California Mountain Snake

Take ten minutes on a Stairmaster, you pudgy bastard.

Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.

I've never seen sugar do that.

>:} ...quod erat demonstrandum...

I'm glad you made this. I had one thing I wanted to add. In the last topic it was said my topic wasn't going to be restored "until this is settled." How can you expect this to get settled with the announcement topic closed? Now, I can't know who closed announcements, but I know it couldn't have been you because you were reading it when I was responding, and must have been eagerly awaiting my reply so we could work this out, since you left me so many open questions. Until what's settled? There's nothing to settle. I broke no rules in that topic. Still haven't. All evening. I didn't even spam. Every post was a direct response to the topic. This isn't like last time; we're not on equal footing. There's nothing for me to repent for. The only thing that wasn't directly related to the topic were my two responses to you, in which you called me a liar, and I had nothing to say but, well, uh, no I'm not. If you find it funny how ridiculous it seems that I'm trying to tell you what order you did things in, imagine how insane it sounds when you try to tell me major events in my life didn't happen. And I was nice too. I said "Thanks". Uh, did I say this was a democracy? Do you think I would have said that if I thought this was a democracy? Easy down, tiger. I was merely inquiring where the authority on this website came from: the rules you and your staff wrote, or any random dictum which suited your whim? Because at this point they contradict each other, and as a member I am constantly fraught because I can't tell who to listen to. Also, way to glaze over my post, I especially liked how you quoted this: And responded to the first line, and ignored the rest. It made it look like you responded to everything I said! How clever for you! Also, apatheism doesn't make one nonreligious. In fact, you can be apatheistic and follow many denominations of Christianity. By the by. This is easy to fix, and it doesn't have to drag on like this, especially if all these topics would stop disappearing.

It was not fucking publicly available, it was part of my Facebook page (private without clearance). And don't get all retroactive and say "but I checked Fox's livejournal," because you did that after the fact, plus shared other information not from his profile, AND this makes it the second time you've posted stuff from my Facebook profile on this forum without permission (At this point I'm wondering if it's one more strike or if you're already out of the game, buster). And on the subject of misconstruing, which this cop-out-and-a-half does amply (oh I didn't delete the post! I just made it so no one but me can read it!), let's clear one thing up. What led you to release personal information and devolve into a shit-fit had nothing to do with what Fox posted, and entirely to do with your inability to separate an attack on your opinion in a debate forum from a personal attack on you as an admin. This was made all too obvious by your ad hominem counterattacks and how you abused your power as admin in a context when you should have been posting as a regular member. To repeat what quanta said in that thread, which seems even more appropriate now, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Who watches the watchmen? At that time you said to solve this all we need are "separation of powers, checks and balances." Well, looks like you don't understand what you preach so well after all, now do you? If that level of Latin is lost on you, and in light of the fact that it's becoming a real one man show around here with just a single admin in control and no other mods in sight (Except the ones you bitch out for doing their job) I should just keep it simple and say Sic Semper Tyrannis. Alright, now that I've put the record straight, I'm done. Thanks. One more thing. I want my topic back. I think with some effective moderation, I can pull it back from the brink it's been cast it into. Edit: >:3c

Yeah, our school's Varsity Basketball is reserved for black people. That's pretty much every school's varsity team. Except in New England. In high school I did track and cross country, and I'm a fairly active person all around. Didn't do a sport in college last year (although I did frequent the gym), but I'm thinking of starting up something fun like rugby this year.

Except that rocketeers are the most broken infantry and prism tanks the most broken artillery units ever made. All any online player had to do was spam these and win. Faction units only stand a chance against the computer AI in a skirmish, which, let's face it, you could beat with conscripts.

Rennac should be banned just for ingratitude...

Christian. Support gay marriage, right 'ere. You seem to act as if those two statements are mutually exclusive, or that by some power the fact that you support gay marriage contradicts Cynthia's statement that most Christians don't. Do you even know what you're talking about? There is no contradiction. In the other debate I said that people have no right to interfere in matters which are entirely personal in nature, and here I'm saying exactly the same thing. In the words of Wanda Sykes "If you don't like gay marriage, don't get one." Even if there were strong religious grounds to argue against gay marriage, and even that is only shaky and relies on a honed in focus on a few set phrases of the bible while forgetting the rest of the fucking book which talks about tolerance and love, it doesn't change the fact that it's still none of their fucking business no matter how good the grounds. But perhaps I am foisting one belief onto other people; the belief that all people are created equal, and thus the individual is the only one who can have a say on personal matters, but I doubt you're going to see many people jumping up to contradict this statement, especially since it's so well written into American founding documents and legal philosophy. Fine, you can make up a response to a narrative that was never written and tear that to shreds. Or you could respond to what's actually being posted. Unless this is more of your problems with the "you" pronoun, I have never said anything about assuming that every Christian was a Gay-hating sonovabitch, but if you want to keep telling that lie over and over again until it comes true, you can still keep trying. The only thing that's been said is that if people are willfully unaware (or even ignorantly unaware) of the policies of their church but still get bent out of shape when someone who is subjected to the business end of these policies speaks harshly of their institution, then they can shove a stick up their ass.

