CP3S

Yes he is. That is what I mean, the two English guys continually make themselves sound like racist hillbillies from the sticks.

imperialscum said:

darth_ender said:

Or do you consider multiple chemical attacks on his own Kurdish citizens to be the actions of a responsible leader?

Do you remember what was happening to Native Americans throughout your country's history? That makes Saddam look like a good boy.

And where exactly did those people who were killing the Native Americans come from, imperialscum? They were Europeans. Their offspring just carried on the trend. The British Empire has a rich history of being incredibly shitty at times, so lets ditch the historic high ground argument. It just makes you sound foolish.

We're all sons of bitches.

This divisiveness between us all in this thread is getting annoying. Being perhaps my favorite location on the planet, I tend to romanticize the U.K. quite a bit. I often condemn the US education system (which has become utter shit) and praise public education in other parts of the world, including that of England, as being far superior. You guys are making me look bad! Darth Ender and Bingo are about the only two in here showing much sign of brain activity in their posts. The absolute worst traits I loath of my fellow Americans, have been shining dazzlingly from Hey and imperialscum; while guys like Fink and TheBoost have been displaying the very traits and attitudes that have made me come to accept and love my home country.

Warbler said:

Do not give me that crap... Japan wanted to surrender under a condition to keep the Emperor. You bombed their cities to test the effects of the bomb on real population and to show off in front of USSR. Then after you bombed them you let them keep the Emperor... So much about the "unacceptable" condition...

now THAT is bullshit.

Well, actually... Nah, let's not get into it...

imperialscum said:

Warbler said:

imperialscum said:

Oh you thought he had weapons of mass destruction. So what if he did (he didn't anyway)? You have weapons of mass destruction.

some nations can be trusted with wmds,  Iraq under Saddam was not one of them. 

And you will be the judge of that?

You Americans are every bit as stupid and arrogant as people usually say you are. No offence.

Fuck you. No offense.

doubleofive said:

E3 and this thread is on Page 2?!

So how about them apples? Microsoft made a huge mistake going first, I think.

As a non-pirate who doesn't deal in used games who is always online, I didn't have a problem with what they were planning with XBO, but Sony laid it down.

As for the price difference, remember that the Sony version of Kinect is sold separately at about $70 and Sony owns Blu-ray, so they probably give themselves a discount.

There has been so much news regarding video games as of late, I think a lot of us have been discussing it more in the real world leaving less desire to talk about it here. I know that is the case for me, usually I don't talk gaming much at all in real life, but lately it seems the topic of the next gen and current developments have been coming up a lot in conversation lately.

I've been a pretty big Xbox "fanboy" the last few years, because the 360 is a truly great system, I find my PS3 being used for very little more than playing BD movies and streaming TV shows and music from my computer. I have very little desire to play games on it, gaming just feels a lot better on my 360. At times it has been tempting to switch over to my PS3 for online multiplayer games to save money on my XB Live, but I still find myself grabbing the 360 versions. However, the PS4 is shaping up to look pretty solid. I have a feeling that if I buy another console in the next few years, it'll be a PS4. For now, I feel like my current systems have a lot of life left in them, there are still a lot of great games out there I have yet to touch, and there will still be new titles on the way for a little while yet. 

CP3S said:

Anybody play State of Decay yet? It looks pretty amazing. Thinking about buying it, it is only $20. Trying to figure out if I can justify an extra twenty bucks on video games this month, since I am going to be blowing $60 on The Last of Us next week.

So, less than an hour after posting this I broke down and bought it. Only had a chance to play a little here and there before today. Whoa, this is one of the best games I've played in a long time. It is almost hard to believe it is a $20 Xbox arcade game and not a full sixty dollar title. 

I think I am even going to hold off on The Last of Us for a few weeks, since I am enjoying this one so much. It is probably hands down the best zombie game I've ever played. It has so many little features that I have always lamented zombie games of the past not having. I also love and hate that there are real consequences in the game, taking your favorite character out on a supply run and nearly losing them forever makes you really think hard about what you are doing. Every time you die and lose someone, it feels like a real loss.

