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  • posted a message on disappearing posts
    Just a quick question I notice my posts seem to be disappearing wondering if there's some sort of glitch. I'd assume I'd be getting infracted, warned, suspended etc. over a content issue, or have been informed that it's a closed community if it were.

    Thanks in advance to the tech person.
    Posted in: Forum Software Feedback and Bug Reports
  • posted a message on [[DGM]] Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker
    Speaking in terms of limited - offensively he effectively has five power that ignores any incidental lifegain and synergizes with any incidental mill you manage to pick up. With 17 lands per library and coming out turn five, if your opponent has drawn or draws a 6th land in the next two turns and can neither remove nor block it, Mirko kills by himself in three turns. At worst he has to connect four times - like a five power creature - since they're guaranteed to have drawn at least two lands in five turns and if they haven't they've all ready conceded - to kill an opponent all by himself. If you have, for instance, a board of 3 other creatures including an Undercity Informer and have hit a land off Grisly Spectacle - incidental mill cards that do things a black deck wanted to do in GTC - he turns into a two turn clock.
    I can get how competitive constructed (22-26 lands iirc) EDH people (40+ lands - they're dead from his general damage before they're milled out) and probably even casual people (mill has a hate lobby online from what I can see) could see this as a waste of cardboard, but I think he's an awesomely balanced limited card (splashable, not quite a bomb for all decks but a bomb for the deck with enough incidental mill) with a huge amount of flavour.
    Posted in: New Card Discussion
  • posted a message on Socialism is Bad
    Quote from Drawmeomg
    Quote from Tuss
    Quote from Drawmeomg
    To spell it out as a general principle, the economic system we should strive for is the least regulated form of Capitalism that smooths out market inefficiencies, fairly adjudicates disputes and provides a minimum level of social safety for citizens based on old age, job market realities and real disability.


    The problem with this is that the capitalists themselves will always work against this. They have every incentive to use their increased power compared to the average citizen to stop regulations. As you can see from the most recent banking crisis, they have no qualms about removing regulations intended to stop widespread abuse and financial collapse. Their power allows them to avoid the consequences of their actions.

    The only thing that can stand against this is a strong worker's movement but you can't have these two in any kind of equilibrium. One side will gain the upper hand and then your whole idea of balance goes out of the window, regardless of which one it is. Just take a look at the ongoing liberalisation of the Swedish welfare state. That's what happens when the worker's movement doesn't finish the job.


    That's true no matter what. No government is stable without expending major effort to keep it stable because there's always someone struggling to grab more power. It's not just a feature of a capitalistic, oligarchical regime, it's a feature of governments in general.

    There's no finishing of the job. There'll be another round of dissent a decade later. Stability is not to be found unless you're willing to continue to fight for it.


    Apologies for double post. Don't know how to merge them.

    I write this as someone who in general doesn't have a problem with the reality of the maintenance of a certain percentage of any population in a state of existence above starvation as a result of income transfers made through the state apparatus, doesn't see any pressing reason to privatize services for which collective delivery has so far been relatively affordable and effective, nor can muster much of an argument against the received wisdom of the practice of collective bargaining when dealing with private sector oligopolists.

    There are two generations of North Asians and East Europeans who would disagree with your assertion that there is no finishing the job. The workers' movement finishes the job when everybody except for the top tier of the official class lives in ****ty welfare neighbourhoods, gaining access to a few more square feet of living space or a slightly less rotted food is determined entirely through patronage, and a good pair of boots is less legal than heroin. The workers' movement will not have freed the worker from the yoke of the market until it has manacled his throat to the damp floor of the state dungeon in a neat row with those of the entrepreneur, the farmer, and the intellectual. Any number of people can always be justified as acceptable collateral damage compared to the interests of The People. The trick in maintaining stability is to crush people's aspirations so that they do not dream of anything beyond that which State and Party can provide for them; to utterly and ruthlessly eradicate any flickering gleams of individualism or difference, as the hope of even one child is corrosive to the state of affairs towards which the corporatist thrashings of the workers' movement instinctively pull. Thus, when the workers' movement wins, there can be no debate, democracy or freedom beyond the self-serving double talk of the inevitable official elite; whatever the disingenuous protests of its so-called activists. The depressing reality of what finishing the job has historically entailed is the lion's share of the reason why messages like "socialism is bad" get spray painted on containers.
    Posted in: Debate
  • posted a message on Socialism is Bad
    Quote from Tuss
    Quote from Poring
    Because, unfortunately, it's the system which will stick around due to the perceptions of people in many countries..


    Tell that to all the unemployed of Europe.


    The world's social spending powerhouse?

    South America IIRC has had quite good growth lately coinciding with fair spread of governments with redistributive policies.

    I may be off by a bit, but isn't there a war of some kind in the Middle East?

    I was finding your argument relatively strong up until you started bringing the real world into it.
    Posted in: Debate
  • posted a message on Nurse denied giving CPR despite 911 Operator pleas because of policy
    Quote from Valarin


    So I don't know if huffpo got their facts wrong or tried to put an emotional slant on a sad story, but from what I read I don't see the moral outrage. The woman knew what she was signing up for when she decided to move into this facility, had a choice to move into a CPR facility and decided not to, and the surviving family has no issues with the incident.




    There was a story one link over about drinking too much water http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/04/drink-too-much-water_n_2768595.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopularfrom somebody calling themselves "Dr. Mike Roussel, Ph. D."http://www.shape.com/authors/dr-mike-roussell that said that caffeine is not a diuretic...http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-277X.2003.00477.x/abstract;jsessionid=19DC1CD3544389FF078EB657D71EAEF0.d02t01 Occam's Razor says Mike failed high school biology.

    If there's a conclusion to draw from this it's that the Huffington Post runs just a little bit more b******* than your average website. Maybe Arianna would have to make do with gold plated toilet seats in the jet instead of solid ones if she paid someone to check the facts...
    Posted in: Talk and Entertainment
  • posted a message on Draft Format for Gatecrash
    (introduction)

    Hello I have been a lurker here since at least Lorwyn and have played off-and-on since Ice Age, 100% in the paper format. During Masques and Invasion I played standard legal decks casually and was introduced to Limited, from Ravnica block I dropped a lot of money on singles to play a bizarre local Legacy and unpowered Vintage meta, and since Zendikar I've switched to mostly playing Limited at FNMs and Commander intermittently, though I did sink money and trades into fetches to build infect and Boros for Standard and have yet to unload my eternal stuff.

    (/introduction)

    I am curious as to how draft formats will change after the release of Gatecrash. (It is my impression Gatecrash discussion remains prohibited in the Limited forum as in the Constructed forums until it has actually been released.) I had assumed the "more official" format would be GRR, similar to how Dark Ascension worked, and had been evaluating the cards as much as I could under that assumption - i.e. looking at Sapphire Drake and thinking, "Oh, this could also be cool in Dimir if you scavenged i.e. a Sewer Shambler onto something else, and he makes your Undead Revelers into Serendib Efreets;" or thinking how cool it would be to force through two damage, Pit Fight and then scavenge a Sluiceway Scorpion. However, a simulator I frequent has only GGG. Which is the "more official" format? Will we be flipping unsupported colour combinations?

    Apologies for longwindedness.
    Posted in: Rumor Mill Archive
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