Amorous_Dead_Guy

Money is always derivative of power. Like it or not, the two are linked. The large political parties are SO large because they garner the most support than all the minor parties. It would be unfair to say that the Republican party is completely dominated by the super rich, their strongholds electorally are in the deep south, where statistically the people are much more financially disadvantaged than the North. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that you are indicating that the power balance in countries such as America lies completely with the super rich. But, the concept that the superrich completely govern the democratic system is not true. Though they do have influence within the party itself, the only way they can actually influence agenda is through the influence of party agenda, which, in turn can only influence political affairs if the party gains power. Going by this, the people with the real hold over what gets done is the public, if they do not like the party, then they do not vote for it. Simple as. I do agree that, often with pressure groups, it is the most wealthy ones that are the ones that get listened to, but, on average, the most wealthy political action committees are also the most popular with the people, and therefore it is right that they should be the most popular. Similarly, i take your point that a group or party that has many wealthy patrons, and invests this money in media campaigns may well influence the people through propaganda. However, I think that, though people are influenced by propaganda, there is also the same volume of counter propaganda coming from the opposing party, making the scales balance out. It is the same thing with PAC's, there are some really big ones telling us that something is bad, or important, and, as with most hot topics in society today, there is another one, equally big, telling us that it is good, or unimportant. People just have to ask themselves what they believe, and that is what the majority of politicians and everyday people do. Historically, we have seen examples of the power of public opinion to change what happens, for example when Ross Perot stood for election. He almost halved the Republican vote, and subsequently lost the party the election. Yes, i admit that Perot was wealthy to the point of being able to afford it, but it does show to an extent how the public, and independent candidates do influence American politics. Finally, though I personally I do not like Barak Obama, his victory in the primaries over Hillary Clinton, was because he was the most popular, and, because of his popularity, had the most money to spend on campaigning. (over 2 billion I think) Furthermore, bills such as FECA have meant that companies and wealthy individuals are limited in their donations to parties, stopping them from properly having a stranglehold over the polititan. Not just the republican party, the dems have their patrons as well. If you think that the public has any control over what goes on in washington, you are deluding yourself. One primary example: The Health Care Reform Bill. Better than 60% of americans did NOT want that bill to pass, yet it did. So much for majority rules eh? Also, voting merely gives you the illusion of a voice in matters political. How many times has a candidate talked a really good game, and then, once elected, all of that talk turned out to be just that. Talk. The promises of priorities, and things that needed to be done, suddenly get shuffled right after the polls close, and we end up with more of the same that we have been dealing with before. Obama is a prime example here. Very few of his campaign talking points got much attention after the election. He promised to close Getmo, he promised to get us out of Iraq, made noises about afghanistan. Well, lets see here, Getmo is still there, we are still in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and we have expanded our little wars into Yemen, and Libya. The parties in power changed, but, the policies did not. Very little is different from what we would have seen, had McCain won the election. And who chooses who runs, and who doesn't? The american people? Nope. We don't get a say in the matter. Our choices are lined up for us by the big parties, and who gets the most funding. Where does that money come from? Corporations, and the wealthy. We get the choice of a lesser of a selection of evils, with minor points of difference between them. The american electoral system is broken. The people in power represent the money that put them there, NOT the people that voted for them. And it isn't just about campaign contributions any more either. Now, it seems, corporations are people too, and can therefore spend money on direct political advertising. I.E. telling you whom you should vote for. If you think that the people have any control anymore, then just why is it corporate america gets all the perks, while the poor and the middle class keep getting cuts? (and why the middle class is rapidly disappearing.) Firstly I want to apologise for sort of necro-ing this thread, but I thought it courteous to say something in response, I carrying on: One constant draw back of a properly functioning democracy is, unfortunately as some may argue, tyranny of the majority. Or at least tyranny of the largest majority. I was completely against healthcare reforms under Obama too, as were the Republican party, (go figure, I'm Republican :P) as were many people, However, as President he does wield a large amount of influence in forcing through legislation. This is counter balanced because this is the only real power the president wields domestically at all. If healthcare is passed, and people do not like it, there is nobody to blame but the people who voted Obama in the first instance: The majority, or at least the biggest majority. Obama said that was what he planned to do from the start, and, then, if he gets into power and does it, it is nobodies fault but the electorates. It is not the companies that elect the president, it is the people, candidates can stand for nomination to sit on the ticket in primaries with no endorsement by the National committee at all, and the public are free to vote for whoever they want, just as they are, after reading through the party platforms, in the national presidential race. I completely agree that the funding that the candidates receives is a direct product of pressure groups, PAC's and private industry donations, but the prospective candidate is under no obligation to do anything for their patron once they are in power (if) It is also categorically illegal for them to do so anyway, and they get put in jail. It's called an Iron triangle, or revolving door syndrome, and America is doing it's best to stamp it out, incidences of it and the occurrence of Iron triangles have decreased drastically in later years. Democracy, or at least the indirect democracy that we have in America and the west today was especially formed to eliminate some aspects of mob rule. Instead of us governing the country, with all our little factions and arguing cells, we trust the governance of the country to the more educated, better informed, professionals, who, we should be able to trust to act in the best interests of the country in both the short and long term. I am against Obamacare, like I said, BUT I would not for a second claim that healthcare did not need to be addressed in America today, as is is/was spiralling out of control. My argument is that Obama acted for what he 'thought' was best for America, my issue comes with the method by which he reformed, and his timing. However, and I cannot believe that I am defending him here: he was obliged to try to hold to his election promises and try to do what was best. I fully look forward to demonstrating my displeasure at his failure next year in the election, as will many people, as is our constitutional right. And, if the majority decide that he was a failure, then he is gone. Majority rule in action. The effects of voting in action again.

