Quote - The Elite Morphs is just three FBMs, can't have taken that much time to do; and A4 again is really a pretty small number of morphs.  Maybe a couple of months' work if they really took their time

Exactly.

I didn't get the elite morphs, haven't been using Aiko 4 all that much yet.  Aiko 4 is okay, but I think I prefer that style to be more cartoony looking in general.

Quote - pjz99

What have they been doing with it all this time?

Making the elite morphs and Aiko.

Anyways, I'm not impressed from the previews so I think I'll be sticking to V4 for the meantime. 

dork, what you've said about the aquisition of power can be applied to the other side as well.  As you have said some christians are trying to push their beliefs on the people keep power, the other side is trying to do the same thing with different beliefs.

Anyways it isn't always about Christianity it's about gaining and keeping power for both sides (more or less).  In places like Iran, it isn't about Islam it is about using Islam to control the population.

You mentioned abortion.  Some would say it is a woman's choice because it is her body thus being a part of her body she can do what she wishes with it.  Others would say if you replace unborn babies with blacks and "my body" with "my property" you have a modern analog to slavery meaning you have a group of people being denied their human rights because another group claims to possess them in some manner.  So it's not necessarily a Christian-only thing that makes people pro-life nor is it a power thing; for some people it is a humanitarian issue.

And as I said earlier if anyone has a problem with the law, take it up with your repersentatives.  The less active you are, the less right you have to complain.

There are some recent things I've been buying, like an outfit at daz that was closish to a game outfit I've wanted to see made (but it's missing the dress), however I think there aren't as many things that have interested me as when I've first gotten here.

Aside from the holiday creep, no problems here.

Quote - What happened to "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" ?

Someone screamed "fire" in a crowded theater or "bomb" in an airplane?

Actually they sang "Weapon of Choice" on an airplane.

Yes it's still there between marketplace showcase and 2d graphics.

And here come the kittens...

As far as I can tell, the law says no depictions of child porn, including drawings.  Thus this guy needs to be charged.  While these cartoons don't mean someone would do something bad to a child, he might very well have an interest in it and could go off and hurt a child later anyways.  That's why I feel he should be given his day in court instead of being let out.

If you feel the law is wrong, contact your representative and senators. 

I think the law did the safe thing by charging the guy.  Better safe than sorry.  I mean kids being raped is pretty messed up, animals or not.

Here's my two big problems with regulations and nationization:

1.  There's no guarantee that the lawmakers are going to be any less corrupt than the individual institutions (aka congress for letting this happen in the first place).  In fact by giving them more power, you are making washington a more attractive place for those individuals who are corrupt.  Basically you are begging for more corrupt people to run for congress and more lobbiests in washington.

2.  There's no guarantee that whoever is running the institutions are going to be competent (a la the initial botched Katrina recovery).  I mean is anyone on the finance or banking committees trained as bankers or economists?  If they aren't who's giving them their info on which they base their decisions, the people at fanny mae?  The people who need to run these companies are people who know how to manage wisely in that field.  If you put it in the hands of politicians, the banks will be run by politics, lobbiests, and just as much greed as before.

There's one other thing that really scares me about the US government taking over banks.  If I remember right, in the past 40 or so years congress has repeated raided social security and has left somewhere in the ballpark of 5 trillion dollars in IOUs.  So if they take over the banks, what'll happen if they need more money for whatever useless thing they are working on? Instead of $1,000 in the bank your average Joe goes to his atm and sees an IOU for $1,000 and can't take out any money.  If the government owns the bank, realistically they can do anything they want with the money you have stored there.  They'll just claim they needed it for the Crisis of the Month (CotM) and promise to send you a check back in 90 days.  And you can't take it up with anyone because the only people you can complain to is the government who raided your bank account.

If you are a democrat, would you trust a republican congress with your life savings?
If you are a republican, would you trust a democrat congress with your life savings?
If you are an independant, would you trust either congress with your life savings?

