Not to say that Tacosnape or Bardo aren't great people and great american Landstill builders (I honor their work on the BHWC style Landstill build), but your above statements are just contradictory.
Also, I really don't like the american aproach to 4c Landstill for numerous reasons:
See above reasoning on Cunning Wish for one reason
Manabase vulnerable to Extirpate
Vulnerability to Pithing Needle
FoF is too slow & clunky
Too many colorless sources
[...]
/rant mode.
I couldn't agree with you more, even if I wanted to--I just couldn't.
I've recently cut back Swords to Plowshares, aka 'the color white,' and am running the following 3-color version.
“The Vorosh Deck 2k8.2”
By Bardo
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
3 Counterbalance
2 Spell Snare
There's so many arguments to be made over Landstill and I'm not sure if this is the best place to do it. Broadly, though, I see this as a matter of power vs. consistency (re: mana), power vs. synergy and metagame positioning. Control decks leverage a response to a sub-section of the metagame, but as the environment is always shifting, the form of the control deck's response is always shifting too. There's still much randomness in the format, but I still see it largely revolving around Threshold, red aggro/Goblins and storm combo. If you're going to build a Control deck, those are things that need to be addressed.
Nihilism undermines itself. If there is no point to anything, then there is no point to being nihilist. There isn't even a point to defending nihilism.
And surely, if nihilism isn't true, then there's no point to being nihilist or defending nihilism.
So in any case, there's no point to being nihilist. So don't.
Heh -- the Buddha and Eckhart were anything but nihilists. Neither am I.
Personally, I think pondering the question at hand is very useful for one's own personal spiritual growth, so I'm all for it.
From what I can gather we're all here to help each other out. If there is meaning to life, it's a personal meaning, and probably changes a lot for each of us as we go from birth to death.
Quote from "Spatula" »
Or maybe the mind is always doubting the reasons that are too simple or self-evident.
Indeed, our Big Brains are always getting us into trouble.
I think it was Meister Eckhart who said something to the effect of: "One should live their life like a rose, which lives without a why."
The mind is always trying to assert some kind of meaning in the face of meaninglessness, and the meaning of life is one of those ineffable mysteries that will forever be questioned.
Speaking of flowers, the Buddha said the same thing in one of his sermons, something like: "What is the point of this flower? There is no point. It just is." I think the same can be said of us as well.
Clinton fired almost all of his attorneys when taking office, and so did Reagan, etc. What's unprecedented with the Bush case is the timing in the mid-term. Story.
You're missing the point. Of course the concept and perception of racism are affected my many factors. You're glossing over my hypothesis that government action was a minor factor, primarily the effect of changing attitudes, not the cause of them.
And I think you're missing the point that in many cases the actions of the "government" are a result of the collective will of the populace from where they derive their authority in the first place. As culture and attitude shifts in the consciousness of the people, at least in reasonably democratic States, so shifts the policy of "government."
In any case, generally speaking, I find the most vociferous critics of affirmative action policies to be bunch of white dudes; and it's not easy to take those arguments seriously, for a host of reasons: they may be logically sound, but they still stink of something unseemly.
I think Atog has some interesting ideas on the whole thing being PShop'd; I hadn't though of that. Let's just assume it's real for the moment.
Anyway, I saw the shooter on CNN the other day and got a quesy feeling when he said he "wanted to kill it because he didn't think he'd even be able to kill anything that large again." That made my stomach twist in all sorts of weirdass ways.
Still, there are times where that green mana Werebear taps for on occasion can be really useful.
No doubt. The argument is whether the loss of the Bear's tap ability is compensated by the advatanges of Tarmogoyf. I hate to link to other sites, but I'm too lazy to cut and paste all of the relevant content.
See my arguments under posts #80, #82 and #89 here:
Basically, he's amazingly resilient GY hate, is never an x/1 (vs. Fanatic, etc.) and is usually a 2/3 - 3/4 on turn 2 or 3. Testing vs B/W Confidant this past weekend, I won the game with double 5/6 goyfs and still handn't reached threshold. (I won with five cards in my yard).
