THEY TOOK OUR JOBS!

all your routes are belong to us!

*basks in the trollisciousness of this thread from start to end*

Doubtful

I remember you KoH, but I was naught but a wee nooblet last time I saw you around. ;-)

I think if the majority of Americans were actually fiscally responsible/stable enough to achieve this goal, it wouldn't be a horrible idea. I see some downfalls to it, but my biggest fear would be that a very small portion of the population could destroy the entire structure. Unfortunately, as a nation we are not responsible or stable anymore, and as relevant as an idea as this might be, it's a pipe pipe dream until that can be changed.

I could also see this putting a much greater strain on the legal system to help resolve petty lawsuits where an insurance company, or companies, would normally decide who was at fault for an accident or loss.

Also, insurance companies make their money through investment funds fed by premiums, not just the premium they charge every month. If they did not take your premium and put it into an investment fund, most insurance companies would go belly up inside of a year. The up side to this is that they can provide more coverage than you are paying per month in the case of catastrophic events...whether they do or not is another discussion, of course.

Personally, I'm much more in favor of the idea of setting some basic standards/restrictions that they have to live within and holding them to those. I don't know if that's via gov't, or via some sort of private sector committee, but I honestly don't think the goal is achievable with our current fiscal situation.

I don't necessarily see a direct reference to homosexuality there, but if one was implied, you should remember that mrford is from south of the Mason-Dixon line. EVERYTHING folks down there don't like is associated with homosexuality

Fact checking would have cut into witty/snarky slogan think tank sessions and sign making work shops.

Yew deedn't joyn geedeeeye! Yew dusurved 2 git hit 4 no reezun!

Lamest excuse ever.

fluffing cowards - pick a fight with someone who wants it for a change and see how you fare. You little fluff-a-roaches that suicide folks for no good reason strike me as the type who are afraid to pick a fight you might lose.

If you disagree, feel free to message me - I'll build a war ready country this time around and you can see how you stack up to someone who's looking for a fight.

So did she like it aponic? Would love to know what you think of the thing after she gets a chance to use it a bit.

You and 90% of their fan base, Sauron. The other 10% are in Donny's camp - aspiring.





I dunno - they did manage to cross-breed a troll and a goose to make Snooki. :-D

I think for the money, the Samsung Galaxy is my current fav, and would certainly meet your needs. If you buy it from a Verizon retailer, I believe you can pick it up for $350 right now with a 2 yr contract for service. Super fast processor, nice 10" display, lots of data capabilities (Can handle Flash - no Apple device does this), and still lightweight and portable.

http://www.samsung.com/...galaxytab/10.1/index.html


The Asus Transformer/Transformer 2 are supposed to be nice (and have a kick ass name!), but I haven't tried them personally. They're right in the same price range as the Galaxy, so might be worth a look. Same goes for Acer Iconia A500.

I'm not a fan of the Motorola Xoom. I played with a couple of them, and they just felt cheaply built and like it would shatter into a bajillion pieces if I looked at it funny. Plus Motorola insists on putting all sorts of useless fluff in their OS that you can't get rid of (Social networking tickers, info streams, etc).

Ultimately, if you're just looking for streaming stock quotes as your primary use, I'd have to agree with fordie - get a smart phone with a nice big 4" screen. It's infinitely more portable, just as easy to use, and will deliver every single bit of data that a tablet will. My Sony Xperia has about 80 quadzillion different stock tickers it can download (most of which include a widget to put on the home screen for real time), can do IM, Facebook/Google+ (although I deleted Facebook cuz I don't like being spied on), and all of those other really awesome smart phone type things as well.....and it even makes phone calls!


The way I look at it, and this really is a personal opinion thing - what works for you works for you - tablets are the stepping stone between smart phones and laptops...the missing link, if you will. The only problem is, they're not advanced enough to ever compete with a laptop, and not simple/portable enough to ever replace a smart phone. Essentially, it's serving the same role as the missing link in human evolution - that thing that got phased out because it really just wasn't necessary on either side of the equation, and didn't have any original benefits to bring to the table that the other devices (species) didn't already have.

If someone can shrink a laptop to tablet size, I'd probably be all over it. But without a keyboard, a tablet is just an over-sized smart phone that can't actually make phone calls.

Not true at all oats - every day people can make change happen, even from the lowest level of an organization. It may take time, patience, dedication, and a willingness to take many small victories (and a few defeats) instead of one big one, but it CAN be done - history has proven that time and again.

