Pukko

Not to bring this into a complete mideast thread, but thought this would also be worth mentioning. From the article: Here is a link to the refusal-nicks mentioned above website, countaining stories and support petition list etc: http://seruv.org.il/defaulteng.asp Seems like that website is'nt updated for quite some time. Here is a more updated one: http://www.refusersolidarity.net/default.asp?content=breakingNews

There are an endless amount of terrorism definitions around, and not many seems to be able to agree on any of them. One of them is FBI's: International Terrorism: "the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives." Now change the word 'unlawful' to 'lawful', and you will have the definition of war: "the lawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives." And what law is that then? Its 'international law', the very same that the Bush administration now partly have made the USA an exception from through their refusal to accept 'the international crime court' - arguing that their domestic system is better suited, and threatening to liberate any Americans put to trial under the ICC by force. Are you not a recognized state or of 'state like character' ? Tough luck, because whatever you do in these ways will then be considered unlawful in the eyes of international law and therefore terrorism, unless ofcourse someone powerful in a powerful state happens to like what you are doing....

change fries and toast to **** and ******, and I'm all for it  However I got a feeling that a UN resolution will be put through later this month, or soon anyway. The situation can't continue like it does. Unfortionally I also think that France and Germany is going to make some cheap compromises to get it over with, without asking Bush & Blair to bend over a little more (or at all).

Just let me get this straight: You are sorry?? Â You have spent many hours creating really advanced (or the most advanced?) innovative and fun OFP missions, and are sorry for it... Ok, let me put it like this: May I touch your avatar, oh great bn880? Â Â I played it for many hours without any bigger bugs, and came to a halt (not played it since unfortionally) playing it after saving that man in the forrest - so that I could afford a pilot licence however. But it was an fantastic experience over all. Sure it might not have been perfect, but for a first step in a new gaming area it's just fantastic... And also, I have not followed the OFP releases very closely the last months, and I have actually not tried out your other missions or followed other peoples Civil-OFP stuff (but I have read about an police mod). After i have done some other stuff tonight I'll check out the civvy releases however, and definitely try out your other work.

As I have asid over and over earlier, the matter of European identity creation is maybe the most important question - short term and definitely long term. I'm not really in the mood, or indeed at present time have'nt got the knowledge, to specify more concrete ways of creating a creative/positive European identity. But rest assured that an European identity is going to be created whether we want it or not. And I'm therefore also very sure that it is better to be aware of this and discuss the problem to make the best out of it - than just letting it go; developing in our unconcious and be the object of influence from people with special interests, like Berlusconi. But remember - a strong concrete identity is quite likely to end up in nationalism and patriotism; and we dont want to end up being an arrogant clumsy gigant like USA now, do we? Also in the matter of regional/national. You Johnwayne living in UK are probably very aware of Wales & Scotland (and the less fortunate North Ireland); do you really think that in the long run a European state would have to be so very much different from that? A unification of Europe may very well be as a natural step now as the unification of UK was some time ago... Or put it like this; back then the UK might have been interpreted by Brits as just as a big and impossible project as Europe is for us now. It probalby have something to do with how a broad perspective of the world around us we develop and feel comfortable with: the brittish islands, the European continent, the..... [i see when previwing that denoir is on the same track...] EDIT:And you even have got differnent national football teams!!! The same regional thinking is also very present here in Sweden, once divided among regions that was fierce enemies. Its still a very regional feeeling left here, with local governance and distinct differences between people from the west and east, north and south. Sure a unification can be very dangerous if it's made too fast. But we have no immideate hurry to become a real 'state' (if we ever becomes one in the dying time of nation states), I have really hard to imagine that happening within the closest 50 years at least. But we do have an urgent need to develop a forum and outwards face dealing with international 'stuff', since at least I recon that there have to be someone who can say NO to the USA in the closest decades. I fear that that nation for various reasons is going outwards, and will continue to be blindly violent in frustration even after Bush is gone.........