Perhaps I am just a bit dense, but I am having a difficult time figuring out exactly what you are trying to say. So I am going to break it down into tiny bites, to try to digest it.

No I'm not reading too much into it as you say. The shallowly,media driven world means next to fuck all regarding what the military gets up to.

Okay, so I guess this is still regarding the conference room photo. Its existence seems to indicate to you that the whole death of Bin Laden has something fishy going on behind it, or did I misread that?

Yes, the shallow media driven world does mean fuck all next to what the military actually gets up to. We don't even know the half of it. But a historic event like the death of Bin Laden is to become public information, and is going to sell a lot of papers and generate a lot of buzz, a picture for the occasion seems reasonable enough. I don't see the issue?

I am sure you are trying to make some kind of a point here, but it is going way over my head. :(  Some smaller words perhaps, or better yet, some bigger ones.

This isn't/wasn't a Hollywood motion picture, or tabloid press exclusive. This was a Military operation. Give me an example of a relative Military op where I can gauge some kind of relation to it. 

I am having a hard time deciphering that last sentence. You want an example of a related military operation so that you can measure some kind of relation to it???

Are seriously asking for a similar military operation where the press took staged photos in order to have something to print in the papers along with the story, as if this is something ridiculous and unheard of? That is probably not at all what you are asking, like I said, I am having some difficulties here.

Hey, it's me. said:

The point clearly is its a secret government/military operation. Where's the need for a picture of the President et al looking involved and concerned?

We live in a shallowly media driven world. The need for the picture was so there would be something to put on newspapers, and later in history textbooks. Seems like the answer is pretty obvious. 

It isn't a big deal, there is really no benefit or harm to such a thing. Such things really have been the norm since long before you or I were born. You're reading way too much into it.

Warbler said:

if he is not really dead, how he hasn't announced that he is still alive?    Surely he would have loved to make fools of us by shooting "ha! ha! I am still alive! you didn't get me!"  yet there have been no videos of him after it was announced that he was dead.  

also they did DNA tests on him and confirmed it was him.

CP3S, I have never heard you question the story of his death, why are you doing so now?

If you remember, years ago I used to always argue that the man was probably already dead.

And I've expressed my skepticism regarding his death here before. I don't really necessarily think there is a conspiracy or anything involved. I just feel that we can't really know for sure. No evidence has been provided other than the word of men who have been known to lie. Yes, THEY did a DNA test on him, who is they and can they be trusted? If they can be trusted, is the source of the DNA dependable? Or the source of the DNA it was being compared to trustworthy?

Bottom line is, I don't really care. It isn't that big of a deal, and I have never considered that one man the human superpower so many Americans visioned him as. His death was of very little consequence. Had that event never happened, the shape of the world would likely be exactly the same, only with Obama having one less line on his resume for the 2012 election, and with people occasionally talking about how much they wish we could find and kill the bastard.

He didn't single handedly carry out 9/11, whether or not he actually masterminded it or not is even a bit of a question. All this data came to us during the same time period that the CIA discovered WMDs in Iraq. Not a shred of evidence suggests those nukes ever existed. They also told us about networks of massive underground complexes hidden in the mountains, going several stories deep and containing all sorts of luxuries and technology. None of these complexes have ever been found, not a single photo exists. Such a structure would be a massive undertaking, requiring A LOT of manual labor. Surely with all the money that was offered by the US government for Bin Laden and information about him, we would have had a laborer or two, or at least a disgruntled henchmen, come out and point us in the direction of one of these complexes.

I'm sorry, it is a cool story, but I just don't find the sources of this information to be very reliable, and the lack of solid evidence to any of it isn't exactly surprising, but it is enough to make me take all of it with a grain of salt.

Hey, it's me. said:

darth_ender said:

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/313.php

Most Iranians were not fond of him.

