It'd be really cool to have a search engine for the forums.

I blame it on the goauld. We have been taken over by goauld parasites and they fighting for dominion over Earth Empires.

californians legalize marijuana and the fed still has it outlawed, expect a lawsuit.

qzjul, they have landed in court at times. A TN primary ad landed the candidates involved in court. One of those candidates is likely to join the US House.

The Republican Party is approximately 150 years old. The Democratic Party is approximately 220 years old. Need I say more?

A two party system based upon polical parties that are both more than a century old. Hello, this spells problems. The parties once took risks and chances on issues. These issues would then be what they and their opponents talked about. Sometimes a party would be pushed out of power for 10-20 years as a result of a bad risk, but they would come back on the issues.

Then the parties figured out that if they stopped arguing about the issues and stopped taking risks, they wouldn't lose power for quite as long periods of time. So they stopped taking risks and there was nothing to debate about.

After that they started telling "Yo mama" jokes, but their mothers put them over their knees. Thus they decided that some people were more or less off limits in elections. They focused instead on destroying just two people, THEMSELVES! The candidate that gets destroyed the least wins the lovely chance to go to Washington, D.C. (once they are guided out of Washington state and back across the nation) and sit around telling "Yo mama" jokes in the privacy of the tax-payer funded offices. When they get bored of the jokes, they do a little work (declare war on someone, usually the American people) and then go back to their jokes.

Seriously, studies in the past have shown that negative ads work. Within a few more elections cycles I wonder if this will still be true anymore or if people will simply ignore all political ads on TV.

Well, no one can say they didn't see this one coming.

May you both be fruitful in gaining members during these conflicts.

Boxcar will have appropriate forums for checking in.

IMO, the penalty should be a minimum of 15 yards (for incidental contact) and the maximum should be ejection and half the distance to the goal (for intentional hits).

Suspensions after the game will be a good thing.

Maybe even disallow the replacement of a player ejected from the game for helmet to helmet hits.

Seriously the NFL can kill helmet to helmet hits relatively easily.

The NFL will begin suspending players this week for helmet to helmet hits. What are your thoughts on this matter?

I think that helmet to helmet hits should be a personal foul; the penalty should be a 15 yard penalty or half the distance to the goal (incidental vs intentional). For flagrant violations the player should be ejected from the game.

Anyway for the weekend that led to this, the NFL handed down two $50,000 fines and one $75,000 fine.

Seriously, if you want to hit something with your helmet, run into a brick wall.

Nah, hit Los Angeles instead.

Good lawyers and accountants are few and far between. They'll charge whatever they want for their services. When you can charge what you want for your services, you're not likely to allow part of your fees to be tip based.

Increasing the minimum wage increases unemployment. Real simple equation. If an employer has X amount to spend on employees paying them at E amount each, then we have the following equation (assuming 5 employees to start with).

5E = X or perhaps better stated as X/E = 5

If E is the minimum wage and you raise the minimum wage, then you must by necessity decrease the number of employees.

So the new equation might be X/E = 4 (or maybe even X/E = 3)

Potentially even worse consequences could emerge if 5 is the minimum number of minimum wage employees that a company needs to operate. If the minimum wage increases, but the company cannot increase the money allocated to the position, then (in this situation) the company must either seek an exception or find a technological solution (mechanizing the position; thereby resulting in all 5 minimum wage employees losing their jobs) or the company shuts down and fires all its employees (potentially more than those 5 employees).

How does tipping for quality service survive when tips are expected?

15% (20% if suits and ties are required at the restaurant) is a normal tip for good service. If the service is less than good then you take percents away from the server (okay, but not good service may only get them 10%). If the service is better than good, then they get a higher percent. It would not be unusual for a great server to earn a 100% tip.

It was a halloween party...and I lost a bet the week before.

Haha, that's pretty accurate in all honesty.

Tips are not inherently amoral. As a matter of fact, I think tips are a good thing.

Servers are hired to serve a restaurant's customers and to keep the restaurant's patrons happy. A tip is the easiest way to provide near instant review of an employee. If service is very bad and all the employee gets is a penny, then the message is clear (we are flat dissatisfied with your service). On the other hand if an employee gets a 40% or higher tip, then the message is also quite clear (Great work, thank you).

You can expect to pay a tip if an employee comes to or with you to provide service. Short of that, it has to be specific cases to warrant a tip in my book.

OMG, OMG! I have seen the historic Helmet post! My life is complete! (Okay, I'm not being serious about life being complete, but it is amazing to see such a historic figure post).

http://wiki.earthempires.com/index.php/Helmet

No, I'm not SoL's Angel. She's a girl and I'm a guy; she's in SoL and I'm in Omega.

Successful netting alliances must walk a fine line between fighting too much and appearing to be weak. Some netting alliances have been more successful at this than others. I think we (in the Omega) do a pretty good job of backing our netting sets with a war set here and there to show that we will be more than others bargained for if they decide to hit us or think about it. In Omega it's our goal to get along as well as possible with everyone else.

When it comes to wars, the fighting alliances need to fight each other at least every few sets. Leave the netting alliances completely out of the equation and the netting alliances will then wage their own kind of warfare against one another. The competition for ANW/TNW can be every bit as fierce as a war.

Confirmed, SoL does not suck. SoL vs SoF would be fun to watch.

I can't speak as a parent, but my siblings and I (Since ~1990) got the vaccines that they had to offer. They prevent disease and I have not had a problem to date with vaccines.

