BlueTear

Judging by the internet hype, I wouldn't be surprised of Blizzard paid them to do it. Talk about prime-advertising.

The thing about the Oort cloud is that its existance is entirely theoretical. We don't know whether there actually is an Oort cloud out there, much less how far it stretches. It could be anywhere from 50 000 AU to 100 000 AU depending on who you ask (I'd like to point out that counting the widest defined outer limit of the Oort cloud as the actual limit, actually leaves us with a diameter of *200* 000 AU). Personally, I'm inclined to continue to define the solar system by the orbital bodies we have found, that are of a "decent" size. Dwarf planets are just fine, but when we start including insterstellar debris - theoretical debris at that - like "comet nuclei", it just gets silly.

The one thing that stands out wabou the game on the official page is all the pretty screens. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for pretty screens and I know there's a lot of fun to be had taking nice pictures. At the same time though, there seems to be a remarkable lack of screens including the actual interface. And no matter how pretty a starship is to look at, if the designers fouled up controlling said starship, that's a definite drop in fun-factor. The game is recieving a tad bit too much commendation for hawt graphics for my tastes, I'd like some mention of the actual gameplay beyond "All Star Trek era's included!!1!1!oen". And to brush on BTFF's comments about Star Trek-Star Wars... The largest annoyance I have with Star Trek is that they never quite manage to get the proper feel for it. When the Millenium Falcon's hyperdrive breaks down, Han Solo really stresses out. When the warp core goes offline, no one quite manages more than looking a bit hurried. When you fend of a charge of Stormtroopers there are casaulties[/i]. When the away team of choice uses their phaser's, they just don't manage to make it seem like they're fighting for their lives. That being said, there's a lot of good Star Trek episode's that revolve around complicated diplomatic problems that require ingenuity to work out rather than brute force, and the character portraits are usually quite good. But it just isn't "down and dirty" enough a lot of the time, compared to Star Wars.

Lagwing Lair is always interesting. Grethok and his two adds were "unknown entities" for every single try the night we downed him, and for the longest of times there were who got disconnected upon entering the instance. Naxx is plain silly though. It loads the entire instance right away due to the layout of the place, which means even with 1.5gig of RAM, entering Naxx drops my FPS by something like 40%. And the moment we start AoE'ing the small spiders in the spider wing, one might as well call it seconds per frame!

Err... What? If our solar system has a diameter above 5 light years, I'll eat me keyboard. Alpha Centauri isn't even 4 light years away!

I think it's ego-inflation. Past a certain point, some posters just forget that people thought they were funny because of what they said, not because of who's name tag was next to it. The really weird thing is that people seem to forget that as well; Some posts that would've been shot down for pure stupidity faster than you could figure out how to spell "newbie" three different ways, survive - and are tolerated - only because of who's name is under the author tag. As if there's some sort of "immunity" gathered from worth-reading posts made months ago. *shudder*

Easier to keep someone with 300 buffed shadow res standing than a tank in full tanking gear + since I actually actively generate aggro other warlocks and mages can actually do damage to the caster emp as well, if time permits/should the need arise. Healing someone getting shadowbolted with 300 shadow resistance is a lot easier on the healers than any other tactic. Only problem is that I'm getting the aggro by searing pain spam rather than proxy aggro, so if I get unlucky with resists, the melee emp tank spends almost an entire port cycle tanking the caster emp which always stresses the healers out, hehe.

Everyone loves a classic SM/Ruin spec! I was mucking about as a soul link for a few weeks while we learned the Twin Emps (we use warlock tanks on the caster emp, and I'm one of them) and I hated it. The only thing I miss from it is sacc'ing a void and grinding with it, 'cause SM/Ruin *really* isn't a good grinding specc. That, and I got shadowtrance withdrawals. I *like* hearing the sound, jumping, turning and doing SHADOWBOLT IN YOUR FACE, to whoever it is I'm fighting. SM/Ruin is like driving a car, and SL is like driving a truck; It's harder to stop, but the driving experience still sucks.

Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. 17 million votes. IMHO, saying that there's "nothing" that would suggest a democratic society can't manage to elect an oppressive regime with no regard for civil liberties is forgetting an extremely important lesson history has to teach. In the right political climate, voters will begin to sell their freedom for what they percieve as safety. It has happened before, and it can definitely happen again. Maybe not in a western nation today, but who knows what might occur in the next 50 years? Very few legislations that encroach civil liberties are limited in time, and while it's perfectly possible they'll be used in an "appropriate" manner for, say, the first two decades, there's no telling how they might be abused later.

11th March, 2001. It's kind of surprising that a forum for a silly little game like *runescape* turns out to contain posts that are so thought provoking I keep coming back long after I've even considered seriously playing the game the site is actually made for. Surprising, and appreciated.

He had "not committed a crime that could be proven in a military court". Judging by the brief mention in this pressrelease http://usinfo.state.gov/dhr/Archive/200 ... 41890.html, I'd say they let him out after an administrative hearing. Meaning they didn't even try his case in a military court before throwing it out. Pakistani warlords -> Pakistani Police -> US authorities. Inside Pakistan, near the Afghan border. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004 ... ased_x.htm After having a look around on the official Gitmo website (I have to say, making official websites for things like that impresses me. Talk about easy information access for the public. It's biased, obviously, but it's still readily available information), I'd say anyone released by an administrative board, i.e. not tried in a court, is likely to have gotten away without any charge, anywhere. This seems to be noted as "released", where as those charged with something in a different country, are "transfered". So that makes it somewhere like... Well, I found a press release that has 167 people listed as released, and 29 has transfered. But it's from July 2005, so I'd imagine there'll be a fair bit more people today. People who were determined not to be illegal combatants, despite ending up at Gitmo.

So the swedish citizen who spent 930 days as an unwilling guest at Guantanamo before being released without any charges must've done something related to terrorism? It just couldn't be proved in a military court, but hey, he was in there... Clearly a terrorist. Why else would he been arrested by the Pakistani police inside Pakistan after all? Real life doesn't work like the last episode of 24. Sure, there are people who are Clearly Actual Terrorists, but chances are, most of the people processed are either innocent, or not involved in a grand enough scale to warrant their treatment. (Ignoring the legalities). I'm fairly sure there's plenty of people here who will argue that setting aside human rights for the occasional innocent - and innocent is used loosely, considering the lack of proper trials in a fair few cases - is well worth it in the end. *shrug* In my opinion, once you start crossing that border... There's a lot of things that can be described as being done for the Greater Good that any civilized human being would consider atrocious. The ends don't justify the means nearly as often as TV would have you to believe. And that's about today. Then there's the fact that various laws that encroaches human rights and civili liberties might have a positive effect *today*. But fifty years from now, those laws could be abused in a wide variety of ways. Which is why human rights and civil liberties has to be permanent, solid fixtures in a society. Because once the border is fluctuating, no one really knows where it will stop, or when.

That's sidestepping the actual question a bit, don't you think? Yes, enemies captured fullfilling the definitions set forth in the Geneva convention are classified as enemy combatants. I asked specifically about illegal combatants sent to Gitmo though, and 'illegal combatant' and 'prisoner of war' are mutually exclusive; You're either one or the other. So, let's rephrase it a bit; Is everyone captured - whereever - and sent to Guantanomo guilty of terrorist acts and should be detained for that reason? Is there no question as to their guilt? Can you really say that being detained and put into a camp is all the proof needed that "coercive questioning" is only to be used to extract further information?

So anyone designated an illegal combatant who ends up in, say, Gitmo, is obviously guilty of terrorists act, and the fact that they were arrested and sent there is all the proof needed of their guilt?

... what about governing/participating in the rule of a democratic country?

I do that too. The really freaky bit is that it's not even due to habit, I amuse myself by doing it when we're going for a trip or something and have to get up extremely early. I'll look at the clock, decide when I want to wake up, and whaddya know, I actually do it. It only works with a "semi-normal" sleep cycle. Quite sure I could never do it if I wanted to sleep for only two hours.

