fukuda

Yes, F11 was the screenshot shortcut. It may have changed, but one of the F keys is the correct one. The HUD shouldn't be visible in these screenshots

Shrek is suffering from huge sequelitis...

@Fukada, yeah its mainly psychology. But if they downrate Portugal it gives a negative message to the financial markets, which in turn cause negative consequences for Portugal and the euro. quote> Indeed, you're absolutely right (my name is fukuda btw) Originally posted by: TekindusT Originally posted by: -Lexus- It simply pisses me (and a lot of other people in my area) off that you guys failed to take responsibility and now come begging us for help. quote> I want to think this affair is not a matter of "please, give us money because we can't pay our own expenditures" but a matter that can decide the stability of the whole Eurozone and the stability of the Euro in front of other currencies.quote> It is, unfortunately. The speculators are getting stronger day by day as long as Ms. Merkel refuses to solve the issue. Most will do as much as possible to threaten the euro and sink at least Portugal as fast as they can. Yes, there are hedge funds and lobbies that publicly stated this kind of objectives some months ago and are working towards it. Now, the Portuguese government and opposition are working together to get the country out of the deep well they've almost fallen into and there is hope. Spain is still not that weak, but I don't see the government and opposition working together at all.

Originally posted by: Duke87 Originally posted by: Archean Don't tell me that's Tomo chan from Azumanga Daioh. I love that girl!quote> It is, although I do believe the presnce of the red bowtie and hairband violates the two-color pallete limit..quote> It's not Tomo from Azumanga Daioh (even if their hairstyles would seem a bit similar). Yes I know that there is a color in surplus, but it didn't bother anyone

Originally posted by: fukuda I shall resistquote> Oh well, I failed. And even worse, I created some of them.

Originally posted by: Barbarossa Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. quote> Well, arthropods are my favourite animals, so I must agree with you

And the papers are full with it, saying this new crisis might spread to Italy, Spain and Portugal as well. I believe Portugal already got problems with a bunch of financial authorities. They just arent in such a bad shape that they need bailouts yet. quote> Unluckily, most newspapers write what is convenient to them. Yes, Portugal was downrated yesterday by the almighty rating companies (yes, the same ones that rated Lehman Brothers as one of the most safe companes in its sector). One of the main problems with all this is that what happens or is decided in the financial world isn't based on reality, it's based on what people believe or what others say about it (with lobbies pushing on all sides, obviously). This has nothing to do with the company's or country's capacity to produce, withstand a crisis or whatever. It is related to what others say about or what it may seem from a distance. It's all a matter of perception, I'd say.

Its every southern Euro country. Italy, Spain and Portugal are in trouble as well. They can collapse any moment as well, and we can bail them out as well. quote> While the 3 countries you used as an example are definitely in a weak state, they all have different circumstances and are in different degrees of danger. They don't seem to be going to collapse in any foreseeable future. Not even Italy, the one in the weakest position of them all with a public debt of 115,2% of its GDP as of 2009. Debt was not the only problem in Greece, they seem to have deeper political and societal problems. This isn't to be solved just by bailing them out, unluckily.. Also, it has nothing to do with their production capabilities. It has to do with their government spending and taking on lots of loans they now cant seem to pay back. They need to make huge cuts in the budget and get money from the EU in order to prevent them from going bankrupt. They shouldnt have been allowed in the Eurozone to begin with. quote> So loans and debt? Shall we check the numbers? Public Debt: Japan: 192% wwwwwww Italy: 115,20% Greece: 108,10% Belgium: 99% France: 79,7% Germany: 77,2% Portugal: 75,2% Norway: 60,2% USA: 52,9% Spain: 50% External debt: UK: 365,44% France: 227,35% Spain: 150,65% While Italy and Greece certainly spent way more than they should have.. This is not the case for the other 2 countries... They're in fact in a better shape than most of the complaining eurozone countries. This is way more complex than a debt issue. Overpaid high-level civil workers, unefficient politicians who are only looking to the next election, 350 congressmen/women + 208 senators only on the Spanish central parliament, everyone with its (obviously high) wage and money for expenditures. Too many goverment departments, overridden responsabilities, absurd expenditures like buying high-end German cars to use them as official cars, keeping an army only used on humanitary missions and a royal family whose expenditures aren't declared... and so on.quote> Does not account for the huge spendings.. Unless our parliament members drive space shuttles to work. The army... Come on, only 2 fighters are available at any time to defend the country, and when they stupidly decided to attack Perejil none of the helicopters was available so they had to wait another week. Everyone is happy when the army sends help to Haiti, but the following week they're complaining again. Neither the expenditures of the royal family are high enough to fill the gap by far. The actual disaster in Spain was brought by the huge speculation and corruption at street level, not by the spendings of 3 politicians. The living style of spaniards isn't helping either and is one of the main sources of the huge unemployment rates. They're completely glued to their houses which they still have to pay for the rest of their lives and they therefore are completely unable to look for a job outside their small action range. If the company they were working for suddenly leaves the area they're screwed. And the disastrous education system isn't helping either. Unemployment rates have always been ridiculously high in Spain, even when the country economy was growing exponentially. No one seemed to wonder why or worry about it until now.. After all, what was the point of restoring the monarchy if not to help rule? quote> The point? The point was to avoid another civil war, mainly. I really can't imaging how they have so many legislators for such a small country. Canada's parliament is much smaller and we have the second largest land mass in the world. If Spain is so crowded that they need all this government, maybe some population control legislation would be good. And if that unemployment rate is correct, their economy is broken.quote> Overpopulation is hardly the issue. Unlike Canada, Spain has a looong history and lots of internal feuds within small regions, which means that almost every small city wants its own government (and its bureaucrats, obviously!). It also means that they're always fighting over petty issues and trying to spend even more money for their own ehm projects.