Anyway, I'm not a parent and will therefore duck out of this thread.

All Omegans eventually come home. Lord Slayer, you are an Omegan.

Lord Slayer, just remember that our doors are always open to a member like you.

I require a bribe of $1m before contact can be made. Or you can wait until after my class and lunch and then maybe I can try to contact you. No garuntees.

I'm with Dragonlance, I prefer my dream, so I'll keep living the dream and clinging desparetly to it.

I really think that the game is ripe for a major eruption when new players start coming in. Recruit several, train them, and send them to the front line.

The powder kegs are sitting way to close to the canons. Eventually the whole thing is going to blow up.

Specifically:

-Retal policies - there are several different versions running around now...this will lead to wars if "slighted" alliances gain the numbers to begin counter-enforcement efforts.

-Aggressive Landgrabbing - new players will be more likely to landgrab aggressively and alliances with restored numbers might well decide that seeing 15 retal threads concerning one alliance justifies a war against said alliance.

-Grudges - several alliances have been hit for no reason. With additional members you might well expect to see some declarations just because they could.


If/when this game can be played from Facebook, expect a few world wars.

haha. Good luck and good going to SK.

I don't know Servant, the new players might be well disposed to insert themselves into some older alliances. You could very well see the old guard split along the dividing lines.

I suppose it depends on what kind of changes the new players want to make. With new players, older alliances will have the opportunity to actually start pushing their agendas again. Granted the new players will change the agendas to a certain extent, but there is a definitive instinct among certain alliances to work with and against particular alliances.

I really think that we're seeing enough changes in retal policy and other such matters to divide the old guard when the new players come in.

I agree with Servant. Right now every alliance is out for their own. Some are forces to be reckoned with, but if you are clear in your objectives and play an intelligent game you can generally get by.

Maybe when we get some new blood into the game we'll be able to see some coalitions and alliances leading again. Though I think that the new players will change us perhaps more than we know. If we can get more players, then we'll see some actually good conflicts again. We'll actually be fighting about something and not just fighting.

I know a couple Monks people that hang around an IRC channel, but I don't think they play right now.

Junky gets a failure for Facts of Life 101.

Gee thanks South Caroline. Just put the target on my team's back right before they head to a stadium that has given them some issues before.

Go Buckeyes! Beat Wisconsin!

Oh and Kudos to Michigan State on beating Michigan, but you are both still lousy.

Hehe, I got a vote for Worst FA.

Doesn't really bother me.

Haha, I also got two votes for Best FA.

My god I've become a politician....divisive.

Dagga, in a 1v1 battle with SoL, the Omega would probably be beaten. However, SoL is a warring alliance and despite our pretty good warring abilities, the Omega is a netgaining alliance. The suprise is less how good we are at fighting and more how much harder we are to defeat than we seemingly should be.

There can be no doubt that pound for pound there are several more tier one alliances than there are on a total strength basis.

In our war with you (SoL), our allies went hit for hit with you and we supplied breakers + more finishers. That sort of onslaught is hard to defend against. To be honest, SoL/Imag vs LCN/Fist was no more an equal fight than SoL/Imag vs LCN/Fist and SoL vs Omega. The Omega absolutely fought well in that war; frankly we fought better than we expected. That being said, there is a context in which the fight must be seen.

I don't want to get into a flaming contest with you, so hereafter I won't post anymore about that war. This is just how I assess that war.

LOL Silent Sentinel.

The Omega is Toonmega

contacts may be found at:

http://omega.earth-alliance.org/nap/contacts.php

I may also be reached at:

ICQ - 314294818
MSN -
AIM - Angel137379

/me dittos Alicia

Shinigami is in The Omega again. Very Tight race for ANW and TNW this set.

As of this post, Evo has taken a nearly $3m average NW lead.

down by 33 votes

1 vote lead for casey atm.

Maybe old, but it's funny.

How's your Supreme Court working out?

Before I forget again, Rainbow says congratulations.

Actually, on looking closely at their risk atitude part (maybe some pages before that) I noticed that the risk attitude part is just an example and not actual results. Must pay to take that test.

I even helped you do a little maintainance work on the choosing a server page.

I've been working on the "LCN/Fist/Omega vs ImagNum/SoL - June 2010" page. It's nearly complete though. Perhaps I could look some stats up and post those.

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

You are:
very expressed introvert - 78%
distinctively expressed intuitive personality - 75%
distinctively expressed thinking personality - 75%
distinctively expressed judging personality - 67%

Risk Attitudes Index:
Moderately High (75% to 85%) - 76%

Risk Type:
Inspired - 45%
Adventurer - 32%

Careers:
For Science/Technical -
Natural Science
Natural Science Education
Information Systems Specialist
Computer Programmer

For Social -
Corporate Lawyer
Librarian

Take the test and the resulting page will link you to the several other things that I mentioned.

Several people have pointed out to me that some words that I chose to use were charged, unnecessarily combative, and innappropriately insulting. Particularly when I said "Europe reared its ugly head" and when I continued to fan the flames in this thread, I went too far. In mitigation of my poor word choice, I would say that this was supposed to be a solemn thread, that 9/11 (whether you understand it or not) lies close to my heart, that people repeatedly suggested creating a different thread for debate, and that I felt provoked. It does not excuse my actions, but it does mitigate them.

I apologize for some inappropriate word choice and fanning the flames of a thread out of control. I should have considered how my words would be perceived by those that lay in the line of fire.