ember3579

Who says we have to do all the shopping after the [cabbage] hits the fan? It shouldn't be too hard to get gasoline before (if you're willing to pay sometimes exorbitant prices per gallon), and I remember hearing that almost every single respectable department store carries magnesium ribbon by the crapload. Oh, and to the previous person who commented on napalm and thermite; while I do agree home-made napalm is extremely easy to torch, thermite is a different proposition. There's mechanic's grade blowtorches that can't get hot enough to start a reaction. Unless if you run headfirst into a burning building, I don't think you'll have much to worry about igniting your payload accidentally. Oh, and before I forget, one thing about magnesium. The ocean has a LOT of it inside itself. We could take out hundreds of millions of tons of magnesium out of the water each year and not even put a dent into the total concentration of it in the ocean. As such, if we can figure out a way to jury-rig an extractor of some sort (or just stockpile the stuff beforehand), we should have no problems whatsoever with shortages if we're anywhere near the ocean (which we probably will be, seeing as to how the TZDF is separated by it and our need to regroup).

I say this as a human being, an American, a Christian, and someone with at least a little bit of common sense; the Church of Scientology is the most dangerous group on this planet. This is including Satanists, KKK, all groups that fly under the banner of Al Qaeda, drug cartels, and any other group that is currently in existence on this planet. The things that these people are not only willing to do but have already done in the name of their religion are nothing less than horrifying. This group goes above and beyond anything else that this world has ever seen short of Nazis. Treating the group as anything but violent lunatics is not only foolish, but can be costly. We need to be ready for these people to start pouring out in the streets in an attempt to convert or massacre every person they can find, any way they can. Forget this petty squabble about whether or not there's a God or an afterlife or any of that. It's a pointless debate about something that can't be proven OR disproven with any physical method. If you want to find something to spend your effort on, spend it on learning about Scientology and get ready for anything. I am NOT kidding.

Last time I went paintballing, the only real pain I felt from getting hit was when some jackass intentionally hit me in the beanbag when I tried speedball. I can say with complete honesty that I was about to put the barrel of my gun up to his eyes and start lighting him up like a Christmas tree after I was able to walk again. Paintball is fun, but I'd recommend not going into Speedball unless if you're fully prepared for most of your opponents to be cheating, sadistic bastards. Anyway, I currently have this little $20 pump POS, but I plan on upgrading it soon. To me, it just feels more natural for me to use a pump gun. It might be how you hold it, but still. I'd recommend getting a pump to anybody who wants to train their accuracy and speed. With the way that pumps work, you HAVE to learn those two in order to survive. The fact that you're probably going to have the lowest ammo used/game ratio will help if your wallet's somewhat thin, too.

If it's possible to, ground up the thermite while you make the napalm? Else, drill a hole in the thermite and pour napalm into it. Go look up thermite. For convenience sake, there's a few files in my "pick your poison" link that refer to it. Essentially, it's ground rust mixed with an altogether equal volume of at least 95% pure ground aluminum. in its pre-ignited state, it's a powder. In order to ignite the stuff, you need at least a flame of ~800 degrees Fahrenheit, I believe. The only convenient and easy way to do that is to use magnesium ribbon as a fuse (easy to light, will definitely ignite thermite), though some idiots try mixing powdered magnesium into thermite. Unless if you want the stuff to explode (which WILL send molten metal everywhere), I'd recommend against that idea. The liquid iron produced by the thermite reaction is upwards of 4000 degrees Fahrenheit on average. That will destroy you and whatever else you're near just as easily as it will destroy anything else. Anyway, back to the discussion. Seeing as to how thermite's a powder, I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to stir it into the napalm at some point. Since the napalm is still a liquid, you should be able to get it thoroughly mixed in with no difficulty. The only two problems I see are this; 1) is the fire from the napalm going to be hot enough to start the thermite mixed into it (if not, magnesium might be a necessity, which could be hazardous), and 2) how much thermite is enough for a given volume of napalm (too little and it's ineffective, too much and it becomes excessively dangerous)? I don't have the ability to check these out for myself, sadly. Perhaps Lenin might be game, if he can record the results (both scientifically and on camera).

