ASL Veteran

Quantitative Easing explained Here is an article about the same thing http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/11/bernankes_cowardice_has_sealed.html I'm not sure how accurate the article is, but it is certainly plausible.

I'm dredging this thread up again because I have found what for me is the missing link in this story. The missing link for me was the way in which these raids were being conducted. It just seemed like total overkill to me. I believe I have now found the loophole that the police use for these types of raids http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/252804/overcriminalization-hits-barbershop-josh-barro# I don't think I like this little 'licensing' trick the police use for searches and seizures. My guess as far as Rawsome goes is that the police were hoping to get lucky and find drugs at the establishment they raided and they used licensing to allow the raid to go forward. The Raw milk products were probably inconsequential to the raid and were only used as the basis for having the raid by allowing the police to get their foot in the door via licensing.

Here are some more videos for you guys. Somehow they seem appropriate http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQMIe_mK9BY http://www.theblaze.com/stories/meet-your-friendly-neighborhood-communists/ http://www.theblaze.com/stories/msnbcs-lawrence-odonnell-on-air-i-am-a-socialst/

I would suggest that the C2 and relative spotting 'features' are subtle for you because they are the fundamental basis of how the game operates. In other words, without C2 and relative spotting there would be no CMx2. It would still be CMx1. Relative spotting and C2 are like the flour used for baking a cake whereas what you feel would be the 'more impactful' items are more like the frosting. Sure, frosting might taste good by itself in moderation, but without the flour you can't bake a cake. Over time Battlefront will add more 'impactful features' / frosting to various games as more and more releases come out. The C2 and relative spotting 'framework' though are the base upon which all BFC's games are built upon and therefore shouldn't have undue attention drawn to it in the same way you wouldn't really care about the steel framework of a sky scraper.

The sound that disappoints me the most is the Ma Deuce. The in game sound really needs an upgrade One of the Red Force assault rifles sounds like they are banging a bamboo stick or something. I'm not exactly sure which one it is but it's really weak. I'm really hoping that BFC will take a hard look at their sounds for when Normandy comes out. I want to play CM Normandy with the thundering sounds of battle echoing off my walls!!

I'm not really going to get into a debate about what the future holds because it is true that you can't predict the outcome of a future conflict based upon the past. However, the US airforce has had air superiority for the entire duration of every single war the US has participated in since WW2. Even in Korea the only place it could be argued that the US didn't have total air superiority would be near the North Korean and Chinese borders and only then because of political restrictions. Saddam's Air Defense system in Gulf War 1 was considered very robust at the time and the US didn't have a lot of trouble with it. The Israelis had trouble with Egyptian SAMs in 72, but no amount of Syrian SAMs slowed down the Israelis in Lebanon. Sure, Vietnam had a robust Air Defense system, but the US still had Air Supremacy the entire time (and there were a lot of political restrictions as well). Not to put to fine a point on it - sure, the US could possibly be completely and totally defeated in a conventional war with Iran, but if I were a betting man I wouldn't put any money on it. There is absolutely no evidence to indicate that a US / Iranian conventional conflict would end in any other way other than to see Iran bombed into the stone age by the US Air Force. Stealth isn't the only way to defeat an Air Defense force either so don't think that it is all reliant on stealth. Generally speaking, radar and SAM sites can be targeted by aircraft when SAM batteries and radar turn their equipment on so the air defense soldiers really do play a deadly game of cat and mouse. Leaving your radars and batteries 'switched on' all the time is similar to putting a gun to your head. It's not at all assured that the SAM battery will have the upper hand. Once the SAMs are gone then no matter how many inflatable tanks you have, as long as there are bombs and missiles to drop then a nation will suffer for as long as that nation remains at war both from an infrastructure standpoint and a military mobility standpoint. So basically, if the US controls the sky and you plan on fighting the US in a full on conventional conflict then the odds are going to be stacked against you. Sure, you could play defense for a while, but if you give the US Air Force as much time as it needs to methodically eliminate your SAM sites then eventually you are going to run out of SAMs and your nation will start to slowly deteriorate as your power grid, highways, command and control network etc are destroyed. The amount of conventional firepower that the US is using in Afghanistan is only a tiny fraction of what's available.

