TrueBeaver

Bath day - worst day of the year.

So many posts to read :( Some of these don't warrant multiple-word answers in my opinion, but I'll try to explain my stance somewhat and will elaborate upon request. Here's mine: Abortion is morally wrong. Abortion as a birth control is morally wrong and should be illegal. George Bush and Tony Blair ought to be trialled for war crimes. No. I could go into this but from the posts I read this doesn't seem to be very controversial. Meat eating ought to be banned. Stop vegetable cruelty, convert to meatatarianism. Anonymity on the internet should cease to exist. I'd like people to be forced to be accountable for their actions on the internet but no. Animal testing should be banned. No. If we don't test on animals then dangerous products will enter the market meaning it will be people going blind rather than rabbits. Not all people should have the same rights. Agree. Felons should not own guns. Students in a classroom should not have the same rights as students at home who should not have the same rights as students at the mall. Most rights are circumstantial. Killing in self defense is still manslaughter. No. I don't think this is even that controversial. If you are in imminent danger or it can be reasonably assumed you may be in danger (by which I mean the castle doctrine) I have no problem killing in self defense. Assisted suicide shouldn't be discouraged. In a perfect world assisted suicide should be up to the patient. However, permitting it would open up a pandora's box of circumstances that would be up to the courts to decide. (ie Doctor encourages patient to accept assisted suicide because they won't recover. Is the doctor liable?) Not saving someone's life should be a criminal offense. Much like the above, I would love to say yes but any law that reasonably addressed the various situations would be effectively insignificant in practice. Healthcare should be charged based on lifestyles Yes. Getting good grades, not receiving tickets, and not getting in accidents all help lower your car insurance rate I don't see why health insurance should be any different. I do agree with the clause in the Affordable Care Act that prohibits health insurance companies from denying insurance to children with pre-existing conditions, they should (unfortunately) have to pay more, though.

Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes.

This cathedral (the Marktkirche) was downtown in the city I used to live in and across the street from my favorite bar, it was always kind of surreal looking at it. But I know little to nothing about architecture so can't really contribute much substance to this thread.

What I heard is that he reached for something in his robe and they assumed it was a gun. I'm glad he's dead but I wish we had been able to take him alive. E: Looked into it further and I don't even. In his initial speech Obama said "After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body." A half hour later a senior official said that bin Laden "did resist the assault force. And he was killed in a firefight." 14 hours later in his press briefing Jay Carney said "Bin Laden was then shot and killed. He was not armed." Fox News has reported that he "appeared to be reaching for a weapon before being shot." Source

Squirrel :thumbup:

VS A couple days back LE approached us looking for a war and our intoxicated high council Jack_Atack accepted with the following rules: Cwa classsicMelee, Binds & RangeMatchedCorr off, Dung off, Rings on.Time 3pm est / 8 gmt RBH Starting: 30 opts LE Starting: 30 opts (dropped from 33) The war started off slow for us as they dropped their first pile quickly for an early 1 kill lead. Eventually we were able to take advantage of them having a strong range unit at the expense of binders and were able to drag circles around the map. The war was very close throughout but our superior tanking and the fact one of them forgot food ( :shame: ) eventually gave us the 2-0 win. Dem pics: [hide=maybe some offensive stuff blahblah] [/hide] inb4"grats rbh blnt le"x238

Honky Tonk Heroes (Like Me) - Waylon Jennings

Oh no, what will I do now? this.

If those guns weren't there 7 people would have assaulted someone else with a different weapon and 11 would have attempted suicide by other means. Further, that statistic overlooks gun use for hunting, recreational shooting, etc. As Furah said, it's a crime control problem. This paper indicates that the conclusion of John Lott's book More Guns, Less Crime (hall issue laws, which allow citizens to carry concealed weapons, steadily decrease violent crime.) is accurate, although they admit it does not settle the debate. Admittedly, there is a plethora of papers both for and against gun control. What it boils down to, for me, is freedom. People should be allowed to own guns for self-defense, hunting, recreation, or for no reason at all - it doesn't matter. If they use the gun in an improper manner (killing someone, for example) then they face the consequences. Further, banning something that people obviously want under the guise of protecting them only backfires (see: Prohibition). It puts law-abiding citizens in a bind while not taking care of the problem: criminals.

I'm in. I hope it's the Chattanooga Choo-Choo.

Went for a run, took a nap, scaped a little, procrastinated setting up my Accounting CLEP exam for the ninth (?) day. Gotta love the summer.

The Kennedys (2011) - Miniseries not a movie. Amazing. I was honestly surprised by how good it was. I've not read any biographies on Jack/Jackie/Bobby/Joe or anyone so I can't speak to how historically accurate it was, but from an entertainment perspective it was awesome. Katie Holmes as Jackie Kennedy really stole the show. Thirteen Days (2000) - Rewatched because I watched The Kennedys, but still really good. No Strings Attached (2011) - Not a big fan of chick flicks and I hate Ashton Kutcher, but I watched it because I heard it was good and because I'm deeply in love with Natalie Portman and it was actually entertaining. Thor (2011) - Very disappointed. Wasn't expecting much but because of my aforementioned love of Natalie Portman I watched it and raged at the end. Barely anything happened, it should have been like 30-45 minutes longer. Fffffuuuu still mad. Fast Five (2011) - Zero expectations but after hearing that it was the 'best movie ever' several times I watched it and thought it was decent. Some good action but I probably won't be rewatching it.

