budgie
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Posts posted by budgie
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Go easy on the olds, kiddo. One day you'll be able to do what you want but for now, listen to them. Your parents are concerned about you - its a natural mammal instinct - and they are alarmed at what they hear on the news about kids going crazy with guns. My parents used to rail on me about playing Dungeons and Dragons. I wasn't going to kill myself or anyone else and my biggest problem was being unable to get laid (I see the connection now).
Maintain an active social life and healthy outdoor interests and your parents won't think you're an adolescent sniper-wannabe creepozoid just because you play games on the side. Older people are terrified of new technology, especially the internet. A newspaper columnist in Japan as late as 1998 worried that the internet would erode their culture and damage society. Like parents everywhere he was afraid of outside influences on the youth.
Now for the good news. You play your cards right, get "ejukated" and make a career for yourself and you'll be where I am by your late twenties. I live half a world away from my parents and can play computer games anytime I like. Beacause I get paid well, I have a high end PC, so I mean any games. Oh, and I still have an active social life. Nobody questions my hobby because I'm an adult and its assumed I can look after myself.
Don't get wound up, work for a compromise and you'll still have enough time for GR.net
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Whethet you are a Pope, a Patriarch or an Ayatollah, it is hard to condemn the faithful - no matter how bad they are - for a couple of reasons. First they might get mad and either flee to a different sect or a different religion altogether. Second they might turn on you because they think you're not pious enough. As a matter of fact many leaders in teh muslim communities around the world have condemned terrorism in all forms. A vast majority are moderate, even pacifist. Depending on your news service, you might not hear much about them.
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Bad things are always done in the name of religion. From crusades to burning witches to destroying office towers. It's just one more excuse for the type of nasty people who look for excuses to harm others. Most people at the Haji haven't a malicious bone in ther bodies. On a lighter note, they'd make an excellent Mexican wave.
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Don't undersatnd a lot of this technobabble, but I do know they both have enough stopping power that I would rather not be on the receiving end.
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A day cannot live in infamy without the nourishment of rage. Let’s have rage. What’s needed is a unified, unifying, Pearl Harbor sort of purple American fury.....
Let America explore the rich reciprocal possibilities of the fatwa. A policy of focused brutality does not come easily to a self-conscious, self-indulgent, contradictory, diverse, humane nation with a short attention span. America needs to relearn a lost discipline, self-confident relentlessness—and to relearn why human nature has equipped us all with a weapon (abhorred in decent peacetime societies) called hatred.
Hatred is not a virtue under any circumstances. Hatred drove the Nazis to murder millions of Jews, the Japanese to butcher and rape whole cities across asia and the Hutus to slaughter countless Tutsis. It was the cause of the terrible atrocities of the balkan wars and the reciprocation of hatred drove the Russians to conquer eastern europe as they pushed back the Germans with the same fury as the Japanese in China - wholesale pillage and rape again.
Military action can be a reasonable and effective response to terrorism, state sponsored or otherwise. I agree with that. But it must be driven by reason not passion or we are just animals. Military action must be conducted within reason and under international law, for hate produces atrocities.
Americans are not hateful people. They should never learn to be. Angry and indignant, yes. Ready to use force as a last resort, certainly. But because reason drives the need, not rage. Those who act on hatred usually go too far, and to win, America doesn't need to go that far.
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And my ego ish genuinely shtroked Mish Moneypenny
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- .:Nightmare:.,Feb 8 2003, 00:20 AM] Just imagine terrorists getting hold of such technology....
This camo only works when seen through a special lens. Anybody trying to use it for camoflage would have to get everybody else to wear these lenses to make it work. I think any terrorist would have a hard time asking airport authorities to, "Just slip these glasses on for a minute will you?'
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Elvis only won 2 grammies and they were both for gospel albums. Look up his gospel output - his voice was very well suited to it. Thankya, thanya ver much. You're fantastic audience...
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What you see is a great optical illusion, but not technology that can be used as military camoflage yet. Tokyo university researchers have just developed this material. It requires a special lens to become transparent. Cited uses are for surgical gloves (the doctor would wear the special glasses and be able to see through his own hands to get a better view) or for flooring in planes and helicopters, so the pilot has a better perception of the distance between the craft and the landing strip when coming in.
For more information have a look at http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp
I still read this online newspaper all the time (lived in Japan for the best 4 years of my life so far). The news is a few days old, so you'll need to go through the photo essay section at the top left to find it. The link above is to the English language version.