According the following link, it looks like he maintained a limited working relationship...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beliefs_and_ideology_of_Osama_bin_Laden#Jews.2C_Christians.2C_and_Shia_Muslims

...but he certainly considered them heretical, and I doubt he would have been content to live among them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden#Beliefs_and_ideology

And in spite of the official stance of the Iranian government, many Iranians are pro-US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93United_States_relations#Divide_between_public_opinion_and_state_policy

Yes I am listening to Darth Ender but the issue your avoiding is no matter the conflict between the two divisions of the Muslim faith, America and the West is the common enemy. IF many Iranians are pro-US as you put it (hard to believe considering Israel) Bin Laden being amongst them would've been refuted by ALL due to him being a MUSLIM despite all else. You seem to underestimate the sheer hatred these people have of the West.

Ender said it best when he said,

darth_ender said:

I'm not just talking out my backside here.  You're just speculating.

He provides links to support what he is saying, and you write off those links and his points with a simple, "You seem to underestimate the sheer hatred these people have of the West."

I spent several years living in a predominantly Muslim country, I had many good Islamic friends that I spent time with regularly. I actually lived there during 2001, and while I had several violent encounters following September of that year and the beginning of the campaign in Afghanistan, my Muslim friends were extremely saddened by the event. A few of them even had friends and relatives in New York and were absolutely terrified for the safety of their loved ones the day it happened.

My previous room mate (as of just four months ago) was an immigrant Muslim, and besides being a little uptight and perturbed by my morally loose lifestyle, he and I got along well and would frequently have some pretty good conversation during afternoon tea.

I've seen this hate of which you speak, I've been a victim of it, and I've been forced to react in ways I wish I hadn't had to because of it. But I have also not seen it this hate, and have shared some very good memories with people from countries that, according to you, ought to have nothing but hatred for me.

Warbler said:

Mrebo said:

 I think Bush was right that bin Laden wasn't the that important a target

tell that to the friends and family members of the 3000 people he murdered(not to mention the friends and family member of people that died in other attacks like on the USS Cole).

Well, I am sure the friends and family members of the 3000 that died have heard it, and if they haven't they can read it here and in many other places.

While we are at it, let's tell the more than 3000 dead civilians and non-military casualties of these two wars that while their loss was regrettable, it was a necessary sacrifice in order to bring justice to Bin Laden. Unfortunately, we have no way to get this information to them, being as they are dead and all. Hopefully they understand and were cool with it.

Hey, it's me. said:

So something as momentous as that operation is only worthy of a conference room? Was the the actual Situation Room busy at the time with something more important? 

I agree with a lot of what you and Bingo have been saying. First, Bin Laden was a has been, and I feel like at that point he served his cause better as a martyr than as a living breathing bag of bones. Second, the whole thing is a bit sketchy. As a naturally very skeptical sort of person, I need more than Obama getting in front of the TV cameras and essentially saying, "Who's a badass? THIS GUY!"

So where is he? Oh, we killed him! Where's the body? Oh, yeah, um, we gave him a proper burial at sea, in accordance with his religious beliefs. So, do we have photographs of him being detained by US forces? No, we killed him straight away, he resisted. So, do we have photographs of the body? Eww! No! That's disgusting and inappropriate, you sick bastard! Okay then, that settles it, clearly we got him! USA, USA, USA!!!

However, I can't for the living life of me figure out what point you are trying to make with this situation room thing. I'm not even sure if you know what point you are trying to make with it. The situation room Obama and Biden are in looks like an HR office, rather than some crazy badass room I'd expect to see in movies, therefore I smell something fishy... Oh, well it is one of the situation room's conference rooms. Ah ha! If they really got Bin Laden, surely they would have used the real situation room rather than one of its conference rooms!

As if Obama and Biden wouldn't be allowed to use the real situation room for a staged fake. Sorry guys, we've got real government stuff going on in here at the moment, if you want to fake this thing to help you win the next election you guys can setup in-- here, let me check my clipboard and see what's open-- Ah, yeah, you can setup in conference room seven over there."

Burdokva said:

To be honest, I'd be glad if Wedge was not a Jedi. I'm tired of lightsabers, robes and the Force (yes, I know I'm a minority), and of the things the PT desperately lacked was central (or even good supporting) characters who were not Jedi or Sith.

We do not need another such trilogy...

Also, pilots are way cooler than Jedi. Proof?

Han Solo and Wedge Antilles.

