FIX

Thanks for being so understanding...

The series 7 is the hard one to pass, the series 63 and state exams are relitively easy by compariason.  Thumper are you in the investment bussness also?

Due to job pressures, new job, 90 day trial period and lots of stress, I haven't been online much (or when online too tired to do anything but read email and nuke spam).  I should have formaily said I couldn't contine playing thumperpunk but it kinda sliped my mind.  

The good news Is that I seem to have this job long term.  I'm working for a stock broker bringing bussness in starting to learn the bussness.  Unfortunately I need to spend more time studying for the Seires 7 (stockborker regulatory certification exam).  So essentialy I will  be able to pop by on aquasion but not regulary enough.

Here is a link to the brookings instute page on it:

http://www.brook.edu/FP/projects/nucwcost/davyc.HTM

Seems kinda pointless (troops would be caught in the blast radius).  However firing a conventional warhead with a GPS or laser guidence system would be very intresting (perticulary as a gun-and-run system).

As for poping ACPA, Fibere Optic Guided Missles may be the best way to go.  Terminaly guided by human and more than capable of killing ACPA it may be the best way.  

Of cource so would be anything larger than a 20mm autocannon...

But a 105mm APFDS would be overkill, even for the largest boris.

Wow...  1.6% of GDP is devoted to defence.  Seems like they don't have much to cut.  I think that the US is in the 3-4% range.

I have to aggree that fundamentalism of any sort is humanity's greatest curse.  People with perfectly good minds that chose not to question their basic system for understanding the universe.  As a result its easy for them to comit attrocities because there underlying beliefs permit it.  

Thank God my religious beliefs are essentialy Diestic (Classical Reform Judism).

I do respect the "no gods, no masters" crowd and all others who regulary question their system of beleif regardless of what it is.

I think you are a little off.  

10 M in 3.2 sec is 3.125 m/s

Is (3.125*60)=187.5 meters per minute

is (187.5*60)=11250 M/hr

or 0.699 Mi.  Which sounds about right.  

Acording to http://www.onlineconversion.com/, 1 kilometer = 0.6213712 mile.  

I think its about right.

Damien looks out the back of the truck during the ride through town and tries to note how much technical sophistication exists in town.  

When the truck stops, he keeps one hand on his Glock (out of view) and hopes that trouble doesn't come looking for them.

Quick question:  If the pimp has done his research why is he bothering with the daughter of major corporates?  Unless she is of legal age and wants to do that sort of work... and even then he is asking for trouble.  

As for assaulting the roof basicaly if its covert, here is how I would do it.  

1.  Multiple sniper teams are positioned to cover the roof and excape routes.  They recoinoder the site and check for things like security positions and location of heavy weapons that could pop a chopper.  

2.  Agent at party picks up on girl's location and transmits it.  (possibly even sliping a homing bug into her purse or clothes).

3.  Attack birds come in and rocket defensive possitions and/or gaurd houses.  They then provide air cover.  Extraction team arrives in chopers (AVs are expensive), one team fast ropes down to the first floor and assaults up the building the other team fast ropes onto the roof.   The team that ropes onto the roof breaks the glass and enters the party perceded by flash bangs and tear gas.  They shoot anyone who resists and grabs the girl.  Teams evacuate to the first floor and are picked up by helocopters.  

3.5  (optional) Support helocopters rocket loft to "deliver a message."  

4.  Sniper teams self-exfiltrate.  

This would be over in about a minute to a minute and a half.  Relitively few people are killed unless rockets are fired into the loft.  Again, it would happen fast.  

Either way with any of the assault plans I have seen, the players would probably end up dead if they resisted.  

Of cource the Players will resist if they are stupid (and probably die).

I would recomend Raul Hilberg The Destruction of the European Jews as its concidered the authorative scholary source.  Goldhagen (author of Hitler's Willing Executioners)'s works are concidred in most accademic circles to be closer to propaganda than scholary inquiry.  http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/id26.htm

What we are seing domseticaly is efforts by Shrub&Co to keep us scared so we don't answere questions...  Not Facism per se, but certanly not compadable with the American Democratc Tradition.  I would also concider a substantial portion of the Repub base to have toltarian leanings.

