Aileron

Hackysack, insulting spin is unnecessary. He simply doesn't know any better. He's not used to logical rational discussion, so be patient. He is sort of a fish out of water in this forum, so expect that it will take time before he can breath air. And he is learning. His first post used big and colored letters with lots of pictures. He learned that this doesn't help and only brings insult upon himself. Thus, his last post didn't contain any of that. Many of us have thrown the communist or facist label around once in a while. I'm pretty sure I myself called Kerry a communist once or twice. spin merely uses it too often. He uses the fascist label merely because he hasn't learned how to use anything better yet. In the other topic he had a possible arguement going about how many times political discussion is allowed in pub chats, and before that arguement was picked apart, he stuck with it, because he realised it was a stronger arguement. As far as I can see, the only thing he lacks is training and discipline, and the only way he is going to get it is if we allow him to speak but be stern about correcting his mistakes. Okay, back to spin's post: First off, insulting me is going to get you knowhere. I am too used to it by now and my skin is very thick. Also, this is over the internet, so therefore you don't know me and can't back up your statement. Infact, I am a loner and currently living alone and therefore it is impossible for me not to think for myself...there is nobody I know who could possibly be thinking for me. I am infact very self motivated and sometimes impose my will on others as pointed out by Sever and Monte in another topic. While I am a math major, I have taken a variety of history courses as part of a general education requirement, as well as a big time fan of the history channel and know history from the stone age until now. Facism is something easy for me to recall. Do you know about the Ottomans, the Holy Roman Empire, the Abbasid Caliphs, the Tylonians, the Moors, or the Mongols? Each left lessons to be learned, and my opinion comes from many experiences throughout history, not just the idiots who tried to take over the world in WWII, who were frankly losers. I think domestically the Democrats are beginning to turn into the Ottomans. They are beginning to approach minority group with a sort of unconditional love and practically granting each group autonomy...this is a bad thing when taken too far, because you drive everyone apart and your country spilts itself at the seams. Their foreign policy isn't stable enough to be compaired with a historical case, probably a side effect of them being so far out of the seat of power at the moment. Domestically, the Republicans are showing a low-grade version of the Spanish during the time before, during, and after the Moor expulsion. Their task is tricky, because expelling the Moors from Spain was a good thing, but the Inquisition that happened afterwards was not. The republicans have to play a game of chicken, being sure to keep this ball going untill we win the War on Terror and stop it just afterwards. Foreign Policy wise, Bush isn't like any former group...which is encouraging as well as disturbing. (on one hand we aren't going to repeat any of history's mistakes, on the other that leaves the potential to make new ones.) The War on Terror is really centered around Saudi Arabia. The country is ruled by a monarchy. Like all monarchies (with real political power...the Queen of England does not count), it is weak by today's standards. It needs political support. Half that support comes from the wealth they get from selling oil to the US, and the other half they get from the local muslim clerics, many of which are Wahhabists. Basically, they are playing both sides. An outright invasion is uncalled for...after all, half of them support us and they are technicall our ally. Who knows how many of our other allies would react to a betrayal? What the overall goal in Saudi Arabia is to get them to take power away from the clerics and into a democratic parliament (which isn't going to try to kill us with fanatic devotion). We could try asking really really nice, but that isn't going to work. We could try sending !@#$%^&*!@#$%^&*ins after the clerics, but that's against American policy. We could try financial persuasion, but they are already getting rich enough off of us as it is. The only way to win the War on Terror is to get the people of Saudi Arabia to demand democracy. Thus, we need them to learn what democracy is. The middle eastern media don't exactly portray the western democracies in a kind manner. The only democracy they had was Iraq, and that didn't function properly - it was democratic in name only. We could have made more effort into Afghanistan's democracy, but face it...its a farming country that isn't going to turn anyone's heads. Thus we arrive at Iraq. Economically its a keystone of the middle east...Baghdad is second only to Istanbul, and the history of prosperous nations here makes it encouraging. It was ruled by an evil SOB, so getting support to take him down shouldn't have been difficult. It was a grade A target, and Hussein knew this...he figured the US couldn't move without UN support (or figured it had better chances of success than fighting the US military head on). I guess that's why he got rid of the WMDs, but he had leave the implication that he still had the WMDs or the Kurds would have gotten together and run him over like an Armidillo on the freeway. In hindsight, what Bush should have done is secretly gotten the Kurds of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran together and given them mad equipment (not guns and rocket launchers...tanks and aircraft) and training...its my lesson you should learn from the Mongols..."don't underestimate a bunch of hicks in the boondocks who have been fighting all their life, have been treated like second class citizens for most of their history, and have access to good weaponry" (that's why I don't make jokes about West Virginians). Then he should have exposed the fact that Iraq had no WMDs...and watched as the Kurds just ran Iraq over. As I said though, this is in perfect hindsight...Bush didn't know Hussein had no WMDs at that time...if he did he would have dropped them on the Kurds and it would have been a very very ugly ordeal. He had to work with the more probable !@#$%^&*umption. (Dictators of countries running about half their potential aren't usually intelligent enough to dispose of weapons when it served their best interests.) My advice to spin as well as the democrats in general: stop underestimating Bush. First off, he's a lot stronger and smarter than his father, though he may not appear as such on first glance. Secondly, he's got the democrats nailed into the coffin and has about four feet of the hole dug. If the democrats don't wake up soon they may very well be a dead party...they need to realise that Bush is very smart and a formidable opponant, and also come up with policies of their own rather than just attacking republican ideas.

