Brandonb

Ok, the thief guy needs to check Itachi. So what about telling, me if we are on the same side for the first time ever

Some don't take firm stances as it is. They do what it takes to get elected no matter what party they are a part of. It seems to me that the maximum amount of parties possible anyway is 4, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, and Communist (and 5 if you include independent). That's about as far as it can go since the issues really only break up into Moral and Economic, and the solutions are always more v.s less Govt control. So it only splits four ways. At least if that was the case, people could vote for which aspect they believed in. Just in case... this is the most basic and fundamental break down of each party's handling of most issues. Dem- Moral=Less Govt, Econ=More Govt Rep- Moral=More Govt, Econ=Less Govt Liber- Moral=Less Govt, Econ=Less Govt Commun- Moral=More Govt, Econ=More Govt

It has begun! Edit: It will be interesting to see what it's like on the other side of a speed game. Thanks for hosting Mekal.

Haha, yeah I guess so. I guess it depends if the 'Grand' refers to the Leader of, or to the Ultimate example of This time it's surely the latter. <_<

Well said Itachi Edit: This may revoke my "grand" status... but what does IMO stand for?

Hmm, I wish I knew what thread that was from, I vaguely remember writing something a while back and addressing that the blame should have been directed towards the congress, not Bush. But no, I am not a fan of Bush (a few jokes could go there ). I'm not sure what I am registered as right now. It's either as an independent or a Democrat. I'm not sure which, but I do know that I voted for Hillary in the primaries b/c I figured McCain would have an easier time against her in the real election I know I am not registered as a republican, and I wouldn't want to be either. Of course, I'm not a democrat by any stretch, even though I may be one on paper as a turn-coat

Yeah, I think once upon a time I may have started a thread about it... Basically, Dems publicly do not support it because it eliminates the power of government. While Republicans privately do not support it for the same reason.

2 quick questions 1) like Frost asked... can we do a .5 usage? 2) do we do the food thing, then the challenge, then it's the next day? Or is there time after the challenge to make more food?

Wow, I'd never thought of it that way before.

That's the thing. McCain hasn't come forward with much at all aside from tax cuts for everyone. That's the best thing I could possibly hope for. He's not pushing to increase government welfare programs He's not pushing to increase the minimum wage He's not pushing to raise taxes He IS pushing to cut spending Obama is basically running on the exact opposite economic platform. -Government welfare programs are flat out Marxism. The theft of one's own life and giving it to someone else. I won't go into all that right now -The increase in the minimum wage... well, there's a reason that we had a record increase in unemployment between June and July. The reason is that two years ago the Congress passed a national increase in the minimum wage. They post-dated it to take effect in July 2008. The minimum wage is proven to cause unemployment, which it did again... what a surprise. Obama simply wants to put you out of a job and make you dependent on his welfare programs. That's about as simple as I can put it. -Increasing taxes causes alot of problems. Especially if directed at the richest 5%. These are your big business owners. Don't complain when they move their businesses (and your job) out of the USA in order to escape the tax consequences. -Then there's the spending... where to begin? I guess the simplest thing is to reread my earlier comment about paying back campaign favors. You are the one footing the bill. -------------------------------------- Now the big one. Our current economic situation is a result of an increase in the price of oil. It is a commodity that is used in all aspects of manufacturing and transportation. Therefore when the price of oil goes up, the price of everything goes up because everything must cover the cost of the oil in order to maintain a profit (this is a prime example of the trickle-down economics that I was talking about earlier, the thing that Obama doesn't believe in). So our situation in the economy is that everything is getting more expensive (inflation) while the economy is slowing down (which it is world-wide. Japan is officially in a recession, as is England. China is slowing down like the USA though it's definitely not a recession) this again is a result of Oil going up so high. There's more to it... but you get the idea at this point I hope. The way to fix this is through energy independence. Again, as I said earlier, Obama has changed his stance on most of his issues. He now kinda supports drilling. So he can't really be nailed on that issue anymore. Well he can... since he only changed his stance in order to not look like a complete fool for again not grasping the economics in his decisions. But still, as an economic issue, McCain has supported drilling. Now we can get into the argument that there are other forms of energy and we need to harvest them yada yada yada... but it's not something that can be effective in our economy RIGHT NOW. But drilling is. So uh... yeah, that's pretty much what came to mind initially to answer your question.

