Ditto with Facebook.

Since reading in here that the Express game was now under the almost total control of a group of people, have decided to withdraw. Didn't think the clans would be able to control this game as well.

OK, I'll pop in for a tiny lesson on DR. This is how I did it when teaching economics. It's incredibly hot and humid outside on an August day. So you go buy an ice cream. Tastes so good that you buy a second and then a third. Now should you have the money to buy ten or more of them, each time you bought one, it was less satisfying than the previous one and if he did pig out and ate ten of them, undoubtedly you were ready to regurgitate.

And so it is with lging. The first brings you lovely returns, but each hit thereafter brings you less and less satisfaction.

This rule holds true with anything in real life and so it must be in the Earth game as well.

I won't make any more remarks on that other than to say that Ted Kennedy did promote Planned Parenthood but not because he was a racist. Just not up to arguing this now plus it seems your mind is already made up.

No, they lost the 60% in the Senate when Ted Kennedy died and a Republican won his seat. Ted has a fatal flaw in his background BUT the man has paid and paid dearly for it and worked his bum off in the Senate--both sides of the aisle had nothing but praise for him, political scientists agree he was the most effective senator of the 20th century. He didn't deserve his seat to be lost to a Republican.

Private sector jobs are rising a little bit as compared to the private sector job loss. But it's really bad in states, etc. because they are laying off teachers, police, garbage collectors, etc. Some should have been laid off years ago--so many were friends or relatives of office holders who did next to nothing--how I remember waiting, waiting, waiting for service and the county and even state workers are goofing off--but still they losing their jobs and that makes the unemployment figures look as if there's not much movement.

Unemployment is mainly rising because states and cities, maybe counties as well are laying off people because they have been fiscally irresponsible as well.

Private industry is where the slow, and admittedly it is slow, is growing.

Also have read in quite a few different places that there are jobs out there but the workforce does not have the skills to do them.

re: the Democrats having total control. Nope, not true. They might have a majority in both Houses but the Reps are able to stop any legislation with the filibuster which requires a 60% majority vote, which the Dems do not have.

Retarded, no, will not accept that, but far too many refuse to realize how rapidly the world is changing and do little to nothing to equip themselves to deal with those changes.

People are content with saying if the government would just get off our backs and cut our taxes, everything would be fine. Sorry, that is simply not the case. There are so many things that we need the government for, like it or not. Always find it amusing when people say cut government spending but do not touch the government spending that I benefit from.

This is interesting and do not disagree but they should be equally dissatisfied with their state and local governments that are rarely run any better than the federal government. Last I looked a week or so ago, believe there were only two states that had their financial houses in order.

Must agree with Marshall tho in that 95% of incumbents are re-elected, at least in the past, and who is to blame for that???

Re: those who do not bother to vote, they have no right to open their mouths about the situation.

Bill Gates speech: 11 rules your kids did not and will not learn in school
by Kent Summers on Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 10:34pm
Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world doesn't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

I didn't get any extra turns except for the 6 for staying out for 18 hours. Now maybe you put them in without mentioning it in the news and I didn't notice it then. Perhaps so but did check the news in each of my countries but, as I said, no worries. Am not going to worry about them.

Welcome, Vinny. Good to have you in the game with me again. On behalf of PANLV may I welcome you and your members and wish you well. Under your leadership it certainly will be a fun clan to be a part of. Cheers from all of us.

Oh, I know what it must have been about. The light bulb, dim tho it may be to someone consistently out of the loop, just came on.

I clicked on it once, got nothing, so haven't bothered since. Oh well..........

Sorry, Maki, you're off now. Will check first thing in my a.m. to see if you're around.

Unbelievable, Tiny. Why do you persist in inflicting pain on yourself? Very disappointed that you would stoop to this because of a silly name.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5GmH1jot3Y

I'm outta here with one final remark. You people sure do not know your history since you choose to look at one tree alone rather than at the whole forest.

And now you're gonna take out my clan because I made an analogy???? Please, I ask only one favour. Kill my countries alone. Leave the rest of the members' alone. Let me know when you want my country numbers and they will be supplied.

Play the game on your "hunches." That little guy over there just might be your enemy one day. Take him out now for the good of your own clan.

