HeyYou

Really? Seems to me, that fighting battles on three fronts really isn't such a good plan. Iraq was justified by a pillar of lies. Anyone that didn't follow the 'party line' was dismissed, transferred, or marginalized. Afghanistan was to get ONE guy. Why we needed tens of thousands of troops, invade a country, and overthrow a legitimate (if distasteful) government to do so, is beyond me.

Martial arts sounds like a good avenue to me. Lots of plusses there. Either that, or long-distance running...... might help you sleep at night as well.

Using your analogy the problem is that both sides want to have the house in the divorce settlement. The house, the car, the kids, AND the pension payments from the (should be) disinterested third party, that isn't related to either of them. :D

Thank you. I LOVE hot chocolate. :D

Driving back from Ohio in the wee hours of the morning once, above us was clear sky, filled with stars.... on the horizon in front of us, was solid black clouds.... the terrain there is exceptionally flat.... so, you can see a LONG way.... and from horizon to horizon in front of us, was nothing but lightning......... as we got closer, the thunder would actually shake the car....... as we drove into the storm, there was a well-defined line, on one side, nothing.... on the other side, Deluge. 25 MPH was too fast. It was raining so hard, even with the wipers on full blast, we couldn't even see the end of the hood....... then the hail started.... golf-ball sized. That was LOUD........ We couldn't hear each screaming right next to each other...... fortunately, we were both screaming the same thing... we needed to find cover. :D We pulled into somebody's driveway.... that had a carport. We parked under that, got out, and sat and watched the storm roll thru.... the owner of the house came out to see what we were up to, and once we explained the situation, he smiled, and offered us his basement to hide in, from the tornado that was on the way......... which we were happy to take him up on. We spent a couple hours with him and his wife, very pleasant people, and we could HEAR the tornado go past....... when we went back outside, the carport was about three blocks away, but, the car was still there... somewhat the worse for wear. It looked a lot like a golfball itself..... lotsa dents. As the sun had come up, and out... while we were waiting, we stayed and helped the couple clean up their yard as payback for letting us into their home....

Was it extremely neutral? Sorry, couldn't resist...... "Extreme" is HIGHLY subjective, and all depends on the perspective of the person using the term.

The TES games have been going down hill since Morrowind. Fewer skills in each game, and now, attributes are gone...... And Skyrim is supposed to be an RPG? Really? Each game in the series has become more and more simplistic, features have been removed, but, nothing really new has been added. Minigames? Oh please...... Player skill has supplanted character skill, in the interests of..... something. Not sure exactly what. Morrowind was an RPG. Oblivion was an adventure game with a heavy RPG influence. Skyrim is an adventure game with some RPG elements. If this trend continues, TESVI will have no attributes, and two skills. Combat, and Magic........ I don't particularly care for skyrim. Sure, it's a fun game, for awhile....... maybe once the mod scene has matured some, I will get back into it..... Oblivion started out the same way for me though... I played vanilla for about 45 minutes, and the level-scaling just killed it for me. I stopped playing for a couple years. I got back into it when the major overhauls were becoming more popular, and FCOM saved the game for me. I am far more likely to be playing oblivion, or FO:NV than I am skyrim. Skyrim has some features that I like.... Dual wielding, crafting... but, the removal of spellmaking, and the oversimplification of enchanting really turned me off.

The game speed SHOULD always be 100%... unless you are using a mod? Any OBSE plugins??

easy to say but when you have to cart around 7 relatives sometimes you need to rent a car Six in the cab, the rest in the bed...... :D