From extensive testing I call bull****. Needle is amazing hitting fetches when combined with any other disruption against decks that have half of their manabases invested in two fetchlands. Forcing them to find mana-producing lands with their optimization spells is ideal if you can put up any pressure or disruption to accompany the needles.
Well, we should both state the context of our analyses. I should have been clear that I was talking about mid-range type decks w/o Wasteland and any other LD, like Thresh and GAT; you're coming at this from the Sun Tower perspective.
Anyway, yeah, all of these decisions are highly contextual. My post above is correct if you're a Thresh player.
about vial:
I usually let goblins have Vial if have defenses set up against instant-speed hordes of dudes (Aether Flash, multiple bridges, etc). I find myself needling SGC a lot due to its ability to kill me from behind Ensnaring Bridge or through a Flash in response to the trigger if a few weird things happen.
Ditto. But right-o; sometimes dropping Needle on SGC is the right play--but not usually. When playing Thresh, it's only the correct play when you're going to win with flyers and you have ground secure with Geese/Bears and Incinerator isn't going to be fatal to an Enforcer.
Yeah, Needle, pre-board, is particularly bad against High Tide and Threshold.
Post-board, you might make a go of it vis-a-vis Tormod's Crypt--but it's still pretty bad, now that Grunt and Loaming Shaman are rightfully filling the slot that Crypt used to take.
A quick list:
Goblins - Definitely AEther Vial; then maybe Tinkerer if it's in their deck; Wasteland, Rishadan Port, Crypt (post-board) and Gempalm Incinerator (cycled) are also good.
IGGy Pop/Solidarity - Needle is awful in this match, you might hit a Delta or Strand, but really, not so good.
Survival - duh.
Psychatog and Landstill - If they're splashing green, name Deed. Next up, manlands, cycling lands, Shackles; depends on the build, game state, etc.
Rifter - Eternal Dragon; then guess with their cycling lands.
B/w Pikula/Deadguy - Not too many good choices, usually just go with Wasteland, failing that Cursed Scroll.
43 Land - Too much to choose from; just go with whatever's supposed to kill you, Factory, Monastery, Barbarian Ring, etc. or Wasteland if that w/ or w/o Exploration/LFTL will just lock you out.
Faerie Stompy - Usually Sword of Fire and Ice will do; then Jitte.
Golden Graham - Salvagers. Don't be the guy who names LED.
HanniFish - Usually Jitte or MoR.
Red Death - Wasteland.
The best things about Needle is that it's hyper-efficent, easily splashable and is exceptionally good in a random field. The bad thing is the damn cost of the things ($20 or so) and that they're purely reactive (or proactively reactive, if that makes sense) and just helps you "not lose"; as opposed to, say, Meddling Mage who's also a win condition, a chump blocker, etc.
It is true that one of the motivating factors in going into Iraq was humanitarian.
It's highly doubtful that humanitarianism was an actual motive on the part of the war planners (given the US's history and general ambivalence on the topic)--though it's certainly necessary to use "humanitarian motives" to market the war and make it palatable to the public. Atrocity propaganda has a rich and ugly history, going back Wilson's Creel Commission and likely before that as well.
I suggested that in order to protect human rights on a global scale, which is not only altruistic but in the long term very pragmatic, a real military organization on an international scale with powers to act to intervene in cases of genocide and human rights abuses be formed, allowing only free, democratic states.
It's hard to see how democracy can be imposed on another culture with cluster bombs, snipers, and a general massacre of the civilian population which has claimed somewhere in the range of 100,000 - 350,000 lives. I'd rather have a vicious dictator than face constant death from an occupying foreign military.
Quote from "IBA" »
I wouldn't presume to pre-emptively force the democratically elected leaders of free countries into a specific form of agreement even if I could
This is totally off-topic, but I don't see how my option to "elect" Bush or Kerry, Bush or Gore, Clinton or Dole, Clinton or Bush, etc. constitutes a meaningful democratic process--it's more the periodic ratification of the status quo. I think this is called polyarchal or top-down democracy. I mean, it's better than Cuba, but still.
Incidentally, it's good to see you around again, Ben.
