My friend I thought the same way a year ago. I was content on party hopping for my needs, but all it takes is that special girl to come along and turn your world upside down. I've been with my girlfriend for a year and a half so far and truth be told I haven't been happier.

I'm just saying you can't factor marriage in until you meet her, right? I'll just go with the flow. Should I get married, I'd like not to have my ideally robust lifestyle shattered too terribly. Odds are plans will have to change, but I'll be hopeful..... Maybe I'll get lucky and find someone in the service..... It could happen.

I wanted to fall in love and go through a romantic story that tests me and that I grow from. I didn't realize it would suck this much! I've grown up more in the last 6 months then the previous 6 years. It's the most painful experience I have ever gone through in my life. I've been in love before, but not like this.

This is like, well we're not together right now so I'm with other girls sometimes and I like them, too and have fun with them but... without getting to racy, after we're done all I can think about is this girl. It's like my hormones let me ignore her but when they're gone I feel horrible and guilty and we don't actually have a relationship. It's quite difficult.

Anyway, this country is amazing. Buenos Aires is amazing. I'd go into detail but then I'd have nothing to post about later.

Poor Doomed One. I can imagine quite a few denizens of this domain can relate to this your story. I know I can. Love can be massively painful sometimes. I'm going through something right now too that I can only describe as painful, but... well I don't really know. I'm full of confusitrons, the very elementary particles I'm sworn to spread. For some reason they all built a nest in my brain right now. Ah well, I guess it's good to have the kids home for a while...

I wondered why I was feeling less confused of late... go low conncetrations of confusitrons!

In other news, my many attempts at finding a job all came to naught. While this is great in the whole do what I want and sleep as long as I want side of things... it kinda sucks insomuch as I'm totally broke and therefore need money >_<

Dude. I'm there. I dont have a job either, and as of right now, I'm starving and thinking about joining the army for the stability. If the recruiter freind of my friend can follow through, I'll just end up being a three year reservist doing drills for three years at an office type setting. The unit supposedly is non-deployable, and when it's deployed, its to process the people who are going overseas.

..and then you're transfered because they need more people in XYistan.

Well, I'm up late and bored. I'm planning a prank on my roommate. The whole cup-of-water-falls-on-your-head-when-you-open-your-door-routine. It's nothing hostile, just a running joke that keeps us occupied. He sleeps light, so wish me luck.

True. But the alternative is homelessness. Granted my odds of survival are greatly diminished in a combat zone. My death, a necessary end, will come when it comes. Nor shall I live my life in fear of that end, for it is the fear that truly diminishes living.

Sorry mate, I just don't agree. Why on earth should anyone wanna join the army in your country? To deliberately put your life at stake? I can't accept it. AND I have a damn good reason for being very picky about this issue, but I won't discuss that here...



You my friend will get a pm tonight!

My second career choice (the first being air force pilot) was going to be the army. Not recruit, but I would have tried to get a commission. I live better when under some kind of schedule. That's one thing I like about school.

Speaking of which, I'm not going to the public school all of my friends are going to. Instead, I'll be at a christian private school. The Pros over the district high school: smaller student population (everybody knows everybody else), lower probability of people trying to give me drugs, and there's more of a "community" within the campus.

Unlike my friends, I don't have any problem whatsoever with wearing school uniforms (as long as their not too terrible looking). The cons are mostly things that will force me to be a better student (I've got horrible procrastination issues among other things). Well, there is the fact that the district high school had an open campus (if the host of resteraunts around it were any indication).

Behold, I have internet once more! Got a wireless connection thing for my PC, so I can get high-speed internet in back-of-beyond Wyoming. My job keeps me away from the computer most weeks (I'm on a comp-time vacation right now, being paid $14.42 an hour not to work so they don't have to pay me overtime) but I'll see if I can start writing again on weekends. No, Al cannot be silenced for too long...

As for this little vacation of mine, tomorrow I'm going to play some ultimate frisbee here in Lander and then I'm going to hike up into the mountains for a couple days, up into a nice glacial cirque at 10,000 plus feet elevation. Oh yes.

Well as someone that has willingly joined the US Marine Corp, I'll explain.

There are many reasons as to why a person would join a military.

