HeyYou

Hey, someone has to be there to clean the dust out of sitebot... I mean, the servers. :D

How is a sales tax voluntary? I am never asked if I want to pay it, I am forced to pay it if I want to purchase some particular item. Sure, I could NOT buy said item..... but, if that item is say, a prescription drug I need to survive, where is the choice?

I will say it one more time: Pure communism cannot work when humans are involved. On a small scale, perhaps, but, on a national scale (which would technically be a misnomer, as there would be no "nation" per se.....) nottafugginchance. Human nature just won't permit it.

Check the configuration for your browsers connection. You should be able to specify which network to use internet access.

Probably medium. Vid card is a business class card, and at the low end of the spectrum at that.

Not necessarily. If you approach it right with the right initial people then it can work. And if you can maintain it, then it will keep working. Its just that history has shown us that the people who often push for communisn and manage to establish it usually aren't the right people nor do they approach it correctly. I put forth, that there is no such thing as "the right people" for that position. Far more often than not..... people in a position of power, will abuse that power for their own gain. There will be the 'wealthy leaders' at the top, and then, everyone else at the bottom..... Humans can't do pure communism. We are too greedy/selfish/whathaveyou.

Joy2Key is free.....

Pure communism would be just fine. Trouble is, there is no way on god's little green acre if would ever work with humans involved. It's just as likely to happen as a 100% tax in the US. The government might pass it, but, it wouldn't last ten seconds, and there would be revolution. You are going to extremes here. You're misunderstanding what Voluntarism is and how it works. Feel free to look it up, as I don't have the will atm to sit here and explain it to you. (though I admit I probably should have made it clear that this is what I was talking about in the first place. Sorry about that. I haven't discussed this sort of thing in a long time and back when I did discuss it frequently I was usually speaking under the understanding that both sides knew what the other was talking about and as such were just debating specifics. Obviously that isn't the case here) Long story short, donations are given to support those who already voluntarily do what they do at their own expense. Those who don't donate cannot reasonably expect to receive X service for free unless the person giving X service decides to do so. Most of the time, refusals would only really matter when it comes to healthcare or public works. Protection services and basic government functions likely wouldn't concern themselves about whose donating or not if they're actually needed by X person. No one is legislating anything. Legislation presumes the use of coercion, and coercion does not exist in this system. Voting tends to be a worthless tool when your choices are two sides of the same idiotic coin and a third side that will never receive the proper backing, funding, and for that matter votes that they'd need to get elected. And often times the third side is just a third side of the coin anyway. Voting is worthless when the systems surrounding it is fundamentally fixed towards perpetuation of the status quo. Exactly. That is the current problem we have here in the states. The system is unworkable, but, the only people that can fix it, are those that profit the most by NOT fixing it. Therefore, nothing will ever change.

Always happy to be of service Ma'am. :D

We have the technology NOW to actually do a fair bit of Ocean exploration. it is going to be decades, if not centuries, before we have the ability to even reach the limits of our solar system. An ocean colony could easily be made self-sustaining, not so much a space colony. (be it on a space station, the moon, or mars...) Also, in the event of an emergency, an ocean colony could be evacuated, or, help could be there in a relatively short period of time. Again, not the case with a space-based colony. Not to mention, an ocean colony could be made to be economically self sustaining as well..... just put it someplace where it is relatively easy to drill for oil...... :D

Would a 100% tax be moral? Depends on what you get for your money. If all my food/clothing/healthcare/transportation/entertainment/etc were taken care of by the government, (essentially, any product or service you wanted would be free of charge) then yeah, that would be perfectly acceptable.

BOOOOO.... SSSSsssssss. :rofl: An aircraft made a particularly hard landing after a long flight, such that the passengers were bounced around quite well..... As the plane approached the gate, the stewardess came on the PA to announce: "Please stay in your seats, with your seat belts fastened, until captain crash can drag that aircraft to a screeching halt, and once the smoke clears, and the wreckage is removed, we will open the doors......

He was only 42 years old when he died after a long fight against cancer. Major bummer. RIP man. Your games will live on though. Thanks for the contribution to a selection of GREAT games.