I know a good bit of random stuff related to this, most of it from the "pick your poison" link in my sig. Very little of it is stuff that can create a guaranteed zombie kill, but it should sling them around a bit at least, which buys me time to get the Hell out of dodge. That's the main point of explosives; to buy time, either in getting into a place or getting out of it. For the record, while home-made napalm is alright (dump styrofoam into gasoline until no more dissolves into it), I imagine that thermite would be better for burning [cabbage]. A coin-sized pile of the stuff will be able to melt through almost any random car's hood, engine block, and the pavement under it once ignited. The difficulty in igniting it makes it safer to cart around, too. Wait a minute, I just thought of something. How effective do you think a mixture of home-made napalm and thermite would be? It's entirely possible that the heat from the napalm would set off the thermite, and then you have liquid metal all over wherever you spreaded the mixture.

You're forgetting how freaking HUGE the galaxy is. Remember, Galaxy =/= Solar System. Comparing our solar system to the Milky Way is akin to comparing a speck of sand to a beach. It makes perfect sense to me that it'd take a long [wagon] time for us to make a half-rotation that slowly.

This "me first, screw everybody else" attitude is precisely why half the planet hates America. If we want to be at all respected on the world scale, we need to excise this psychological cancer of an attitude. Yes I heartily agree but correct me if I am wrong but dont we already have nationalized health care ie medicare medicaid and to the best of my knowledgeTHE HEALTH CARE OF THE SENATORS OBJECTING TO SOCIALIZED MEDICINE once again correct me if i am wrong You're right. Senators, as well as all other upper-level officials in the government, already get their medical bills paid for by the American taxpayer. There's a reason that career politicians usually die in their late 80s-mid 90s.

Almost every single noticeable use of it is by bastards such as the KKK. Just because the symbol didn't originally mean that, doesn't mean it won't mean that to everyone. Just look at the swastika. There's a LOT of cultures that use that, and most use it to symbolize something good. The Nazis used it, and now anybody whose ever heard of them associate it with those genocidal psychopaths. Just because it doesn't seem right doesn't mean it won't happen.

This "me first, screw everybody else" attitude is precisely why half the planet hates America. If we want to be at all respected on the world scale, we need to excise this psychological cancer of an attitude.

But machetes (as well as most melee weapons) don't need reloaded. That is a VERY big advantage. As long as you do some proper weapon maintenance, your melee weapon should last longer than you would.

It's not so much they supported slavery (though some did, I'm sure), it's more they felt they had the right to have slaves. When the North decided that slavery wasn't too good anymore, the South got p'oed and said that the North was going against their own word. Not willing to associate with a nation of hypocrites and people willing to put the South down, the South decided to secede and become their own nation. Hence Confederate Flag. The North fought the South because they wanted to keep them as part of the country, to keep unity (Hence them being called the Union). Had the South won, we'd have The United States, and the Confederate States of America. But they didn't. So yay Freedom! :D Oh, slavery had nearly everything to do with it. The Republican party was started for the sole purpose of ending slavery. The North didn't wake up one morning and change their mind about slavery. They never wanted slavery. It was a compromise they had to make in order to get the southern states on board during the Revolution. But the North didn't have slavery. It became an ongoing feud as new states were being added to the Union whether they should have slavery or not, which led to the Missouri Compromise. And it's no coincidence that immediately after the Civil War the Union adopted the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. The South was trying to do everything they could to slow Reconstruction, but they had to ratify these Amendments before being readmitted. Unfortunately, the South was able to "redeem" itself, and that's why you had nearly another whole century before the Civil Rights movement. I was going to post a long, thought-out post, but then I read this one. You, sir, just read my mind like it was a pop-up picture book. Well done. =D>