See where I'm coming from?

Anyways I think those institutions were a public menance but where was congress when they needed to be kept from growing too large or kept from putting so many assets in risky mortgages?  They certainly needed some form of regulations, but they didn't do it and the government hasn't done it so who are we the people supposed to turn to?

Peelo, that's pretty much what the US rescue plan was as well.  Except in the US plan, we are letting the congressmen who were supposed to keep this from happening lead the committees to find out what happened.  Somehow I think they are going to dump the blame on Bush and pat themselves on the back before calling for more subprime loans.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought that .JPGs were meant to be use with an image editor like photoshop.

kuroyume, I don't disagree that when there is too much power and wealth concentrated at the top and the masses are subjected to terrible living conditions that things need to change.  However I don't think it is a good thing for the people to become heavily dependant on the state for all aspects of their lives; I see that as a form of slavery.  You see that a little in politics from time to time when someone accuses the other of threatening to take away SSI.  A number of people are completely dependant on that government check every month and they are scared about what will happen if it goes away.

bopper, I can't remember his name but there is one guy who made a billion or two honestly.  It's difficult, but not imposible to pull off.  Yes there is greed and some people won't give back, but if you can find an honest person and let him grow his wealth in a way that lets him stay honest, he will give it back.  Just because there is greed doesn't mean there isn't charity.

Joel, yeah that's pretty much how the american system is supposed to be.  Though I'm not sure how electors are appointed.  I know it has to do something with the short ballot system we use but can't remember much more than that.

I was meaning to post on this again a little sooner, but it suddenly took off and I wanted to think a little before I responded.

Quote - SAMS3D

the government....well that is no longer for the people, by the people...

I'm starting to agree with that.  When we have one party infighting about letting people's votes count in the primaries and a special interest group with possible ties to not only one of the canidates but also perhaps the sup-prime market being raided for voter fraud in one state and alleged to do the same in 10 others, that's not a good sign.

Going back to the bailout, I think if anything it should have gone to the people who are getting hurt by the market crash and not the banks who made bad business decisions.

Don, there are so many lobbiest in washington now because companies are using the government to kneecap one another.  Microsoft had virtually no lobbiests in DC until they got taken to court for being a monopoly, then they had a ton of lobbiests.  A sad fact in life is the squeaky wheel often gets the grease, since washtington is giving out grease, there are now a ton of squeaky wheels.  You have to have people there to prevent your competitors from running amok.  Trim back on the frivilious lawsuits and keep the federal government restricted in its role and you'll see that decline. 

Klebnor, good post.  I tend to agree with what you said.  The only thing I'd like to say is while the actions for creating this mess were on public display, few people took note of it because certain people in the media weren't doing their job at the time.   However I think that this sudden crash took everyone by surprise.  During the conventions, no one was talking about the economy.  Next thing we know, two banks were bailed out and a third went bankrupt.

Quote - Paganartist

The ideals that gave birth to this nation are gone, the very documents that grant us freedom are under attack daily by proponents from both sides of government.

QFT.  As far as I can tell, only the libertarians really care that much about the constitution as intended these days and no one votes for them.  BTW good post.

Quote - The idea that wanting to clean out your government and change how it operates being "Anti-American" or committing treason  has to stop. The people in D.C. commit treason on a daily basis and this is acceptable???? If you say you love your country wouldn't you want to fight for it?

Treason was a crime invented by winners as an excuse for hanging losers.  :p

I think there are people who would fight for it, but the question is how.  Do you go to court?  Do you try to raise a few million dollars and run for congress?  Do you get the states to conviene a consitutional convention?  Do you get everyone you can peacefully together to march on washington and camp out at the mall until the government takes notice? 

