O'Malley

"Women are airheads, they are too maternal, they're only concerned with the private, househole sphere. Sure they could change and be viable to have the vote, but it's about as likely as my dog learning to dance." - the Swiss up until 1971 "Blacks are vicious, barbaric, primitive and without souls. Sure they could change, qualifying them as the status of 'human', but it's about as likely as my dog learning to dance." - Australians up until 1967. For a long time every 'negro' nation was shithouse compared to Europe. Negros were considered to be nothing more than monkeys throwing rocks at each other. But you'd be hard pressed to find someone agreeing with you that blacks are inferior nowadays, and that they couldn't form a society because they're black. Africa is shithouse for a vast array of problems involving colonialsim, dependency and resource problems. Islam is a religion, and not a skin colour, so it's a bit different. And you probably could argue that Islam acts against 'development'... just like any fundamental religion. But why wouldn't Islamic countries liberalise just like Europe? France was very Christian before it's revolution. All throughout the Middle East you have secular and liberal Muslims. I have Christian friends that think homosexuality is okay, that evolution is true and that Leviticus is outdated. I have a Muslim friend who has a similar take on the Quran. Afghanistan hasn't actually always been so fucked up. It was the Russians who inadvertantly gave legitimacy to the Mujahadeen and Islamic extremists (who were funded by the CIA, mind you). It was war and the power vacuum left by Russia that screwed the country up- it wouldn't matter if they were Muslim Fundamental extremists or Christian Fundamental extremists, the same basic thing would have occured. (Kony has an extremist, perverted interpretation of Christianity for example. You have extremists in EVERY ideology.) Turkey is a Muslim majority country that is secular. Egypt has a large liberal secular movement keeping Morsi at bay. Tunisia is functioning fine. Iran has a growing youth population that loves the Western way of life (a mall inside Tehran is indistingushable from a western mall). And I mean, look at Israel. They treat women better than many Muslims, but hardly great. Gays? Are you kidding me. Non-Jews? Besides being harrassed, denied the vote, beaten, tortured and killed I guess it's fine. Basic human rights? Pffft hahahahaha. Look, I can agree with you that Islam ain't so great, that the Arab/Islamic world is pretty fucked up. I disagree that it can never change. I disagree that the only solution is just to pretty much kill them all. I disagree with your assertion that it's purely based on religion, which neglects an array of issues from Britain's partitioning of the region (goodle Churchill's hiccup), effects of Colonialsim, effects of the US and Russia during the Cold War and the effects of resources- especially oil on the Gulf States. On the Palestinian issue, I follow the historical precedent of nationalist organisations liberalising, moderating and becoming non-violent, including in South Africa, Ireland and of course, the PLO. People most often resort to terrorism when they feel shut out, and that it is the only way for their voice to be heard. I believe intergrating Palestine into the UN is a way to let them pursue their goals through peaceful means.

Well, they kind of are a country now. According to the UN, at least. As for the rest of your post, you seem to have a slight disposition towards the Palestinian people. Which is probably fair enough, they have down some pretty bad things in their time, but your attitude seems to be to me as fatalistic and defeatist. "They are savages" you say. And the Irish are negroids, right? Or did that way of thinking die out a hundred years ago? People can change. Countries that would never possibly get along are now close allies. Nations at war have come to peace. I might be overly optimistic, but history shows that nothing is set in stone. Just as Muslims and Jews use to live in relative peace before descending into war, they can always go back to peace.

Yeah, I find it hard to get excited about Christmas now too. I just look forward to a day with my family and try and block out all the commercialisation crap.

