Noumenon72

Reply to A Major Obstacle to Eliminating Poverty: The US Government! in Current Events JoeUser Forums

The US government allows these things, noum. Eminent domain being a prime example. The Supreme Court allows the practices to continue. Same with property taxes. Court challenges HAVE been lodged, and the fed has always backed up the local governments. I don't have much backing for this, but I'v

Reply to A Major Obstacle to Eliminating Poverty: The US Government! in Current Events JoeUser Forums

Your points about government making it tough for the poor to live are good, but you're placing the blame wrong. It's not "the US government" that makes zoning laws and undesirable ordinances. It's local government. They're very different, because they're run by different people. The federal government is run by the owners and managers of corporations, banks, and agribusiness. Local government is run by real estate owners and land developers. This

Reply to AI: Decision trees in GalCiv Journals JoeUser Forums

Not knowing about the new feature, I just assumed that Frogboy had a monitor that's actually big enough to show the whole tech tree at once. I was like, "Wow, it's good to be rich." Here's a game that just got completed where the Terran Alliance ultimately defeated the Drengin, Torians, and Altarians.

Reply to Final AI tuning in GalCiv Journals JoeUser Forums

It would be interesting to have the AI benchmarked. Like "It used to defeat this scripted human player on turn 400, now it takes till turn 300 but it loses 35% of the time."

Reply to Final AI tuning in GalCiv Journals JoeUser Forums

Dang, those ships look sweet. Maybe I should reconsider my play style -- I never build a ship with 1 movement unless it's for pure defense. They just don't get to the battle otherwise, and they can't form into fleets. This goes way way back to Civilization where chariots were always better than catapults because pulling a one-movement unit up to a city was far too slow. I wonder if there is some kind of AI theorist you could hire.

Reply to Gameplay Example (DA): Rise of the Galactic Republic in GalCiv Journals JoeUser Forums

It would take me weeks just to play the game underlying this post, and another week to write it up... plus the screenshots, yipe.

Reply to Drengin-Human Wars LX in GalCiv Journals JoeUser Forums

That "view your ship in full screen on a grid" feature will probably generate more profits than half of the AI adjustments you make (sad to say). They just look so awesome. Hey, remember that "history of your game" feature you were working on and thought you'd have to cancel? You could add a lot of value to that by having it tell the players things they don't know. I know I had a long war with the Arceans, all the game history can ad

Reply to Can you balance the federal budget? in US Domestic JoeUser Forums

My understanding is that the Pres. already basically writes the budget, because he presents it for submission and Congress only tinkers around the edges a little. I read that the reason the Republicans left all those spending bills unpassed is that Bush kind of screwed them by submitting a budget with actual cuts in it. They couldn't afford to vote for it and they didn't feel independent enough to change it.

Reply to Life in 1906 in History JoeUser Forums

Nice link! Statewide 1900 data shows males working an average of 290 days per year and earning an average of $553.52 annually. Females averaged 295 days and $313.42 annually. The average person there is working more than full-time. $200 to $400 can only be the average in the sense of "median," if t

Reply to Can you balance the federal budget? in US Domestic JoeUser Forums

I figure for every 10% ($70/month?) we cut social security it would take $21,000 saved at retirement to replace it. By 2020 you could probably swing that, and even if not nobody would starve.

Reply to Life in 1906 in History JoeUser Forums

I had a hard time finding this on Snopes, so it must be mostly accurate... here's the only nitpicks I found. This e-mail comes out every year with a different date ("one hundred years ago, in 1902..."), so eventually inflation and stuff will put it out of date. For example, the murder rate in 1902 was 1.2 per 100,000 , but in 2006 it was 3.9 per 100,000, which works out to

Reply to Can you balance the federal budget? in US Domestic JoeUser Forums

I was able to eliminate the deficit in a single year by eliminating: * Medicaid ($253 BILLION) - note this is NOT Medicare, just Medicaid. * Eliminating Aid to low-income families ($206 BILLION) - not the federal goverment's job to pay for the poor, let charities do that and let those who have true compass

Reply to Can you balance the federal budget? in US Domestic JoeUser Forums

That makes sense, Gideon. I was thinking philosophically of cutting Social Security, but cutting it this year only hits one group of people. Gotta cut it in the 2020 budget instead.