I'll make you pancakes. :)

Thanks Pang for doing away with the $2 b. bug. Now if I can just figure out how to get these extra turns, all will be right in my life...................

as Havoc flounces out of the room

Reading all of this has reminded me of one thing. The U.S., the mightiest military power on Earth, had a strong hunch that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was going to use them to harm not only our allies but the U.S. itself and so we went to war on this "hunch", completely disregarding the advice of nations all over the globe because we were the biggest baddest gun in town.

End result: There were no WMD, Saddam was just bragging about them to scare off Iran, his deadliest enemy.

Saddam is hanged.

Cost to the U.S. thousands of Americans soldiers killed, tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of the 1 million Americans who served in Iraq living with physical or mental handicaps for the rest of their lives.

We have pulled our combat troops out now but the government is a joke, the country in shambles. All this to kill one man???

BTW, who is the power over there now since Iraq is out of the picture? Iran is the big winner. And the US taxpayer is out $1 trillion to date and a great deal more with the medical care, etc. that will be necessary for years to come for our disabled.

And now we have LaE doing something similar. They had a hunch. They listened to a few people who whispered in their ears anti-Zues remarks saying the Greek/Sicilian was out to destroy them.

As a leader in PANLV, I don't mind wiping out a small clan IF and WHEN they begin to farm us on a regular basis. That's how my mind operates which seems to be at variance with other big clan leaders.

Quote from thunder, I think--
"it's a simple sad truth. Join a clan or build not threatening countries and probably get farmed tothe ground."

This is a sad conclusion for the biggest and most powerful clan in the game to make. In other words, there is no place at all for any 1 man or possibly even two man clans in FFA. If they build a strong defense, they will be killed. If they do not have a strong defense, they will be farmed to death.

This game right now is down to a half dozen viable clans. A pitiful situation. An unhealthy situation for the game and for all clans big and small that would like the see the game survive.

No, go after PANLV instead. :)

You have still not answered my question. Since he didn't attack anyone and since he didn't even have the ability to landgrab anyone, how could you assume he would suddenly have the ability to harm the LaE countries?

He has made it evident all along to anyone that he disliked LaE's policy of self-farming. However, that does not make him a threat to LaE in any way UNLESS he has the wherewithall to do you harm.

He did not come into FFAT and rant and rave against your clan.
He was just minding his own business as he tried to get back into playing countries once more. I'll admit his choice of country names was poor. Had he consulted me beforehand, I would have definitely advised him to change some names.

So you hear by the grapevine, or wherever it is that you discover these things, that he is going to suicide your clan. Obviously you spied on every single one of his countries. Had I been in your shoes, I would have just laughed off the info and carried on. Punishment before a crime has been committed or even before the accused has the ability to commit it should be unacceptable, especially when the clan overwhelms all others in numbers and firepower so need have no fear of one-man shows.

We cannot wipe out little clans just because we think one day they might suicide against us. If we behave like this, the game will never grow, let alone succeed.

Thunder, did he admit to YOU that he was planning on bringing down LAE countries? What did you think once you saw the spy ops and the history of the 15 countries?

Did you never once question the accuracy of your source of information? How did you reconcile the threat with the appearance and behaviour of the 15 countries?

May I please bring this post back to where it all began--the issue of Zues's 15 countries all being killed by LaE.

Why?
because obviously LaE preferred to listen to gossip than to look at their own spy ops?

Quoting Zues here:
"Not once did any of those countries attack another country. For those of you who took the liberties of spying me out before killing me, you also could see I had no jets whatso ever to perform any land grabs at all!"

I don't understand why these countries were considered to be a potential threat to laE if they had no jets, if a history of the countries showed none of the 15 had ever attacked a country outside the little clan. Surely LaE had this info, there can be no doubt of this.

So they were all dictatorships. Why? I don't know. Maybe Zues wasn't in his right mind when he created them due to all the meds he is on. Maybe he felt the dictator label would help him to survive if some other small clan decided to take someone on.

I will criticize my old friend Zues for some of the names he chose for his countries. In fact I wrote him just yesterday asking about this new arrival on the scene of the Sicilian clan. Mentioned two, I think, of the countries contained his name but then hastened to say that some of the names were not in his style. Guess I was wrong. But again, will chalk it up to his meds which can do crazy things to one's head at times as I'm sure many of you know.