I realy hate that silly phrase  *chuckle* I can just see that phrase being the catalyst for this whole thing being turned into a porno. "Starring Ron Jeremy as Saddam Hussein" ROFL  Hey, Longinius! You have proven to be maestro of script writing/directing before (the Jessica Lynch movie), and there is no doubt that the very best will be needed here too. I mean, there is nothing harder than writing porno scripts.. only the real hardcore writers have any chance to succeed   One more time?  At first I thought I read some old article about those 8 police officers killed by US soldiers... How many times have the same thing happened (US soldiers shooting at police cars)? Soon there will probably be more Iraqi police officers killed by US soldiers than US soldiers killed in attacks since 'the war ended' Â

Yeah; I know  A lecturer I had some years ago was himself guilty of promoting that 'go out and live a normal life when you have aready learned that you are just a nasty fucking virus' policy in the 70's. Yeah, It's an responsibility of our whole society to take care of those pepole destroyed by the psychology-disease. It's not an easy problem to deal with though, especially since psychological rationality is still going strong... I jiust reacted towards what I saw as an 'kill all those lunatics' post... Sorry     Â

**rant mode** Just watch out to come in contact with psychology yourself at any time. If you do, chanses are that you will learn really good how to become a mentally disturbed person - its an art like anything, and some of our pretty institutions teach the art really good. Psychology, like Nazi ideology, is becoming less and less popular in our society, when their rational goes up in the thin air they are made of - even though we are really addicted to it yet... /**rant mode** Sorry for that. It was really nothing personal. But I really can't stand the mentally disturbed rethorics. One cannot generalize to say that all psychology is negative - especially not for curing the diseases psychology itself has created - , but unfortionally much of it is a disease in our society sprung out of the modernity-project. Sorry again, but I guess that some of us get some 'frustrations to project at something else' (as a psychologist would have said) from this happening. Its really not flaming thus, and is nothing dangerous Â

I saw on west-Swedish local news 'vastnytt' an interview with the one resposible for 'torgmöten' (square meetings? ) in 'Nordstan' shopping centre here in Gothenburg. He said he was really surprised over that there was no securitymeasures what so ever when different political partyleaders held speeches there lately. They just arrived there as any street-musician and held their speeches. On the other hand he was equally surprised over the extreme security measures when primeminister Göran Persson held a speech there recently... The political security policies seems to have been quite wierd indeed Â

  ..... She was not only an intelligent woman and a politician I liked farily much (well, as much as I like any other politician's professional role), but she was also a great candidate for the primeminister role in our representative democracy due to her great charisma. Call me cynical, but in representative democracies that's unfortionally one of the most important qualities. I recon most of us have dismissed some stupid/ugly looking politician only because of their apperarance in TV. Blair is great, Bush is not for example. She was definitely not a bimbo, and I often reflected over my own reaction when I saw her in that red or blue dress amongst all those male colleagues of her. She looked great, and she probably had quite some problems with people not liking what that symbilises in politics - but I'm sure that that also made many others view politics and politicians in a new way; one don't have to be dull to be a good politician. Sorry if that comment pissed someone of, but that's the thing that really made her special in politics for me - not being a great supporter of representative democracy - and the thing I probably will remember her most for... I had great respect for her, and her death means a great loss for her family and Sweden Â

I'll vote yes. Noone can really tell if it will beniefit us economically or not. For me, thats not more than a short term greed question. I'll do anything to make sure that Europe grows stronger as soon as possible; because evidently there is an emergent need for a counterpart to a blindly frustrated USA that use violence as the first solution to 'not so very accurate problems' internationally. Call it an preemptive emergency solution - it really cant be for the worse anyway (well, Europe in it self may be bad in the future - but otherwise there may not be much of a future at all). Also, a common currency is probably the absolute best way to unite a people. I'm primary worried about in which ways an European identity is created. If we unite ourselves by saying "we're the biggest and the best" we're fucked before we even started - not to say how much the ones that will have to stand in contrast to our greatness (as in making sure most people on earth have a bad time) will be...

