FMBI

Let's see... Bing's at 1/5 of Google's market share percentage, and might be reasonably expected to pick up a few percent a month for a few months, after which it will level off and go nowhere for the next 15 years, because Microsoft never improves a product until they're getting their ass kicked halfway from here to Tomsk. Meanwhile, Google launches their Chrome operating system, which, while it kinda sucks ass, will probably be innovated upon to the point where it'll be a super-convenient way to watch porn and hold meetings at the same time, all within a year or so. I'm betting on Google. Also: The internet thrives on anarchy. The very notion of giving it a president is like giving a fully functioning human brain to a monkey and then asking why it likes to run around in the jungle and eat fruit. It won't be the same thing anymore, hence the question becomes pointless.

Best spoof site I've seen since "Ban dihydrogen monoxide."

Wow, I finally get some spare time, figure I might as well see if there's anything interesting, and I get hit with this piece of shit. Sigh. Seeing as how this story (and all other stories about retarded/autistic/"special" people) is completely retarded and deserves to burn in hell for taking some random person's life and exposing it to the pointless scrutiny of millions of people, I'm just going to say two things. Eins Zwei Note that of those two, the first is a hell of a lot more enjoyable. But either one is miles ahead of this shit. Root, couldn't you post more "real tech call" topics or something?

Heh, I typed out a really massive post, but it's 1 in the morning and I don't have time to check it for errors (sticking 3 posts, with tons of quotes / text formats together, kinda sucks. ) I'll put it here in the morning. -PLACE HOLDER-

There is a big difference between giving someone the benefit of the doubt and doing what our media is doing. Hell the national media makes more love to Obama than his own wife does. Sigh. The media is not nearly as lovey-dovey with Obama as everybody (including the media) says it is. Take a look back at the coverage of Reagan and GW Bush; if the media's making love to Obama, they were bending over for those two. Obama's gotten a pretty good reception, but that's mainly due to the fact that he's putting out twenty million statements a day (give or take a few). Political flooding is nothing new, and once the effect starts to wear off, the press generally starts to grow claws. In a few more months, when Gibbs's endless laughing starts to grate, look for press coverage that will be as bad as Bush's in his second term. And I agree with you Lynx. The problem with Obama is going to be when the rubber needs to meet the road. As of now he hasn't needed to actually do anything, and short of exploding our budget even more, he hasn't. First of all, on the debt: Oops. If I hear one more person trot out the "OBAMA IS DOING NOTHING BUT RAISE THE DEBT" line, I think I'll consider going postal. Or at least running around squirting toothpaste at people. As far as the rest of his actions: Obama's dealt with more in his term so far than pretty much anyone. The problem is that each issue only stayed in the news for a week, so everybody's already forgotten. Hyper-ADHD, it would seem. But here's a quick list off the top of my head: Doubling troops in Afghanistan (dumb move, but he did do it, heh) Committing to pull troops out of Iraq (mostly.. kinda.. maybe.. but on the other hand, pretty much) Shutting Guantanamo (Well, you know... Until 94 retards voted not to transfer prisoners from a maximum security facility in Cuba to maximum security facilities in the US) Going up against carbon emissions and/or encouraging clean energy (halfway there, anyway) Healthcare reform (watered down, and it's still gotta get through the legislative process, but the smart money's on October, right where he's putting it) Completely shifting the geopolitical stance of the US in relation to the Muslim world (no caveats, this time ) Taking on the military-industrial complex (symbolically, if not actually) Now, as you may have noticed, only one of those is listed without some major side-notes, and even that's going to take time to work fully: but the point is that he's "gotten the ball rolling" on a ton of major issues that have been conveniently ignored for years, or even decades, by other presidents. Clean energy, for instance, has been sitting on the sidelines since Carter got voted out; Guantanamo should have been shut 2 years ago when Bush promised he was going to; Healthcare reform famously should have been delivered in 93; etc. By the end of Obama's first term, he'll have put more rubber on the road than any presidents except Lincoln and FDR. And I can guarantee you that he'll do it without his approval going below 40%, probably never going below 50. Why? Because, despite the extreme stupidity of the American voter, he's managed to make his presidency about fixing all the problems everyone else skipped over. Even if he only delivered 20% of what he promised, he'd still get re-elected; as it is, he'll probably deliver on virtually everything. All he has to do in 4 years is run another campaign infomercial and say "I did......this......and this.......and this............" and he'll make 84 look like a close election.

Believe it or not, I would take that more seriously if I hadn't heard the same exact thing from the "dirty dozen" of fascist republicans (Phil Gingrey, Michelle Bachman, etc) who get on C-SPAN every night and repeat the latest party talking points. Talking points. And that's all this is. Are there problems with the numbers themselves? Yes. But when these attacks are coming from people who take Keynes' famous "coal mine" comment at face value (or pretend to, anyway) and repeat the old bullshit line about "Even FDR's top people said the New Deal wasn't working..." (never mind the return to recession when government spending was cut, eh?), it is really hard to take it as anything more than a pathetic, inferior brand of the same politics Obama's playing. He's lying a little; they're stretching the truth more than an obese cross-dresser in pair of Size-0 panties. And, even more idiotically: That part about "If Bush had said the same thing..."? That's just random shit thrown in to help restore the Republican brand by equating Obama and Bush. We know that Bush (and his administration in general) lied about hundreds (or thousands) of things and broke hundreds of laws (with some changed to give retroactive immunity: hello, wiretaps!); we can't say the same about Obama. Comparing an occasional drinker to the town drunk is nonsense, and so is this. Finally: Lynx, take a look at Bush's approval ratings again. By the middle of his first year, he was heading south faster than a Canadian retiree; the only thing that saved him was his own incompetence by allowing 9/11 to go forward. If the twin towers hadn't gone down, then he probably would've hit his 2008-levels of approval within two years. Whereas Obama is on track to maintain ~60s all the way to the mid-terms, especially if H1N1 comes back big time in the fall (as I - and, of course, the WHO - fear).