Good point...I dunno.

You wouldn't need that option...if people wanted 2d regular they could run regular Continuum.

I spent some time working on a new zone idea. The map is done. The settings are SVS (pure SVS, not quasi SVS, or "faster" SVS) and would require about five minutes of tinkering. I'm planning on putting a few .lvzs in, and that is not done, but I need to do one thing at a time. What I need is a bot programmer. I'd be willing to grant 1/3rd ownership of the zone (1/3 for you, 1/3 for me, 1/3 for the guy who ends up running the day to day operations)...if you make the bots, you would be in instant zone owner if you want. As you can see by the length of this post, it would be a very complicated bot to make. I'm pretty sure this zone will be able to find a niche in the community, so the reward will hopefully be worth it. Yes, I'm asking an experienced bot programmer to come help me with my newbie zone idea...to all those in the peanut gallery and who are going to say negative comments, keep in mind that I'm not stupid, just desperate. I'd learn to do this myself, but though I have the C++ knowledge, I don't have any compiler. The zone will require three bots. It requires one master bot, a standard pub bot for lag, messages, basic rule enforcement, etc. and a third much more complicated bot named "Tibep XSJQQFS". Perhaps it would help if I explained the zone idea so you can understand where the third bot comes in...the zone is named Bounty Hunter. The setting is a large spacestation controlled by the evil bot Tibep XSJQQFS. The map has just one large base in the center with a flag spawn area in the exact center and two powerball goals just north of and south of the center with a complicated array of corridors, wide open rooms, and four entrances two east and two west. Players are set up in one team. No, that isn't a typo. Players will be allowed to set themselves on private freqs, and it is !@#$%^&*umed that enough people will be on private freq in order to compete with the one and only public freq. Basically, the goal of people on the private freqs is to create as much havok as possible and get the biggest bounty on their heads as they can. They get bounties by commiting various "crimes". The goal of the players on the main freq (freq 0) is to hunt the people with big bounties, as well as to defend the central base and in general try to keep order. Crimes: stealing a flag smuggling a powerball into the base kidnapping Tibep's pet bunny Fluffy "hacking" the bot blowing up the spacestation Back to what the bot does: First off, its going to sit in spec not in the traditional spectator freq, but on freq 0. Every minute, it will give a "speech" - a random propaganda style arena message about how great it is and prize everyone on freq 0 a gun upgrade and a rocket. Every time a private freq player commits a "crime" the bot will add a certain number of points to that players bounty. I'd really like the amount of bounty added to be a function proportional to the current zone population and inversly proportional to the type of crime committed (crimes that occur less often get higher bounties). The bot should keep track of every player not on freq 0 that has a 1000+ bounty. Upon reaching a bounty greater than 1000, it should give a message " has been blacklisted!". Blacklisted players will not be allowed to switch freqs or ships (their bounty will be maintained until somebody kills them). When a freq 0 player kills a blacklisted player, his ship will be prized a max out. The top50 bounties historically should be stored on a list as well as the top50 hunters (the sum of all the bounties of all of a pilot's kills before he dies). Flagging: The bot should be like the ctf bots in that if a flag ever winds up dropped or being held by a freq 0 player, it would be redeposited in the center. A freq 0 player who kills a flagger will have to have his ship reset. The bot should store his current bounty, reset his ship, reset the bounty to its former value, and max out his ship as a reward for retrieving the flag. Bounty for flag stealing would be added upon the player taking a flag (he will only be able to pick up one), and upon every minute he continues to hold it. Balling: Bounty should be added to a player every time he scores a goal. Kidnapping Fluffy: This would essentially be a bountywabbit game. "hacking" the