Arthmoor

Corporations pay taxes, and are thus entitled to have their grievances addressed, just like you and I. Or do you support the wholesale suppression of their right to free speech?

Corporate lobbying isn't paid with taxpayer dollars, the GSA mess is. Don't want corporations legally allowed to lobby? Stop assessing taxes against them and they won't have any need to be represented in Congress as distinct entities.

Nope. I'm not ok with bribery. So it's a good thing I distinctly recall saying I'm ok with lobbying and with lobbyists being paid for their time.

Lobbyists don't conjure those millions out of thin air either. If they did, I'd be one just so I could conjure me up some millions of my own. That money coming into lobbying organizations is being sent there from people who want that position pushed for. myrmaad is entirely correct that it's protected activity (speech) and also capitalistic at the same time. Whether it's morally right or not is a separate issue, though I personally don't see a big problem with it. I only see people whining when lobbyists are pursuing positions they don't agree with.

It may appear as such now, but that's only because we're still conducting primaries and the Democrats didn't have to this term. Once we get the primaries settled, and it looks like that's more or less happening, things will begin to consolidate just fine. Canada? Really? I hate to say it, but there's nowhere for conservatives to go that would be a better fit. Stay here. Fight back. The only way we lose this country is if we give it up without one. Above all, VOTE DAMMIT! Too many conservatives sat home whining about McCain in 2008. Look at the result. Do you want that to happen again? Uh, ok. I despise the woman for any number of reasons, but to my knowledge she's never done anything to indicate she's racist. Unlike her husband.

Don't be so sure. If either of them holds enough delegates to force a brokered convention, anything is possible. And I mean possible for Gingrich to win btw. Ron Paul stands zero chance of getting anywhere even with that scenario.

Probably true, but I think that largely depends on where Santorum's delegates end up. Though even if only a small portion moves into Romney's camp that will seal it up for him. I can't imagine that ALL of Santorum's delegates would split between Gingrich and Paul.

Liberal use of the report button has been rumored to be effective at removing trolls :)

Not when it was you who claimed he didn't need to show it when asked in the first place. Nice try though :P No, everyone else is NOT bad, that's the part people are not quite getting. The media is trying to convince you this is the case because even they know Obama is bad, but they'd still rather he win than someone who's objectively better than he is. Getting the leftist media in this country to admit openly that Obama was a terrible choice is never going to happen though because it means they'd have to admit the right-wing was entirely correct in their assessment of him in 2008. Those of us who watch this sort of thing knew the left was up to something when they kept talking about him in 2004 after he won the Senate race in Illinois. Red flags went up everywhere because the party, the media, and the talking heads were all in love with someone who appeared to be a nobody on the political scene. We've known about his Marxist policy stances now for 8+ years, but any time that ever got brought up it was always "you only hate him cause he's black". The left was never interested in having an honest discussion of the man, only in demonizing the majority of Americans to try and guilt them into voting for him for reasons other than policy.

He may have done it for political gain, but it's also very clearly his opinion on the matter. I don't think you really have any idea how much of a diehard partisan this guy is. And this right here is positive proof of how much of a diehard partisan he is. If he's willing to make an open mockery of Article 2 JUST to try and make his opposition look bad, there's something horribly wrong with the guy. For president, not for office in general. You don't need to meet the Article 2 qualifications for any other office in this country. Dig deep enough, you'll find them. They're part of the public record somewhere, which was not the case for Obama until he was forced into it by Trump. That never would have happened had he simply compiled to begin with. Oh, he has a foreign policy alright. Appeasement, and apologizing for all our past leaders. I doubt I need elaborate on why this is BAD.

Actually it does. Article II, Section I: It does not make one a nutjob to demand proof, when every other candidate for the office EVER has done so without batting an eye. And yes, the Dems made McCain do the same thing after they thought his being born on a military base in Panama might get him kicked out of the race. He provided the required proof without hesitation. Obama made everyone wait until 2010 before resolving that issue. So all he was doing was fueling lots of conspiracy theories and crazy talk. For which he has only himself to blame. There are numerous politicians who DO care. You are correct in that Obama obviously doesn't. I was inclined to believe that until his ridiculous statement about SCOTUS setting dangerous precedent and all that talk about being unelected. He put two of those people on the court himself. though it's become clear now that he had a very clear agenda driven reason for doing so. I don't have the patience or the desire to rehash 5 years of why Obama is actually a problem. Had people paid attention the firs time, we wouldn't need to be discussing him now.

