shinRaiden

1/2 way true. I volunteer to run the local GOP party (not campaigns) website, and do other odds and ends. I almost got elected as on of the infamous electors for my state too, on top of being a county and state delegate. Aside from that, I live out in a farm area surrounded by incorrigibles on both sides of the rusty barbwire fences. I personally happen to prefer the policies of a poker game over previous policies of sissy slap fights and name calling. Now I don't think that Bush is playing his cards totally right, but, I do admire the fact that he is playing for keeps and not peanuts. Too much of that, and solitare too, has been done already.

You know what this whole exercise reminds me of? A big old rowdy poker game. Folks yelling and screaming pointing fingers accusing folks of bein' lyin' no-gud blinkity-blankity cheaters, and even a few verbal threats thrown in. The bar goes wild, the chairs start flying, the wusses head under the table or to the door, the bartender opens the taps, and the fistfights rollout into the streets. Ah, let the good times roll. Btw, whose best at Cowboy poker? The Texans, of course. Maybe if Kerry had spent a bit more time on his distant relative's dairy farm, he'd be able to ride into town on a cow better than he has done so far. But that goes on and we can suppose that now he really didn't learn anything in the navy I'm not sure about that, even if he can fluently cuss in three languages, it just doesn't have the same ribald flavor of a grizzled old degenerate dribbling chaw while whacking an incorrigable piece of farm equipment. And for ME political relations, they're all mad just because we have Buffalo and Moose, and they have goats and scorpions.

In response to the Israeli High Court ruling, which preceded the advisory ruling from the dis-attached World Court, the IDF is submitting proposals for three alternate fence paths that would be significantly closer to the 67 line. Jerusalem Post As the Israeli Courts have repeated confirmed the legal standing of the Palestinians, and for example in this mentioned ruling ordered that 75% of the fence condemnations be canceled and the location for the fence re-planned, and also in light of the lack of any binding interest of the World Court (they only submit recomendations to the Security Council for round-filing), was that appeal to the World Court anything more than a PR stunt? Because if it was, as I suspect, the rest of the world once again was proven to be the suckers that we are. Reading in the General Assembly resolution calling for the Advisory, with and Which line is the UN referring to? The original partition had one line, but that didn't quite match with the 1949 Armistice line. And as if this issue had not already been addressed... The resolution calling for an advisory opinion came from a resolution originally calling for continued roadmapping, and was added at the request of the Arab States, and not by the Palestinians at the UN And in places the reading gets downright funny: And the next paragraph is really confusing... So the GA is asking what the legal consequences 'are', despite the fact that a 'permanent member of the security council repeatedly casts negative votes'. <pause>I'm not disagreeing with or agreeing with US policy here, I'm about to make a point about the nonsense of this exercise</pause> Sounds like the Arab States, maybe, or maybe not, at the behest of the Palestinians are attempting to put pressure on the US political process through channels and the media. In the Israeli Courts, the Palestinians are getting immediate relief. In the UN, /dev/null is garuanteed to happen, because US policy for the forseeable future is to act in defense of Israel on the Security Council. If the Arab States had put their money where their mouth is into the schools and such, rather than using the Palestinians as their glove to punch Israel, I think that there would be a good chance that this fence would have hit a bunch more roadblocks earlier on. If they were serious about stopping it, why are their lawyers in The Hague instead of Jerusalem? By the time the UN could think about doing something, the wall would be up, and then it would be a 'fact'. Now on the other hand, Sharon says he is moving forward with withdrawal from Gaza and plans for dismantling the West Bank settlements. Until those are dismantled, Israel has a security obligation to those citizens. Even if you regard them as criminals, a state still has the obligation to defend criminals. And because the settlements are already built, that adds extra layers of litigation and negotiations. In all fairness, if the fence were to be built protecting the settlements, it honestly would be doubtful that there would much push to remove the settlements, and pull back the fence. Now this is the icing on the cake: I never knew diplomatic legal briefs could be such fun reading. This is pretty good, almost as good as the SCO briefs.

This tool works nicely for bulk picture conversion for those of us that don't have PS or PSP.

It worked in -twomon (halved my fps though), then my primary monitor died. This sucks. Btw, most monitors are only rated to work in 0-40deg. celsius. (that's up to ~100f for the rest of us.) I love the nvg fade, nobody else comes close. Thank you. I did notice a little something though, one time, and one time only, when I opened nogova in the mission editor, the load bar stuck, but if I alt-tabbed and back, it had progressed, and when I alt-tabbed the third time, the mission editor was up.