Time honored tradition
Adventure
Chance to prove oneself
To defend their nation

And there are several more, discipline, money for school.. etc etc. The primary job of a countries military is to defend you, cause if they weren't, then you would have to. And lets face it should war come to your homeland anytime soon I don't think most of the non military peoples could fight it.. Or at least very well. Oh then peoples excuses are "well if no one had a military we wouldn't have to worry about war (and such)". That is very correct however it is if anything a forlorn hope. See other people don't agree with the no military principle, and they are not usually nice people and you know what? They tend to use force to get their ways. Now if no one would fight against those people, what would happen? Well simply you would be subjects of a new country against your own will.. Sounds fun.

In fact the only countries I believe that can survive without a military at the moment are Iceland and Costa Rica. Why? Because their independence is protected, firstly by the United States military and secondly NATO.

I'm sorry Minky to me your arguments just don't hold up.. I mean when mean spirited people aren't mean spirited anymore I'll call for the abolition of the military. Until then I believe we should remain vigilant in case of another crop of maniacal dictators.

The only thing that can ever stop humanity from having an internal war is if there is an external threat. Let's face it, we all feel threatened by something: terrorists, bogeyman, other powerful nations, spiders, snakes, bears, etc. Humanity is one species, but we see each other as different in practical and dogmatic ways.

We have choices, we disagree. Each of us has a different place we draw the line. Fighting is just an extension of our ability to compete and our drive to survive and prosper. We used to compete with animals more than anything, now we fight mostly ourselves. When we have something else to compete with, we'll probably fight amongst ourselves a little less, but not all together.

If we were all a hive-mind we wouldn't have to fight each other. We might have to fight something else, but we'd have no reason to disagree with each other. The only place you never have to fight is the afterlife, Minque.

Yeah I agree competition is a part of nature, but its not the only part. Natural Selection only covers one aspect of what is evolution, the other part is assimilation. Some bacteria decided to put away their differences and form the first complex cells, and then some of these cells worked together to fight other multicelled organisms. These organisms formed packs and tribes to fight other packs and tribes, and then they became nations.

It only seems logical to me that if humanity doesn't kill themselves, they'll eventually come together. Maybe if aliens or demons or something attacked and we realized we had something more important to compete with than ourselves...

Yeah sorry, we're talking about the army, right? No me gusta. I prefer to follow the time honored tradition of counter-culture and rebellion; the adventure of standing for a cause that's actually just; proving myself by going through hell for something that's worth a damn and defending my country by increasing the well-being the citizens. Just my 3 cents.

I'll just point out that eternal peace means that every generation has to believe in the same principles that caused the union in the first place. It would take a higher power to override free-thought and disagreement among sentients. Even if all our unique cultures and histories just vanished, we'd still find ways to distinguish ourselves from others.

To truly have complete unity we'd have to transcend what we understand as reality and what it is to be human. Totally disarmament won't accomplish that, there's nothing tangible that can make war end because that's pretty much what life is anyway.

Or we could be open minded...

This whole military dilemma is one that can never be balanced, I don't think.

On the one hand, you have peace loving people. On the other, you have war loving people. In order for both to survive, one has to conform to the other. If the peaceful people hold to their values and so do the warlike people, then unfortunately, the peaceful ones die. So, in order to stay alive, they become warlike as well, or, they all die and leave nothing left on the planet but the war lovers.

I realize that I've become a pessimist, but I really don't care anymore.

I'd say more but there really isn't anything else. Under present day cicrumstances, war is as a part of being human as killing things (animals and plants too) to give us sustinance. If said situation changes then armies will be unecessary and the world will be one big utopia.

Utopias are another endeavor humans have tried but never succeeded in.

I think I wouldn't mind any of my friends joining the army if that particular army wasn't engaged in what NATO once euphemistically labelled "forward defense". If you stayed at home, protecting your country against... well... whatever? - that would be fine. But I'll never understand how it serves the security of your people to fight in Iraq. Sure, you've got your hands on resources that're strategically very important, and that does serve your country, but it has nothing to do with defense, does it?

Me, I'm one of those (naive?) peaceloving people. I'd refuse to kill another even if it meant my death. Why? I couldn't live with myself. That's why I refused to join the army even though service is mandatory here. Joining the army - any army - always means that you can end up in a situation where not only you may be killed but where you have to kill another, and... no. Unacceptable to me.

And neither will most US citizens, myself included.

I realize that the US isn't popular right now with the rest of the world because of this war, but for the most part, we've recognized our mistake and are now trying to correct it as best we can. (in "we" I exclude Mr. Dubya) Look at it from our side too; if we just altogether pull out, we're just leaving the Iraqi people to the wolves and if we stay, we lose more of our own. It's a lose-lose situation, and unfortunately we can't turn back the clock to get out of it. At this point, no matter what we do, the situation will have a bad outcome. We just have to decide which is the lesser of two evils.