Not sure how one could conclude it to be activism of any stripe for an unconstitutional overreach of Congressional authority to be peeled back and struck down. Following the Constitution and correctly overturning a law that had no legitimate bases to begin with is exactly what Judicial Review is for. It's not for liberals to use as a means to legislate what they wanted via the courts when they couldn't get it via the Congress. Well he should care, because he billed himself as a constitutional scholar before running for office. This isn't the kind of person I'd want teaching my children about US law since he clearly doesn't understand how our government works. Which plays into him not understanding why his birth certificate should have been handed over the day he chose to run for president. We shouldn't have to force it out of him 2 years AFTER he's taken office.

Someone posted on the BGS forum earlier that file downloads from PES are hosed. They're trying to download into the browser as text rather than as proper files. That doesn't really make it easy to begin retrieval of content from the site.

It's a known issue, should be fixed in a future update... which I can go prod Kivan about or something in case he's forgotten again :P

I just noticed that the timestamps on comments on Skyrim Nexus are wrong, they're WAY too early in the day for when they were actually posted. The forum has the correct time showing, and it appears that the TES Nexus site has the correct timestamps as well.

So... from the look of it this dead horse has ascended to heaven: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012/03/bethesda-mojang-settle-trademark-dispute-over-scrolls-name.ars

With my alt-start mod I blocked all of the ones I could find in the Helgen sequence, but there are numerous others that pop up from elsewhere than still show up even using the other start options. I've been looking all over the place for what triggers them but haven't found anything. I'd love nothing more than to silence them all since I would assume anyone using an alt-start is on their 2nd or greater playthrough.

Well, I think that's the problem right there. That "news" source is as biased as they come, and are well known liars here back at home. Chris "I got a thrill up my leg" Matthews being the worst of the bunch.

As did many of the Democrats during their primaries in 2008. Nothing new there. Bill Clinton didn't just stop with having affairs though. He sexually assaulted at least 5 women who have documentation to back that up, and he lied at trial, which is why he damn near got kicked out of office. Had the libs defending him voted the facts, he would have been the first president forcefully removed from office. Sorry, but in the Democratic party today, there's no difference between the two.

There can't really be a debate on this until this kind of false racist crap is dropped from the discourse. Everyone knows what Gingrich meant. More people are on food stamps under Obama than ever before. At the rate things are going under Obama's policies, that may well include myself before long. The state of the economy is so bad right now that millions of people have turned to welfare just to survive. Which isn't even being counted against the unemployment figures. I don't know where you got the quote claiming Gingrich said he wants to give blacks jobs, not welfare, but I certainly don't recall having heard him say it. I've watched nearly all of the debates, and seen pretty much all of the press smear campaign against him, but that never came up as far as I could see. Obama's father being Kenyan, and being one of the anti-colonialist types, the facts are the facts. Obama's world view was dramatically shaped by that influence. It has nothing to do with race. Being Kenyan is a nationality issue. Which should be no more insulting than my factually pointing out that I'm an American. For every chart you can dig up, I could dig up one to match it. All of that crap is smokescreens meant to distract from real problems, or to try and obfuscate the facts that cause the symptoms those charts represent. We are not heading for another Gilded Age. Every time I hear someone say that, it just makes me want to shut off the channel, or get off the forum, or just generally tune them out. It's a crock. Nothing more than a front for anti-capitalist view points than IMO have no place in America. That kind of thinking belongs in Russia. Yes, I was talking about Herman Cain. When he got pushed out by the media, I switched to Gingrich. Gingrich's ideas are similar enough to Cain that the two of them should have run together on the same ticket. Unbeatable IMO, but of course both of them had affairs. Which apparently is only bad if your a Republican, and is perfectly OK if you're a Democrat who went far beyond just having affairs. yes, I am still holding Clinton responsible for his reprehensible behavior in office and of his abusive treatment of his interns as governor of Arkansas. He should be rotting in prison right now for what he's done, but the left rallied to protect him from it. As it turns out, the whole Clinton thing was a defining moment in what shaped my current political beliefs. I made the mistake of voting my conscience already once in my life. Ross Perot. Nice guy, good policies, no chance in hell of winning, but 1992 was the first election I was old enough to vote in and like most young people I thought my vote mattered and that Perot was the best choice. Had I known then what I know now about it all, I would have voted for Bush. Santorum is a solid candidate. Conservative values across the board. Unfortunately his religious beliefs would make him a target for hate filled attacks from the leftist media in this country and as such he'd have almost zero chance of winning in the general election. Huntsman is a fool. His naievity w/ re4gard to China disqualified him early on. Perry shot himself in the foot by saying he supported giving in-state benefits to illegals. Not something I want to hear from a border state governor, let alone a presidential candidate.

