Barihawk

Well, we weren't stupid so we didn't do our prank at the school. A group of girls we knew went around and toilet papered everyone's car. So a few friends and I enacted revenge via industrial saran wrap.

I just went a took a look at what you are talking about. Your "dragon plate" is simply Splitbark armor, colored brown.

I got a maze yesterday just from chatting/dancing. I think it's a time-based random.

Probably be in the papers for me tomorrow morning.

If the article is about "wasting updates" on graphical changes, I disagree. I love the art that the new graphics team is taking, plus they are a separate entity from other teams working on quests, skills, and the like. The new updates are giving various areas of the world their own flavors.

The second happens all the time. Natural springs pop out of sinkholes all the time. Lakes appear overnight from the damn things, here in Texas. Happens from overpumping oil. In Ranger, a sinkhole opened 5 feet wide over a period of two hours, and is now 4 miles wide. There are numerous "healing springs" here as well. Tons of water hidden in the earth.

Artrage is the win.

I didn't even ask and got a Picasso. I know. Today must be your lucky day. :D That, or the only way Paperclipz can express his hatred for me is in clipart form.,, :-k

I didn't even ask and got a Picasso.

Well, let me clarify. Individuals might do it for their own satisfaction, but most innovations happening today are corporate jobs. Where the corporation gets the patent as opposed to the scientist. Things like medical firms, manufacturing companies, etc.

Oh, forgive me for not elaborating, that does sound a little silly. I was referring to "innovation in technology" during the Ren. as being things like the telescope and microscope and how they revolutionized science as opposed to things like the beer cap. As far as advances in science relating to technology, they are about the same as the Ren. (keyword, this is a ratio). I wouldn't consider space travel to be a leap forward though. Virtually no progress has been made in travel in almost 40 years now. Your last comment is a more appropriate way of looking at it. However, the drive to innovate is not as great as 500 years ago. Newton, Gallileo, Da Vinci all did it for virtually no profit and at great risk to themselves. Nowadays, any advances are happening because people want money, or a Nobel Prize.

indeed, take a look at your nation's Constitution or whatever they have that's similar. Anything about animal rights? Not that I can find. In fact, I believe animals are considered property, and what property has rights? There are animal cruelty laws in place in the US. Not part of the Constitution, but it's just a goddamned piece of paper anyways. Those laws generally fall under property clauses. For example, slaughtering cats is illegal only because the cat is the property of an owner.

I think this is the most profound thread of the year.

Biography of the author. Description on the historical era the Author lived in. Summary of each novel. How the authors writing reflects his or her life and time period (Novels like other stories during the time, Cultural values or ideals depicted in the novel, Ideals shaped by events in the authors life, Any common themes that appear in his or her writing). I would go with Kipling, then. All of his books were excellent social commentary, and he lived in a very interesting era, and is a good symbol of British colonialism in India.

Could you tell us what you are going to have to write on the selected texts? Otherwise it's just random booktelling.

In response to 3, they held the most true during the last 1000 years during the early Renaissance. Bigotry was almost nonexistant, the idea of human bondage was absurd, altruism and intellectual though (AND religion) were at their peaks. Today, bigotry is commonplace. Jim Crow and the like were repealed, but now we have "reverse racism" laws which piss on Dr. King's dreams of equality. People usually treat each other like garbage. There were very few wars during this time. Scientific, technological, medicinal, and artistic advances were commonplace and beneficial to man (unlike today when most "innovations" are useless.). So yeah, there was at least a time that held to those morals better than we do now.

I am actually writing a 25 page paper on Urban history, which is a narrow vision of this subject for one of my grad classes. I will be happy to post it in December for you to read. I might post some snippets over the next two months via pm if you are interested as I do the research. Anyways, to first paragraph. Ok, I will conceed that some of the items on that list have been reduced. However, several items still occur at relative frequencies, if not even unchanged in some areas of the world. There's my compromise. Those are all good morals, and they've been around for thousands of years. However, none of them really hold true when it comes down to it. The latter three I believe just about everyone is guilty of on some level. The first not so much, but it still happens with alarming frequency.

