Look at Madoff, people knew for years that he was lying and scheming and stealing and nothing was done until absolutely no one could deny that he was. How do we expect people to act?

Now THAT is a much more fair and logical assessment than Russell's foolish brand of populism, or the typical neolib socialist rah-rah found on the Sift.

You're right. Citizens everywhere are angry when large companies, financial institutions, banks, or whatever other 'capitalist' source you care to name rakes in billions of dollars using shady, unethical tactics - but is able to skate away with only wrist slaps. Who isn't angry about stuff like that? I sure am. Contrary to what the average neolib may think - fiscal conservatives such as myself are not saying that 'big money' should not have to pay their fair share.

The problem is not the companies pulling these kinds of shenanigans though. The PROBLEM is that governments have an incestuous relationship with these big organizations, and are writing the laws (or ignoring them) in such a way as to create this tooth-gnashing dynamic. In the United States, the federal government's JOB (in fact its ONLY job) is to be a place where people can go to redress their grievences. Government is supposed to be the referree that only steps in the game when there is a foul - so to speak.

But that's not what happens in Britain, the US, or any of these other so-called 'social democracies'. What has happened is that the central governments in these nations have BECOME the 'big money' bad guys. The governments are the biggest providers of housing. The biggest providers of food. The biggest providers of money. The biggest providers of health care. The biggest providers of retirement. The biggest financial house. The biggest in just about everything. And yet at the same time they are the ones that write the laws that are supposed to be protecting the citizens from abuses. It is a huge conflict of interest.

The whole housing bubble was created not because banks suddenly came up with the brilliant idea of bundling mortgages into bigger deals to trade. It happened because the government repealed the LAW that prevented financial houses from doing that stuff. But why? Because government (Barney Frank) wanted UFFOWDUBBLE HOWSEING and wanted to use Freddie/Fannie to engineer it. But banks made no money loaning money to folks that couldn't afford a mortgage - so they came up with the whole bundling sceme to make it all work. Well - any idiot knew it couldn't last (except Frank of course) and pop goes the bubble. Where do the citizens go to 'redress their grievences'? The banks? They were ordered to make the bad loans by government? The government? You can't sue them. So the citizens get screwed, the banks have to be bailed out, and the government makes out like a bandit.

The answer is not bigger government and more taxes. The answer is smaller government, with limited powers and fewer responsibilities. And above all - government MUST be removed from the market equation. When government is both IN the market AND ALSO is in charge of picking the winners and losers - it will always pick itself. The perception of 'big money' getting away with crap only increases as government becomes stronger and stronger (as socialist governments always do).

Government must be 100% removed from the marketplace, and THEN it can serve its proper role as a recourse to appeal to for a redress of grievences and enforce proper restrictions on private organizations that engage in shenanigans.

>> ^Boise_Lib:

>> ^conan:
his plan won't work as he's only charged with minor theft and not bank robbery. so he'll be out pretty quick.

If at first you don't succeed...


Yeah he could get a reputation as the Dollar Bill Bandit. Slowly increase his time in jail each time he robs a bank of a dollar while he sits on the chair waiting for the cops. Maybe he'll move on to hardcore bills because everyone knows dollar bills are just gateway bills to the harder stuff.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE let the auto-leveling of opponents and their gear be history. I would like it back to the Morrowind days of some opponents just simply being WAY more powerful than you, while later in the game the feeble ones are much less. Don't get me wrong, I loved Oblivion, but it's kinda a downer when you've played for 10 hours and suddenly all the random bandits are wearing the most powerful armor in the game.

I hope it isn't that similar to FO3 either; that got much too easy much too fast as well. I'd argue that in some aspects it was much easier than Oblivion.

That said; LKFDJL:SKFJ SDLKF /me want.
>> ^saber2x:

This is the only info available about the leveling system in Skyrim, it was posted by a Bethesda rep:
“Since people are asking, wanted to briefly touch on level scaling. All our games have had some amount of randomness/leveling based on player level. Skyrim‘s is similar to Fallout 3‘s, not Oblivion‘s.”

I love some of Gilliam's work (Brazil, Twelve Monkeys, Time Bandits), like some of it (The Fisher King, Baron Munchausen) and really disliked one enough to stop watching it (Brothers Grimm).