Bunnycakes,  I agree with Dog Soldier et all that your friend aught to break off the relationship imedately.  Not because of the age issue but because of the lying about age issue.  That is, she was manupulating him.  As for the age issue, the real quesion is do her parents know and what do they think of him (if they know him and his age and like and trust him continueing the relationship would be ok) however in any case teenagers are hormones with legs so sex is definately out due to age diffrences and theoritical oppertunities for exploitation or perceptions of exploitaton due to age diffrences is too great.  So the perceptions of a relationship beyond what would be concidred acceptable to victorian society and its standards of behaviour is inaproperate.  

In short: He should dump her immedately for lying about her age.

On the front page it says that it throws a 5g projectile at 33m/s.  I think that given a few more years it will be a slightly more pratical toy.

I think I left a major part out of my last post.  I forgot to say "that they were sheilded from going to trial for their crimes."

Here is an article on it.  

http://www.sfbg.com/reality/24.html

I do agree that execurting someone without trial is wrong.  Executing a murder is little better than state-sponsored murder.  But a war ciriminal?  If duely convicted in a fair, transparent and open trail that meets or exceeds international norms its the best of many bad options.

I tend to agree with the Ocam's raisor approach.  I immagine that the doctor was put under extreeme pressure by No. 10 Downing St around his contacts with the BBC or it was self-inflicted cognative dissonance.  I doubt that anyone tried to get him to do himself in.  I mean, Rudel was convinced to blow his brains out 88+ years ago because he was a double agent.  Societal morals have changed since then.  

Either way, Bush's Poodle is going to be hurt either way.

Lady Grey, I hope that the family emergencey ended well and look foward to seeing you again on the board.

The reasion to execute tyrants, war criminals and trators is not just because they did somthing wrong but because they are extreemely capabale causing large problems in the future.  

For instance after World War II, several major Nazis not executed because they had spy networks in the USSR and Com. Block.  They doctored intelegence to their own ends and made the cold war last longer and created serious misconceptions in the West about Russian abilities.  

Remember everyone has their own adjenda and agents of a defeated goverment, defectors and members of differing political factions have their own adjendas that are not necessarly concident.  

I perdict that the rest of the EU will be happy when Berlusconi is gone or will help him "retire."

If guily he is the typical religious hypocryte and bad actor.  I wonder why so few athiests, deists and rational people do such immoral things.  I wonder if there is a connection between fanaticism and immoral sex (that with persons who cannot give informed concent)?

I think I am to the left of most of you guys.  

On persional issued I tend to be closest to libertarians.  "Your rights end where my nose begins."  Essentialy coersion and threats are wrong.  However, Govermsnts (as an instrument of the propular will) can and should regulate certan private activitiees like restricting hard drug use, baning polygamy (polyamory is ok) and cracking down on mind-stealing cults (Moonies, Scientologists, Opus Day, etc).  

On a public level I would be propbably termed a just to the right of traditional Democratic Socialism.  I believe that the fundamental unit of human existance is the political community.  This community (in Classical Athens it was called the Polis) can and should regulate public behaviour and economic activity to protect the public.  An education sutiable to self governance is both the duity of the state to make availiable and the individual to partake of.  Free speach should be protected via strong libel and slander laws (such that bad speach [lies] does not drive out the good or demagory destory rational discource).  

Markets, properly regualted are the greatest insturment to acheive human happyness.  Such regulation must be aimed as assuring options for upward mobility for all via structural incentives (as opposed to artifical incentives).  These markets must be further constrained by preventing the excessive acumilation of political capital via economic dominance.  Furthermore the machines of capitalism must serve the needs of people as opposed to people serving the needs of the machines of capitial.

A little theory about the supporters of the war in Iraq.  

Comming from my vantage point outside of Washington, DC it looks like Bush made a decision sometime in the first several months after 9/11 to wack  Sadam.  This is best explained by several factors.  

Economic:  Large oil reserves to loot, gains geopolitical power in the bargan.

Ideological:  Many of Bush's apointees are asociated with the Project for a New American Century (PANC) which favors a scenaro where the US becomes a new Roman Empire.  

Political:  9/11 saved Bush's popularity numbers.  Therefore there are domestic political reasions to have a war for domestic political consumption.  

As for Britan, Blair just wants to save his "special relationship" with the US instead of bowing to the enevatable and becoming an ex-great power that gets kicked around by the French-German center of the EU.  