I prefer a sports blazer to be honest. Also, you pulled up a picture of Bariflamingo, my cousin.

True, but very few immigrants "strike it rich" here in the US. They are still living way below the poverty line. The problem is, they are competing with eachother. Most immigrants end up working at workstations, where someone drives up in a pickup and says "I need 10 boys to come build a fence" and they go do it. He can pay them pennies and they'd probably do it, with no taxes being distributed. The border situation needs to be revamped, but an open border is not a solution.

I am sure the dirt farmers in Africa go to sleep soundly knowing that you are "trying." And my nitpicking is a direct result of Warri0r's nitpicking in the first place. Poverty, famine, pestilence, rape, war...it all continues regardless of how many people it claims in comparison to the past. Consider Slobodan Milosovich's crusade against the Serbs in Yugoslavia. He killed hundreds of thousands. Saddam killed over a hundred thousand Kurds. Millions of babies are killed at birth in China. This year alone, more than 80,000 people have died from Islamic jihads. Last night alone in America (assuming an 8 hour period), 2000 women were raped, 1000 people were shot or stabbed, 200 people died from starvation, more than 10,000 continue to feed drug addictions that make them virtual slaves to the people who give them the drugs... The world is just as evil as it was 500 years ago. We may find cures for diseases and solve problems, but the human cruelty just creates more ills for society. If you want to call me pessimistic, call me a realist instead. Not thinking about the problem does not make the problem go away. Without results, the dirt farmer is still starving while your relief efforts buy bullets used to kill the dirt farmer. And to Bluetear: The majority of the population boom is occuring in developed nations. There are many many areas of the world with negative population increase, and no emigration. And please keep this civil, there's no need for profanity. EDIT: It's worth noting I have a degree in History. And what do historians do? We analyze the past and compare it to the present in order to address the future. EDIT2: I figure a source is going to be desired, so try the 2007 World Almanac, which features crime reports from a great number of nations. The other numbers are gotten from a friend in the D.O.D.

So let's say your plan becomes law and in the next five years 1.5 billion people apply for citizenship and move to the United States. Who they are, what race they are or why they want to come here is irrelevant. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? This site says that "immigration officials estimate that the illegal alien population grows by as many as 500,000 every year." I'm not sure if that's true, since it doesn't say who these "immigration officials" are, but since it's a reasonable number, there would be 2.5 million immigrants maximum in the next five years. Keep in mind that these immigrants are sending money back to mexico, so gradually the quality of life in mexico will improve and immigration will lessen. Also, it's not true that "why they want to come here is irrelevant." The same background checks that Immigration Services currently use to screen applicants will still be used. That way, the people who are crossing the border illegally will be real criminals that deserve to be caught, rather than normal people who want to be our gardeners and janitors. Take the rainbow out from over your eyes. Those people are going to spend that money on unfair taxes, or use it to buy goods. Either way, that money is going to go into the pockets of the Mexican elite, and not be dispersed among the people. All it's doing is making the rich richer. Mexico is a modern feudal state.

You do realize that unless they have troops accompanying relief efforts, all money and food goes into the hands of warlords and dictators, who then sell the relief food to their people? Almost 15% of all relief supplies sent to Africa actually make it into the hands of the people. I was priveleged to spend 12 hours packing a shipping crate of medical supplies to go to Ghana a few years back. 12 exhausting hours of work, and they told us the statistic above. It really puts it into perspective how little actually gets put to use. And the UN is garbage. All the money they "donate" goes to member nations who are then charged to use the money to accomplish the goal of the project. How cheaply and at what profit is up to them *cough*France*cough*. Not to mention, giving terrorists strategic information in order to keep member nations in control (i.e. bluehelmets giving Lebonese and Palistinian forces Israeli troop information and coordinates last year that killed thousands of Israeli soldiers in rocket attacks.) The UN is bound to the same human corruption as we are.

The second one is insanely useful. I wish they would make music loop upon login, though.

To elaborate on your last sentence, what if we could do something about the ills of the world, but we charge money for it? Yes, technology and knowlege have helped over the last 1000 years. But the human element is what corrupts both.

Winner of the thread.