MTG Salvation

The video does have a bias yes, but Overall I am much more inclined to agree with Hayek then Keynes. I'm not quite as extreme as Hayek, but I do think that alot of the economic problems we do have comes from to much corporatism wich in turn comes from too much government interference. Government interference into buisniss should be limited to climate taxes, making it easy for small/new corporations and taking care of consumer rights (preventing monopolies and such). Theese are important areas and doesn't open up to as much corporatism as alot of the other types of regulations do.

So I haven't really played magic in a couple of years. When I played properly last time Lorwyn was the big new thing. So I don't have a clue about the current T2 Metagame. Now, I am going to read around here a bit but I was hoping that someone could give me a status update of sorts. I used to be a good player and I know the basics, but I am mostly for fun trying out a last chance qualifier for the nationals in my country on Saturday. Its a sealed deck constructed.

What I would like to know is:

What new rules/complicated abilities are there that I need to know of?

How are colour combinations in the current T2 sealed?

I know the basics about playing limited, but is there anything special (cards, combos, colours, etc) that I should be aware of and is different for this meta?

So yeah, I really would appreciate the help. I don't expect to actually qualify, but considering I used to be a good player it would be cool to not make a complete ass off myself

oh and btw: For those newcomers that doesn't recognize me I used to be a global mod/T2 Mod/Clan Mod on these forums

Chewing tobbaco is definitely NOT better for someone to use than cigarretes. They put plexiglass shards in with it so that it cuts your mouth and gives you a direct to bloodstream nicotine rush and there is a significantly higher possibility of various types of mouth cancer. Also IMHO a little smoke is a lot less nasty than someone spitting smelly nasty gobs of brown s*** all over the place.

You really believe that? I can't speak for the US, but here that has been a common myth that has been proven false again, and again over the last decades.
Also, as far as the cancer goes there have been questions about this but in countries like sweden where this is very normal to use there have been done ALOT of research on it over the last decades, both long and short term and they still have not managed to find a proper good link between cancer and chewing tobacco.

I to find it nastier, but it is better healthwise and the people that use it doesn't seem to mind much. And spitting it on the ground is ofcourse not ok. Not many people do that here though. Garbage bins are everywhere.

The anti-smoking ads themselves here has usually been about showing you what happens to the bodies of smokers. Ofcourse most often the lungs. Also there are large health warnings on all cigarette packs and there is alot of information campaigns both in school and on tv.

I haven't seen the ones that you are speaking about, but the last 10 years alot of anti-smoking campaigns have been done here in Norway and to great effect. Smoking is down by about 50% (from 50% of the population to 25). Some have just quit and others have startet using chewed tobacco instead (less harmfull to themselves and certainly less harmfull to others).

While I do think it is a completely ok change and not an inheritabely bad one I do miss it. I like being able to use my rules knowledge to do combat tricks and now that is somewhat more limited. Oh well, it is still magic

Then waste no time and kill yourself!

That is not what it is about. Having that kind of philosophy doesn't mean that youre gonna try anything anytime, but its about trying to live a life where you are open to new things and rather then sitting there at old age regretting all the things you didn't try when you were young you instead feel it is ok to regret some things you have done.

I really never thought I would have to explain that to anyone, but there you go.

ontopic: Why would you spend money on tatoos when you can buy a bike and ride it. Or buy food and eat it/give it to some1 in need. Or donate to charity. Or do anything that is actually useful INSTEAD of being a walking AD. Tatoos are SO last century. That talk 'I did it so I feel good.' is bs. Do you take drugs also? They also make you feel good. They are also expensive and do nothing good for you.

That is quite the backward view on life. People have hobbies, they have things that make them happy. I spend lots of my money on "useless" things like magic, D&D, boardgames, music, movies and other enterntainment. I also like to buy nice stuff for my apartment, buy cool clothes, buy art, etc. I also think that bodies with tatoos can look very nice and I want to make my body look nice with tatoos as well. It's just as "useless" as most other things people choose to spend their money on but it is what makes them happy. Right now I am saving up to a new TV, a bike and a tatoo. All things that I look forward to having.