Granted, having any of the above is sure helpful....but I think that overall that philosophy is just one big cop out for folks who find it much easier and more comfortable to sit back and fluff about the status quo instead of doing something about it.

Either way, sitting there waving some snarky sign at someone who could give a fluff less what you think isn't the answer to the problem.

I am not a car salesman, but worked in the auto/dealership racket for quite some time about a decade ago, and have purchased vehicles through just about any funding option you could think of...not to mention I'm a die hard car nut.

My best advice is stay away from new cars. 2-5 year old used cars still come with a warranty from the dealer in most cases (and a longer one for a negligible price through a 3rd party insurer), have not had major wear and tear on them, allow you to buy a nicer vehicle than you would for the same price in a new car, and if you are selective/careful in your choice are just as good as a new car in 99 out of 100 situations.

DO NOT lease a car! Leases are designed to make you think you're getting an awesome deal, and then suck money out of you when you're not looking. This is true in any state in the US, no matter the price of the vehicle. You will, on average, pay 10%-15% more for the same vehicle over the life of the lease, and end up with no liquidity whatsoever to show for it.

Here's a very good lease vs. buy calculator to help you determine the exact difference in pricing between the two so you can weigh your options:

http://www.money-zine.com/...r-Lease-a-Car-Calculator/


Focus/Corolla are both very good cars, and I can't say much of anything bad about them other than that they are a bit on the boring side. I'm a big fan of Hondas and Subarus myself, as they give you the same value for the money (in some cases better), lower depreciation, and quite a bit more of that "excitement" factor. What model you go after really depends on what your needs and day to day habits are. In general though, paying a bit more for higher mileage models is always a good idea.

I very much dislike Kia. They are cheaply built with inferior materials, and their "no haggle, no hassle" pricing structure is really just a nice way of saying "fluff you, that's what you're going to pay for it whether you like it or not". Hyundais are improving greatly though, and are a pretty good value for the money, even in comparison to Ford/GM. GM's are great vehicles IMO, I worked for a GM dealership for years, and overall loved their vehicles. Chrysler/Dodge is getting better, but I consider them the IE of the car world - always chasing the curve. Saturn is starting to improve quite a bit, but they are still bastardized GM's so you might as well just shell out the 5% more for the real deal if you want to go that route.

One final thought - If they're in your price range, go look at Fiat 500's! Fiat just recently started importing to the US, and from personal experience, I LOVE THEM! They are one of the highest rated cars in Europe right now, and for VERY good reason. Fun to drive, economical, low depreciation, and tons of great standard equipment. I am strongly considering one for my next vehicle.

My thoughts on the matter (from a FB post):

"I get what the Occupy Wall Street people are doing...I really do. But sooner or later, folks are gonna have to come to understand that if they want to see change, they're going to have to stop waving snarky/witty signs and committing petty crimes to draw attention to themselves, and get out there and GET INVOLVED in the things they don't like. You don't like wall street? Get a degree and go work for the Fed to make it better. You don't like the current government? Run for office! More action, less lip service....PLEASE!"

Apple products are stupidly over-priced.

Unless you're dead set on something in their OS as a must have, I strongly recommend looking at other products. I have owned both Apple and Droid products (although I downright refuse to waste money on a tablet that is only slightly more functional than a good smart phone only because of screen size, and much less functional than a real laptop), and have yet to find anything that iOS can do that the Droid OS can't - and in a lot of cases Droid does it better. You'll get the exact same technology for 1/2 the price - it might not be wrapped up in a pretty, sleek, over designed package....but it's just as good, and for 1/2 the price.

Really the only reason I can see to buy an iPad over another tablet, if you really want to waste your money on something that serves no real purpose, is if you want to be relieved of even MORE of your money for some reason.

Drag-on....

Still not exactly sure what you're talking about. If you're talking about NA's site transition where we moved all of the old boot camp material to the new site, then guilty as charged - I can't be fluffed to recreate material that already exists just because it can't be directly transferred between sites.

Had I known it was gonna get your panties in such a bunch, I would have taken credit for it too just to see how deep the wedgie could go.

So relieved I don't have to worry about trying to be friends though - you can't imagine what a huge weight that is off my shoulders.....go ahead, bathe in the sarcasm for a second.

btw - Dan thinks you're a douche nozzle too. Have a nice day.

