FMBI

Never have sex - it's a simple matter, similar to the "love or riches" thing - one can (almost) give you the other, along with some side benefits. In this case, you can get lots of non-sex stuff (news, etc), as well as porn, tips on how to masturbate, and a convenient place to chat with other losers who are going through the same experience. Would you rather live in Western Europe or the US?

I went with option #3 - An eternity of torture by sadistic lawn gnomes whacking me with those oh-so-cute gardening rakes. Would you rather be born rich or poor?

lmao imo.

Siberia has almost infinite resources, even after being looted by various russian governments for hundreds of years, so I see no reason to ever leave, unless it's to go to an uninhabited tropical island and live off fish for 50 years. Hundreds of years of coal, diamonds for trade, maybe even oil if I'm lucky. Have fun trying to survive in NYC.

Sure, it'd be hard to survive there, but I could make it. Lots of food and shelter, as long as you need it. And btw, I can speak Russian. Since I'll be able to get any weapons I need from military bases, the whole looting shouldn't be a problem at all.

I'm sorry, Astro, but this has been in the (far-left) news for months now, and even non-left sociologists and anthropologists have been calling this. Late news arrival imo. As I said to a friend on Continuum (who is extremely into politics), I just pray that the thing will really blow up in our faces before the elections, because, bad as that would be, it would also ensure that McCain won't get elected (not just because of the 100 years thing - actually, mostly because he would take us on even more adventures, instead of finally drawing a line in the proverbial sand). If we can keep him out, it'll still be a disaster, but at least we'll learn something from it, instead of just pumping in even more troops, and meanwhile getting ready to invade central asia and north africa.

Earlier I was driving home, saw that gas is at 3.45 now. Hilarious how Hillary tries to blame it on "energy speculators", instead of a little invasion we all know about that drove the price of oil through the roof (I'm not ignoring peak oil here, but it would have waited a lot longer to affect us). BTW, to any Europeans who brag about paying more - You pay more because of overpopulation and high localized demand. Here in the states, for a while we avoided that due to high reserves (which peaked long ago, and are now running dry, whatever the oil shale enthusiasts want to tell you), and by having zillions of gas stations in price wars, but now we end up paying more than Europeans, even if our price is still lower. Remember that Western Europe, in particular, has extremely good m!@#$%^&* transit, has denser cities, and has fewer suburbs. Compare this to the US, where we have virtually no m!@#$%^&* transit, we have cities which are often 3-10 times their official limits, and almost endless suburbs in California, Texas, and the eastern Supercity. You've always been encouraged to limit car use, and now you have no reason to increase use - we, on the other hand, are forced to travel longer and longer distances, and the government still ignores transit. Next time you travel 400 miles just to get to a relative's house, you call me up and we'll discuss prices.

On the one hand, this topic is specifically geared toward Rootbear (the other personal wiki pages are horribly written, but not inaccurate) and thus is mildly irrelevant, but on the other, it does bring up part of a broader discussion - that of the anti-Rootbear complex which almost everyone here seems to be afflicted with. I'd like to see an actual topic on this for once, because while I can sympathize with both sides of the debate, it seems a little too much like american politics - complete polarisation and stealth attacks towards the other side, and meanwhile no progress. But that's just my view.

That's a dumb one, because if you were the owner, you'd need money to keep all the servers running. But I'll be pragmatic and say "buy and sell for 10,000 to some nerd" Would you rather have sex with a really fat person, or a really skinny person? (really skinny meaning severe anorexia - remember those photoshopped model pictures a few years back?)

Why do these re!@#$%^&*ed things always end up in "would you rather eat !@#$%^&* or drink piss"? As for JDS, I'd much rather be anally raped. Your anus is unlikely to be permanently harmed, and as long as you don't get an STD, it's much preferable to permanently losing body parts you use thousands of times a day. Person below me - Would you rather go to prison for 5 years, or go to a horror movie-ish asylum where you were treated as a complete incompetent, even though you were sane?

I'd go to Siberia and hide for a couple years. Lots of food, fuel, and no zombies.