Yeah see thats one of the BIG problems with our culture... I have conspiracy theories on this.

Basically the American economy=COMPLETELY about consumerism.

Any US welfare program has limits on savings(retirement is not counted in this since you paid in for it). Disability/medical services have a 2-3k savings limit. In fact my fiancee is disabled and had a savings account when she was younger. They talked about taking her off SSI because your are expected to spend everything they send you within 3 months of receiving it(basically its being used as stimulus). What i believed happened is that while the amount you receive monthly is pegged to inflation, they dont peg the amount of resources you can own to inflation so we are still working on a decade or two ago what was a good sized savings account, whereas now 2k isnt ****.

Well yes that is a problem. Here we are encouraged to save money and I believe that is one the reasons our economy is reasonably stable in this international financial crisis. We have an economy that encourages saving up money for for example buying a house. A government program called BSU gives youth a way to save money to buy a house. As a bonus for saving money through this program they get tax cuts of 20% of their savings and when they use the money to buy a house they get very good interest rates.

Also generally people who are turned down are disabled. Disabled are all covered through another medical program.

As far as I understood it you could get turned down or at least get a limited plan because of some disease you had before or similar. I have arthritis, add and bipolar myself and as far as I understand I would not get insurance.

Pretty much if you make sub 25k a year you will qualify for medicare..

Couple of restrictions like not being allowed to have 2-3k in savings etc

But what about the people that are turned down insurance from insurance companies? Are they gonna never be able to save money?

The common argument against it involves favoring a multiplicity of competing solutions over one monolithic one. Personally I don't see any reason why a publicly-funded one shouldn't exist, at least as a back-up plan for people who can't afford really good health-care. But actually a state-by-state system of public healthcare could probably do much better, since you would then have fifty different policies being tried at once. If one or two states' programs proved to be extremely popular, then more states would adopt those policies and you'd have a generally better system.

This is true. However, the big problem I see is all the private hospitals you have. We have more or less only public hospitals and this lets us keep the wages of doctors at a high, but not extraordinarily so level. When you private hospitals the wages get pushed up there and the good doctors leaves for private hospitals. This leads to a large gap between the standard of public healthcare and private healtcare.

Well, it's not the Great Depression and probably on paper we could raise taxes and it wouldn't be a problem, but a "tax increase" scares a lot of people (unreasonably, IMO) and so it wouldn't pass.

One way to circumvent this is to not make a net increase but to first strip away existing, unnecessary programs or taxes, reappropriate money, etc. Housecleaning, in other words.

It might not be a great depression because the economy isn't that bad, but the debt part is huger then ever before.

War would, in all likelihood, break out. The question is whether it would be a civil war, or a retaliation against China, or both. It doesn't cost that much money to push the big red button.

True, true. My point was more along the lines of neither thing happening because of the threat of it happening. Trade, economics and debt is more or less destroying the usefullness of a large military. Standard warfare is rare to say the least between industrialized nations. Conflicts are mostly minor and usually best solved by coallition forces.

But are you Pirates? Image is everything.

Perhaps I should dress like a pirate when I go voulenteering at the campaign booths

Congratulations, you just used very particular assertions as evidence for an overly broad assertion. Furthermore, even if the particular assertions were true, the broad assertion wouldn't necessarily follow.

Do that again and our discussion is over. Permanently.

If you thinks that his criteria were bad it would probably be more constructive to argue why they were bad and perhaps even propose your own improved criteria instead of avoid the issue and being a dramaqueen about it.

....what?

He said that the large differences between poor and rich in the US is a product of the social policies, laws and welfare programs run by the US government. Clearer?

The poorest of the poor are covered FREE nationwide by the various Medicaid programs. Those who (for no apparent reason) refrain from applying for Medicaid often end up flocking to the various free clinics, at least here in New York State where we have quite a few.

And everyone who applies for medicaid gets it? Do medicaid cover all their medical expenses?

All smaaaaallll countries. To be fair, a good argument could be made for letting states handle it, since most individual states are close to European countries in population, if not smaller. I think, actually, that Canada does this with its provinces; they fund low-population provinces so that everyone has the same budget.

