Dave H

Hey, this makes our budget snafu at the Census Bureau look like pocket change. Thanks, Navy! :D Anyone familiar with Arthur C. Clarke's story "Superiority" from the collection "Tales of the White Hart"? It's a short story about two civilizations at war who were more or less technologically even when the fighting began. One side began devoting all of their resources to building fantastic wonder weapons - only they were horribly expensive so they couldn't afford many and they never quite worked. The other side simply kept building more and more of their tried and true weapons. The book is about 50 years old and may have been based on Germany's super-duper missiles and airplanes and tanks versus the USSR and the US that just produced floods of everything with generations of upgrades. Anyway this news reminds me of "Superiority" just like the B-2 does and the F-22 does and the JSF does and the Army's Crusader did and the Sgt. York did and the Comanche did and combat robots do.

Could one of the supporters of censorship explain how publishing pictures of the dead soldiers would help the enemy, whoever that is? Do we think the only way the people of Iraq or Afghanistan find out about American casualties is by checking the US papers? The killing is happening right in front of them in broad daylight. There's no secrecy about it. It appears to me that the only point of the censorship of these pictures, just like the flag-draped coffins, is to keep US citizens from seeing them. Pictures like that might cause people to begin thinking about why these deaths keep happening. In turn that might cause people to begin holding someone responsible. So maybe the censorship actually is for keeping information about casualties from the enemy of the war leaders. As it turns out the enemy in this war has been us all along. :mad: That Abbott, what a kidder, throwing a tantrum against the very newspaper that provides William Kristol a soapbox. :rolleyes:

Who wants Finns and Canucks to be pleased? If they wanted to be pleased they wouldn't live in Finland and Canada. :rolleyes:

The only problem with invading New Zealand is that once it's over you're in New Zealand. Might as well go a bit farther south and invade Antarctica. The only significant difference is there would be penguins instead of sheep.

Edison said he had learned of hundreds of things that would not work when he was working on an incandescent light bulb. We've identified plenty of things that won't work to replace fossil fuels as sources of energy. Simply refining existing technology isn't going to make the problems go away. What's needed is a burst of real creativity, something along the lines of the invention of the internal combustion engine. The energy solution is almost surely something we haven't even thought of yet. Necessity really is the mother of invention. I feel very confident.

We interrupt this, um, whatever for a message of cataclysmic importance to the upside down contingent of <font size=1>penguins</font size>. Today's Sydney Morning Herald reports that a 2 am lockout time for all licensed drinking establishments is being considered. Adding insult to injury - both well deserved in the case of Aussies - a ban of fruit-flavored and confectionary-flavored cigarettes is expected by December 2009. Fruit-flavored cigarettes? What kind of degenerates put fruit flavor into cigarettes? Is that to broaden the appeal to the juice box age group? Oh wait, you're already stuffing them with Vegemite. :eek: :eek: :eek: Can't we simply erase that continent off the maps and pretend it doesn't exist? Would anybody miss it? :confused:

You know you sorry lot needed us to drop by and lend this place some class. Even the insane MasterGoodale himself was several evolutionary steps higher than the average Senior Knight. Here are some lovely parting gifts:

Unneeded, kind sir. With the demise of the old political forum, I have moved my rantings elsewhere, only occasionally passing by old haunts like a wise old storm cloud, pausing only long enough to rain my droplets of wisdom and delight upon the landscape like a giant car windshield shattered at 20,000 feet rains glass.</font>

By removing the names of nations and the reference to the opposition this entire post leaves me with a depressing sense of deja vu. This could so easily have been written about 35 years ago about another place where the US stampeded into a war. Back then we were also without knowledge of the enemy* and with absolutely no idea of the battering our enemy could and would withstand. Clearly the lessons that were learned and were used so effectively in the First Gulf War are being taught once again to the country that refuses to remember. enemy* - in both Vietnam and Iraq the fighting was/is against people who had absolutely no grudge against the US until we did something completely idiotic. We (Truman) brought the French army back to occupy Vietnam after WW2. We (Bush) invaded and occupied Iraq. Political parties clearly have no monopoly on making bad choices. One example was in Barbara Tuchman's classic book "The March of Folly" and I'm sure the second would also qualify for her definition of folly.