That's wonderful, news like that should be run more often. One of the funnest restaurants in Jerusalem is a Roman themed place, owned by an Israeli Jew and a Palestianian Muslim. There was a restaurant up in Haifa that was owned by another Israeli Jew and a Lebanese muslim, until it was blown up by Palestinians. Many Druze and Bedouin serve in the IDF, the Druze especially as the elite security because of their personal integrity. As was posted earlier, even some of the concrete for the fence is coming from PA contractors. I was there for the 2000 Jubilee with European, US, Indonesian, Palestinian, and Israeli pilgrims, and we didn't have any troubles. iirc, just before 67, King Hussein of Jordan was told privately that if he stayed home, he'd get to keep the entire west bank, to the 48 line, including the old city. Half-way into the 67, Egypt and Syria told him if he joined in, he'd get divies all the way to the sea. Well, that was a crappy hand he bet on, and lost all the land and picked up a couple million refugees. Now why was Arafat working out of Beirut and Tripoli in the 80's? Because Hussein didn't want any more war, and chased Arafat out of Amman at gunpoint. You don't hear about any reigns of terror in Jordan, and if you look at the border, there really ain't a whole lot of troops there. That's because there isn't any need for heavy deployments, unlike other areas.

a) I was suggesting a solution. If you notice up in my long post there are a number of suggestions I made for both sides that could create solutions. b) When you have a community retaliating against individuals who seek to end the violence, you have a problem. There was a article posted recently over in the Iraq thread about how Al'Sistani can not publicly admit that the US is saving his hide. That's what I am talking about. It's that cultural block I'm referring to. c) Having talked with many Palestinians in their own homes in and out side of the territories, yes there are many good families who want their kids to grow up and go to school and be good people, and come to America and be a doctor or lawyer or something with a good reputation. We need more of those people, and the problem is that like the rest of the world, the populace is apathetic towards getting involved in their community, so the rabble-rousers take over, until the point that the sane folks give up, or get brain-washed themselves. d) why should I jump on the 'trash-israel' band wagon? There's plenty that I could say that has already been said, not all of it accurate though.

In regards to the comments aviel made, For those of you who have served in combat, you've no doubt seen some rough stuff. But you're probably able to come home and sleep peacefully, knowing that who ever you were fighting, whether in the ME, in Kosovo, or in countless other places, is far away, and won't affect your commute, or snipe your kids at school, or hit you at the club. My only disagreement is that because of the nature of the ME culture, that there is a lot of pimping for the camera on all sides. I do agree that a bunch of stuff you see in the media is bogus, but I pin that more on incompetent idiots in the media, that fall for every sucker line fed to them. (Be careful about using all caps though. Your message may never sink in, but you can get technically in trouble for all caps posting.)

Having traveled through some of the areas in concern, and noting the terrain, a few comments are in order to correct some mis-understandings. 1) The high berlinesque concrete sections are more for defense against snipers. The entire run is not constructed of those super-jersey barriers, there is large sections, such as in rural areas, that are classic border easements, with patrol roads and standard wire fence. Only in built-up urban areas and areas with historical problems with snipers are the concrete walls being put up. 2) The Israeli high court this week rejected 30 of 40km of contested condemnations for fence easements. (report in Jerusalem Post) The primary contention was that the the placing of the fence in these cases would unreasonably restrict access to uncontested Palestinian property. The IDF has has countered with the very valid concern that in several areas, heavy rocket attacks are originating from orchards, hiding the launcher vehicles under the trees. 3) The biggest problem with most of the fence placing inside the 1967 line, aside from the incursions for the settlements around Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and towards Nablus, is that the 1967 line in many places topographically is not a good tactical position. The entire area is extremely rugged, with 1000~1500m elevation fluctuations. The fence is generally placed in a strategicly defensible position. This is similar to the Golan Heights, in that who ever controls that sliver of high ground in the middle has the ability to control all the territory around it. 4) There are significant incursions for the protection of the settlements. Removing the settlements would simplify the fence positioning, and eliminate a shell excuse for terrorist activity. However, proposals to remove those settlements have been bottled up in the Knesset and in the Courts, and until that issue is politically resolved, the government has an obligation to protect the citizens from armed aggression. 5) Palestinians in the village of Umm el-Fahm, on the Israeli side of the fence from Jenin, are quietly supporting the construction of the fence. It turns out that the thugs in Jenin were sneaking through their village, stealing their laundry to disguse themselves, harassing the villagers, burglarizing their homes, and launching attacks from Umm el-Fahm, resulting in Israeli response targeting Umm el-Fahm. Now that the fence is going up, the Islamic Palestinian villagers are quietly supporting their embattled mayor, who has been raked over the coals by the palestinian media for being a collaborator. For those of you who may not be aware, the punishment for being a collaborator in the Palestinian areas is generally public execution by vigilante mobs. 6) Much of the arguments and appeals made in court have been regarding the seizure of property for the fence easement. Unlike international borders, which have a mathmatical line width of null between marker points, a physical construction like a fence requires some land to be built on. Patrol roads to ensure the safety and reliability of the structure require additional setbacks. Governments have the right to execute emminent domain condemnation of property where the condemnation is for a public project of ample community benefit, and the property owner has rejected all reasonable offers. The reason this form of siezure is not exercised more democratically free countries is that such findings are appealable to the courts, where in the case of this fence, the appeals are in many cases being successfully litigated. The delays caused be the litigation can potentially cause unacceptable delays in the construction. Now if the palestinians had been teaching their kids to go to school and be lawyers and doctors, instead of blowing themselves up so mommy and daddy can get lots of money from Osama and Saddam, maybe A, we wouldn't be worrying about a fence, and B, they'd do better in court too.