Money is always derivative of power. Like it or not, the two are linked. The large political parties are SO large because they garner the most support than all the minor parties. It would be unfair to say that the Republican party is completely dominated by the super rich, their strongholds electorally are in the deep south, where statistically the people are much more financially disadvantaged than the North. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that you are indicating that the power balance in countries such as America lies completely with the super rich. But, the concept that the superrich completely govern the democratic system is not true. Though they do have influence within the party itself, the only way they can actually influence agenda is through the influence of party agenda, which, in turn can only influence political affairs if the party gains power. Going by this, the people with the real hold over what gets done is the public, if they do not like the party, then they do not vote for it. Simple as. I do agree that, often with pressure groups, it is the most wealthy ones that are the ones that get listened to, but, on average, the most wealthy political action committees are also the most popular with the people, and therefore it is right that they should be the most popular. Similarly, i take your point that a group or party that has many wealthy patrons, and invests this money in media campaigns may well influence the people through propaganda. However, I think that, though people are influenced by propaganda, there is also the same volume of counter propaganda coming from the opposing party, making the scales balance out. It is the same thing with PAC's, there are some really big ones telling us that something is bad, or important, and, as with most hot topics in society today, there is another one, equally big, telling us that it is good, or unimportant. People just have to ask themselves what they believe, and that is what the majority of politicians and everyday people do. Historically, we have seen examples of the power of public opinion to change what happens, for example when Ross Perot stood for election. He almost halved the Republican vote, and subsequently lost the party the election. Yes, i admit that Perot was wealthy to the point of being able to afford it, but it does show to an extent how the public, and independent candidates do influence American politics. Finally, though I personally I do not like Barak Obama, his victory in the primaries over Hillary Clinton, was because he was the most popular, and, because of his popularity, had the most money to spend on campaigning. (over 2 billion I think) Furthermore, bills such as FECA have meant that companies and wealthy individuals are limited in their donations to parties, stopping them from properly having a stranglehold over the polititan.