I completely understand. I never followed it closely until after I dropped out of college. At that point I became more and more interested as I realized that it had more and more of an impact on me. Early on I just unquestioningly listening to those around me... bad idea. Because the people around me, just regurgitated the stuff that they had heard from other people around them... and so on. Through my few years spent as a construction worker, I listened to many podcasts and various talk radio views. Because my job didn't require a whole lot of thought, I spent many hours of every day learning in this way. From talk radio I learned about Libertarian stances from Neal Boortz, right winged stances from Sean Hannity, and Left wing from Alan Colmes (of course they all have a generous amount of overlap between them). I also learned Statist, and Anarchist market philosophies from the many podcasts that I downloaded and listened to at work when those aforementioned hosts weren't on the air. After a few years I learned to pick and choose the parts of each that I hold true, and have put the pieces together the best way I can. Thus, I have drawn my own conclusions about many topics. And believe me... I'm now in a whole different universe from the time when I just listened without questioning. So in short, I guess what I have to say is: 1) No need to be interested right now. Have fun doing fun things while the interference of politics doesn't apply. 2) Listen to what others have to say, but don't hold it as a truth. Apply your own logic. 3) You will not learn any of this in school. Only through your own independent learning will you find anything meaningful. OK, rant concluded sorry, I'm just full of hot-air today I guess.

The Executive branch, though similar, is another story. The Executive branch does not pass legislation. Although it may have some influence over what gets put in, the main power in the executive branch is to pass/veto the legislation, and to control the military. (I think we can agree this translates to mean that the overriding power is just a form of check/balances, the executive branch is mostly concerned with the military aspect). That said, I don't believe the military is a great place to have the same person serve forever. (Ex. Castro or any other militant dictator). But if a president is doing things well, then why boot them after 8 years? So I think the Executive branch should maintain the 4-year rule. However, the 2-term max should be eliminated. BTW, I kinda misspoke/miswrote The Congress should be the way that I suggested. However, the Senate should go back to the way that it was originally. In which the members were selected by the heads of each state government. And likewise removed by the heads of the states governments. As it is now, the states truly have no say in the federal government. Because they do not elect the senators anymore. This is why the Federal government has overstepped on so many rights that were guaranteed to the states in the constitution. Thank you very much Itachi. I'll admit that I didn't put a whole lot of research into that idea. Mainly because I wanted to see if I could create something original without being influenced by other opinions. My main bit of research for creating that article was the movie Sicko. I'll admit that the movie does a fantastic job with pointing out the flaws in our current system. Though on the other hand it deliberately drops the ball on all negative aspects of government run healthcare. So it helped me to identify the roots of our own problems. I had to do other research to find the problems with government run healthcare. Thankfully, there is an abundant amount of info on that too. Just not too many movies about it.

On the contrary. I believe the problem we have is the fact that the senators must keep running and being re-elected. This is what causes the problems. Individuals must get big money from big companies in order to be elected. Then once in office, they must pass legislation to "pay back" their donators with favorable tax status and the like. This causes an huge expansion in government influence into the private sector. Once they have paid them back, they don't do too much in the government. This is a good thing. It means that the power of government isn't expanding. Then couple years later, they must run again to maintain their jobs. Thus begins the same cycle all over again. Forcing term limits upon the senators, and forcing them out of office, just means that the Senators who had enough money to finance most of their own campaigns, and therefore owed less favors, get the boot. In their place, new people with less money take their place. These people owe many more favors and therefore expand Government interference even faster and bigger than their predecessors. I believe the true solution is not only to ban term limits. But to eliminate the laws for required re-election. Only after having a favoritism rating drop below a certain point should a senator get the boot. And then elections can be held for someone to replace them. Otherwise, they should go their entire lives without the need to run another campaign, and accrue more debts to companies and thereby bastardize the legislation being passed.

