shinRaiden

Something to wake you up Um, some problems there. Letterman decided to have some fun and played snips of the sleeper. Next morning, CNN started feeding from it. However, Unfortunately, CNN who was so on top of things earlier couldn't be bothered to be equally timely in their retraction: But it was still later before CNN got around to grudgingly admit they were 'mistaken': Either the White House called, or it did not. If it did not, why did CNN state that it did?

My point was, with crap gear google would only need to charge 3 hundredths of a penny total for all the ads in a single 102k email to break even with full load. I'm sure if they had a dozen ads per page, and charged more, they could be making money hand over fist even with quality hardware. However, I never have bought anything via ads like that, nor do I ever intend to. I do tons of window shopping before I finally get around to getting something because of it's own merits.

We need a techincal economic evaluation on this. Just harddrives, things are running under $1US per gig. ev1servers is leasing whole servers for $99 bucks a month. Let's pull numbers out of the air and see what happens: If we say it 'costs' $90 US a month, that's $1080 a year. Plus 4 120mb drives at $120 a piece, that makes $1560 a year. Divide by 480gb, that makes a 'cost' of $3.25 tops per user for hardware. If they charge ~.3 cents (30% of a penny) per meg of email, that'll break even on the hardware. Anybody know off hand what google's going ad rates are?

1) Ralphie's PR count is 4 boxes... really 2) Didn't Earl get bounced to AU? Then again, that was BIS-AU. However... it appears that there was a status change. Unless the mods were willing to risk mod anarchy... Or maybe BIS fiddled something tricky... conspiricy? And Tigershark moves 'close' to Prague... Smells conspiricy we's does, yesss...

Uh, why does Ralphie have 4 pr boxes? Did Placebo get 0wn3d?

Yeah, well waffendennis said on IRC that BAS released the desert pack at midnight. I had ofpec's addons forum and the BIS addon's complete forums open in new windows and filezilla launched in under 3 seconds on dialup... But, they did have nice teaser screenshots. I really like the way they redid the site. Congrats to BAS, your site really looks spiffy, and the screenies better.

On-topic: Does the proxy have to be in the turret? Or could you make it so that there is an 'invisible' ghost gunner - one that is 'out' of the turret, but also not displayed (means no turnout) of course. What about class viewgunnerbase {}; or class viewopticsbase {};? Are they anchored off of the proxy? Thanks.

In a previous war, we invaded for economic reasons. We built previously undreamed of WMD's to beat a rumored WMD program that was no where near what we worried it was. We lost hidious amounts of lives in various argueabley dubious engagements. Yeah we found some death camps and mass graves that some argued were atrocities, but where's the outcry over the lying scam FDR and Churchill pulled on the western world? A case could be made for retaliating against Japan marginally, but not against Germany. Anything germany did was in response to US provocation, and besides, whatever happened inside Germany was a domestic, not international issue... right? Ok, aside from the whole war:right or wrong arguement, what about the non-halal butchery this morning? I didn't see any clerics supervising to make sure the dis-memberment and roasting was done in a correct halal fashion.

jpost editorial here Very good editorial there. Setting all other newquelar debates aside, I'm interested in his motivations for running around saying "we've got the bomb". It reads to me like he's a general no-nuk guy, and was double upset over the coverups. That's some serious sticking the neck out, and here in the US you'd be entertaining visions of black helicopters or worse. The psycho-ology of nuc blackmail politics is the old bogey cloud, and it actually gets played up far more than it is actually a threat. The political bogeymonster is far greater than the actually likely strategic or tactical advantage, however, the political side is like mega-crack for those who think they push the button. Saddam had to build a leakly shell in the 80's, and Israel took it serious enough to risk blowing up the ME to take it out, because they knew that all Saddam had to do was play a shell game on TV, and you'd never know until the flash whether he was bluffing, or if there was an ace in the hand. It's like poker, you're supposed to bluff your way back and forth, except the stakes are worse than russian roulette here. So you go the 'illegal' route, stick a gun to his head and demand that he lay his cards face down on the table, step back, and spread 'em. If he only has random low cards, slipped in the rule blank, or jokers, you look stupid, and you have to shuffle the deck before the sherrif rolls in with the posse, unless you've packed the bar with your posse first. In any rate, things get real exciting, real fast, as the stake to the motherlode swings on who draws first with the bigger barrel. "Hey Hoss, we got'cha corner'd! ya'll be out of bullets in yer revolver!" "Ha! it's a six-shooter Black bart! yer count'd one short! BLAM!"