Reply to Religion of Peace: The Year in Review in War on Terror JoeUser Forums

Remember that video of Madeleine Albright negotiating with Kim Jong Il that Brad posted? Here's Jim Baker negotiating with Ahmadinejad -- equally hilarious . I know you all will like it (though the Munich thing is so overdone).

Reply to Can you balance the federal budget? in US Domestic JoeUser Forums

I think you all have been playing too much Galactic Civ... "Sure, I could eliminate the budget deficit without raising taxes! I could also have everyone abandon their jobs, head to the research center, and discover the cure for cancer in two years!" I saw a totally detailed PDF file from the Cato Institute or somebody showing like 150 actual budget items we could cut. Wish I could locate it again for some perspective on what this exercise wo

Reply to An idea to balance star base defense in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Any idea for making starbases worth arming is a good idea. You can't go too far with this. Because starbases are immobile, they could become completely invulnerable and they still wouldn't be overpowered. It would definitely add to the game if starbases could be made so tough that you would have to *plan* to take them out, make a special fleet for it or something. The only problem is that the harder they are to kill, the more ships the AI would waste on them. But they're a long way

Reply to Obama in 2008 part 2 in Democrat JoeUser Forums

Anyway, this whole post makes me think of my reaction to Al Gore in 2000. It was the first election I'd ever even considered voting for a Democrat, I was kind of just giving him a chance to be fair-minded. Then I heard he was against tort reform, and that was the final straw. How could he be a good president for me when he didn't share my values on something so basic? Now I look back on that and see my mind wasn't really open to voting fo

Reply to Obama in 2008 part 2 in Democrat JoeUser Forums

Even moreso, I believe that companies should federally be required to provide health insurance to their workers and worker families. Whoa whoa whoa, have you ever considered starting a company yourself? Think what a barrier that would be. But let's not change the subject too much, health care is a whole o

Reply to Obama in 2008 part 2 in Democrat JoeUser Forums

Here is a link to Obama's positions on Brad's list of issues. The quote that has you most exercised -- "Tax cuts for the rich do not create jobs" -- appears to be some sort of summary or paraphrase by ontheissues.org. If you click on "7 full quotes on jobs" you see that this is their section heading describing this section from BaramaForIllinois.com: <TABLE cellpadd

Reply to Iraq Study Group blasts Iraqi government in War on Terror JoeUser Forums

drmiler -- why are you blasting Rightwinger for not reading more? He did read it, he just forgot to post the link. Very good link by the way, I assumed it was going to be rushlimbaugh.com. I was aware that Iran and Saudi Arabia were starting to get involved supporting factions in Iraq, but I didn't know we had proof Iran was arming the Mahdi Army. <T

Reply to Iraq Study Group blasts Iraqi government in War on Terror JoeUser Forums

Okay, "verge" is overstatement. They are definitely at the top of America's hit list, a bad place to be. We officially rattle our saber at them from time to time — Link . And it just looks like an invasion is likely:

Reply to Liberals & Conservatives, who are they? in Republican JoeUser Forums

I took the OKCupid test earlier this year and posted the results on my blog. Link I fell in the "Centrist" region. If you draw a line from the origin through my position it comes out almost exactly on the line between "libertarian" and "democrat."

Reply to Iraq Study Group blasts Iraqi government in War on Terror JoeUser Forums

Clearly, Iran already has such a policy. But "should" they have one, I asked? Their attempt at knocking down Saddam's regime went even worse than ours. Now they're on the verge of being invaded themselves. And they're one of the most unpopular countries around (<a href="http://www.danieldrezner.com

Reply to Iraq Study Group blasts Iraqi government in War on Terror JoeUser Forums

They had an opportunity that few nations ever get Opportunity? This must be the origin of the saying, "When opportunity knocks, I hide until it goes away." The US should

Reply to Give a homeless man $100k and he'll squander it in Politics JoeUser Forums

What's really sad is when this happens in real life. Link