Palestine has already for many years had a functioning government which is recognised as their legitimate representative by the majority of the world's population. Somalia is considered a full member on the UN. They don't even have a government in Somalia! Except they didn't always. Go back 150 years before Zionism was a thing and Jews and Muslims lived in relative peace with one another. When Zionism shot up and you got Islamic extremists and Zionist extremists fighting each other (non-relevant fun fact: Zionist terrorists invented the letter bomb), you had the moderates on both sides actually protecting one another. The only reason they 'hate' each other now is because of Israel. Getting recognition by the UN won't suddenly turn Palestine into a super power, they'll still have the same military they have now which as the recent conflicts have shown is pretty piss weak. Which they've had since pretty much the Oslo Agreements in the early 1990s. The vote that just passed shows how much support Palestine has and has had. Look at the 'powerhouses' that went against Palestine getting recognition- sure you had Israel and the US (no surprises there) and then you had Canada, the Czech Republic, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Panama. Forty one countries abstained to sit on the fence. In Australia our cabinet threatened to throw out our Prime Minister for wanting to vote against the resolution, and they compromised at abstaination. Which have been the same countries since 1947, nothing new here. Doubtful. Not only would that be political suicide they would easily lose. And they would easily lose whether they're considered a nation by the UN or not. What they can do now is try and prosecute Israel for crimes against humanity in the ICC. The combined forces of all of the middle east is still dwarfed by the US's might. And again, giving Palestine the status as a nation-state does not suddenly give them any more hard power than they've had in the past half century. It just legitimises them, meaning the illegal settlements on the West Bank are considered even more illegal. It means they can seek diplomatic solutions through the UN more readily. It means they can use international law to prosecute any war crimes or crimes against humanity Israel has committed. However, I will admit, it does also legitimise defensive violence- however, it doesn't give them any more hard power than they already have. The missile strikes so easily blocked by the Iron Shield will still be easily blocked by the Iron Shield. They don't have any decent delivery system as far as we know, so it's not like the US will be threatened. Israel has it's own nukes. What's more likely to happen is a cold war scenario where nuclear proliferation acts as a detterent from major fighting. Look at India and Pakistan. What exactly makes them being incapable of being civil? Why can't they exist near one another? Do France and Germany not get along after World War 2? Britain and France became close allies in World War One. A couple hundred years ago the idea of a unified Italy was completely absurd and to be laughed at. Now we don't only have a unified Italy (and Germany for that matter) we have the goddamn UN. These were countries who were sworn enemies and could 'never be civil to one another' Which is why a full blown war will most likely never happen. So in short, I'm glad they now have non-member observer status on the general assembly now.

I pretty regularly purge people from Facebook to keep only close friends and family on it, so it remains a decent way to stay in touch with everyone easily. The ability to easily upload and view photos makes it a step up from texting, phoning and email in many regards.. Facebook "memes" and instagram make me frequently want to delete my account, and then myself from life. Didn't Zynga almost win game developer of the year according to some magazine (escapist?) And shit like Angry Birds is considered revolutionary as well.

There's half a million in Lebanon. There were a lot in Kuwait (hundreds of thousands) but they all got kicked out in the early 90s, not many have returned (around 40 000). Syria had half a million, but that would have changed recently due to their civil war. Also, the Australian media flips out when we have a thousand 'boat people' arrive. Not many countries want to have to look after hundreds of thousands, let alone millions of refugees, especially when they're not exactly well off in the first place. There's a difference between protecting Israel -which now undoubtly has a right to exist- and pushing back every UN resolution that says Israel is commiting human rights abuses. One is necessary, one is just dickish.

I don't know what Israel was thinking. Obviously assassinating a key Palestinian official was going to result in retailiation- they would have known that without a single doubt. I guess they also knew our media would portray them as the befallen and the attacked, so they did it anyway? Maybe they're planning on using these missile attacks as reason for full on invasion of the Gaza strip? Jordan already has hundreds of thousands (millions?) [EDIT: Over 1 900 000] of Palestinian refugees already. As do other countries. I'm not sure they really want any more. And the conflict would have ended long ago if Israel didn't have the undying support of US vetoing everything the UN tries to do to reign Israel in. We'd probably have a two state solution along '67 borders. Of course there'd be border disputes and shit, but at least Palestine would be an actual country. But it did. Many times. (Unless you're specifically referring to Jerusalem?) In other news, Syria is looking even more mightly ♥♥♥♥ed than previously. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20404175

GO has some good points, but some of the design decisions -like fog and PP- really let it down. Movement is definately nowhere near as deep as 1.6. It should have been released with things like TF2's replay system to encourage more people to move over. Modding and skinning is harder for CS:GO, which is sad for a mod-driven community. Silencers, sprays, nightvision and flashlights I don't really care about, but it hardly seems progressive to take that content out. I don't think CS:GO is that bad, but it hardly got the glory treatment the #1 online shooter franchise deserves. (Probably because the community is full a dickwads who restrict Valve/HPE from trying to really innovate.)

I actually want a Richochet 2. I have hundreds of hours on Ricochet 1.