I disagree with the statement that all parties are completely united in the US. a Social Conservative believes in a certain set of moral values, regarding abortion, family, etc. whereas a Fiscal Conservative's interests are vested instead in free market economies. They may well both be Republicans, or at least affiliated with the party, but this does not mean that their beliefs are the same on everything, a fiscal conservative may not give a monkeys about Same Sex marriages or anything that the Social Conservatives hold close. That being said, often some beliefs are shared within the party, and politics is America has become increasingly partizan in recent years. A political party is though, by definition, A group of people with similar ideals that form together in order to gain power. Therefore all elements in every party MUST have some common ground between them, or they cease to function as a party at all. That being said, unlike in the UK, where party loyalty is enforced by whips, America does not have a way for the party leadership to discipline a rogue member of the house, congressmen and senators are allowed to vote for the benefit of their representative state over their party. The range of political belief is staggering within a party, for example, the Tea Party, though aligned with some big name Republicans, is by no way any representative of the RNC, which are much more moderate. Political parties need to be large, because, not only is it a sign that they have popular backing, they also have the resources to campaign thoroughly, and, even though they dominate the electoral process, this actually serves as a benefit to remove radical minority parties from gaining influence. If it were not for the FPTP system in the UK, there would by British National Party candidates, and this opens the window to radicalization, in either political direction, something that is dangerous to the stability of the country.

I am sorry if this comment has already been made, or if I am simply being dense, but I would say that the missing Advanced search option, and the ability to refine by category that was on the last site build is a must for this sight. I found it very useful. If this feature is here, I apologize, but would definitely say that a clear link from the nexus home-page to an advanced search option is a must, it would make file browsing much more accessible. Also I have noticed that with the new image viewing set up on the sight, unconventionally shaped images (such as a cropped character profile) become warped and stretched in the quick view windows, spoiling the pages aesthetics. (NPC remodeling project is the one I noticed) I want to make it clear that I am not moaning, I think that the new site is awesome, I am just looking to be helpful. :)

I decided that that items given by the Dark Brotherhood were rather boring, as they looked like any other weapons. So, I decided to enter the construction set and re direct the file paths for the reward items to new models and textures. However, these alterations do not show up in game, and the Object id codes do not seem to work either. The process I used as as follows: - Open the corresponding reward Id in the construction set -set nif file to preferred mesh -set texture file to preferred mesh -clicked OK -repeated for all levelled versions in the editor. -saved and edited. Is there a vital step that I have missed out? any help would really be appreciated. thanks.

Do you use Star X Vanilla vampires revised? I have not tested it in combination with Unholy Darkness, so do not know about any conflicts, but I would recommend it thoroughly, it really increases the ambience of Vampire lairs, adds vampire quests, a joinable faction as well as lots of vampiric armour, some of which looks really cool.

The days of the solely fiscal republicans has passed unfortunately, the Libertarians are the closet thing to the old pre Nixon republican party. Though in some sense the foreign policy agenda seems to remain intact from that period. But the will to state the truth of one's real political thought processes and agenda seems to be a thing of the past. Which is unfortunate because the voting electorate might find it a refreshing change of pace, but as Twain once said "You will never go broke betting on the ignorance of the common man." We live in increasingly more illiterate times a trend that seems to be gaining not losing momentum, doing due diligence on candidates seems to beyond the purview of most voters.. Personally I have no issue with social conservatism, I am one, to a lesser extent myself. However, it is concerning to watch the party swing more drastically to the right than before, though I have no objection to policy, I am concerned about the prospect of how electable the party will be to the moderate majority in America. I read an article recently that claimed that in order for a Republican politician to receive any media coverage from their biggest outlet, FOX news, they needed to become increasingly extreme. I do agree with this, especially with the rise of the Tea party, and their radicalising effects. However, I do think that this is in reality a bi-product of Obamas presidency, undeniably he has forced the Democrat party further left than it is comfortable being (or should I say Liberal, they are nowhere near the left wing) And this in turn has had a radicalising effect on the Republican party who have swung further right. Without Obama in power, and especially if there is a Republican president, I feel that the party divide will decrease again, as the Republicans no longer require such a defining standpoint in order to make themselves popular in the media, and instead require sensible policies to maintain their popularity. A president-elect can never hope to really pass truly radical Social conservative reform, as they are prohibited from doing do by the federalist structure, the states would never allow it. Therefore, the perceived radical nature of the candidates will never properly be realised in office, and, in my opinion, the party will function as it has done previously, favouring the fiscal conservative wing.