bot: Upon activation, the bot should generate 3 random 1 digit numbers (I'll label them a, b, and c). It then will use these numbers to form a quadratic function: a x^2 + b x + c. It will then compute the value of this function at x = 1, 2, 3, & 4. The player wishing to hack the bot will have the commands !getcode, !givecode, !givespeech when a player types !getcode: The bot will first check if the player is not on freq 0 and within 50 tile radius from the center. Then, the bot will give the values of the function at x = 1,2,3 Then, the bot will send a team message " is trying to hack me!!!" then, the player has to use the first three values to guess the fourth...then when a player types !givecode it will check if the player is still not on freq 0 and within the 50 tile radius The bot will check if that number is correct...if so it will message the player to use a !givespeech command. It will also generate a new quadratic function. when a player types !givespeech the bot checks frequency and radius upon the next "speech", the bot will instead play the player's message and not give the prizes. as an added bonus, if the player was holding a flag when the command was given, everyone on freq 0 is prized an engine shutdown. If the player was holding a powerball, everyone on freq 0 is prized an energy drain. example story: Suppose I was holding a ball while on freq 2. I decide to hack the bot so I go to the center. The bot's current random variables are a = 1, b = 2, c = 3. I close within 50 tiles of the center and type "!getcode" The bot pms me "5 11 18" The bot then sends a freq 0 team message "Aileron is trying to hack me!!!" A member of freq 0 sees the warning and comes after me before I can finish the code. I quickly dispatch him, but the battle forced me to move outside the 50 tile radius. I type "!givecode 27" the bot pms me "You are outside the maximum distance from the center" I move close to the center and try again. This time though I make a typo and type "!givecode 26" the bot pms me "That code is not correct. Access denied" I then type "!givecode 27" the bot pms "Access Granted...use !givespeech to give the next speech." I type !givespeech Aileron pwns you all! The bot then randomizes another quadratic function. Upon the next speech time, the bot gives the arena message "Aileron pwns you all!" instead of the usual. The bot then prizes everyone on freq 0 an energy drain. Blowing up the Spacestation: (Technically this will be labeled as an "energy vent", because the station obviously will not actually blow up.) This basically occurs when somebody scores a powerball goal while all five flags are being held. When the score is done, the bot notes who made the goal and also note which five guys are holding the flags. When this is done, the bot gives an arena wide warning message. An .lvz image of a timer will go up. Another .lvz of little background explosions will be displayed on the screen of everyone within 250 tiles of the center. The bot will start a 45 second countdown, and start playing the music. During this time all doors will remain open. The bot will then get in a ship, prize itself anti, activate the anti, *ufo itself, and force attach itself to the guy who scored the goal, so that its anti prevents him from simply warping out. Ideally, it will also do the anti-bot in reverse and force everyone in the center to turn their anti-warp ON (I'm not quite sure this can be done.) When the timer is up, the bot godmodes everyone within 250 tiles of the center. A bright white light .lvz is displayed on everone's screen. The bot should give an arena message " died in the energy vent." for everyone who was godmoded. Of the powerball scorer and the five flag holders, a huge bounty would be put on each of their heads if they have not died between this point and when the powerball was scored. Personality: All the messages displayed by the bot should have a personality...kinda a cross between a power-tripping nooblet and Prince John from Disney's cartoon version of Robin Hood. ("No no no noooo....that evil evil fiend stole my precious flag! 500 points to whoever kills him!") Players should love to hate this bot, so as to encourage veterans to switch to private freqs despite being outnumbered and outgunned. It should be very egotistical, and maybe if you have the time make it get in "arguements" with the pub bot.

