sburke

Ken did you miss the report where the U.S. tobacco industry came up with a soft kill APS cigarette brand? The object is we export a ton of cheap cigarettes to Russia, they develop a nicotine habit and die in droves before they can launch ATGMs. Cancer studies prove it to be effective. Meanwhile my company just decided to cut my salary by 50%. I however really felt I needed a new car for my mid life crisis so I went out and bought one I could barely afford under my old salary. I don't see any problem with that financially. By not having money for food I will ensure I stay slim. Chicks dig me now though I feel a bit too weak to drive.

Map? Who needs a map? Charge! Sorry was having a c3k moment.

Hmm ponders the significance of an offer of $70 for a bulge, sheep and a lap dance. Am I back in the Peng thread?

Odin I think you might have missed the announcement long ago that the east front will be 4 families, one essentially for each year. We have known that for long before bulge was ever mentioned.

I know you meant it in jest, but speaking for myself. I generally buy the game anyway and have also been known to gift it. BF isn't losing any money on me for beta testing. What I gain is less financial and more about 1 watching the development process. I find it very interesting to see the decision making process to the extent I can at battlefront. 2 contributing even if in a small way to what i think is by far the best game out there bar none 3 getting to interact with a bunch of folks I have a very high regard for, both BF employees and beta testers 4 I save money spending time on this hobby. My other one, carpentry, is far more expensive.

yeah have looked at those in fact Broadsword and I had used one as an op layer and it was promising. Then BF screwed us and released CMRT. Broadsword is an East front semi grog. Note the normal price of the game is $264. If you want the full Market Garden Experience on that system, be prepared to shell out $400. I might have spent $400 on all my CM games so far and I can not only do all of MG, but Normandy, a good portion of the Italian Campaign, a sliver of the East Front and two weirdo games about a hypothetical conflict in Ukraine 2017 or Syria 2008...... And my cat can't f**k with my game. Oh and the AI absolutely sucks in those games. I sat there for 3 days waiting for the AI and finally rage quit. Ended up losing a few parts and had to buy the darn game all over again. Now we aren't comparing apples and oranges here. Those guys have physical items they need to print at cost. It is not just software. That is what confuses people. They equate physical items to cost instead of labor to create physical items to cost. Software has physical labor as well. No I will not go on to quote Das Kapital.

That is purely a personal decision though. No matter what BF does someone is always going to want something different and they will mod it. So for example if I want unit patches for one specific combat formation (which actually is one of the mod types I really like). That isn't on BF that is just my thing and that I actually can do it is pretty cool. Regarding pricing. Question - where do you define the line between what is considered worthy of a full game and what is a module? I ask because BF has explicitly defined a line where they feel the amount of content that loads is what they feel is an upper threshold for a "family". I am sure they wrestled with that a while trying to optimize for the game, their labor and the price. How many man hours of BF time goes into a $55 game based on expected sales. Personally I have never been disappointed and I think you will need to actually see the game before you are in a position to feel that content wise it is worth it or not. BF definitely has a bit of a sliding bar. CMBS introduced a lot of new stuff, this was on top of the rest of the content. I fully expect from a number of man hours to price, CMBS was a loss relative to CMFI and CMRT. Sales figures would affect that equation but we have no info on this. I did not hear anyone crying out when they first launched a UAV or an ATGM was shot down by APS or a laser warning went off that BF charged too little for CMBS. It is always one sided, BF always charges too much, never too little. That for me usually invalidates these discussions. They are not objective about cost versus value. They are strictly oriented towards your/our wallet and not Battlefront's. There isn't anything wrong with that per se,but again they aren't objective.

The hardest part would simply be getting good data on the forces involved. The politics of the situation adds to the normal friction and fog of war. No reason though you can't create a best guess kind of plan.

Or a good order unit was out there near enough to change his status. Have to see the full turn to know. Man that would suck though, some guy outside the window demanding he pick up his rifle and can't see the room full of paras. " but sarge, but nothing private pick up your rifle!"