;)

I'm with you, Jedi and the force are a pretty cool concept. But I like them in the way I like wizards in fantasy, if every character is a wizard, they aren't as interesting anymore. What is so cool about Gandalf if Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas are all lesser wizards themselves, while Frodo and Sam are future wizards in training potentially being led astray by the evil petty wizard Golem? That sounds like an absolutely awful story.

In the video game Dark Forces the character Kyle Katarn was conceived as kind of a James Dean looking low brow James Bond in space. I really liked this character, he had a lot that made him interesting on his own. For the sequel, they pretty much gave him the exact same back story that Luke originally had, his Jedi Knight father was murdered by an evil Sith Lord, with his father's old lightsaber in hand he must set out to learn the ways of the force, like his father before him, and eventually destroy the Sith Lord. Now instead of being an interesting character on his own, it became almost impossible not to see him as a hard to believe silly hybrid of the characters of Luke and Han.

Warbler said:

It sent a message to anyone else thinking of f___ing with us. "you attack the United States, we will come after you and make you pay... in ten years time."

What a queer thread this is...

Dude! HOW CAN YOU COMPARE MCDONALD'S TO PIZZA HUT!!!!!!!1 Pizza Hut actually sells food, where as McDonald's sells... uh... what the hell does that place sell?

CONSIDER YOURSELF INGNORED BINGO!!!!!

Hey, it's me. said:

Meaning that if you were to experience the Muslim and immigration problem in London with your own eyes and live within it for years you wouldn't be so trigger happy to label someone as a racist for questioning it. 

Can you explain to us the problem, then we might better understand.

What have your own eyes seen that is so troubling? So far, the most grievous offenses you've complained about involve street signs in Arabic and people not learning English. There must be more to it than that.

What are some ways the Muslim Problem has inconvenienced your life?

Bingowings said:

So while a large number may not see it as necessary it could be argued to be the right thing to do and as Warb reminds us the USA's default setting is to strive to do the right thing even if it sometimes fails.

Liberated from the black stuff the USA could have a better foreign policy and individuals will pay less for moving from one place to another. They would be able to tap almost limitless almost pollutant free energy and fly hot air balloons into space.

Okay, but as I've already explained, even an elaborate and extensive public transportation system wouldn't free us from the black stuff, and it would make us pay more for moving from one place to another.

I don't know why I am carrying on this conversation. You make very brilliant points sometimes, but you typically rely on whimsy for your arguments, and you keep repeating the same things in different ways even though I have already addressed them.

Bingowings said:

CP3S said:

The United States is a big place, and it is very spread out. You could fit the land mass of the entire U.K. into the U.S. thirty-seven times. You could take every populated portion of the U.K. (that is all cities, towns, and settlements), and squeeze them into the state of Oregon.

And yet the population of Oregon is just shy of 4 million and the population of the UK is just shy of 63 million.

That makes for a much more tangled mass of fibres and much more power demand per square inch of land.

Are you really saying we are better at infrastructure engineering than the US?

No. What I am trying to say is that you have a lot of people densely packed into a small amount of space, while we have a ridiculously vast amount of space sparsely populated by people. Long stretches of nothing expand for hundreds of miles between major cities, long stretches of nothing covered in rivers, lakes, mountains, deserts, and forests.

Yeah, Bingo, we put men on the moon, and I am sure if we really wanted to we could make an impressive nation wide public transit system. The point is, it is a whole lot of effort, resources, expense, etc. and it still wouldn't be very useful to us, because we are spread out into all sorts of little nooks and crannies across a vast area of space.

I'm not sure why my points about public transportation not working as well in the U.S. is getting seemingly defensive comments from Hey, It's Me regarding Europe being more diverse than we'll ever be (of course a continent filled with numerous countries is going to be more diverse than a single country), and contrasting our population size to Europe's. 

That last one reenforces exactly what I am trying to say. Lots of space, few people. Why build a complex transit system when roads and cars will do the trick? The way our country was laid out, automobiles are essential.

If you treated each state as a small country you could using a modular approach install a better public transport system than any European country serving the whole of the United State, because in large areas you would be starting from scratch. Not having to fill in or dig around structures left over from Roman times.

