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I agree with fatbill that you guys take hating Deathly Hallows too far without giving a legit reason. Personally I loved the book. However, I do have gripes. The main one is the final fight with Voldemort. Now, JKR spent a good amount of time building up to the fact that Harry was going to have to eventually kill Voldemort, losing his much-vaunted purity in the process. This was really a great move, as it would have been the ultimate sacrifice in order to save the wizarding world. But then we get this near-deus ex machina where Harry can't be hurt by the Elder Wand and uses Expelliarmus to bounce Voldy's curse back at him. He is still pure, never having committed "the one great act of evil" by killing Voldemort directly. Frankly, it was a disappointment. Then there was the hundred or so pages of them wandering around in the woods, which was pointless and boring. And the epilogue, which reads like fanfiction and was just in general blegh. But besides those, I liked DH. Please, if you liked it less than I did, provide some justification.

I agree with magekillr about the marijuana thing. I had that debate a long time ago. This isn't the place for it, though. Conversely, how can you say that the death penalty is unnecessary because it somehow causes more homicides? You can't blame the US's homicide rate on the death penalty. I find it highly improbable that abolishing the death penalty will lower crime. Of these many countries, how many have had their crime rates lowered because they did away with capital punishment? I would say that rather than that happening, the country already had lower rates of crime than the US (which isn't hard to do.) That's what I'm getting at, in a way. As shown by the article in the OP, the current system of capital punishment is ridiculously inefficient and ineffective. If the criminal knew that it was highly probable that he would be put to death, and the law enforcement were competent enough to make it so, then I believe that it would, in fact, be an effective deterrent. And if it makes so little difference what the punishment is, why are we debating the death penalty? On that note, I would like to point out that life in jail, as so many people on this thread have said, can be considered a greater punishment than death, being prolonged suffering. How is this less sadistic than simply putting a criminal to death? I can argue that it is more so, which would ironically make capital punishment akin to euthanasia.

I question whether you can call the death penalty sadistic when you go on to say that a criminal who is not put to death becomes a threat to society once again upon being released. If rehabilitation doesn't work, there is nothing stopping the criminal from returning to his old ways. While I see the criminal record as slightly contradictory, as you say, consider this: A criminal who is released having BSed his way through rehab or not undergoing it at all is still a threat, and without a criminal record no employer would know that he is in fact exposing the criminal to potential victims. So, if the convict's record is preventing him getting a job, or if he hasn't changed his ways, or if he has a job but that is not enough to be a pull away from a life of crime (which I'm not really sold on, to be honest), then he will most likely continue to commit crimes after being released from jail. What do we do then? Jails are far too overcrowded as it is. It is not sadistic to despose of the worst criminals by the death penalty; it is justified and necessary. And if death row becomes a swifter-moving line that acts quickly on the highest crimes, instead of the sad system we have now, it will be a more fearful reality for potential criminals and act as a deterrent.

Fire Emblem. Go play it. Now.

I'm too cool for fights. In all seriousness, I haven't ever seen a real fight at my school, and I've only heard of like two. We're just one big happy family. As far as me personally, never been in a fight. I don't act like an [wagon] to anyone so there's no reason to want to hit me, and I'm slow to anger so I never start things. And if there was a reason to pick a fight with me one would probably think twice. I'm pretty big, you see.

Christ Lion, you may as well have locked it. You left like five posts of the original and three of them have nothing to do with the topic. There's no thread left. And look, the new replies aren't much better.

Well, while this thing is back from the dead . . . Anyone see the new McCain ad? Can't remember whether it was for or against, but it shows Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in the beginning. Paris protested the pic because it wasn't flattering. *twitch*

Ohmyholycrapaquotewall. You know, most of the random unethical thoughts that float across my mind are just repeating the rather earthy things my dad says when he's drunk. Which is most of the time. Racist thoughts, mostly, although politics come up often too.

Only a matter of time before I beat TTFAF. When I make it past the intro I can get all the way to the What The?!?! part of the solos, but I fail on either that or the Twin Solo right after it. Synth Death = awesome, I can combo nearly the whole thing :D Also had a -2 on Avalancha. I think I might actually go for Lay Down, as I have it FC'ed already.

Tournament results can't be used as reliable judges of how good a character is, IMO. There is the whole factor of the person actually controlling the character, and how well they use him. Lucas and Ike are my best characters, and having tried to play with Ness I can say that Lucas is better in so many ways. Then again, someone really good with Ness could beat me. There are just certain things about Lucas that I see as vast improvements over Ness, and those same things on Ness are anywhere from annoying to absolutely craptastic.