I'm sure that Washington state or Colorado, as I may have said before, could do just as well as Norway et. al. in public health care. Education could use a reform or three, and specifically not throwing more money at it.

Yes, I think we agree very much in this. Some things tends to get cluttered up in bureaucracy and corruption when its over such large areas and such large populations.

The current issue is, should we raise taxes during an economic slump?

The thing is that this is not an economic slump. Very large debts and deficits that will take decades of high taxes to correct.

As it gets bigger, you have to run a tighter ship. And to be fair, 5 million to 300 million is a 60x increase. This is not insignificant.

Also our political process is... how can I put this... not very efficient.

Well, yes, I agree. This would explain a difference in the cost-effectiveness. It doesn't explain coverage though, neither why having the government run it would be bad or wouldn't work.

On the contrary; that kind of desperation breeds rash action, and it would be disastrous for anyone involved. Look at, say, Rome.

Well, yes, that is a good point, but I do not think that the US would be able to keep its military up and running if as you put it China used the d-bomb.

And I would so register for the Pirate Party. (For the record, I also agree with their platform, not just their name. )

The party I am a member of has many of the same opinions as the Pirate Party

Well, it's illegal to commit suicide in some places here...

Haha, yeah well true

From what i understood in that article, the chronically homeless is what was being discussed. IE the 1.2% is the people who are homeless for long periods of time. Since yall have limited public housing, but with an apparent time limit on how long it can be stayed in that puts your chronically homeless at a MUCH MUCH higher percentage than our own. Also people who stay at homeless shelters, are counted amongst our homeless. They have shelter in other words.

I did not understand it as such as talking about chronicly homeless people. And the limited public housing is not exactly true. Yes there is ofcourse limited government owned buildings at their disposal, but they will put them in a hotel room if they have to. They have no other choice as by law everyone has the right to a place to live. Also, the thing about the time limit is simply not true or very outdated information. Also, if you find a place to live yourself that is cheap then the state will pay for it.

edit: the information in the article is 11 years old

edit: A little more research and I managed to piece together some info from various news papers. There are approxmiatly 0,12% homeless, but the classification of homeless includes anyone without a permanent resident. This means that people that are given temporary housing by the governments (because of lack of houses) are added into this and it also includes people that have short leases on their house (6 months or less) so it also includes certain season workers which certainly don't classify as homeless with a more common definition of the word.

Blinking Spirit: That was the article I was reffering to about statistics for Norwegian homelessness.

The U.S. military would Im sorry wipe the floor with Europes military , I mean this isnt saying that Europe is inferior its just not on that high of a priority to yall.

This might be true, but then again, nukes, diplomacy, nato and economics make any such scenario where it would matter highly unlikley.

Also for the ley person at least in America religion and up upbringing (which is primarily religion) is where they get their morality Id venture to say most of the world area wise works that way.

And? Morals come from culture. Religion is a part of culture. Cultures with little religion still have morals.

The Executive is both the figure head and executor of America, so most americans want a President that shares the same values. Americans are very religious, unless your saying that being religious is bad which I dont think you are.

Good values and being religious is not the same thing. And as for the inherent goodness of religion that is hardly a discussion worth taking.

Europe is more homogenus then America though, most people are caucasian and share a common (albeit nasty war filled) history. I mean just look at the bios for any European country and compare it to the bio of america.

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

Try again. Europe is no more homogeneous then Europe.

Also though the EU is big step forward towards an actual formal country its not, it doesnt have the same kind of governing authority of a sovereign nation. So do you think it would be a good thing for the democrats to have to cow tow to the pirate party so it can maintain its majority.

Still, they do decide upon laws, run the economy, trade, etc. When it solidifies its military and creates a common constitution then it will be more or less just as much a sovereign country as the US was supposed to be when it first was created.

And no the smaller parties doesn't need to be cow towed like that. Minority governments are also possible.

The weakness of those forms, is that once it becomes factionilized enough a radical group gains a massive amount of pull, now ask yourself would it be okay if the Norweigan conservative party had to cow tow to one of the nearly white supremist groups that got seats like in the EU from Britian?