Nonetheless, I am going to put the blame on LaE here for destroying a 15 member clan even tho they had to know none of them could possibly be a real threat since they were weak offensively. This game needs more clans, more players, not fewer. As long as it is mainly an exercise in self-farming, all-explore or let's get land from the little clans, this is sowing the seeds for the destruction of FFA, a game I have loved for 15 years--see, I'm a tiny bit older than Zues so have the right to tell him to clean up his potty mouth from time to time but I have never had to question his word. This man is loyal, more forgiving than I am, deep-down honest and in love with this game.

So the issue comes down to this: why kill 15 countries with no offensive strength, with no record of attacking other clans?
I truly would like to see an answer to this.

Didn't the government stop printing anything over $100 quite a few years ago?

Realize it might be very difficult to get this going since it is so out of control now, but does anyone think it might be possible for all clans to outlaw self-farming next reset and see how it goes?

That's true but it's too bad the most of it is in the hands of 5% of the population--and those are the ones the tax cut would affect if passed--actually it was already passed about 10 years ago--this is just an extension of it. Unfortunately most voters seem to think that if passed, it would lower their taxes. WRONG!!!

Yeah, whatever floats your boat.... After all freedom is the name of this game, right? Well, up to a point anyway. :P

Nope. Were you in HD maybe?

I can't bear to grab any of my countries. They're all like my little children. But then, you sure are not gonna find me in the top 100 either. That's OK tho. I can live with mediocrity in the Earth game.

*winks @ martian*

But of course there is. A dynamic nation is one that accepts new people, new ideas, etc. If a nation wants things to go back to the way they were before, it stagnates.

Ketchup, I remember being in a clan with you once. Which one was it?

Forgot to mention that many Americans are against making them a state because how do you put 51 stars on the flag. Would mess it up a bit. :)

I'm glad the war is over. This game needs more rather than fewer clans and the constant warring by IMP was weakening it even tho some members were out to lunch this time because of the summer.

There was a vote taken recently in Puerto Rico on whether or not they wanted to break away from the U.S. and become an independent country. Think that it was about 3-1/2% of the Puerto Ricans were in favour of it. They want to remain part of the U.S. altho most prefer to retain their status as a territory rather than becoming a state.

Why?
They automatically become US citizens at birth, free to come and go to the mainland as they desire. No problems with getting visas, etc.

They elect their own governor and representatives to a bicameral legislature.

They are not allowed to vote in U.S. presidential elections unless they move to the States and reside there officially.

They can send a representative to sit in the U.S. Congress but he/she cannot vote--only have a say if they feel like it.

They do not have to pay any federal income taxes unless they happen to work for the federal govt. in PR.

All working Puerto Ricans living on the island pay into Social Security and Medicare and so are eligible for the benefits altho they are smaller in amount than those received by Americans on the mainland.

Most are against becoming a state because most likely their official language would then become English and it would have to be used in their schools. Most Puerto Ricans want to have Spanish as their language (over 50% speak no English at all and another 25% speak it but very poorly) as they feel it is an important part of their culture which they are deeply attached to.

Thx for that, Tiny. Good boy. :)

Boo, hiss. And here I was vamping him in my sexy dress for weeks now. *sigh* Thought it would be so cool to have 3 MMs in PANLV.

Havoc is a darling and nearly always available, aren't you, mate?

Has the problem been solved? If not, I'll break down and turn on my ICQ. Just say the word.

security work is always good. Pay isn't very good but it's a job and shouldn't have to deal with that many of the public.

I swore off this discussion and now popping back in for a second.

I would think that private colleges, clubs, etc. as opposed to public schools, universities, clubs would be able to impose their moral beliefs on all who enter there AS LONG AS THEY ARE NOT ACCEPTING GOVERNMENT FUNDS. Should a church deny entrance to someone who disobeys their tenets, then as stated above, their tax exempt status could be revoked.

So sayeth this non-member of the U.S. Supreme Court. :)

Sorry, when people have closed minds, to waste one's energy on discussing matters is futile. You have little to no knowledge of the religious beliefs or lack thereof of our Founding Fathers as the created the new nation. Go in peace and may God grant you all your wishes for your country and for your personal life.

Go for it. My credentials include teaching constitutional law.
And yours?

Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the U.S. Constitution make any mention of marriage at all. Over the years though, some states have decided to put their ethical and moral beliefs into their laws, i.e., as has been mentioned, the laws enacted to prohibit interracial marriage.

And now the uproar is over same-sex marriage which, to my mind, is completely contrary to the wishes of our Founding Fathers. The men who wrote the Declaration of Independence (the original Tea Party people) said this:

Our Creator (notice they did not use the word God, Jesus or Christianity) has given us certain inalienable rights...among these....is the pursuit of happiness. Later they restate this right to happiness once more, this time adding safety and happiness.

Now if one is dedicated to interpreting the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as the Founding Fathers meant when composing it, each man (unfortunately women were not included in the discussion or even in their thoughts most of the time) defines happiness in his own personal way. What constitutes happiness for one man might very well make another man miserable, but as long as a man's pursuit of happiness does not endanger the well-being of another, he is free to seek those things and conditions necessary to meet his needs. Whom he chooses to marry or whether or not he even desires to marry are obviously decisions that will contribute to his pursuit of happiness.

To impose one's personal morals and ethics on others is completely contrary to the basis on which this nation was founded. Indeed, I find it not only presumptuous, abominable but even evil.

None of the Founding Father were Pilgrims.

The Pilgrims came and settled in one spot--Plymouth, Massachusetts. They were a small group (no time to look it up) who disliked some of the practices of the Church of England and actually wanted to secede from England. They were working people of little means and education and so hopes to find a more comfortable life in the New World.

Later they were followed by the Puritans, a much larger group
that settled in Massachusetts Bay. Unlike the Pilgrims, they were not separatists. They were far better educated and most had some money behind them to ease their establishment of a new life. Their settlement was run as a semi-theocracy in the years the Puritans controlled it (rather like Iran is run today). There was no freedom of religion as we know it today.

Regarding the freedoms and rights that Americans alone among nations enjoy, may I suggest that you do some traveling throughout the world and you possibly might change your mind a bit. Many people in other countries do not want some of the freedoms and rights of Americans. Not everyone in other countries is jealous of the American way of life. Just because they prefer to live with slightly different values does not make them better or worse than Americans.

Sorry, no more time now. But one question first: in what way has the U.S. government dictated to the churches what they may or may not do? The only instance I can think of was in the very late 1800s, I believe, when the government refused to accept Utah into the republic unless polygamy was outlawed--altho do believe it still exists over 100 years later.

Frankly I wish the state or federal government would step in and stop those crazy Baptist church members--only 50-100 of them in this church tho, thank God--from going to the cemeteries when veterans were being buried and disrupting the entire service. See, if I were in charge, I would toss them all into a jail for a few days. Sure do disapprove of this "right."

Excellent post, popcorn.

I would remind you tho that there were many black marches in cities as they peacefully sought an equal chance to pursue the dream that the U.S. was founded on. Many of these marchers were attacked by the white law men with attack dogs, high powered fire hoses, etc.

So the marches are not new. I honestly wish tho that the gay rights marchers would do their cause a lot more good if they did not dress in such a bizarre way. Ditto to the public display of affection. And I would say the same to heterosexuals, some of whom care not what they dress like or behave like when with their "partners" for the moment. Am a bit old fashioned here and believe there is a time and a place for everything and over-the-top sexual behaviour should be confined to private places.

To reinforce popcorns' last remarks, none of the Founding Fathers were what we would call "religious" today. They were generally Deists or Unitarians, believing in some form of impersonal Providence but rejecting the divinity of Jesus and the absurdities of the Old and New testaments. They made themselves perfectly clear that religion and government should be completely separate for all time in their new country.

Most conservatives have forgotten this, that is if they ever knew it in the first place. The U.S. was to be a safe haven for people of any or no religion because these wise men lived in a time when religion bred conflict, intolerance and even death in many places. Instead they chose "e pluribus unum", one nation out of many different cultures and beliefs.

And here we are 300 years later, idolizing the Founding Fathers, their Constitution and Bill of Rights yet so many want to toss out their wisdom and substitute it for their own personal religious and ethical beliefs. This most certainly cannot be termed conservative but rather far right radical extremism.

We don't need to go to that extreme, popcorn. Even have time to put some flowers down around my trees for a change.