Profile for Talent in a Previous Life
| Field | Value |
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| Displayed name | Talent in a Previous Life |
| Member number | 3098 |
| Title | This Side Towards Enemy |
| Postcount | 961 |
| Homepage | |
| Registered | Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
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| Author | Recent posts |
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| Galactic Core History Contest in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Thursday, January 29 2004 05:59
Profile
As some of you will know, for the past month and a half, the spam threads in GC have had a theme. That theme has been to tell the story of a historical figure in pictorial format. The competition is now closed, but voting is not yet finished. There have been very few votes thus far and voting closes at the end of the month. It'd be nice to have more votes than entries, so please head on down to http://www.ironycentral.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=000077 and place your votes. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Thursday, January 29 2004 05:53
Profile
In Britain, where we have ethnic minorities but to a smaller extent, one finds that fidelity amongst the poor in general is low. There are certain exceptions (I believe the rate of divorce amongst the Asian community is lower, but haven't seen any statistics to prove this is more than hearsay) but in general, when you have less of a stake in society, there's less incentive for a couple to stay together. When you're comfortably off, it's a lot easier to sustain a loving relationship. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| WTF are we still in Iraq. in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Thursday, January 29 2004 05:44
Profile
That's fine, but since everybody else on the internet has probably seen that page three times, it may not add much to the conversation. And you will find that many Iraqis are still imprisoned on pseudo-political grounds. I say pseudo-political because it's unclear what most of them have been arrested for, the military having been as helpful as ever. But it would appear that a sizeable proportion are guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| What music (if any) are you listening to... in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Sunday, January 25 2004 13:34
Profile
Foo Fighters - Times Like These -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| WTF are we still in Iraq. in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Sunday, January 25 2004 13:30
Profile
Going to war with North Korea would be a bad idea, but for different reasons than the reasons why fighting Japan, China (in its guise of North Korean volunteers) and North Vietnam. In the first case, you had a culture of fighting to the death and an industrialised nation with well-trained soldiers and officers prepared to act decisively and a population which could be relied upon not to oppose the government too much. In the other two cases, there were experienced guerilla armies fighting on turf they knew reasonably well. In the second case, they had large numbers and good equipment and in Vietnam they had the advantage of terrain and fighting apathetic South Vietnamese and inexperienced GIs. The problem with attacking North Korea now is quite different. Their people are starving, don't really want Kim as leader and would overthrow him if the soldiers weren't so numerous. The problem is that they've most likely got nukes. They can't hit America with them, but they could use them tactically or alternatively reduce Tokyo to ruins. North Korea is one of those cases when fighting is not the best way to solve the problem. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| WTF are we still in Iraq. in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Saturday, January 24 2004 14:23
Profile
No, Vietnam happened because the US didn't pull out. Had they done so, the North Vietnamese government, which would have overwhelmingly won a plebiscite, would have overrun the south just like they did in 1975. Whether they'd then have turned into another Cambodia, however, is open to question. But you can never know when you've saved millions of lives, only when you've failed to do. The other ingredients aren't there, either. There's not the guerilla force that's been fighting for more than two decades, the relatively unified nature of the opposition and it's a desert rather than a jungle. Moreover, Vietnam was actual combat operations at battalion level and above. Iraq isn't. It's easy to make analogies, but they're unsuitable here. Iraq is like Iraq. That's as far as we can go. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Pants of Sorrow in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Saturday, January 24 2004 09:08
Profile
Would this help?  If not, just say the word, and I'll get the yaoi. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| WTF are we still in Iraq. in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Saturday, January 24 2004 09:00
Profile