... I must've missed the memo where the grammar police was looking for new recruits. I think it's an art, if done in the right setting. If done on someone else's property, it's clearly vandalism. I even have vague memories of once being told - during a lecture regarding vandalism at elementary school - that the certain chemicals used in the paint is - over time - harmful to the structural integrity of concrete. I wouldn't bet my life on remembering that correctly though.

I played it for two years, right up until they introduced the "New Game Enhancements". Well, strictly speaking, I hit 'cancel' and told them to give me my money back for my preordered expansion the moment I heard of it, and pretty much only logged in after that to set my houses straight and pull them up. I still think it's the MMORPG that *had* the singlemost potential that for some freaky corporate reason was never - even more than two years after release - realized. Used to muck about on Chimaera, with a various variations of pistoleer, ranging from the classic pistoleer/fencer combo, to a CM/BH/Pistoleer hybrid. I had a jedi, but I got him because I got bored of hunting jedi and needed something to do (85% saber block is, well was, friggin ret... err.. stupid). Now that I think about it, I was probably a pistoleer for pretty much the entire time on one character or another, except for badge grinding. Then again, I was kinda of influenced by my guildmaster, who was a real pistoleer freak (he did a fair bit of time as the pistoleer correspondent, go figure). I also had an alt which I took to tailor/shipwright. Made quite a few pieces of clothing (designing a collection of spacewear is surprisingly therapeutic), and a fair bit of money. (Which I spent on ADK's, which they nerfed in the NGE, which was just one more reason to quit. I worked bloody hard for those 150ish million of pretend cash!) Heh Merc, if you have to add 50% of a fourletter abbreviation yourself, chances are, it's not the abbrevation you're thinking of...

To be honest, I wouldn't get to locked on the "religious identity" of the apparent Person In Charge, because Thai as a country just doesn't have a % of muslims that would allow the formation of a Islamic Republic in the pacific. Possibly a division of the nation, but by the looks of it - from afar and with little prior knowledge of the internal politics of the nation - it'll either turn into someone's attempt at getting elected again, or just "your average military dictator". And Ghost... I don't browse these forums as much as I once did, but I tend to at least peek into the political/religious threads because there's a chance I might learn something, I like learning things. At the moment though, I can't recall a single instance where someone has implied that christianity, as an organized religion, promotes the murder of civilians, advocates oppression in various forms etcetc without anyone objecting. Quote me an instance?

While genetic phenotype is?

So in your opinion, one out of, what, four legendary items in the entire game makes a typical example of the grinding involved in getting, quoting your first post, "good gear"?

What makes you say that? Personally, I'm by far more inclined to say that ethnicity has more to do with a shared cultural tradition than with genetic phenotypes. Even before I ran "ethnic" through wikipedia and dictionary.com. And isn't ascribing a cultural identity to people based on looks somewhat prejudiced? (I've been thinking a lot about this recently, because there's a guy taking classes with me that "looks" Korean. But he speak skÃÆÃâÃâÃÂ¥nska, a swedish dialect assosciated with the southern part of Sweden. Basically, if anyone with that dialect talks fast enough, a fair part our contry's population won't get squat all. It's a very distinctive Swedish dialect.)

In all honesty, in today's globalized world, ethnicity and geographical locations aren't the same thing. It's possible to trace your genetics to a specific location, sure, but as to where you're "from"... If you spent your life growing up in a country, isn't that where you're "from" rather than some weird place one of your ancenstors lived in a generation of three ago? (Possibly not quite relating to the topic, but I thought whoever brought it up on page 1 made an interesting point)

Define a rare item? Obviously, if you want the Bindings of the Windseeker chances are you'll never see them, but class specific items are quite common. I mean, Molten Core has what, how many bosses? 10? Random drops aside, we're talking like 30 epics a run, to a 40 a man raid. Yeah, if you want a specific item expect to haul around for quite a while, but if you're willing to settle for general upgrades compared to non-raiding gear, they're to be had a plenty (Obviously not taking weird DKP system or the possibility that the God of Statistics hate your [wagon] - may I never, ever, EVER see another pair of stupid Judgement Gauntlets)