Golly gee, I'm resentful that someone was born into a rich family. Yay. Actually, I feel sorry for them, I have an uncle that makes $200,000 a year and his family life sucks. I'd much rather be middle class (and don't pull out the "proud to suffer" card, I'm being serious. ) As a matter of fact, if you think that we're becoming a "Welfare state" then you're either dreaming or re!@#$%^&*ed (no offense.. well, maybe some). In 2004 : http://lanekenworthy.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/incomespendingwealth-figure1-version1.png Now tell me which model that fits - the one from Weimar Germany where corporations saw their profits go up 5-10x when the Nazis took over, or the one from Sweden. I have "boned up" on my history of the last century, and we are on quite a different trajectory. After WW2, we were at the peak of our power, but then several things happened (please note that in this case I'm sticking to only widely recognized ones - I'll p!@#$%^&* over more subtle factors, for now at least) 1971-3 : End of Bretton Woods (which, although not perfect, helped prevent currency speculation and quick-buck investments) ~1980-2008 : Public debt goes from a relatively small amount (note that 40s-50s, while higher relatively, was well handled and quickly remedied) to a rapidly growing burden on the country (through interest, currency pressure, overconsumption, yadda yadda..) Zero savings : http://www.frbsf.org/education/activities/drecon/2002/0202a.gif shows that US savings remained at a healthy level until the early 90s which, I am taking the liberty of guessing, was when the "spend now, pay later" encouragement really took hold. Also, the following factors are relatively new: Exhausted, weakened, and discredited military - It is arguable that even Vietnam did not take as much of a toll on our military as Iraq has. I'm not talking about soldier deaths, I'm talking about the fact that this will cost us for decades as wounded, disillusioned and (sadly, in a great number of cases) mentally ill soldiers claim benefits and health care. Also, we are at a horrible low of readiness - what if China invaded Taiwan or Russia attempted to reunite the CIS? Extremely unlikely scenarios (thank God), but if they happened, we'd be in major trouble. Recession, Housing Bubble, Debt, Falling Dollar, Oil Boom, New Compe!@#$%^&*ors - Yeah, that's a mouthful. But it's the first time in our history that virtually every negative factor possible has come together. If we try to get out of the debt (ie, force inflation) we're screwed because the dollar's tied to oil, if we try to stop the housing collapse, we rack up more debt, we can't stop India, China, and Asia-at-large from consuming more resources, the recession was easily predictable but nothing was done.. Saw a report yesterday that stocks might recover soon. However, even that's not necessarily good - stocks are owned overwhelmingly by the rich and super-rich, so they'll just make more money, mop up low-priced !@#$%^&*ets everyone else lost during the crunch, and come out even better off. Incompetent president (and, sadly, probably future president) - At this point, we're not likely to get better leadership (as I stated in another post), so this is gonna get worse, not better. Huge income gap - Back in the 50s and 60s, we had fairly evened out standard of living, and, although we didn't have "spectacular growth" as in the 80s and 00s, at least everyone got a share. Nowadays, you read about the economy growing 5% a year, then you look at your paycheck and see it's stayed the same for 5 years running. This isn't specifically new - after all, it happened back in the 20s, too. And we all enjoyed the 20s, right? As for education, you seem to be forgetting the research that shows teachers actually put a lot less effort into students (race makes this more extreme) if they're from low class backgrounds or the teachers "think" they won't do well. In Detroit, how many teachers are going to put effort into teaching kids? Yes, "with a little motivation" you can, but you seem to take the viewpoint that anyone can do anything, when in fact the power has been flowing upward extremely rapidly, and it's a lot harder to do anything now than it was 50-60 years ago (maximum equality period). Sure, a little hard work is a good thing, but having obstacles put in your way by people who have no motivation except to make themselves more comfortable (ie, not nefarious designs, just greed) is not exactly the fairest thing in the world. And lastly - "we need to force people to do more". I grew up in a town where there were a lot of factory workers that pulled every union trick to get out of work, but I also saw a lot of people working multiple minimum wage jobs and getting nowhere. Perhaps you're leaving the working poor (and their ranks are rapidly growing) out of your self-righteous equation?

!@#$%^&*, 70%.

Yes, indeed.. I have very left-wing views but I don't believe in things like Sea Shepherd that breed animosity through their attempts to quickly implement change. I'm all for utopia, but I can wait 50 years for it. And besides, a lot of things fall into the gray area, and I have no reason to har!@#$%^&* someone pointlessly if they disagree on a minor issue. It's only the big ones that count.