Well if you'd stayed in the correct general discussion thread. What the heck are we doing over here in Normandy? That was English territory too long to be trusted. Remember Agincourt? Really believe that nonsense about longbows? No a traitor led the wondrous French cavalry into the mud. Some low born English bastard for sure. Back to the general forum, Viva La France!

Unsubstantiated? Holy christ you guys are something else. Just ignoring the lengthy copy and paste I put in? Fine, I'll repeat with more. You have yet to actually contradict what I posted, but somehow jump into this thread seemingly having done so. Anyone else see what is wrong with that picture? So let's repeat it The blasts hit Buynaksk on 4 September, Moscow on 9 September and 13 September and Volgodonsk on 16 September. A similar explosive device was found and defused in an apartment block in the Russian city of Ryazan on September 22.[1] The next day then-Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin praised the vigilance of the inhabitants of Ryazan and ordered the air bombing of Grozny, which marked the beginning of the Second Chechen War.[2]A few hours later, three FSB agents who had planted this device were arrested by the local police. The incident was declared to be a training exercise. These events led to allegations that the bombings were a "false flag" attack perpetrated by the FSB in order to legitimize the resumption of military activities in Chechnya and bring Vladimir Putin to power.[3][4] Parliament member Yuri Shchekochikhin filed two motions for a parliamentary investigation of the events, but the motions were rejected by the Russian Duma in March 2000. An independent[5] public commission to investigate the bombings was chaired by Duma deputy Sergei Kovalev. The commission was rendered ineffective because of government refusal to respond to its inquiries.[6][7] Two key members of the Kovalev Commission, Sergei Yushenkov and Yuri Shchekochikhin have since died in apparent assassinations.[8][9] The Commission's lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin was arrested.[10] Occam's Razor says the most likely explanation despite it being pretty extreme is the Russian gov't was involved. To what extent is unclear, but how else do you explain that behavior? Not enough? Okay more It was initially reported by the FSB that the explosives used by the terrorists was RDX (or "hexogen"). However, it was officially declared later that the explosive was not RDX, but a mixture of aluminum powder, niter (saltpeter), sugar, and TNT prepared by the perpetrators in a concrete mixer at a fertilizer factory in Urus-Martan, Chechnya.[64][65] Yuri Tkachenko, the police explosives expert who defused the Ryazan bomb, insisted that it was in fact RDX, in reply to an FSB report the chemical test was inaccurate due to contamination of the apparatus.[54][66] Mr. Tkachenko said that the explosives, including a timer, a power source, and a detonator were genuine military equipment and obviously prepared by a professional. He also said that the gas analyzer that tested the vapors coming from the sacks unmistakably indicated the presence of RDX. Mr. Tkachenko said that it was out of the question that the analyzer could have malfunctioned, as the gas analyzer was of world class quality, costing $20,000 and was maintained by a specialist who worked according to a strict schedule, checking the analyzer after each use and making frequent prophylactic checks. Mr Tkachenko pointed out that meticulous care in the handling of the gas analyzer was a necessity because the lives of the bomb squad experts depended on the reliability of their equipment. The police officers who answered the original call and discovered the bomb also insisted that it was obvious from its appearance that the substance in the bomb was not sugar.[67][68] On September 13, just hours after the second explosion in Moscow, Russian Duma speaker Gennadiy Seleznyov of the Communist Party made a surprising announcement: "I have just received a report. According to information from Rostov-on-Don, an apartment building in the city of Volgodonsk was blown up last night".[78][79][80][81] However the bombing in Volgodonsk took place only three days later, on September 16. When the Volgodonsk bombing happened, Vladimir Zhirinovsky demanded an explanation in Duma, but Seleznev turned his microphone off.[78][82] The answer on that one is he supposedly confused it with a grenade attack that occurred in Volgodonsk. The Russian Duma rejected two motions for parliamentary investigation of the Ryazan incident.[90][91] The Duma, on a pro-Kremlin party line vote, voted to seal all materials related to the Ryazan incident for the next 75 years and forbade an investigation into what happened. The commission of Sergei Kovalev asked lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin to investigate the case. Trepashkin found that the basement of one of the bombed buildings was rented by FSB officer Vladimir Romanovich and that the latter was witnessed by several people. However Trepashkin was unable to bring the evidence to the court because he was arrested in October 2003, allegedly for "disclosing state secrets", just a few days shortly before he was to make his findings public.[92] He was sentenced by a military closed court to four years imprisonment.[93]Amnesty International issued a statement that "there are serious grounds to believe that Mikhail Trepashkin was arrested and convicted under falsified criminal charges which may be politically motivated, in order to prevent him continuing his investigative and legal work related to the 1999 apartment bombings in Moscow and other cities".[94] Romanovich subsequently died in a hit and run accident in Cyprus. According to Trepashkin, his supervisors and people from the FSB promised not to arrest him if he left the Kovalev commission and started working together with the FSB "against Alexander Litvinenko".[95] Commission chairman Kovalev summarized their findings as follows:[96] "What can I tell? We can prove only one thing: there was no any training exercise in the city of Ryazan. Authorities do not want to answer any questions..." Now, where I am consistent is - I think those FSB and Putin if he was involved deserve the death penalty as well.

