BlueLancer

I ask you all to read the above quote and please take heed. Yes, guns in the wrong hands do bad things, but guns in the hands of the morally upright serve only to keep them safe in an increasingly dangerous world. The 2nd amendment was brought about in the United States to ensure the public was protected from GOVERNMENT. This is massively overlooked in recent times and I believe it is something that will once again come to the fore very soon. It has been a regular occurrence throughout history for democratic, free governments to become corrupt and distanced from those without power and wealth. Googling the similarities between the United States and Rome is something I urge everyone to do. Be realistic, if a western government such as the US was *really* to perform a military coup, what is a .22 pistol going to do against tanks, fighter jets and soldiers with body armor & automatic assault rifles making sure you continue paying taxes? Are you going to fire rounds at them with your neighbours, or throw rocks at the tanks like the palestinians? Firearms are completely different to daggers and swords used in Rome. A mob of hundreds of people armed with concealable daggers could do little damage at worst, other than making people run away and hide in their homes. They would've never been able to overwhelm the praetorian guard in Rome. A group of 10 child soldiers in Congo armed with firearms can massacre an entire village of 1000 people within half an hour. There is no other portable, concealable weapon that is designed to kill human beings quickly than a handgun or a foldable automatic assault rifle. Governments in Africa have been overthrown since the 1970's by groups of a few hundred men and kids, by the use of firearms. There hasn't been a single military coup in industrialized western nations since the second world war, discounting the short-lived Greek military junta in the late 60's and the threatened coup by a French general in the 50's. Of the hundreds of coups that have happened, almost every single one of them occurred in unstable poor countries, not democratic free nations. The "government turning against it's people" is a fantasy, utopia in Europe or the US propagated likely by the NRA and other pro-gun parties. It just doesn't happen in real free, uncorrupt democracies. If you get robbed on the street by 2 or more muggers with handguns by surprise, you wont have the time to draw a firearm and kill them all. Even if you somehow do, you don't get an automatic pardon by self-defence. You'll get locked up for a long time regardless of being robbed. Think if that's worth a phone and a wallet with $40 dollars.

It should be a cakewalk if you already know English (which you do), most IB's come from countries where it's not even an official language, and they have to go through all the courses, write all essays, etc. in English. Personally I only have 1 friend who went through with IB, and he said it's extremely stressful due to the high quality (and quantity) of assignments/homework required. It's definitely worth it though because employees in every country hold the diploma in high esteem.

Too many people. This is just sad beyond belief. People have no common sense anymore. I never thought it would be appropriate to call a group of people "animal scum" and be appropriate. Not just that, but they "kept shopping" after the guy was trampled to death instead of calling the cops. Then people genuinely ask, "why does the world hate USA so much? Do they hate our freedom and peace?"

So ends a glassy spamfest.

In Aus it is rated M, infact games and movies are more strictly rated, with quiet a few games having to be altered for Aussie viewing. Halo's rated M everywhere, dude. Nah [hide=][/hide] it's 16/T in Europe :P I got the european version as a present years ago, I dug up the CD cover just now to make sure. Never installed it though, lol.

Some people just refuse to acknowledge those figures. Massive proliferation of guns DOES lead to instability and violence, not protection. It's hard to even start imagining how many of those murder victims would be still alive if there was stricter control of *especially* handguns. In the US, only a minority of murders happen with other tools like knives or bats. You can't even assume the figures are just because the US has 300 million people. Any person capable of doing basic math can calculate that for example, the UK having less than 100 murders per year, and the US having over 11,000, just doesn't add up. And the UK has banned all types of handguns from civilian ownership. How often are 'legitimate' weapons like hunting rifles used in murders? Stats speak for themselves: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses ... urder.html Easily concealable firearms are a problem. Unlike shotguns and hunting rifles, they have been *designed* to kill humans. The USA has only 5% of the world's population, but it has 30% of all the firearms in existence [1]. The US also has more murders than any other country in the world, including China & India put together (which have over 2.3 billion people). It really doesn't take a scientist to put two and two together.

His. Family. Wont. Have. To. Pay. A. Cent. Or dispute anything. If they weren't a part of his company. Sorry but people don't read topics through :P I think it's almost funny the judge thinks the huge sum will deter other spammers though. Laws aren't prohibiting or affecting murderers in the most conservative societies of middle-East, why would they have any effect on *spammers* in western countries? Some people don't even care about getting caught. They will conduct illegal business for as long as they can. Once in a while they can pull it off and get rich. The great majority of the time they will go to jail or in the case of 'modern' businesses like spamming, get made an example of. I really doubt masses of professional spammers from chinese computer sweatshops, corrupt russian ISP's, american boiler room operations will suddenly cease their operations after this verdict. Likely, they don't even know or care about this case.

