Bulldrek v3.0

ratlaw

HS Diploma
Most of the way through a BS in Computer Sci
Third of the way to a BA in Political Science (which will probably never get finished up).

ratlaw

The ones in Cain's Ward 2 :) In that case it's a question of which produces a healthier individual: arbitrary punishment without regard for rules or scale of response, no discipline and no real consequences for actions or measured consequences to breaking known and established rules. Here's an inter...

ratlaw

32's more correct than some of you are giving him credit for. Firstly, you're ignoring all of the costs that are associated with finding and exploiting new oil resources in the ground. All of which are non-recoverable, meaning if you go looking and it ain't there you're screwed. Secondly, very littl...

ratlaw

In my more optimistic moments I think the idea is that the Bush Administration has demonstrated that it's not bluffing. Everyone just saw the US and the British take down Saddam in the face of international disaproval. We now have 250,000+ combat proven troops within easy reach of Syria, Iran, Jorda...

ratlaw

An interesting article on Israel and nukes may befound here

Additionally, searching google for "Israel nuclear weapons" turns up quite bit of info, most if which I'm still perusing.

ratlaw

One thing to remember, the Electoral College was created to protect the rights of the states vs the federal government and vs. each other, not to reflect popular elections.

ratlaw

Well, let's see. For one, the issue of our two-party system is one of how votes are counted to decide the winner, rather than the Electoral College or the amount of money a party gets. Here in the US we use a system that in PoliSci circles is called a First-Past-the-Post system. FPtP is really simpl...

ratlaw

[hijack] Just as a side note, short of completely rewriting the constitution and the way we elect our representatives from the local to the federal level you aren't going to be able to change the US from a two-party system. If anyone wants to discuss this claim of mine, feel free to start up a threa...

ratlaw

One thing to note, I don't think the idea of copyright is outdated, I just think that trying to apply the same ideas and methods to digital information is a waste of time and effort. So here are some alternate business models for various digital products that I've thought of: Music: forgo trying to ...

ratlaw

Additionally, I'd like to point out that Clinton endorsed and enacted regime change in Yugoslavia and as I recall that was done through NATO not through the United Nations.

ratlaw

I think they (both lawmakers and the media industry that lobbied for the DMCA) understood the process just fine. The DMCA is about nothing more than protecting the interests of the members of the RIAA, the BSA and the MPAA over the interests of consumers, creative talent and innovation. The last thi...

ratlaw

I don't think Iraq has to go that far. If Hans Blix were to go to the Security Council and say, "We can no longer feel confident that the Iraqi government is complying with our demands and is blocking out ability to verify disarmament" then the Security Council would /really/ be in a situa...

ratlaw

The point of this thread is not to indemnify the USA from accusations of conflicts of interest or wrong doing. The point is to make it clear that /no one/ in the situation is free of these accusations and that /no one/ holds any real moral ground. Therefore, the way to come to a decision for or agai...

ratlaw

Oh, I'm not making an argument for the legality of file sharing. I'm just pointing out what I think is a more reasonable model of how to actually collect on your IP. One that recognizes that recordings are no longer a medium that has the ability to make money. Additionally, I'm pointing out that rec...

ratlaw

So basically, you're saying that file sharing only steals the IP of record companies, and not independent artists? If I decide to self promote my music, self distribute it, etc, no one will use file sharing to steal it instead of paying me for it? Well I'm glad to see that's the case. To an extent,...

ratlaw

Those aren't the only fears the RIAA has; their whole business model is in jeopardy of becoming obsolete. Any music is the IP of a recording label simply because artists trade ownership of their music in return for use of recording studios, distribution and promotion. Studio recording no longer requ...

ratlaw

Well, we were the only ones in the Pacific, and we didn't have a /whole/ lot of British support in Italy or Africa; there was some, but Patton pretty much played it by himself. Sorry, but I can't resist correcting this statement. We had a lot of British support in both Africa and Italy. Rommel wasn...