This idea may not be as flawed as it seems...it probably won't work...but it doesn't cost anything to ask and you could save a lot of time. Still, getting the code from Prittk would be easier....just track down his IP address, find out where he lives, get a posse together and meet him with baseball bats on his way home from work. I've seen a lot of requests for coders...any ideas on what you will be doing? If you don't I have a suggestion. I think you could make this a lot easier if you take the path of least resistance. Remember the CNL project. It was a dismal failure programming wise, BUT it produced 3D rendered versions of all the ships. If we can't make a 3D game, why don't we attempt a 2 1/2D game? Anyone remember the origional Super Mariokart? Basically, we could get the 3D versions of the ships and make them only fly on a flat plane. This is not as nice as a true 3D game, but if we can get the Continuum code from Prittk, it has two advantages: 1) It would ba a LOT easier to program...all you would need to do is change the graphical aspect of the existing 2D version of Continuum. 2) The game would have an instant population, because output-wise it would still be compatible with the zones we have.

Note: I have received an anonymous complaint about Paine's post, citing that it was libel similar to some of spin's posts I edited...however, there was a SLIGHT difference...the last line of Paine's post labeled the post as satire...thus, its legal. I'd advise everyone here to be willing to take a little of what you are dishing out know and then.

First off if I'm not mistaken I thought Rush Lindbaugh did talk politics and ended up having to quit because of it...so I think its a very good example. Secondly, Bush-Clinton relief fund is an exact example of strict political nuetrality. It implies that both men are uniters instead of dividers because it proves it...they set aside their differences to solve a problem. You may hate Bush, but that's the reality. It might be a token effort, but that's insignificant in the big picture. I kinda agree with TT's decision here...it looks like spin was creating a problem rather than having a peacefull discussion, and I don't pity anyone who was warned several times to stop and got banned because of it. Metal Gear does of a tendency to be overzealous with bans...its the only zone I personally have ever been banned from (one of my rockets got hit by a repel and tked a teammate, after I had one aiming accident and one idiot teammate who hugged my target.). Its a pity SWR collapsed...I'd invite you to go there to see what a sysop who's out of line looks like, so that you wouldn't complain about those who happen to be in their rights.

Wow, I can't believe I'm writing this, but spin is actually calming down a bit...he went through an entire post and only called TT a fascist once. He also actually made a logical arguement. The problem is though spin that most of us hate talking politics in the game. I for one would rather not have such distractions as I play, and know that good political discussions take time that the real time chat doesn't give you. We don't care that we are not allowed to talk politics for months on end in Metal Gear's pub chat. There are plenty of alternative venues. What if a sports commentator was talking politics in the middle of the Steelers/Patriots game? NFL fans wouldn't want to hear it, they want to hear discussions on the football game. If a sports commentator talked politics during every NFL game he announced for a month, he would be fired and replaced, and this isn't a violation of free speech. This isn't to say that a commentator can't make an occ!@#$%^&*ional light side comment...its just that if he wanted to talk politics he should have applied to C-Span. Metal Gear isn't a government. It has no cons!@#$%^&*ution. This is offset by the fact that its not real life. Its no big deal if you can't speak your mind there. Metal Gear has no society that will collapse without free speech. If somebody gets banned, its no big deal...they just find another zone to go to. You obviously have never been to SWR or met ShadowRipper.