I think that the reason (at least for now) that a bunch of the stuff, especially the desert pack, is getting shelved rather than set out on the curb is that while some parts may have been at 95%, others were further back, and BAS didn't want to part stuff out. If you dig through the code and the models for the Blackhawks and the Pavehawks, you will notice a huge pile of common equipment, scripts, and textures. Those packs, and similarly the Tonal packs are not designed to be 'parted out'. While BAS repeatedly said that they were not pursuing a code-mode like FDF or ECP, their addons were rather modular. If BAS is planning on forking their work over to OFP2 development, I'd like to see some kind of comments from them regarding continued upgrades to the the OFP1 packs.

Am I going to write an eulogy or throw flamer clods? No, that's been done already. But the two best things BAS did was 1) start a clear level of professionalism for the entire community and 2) show the community how to run a mod organization. The original stuff that came out of BIS was great. But there was some equipment, and some features not implemented. The specs were maybe not what some people felt they should be. So guess what, folks tried to make them better. Thank you to BAS, and to everyone else who has tweaked and hacked to make stuff better. Despite all the crap the community dished out, I bet the harshest critic was always BAS themselves. I think when people start comparing addons like "we'll see if it is as good as the BAS...", I think that is in reference partly to the initial standard set by BAS. Will others make stuff even 'better'? Yes. Why the motivation? The same reason, to make the best quality addons, to the best of their ability. What kept stuff coming out despite the community's crankieness and aggressive bug-hunting? The organization of the group. How did projects get completed, when you had people talented in different focus areas? Project management. How did projects of the shear size that were undertaken even get started? The mod organization. How many other groups look to BAS as an example to them of how to get started? There is a whole pile of stuff I'd like to do, but I can't do modeling or texturing, and I'm limited to a dial-up line. With a mod, I can do beta testing or what ever else I can do well, and help out in what ever way I can. Personally, I think a lot of the reasons can be found between the lines in TJ's post above. I understand some of the reasons for the concern in development, and I want to say thank you. My thanks is that I want to learn from what you have done, and to make stuff too. The greatest thing you can do is not to make toys, but to make an example, and all of you have done that admirabley. Thank you.

I am now very confused... if the material purports to expose things that have the ability to cover up things that the mysterious 'they' do not want exposed, then a) how did this material see the light of day, and b) why is the the dude not swinging by his toes from the winch on his black helicopters? Or maybe not so confused... we call it making a buck here, in other parts it's called journalism... Good for laughs.

What if... Rather than modeling all the sections independently, you modeled them as one whole piece with anim turrets, mirror the sections with invisible setpos'd copies, and anim'd in scripts the main objects to reflect the tracking of invisible shadow copies? Worst case, you'd have really bouncy seats for the gunners. This could also allow for increased gap between sync time, and 'hide' the setpos jerks enough to be able to apply to things other than boats.