LGF is pretty much the worst thing one can cite for anything.
I do agree with his point though. Why are the IDF's missles not "terrorism," when the Palestinians are? In the old adage: "A terrorist is anyone with a bomb without an air force," which is pretty thin.
It is critical that we talk about WWII. We need to have a firm, agreed-upon stance between nations on the world's duty to interfere in human rights issues. The fact that we have no such agreement is what allows people to stay back and avoid getting their hands dirty while genocides occur. We [i]must[i] have as a basic principle that nations are not only allowed, but obligated to interfere in cases of genocide and human rights abuses, agreed upon between all free nations, before the rational discussion of where does and doesn't constitute international intervention can take place.
Should the US then invade China, Belarus, Saudi Arabia? Countries with the worst human rights records? What would we do once we were there? Who elected us to be the world crusaders for human rights? Even so, after Abu Ghraib, Guantamano Bay, the US's programs to kidnap people and ship them to countries where torture is celebrated, I think we can no longer claim the moral high ground these days.
In any case, the invasion of Vietnam had absolutely nothing to do with improving human rights in that region. It was about geopolitical position and power, the impetus for most wars.
I couldn't agree with you more, even if I wanted to--I just couldn't.
I've recently cut back Swords to Plowshares, aka 'the color white,' and am running the following 3-color version.
“The Vorosh Deck 2k8.2”
By Bardo
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
3 Counterbalance
2 Spell Snare
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Vedalken Shackles
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
4 Island
1 Swamp
1 Academy Ruins
Sideboard
4 Engineered Plague
3 Dark Confidant
3 Hydroblast
3 Extirpate
2 Krosan Grip
There's so many arguments to be made over Landstill and I'm not sure if this is the best place to do it. Broadly, though, I see this as a matter of power vs. consistency (re: mana), power vs. synergy and metagame positioning. Control decks leverage a response to a sub-section of the metagame, but as the environment is always shifting, the form of the control deck's response is always shifting too. There's still much randomness in the format, but I still see it largely revolving around Threshold, red aggro/Goblins and storm combo. If you're going to build a Control deck, those are things that need to be addressed.
'Ever read poetry?
The Wasteland?
Duino Elegies?
somewhere i have never travelled?
Bluebird?
Some things you just can't say plainly, because they're deeper than words. Like life, I guess.
Spat's Buddha quote above is a fine example of that.
Heh -- the Buddha and Eckhart were anything but nihilists. Neither am I.
Personally, I think pondering the question at hand is very useful for one's own personal spiritual growth, so I'm all for it.
From what I can gather we're all here to help each other out. If there is meaning to life, it's a personal meaning, and probably changes a lot for each of us as we go from birth to death.
Indeed, our Big Brains are always getting us into trouble.
I think it was Meister Eckhart who said something to the effect of: "One should live their life like a rose, which lives without a why."
The mind is always trying to assert some kind of meaning in the face of meaninglessness, and the meaning of life is one of those ineffable mysteries that will forever be questioned.
Speaking of flowers, the Buddha said the same thing in one of his sermons, something like: "What is the point of this flower? There is no point. It just is." I think the same can be said of us as well.
And I think you're missing the point that in many cases the actions of the "government" are a result of the collective will of the populace from where they derive their authority in the first place. As culture and attitude shifts in the consciousness of the people, at least in reasonably democratic States, so shifts the policy of "government."
In any case, generally speaking, I find the most vociferous critics of affirmative action policies to be bunch of white dudes; and it's not easy to take those arguments seriously, for a host of reasons: they may be logically sound, but they still stink of something unseemly.
Anyway, I saw the shooter on CNN the other day and got a quesy feeling when he said he "wanted to kill it because he didn't think he'd even be able to kill anything that large again." That made my stomach twist in all sorts of weirdass ways.
No doubt. The argument is whether the loss of the Bear's tap ability is compensated by the advatanges of Tarmogoyf. I hate to link to other sites, but I'm too lazy to cut and paste all of the relevant content.