I didn't say Hitler was a liberal...I said he was a negativeliberal...a completely different group that is extinct in any normal time. The point is that he took every liberal ideal and does the opposite, and that doing the opposite of every liberal ideal doesn't equal conservativism. (Its wierd, I'm making up my own weird political doctrine, so...) As for Iraq, I don't have the time right now, so I'll argue about that later. It is afterall irrelevant to this particular topic...I just wanted to force Monte to post. Spin, welcome to the politics forum. The two big fish here are Montezuma of the left wing side and myself of the right wing side. Neither of us is to be beleived when we post, our words are carefully sculpted to push our respective agendas. Debating a lot of times is like a game of chess. You could if you wish just use sensasionalism and images to try to muscle your point accrossed, but this will never work because you are trying to outmuscle the wills of multiple people, and you would soon find yourself at odds with your environment, and they would dispose of you. However, the smart way to do it involves knowing when to attack, when to retreat, when to make a mad rush at your defensless opponant, and when to stick your head in the sand and hope that he shuts up before he completely destroys your point. It takes practice and discipline to learn these things. It harder, but when you do it the smart way people actually respect you and listen. For now, you should watch what Monte does. When it was just you posting, he stayed out of it so that he could distance himself from you. He only posted when I used the opportunity to attack the left, in an effort to remind me that he is still here. Basically, if you back Monte up, attack when and where he attacks and don't defend issues he is unwilling to, you would soon get a knack for this sort of thing.

Hey, he's not nearly on the same level as spin...all he called you was a 12 yr old. I mean, on a normal topic I'd let that go, but this had gotten to be a pretty bad topic.