Heh heh funny how these conversations go. Nidan1, I'd actually vote for Hillary and at the same time I think the death penalty for this guy is appropriate. JonS - As to the Norwegian example - We do have our own here. http://judithclark.org/ http://judithclark.org/docs/harriet.pdf Judy Clark has now been in prison for well over 30 years. She actually didn't kill anyone however she was an unapologetic participant in an act that took the lives of 3 men. She got 3 consecutive 25 year sentences. In all likelihood she will never be released. Part of the difference with Tsarnaev is I think Americans are pretty tired of being the target of Islamic terrorism. Not that that should weigh in at all, no more than Judy Clark's politics should have caused a far greater sentence than a comparable strictly criminal robbery would have. It is however how folks react, there is a context to the crime beyond just the crime itself. We Americans do feel a sense of being at war with a callous, heartless, captive beheading enemy. I knew Judy Clark. I think she has served enough time for her crime and she has, even from behind bars become a contributing member of society. Probably contributing more than most of us average folks do. Executing her would have served nothing other than vengeance and the positive contributions she has been able to make since would never have occurred. I get what you are saying. However the Brinks Robbery did not have as it's intent to harm anyone. The goal was to rob a bank. Tsarnaev on the other hand had a much simpler goal, to kill, maim and terrorize as many innocent civilians as he could. To me it is a different scale and there is a basis for society to say that kind of behavior warrants a step further than simply imprisonment.

I am pretty sure you didn't mean it quite as all encompassing as it sounds but I have to ask. Would that mean it would have been out of line for folks to criticize the development of National Socialism in Germany in the 1930s? How about the Saudi gov't catering to Wahhabist promoters? French persecution of Gypsies? American Slavery? South African Apartheid? You get the drift. I am pretty certain you will make exception for some of those. So where would you draw the line? As an American I am pretty used to people telling me what is wrong with my country, and sometimes, even frequently they are right. Earlier in this thread someone reverenced George Bush Jr as one of the stupidest presidents ever. I wasn't about to disagree and I don't take offense. I don't have a problem with folks criticizing my country. Sometimes I'll agree, sometimes I won't. There is certainly nothing about a national border that makes their observations somehow irrelevant or unhelpful.

Talk about poor decision making processes.

Nah it was the ice cream, and now that you have eaten it you can go back to being alone with your cigars and donuts. In fact I expect that the thought of you with cigars and donuts is why most folks are finding an excuse to leave you alone.