I love some of Kubrik's work (Full Metal Jacket, Clockwork Orange) like some of it (2001), hate others (Eye's Wide Shut)

I love some of Speilberg's work (Indiana Jones 1-3, Empire of the Sun, Jurassic Park, Minority Report, Hook, 'Poltergeist' as he pretty much directed it), like some of it (Close Encounters, ET, Always), but there's nothing I have seen of his that I hate, in fact the closest I've got is with AI, even though I loved to death some of the decayed robot stuff. (Indiana Jones was close to me hating it, but really only the end really shits me)

I love Speilberg's work as he has quite the diverse catalogue and really hits it out of the park more often than not.

Maybe the fact that I don't really hate any of his work demonstrates that he is 'safe' and doesn't challenge you.

I have not seen the entire catalogue of any of these directors, but they are all superb, all different and all have made amazing contributions to the artform of cinema.

I totally agree that it's not simple. That's why all of this bothers me so much. Congress members like to see it black and white, what they want (and their contributors want) should be kept or voted in. What they don't want (and their contributors don't want) is communist/socialist/anti-american/against God/whatever. There absolutely no sway with these people, and that's because they are paid to think the way they do. It's not the best interest of the country, it's the best interest of who paid them off.

It's pretty blatant when the people who are making out like bandits during a very bad economic recession if doesn't become a depression and still want more tax cuts and profits, while the food banks don't have enough food and people are literally losing their houses because they won't extend unemployment benefits.

And trust me, unemployment in the US does not pay enough to cover what you would have made with a job. Especially when healthcare is primarily provided by companies and not by a universal health plan, people simply can't afford coverage on unemployment and they are not provided coverage unless they meet stringent criteria.

And it has been shown that unemployment benefits stimulate the economy, for every dollar put into unemployment compensation a 1.60 or some such is generated. Rich tax cuts don't even come close to generating that, not even in the same ballpark. And they are supposedly the people who make the world go round if you listen to the bought and paid for Congress members.


In reply to this comment by Smugglarn:
While I agree with som of waht you say there is a caveat to all those wonderful programs. In my country (Sweden) the model of governance was that the ruling party (Social Democrats) essentially paid their voters with unemployment programs and social security benefits. You could actually earn less working than going on benefits. Immigrants who by nature of their endeavours are quite industrius and hard working quickly became pacified and dependant on the system. The only thing asked of the poorer classes is to vote "correctly" every four years. Remember though - they are only loyal voters for as long as they are not suffering as much . As soon as they get successful they get the full force of the tax system and change alliances. It stifles entrepreneurship and innovation.

Thankfully the Social Democrats were voted out. Regrettably, there is a high unemployment rate, a nationalist party gained a lot of seats in the parliament and violence plagues the projects and large cities around the country.


The left seeing the voters abandon them cry out for expanded immigration and more refugees. At first glance this could be thought of as a compassionate move - but in reality they want more party members to feed the machine. On the other hand the right want to expand immigration as well - for specialists nad other high quality workers - but also for cheap labour obviously.

What I'm rambling about is that it is not that simple.

In reply to this comment by Porksandwich:
Really no one knows what will fix the economy, often times opinion of the economy means just as much as actual changes. If people think the economy is in the toilet, they play safe with their money....if they think it's great they invest in more risky things (to me the tech bubbles demonstrate this, they don't know WTF they were investing in half the time but it sounded good).

But it strikes me as odd when you see a sudden decline in the economy and opinion of it tank....that they don't undo what they changed a few years prior to the economic downturn. Yes there are outside influences and other hard to account for things. But if tax cuts on the rich stimulated the economy in a beneficial way, we would not be in the situation we are in. Yes bank deregulation and other stupid moves, plus a blind payout to people who abused the system really hurt us. But the people who made those decisions also tend to be rich people with rich friends, after all it takes millions upon millions to campaign for any federal level job and you're going to notice the guy giving you a couple hundred thousand versus the guy who gives you 10 bucks.

As for making up the taxes in other methods...sales, consumption, sin tax, whatever you want to refer to. 1% of the population can go day to day without buying as much or can go to lengths to offset or remove the tax burdens they would otherwise face if they have many resources at their disposal. They could simply live somewhere else where those taxes do not effect them. And the rest of the people making, I think it's 250k or less a year to be the non-rich, they simply do not have the resources to avoid living near their jobs and are going to have the basic necessity expenditures as any rich guy.

