Heh
I am still looking for my Cats to go all the way this year!

GO BIG BLUE! :)

damn kids

Oh, and hey right back at ya Zip. :)

Another point in favor of the bots is that new players who join a game (ie: the people we want to start & keep playing EE) are expecting a wargame to have some action.

New players want to start up the game, get some military and ATTACK something with it.

Here we tell them 'No, dont attack THEM... nope, that guy will retal you too hard... dont waste time with that little guy in DR's...'

Unless they are untagged, then we just farm them out of any possible desire to play the game. :(

Bots would not only protect the new player countries, but give the new guys a place to attack and learn the military side of the game. Maybe even keep them around long enough to recruit into an alliance. :)

I think the bot idea is a good one. Yes, as has been said, make them all GDI / no-war status.

Be fun to have some bot clans that might randomly retal, or even put in a 5% chance of retal with a missle - and have that % multiply for every additional hit (5% first hit, 5%+10% for the second hit, 5%+10%+20% for the third hit etc...) that would make some more protection against pure farming and add a little excitement to life.

so yeah, the more I think of this the better it sounds. Right now we dont have enough real players to have a lot of landgrabbing.

its that time again...

I would rather have cash...

we should have a free-for-all set. everyone against everyone!!

The only reason worth playing this game is to war...

Making netters cry for their countries is the good part of the game....

Original series!!!!!

Thats the best.

new poll... should JanPaul have that post deleted and credit removed for being excessively annoying?

People that believe this kind of stuff are really, really scary.

This was wrong and there is no excuse. I say this with a background of my entire adult life in the military (I enlisted at age 17). 28 years of military training and discipline as well and an understanding of COIN and the successful way to win a counterinsurgency all says this was completely wrong and a huge unneeded headache for the guys current on the ground and trying to make the right thing happen.

That said, the offense has to be looked at in perspective.

According to the UCMJ an accused can present matters of DEFENSE (evidence he/she did not do it), matters of EXTENUATION (good reasons for having done what was done) and matters of MITIGATION (why the punishment should be light).

Y'all are getting all wrapped up and confusing extenuating factors with defense. Unless the video is a hoax, these guys are guilty. I dont have my UCMJ handy but I am sure there are 3-4 chargeable articles there as well as disobeying the general order to NOT DO STUPID fluff (well, thats how I paraphrase the longish list of standing orders....)

So now that we know they are guilty the issue is what kind of punishment? UCMJ gives some pretty wide authority to commanders. They could be put in a general courts martial and be looking at probably 5-10 years hard labor with a bad conduct discharge. Or administrative punishment with restriction to the barracks. Or lots in between.

Thats where those matters of extenuation and mitigation come into play. COMMANDERS are given the authority to decide the type of punishment and with good reason... they know their Soldiers (er, Marines) better than anyone else and are best suited to understand those matters. What is the service record of these men? Did they earn medals for bravery in the face of grave personal risk or hide in the FOB whenever possible? Volunteer for the hard/dangerous/thankless jobs (of which the military has countless number) or do only what was told? Always striving to exceed the highest standard or do whatever gets by? THAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE.

Also what was happening at the time, the command climate (if the leadership was bad it does not excuse the offense, but can be a mitigating factor), and the situation at the time of the offense. How many local ftards were shaking hands during the day and blowing them up at night. THAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE.

Finally, we also have to look at the result. What impact did their misconduct have? When you create an international incident, there is gonna be more boot in the ass-kicking than if you just pissed off your platoon leader. Not very fair to the guy who gets caught publicly but THAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE TOO.

I did not like hearing the sec's of state and defense making their 'hang-em high' statements. They went, imho, beyond their authority and responsibility to just repudiate the acts. And they should have put more effort (some at least) into pointing out the really historic record our Troops have for respect of the local culture and extraordinary discipline under very difficult circumstances. And the US record for bringing those few who do commit crimes to justice.

So those guys did the wrong thing. But we cannot - and should not - judge how strongly they are punished or what mercy may be given. Only those commanders directly charged both with the care of these troops and the accomplishment of the missions should do that.

.

Confirmed.
I have rights to special, personal contact with Riddler.

:)

bah

You should come back to Rage then!

I was on temporary duty with a buddy to Ft. Drum, NY a few years back (pre-9/11 when the big issue was drugs not terrorism).

We had the weekend off and of course it was road trip time. We couldnt be that close and NOT go to Canada. So we jumped in the rental car and took off for the border. No passports needed back then.

In line for the Canadian customs inspection we had some time to examine our situation: A white guy and a black guy. Each with driver's licenses from different states. No luggage. No known destination or contact in Canada other than 'someplace to drink'. In a rental car with Florida plates. A rental car with Florida plates that we had never looked in the trunk of... in a time when rental cars were the popular cocaine mules because local police could confiscate cars when they arrested the drug runners...

It was too late to either get out of line or to check the trunk. Wouldnt help if the drug-dog alerted on it anyway....

The customs agent gave us a pretty strong look but he must have been used to Soldiers because he let us thru. :)

Confirmed.