So when it comes to this running of their nuclear reactors and assume its just for civilian use , like providing heat and lighting for their schools , hospitals , homes ,industry , etc , etc would they be allowed to run them in the most efficient manner possible in order to maximize the energy output and thus the possible profits they could make (you do believe in the profit margin right , everyone is allowed to make a profit right) well what is the enrichment capacity one needs to make that profitable , betcha its higher than the 20% enrichment capacity they reached last year .Or how about nuclear medicine would they be allowed to say become leaders in the treatment of childhood leukemia or some other noble pursuit , well that can require an enrichment capacity of up to 80%. Hmmm things are not so clear cut anymore eh. So lets stick with the no enrichment option and find a way for them to still do these other things. Only one way do it is for them and of course you can't make any profit from it because its something your imposing on them . So are you willing to have those costs come out of your pocket , because it ain't coming out of mine. This is what Ziggy is talking about when he said that he was concerned that the Israeli's would demand conditions that would be impossible to meet. You know we hear about this issue or that issue and in today's world it seems to have become all about fear and really what I see is those in power where ever that may be , using that fear to manipulate us into things we otherwise would not consider ,yet they blabber on not even knowing what it is we should truly fear.So try this on for size. Iran literally sits in the center of a sea of oil , just over 60% of the worlds entire supply. So lets say war starts and it spirals out of control but doesn't go nuclear and oil producing regions have their production capabilities disrupted or even destroyed for a period of 5 years .Well go do some research on how intricately tied oil is to our food production capabilities , go look at some oil consumption and population growth graphs and see how they literally mirror each other. So even if it doesn't go nuclear we could lose anywhere from a third to half of the worlds oil capacity , taking along with it our food producing capacity and at any given time I think there is only 50 days or less food supply in the world.We North Americans might get along fairly well as we actually produce enough for ourselves and a billion plus , the rest of ya have got big problems really big problems .1 - 2 billion people dying is not outside the realm of possibility , seriously its not just do the math.This is what that official under the Shah was implying by saying we don't need a bomb we have the Straits of Hormuz .Lets see close the Straits (no one can stop them) , missiles hitting oil facilities from Kuwait along the Saudi coast to about Oman , explosions and secondary explosions literally setting the entire region ablaze , would make what Saddam did to Kuwait look like a campfire. Mahdi Army forces would strike out in Iraq at anything American and all oil facilities . Stock markets and economies would begin to crash around the world , hoarding , panic buying would ensue , governments would in many places declare emergency or martial law and of course all the fighting that would be going on.Just so Israel can have a regional nuclear hegemony that allows them to take another's land unimpeded . Seriously these are the kind of possibilities we are willing to risk. All of that last paragraph could happen, regardless of whether Iran has nukes, enrichment capabilities, or not. Given the pressure of the sanctions on Iran, and the trend to keep applying more and more, the likelihood of them attempting to close the straights is reasonably high. However, the US has a pretty significant presence in the area....... and could make relatively short work of the Iranian navy.... (but, not without some losses....) If that was the end of it, Iran could close the straights for a month or so. No big deal for america, our strategic reserves would see us thru that... not sure about the rest of the world. Now, if the war dragged on, the scenario you put forth could quite easily come to pass, without a single nuclear weapon being produced in Iran, or any being used by any of the other participants. So, shall we continue to pile on more and more sanctions, in the vain hope that Iran will "see the light", and give up their enrichment facilities? How likely do you see that as being? I suspect the odds of that are vanishingly small. So, from that perspective, the war you describe is inevitable. And if someone makes a pre-emptive strike on Iran's facilities? Do you think they are going to just sit back and take it? Oh no. They will strike out at what they KNOW will hurt the western world. (and most everyone else as well...) We simply do not have the military power to reduce Iran sufficiently to avoid such an outcome. Unless WE resort to nukes. World opinion won't allow that route. So, by all appearances, continuing on the course we are currently pursuing, inevitably leads to war in the middle east. Is that REALLY what we want? More so than a potentially nuclear armed Iran??

If Israel, and Palestine were a married couple, they would be filing for divorce (a long time ago....) for "irreconcilable differences"...... There isn't ever going to be peace there as long as there are both palestinians, and Israelis, exist at the same time. Neither side is willing to give the other what they really want. Israel is NEVER going to go back to the pre-1968 borders, they aren't going to give up a bunch of their settlements, regardless of if they were legal or not...... and Palestine is not going to be happy with the borders that Israel wants to draw. It is an impasse, and no amount of diplomacy is ever going to solve it. With the Arab Spring goin' on.... Israel is more and more finding itself surrounding by (even more) hostile neighbors, and that isn't likely to improve either. Are we having fun yet?

Why? I am not entirely sure Iran has the capacity to enrich uranium to weapons grade levels.... yet. If they wanna produce their own nuclear fuel, all well and good.

"But how many times a year do you honestly go on a road trip when you use your own car? You typically rent a car, because you don't want to put mileage on your own car. Really? You do?? Hhhmm..... I don't rent a car. Ever. Can't afford it. If I wanna go on vacation, I drive my own vehicle. Besides, what's the point of going to an off-road park in something you can't take off road?? And I seriously doubt ANY electric vehicle is going to tow my truck to where I want to be...... at least, not any electric vehicle that has to cart around it's own power.