It is in a politicians best interest to be deceitful to an extent. Personally I think that this is a direct fault of the media. We can see this all over the world: In the UK, the holiday destination of a Member of parliament is splashed around by the media and becomes another important part of propaganda and how they appear publicly. Similarly in the USA people are victimized by the media simply for their beliefs and actions: for example CBS character assassinated Palin for her outspoken socially conservative attitudes, and Bill Clinton was almost impeached because of an affair. I personally am morally opposed to infidelity, but do not think it is the position of the media to meddle in it. Similarly, simply because Palin speaks out about what she personally believes (whither anybody personally agrees with her or not) should be commendable, but instead it becomes a tool used against her. This means that politicians are forced to lie simply to protect themselves from the over scrutiny of the media.

@ginnyfizz I did not at any point say that you were ignorant of anything, my comment was referring to a large group of people who have no proper understanding of the principal and think that GM food is going to suddenly come alive and attack them (beetlejuice dinner party style) If someone such as yourself has valid concerns about GM foods then that is no problem at all, and you should be fully entitled to explanations. It is the people that claim that (and I quote from the comments page of the Guardian newspaper) "Frankenstein Foods will cause the zombie apocalypse" Now this is not only scaremongering, but I think everybody would agree, highly ignorant. Not only does it start up the rumors about this sort of thing in the first place, but it also makes everybody with valid concerns get drowned out by the majority of general public ignorance. @Ghogiel big pharmaceuticals are definitely only in it for the money, but the labs are university owned ones and the projects are mostly university funded. Unfortunately the amount of resources and money required to be invested means that the research cannot be funded merely on university finance alone. It's necessary to involve big business investments in order to secure the funding to continue (my pa has had to let his postdoc go simply because he cannot afford to keep him on with the budget cuts.) In this way, the involvement of industry is to an advantage, as researchers can afford the facilities they need, and furthermore, the hesitant governments do not have enough funding to afford the mass production of the vaccine/genetic modification, meaning that big industry is left to step in to do it for them. Of course this means that the process costs the individual money, but in my opinion it is better than not being able to have the process at all.

Introducing Holofernes Holofernes is not evil as such, though he is certainly not incredibly friendly. He is loyal and protective of his friends, but dangerous if someone gets on the wrong side of him. He considers most to be far beneath him, but that's not to say the right band of adventurers could peak his interest. Name: Holofernes Gender: Male Race: Probably imperial Age: He appears really rather youthful, perhaps early 20's Peronsality: Quiet, refined but moody Preferred fighting style: Magical (ranged) though he does have a long, elegant sword, which he is adept with fighting with Appearance: He stands just under 6 foot, and is unpleasantly thin, with long elegant fingers. He is wearing a floor length black silk robe which contrasts his unfathomably pale, alabaster skin. He is completely bald, with an angular, defined face, high cheekbones and scowls to himself. his eyebrows are drawn on with a black euchre, and are thin, arched and angled. he wears a corset made from tessellating sheets ebony plate mail belted over the robe across his stomach, stopping before his chest. His neck is held by a brace made of the same plate, and elongates his appearance to look like a curious stooping brid. He stands in the corner of the tavern by himself, idly inspecting his nails (which are long and painted black) and is ignoring the odd glances he is receiving from the drunken clients of the tavern. He is slightly imposing, but not unapproachable, he has a softness in his dark eyes that indicates a deep sorrow and loss, though this is only apparent to anybody that talks to him for a long time. An old drunk is sat near him, and is eyeing him concernedly, shuffling closer, so as to get a better look, but looking away when Holofernes glances at him. At one point Holofernes catches his gaze for a split second, and the man stops moving completely, Holofernes however simply looks back down to his nails with a discontented sniff.