I think you're confused. That's how private insurance companies operate. The difference is that private insurance companies need your business and only make marginal profits off of each user. Unfortunately, the government is non-profit and therefore does not have the motive to keep its "customers" happy. And insurance plans are usually very flexible, depending on what conditions the user agrees to. Do they want a high deductible but more coverage? A low deductible with less coverage and a more expensive copay at the benefit of lower average costs? The government is likely to have a "one-size-fits-all" plan (to be honest I only made it to page 85 of the bill before my eyeballs started to bleed) but the disadvantage is that everyone shares in the government's budget. I think I read like $5,500 per individual and $10,000 for families is the maximum coverage and it will be adjusted for inflation. To be quite honest, that's not a lot. Two trips to the ER, to put it into perspective. A lot of senior citizens have that much as a deductible alone on Medicare, and they blow through that very quickly. It's not an issue of being some socialist Big Brother stops you from getting medicine. It's that people are going to make use of this, run out of their plan, and end up having to get high deductible cheapo insurance regardless, at the expense of trillions of dollars. It's a drain that could be fixed by addressing the symptoms of what's wrong in healthcare. Bull [cabbage] Before Bari even starts with this one, I ask you. Could you PLEASE give a reason why you think that, and not some one-liner jackass answer? [cabbage] like this is what deligitimizes the debate, and gives the opposing side reason to not listen. EDIT: And so I don't have to make a new post, I'll reply to Bari's directly here. You're a little mistaken with the way that insurance companies operate. They are in business to make money, any way they can. This means anything and everything from jacking prices (the other insurance companies are also doing this, to benefit everyone in the business elite) to dropping people at the first sign of trouble (doesn't work every time, but cuts costs for them immensely), to including so much fine print that the policy is essentially you paying for nothing. They will do damn near everything to make a buck, and have proved it. How much of the lies being spread about the government plan do you think originated from either the insurance companies, or people paid off by them? While I don't disagree with you that the government might get more than they could chew with this, it would still provide some sort of assistance to the people who need it. The current system is entirely unsustainable, and I welcome almost any attempt to fix it. Just ask my sister (is paying 40,000+ USD for kidney stone removal from being pumped full of pills while she was having a rough spot in her earlier years). Though I agree with you on one very key issue; if we want anything to make a HUGE impact on this problem, we need to tackle the root cause of it; the prices of the medicine and treatments themselves. My dad received a bill for over four hundred THOUSAND dollars for various treatments to save his life after a bad wreck about 16 years ago (was covered, but still). People shouldn't have to think about money when it comes to saving peoples' lives. A very good example (for those of us who need something they can see) would be to watch the movie John Q. I'm fairly certain it's based off of a true story, if you're worried about that. Essentially, it's about a family whose ~10-11 year old son has a heart problem, and he needs a transplant. As it turns out, unless if the family can pay for the procedure (couple hundred thousand dollars, again), the son won't even be put on the waiting list to get a new heart. He thinks he's covered, but it turns out that he gets dropped off of some [cabbage] clause in his policy, and now he gets to watch his son die. While it doesn't turn out that way, I think that I explained enough of it for you to get the picture. If meaningful reform is to be taken, the base cost of medicine needs to be controlled. If it doesn't get controlled, then the amount of benefit that anything related to health care will provide in terms of money will have a very finite limit.

If I were to say the biggest problem that I see with your post was, it'd be the misconception that this bill sets the ceiling for health care. In fact, it's the direct opposite. It sets the floor of it. This is precisely to make sure that everyone has access to some sort of reasonable, beneficial health care plan. This isn't designed to support everyone in America. It's designed to force the insurance companies to actually give reasonable plans to their customers, and maybe inspire some competition among them for who can appeal to more people (by increasing quality and/or decreasing cost). Whether or not it's successful depends entirely on where they set the floor at. If it's set too high, then there's going to be very little change with the current state of affairs, if any at all. If it's set too low, then the government will end up saddled with too many people for it to cover. Oh, and before you say something along the lines of "poor people need to work harder if they want better care, not whine more", keep in mind that there's a very limited supply of decent paying jobs in this country. Not everyone can get paid better based on how good work they do, and even fewer can trade up in the job market. Not everyone's job is as stable and secure as your own.

Yeah, lay off Barihawk. While I disagree with his views on various subjects (this is only one), demeaning him and anyone else with a dissenting opinion just makes everyone on our side look bad. Disagree with his points (and explain why), don't attack his character. That's the selfsame tactics that Rep politicians used the past 8+ years to get into power. If you really want to prove your point, be better than that.

