Quote from dawesdust_12 :

Poepel shud use this thread to brush up on they're speling and proper use of sertin werds in the Spanglish language. And the rite punkuateson two,

Quote from Racer X NZ :

Or get goat simulator, that might have a satyr expansion.

And, on topic. This cut's to what this dispute is primarily about, there are secondary reasons as well.
http://goldsilverworlds.com/mo ... d-instead-of-petrodollar/

This is what the west is told.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07 ... ian-partnership.html?_r=0

This is closer to what's happening,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/f ... l-economic-threat/5374756
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/ ... holy-grail-gas-deal-china

And this is a view of the Kiwi opinion, we've just this week done a deal with China over currency. Aust did a similar deal late last year. We are also signing up to the Russian free trade agreement, The TPPA however may well not get our agreement. We do have an election this year, and agreeing to it is an election loser.
http://gordoncampbell.scoop.co ... currency-deal-with-china/

And, for the LOLZ, here's the US's efforts to impress China,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new ... mother-barking-staff.html
But the Obamas' stay has already affected staff and guests at the hotel, with the Westin front-desk veteran alleging that Mrs. Obama's mother Marian Robinson has been 'barking at the staff since she arrived.'
'We can't wait for this to be over, to tell you the truth,' he said in a sudden hush. 'We entertain many important people here, but this has been, I think, very different.'

Way to go America. Speaking from the country that had the first free trade agreement with China, that isn't the way to get a deal !

Actually the New York Times is the most accurate. The rest of your sources are from people that make a buck selling Gold.
Petrodollars.... ROFL Really? Petrodollars? I'm sorry. There's this thing called a diversified economy. We have that. They could buy and sell oil futures in chickens and cows and it wouldn't do a thing. The ONLY reason why most trade is done is dollars is because out of the worlds' stable currencies, ours is the easiest to manage. Try buying something in Yen. You can, but notice that's a lot more paper involved. Not to mention disputes among various nations as to it's true exchange value against their own currencies. OK try doing it with pounds sterling then. OK now notice those are too expensive and gets a little messy when breaking the notes down. Enter good ol Uncle Sam and his stacks of interchangeable dead presidents. There's you're "Petrodollar". An economic attack from Russia would be like I dunno a minor bug bite? We are such a massive consumer driven and globally connected economy, the only real way our economy can and is screwing up is from our own hand.
Besides, we're heading for another oil glut. Eventually Putin's use of Russian reserves won't be much of a bargaining chip.
Also, what do you think is going to happen in Chechnya with Russians playing around in Crimea? I think our man Putin might be on the verge of biting more than he can chew.
I dunno. I still have a standing offer for the Government of Russia. I'll trade them Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton for Putin. I think he's be great as Governor of Texas.
This place is full of racist homophobic religious nuts that like to shoot things. And he gets along with the Bush family. He'd be perfect.

Quote from Racer X NZ :

Just for Racer Y
Ask and it shall be given, have fun !
http://www.nucleardarkness.org ... uclearexplosionsimulator/

Oh this is so cool! Years ago, one of the things I did to pay the bills was mess with toxic waste materials.... Environmental remediation is the fancy word. We got all kinds of crazy stuff sent in from all over the world and had to figure out a way to make it safe enough to throw away.
We had to have training in handling radioactive materials and during one of the sessions the talk about the effects of a bomb blast came up. You know the wind at ground zero from a hydrogen bomb goes towards it at close to 600 mph? They had a guy on talk radio a couple of years back. He was an ex-Soviet KGB guy. He described in great detail that they had a nuke that would detonate about ten miles south of me, a mile in the air. That's above the Johnson Space Center. At the time it was a target to disrupt satellite communications and at the same time they wanted to keep our port facilities in tact as much as possible because it's highly industrialized and not defended from naval assault. And they thought they could use it to help with an invasion. Yeah I guess he didn't realize that with the resulting exchange they wouldn't have enough of a navy left to invade with. And who invades a radioactive fireball anyways?
We have more nukes on this planet than can be used. If all of them were to go off at once, forget about just frying the planet. It could turn the solar system turn into a super nova or something. At least into a binary system.

Yeah... I like this nuke simulator. I'm not going after other countries with it. I'm just using it along my work commute route and pretending it works.

I dunno Recer X. Is another cold war REALLY a bad thing?
Man. back in the day we had decent coke, arena rock and lived like there was no tomorrow. And growing up in vato land - you have any idea of the amount of girls I went out with that had "Bitch flip" hairdos? Remember those?
Nowdays? You got kids with big assed holes in their ears, whacked on bath salts listening to some moron in a mouse head scratching vinyl and worried about being able to find a job that will pay off the college loans. What kind of life is that?
Yeah, gimme a ICBM to point at somebody and let the good times roll.

.....I quit playing this game for a few years. I started playing again last year or so. I blew off the wheel. (been there, done that) Click click go beats force feedback/ ***&&!! PEDALS any time and just play on the mouse/kb.
Screw the sirrocko or whatever the chick car is called. And F&*!! Rockingham too. I'm having a hard enough time trying to get a better time with the RAC on K-Y national than 2:01 something to really be too concerned with that nonsense anyways.