Monte...your point is valid about the sentence I used, though not the situation...in this case the majority have a right to come here without being compaired to murderers. I don't know if the nazi jibe was intended to be literal or not...until I can see otherwise I must assume it was. As for nazism...the movement was an unusual one in politics. Most of the time in politics one is dealing with good people...conservatives and liberals have their differences but usually share a common goal and vision of how things should be. The nazis were different in that they were evil people. They had a twisted image of what the world should be like. They valued destruction and unhappiness. They were essentially liberals who turned to evil and twisted every liberal ideal to be the opposite of what it normally means. It textbooks this was falsely labeled conservatism because textbook authors don't have a concept of good and evil...to them the opposite of liberalism is conservativism. I can only offer two proofs of this off of the top of my head. 1) Adolf Hitler started his career as an artist...a profession that is almost mutually exclusive from conservatives. 2) The term NAZI was an acronym. The "Z" stood for "socialist" (obviously something got lost in the German - English translation) Basically negativeliberals take every liberal ideal and do the opposite...liberals value democracy, so the nazis put all their power into one fuhrer. Liberals value intellectuals, so nazis ignored them. Liberals are tolerant of other races and cultures, so nazis tried to destroy them. Compaire these with conservative ideals and you see slight differences...conservatives value federal systems with checks and balances, thus they wouldn't be comfortable with an all-powerfull fuhrer. Conservatives value professionals, thus they appreciate intellectuals because society needs them to produce professionals. And while some of the radically conservative were racist, they tried to ENSLAVE other races, and wouldn't value the nazi policy of putting human life to waste. That's only my opinion, so there will not be a source that backs me up on this. As for Bush's policies... First off, the entire reason liberals hate Bush Jr. any more so than Reagan or Bush Sr. is that Bush launched an offensive on Iraq. Lets start with the stated reasons fo Operation Iraqi Freedom: 1) Iraq had remained to be an imminant threat upon her neighbors. 2) The Baathist regime routinely killed innocent civilians for political gain. 3) A true democracy in the middle east would be a boon to the War on Terror. 4) Iraq was believed to have WMDs. Now, as liberals massively point out, it turned out that the fourth justification was wrong - Iraq actually did get rid of their WMDs...to everyone's amazement. However, there are three more points. The second was is the most important...as someone here pointed out that about 50 more people died per month due to the Baathists secret executions than the total death toll (counting everybody...even the idiots who had the explosives strapped to their chests.) in the war. If you lose 99 lives to save 100 lives, the 99 lives were well spent. That means that this justification alone completely justifys the war, albeit barely. The first one is ignored and often forgotten. The Gulf War never ended...there were routine engagements between US air forces and iraqi anti-aircraft installations, as well as engagements between the Kurdish rebels and the Baathist forces. This conflict wasn't given media attention, thus a lot of people tend to think it didn't happen. That is also why Operation Iraqi Freedom was legal in international law, because it was an escalation, a completion of a conflict that was in both legal and actual sense always going on. The third justification is also critical. The muslim world generally lacks a good example of a properly functioning democracy. If Iraq becomes a democracy and then becomes prosperous (thus giving the irony that oil actually is important), then muslims in neighboring countries will stop blaming us for their problems and put proper focus on their own governments. The democracy isn't even in place yet and there are already signs of improvement...Syria pulled forces out of Lebanon, and there is even reason for cautious optimism that the Israli-Palestinian conflict will finally come to an end. Now to prove that Bush isn't commiting genocide for oil: The sunni population is alive. Another thing the m!@#$%^&* media likes to imply is that there is currently a three way conflict between Iraq's three races. First off, this can't be true because three way conflicts are inherently unstable...the two forces who are the least pig-headed will always form a truce, pounce on the third group...and settle their differences later, with a second conflict if necessary. In this case the Shi'ites and the Kurds are the two. They both have been under Sunni oppression for decades, and they would be perfectly willing to live side by side, perhaps even united, if it means a chance at first-class citizenship. The Sunnis are the bad apples here. They have gotten used to being allowed to rob (not literally) the other two groups, and to them any deal that doesn't allow them to do so is unreasonable. They are used to having somebody lift them up on their shoulders, and now that they are set on their own feet they feel short. The Sunnis are the only domestic population producing terrorists, and the Sunnis are the only ones who have major problems with the new cons!@#$%^&*ution. If Bush had any genocidal tendencies, the Sunnis would be the race to go. But as I said, they are alive and unharmed. Bush cannot be censoring the media, because if he was censoring the media the messages would be twisted to favor his agenda...when in fact they are twisted to meet his enemies' agenda. The Japanese media for example is completely unbiased (they have no stake in this situation at all), but they make no secret that they believe the coalition forces to be the good guys here. The media has MADE THINGS UP about Bush. Last election CBS (I'm not quite sure I'm right here, but is was a major network, not biasedidiots.com) claimed that Bush deserted out of national guard service, and admitted that they made up the whole thing the following december. Another network made the false claim that a guard in Guantanimo Bay flushed a Quran down a toilet. The defense department admitted some details were true, but the story was mostly overexaggerated. This greatly damaged American prestige and indirectly Bush's prestige...it is especially sick that they would take the prestige of an entire country down a notch in their grudge against one man. If Bush was censoring the media, the true stories about him wouldn't make it to publishing. We are seeing false negative stories about him. That makes it all the more impossible for Bush to be overseeing censorship here. Sorry for the incredibly long post, but that sums up every arguement I have made on the subject during the past 3 years.