Michael, I think I remember the perfect game to take advantage of the CMSF AI. Return to the giddy days of 1979 when Metagaming introduced their pocket games. OGRE was #01. That's not the game. The one I'm thinking of is RIVETS which was #05. Here's the description: HERE COME THE ROBOTS....OOPS! BOPPERS were mass produced robotic war machines. When the final war ended they were all that was left. Everyone was dead; but, the BOPPERS kept on fighting. After all, with the intelligence of can openers what could you expect. RIVETS is a two player tactical level science fiction game of robotic warfare in the 22nd century. Players select their robot armies, set their programs, and send them out to destroy the enemy computer complex. RIVETS is fast playing and easy to learn with a humorous style. Games are quick even if the robots are a bit dumb. Don't you think the AI could handle simulating robots with the intelligence of a can opener?

So that tortured little speck of a brain cell floating in the great vacuum between your ears equates everyplace warmer that Minnissippisota with Hell? Even Small Emma probably knows that Dante's Ninth (and lowest) Circle of Hell held traitors encased in ICE! Sounds exactly like the Twin Cities to me.

Good God, won't this awful thing just stay dead and buried? No Axe, not you, I meant this horribly outdated thread. No more MasterYouKnowWho, nobody still playing any of the CM games, apparently nobody but Becket at all interested in CM:SF. YK2, I blame you for resurrecting this thread from the trash bin. It was great back in the glory days of CMBB and CMAK, but it just ain't what it once was. Apparently it never attracted enough unemployed Minnesotapeans with nothing else to do but post pages of rambling nonsense to keep this thread going. Not to mention that except for Mace this thread had a complete lack of insane and bored Aussies. 'Twas fun while it lasted.

You're right. We have nobody else to blame. The real enemy is us.

Happy Birthday MrPeng!

Ooh, can't argue with that logic. Fortunately we only use guys (and women) with real legs and avoid the problem.

Have the old ones ever considered making nice hats for themselves like G.R.O.S.S.? Hats would lend them some much needed panache.

Too gentle. More drinking is indicated to reach the proper state of :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

Don't you think the setting of the game is a gigantic flaw to overlook? I haven't purchased DropTeam or Down in Flames or any of the Barbie games either because I didn't care for those settings. The games may be the greatest things since sliced bread and I will never try any of them to find out. You're saying that CMSF's allegedly superior gameplay compensates for a setting that frankly blows chunks?

In the General Forum he mentioned he was working on a Stalingrad card game. That doesn't sound very promising for this game either.

A great improvement? Try the veal.

So it's okay to show off your obvious feelings of racial superiority as long as you include (joking)? I recall a group of BFC members (at Gyrene's site) making fun of Rosa Park's funeral as one of the vilest things I've read on the Internet. I'm truly sorry you feel so insecure that you must compensate by taking a cheap shot at a dead heroine.

34 hours of labor?? :eek: :eek: Man, what I wouldn't give to have a recording of all the names Paula called you during that time. I'm guessing there were times when you weren't her favorite person. Did she ever use the "You did this to me!" line on you? What a beautiful baby girl. Congratulations to the entire Axe family, especially to Paula for putting up with a maggot like you. Is it too soon for me to send little Miss Claire a Yankees cap? Maybe the Blue Jays? Anything but the whiny <font size=1>sox</font size>

I knew it! Keke is single-handedly invading Russia. It's almost time for that 5-minute window when the snow stops falling in your part of the world, so be ready for it. :eek: Watch out Russia for the wrath of the mad Finn (that's redundant, isn't it?). If he's carrying a pinecone in each hand he could be impossible to stop. :eek: :eek: <font size=5>Where's Daddy Axe?? I want baby pictures and I want them NOW!!</font size>

Since Senator Stephens of Alaska has famously pointed out that the Internet is a can't we just make sure to position the ends of the tubes in Iraq lower than the ends of the tubes in the US so that nothing runs out here? Won't that keep all the secrets over there where they belong? Sometimes you just have to think outside the box.

Sorry to burst your bubble, Mr. Geographically-challenged, but nobody in Indiana was ever called a hillbilly for the simple reason that Indiana lacks respectable hills. You're thinking of our neighbors to the east and southeast who infest the Appalachians. Be advised that where you are concerned I use the word "thinking" with great hesitation and in more figurative terms than in a literal sense. Can you tell us what you've been up to for the last few years since you disappeared or is that classified?