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

It's a damn shame. What we wouldn't give to get rid of Quebec.

Hey Russia! Do you guys want a province instead of Crimea?

You know, you are the like 51st millionth Canadian I've heard say that. What the hell did Quebec do to the rest of Canada?

Quote from Racer X NZ :

So we really need another cold/hot war do we ?


I don't know how old you are but I certainly remember the last one and have no desire to repeat the experiment.




So, how exactly are the US sponsored criminals going to be an improvement, especially as they are actually the same criminals you've had for years. Only this time you get the bonus of Nazi's.

"So we really need another cold/hot war do we ?"

Why not? The neo-crusader/islamofascist showdown is getting old. Besides, look at all the cool movies that came out as the result of the cold war. And Berlin was a rocking city. And Detroit had people in it.

"I don't know how old you are but I certainly remember the last one and have no desire to repeat the experiment."

I froze my nuts off in the cold war and partied like it was 1999. You have no idea the amount of FUN I had spending my formative years living in a world class city that was a major hub for the Southwestern US and much of Latin America... Man, the amount of hell I raised during that time. One of these dudes I ran around with off and on in those days was in the country illegally. He was an AWOL Sergeant from the El Salvadoran Army during their civil war. He also had a big chunk of his family in the marxist camp. Both sides decided he knew too much about each other and decided he needed to die. So he wound up in Texas and wound up with the stoner/metalhead/lowriders.. He's probably dead now.
These Millenials don't know what they've missed. No way in hell I'd have been stuck in front of a box banging on Keyboards whining on facebook about some stupid social issue or another back then. Yeah, the 80's was great.

"So, how exactly are the US sponsored criminals going to be an improvement, especially as they are actually the same criminals you've had for years. Only this time you get the bonus of Nazi's"

You actually have to ask this one? Really? Why that's easy. Life under the Putin mafia would be dreary and boring and restrictive. All they'd have to look forward to was social exploitation and bootleg vodka from St. Petersburg.
With the West? They get all that and more. Like easy access to HBO.GO, German luxury cars and X boxes.
And when our thugs get a God complex and start a genocidal rampage, we take them out and replace them with a kinder, gentler totalitarian regime.
The Russians get a loose cannon on their payroll, they make the psychotic despots build a fence around themselves and then they spend a big chunk of their time using their slot at the U.N. vetoing sanctions.
You don't realize this?

Quote from sinbad :

The number of current species is a tiny fraction of the number that have become extinct. There is no order to what we have currently except that they were successful, the changes to the environment of their ancestors allowed their survival through adaptation (or simply by spreading far enough to survive those changes). It's pretty obvious that very few species can survive a very dramatic change in a very short time, because so few do.

There's an interesting study on how birds are becoming more able to avoid being hit by cars because certain tiny wing shape variations allow that better than others, and how certain Finches are losing their variations of beak because of bird feeders. Little things.

There's an interesting study on how birds are becoming more able to avoid being hit by cars because certain tiny wing shape variations allow that better than others, and how certain Finches are losing their variations of beak because of bird feeders. Little things.


Yeah, the Polar Bear analogy sucked. The finches.
There we'll use Sinbad's finches if that's OK.
Dumb Luck Development
I'm not quite sure of all the variations of beaks on finches so if it's OK, I'll limit it to just two. Darwins Bird Feeders, Inc. sells finch bird feeders everywhere. They are the only people allowed to do so as they own the global patents on it. There are two sub groups of finches. The fat beaks and the skinny beaks.
Are we on the same page so far kids? OK here comes the outside stimuli that affects development. In order for Mr. Darwin to stay a deacon of his church, he needs to raise more cash. What he does (and this is important) is decide to reduce the cost of labor an materials by re designing his patented Finch feeder®. The redesign reduced the width of the access hole just enough to keep the fat beaks out. Now here's where LUCK comes in. Under normal circumstances the skinny beaks would've starved out because the fat beaks would eat all the seeds at a faster rate than what the skinny beaks could.
Now the skinny beaks have the upper hand. If that ain't luck, then what else is it?

Here... From Forbin's link.(God that was as boring as reading the phone book and didn't do a thing to support his own argument against random chance.)

Another conclusion to be drawn is that there is no set goal to selection. Variants arise naturally in all populations. Each population has its traits spread out over a distribution curve. While quadrupeds generally do not give birth to viable three legged individuals, legs can be longer or shorter, and whichever trait confers advantage at the time is the one which will be more widely reproduced. Given that resources are limited (or scarce, in Darwin's terminology) if for example longer legs give an advantage in survival over shorter legs, then the mean length of legs in that population will increase, and eventually take over ("go to fixation") in the absence of any other changes of environment. This does not happen because longer legs are in any eternal way more "perfect", but rather because they are more adequate for the tasks at hand of simply making a living long enough to reproduce. "Survival of the fittest" should be rephrased as "survival of the more adequate".

.... The longer legged animal was LUCKY that the environmental factors fell into his favor that made his survival more "adequate" over the the shorter legged one.
Factors could've just as easily played out to where the short legged one had the advantage and dominated.