This probably isn't the place for this but removing Saddam Hussein from power was the most retarded things this country has done since electing Dubya. He was making Iraq prosperous. He did a shitload of good for the economy. He actually understood how to run the country.

I mean, out of leaders in the world right now, he was definitely one of the better ones. The fact is, very few leaders accept rebellion or dissent, especially in the middle east. We used a couple of exmples of his darker behavior to justify ending the tyranny in Iraq. That's utterly stupid, democracy isn't as simple as killing the old leader and spending trillions of dollars to do what he was doing for free.

I'm sorry but making life better is not as simple as killing the bad guys. Of course, don't think for a second Bush believed that, either. He's a greedy little dreamy school girl, and his friends are raking in billions from this operation while they watch the country they call home crumble. All the money is getting leeched from our economy and put into just a handful of pockets. How did Halliburton become one of the richest companies in the planet just through their deal in Iraq? It soared from Iraq, absolutely soared. You can say it's just benefits to their friends like how when a cop impounds a car one of his buddies will end up with it here in Argentina (the example being that the car needed to be impounded anyway) but Halliburton is just the tip of the iceburg. There have been so many beneficiaries to this war, not one of them being the average american or the economy of the US.

And who are these wolves the Iraqi people would be left to if we pulled out? Right now the terrorists are attacking us, not sunnis or shiates. A civil war is possible but I think it's being exaggerated, Saddam Hussein had his army dissolve into the population so we're not fighting sunni or shiate extremists, we're fighting secular Hussein loyalists. If we left, who do they have left to fight?

Note: I'm going to use the typical media term 'insurgents' for your 'secular Hussein loyalists'

These insurgents attack the Coalition forces, yes. But they also target people associated with us, which also includes Iraqi forces and politicians that have cooperated with the Coalition, and probably their families as well. Judging by tactics they've used in the past (car bombings, suicide bombings, assassinations, beheadings and the like) they won't go easy on these people and the US forces are really the only thing keeping them somewhat at bay. Not to mention that they don't seem to care how many civilians they kill while targeting either the Coalition forces or the Iraqi ones.

I agree that starting the war was a bad idea, but you can't live in the past. You have to make the best of it and move on. It's just easier said than done in this situation.

I'm too tired and sleepy to reply to that "Hussein was good for Iraq" stuff, even though I think it needs to be addressed because it's just plain wrong.

However, let me say a few words on the US' responsibility in Iraq. You got there, you messed it up, now you better stay and clean it up. What will happen if you pull out now? Well, that's pretty easy. Civil war. And no, it's not exagerated. There are a number of factions - the biggest being the Kurds in the north, the Sunni in the west and the Shia in the south. These factions have very little love for each others. The Kurds want to be left alone, and why not? They're sitting on a lot of the oil. The Shia are pissed off because they've been oppressed for so long and now they want to have the power and do whatever they please. The Sunni want back what they used to have under Hussein.

Now, that's bad enough. But it gets worse. In addition to these three basic factions, we have all the neighbouring countries. These countries are infamous for meddling in the affairs of their respective neighbours, and Iraq is a high-stakes neighbourhood: Gazillions in oil wealth, that's a damn big incentive to get involved. There's a lot of wealth to be made there. And: everyone of the neighbours has enemies and friends among the three factions. Example: Turkey wants to make sure the Kurds don't get too much power because they're afraid this might provide shelter to the PKK. Iran doesn't want that either, and would rather see the Shia gain power. Syria is more interested in helping the Sunni. God only knows who or what all the other countries in the region hope for or support.

Now the Iraqi army is supplied by the US with new or old weapons. The Sunni militias are pleding their allegience to the US and get weapons, too. The Kurds have their own sources I guess. Everyone is trying to get their hands on more and more weapons, just... you know... in case.

And if THAT isn't bad enough you still got people that think it's fun to blow up everybody who isn't clearly behind their ideals, ie that shadowy entity called Al Queda or you know, whatever.

But wait, it gets worse! Even the factions fight among themselves. The Shia are especially good at this: there's Muqtada al-Sadr on one and the government Shia people on the other side, for instance. Recipe for disaster, that alone.