Only one problem. The government isn't in the business of controlling their budget, that's why we are 15 trillion dollars in debt........ Your ideal society sounds good, but, once humans get involved, you can forget it. We are some of the rudest, most wasteful, selfish critters on the planet. Wolves are better at sharing than we are. (at least, among their own pack.) the problem is, Americans dont pay attention to s***. they listen to whatever the Politicians tell them, without looking at their history. they just want to hear certain words and they are happy. like Change. i think this is an amazing example: vote Ron Paul. :D Or "Lower Taxes"..... It should be scary just how accurate the video clip is........ And it's true. Americans are divided basically into thirds. The Democrats, the Republicans, and Everyone Else. :D There is very little difference between the D's, and R's when it comes to foreign policy. They might just as well be the same party. Domestic policy is where they differ, with the dems seeming to want everyone on welfare, and the republicans just wanting their rich buddies to get richer. (some d's fall into that category as well....) With the FLOOD of mass media, and the far right leaning, and far left leaning 24/7/365 news channels spewing their pap, it really shouldn't come as a surprise that we have such a polarized society. There ARE a few folks that I interact with on various newspaper blogs, that have a clue, and realize what it's going to take to turn this country around domestically.... Trouble is, the folks that are in power have zero motivation to change ANYTHING, as they make more money by NOT changing anything. They may make noises about "change", and "an america you can believe in" etc. But, it's all BS. Big money controls who runs for office, and who gets elected. If you DON'T have billions backing you, you don't stand a chance. And once you ARE elected, if you want to STAY in office, you better do as your Big Money Masters say, or, the 'other guy' will get their backing, and you will retire... no more government perks for you. (aside from your FULL salary, and 100% health care coverage for the rest of your life..... that's friggin stupid too, but, guess who would have to vote to change it..... That's right, the very people that benefit most from NOT changing it.) With our current tax, and foreign policies, america is going to be bankrupt within a decade. We simply can't afford being "world police" any more. It won't be a war that brings down america, it will be economic collapse, that our government brought down on us while we watched, and we KEPT ON VOTING THE SAME PEOPLE INTO OFFICE. Individually, there are some americans that are actually pretty bright, and astute. Collectively though, we got nothin' on a box of rocks.

Only one problem. The government isn't in the business of controlling their budget, that's why we are 15 trillion dollars in debt........ Your ideal society sounds good, but, once humans get involved, you can forget it. We are some of the rudest, most wasteful, selfish critters on the planet. Wolves are better at sharing than we are. (at least, among their own pack.)

I find it amusing that China isn't a signatory. The country that makes the greatest profit from assorted counterfeit goods. :D

Any death is tragic, however, I have zero sympathy for whitney. She did herself in, by her own choices. Just another celebrity that committed unintentional suicide.

i am from a country that _entirely_ depends on the oil. without the oil, i could just as well tell you that i am from angola, botswana or sierra leone. but for now, i am not. this is what business the government has in oil: infrastructure building, roads etc. hospitals, keeping them public. schools, keeping them public. police and fire department, keeping them public. basically, anything a government needs for spending, thats what they need the oil for. let us reverse it: explain to me how a government would exist without a single penny? Actually, it makes good sense. The government wants to make some money on it, but, the profit motive isn't the be-all, end-all motivation like it is for the private sector. You don't have them blowing millions on salaries and bonuses for the bigwigs either, more money goes where it is needed most. To the people. The US government could learn some lessons here... but, public oil companies would never fly here, the private companies would piss and moan about unfair competition cutting into their profits. Cutting all welfare/social programs would be a recipe for disaster. It would make the great depression look like a day at the park. Crimerates would skyrocket. No one would be safe. Security companies would make killings. (literally, and figuratively) Wall Street would be overrun, and anarchy would be the end result. That is not something you can just decree, and have it happen overnight. It has taken us decades to get to where we are now, it will take decades more to address the issues that have been created. Trouble is, no one wants to address the real issues. They want to poke and prod at the symptoms, so it LOOKS like they are doing something, when in reality, all they are doing is perpetuating the problem, and passing it on to the next generation. The current government here in the US seems to enjoy cutting taxes, as that gets them re-elected. However, they seem to be allergic to cutting spending, or ending wars. Sure, Obama 'ended' the Iraq involvement, but, he got is into Libya, and Yemen. One step forward, two steps back. Iran looks like the next candidate for "small country the US wants to invade, and then rebuild." Our government seems to fail to recognize that we flat out SUCK at nation building. Yet they keep wanting to do it some more. Trillions of dollars, a goodly percentage of which is borrowed from China, down the tubes, to no good purpose. Watch those nations go right back to exactly the way there were, or worse, before we came in to 'save the day'.....