Think you could explain what you're getting at to us? Looking at the definition, I expect it involves making the laws of one weed-tolerant state applicable to other states, or something like that. As you can probably tell, I have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. ^_^;; The movie that quote comes from a movie that every American needs to see, period. It's called "A Clear And Present Danger" and revolves around Colombian drug cartels. Stars Harrison Ford and is one of the Jack Ryan series by Tom Clancy. RECIPROCITY was a secret operation that took Latino US commandos and dropped them in Colombia to take part in an illegal war against the cartels. That sounds like it could be an interesting idea. However, if it's done, it would be best done as an early start to an all-out war on these guys. It would be more than a little difficult to provide support to the group that does this mission, and it's only benefit (element of surprise) will be exhausted in a matter of months. If we wait longer than that, then they'll have recuperated and are ready for us. That will drag out the fighting, and weaken us overall. We'd still win, of course, but there'd be heavier casualties, both civilian and American military. I want to minimize that.

That website might actually be useful. Not for 2012 preparation, of course, but for general emergency items. There's TONS of stupid [cabbage] that could happen at any given minute. Why wait for some random date an ancient civilization pulled out of their [wagon] to get ready for it?

Now that I done some digging, I do know that scientists are saying that an extreme solar storm is supposed to occur some time between 2010 and 2012. They're expecting it to be just one or two notches under the one that occurred in the 50s (crippling damage to electronics, Aurora Borealis seen in Mexico, all sorts of crazy [cabbage] like that happened when this was going on). While we can expect this to hurt a LOT if it's in the same ballpark as the eggheads are estimating it to be, we might get some interesting innovations from this. We didn't have the tech we have now in the 50s, after all. We might get some interesting readings or something when this hits. Before it hits (they will probably tell us on the news) I'll unplug every electronics I have (except maybe the TV), so I can save it all from frying :P. Wonder what I'm going to do while there's no power though XD. Anyway, come to think of it, maybe the war for the arctic oil. Who says it's going to start in 2012 though? :lol: Sit back, relax, and enjoy the light show? If they think that this one's going to be on the same scale as one that made the Aurora Borealis visible in Mexico, chances are, you're going to get a very nice natural fireworks display as long as you're not living right on the equator.

Think you could explain what you're getting at to us? Looking at the definition, I expect it involves making the laws of one weed-tolerant state applicable to other states, or something like that. As you can probably tell, I have absolutely no clue what you're talking about. ^_^;;

Now that I done some digging, I do know that scientists are saying that an extreme solar storm is supposed to occur some time between 2010 and 2012. They're expecting it to be just one or two notches under the one that occurred in the 50s (crippling damage to electronics, Aurora Borealis seen in Mexico, all sorts of crazy [cabbage] like that happened when this was going on). While we can expect this to hurt a LOT if it's in the same ballpark as the eggheads are estimating it to be, we might get some interesting innovations from this. We didn't have the tech we have now in the 50s, after all. We might get some interesting readings or something when this hits.

You honestly think that would stop the cartels? This would just lead to a fight between American corporations and drug cartels over who controls and distributes. Just saying do whatever the [bleep] you want won't help, because people will then do whatever the [bleep] they want. By the way, as to Portugal: Portugal is the size of Pennsylvania, with a population even less than that same state's, comprised mainly of full-blooded Portuguese people with a small amount of legal immigrants. It would be much easier to just legalize all drugs and treat addiction if it was even mildly feasible in a country our size. C'mon. The problem I'm noticing is: everyone here is coming up with ideas, but they're very bad ones. Everyone in Washington and the UN isn't coming up with ideas, but if they are, they're very bad ones. The drugs and all that [cabbage] are screwing Mexico over. It isn't like a [bleep] clog in the toilet - if you do something stupid like legalize all drugs or invade Mexico, it isn't going to be all peaceful and happy. This will take years and years to sort out, if it ever is. With corruption being forced into every level of government, Mexico is slowly turning into a government that is, essentially, owned by a corporation - the drug gangs. While there are tons of those gangs, all at war with each other and the government at the same time, all of them want the government to be more susceptible to their demands. And it is happening rapidly. Pretty much screwed any way you look at it. It takes a different frame of mind to solve a problem like this. You don't heavy-handedly invade Mexico and force everything down, and you can't just act like a little girl and legalize everything hoping the problem will go away. You need to think outside the box. And governments are notorious for their inability in doing such a thing. If you think all our ideas suck so damn much, then why don't you give a few of your own? If you can't come up with anything, then sit down and let the people actually TRYING to come up with something workable think.