Random Chance.... I like to gamble here and there. I know a little bit about random chance and its effects when it comes into play. It's very essence of why I like to gamble. Its the success of predicting an outcome out of a series of possible outcomes. Even though there are a finite set of outcomes, picking the right one always boils to chance no matter what "system" someone uses.
What I don't know is why so many people are in denial about it. Random chance is everywhere, from taking a road trip and the random chance of getting a tire blow out to the random chance of ordering a three piece chicken meal at KFC and the three pieces being from the same chicken.
Why isn't random chance allowed in divergent evolution?

Forbin, I re read the linked article. You know for such a smart guy, he really doesn't have a clue. It's not about whether the traits of species development is random. If that was the case we would have bald polar bears with bat wings that gave off oxygen or something that changed each generation, regardless of heredity or natural selection or anything. The Luck isn't about that. It's about the determination itself and of whether or not those traits and development lead to success or failure of the species.
Does that make sense?

Quote from yankman :

It's the story from movie … and american movie if course . Lot's of stereo types, cliches and an unquestionable truth.
But that's not point. Buddists believe in reincarnation and there is nothing wrong with this.

Wrong is the question why science does not/cannot explain reincarnation. If you look at the facts, reincarnation, as it is meant above, is not possible.
So it is up to you to believe in it (like in a higher being) but don't try to explain it with science (other than astrology ).

Actually I got this story from a book from a long time ago. Mysteries of the unexplained or some such title. It had chapters on ghosts, Bigfoot, UFOs the Loch Ness monster. And Reincarnation was one of the chapters. It didn't have the questions of if there was a hidden meaning behind the kid being made Dahli lama. I just added it in cause Racer X loves conspiracies.
The book itself was one of those tabloid level descriptions and written with the slant to make you believe everything that was written in it as true or very possible.

And what is it with all you foreign kids from third world countries like Europe and Ohio that makes you throw shots at America? You know that dollar a day I give to Sally Struthers can be stopped. When I want my grass cut, I don't HAVE to go to Home Depot and hire your cousin either. i can get a homeless veteran instead.

Last edited by Racer Y, Sat 8 Mar 2014, 13:47.

Quote from Forbin :

This is an absurd statement. More likely is they evolved from a common ancestor and experienced genetic divergence.



It's not dumb luck. It's a process.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_game_theory

I hate doing these forum quote things. They suck!
Anyhows, I wasn't being literal about the cardinal and the blue jay. But OK then, look how long it took for both the blue jay and the cardinal developed from the same common ancestor. I don't think they are as many generations apart as say the common ancestor of a horse and a horseshoe crab.

This part is what concerns me though:
It's not dumb luck. It's a process.

I get so tired of hearing that. It IS dumb luck. Sure for a successful noticeable change to occur it is a process that takes time and generations, but that's as far as that goes. For a mutation to be a successful adaptation it has to be in the right place at the right time.
And the change doesn't make itself "fit" the situation. It just happens. Yes I know outside stimuli, like environmental factors, are the driving force behind change, but that's just change, not adaptation. Whether or not it sinks or swims is up to chance.
Polarbears.
Say this mamma bear has two cubs. One is normal, the other is hairless. In a normal circumstance, the hairless one will freeze to death. right?
now say some massive climate changing event somehow happens and the North Pole is now a balmy 25° C. The normal furry bear overheats and dies while the hairless bear thrives and passes on it's bald assed genes. A lone surviving female bear escaped an air conditioned zoo or something... But Pretty damned lucky, don't you think? The Mother bear didn't know there was going to be this permanent heatwave and made the baby bear develop like that, did she? LOL The DNA strands didn't look at each other and ask, "Is it getting hot in here to you guys?" And then just customize the chromosones did they?


Besides a process implies order. Order implies design and design implies intelligence. Unless you're implying that possible evolutionary outcomes don't occur unless it's determined by Divine will. If that's the case, then that's a whole different subject.

Speaking of whole different subjects, Is it getting warm enough up there for you to ride yet? Man. Winter SUCKS this year.

Uhhh... reincarnation.
I believe in reincarnation to a point. Actually more like believe in the wildly remote possibility that someone can be the exact copy of someone else.
Nothing spiritual. Just the chance that two or more people can have the exact same DNA code.
Anyways Racer X? There was this Dahli Lama in the 1950's(?) Anyways, he died.
he told his apostles Matthew Mark Luke and Ringo that he would be reborn as a boy in some village a few hundred miles to the south of them. You're a Buddhist. You probably know this story. He laid out things that were his favorite objects for the reincarnated Dahli Lama to notice them. Well when he died they headed south and found a newborn baby. They studied the kid. after he got old enough, they started to test him on things. They wanted to see if he was the Lama they were looking for. They laid out all this stuff. things that the dahli lama had as favorite items and other stuff they threw in. They noticed the kid was attracted to all the things that belonged to the former Dahli Lama over the other things. They did all sorts of tests. I don't remember any of them, but he passed them with flying colors.
Do you know about this story?
My question is was it really reincarnation? Or was it an elaborate hoax by a dying man to insure a certain blood line to run things? Or part of a conspiracy by concerned monks that didn't want the people to fall apart and go nuts without a spiritual leader?