To Unreality, Frost, and anyone else who is upside down in their understanding of Healthcare. This is an article I had published a while back. It confronts your ideas of socialized healthcare and gives a valid explanation of why it is a horrible atrocity that most Americans do not understand. It also confronts the current US healthcare payment system and explains the Faults within it. Finally, it provides a sound solution to alter our system into the most effective and efficient in the world, while at the same time making it available for everyone. The only reason that I am even willing to share this is because I have had this exact basic article already published, and I will soon have the fully-fleshed out version published in some form of Academic Journal. So there's really no rick in having my ideas stolen. Please take the time to read this. I know it looks long, but you just might learn something. FAIRCARE Healthcare that's Payed for by the Government, but regulated by the Free Market. Over the past several years there has been a political and societal move towards the consideration of implementing socialized healthcare. Many people, including myself, disagree with the necessity of this notion. So in response I have created an alternative. A free market solution that would solve the United States’ healthcare payment system crisis, thereby rendering socialized healthcare unnecessary. I call it Faircare. There is a widely held belief that the healthcare system in the United States is beyond repair, and the only solution is to convert to socialized healthcare because it works so well. Sadly, most people do not understand that socialized health care and many other government run institutions only work well at first because of the remnants of the free market influence. When healthcare in other countries is taken over by their governments, the health care professionals that are already working are not replaced by government doctors; they are left where they were. As a result, those doctors that learned and developed habits based in the free market continued those habits for what was likely the rest of their careers. Over time those doctors retired and were replaced by doctors that learned in the new (government run) system. The new system does not compete, nor do the doctors make money based on how many patients they see in a day, nor do they have to make enough money to pay for malpractice insurance, or pay back medical schools debts. So once the new doctors go into place many new problems are created, such as the lack of a reason to put forth effort to see patients in a reasonable amount of time, and therefore the system is weakened. The same theory holds true for the public. The people that grew up under an out-of-pocket payment system were self sustaining. They were active in the preventative maintenance of their bodies in order to avoid large medical bills. However, after so many years under the new system, the people become largely dependent on the healthcare system to take care of them, instead of eating well and exercising. So after the first 30 or so years the doctors are paid less and perform to the minimum level required, while at the same time the people become reliant and bankrupt the system. This is why socialized health care only works well for the first 30 or so years, and also why it’s not until recently that we are seeing the system begin to fail in other countries. It is my belief that there is actually nothing wrong with our current healthcare system, the problem lies in our healthcare payment system. I believe that in order to fix the current healthcare payment system in the United States, there must be two phases of legislation passed. The first would provide health insurance to everyone and force personal responsibility upon the public. I understand that one reason socialized medicine became so popular is because it took away the responsibility to save money and pay out-of-pocket to an insurance company that may or may not ever be needed. In order to provide a semi-free market solution to this, the first piece of legislation would create a voucher system. The money for healthcare would be taxed from the people just like socialized medicine or Medicare. However, the money would be returned to the people in the form of a voucher that could only be used to purchase health insurance from a company of their choosing. Once again, the vouchers could only be used for this medical purpose. The base system for collection of funds is already in place, everyone that is touched by the Medicare tax would be taxed for the healthcare vouchers, and every citizen would receive a voucher. There would then be no need for companies to offer healthcare as a benefit, unless they wanted to put all their employees on the same plan or pay to improve/upgrade an employee’s current plan. This system would allow insurance companies to continue as they had before, but everyone would be able to purchase some sort of policy. Though the vouchers assuredly would not purchase the most expensive package offered, it would purchase the lowest insurance package and possibly cover some of the co-pay. The second phase of legislation is the key that would force insurance companies to correct their devious business practices and compete with each other. Unlike all other forms of business that make profits through the increased number of consumers that purchase products based on a number of criteria. The current method that insurance companies use to make profits is to deny claims, rather than provide a quality product. It’s like ordering a pizza and paying for it, but then the pizza place decides to save the money on ingredients and refuses to deliver. So in response to this, phase two would require all insurance companies of all forms to blatantly display a numerical score with their logo. The number would be created by a system, based in taking the dollar amount of all paid claims over the previous twelve months, and average them together, then divide by all net profits from the previous twelve months averaged together. This means a company that pays half as much money as it nets would be given a score of 0.5, while a company that pays twice as much as it nets in profit would display a score of 2.0. A higher score illustrates a higher percentage of the insurance money being paid out to claims. The insurance companies would be responsible for handling the change of logo each month, while a government agency, i.e. the insurance commissioner in each state, would review the accuracy. This means that there would be monthly changes of letter heads and advertising for these insurance companies, for what could possibly last for a few months or until a market equilibrium is met. By implementing this, consumers would have a great understanding of which company they should invest their vouchers. At the same time, the insurance companies would have to compete by increasing their payouts, and in order to survive they would have to turn profits by increasing the number of consumers rather than denying claims. The only way for a company to have a lower score and still survive would be to provide incentives, such as comparably superior and less expensive insurance plans that could be purchased with the voucher alone. This would give reason for Medicaid to be eliminated, and those who do not purchase insurance with the voucher given to them would risk accruing massive hospital bills that would send them into bankruptcy. Essentially, a profit cap – not to be confused with a price cap – is created and regulated by the free market. This forces competitive insurance companies to produce so many products (pay so many claims) rather than keep it all as profit. Under this Faircare system, everyone would purchase insurance policies because they would have both the money, and the incentive to do so. So through the implementation of two pieces of legislation a permanent free market solution would take root, while eliminating the move toward the socialistic management of healthcare in our country. Of course there is one last argument, which is that the insurance company lobbyists would work to stifle this idea from happening. However, they would have competition, because theoretically, the lobbyists for car companies, and home building companies, and every other company that the insurance money would go towards, would become a proponent of this act. Imagine, healthcare that's paid for by the United States government, but controlled by the people. The consumer would have the ability, and responsibility, to choose the best plan for themselves. Imagine, your health insurance company making a specific plan just for you, because they would NEED your business. They would pay reasonable claims, because that's how they get more consumers. You would have the voucher arriving monthly in your mailbox to pay your insurance bill. Imagine all the jobs being created in order to handle the increased case load that the insurance commissioner offices would be taking on. You would continue to have the greatest, most efficient, and technologically advanced healthcare in the world... and you wouldn't have to pay out of pocket. ------------------------------------------------- That's about it. But please keep in mind that we do have the best healthcare treatment in the world. On average it takes a Canadian citizen with colon cancer about 4 months to see a specialist (not to make a regular doctor's apt like Mekal said). These 4 months are more than enough to cause the cancer to become terminal. On average, it can take an American citizen 7-10 days to see that same specialist here in the States for the same problem. There is also a shortage of Doctors in Canada. Not because Medical school is now free. But because their Doctors don't hardly make as much money as the plumbers. So Canadian doctors get Free PHDs in Canada, then make their money in America. There are various other issues and examples. But I hope this helps to show how deliberately ignorant to real issues "sicko" really was. So give me a break. Obama has no understanding of economics. He claims to not believe in "trickle down economics". As an economics Major, I can tell you.... He may as well be claiming to not believe in gravity. Just because he doesn't believe in it, doesn't mean that he is blissfully ignorant on most issues (which is why he has changed his stance on most of his issues during his candidacy).

