today it seems that Aileron has come back from the dead in the middle of his own funeral! A crack team of zombie-slayers consisting of Suicide_Run and CandyGirl attacked the abomination, resulting in CandyGirl's brains being eaten. Zombie Aileron remains still at large.

Killed him again.

Middle Finger

Well, I guess since Forum Killers is invite only, those of you who aren't in any guild shouldn't help them, so if you find a dead Forum Killer, don't revive him.

Don't forget Hamas in Palestine. While this is all hypothetical, actually, I'd bet Iraq slowed it down a little. Remember, Hamas, Hezbollah, and most of the militant Shi'ite tribes are merely Iran's lackies, but Iran only has so much money to devote to each one. Iraq caused Iran to start funding the Shi'ites, which means less funding for Hamas and Hezbollah. An organization devoted to taking over the world and controlling it under a world-wide caliphate where rule of law is based upon who can claim to have the closest family history to a man who lived 1500 years ago is inherently unstable. Iran would have caused problems regardless.

Well, their evilness aside, Hezbollah was pretty stupid. The only reason Israel stopped is because the UN asked them to. The only reason the UN asked them to is because the country of Lebanon had a legimate democratic government. Basically, the only thing keeping the Israelis from running the Hezbollah over was that democratic government. For Hezbollah to protest against that national government was stupid and would have been self defeating if it ever had a chance of success. That being said, their mindset was that the ceasefire was a victory for Islam. They thought they had a victory and wanted to build upon that victory by more victories. It wasn't a victory, it was a ceasefire. Israelies decided they already had what they wanted (for Hezbollah to back off a bit) and decided that they really didn't need to go all the way to Beiruit. If anybody won the Israelies did. Besides, it certainly wasn't the Hezbollah rockets that caused them to stop. To be honest, those things did more often than not create pot-holes than actual casualties. But at the end of the day, these terrorists have gotten to the point where they consider any situation in which they aren't completely wiped out a "victory".

"expect the unexpected" is a catch phrase that is not to be taken literally, because it isn't possible.

The point I was trying to make is that we aren't there to save the middle east. We are saving our own future.

But Astro, Bush has never done anything to infringe upon the first amendment. Indeed there are plenty of people excercising their right to free speech and using it to criticise Bush, and other than the NSA wiretapping he's in the clear as far as criminal rights are concerned because the Bill of Rights applies to US citizens and all those "prisoner abuse" things would fall under the Geneva Conventions. It has been a war struck land, and indeed it would take many years for us to create peace even if we were much more ruthless on the subject than we are. What's worse is that Iraq is only a piece of a much larger problem, as virtually the entire Middle East is like that. Historically, most of the smarter empires would just say no to trying to do anything to the area, aside from the Mongols who just had the strategy of just killing everyone strong enough to participate in violence. Indeed, were it not for a second problem messing with Middle Eastern politics would be a very stupid decision. That second problem is globalization. While some say "oil", its really much bigger than that. Communication and Transportation technology is increasing the range of regional conflicts and the development of new weaponry leaves potential for devastation even upon those who do not wish to participate in the fighting. In the future, the world will not have the luxery of standing on the sidelines of regional conflicts. In the future, every nation must be at peace, every conflict settled, and every tyranny toppled, or those little regional wars will bring devestation on the whole Earth. You think the fighting between Sunnis and Shi'ites is bad now? Imagine how bad it will be when both sides get access to nukes and start lobbing them at each other. They are already using the new communications technology to execute pinpoint attacks and using the new transportation technology to bring in scores of weapons and reinforcements in from foreign countries to aid their local regional civil wars. That war has been going on for a millenia and will continue to go on until some outside group steps in and stops them. This war in Iraq is long and bloody, and worse yet is that when we are done with Iraq we are probably in store for three or for more wars just like it. The worst part is though that we can't back down though, because if we did back down and let these regional conflicts continue and these local tyrants rule, then due to technology those conflicts will affect the larger world more and more. We are in the same situation as the lobster in a pot that's slowly boiling. The region outside the pot is painfull while the region inside the pot seems comfortable. However, due to slowly changing cir!@#$%^&*stances it is infact the region outside the pot which is less hazardous. 11______ If Bush is anything, he's a genius. Maybe a little bit of an evil genius, but definately a genius. His supposed stupidity is more of an act than anything. As PoLiX just pointed out, his family coldly and systematically took over several towns, as well as held controll of the federal government for 6 years. The "howdie boy" personality, the misuse of the english language, and all of it is in place so that people think that they are a bunch of simple friendly folk and underestimate them.

