Charles Lindsey

It's decent. The tutorial teaches you the basics but as a scenario pretty much stinks. The actual settlement scenarion is much better. I haven't tried the war one yet. I'll play the settlement scenario a couple more times. It seems pretty decent all in all.

I missed out on 1602. Electronic Arts sent me an email so I decided to check this out. I may have to get the demo one night and give it a whirl.

http://www.ea.com/eagames/main/pccd/1503ad/home.jsp This looks cool. Looks to be an empire building game but you can use war OR diplomacy to achieve your goals. Economy driven as well. You have to colonize and build your village. There was a old demo called Knights and Merchants that I liked. This seems close but better. There was another demo set in medeival times that I also liked. Can't remember that one. Anyway it looks cool. Gonna get the demo.

I shoulda said it yesterday or the day before. Blix can't make up his mind to save his life. Can't get his story straight. And that he's playing these inspections for all they all worth. To the detriment of the purpose of the inspections in the first place.

quote:Steve Schacher I knew that. I left it hanging out there to see if someone would pick up on it. I did. Do I get a cookie now?

quote:I'm not saying you were one sided, I'm talking about the media.Oh, ok. Gotcha. I think we all have this correct now. Of course malls are private property. But as everyone seems to agree they are also public places. To deny one entrance based upon the color of shoes is a slippery slope to tread. Of course if they cause a disturbance all bets are off. To wrap this up this has finally appeared at thesmokinggun.com. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/crossgates1.htmlEveryone can read the guards side of the story/reports there. Best I can tell it goes like this. Dudes buy the shirts and put them on. Someone probably told them how clueless they were and a lively discussion ensued. A woman reported them to store security. Store security gets mall security. Here is the tricky part. In talking to Mall security dudes probably admitted the argument/discussion was over the shirts. At this point Mall security generously offers them the choice of removing the shirts to avoid any more confrontation or leaving entirely. This is all conjecture on my part. Dad refused either option and Mall security called the police. Dad was arrrested for trespass. Which was certainly the Mall's right after Dad refused to leave. If they had simply been asked to leave for causing a disturbance this story would have never surfaced. But because the shirts and thus freedom of speech were included it is now the big stink it is. Remo, bored yet?

quote: Steve Schacher so what's the big deal about a gallon of gasoline when you consider what you can do with it compared to a gallon of milk or a liter of water? quote:Lotharr anyway many Americans feel that cheap gas is an imperial entitlement of sorts...that may be changing slowly.What Lotharr said and that you don't use 15 - 30 gallons of milk or water a week. Milk could double in price and it wouldn't hurt that much. This entire situation IS about oil. Just not in the way Americans and other anti-war protestors originally thought. France is chin deep in relations with Iraq. Russia is not far behind. Germany may be the only honest protestor there is but I'm sure they have a smoking gun somewhere. I liked that article Steve linked to a while back and I'm going to steal an idea from it. It may not be ABOUT oil but oil is a very important subplot to the whole affair.

That's just rotten. Terrible. Some people are incorrigible.

The private property argument loses some strength when you consider that by design malls are public places. As a place of business and/or housing for multiple businesses there is an implicit invitation to come there. quote:The man had no right to stay once asked to leave.That I will agree with. quote:The only reason he's getting off is because of media attn the mall wishes to avoid,Possibly. quote:and the one sided handling of the story. I tried to be fair as possible. Who was one sided? Can anyone say frivolous lawsuit? Not that free speech is frivolous but the for the dad (a lawyer) to set himself up for this smacks of lawsuit to me. I wonder what would happen if malls did publicly outline policy towards political statements.

There is a little more to the story but it's dropping off the radar fast. Apparently about twenty anti-war people with the same t-shirts had staged an impromptu rally earlier in the week. One can safely assue that the mall was trying to prevent a repeat incedent. A father and son bought the same or similiar shirts the earlier protesters had been wearing, put them on, and continued shopping. They were then asked by mall security to remove the t-shirts or leave. The son did but the father (a lawyer) refused. From earlier stories the father was polite about it but refused to leave and said if you have to arrest me do it. So they did. The mall now wishes to drop charges. So the mall or the guard was over zealous as you say. The dad made his point. The mall drops charges. Everyone happy. The porn thing. I don't have any super strong feelings on this one. My way would work reasonably well especially with parental guidance. What Steve suggests would be ok too. Like I said; we already rate movies. We as a society have decided what levels of decency get what rating. Or rather a ratings board rates them to various degrees and we decide what we are comfortable with. I think the isuue is that kids are often unsupervised in libraries especially teens who are the ones most likely peek.