Give me a break I just woke up.

Haha. I completely misread that. It looked alot more entertaining at first glance

Yes! I just didn't know how to make that symbol

Wow, everyone else is putting in all kinds of effort with the names. I guess I have an appropriate name for us then. Team or 1) Brandonb 2) Itachi 3) Sinistral 4) Mekal 5) Phazon Hopper Just the symbol. Nothing more

Well, it's kind of a good thing for you that you killed her. That same night I had used my ability to recruit her as a GO. The recruitment was successful and we would have had 4 GOs at once. However, Itachi then posted the amendment for the night post where you killed her. The twists in this game are unparalleled! I love it

Yeah, every night was insane. I was cool with being lynched on day1, so I was kinda bummed when GC swayed the vote at the last minute to Blindfold lynch Mekal. Mekal didn't even get to use his ability yet. GC made a great move doing that.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I knew there was a good chance that you could be Alucard (though I still had my bets that it was CL), but I was much more sure that Kat was Kenshin. If I allowed myself to be lynched then Kat would have been the one to die. Leaving me against one that could possibly be Alucard. I didn't think the game was going to be a flip of the coin in that way. I assumed that we were going to have one last night sequence. One in which I would have no choice but to attack her (she had no blindfold so it would have been 100% chance for the kill). I thought it was going to be a 50/50 shot for whether or not Kenshin got to attack. And if so, then it would be called a draw. (50% chance that I would win, 50% chance of draw). Those odds were better than my chances against almost anyone else. So I figured better to face her than you. Of course, that's not how things were decided. Pretty much the same deal though, just a 50% chance for the win.

Lol, that was NUTS! Great game Itachi! Down to the coin toss... what a crazy game

Well I wanted to know who you were first, but it's cool.

Waiting for your response Kat.

So what? You found me out after the vote was overwhelmingly against me. That was completely independent of my decision to stop defending. Was there something I could do at that point aside from make a bunch of pleading junk posts that would not make a difference?