Hmm, 4 days? I must be slipping. I would disagree, I would say that their policy is virtually indistinguishable on very few issues.[Other than gun control and taxes (which the democrats are making only symbolic fights for at this point, because they want to keep support), they are startlingly similar. The republicans have been steadily expanding government, the democrats are less anti-war than they were some time back. Hillary and Obama are both taking "keep them in Iraq as long as we need" stands at this point, which, while somewhat logical, is very unlikely to be executed correctly, making it more of a liability than simply pulling out and leaving them to their genocides.] Bush was not the one lying to the country, it was our federal government who was. Case in point the president was intelligent enough, hard for some of you to grasp, so that if anyone were to attempt to go after him under the clause of lying about the war, the highest you may be able to trace it is to the VP, who would get a nice pardon when Bush leaves office. [Lol? Bush pushed intelligence around quite a bit, had Colin Powell lie, and managed to keep a large amount of the population convinced that Saddam had WMDs into '05.. The federal government as a whole can't do that, due to the incompetence, only the president can personally push it through.] Again I will ask you to elaborate on how this president has "cemented power in a way that very few presidents have". *If you choose to cite the patriot law, I ask you to cite specific clauses specifically listed in the patriot law [see below for full list - also, have you heard of TIA? PATRIOT is the most famous one, but there are a lot of other programs he tried to put through.] Any foundation on that statement besides speculation? (By the way zeitgeist does not count as foundation) [The "50 years" figure is generally taken to refer to Mossadegh - I personally feel that is overblown, but I support the time range because of other serious offenses, like Guyana, that took place in the 40-60 year range, and which eventually led to global resentment. I personally am of the "terrorists are logical in their own insane way" school of thought, though I do not deny that Islam has a great part in their activities.] None of your statements are even logical. If a president were to try to dissolve the United States government the last thing they would need is a m!@#$%^&* animosity of not only our country, but half of the other countries in the world. As stated prior, this congress has done nothing but disagree with the president and he's done more veto's during this congress's term than in the entire presidency he's had before that. [Are you so sure? Remember how much support he had during the "Why do they hate us" period? He can now make a case for unilateralism because "they won't support us in the good fight". As for the home front, yes, he's encountered a lot of resistance, but a startlingly small amount of that was indigenous - most of it was (is?) the not-so-great media informing the brain-dead population what's going on. If the media, bad as it is, suffers from free speech removal (which seems likely sometime in the future, whether from overt censorship or just quiet pushing) then you'll see no resistance at all.] I reiterate, there is no possible way that the house, senate and court would vote to dissolve their own branches of governments, nor would they not impeach the president immediately if he attempted (which I would like someone to outline exactly how the president would try such a thing being he really has virtually no power without the house and senate) to do so himself.[i said this earlier, I'll say it again.. He won't remove them, just weaken them. Again, the most successful dictators have been those who did not look like dictators. Maintain the illusion while endlessly chopping their figurative legs out from under them. Are you forgetting that China and the USSR both had representative bodies?] Sec. 106 - The president has the authority to take over funds from "enemy countries" and whatnot - and as we're well aware, "enemy" can mean anything from Nazi Germany to a non-conforming and well-defended nation, like Iran. Sec. 201 & 202 - Relating to wiretapping, both of these can be easily stretched - suspected terrorists, and suspected fraudsters? That can apply to quite a few people. Sec. 213 - Hey, who cares if you break into my house? I'll forgive you when you notify me 10 years down the road, old buddy. - especially note (3) that says "the warrant provides for the giving of such notice within a reasonable period of its execution, which period may thereafter be extended by the court for good cause shown" Sec. 501 - If I recall, this was one of the ones that got people mad because it applied to library records? Not sure. Sec. 502 - The number? Not the content, the number? Sec. 225 - Wiretap immunity, this was already big news, but it's still highly disturbing. Sec. 412 - This one's a bit odd, because it's an example of what hasn't happened, rather than what has. We're all familiar with Bush's tricky little dance to avoid this law - Guantanamo, here we come! Sec. 506 - This does not specifically enhance their powers by a huge amount, but it does go towards creating a "republican guard" of sorts. I could list more of these, but right now I'm sorta bored with looking through legalese.

ROFL Confess, you know.. I hate to just rip out a quote, but since you did so.. "The USA is already a socialist economy - albeit one in which the wealth flows upwards, not downwards." The US is never going to become truly socialist, because that would require the severing of links between the politicians and hundreds of massive companies. Instead, it'll likely become fascist (I am aware of the paranoia surrounding this statement, but in many ways, it is true.. I'm personally predicting it in 10-15 years), while claiming to be socialist - that way, if anything goes wrong, it won't be the government or the companies getting the blame, just the "lazy poor people". And BTW.. the US also will not "last a long time" on its current trajectory. I again hate to start quoting, but you know that whole "path of the Roman Empire" !@#$%^&*? Also fairly true, once you strip off the "WE WILL DIE IN 5 YEARS" part. After all, Rome was one of the major contributors to European culture, so it stands to reason that we'll be afflicted by the same faults - much like genetics, in a way. If the US wants to recover a truly "leading" global position, it will have to move tens of millions of people from burger-flipping and import-maintenance jobs into high-grade manufacturing, increase education quality and make it truly universal, transfer power to the newly educated masses, and finally work off some of that endless debt. All that would take a (benevolent) Stalin persona to accomplish, so it's very unlikely - one of the most defining factors in a "death of the empire" phase is that you get one incompetent ruler after another. And one more thing.. what's with all the right-wing on these forums? I think I'm the only left-leaning conservative on here, the rest of you sound like you're from Texas.

edit, a-ha, hmm.. well, just re-read the rules and this does seem to be less debatable than I thought. anyway, if you go to the museum of hoaxes, search for "remote sex" IIRC.