Quote from Forbin :

Lack of sexual reproduction does not preclude generation of genetic variety and ultimately evolution. You have mutations, copy errors during mitosis, etc. These are not particularly slow processes.

Claim:
Evolution requires mutations, but mutations are rare.

Response:
- Very large mutations are rare, but mutations are ubiquitous. There is roughly 0.1 to 1 mutation per genome replication in viruses and 0.003 mutations per genome per replication in microbes. Mutation rates for higher organisms vary quite a bit between organisms, but excluding the parts of the genome in which most mutations are neutral (the junk DNA), the mutation rates are also roughly 0.003 per effective genome per cell replication. Since sexual reproduction involves many cell replications, humans have about 1.6 mutations per generation. This is likely an underestimate, because mutations with very small effect are easy to miss in the studies. Including neutral mutations, each human zygote has about 64 new mutations (Drake et al. 1998). Another estimate concludes 175 mutations per generation, including at least 3 deleterious mutations (Nachman and Crowell 2000).

(source: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB100.html)

Further reading:
What Determines the Rate of Evolution?
Rates of Evolution

That's all nice, but those numbers include the overwhelming majority of defective mutations. When you discard those and only count the positive changes or maybe the permanent changes that result in successful separate species development, that number starts to go way down.
Like our own species... If I'm not mistaken the last major evolutionary change was in the 1600s, before that, the Out of Africa Gene. There probably have been some sort of "mutations" between those times, but I don't know if anyone has found anything. And even with those changes, it didn't completely alter the species or lead to a big noticeable change - yet. And even though these changes may eventually lead to the development of another species, look at how small these changes are and how long they took to happen.
500 million years don't seem so long anymore.
I used to argue with this guy that was a creationist of sorts. He couldn't wrap his head around the concept of evolution at all. He was one of those that's stuck with some idea that evolution means some sort of instantaneous species change in a single generation. Like a fish hatching a clutch of birds or something stupid like that. I tried to explain to him that it doesn't work that way. That the fish to bird thing was a whole series of changes having to take place over time. A LONG time. And that whatever hatched the clutch of birds wouldn't look anything like the original fish in question. He's an idiot. he couldn't wrap his head around that. I guess it was just easier for him to chaulk every up to some supreme being. But during the course of those useless arguments, I got a better appreciation of the subject and realized the dynamics of the time frame.
Think about how long it would take to go from Blue Jay to Cardinal or I dunno finch to sparrow? For those factors to happen that would allow those changes in the relatively short amount of time for those changes to take place would be comparable to winning the lottery three times in one lifetime. And that's just One set of species developing.
I wonder what the original creatures looked like that were changing from invertibrate to vertibrate? I wonder if there were any that were like that and land based?

My guess as to how our development occurred in half a billion years (there. It sounds longer now). Is simply dumb luck. As if the changes happened at the right place at the right time.

I dunno. maybe later today i'll get some beer in me and be able to discuss this properly.
Politics and religion and now divergent evolution are the topics of drunkards and fools.
And since I'll be foolish enough to be drunk when talking about this, I'll have all my bases covered and will then be an expert on the subject.

Quote from DHRammstein :

I still visit this forum, read a bit, and always immediately open any thread marked with physics and Sirocco. I don't recall when I last posted, but anyway, it's been easier for me to wait because I gave up and started racing my own cheaper cars, I wish everyone could do this

Honestly I'm just tired, tired of looking, waiting, and wondering, and worried, that I'll be disappointed in the end.

But more than anything I don't want this forum to dissolve if it never comes, or comes in pieces and sets everyone's hair on fire because, blasphemy for doing that.

But I'm still here, waiting and wondering. It better be good!

"but anyway, it's been easier for me to wait because I gave up and started racing my own cheaper cars, I wish everyone could do this "

What a stupid waste of time!. You should be here EVERY DAY on this forum whining for a Chick car! Next, I suppose you'll suggest doing something to occupy our time like Kayaking or hunting or something.

Actually, what do you race? It sounds interesting. A lot more interesting than the same ol same ol "I wanna another econobox so I'm gonna make a dramatic post" post.

"But more than anything I don't want this forum to dissolve if it never comes, or comes in pieces and sets everyone's hair on fire because, blasphemy for doing that."


This game is a little bit more than just another video game. It's kind of like a cult. I don't think it'll be disappearing anytime soon.
Be safe with your racing

You know, there's one bit of fact the creationists could have a field day with evolution, but they don't. That's the time frame we went from sea sludge to space age in. It's a little quick when you think about it. A little too quick once you really think about it. I think they over look it because it has to do with sexual reproduction. Yeah, they always shy away from anything with "SEX" in the title. Unless it's about homosexuality. Then they come up with all sorts of deviant stuff related to sex.
Sexual reproduction didn't occur until, what 500 million years or so ago? That really just doesn't seem like enough time for divergent evolution to run it's course to get where we are today. So I think if a creationist wants to pick evolution apart, they should start with that.
But with intelligent design... who designed the designer? I dunno. Intelligent design just doesn't sound all that intelligent to me. It's more like those primitive tribes that think some God is flying across the sky during the day to provide sunlight. Since they don't know or understand the concepts of planets and orbiting the Sun, they make up a God for it.
I dunno. This conversation really isn't all that fun without alcohol.