I've read the bill of rights. And exercising my right to lobby against something I view as retarded, and succeed in doing so, thus making your proposal ineffective, is in no way violating that bill of rights. I propose that if you want tolerance on drugs, you move to the Netherlands. They're more likely to try your proposal there. The right to persuade people to follow your beliefs and allowing them to make a choice is entirely different than shunting any illusions of choice by legally obligating them to conform to your ways. Understanding that all men are created equal is incompatible with the delusion that you somehow have the right to control another person's habits as they pertain to themselves.

Again, I am making none of my own claims about how people seek treatment for drugs, so stop using the pronoun "you" and ease up on out of my face. Studies have repeatedly shown that the way drug use is punished in this country, with jail time (and let's be clear, that IS the alternative you are talking about) is completely ineffective at combating addiction. Let's take a look at a legal drug, alcohol. Public endangerment due to alcohol consumption, including drunk driving, is still a crime, and can trigger mandatory treatment from the government in signs of frequent abuse, which is proven much more effective than just locking people up. Even with these monitoring processes and government attempts at forcing moderation, all of this is done without making alcohol illegal. There is no reason that this can't be true for other drugs. Treating addiction with therapy rather than jail time (again, the alternative you seem to support) is thousands of times more effective at actually solving the problem, and universally in countries with increased drug decriminalization, the number of people seeking treatment has skyrocketed. Fact. Having drug use be a punishable crime is literally retarded, even outside of the fact that it causes untold amounts of crime in the US responsible for an estimated 10,000 deaths yearly. Your argument also operates under the claim that somehow current US policy is effective in any way at significant drug deterence, when in fact, as said earlier, US policies have actually worked to make the drug trade more efficient and offer the ability to more widely distribute drugs at cheaper prices than ever before. More laws will not solve the problem, and even the current laws are arguably part of the problem. Also, despite how happy I am that you have opinions, and this makes special, your view that you somehow have a right to control others' moral prerogatives is completely inconsistent with the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, documents which outline US legal philosophy.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/2698507.stm

Godwin's law at it's finest. You seem to have a particularly annoying habit of identifying various tropes in someone's post, and expect that to somehow substitute for an actual argument on your part against that post. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Of course people should just ignore the official stances of churches and organizations, remarks by prominent church pastors on public airways, those who perpetrate hate crimes in the name of religion, and interest groups which actively lobby the government to block gay initiatives in the name of religion (with ample access to church coffers) because hey, they're just sayin' that. You can't be taking what they say seriously. We're just joking with you man! I don't feel this way in my own life, having met many tolerant religious people. But if a person is a member of an organization in the religious community which actively promotes discrimination, and they do nothing to change it or remain ignorant to it, but still expect fair treatment, I say fuck you.

It's not my proposal to be "fucking stupid" about. Taking a look at numerous examples, it's evident that drug legalization doesn't always have the same effect as you predict. Reasons for this are numerous, but may include increased likelihood for people to seek treatment with the legal complications removed, and increased likelihood that a family member will seek treatment for a loved one because they now no longer have to fear getting them thrown in jail. This is not a case of me "assuming" anything, this is an opinion formed largely from statistical analysis. It's also easy enough to argue that with double edged policies and ineffective treatment options, the government is already "letting people become addicted to drugs." The ability for our government to fight addiction is deplorable, and mostly relies on backwards, disproven treatment methods which comply best with the law (cold turkey quitting) rather than gradual moderation, a safer and more successful method. And finally, civil liberties. It doesn't matter that it has shit effects on your body, because the no one, including the government, should have the right to dictate what a consenting adult does to themselves, because what more often happens is that one particular senator's moral view ends up affecting everyone's lives. It is for this reason that our country has had so much trouble getting medical marijuana bills passed, despite the OBVIOUS and PROVEN benefits it provides to the critically or terminally ill. You say "Legalizing Marijuana is one thing, though I'm still against that due to cancer risks and shit..." Can you not understand that just because you disagree with something, or something is potentially unhealthy, that doesn't mean it needs to be illegal? If you think they're unhealthy, don't do them! It's no excuse for anyone to foist their moral prerogatives onto another just because they think that's the best way to go.

The burden of proof falls on those wanting to justify a claim. Other people were claiming that seat belts should be mandatory because of the danger an unbuckled person poses to a buckled one, and I said that claim needed to be justified since I found no statistics listing how many, if any significant numbers of people are killed a year by other unbuckled passengers. I don't have to prove a goddamn thing in this scenario. And I most certainly did not say that the car design would prevent other people from being hurt. Also, it's called safety glass. There's a breakdown of communication somewhere here, and it's distressing me. Somewhere I got on a different page, and I just don't understand what you're trying to argue anymore.