But why? The whole thing would make no sense. And we don't have a lot of flat land like many parts of Europe, we have to blast through or go around mountains and other obstacles that are much more challenging than left over ruins of prior civilizations.

Damn, you Brits are a defensive bunch.

imperialscum said:

Let me tell you this. I have travelled a lot around Europe and nowhere I have seen things as they are in USA. For example in most of the areas of the large cities you cannot feel safe because you are white. People look at you like you don't belong there. Never I have seen such a contrast between poor and rich (maybe in South Africa). Such misery in general and hostile society. The America you described only exists in Hollywood films.

There no place or street in my country that I would not feel safe to go to (except for maybe a few gypsy cramp).

I think a lot of this has to do with you being an outsider in an unfamiliar place.

Not feeling safe in most areas of larger cities because you are white? What?! I'm white and have spent a good deal of time in large cities in the U.S. and have never really felt particularly threatened in general. All big cities have parts of town that aren't particularly safe at night, this isn't just the case in the U.S.

Such misery in general and hostile society? What the hell kind of slum ghettos or prisons were you visiting while you were here? Sure, contrast between rich and poor. I live in a very cheap crummy apartment that isn't exactly in one of the best parts of town, and I love the hell out of it (though I don't currently live in a particularly large city at the moment, population 182,000, I get the distinct feeling you wouldn't feel very safe in my neighborhood on account of your whiteness). My neighbors are generally happy and friendly people too. I went with a friend house sitting a few months ago and found myself in a lavish mansion. Yeah, there is a big contrast there. The lifestyles of the people my friend was house sitting for and the lifestyle my friend and I hold are polar opposites. While we don't have excess money to waste on in ground swimming pools in our backyards or have pretentious European sports cars in our garages, we're clothed, fed, paying rent, happy, and living very comfortable lives. 

When I lived in Detroit I rented a place in a slummy part of town, and I felt much the same way (though the reverse racism was pretty alienating at times), my neighbors were awesome, friendly, and very accepting of me once they got to know me. My neighbors and I weren't living in luxury there, but we had full tummies, cable television, roofs over our heads, and probably laughed and smiled more often than those yuppies living over in the ritzy suburb of Birmingham.

You realize that by saying the America Warbler described only exists in Hollywood films, you're essentially making the bold claim that you know what the United States is really like better than someone who has lived here his whole life, based on the fact that you've dropped by for a visit. Hopefully everyone can see how very silly that is. That is exactly like me trying to tell Hey, It's Me and the other English users here that their perception of England is all wrong based on my extended stays in London.

Bingowings said:

Go build a public transport system then and plow some of the money recouped from taxation of the enormous workforce into rebuilding the dollar everyone seem to be distancing themselves from by dumping stocks at the moment.

I'm getting that you don't understand the current economic issues of the United States at all.

It might be practical at the moment to drive your car on an awesome highway but if the oil is in the hands of people who don't want to give it to you cheaply what do you do?

It is practical right now. And it will continue to be. Currently we can obtain oil from other countries cheaper than we can drill it ourselves. If that changes, then we'll start drilling. We have a virtually untouched supply of oil within our own borders that would allow our country to maintain self sufficiency for well beyond the point fossil fuels are expected to be needed. Meanwhile, advancements in alternative energies and electric motors continue to improve year by year. The reason why hybrids and electric cars are so unaffordable at the moment is because the relatively small number of them on the market right now are carrying the burden of billions of dollars in research and development. As they continue to become more popular, prices will drop and more affordable and competitively priced models will begin flooding the market.

Within the next fifteen to twenty years, America's interest in foreign oils will be a thing of the past. We may even find ourselves a major world supplier of the stuff, as oil in the Persian Gulf continues to dry up. 

How far do you go for this practical awesomeness and how does the rest of the world look at you once you have gone there?

Personally, I feel like the United States really needs to draw out of the Middle East entirely. The benefits of America securing those regions and forcing stability spreads far wider than our shores, China is perhaps the nation benefiting the most from this, followed by the rest of East Asia. Screw the Straight of Hormuz, we don't need it.