Resistance is not futile, Gov. Tarkin...

Thank you for being consistent, even when you're wrong. Not that since there was no rule on a mandatory minimum quorum of n number of unique voters, or % of registered members, or % of active within the last 12 months members, you are forced into the undemocratic position of compelling votes, or canceling elections and results. All Hail Great Leader Comrade denoir! Woe to the .001% who didn't vote for him! Ok, so denoir, you are now obligated to fill the duties of your elected position, as there is no established proceedure for resigning partially. If you choose not live up to your title (counter to what you are doing well right now), then it is up to one of us to petition the mods via pm for a recall election. You should then contest the propriety of that, and promptly seal up the quirckiest and best debater double crown by the time that all settles out next year. OFP-anon founder? Sorry, too late. Besides, I doubt there are many 'regular' folks here, which would actually make the 'quirckiest' catagory the hardest. Which is why most of the other runnersup and I will never be able to come close to matching you in OT debate. Bah. I went straight for what I knew to be the big cheese, because I had a bone to pick with you. Allies are nice, but you're still the king of the pile, and that still makes you the best debater. I have to be frank and honest though, a lot of my points and rebuttals addressed to you were not significantly intended to be direct to you or intended to change your opinions, rather they were intended more to be in line with poking you get get you to write things publicly that I felt would either be unfounded or would help you argumentatively hang yourself, rather than have me try to do it directly in my arguments. If you were offended by this approach, I apologize and we can discuss it via PM some time. I'm just one of those cheeky little punks that deliberately goes after guys much bigger than me. I guess I happen to enjoy the school of hard knocks. Gives me plenty of exercise too.

No offense Tex, I agree with you here. Denoir, I may have not gotten around to voting, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't have voted for you. You are the best debator, in terms of depth and breadth of your ability to consistently argue logically so many diverse topics concurrently. I don't think that Placebo could have been snookered by the denoirBot. Regardless of the number of votes cast, I feel that the result was correct. But to initiate a debate on the ethics of the methodology of being selected the best debater is a particularly novel spin, which isn't necessary to cement your title. Congrats to you, and may we continue to pester you enough that you continue to earn it.

locked down paper Was this journalism, or was this terrorism, and where do you draw the line between treasonous conduct and democratic speech? We've had cases of this before since 1776, how will Iraq respond?

Congratulations to everybody. Denoir: you definitely earned the Debater award. I can't follow and respond to as many topics nearly as well as you can. I appreciate your level headed honest consistency as well, even if I think you're dead wrong on some stuff. Just for the record, I am not talking to or at the wall, nor am I screaming at it. Allies to help out do make it funner though. Balschiow, congrats to you too. These forums, due to attitudes expressed by the likes of you, and enforced by super Mods like Placebo. These forums really are an example of cooperation and intellectual discourse for the rest of the Internet really. Avon: Thanks OFP Mom. You've done and continue to do so much for everybody. Thanks for answering my wierd and obscure questions when few others didn't have the foggiest as to what I was talking about. SpeedyDonkey... No fair, your avatar was goofier than mine Congrats on putting a cross-spin on making the world go round. Harnu, congrats to you too. I kept thinking you were somebody bigshot all the time, and now I find out you really are. BAS: thanks for continuing to set the stage not only for tools and tricks and treats, but solid projects and excellent coordination. Your organization and attention to detail sets the standard for the community at large. Domo Arigatou.

She is testifiying under oath. She's testifying to the commission, not to the cameras or media.

Argh, 23 just comes up on you way too fast.