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1024x762 16 bit. I've alswyas used 16bit. May I'll try 32, but I don't think it is supported.
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Okay so the problem seems to be that it no longer runs at 1280x1024, but it did just fine before. I found this out trying the BHD demo at that setting. I lowered GR to 1024x768 atnd its's fine. Don't know why it won't go super high res anymore - I ran it at top res with full effects for 2 months with no lag.
Here are my system specs.
ASUS mobo 512 MB DDR RAM
P4 2.4 gig processor
GeForce4 Ti4200 8x video card ( I think 256 MB)
Not sure about the FSB, but I recall it was a high number - not at home to check right now. Any ideas why it would suddenly start to reject 1280x1024?
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After selecting a team and staring a game, all I get is a black screen with a red and blue box that says:
ATTENTION
80k / 72hz
FREQUENCY IS OUT OF RANGE
I got this after installing HX4, but even after deactivating the mod I still egt this box.
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Jenny Shimizu in that Madonna Ertica tour about ten years ago. Gotta be asian.
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That seems inevitable at this point, but I was talking about the various terrorist organizations. Anyway a free and democratic Iraq might give them all less to whine about.
Bush has said today that Saddam's "game is over" and he will attempt to get a new UN resolution that explicitly specifies force if Saddam doesn't start cooperating now. I think the UN should float a resolution on North Korea while they're at it. Get China on board and try to encourage the Generals to get rid of their kooky leader and open up.
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Didn't know BHD had an SP demo. I'll download it tonite. BTW, I think they delayed Raven Shield until March. Check Rocky's www.agr-s.com, the R6 site.
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I am sooo looking forward to this mod. How much longer do we have to wait?
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I'm an SP guy and I want to know how these games will play - AI, mission types and so on. It seems that the MP demo is more of a tech display, but we all know the graphics will be good, because they're new games. What I want to know is will I enjoy playing them. An MP demo doesn't tell me that - it's no different from playing AA and GR online. It was the SP gameplay that hooked me on GR - especially my first balls-out firefight at the castle gates. When will we get SP demos for these games?
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I believe sea. Sometimes they really do their job. Makes it all the more frustrating when in a similar scenario they all get waxed by one guy advancing across open ground with no cover. That goes to show the inconsistency of teh friendly AI. RSE can make good AI, they just didn't polish it enough.
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Just checked it out at the Sony puictures website. Looks sweeeeeet! Something about bald guys gets me excited...err..forget I said that.
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They are actually singing the entire Battle Hymn of the Republic so quickly that all you can hear is a grunt. It takes special talent and long hours of trainig to achieve such discipline which is why not everyone can get into the Rangers.
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@ Warhawk. Hope you're right because I have lived in Asia for five years now (all my life if you count Australia and NZ as Asia) and this is the most volatile region after the middle east. If there are going to be large conflicts like those of the early and mid 20th century, they will probably start here. I read my history of WWII and I know what conquering armies (in that case the Japanese in the next, China or N. Korea) do once the fighting stops. Every night I pray for Taiwan and South Korea.
@300mag. Yes, America must be the lest imperialist power ever - a noble achievement considering some nations still haven't given up the barbarism of ancient times. Imperialist is a word most often used to describe America by those countries most guilty of trying to expand their own borders. In the past half century, China has invaded Tibet, Russia conquered half of Eurpe and still tries to crush Chechnya, Serbia wanted to displace the Bosnians, Kosovars and Croatians to create a small empire and Iraq has attcked Iran and Kuwait. Let them harp on because nobody takes them seriously.
The only time in history that America could be accused of imperialism was after winning the Phillipines in a war against Spain and crushing a rebellion of indigenous locals - or when it took half a continent and displaced the native Americans. The difference between imperialism then and now is that at that time everyone was doing it and people didn't know any better. Just as the European nations have given it up, so has America. There is a shortlist of true imperialist countries in the world and it is a veritable gallery of rogue states and repressive dictatorships. The US does not belong on that list.
I don't hear the voices of rational Europeans or Australasians, South Americans or Canadians calling America imperialist, even those who disagree with the current leadership's policies. It is only those fringe elements - hippies, lesbians and vegans who know little of politics but still like to talk about it. Outside of the west, the countries that complain of imperialism are usually the most guilty of such aspirations themselves.
Remember guys, a lot of people only disagree with Bush's go-it-alone cowboy attitude, not with America and its ideals. There's little love for Saddam out there and the media and the Christian Right have always liked to show how everyone is 'against' the US. Disagreeing with Dubya's politics and hating America are two very different things.