If the rest of the world looks at us with disapproving eyes now, I can only imagine how much sharper those spiteful glares will turn if we are to wisen up and withdraw any and all American military presence out of the Middle East. It is costing us a lot of tax dollars, and it is benefiting us almost zilch.

Anyway, the idea of increasing public transportation in the U.S. is naive and silly. We don't need it. We wouldn't use it. It wouldn't work. Our cities have been built around the highway system. The decision was made long ago, and now we are locked in. Something like an interstate rail system linking major cities from one side of the country to the other would be pretty awesome! I'd use it. But it would be very expensive, it would take lifetimes to recover the costs if this was to be done by travel fare, otherwise it would be prohibitively expensive to those such a system would benefit the most. If you had that kind of money, you'd simply just fly or drive from NYC to LA and save yourself a lot of money and get there in a fraction of the time. The costs would probably fall to government subsidies, making the whole thing a huge tax burden. As far as being better for the environment, the construction of such a system would create an extremely sizable footprint. We're much better off waiting for our electric cars and maintaining the highway system we've already got.

The United States is a big place, and it is very spread out. You could fit the land mass of the entire U.K. into the U.S. thirty-seven times. You could take every populated portion of the U.K. (that is all cities, towns, and settlements), and squeeze them into the state of Oregon.

Bingowings said:

I have been to America and used the bus, the trains, taxi cabs and the subway in and around New York state (it was 1992 so maybe things have got worse).

I'd imagine that would be more difficult way out in isolated communities but there is always room for improvement.

Maybe some could resurrect Detroit's transport Empire by using it as a hub for re-building and improving the public transport system of the nation.

How much do you think the rest of the U.S. is like New York? The whole state of New York is a tiny speck of a place, and it is very densely populated. This means short stretches of travel distances servicing very high volumes of people. I really don't think you are as well informed on most things as you tend to like to think you are.

Things haven't gotten worse public transportation wise since 1992, such a thing simply hasn't existed for the most part before or since then. These "isolated communities" of which you speak are not isolated. They are major U.S. cities tied together by the interstate highway system, home to populations of hundreds of thousands of people.

There is no "rebuilding and improving" the public transit system of the nation, there never has been such a thing to start. Most Cities in the U.S. just have a  limited bus system. Building a viable public transportation system in the United States would be a truly enormous task, the cost would be astronomical, and upkeep and maintenance would also be prohibitively expensive.

A train from London to Paris is absolutely peanuts in comparison to the magnitude practical public transportation systems would have to be in most cities. Meanwhile, we have an awesome highway system and automobiles and travel via automobile is extremely inexpensive and far more practical.

Bingowings said:

At the moment petrol cars are only needed for rural communities cut off from public transport. If you gave back the amount of money people spend on their cars and oil based power generation there wouldn't be a financial crisis.

Obviously you have never been to my country. Here, public transport is a rare luxury reserved for large over packed cities, or something that provides smelly poor people a very limited means of getting from their ghettos to only the more popular parts of their smaller towns/cities and back again.

The majority of the U.S. is cut off from public transportation. There is no option for public transport from where I live to where I work, and if I were to bike it, it would take me several hours to get to work everyday.

If I had it my way, I'd live in a place where I could get everywhere I need to go via public transport and bicycle. As it is, I'd probably rather die than lose my car. It is almost literally my livelihood and my sanity. Without it I couldn't earn money to live, and I'd feel crippled, boxed in and trapped to the point I'd lose my mind and/or become suicidal. 

I agree that fossil fuels need to go. Better option are being developed, and eventually will be affordable and viable enough for us to chuck their usage. I am all about seeing their usage become a thing of the past. However, the current world financial crises is much more complex, our dependency on fossil fuels only account for a very small portion of that issue. You seem to act as if it is the crux of the problem.

Hey, it's me. said:

CP3S said:

TheBoost said:

Hey, it's me. said:

TheBoost said:

Hey, it's me. said:

And this is where the conflict stems from. Western Europe has increasingly become a more secular society over the years. The majority don't need religion to tell them how to live their lives. We've moved on. They don't like the way we live? Then stay in their own fucking country. That's all it boils down to.

The "way we live" is itself a troubling statement that can pretty much be used to justify anything, and oppress anyone.

