pseudobio

For me, it matters very little who gets into the White House. All I know is that whoever gets there, the leader of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, will try to kill and take away the only health insurance I've been able to afford as a disabled person. From Obamacare of $100/month, perhaps back to pre-Obamacare rates of $750-$850/month for being in what they see as a high risk group. Lucky me!

I came out as an MBA Middle, and do have a strong live-and-let-live attitude. For me, Individual civil liberties are everything, and the right to life the most important of those, for without life, the other civil liberties are moot. You take someone's life without their consent (i.e. requested assisted suicide), you have just taken their civil liberties away. Social safety net programs are indeed needed, but few governments have ever learned how to manage them well, nor learned how to make them self sustaining, so that now, at least here in the US, we are quickly running out of the monetary resources to keep them going, since the rich are moving their own resources (which we could use) out of the country to protect them from being taxed, and we are looking at a far worse economic collapse in the future than we had in 2008. And as to today's politicians revamping the US Constitution, I too shutter to think how they might mangle it up in their attempt to gain more individual power at the expense of our individual civil liberties.

Voltaire was right about "Common Sense not being so common". It usually has to do with people not thinking about the consequences of their actions before acting, and considering only "I" rather than "We" in how one proceeds to action. Best example for me being the person who sees someone going 75 mph in a 70 mph speed zone, and who is only 500 feet from the turn off he and the person going 75 mph are both going to, and decides, because he thinks the other person is a slow poke, to pass and pull in front of the person going 75 mph before braking to turn off, almost causing the other person to rear-end them. The safe thing would have been to remain behind the 75 mph in 70 mph zone person and pull off into the turn off lane behind the other person, for that pass and pull in front of stunt may have saved a full two seconds of travel time. I see this stunt daily, which, to me, proves common sense is all to rare.

Interesting statistics Jim. I was unaware that even in computer gaming, nearly half the players of computer games are now women, and that they outnumber teen boys by almost 2-1, so I happily stand corrected on my own posts thoughts that teen boys were the largest gaming group. However, game companies may still have the same perception I had about teen boys being the largest gaming group, and that could explain their catering to the teen boys gaming expectations, which includes a smaller number of female protagonists.

I guess I must be the odd-man out. I actually do make my gaming decisions based on the myriad of race and gender selections possible in the game........one of the reasons I wasn't a huge fan of Dragon Age 2 (you had to be human). I like going through the game multiple times with different race and different gender choices each go-through. However, as to the topic question, the posters who posited that the major target group is teen males, and that they are the primary buyers of games has always been true, even before the advent of computer games. To these boys, women are background eye-candy, not protagonists. It was as true for D&D in 1978 as it is for Skyrim in 2013. Young boys tend to be most interested in action stories and games similar to Beowulf , the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, GI Joe, and the Zombie apocalypse genre of games, so gaming companies naturally cater to them. Sad, really, but that is what their hormones are doing to color their views on games. Point is, no matter how creative the programmers and artists in the game development team for a particular game are, they have to sell the game also, and teen boys buy games like no other target group.

from a non-math oriented individual, I gather from this exercise that even an explicitly ordered and objective operation such as number crunching can be very subjective since each of us respond to information from different perspectives. Quite simply, each of our brains is wired differently, and it shows up in how we perceive the data we take in daily.

For me, the nearly photo-realistic body mods and clothing mods (skimpy or not) add an aesthetic beauty to games that is pleasing to the eye. Admiring the human form in art is no different than enjoying the vibrant colors you see in nature after a rain. Those who do not like such mods, to me, seem to be those who have body image issues. I personally would like to know if they are also the people who have issues with the idea, that those of us who were born with disabilities, or acquired our disabilities in our infancy, actually still have normal human drives? Just a few thoughts and musings.

As to the end of the world in 2012 in relation to the Mayan Calander, I too think the particular mayan astronomer worked out the calander to the end of that year in their calander, but was never able to work out more of it probably due to his own death. If, by the most remote of chances the world does end this year, it would be because some crazy lunatic was set in his mind to make "the prophecy" happen, and got his/her hands on a few nukes to lob to create a very short WW3, Fallout Style. Chances of that ever happening, however, would be 1 in 100's of billions. So, as many others rationally believe, December 22, 2012 will come and go just as December 20, 2012 will as well. But, hey, why not use this "end of the world day" as an excuse to party and have fun with family and friends?!

The Supreme Court also ruled that the Healthcare bill is constitutional. They can say raping little timmy infront of the white house would be constitutional when its not. How to use red cross dynamite, Du Pont farmer's handbook - USA - 1912 This is a Handbook for Farmers how to use Dynamite. You could buy dynamite in every hardware store in these days and people didn't go postal on each other. I wanna live in a society where i can trust my neighbours to handle Dynamite. I wanna allow them to buy TNT again. I want these freedoms back. Hell, i want a RPG in every Household! The Swiss have plastic explosive and Hand grenades in their houses! What kind of pussy whimpy bunch of minus-men did we become?? And here is something i totaly forgott. What the Traitor Alexander says about the other Traitor Alexander. Alexander Hamilton was probably a british agent just as Benedict Arnold was. He allways wanted a central bank, owned by european banking families and married into the Rothschild family till he was shoot by Aaron Burr. Thats how to deal with Traitors Aaron! ^5 . You seem to be missing my point Moving. I said the Court has the right of "Judicial Review", but that doesn't mean we have to like every decision they come to in a review. The Court had the right to review Marbury's claim to the commission he was offered, and the Court had the right to review the Health Care Bill, but as to what conclusion they came to in each case will always be debatable.