To be honest, I don't think the current federal goverment is working.  I think it needs a more limited or at least a more well defined role and better people running it.  I mean why did the federal reserve let one bank go bankrupt one day and bail out another the next?  There's no rhyme or reason to it.  Why was the bail out filled with pork?  If it was so necessary, the people in congress should have voted for it as is.  Are we going to remain a capitalist economy, become socialist, or hover somewhere in between?  This needs to be spelled out and not done ad hoc by one manufactured crisis or another.  Plus there are a number of other issues aside from the economy that a lot of people are not happy with how they are settled, yet no progress can be made.

Synpainter, I like the quotes.

Sean, I've heard some people on the radio (not coast to coast AM either) saying that the end of the world is around the corner.  I guess the economy takes out america and the middle east decorates with a few mushroom clouds.  Comparitively speaking, WWIII doesn't sound so bad.

Kuroyume, I don't care who holds the wealth just so long as they earn it honestly.  If one guy makes 10 billion dollars without cheating anyone, good for him.  Another thing is that in the US, the poverty level is nearly 10K a year, so even someone who is just at that level is still relatively well off compared to places in africa and asia.

Xenophonz, I'm agreeing with you more than a bit.  Keep up the posting, it's saving me work.

  ;)

wolf, while I personally think that any sort of orchistrated government takeover is conspiracy theory bunk, after reading Goldberg's book, I think that the fascist elements in the US government (using Goldberg's definition) are quiet happy to use this as an excuse to usurp power.  In true capitalism, you'd have to let everything fail so people would learn from the failures and make sure not to repeat them.  Companies who made bad decisions and can't recover would be purged, and the more sound companies would remain.  Plus all those lost jobs would be absorbed into the better companies or new companies in the long run.  However in our semi-socialist state our government is jumping in when it shouldn't and I really don't think they can do any better.  I'll admit capitalism is very painful when there isn't charity, but if left alone it should work not too much unlike nature.  But if I recall what I heard about Smith's original intentions about capitalism, the goal was to create wealth and then the philanthropists would voluntarialy pass on that wealth to those in need. 

Stepson, from what I've been hearing recently raising or lowering taxes generally don't help federal revenuse that much.  Going back to 1950 or so, no matter what the tax rate, the revenues have usually hovered between 16-20% of the GDP.  So if you want to increase how much the government is making, the least political way to do it is to have a large GDP growth.

Another thing is, it is unlikely they'd raise taxes on you directly.  What would happen is corperate and capital gains taxes would be increased (which is kind of silly considering how much some sectors of the economy need to increase their capital right now).  Then the big businesses who don't want to see their profits go down will pass as much of the taxes on to you the consumer.

For example you'd probably be familar with, they could hypothetically raise gas taxes on the corperate level.  Then the oil CEOs would charge more money for gas.  Then it would cost more not only to fill your gas tank but the gas tank of everything you buy and has to be shipped as well.  Then all those costs would go up.  Then you'd spend less and drive less because prices are shooting back all over.  However because you are doing that, the corperations who sell you gas and goods will make less money and in return pay less taxes.  Thus tax reciepts tend to stabilize in that 16-20% range.

I'm not sure it will work, but you could in theory cut all federal taxes on income and business down to 1%... which is what we were promised when the constitution was amended to allow for an income tax, and still get the same results if you keep them at the current rates or higher.  In theory because you suddenly had 32%-49% of your income back with all those direct and hidden taxes gone, you'd be able to save more and spend more.  Those savings would boost businesses' profits and allow them to invest more, produce more, and create more jobs and wealth.  As an added beneift, with all that extra money you could either put your kids into private schools, save for college, or be a stay at home parent because one spouse isn't needed to work to just pay off the taxes and home school the children.  Any of these would benefit how much education our society has and with all those educated kids going out into the workforce, they'll do more productive and valuable work which would contribute to the GPD and offset the reduced taxes.

Now I'm not saying we can cut taxes to 1% because there is probably a pratical limit to how far that range works, but in general the principle should work.  Now you might have to do it with a few strings attached like requiring businesses who take the lower taxes to pass the savings on to the consumer dollar for dollar, but I don't think it'd take too much for it to work.