Wow, so it's fully legalised and everything. When I first heard I thought it might have just been decriminalised, or legalised for personal use. But it's fully legal to grow and sell (with a permit?) and everything?

Yeah, just saw that. It's just confusing to see Obama being declared victor when 1) votes are still being counted 2) Romney had the popular vote at the time.

Ah, good. That's a relief. The map I'm looking at is a little unclear. That is hilarious.

At the time of me writing this, more people have voted for Romney, but Obama has won. That's just so retarded. I mean, 4 000 000 people voted for Romney in Texas and that's worth 38 votes. 2 million voted for Obama in California, and that's worth 55 votes.

It really is quite profound isn't it. Despite Mankind's great achivements, building towers that reach to the heavens, splitting particles so minute they seem impossible to exist, landing a man thousands of miles away on the moon, we use perhaps one of its most magnificent tools -the internet- to say 'Pootis'. I think that captures mankind's thoughts and soul very nicely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGmAmJFUvzM Screw your five minute limit! And apparently YouTube agrees with my choice.

Or just to screw with humanity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfoC7wzWyPM

Bandicam maybe? Though recently both fraps and bandicam have stopped working for me, don't know why. Is the Sourcey recorder thing you talk about using demos? And then converting them to movies (.avis) using console commands? If not, you can try that. (It's as clunky as fuck though)

Yeah, I was wondering the same thing just a few days ago. I guess he just got sick of things here, or life got in the way.

I did a bit of googling on democrat election fraud, and most of the news articles were single-one offs. Like 'X person voted in two states'. Others were citing a report from 2000 that revealed many dead people voted, and their were many absentee votes. The report had actually since been revised to reveal that none of that was fraud and were mere clerical errorsm with the only 'absentee vote' being a case of mistaken identity due to similar names. There was also a few cases of petty bribes. I'm sure there would be more stuff out there, but it seems that rigging allegations on democrats are sort of low level, individual riggings. Accusations against the republicans are more about policy and 'bigger' things- like investing in e-polls, changing times when voters can vote, and creating 'watchdog' organisations that target the poor, Latinos and Africa-Americans as possible vote-riggers to take away their vote. I'm currently enjoying all the Republican comments on Romney's "Syria is Iran's route to the sea". It's all "he clearly meant this" or "You dumb democrats clearly don't see he meant that" My favourite so far has been one commenter informing all the Democrat sheeple that Romney was obviously referring to the Kirkuk-Baniyas oil pipeline, that runs from Kirkuk to Syrian ports on the Mediterranean, which is vital for Iranian oil interests and trade. (If you don't know why that is hilarious, google Kirkuk) There's also the belief that shipping by truck through hundreds of miles of Iran, Iraq and Syria to the coast is cheaper than using the Suez Canal.

So after link-surfing a bit from the original article I found this: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/10/670441/ohio-limits-early-voting-hours-in-democratic-counties-expands-in-republican-counties/?mobile=nc What the fuck America?

Oh, and if anyone didn't trust my stats on death penalty costs before, a far more reliable source ran an article dealing with the same thing today. http://www.cracked.com/article_20067_5-b.s.-political-arguments-you-hear-every-election-season.html Also dick jokes.

It's also my personal opinion that life without parole would be far worse of a punishment than the death sentence. Imagine living in a cell for fifty years; the real scumbags probably in solitary confinement. You'd want to be dead after that. It's cheaper, it's reversable if the person turns out to be innocent, and it's still a damn good punishment. Everyone wins! (Except for the criminals!!)

For some reason I found that very funny.

It's the legal process of actually making sure they are guilty, and then repeals and so forth. Not the actual execution which I imagine is realitvely cheap. EDIT: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty

Fun fact! Last public guillotining in France was in 1939. See how that was public? The last actual guillotining in France was in 1977! And just to clarify, the Euthanasia Coaster is only a concept, as far as I know, no one actual is planning on building the thing. On the death sentence. I disagree with it on multiple grounds. One, it lacks punishment for the victim. I'd prefer them to stew in a cell for the rest of their life than get an easy way out. Two, there have been numerous cases of people being found innocent after they have been executed. Three, the process is so expensive it would be cheaper just to keep them in prison for the rest of their life. Four, I don't think you should execute people inhumanely, but if it is as 'simple as falling asleep' than is it really even a punishment? (Which goes back to point one).