I do not view it as a weakness, I view it is a nessecery result of democracy. However, I also believe that those kind of views can be defeated through openness, debate and education.

The Dutch are not happy about the large groups of conservative Islamists that are imigrating into the country and parties have sprung up, I believe a house member? was even in america doing interviews on how the Islamist beliefs were undermining the Netherlands ad nauseum.

Sure, with a lot of muslims immigrating to all over Europe it creates tensions and issues as their conservative views merge with Europes mostly liberal views. However, I don't see what this has to do with the Dutch "tyrranical" view on "amorality" as you call it.

Also I would like an apology for Hagar the damn Viking has been clogging up the comics for ages while good stuff like the Farside and Boondocks are gone. And is it true its illegal to go bankrupt in Norway?

Uhm, why would it be illegal?

But yes as far as the Canada issue is concerned I'm gonna leave that one dead. I do not know enough about the subject.

So you think you would be aware on the street just by seeing someone? I mean we are talking 1 in 250 people have trouble getting food. Also we arent talking about stomachs expanded from protein difference hunger. This is America, not Africa. Also "mo that is more then just not chosing to eat or similar." That is kind of unfair since this entire time we have been comparing based on capita, now your changing the parameters.

Oh I am still talking per capita, but as I said, it is hard to compare such details as I don't have those data for Norway. However, subjectivly from what I know about the Norwegian system I think its hard to measure here because the margin of error would simply be larger then the actual number.

But yes, homelessness is probably easier to compare. about 0,1% of Norwegians are homeless. Why these people are homeless is a good question, and its mostly people that have fallen through the social system and security nets. Everyone no matter what has a right to a place to live. Though, from what I have read a large part of the homeless in Norway are actually people in prison that have moved out of their apartments before going to jail. They count for homeless people somehow

Total Number

Quote from wikipedia on homelessness in the US »

* As many as 3.5 million people experience homelessness in a given year (1% of the entire U.S. population or 10% of its poor), and about 842,000 people in any given week.[10] Most were homeless temporarily. The chronically homeless population (those with repeated episodes or who have been homeless for long periods) fell from 175,914 in 2005 to 123,833 in 2007.[11]

the decrease is ofcourse very good, but the differences are still pretty large.

A powerful military is good thing in that it secure an american citizen here and abroad, it allows the government to secure its interests abroad, and it allows the country to intervene to well do what it wants in foreign situations, you might no agree with like say Iraqi and Afghanistan but with a strong military a country can do those things and it doesnt need to rely of the U.N or another international group, which are notorious for being beucratic at the best and corrupt at the worst.

And it is a little bit of a what if scenario, but in this day and age we take for granted that there wont be a massive conflict because people know that its going to end up being a war no one wins because the U.S. military will beat the side its not on and the non-U.S. side could be forced to use nuclear weapons as its only reproach.

The US military isn't THAT almighty. Yes it is powerfull, but the combined EU armies are pretty comparable in many ways. Also, economics is a much bigger part of it. Foreign countries like China could destroy the American economy if it so chose. With the economy in a complete collapse the US military might would not count for much.

Also canada has what? A tenth of the population, its pretty homogenous compared to America and its not spread being centered mostly in the south in Quebec and Vancouver areas.

Yes, that is true, they do have a lot less people, but the diversity is about the same.

Also I dont think religion tieing to politicals like it does in America is a bad thing, I'm all for giving onto cesear what is cesears but if government loses the moralilty that religion provides it can be bad.

Well, morality does not come inheritly from religion. And I think any country that elects its leaders based on religious preferences has religion way to much mixed up with politics. It reminds me more of certain muslim countries then most other western countries.

I think the U.S. has struck a nice balance not a christian state but also not turned into, and I love you dutchies so dont be too offended, into the Netherlands where their views on amoralilty have become just as tyrannical.

A nice balance? most of the population wouldn't vote for a non-religious president. 90% of the population is religious. You have put god on your money, in your laws, etc, etc.

And how is Dutch views on "amorallity" tyrannical? Please explain.

And you really have to experience the whole America before you can start comparing it, I havent and I am an american thats been to every state. The two party system might not give everyone a voice but it has to be that way since there are so many voices.