Great  Swedish politicians never use bodyguards do they. For those who dont know, Swedish (quite controversal) primeminister Olof Palme was shot to death in 1986 after a cinema - to which he went with his wife but no bodyguard..

There was a time with no mods? Â Â Â Well, as I recalled it, it was like a moderator popping in at offtopic once every month, and just deleting all threads older than 14 days or something... Well, thats quite exgragated (sp? ), but it was something like that

When I got hooked to the OFP demo in april 2001 I had never been involved in a gaming community before (or wait, I was quite active in the Grand Prix 2 community back in '98, but only for ~6 months). My part of the OFP community is still limited to this forum, primary offtopic which I mostly just reads but also posts in when I feel for it. I started out at operationflashpoint.com before it was closed july 10 2001, with questions and suggestions for the demo. I had no particular expectations for the community back then. I really liked the game and participated, but the community was just another gaming community for me back then - with the usual whining and growling. But then came 9/11, and I was at once surprised over the relatively mature and open atmosphere in here. I posted a thread ~9/14 with the question of non-violent solutions to terrorism - and to my big surprise it became a quite creative discussion! At a war gaming forum!! Even if the forum was unmoderated at the time, there was'nt too much flaming IMO. Indeed the spamming took over completely in October 2001, with the hillarious celeral thread being decent since it was limited to one thread. I have become addicted to follow the tracks of 9/11 and other international developments here, and I must say that it has been quite worth the time... And now I have quite high expectations on the community. I must say however to the ones with more stereotypic views: There are many many different reasons for people to be interested in the game and the community. And I can promise you that BIS gets back the money spent on bandwith for offtopic discussions. I have read posts where people cant understand "why there are peace-nicks at an war gaming forum!!" I for one can tell you that I dont actually enjoy the 'killing' in OFP at all. Actually, I can feel pretty sad at times when massacring enemy soldiers in a mission - their screams and death animations are all enough real to me; and I Â dont really enjoy killing... Rather I'm deeply fashinated with the extremely innovative and well done 'virtual reality' in OFP. The great freedom, the (at least with some custom scripts) unlimited amount of actions available. I mean, I often just enjoy stating a mission to run/fly/drive around the islands. Just adding something in the mission editor if I get bored - its really great recreation right here at the computer, to clear my mind and having a break from other stuff. Actually, I rather think that the 'war part limitation' of the game is one of its dowsides, I would love more meaningful peaceful missions/campaigns. I played bn880's 'working on Nogova' mission, and would love to see more of that stuff being created, and developed way further. Back in 2001 I started making a civil campaign myself, but it never got finished. I'm sure that we will see more civil stuff in the future of OFP and OFP2. And for those yelling and shouting 'this is a war game for fuck sake', cant you just respect that there are people with other interests, that love other parts of the very same piece of software that you enjoy? Â EDIT: Actually, there is one thing that I've got some problems with here. And that's the military hardware/unit discussions that pop up here once in a while. Must you guys be so military-horny? Can't we just talk about peace, love and understaning instead I have done Swedish military sevice, and for me military stuff is really quite dirty and sick. I dont get an hardon when thinking about my old k-pist (see the Operation white night mod) if I put it that way On the third hand, older military stuff, from the world wars and good old knights and such, have some romantic shimmer indeed... But now I got to get back to where I was born in the OFP world and take a ride - to the three houses at Lolisse on Malden

Yo Americans, here comes the pukko again with an other 'state of the union' question  Clearly recalling (even if not the exact date) the day this summer when most of you guys woke up from the 'Bush slumber' regarding Iraq. Also seeing less, or none, 'Anti American' kneejerk reactions anymore, and less of patriotic chaps like FSPilot participating in the discussion. And lastly seeing strong statements like this from a US loving guy: Then my question is: Is this just a local phenomenon at this forum, or is there a real heavy 'Bush crusher' gaining momentum in the silent (well, apart from Democrat criticism - but that do not really say anything) around USA? Apart from official information about it, like opinion polls; have you guys noticed any turning of the tide among friends, family and other Americans you meet? Well, maybe you feel that you have already answered by believing that Bush is gonna be reelected. Maybe the patriot discourse is still going strong among most Americans, and Bush will be raised to the sky once Saddam is found. But anyway, have you noticed any change amongst people in your everyday life?

