DaveDash

Not really. I don't know ehether its officially classed as a hallucinogen or not, but it most definitely isn't comparable to LSD etc. IMO It would be considerably more dangerous driving drunk than stoned, not just due to visual imparment, but aggressiveness, reactions, etc. However I'm sure many here would disagree.

Im not sure about the states, but in my experiences in Aus/NZ/UK/parts of Europe - MDMA (Extacy), speed, and to a lesser extent cocain make up a huge percentage of the drug use (and of course, pot). I don't know anyone that does Heroine, I know a few people that smoke crack (and are far from degenerates), but every time you go to a dance party there are 50,000+ people that are on at least MDMA. Some of the biggest drug busts into Melbourne (in the tune of $700 million street value) have all been Extacy. All that money goes into the pockets of criminals, and the users are significantly less harmful to society than your average drunk on the street in the weekend. Just my observations.

I can say quite with a lot of confidence that alcohol causes A LOT more harm to society and health in general, than a good chunk of illegal drugs do. The real bad ones, crack, heroine, etc are only make up a small percentage of illegal drugs. I don't know what it's like in the states, but here in Melbourne (and many other English/European cultured places I have been) drug use in many social circles is far more prevalent than alcohol use, despite the fact they're illegal, and the social atmosphere at such places is considerably more productive socially, for lack of a better term, than drunken aggressive idiots who jump in their car later and kill someones family driving home. You can't stop them, they're there anyway (probably more than many here realise), and legallising certian kinds would not only go a long way in taking money out of unregulated criminal circles, but also would go a long way in better understanding their effects.

I don't think Israel should, or would, limit itself based on perceived popular opinion/demonstrations in other countries.

Falcon 4 allied force is hands down the best flight sim out there. The dynamic campaigns are awesome. However, it's also one of the most high fidelity combat sim I've ever played, takes a fair while to learn, so probably not your thing. The graphics are also a bit dated now.

Actually there was one Gazian girl who was hit by an Israeli airstrike, her family wiped out, and they put her on TV as part of their propaganda machine. She then went and blamed Hamas for her family being wiped out, and the broadcast was promptly cut. I can dig up a link later. EDIT Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaFhgSlbV2A That is it I think (cant check, since I am at work). Hmm I'm not sure why I quoted you here. I must have misread your post as something like "Why arn't more Gazians speaking out against Hamas". It's too early in the morning here, clearly!

1. Fail 2. Fail 3. EPIC Fail. 4. Maybe. We will see. Can't really be bothered continuing the discussion with you because I really doubt it will get anywhere, but at least you've exposed your "reasoning" to the rest of us.

I understand your point crazyinsane, however the problem is this was happening regardless before the latest offensive. Also look at 2006. Yes Hezbollah is stronger in Lebanon now, but there have been no rocket attacks. Also, stronger means more to lose. Think about that.

1. Do you feel it is wrong to blockade, and then retaliate, against an elected government to has your destruction in its charter? 2. Do you feel that any retaltion should be in the form of some old biblical measure of 1:1, which would actually lead to a never ending escalation of bloodshed? 3. Do you hold Israel responsible for blocking the border with Egypt? (You are aware Gaza and Egypt shares a border, right? I have to ask, based on the knowledge you have displayed thus far...) 4. You do understand why there is no blockade in the west bank right, and low and behold, no conflict there either?

By that definition all games are toys. I could load up Falcon 4 right now and just try and land on roads. Does that make it a toy? The Sims is one of the most successful PC games ever, except for perhaps World of Warcraft (which, by the current definition, is also a 'toy'). Give credit where credit is due. Just because it doesn't appeal to you, does not damper its success. FYI SimCity 4 was an excellent game. I still get mileage out of that. More milage than say, Operation Flashpoint or Neverwinter Nights.

You're talking about 1991 right? That U.N sanctioned war where most of the west bombed Iraq back into the stone age as not to risk 'casualties', then promoted a failed coup without any support, and pretty much packed up, left, and made sure the country couldnt eat properly for the next 12 years? Because if you're talking about 2003+... that's remarkably different.

As mentioned there is an issue with AMD HP machines and service pack 3. It can cause them to go into a reboot cycle and needs to be resolved by disabling some drivers in the recovery console. We have ran into a few issues with this on sites that did not have update management such as WSUS Contrary to popular belief here, this problem is not a Microsoft one, but rather HP being lazy and using the same driver for both intel and AMD chipsets.

Right I have a relatively new macbook pro. Also a HP laptop. And a desktop PC. I run: SME Linux Vista Windows XP MacOS 10.5 I work as a senior IT engineer at a multi billion dollar company, part of what I do deals with more and more XP -> Vista migrations by using Altiris. I could write a huge essay on Vista, but Im going to be brief 1. Vista + Underspecced PC = Horrible 2. Vista + SP1 + Grunty Machine = Fantastic. I run Vista on my macbook pro and I can say it runs fantastic. Shock Horror - it's actually more stable than MacOS 10.5. The biggest issue with Vista is that it takes a lot of out of the box configuration to get it to a state that is user friendly. My girlfriend runs it on a PoS underspecced Toshiba laptop, like so many other people I imagine, and it runs terrible. Everyone likes to harp on about RAM, but I found anything with a bad video card actually, which is 90% of computers and laptops out there, really struggle with vista. Disabling the visual theme and giving it a basic look actually improves the Vista experience significantly. YMMV Regarding the whole Linux debate raging on earlier, let me just say ease of use (out of the box) Linux distributions such as SME are starting to be a real threat to SBS and are having a big impact for such things as plug and play firewall/routers/whatever for the SME market. Ease of use Linux as a desktop is still far away, but I wouldn't count it out, however why go to all that trouble when you can just get a mac which is effectively just that.

I definately feel the switch to RT was a bad move, but I suspect they did it for a few reasons (capture more of an RTS market, and to make up for a poor TacAI in a very fast and lethal modern enviroment by allowing players more control). I'm not sure how well the game would handle what you are suggesting though, and it seems like an extreme amount of work for one guy to program all that in. One of the major issues they should have addressed was LOS of indivdual units now they have moved to 1:1. Los still seems calculated the old way from a units centre of mass, but detection is based on individual men spotted. Thus a unit can have a couple of men exposed around a corner who will get shot to bits by a defender and not react at all, or a unit in a reverse slope position can tear apart an attacker with no TacAi surpression. It would have been better for them to impliment a system for your units similar to other games where your individual units 'sticky' to cover when you move the cusor nearby, instead of haphazardly splayed everywhere. I expect them to improve this part of the game dramatically though in the Marine Expansion, or upcoming patches, or I will myself join the 'dissapointed' club. If you set aside high expectations however it is still a very enjoyable Modern Warfare game. Yes with some frustrations, but even big titles like Rome Total War with millions of dollars and a team of developers came out far worse originally than CM:SF.

Well while that would be nice, I had no such expectation. Mind you, I didn't follow any hype etc. It has its issues and not really ground breaking, since it follows the same old formula as CMBO, but it's one step in the right direction to an accurate modern infantry combat wargame. Considering the game is programmed by one guy I'm actually relatively impressed. No doubt many irritations with the game will be fixed with the Marine addon. They tried something new - now it's time to fix it and show the real potential of the engine. And take note I am writing this post after being extremely frustrated at one reverse slope Syrian ATGM destroying 4 bradleys in 60 seconds, without so much a flicker of area surpression from my 'elite' U.S. forces.