********. Have you seen the system for the EU parliament? There was an election recently and it doesn't work the same way as the US even with twice the amount of voters. Each persons vote in each country matters. In Sweden for example the Swedish "Pirate Party" that fights for digital rights and such they got 4-6% of the Swedish votes or such. That was enough for 1 seat in the parliament.

Parlimantary systems even in relatively homogenous places like Europe have problems with having to form coalitions to do stuff, imagine it in America with soooo many competing intrests. The only country that I can think of and its not a great comparison is India.

That is a really bad reason. Compare with European Parliment which is larger and more diverse then the US. And yes, they do form coalitions. That is not a bad thing. For example here the current government is a coalition of 3 parties that are center/left. One party has 35ish %, one has 10ish and one has 6ish. They form a block government that work together, but how the power inside works depends on their relative size differences. That way over half the country is represented in government and the power differences inside the government are a representation of what the people voted. Also, why do you think the US is so much more diverse then Europe which has twice the population and twice the area?

And that brings me to another point, yes we have social issues that are problems but compared to the other country that is as diverse as us we are lightyears ahead of it. I mean really; India has what I would consider slavery as present struggle in that the caste system even though outlawed is actively practiced.

Do you think an untouchable could be elected in India?

You really think comparing the US to India is better then comparing it to Norway?

And your not part of E.U.? I didnt know that, why not?

Because we don't want to We have had public votes on it several times and it has always been no, though not by a huge majority. As for now I think it is about 50/50 and I believe it will be taken up again as a political issue sometime the next 10 years or so. The no-sayers put up issues such as soverignity, national interests, trade, etc. I tend to agree as the Norwegian economy is on such a different level then the EU.

Also I would venture to say most Americans love their country even though they might not agree with everything it does, and part of this comes from the fact that well people, you crazy liberals out there , get really upset they say they want to move to Canada, a country thats nearly identical to America.

And unless your really cynical and think its brainwashed masses what else really matters?

Lol, yes us crazy liberals with our ideas of personal freedom, social justice, growing open economies, low poverty and other such abominations

And how is Canada nearly identical to the US?

And if we are going by best, why are we ignoring military superiority?

Well, because there is no agreement on that being a good thing to rate by. In fact, many people are of the opinion that a big military is bad for a country.

Seriously this argument seems to be you defining what is best by what you feel is best and it happens to be what Norway is best at and ignoring the weakness of Norway, like a state church, as not really part of the culture.

Well, yes, I define what is best in my opinion, but I am quite interested in hearing what other people think is best and why they think so. Also, I do in no way ignore Norway's weaknesses, such as the state church. However, I also pointed out earlier, that while we do have a State church and the US don't, religion still is far more integrated with the government in the US then it is here and Religion is far, far larger issue in the US then here. Norway is after all one of the worlds most secular countries.

America has the highest nominal GDP of sovereign nations, has a PPP based GDP in the top 10 as I said early against countries it dwarfs in size, population, and diversity, a military that would defeat any other country.

Well, yes this is all true. However, I think that it is not unfair to compare EU or at least Eurozone with with the US and then its not that big a difference after all. Also, Canada is not far behind on the GDP PPP per capita so you are not the only large country doing well. And the differences aren't that big up in the top. You have to go all the way down to 37th place to find someone with half that of the american gdp ppp per capita (saudi arabia)

BTW what parties did Norway ellect to the EU? I know conservatives and ultra conservatives did well in most of europe did Norway follow suit?

Norway is not a part of EU. If we did vote we would probably vote for moderate/liberal parties.

Much like immigrants we also spit on poor people on a regular basis. Everytime i go to wal mart I make it a personal mission to spit at the homeless.... only wait... ive never seen a homeless person in my life. So essentially what you are saying is people there are hungry because the dont go to the places with food... thats exactly what happens here.