ratlaw

I'm suprised you can, in good honesty, put 'liberating' in quotes there. As if to suggest that the Taliban was not oppressive, or that Afghanistan does not now have a more liberal government. Well, I think you know my stance on fucking with a country's culture just because you think women should ha...

ratlaw

Yesterday, I learned, again, that there are still not enough hours in the day.

ratlaw

I played a character who was a ghoul as a starting character (which is a bit of a headache). If anyone's interested, I just made him normally then ran the ghoulization process until the first one that didn't kill him. Took me three or four tries and his Cha is 2, but he can be fun so long as the run...

ratlaw

Moo, Wild: Your analogies are specious at best, ridiculous at worst. For the love of mike, people, if you bothered to do even the tiniest bit of googling, you would find out that cyberpunk changed the fucking world. Christ. A mere 20 years ago, most people thought we'd all live in a happy-dappy, wh...

ratlaw

Disorder | Rating
Paranoid: Low
Schizoid: Low
Schizotypal: Moderate
Antisocial: Low
Borderline: Low
Histrionic: Low
Narcissistic: Moderate
Avoidant: Moderate
Dependent: Low
Obsessive-Compulsive: Moderate

Not terribly surprising, though the only Moderate I really agree with is Narcissistic

ratlaw

And thus my original point. Lift the special exemptions for them, reclassify them as a passenger vehicle and let the chips fall where they may. Word up. Hell, I remember a couple years back, people were getting tax breaks for buying the super-huge SUV's due to a piece of the tax code meant to keep ...

ratlaw

*Ratlaw is vigorously shaken until a set of keys, a cellphone, 42 cents in change and pictures of Moo and Bessie eating in the bar at the Hayes Resort fall out*

ratlaw

I'm all for hiking or camping (hiking without the walking :). I'd recommend the Appalachian because I'm pretty familiar with them, but if we want to be able to drive and hike between camp sites, the parts I know aren't very suitable. I've always wanted to do some hiking in the SW which might be more...

ratlaw

Wil definitely be coming, but I'm not sure on the pre-pay vs. floor issue. Is there any time left to debate this issue with myself before we hit critical decision time?

ratlaw

Well argued Evan, and I'm not going to debate the organization of early American militia till I can find more specific information, but you didn't address why this right matters in the present day. Or why the ACLU should spend any effort defending what is effectively a dead right rather than focusin...

ratlaw

that's what a miliitia is . It is not a state organized group. State militias at the time were incredibly loose-nit groups, handed the equivalent of badges by the state and "deputized" to carry out law enforcement. Uhm. Hello, contradicting statements. So are militias organized by the sta...

ratlaw

I believe that was Jackson taking liberties for drama, but will check the third book (pretty sure it's not in TTT if it's there at all) later tonight.

ratlaw

<img src="http://rumandmonkey.com/widgets/tests/g ... sprime.jpg" width="200" height="150"><br><a href="http://rumandmonkey.com/widgets/tests/g ... ot/">Which Colossal Death Robot Are <i>You</i>?</a>

:cyber

ratlaw

"Oh my god! They killed Kenny!" ?

ratlaw

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the people who make ICQ owned by AOL?

ratlaw

Quite likely, but I think there's a more drastic change considering Faramir takes up a good chunk of the last third of TTT while the elf Arwen replaces only shows up in that one scene. Now, admittedly the end result is the same (Faramir resists the temptation that destroyed Boromir) but the impact i...

ratlaw

To move slightly back on topic....Saw the movie and I agree, it was amazing. I also didn't notice that it was 3 hours and could've done with more. :) The shifting back and forth is how Tolkien wrote the book, and I'm glad they didn't try to 'improve' that aspect of the story. However, I was really p...

ratlaw

I attempted to run a campaign using the d20 version. First, don't do that. There are a lot of sourcebooks for this game and none of them have been updated for d20. Get the 2nd edition book with their home-brew rules. Second, be prepared to do a lot of making up stuff on your own. There are 40-some p...

