Barihawk

England was THE superpower before the Revolution, a direct result of which was increased rebellion against the Crown which led to England not being a superpower anymore. In 1775 England literally controlled a good third of the world, easily.

I know, just mentioning which ones they are from :P

I am so bumping this. So I got back into Guild Wars recently with them beginning to add new content (and costumes!) as they start gearing up for the GW2 release in 2011. Anyone still play? I have three active characters across all four games. Commander Kolliah W/Mo 20 (Nightfall) Edgaer Baxtorian E/Me 20 (Prophecies) and Seriah Hawkins R 1 (shut up :P) (Factions) I also sold just about all my crap and managed to start a guild, The Judges of Kings, and had just enough to buy a guild hall for it. A rather unfortunately empty and unstocked guild hall. If anyone wants to join the guild, I will grant officer privaleges to people I think can handle recruitment and fun without being overbearing. Otherwise I'm just going to run missions in Ascalon and attempt recruiting there. Just post here with your character names so best case I can have people and worst case a new friend or two ingame.

Something needs to be done in the Southwest. I don't care if people come to live here. I do care when people are carting these folks over as freaking slaves. It's a huge problem in Texas and it's hard to deal with. Even if you see it, you (as a legal citizen) are afraid to turn in either the slavers or the slaves out of fear that the innocent people will get killed or end up starving on the streets down in Mexico when they can at least somewhat live here. It's a bad situation and states need to crack down on it. The only way to stop the slavery is to raise awareness and make it not worthwhile to bring people up here to use as slaves. One way to do that is deporting the immigrants and offering them legal protection in order to give information on the cartels and syndicates that brought them here. Maybe even offer legal citizenship or a work visa as rewards. The reason people want to come to America is to escape poverty and strife. At the moment, that''s what most of them find here. Things at home need to change before we can fix our immigration system.

This reminds me how I need to do more pest control, but I look forward to it. The Void Knights seem to be one of my favorite groups in the lore simply because unlike knights of other organizations, they actually do something that isn't selfish.

I believe Niete was introduced in "A Tail of Two Cats" and is essentially Bob's mate. I think the quest has been around for approximately 3-4 years and involves the desert storyline.

I am kind of interested in trying out Monster Hunter 3 since CAD is going on and on about it. I finally hooked up my Wii to the HDTV and unlocked 480p resolution, and the games look a whole lot better.

I really wish they would include reduced stat versions of all the armor to release into the real world, this was a prime opportunity to update combat across the board but they passed it up. Either way, the skill is more fun than the rest of the game.

What about the Korean War? If I am not mistaken, the United Nations won that one.

This sounds like more of a "I lost the election fairly so I am going to take it by force" kind of revolution to me. I mean, if stablizing the nation while securing your financial future is an offense worthy of revolution, every American needs to grab their shotgun and head to the US Capitol building. The protestors seem to be acting far worse than the "despotic government" and the opposition leader is supporting the mob violence.

The only thing shocking about that is the fact that it's probably not true. When headlines on the front page of that website say "we democrats" vs "them [republicans]," the validity falls somewhat in question. People in media will do just about anything to get attention, ratings, or hits. In one of the above little /b/ images people are posted for lulz, it shows a bloody camera listed as a "abandoned machine gun." Presumably the camera belonged to a journalist killed by American troops. The image is obviously fake and staged, and the blood is likely nothing more than red paint (guess what, blood is a darkish red that approaches black when spilt). Journalists around the world love to set up fake photos with actors/actresses or photoshop images in order to prevoke emotional response. It's been done for decades. There is no true media outlet. It doesn't exist as even an AP wire was concieved by someone voicing their opinions on a subject. Reality sucks and doesn't sell. This is apparently headline news but if an African dictator orders his guns to fire on villages because of their racial heritage, nobody cares. But if American chopper pilots are idiots? Oh hell, that's news! A precocious looking white girl gets kidnapped and raped we spend WEEKS on the news ignoring nigh all else in order to cover it, but the same situation happens hundreds of times daily in America alone, much less the rest of the world. All Journalists care about is getting attention and milking it. If the truth really had a website, it would probably be on Geocities and struggling at that.

Since everyone thought my previous post was great, here's something even more related to the topic: http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1803025 It's a roadmap to this and every other political/religious discussion on TIF. Ever.