Quote from seniecka :

Stop talking nonsense, people. I am actually really interested in how people even from the other side of the planet act like they know geopolitics of Eastern Europe very well. Let me make it clear for you: overthrown **** Ukraine's president was a dumbass, who had no skills, no orientation in geopolitics and couldn't do a shit to put Ukraine into a progression. V. Putin being a total ****, but way more clever than the former ****, manipulated Yanukovych and was actually gettin Ukraine more, and more close to its collapsion due to actions, dictated by Kremlin and took by Ukraine's finest idiot.
Luckily, bright minds have come into the play and Yanukovych got eliminated. No way the current new government is neo-nazi, neither is fascist. Why the **** that government should be called like this? Just because they turned down the communist, mankurt government? Let me remind you something. What about 90's era of uprisings of nations that declared a desire to be free from Soviet Union and start their own countries. Fortunately, they all together finally turned down Soviet Union and became free. So, let me ask? Should all those nations be called neo-nazies or fascists? Because some of yours statements makes me think that Central-Eastern Europe is full of neo-nazies, or fascists. Just stop, please. This is a ridiculous scenario and makes no sense. All I see nowadays that happens with Ukraine is the same scenario, related to those 90's uprisings - the bright minded Ukrainian citizens wants to get free from Russia. I don't see nothing wrong in that.

I'm guessing that the new Government really isn't going to be much better than the last one.... But a neo-nazi regime? LOL I think what has happened is that since this was pretty much a coalition of personality cults that took over, there's bound to be extremist elements in the mix. Those types usually have the loudest mouths and get picked up more on the microphones, but I don't believe this new group of thieves are necessarily Nazis.

Russia....
You know, you're right, after the cold war and the Balkans, I'm pretty clueless to the mechanics of Eastern European Politics.
But It seems to me that even after Boris Yeltsin got hammered and jumped on that tank, the West still did things that were antagonistic towards Russia.
We have a lot of y'all former Warsaw Pact countries now in NATO, Your countries made all these changes and reforms and was welcomed with open arms. Same with the E.U. Now Russia was pretty much doing the same thing as the WP countries and liberated Soviet Republics - yet no one asked them to join NATO.
Now of course something like that is out of the question, but in the 90's? Even in the early part of this century?

One thing no one seems to realize is Putin pretty much made Obama burn through a billion dollars we didn't have, just by running a couple a soldiers around and stopping it's discount with the Ukraine. I wonder how much is his antics costing the E.U.?

Quote from flymike91 :

Getting past the rumors and half-truths, it seems to me there are a few benefits that could come out of this for Ukrainians. If this power play works out in favor of the West, corporations are already working to develop energy infrastructure for Ukraine to be less reliant on Putin. Oil shale jobs are paying young men six figure salaries in the US as well as creating local economies full of well paying jobs where few or none existed. Added to the fact that frakking throughout Eastern Europe would be a serious blow to Russia's influence over its former vassals, it also provides employment when it is needed the most. Everyone from scientists and researchers to roughnecks and computer technicians can get in on energy production and increase the power and wealth of their whole country and themselves.

Russia is not offering energy infrastructure and frakking technology to Ukrainians because they don't have it to give, and wouldn't if they did.

It seems really really far fetched to assume that neo-nazis are going to form the next Ukrainian government when there are thousands upon thousands who do not agree with that philosophy...where are neo nazis in majority power anywhere? It sounds like a myth, or giving whole credit for the overthrow to one group that was involved among many.

I think the whole neo nazi accusations that are getting thrown around is typical Eurotype name calling. They aren't advanced enough to call rivals ...Stupid Mother ----- or Worthless cock sucker or a whole slew of names we Americans like to call out when calling someone out.

I dunno. This is a fight between the Haves over crap and they'll wind up using the Have Nots do all the fighting. Nobody gives a damned about the Ukraine people. All they care about is the resources and the pipelines.
Those poor bastards. All they're doing is replacing one group of thugs with another and one other country of thugs hates the new guys.

You know, it's too bad all us idiots that are low men on the totem pole won't get rid of these ****s that higher up on it. They all suck anyways and I have no use for them. We "elect" them and they screw us over. Every time.
Notice I didn't specify any country as it applies to all of them.
Humanity is at a state of development to where if we could just cull the undesirables, ( the islamofascists, the neo nazis and greedy idiots that think they need to control stuff in general) we wouldn't even need these governments. They've pretty much out lived their usefulness

Putin.... You know I was hoping we could trade Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton for him and have the guy as Governor of Texas. He has to be better than the two clowns running now.

Quote from dekojester :

My point about the content you have has everything to do with quality of racing you can have with PEOPLE in spite of the dullness of the content. I never have and probably never will subscribe to that "every combo" line - several combos are pointless. I would wholeheartedly rather a slew of new tracks and a couple decent cars, but I also know that I have to use the lot I'm given, or just leave it.

Hey! don't knock Fox Rally til you've tried it.

