Ah. Lost in a maze. Got it. Thanks. You little mother%&#$@* grumble grumble grumble...

>> ^EvilDeathBee:

Oh, quit moaning about the hats in TF2. "Who is that running at me in the distance? Is it a scout or a heavy? I can't tell because they're wearing a hat!"

True nuff to be fair, but I can't tell you the number of times I've put a bullet through somebodies tower of hats thinking I'd be awarded a headshot. They do detract from the style of the game imo, plus they shit all over my framerate...


Weapon unlocks did fuck up that "instantly distinguishable class" thing a little bit tho. Demos are either mid range monsters packing tonnes of explosives, or melee tanks, and I quite often only find out which after I've hit them with a rocket or something.

Moan grumble moan humbug. ANEEEEWAI Brink is bad, TF2 is cheaper, more fun, will probably be around longer and actually runs on AMD cards.

Well, remember how we were talking about taxes? If we're going to play the fashionable game and tack dollar values of benefits onto people's salaries to pad the number for demagogic effect, then my effective tax rate is even smaller, more like 8% if you add the value of my health & retirement benefits to my income. You really need to consider doing your taxes yourself, clearly your CPA is doing something wrong.

So here's the thing, you say firefighters have such a sweet deal because of unions. I have an idea, how about instead of taking away unions from firefighters, why not get unions for everyone?

As for why you get flack from liberals for being a selfish fascist when you bitch about taxes, it's because you never give anyone a reason to think you're somehow being treated unfairly. There's one set of Federal tax laws, and most of us can fill out our 1040 or 1040EZ, grumble, and go on with life. You aren't running your business as a charity to help the unemployed, you're trying to make a buck. There's no blankfist tax, or anti-entrepreneurial tax. On the contrary, there are tax subsidies for small business all over the place, to the point where little middle class worker bees like me get fucking tired of hearing about it.

GE somehow paid zero taxes, and got a 3.2 billion dollar check from Uncle Sam. Instead of bitching about the insanity of that, all you want to do is fuck over all public sector employees all across the nation because you think they might be getting a slightly better deal than you.

Surely by now you've seen this:

A CEO, a tea party member, and a union worker are all sitting at a table when a plate with a dozen cookies arrives. Before anyone else can make a move, the CEO reaches out to rake in eleven of the cookies. When the other two look at him in surprise, the CEO locks eyes with the tea party member. “You better watch him,” the executive says with a nod toward the union worker. “He wants a piece of your cookie.”

That's what you're doing.

Oh, and by the way, student loans are subsidized by tax dollars. As was your K-12 education, I suspect. I bet you've also taken advantage of the services of countless thousands or millions of people who had their education paid for or subsidized by tax dollars. I bet the navy taught you some marketable job skills even (beyond the right way to use a glory hole). You were probably born in a hospital that was subsidized by tax dollars, and delivered by a doctor whose education was subsidized by tax dollars, and received vaccinations for childhood illness that were developed by research subsidized or wholly funded by tax dollars. You might even occasionally use this thing called the Internet, which is based on technology developed at DARPA as part of the defense budget.

Look, I have sympathy for anyone who's struggling to make ends meet, and I know running your own business is tough -- that's why I haven't tried it. But it's your philosophy that says people have to own their failures even if it's not really their fault. If you were working for, say, Blockbuster the last 15 years, did an excellent job, but then got laid off because traditional rentals got destroyed by Netflix, that's your fucking problem, and nobody else should have to help you out with your plight. That includes bailouts in the form of tax cuts.

Me, I want a safety net so that if you seriously fall flat on your face, you won't have to worry about having a place to sleep, and food to eat, and will still be able to go see a doctor for the STD you picked up from fucking farm animals. I think all life is precious, and that the markets are a fickle and harsh mistress, while the nanny state should always welcome you into her large, welcoming bosom.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Yes, LA is really fucked up. So is California in general. And so are my apocryphal firefighters and policemen.

The average pay for firefighters you linked me to doesn't account for benefits and pension, does it? That's just base salary. So, if the average pay for firefighters is just under $44k, then that's pretty much their taxable income because I cannot image what possible expenses they'd deduct, because they have zero financial risk being an employee. And I'd imagine his benefits alone would equal around $15k to $20k. And then of course their pension which is available when they retire at 55.

That's a pretty good deal. And they get women fawning over them and the vox populi calling them heros. Then there's the guy in the private sector, who's painted to look selfish and evil. People like me. But we don't have unions to protect us, give us great pensions and benefits, and we actually create jobs. I created two last year myself. That aside, the real problems with LA and CA are the unions. They were one thing when they protected proletariats from the bourgeoisie in Charles Dickens' England, but they're something entirely different today, especially when allowed to collude with government and legislators.