The actress Susan Sarandon, who opposes the looming war was quoted in TIME as saying, "I'm tired of being labeled anti American because I ask questions." How dare right wingers accuse her of being unpatriotic when it is in the very spirit of America to question and debate. She doesn't have to get behind the leader when there is a crisis, especially one that many Americans still suspect the president of manufacturing. We understand democracy in the outside world, and the democratic thing to do is keep up the debate until the matter is settled. It is certainly not anti-american to disagree.
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Yes China and North Korea do want to expand their borders. China has made no secret of its designs on Taiwan - a flourishing democracy - and invading that island for the sake of sheer conquest is the most ignoble of causes. I fear that even the US will be scared to tangle with China if it ever makes a push for Taiwan, let a lone the UN. This cannot be allowed to happen. If the US wants to chamption feedom and democracy then they had better be ready to defend democratic allies regardless of whether there is any immediate economic benefit or whether the regional bully ever tried to assassinate the president's daddy. And let's not get started on North Korea, they've always wanted to conquer the south. So let's all agree to get Saddam and then lean on the bigger bullies, because if America fails Korea and Taiwan, then its role will be even more diminished.
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I agree that Clinton was a wussy when it came to fighting, but at 29 I am also old enough to remember following events as they unfolded.
The US was the one of the last to agree to move on Yugoslavia and when they did, under the Clinton administration, they did so out of humanitarian concerns. That the US only used airpower and held back on ground troops is a testament to his weak stomach (the killing and raping of civilians went on without NATO troops to get between the oppressors and the oppressed), but I don't believe that Dubya would even bother with Yugoslavia - in fact one of his election pledges was to pull US peacekeepers out.
Dubya's daddy - yes the same one who got him his MBA and kept him in the reserves during Vietnam - was the man who ordered US troops into Somalia in 1992. At least he had some concern for humanitarian tragedy. Coincidentally he was also able to build a decent coalition and garner UN endorsement for the first invasion of Iraq. Why was it necessary then, but not now? Saddam was being much naughtier in 1990. Clinton gets the blame for all mistakes because the 19 heroes who died in the Black Hawk Down incident died on his watch. The only thing he did wrong was pull out after a few deaths - fearing the American public who did not want to see US sons die for something that had nothing to do with America, namely saving innocent African civilians - therby making the whole debacle look like a defeat.
And it was the US - again under Dubya's daddy - that decided not to take Baghdad and change Iraq's leadership. Don't blame that on the UN boys, they would have been happy to let it happen. The Iraqi regime's abuse of 12 years of sanctions, which the US was chiefly responsible for writing up, are what has caused so many casualties in Iraq as a result of poverty and inadequate health care. I support those sanctions, despite the cost to civilian life, because they have worked - Saddam would have acquired nuclear, chemical and biological weapons on a large enough scale to threaten world peace if his economy had been allowed to prosper. He used what aid was allowed in in the Oil for Food program to enrich is cronies, keep his programs running and builkd himself more palaces. Starving Iraqis are nobody's fault but Saddam's.
I have watched Powell's address to the UN and I am convinced it would be a great idea to take Saddam out now: Stop him harming his neighbors and make up for the mistakes that the US and UN made over the last 12 years together. And it is together that these historical partners should face this - and all other threats to the free world. I don't believe that Saddam poses a clear and present danger to the US but yes, it does pose a danger to its own people and neighboring countries. But while there is time - and it looks like there is, the US needs to use that time to build a strong and UN-mandated coalition, not to step out of the folds of international law and diminish its own well-deserved stature.
What will happen to the U.N. ?
in Real World Military
Posted
I must say I'm starting to come around to 300Mag and Warhawk's point of view a little. I harp on about the need for UN backing for military action under the hope that France and Germany will someday see the light. Warhawk, you are right whe you say China and N. Korea want to see the end of the UN. The people of France and Germany don't want to feel led by the nose in their relationship with America so their leaders are resisting US foreign policy. We all know Saddam needs to be taken down and that other bullies need to be shown a lesson.
The US might have to go it alone just to prove that someone is willing to. But Dubya will have to stand fast for America's allies when the time comes to - he should not be tempted to make deals that will compromise the existence of Taiwan and South Korea. When the hounds close in around tyhose two beacons of fredom in the far east, America had better be staing by with a big stick, regardless of whether Kim Jong Il or any member of the Chinese politburo ever tried to kill his daddy.