I wouldn't go quite that far, but yes, his being a RINO puts him much closer to Obama than the other 3 still in the primary race. No idea on which planet this could even become close to true. Liberals start wars all the time, or continue to prosecute wars they inherited from previous administrations. Usually liberals end up botching them much the same way Obama has with his handling of Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush may not have been a hell of a lot better, but things have taken a huge turn for the worse since 2008. Extending tax cuts was forced on him by Congress, which after the 2010 election is decidedly less liberal than it was after 2006. Nationalizing health care though, that's as liberal as they come. Obamacare went WAY beyond any sane definition of "reform" and also included a completely hidden federal takeover of the entire student loan industry.

Cross-replying to this from the other thread. Your remarks about the Republican party are why I tend not to waste my time getting into debates of this nature. Especially when people begin throwing around the racism card. All the pretty charts mean nothing now since you decided to play that card yourself. What that tells me is that you've got no argument, and whether that's what you intended or not, that's the result you've created. Ron Paul? Sorry, I wouldn't trust that man to be president. I'd sooner vote for Obama over him. Delusional isolationists have no place in today's world, and his foreign policy approach frankly scares the crap out of me. Yes, I'd rather re-elect Obama and KNOW what I'm getting, than elect someone who comes across as a madman and have no idea what I'm getting. Domestically, sure, he's probably a better choice. I'd gladly put him in charge of the Treasury and let him go to town on the Federal Reserve. Romney is a RINO. He talks the talk, but the fact is, he's as liberal as they come, so he can't walk the walk. I'm not convinced that he's the right choice for our party, and he has definitely flip-flopped almost as much as John Kerry did. Chameleon more or less nails it. I think if you've been following the primaries and caucuses, you can see that we as a party are not generally satisfied with the 3 front runners. The leftist media is salivating over the very real possibility of a brokered convention in August. That would be bad. BAD BAD BAD. Sadly the one guy I was actually excited for got trashed by the media for absolutely no valid reason. Going so far as to attack his family and everything. He didn't deserve that, and I am totally convinced they did it to him out of genuine fear that his policy ideas were taking root with the public. If it came to a brokered convention, I'd hope the party delegates have the sense enough to nominate him. Somehow I don't see that happening. Heh, I don't need to watch 2 hours of liberal lies and propaganda to answer this either: No. It doesn't really count. Mainly because I live in California and hell would have to freeze over before the people in this state would wise up and elect a conservative.

I don't know in which universe people think raising taxes is actually helpful, but it rarely is. All it does is discourage investment and cause those who can afford to to hoard their money and start cutting employee counts. It happens every time, which is why the Republicans aren't stupid enough to incorporate tax and spend as a policy direction the way the Democrats are famous for. I remember my parents being pretty pissed off at Reagan when he raised taxes. Except that didn't stay that way. Unlike when the Dems do it, by the time he came up for re-election, those taxes had been brought back down to reasonable levels and a massive economic boom took place. Which is why he's hailed as a paragon of conservatism. GW Bush isn't hailed as that because he wasn't one. He's a big government Republican. Conservatives don't tend to support folks like that because in our binary political system, ALL Republicans get tarred with the same brush as being big government supporters. Most of us are not, but the alternative in the current system is too disgusting to even consider. I also notice that there's an awful lot of blaming the Republicans going on with absolutely zero accountability for what Obama has done in the 3 years since he took office that make everything EVERY OTHER PRESIDENT BEFORE HIM look like chicken feed. All of the gains made under GW Bush with the tax cuts have been wiped out entirely. Obama took the deficit from $400 billion to nearly $2 trillion. That's *NOT* helping. Anyone who thinks Obama's policies are useful is being nothing short of ignorant and hypocritical. Back on the subject of Rush Limbaugh, it would seem this boycott movement is going nowhere fast. Word has it he's lost ~50 sponsors out of some 18,000 in total. I'm no expert in the advertising market, but that doesn't seem like it would be much more than the average turnover rate one would expect anyway. It also didn't do Carbonite's stock much good when they dropped him. Their stock plunged hardcore. Yes, they have the right to drop him, but the stockholders also have a right to make them pay for their reckless decision.

There are other reasons for not wanting that stuff displayed besides the government using the information. That was just one valid point. With as much as people advocate for privacy these days, you'd think something like waving peoples' IP information around like that wouldn't go over well. The rest of the stuff above the IP listings is fine, and is indeed interesting to see.

The only thing I really take issue with is the listing of the last 5000 users part. The rest of it is sanitized data you can't pin down to any one specific person. Because... .... this isn't always true, and even in the US, there are ways the government can use this against you without a warrant. Maybe we all need to pay more attention to what's on the page or something, but I think the big reason nobody complains about how Google et al do this is precisely because they're not displaying it for all to see.