Believe you me: pull out and this thing will explode. Why? There are factions with very different ideas of how to rule that country and who should be doing this, and as of right now, there is no established infrastructure of power. The Iraqi army is a joke and the Iraqi police is a joke, too. There are many militias on all sides, and if the US pulls out now... BOOOM.

I know Channie! I know your opinion and I respect it! But you can never convince me of the good thing about learning to be a soldier and thus kill people! I'm swedish, we haven't had a war since the 1800s. Our so called "military" is a joke! They are putting it down anyway, one after another of the units are dismissed and there's not much left of it. My dad fought in WW2, he despised war (he's dead now)....



Yeah Stargie...that sums it up for me as well!

So when the EU takes over the nations completely, there will be no form of resistance? Hundreds of years of unique nations will be absorbed into one entity, with one constitution, that may or may not have things like civil rights?

Hmmm, EU is already there, and we still are separate countries, with civil rights! And good social services and so on

Nope I'm not afraid of EU, I voted for a swedish membership, and I voted for the EURO, but unfortunately we still are stuck with our Krona here....Silly swedes!

Okay, fact, Iraq was not the best tactical choice on our part. Fact, the more man power invested in Iraq, the less manpower that can be allocated to terror attacks abroad.

I personally think there's been dumber economic moves than continuing to fight in Iraq. What I hate about the anti-war protesters is they generally talk down to anyone who disagrees with them as though our opinion amounts to nothing compared to theirs (these guys aren't here, here it's not so bad).

Pulling out is by no means a result, it makes everything up until now totally meaningless. The killing will go on, the terrorists won't have to focus on fighting and they'll be able to consolidate their power and resources.
It won't change anything, except the situation will be worse than before all this crap started.

PS: Um, Starge there's places in the army where pacifism isn't a liability. MPs, corpsmen, there's guys in 'Nam who didn't take a rifle and just dragged the wounded out of combat.

The only reason anyone lives a civilized life is because other people do the dirty work for them. [literally and metaphorically]

Wow, I didn't realize my imminent homelessness sparked such a debate. Fact is, I talked to the recruiter today, and it looks promising. Of course, I will still have a lawyer look over the contract. But if it goes according to plan, than I can do reserves for two, three years as a pencil pusher, and maybe come see y'all in Europe for a couple of weeks. Geez, how far is sweden from germany? **Goes to googlemaps**

Hey, Germany ain't far away from Germany!

You are the largest exporter of arms in the world per capita though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry..._Arms_Exporters

As for Iraq the cynic in me says that was a success. We went for oil. We got oil. What do the rich businessmen behind the move (and they were - there were the lagest demonstrations about it here since the poll tax) care? There weren't any terrorists before we went in (Al Queda and Hussain hated each other to the extent that Al Queda requested to fight on our side in the first gulf war (and don't forget who gave them their power and weapons with operation cyclone)). Now we've been bombing them for a while I should imagine there are pleanty. Likewise Afganistan.

Unfortunatly trying to get a democracy in a society formed of rival factions who hate eachother doesn't work - the largest one ends up in power and does nasty things to the smaller ones. If you put barriers in place to stop that they have to be enforced and it will end in politcal deadlock. Northern Ireland was somewhat like that and it took decades to sort out.

Ha, just get your a** over to europe and I'll come see ya! I'm very often in germany as well, my second homeland! And yeah...funny how quite innocent posts can trigger a debate!


Hehehe....I know!



I know....but then again we are just about 9 million ppl here so....

I'm going to have to be careful not to mention "army" to Minque, she's the one who blew this all out of proportion, silly swede. I'd rather not have this whole controvery again..... What to talk about now....... My Driver's Ed stuff is insane. All the non-multiple-choice answers are madly legal or other crap that not even an experienced driver's going to know off the top of their head.

Multiple choice wasn't so bad, you at least had some idea how they wanted you to answer the question. What does Texas' laws on littering have to do with beginning drivers? I'd rather answer those "train-leaves from [] at [] moving at [], another leaves from [] at [] moving at [], which gets to [] first?" questions.

Uhhhh no I just pointed out my opinion, The out of proportion thingy was not my doing!

It's my opinion that there's nothing wrong with argueing, as long as everybody stays civil and respects whatever opinion the others may hold.

Right, Minquette?

Why certainly! I don't mind a good discussion! And I still don't exactly like armies and war and things, but that doesn't mean I mind discussing it!

So shoot!

I'm glad the conversation has changed but despite that I still challenge you to look up how Saddam Hussein handled his economy, compared to most governments he was a very prosperous leader.