Sounds cool like hell... Almost a bit OFP- & CoC-ish but in real life. Aye, it really sounds like the great scripting efforts of the OFP community, like artillery scripting  Maybe you denoir was a little inspired from it when working on CoC? Imagine in 50 years, when OFP 9 is used as client software.. With the possibilities to simulate an infantry attack on targets - up that very hill - on place Â

Take care mann

Progress is indeed being made. I was going to post the link below in your previous thread about universalism, but could not be assed to write a decent introduction to it. I'll not do that this time either, but put it like this: it might not be the easiest (or best) text about postcolonialism on the Internet, but it has some value indeed. Maybe you already are familiar with this, but anyway its a good reading. The site also contains much else worthy some surfing time: http://www.sou.edu/English....hay.htm The perspective clearly has its downsides, but if you are unfamiliar with it, it definitely is not something to miss entirely. The postmodern (or if you want: relativistic) kind of perspectives clearly is also the most positive around when it comes to issues like culture etc IMO. I recon there are quite a few such text being read by the UN personnel, and hopefully also by national officials - it really contains much of the way of thinking of 'the future human natures' I believe and hope Â

Ofcourse its not easy. What I wrote above is however the almost impossible first step if the UN should completely take over. Well, maybe such a speach would not need to be so 'accurate' and specific, but would in reality be much more humble. Why I'm thinking about a speech, is because that's the only 'untouched' stuff that would come directly into the populations TV:s. Most other stuff that would surround such a happening is subject to interpretion and modification by the ones with interest and power to do so. I mean like when mr.x says "thats complete nonsense, just look at our new evidence here" or "that's not entirely correct, the truth is...." What I mean is that some concrete parts of such a process, could be real dangerous. Would the 'Americans' (as in a big part) be able to accept such a message? I'm not sure if I like the comparison to Israel, but at the moment some similarities exist indeed - militant extremists and a hated occupying people. As I have claimed since 9/11, I still think the only way to deal with terrorism, is like you wrote "eliminate their recruiting base", or indeed 'removing their reasons - eliminate the hatered'. That's the only thing that can be done - and that's also extremely difficult in it self. As for the present extremists, if you cannot guarantee 99.9% effectivity (as in very little innocent collateral damage) when killing them, you better leave them alone. If they have no new recruit's it will take years indeed before they are gone, but not too many  - if compared to other solutions those years of occasional terror actions is really the best thing that could happen. I would say in a good flower power mood: If you can find the extremists - give them some good old loving instead of bullets. If anything, that's the only weapon against hatered... But best is probably to leave them alone, let them come out when they do and blow themselves and some targets up. Just make sure to keep the mood up amongst the 'not yet targets'. Not at all impossible, it just takes some determination and patience. And I'm sure the Iraqi's have quite alot of the later, at least if the UN would gain their trust, both short and long term. EDIT: Ok, I probably sound a little naive thinking that the UN have all that a great credibility in the mideast. Recalling the distrust many have against the UN (not only extreminsts), and the pathetically unsuccessful UN sanctions against Iraq - 100% UN control is by no means an automatic solution to the problems. But there is no other with as good potential as the UN to succeed. It would be a extremely hard period of gaining trust indeed. But as it is now, there is very little hope... and UN:s credibility is not exactly growing as long as the coalition is occupying Iraq.