Alec's theories of possibilities without American entry to WW1 are interesting, but they belong to the Turtledove thread of alternative history, which is about creating a good story. What we should be looking at here is what might actually happen. German troops from the Eastern front did hit the Western front after Brest-Litovsk. And they damn near won the war. There was a general attack all along the line so the Allies couldn't concentrate their forces in one place and some of the French armies, still weakened after the troubles following the Nivelles offensive, as well as Gough's British army, numerically weak and led by an idiot, were forced back. For a while it seemed like the Germans would break them and they broke through the lines of the Aisne, but the French stopped them at the Marne with American assistance and ragtag brigades just held Amiens before Rawlinson's and Byng's armies counter-attacked and the Germans were forced to retreat. Had their been no American entry, Britain would not have starved. Alec might claim that America would not have supplied Britain, but unless they were at war, they would have supplied Britain. In 1914, long before American views on the issue were decided, Britain still got large amounts of supplies from America. Germany didn't, due to the North Sea being held by the British. Of course, Germany was angered by this and the cause of the declaration of war was German attempts to get Mexico to attack America. So one might argue that the only way American non-intervention could be secured would be if they put an embargo on Britain. But this would be tantamount to war and if we think of Britain as neutral, this was never going to happen. So we must assume that Germany either puts up with it or Mexico ignores Germany, since the alternative would be lunacy, and America does not hear of the affair. So come the Third Battle of the Aisne, Crown Prince Wilhelm leads his forces against an army without the morale boost of knowledge that 1 million US troops will be in France within a year, without even the small number of American troops who would put on a small offensive the next day. So the situation is more serious. Ludendorff and Petain both suffer their breakdowns and have to be replaced by Foch and (if I remember correctly) Lossberg. For a while the Germans hope they can reach the capital. They do indeed cross the Marne, but with the failure of the offensive, the defenders of Paris receive new hope and fight the invaders out of the suburbs. (An alternative scenario is that Petain's advice to Haig to abandon the French and make for the Channel Ports is taken. The likely outcomes hereis that Britain suffers little, but Belgium is annexed and France is crippled.) The Germans are weakened and counter-offensives force them back, almost in a state of rout. The Germans establish themselves on the Siegfried line with difficulty and settle down for the long run. In Africa, von Lettow has finally surrendered to Smuts, freeing up more South African troops for the Western front. But they were not trained for trench warfare and few will arrive in time for the end of the war. Late 1918 sees the war fought on a smaller scale. Offensives are just as murderous, but more split up. Moreover, whilst the continued poor harvests in Germany mean revolution looks ever closer, the Allied troops are also beginning to grow mutinous as the U-boats keep doing their murderous work. The Kiel mutiny still occurs in late 1918. If the Allies rode out Third Aisne and Second Marne, it's likely history would have been the same and the war would have ended here. But lets say that the Kiel mutineers are persuaded to go back to work and the disorder doesn't spread. However, come early 1919, with both sides suffering from the Spanish flu outbreak, Britain can launch a new tank offensive. The lessons of Cambrai have been learnt, and a hole is made in the lines. The Germans make a fighting retreat to the Rhine, harried by the British, French and King Leopold. Later that year, as the mutineers refuse to leave port, the Royal Navy will feel confident enough to take back Heligoland. On the Hannover coast, landings are made, but the troops are too few to advance far inland. And lets put the revolution here. With German troops still fighting or called away to fight separatist Lithuanians, Liebknecht, Luxembourg et al seize Berlin. Other rising burst out in Munich, Essen, Hamburg and the other German industrial towns. Faced with losing the country to communism, the generals must, as in real history, surrender to the Allies. Lloyd George had still been re-elected on his 'Make the pips squeak' platform but he's no more sincere about it than he was and Clemenceau is in poorer health than in 1918. Besides, realpolitik dominates as the Allies agree on peace, with the French getting Alsace-Lorraine, Pilsudski getting Poland, perhaps even an independent Rhineland, anything for peace. German troops fight workers, and the Freikorps is here made up of those too young to fight in the war, but inspired by the Right. Allied troops fight too, but they have spent 5 years fighting Germans. They are not friendly. Nobody knows quite how it starts, but with industry militant in Britain and France, some soldiers mutiny. German soldiers throw in their lot with the workers too. In confused circumstances, all three fall to communist governments. In future years, we will be as familiar with them as with Lenin and Stalin. The 