This presumes that: a) there was a viable peace process up until the fall of 2000 b) that Yassin was actually an important facilitator in the peace process, not the "Peace Process". c) others will continue to shake their fists at Israeli helicopters in public d) Arafat won't cut the rug out from them to retake Gaza. Give it a couple months, this will be old news. If Rantissi manages to rally the troops, it remains to be seen what condition, if any, Hamas will continue to exist in.

Well, if he contrived it all on his own, why did his cronies (and Clarke) stick their necks out with him? If they were fed BS from lower echolons, where is the outrage? Why let yourself get worked up by the political machinations of others? If you can't joke about yourself and your alleged failings, you have no business being in charge of anything. If you can't juggle the absurd, sublime, serious, a grenade, and a chicken all at once, you have no business in the ME. If you go and actually read the full report, and appendix D, you find the following: Were these people sane when they killed themselves? Were they drinking enough water to keep their brains hydrated? It gets a little warm that time of year. This was also the time when they were still working out the rotational details, so of course they didn't know the day and the hour and the minute and the second they would be flying home to go play xbox. I have a friend whose wife was finally able to have kids (couldn't for 10 years) just before he left to go to Kuwait. Did he CHOOSE to kill himself? No, he wanted to see his kids, and see them grow up. How about this study get repeated every month? I'll take the winter numbers, you can have the summer numbers, and we'll split the ones around deployment rotations. And randomize them based off of fibonacci progression through the digits of PI. There, now its all relative. That's nice, I'll do my best to personally offest things the other way (I could be classified in that bracket).

Interesting that the Deutschesland sat it out, I wonder what Bush and Schoeder said in their recent chat... any clues?

Speaking of lies, here's a link to the report I mentioned earlier. Yahoo news - potential Clarke hearing Also, former gov. Thompson said "Mr Clarke, here is your book, and here is what you told the press in 2002. Which is true?" Mr. Clarke (PBH) said "I think that's misleading". Again, is there any reason to get all worked up about perjured testimony here, what he says doesn't affect anyone else, does it?

Here's my reactions... zzz zzz zzz zz* huh? you talking? Bin Laden has been spouting off since long before 2001. Nobody thought that it would amount to much, that it was just retoric. Yeah, there was a few whoopsies through the 90's, but hey, business is business. The Clinton policy, while more limited than previous administrations', was still the classic play-both-sides-against-the-middle mess of non-involvement going back to Yalta and before. If you take the Bush spin, it is the first radically unique policy the US has seen since the Monroe doctrine in 1823, and reinforced by Theodore Roosevelt's "Speak softly and carry a big stick" approach to International Diplomacy. Bush claims that the overt nation-building experiment in Iraq is a deliberate attempt to subvert the entire culture that fosters terror, and change society such that people no longer desire it. Previous policies of Engagement and Isolation have been bantered by both sides for ease of electioneering. Neutralization and Establishment policies, however, require mutual aprobation of the populace at large, and given the amount of people that want their name on what ever memorial they contrive for themselves at the expense of everyone and everything else, that raises the stakes of this Texan Poker hand that much higher.

Sometimes you have to just relax, unwind, and laugh at yourself, otherwise you get so wound up your head pops off and you start making mistakes. Correspondents's dinner transcript Also, a bulletien said that as Clarke's sworn testimony to the 911 commission was diameterically opposed to previous sworn testimony given to the House Intelligence Committee, the committee chairman has asked to have hearings on whether Clarke's testimony was perjured, and which was perjured, since the two depositions are irreconciliable. Bah, who cares about perjury, depositions, and the rule of law any more. The last administration liberated us of those shackles I thought.

I was basing my numbers off the population at large. Your logic presumes that the casulty rate is attition of percentage, rather than the results of a consistent rate of incidents. That also assumes that the rate of incidents would increase with additional people in-theater. In case you didn't catch it, I was being somewhat facetious about the doom and gloom and boom. Shifting sands in shifting winds.

Are you a citizen? Go file a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FIA). I'd like to see it too.

Was he on that show? I don't normally watch it anyways.