I like the idea of booster units. Adding new units would be well and good, and down the road could be pretty entertaining, but for the time being some additional boost to the currently existing units is probably the best place to start.

I like the idea of carriers boosting attack strength, because that's generally in line with how it would work in the real world. If nothing else, it would be cool if carriers could shorten the time jets/troops are out on PS, but I would also like to see an offensive/defensive bonus structure in place for owning them. You could also get into defensive/offensive mode with carriers, allowing them to boost offense or defense at the player's choosing.

I also like the idea of medics (again, real world), but the amount sent would need to be limited by the amount of total units sent in my opinion so that we don't end up having folks be able to GS with virtually no losses....that just skews the attacking component too much in favor of the attacker, I think.

dagga is so awesome that on a scale of 0 to Chuck Norris, he's Mr. T.

Ugh....I honestly hope I'm not still around to find out :-P

Welcome young Skywalker. We've been waiting for you.

So will XI still keep the maximum membership limits on clans that it FS'es...or will that stay with IMP?

Not quite sure what you're talking about, but whatever I took from NA was taken with permission. Most of it required a good deal of editing though, so I'm not sure how proud I'd be to put my name on it.

Glad to see you haven't lost that winning charm that won you so many friends last time around.

Gotta agree here - this is clearly cross tag retalling, and not the problem of the other alliances involved. Sucks that the guy is gonna get the short end of the stick, but that's just how the server works. Nobody's going to change the recognition of the rule to accommodate a late recruit. Everyone else has to retal hits in tag, Lords shouldn't be an exception.

I would expect this policy decision to bring lots of headaches Lords' way if they insist on enforcing it.

They haven't changed the ability to use new nicks in hosting sites to spy on your former alliances, so DOW should be happy.

Suggestions forum

Nah - I'll throw myself under the bus, but I'm not big on taking others down with me if I can help it.

When I'm actually doing FA, I try to play nice. When I get to sit back and let others deal with the headaches I create, it's quite a different story :-)

funny - I ran a traceroute on my own IP and came up with the service provider, local hub, and address of the domain controller. And yes, the same can be obtained through a DNS lookup.

lololol

You'll give yourself headaches trying to read between the lines of Dibs' posts....I don't recommend it without heavy adult supervision and a 5th of Jack.

yeah, at 1900 it was just a stupid waste of turns.... @ 1900 acres, he was still exploring a full 40/turn, or 48 on a rep.

I was too lazy to actually check the news for the #'s.

you misspelled oral

Get used to it - Express has a small percentage of pretty skilled players, and a great majority of folks who use it for nothing more than practicing strats or learning how to play.

For the record though, 14 acres + ghost *may* have been more than their explore rate, and therefore worth the grab?

RIU smells like tinkle

L:L in all situations is certainly a fair policy....

lol! Me do FA?

You might as well just get rid of the FA department all together....it would probably leave us better off!

I have this bad tendency for telling people to go fluff themselves just for the sheer enjoyment of the reaction it brings, and an utter inability to care what happens to my countries....a very bad combination for peaceful relations

That's probably true. Rule #1 of being a defendant is to never accept a plea bargain you don't have signed and in writing.

Statistically, you may also be correct. In the most general sense, small jurisdictions have the highest amount of successful appeals based on a lack of neutrality by the prosecution, jury, or judge. They still fare better than most anywhere else in the world, but if you're going to run into it your chances are better in a small municipal court.

Whatever happened, I hope you've been able to move past your experience and get on with life. There's nothing worse than having a short moment in time haunt you for the rest of your life. I've seen a couple friends go that route, and it's not something I'd wish on anyone.

What about NASA's program to explore colonizing Io Terror? I'm no expert in the field, so have no idea if it's even a relevant program, but it seems at least NASA feels that it has potential.

I don't think his opinions were relevant enough to offend anyone. I'm sure it was more that he insisted on making a nuisance of himself than anything.

oopsy - someone forgot to switch providers

CC taking a unilateral view of something? Shocking!

has to decipher Marshal's posts


or what bsnake is when he comes to post on FFAT for a different kinda pissed :-)

Saw a great pic on Stumbleupon last night - The caption was "Last image I was looking at on my Kindle before I dropped it", and then the image of the Trolliolio meme with FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU on a cracked to fluff Kindle screen :-)