lukin Lukin is critical of NATO’s operation in MacedoniaMain page. Lukin is a deserving man and a well-known politician. Lukin is a former Russian Ambassador to the United States and serves as the deputy chairman of the Russian State Duma as a member of the Yabloko. Lukin is a coordinator. Lukin is called in to do plumbing chores. ... Lukin is always at the top of style. Lukin is celebrating. Lukin is likely to have a free ride through the routine bureaucratic procedure since the pro-Kremlin. Lukin is a frequent speaker on patent and copyright law. Lukin is the Deputy. Lukin is that yes. Lukin is concerned about the situation in which Russians have found themselves in Turkmenistan. ... Lukin is continuing his scoring pace from the 1999 season when he was the. ... Lukin is expected to drop from 43 to 33 years. Lukin is currently Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations in the Parliament. Lukin is a professor and holds a Ph. Lukin is not talking to reporters about his exit. Lukin is happier pounding nails. Lukin is rolling a fatty. ... Lukin is still in Nashville with his family. ... Lukin is a postdoctoral fellow. Lukin is warning Khakamada to “think well. ... Lukin is a long-time specialist in US-Soviet/Russian strategic arms control issues and is a member of Russia's Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. ... Lukin is offered on a post of ombudsman of Russia. ... Lukin is a partner in the Intellectual Property department in the Houston office of Baker Botts LLP. Lukin is a scumbag. Lukin is a former Soviet diplomat at the Beijing embassy and now a Russian academic. ... Lukin is leaving the band and possibly retiring from music altogether. Lukin is the former Russian ambassador to the US and the chairman of the Foreign Policy Committee of the Russian Parliament. Lukin is in charge of PAL. ... Lukin is an Alutiiq from Kodiak Island. Lukin is the Director General. Lukin is deputy head of Yabloko. Lukin is a graduate of State University. Lukin is Chief Architect of the.

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Ok, you're going to need to post some specs so we can help, my problem is that sometimes my Nforce soundstorm loses spdif sync to my audigy 2. Which windoze do you use? What kind of video card(s) do you use? Audio chipset? What driver do you use? What does dxdiag (in your windows or windows\system32 folder) do when you run the audio tests? Do you have any problems elsewhere with audio? Can you describe the sequence to create the 'problem'? Do you use onboard audio (non-soundstorm) or an older SB Live card? Thanks.

AP Wire

As always, click on the pics to get the 3200x1200 wallpapers.

Pukko, there is a clear and defined process in the US Constitution and legal code for handling that. Congress, independent of any other outside body, can appoint a commission, with the authorization of warrants from that body and Supreme Court rulings, can investigate the President for whatever it pleases. That committee can then return charges to the House of Representatives for hearing, and the House can then vote on articles of impeachement ( = indictment) to send to the Senate for trial. The Senate, under the direction of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, then tries the charges forwarded from the house, and deterimines if the charges are correct, and issues a judgement, if any, to the maximum penalty of explusion from office. Following that, a Federal criminal grand jury could be called, testimony given, and an indictment made. For it to be capital case however, it would have to be murder or treason. The case would then be heard in Federal District Courts, Circuit courts of Appeal, and garuanteed to the Supreme Court a least a couple times. You would also have to argue that the action taken was illegal, and prove that it was not covered under legislative or executive immunity generally granted to actions taken in the course of fulfilling the office. Which incidentally is happening in Iraq. You had an Iraqi grand jury issue an indictment for Saddam Hussein, that indictment was read to him in an Iraqi supreme court, and the Iraqi governing council is finalizing the relevant criminal code to adequately handle this case. I do suggest, that as any of these trials will take some time, that you just relax and let the law take care of the law. Toddler-esqe temper tantrums just because things don't always go your way are not an excuse for vitriole.

This is not universlly accepted and therefore it is about law. It is according to the UN charter. And if it's universal or not is besides the point. I don't think Saddam thought torture chambers and rape rooms were a human rights violation - does that mean that we had no right commenting on them? The ultimate irony here of course that a country that invaded a sovereign country is objecting against other countries commenting on the behavior of a puppet regime... And the third point is that the current Iraqi government is not a legitimate one. It has yet to be internationally recognized (and probably won't be until elections are held). 1) Just read through the entire UN charter, no mention of the death penalty. In many places, such as the Preamble and also Chapter 9 article 55, the charter contains vague language such as However, that is hinged on the Now there was a more recent UN treaty on Human Rights, I don't remember if the US Senate has ratified it or not, that more explicitly states the types and relevancies of those enumerated human rights. Most soveriegn self determining nations, holding some form of a judicial or penal code exercise some form of authoritatian restriction of convicted criminals' civil rights. When an individual abrogates another's civil property/rights, the violator can legally be held for compenstory and punitive claims. Murder, and arguabley assualt and rape, though are crimes against the person, rather than against property. With that, self determining nations have the delimma of interpreting mingled civil and human rights. Arguements for capital punishment generally fall along the lines of the convict's crimes eliminating the individual's previously garunteed human right. If the Kurds and Shia's were all enemy combatants (including women and children), as Saddam is alleging, and if there was evidence of due process, even under martial law, Saddam may have a case. The other point here on trial is the concept of free speech. Here in the US, grounds for treason are becoming extremely restricted. You can say all sorts of crap about anybody, and not only do you not get brought up for libel, you get to be a pundit. However, other countries have determined that not praiseing the most glorious supreme leader on the success of his wilted pansies is tanamount to aiding and lending comfort to the enemies of the state. If the court rejects Saddam's arguement that the exterminated peoples were enemy combatents, and futhermore finds that they were not accorded due process, despite any declaration of martial law, I don't see how that could be anything but a good thing. 2) We're not so much objecting as in mirroring the exasperation of the recent senatorial comment from Dick Cheney in regards to the prattling and attempted meddling coming from the henhouse. 3) The UN, in resolution 1546 furthermore recognized the interim government in Iraq that assumed control on June 28th has the right to be the soveriegn authority in Iraq, until it, the interim government, hands over to the the Transitional government.

