Bay 12 Games Forum

Anyone remember John Smith and Smith Johnson, or whatever their names were from Futurama?

"Pathetic Human #1, Pathetic Human #2, and Morbo's good friend, Richard Nixon. May death come swiftly to his enemies!"

You're acting like what the Republican party is doing is usual for a minority party. I sure can't remember anything remotely like it. They're beyond just "opposing" and into the territory of failing to act like grownups. Just refusing everything the other party wants to do, simply because they proposed it, and not coming up with anything of their own.

Well, it's usual behavior for the Republicans when they're a minority party. Remember 1995? The buggers actually *caused the Federal government to shut down* rather than negotiate with Bill Clinton and the Democrats. And it backfired on them bigtime.

Whereas the Democrats, when the minority party, lack the testicular fortitude to do anything other than a few limp-wristed "Hey, maybe you shouldn't blow your nose with the Bill of...oh, well, I guess I can't stop you. But you're mean."

Quote from: Flaede on March 24, 2010, 02:51:40 pm

Quote from: Micro102 on March 24, 2010, 12:27:28 pm

Quote

- The Catholic Church stands by the idea that if you never got the chance to hear about God, you don't go to Hell.

Then why do they continue to teach people about it? 

Because (last I heard) the catch is you don't get to go to heaven, either.

Where, then, do you go, now that limbo doesn't exist again?

The Mohandas Gandhi Eternal Coffee Shop. It's kind of like that waiting area in the airport--there's a place to sit, some good but not great food, and some knick-knacks to amuse yourself with. FOREVER.

This thread menaces with spikes of facepalm. 

The "War on Terror" is a rhetorical device and has never been about defeating all terrorist groups everywhere. Period. Maybe Dubya actually thought of going that far for about five minutes the first time he said it, but even he realized that was tilting at windmills.

Right now I'm reading Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat which is definitely worth a read for anyone interested in an naive technophile's view of the 21st century.

Fixed.


Sorry, I can understand. I liked Friedman when I first came across him too. And before the events of the last ten years showed that his vision of a world where corporate homogeneity "globalization" would obliterate poverty, war and hatred was basically a big ol' pile of bullshit.

Friedman was great in the late 1990's. Now he just seems quaintly unrealistic, like those books we all had as kids that said we'd have flying cars and personal jetpacks by now.


Right now I'm working my way through The Crusades Thruough Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf.

Some other books I'd highly recommend:

Nonfiction:
The Joy of Sects by Peter Occhiograsso
The Face of Battle by John Keegan (really, anything by Keegan is worth a read)
Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda by Sean Naylor
Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence by Mark Juergensmeyer

Fiction:
The entire Dune series, as already mentioned (though ONLY the books Frank Herbert himself wrote...not the garbage his son is putting out)
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett



Oh, and this is always the answer to Atlas Shrugged:
http://www.angryflower.com/atlass.gif

The former. Nixon wouldn't even get through a GOP primary these days. Way too pinko (Clean Water Act??? Commifascism!! How dare the government prevent the invisible hand of the market from washing itself in our drinking water?!)

To add to the confusion, in most Commonwealth countries, the Liberal Party are the slightly conservative market-friendly pro-business types. Who are still further to the Left than many Democrats in the US.

Tarred by association sucks, don't it?
Kinda like when we marched on Washington to protest the Iraq war, and all the "liberal news media" focused on the fringe groups who got glommed into the movement, demanding everything from a free Palestine to legalized weed.

And I'm sorry--I know too many Tea Party types for that dichotomy to resonate much with me. Unless you're trying to point out that the "conservatives" are to the left of the Tea Party. Because that's certainly been the charge FROM the Tea Party. Why else have they been actively running against Republicans in primary races on the grounds that the GOP candidates aren't conservative enough?

If Tea Party != Conservative, then it's only because Tea Party = Reactionary.

Now I'm picturing a Jewish James Bond. This image deeply troubles me.

I'm picturing a portly, middle-aged man with frizzy hair stirring a glass of Manischewitz.
"Berkowitz. Shlomo Berkowitz."



Or else that Adam Sandler movie that I made sure to miss.

Me = disappointed.

At least build a pair of sphinxes flanking your entrance eventually. Which shoot laser beams from their eyes.