Enoch

I'm not saying that this is crucially important or anything, but I think that there are some important criteria in settling on a signature: 1) Professonal appearance. It should look like it was written by an adult who takes him/herself reasonably seriously. 2) Consistency. It should look pretty much the same all the time. Banks and the like do check signatures to verify documents. 3) Distinctiveness. You and people who know you should be able to recognize it. 4) Speed. You should be able to write it in 3 seconds or less.

Hittin' the Jug - Gene Ammons (TS), Tommy Flanagan (P), Doug Watkins (B), Arthur Taylor (D), Ray Barretto (Conga).

We'll see how Grossman holds up when he plays an actual NFL defense. (Which, by my count, won't happen until Seattle in week 5.)

You people are slacking. Picks? Predictions? Taunts? Greivances? Go nuts! (and Go, Giants!) My contribution: The picture that, to me, will forever define the 2006 season.

Bruce Springsteen - Adam Raised a Cain

Bruce Springsteen - It's Hard to be a Saint in the City.

Muppets are cool.

The only differences between Hastatii & Principes in vanilla RTW are +2 defense (H=14, P=16) and one extra man per unit. A Hastatii with +1 experience is roughly as effective as a 0 XP Principes. BTW, here is a nice .pdf with all the unit stats in the basic game.

keep people happy and work on your infrastructure. With Rome when you fight on defense just stand there and let them come to you. by the time they reach you their troops will be fatigued and you will win easily. Make sure to keep yourself (at first at least) confined to ONE battle front so you don't get knifed in the back by an opponent while your main army is making a swing west. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Good advice. On the infrastructure, I'll add that whenever one of your major cities grows to the point where a new level of improvements are available, the next level of farms and ports should be among your first priorities. For military buildings, prioritize the improvements that let you do something new entirely over those that just let you do stuff you could do before better. (e.g., as Rome, Principes actually aren't all that much tougher than Hastatii, but a 2nd-level stable gives you your first mounted skirmishers, which are very useful)

Nobody in a constitutional government does anything "without permission." The law enforcement officials involved in the recent secret wiretaps certainly needed the permission of their superiors to tap any particular line. These superiors in turn needed the permission of the Attorney General and the President to set up the program to begin with. The real questions are whose permission is needed, what standard must be satisfied to get it, and how difficult the process of getting permission is. I think that you can satisfy the security concerns by adjusting the latter two issues (the ease of the process and the burden required) without sacrificing the requirement that a neutral magistrate approve the wiretap. It's not as if the judges on the FISA court want to protect terrorists.

The US could reduce the number of nuclear weapons it has and abandon development of new kinds of nuclear weapon, and still keep enough to destroy the world, if that makes it feel safe or happy, and I'm not sure why it would do either. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> One problem is that the U.S. current nuclear arsenal is very out-of-date. The warheads out there now were mostly designed 30 years ago, to address the strategic problems of the Cold War. (I.e., deter a Soviet first strike with the threat of total anihilation of a vast and populous nation.) The U.S. (or any other nuclear nation, for that matter) isn't going to totally renounce nuclear weapons, and nobody is helped by keeping antiquated warheads out there. As for the hypocrisy of a nuclear nation attempting to restrain the nuclear ambitions of another state, there's an easy answer: Iran agreed to this restraint by signing the non-proliferation treaty.

Beatles - Maxwell's Silver Hammer (I've been on an Abbey Road kick over the last couple months.)

Naw, here is the only Kane worth mentioning:

I've done it... as Carthage. It's possible to use the army that Carthage starts with on Sicily to wipe out the Scipii and the Senate pretty early in the game. (Although it's probably not possible to hold the cities-- I let the ones in Italy rebel to slow down the other Roman families.) As for the Marian reforms, I believe that one of the patches to the vanilla game instituted a minimum year before which they could not occur. After that point, the building of an Imperial Palace in Italy is still the trigger.

Recently, I've been on the other end of this-- disposing of old furniture. I just moved from a small town to the DC area (Arlington), and, dispite paying over twice the rent on the old place, the new place is about 30% smaller. Luckily, the local thrift store came to pick up a truckload of the older stuff we didn't want. A station-wagon-load also went to my parents' basement. We still have been unable to find some proper shelving for one of the closets, though...

Nice shirt. It is amusing to note, though, that most of the U.S. legal precedent regarding piracy comes from a case in the early 1980s involving Betamax recorders. Sony was sued under the theory that the Betamax was sold with the intent to aid customers in pirating copyrighted broadcasts. So piracy was at least a big enough deal to inspire some very drawn-out litigation. As for Guitar tabs, if the Pianist and the Bassist can learn what to play when they see "A7#11" or the like, why do the Guitarists need a cheat sheet? If you want to be in a band but don't want to read music, the drum set is in the back.

There's no set point where the civil war begins. Watch the Senate's opinion of you. If you're "too successful," it will fall to practically nothing-- that means that you're close to the civil war. If your reputation on the streets is high enough, you can start it on your own (this is by far the best option, since it lets you get the drop on the other families). Eventually, if you don't rebel on your own, the Senate will start doing obnoxious stuff like demanding cash or that your leader commit suicide. Refusing any of these also starts the civil war.

Actually, most American sports leagues are far less capitalistic than the various European soccer leagues. Most sales of teams have to be approved by the other team owners before they can take place. The leagues also institute salary caps and revenue sharing to maintain competitive balance between the teams.

Is the 'story of my life' banner at the top of the page accurate? I didn't realize that MCA went to William & Mary. (I just got my JD from there.)

Okay, I have recently borrowed a copy of Gothic 2 (from my grandfather, a 76-year-old widower who loves CRPGs, but doesn't understand why his CD-RW drive won't read DVD games). I've read over the comments in this month-old, locked thread (which was quickly diverted into the endless genre-definition debates), but I want more. Any advice on getting the most out of the game? Links to useful fansites? I hear there was an expansion-- is it worth getting? (And, if so, is it downloadable, or do I have to hunt down a hard copy?)

If you can't, then Cpl. Klinger sure was wasting a lot of tima and effort (not to mention mascara).

I'm wondering how this thread has survived for so long without being canned as a 'spamming topic.' And I'm hoping that I passed the bar exam.

Politicians aren't the only ones who don't want a draft. The commanders of the armed services are very much against it, too. Conscripts, by and large, make poor soldiers, and nobody wants to be in a firefight counting on a guy who's only there to avoid going to prison.

The new Civ 4 expansion is out this week. Anybody here picked it up? I might in the next few days, and I'd appreciate any impressions. Here's a pretty in-depth fan preview.

Thelonious Monk - Well, You Needn't I love how, at the end of Monk's first solo, he concludes his piano playing with some tension, but resolves it vocally by calling out Coltrane's name in tones that bring it back to the root.