Quests. A lot of them. I spent like a week gathering the various items I would need before I bought members, then spent my first 2-3 weeks mainly questing. I also explored and got lost in the Taverly dungeon so I had to stake a precious mith bar I looted to a guy killing black demons so I could get out.

I share your feelings, OP, but it doesn't bother me to the point that I'd make a rant. L

I rarely PK or PvM and I am a douche. That said, PKing as a whole is significantly less honorable than it was a few years ago. Being a 'teletubbie' used to be the worst insult and now when I pk with my clan the vast majority of people we kill at greaters/gap have teleport runes :shame: . There are exceptions, as always, but people are talking about the majority.

Ban anyone who creates a bot thread. (not srs) (kinda srs)

I listen to almost exclusively mainstream songs, at this moment it's Luckenbach, Texas by Waylon. Come at me bros. The only two exceptions I can think of are Right Side of the Tree and Corey Smith, which you could probably argue are more mainstream than a lot of bands. Also I love mainstream radio stations.

I look forward to it :thumbup:

For me, it's a mixture of both. I believe the private sector does just about everything better and more efficiently than the government and as such would like to see the private sector be responsible for more of our GDP. But in addition, that bill is horrible. The 1099 requirement (basically forcing small businesses to fill out mountains of paperwork) is the biggest example, although it's on its way to being repealed. Because they didn't have the votes needed to pass it, the bill is filled with pork spending to essentially buy votes. Further, the bill doesn't achieve the stated goal of providing health care for every American, in fact it will barely cover half and many of those are young people who could afford insurance but choose not to buy it. I don't see how making a sixth of our economy less efficient, less innovative, and less quality is worth those meager gains. Not the mention that entitlement spending is already bending us over and adding another will surely not help. That said, there are some good things about the bill: children can stay on their parents' plan until they're 26, for example, and insurance companies are required to cover children with pre-existing conditions. But in my opinion the negatives far outweigh the positives and thus support it being replaced. edit: I also have a problem with the process. The bill was written behind closed doors then was voted on something like 24 hours after it went public. The thing is around 1,100 pages and the notion that congressmen could read and understand the various provisions in the bill in that time frame is laughable, even with teams of lawyers. This is evidenced by several controversial provisions being discovered long after the vote; the 1099 clause was one of those. Yes, this is what I'm saying. Saying that you can't have a strong family if you are in a gay marriage is probably the most offensive thing that you can get away with in today's society. Sure, making a black only water fountain was "worse" in terms of how we view it, but at the time it shared a similar place in social norms: the verge between culturally appropriate and unacceptable. Thanks for the enjoyable discussion but if you believe that the two are equal I have nothing further to say.

So... the modern equivalent of hosing people down is talking derisively about them? Talk about the wussification of America. While it's very likely that down the road opposition to gay rights will be viewed as bigoted, people who don't actually do anything bigoted tend to be lost to the annals of history. President Wilson was overtly racist and sexist during a time period when that was socially acceptable yet is more known for presiding over some ass-kickery in Europe and being the object of Glenn Beck's ire because he didn't act on his racism and sexism much if at all. Instead we learn about Henry Billings Brown's court's ruling (Plessy v Ferguson), among other various racist acts. What I'm trying to say is, just because we have made significant progress in toleration that doesn't make oppression scaled across time. Slaveholders raping and killing their slaves is just as bigoted as the KKK raping and killing blacks, despite the former being socially accepted at the time. And it was certainly an analogy. You were vocalizing how ridiculous you feel that man is by comparing it to something else - which is an analogy. I can say "It's hotter than hell out here." and it's still an analogy despite there being no dissertation. You can argue semantics until the cows come home but my point remains: your analogy was inaccurate and disrespectful.

I like authentic asian food the best. [hide][/hide] In other news, [hide=Giant Schnitzels][/hide] [hide=Kräuterbutter steak][/hide] [hide=Döner Kebap (preferably with more meat + less vegetables][/hide] [hide=Anything with bacon][/hide]

I don't find it nearly as outrageous as it seems you do. That statement, like most dichotomic statements, does not always hold true but even with everything else being equal the social stigma attached with gay families could possibly have negative effects on the child(ren). And that's overlooking the problems associated with adoption, which would account for a significant portion of gay families. However, my point is that nothing he has said is even remotely near what the Jim Crow leaders were doing. I completely understand how people like yourself find things he says extremely distasteful and bigoted. I'm just saying that you can make a solid argument without making blatantly stretched analogies that benefit nothing.

Understood. But your embellishment was completely out of line. Lately our public discourse has become increasingly hostile, with the right calling the left socialists, communists, and anti-American and the left calling the right racist and anti-Civil Rights Act while both adhere to Godwin's Law. By exaggerating your feelings to equate the opposition of gay rights to the opposition of civil rights for blacks you're only contributing to that hostile discourse. We both know that this is a ridiculous comparison and contributes nothing to the point you were trying to make, that Santorum is a bigot for being anti-gay rights, as evidenced by the last like 7 posts being completely unrelated.