Unless those nations you have listed can compete against the US for air superiority then as soon as their conventional forces take the field all you are going to get is a lot of this

Generally speaking, your ability to control your troops is much more .... "efficient" than how things would work in the real world. This is the cause of the in game time compression. It's not that your troops are walking any faster or your tanks or firing any faster than they would IRL, but rather it's that with the gamer in total control of moving everything the gamer can decrease the speed of the decision cycle pretty dramatically. The gamer is also not going to be worried that their next move will be the last one on this earth and will tend to value the lives of their pixeltruppen much less than real soldiers would value their own lives or the lives of their buddies or subordinates.

This used to happen to me all the time. In fact, I sent Moon a question about it like maybe a year (or more) ago and after a lengthy exchange of e-mails complete with numerous screen shots of what I was doing it basically remained unresolved. The only way I could get it to work was I never click the 'log out' button when I leave the forums (I just close the window) and I checked the 'remember me' box after I logged in all those months ago. I've never had the problem again. Now when I link directly to the forum I'm already logged in and I can post with no problems (and remain logged in no matter how many times I post something).

Perhaps. But the "victims" here don't use the language of the Libertarian. Healthy Food Choices? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSucNqe4Crw After checking your link SO it appears that a raid must have taken place, but the whole thing still seems kind of odd to me. It's just not computing in my brain.

I have to admit that the story is rather odd sounding. Personally, if people want to drink raw milk then have at it is what I would say. It actually wouldn't surprise me if the feds were opposed to such operations, but typically one would expect the FDA to be making inspections or something along those lines. My skeptical hat is on with this story. Something isn't adding up here.

Here is a different perspective on those WHO rankings in general http://spectator.org/archives/2008/03/10/whom-are-they-kidding and about France in particular http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/09/give_me_liberty_or_give_me_hea.html

Well Mord if you are ever interested in a challenging game I would love to tangle with you in a PBEM. I too have difficulty getting motivated to play single player, although I've been forced to somewhat with Shock Force because all of my regular opponents are in the CMx1 Rules camp and can't be persuaded to make the switch. Since my computer is Vista I couldn't play CMx1 anymore so that's part of the reason why I got Shock Force. I have Afghanistan too now - or at least it's on the way. My best game ever PBEM was one of the CD scenarios from CMAK. I don't remember what the name of the scenario was, but it was in Italy and the Germans were attacking my American defending force with some hills on one side of the map and a little river / creek thing splitting the center of the map. I had two forces - one on each side of the creek. I usually tell my opponent that they can select the side if I select the scenario or I can select the side if they select the scenario. Well this guy said he wanted to play German and he wanted me to pick the scenario :eek:. I asked him like three times if he was sure he wanted me to pick both the scenario and the side and he said yes. So he launches his attack with all his German tanks and halftracks and I wait with my AT guns hidden in the hills and trees (perfect L shaped ambush). He advances and advances and I wait and wait. He starts to get nervous and starts to wonder where I am. That's when I opened up. Total annihilation - His force auto surrendered about five minutes after I first opened fire. I didn't lose a single casualty - not a single man KIA or WIA. Damndest thing I ever participated in . Hey, I told him I didn't think the scenario was completely balanced and offered him command of the American side before we started, but he went forward as the German anyway. I must give credit where credit is due because he did finish the game up to the auto surrender rather than bail. Not many gamers would endure that kind of punishment without bailing so he had integrity. Unfortunately when I asked if he wanted to play another game he didn't respond . For CMSF and Afghanistan I figure that I would prefer taking Syrian or Mujaheddin because they are going to be the underdog in most cases and I would prefer the challenge.