Well, that suports Bernadottes theory pretty well aye? Â Â Â Â But how are they going to clear it out in the long run? Catching Saddam or even rebuilding most infrastructure (only to be destroyed again by the ones thinking it suits their agenda) is most likely not enough. Neither oil nor stability comes easily for the coalition with the worlds all terrorists around... will they just let it go to purchase a new 'terror supporting nation' ? Use it to reinforce the need to fight terrorism, and deliver a tasty excuse for leaving Iraq to fight the new evil, even if Iraq is still in complete chaos? The only thing I can see now to avoid a real terrible chaos in Iraq is to give the UN the complete control over the rebuilding of Iraq. But that would also demand an official humiliation of the Bush & Blair administrations, and that's not going to happen... I mean, one possible way is that once a resolution would be accepted from the security council, Kofi Annan makes an official speach (preferrably also in the most fitting of Iraq's around 20 languages. As a frieldly jest, but also out of necessity) with a point similar to "We (the UN) did not support, but rather opposed, the invasion of Iraq this spring. The occupying nations are now regreting their war of agression, and we (the UN) are now taking the full responsibility to rebuild the chaos they caused to Iraq. We will now help reconstructing Iraq for the best of the Iraqi people only, with no exceptions and with no secondary goals. We have no hidden agenda, but will do only our very best in the interest of the Iraqi people - with no differance in the worthyness or representation between people of different religous beliefs or ethicities". It would probably have to be quite harsh towards the coalition nations in order to gain trust and support from most Iraqi's. There is no way that could happen in the close future

Wow! After being away some time since I posted the thread about Pirates of the caribbean, where I also learned that Sid Meier is back with a Pirates sequel, I now get to know that Akella is developing this wonder of the world   too  I have always loved WW2 subsims. They are so wonderfully calm and peaceful for the most time, and then all of a sudden I sit there with a pulse of 130 for some time while the destroyers are cruising the water above trying to find my position, to deliver those nasty sinking surprises... I have this 'simple technology warfare' kink. I love WW1 flightsims and WW2 subsims, probably much because of the little romantic shimmering around these pioneer-times (which is also very present in OFP for various reasons, especially with mods like Invasion 1944). I also recon this is part of my fashination of RPG's where one fight with primitive wapons like swords and cannons/catapults. Thinking about it, all fairytales about knights in shiny armour is basically nothing but war-romantics.. Primitive warfare rules! I bought Silent Hunter II when it came out some year ago, but never played it much for some reason (not a very innovative design I guess). But I remember playing Aces of the deep much on a portable computer out in the garden in summer '97, and also good old Silent Service back in the Atari 520 times. And now it seems like both some promising WW1 flightsims and WW2 subsims are in the making! Regarding the eastern nations great innovative game developing, I really think they have a much stronger motivation and inspiration to create real quality games than their western counterparts do. Complex things like everything, parts like high education, market development and general hopes of the future surely play in. Lets just enjoy it while it lasts, but who knows, maybe the African/Mideast/Latin Americans/Chinese/South-east Asian gaming developers will rule in the future once the 'eastern nations' becomes jaded and blasé... well.. except BIS ofcourse Â