ratlaw

1. Secular Humanism (100%) 2. Unitarian Universalism (92%) 3. Nontheist (78%) 4. Liberal Quakers (71%) 5. Theravada Buddhism (68%) 6. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (60%) 7. Neo-Pagan (60%) 8. New Age (46%) 9. Reform Judaism (44%) 10. Taoism (39%) 11. Mahayana Buddhism (35%) 12. New Thou...

ratlaw

Sorry, I was directing the question to 3278. I have absolutely no idea what the heck your thing is

ratlaw

Having done some googling on 32's spider, I'm inclined to agree (with full disclosure that I'm not all that knowledgable either) that it's an Argiope. Were it's legs more like an X? If so it might've been a type of Argiope called a St. Andrew's Cross spider, though I can't find one of those with all...

ratlaw

You ever see those white, rectangular strips in chinese food? Thoes are called "bamboo shoots". They're incredibly tender. Remember, bamboo is a form of grass--it doesn't get hard until it has grown for a long, long time. When it is young, it is tender and nutritious--and quite, quite sof...

ratlaw

I find it fascinating that it causes such annoyance in people... ...almost as if the Word of God were acting on their conscience and they had to find some--please! ANY!--reason to discount it. I find that fascinating in the extreme. Because I'm fond of them, a little hypothetical situation. Imagine...

ratlaw

Evan, I almost agree with you, however I have a few points to make. 1) I think you need to make a clarification: are you talking about Grammar School, Middle School, High School or all three? I agree with you on the limited interactions, but only for the early grades of Grammar School. After that, s...

ratlaw

Completely forgot to toss in my interests:

Medical nanotech. Specifically I'd like something that can rebuild damaged nerves, since I'm deaf in one ear due to nerve damage. Also, I'd like something that does all of the things a PDA does, but you can interact with it vocally and it will talk back.

ratlaw

Salvation122 wrote:Cryogenics and ion/plasma drive systems for spacecraft.

Well, we've got one of three. As I recall NASA has a working Ion engine for deep space satellites.

Hit here for one example.

ratlaw

Usually we do the present thing on Christmas Day, eat a big meal and settle in for a day of checking out presents and tripping over wrapping paper. Then on the 25th or 26th we head for the beach to hang with my father's family at his parent's place. This isn't quite a cool as it sounds: the beach is...

ratlaw

So the hearing has to be scheduled 30 days after the petition is filed, and the court has to make it's ruling 24 hours after the hearing. But there's nothing to say that the hearing can't go on for three months. Jury selection alone could take a week. Thrity days, several hearings and a jury trial l...

ratlaw

Hey gang. I'm starting up a RL Shadowrun campaign, but we're playing a group of Lone Star officers who have been setup to investigate crimes that cross extraterritoriality. Sort of a pilot program. Anyway, I was hoping I could get some details of various runs people have been involved in for inspira...

ratlaw

Rato (who some of you may know from the irc channels on dumpshock.com) pointed me at this law before the Georgia State Assembly. I haven't quite digested it yet, but I'm going to throw the link up here for others to read. Be advised, this is the law itself so if you want some analysis of it's chance...

ratlaw

This mindset, and the figures and images that glorify it, illustrates a monumental cultural decline. Sadly, this seems to be an unavoidable, if not natural, function of any healthy society. Cultural decline from what pinnacle, exactly? This isn't some unnatural state that has been induced by too mu...

ratlaw

That means that you're going to have to invade, in the middle east, wearing happy little bio containment suits so that your guys don't choke and die. They're basically oversized garbage bags that are an inch thick. No one is trained to fight in those things, which means if your guys fight in them, ...

ratlaw

This question might be moving the thread off topic a bit, but Raygun's comments about gun restrictions brought up an interesting contrast between his view of SR and mine. I've always viewed the SR societ as being one where guns and body armor are fairly common, especially on the street and outside o...

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[Shadowrun] Runs to Investigate

New Abortion Law Proposed In Georgia