iirc, the situation with the kurds was like this... The iranian kurds were squating on some land belonging to the iraqi kurds, so the iraqi kurds went and complained to Saddam. Well he couldn't send the army up there for many reasons, so he sent up some helicopters creatively. The Turkish kurds and the kurdish kurds weren't involved. so... were the kurds complicent in the slaughter of kurds?

Saddam has basically two choices: 1) He attempts the secular appeal route, in which he appeals to the World Court or ICC, attempts to have US influence removed due to the US being non-involved in the ICC, and also to try to get protection from all the people who took oil-for-food bribes. 2) He trys the Sharia law approach, strikes a deal with the mullahs, and throws the country into Chaos. ("You get me off on Sharia, I let you run the towns as your fiefdoms.") Being the tyrant though, I doubt he'd honor that arrangement for long. But right now he's playing option 3, attacking the validity of the courts, and claiming insufficent legal assistance. What he is trying is claiming executive immunity commonly granted for actions taken by an administration. He's using the point of "there is no such thing as an innocent civilian" to say that all the people killed were 'enemy combatents' - men, women, and children - and that they were executed legally under civil or military law. If he continues that track, and it collapses on him, that could go a long ways towards establishing the class of 'neutral - innocent civilian' and their protection in the ME.

This is so very weird... We have a neighbor 4 doors down who we took to court over a easement/fence dispute, that looks like a dead ringer for saddam. The guy hired a lawyer who had just finished a messy divorce case for a psychic channeler, and they scammed the judge to overlook 50+ years of deeds and toss out the case. Then again, we had Rodney King and OJ. When the guys who thumped Rodney King got off, the hoods went and burnt their own neighborhoods and looted the vietnamese quickie marts. And with OJ, well "If the glove does not fit, you must aquitt." "You honor, the gloves shink when you soak them, in blood." "The ice cream was still lumpy, so they were not killed when the police say they were." "The court will find that chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream always has lumps, regardless of how warm it is." Bust out the popcorn and the fallafalahs, this is going to be good TV. Who cares about the allegations about dead people, they're dead right? Why should we care? Right?... If they do this right, it could be a big boost for the Iraqi people.

Arco is down to 1.99(9) USD per US Gallon for regular in places, figure costco is 10~15c cheaper. ~40-45cents in total taxes depending on your county's whims. +- 10 cents depending on whether the pipeline works this week or not. (Local intrastate pipeline, several spectacular explosions over the last couple years.) +- 5 cents depending on gas wars. +- 5 cents depending on refinery's production of 'specialty' fuel (State law mandates a certain eco-blend, which is not sold or made for other states. Makes for an exclusive market. And we're not a corn state.). ------------------------------------------- The real kicker is that China is starting to really take off economically, and their oil consumption is skyrocketing. US DOE's Energy Information Administration info on China. Basically, China's long term basic consumption demands are rising permanently, and their paying for it with their stockpiled trade surpluses, and world production is not rising fast enough to meet the faster rising baseline demand. As a healthy grandson of a 1940's era Nuclear Reactor systems researcher, and also the grandson of a former XO of the USS Nautilus, I and my all my normal appendages (none abnormal) wholeheartedly support the continued utilization of warm, fuzzy, nuclear power. (Now where's my 3-eyed smiley when i need it...)

MI-12 prototype? And yes, that is the first variant of the MI-24.