I don't care if games are fully digital in the future. I can always burn the installer to disk, and be done with it. What I DO object to, is forcing me to run some third party software to play the damn game. Activate it once, and be done with it. Don't make me waste processor power on some app that I don't want/need.

There are a large number of people who used to pirate games because there was no good online service that let them buy them. Steam did help with piracy. No it didn't. Saying "steam helps prevent piracy" would also then mean that so does Direct2Drive, or any other online distribution method. That is just not the case. If folks want something, they will go get it. If it isn't available in their area, (due to laws/restrictions/mommy won't let them) then they may look for alternate methods. That's just it though, DRM does NOT do a damn thing to prevent piracy. Take a look at past history, the games with the most intrusive DRM, were also the most pirated games of their day. DRM is counter-productive.

Steam does nothing to combat piracy. In fact, DRM in general is totally ineffective. Sure, you may lose some multiplayer aspects of a given game, but, for all intents and purposes, for beth games, that is irrelevant, as they don't make any multiplayer games.... (that I am aware of) The more draconian the DRM becomes, the HIGHER The likelihood that someone will pirate the game, instead of buying it, simply because of the hoop jumping required to get a 'legit' version to run. Pirates don't have that problem. If I am playing a demanding game (as far as computer hardware is concerned) Why would I want to waste ANY resources at all, running some background software that I have zero use for? For a lot of folks, Steam brings nothing to the table. There is not a single Steam feature that I want, or need. None. Zero. I would MUCH rather have the processing power being wasted on steam, put to better use running the GAME. I play SINGLE player games. I don't want/need a social network WHILE I am playing. Some folks like steam, and can live with it. Other folks just don't care, and just want to play the game. Still others detest steam, and anything similar. (GFWL for instance. please note beth only released ONE game that required it.) Everyone has their own view on it. Please do not assume that "your" view (no matter which) is the "only right" view. For me, If I buy a real disk, of a single player game, I shouldn't have to have some third-party bloatware running in the background to play it.

I wonder where you're getting your numbers. Care to share your sources? You have to discriminate between different types of crimes as the classification varies from one counrty to another. Murder is easier to compare (although in some countries it will include abortion, euthanasia and other related deaths). According to the UN France is at 1.4 and the US at 5... These numbers are for 2011: link. Please check your facts before making preposterous claims, "something like 2" is nowhere near the truth when we're talking about rates for 100,000 people and the accurate number is 1.4 (the difference may not look like much but it is staggering when you take into account the entire population). I'm done discussing murder rates in France as it is slightly off topic, let me conclude by saying that Americans have at the very least three times the number of guns that we have here in France and that there are more than three times more murders in America. I'm not saying that there is a direct relation between these numbers but that should be food for thought. We also have the highest percentage of our population in prison...... but, not all of them are in there for gun crimes...... Sure, some of them had a gun on them during the commission of a crime, but, that doesn't imply that they wouldn't have done the crime if they DIDN'T have the gun......

Piracy will never be stopped. Simple as that. So long as folks produce software, and charge for it, there will be folks out there, that crack it, and offer it for free for anyone to download. It's a lot like drugs. So long as their is demand, there will be a supply. Banning various file transfer protocols, removing due process from the internet, won't change a thing. Pirates will still be out there, as will pirated software. Just the means of acquiring it will change. It's akin to the 'war on drugs'..... you can throw as much money/legislation at it you want, but, you don't even make a dent in it.

You need the permit to purchase an automatic weapon. If THE WEAPON was MADE post 1986, you cannot purchase it at all.

Full auto weapons are designated as "class III" weapons. (also included in this category, are weapons with silencers, and short-barreled shotguns, not sure on the definition of 'short' here though.....) In order to own one, you need to have a license to own class III weapons. Once you have said license, you can own as many as you want..... just pay the 200 dollar tax, and a 5 dollar registration transfer fee (which may have gone up by now) and you are golden. You MUST have a federal firearms license to purchase/possess a full auto weapon. You have to have the same permit to be able to have ANY weapon shipped to you from out of state.