Actually, I think that's the wrong thing. It might spark a "Tear down everything" mindset among the Arabs Israel's been pushing around for so long, and spark a super-deadly wave of terrorism and/or a full-scale war between Israel and the usual suspects; a better way would be to just force Israel to put together some kind of 5-year plan to eliminate all settlements but then refuse to talk about it, thereby stifling it as a political issue both at home and abroad. And then, in 5 years, when the Palestinians wake up and they can actually cross their own roads, they'll be so full of goodwill for the US that they'll probably.... greet us... with flowers.... I hope.

The speech isn't half as important as the moves Obama's been quietly making in the past few weeks - he's put a hell of a lot of pressure on Israel to back down from the settlements (this after the new government there has explicitly endorsed expansion), he's pushing Syria and Iran over the nuclear issue, and he's actually treating Muslims in general as... gasp... real people, rather than hordes of fanatics who will go crazy and kill every non-Muslim the second they get a chance. Yippee.

I'm still waiting for the release of a visual Suspended. Or, rather, visual-for-one-sixth-of-the-game. In the meantime, I guess... Halo misc.

Although I can't stand this fucking awful new setup for the forums (XP vs Vista, anyone?) and will probably never post again after this (Yay! ^_^), I still feel the need to reply to this: I'm sorry, but is that some kind of joke? You took a screenshot a year and a half ago on a league day, barely hit 1600, and now you're using it to help inspire us at a time when the total SSC pop is often short of 1000 and major zone after major zone has completely imploded? Heh, I've enjoyed this game as much as anyone in the past, and sure, it would be nice to see it come back, but let's be real. People have been talking about advertising and spreading the word for as long as I've been playing (5 years), and it's still gotten worse and worse. Three zones (EG, DSB, TW) now carry virtually all the game's pop, and even they're starting to hit the wall. This game is dead. There's nothing we can do, other than sit back, giggle at the newbs who care and give a sad, knowing smile to the vets who still believe. As you said, there are still a few moments when the game almost seems to come back to life, but that's 5 minutes in a 6 hour day. It's like mining for coal in England; it's just not worth the effort anymore. What once was is so depleted and stripped of its former nature that it's actually possible to come away feeling more depressed after you spend a few minutes living like it's 2003. Meh, speaking of depression, this post has left me feeling suicidal. Anyway, nice thoughts, but it's impossible to avoid the impression that you're lying to yourself. Cognitive dissonance and all that. G'day.

I must be the only person in the universe that didn't know her name; the only thing I had heard about the whole mess was when I noticed a headline on Reuters under "most read." This fits my definition of a story that doesn't fucking matter. If we were in a court, the decision would have no value as precedent, because it's so irrelevant to everything. Gay marriage? Nope, other than arousing emotion. Free speech? It's a beauty pageant, for Christ's sake. The purpose of beauty pageants? People have been trying to kill them for years (me included). Just forget the whole stupid thing.

Retarded faggot. Oh, I'm sorry, I was replying to the wrong person. Chili con carne (It's one word! Honest!)

Siberia

I got universal death in all but 5 regions the first time I played, but they had their borders totally sealed off and I had to quit. Meh.

Hitler [Long story - and no, not the plot, you silly fools]

Don't be friends with attraction... he infects everyone that gets too close.

The Spirit..... ugh...........................

Link Joe Biden's such an interesting guy.

Juice

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that's a totally shitty parody. Nice idea, bad execution. Also, if I may be permitted to "miss the point," Lynx is correct - the current version of this isn't too bad, but if A) it comes back in 4-6 months on its own after bouncing around South America, or it gets into Egypt, rural China, or Southeast Asia and makes baby flu genes with H5N1, then it could be far, far worse. Instead of hundreds of cases, we could be looking at hundreds of millions, with a much higher fatality rate. And... The media may be hyping this, but there are two reasons I don't mind: A) it's better than some of the non-stories the American media loves to put up (tea parties, anyone? ;O), it really is good to get this into people's minds right now, so that if it does in fact mutate later on in the year, we don't have thousands of people going to NFL games and infecting entire cities at once.

Assuming that it's for real, then yeah, you have zero say in the long run. On the other hand, this could finally be the transformation SS has been waiting a decade for. Even if the transformation kills the original form completely, it could lead to something interesting. So long, only-2d-spaceship-game-based-chatroom-in-the-universe.

Er, not to sound offensive, but were you in your right mind when you made that post? :x

paternity

I had 5% packetloss once.

Small penis