I think this basically sums up who is covered under article 1

The Global Fascist police state is crumbling already, but it was a close call. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVhT7P0lDfI I'm not too worried about the government tracking me because I get mail from the post office so they know where to find me if they want to . The main thing that stands between the police state and you is freedom of speech. As long as the state or it's ideological allies don't control all the information you receive then you stand a chance of not being 'influenced' to believe that the Communist / Fascist police state is a good thing for you. For example, if you watch nothing but MSNBC you might get something like this but as long as there are other outlets of information that you have access to you can get the same story but an entirely different spin on it and here is some commentary on this whole episode

So a US invasion of Canada would be more like a nation building exercise. The US military would be liberating the Canadian population from an oppressive government while fighting off a powerful communist insurgency?

No, not skimming profits. A trader can't skim profits from a customer. The customer is going to get an execution price based upon the skill of the trader and the trader is using various devices to get better prices for their customer (and thus enhancing their reputation and their own profits). The trader is "screwing" other trader's or other trader's customers by giving themselves an advantage over them. This really doesn't affect 'the little guy' too much. If you are trading 100 shares or 500 shares of something then you aren't moving the market so it's got no effect on you. It's really high rollers 'screwing' other high rollers. Outside of the realm of the actual people doing the trades though, the people affected by this would be the holders of mutual funds or retirement funds, stuff like that. If you are a mutual fund and you are trying to get your order filled and the 'other guy' has access to the flash trading and you don't then you are operating at a disadvantage. The ones who might suffer or benefit from that are all the customers who are holding that mutual fund etc. This is why a firm like Goldman Sachs would be crying foul. I'm not sure what you would nationalize here or what positive effect you think that would have. I have to admit that remark has me scratching my head.

The thought occurred to me that my explanation may not make sense to some readers, so I figured I would expand on it a bit. First a classic case of Front Running: Let's say that Costard is a licensed broker and one of his clients is Wall Street high roller Diesel Taylor. Diesel decides that CM:N is going to be a huge hit so he decides he's going to place an order for 100,000 shares of BFC at the market (ie, he wants his order filled at whatever price he gets from the market). He calls up Costard and tells him what he wants to do. Costard figures that Diesel Taylor's order is large enough that it will drive the price up so he decides that he might as well make a little money on the side. Costard has Diesel Taylor's order in hand but before he works the order he puts out a buy order for 500 shares of BFC in his own personal brokerage account. Costard then places Diesel Taylor's trade for 100,000 shares and sure enough the price goes up. When Costard has finished with Diesel Taylor's order he then goes out and sells his 500 shares at the new higher price and pockets a nice profit. That is Front Running. Okay, so what was apparently happening in the articles Diesel Taylor provided? Let's say that Costard is a computer genius who works at the NASDAQ exchange. He tells his boss "hey, there is a loophole in the Front Running law that exempts automatic executions, so why don't we just hold orders for a half second and start up a service whereby our special customers can see the held orders before we execute them?" His boss loves the idea and so Flash Trading is born. Now you have two wall street high rollers - Jon S and Diesel Taylor. Jon S signed up for NASDAQ's special feed and Diesel Taylor did not. Jon S is sitting at his desk with six monitors stacked up and has his cup of coffee sitting nearby. One of those monitors has the special NASDAQ feed for upcoming orders on BFC. Diesel Taylor is sitting at his computer with four monitors stacked up with no coffee and decides to place an order for 100,000 BFC at the market. The order goes to the NASDAQ, but rather than executing the order immediately the NASDAQ holds the order for a half second and retransmits that information to Jon S's computer. Jon S then sees the order Diesel Taylor placed and Jon S decides that placing his order before Diesel Taylor's order executes would be beneficial so that's what he does. Since Jon S is on the special NASDAQ feed his order is not held but gets filled immediately. Diesel Taylor's order was held by NASDAQ and so his order gets filled after Jon S's order gets filled. So yeah, Jon S is front running, but he is doing so because the information is being given to him by NASDAQ. I suspect that the reason the NASDAQ could do that is because of the automatic order exemption in the Front Running rule. There may have been some political favors involved too since I have no doubt that the big shots running the exchanges would know the big shots at the SEC, NASD, or the other regulatory bodies. Having said all that, it's possible that I misunderstood the articles and that I'm way out in left field on it. I have to admit that I didn't give the articles a very thorough read.