Oh, I don't have a problem with Israel having nukes, they are a significantly more stable regime than some of the other nuclear powers...... (Pakistan, India, N. Korea.......) I don't have a problem with the existence of Israel either. (although, the whole partitioning of the middle east after WWII was certainly not implemented very well.......) I DO have some issues with their foreign policies though..... but, that's for another thread. :) Thanks for the info on some of the history there though. Muchly appreciated. A nuclear Iran, though certainly not something I see as in the worlds best interests...... (right along with a nuclear anyone else.....) IS something we are going to have to deal with. Sure, we can bomb the facilities, and set them back a few years, but, is that really something we want to have to do every few years????? A good percentage of the muslim world doesn't particularly care for the west as it is, bombing one of their 'buds' on a regular basis most certainly is NOT going to endear us to them..... Even Iraq is moving closer to Iran...... and given the events currently going on there, I could see a time when they become really good buddies... won't that be fun? So, what are our choices here? Bomb Iran every few years, on the suspicion that they are developing the bomb? Wait until they test one, and then bomb the crap out of them? (as we would have evidence they did indeed have a nuclear weapons program......) Or, let them develop the bomb, and keep them on notice that should one of their bombs detonate somewhere outside their border, even 'by accident'..... there is gonna be a terrible price to be paid......? Or heck, they may continue with their peaceful development of nuclear power, and never bother building a bomb... just to keep the rest of the world guessing. The first option would seriously annoy a good chunk of the muslim world, and terrorist recruiting would skyrocket, as "the great satan" perpetrated an 'unprovoked' attack against a sovereign muslim nation. Again.... Ooooo, would the terrorists LOVE that...... The second option would give us a bit more of a leg to stand on at least.... we would have some concrete evidence of a nuclear weapons program at least... something that we don't really have at the moment. The muslim world make shake their fingers at us, but, would have less grounds for a jihad against the west. (like they really need a valid reason......) The third option? While it would most certainly SUCK for someone...... (several million someones really.....) the consequences for Iran would be horrific. They would immediately become a pariah nation, except for a VERY few staunch supporters...... most of whom we could ignore anyway, and the rest of the world would more than likely support the drubbing Iran would take for it. (Russia and China might make some noise, but, in the end, they wouldn't be able to say a hell of a lot.....) The fourth option? This would be the ideal..... but, not what I expect to happen. :) I still think we should just drop all the damn sanctions, that aren't doing a hell of a lot anyway... (I mean, seriously, we have had sanctions in place against Cuba for better than 50 years.... and that hasn't made one whit of difference.) Allowing Iranian oil onto the common market would go at least a little ways toward easing the price of gasoline right here in the states....... Iran is going to do what they are going to do anyway.... Might just as well accept it, and make the best of a bad situation.

Yeah, sometimes the presidential jokes don't go over well. (for the president....) After all, look at the keel-hauling ol' Ronnie received for the "I'm pushing the button NOW." remark on Air Force One back in the day. :D Look at it this way, at least it wasn't a white robe, with a conical hat, with cutouts for the eyes. :D

The Israelis have used the threat of the use of nuclear weapons on more than one occasion. Certainly, they have not done so lately...... I don't recall hearing Iran stating that as soon as they had one that worked, they would erase Jerusalem from the map though...... Of course, calling for the destruction of Israel doesn't exactly endear them either.... But again, they are not the only country with that particular rallying cry..... Egypt is starting to become more and more anti-Israel as well. (oh gee, big surprise there.....) As for the Israel/Palestine thing.... well, that's been going on for decades, and BOTH sides share the blame for that particular debacle. PART of the problem is, the Jews see ALL of that land as theirs, given to them by God..... Doesn't matter that very few, if any of them were there prior to 1948...... nor does it seem to matter that none of them even really have any recent ancestry from that area. (at the time...) They were mostly displaced Russian Jews. Personally, that is an issue I think the US should just butt out of, and let the two sides figger that one out on their own. I suspect the issues surrounding that won't be completely resolved until one side, or the other.... are all dead. (take a wild stab in the dark at which side is more likely to survive. :D) In my view, Iran has every right to develop nuclear weapons, treaty signatory or no. They can always abrogate the treaty, in the same manner that N. Korea did. In all reality, that would almost be a better idea for them, than sticking with their current course. Now, should Iran decide to USE one of said nuclear weapons, either directly, or, via some third party (hezbollah/hamas), they ALSO have the right to become a glass covered parking lot. Mr. Dinnerjacket isn't going to be in power (such as it is) for much longer, lets hope the next pres there is a tad more moderate...... (sane?)

If you are sleeping on your arm, you are probably just cutting off circulation to it, in which event, it goes 'dead'..... go long enough, and when you wake up, you won't feel it, you won't be able to control it, it will just hang there, until circulation resumes. That's when you get the pins and needles sensation..... which can be painful on occasion. Don't make a habit of it... it isn't really good for your arm..... not sure how long it can go before permanent damage starts happening.

Might wanna do a bit of Research on Israel's "samson option".......