I am pretty sure I am not. On to your other question and following on some of the comments of other folks, collaboration of the state with political groupings allied with them is pretty much the norm everywhere though still reprehensible. The involvement of prison guards in America with the klu klux klan and other aryan groups is a long standing problem that still exists today is just one example. However now we are really going way off topic. My feelings about what Putin represents was at least about his participation around the parade whether you agree with me or not.

so I guess that in order to call the Russian gov't out for it's behavior and pronouncements one must be squeaky clean... okay that is one way of avoiding criticism. And no there is no, none, zilch absolutely no validity to all the 911 conspiracy crap and trying to use those ridiculous sites to somehow excuse what the FSB did just goes to prove the point that it is impossible to have a rational discussion with anyone about Russia who is already inclined to excuse everything it's gov't is and what it is doing. The US gov't has never ever faked an action against it's own people killing hundreds for the political ambitions of one sector of that gov't (nor has Britain or Spain, which you seem to be ignoring). Nor for that matter to my knowledge has Russia done so prior to Putin. Even Hitler didn't try that. Burning down the Reichstag while nutty didn't actually kill anyone in the process. Heck it is even questionable whether the Nazis actually had anything to do with the fire rather than simply taking advantage of it. The Comintern head of Western Europe who was charged was actually acquitted in the trial. Nah the Moscow bombings put Putin's crowd into a league of their own. So let's have a parade to honor the people who gave so much to defeat fascism while the guy standing center stage on that podium is more than willing to kill his own people for political power. Sure that's okay everyone does it.. well maybe someone does... anyone? As to this constant need to see how the Russian gov't is promoting expansionism which somehow seems to be still questioned and how it relates to the parade - In the parade, the tribute to Crimea was not subtle. The first vehicle to enter the square behind row after row of tightly choreographed marching soldiers was an armored personnel carrier from a Black Sea Marines brigade, flying a large Crimean flag. Just how many examples do you need? If you can give me a number I can work towards that. Oh wait folks will deny the above and say, but that was Russian land.... Sudetenland... Anschluss..... yeah here we go again.

Just exactly what do you propose? What would you consider justice for such a horrible act and how do you differentiate that behavior from vengeance?

Really? You are suggesting there is any comparison at all between 9/11 and the Moscow bombings? There is no doubt who committed 9/11. The saddest thing about 9/11 is that our intelligence agencies were so poorly coordinated they couldn't stop it. That we do not hold Saudi Arabia more responsible as the promoter of wahhabism is another sad point. To say however the US gov't somehow cynically murdered 4,500 people to not pay attention to an economic crisis is just pretty absurd. And this isn't "America's war". The same folks, as have been previously pointed out, have hit the UK, Spain etc. So did America also somehow pull those off as well? With the Moscow bombings however the FSB is caught red handed planting a bomb, then somehow the bomb becomes flour and it is a training mission, then the gov't shuts down the investigation and Putin rides the wave of vengeance against Chechnya... hmm yeah they are even close to comparison.... Sheesh it is staggering sometimes to see the excuse machine that creates whatever it needs to in order to make what is going on in Russia just run of the mill normal stuff. Call it for what it is. Yes it is a nasty word and not one to be used lightly, but when it is appropriate then for damn sure it is time to say it.

Okie doke regarding my statement there were two different points. First was - typically I get responses when suggesting people protest the actions of their gov't as to why I am not protesting against mine. I figured to shorten that discussion. The second point was about political opposition and what one can expect. I was not jailed for simply waving a banner, signing a petition or trying to get a voting opposition. I did deserve what I got. Blame it on the stupidity of youth if you will, about as good as any excuse I have. As to Zuckerberg, I don't particularly trust his statements either. He has a vested interest in business and will do what he needs to do to expand it. He is not taking any kind of moral stand. Watch his behavior slobbering over business opportunities in China. Is there an organized program to try and have UKR folks censored, no idea. Is their (UKR folks) language and behavior in violation of Facebooks terms, no idea. Does Facebook apply those standards evenly, no idea. I have to admit, I hate facebook. Not for any political or business stance. I just hate the idea that people feel the need to tell every single little stupid thing they think or do to millions of people... and they lower the standard of what friendship is.