I think you need only like 8 current-level nukes to start a nuclear winter, and about 20 or so to utterly decimate all organic life on this planet. That many at once would tear this mudball in half.

Welcome to the American Dream. Well that's encouraging :( No, it's a misconception. People in general (not just Americans, every human) tend to grow self-centered if they're not faced point-blank with horrors beyond their normal imagination that are caused by their carelessness. It's nothing new; society has a very short memory as far as actions go. It's the main reason why it's said no society lasts forever. Unless if you can figure out some way to change this, you just have to live with it (or rather, fight against it). The sooner you realize this, the better off everyone will be.

Alright. Now that I know there's an interest in the topic, I'll get on with my idea. First off, legalize the non-harmful drugs like marijuana. Seriously. Forget the whole debate about how medically beneficial it is. Weed is a HUGE chunk of these guys' paycheck. If we cut that out of their wallets (no more artificially high prices, it's a f@#$ing weed so it isn't going to be hard to grow a ton cheaply), they're going to be hurting. This is almost as important as cutting their weapon shipments. Doesn't matter much what's on the market if these [puncture]s can't pay for it. Second, get the illegal alien problem sorted out, one way or another. The best way I see of fixing this is making it easier for "good" people to come here through the proper channels, so they don't have to worry about the Hell that is human trafficking. I wager that most of the people who have to use the illegal method to get in are also forced to carry drugs across the border for their benefactors. Finding some way to prevent them from doing so should be paramount, as is making sure the border patrol are actually allowed to do their job. I'm sure everyone remembers that little bit of "fun" last year with the two agents getting jailed for shooting the drug trafficker. Third, and this should be the most difficult part, get our military into this. In order to do this proper, we need a few things; the OK from the Mexican government, us OUT of the Middle-East in large numbers, and a properly supported armed forces. If we try and do this while we're still mucking about in Afghanistan or wherever, we'll just be either spanked or have to do what we were doing in Iraq for the longest time; sit and watch the area for years on end. That does NOT sound like fun. Also, we need to ditch the idea of hiring PMCs. It's too costly, we have very meager control over their actions, and the quality of their work is rarely guaranteed. That money should go into improving our OWN military, not some circus-masque merc company like Blackwater (no clue what they call themselves now). If Obama does things how I expect, we should be ready for the third item on that list in about 3-4 years. It'll be damn near impossible to do any of it with the Congress as close as it is, though. Hopefully, people grow a few braincells in that time.

Alright. I'm fairly certain most of you have seen SOMETHING regarding these guys. For those of you that don't, I'll explain. These groups (there's a very large number of them) have one primary focus; the procurement of money and/or power, any way they can get it. The most common and well-known way they go about doing this is through illegal drug trafficking. This means anything and everything from weed to crack. Recently, they've started "diversifying", in the form of ransom kidnappings, extortions, murder-for-hire, and all sorts of crazy. To make this even better, they've been picking up speed. Already, they are all the Mexican government can handle, plus change, and they're getting stronger. It wouldn't be unreasonable to expect them to start full-scale civil war with the Mexican government inside of 1-2 decades, if they even have to do it at all. If it gets that bad, we're essentially going to have feudal-era style governing in Mexico, with some of the most blood-thirsty people on this planet running the show. And this will be right on our south border. Anyway, now with explanations done, what can you come up with that might help alleviate the problem? I'll hold back on my ideas until at least a few people start showing theirs. Also, if you have any related links to this, I'm perfectly fine with you posting them here.

My opinion on national healthcare is simple. Hundreds, if not thousands of people die every month because they can't afford the doctor's bills. Around ten times as many are in serious condition for the same reason. This is absolutely unacceptable. I don't care how it's done, I want it fixed. At present, the best idea I can come up with is a combination of 1) a government-run healthcare plan designed to provide the best care possible for a reasonable price (to help keep the insurance companies from doing stupid [cabbage] like running up costs and dropping people), 2) regulating the prices of the drugs/treatments/etc. that costs so damn much nowadays (this is the second-biggest reason why we're in such a bad shape), and 3) develop better preventative care (this is the root cause of all the expense: people put off the once-every-6 months checkup until after it's too late and they're in the ER). Would it be rough? Hell yes it would be. Would it work? If it doesn't, then we might as well kiss our collective [wagon] goodbye.