Because it's an exclusive & private tracker site. You can't just join it anymore, they require a referral invite to be able to register. Anyway, sorry but can't ask for passes of any kind on the forums, even for BT trackers.

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As said before in the topic if you read it, his family cannot and wont inherit his debts unless they were a part of his company sending those spam e-mails when he dies. The debts will also not magically transfer to any of his living relatives or children while he is still alive regardless of being incarcerated or jobless. Boycotting multinational companies, accepting Jesus as your personal saviour has no direct financial rewards for you. Spamming a community largely used by underaged people with porn links, viagra ads and illegal drug selling sites is only directed towards earning the spammer's company as much money as possible without thinking of the consequences. Likewise, on the streets, you can preach to people about Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad or anybody you want to. You can hand out fliers to boycott certain politicians or organizations. The moment you start advertising commercial illegal services especially when directed towards minors, you lose your freedom. Viagra, marijuana and adult links are advertised for the sole reason of making personal, monetary profit. A significant part of the user base of these websites are not even of age to authorize a credit card transaction.

Couldn't agree more. What's ironic is I personally know muslims living in Europe and US, who buy their kids presents for christmas, even those chocolate calendars that you open window-by-window daily until it hits 24. It's nothing more than a cultural holiday phenomenon for most people. Even many atheists do buy and recieve christmas presents. You know what would be great? If people actually researched into why this happens. Christmas has nothing to do with Jesus being born. Theological and biblical scholars usually place his actual date of birth somewhere near October and September: [1] The origins of winter celebrations are pagan, all the way from the norse traditions of celebrating Yule by slaughtering a festive ham, to other, southern natives cutting a tree and decorating it. It has nothing to do with the persona of Jesus.

Wouldn't really call it a FPS game (unless you meant frames per second :P ) seeing as it's more of a roleplaying game, but yes, it just fits some games better than others. Oblivion with excessive gore would kill the 'class' the game just naturally has. Don't even mention music. Brings back the memories of idiotic people who were blaming murders, school fights, Columbine, even 9/11 (?!) on Marilyn Manson. Fortunately that phenomena (or dare I say, generation) seems to be dying off slowly. It's so ironic when you consider that in particular, Manson is a very peaceful and reasonable person... He made a pretty good speech on blame (link). Despite his explicit lyrics and makeup people fail to realize he's actually a good man.

Those were just few of the thousands of chemicals mentioned that you will become in contact with once you smoke cigarettes. Second.. Ignited arsenic compounded by the other chemicals in a cigarette turns into arsenic trioxide gas, which has an undeniable link to directly causing lung cancer in humans and does not naturally occur anywhere [1]. It's extremely poisonous and harmful to the human body, not only to your lungs: It effects your DNA cells, and according to most studies, your sperm cells (and egg cells if you're a woman). These don't result from ingesting drinking water or eating fruits that may contain some of the same chemicals in much smaller dosages and in a different form.

Our water supplies don't cause lung cancers or any other diseases to begin with. With due respect, it's ridiculous to compare cigarette smoke to fruits and household utilities. A cigarette has thousands of industrial chemicals you would *never* be exposed to otherwise were it not for smoking cigarettes. Nearly all of these chemicals react with your body in a way that deteriates it's structure, damages it's cells, or like in the case of over 400,000 americans every year, death. I don't personally feel bad for smoking, but when I do it, I make sure not to do it anywhere near people that may not smoke, especially children. I'd never expose my kid to the filth a cigarette contains.

As the article states, there wasn't almost any financial loss to begin with. Facebook spent $5,000 on extra monitoring fees (probably hiring mods) and slapped the maximum penalty allowed by law, $11,000 per spam-email sent (assuming every 0.1% of spam links turn into an actual sale of marijuana/viagra, the financial value is off by astronomical sums) The money wont pay for any public services, because he will never be able to pay it off. A president of any country wouldn't be turning away the money; Because it doesn't exist in the first place. A fine is an abstract, non-existing number, and it's payment solely depends on the person being fined. You can't fine a poor peasant $1 million dollars and budget it for the next political season, because he has no way to gather those resources in the first place (even if you extorted and took all his possessions by force). It's purely to serve as a warning to other spammers, the abnormally high cash fine is likely designed to attract enough media attention to get the message in major newspapers and possibly TV channels. He can't pay it off. The point is not getting him to actually pay all that money. They'll collect the few thousand dollars they can & let the case serve as caution.