No you misunderstood the warning, if you still have a problem in 4 hours, you can use it as a crowbar.

Even if you aren't inclined to believe they were behind it, the cover up has got to leave you wondering.

How do you think this is playing out and why do you think when the Russian economy is getting hammered by poor planning and bad decisions does Putin have such a huge popularity rating? There have also been major statements out of the gov't that have Belarus and Kazakhstan nervous about their relationship despite being part of Russia's trading partnership. Problem is when you point out those statements, invariably they get dismissed in any one of a number of ways - "oh that guy is always like that, it is being misinterpreted, they just mean..." lots of excuses, but when Belarus starts making public messages about defending it's national territory from Russia (I believe Steve posted a link previously) you really have to face the fact. All of Russia's neighbors including it's supposed allies are nervous. These are the statements about "protecting Russian nationals wherever they might live" that has been trumpeted from the Russian gov't. You can't tell me you have not seen those statements as well right? So what does it remind you of... hint Sudetenland... the Anschluss? And this is one of the points where I think the term dictatorship is not appropriate. Hitler was elected. Granted the whole election process that got him in power was manipulated. Putin was also elected and there are some interesting observations about the timing of the Moscow bombing campaign that occurred when he was being elected. Just in case any one here is ignorant of the events, this is from wikipedia. The Russian apartment bombings were a series of explosions that hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999, killing 293 and injuring 651 people and spreading a wave of fear across the country. The bombings, together with the Dagestan War, led the country into the Second Chechen War. The blasts hit Buynaksk on 4 September, Moscow on 9 September and 13 September and Volgodonsk on 16 September. A similar explosive device was found and defused in an apartment block in the Russian city of Ryazan on September 22.[1] The next day then-Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin praised the vigilance of the inhabitants of Ryazan and ordered the air bombing of Grozny, which marked the beginning of the Second Chechen War.[2] A few hours later, three FSB agents who had planted this device were arrested by the local police. The incident was declared to be a training exercise. These events led to allegations that the bombings were a "false flag" attack perpetrated by the FSB in order to legitimize the resumption of military activities in Chechnya and bring Vladimir Putin to power.[3][4] Parliament member Yuri Shchekochikhin filed two motions for a parliamentary investigation of the events, but the motions were rejected by the Russian Duma in March 2000. An independent[5] public commission to investigate the bombings was chaired by Duma deputy Sergei Kovalev. The commission was rendered ineffective because of government refusal to respond to its inquiries.[6][7] Two key members of the Kovalev Commission, Sergei Yushenkov and Yuri Shchekochikhin have since died in apparent assassinations.[8][9] The Commission's lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin was arrested.[10] Reichstag fire comes to mind. No I think there is far more than enough freely available information for anyone who wants to know about what Putin represents. However if one is already poised to not want to believe it, it doesn't matter how much evidence there is. The thing is he IS popular. Enormously so. Why would you think that is? What is he delivering to your average Russian that would make him popular if the economy is tanking, political freedoms are being restrained, Russian is becoming an international pariah. The parallels are way too frequent to be coincidental. So let's just call it for what it is. Fascism. That is my problem with the parade. It is a celebration and recognition of the price paid, the enormous price, to defeat fascism...and it is being hosted by Europe's new fascist threat. Shame.

That's your fault for posting twice. that'll learn ya. heh heh heh no sir I post in the thread I have commandeered and I will do so in my new cap!!!

Personally the difference between life imprisonment is with imprisonment, he still gets what he took away from those he killed. The ability to interact however constrained with other human beings, to laugh, smile, feel the sun etc etc. I don't feel any particular need to pay his keep for the rest of his life.