My dad actually works with genetic modification at Cambridge University, and Is making chickens resistant to the H5N1 strain of bird flu. people seem to claim that he is a barmy doctor who has ulterior motives and is only in it for the money, personally, if I was 'in it for the money' then I would not work on a project for in excess of 7 years! I personally feel genetic scientists really get allot of flack for essentially trying to help the world. Genetically modified crops would cease starvation if they could exist in unforgiving climates, disease resistant animals will mean that pandemics could be halted before they start, and could even be utilised into a vaccine to protect humans, genetic modification does not necessarily mean non-free range either! I just think it is somewhat blinkered to think that crops and animals who have not been genetically modified are better, because... what? they have a lower yield? more die because no insecticides are used? The animal could actually be contaminated because it has not been protected? It confuses me that the less advanced products are in fact more expensive than the safer, better GM ones, I pay more for Organic beef, and you know what? It tastes the same! Cosmetic genetic modification, well that is another moral debate, personally I do not see how genetic modification could harm an animal, just because its skin pigmentation is different, does not mean it is suffering. It might lack camouflage it needs in the wild, but designer animals would only be as pets, so that is no longer necessary. In truth, their is allot of scare mongering that goes on regarding this, and the majority of people simply are not well enough informed to make a properly educated decision about it.

I know that this may not be a particularly unique idea, but, after browsing Mr Siika's amazing Necropolis tileset, and playing Might and Magic Heroes Kingdoms online by ubisoft, I have been inspired to create a house and quest mod based around the Necropolis race (undead) Unfortunately I have little to no experience using the construction set, and so the possibilities of simply creating a custom race villain with retextured robe prove daunting. I am hoping that I will be able to ensnare someone reading this topic to come in and help me on this project, share ideas, help me with tricky elements, and generally be awesome in creating this project. I am going to be starting work on this very soon, and would love someone to come in on this and help me, I would especially like to add some quests etc. If anybody is interested, then PM me and post on this forum page, I would even like help from people that have never modded before (like me) even though, despite our lack of usefulness, I think everybody has the ability to bring some really unique and wicked ideas to the table. Im going the leave most description regarding my ideas out for now, but i would be happy to go into depth about them if you PM me asking. thanks! :)

Being a Fallout 3 fan as well as Oblivion, The evil assassin side of me was looking for a mod that added the gore and violence into Oblivion, and Skycaptains great DR6 was just the ticket, however, I was always dissapointed by the fact that once a body is dead, they appear completely immune to your weapon. In Fallout 3, you character can hack the NPC into little pieces, but in Oblivion this was just not the case, and I have not as yet been able to find such a mod. I know someone may criticise this for being barbaric or whatever, but to be honest it is no more barbaric than any of the already existing gore mods on the nexus site, or Fallout, which is just as popular game. In short, my question is this: How would one go about creating this mod? Does a similar mod (other than DR6) do this already? And is there anybody who thinks this would also be a wicked project? thanks :)

I quite like the idea of some skeletons with some fetching blond wigs personally! I'm surprised the overhaul mods didn't think of it first! :P

Oh UL works fine, just a very brief lag now and then when running quickly through it :) my graphics card ain't THAT naff :P Mind you the Dark Forest has issues and occasionally does not load the meshes up correctly, probably a conflict or something :/ MMM however tended to crash now and then, especially when entering a city, (nearly always Skingrad) though I was running both MMM and FCOM with a compatibility patch :/ I just got irritated and deactivated it :P I was looking at things like Alluring Potion bottles and immersion interiors, All Natural and the like as a sort of OMG that is such a lovely looking tree! I don't know if that makes it easier to recommend anything :) I can run Qarl's Texture Pack fine enough, and have the settings on high and large textures, but that and UL is not such a good mix maybe? Especially not with Better Cities too :P Thanks for the advice, some of these I have not found yet, and I seem to spend a long time browsing the files on the nexus :P