As for me, as long as there still will be the extra $550/month Blue Cross was going to tack onto my health insurance policy they counter-offered me after I applied for a $200/month policy, it will be cheaper for me to pay the penalty, simply to be able to buy food. I simply can't afford to give Blue Cross more for coverage each month than I'd pay for a house mortgage each month. It's a no-brainer to make the choice between $1000/year penalty and $9000/year for coverage. If, however, the Health Care Affordability Act can bring my coverage cost to about $200/month, it is more palpable than it presently appears. We will see what implementation of the law brings about. To Beriellord: that $95/year penalty is only for the first year, then it jumps up to about $1000/year by year 3 or 4.

The reason we tolerate letting those in power use it to divide and conquer, is that we find it so much easier to compartmentalize people into groups whom we then can think in our own minds "say this or that", or "think this or that", never having to see each individual as a unique being with their own beliefs, some of which may match a grouping we compartmentalize them into.

Species-ism, Racism, Sexism, and even able-ism, it is all the same to me. What I don't like is "functional discrimination". Just because an individual (of any species, race, or gender) has a funcional limitation does not mean they have a diminished value. To me, a three legged dog has as much value as a four legged dog, specially if that dog lost the one leg by saving its human companion by pushing that human out of the way of an oncoming train and taking the hit for its human companion, which just happened recently. Level of function being used as a definition of value is just as discriminatory as species-ism, racism, or sexism.

Creativity isn't valued by a world culture who sees logic as the only means of expression. Art and the humanities are seen in the present world culture as a waste of time when we need individuals to work towards the next great tech gadget rather than the next great music composer or poet who inspires a generation to love and help those who need help. We are becoming a bunch of robots with curcuit boards and software programming rather than human beings with emotions and personal needs.

Being disabled from birth due to a stroke, I have several paralyzed limbs (right arm and right leg), so fighting back against the physical bullies was never an option, but those who were verbal harrassers were easily put in place with a comment that made them look like the fools they were. Since no one in school was willing to protect the disabled outsiders, I simply had to put up with having my head pushed back against a wall, or almost put through a wire-mesh windowpane by the physical bullies. Perhaps it is a good thing I have several paralyzed limbs, because I probably would have put those physical bullies in the hospital had I had the ability to fight back.

@ Moveing I did not get the verbatim quote of the Constitutional text from Wikipedia, but from the very link Ginnyfizz had in her above post. The Supreme Court made its first important interprative decision in "Marbury vs. Madison" under the John Marshall led court, which firmly established its role as the interpretive body of (as you put it) THE Constitution.

@Moveing Article 3 Section 2 of the Constitution states the following. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;--between a State and Citizens of another State; --between Citizens of different States, --between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects. In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellateJurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make. This means that the Supreme Court has the power to interpret the Constitution in relation to all US laws, persons, government officials, and organizations, foreign and domestic.....as long as they are on US soil.

My first computer was a Comodore 64. First games were Sid Meiers Pirates, Many of the early D&D games with 4-color graphics, and also Silent Service. Played Pirates to death, and when it was re-released for Windows xp/vista/7 a few years back, had to get it again.

Took the test and got a 93.94%. Missed 2 of 33 questions. As to one being responsible for ones own civic education on the candidates and public policy, we are indeed responsible for our own self-education in such matters. p.s. I actually got the "Wall of Separation" question right that Marharth thought was so wierd that 80% of the public failed. I do not think it too hard to believe that people do so badly on such tests, because most people don't think their vote counts, so they do not consider that educating themselves matters either. Sad, really, considering that their future, and the future of their decendants, count on the way they help the country progress by voting for the candidates of their choice today.

Of course there is life elsewhere in the universe. Whether that life is intelligent or not, we will never know, because the space between stars is so vast that we will never be able to travel the long distances to find out. However, gut feelings and logic both suggest to me that our blue-green planet isn't alone as an eco-system that supports life.

Not to be a smart arse or anything, but I was able to legally drink at 18, and when they increased it to 21, I was already 22. :P Seriously though, that extra year of training can make a huge difference in your skill level and ability to assess your driving conditions on the fly. So you will end up a better driver in the long run.

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: Of course A is one of them! Businessmen, both small and large, are part of the great cabal, and politicians are in their back pocket (picking their wallet)! :P On a more serious note, people of great wealth will usually seek power as well, but that doesn't mean there is some great cabal looking for complete world domination. Even those who support a world govenment based in the UN simply want ways to solve worldwide issues like hunger and conflict. I personally believe that such a world government will still not solve those issues, but it doesn't mean those goals aren't worthy goals. It also does not make them a cabal of overly power hungry jack-booted thugs. Cabals, on a large scale, are simply a good story hook for novels and movies.

Funny thing Silver, I read those 6 CPS questions, and in spite of having Cerebral Palsy, Epilepsy, and now age related Osteoarthritis, I do not qualify as disabled by that 6 question yardstick. I can manage, with very little difficulty those "activities of daily living" , or AODL, which are the basis of the 6 CPS questions. The one AODL difficulty I can say I might qualify with is holding the first "ear" of the bow you tie in a shoe lace with my disabled hand wilst completing the bow tie with my non-disabled hand (but I do manage it). Thus, by that set of CPS questions, I would remain unidentified. :P

Thor, there are no creatures more advanced than me! If there were, I'd tell you! :P

I like the idea of exploring both. We could have teams of both astronauts and aquanauts who would be specifically trained to explore the unknown depths of each environment. Just think of the knowledge about the universe we would gain from exploring both environments. The College of Winterhold can perhaps spearhead the exploration? With help from the Bard's College too?:P p.s. Couldn't resist the little Skyrim insertion there. :P