NB, nice points, but at this point Congress is virtually nothing more than a rubber-stamp committee. They've been forced to go along with Bush on all the major issues, and despite all the claims of being "independent," democratic and republican policy is virtually indistinguishable on many issues (yes, listen to the paranoid kids, it's true). Additionally, Bush twisted Justice around his little finger when he was making new torture laws, he managed to lie to the whole country for several years over Iraq, and he's cemented power in a way that very few presidents have. Your "every president had a chance" point is null, as many came into office and acted for the status quo - Bush took a disaster which was 50 years in the making and transformed it into a chance to finally finish off our drowning economy and our flailing civil liberties. And lastly, before you say "If Bush were really in control you couldn't write this", consider - the most successful dictatorships in history did not censor explicitly, they left it to the populace. Sure, it takes longer, but it works eventually, and with the education level of the average American today, they'll never even figure it out. So just wait 5 years, and see if people are still making posts like this.

(thousand BPD - taken from EIA figures) 2,586 - CANADA 1,503 - SAUDI ARABIA 1,290 - VENEZUELA 1,307 - MEXICO 1,191 - NIGERIA 636 - ALGERIA 578 - ANGOLA 380 - VIRGIN ISLANDS 543 - IRAQ 392 - RUSSIA 213 - UNITED KINGDOM 260 - ECUADOR 225 - BRAZIL 239 - KUWAIT 92 - NETHERLANDS And I hate to burst the proverbial bubble here, but all the arguments for and against a one world government have been floating around (in advanced form) for + years. Sort of funny how LC made the point about "history" as part of a rambling and incoherent post.

Heard about this a few years ago, but I don't think so. It'd be more useful for him to let McCain get in, and basically continue the same policies, rather than provoking a possible revolution. The american populace is almost zombified, but not quite.. That isn't to say he wouldn't fake a terrorist attack or something, as spinsanity is fond of pointing out.

Rofl, Polix, you !@#$%^&*. The NAU is a myth which has been pushed by various anti-immigration candidates and leaders in an attempt to generate additional support for their cause. So far as I know, there is no substance to it. This is not to say that growing north american integration is not a fact, as both democrats and republicans have heavily pushed initiatives to expand trade. However, due to things like the post 9/11 "hardening" of the american border (much as the republicans have tried to stall it), actual political union is at least 35 years away, if it ever occurs. If/When it does, it will be mainly to benefit Mexico, as by that time an estimated 35% of americans will be hispanic.

?find imho Sounds to me like Rockslide is Charis's other alias.

Wild Luck, Iran and the Arabs have more differences than they do connections - if we took out Iran, they'd probably cheer (as long as they were certain it was going to stay down, that is). Veg, the point is still that the US is heavily pushing the Tibetan thing, as always, because it makes China uncomfortable. Other countries are reporting on it, but note that on the one hand, Russia and China's asian allies are condemning the Tibetans, while on the other hand US media is putting a lot of attention into human rights abuses. Obviously even on such a widely noticed topic, serious differences of scale occur. And when you get to something more divisive like this, it's going to be even worse. Uhh, "troops" generally means the average, sorta-trained guy on the ground. Under that definition, the marines and spec ops are not "troops", because their training level is (or, in the case of marines, can be) much higher than that. They're also far more effective because of "esprit de corps", better equipment, and more intensive support from higher-ups. So if you look at the situation : We have 20,000 highly trained people in Afghanistan, we have fighter pilots in the gulf, we have a lot of backup in the other countries (And I applaud you for pointing out the 'reported' part) - we have all that's necessary to pull off an attack on Iran. Not an occupation, but that is not what Bush would want anyway. He might be re!@#$%^&*ed, but even he has to see that when we have to recruit 50,000 more army troops just to keep it from imploding, we can't take over another 70 million people. And lastly : Since when does a ground operation have to be big? The Soviets took over Afghanistan with Spetsnaz, then followed it up with larger forces. The US is in a far better position than that right now. I don't think we'll ever see an occupation, as I said, but as far as a spec-ops, air strike, assassination attack? That seems very likely and possible.

sex Sorry, someone beat you to this by a couple thousand years. And it's not "zombie theory", it's "solipsism." Have you been reading Heinlein again?

I am ashamed to say this, because I always try to stay neutral and friendly towards everyone. But this is just too much. Yesterday I asked Keira for help in-game. Do you know what happened? Keira began pretending to be misty_dawn (a well known "e-!@#$%^&*" in MG) and har!@#$%^&*ing me. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to ask my friend X`terrania (who, you will note, Keira does not seem to be on very good terms with) about it, and he informed me about this topic. At that time my DNS was down (this is a common problem for me - cont on, internet off <_< ), and so I was forced to wait until today. But take this as a warning. Do NOT support this group.