I don't care how prosperous you are, if you don't respect basic human rights I'm not going to consider you a good leader.

Ok, so he got his country's economy to prosper, but then he was the pretty much the guy who ruined it all over again. I'm not someone who hates people because I'm told to, but even if Hussein was alive, things wouldn't be much better. He most likely wouldn't have helped us a bit, we might have detained him instead of executing him, but his supporters still wouldn't like us, no matter how we got him out of the way.

EDIT: Looks he's dead, okay? Whether it was a mistake or not, its our responsibility to deal with the consequences.

Perhaps dealing with the consequences by once in this nation's history, learning that they were indeed MISTAKES and should not be committed again.

Time for the cynic in me to reply: If there's one thing I've learned from human history, it is that humanity does not learn from its mistakes. Especially not any mistakes involving war. I will admit that, in the past, wars were often fought for reasons important only to the nobility, which happens a little less in modern times due to the decreased power of the ruling class in many countries. However, even in the modern era, fear can be a powerful motivator. After 9/11, people were scared, and fear causes people to behave irrationally, to go to extremes to do what they think is necessary to protect themselves. On top of fear, there is anger, a need for retribution and revenge. Humanity will never learn not to have wars as long as we fail to control our fear and anger. This sort of control is something that an individual can learn and perhaps even master. On a national scale, this becomes much harder, and could possibly be explained by mob psychology. When a large group of people become scared or angry, aggressiveness is much harder to control. Pacifism, in some ways, is the domain of the individual. Until we learn to successfully control anger and fear at the "mob" level, we will never be able to avoid war.

And pacifism isn't as much a genetic instinct as aggression. Even if everyone in one generation becomes totally pacifistic, the next has to learn pacifism too, same with all the generation after.

One would have to learn pacifism at a young age, and not some half-way version. I just don't see that kind of thing prevailing unless current circumstances are changed. Under today's norms, the only reason pacifists can exist is because that individual doesn't have to fight, a circumstance not everyone can enjoy.

I still find it hysterical and yet unbelievably disgusting and shameful that we were attacked by terrorists in response to something we did 15-20 years ago (I'm referring to the Shah in Iran), and then we go and do the same thing all over again in order to "defend ourselves from terrorism."

BethBlog interview with Darknut.

Trailer for this Mod.

Download it here!



Now going on six years since the release of Morrowind, the game is still going strong thanks to the contributions of incredibly talented Modders. One of those modders has taken the same ol' same ol' and turned it into something that quite frankly Beth should have made.

The final mission to destroy House Dagoth, and its Lord Dagoth Ur, was disappointing to some. You are at this point in time in possession of weapons, that were quite frankly, uber. Even a level Seven Character with the proper stats could challenge what should have been the most powerful faction in the game. The 'dungeons' were a few rooms that connected to one another with little to no challenge. In other words, boring.

This mod changes that, and delivers, on a scale that actually SURPASSES Bethesda's developments. Now the Dwemer Ruins, and Sixth House Bases of Odrosal, Vemynal, and Dagoth Ur are worthy headquarters of high ranking Dagoths, with added mazes and puzzles and traps to keep even the wisest of mages, the most uber of warriors, and the most cunning of thieves on their toes at all times.

Searching for Keening and Sunder is now a search, the levels are expanded to sizes, appearances and themes that will stun and impress even the most jaded of Morrowind players. Now the main quest finale is something to look forward to. Save the best for last? Darknut certainly did.

And if all this weren't enough, Darknut also dabbles in high-res textures that will make all the Vanilla Morrwind Armors, weapons, creatures, and some ruins look better than ever before.

If you haven't played Morrowind in a while, I suggest that you blow the dust off your case, insert that CD, download this and a few other mods, and prepare to have your Jaw dropped. The Black Hand of Mephala guarantees this!

Sweet! I'll definitely check that mod out...when I get Pocahontas back and have reinstalled the whole lot!

Another thing!

We are going away on friday morning, on a vacation to Germany, so neither me or Daedroth will be online on a regular basis for two weeks. Don't think there's T-mobile-hotspot at the camping site where we're going!

So you better miss us!

Come visit me!

Mmmm why not? Now then we will be on Ruegen of course but on a rainy day we could pop down to your place!

Hi! Right now we're on a hotel in Landskrona. We'll tak the ferry over to Rügen tomorrow. Yay...

Oh aye...we are! We're leaving first thing in the morning....We, Daedie and I wish you all the best

Enjoy vacation time!!