So would you prefer to live under the rules of a western democracy, or under a Sharia controlled dictatorship? And make no mistake, Sharia Law is a dictatorship. Make your choice. The UK or Saudi Arabia?

Your false dichotomy is truly ridiculous.Truly, truly ridiculous.

 

Gaaaah! There really are lessons to be learned and precautions to be taken here. Unfortunately, you have one side that is far too willing to sit back and say, "What's good for the goose is good for the gander", like Bingo. While the other side makes ridiculous claims and drags it too far in the other direction.

Guys with views like Hey It's Me's makes guys with similar opinions to me on the subject look like loonies because we all get categorized together. 

So my opinion is that of a lunatic?

No. Not really. But I think you are a bit extreme and hardlined in some of your views.

Today I stopped by a gas station, I was in line behind an Indonesian woman, and behind me was a bald guy with a beard and a gold cross around his neck. Typical redneck. The Indonesian woman was buying a pack of smokes and a bag of chips, and her fiver was a few cents to short. She told the shop keeper that she had to run to her car to grab some extra change (which is the point that I got in line behind her, had I known what was going on before hand I would have gladly covered the amount she was short), the clerk set her stuff aside and said, "Okay, I'll save this stuff for you while you get the change from your car", but she insisted that she needed to go ahead and buy the cigarettes and she'd come back for the chips in a second. Since he'd already rung up the stuff he had to process a refund, not sure why, I have no idea how that cash register shit works. Her English was broken, but she seemed to speak it well enough. As soon as she walked out the door the man behind me started cursing and said, "You know, as far as I am concerned if they aren't willing to learn our goddam language, they can just get the fuck out."

The points you are arguing are typically the points I am used to hearing come from people like that worthless asshole that was behind me in line at that gas station. Personally, I'd rather keep that elderly Indonesian woman and have guys like him get the fuck out of my country. Unfortunately, I live in a state where people from Indonesia are rare, and guys like him are everywhere. 

I don't know you, Hey, It's Me. I don't know if you are a lunatic or not. So far, I have rather enjoyed your presence here. But, with many of the views you've expressed here so far (besides the firearm issue and your view on religion in general), I'd probably take you for a southern white American conservative if I weren't aware of what country you live in. In my country, they are the ones that freak out about signs being in foreign languages and fearmonger about anything and everything that aren't part of the culture they were raised with (like dudes in dresses, people that don't speak English well, and people who practice religions that don't circle around Jesus).

That being said, I thrive off of hearing views that greatly differ from my own, and I see them as opportunities for personal growth and education. Sometimes it is the closest I can get to being inside someone elses head. As I have told Warbler, sometimes these other points of view have gone along ways in making me rethink and reshaping my perspective.

(And yes, Warbler, I don't think I got around to responding to your post on that topic, but yes, you absolutely have caused me to rethink many things over the years of having these discussions with you; sometime this rethinking has caused me to change my perspective, and other times it has contributed to further cementing the views I already held. I know we disagree a lot, and sometimes I can be kind of a dick in the way I present my opinions, but I value your views and I feel they have contributed greatly to opening up my mind on many issues).

Leonardo has the right idea. Try another monitor to see if it is the screen or the video card. I see no possible way your laptop could damage any external monitor you connect to it.

If the flickering reacts to moving the screen around or bumping it, then it may be a lose connection. If you are mechanically inclined, and the thing isn't under warranty anymore, you could take it apart far enough to find the connector for the screen and see if it is seated right. Laptops are kind of like onions when you take them apart, there is layer after layer of pieces you have to unscrew and remove to get to the next layer of pieces to unscrew and remove. Fortunately, the place where the screen connects is usually one of the top layers.

However, if you have doubts about your ability to take it apart or put it back together, I wouldn't mess with it. My old HP laptop (can't remember the model) had some horizontal lines that would flicker throughout the screen. When I opened or closed the screen this flickering would get worse, sometimes just tapping the back of the lid or jolting the thing would cause the flicker to start, which led me to believe it was a lose connection. Taking it apart, unfastening the ribbon that connected the screen to the motherboard, then reconnecting it fixed the problem for me.