I grew up in a milltown in the South. You can't get more working class than that. I'm almost 40 and I'm still paying off my college loans, so suffice it to say no one helped me out. Being happy? I know what makes me happy. The same things you mentioned: not having to worry about rent, not having to worry about food, etc. But without getting too personal here, I can safely say some of that worries me right now because of what I owe to the taxman. And probably nine to eight years back I was in a really, really bad place, yet the taxman cometh. I tried to cash a honkey check, but apparently those don't exist. I guess being white only goes so far contrary to modern lib rhetoric.

What I find interesting is if someone like me bitches that the tax is too high, which it is, then some of you complain I'm selfish and refusing to pay my fair share. But isn't it you, the statists who believe in stealing my money to give to others, that are actually being selfish by laying the tax burden so heavy on the middle class? Specifically income tax.

This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Carbon Footprint is the absofuckingly-stupidest thing that ever entered into popular culture.

It's as stupid as trying to walk outside without casting a shadow or breathing without creating CO2. It's the next evolution of stupid right after Political-correctness.
It's one more thing to keep the public at large grumbling in panic about and trying to fix something that isn't broken. It's a witch-hunt of sorts where people go looking for something that is in everything and getting mad at everyone who is doing it.

If "the powers that be" were really concerned, they would stop sucking the oil out of the ground and stop cutting down the rain forests. The two biggest impacting habits of the biggest businesses in the world. No one has any idea of the impact to the planet the actual removal of oil causes but we sure know what happens as it is used or misused. Cutting down trees in mass numbers, the things that create Oxygen, the number one thing we need to live is so beyond idiotic I can't articulate my angst.

Then they come along and say, oh, your breathing is causing CO2 - we should have a breathing tax. Your dog eats food, Oh My Good, the canine is destroying the planet.

*breaths
--ends rant... moves on...

>> ^Shepppard:

>> ^blankfist:
>> ^Shepppard:
Throwing rocks is still a way of showing you being angry, but not wanting to do serious damage.

I bet the Palestinians are just angry at the Israeli forces and don't want to do serious damage.

I bet there's a difference between disgruntled people taking on its homeland and a hatred that's been ongoing for over 100 years.


Still, both Egypt and Palestine are comparable in their guns-to-civilian ratio of 3 1/2 guns to 100 civillians. I'd wonder who owns those 3.5 guns out of a hundred people, but notwithstanding knowing that I'd bet the majority of the people on the streets are not part of the group that's "privileged" enough to own the 3.5. Obviously. And I bet this little tizzy in Egypt is bigger than just a few townspeople grumbling about their government. This could very well be a revolution, and right now they're greatly outnumbered because they have rocks instead of guns.

Cited:
http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/palestine
http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/egypt

It's true, taking the toy away won't stop kids from wanting Mc'Ds but it may cause McDs to think about a few more healthier choices to the kid's menu so they can get the toys back into play!

And yes, I admit, even my family likes fast food - it's there when you need it! My daughter is starting to grumble a bit like me ever since she watched SuperSizeMe (on her own - I might ad) but my son loves it. The kids usually get the grilled chicken wraps but always with a side of fries (and of course pop/soda) and that's just reality. We don't go often - once/month, maybe more when we have extra cash. It's a love/hate thing!

And yes @peggedbea, I do live a bit of a sheltered life up here in Canada with no practical knowledge of what it's like elsewhere. Good thing we have the internet to share these ideas

I've never really thought of it from the point of view of "skills they need to work in retail or join the military" because, although we have retail (which, yes, sucks), we don't consider the military most of the time - most could care less about it. (not that we don't honor those who choose it), it's just more of an option of choice here that a last resort for employment. (or something like that - it's late, my brain needs sleep)

Kubrick's ghost is grumbling, "Blame that shit on me, you fucking..."

I probably sounded pretty snide but that wasn't my intent.

My point is every few months someone with a diamond or higher starts complaining about how hard it is to get videos sifted. This is almost inevitably followed by requests to lower the threshold.

First, the irony of someone with a few hundred or more sifted videos complaining about how hard it is to sift them is like a multi-millionaire complaining that his income has dropped in the recession.

Second, the last thing we need to do is lower the threshold. We have more than enough toothless dogs, Japanese gameshows, Jessica Rabbit fanart slideshows, and Funny or Die clips without lowering the bar.

If someone can't get votes, maybe they should sift something that sucks less. At the very least, do what I do, and grumble to yourself about it.