1920s are a time of blood and terror. Revolution follows counter-revolution, Poland is crushed without western support, Italy is consumed in civil war, Spain is one giant bloodbath, eventually resulting in the virtual extinction of the aristocracy after the French intervene with the left. America sees many different facets of socialism in the 20s. There is the Russian kind, where socialism in one country is never suggested by Bukharin. There is the French kind, which is often more akin to anarcho-syndicalism than communism. There is the British kind, which still manages to be innately conservative and preserves the monarchy, although Lordships are abolished and the landed gentry find their estates divided amongst the commons. Perhaps Eugene Debs nearly gets in on a rise of popular acclaim. Perhaps immigration is stopped and there is a wave of anti-immigrant violence. Either way, a recession is likely. This is all conjecture, and things would more than likely be nearer history than I have suggested. But any theory of stalemate is stupid. A stalemate would only be achieved if both sides suffered a revolution. Also, Wilson was feeling merciful when he wrote the 14 Points. By November, having seen the German devastation in Northern France, he wasn't. In many cases, Lloyd George was the moderate. Oh, and Trotsky's appeal was largely because of his role in the Russian civil war. The Red Army would have supported him if Stalin was less powerful, because he would still be leading it, not Frunze. Stalin's rise to power was the result of networking and Lenin's ill-health just after Stalin got General Secretary. The difference would have been that Zinoviev and Kamenev would have formed a triumvirate with someone else, perhaps Bukharin. Anyway, the real alternative history question is what would have happened had Sverdlov survived the flu epidemic. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| No Cameras? in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Saturday, January 17 2004 12:41
Profile
Justice has to be seen to be done, but that's not what cameras would do. It would just be media intrusion and be lieable to unbalance the trial. Having seen the media coverage of trials involving paedophilia in Britain, I think we should be much more ready to slap writs on newspapers for contempt of court. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| I'm Back!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Saturday, January 17 2004 12:36
Profile
And we also know that Scorpius' best idea was that there should be two threads for those who felt the need to say when they were leaving or returning and that belittling those posting such threads should not be against the CoC. Drakey, you're the admin of this board. I'd expect you to know he exists. I'd expect Arancaytar to know as she frequents the RP topics and Zharrad appears to be one of the group of posters who form a significant reason that I don't read half the threads here. I'd expect Wise Man to fail at trying to establish moral superiority, although his second post's fairly accurate (except they never realise.) But 12 exclamation marks are unnecessary. Particularly in this context. But instead of wasting bandwidth and precious time in our lives making us read this and typing replies, you could just read the topics on the other pages. If you want to waste bandwidth, it's rather more stylish to do it by posting 1600x1200 bitmaps. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Nethergate? in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Saturday, January 17 2004 12:27
Profile
Nethergate is a very good game and a deeply flawed game at the same time. Whilst the engine improved from then onwards, it got progressively less fun until you reached A3 (although I'm partly biased because of A3's excreable combat balancing.) There are plenty of things I would have preferred to have been done differently in this game. But for what it is, it's still the best Spiderweb game except BoE. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| A Riddle... in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Saturday, January 17 2004 12:23
Profile
Coming from such a respected source as Yu-Gi-Oh, your answer must be superior to the bored musings of amateur philosophers and designers of bad choose-your-own adventure books. Is there a particular reason why it's impossible to lie? Assuming you don't count an innocent mistake as a lie, one could avoid lying. Just because must people choose to, doesn't mean that it is a prerequisite of life. Please vacate the intellectual highhorse. Try the intellectual high chair instead. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| For some great fun... in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Saturday, January 17 2004 12:18
Profile
And Galactic Core. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| What music (if any) are you listening to... in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Friday, January 16 2004 13:52
Profile
David- find some Living Sacrifice or similar Christian Death Metal. More proof why rock should be left to Satanists. Stone Roses- Fools Gold Screaming Trees- All I Know -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| What does THAT make me?! in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Friday, January 16 2004 13:46