And prepare to be fluffed.

Whoever set up the Santa bomb run is genius. :)

Merry Christmas to all you who survive the attack of the fat guy and his stealth flying animals!!

The original, Jeffersonian understanding of separation of church and state was to protect RELIGION from the state. Not to prevent religion from having influence in public life.

Wow. Sounds like a very accurate description of the modern democrat party...

What about the idiots that use the ambulance or fire truck as a great opprotunity since the lanes are all magically clear for them?

Your right. People not respecting emergency vehicles really makes me mad too. If I was a cop I would try and follow every ambulance I could just to ticket as many of those fluffholes as possible.

I thought Thomas was a tank engine....

This is an outrageous assault on our civil liberties! This cannot be allowed to stand! Totally unconstitutional! That damn Bush and his so-called 'patriot act' must be stopped!

Wait... OBAMA and the DEMOCRAT ADMINISTRATION authored this...

Sorry. I misspoke before. This is a necessary tool in the war -er... police operations- on terror. This administration would never abuse such power and only asked for this law to deal with the gravest threats to our national survival.

lol

I guess that 'reset' button has had an effect

Hey BigDog. I miss playing with Clowns.

a decade. Ha! n00b....

Two issues here:

First, is the debate of "do we offer kids healthy food that they do not eat and then go to school hungry" or "do we offer kids food they will eat and make it as healthy as we can". So tomato is a vegetable so that we can give them pizza and have them actually eat.

But the real issue is why should the federal government be involved in this at all. There is NO Constitutional authority for federal involvement in local schools, let alone what they serve for lunch. However this is the logical carry-over evil of having a federal department of education throwing money at states and school districts.

Better would be to shut down the federal department of education and have states fund their own schools. And local school boards can deal with what to serve for lunch.

gets this way a lot

We need a new form of warfare... one that doesnt destroy countries. Restarts and long wars were great with lots of players... restarts had lots of company / targets and FA possibilities. But now the war is decided in a couple of days and the excitement is out.

I still believe land wars could be held -- two alliances pair off and see who can get the most total land gained from the other... highest avg land taken... special honors for biggest grab etc...

*Sigh*

This is why I can never actually leave Rage....

Forget that pansy song. The Official RAGE Anthem for this war can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/...KdkW4&feature=related

Make sure your speakers are turned up to 11....


Garry Owen
Rage WarMonger

Grimm knows about such things.

RAGE
Guy-who-has-been-here-forever

Thank you! That just made war room target management SOOO much easier!!!

:)

Garry Owen
RAGE
Official Old Guy

Confirmed.
Time for Sanct to die.
:)

MD 45
LCN 48
Evo 44
Omega 43
SoF 37
Monsters 26
Sanct 19
fluff 16
m0m0 14
WoF 12
ICN 10
Rival 10
RAGE 6
NA 5
TIE 4
RoCk 3
Elysium 1
Rigor Mortis 1
CIA 0
KSF -3
HAN -5
PDM -5
LaF -21
RD -32
iMag -49
SoL -88
Elitez -144

The only basketball worth watching is college ball.

Go Big Blue!

http://www.ukathletics.com/...bl/kty-m-baskbl-body.html

He is short
green
has a goofy helmet
AND smells funny while his is fluffing....

LCN 48
Evo 44
MD 44
Omega 41
SoF 38
Sanct 19
Monsters 25
fluff 16
WoF 12
RoCk 3
ICN 10
m0m0 13
Rival 8
TIE 4
RAGE 5
NA 5
CIA 0
KSF -2
HAN -4
PDM -4
LaF -21
RD -31
iMag -49
SoL -86
Elitez -144

Awesome cool if your hiking/biking/backpacking/watersports/snowsports/etc... where you need sunglasses on/off a lot. And dont want to lose them.

Do you use your middle initial when you sign your name?

Never lease.

Never buy new.

Since you are on short work commute get something cheap with 20-30k miles. Small and dont care if its ugly.

Pay off as fast as you can... then CONTINUE TO MAKE THE CAR PAYMENT. Only make the payment to yourself - automatic draft into a special 'next car' bank account. Then when you have to trade in, you have a nice down payment and can pay off the next car faster. :)

More correct headline:

Some unknown percentage of Europeans suffer from mental illness and a whole bunch more know how to claim liberal benefits from the government!!!

Yang.

Dino Disease
or
Dino Comet?

Why not.

Alfred E Newman
or
Homer Simpson

She-Ra

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Ponderer, you are a Tea-Partier at heart. :)

The real heart of the tea party movement is that government should be limited and watched. The bigger government gets, the harder it is for 'The People' to do any realistic oversight and therefore it breeds more corruption and ineffeciency.

So we have the example of the bloated federal government. It is not the point of the tea party to turn 'historically government provided services and regulation back in the hands of private industry' so much as to get government out of things that it should not regulate in the first place. And to put the regulatory oversight at the appropriate level of government.