Also, apologies to @blankfist who is the apparent recipient of my ranting here. It's not meant to be directed at him, but I've seen this happen enough to know that his comment is the type that will snowball into a mass hysteria like I've described.

>> ^Gallowflak:

@xxovercastxx
Ooh, ouch.
No, it's not a responsibility to upvote. It's a responsibility to participate in the community of which you're a part. It's this second sense of responsibility which I suggested was being diluted by the increasing scale of the site.
Is there a problem here?

@NetRunner: Baby steps? possibly. But a working voluntary model? Absolutely not. Here's my response which extends to each and every one of you who think this guy's house burning down is a blight on voluntary taxes; quoted here:
>> ^blankfist:

When a victim's family sues their police department for not protecting them, and when the supreme court rules (as it does in EVERY SINGLE CASE) the government has no obligation to protect the people, not a single one of you pious government cultists say shit. You may grumble when the police do something horrible like murder someone or beat up protesters but you chock it up to breaking a few eggs in favor of your big government utopian omelet.
However, let one half-cocked instance of voluntarism creep into the system and it's shouted from the mountaintops when one person falls through the cracks in an isolated case. Bravo! Crusaders of Social Justice!

When a victim's family sues their police department for not protecting them, and when the supreme court rules (as it does in EVERY SINGLE CASE) the government has no obligation to protect the people, not a single one of you pious government cultists say shit. You may grumble when the police do something horrible like murder someone or beat up protesters but you chock it up to breaking a few eggs in favor of your big government utopian omelet.

However, let one half-cocked instance of voluntarism creep into the system and it's shouted from the mountaintops when one person falls through the cracks in an isolated case. Bravo! Crusaders of Social Justice!

>> ^Yogi:

I'm just surprised this happened in America..the richest country on earth. How do we let this happen?


We have too many people grumbling about taxes, rather than grumbling about how they want better government services.

>> ^blankfist:

"That's why I wanna" - Every central planning statist's sentence begins that way.

Actually, it's a common way to segue from description of a problem to a proposed solution.

My tummy is grumbling, that's why I wanna go get lunch.

My balls itch, that's why I want you to wiggle your chin.

>> ^blankfist:

As a point of information, I voted for Kerry in 2004 because I was terrified of what four more years of Bush would mean for us. I was told "if you don't vote for Kerry, you'll be throwing your vote away." The truth is, Bush won again, and sure those four years weren't ice cream and puppies, but we lived through it.

So why not stay home, if voting never matters? I'd prefer if you, and everyone who believed as you do followed that advice.

>> ^blankfist:
The point is, at some point or another we have to stop with this chicken little 'sky is falling' attitude and vote our conscience.

Well, here's the thing. Consider a game of football. Every time you take possession of the football, you want to get it into the end zone. Does that mean you should always "vote your principles", and throw passes to the end zone, no matter what? Or do you look at where you are on the field, think about the kind of defense the other team has, and come up with a play that you think will get the ball as far down field as you can?

Most people who play football, and most people who vote, think backing the play that will bring them the best result is the play to back.

I vote based on what I think will help bring about something closer to what I want than where we are. I would love to change things so all I had to do was show up each year and say "I want us to be there", and then let the process calculate the vector sum of our preferences in some more accurate manner, and give us a congress that can implement policies that line up with the result of that vector sum.

Instead it's a series of zero-sum competitions, and that's what's causing a lot of the problem.

Can I double upvote this? I'm perpetually amazed and dismayed that TV can support 96 variations of CSI and other assorted generic cop dramas, hours of banal "reality" shows every day, and loads of other worthless dreck but Firefly couldn't even be given a complete single season to develop a viewing fanbase that had the potential to be much better than a tiny niche product.

/grumble

Ohhh good thing I don't get any unemployment at all yet lost 10% of my income to state and federal unemployment tax. Enjoy my tax money storm, I am sure I didn't need it as much as you did.../grumble grumble/

I generally enjoy the Nerd's videos, but there are times when he shits me.

His complete lack of knowledge of even the most simple of electronics baffles me when he collects old consoles... I mean, surely you'd school yourself up a bit and try to fix some of the broken ones. Not having the y connector that goes on the end of a wire makes you unable to use it? Um.... Um... get a new on and attach it! They cost all of a few cents, you can get them from any electronics store... bloody hell... you don't even NEED one anyway, you can just expose a bit more wire and loop it around the terminal on your tv. That and his inability to understand the electricity/signal on the same wire thing (I haven't seen the cable, but is it even one wire... you can have more than one wire inside a cable you know) just annoys me that he doesn't even TRY to understand these old machines.

Also, making the controllers less jittery is pretty easy, just replace the potentiometers in them... again, any electronic store should have what you need.

Grumble.