First off I can't...I didn't save the url addresses Secondly I've been generous to you...most mods would have either removed your entire post or given you a formal warning by now. However, it would be insulting to Hackysack and Testtube to put those pictures back up. The desires of two override the desires of one, so I'm afraid I'd be disenclined to do so if I was able. That is after all a democratic principle...power goes to the majority, not the person who is yelling the loudest. You also missed the biggest factor about nazism. Without it they are just a political party and with it they are evil. The Nazis committed genocide. Thus it is innaccurate to describe any person not committing genocide as a nazi. (Besides...the nazis weren't religious fanatics, they were secular fanatics...they tried to evolve jews out of the human gene pool.) You should also sort your enemies and discipline your thoughts...is your enemy Testtube, Bush, businesses, Hackysack, or SOS? Rage gives you a feeling of power, but it in truth drains your strength by clouding your judgement and messing up your focus.

Thanks, I kinda thought I was high on myself writing that poem.

Sorry for the double post I guess it would be wise to take 8 out...and change 6 to just "do not post libel". 2 is necessary because its really an ssforum rule 3 is necessary because you can't truly respect a forum member if you disrespect the person he or she voted for 4 is necessary because you can't respect a forum member if you disrespect the nation that forum member belongs to...racism is really an ssforum rule as well. 5 isn't really necessary I guess...but I figure being respectfull of others is always a wise course to follow. I mean, I might be imposing on solely my experience (hence why I wanted everyone else's judgement)...but I find that the statement "Aileron, ur ignorant" is less insulting than "All white Catholic American Republicans who voted for Bush are ignorant", atleast in the former case the poster took the time to single me out as a person rather than dismiss me as part of a group.

First off I'm the only mod here so you should use the singular tense. Secondly these are PROPOSED rules...and as I said, I intentionally made too many and too strict because the first proposal was too few and too lenient. The purpose of this thread is to chisel them down into whatever is reasonable.

meh, either way I have to come up with a new sig. I don't know when this thread became serious...anyone with serious complaints against Tex should be smacked with a getwithit stick. Staff is an unpaid position so we shouldn't expect to get the best of the best, and Tex has been doing his duties in a satasfactory manner.

You act as if there was some golden age of politics where negative campaigning didn't happen. No such age ever existed...except if you count times that pre-existed democracy, in which case one's position was determined from birth and campaigning, including negative campaigning, wasn't necessary. Other than that, its a constant in human nature, and not entirely dishonorable even...a skyscraper made of cards is not as good as a building of half the height made out of steel. If the owners of both buildings wanted to rent out space to a company, would it be wrong for the steel building owner to point out that the card skyscraper is unstable?

A defintion of terrorist is unnecessary. The rule doesn't say to disrespect terrorists, it said respect people who have certain positions of responsability. The subpoint only stated that the group "terrorists" do not fall under that catagory. To take your example, if you consider Bush to be a terrorist and a world leader, then you should respect him because he is a world leader. !@#$%^&*uming one considers Bin Laden to be a terrorist and only a terrorist, then you don't have to respect him. You can if you want to, you just don't have to. However, if he managed to get nominated and ran for some political position, then you would have to respect him for being a political candidate. However, I will humor you and define a terrorist as one who specifically targets and kills civilians during peacetime with the intention of making a political point. Rules aren't necessary to identify idiots - you are correct in that they usually identify themselves. Rules have to be in place because idiots may get out of line to the point where they have to be disciplined for the good of everyone else, and it is unreasonable to punish someone without defining boundaries in advanced.

Trained...political talk is not illegal here. Being an extremist is not illegal either. Bak, professional journalists do apply to almost the same definition of libel. The difference is that they are extremely carefull and can get the same degree of sensationalism without making factually incorrect statements. I'm probably guilty of slight exaggeration but spin himself exaggerates everything. He hasn't really cared yet and this forum's long term members haven't cared either, because face it, at this point I have enough to give spin a formal warning, but I'm not, because he's improving...his first big post contained no logic, and the more recent big post contained bad logic. My hope is that he tones down his rhetoric into stronger, more disciplined thinking, and maybe his next post will contain sound logic. (I know, he moved from 0.0 to 0.1, but I'll give my optimism some time.)