Tracks... tracks....
Forget tracks. What would be cool would be a track editor. Something kind of like a slot car track set up, where you had basic pieces and could be modified that was only limited by the limitations of the person modifying the track and the initial size and type of track section/sections being modified. A buggy or incompatible track online wouldn't happen as the initial track building would prevent it from happening.
Now THAT would be cool. I guess that would be really hard to do though.
But if done that way, the only people that we can whine about for not having so and so tracks would be ourselves.
If I could, I'd re mod So.City into a post apocalyptic city with a working train, race fans that threw crap at the drivers, night time racing and pedestrians.

Quote from Racer X NZ :

Much has rightly been made of President Obama’s promise to bypass Congress and act unilaterally to get things done. “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone,” he said, threatening to sign more executive orders and blast more messages from his bully pulpit.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/da ... -pen-is-already-worn-out/

That's from Forbes by the way, not exactly a left wing conspiracy theory source............

If the US could take a break from trying to overthrow all of the America's, plus, plus, plus,....... then we may get a break from the constant propoganda.

Business week is the next source, I've tried to choose good right wing sources here......

Chávez’s most enduring and positive legacy is his shattering of Venezuela’s peaceful coexistence with poverty, inequality, and social exclusion. He was not the first political leader who placed the poor at the center of the national conversation. Nor was he the first to use a spike in oil revenue to help the poor. But none of his predecessors did it so aggressively and with such a passionate sense of urgency as Chávez did. And no one was more successful in planting this priority into the nation’s psyche and even exporting it to neighboring countries and beyond. Moreover, his ability to make the poor feel that one of them was in charge has no precedent.
http://www.businessweek.com/ar ... poor-and-gutted-venezuela

Sure, not everyone liked him, the Upper class, the US, the list goes on. It is worth looking however, from a socialist point of view at the positives and what he achieved, especially given the history of the America's.

And, it's worth noting the current situation in the Ukraine if you want an example of US led 'democracy', This info is not on CNN or FOX....

In western Ukraine the only organized and armed force is the ultra-nationalist Right Sector. From the way this group’s leaders speak, they assume that they are in charge. One of the group’s leaders, Aleksandr Muzychko, has pledged to fight against “Jews and Russians until I die.” Asserting the Right Sector’s authority over the situation, Muzychko declared that now that the democratically elected government has been overthrown, “there will be order and discipline” or “Right Sector squads will shoot the bastards on the spot.”

The bastards are any protesters who dare to protest the Right Sector’s control.

Muzychko declared, “The next president of Ukraine will be from Right Sector.”

Another Right Sector leader, Dmitry Yarosh, declared: “the Right Sector will not lay down its arms.” He declared the deal made between the opposition and the President to be “unacceptable” and demanded the liquidation of President Yanukovich’s political party.

The Right Sector’s roots go back to the Ukrainians who fought for Adolf Hitler against the Soviet Union during World War 2. It was the Right Sector that introduced armed fighters and turned the tide of the protests in Kiev from peaceful protests in favor of joining the EU to violent attacks on police with the view of overthrowing the democratically elected government, which the Right Sector succeeded in doing.
http://www.paulcraigroberts.or ... -falls-intrigue-violence/
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments.

i.e. Yet another right wing source................

And, for anyone who know's about the US/Bush family ties to the Nazi party in Germany in the 1930's, isn't it interesting how history repeats.......

There you go again...
It's like this. If these people were really all that powerful are set up to take over the planet, then why haven't they already done so?
Also, people like that didn't get where they are by playing nice. And I doubt their underlings would be the all upstanding loyal henchmen either. Think about what kind of infighting would be happening as everyone constantly jockeys for position.
Now for the clincher. Every time you or some other conspiracy buff goes on about this, it only strengthens the very people they rally against. See most of all that power is fluff. You're just adding to the razzle dazzle. Quite honestly, there are way too many people out there wanting a piece of the pie for themselves. There isn't honor amongst thieves. There's no way a shadow empire could exist - at least not for very long. Besides, the Big Bad U S of A is a hollywood concept. Sure it's corrupt. Yeah, it likes to meddle in other countries' business. LOL I find it amusing that other countries want us to stay out of their affairs, and rightly so, yet are they constantly constantly trying to tell us how we need to do things. But we're also going broke. Domestically, any laws cracking down on freedoms from this point on is pretty much a paper tiger. There's no money left to enforce things as it is. Aside from being felt up by a two digit IQ type at the airport, or go after some moron posting a youtube video of themselves doing something illegal, they really can't do much. All that all knowing big brother stuff...Hell, they don't even know what to do with or even knew they had half the information that Snowden exposed. And none of that really matters seeing that the credit cards is just about maxxed out. So once the proverbial shit hits the fan around here, what good are all those corporate power types when everything falls apart and all their power was just ink on pieces of paper? And it won't take much for this to happen. Three major hurricanes in one season would do the trick. Uhhh... about 25% of healthcare insurance companies declaring bankruptcy would do it too. If we have drought again for a few more seasons. It's not going to be much.
Anyways, Venezuela.... Chavez EXPLOITED the poor. He did what all populist style politicians did. He promised them rainbows. Made them think that all their problems were some one else's fault. And that he was going to fix it. Then he threw up price controls and put in a quota based system on all sorts of goods that defied logic.
And forget about him squishing the opposition. That was the least of things that dude did to that country. He put up these economic zones that were so messed up. There were gas stations that were across the street from each other where one station had to 4 times the price of the station across the street. But that was OK due to quotas the cheaper place never had any gas.
I don't know the exact extent of what he did, but it really screwed over the people.
Plus, you don't help the poor by punishing the rich. All that does is make the rich leave.
Then there's the time Chavez was going to difersify the classes. He took some fancy exclusive country club and claimed he was going to convert it into free public housing. He took it over and tore the place up and that was it. Yeah poor people live there now, Only they're more like homeless junkees.
And this new guy? He's totally lost the plot. All his response to what's going on is to hassle anyone that complains about it.