I'll easily admit that people here, including myself, is probably too much biased by movies and such when it comes to poverty. But statistics also do say that 2% of the poor (which is about 0,4% of the population) often goes hungry. Imo that is more then just not chosing to eat or similar. I do not however have such detailed statistics about Norway to compare with, but from personal experience I am quite sure that they are lower.

as stated before you do not have the people that we do either. your system would collapse around it's ears if it had the same amount of people that we do.

the fact that they are trying to spend a trillion dollars and it isn't even going to cover the people that they want to cover says quite a bit.

not to mention the thousands more that will lose their coverage and be on the government plan.

they can't pay for what they are doing now.

their only choice at this point is to raise my taxes to pay for a service that i will not use which is less money for me and my family to support itself on.

yea we do need to straighten out our government and stop them from meddling in our lives.

What about our system would not scale upwards? Be spesific. And yes, your government is ****ing it up. Most other governments with socialized healtcare are not.

I seriously doubt that. i very seriously doubt you can get the cancer drugs that we can get here. some of them cost 40K for treatments. i doubt your government run healthcare system will pay for that.

As I said, the only limit to cost is about 500k a year which is only a theoretical limit really. I have never ever heard of anyone not getting treatment that is availible. And if for some reason we can not offer the treatment here we pay for the person to go to another country to get it done. Ofcourse, we don't just throw money at things. I for example did try a cheaper and more common drug for my arthritis at first. When it did not work as I wanted it to they moved on to the more expensive drugs that cost about 20k a year. Anyone with arthritis can get that drug if they need it.

And as far as spending less money, yes we do. I don't have the statistics at hand but if you don't believe me I can always find them for you.

Yeah, and other governments are not the US government. I will agree that other countries gov't health care runs fine for the most part, with exceptions for certain countries(i hear a lot of bad about the Canadian system). However, our government manages to not run any program efficiently, again part of having 300 million constituents spread over a area that is incredibly massive makes for more bureaucratic nonsense to cover the same objective.

Well, aren't you all for giving the states responsibility? Then just make the states handle it individually?

So you mean to tell me in your country of 5 million no one has trouble getting food? Also remember our levels of consumption are different. The average American no having enough to eat is far different than the average European... because we are fat.

Noone should have trouble getting food no. If someone has then it is their own fault for not managing their money. But even if they manage to do that once in a while they can go to the social offices and they will give them food. Though I am sure that some people refuse to do so because they find it demeaning, but that is their own choice. And I somehow find it unlikely that that the fat people of the US are the ones that have trouble getting food

I have a suggestion for you. You know how Bush lied about WMD's? Thats how big the lies in Michael Moore films are. If you quote numbers from him it makes you a sheep. I have no idea how he is viewed outside of the US but hear a lot of people trust anything they hear without doing any fact checking, thats what allows MM to do well.

Relax, I would never quote numbers from his films I quotes numbers from wikipedia and nationamaster mainly.

As for MM he is viewed in perhaps a bit too good light in the rest of the world and while I agree that he does lie way to much I do think that he points his fingers at important subjects. Not saying that he is always right, just that they are important.

So take out the oil industry, and to fund all these wonderful government programs taxes increase massively? Neat how that works. Also how much of last years GDP increase was based off record high OIL prices?

Actually, the record high gdp increase was according to economists caused by an unusually high consumer demand, but yes it will go down to more normal levels this year.
And no, our welfare is not powered by oil. We actually save up all our oil money and we only spend 4% of the interest on the oil. This is to not get a huge inflation by pumping all the money into the economy. It also makes sure we are not dependent on oil.

The merger proposal was announced in December 2006.[5] Under the rules of the EEA the merger was approved by the European Union on May 3, 2007[6] and by the Norwegian Parliament on June 8, 2007.[3] Statoil's shareholders hold 67.3% of the new company, with Norsk Hydro shareholders owning the remaining 32.7%.[6] The Norwegian Government, the biggest shareholder in both Statoil and Norsk Hydro, holds 62.5% of the company.

Obviously as a resident I take your information over wikipedia but just thought i would point this out.

Yes, I know this. This is correct. What I said was mostly taken from the same wikipedia article. But as said, privatizing such companies is a continiuing process that doesn't happen overnight.

Thats not true about our povery level to my understanding. They are counted in our population counts as a general rule.

I won't say this for sure, but as far as I know they are not counted because it would be guesswork. We (and you) only have estimates on the number of illegals and how theyre economy is.