See my arguments under posts #80, #82 and #89 here:
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=32225.80
Basically, he's amazingly resilient GY hate, is never an x/1 (vs. Fanatic, etc.) and is usually a 2/3 - 3/4 on turn 2 or 3. Testing vs B/W Confidant this past weekend, I won the game with double 5/6 goyfs and still handn't reached threshold. (I won with five cards in my yard).
Well, let's be honest with ourselves, eh?
Yikes. Pretend I said Worthy Cause.
Well, we should both state the context of our analyses. I should have been clear that I was talking about mid-range type decks w/o Wasteland and any other LD, like Thresh and GAT; you're coming at this from the Sun Tower perspective.
Anyway, yeah, all of these decisions are highly contextual. My post above is correct if you're a Thresh player.
Ditto. But right-o; sometimes dropping Needle on SGC is the right play--but not usually. When playing Thresh, it's only the correct play when you're going to win with flyers and you have ground secure with Geese/Bears and Incinerator isn't going to be fatal to an Enforcer.
Post-board, you might make a go of it vis-a-vis Tormod's Crypt--but it's still pretty bad, now that Grunt and Loaming Shaman are rightfully filling the slot that Crypt used to take.
A quick list:
Goblins - Definitely AEther Vial; then maybe Tinkerer if it's in their deck; Wasteland, Rishadan Port, Crypt (post-board) and Gempalm Incinerator (cycled) are also good.
IGGy Pop/Solidarity - Needle is awful in this match, you might hit a Delta or Strand, but really, not so good.
Survival - duh.
Psychatog and Landstill - If they're splashing green, name Deed. Next up, manlands, cycling lands, Shackles; depends on the build, game state, etc.
Rifter - Eternal Dragon; then guess with their cycling lands.
B/w Pikula/Deadguy - Not too many good choices, usually just go with Wasteland, failing that Cursed Scroll.
43 Land - Too much to choose from; just go with whatever's supposed to kill you, Factory, Monastery, Barbarian Ring, etc. or Wasteland if that w/ or w/o Exploration/LFTL will just lock you out.
Faerie Stompy - Usually Sword of Fire and Ice will do; then Jitte.
Golden Graham - Salvagers. Don't be the guy who names LED.
HanniFish - Usually Jitte or MoR.
Red Death - Wasteland.
The best things about Needle is that it's hyper-efficent, easily splashable and is exceptionally good in a random field. The bad thing is the damn cost of the things ($20 or so) and that they're purely reactive (or proactively reactive, if that makes sense) and just helps you "not lose"; as opposed to, say, Meddling Mage who's also a win condition, a chump blocker, etc.
It's highly doubtful that humanitarianism was an actual motive on the part of the war planners (given the US's history and general ambivalence on the topic)--though it's certainly necessary to use "humanitarian motives" to market the war and make it palatable to the public. Atrocity propaganda has a rich and ugly history, going back Wilson's Creel Commission and likely before that as well.
It's hard to see how democracy can be imposed on another culture with cluster bombs, snipers, and a general massacre of the civilian population which has claimed somewhere in the range of 100,000 - 350,000 lives. I'd rather have a vicious dictator than face constant death from an occupying foreign military.
This is totally off-topic, but I don't see how my option to "elect" Bush or Kerry, Bush or Gore, Clinton or Dole, Clinton or Bush, etc. constitutes a meaningful democratic process--it's more the periodic ratification of the status quo. I think this is called polyarchal or top-down democracy. I mean, it's better than Cuba, but still.
Incidentally, it's good to see you around again, Ben.
I do agree with his point though. Why are the IDF's missles not "terrorism," when the Palestinians are? In the old adage: "A terrorist is anyone with a bomb without an air force," which is pretty thin.
Should the US then invade China, Belarus, Saudi Arabia? Countries with the worst human rights records? What would we do once we were there? Who elected us to be the world crusaders for human rights? Even so, after Abu Ghraib, Guantamano Bay, the US's programs to kidnap people and ship them to countries where torture is celebrated, I think we can no longer claim the moral high ground these days.
In any case, the invasion of Vietnam had absolutely nothing to do with improving human rights in that region. It was about geopolitical position and power, the impetus for most wars.