For example: schools. Education is not a federal issue. Not in the constitution and historically not controlled / directed / funded at the federal level. The feds got involved when the states were hurt in the 70's recession and the feds could deficit spend. The states avoided the hard choice of how to fund what is an essential state service and shifted the tax burden from local to federal. With federal management we have much more regulation, tons of wasted money, lower achievement and less control and oversight by the local people. That was a federal power grab with very little good to show for it (IDEA is a good thing, but could have been achieved with other legislation and without the huge DofED bureaucracy). And, in addition to the federal regulations we have a huge funding mess that virtually every state must deal with (and spend a lot of extra money on) that still avoids the issue of how to appropriately pay for education services.

Are the Tea-Party members mostly social conservative? Yes, but not all and those issues certainly are not the driving force being tea-party events and candidates. I am confused by your Jewish/Christian issue, since most references are to 'Judeo-Christian' values, referencing things like personal responsibility, property rights, rule of law, private charity etc...

Ref your concern for local government corruption: if we had less regulation and what we had was more common-sense instead of huge loophole ridden bills then we would have fewer lawsuits and special interests... That is the theory at least. But how much worse could it be than the armies of professional thieves we have now?


Bottom line is that I think you have a lot of goals in common with what the tea-party is all about. Esp with your work at local government oversight you are a Tea Party member in all but the bumper sticker. :)

LCN 50
MD 41
Evo 43
Omega 39
SoF 38
Sanct 19
Monsters 25
fluff 16
WoF 12
RoCk 3
ICN 10
m0m0 13
Rival 7
TIE 4
RAGE 5
NA 5
CIA 0
KSF -2
HAN -4
PDM -4
LaF -21
RD 30
iMag -47
SoL -85
Elitez -143

LCN 50
MD 43
Evo 41
Omega 39
SoF 38
Sanct 19
Monsters 26
fluff 16
WoF 12
RoCk 3
ICN 10
m0m0 13
TIE 4
RAGE 4
Rival 6
NA 5
CIA 0
KSF -2
HAN -4
PDM -5
LaF -21
RD 30
iMag -47
SoL -84
Elitez -143

The biggest reason for the return on federal taxes paid is that most income taxes are paid by a small minority of the population. And the states you list do not have a lot of the top quintile 'rich' people who pay 80% of all taxes. That skews any review of taxes by state because with so few people paying most of the taxes the states where the majority of those people live are never going to get their 'fair share' back.

One could also wonder why the most regulated states also have the most super-rich... perhaps because government regulation always favors those who can pay for it and punishing those who cannot?

But that whole argument misses the point of the Tea Party. The movement is saying that overall the government is too big, too wasteful, cost too much and is grossly inefficient in doing much of what it does. Big government favors the rich and powerful (who can afford to buy access to lawmakers, lawyers to find loopholes and litigate, etc...) but a smaller with more local responsibility is easier for more people to keep track of. And fewer, simpler regulations are less expensive to administer, easier and less expensive to comply with and are more fairly applied (ie: fewer pages to build loopholes for those with lawyers and $$).

Fooglmog, it is refreshing to see such an open and intelligent post here!

Yes, the numbers for self-defense are all guesses -- there is no reliable statistic being collected. With many instances never even being reported. That is why I cited CBS News -- a decidedly liberal source with a general anti-gun bias. I could get into the NRA database and find lots of specific numbers. There was one actual study done by a rather large sample size survey where the authors started with a hypothesis to prove the danger of personal gun ownership and instead discovered a rather large number of self-defense uses. While I found the methodology pretty fair it is reflexively rejected by mainstream media - like CBS News. So I went with CBS to avoid the controversy of the source and highlight the reality that a lot of people really do use personal firearms for self-defense.

CKHustler, I dont know what else you have said, but here you are making sense and being consistent.

Henrik, congratulations on your countries success, but sorry if you want to compare Sweden to other economies then do the full comparison. You have the population of Arizona, but it is almost exclusively the same ethnic and religious populations, living almost exclusively in urban environments. Your largest city - with 22% of your population - has a smaller metro population than Orlando - not counting the tourist in to see Disney. You have the GDP of North Carolina - but that is dominated (70%) with an internal service industry so international trade and competition issues have less effect than on any US State. Your population growth is almost level and you really dont do ethnic/racial/religious minorities or immigrants. Most of your country is contained in 3 major cities spread out over a land area about the size of South Carolina. Internationally you are protected by location and NATO keeping your military expenses very low. (CIA world factbook; US Census data if you want to check my sources)

There are certainly things to compare, but to give a blanket comparison is not at all accurate.

What is a much better comparison is to look state-to-state within the US. Still a lot of variance but sharing much more of the internal problems. There the evidence is clear: states that have reduced regulation and taxation have done much better than the high-tax / high social welfare states.

NOW3P, interesting that you neglect to provide any facts - credible or not - in your dismissal of CKH. Instead you rely on name-calling and your own prejudiced opinion. Do you actually know anyone who has even been to a Tea Party rally, let alone read what the goals of the movement are? Or do you simply sit back and believe everything they tell you on MSNBC?