I don't think it's very fair for any of us to judge these guys. Hindsight is 20/20 so we can look back on anything with an air superiority that we "knew better" and throw around words like "obviously that's a" or "cruel." The fact is, most if not all of us have never been in a real combat situation and the closest we've come to it is a climactic battle scene in MW2. The reason people here are comparing war to videogames is because that's their only experience of it, asides from a few bytes on the news. Guess what, soldiers in Iraq are stressed. They are stressed because every last person and their dog is a potential aggressor. We are fighting an enemy that will strap a bomb to a kid and remote-detonate it. Where women conceal AK's and grenades under their clothing on the guise that their privacy will be respected. Is that a camera or an RPG? Do most of you even know what an anti-air weapon looks like if it isn't an RPG-7? Not all are long tubes, and many have tripods. Or maybe it was a camera and truly was a mistake. Is that van carrying do-gooders or reinforcements? What weapons could they have stored in it? Perhaps radio equipment to notify the enemy of our position. Perhaps nuns who want to be humanitarians. As for the cruel jokes? Dealing with stress. Many people try to deal with stress by macabre humor. Have you ever cracked an uneasy joke at a funeral? Made a sarcastic remark about something that is bothering you? I've seen many of you do the exact same and yet you judge these guys who are surrounded by death and the prospect that at any moment they will be dead. Why is there so many instances of PTSD in modern wars compared to WW2? Not entirely because of "they know what they are doing is wrong" but because back in WW2/Korea, you generally had a good idea of who the bad guys were. In modern warfare, it can be anyone from an armed commando to a dog with dynamite strapped on. The other major difference between modern warfare and WW2. We aren't carpet bombing anyone. We are going out of our way to minimize civilian casualties (of which there WILL be in war) yet our enemy shows no such respect and TARGETS civilians along with military personel. All the laser sights and thermal cameras in the world will not tell you who is truly friend or foe. If they made a real videogame based on modern warfare, people wouldn't play it because you'd die too often and there wouldn't be a savegame to revert back to.

I remember the days when we only had updates once a month and nobody complained, ever. There is absolutely so much in this game that you can do to pass the time. Also remember that not everyone is maxed out and a few months ago during the high-level bonanza, plenty of people were complaining that there was nothing for low/mid levelled players.

I think this has the same chance of happening as the "complete ban on all CO(2) emmissions my propery manager tells me about when I deliver my check. It's not going to happen. It's some congressman flexing his political muscle for some e-peen. The United States in generally is for net neutrality and free exchange as long as it doesn't violate laws. Firefox, Opera, and Chrome are all unique projects based on open licensure and distributed for free by the will of their creators. They can not be sold legally, ever.

Well why do you think we should use genetics to improve our lives? If you ask me, the problems that humans face aren't genetic ones, they are problems of society, ones that can't be fixed by genetics. In addition to this, having a bunch of idiots who's ancestors could afford to have their genes manipulated and are therefore resistant against disease/etc would only add to those social problems. The sheer thought that your genes were better than others led to centuries of slavery, warfare, and genocide. Imagine if you actually were. There's a reason that selective breeding/genetic manipulation of the genome is portrayed as VILLAINY in fiction. Dr Moreau, Moonrake, Khan Noonien Singh...even if the genetically enhanced humans kept in line, others would cause strife on the fear of them.

Someone (a liberal no less) did have that same reservation. How can we afford it when we spend so much already. And not all of it benign. The US spends hundreds of billions of dollars annually giving aide and relief to nations around the world suffering from disasters, droughts, wars, etc. Which is a kindness that in the light of disasters like Katrina or 9/11 has never been repaid, even by larger nations that we've been assisting for decades. We are hemhoragging money and I was appalled by the mentality of the liberal majority to spend as much as they can before the upcoming elections, then back off to the President's suggestion that we go easy on the budget for a few years. But as stated, we have no idea how this is going to pan out until it does. Will millions rush to hospitals to claim and overwhelm the program? Or not?

The thing that gets me is if the man haunts every image of invertedsmile.jpg or whatever, why isn't his face in the first picture?

Here's the thing though. According to that very link if you refuse to have health insurance, you will be levied via tax. And if you refuse to pay that tax, you can be jailed. Therefore it's essentially a fine for not using insurance. I think thats more like "If you don't pay tax you go to jail thing", which is well..the law. Err, which is exactly I said. The problem is that the tax is levied on those who choose to not use insurance. And believe it or not, some people prefer NOT to use insurance and instead are good at managing their money when it comes to health spending. They will use clinics whenever possible to avoid hospital fees, only use the emergency room when necessary, and let their doctors know that they are private-payers and to double check before assigning x-rays or labs. The vast majority of Americans, however, are those who hear their children coughing and go straight to the ER.

Here's the thing though. According to that very link if you refuse to have health insurance, you will be levied via tax. And if you refuse to pay that tax, you can be jailed. Therefore it's essentially a fine for not using insurance.

Which is why you only take it for intended use when you need it, and according to the instructions (which state that after a few days of use, you need to speak with a doctor before continuing).

That made me laugh because of my rank :lol: I've never smoked or done drugs and certainly don't plan to. I don't need to impair my judgement or get high to have a good time tyvm :P That's my philosphy on life, too. Which is shocking since the most common reasoning I hear for getting smashed on alcohol/drugs is that it "loosens me up." I rarely drink alcohol and I only really do it for the taste of the drink itself. If you have problems being social, getting smashed and losing control over yourself is certainly an "Excellent" way of making impressions.

Main reason for this update? Flexibility in the combat engine. Your combat skills will have more of an impact on the damage you deal since instead of dealing 18 you can deal 18X damage depending on your level, making the levels themselves more rewarding.