Profile
The above post has been rated Centre-Left with Overweighted Sarcasm and brief Subversive Asides. The Spiderweb Committee against Knee-Jerk Trotskyites rates this post 12A. [ Friday, January 16, 2004 13:48: Message edited by: Distantly Bemused ] -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Free Will in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Friday, January 16 2004 13:42
Profile
If you have no free will, it doesn't follow you have no purpose. You can still have a purpose without control. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| My opinion about SW games... in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Wednesday, January 14 2004 12:40
Profile
I feel I should point out that whilst you can make animations in BoE, it's hideously town-intensive and therefore unsuitable for anything but a short scenario. Although I'm not sure the same applies to the technique Alcritas used, his seems to be rather less versatile. I never played the Exile games (except for briefly downloading the Exile 3 demo after playing Avernum 2 and being rather unimpressed) but I found Avernum 1 and 2 much better than the third. Geneforge, I wasn't fantastically impressed with and Geneforge 2 I just didn't like. Jeff doesn't do moral dilemnas that well, IMO. Nethergate was the best game Jeff made. BoE is the best game you can buy from Spiderweb. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Your Max's in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Wednesday, January 14 2004 12:33
Profile
Why is this a matter of interest? Do you really care whether somebody you only know by a personality you can't be certain is genuine can lift a certain weight or not? I have no idea. Lifting weights is not my idea of a productive way to spend my time. My only sports are fencing, where dexterity and speed are more important (although I'm no more dextrous or fast than I am strong) and rugby, where I just try to get myself tangled up in their legs. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| What music (if any) are you listening to... in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Wednesday, January 14 2004 12:19
Profile
Incubus- Mexico -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| What music (if any) are you listening to... in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Saturday, January 10 2004 13:40
Profile
Dazed and Confused - Led Zeppelin Next on the playlist is Mexico - Incubus -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| I wish for you all to pet my fluffy kitten in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Saturday, January 10 2004 13:36
Profile
He stopped talking to me when I quit responding with one word answers and started not bothering to type anything back. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Note to Everyone in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Saturday, January 10 2004 13:33
Profile
It's a reasonably good article, but the creators have written better. Try www.jaypinkerton.com Some cause uncontrollable laughter and if read at 1AM result in you waking the rest of your house up. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Here We Go Again (Political Compass) in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Saturday, January 10 2004 13:29
Profile
quote:I believe the important word here is made. Most would agree that the idle rich children of billionaires who will never need to work don't contribute. I have right-wing friends who openly support attacking not on moral grounds but for profit and who favour turning the Commonwealth into an empire (if a slightly more enlightened version) again. Some of them also exhibit homophobia, vague anti-Semitism (some of it joking, some of it serious, but it's bad enough that anti-Semitism is considered to be humourous) and anti-immigrant fervour. But they still only get about 3.5, 4.5. My main problem with the future of Iraq is that rather than holding elections, the US is handpicking 'notables' from the various regions to choose a constituent assembly to write the constitution and hold elections. And this is very likely to be an excuse just to stuff it to the gills with pro-American candidates who've spent most of their life living in Western exile and will soon alienate the populace nearly as much as arbitrary arrests and house searches by aggressive frightened soldiers who don't speak the local language. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| Free Will in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Saturday, January 10 2004 13:08
Profile
As an A-level student not taking any sciences, I'm out of my depth in this discussion. But please go on. It's very interesting. Jame, please listen to less emo. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
| How many pushups can you do in 2 minutes? in General | |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Saturday, January 10 2004 13:02
Profile
I don't know, but it'd be pretty pitiful. I'm not very fit and I'm lazy. Laziness can be a virtue though. I'm rather good at the worst fencing move to defend against, the Outstretched Sword Suddenly Appearing in Front of Your Rapidly Advancing Chest. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |