Topicless thread

[Nichi]

So guys...I'm a ghost :3
*points to avatar*

[NejinOniwa]

@Bells - but that's the thing! In any other given western country, you'd generally have X party and Y party, with X party being the local big conservative/right-wing party and Y party being the local big socialist/soc-dem/left-wing party. THEN you'd have A and B parties, being smaller conservative/rightwing parties with slightly different agendas, and usually a C and D party on the same role on the left wing. And THEN you'd have E party, which is the local LIBERAL party and can jump to left or right depending on where their hat wants to land. Then there's R and S parties, the local populistic/nationalistic/racist bigot faggotry parties, who sometimes get a foot in. FINALLY there's pretty much always a parliamentary presence from Z party, which is the Green party, and possibly some other additional "Centre" type party.

But in the US you have Dems and Reps. Period. Anyone who's not Dem or Rep is just that - "not dem or rep", or "3rd party". Likening that to the normal European situation that'd be like only X and Y party being allowed to form governments. And even if X and Y parties are usually the ones at the center of their respective coalitions, they are nothing more than that. Coalition figureheads. Long gone are the days when soc-dem or conservatives could actually win an election wholesale on their own. Nowadays, parties seldom get over 30% of the total vote on their own machine. Even if you have 2 parties that get 30% of the votes each, that's still only 60% of the total votes. What about the other 40%? Should we just ignore them and let the big boys fight, even though if the other 40% scooted together they'd be bigger than any of the two big boys?

It's a strange situation, and I can't for my life understand what's so good about it.

[stewartsage]

Retro avatar time!

[Bella]

GYAH IT'S FREEBSD-TAN CHEWING ON SAGE-SAMA'S BUN.

This is a much needed boost to my artistic ego. >u>

[Chocofreak13]

@nej: you forget one thing: the models of government are much different. most of europe has a parliamentary system, which, even with a prime minister, usually guarantees a mixed bag of views, meaning everyone gets a say and everyone's happy.
in the US, we have a president. even with the senate and the congress, we tend to see the world as a more black and white place because only one party can win. meaning that the semi-liberal and semi-conservatives join forces with the pure liberals and pure conservatives solely to have a better shot at having more of a say (plus, at least they're not joining with those liberal hippies or backwards conservatives!). thus, two-party system.
plus we're very resistant to being socialist since most of the country confuses "socialism" with "communism". stupid cold war and their confusion. >>;

@bella: ron paul is your moderate. he tried to get on the democratic ticket ever since he got into politics (he tried like, 8 or 9 times?) and finally went to the republican because he thought he had a better shot. tbh, he sounds like the most moderate guy ever, since he supports stuff from both sides while leaving out the radicals. if i wasn't voting for obama, i'd vote for him (in fact, last year i was in a dilemma since if he won the primary i had no clue who i was gonna vote for). :\

@pitkin: this is why i don't expect anything from humanity anymore. because for the large part, they're all stupid in some way. -__-;(the great thing about being a pessimist is that you're either always right or pleasantly surprised)

@pent: cool on the thrift store! getting free stuff always kicks ass. -w- liking the new avatar (should i switch? has it been long?) and loly....soon you shall be mine ;v;
also, VOICE CHAT! WHOOO!!! (count me in)


i had such a great day today! despite the frustrations, it really was just awesome. :3
i turned in my homework, which the teacher critiqued but said was better than last time, and i turned in the other homework, and i was one of 2 people who did that one! (out of about 15 kids, only 2 did the perspective analysis due this week. xDD) i even turned in a 3-pt perspective analysis (we were only required to do 1 1-pt and 1 2-pt), so he gave me an excellent for the assignment. ~^0^~
after that, i met up with mel and attended her class, in which i got to draw the whole time, so i was happy. ^^ after that, we went straight to the park, where we went straight to the tree and i got to kick that tree's woody ass. (IT HAD IT COMING!!!!!) it was a ton of fun, and i even got to keep my bao in (since we were basically reshooting everything), and did more footage than last time, and more dramatically! >:3 we also happened to see like, at least 15 dogs today, of various kinds (shi-tsus(sp?), cocker spaniel, poodles (including one that looked like a bear), bulldog, golden retriever, akita, chihuahua, sheltie, and, my personal favourite, a Chow Chow. >w< ), we heard this guy who plays the chinese lute (he used to play in park street station, but i guess he moved to the park since it's been so nice lately; glad to see he's doing alright :3), and we even saw a wedding. >w<
after i beat up the tree, we got some ice cream (sarah having spotted an ice cream truck on the way in), so i got a cup of twisted soft serve, sarah got vanilla soft serve, and mel got a hot dog. she saved the bun for later.
while we were eating, we sat on a bench and got a recording of lute guy, since mel needed royalty-free music for her project, so we figured, why not when it's right here in front of us? i'm a tad worried that the lute might be too slow for the action scenes, but she can speed it up or put in a back beat or something. -w-
once lute guy packed up for the day, me and mel each pitched him 2 bucks (mine in dollar coins granted by the subway that morning), and we went to the water to feed the ducks again. ^^ we used the hot dog bun at first, but sarah ended up donating some combos to the cause, even giving some to a little kid so he could feed the ducks, too. ^^ i got a few pictures, and mel got some video (if she puts it online, i'll post a link). after this, they walked me to the station, and on the way we saw the bride, we heard the romantic-sounding spanish singer from 2 weeks ago (he sings next to a rose garden, it's like something out of a movie), and we got yelled at by a hobo when we didn't give him change. xD
sadly by the time we got to the station it was too late for me to make it for the 6pm bus, so i waited in the station for an hour (it was PACKED! and i never figured out why), and made it home for about 7:45, after which my mum let me run into B&N for another magazine (anime mag from the UK), and we went to walmart to get some supplies (soup and nyquil, for instance). after that, pizza, then home. ^^
overall, i have to say, today i had a great day.


by the way, guys, i thought of something on the way home. i don't say it as often as i should (i suppose i forget), but i am so lucky to have friends as great as you.

[SleepyD]

@Bells - but that's the thing! In any other given western country, you'd generally have X party and Y party, with X party being the local big conservative/right-wing party and Y party being the local big socialist/soc-dem/left-wing party. THEN you'd have A and B parties, being smaller conservative/rightwing parties with slightly different agendas, and usually a C and D party on the same role on the left wing. And THEN you'd have E party, which is the local LIBERAL party and can jump to left or right depending on where their hat wants to land. Then there's R and S parties, the local populistic/nationalistic/racist bigot faggotry parties, who sometimes get a foot in. FINALLY there's pretty much always a parliamentary presence from Z party, which is the Green party, and possibly some other additional "Centre" type party.

But in the US you have Dems and Reps. Period. Anyone who's not Dem or Rep is just that - "not dem or rep", or "3rd party". Likening that to the normal European situation that'd be like only X and Y party being allowed to form governments. And even if X and Y parties are usually the ones at the center of their respective coalitions, they are nothing more than that. Coalition figureheads. Long gone are the days when soc-dem or conservatives could actually win an election wholesale on their own. Nowadays, parties seldom get over 30% of the total vote on their own machine. Even if you have 2 parties that get 30% of the votes each, that's still only 60% of the total votes. What about the other 40%? Should we just ignore them and let the big boys fight, even though if the other 40% scooted together they'd be bigger than any of the two big boys?

It's a strange situation, and I can't for my life understand what's so good about it.

@nej: you forget one thing: the models of government are much different. most of europe has a parliamentary system, which, even with a prime minister, usually guarantees a mixed bag of views, meaning everyone gets a say and everyone's happy.
in the US, we have a president. even with the senate and the congress, we tend to see the world as a more black and white place because only one party can win. meaning that the semi-liberal and semi-conservatives join forces with the pure liberals and pure conservatives solely to have a better shot at having more of a say (plus, at least they're not joining with those liberal hippies or backwards conservatives!). thus, two-party system.
plus we're very resistant to being socialist since most of the country confuses "socialism" with "communism". stupid cold war and their confusion. >>;

While the government model is a factor, it's more the voting system.
So have a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

[Nichi]

@Kari: Glad you had a good day ^_^

Also,

i don't say it as often as i should (i suppose i forget), but i am so lucky to have friends as great as you.

Seconded. You guys kick ass >:3

So, today got off to an interesting start. Our water heater busted ^_^;

[Chocofreak13]

i think it says a lot that so far you're the only one who noticed that comment, lol. xD

ouch, btw. hope it gets fixed soon. :\

[Bella]

@Kari: D'aww, I feel lucky to have you guys as friends too. <3

Ron Paul, I agree with him on a few things but he makes me more wary than anything. Granted, he's for legalized marijuana, minimized military authority and opposed Don't Ask Don't Tell, but that's about as moderate as he gets. In fact, he has the most conservative voting record of any member of congress from 1937 to 2012, and was the most financially-conservative candidate of the 2012 Republican nominees (which is really saying something). He's for a cutback on Federal authority and wants to emphasize states rights, doesn't agree with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, opposes affirmative action and environmental regulation and also wants to ban all forms of abortion, despite having worked as a fucking gynecologist for half his life.

@Genpop: Today I went to a book sale.... for $20 I got....

Unix for Mac OSX, a book about command line operations in OSX (it's dated to the era of 10.2, but many of the basics will translate to Snow Leopard / many other Unix systems), What If? II, a giant book of random trivia, a book about New England cultural identity, an autobiography about life in the Navy WAVES, a few old books about computers and computer history, So You Think You Know Maine?, The Face of Minnesota, a few women's and gender studies-ish books, an English translation of the Tao Te Ching for my dad (since he read this book in the 70s and hasn't stopped talking about it since), a big book about hairstyling, and cooking books ("Asian" cuisine, simple Mexican, vegetarian cooking, cooking with citrus, preparing and cooking meat [which is something I know nothing about] and finally City Food, which has more advanced recipes). There's also a bizarre Minnesotan parody of Twilight (it's called "Twilight of Lake Woebegotten" by "Harrison Geillior" and featuring forward by "Epiphany Neyer" - it looks horrible, but possibly good-horrible and for 50 cents I'm willing to take the chance), volume 7 of Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle and volume 8 of D.Gray-Man (sadly, those were the only manga I saw out today).

And I bought 3 CDs too, Chopin's Ballades and Scherzos, Portishead - Dummy, and what appears to be a pirated copy of Beck's Sea Change (It's a CD-R with "BECK - SEA CHANGE" scribbled on it in sharpie).

I'm probably gonna go back tomorrow, since they were holding a bunch of books in reserve....

[Chocofreak13]

really now? i know he was advocating for states' rights but i don't remember him weighing in on the abortion debate. :\

yaaaay, i love book sales!! ^^ i'd like to trade recipes with you, if that's alright, since that asian cuisine book sounds relevant to mah interests. -w- plus some of the other ones sound good too. ^^
and if you can make some scans of that hairstyling book, i'd be sooper-grateful. ;v;

[Pitkin]

What I've read on Ronald Paul never has even hinted on him wanting to be a democrat. He's been always on Republican ticket (except his adventure with libertarian party at the change of 1980s-1990s during a period when his newsletters were credited some "nice" attitudes towards black people, homosexual and AIDS patients), his biography mentions nothing of trying to be a democrat nominee, and well, to call him a moderate is outright odd as libertarian by definition is extreme hands-off ideology. Also his opposition to federal laws and support for states' rights in everything except abortion and gay rights (which he's driven a federal ban on, bizarrely) would mean he's basically advocating for some states' possible plans to ban sexual practices A and B and allow companies to discriminate against potential employees, and I find anyone who considers an access to education and health care not a right but a privilege one needs to earn very... interesting from someone moderate, to employ a euphemism.

That said, Ron Paul needs to be given the credit that his policies are mostly very systematic. Despite that newsletter adventure I mentioned, he seems to always have believed and driven the same ideas instead of flip-flopping (or evolving) in one direction or another. Systematic, idealist, certainly yes. Moderate? I cannot agree with that word used on him myself, and it surprises me that he's called that only because he wants to stop the military interventionist policies of the US.

[Nichi]

@Bella: Sounds nice. I love book sales ^_^

@discussion on Ron Paul: I honestly knew nothing about him, aside from some old guy driving around town in a rusted out Chevy truck with a huge "Google Ron Paul" decal in the back window. Never cared to look him up, but from what Bella and Pit have mentioned, he doesn't sound like the sort of guy I'd want to vote for

[Chocofreak13]

then i'd say someone's lying, which, considering this is politics, is bound to be true.
when he was still a contender around here, his policies sounded very accepting. since when does a republican support marijuana? maybe i should have listened a bit harder, but i don't remember any of the activity/positions on stuff you guys are mentioning when i was hearing about his platform. :\

driving a virtual taxi is harder than it sounds! damn farejumpers, fleeing in terror!

[Nichi]

True that. I suck at Crazy Taxi and GTA ^_^;;

Edit: I missed my 8888th post, but here's to 8900!

[Chocofreak13]

whoo!!

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