Here, I will do the favor of replying to the topic in a serious manner. My four items are: 1) A tackle box 2) A knife 3) A first aid kit 4) A handgun There would be room left, but you said 4 items. If you didn't say four items, I'd bring a sharpener for the knife, a fishing reel, ammo for the gun, and an actual fishing pole with that priority. I don't know if that's cheating or not as those last items are there to service my four and I could probably fit all that in the bag. If its illegal, I could manage with rocks and sticks. By scenario I'm near a fresh water river, so water is no problem. As for shelter, I'd set up camp near the river but not on the bank of the river, ideally in some cliff wall or the like. That is ofcourse, after I check the area for bear activity. Under most military manuals, they assume rescue will come soon and you are better of saving energy than seeking food. However, this scenario is for a year, so I'll need to acquire food on my own. Besides, fishing is a low energy activity and with my skills and the large stupid trout found in the area, I should easily be able to get at very least 10 fish a day when I could comfortably survive on 1. That's why I brought the tackle box along. The knife is for filleting the fish and for carving. It is also made of steel, and can be used to start a fire if I find flint. Otherwise I could start a fire by rubbing sticks together, or simply use the lighter I snuck into my pocket when S!@#$%^&* wasn't looking. The gun is for defense and could be used as a signal, NOT hunting. The first aid kit is for scanning the skies for alien spacecraft. Odds are my in!@#$%^&*ial shelter will be a lean-tu with a nearby campfire. That would not be good enough for the winter, so during my free time I would have to work on building something permanent. However, my "non-free" time would consist of fishing, foraging for bugs, and gathering wood. I'll solve the food storage problem by eating the fish immeadiately. As for winter, the fish will be inactive so fishing won't work. Bugs will also be unavailable. I probably would be forced to hunt at that point, though by now I've probably scouted out the area and hopefully know of atleast one carribou trail I could set a stand off of. Though realistically I'd be SOL in a Canadian winter. A more realistic strategy would be to instead of building a permanent structure, I'd build a raft and float downstream if the river goes south, which unless the Nile was somehow transported to Canada it should. To get rope to tie the logs together, I'd cut the duffle bag into ribbons. I'd probably use this strategy were it not for the fact that the scenario requires that I stay up there for a year.

Though the correct point he made basically involves the fact that Persians are not Arabs. Point being, the Iranians aren't actually blowing themselves up, they've graduated to giving explosives to other fools so that they can blow themselves up. Throughout history Persia has functioned as the brains behind the Arab world. For instance, right now I'm trying to do a project about Arabic contributions to Mathematics, but most of my research sources so far broadened the topic from the Arabic world to the "Muslim world" and then proceeded to cite the work of Persians. Really, there are two sources of Islamic terrorism. There are Arabic/Sunni terrorists such as Al Queda who get their support in the western middle east from the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Persian/Shi'ite terrorists such as Hamas and Hezbollah who get their support from Iran. What that article tries to point out is that these groups don't like each other, and to be honest other than to attack Israel and try to help their lackies to win in Iraq, the Iranian faction hasn't done that much to the west, and that we could withdraw from said fronts and make a truce with that faction. Where that article fails is that while the Arabics don't like the Persians and vice versa, both groups dislike modernization far more than each other. The Arabic fanatics would rather live under a Persian caliphate than have to live under a rational democracy. If both ourselves and the persians focused on the arabs, eventually the arabs would be weakened and would fold into the Persian's ranks. The Persian fanatics would then proceed in their attempts to remake the Abbasid Caliphate, and true democracy in the Middle East would not be possible for a very long time. Our goal is Democracy and Modernization in the Middle East, not peace. We tried to go for peace before, but without democracy, peace can be disrupted by whim of a madman. If our goal was peace, then indeed the shortest path to it would be to let the Iranians take over. However, since our goal is to promote democracy, we must engage both factions equally. Ideally, we want these groups fighting each other while we promote stablization in areas where it can grow. Our problem right now is that we care about the violence that's going on in Iraq when we shouldn't. Iraq has been disasterously successful. If civil war does break out, the Iranians and the Muslim Brotherhood will bankrupt their budget supporting their sides, and when the dust settles we'll move in again in force. Really, we should focus on Afghanistan. That is the reason Bush "stayed the course" for so long. With the way things were before, discompationately, if civil war did not break out, we would win and if civil war did break out we would pull out, watch them duke it out, and move back in again and win. However, Bush's opponants somehow convinced people that this war wasn't fanatics vs. fanatics, and that we for some reason should care when Shi'ite and Sunni kill each other. For a while there was a lull in violence (relatively) because Iran was investing in Hamas and Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood was investing the Somolia, so it didn't seem like they wanted to fight over Iraq for a while. Now the UN has stopped Hezbollah, Hamas is starting to negotiate and Ethiopia helped Somolia kick out the fanatics. So now, the only front for both sides is in Iraq. That is, except that there is an Arab vs. West front in Afghanistan. We should focus on Afghanistan, not worry about Iraq too much, not let Iran get nukes, and if in the future we are presented with an opportunity to take down either the Muslim Brotherhood or Iran we should probably take it.

What does this have to do with religon? And don't blow a gasket 11, California is just being California. In a few months they will realise its a bad idea and double back on it.

No, I haven't seen Al Gore's movie. Infact that might be an example of why global warming has gotten out of control - because environmentalism is always championed by malcontents with a political axe to grind. If I recall that's why Kyoto fell apart...certain nations attempted to use it as a way to put sanctions on the economies of other nations. Last week I wrote a great post on this topic only to have it erased as I was posting it by my "fascist" apartment network updating itself. I'll have to rewrite it here. The problem with the environmentalists is that they are absolutists who refuse to compromise. Instead they make enemies of business and government, and they try to make up for it by making demands which they simply lack the political power to back up. They usually like to form a crowd and demonstrate from place to place, always walking up to and sometimes crossing the line between protesting and rioting. If they did a cool objective look at their resources, they would realise that if they had everyone in that crowd donate a dollar, they could pool enough money to hire a lobbyist who would have a heck of a lot more effect than the protest. But worse than that is their inability to compromise. For example, with electricity. Supposing we assume that the location specific plants (hydroelectric, geothermal, wind, etc.) have all been built and do not meet requirements, all that remains is fossil fuels, nuclear, and solar. For decades environmentalists have championed solar solar and only solar. However, as of yet our energy needs have outgrown the development of solar technology. However since cost-effective solar technology hasn't been developed yet, energy companies have decided to simply ignore the environmentalists and build fossil fuel plants, which is the worst thing in terms of emissions (and ironically the worst type of plant in terms of radiation leakage as well). If the environmentalists decided to compromise their desire to reduce air pollution with the public need for electricity in the here and now rather than some hypothetical future when we might have some perfect energy source, they would have championed nuclear, energy companies would have (under sufficient pressure) built nuclear, and we would be using a middle-of-the-road alternative and would have less carbon-monoxide in the air. Another example is my college town's light pollution. This affects me because I like looking at the stars once in a while. Worse yet is a used car lot next door that's running a !@#$%^&* spotlight. I don't get it because nobody buys cars at 8:00 at night!!! Furthermore the only person who is going to be attracted by that !@#$%^&* spotlight is Batman, and his car is nicer than anything they have in that lot. I'm sure environmentalists have tried to create a city wide ordinance against any and all light pollution and failed, though if they tried to compromise and propose and ordinance against the spotlights in used car lots I'm sure it would pass The other problem is they don't form the alliances they should. For example, hunters. Hunters have a huge reason to preserve the environment. More forests and cleaner forests mean better hunting. I grew up in an area affected by urban sprawl, and the best places to find forests are state game lands, which have the support and more importantly funding to resist development. If environmentalists made a tactical alliance with, say the NRA, they would get massive support from both sides of the aisle. Even, !@#$%^&* Cheney, a man so right-wing that even I don't like him would suddenly be torn on the issue. With that much support, they could have passed any bill they wanted! However, again environmentalists must get their absolute, and in their opinion is if the forests are to be preserved then every stupid little animal in the forest must remain unharmed by anything. (As if animals didn't kill and eat each other before mankind showed up.) Again, deer don't take in carbon dioxide, trees do. The environmentalists refusal to compromise means that both hunters and environmentalists are losing forests and urban sprawl goes unchecked. If the environmentalists had compromised, there would be less CO2 in the air. But that's what you get when you let your leadership be a bunch of political malcontents like Al Gore. He hated his loss in 2000 and now his career is devoted to making his opponants "pay". Such at!@#$%^&*ides never bring progress and if it were possible environmentalists should have made someone else their spokesperson, even if the other alternative isn't as famous. You can build up a person's fame just by putting his or her face on camera a lot, but if your spokesman has a bad at!@#$%^&*ude, there is nothing you can do about it.

I just thought it was a re!@#$%^&*ed commercial. They should bring back the one where the guy with the guitar sang that country song jingle. THAT was funny, and that !@#$%^&* song has the potential to get stuck in someone's head.

Okay, but you didn't need to bump up a dead topic.

Hey, I don't know which group said it and I agree with you...I just remember one environmentalist group did make the claim that global warming caused the tsumnami - obviously the scientists were too smart to do that. I'm not saying it isn't a problem, and we probably should plant more trees because doing so won't hurt anyone's economy. I'm just saying that most of the oxygen we breathe infact comes from plankton in the ocean, and that as CO2 levels start to rise, that plankton will reproduce faster because they will have more chemical resources avaiable to them. This won't be enough to reduce greenhouse gases or even to stop the rise, but it will slow the buildup down. Over the very long term plantlife would evolve to gorge on CO2 and restore the balance, though we likely don't want it to come to that. To be honest, I just hate it when people make quotes such as Kofi Annan's : "Global Warming is as much a threat to the world today as Weapons of M!@#$%^&* Destruction." I mean, one can raise the temperature 4 degrees per century, the other can raise the temperature 4 million degrees in a fraction of a second.