I mean we all have things we need in common.
Food

Shelter (electricity, gas)

Toiletries (unless we're gonna wipe our asses with tree bark and not wear deodorant or brush our teeth),

Methods of transport (which is usually going to be a car, most places have pathetic public transport and riding a bike in sweltering heat or freezing cold is not going to cut it)

Medical - which at this point in time you have to be pretty destitute or disabled to receive government help with. And everyone at some point in their life is going to need medical assistance whether it's through a fault of their own or not. It's a stupid system where if you can't afford your treatment "RIGHT NOW" you may end up crippled and a burden on everyone else for the rest of your life over a few thousand dollars.

Rich people don't need to eat any more than poor people, they might have richer tastes but they can survive on poor people food. Rich people don't need any more than the minimum shelter. Same with toiletries, fancy colognes and perfumes are frills. BMWs versus 20 year old clunkers, rich can drive beaters too. Medical, rich people are going to have the basic care they need when they need it at every stage of their life....because they are rich and of course luck in genetic lotteries count for a lot.

So unless every rich person lives extravagantly INSIDE the US at all times, taxing them on anything but income is only going to get what they spend money on inside the country...even though they make their money and protect their money and assets utilizing what everyone else helps subsidize - roads, utilities, police, firefighters, etc.

It's the "I got mine, so fuck you." attitude that seems to be popular now. You can see it in a lot of things, unemployment extensions (I got a job, so fuck you.), universal health care (I'm not sick, so fuck you.), public transportation (I own a car, so fuck you.), Visa workers/offshoring (I can get cheaper labor, so fuck you.), etc.

So we end up with absolutely no positive future growth besides what you can afford to do for yourself. And we have more and more people falling onto government welfare programs where they are going to find themselves stuck until the problems become so blatantly apparent that no one can deny that paying your share benefits you just as much as it benefits others.

Richard Dawson is one of my heroes, for both Hogan's Heroes and Family Feud. One of my fav vids ever.
>> ^radx:

He's no Kissing Bandit, that's for sure.

He's no Kissing Bandit, that's for sure.

Your video, Time Bandits WTF, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

would've thought this, or another trailer for the flick, was already sifted.

astonishingly, never.

*promote

>> ^CrushBug:

Great movie, but what was with that horrible sound clip overlay?


It's a horribly stupid meme that some people seem to think is funny.

Me too.

In reply to this comment by enoch:
this is still one of my favorite movies.

Winning moment - around 16:30 when the meet Kazakhs. Their child asks, "are you all bandits?" Cuteness overload.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'family feud, september, host, laugh' to 'family feud, september, host, laugh, Richard Dawson, the kissing bandit' - edited by radx

>> ^ant:
Funny even though I don't watch animes.


Exactly

Verse
D
Livin' on the road, my friend
A
Was gonna keep us free and clean
G
But now you wear your skin like iron
D               D/C#         D
/B             A
And your breath's as harsh as kerosene
G
You weren't your mama's only boy
               D           D/C#     D/B
But her favorite one, it seems
D
She began to cry
                   D/C# D/B A
When you said good bye
        G                    Bm
And sank into your dreams


Pancho was a bandit boys
His horse was fast as polished steel
Wore his gun outside his pants
For all the honest world to feel
Pancho met his match you know
On the deserts down in Mexico
Nobody heard his dying words
That's the way it goes


Chorus
G
And all the federales say
D              D/C#    D/B     D/A
They could've had him any day
D            D/C#    D/B    A
They only let him slip away
             G                Bm
Out of kindness, I suppose


Lefty he can't sing the blues
All night long like he used to
The dust that Pancho bit down south
Ended up in Lefty's mouth
The day they laid poor Pancho low
Lefty split for Ohio
Where he got the bread to go
There ain't nobody knows

All the federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him slip away
Out of kindness I suppose

The poets tell how Pancho fell
Lefty's livin' in a cheap hotel
The desert's quiet and Cleveland's cold
So the story ends we're told
Pancho needs your prayers it's true,
But save a few for Lefty too
He just did what he had to do
Now he's growing old

A few gray federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him go so wrong
Out of kindness I suppose