I shall resist

Originally posted by: N_O_Body The engineers in charge of this rig would be better off if they had been killed in the explosion. I suspect vindictive consequences are in store for them. These days we are always looking to assign blame rather than move on and fix the problem.quote> It's not necessarily the engineer's fault.. Most accidents happen because companies decide to (mis)use the rigs. For instance, oil rigs and gas rigs are not interchangeable even if most companies will reuse an oil rig as a new gas rig or a gas rig as a new oil rig. The problem here is that rigs designed for gas extraction are well shielded against explosions but relatively weak proteceted against fires, and rigs designed for oil extraction are well protected against fire but their walls are usually weaker against explosions (and they don't have the diaphragms and water-sealing capacities of gas rigs). Also, most companies just refuse to get their rigs up-to-date technology or safety-wise...

Natural law is God’s law. There are certain laws which govern the entire universequote> Is NATURAL LAW the ONLY reliable basis for sound Governement and Just Human Relations???quote> But.. If natural laws are the ones that govern this universe.. There's no way a government or someone could go against them as beings in this universe... I can't go against the laws of thermodynamics!

On another odd distant tangent, I don't get why animal rights focuses typically only on domestic animals like dogs and cats. What about fish? You know the pain I put those things through when I was a kid and i struggled to remove the hooks from them, giving them a torture on their way to death? Shouldn't I go to jail? Or what about insects? When i'm in a really pissy mood I like to torture insects with toothpaste. Why hasn't PETA tried to get me arrested?quote> Fish and bugs ain't cute enough, there must be some kind of affective link for this to work.

"Natural law is God’s law. There are certain laws which govern the entire universe, and just as Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence, there are laws which govern in the affairs of men which are “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.”quote> Nice, so uhm.. What are these so-called laws? I believe our Faith in Jesus Christ brought us out of the Dark Ages. Western Civilization consisted of nothing more than a whole continent of barbarians. It wasn't until we became Christians that we began to really develop. The introduction of Christianity into Europe cannot be overstated. If we ceased to be a Christian culture we would go right back to being barbarians as proven by events such as the holocaust. quote> Almost all the "barbarians" you cited already were christian via the romans. Christianity was introduced into Europe way before the so-called "Dark Ages".

I wont say its going to be easy and yes it requires massive investments and a strong political will to continue this. But it is the quickest way to peace and the easiest way to ensure that those Jihadists wont get a foothold in Africa, as well as access to loads of guns and people crazy enough to do suicide bombings. Anyways, thats just my take on the Somalia issue. quote> ? Jihadists have been in Africa since long ago. They already have a good foothold in Africa, access to lots of guns amd indeed do suicide bombings. Jihadists are all over northern Africa right now, capturing people and asking ransom, putting bombs in Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, trying to overthrow the government in Tchad, attacking cities and oil wells in Nigeria.. They're the main reason why the Paris-Dakar rally is no longer held in Africa too. And yes, most operate under the "Al Qaeda" franchise. (1 year ago):