Ok here's two things. The library porn freedom of speech thing. What's wrong with this? We rate movies. Seems simple to me. Put a computer(s) in the kiddie section with net nanny and the rest in the adult section are unrestricted. What about the guy areested in the mall for wearing the anti war shirt? That was sold at the same mall.

Cool. Thanks guys. Cruis.in was bored just a few days ago. Wonder where he got off too?

Nah Echo, it's a decent enough movie. Just watch it for the entertainment. Vin did not save that movie. The action and suspense saved that movie. Vin did about as much for Pitch Black as he did for XxX. Bald head, big muscles, wooden acting.

March is here. Spring is coming. You know what they say about March winds. So blow in and be heard.

I agree with Tyrn and Jag. It is a basic right but there are consequences. quote:If teachers are paid to teach facts, then why aren't our children taught that our forefather's came to this land, raped and killed the current inhabitants and took ALL the land from them.The winners write the history books. I also have an opinion that I never see. No one admits to it. The Indian sympathizers (not that you are or not just using your statement) make statements like rape and pillage while patriots are proud of the way we escaped from England's rule. quote:What gave the future 'Americans' then to take what was never theirs in the first place?No one ever realizes that that is just the way the world was. It wasn't nice but that's the way it was. I think free speech ends when you can hurt someone else. Thus yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre; (when there isn't one) can cause panic, harm, and even death, and is illegal. The same with libel and slander. You can't "harm" someone with your speech. But I think you can disagree with the gov't as much as you like. Short of treason that is. When exactly does a phrase like "we need a new gov't" become treasonous?

This has made it's way to Truthorfiction.com. I think that's the name of the site. But if you have to shame them into it is it worth it?

Here is the excuse; now go get Iraq (Saddam). Iraq has refused to destroy her Al-Samoud-2 missiles. Saddam has challenged Bush to a debate along the lines of a presidential candidacy debate. Hehe, my plan is working perfectly. This is personally the "proof" I have been waiting for and why I always felt the US should play by the rules. No need for Dredd's "10 points of light". They were bogus. THIS is what is needed to sway UN opinion. Oh wait, I'm a liberal I think. Really I promise.

Thank you all for your replies. I got my "Visa" ATM check card today and my first 100 checks. So apparently I do get paper checks to use as normal. Gosh I'm so naive sometimes it's scary (and embarrassing). Now I just have to wait for my direct deposit to transfer over. Remo: As you can see I'm in or near Birmingham Alabama so I have Regions, Compass, Southtrust, and Citibank available to me. Perhaps a couple of small local banks and maybe a couple of national banks but I don't see their offices where I frequent. But I do agree with you that they seem to be basically the same. Emmett: I agree with you. I usually don't do anything fancy with my account. It's either a deposit or a mortgage payment. However, when I was setting up this account I inquired about the allowance of draft from the account. She insisted that was "Bill Pay" with a $5.95 charge per month. I'm so sorry but "Bill Pay" is where you tell THE BANK to pay certain bills as outlined in the info on the bank's website. Drafts are where you give permission to the charging company (power bill, etc.) to draft from your account. It concerned me greatly that they might twist the definition of "Bill Pay" to mean any online transaction and try to charge me that monthly service charge. However I have a friend who loves online payments. She prefers the sites with cookies that will remember your info and automatically make the draft. She is less enthusiastic about sites where she has to input the routing number and account number and all that stuff but she does it. She insists she has never run into a service charge for what I consider bank drafts. So I agree with you Emmett. The teller had no idea what I was talking about. Echo: Dearheart; as I pointed out to Remo I'm down south. It takes a while for "good things" to filter down here. Thanks again to all.

Wow! This one is scary. I screamed at least four times. Gore factor: Minimal. Just a few facial gashes here and there. Twice live and once in a photograph.

quote:Jaguar My first appointment is with my old bosses at my old company. Talk about a small world. Should blow them away when they see me walk in the door to talk to them. They want to sell my company parts, and I get to make the decision whether they do or not. Life is GOOD!! LOLThat's gotta be sweet. Hit them hard. Quality of goods. Backorders. On time deliveries. Proper invoicing. Reserve the ability to declare them a non responsible vendor and cancel the contract if they fail to meet agreed upon criteria. Well, you know all that anyway. But Good luck. ]

Anyone done it? Anyone like it? Hate it? I opened an online account this week. I have yet to get my password and check card so I don't know how it goes yet. I do know you are severely limited to the amount of "assisted" (at a teller) transactions you can make. I have yet to figure out if you can order checks. It seems like it since I got a book of unmarked paper checks. But hardly anyone takes those. I'm dissappointed my company won't allow me to split my direct depsoits so I can keep my established account monthly fee free. But eh, if the online thing goes well I can close the old one.