As for the Italian PM, he doged a corruption trial and is not making friends with his neibours.  I get the impression that because of Italan politics (the CIA has left quite a few fingerprints).  Namely the CIA left some rather large gangs of stay-behind units (if the commies crossed the Rubicon) that are very right wing and have engaged in political murders and other nastyness.  

Berlusconi, ,may be trying to snugle up to Washington by making a hash of the EU's intergration efforts.  Another option is that he is doing it for domestic political consumption.  Finanly, it could be payback for percieved/actual insults by Germany.  

If Bush did lie or order intelegence data to be tortured utnill it confessed he has a major credability problem.  The DoD did set up a intel unit that probably did just that.  In the late 70s/ early 80s despite the ovibous rusting out of the USSR a team of "outside analists" concluded that the Russians were rearming and  were planing to pour through the Fulda gap.  

If he knowingly lied its serious.  Combined with the election irregularities in Florida, domestic political adjenda, and the Gordian Knot called 'Iraq' (namely the lack of worst case scenaro planing).  So regardless of if Bush lied or not, he was neglent in assuming that the Iraqi people would want us there (even without the Butcher of Badgad).

Thanks for your help.  

Rockwolf, so this guy is right or my information is correct?  (little confused here).

I did have a thought on satalite immaging, one could attempt to identify someone's height via measureing the shadow they cast.  Also the tech is liimted because of the time to analize a satalite photo and get the information to troops to act on it.  This article claims 18 hours.

http://www.geocities.com/Pentago....ing.htm

Thanks for your help.

Don't know quite where it goes so here it is.  I was talking to a friend of a friend at a lan party on Sat evening.  He made two claims that I think are BS.  

1.  Tank gun amunition is insensitive to explosive shock (like what happens when a ATGM penatrates a tank's magazine) and the propelent must be fired via a carefully modulated electrical pulse (the electronics are contained in the shell casing).  

I understand that tanks have blow out pannels near the magazine to vent gasses from would-be catastrophic magazine hits.  I also know that tank shells are loaded with traditional smokeless powder, albiet a slow-burning one capable of throwing a Depleated Uranium or Tugsten dart to 1,200m/s or so.  I suspect that tank amunion is set off by either a impact primer or electrical primer arangement.  

2.  Satlites can make out individual faces.

I am reasionably shure that this is BS.  in the book The Cucko's Egg[/] by Cliff Stroll.  He is asked about the Hubble Space Telescope by a Spook who asks if it was pointed at the earth what sort of resolution could be expected?  Stoll, I believe answeres 2-3 inches, not quite enough to make out a human face.  Being only about 15 years latter, I cannot immagine a quantum jump in immaging technology that would improve resolution further (agan issues of clouds, night, haze, fog, dust will prevent substantial improvemnts most of the time).  There is also the problem of spoofing the system.  

Can anyone tell me if by BS detector worked?

The only change to the "blackhammer rules:"

1.  There is a +1 to supressive rolls for useing a weapon with a bipod.

2.  There is a +2 for useing a tripod or vehicle mount.

That should make it more brutal.

http://sound.westhost.com/counterfeit.htm

The excelent basis for a sub plot.  Band's amp catches fire, netrunner's deck goes south a the worst possible moment, etc.  If the characters have any brains they figure out that the part that started the cascade faiilure was counterfit and someone needs a blanketparty.

Interesting idea.  The screen is too small however.  I have a Palm 500 and its screen is a little on the small side.  I would hate to mess with somthing that small.  It is a good step in the right direction.  I would love to have a small easily caried organizer.  The idea of interngration with a cell phone or a watch are both promising ideas.  I would like to wait for it to mature another generation or two.  I like new tek, I just like someone else to alpha test it.

I am partial to the Blackhammer rules:

http://www.ambient.ca/cpunk/deltasuppression.html

Looking at it again, It looks like it needs some help.  Namely because it fails to provide adaquate protection for layers of armor.  

Unfortunately I can't properly mess with the formula because Lotus 1-2-3 R9 doesn't like WinXP  

But you are right that somthing is wrong.  I think it needs some tweaking, like doubling the lowest armor value before squareing...  I don't know.  I need to get 9.8 and start playing with numbers.  

I agree, it does seem broken.