Oh, I agree that sounds like front running. I don't think it's because of order cancellations though. Order cancellations, while annoying, are understandable when trading a thinly traded security. According to your links though it sounds like the order is being held for a split second so that would squarely fall within the rules for front running because that's what front running is. The trades being held are the material non public information. The problem is that if your reread the rule it states that automatic executions are exempt - that's probably the loophole that makes it legal (although I'm not in the compliance department so I can't be sure ). I think one of your links said that the exchanges have stopped doing it already so I would guess that the problem has largely been addressed.

Here, maybe this will help ease your mind http://content.lawyerlinks.com/default.htm#http://content.lawyerlinks.com/library/sec/nasd/NASD_Section_2100.htm If you check NASD rule IM-2110-3 which I have helpfully linked to above you will find that Front Running is already illegal in the US. You have to scroll down about halfway and the page is designed so that you can't copy text from it so I can't give you a sample of what it says. Apparently they are also discussing expanding the rule as discussed here http://www.willkie.com/files/tbl_s29Publications%5CFileUpload5686%5C2856%5CFINRA_Proposes_Expanding_Prohibitions.pdf Judging from the time of that report the new rules may already be in effect, although very few licensed brokers or broker dealers would have played it close to the edge under the old rules since the penalties can be pretty severe.

I'm not in favor of any wealth distribution in any direction. I have to admit though that I'm at a loss as to what you are referring to.

An interesting topic. As a side note I would mention that if you look at tax revenues vs tax rates historically you should find that the amount of revenue stays pretty static relative to tax increases or decreases. I only say should rather than will because it's been a while since I checked that. Simply put, a non communist government doesn't produce anything of value and the only way it gets 'revenue' is to take it from someone else in society who is productive. How many employees could Battlefront have if Steve and Charles didn't have to pay any taxes and how much more quickly could we have the next game in our hot little hands if that were the case?

Yes Stalin's Organist - this is exactly what I was getting at. Perhaps the heart of a libertarian beats within you yet ..... .

I don't believe in redistribution of wealth for the sake of redistributing it. The purpose of taxation is for the government to get the funds it needs to perform it's functions. There are other ways besides income tax for the government to get the funds it needs to operate though, and income tax is primarily an instrument of wealth redistribution. Let's consider a wealthy individual like John D Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie though. They could be regarded as quite possibly the wealthiest two individuals in history. Good men or bad men? An argument could be made that without Andrew Carnegie or John D Rockefeller the modern world as we know it would not be possible. Andrew Carnegie made Steel a common building material and made it a lot cheaper than it had ever been made before. The price of Kerosene plummeted by something like 80% thanks to John D Rockefeller and you will notice that whale hunting is no longer the big industry that it was before Rockefeller. Rockefeller saved the whales. On balance, I'm curious to know whether those in this thread think that Andrew Carnegie and John D Rockefeller contributed more to society by doing what they did or if they would have contributed more to society if the government had taken more from them and redistributed it to others. They both produced something of value and that's why they became wealthy. What's wrong with becoming wealthy by producing something of value? Doesn't Steve at Battlefront deserve to keep the fruits of his labor if his business is successful? Yep, if we were to glance at Steve's bank account I have no doubt that most of us would be impressed. The thing about wealthy individuals in the US is that people are moving up and down the wealth 'strata' fairly regularly. The 'wealthy' in the US aren't a static group that society keeps separated by the state as in Medieval times with the nobility and the peasantry, or like in India with the "Untouchables" etc. Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden were both wealthy individuals but they aren't doing so great now. Steve could also join the ranks of the poverty stricken if he makes a bad enough game.

So Dieseltaylor ..... do you consider 'wealth accumulation' to be a zero sum game? If wealth is to be 'redistributed' then who decides how to redistribute it? I don't mean how you would redistribute it, but who you think is the best qualified to decide how to redistribute it and why? Do you think that 'wealth accumulation' and 'incentive' or 'effort' have any relation to each other, or is 'wealth accumulation' completely divorced of 'incentive' or 'effort'?