In january 2001 I got my hands on the original Seadogs. I was sceptical at first, but once I started playing it I was glued to it for weeks. Actually it was so bad that when I finally got to bed at 9 a clock in the morning after the first night playing - I could not sleep. I got up after 10 miniutes again to continue playing for about 3 days with almost no rest....   Thats the worst gaming dedication i have ever had (and then the OFP demo came when I finally got enough of seadogs, but the OFP addiction is of a less perverse and more lasting kind). When I finally got a Man-o-war from an attack with a battleship against the Spanish treasure fleet, I could at last let go of Seadogs. But ever since I have been waiting for the sequel: Seadogs II. Unfortionally Disney bought it this spring to make it the official game to their movie "Pirates of the Caribbean". But rest assured that their involvement has not completely ruined the game, even if features like slave trading and the female character have been removed (well, one can still play as Danielle by editing a textfile). It seems like the most stunning games these days comes from the east. Akella who has made this game is from Russia. And one of the most wonderful things with the original Seadogs was that the music was made by Russia's National Philharmonical Orchestra! Pirates of the Caribbean has on the other hand real crappy music (drums, synths and bassguitars dont fit in so good ). I have however dealt with that by converting 22 music pieces from Seadogs to 19 MB of ogg files in the new game. It really makes a big differance. For the ones unfamiliar with these games I'll tell you about them shortly: You start out with a small ship in an English harbour. From there you can either play the campaign game and serve different people in the arcipelagio, or sail between islands trading goods or just go out pirating to eventually get that stunning Man-o-war. You can have up to 4 ships simultaniously, and a big number of officers specialized at different skills. You can load your guns with 4 types of ammunition, sink ships or take prizeships (woth alot if sold at a shipyard). One can also attack forts and probably take over/plunder cities (havent tried this in the new game). You can run around on the Islands - exploring or doing missions with up to 3 officers at your side. Character development is based on experience points, and there are a great number of skills to train (you can also steer the officers development, and the at the moment selected 3 officers skillpoints are added to yours in most cases). Well, that's at least some of the game features. The gratest thing with the game is that it is so stunningly beautiful (at least with good music) that I just fire it up and relax sailing around while drinking coffe  And when you got a Man-o-war with a broadside of ~40 cannons you can scare the shit out of your neighbours by firing a salvo; it really sound like a terrible thunder. So why am I promoting this game like this? I'm sure that Disney will be able all on their own, but I'm also sure that they will not attract 'state of the art' gamers from the OFP community  And the original Seadogs obviously did not get very famous. This is really a wonderful piece of software that I wish everyone had the cahnce to experience. And its not a scripted 'prison' like many games, but rather like OFP - you do it your way... Just a warning: Make sure you got some days free to spend playing, coz the risk is big that you will be glued to it. The around 10 other persons (20-35 yrs old) I know who played the original Seadogs got just as addicted to it as I did. I have heared of the most perverse solutions to keep the game running while being away from the computer The official site: http://pirates.bethsoft.com/main.html The old Seadogs forum (there dont seems to be a new forum to this game, so everyone discuss it here - the Bethsoft sever seems to be down quite often though): http://seadogs.bethsoft.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php And here are some screenshots I took of my current ships - a Fleut and a Corvette:

He is working on a remake/sequel right now. New Pirates! Announcement No SHIT captain!  I guess there are some good gaming stuff still coming from the states after all  There are no dates around, but do you know for how long it has been in development? Or for how long it has been announced? I have played some pirate games on C64 and/or Atari - but I'm not sure what they were called. I know that one very populat title was Pirates Gold though... Damn it, this is great news! Â

I am not entirely sure which ship that is - but I rocon its the ghosty one.. In that case you should probably be happy for not geting closer - probably better to die torn to pieces than engaging that ship with a sloop (or whatever the starting ship is). And boarding+ taking prize ships is probably the quickest way to get some shiny gold..

jaa, jaa. Parts of it suck indeed. I think I have only got one savegame corupted though - while having serveral crashes back to windows. And some parts of hte bugs are just features  - like being able to get all officers for 0 gold, or even have them pay to join. I'm quite sure a patch is on its way soon though, "but its still a bloody beautiful game, anyway... you with all your negative waves" (Oddball, Kelly's Heroes, scene 45  ) Fspilot Its a quite big ocean, containing ~10 islands and 5 nations + pirates. You can sail across the map in sailing mode (probably a bug, since it does not take any 'real' time), or use the world map to sail around in 2d with icons where one day is around 10 seconds long. You can mock upon islands, but make sure that you got some heavyduty guns and ships before you do - or the guarding fortress will sink you in no time Â