@Yogi & @Kreegath

The problem isn't the party system, the problem is that there are a lot of people out there who want the wrong things from the political system.

There's also a lot of so-called smart people who think the best way to be a citizen is to just gripe about how every politician sucks and declare all voting activity futile, rather than try to persuade as many people as possible to see things your way, and then vote the same way as you.

Actual informed people know that you shouldn't let the perfect become the enemy of the good, because elections always have consequences.

@Kreegath

What makes religion religion instead of law, philosophy, politics, history, fiction etc.? Belief in the supernatural. Nuff said.

edit: religion is superstitious beliefs institutionalised.

>> ^Kreegath:

So, it's rude towards sore losers


Yes. =)

>> ^Kreegath:

Or, you could not put it in the religion channel because it's not religion.


Well, she claims to be able to talk to people who are dead. I would say that religion is the origin of the idea that the dead aren't dead, but magical sheets that roam around so people like this can get paid to talk to them. I'm supporting religion on this.

>> ^Kreegath:

Is that considered rude? I thought the point of the game was to win?


People get upset about "cheese" because it's much easier to do than playing a long-term game and tends to rely more on chance than skill.

On the other hand, people tend to lose to cheese because they're either opening with a greedy build (lots of workers and very little defense), they're not scouting what their opponent is doing, or they don't choose an appropriate response to the cheesy strat.

Pros cheese in tournaments all the time. If you lose to cheese then there's no one to blame but yourself.

@Kreegath: this whole playlist (4 videos) is episode 1 of "JM on France", titled "Fragments of an Arbitrary Encyclopaedia"

>> ^Kreegath:

If this reporting is accurate, then it's outrageous how seemingly corrupt the voting system is! Perhaps an independent, neutral state or federal governmental vote counting body would be a good idea?


It is outrageous, but the political parties are free to pick nominees however they see fit. In a two party system the primaries are where the most important decisions are made it would be nice if they even attempted to be democratic.

If you play Ladder matches, you play 5 placement matches which can be against anyone, but after that you get placed in a league of players your level.>> ^Kreegath:

I do own the game, but having played a game online I found out the hard way that if you're not a gamer, you're dead before the game has finished loading. The custom game list contains lots of fun maps though!

Old nuclear power plants produce deadly, cancer causing, bone deforming, face-melting radioactive sludge that will constantly be a threat to every human in a 50 mile radius for 10,000 lifetimes, so obviously nuclear power has one extremely large and worrisome drawback in its current iteration.

>> ^Kreegath:

Old nuclear power plants aren't impervious to tsunamis and powerful earth quakes simultaneously, so obviously nuclear power is bad.

>> ^Kreegath:

The way they throw money at a greenscreen to avoid having to actually film stuff. I'm sure the animators are working very hard and are extremely good at what they do, but all impressiveness of a special effect is lost for me when it's computer rendered. They're over relying on green screening to such a ridiculous degree, even in areas where it's completely unnecessary, that it totally breaks my immersion.
Also, I'm pretty sure they could do this scene with practical effects if they at all cared about the art of film making. The physical restrictions of actors and effects were one of the reasons film makers had to be innventive, which did lead to interestingly shot scenes.

I'm sure they'd do it all practically if it were possible, affordable and safe. Not much of this scene is.

>> ^Kreegath:

That's almost everything I despise about modern movies.


What, the way they show you things using CGI that would be impossible to film in real life?

Well, he's certainly not a fry cook on Venus.>> ^Kreegath:

Doesn't it seem sad, somehow? A chubbier, balding, middle-aged Ferris, doing the same routine alone because his friends have all grown up and moved on. I guess there's a moral in there somewhere about conceit and ambitionless high school popularity.

I can get behind that historian's way of describing it, and I agree with what you're saying about how the Civil War went down. I just disagree with your assessment of what Paul himself said -- he didn't just say "it's not the only issue" he later says "it wasn't the deciding issue" which is just...wrong.

The South seceded and fired the first shots because they wanted to keep their slaves so badly they'd rather leave the Union than give them up.

There was a confluence of other issues involved in the conflict, but "State's rights" was and always has been a euphemism for the bargain that was struck at the signing of the Constitution to let some states keep slavery, not some separate, lofty moral principle that has nothing to do with slavery.

>> ^Skeeve:

"While slavery and its various and multifaceted discontents were the primary cause of disunion, it was disunion itself that sparked the war." - Elizabeth R. Varon, Bruce Levine, Marc Egnal, and Michael Holt at a plenary session of the organization of American Historians, March 17, 2011.
Most historical works I have read about the American Civil War explain that, from the North's perspective, the war wasn't to end slavery, but to preserve the union. That said, the South's reason for seceding was based more heavily on protecting their right to have slaves.
As with all wars, there wasn't just one cause and, as much as I dislike Ron Paul, I have to agree with his statement that slavery wasn't the only reason for the Civil War.>> ^NetRunner:
>> ^Kreegath:
However, he does make his opinion clear that he doesn't think ending slavery was the deciding reason for the civil war, something that I've actually heard is a historically defensible position.

Heard from who?

"While slavery and its various and multifaceted discontents were the primary cause of disunion, it was disunion itself that sparked the war." - Elizabeth R. Varon, Bruce Levine, Marc Egnal, and Michael Holt at a plenary session of the organization of American Historians, March 17, 2011.

Most historical works I have read about the American Civil War explain that, from the North's perspective, the war wasn't to end slavery, but to preserve the union. That said, the South's reason for seceding was based more heavily on protecting their right to have slaves.

As with all wars, there wasn't just one cause and, as much as I dislike Ron Paul, I have to agree with his statement that slavery wasn't the only reason for the Civil War.>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^Kreegath:
However, he does make his opinion clear that he doesn't think ending slavery was the deciding reason for the civil war, something that I've actually heard is a historically defensible position.

Heard from who?