How exactly does smoking and intelligence correlate? Many very intelligent people over the course of history have smoked. There is no logical reason to smoke; Hence it being non-intelligent (it only has cons and bad sides). I've smoked too occassionally, mostly to calm nerves in extreme situations, but I can admit he has a point. Association by intelligence doesn't make smoking any better either, fallacy. Cigarettes have thousands of carcinogenic chemicals, hundreds of plain-out poisons, industrial toxics [1]. Knowing the facts and still continuing to inhale smoke that has arsenic, cyanide, carbon monoxide, benzene.. Is thus pretty dumb. Acknowledging the facts is more logical than ignoring them, even if you smoke regularly (or occassionally, like me).

(Spam.)

Exactly. This punishment is so ridiculously large, it's gonna punish those around him and they didn't have anything to do with the crime. Explain to me how that's fair? The message could've been put across without this. Yes it does, untill the payments over, so $873million to go. That's absolutely incorrect, I don't know where this misconception comes from. Got first-hand experience since I inherited an estate roughly 8 years ago and had to go through paperwork and legal issues. You can't inherit a debt unless you were directly involved in forming it (such as having a joint credit card with the deceased person, or a joint bank account/company), in which case the creditor can collect items from the will left to you and use it towards paying off the debt. Since his kids haven't even been born, they have no stake in his spamming operation. It wont punish those around him either unless they were involved in the venture. When you inherit an estate of a deceased person, your personal property and that of the estate are strictly separated. If the deceased has/have any outstanding debts, they will be deducted. If the debts take up the entire liquid value of the estate, you will simply inherit nothing. You will not be required to pay the deceased person's debts from your own property. Being incarcerated or indebted doesn't transfer the burden of payment on your relatives or children either. It stays with you until you die.

Don't try soliciting people's information or passwords indirectly through schemes involving Youtube or MSN. The community isn't that dumb.

Just thought to comment on this since everyone online seems to rely on it (especially private server hosts): A disclaimer that asks you to tick a box and click agree isn't legally binding. It has no power of law unless the end user provided a certifiable, electric signature (something next to nobody online uses nor is it possible on almost any site except government agencies and corporate sites) A console video game, in practice, doesn't even need to add a disclaimer such as "Any likeness of personality, locations and characters are purely coincidental". It's there to discourage lawsuits by people who think they were copied into a movie/game, but it wont stop any lawsuits from actually happening (or resulting in the game company losing the trial). Likewise, "This game is not responsible for any violent acts carried out in real life" is an irrelevant disclaimer. Even without the text being included in the terms & conditions of the game, video game or movie influence has never been enough of a reason to build a legal case & win it. It's also a career suicide for the lawyer that would pick up your case. Empirical Legal Studies (hosted by professional lawyers and law professors) has a great article on it, also explaining some court cases in which the judge found video game influence to be insufficient evidence: http://www.elsblog.org/the_empirical_le ... _viol.html The studies generally find there is a clear increased risk of violent behavior while playing violent games, and there's no denying that. But it's not going to hold up in court.

It's only another 9/11 if westerners are involved apparently, because these attacks happen and result with local casualties very often wtihout anyone noticing it. That's not to say it's sick as hell, they apparently even killed children, for that alone they should have no right to even be alive anymore. It doesn't matter what country a human is from like Ginger_Warrior said. Nobody has the right to kill innocents.

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Never been a big drinker, but upon turning 18 I immediately bought a bottle of Captain Morgan's dark jamaican rum & some coke, shared with 2 friends, and a $40 havanna cigar. Just to finally get access to the 'forbidden items'. Man that was great, only things missing were a good old parrot, a ship and some gold doubloons. In a lot of countries now, though, even 18 year old's can't buy all beverages. You'll have to wait until 20/21 to buy over 22% bottles. So don't worry or think you suddenly grew old and weary, you're just beginning life 8-) (P.S. Happy birthday & If you do decide to purchase a cigar, don't embarrass yourself like I did & cut it from the wrong end)

Without commenting on the mindless bloodbath, I've come to literally hate the wording british & american media uses in it's stories. Human lives aren't "scores" or "masses", jesus christ. Then complaining about people being desensitized to world events... How'd the reporter like if his/her family members were being classified as a "score"? Reeks of a person who never got as much as a papercut personally

Like said above, it's almost worse than a prison term; Just about everything you have earned & will earn in the future, everything not necessary to stay alive, will go to Facebook's corporate bank accounts. Practically this guy destroyed his life, unless he has a good plan to make over $800m from scratch with no startup funds available. Personally, I don't have sympathy for him. I can even understand some robbers being absolutely forced into doing what they do if their family members can't pay off hospital bills & are dying... Nobody is forced to send millions of spam emails and create headache for massive amounts of people. He is clearly only motivated by making as much money as possible without caring how many people suffer in the process. Spam doesn't physically "hurt" anyone.. But it's a major nuisance and even a threat, a parent definitely doesn't want his kid's FB/Myspace spammed with marijuana, viagra and other ads.