... the Ukraine. I feel sorry for those people. They pretty much get screwed either way. They made the mistake of being right between two big kids that wants her candy cause they ate all theirs.

Bush and the Nazis... Is that why the Japanese shot him down in WWII? Cause he was a Nazi spy that knew too much?
You do realize there's a story connecting everyone from Cab Callaway to Anne Frank to working with the Nazis don't you?
You know the short guy on Top Gear? Yep. Him too. He's a Nazi Collaborator. he's actually 105 years old.
Yeah, he was a test subject in secret experiments during the war. The nazis wanted to know how Jews like Moses and Abraham could live so long. He was the result of the experiments. I always thought Moses and Abraham would've been a lot taller though.

Quote from Racer X NZ :

Perhaps you should actually be informed about the situation in the Americas before you make silly comments, just trying to save you from appearing an idiot without being informed about the local situation.

It really is a good idea to actually be aware of reality, before you quote propaganda ........ And, which country suppressed the natives before the USA chose to ??????

...."It really is a good idea to actually be aware of reality, before you quote propaganda ".....

Uh....

Yeah. you may want to not get involved with Latin America. You don't know the reality of it. What you read about on websites is a lot different from what I hear in Taquerias and cantinas and obviously not what Chanoman knows either.

The "bolivarian revolution" is a sick joke. And it appears one that is about to end badly.

You know that rule of law in Venezuela is done by decree? How egalitarian is that?
How does that help the people? Oh wait... it don't.

What really ought to be of concern as far as Venezuela goes, is who's paying attention and who is going to go in to get their little piece of the pie? You got the big three, China, Russia and the United States that are very much interested in the oil.
You got the cartels moving in to get better defined routes and possibly more soldiers for their armies. Then there's the inevitable exodus. We know where they're going, just not what they'll be doing along the way. How is that going to affect things?
And lately the trend in overthrows and revolutions is to have loose organized coalitions working together. As soon as the the bad government is deposed, they turn on each other. How's that going to affect things?
I think these are the things we should be concerned about.

Last edited by Racer Y, Tue 25 Feb 2014, 12:12.

Quote from Forbin :

It doesn't. We have no rational proof of any mystical karma, only social karma, tied to the attitudes of other people with regards to our actions. As an agnostic, I cannot entirely rule out mystical karma, but I would need some sort of scientific proof.

Also, as the wiki article states, practical applications of secular ethics rely upon game theory to gradually shift the definitions of what is good and bad. Since humans are complex and fallible creatures, this means you do sometimes see conflicts in ethical principles, or at least the practical applications thereof.

OK... so with differing standards as to what is good or bad... it's up to what other people think? Alright then, what if you could care less what other people think? Does karma apply to you then? Let me rephrase that. You could care less about what others think and you're in a position that insulates you from them making you care what they think. How does the "established" karma work in this situation?
I don't care about social karma as those values are subject to change and are determined by humanity or a division of humanity. Say I could make society care what I think and make them apply what I thought was good and bad over what they originally thought... over time it becomes accepted - sorta the game theory there.

Quote from Racer X NZ :

Wow, thanks Forbin......

Racer Y, bad stuff happen's if you do bad stuff. It's not pre-ordained, it's simply down to the actions that you, with complete freedom, choose to do in that current life.
Previous kharma is simply the stuff you chose to do in previous lives. It really is up to you to choose how you behave, just learn that your previous actions will bite you in the future.

TL;DR: Whatever you do is up to you, but that does have a consequence in the future.

This subject is deep and it's late.
What is it that determines what is bad or good on that scale? Forbin's link to secular reasoning as far morality goes... I didn't really read all that into them, but what is lacking in what little I read is the realization that what one group accepts as good actions are bad even repulsive within other groups. It's probably in there somewhere. I'll try to read into it later as it looks very interesting.
Anyways, if you were a bad person in this one area because what you did in that lifetime was considered bad and then you get born into the next life where your behavior from the previous lifetime is considered acceptable, then how are you being punished for the bad deeds you did before?
What I'm trying to say is it appears that karma is a mystical concept that has set parameters for what is good and bad and how that's is dealt with. It also appears that these concepts of good and bad are based on a consensus, a human consensus. I'm not understanding how that could be when you have all these different consensuses out there defining what's good and bad for themselves.