Sorry for the "No" vote...I owe him money.

*suddenly a traveling musical group arrives in the villiage* *quickly steals some gold from the NPC ninjas* *pays band to stop and play* *requests "Pirates of the Carribean" theme song* *band plays "Pirates of the Carribean" theme song* *all pirates get pumped up by the music and start laying additional smackdowns on the ninjas*

Libel is not protected in any country's laws and nor will it be protected here. Monitering libel is not considered political censorship...if one must speak out, one is oblidged to ensure that his or her comments are true. Obviously there is a fine line between satire and libel. That line is the line between that which is true (or possibly true) and that which is false. Though nobody was fooled, two of those images were labeled incorrectly...satire should be labeled as satire, not as "A message from the Department of Homeland Security", hence the fine print at the bottom of a lot of things. This a cheesy technicality ofcourse. A better reason is that it is not the stated function of the Department of Homeland Security to censor media. The Federal Comminications Commision is the agency that moniters censorship. If the image's message was to say that the FCC is censoring too much or that the government in general was censoring too much it would have been satire. However, the image concerned the Department of Homeland Security, which doesn't censor anything. Without proof to the contrary, any statement that claims that the Department of Homeland Security is censoring speech would be false and thus libel. George Bush is not the same person as Adolf Hitler, nor is Bush a known member of any nazi organization. Anything that makes the claim that George Bush is the same person as Adolf Hitler or that Bush is a nazi is libel because those statements are untrue. I don't care what you say or what images you put up as long as it is based on the truth...the images I changed were based on either lies or hype. If you want to say that the Department of Homeland Security is silencing you, either use a factual image to support your arguement or make an arguement to support the image. If you want to compare government to nazis, either use factual images in your arguement or support the image with your arguement. If you wish to debate the proposed rule, go to the politics forum rules topic...as I said the rule on respecting world leaders is still in debate, and thus has not been finalized yet. Remember, that was a bit of friendly advice anyways, not any sort of official warning. And don't think this is a politically biased rule either...various laws of inevitability state that republican leadership will not last forever. As a matter of fact if certain overzealous federal prosecutors made a personal point to respect the presidency it is likely that President Clinton would not have been impeached.

Oh...I didn't include a banning policy...same as ssforums except breaking politics rules counts for 1/5th of an ssforum rule...(they are easy to break...I myself have gotten out of hand at times)

Monte, quit enjoying this....removing all these images is annoying. I actually think zones should not allow discussion of politics or religion in pub, under the old saying "Don't discuss politics or religion at a party." A lot of times these subjects tick people off, and then people argue, and then they spec so that they don't get distracted from argueing. Not only will political discussions spec your pop, but it also makes it unenjoyable for everyone else. spin...a little advice...you are also going to be banned here if you don't respect other posters. (Testtube has made one post in the gay marriage topic two years ago.) The arguements haven't settled over the rules yet, so I'd also advise being respectfull of Bush, and coming up with better arguements than inserting his picture into a morph program.

Actually, there are frequent examples where one person is right and one is wrong...I'd say that happens the majority of the time. (though we rarely think about or debate such cases...ex: robbing a bank is wrong, arresting the robber is right) But, SOS's point is still valid, they aren't mutually exclusive. Astro, spin isn't the insult police, I am. I've given everyone a warning about personal insults and posts will be edited and the thread may be locked if it happens again. spin doesn't have to worry about the insults. Besides, what he's been doing would probably egg Worthless on anyway, his pattern of behavior demonstrates that he spreads more insults with bigger failures of logic from the receiver. Besides, you shouldn't speak for someone else, you may not know what their real motives are.