Somalia: People get the government they deserve. The Bight of Benin has always been rife with pirates, and always will be so long as principal shipping routes pass by. So beef up the naval patrols and otherwise let them stew in their own juice. To pay for the naval patrols, we need to find a way to tax cargoes going through the protected area. Since all the ships are registered, it shouldn't be too hard to collect a protection fee. Ships that don't pay should be sanctioned in some way. This is inflationary and will increase the price of goods shipped via those waters, but what can we really otherwise do. All we really have is money. quote> Ehm, wrong bight and wrong ocean, Somalia is on the horn of Africa (indian ocean), Benin is on the atlantic ocean. Most cargo ships are already crossing the Panama strait or just passing in front of South Africa to avoid going through the Aden Gulf, taxing them is just going to definitely remove them... And a western military force has the power to beat all other parties in Somalia in any power struggle if they want too. It remain people armed with RPG's and AK 47's.quote> I wish you good luck. These people won't be waiting for you to attack them in the open, neither will show up when you expect them. They'll hide inbetween civilians (well, most of them are civilians anyway). AK-47s are way cheaper and in some cases superior than modern assault guns aswell and, unlike our troops, they won't have to spend bazillions of dollars deploying and sending their troops (and materials!) from faaaar away. They also have better knowledge of their own territory than you would ever hope to, and first and foremost, a real reason to fight until death because, unlike us, they're not fighting far away from home in a country they never cared about. All the previous experiences of "western powers" against this kind of enemy were rather.... problematic at best, usually plain defeats (Decolonization wars, Algerian war, Vietnam, Afghan war(first one) and so on..). Now, I'm not saying that winning such wars is impossible but it requires an incredible amount of money, time, willpower and a good popular opinion. Do we have all of these right now?.. Or even any of these? Is it really the time to be playing world police?

The Empire should manage to solve their actual conflicts before opening another frontline, we ain't got lots of money to throw lately and wars are extremely expensive. Especially modern warfare where you have to spend 5000000USD to kill 2 talibans..

Most of your pictures are great, and the story seems thorough. I'd advise you to remove the game interface when taking pics, though

Great fort there in the corner!

I like this city's style, keep it up!

Originally posted by: Barbarossa That's really interesting! Can you provide any insight on the FetalBrain line? Not sure I understand that one. Barbarossa quote> Endocannabinoid receptors are expressed all over the developing fetuse's brain. That's because they're really weird neurotransmitters, unlike going in the same direction as the electric signal, they actually go in the opposite way. This is used in the fetal brain to modulate the affinity of the brain connections and what cell connects to the following by a negative feedback loop. they are vital parts of brain development (Well, that's the current hypothesis) ======================================================= *About my previous post, I'm sorry if it was a bit confusing. THC does have cardiovascular effects, I just forgot to put "negative" in there. Cannabinoids cause vascular dilation (blocking of AC) and a drop of blood pressure that causes an acceleration of heart rate by the baroceptor reflex. However, this will be rapidly fixed by both the kidney's blood volume control system (angiotensin - aldosterone) and your brain's one (vasopressin), these systems will work the same way with or without alcohol intake, and everything will be leveled out before alcohol has the time to affect your heart's rate. (this has become a bit too technical btw) Most drugs lead to cardiorespiratory problems or failure, however cannabis is one of the few that don't even with alcohol intake. So no, you won't be having cardiac problems... Unless you are 82 years old, though I'm not exactly sure about what's the most dangerous thing to do by then, drinking alcohol or smoking cannabis...

OK, i am going to explain precisley WHY smoking was banned in pubs when one drinks alcohol (depressant) their heart rate slows down when one smokes cannibis (stimulant) their heart rate increases if you take an "upper" and a "downer" at the same time, your heart rate does not even out, in fact it goes all over the place which increases your rate of a heart attack dramatically (heart disease is the biggest killer in the UK) that is why smoking was banned in pubs. In countries which have state funded healthcare it IS in the LEGITIMATE interest of the government to reduce heart attacks and heart disease since it has to pay for it.quote> Sorry to rain on your parade, but cannabinoids are well known because... They don't have negative cardiovascular effects. cannabinoids (THC and others) bind to cannabinoid receptors to cause their effects, so let's see where these receptors are expressed: In the heart pacemaker itself (sinoatrial and atrioventricular nodes), where the heart pace is decided? Nope. In the medulla oblongata and subthalamic nuclei where heart pace is modulated? Nope. It does bind to receptors in the amygdala and prefrontal cortex where it causes its main mood altering and psychological effects, though.