What does that have to do with anything? Either you need to reread the topic, or you are willfully obfuscating the argument. No one in this thread has said that seat belts should be removed from cars, nor air bags. Let me reiterate, I think using them is a very good idea, and I use them mostly without fail. But that doesn't mean that I think my "common sense" should override another person's right to choose what they want to do in a decision that largely concerns only them (although this is debatable). Your statement doesn't forward any argument, other than that I forgot passive restraints were also required in cars (which most commonly means airbags, but doesn't limit it to them).

I also notice you didn't quote or reply to any part of my post, and are indirectly attempting to refute my post by simply saying I didn't follow the unwritten procedure of replying to everything you said first, rather than critiquing actual arguments. But fine: And...? That's all I can say. That and 'Sounds like a great idea.'My argument this entire time is that you're allowed to be a retard and get yourself killed, because that's your choice. Maybe not a good choice, but no one has the right to force you to do otherwise. By attempting to provoke a response with this post you simply demonstrate that even now, after all of this, you still do not even understand the argument. A better post would have called into question the right for people to make choices they would have to be insane to make in the first place, or would argue that for the sake of society the government should protect the good of its people as a whole. But the way it's phrased now, it doesn't address the argument, and promotes a worrywart set of morals as an ethical code that everyone else should be obliged to follow simply because of the convictions of the poster.

So you say. I demand an investigation.

Right handed. Lateralized brain theory is largely bullshit, and when used, mostly by psychologists, it takes the form of a pseudoscientific metaphor to easily explain brain phenomena, rather than actual fact. Also, you text is really fucking annoying to read.

In a reverse of what was done before, I think you should be banned from every forum EXCEPT serious discussion. It's the only place where your necroposting is funny or contributes at all to keeping the discussion alive with people shooting your dumb ass down. This is just pathetic.

Sorry, but that's not speculation. If you'd like, we can set up some dummies in a car and do some rollover crash tests, and prove the laws of physics for you, because apparently you're completely unaware of Newtonian Laws. Oh well fuck me, I guess I'll just go NURRRRRRRRRRR. Of course I fucking understand that a moving body (human) acts with great force in an accident. This however, doesn't mean that there aren't structural factors in the car which neutralize them as a threat to the front seat passengers, something which can only be backed up with statistics. Who knows, maybe something about how the seats are designed could block most of that force, and someone sitting bitch would probably just go into the front of the car (possibly out the window) without hitting any of the front passengers. The point is you can't just apply Newtonian physics in a complex system (like a rollover) without taking into account all of the variables. Saying a heavy guy will do a lot of damage, always, and not factor in all the other things which could be having an effect, is not fact. You can't speculate that a lot of people are actually killed a year just because of some offhand physics calculation. The entire idea of risk compensation defies easy statistical prediction. Many, many studies show that despite the increase in car safety devices such as front and curtain airbags, seat belts, ABS, 4x4 and AWD, and frontal crumple zones, the amount of people per capita dying yearly in auto accidents has not decreased much for a long time. The theory simply goes, when people feel safer, they take more risks. Despite 40% of skiers now wearing helmets, the number of yearly deaths has not decreased. Similarly with four-wheel and all-wheel drive and anti-lock breaks, accidents in bad weather have not decreased because now people drive more recklessly in bad weather because they think their ABS and AWD will protect them. Some have argued the same thing applies to seat belts, but do we know? No. And we can't calculate it physically either, because there are psychological factors at play. Only actually statistics mean anything. The state/insurance already pay for cleanup of an accident; scraping your body off the road is largely inconsequential to the cost (especially since at a serious accident an ambulance on the scene is standard anyways, for trauma and sometime whiplash or other injuries which come regardless of wearing a seat belt or not). Getting the wrecker out there and holding up traffic is where all the expense comes from, regardless of whether there are any dead bodies (dead bodies probably make the stock of the evening news channel on the scene go up though...). Earlier though I did state some things badly. I was trying to respond to the claim that somehow we had no rights over how the road was run or controlled because it was "government owned", when I merely wanted to point out that we had ultimate control as the road is taxpayer owned and the government is voter controlled (but this is not the place to go into electoral dynamics). I realize, upon rereading, how stupid the claim was that taxpayers should be able to do anything because they pay taxes, that was a bit of an exaggeration of the moment. I agree with your third paragraph, that a person who decides not to wear a seat belt must cover the extra expenses could result from this stupidity. You have a right to damage yourself as much as you want, but not the right to demand others pay for it.

You can hardly blame anyone for it. Sure, it was only a fraction of the Nazi's which perpetrated the most heinous crimes known in history, and most of them were normal people fighting for what they thought was an injustice against their country, or were conscripted soldiers, but that doesn't mean I'm going to start telling Jewish people that they should really give Nazis a second chance. Yes, you're right, there are a lot of respectable, accepting religious people out there, perhaps even a majority, but despite this fact all (no exaggeration) of the opposition to homosexuals getting fair treatment or receiving beneficial changes in the law, comes from the religious front, it makes it kind of hard for homosexuals at large to feel sorry for the nice religious people in all of this.

Factions made the game in the Soviets' favor? What the fuck are you talking about? My all time favorite game.

:X Oh my God you slaughtered that just to make me cringe didn't you?