I felt I should, at least one or two play-throughs, since someone took the trouble to make all those characters and put them in the parties for us. You can edit them, too, if I remember correctly...

Where did I say government was "failing"? The federal government is winning! Unfortunately, when government wins, the people lose.

And are you the product of government education? Not a "a single word about the corporate takeover of our Country"? Did you not bother to read the part about the politically-connected using the bureaucrats as a tool against their competitors (and subsequently against consumers)? If you want to prevent said takeovers, you need to understand their dynamics. While there are lots of complexities, the basic dynamics are actually pretty straightforward: The stupid people allow way too much power to be centralized, and such centralization makes such power much easier for the politically-connected to wield for themselves. Is it easier for a corporation to get their way if they only have to "convince" a fraction of the federal congress (letting them pown all 50 states in one shot), or if they have to "convince" a similar fraction of the congresses of every state (so now instead of corrupting two or three hundred politicians they have to corrupt 10,000 politicians), or if they have to convince individuals to just give them special treatment? Obviously it's easier to obtain the desired corruption at the federal level than it is to try to get 50 states or 300+ million independent citizens to just give the corporations whatever it is they want. In order to keep government power under control (especially federal/centralized power) and out of the hands of corporations, you have to severely limit those powers, limiting them to what has to be at that level (e.g., national defense, international trade tariffs, ensuring politically-unobstructed trade between states), and that is what the Constitution attempted to do (by specifically enumerating the federal government's powers -- the federal government is not supposed to have any power not granted to it by the states via the Constitution). The other necessary condition is that the laws of the federal government must be kept minimal and simple such that the people can understand them -- as soon as people are stupid enough to allow the federal government to have powers (laws) that the people either do not know or do not understand, then their ability to have any real control over the federal government via voting is gone, and they have just invited the corporate lobbyists and lawyers to take over for the voter.

Because there's no point to that! Either the voters are in charge or they are not. If the voters are not in charge, then we have neither a Republic nor a Democracy and it is already game over and there is nothing that can be done (short of another revolution). If the voters are in charge, then whatever these politicians and corporations are allowed to get away with, it's the voter's fault for allowing it. Too many people want to have their cake and eat it too -- they want people to be able to vote so they can control what government does, but then they also want to not blame the voters when government, doing what the voters have allowed it to do, does something bad (e.g., chronyistic favors to corporations). Such people are mentally deficient, and are among those that probably shouldn't be voting, because they vote for the very politicians that will do/allow the things said voters don't want done/allowed.

The government is representing "everyday people" (aka idiots). As H. L. Mencken wrote:

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

Government is not a DWIMNWIS (Do What I Mean, Not What I Say) device. It never will be. (And with the inconsistencies in the average person's brain, nothing ever could be.) People have to learn to keep things simple and straight-forward so they can understand them well enough that the people themselves know that's what they actually want. For example, "Thou shalt not steal" was not too bad -- it was easy to understand, easy to know when it was violated. Unfortunately the socialists have rejected "Thou shalt not steal" and replaced it with "we'll support theft [taxes,money-printing/inflation,fees,etc.] for whatever purpose we think makes the world a better place (including robbing Peter to pay Paul), even if we are too ignorant to know what would actually make the world a better place (and ignore those individuals we crush along the way), too lazy to try to figure it out, and too stupid to succeed at figuring it out even if we tried".

No worries , we are all friends here, and thankfully, we have helped each other through the Keaning hours. In other words, keep posting, all you are able .

Token Tea Party alert!

Oh, I didn't realize that. Thanks for the info.

Mine just passed too! I was really disappointed, both with postal starting the Keane and the weather not doing much.

Anyone got a list of what is left in handy?

Glad you are o.k. new reports are really concerning for that part of the country.

A reminder for everyone: If you're tired of the Fall Insomnia madness, there's still the Weekend Promo. You can get some classics like these for 75% off:

Syndicate
Sim City 2000
Star Control 1+2
Dungeon Keeper

QFT! :D

Especially your point B) is true for me. Until this sale I honestly never even much noticed there WAS a community, and now I'm pretty happy to be a part of it. Damn nice people around here! :)

High likely.

Not sure, noone's mentioned anything about that sale. I can tell you right now that you've got a 3.7 percent chance of it coming up next.

Does someone have extra copies of BG2?

i wish i had them