Here's a thought.
OK Racer X, you have a lot of money 1 million dollars, you put it in my bank. Forbin comes along and robs it, taking your money.
Now here's the thing. You made that money exploiting little kids working in sweat shops. I actually set forbin up, telling him the security codes or whatever he needed to rob the bank and get the money. I did that for a percentage of the money. I needed that money to give to a relative so they could get a life saving operation. Forbin comes from a subculture where getting away with scamming someone who isn't them is a respectable thing.

How does karma work here?

Quote from Racer X NZ :

Heaven, hell, ? Original sin ? Wasn't Satan originally an angel ? How did he fall from favour ?
As a Buddhist, there is no such thing as 'original sin', there is only the karma that you attract through your actions in this life. What you 'Christians' ( or Paulist's) refer to as 'original sin' is simply the accrued Khama that you have generated in previous lives. That can be resolved by your actions in this life......

Please don't believe anything I have to say about any of this stuff, religion is a purely personal issue that is up to each person to resolve for themselves. My opinions are purely my own and only apply to me. And buddism is a philosophy, not a religion. No gods...........

Karma.... Sure If you live by the sword, you'll most likely die by it too.
But I think you make your own fate. Pre-ordained events such as what Buddhists, some Christian and some Islamic sects believe in. I have a hard time believing that.
Reincarnation... I actually believe that's possible to a certain extent.
If you are the sum of all your parts and you can numerically code those parts, then everything is a numeric code. That code can repeat itself all through history. Even be contemporaries of each other. Now I don't think the person "reincarnated" by having the same codes as a person in the past life will actually be that person, but I bet the appearance and the basic disposition of the person would be very similar if not identical.
But that happening is along the same lines as having a lottery with the same winning numbers being drawn in different drawings.

This part:
"As a Buddhist, there is no such thing as 'original sin', there is only the karma that you attract through your actions in this life.

This implies that a bad person will have bad things happen to them and good things to good people. OK what is it that determines what are "good actions" and what are "bad actions"?
Say I get drunk one night, do something stupid like drive, and wind up running over and killing a little kid, this kid was going to grow into a serial killer and would have eventually killed the person that was supposed to become the 56th President of the United States and would have kept us out of a nuclear showdown with Sri Lanka had he not been murdered decades earlier.
Are my actions bad then?
Now don't tell me yes because the reason is we have no way of determining the kid was a future serial killer. We're talking about karma and its fundamental mechanics.
Timelines should mean nothing in that regard.

If there are no gods, then what defines these actions as good or bad and what is it that decides the punishment and rewards for these actions?

"Heaven, hell, ? Original sin ? Wasn't Satan originally an angel ? How did he fall from favour ? "

Uh I think it depends on what religious sect you're in. Satan is also known as the adversary. He's NOT the enemy of God so much as he is jealous of humanity and he supposedly spends all his time coming up with ways to get humans to screw up.

The more dysopean (spelling? The doom and gloom - waiting for the Rapture types) believe along the lines of that Melville Poem, Paradise Lost, being that Pride made Satan a bad guy out to take over the the whole Heaven and Hell and Earth stuff.

The way I look at it, if God was the creator of all things, that includes bad things too, then Satan is actually one of the good guys doing God's work.
But what do I know? I'm just another Blasphemous Heathen.

When Chavez was in power, he made a deal with Russia to start manufacturing AK-47s and some other small arms. Anyone with half a brain knows who the target demographic for those guns are. Oh well, at least now those guns are going to be limited in where they're headed and limited in how many - if any get produced.
The next questions that should be asked is when and where is this is going to spread?
Bolivians ain't too happy... Ecuador?
Socialism..... Every country is socialist to a degree. From psycho North Korea, the Nanny state UK and even the wide open, wheelin and dealin US of A.
All are varying degrees of socialism.
But over time I've come to realize that the vast majority of political movements with "Social" in their title are anything but that.
Like here in this country we have a right wing conservative faction that calls itself "Social" conservatives. I think they use that "social" word because if they said what they really are, Homophobic, racist, hate mongering, religious fundamentalcases, it would scare people away.
Then we also have a faction on the left that calls itself "Social" progressives.
These are the over educated morons that have decided that other people shouldn't be allowed to think for themselves - unless of course they went to the same colleges and had the same goofy professor that couldn't make it in the real world as they did. But they can't be honest about that so they slap on the "SOCIAL" moniker instead.

Quote from Forbin :

I believe a cable conversion is possible if it's that much of a barrier.

It seems you can go from Cable to Hydraulic, not the other way around though.
At least not anything I found. Seems a lot of dirt bike owners want to convert from cable to fluid though.
Oh well. After sitting on the bike and thinking about down shifting and up shifting, false neutrals and going in and out of corners. Nevermind. I'll just keep the same forward controls. I don't think the cool factor of the suicide shifter is enough for the loss of performance. Especially with how much of a pain in the ass it'll be to figure out.

Quote from Racer X NZ :

Who is this 'God' person of which you speak ?
Sounds like a bit of a troll himself/herself/androgynous being ' Don't eat anything from this tree, ha ha, got you, burn in hell lol lol lol.......'

Ever read a book called Good Omens?
When Satan tempted them with the forbidden fruit, to be doing that, wasn't Satan doing God's work? What if Satan refused to tempt them? Wouldn't that have been the sinful thing to do?