For anyone interested. This is still going on. New article with lots of links to various other article including the first and second part of testing to see what actually happens to your machine.

quote:WeeGee Your welcome, its just I hate to see good decent discussions get engulfed by political *****ing from two stubbon bastards, even though thats pretty much what politics is about. (Although I admit I've done it myself more than once as well). Eh, well, I have done it as well but we agreed long ago not to do generic party bashing. That's what I felt I was pointing out. Saldrin is welcome to join the discussion. quote:WeeGee I'm glad we finally kicked France out.Ummm "we" didn't do anything. The NATO security council locked France out of security talks. Perhaps I misspoke a tad above. France is part of NATO but not part of the security council. That is how I understand it. quote:WeeGee Honestly, I'm almost afraid to say that I think they're only going against us because they just can't get along with us. Which is odd because they gave us the Statue of Liberty. quote:$ilk I don't need to continue French bashing but it's just so easy...It was cute the first time. quote:Rm Hmm... so does that mean that i can indulge in some Dubya-bashing due to his shortcomings in the brain department? Ummmmmmmmm, nope.

Where to even try to straighten this up? First off; quote:Saldrin Humm. I would of thought that BCM would be too violent to be played by liberals. Saldrin, first, attack the argument not the arguers; second, it's called suspension of disbelief. You have to have suspension of disbelief to play this game. That has nothing at all to do with people's real life political orientation. Lotharr; sigh, just about shame on you for responding in kind. RM, WeeGee, and Ep5 thanks for putting some humor on the subject. Now, guess what? Nato kicked France out of general talks to get the agreement that was in place in the first place. I.E. Security council Mutual Defense. Now that Turkey is assured of the mutual defense treaty they now try to hit the US up for more money.

"Most of the antiwar folks point the finger directly at Bush and his administration." Bush mostly I would think. The rest are just going along with it for political expediency and because he's the prez. Even Colin finally got on board. "I think the way the media throws around "anti-American sentiment" is a distortion..." I'm not so sure about that. I knew I should have posted that AOL poll. But I couldn't copy it and was too lazy to type it. There were three questions or "answers" if you will. Is america (and I have to paraphrase horribly) 1. A Bastion of freedom and democracy 2. Well intentioned but wrong 3. A belligerent Superpower Americans answered 60% #1. 30% #2. and 10% #3. The UK and others was almost reversed. Most everyone (again about 60%) chose Belligerent superpower with the remaining two answers about the same ratios. "unless your talkin the Parisians.....however they don't like many people anyway..." I have heard that. My homeroom teacher was also the French teacher. She went to France and told a story about how the French count one on their thumb and two on their forefinger and so on. If they can tell you are American and you ask for one of something and even say "un" but use your forefinger for one like most everyone I have ever heard of does they would give you two just to be a pisser. "Bush is not representative of the American will..he is the result of a broken election based on the lesser of two evils" Most everyone I know votes that way. That's why I wouldn't vote for so long. Choosing the lesser of two evils is no choice at all. Broken election I can agree with but it's over and we got what we got. I didn't like Bush but Gore scared the hell out of me with his environmentalism. We need stuff, we use stuff. Let's use it. Sure be careful about it, plan for replacement where possible and recycling where not, but let's not go crazy. But call me in 50 years and we'll see what the history books decided. "I don't agree the discussion on war has come close to what is acceptable...." It's getting there. It's not the best but it's better than it was. I have also thought the Bush administration wouldn't let looose the so called evidence for two reasons. The first not to tip Saddam off of course but the second was that if we do go in and find something really big we can point to it and say "Told ya so". "Theres a ton of dissent out there...." Squeaky wheel gets grease. When do you (the gov't) decide that the loud minority is more correct than the willing majority? "for reasons I find more disturbing than the potential for war." There is a lot in that. But then again as with other things how do you decide what's going on? How much is controlled by sensationalism that gets ratings thus more ad revenue? How much is controlled by a cowed or cooperative media? "An attack is at 60% but like you said, from there it gets really conflicted....I say that drops significantly in a week...and more from there....unless we go to rio red and run out of duct tape...." Call me in a week. I bet it don't change much. As always my opinions only.