My point is, it seems we press harder on our 'enemies' than we do on our allies for nuclear inspection. And even then, 'enemies' that are closer to OIL, get pressed all the harder. At this point, we have a selection of countries with nukes, some of which we are pretty certain support terrorism, (yes, pakistan, I am looking at YOU.) yet are we screaming for inspections there? Supposedly, the whole premise here is, we don't want Iran to have nukes, because we are afraid they will use them. Ok, once again, what about N. Korea? They HAVE the bomb. They are testing long range delivery systems. Why isn't ANYONE screaming to high heaven that we go in there and blow up their stuff?? Seems to me, at the moment, N. Korea is the bigger nuclear threat, but, no one seems to care. And why is that? NO OIL. Iran has every right to object, when they are being singled out for attention, when there are other folks that are setting off bombs, that don't get a second glance. Can you blame them for being uncooperative? Not to mention the fact that we are convicting them of a crime with little or no proof, and we are rapidly heading for a military confrontation, based on rumors and innuendo. (and pressure from Israel.....) Iran insists they are not building a bomb. Why should we not take them at their word, right up to the point they set off their first test bomb? At that point, some manner of intervention would be a good idea, but, unless/until they actually use a weapon on someone outside their borders, they are guilty of nothing more than a desire for some self defense.

You and I both know that if you have to go.... fast is the preferred method...living in one of the other primary target zones I'll have just enough time to have a smoke and watch the flash. On topic..I absolutely am not a conspiracy advocate..so no I don't buy into mysterious cabals plotting away wearing hooded robes with chanting in the background. :whistling: How did you know they were wearing hooded robes, and have chanting in the background? OH GOD!!! A IS ONE OF THEM!!!!!! :ohmy: The Grand Master assures me that we don't exist..... :ninja: Really? Cool. That is SUCH a relief. :D

Yes. The IAEA visits all sorts of civilian nuclear sites, reviewing for safety and suggesting security upgrades where there's a proliferation threat. After a nuclear accident, the IAEA also assists in the clean-up. In the past 10 years, the IAEA has made 100 official visits to power plants and enrichment facilities, 120 to border crossings, and 200 to hospitals. Note: CIVILIAN nuclear facilities. I am not entirely sure Iran has ANY non-military nuclear facilities..... their government is a tad different than ours..... that, and the IAEA isn't telling Iran squat about what goes on in our facilities.... meanwhile, they release reports about their 'findings' everywhere else they inspect. (and which Israel does NOT appear on the list....)

S. Korea isn't as 'good' an ally as Israel?

You and I both know that if you have to go.... fast is the preferred method...living in one of the other primary target zones I'll have just enough time to have a smoke and watch the flash. On topic..I absolutely am not a conspiracy advocate..so no I don't buy into mysterious cabals plotting away wearing hooded robes with chanting in the background. :whistling: How did you know they were wearing hooded robes, and have chanting in the background? OH GOD!!! A IS ONE OF THEM!!!!!! :ohmy:

Trouble is, even today, only the very wealthy can afford the kind of coverage you want for everyone. Back in the day, when folks graduated from High School, or college, and went to work for a company, and STAYED THERE for 20 or 30 years, the companies could provide pretty good health coverage, and it was actually affordable. Now, if folks stay in a job more than three years, it is unusual..... no one wants to provide health care for a temporary employee...... and with the advances in 'modern science', there are ever newer, (more expensive...) tests that can be performed, so that when you get dragged into court, you can point and say "Well, I did EVERYTHING possible....."

Exactly. Ahmedinajad is by no definition rational. And, if they have nothing to hide, why not let those inspectors in as Aurelius said? After all they would gain a tremendous propaganda coup by so doing, and make us in the West, and the Israelis too, look very foolish and warmongering. But they aren't letting the inspectors in, which makes me think that they are not innocent and are trying to make nukes - they probably are too incompetent so far or have been frustrated by the Israelis to date. I agree with Nintii too about the Straits of Hormuz. Do we have IAEA inspectors in the US, going thru all of our nuclear facilities, and telling our secrets to our potential enemies? What about North Korea? We KNOW FOR A FACT that they have the bomb, but, where's the hue and cry to go and blow up THEIR facilities? Is the government there more rational than Iran?? Why should Iran allow their nuclear program to be put under a microscope, when it appears to be common knowledge that Israel has nukes, but, there aren't any inspections there either? Why are we singling out Iran from all the 'potential' nuclear powers for such scrutiny? Why should Iran allow them in, when it appears many others get a pass on it? I can see their point really. Maybe it isn't because they have something to hide, perhaps they view inspectors as a violation of their sovereignty, or some such. There is also the real possibility that by our very actions, with all the sanctions, and bluster, that we are actually DRIVING Iran to develop the bomb, in what in their view is "self defense". Relieve the pressure, and they would have less reason to NEED a nuke. Are WE our own worst enemy here??? (not like that hasn't happened before....) The current president of Iran is basically just a figure-head. Nothing he says carries any weight within his own borders. He has alienated most of his supporters, including the supreme head of Iran, without whose approval, Achwhatever can't even go to the john. :D He is all bluster and noise, signifying nothing.