Yeah, the people who are nice get more work. Its pretty obvious when Directors are always casting the same actors in all their movies. How many Tim Burton Movies don't have Johnny Depp or Helena Bonham-Carter? How many Ridley Scott movies have Russel Crowe in them? On the other side, how many Steven Speilberg movies have Julia Roberts? Only one, because Speilberg Didn't get along well with Roberts.

Yeah if you're a big name Actor you'll still get work even if you're an asshole, but there will be some big name directors that will refuse to work with you. And thats not helping your career much.

The Awards shows are part of marketing the movies. If a movie wins an Oscar then it can be re-released and more people will go see it because it won an oscar. The movie studios spend a good deal of money lobbying members of the academy to vote for their movie to get an oscar so they can make this extra money. This is why they hated it when Return of the King won so many oscars because everyone had already seen it, whereas if a lesser known movie won those oscars it would mean a lot more money for that studio. But they sort of had to give a bunch of oscars to Lord of the Rings since New Line Cinema bet their studio to make it, ie. if LOTR flopped New Line would have gone bankrupt.

The awards ceremonies are just a part of marketing movies. And it works because a lot of people like to see the celebrities all dressed up (who are you wearing?) and so it gives some attention to some movies that the people who idolize the celebrities would otherwise not watch.

The Moon is capitalized because its a proper noun in this usage. In general usage we call the moon that is orbiting the Earth simply "the Moon". And since there is only one moon orbiting the Earth and it is referred to as the Moon, it is correct to capitalize it.

In the solar system there are many moons but there is only one Moon.

Uh they have RapiScan and enhanced pat-downs in Canada too. Just they ask you to go to a curtained off area of the airport to do it. Which to me seems even creepier. "Please step behind this curtain so I can see you naked or feel up your junk". The worst part is that none of the opposition parties have made any noise about this whatsoever.

It was CSIS that told the Americans that Maher Arar was a terrorist which resulted in him being tortured. And speaking of CSIS, they regularly tap people's phones without warrants. The entire point of CSIS is to spy on Canadians.

At least American citizens have some sort of protections from the likes of the CIA. Canadian citizens have no such protections and CSIS will gladly hand you over to them so you can be tortured.

Don't kid yourself, the Canadian government does whatever the US wants them to do. Read the wikileaks about Canada. Our government is a bunch of spineless cowards when dealing with the US.

I use chromium because I prefer the UI, it loads up faster, its more responsive than Firefox.

Its your opinion that Firefox is the best, and you may be shocked to find out that your opinion isn't shared by everyone. I have used Firefox previously, I tried Chrome and it worked better for me.

And since I use Chromium, I am still using a FOSS browser.

You said "almost" everyone you know. So there are some people you know that are still using IE. Of those people how many are aware that they have a choice?

Why exactly is it wrong to make people aware they have a choice?

But the Guardian Council gets to decide who is allowed to stand for election. You're a reformer? Yeah the Guardian Council says that you're not allowed to run for political office.

Iran is actually closer to how the Vatican is run. Yeah the Cardinals decide who gets to be Pope, but the Pope gets to decide who gets to be Cardinals. This ensures that there isn't going to be a new Pope with radical new ideas like allowing priests to marry, or promoting the use of condoms in Africa, even if most catholics might want the church to move in this direction.

The Iranian government isn't doing what the people of Iran want, as indicated by the protests there.

And add to that the intel the US gets from Israel and all the data about how to effectively combat asynchronous warfare tactics. This data is a lot more useful to the US if Israel is using the same weapons that the US uses.

And of course the dirty little secret of the Middle East is that most countries there like Israel. This has been confirmed by wikileaks. Israel actually does make the Middle East more stable and more democratic. Even Syria and Iran probably like having Israel around if only to distract their people about domestic problems.

For what the US gets from Israel vs. what they give to Israel, the US is getting a bargain.

Yeah I'd say India was much more democratic than the US, given all the anomalies (hanging chads?) in recent US elections, and all the influence of special interests in US politics.

The GNOME designers realised this and have a panel on the top of the screen which is always visible through which you can access all of your apps and files and folders. You can have lots of room to put app launchers across the top so you can open ythe apps you use the most in one click. There is a Places menu that lets you get to your most used folders in two clicks.

And everyone complains its bad UI design because its not like windows or MacOS.

uh yeah saying "don't take away my incandescent light bulb" is just another form of nimbyism. You're unwilling to change something about where you live despite the fact that it is needed for the greater good. Whether its resisting a new power plant in your backyard or resisting changing your light bulbs inside your home, its the same attitude.

Around here (Canada) if the officer doesn't show the case is dismissed. I have a relative who has it all figured out. You go to court and someone will call out your name and ask if you're there. They aren't calling your case yet, just asking if you're there. When they ask the first time say nothing. When they ask the second time they are actually calling you're case so then you go in and you see the officer isn't there and the case is dismissed. See the reason they ask the first time is because if you're there they'll call the police officer and tell him to come into court. If you say nothing they don't call him. They still have to call your case and thats why they ask the second time.

Yeah its like the Bank of Canada or any of the other central banks that almost every single currency in the world has. Teabaggers seem to think inflation is evil and that all money should be backed by gold because otherwise their money could be worth money at some point. Of course this ignores the fact that even if the US treasury could acquire all of the gold in the world they still wouldn't have enough to equal the value of all the US dollars in the world. Which means that to go back to the gold standard the US would have to devalue the dollar or start mining asteroids for gold to get enough to back all their dollars. They also ignore the fact that if you owe money then inflation is good for you. And they also ignore that unless you keep your entire savings under your mattress, you probably have your money invested in something else, you're not affected by inflation.

I guess its an american thing where there are a lot of people fantasize about living alone in a remote area with a bunch of cash (which is backed by gold) in a safe and a bunch of guns around to defend it from bandits. Of course the reality is that most people have a mortgage and a car loan and the current system benefits the majority of the people in the US. But since it doesn't work well for their fantasy frontiersman, they feel the need to go on the internet (while sitting in their mortgaged house) and proclaim how the federal reserve is ruining their lives. In fact its likely making their lives better, but its ruining their fantasy life so fuck that.

Sort of like how in one state the government put it to a referendum that they should lower taxes for the poor and raise taxes for the rich. The poor voted against it (meaning they were voting against lowering taxes for themselves) because in their fantasy they are rich and don't want the rich to have to pay more taxes.

I don't get it. The American Dream is one thing but when it becomes the American Fantasy World it becomes very bizarre.

Yeah because things were sooo much better when inflation was determined by the amount of gold that miners could pull out of the earth in a given year OR how much gold your military could take from other countries' treasuries. I mean having inflation set consciously by educated people who are attempting to increase the public good is totally stupid and goes against our FRREEEEDDDOMMMMMSS.

Exactly how is it different to have monetary policy controlled by a rich elite vs. having the gold supply controlled by a rich elite? And you do realize that inflation goes against the best interest of the rich elite, don't you? The rich have wealth and inflation decreases the value of that wealth does it not? While if you have a mortgage and a car loan, inflation decreases the value of the money you owe. It seems to me that this huge conspiracy of the banks to have inflation is one of the stupidest conspiracies of all time. They are making the money that people owe them worth less.

Or maybe, just maybe, they are setting monetary policy in such a way to keep the economy stable. Nah, that doesn't make any sense, they must be making money worth less (which hurts themselves) to screw us all over somehow.

yeah but pachinko is more about gambling than playing a game. Even though gambling is technically illegal in Japan the pachinko shops are allowed to give prizes (cute little toys and the like) which you can then sell just outside the shop.

But yeah there are lots of arcades in Japan, especially in Akihabara.