All it said was that he stabbed and then decapitated the guy . . . I wonder how big of a knife he had on him to cut sombody's head off with it. Must have been difficult. And messy.

I could go on a rant detailing exactly how much better Lucas is than Ness and how totally different Ike is from Marth, but I've done that somewhere else already and frankly it would be a waste of time. As for the characters they took out . . . Pichu was a clone and crap to boot, Dr. Mario was a clone, Young Link a near-clone, Roy a clone, Mewtwo I never cared for and Lucario is similar anyway.

Well, whatever my troubles this morning . . . I passed the intro to TTFAF! More than once! I failed 2/3 through the solos! More than once!

I just discovered that it's not a good idea to play GH right after you get up in the morning. I was failing on The Metal >_>

I'm guessing a RickRoll. Too bad I can't see it anyway :D

I debated with myself over whether I would reply to this, but I've decided it can't hurt. Glorified cartoon? K, it's an animated show. Not much more to it than that. Plot makes no sense? Try watching it from the beginning, in English. Turns you on? You are thinking of Hentai. Beyond that, people get turned on by strange things. Western cartoons included. To each his own. Really there is nothing more to anime than a Japanese cartoon. Anime is heavy with Japanese culture and the humor will sometimes escape Western viewers, but in the end it is no different than any other TV show in that it is made to entertain. Some animes are amazing, some are awful. It is a Japanese show like Bugs Bunny is American. Have I said that enough? Some people do take it too far, though. Stay away from the weaboos.

I'm going to go a little more in depth than my random example of a totally random and slightly amusing occurence. Fate, as I see it, is a paradox. By the literal interpretation of fate, your future has already been planned. Therefore, no choice you make has an impact on what will happen in the future. Doesn't that destroy free will? I can make a completely different choice on a whim, depending on environment, hell anything at all. But if something is fated to happen, that means I will make the choices leading to it. And if fate dictates what choice I make, it's not my choice. Conversely, if my fate changes with every choice I make, then the previous fate that would inevitably happen, well, won't happen. How is that fate then? It is a contradiction.

LOST Heroes House Family Guy Don't watch enough TV for a fifth >_>

Nothing I have ever come across has lent itself to being evidence of fate. I've seen some extremely odd coincidences, but nothing ever came of them. What was the reason behind my driver's ed instructor marrying me off to a girl in my class on some random tangent, only to find out weeks later that my cousin knew her boyfriend?

Spelling makes little difference, I think, since it's pretty easy to understand someone even if they don't know how to spell a particular word or they make a typo. Grammar, on the other hand, I regard as extremely important if you are actually trying to engage in a debate or argument. As Zonorhc said, a well-typed post gives the impression that you actually care about that which you are arguing. If the post is riddled with grammatical errors or uses idiotic things like excessive exclamation points or ellipses, you are less likely to be taken seriously. Plus, no matter whether your post is still legible or not most people aren't going to bother trying to read it, for the simple reason that they must, in fact, try. It shouldn't be an effort to read something, even on the internet. As a minor point, just because it is the internet should not be an excuse to let whatever skills you have fly out the window. I always try to type as well as I can so that I actually continue to progress or at least maintain skill, rather than regressing and starting my next school paper with "wel i think taht..."

I think the worst offense was the third movie in general. Cuaron completely redesigned Hogwarts, Gambon had a totally different way of portraying Dumbledore, hell even Tom the landlord wasn't spared. He ended up as some mentally handicapped hunchback :| At least the next two movies could have followed his example, but they had to go and screw it up even more. Although the Patronuses were horrible in PoA, they definitely needed a makeover if the story was going to work at all. The sad thing is, I actually liked PoA a lot despite the major screwups.

Just got back from the theater. I may not see a whole lot of movies, but the ones I do are always amazing. TDK was no exception. Just wow.

But dude, cold weather means no girls in bikinis! But cold weather means the girl Nick's hugging isn't wearing anything at all. Which reminds me of WoT. Best scene ever.

Can't watch the trailer, but I hope they do well on the movie. HBP is one of my favorite HP books. I don't know why, since next to nothing happens in it, but there you are.

Had dreams about running to the bathroom only to wake up and find I had wet myself :twss: Years ago of course. Also, several times I've dreamt of something like stepping down off a sidewalk and woken up feeling like I'd just dropped from a foot above my bed. Wierdest sensation EVAR. Never hurt myself though . . . Imagine if you had been killed in the dream.