Mebert

I'll be honest, I can't see this as being quite as serious as most of you portray it to be. Yes, it's wrong, and yes, it's a violation of freedom of speech, to some extent - but it's hardly totalitarianism or the like. Let me put it this way. We survived with free speech long before the internet was even thought of. Just because the government wants to censor pornography doesn't mean that they'll start creating an index of banned books.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that jokes were against the forum rules.

Philadelphia gave us Rocky. Pittsburgh gave us Flashdance. End of discussion.

I disagree with everything Lily Tomlin said. My wife has recently become pregnant with our first kids, and while they appear to be twins, we're not going to stop there. Large families I find are more functional; after all, so much of a persons education comes from real life, and in a large family, children teach each other. They understand how to interact with people, and how to fend for themselves, for the parents will be too busy to deal with each child. So basically, you're teaching the kids the skills they need to learn in life. Also, letting your kids get into a big fistfight once in a while is a good thing. We've been trying to work out how we want to raise our kids, and we've decided on this: very few rules, but those rules we do have, we enforce strictly with beatings.

It's Jersey. What do you expect?

I don't have a favorite, but there is nothing like the GW in the mist ... Which, sadly, the internet has no good pictures of. Oh well, this shall have to suffice.

Russia's only border with Poland lies along East Prussia. It is true that East Prussia contains the highest amount of military equipment per square mile in the world, but the troops there could not capitulate Russia. That, and the fact that there is still full American divisions in Germany would prevent Russia from making a move. American troops are along the border from Ansbach to Berlin, and they could be transferred to Poland quickly. Another point should be examined: America's army is not built for fighting insurgents. The vast bulk of our army, top to bottom, has been constructed, more or less, for one purpose: to defeat the Russian army. You can't base the performance of America against countries like Vietnam or Iraq as how we will do against Russia, should a war happen, because that's not what our army was built for. Russia, on the other hand, has an army that, while recovering, is still in dire straights. Russia is not stupid. The only superiority they have to us lies in their number of nuclear weapons. We should all understand by now that a nuclear weapon is not something you can bargain with, and if Russia has forgotten that fact, they soon will be reminded of it. Frankly, I'm not gonna hold my breath.

As a currency trader, let me give you all some advice. Dump. The. Euro. Now. And while you're at it, stay away from the Pound, Dollar, and Yen. Good currencies at the moment are the Russian Ruble, and the Czech Crown. Although, if you guys really want to keep your currency safe, there is one that has a very good record: the Ducat.

Cool. Two legitimate countries at war, and for once, we're not a part of it. I'm almost looking forward to this, except for that whole "innocent people dying for somebody else's political ambitions" thing.

Nothing like New York.

Outsourcing will continue to happen until western nations are so poor that they are outsourced to, and stop outsourcing. In fact, that's already starting with steel.

Interesting. The only thing is, only one of the planets have water-to-land ratios comparable to Earth; is that what you were looking for?

Really? Oil isn't ever going to "run out," so to speak. That's not a geological and economic possibility. You see, there is lots of oil in closed wells; it's just that the concentration is so low, it's very expensive to pump out. As oil prices rise, older wells will be opened, and more oil extracted, but efficiency will fall. However, before every drop of oil is used, it will be come so expensive that demand will decrease. If, somehow, natural oil did disappear, there are several methods of producing synthetic oils, that, while prohibitively expensive for normal consumption, would work in a crunch (South Africa was forced to use them for years, due to trade embargos). As for lower pollution levels and be more caring for ecosystems ... why? I think pollution is just fine at where it is now. In fact, I could stand it being a bit worse, air-pollution wise.

Why, so we can go there? There's nothing on mars. It's a barren thin-atmosphered ball of red rock a couple months away. It's not like any of us are going to go there, or, for that matter, have a reason to go there. We could totally trash Earth, burn every single scrap of coal, guzzle all the gas, hell, nuke the planet several times over, and it will still be more hospitable than Mars.

I thought this was about the guy getting nearly beheaded when his open-air double decker bus went under a highway underpass. Either way, it's kind of screwy. But that's the kind of people we have in this world; not much you can do about it. You're not gonna get rid of all the nutjobs.

I'm not quite sure what the taboo here is with SC4 files. Just because they arrived in the game, doesn't mean they aren't worth something. I think the city's fine. I like the buildings, and I think you do a good job with a basic design. There's a lot of landmarks (which are my personal pet peeve, like, I guess, SC4 buildings are to other people), but it's still great.

Wow, it's a good thing that I avoid paying taxes, or I might have a hissy fit when I learned they were being used to do this ...

The largest issue I have with the Criminal Justice System is that insanity is a defense brought to the jury. Jurors are able to weigh evidence, but the average citizen doesn't have a degree in psychiatry. If a person wants to plead insanity, they should be examined by doctors of the state, who will determine that person's sanity. If the person is considered insane, then he should be treated as such. If he is considered sane, he should be given the right to retry his case without any pretexts of insanity. In the United States, "Extreme Emotional Disturbance" is used for people who want an out. As for manslaughter, if you murder somebody, and the chance is there, you can probably plead to it. It's still a decade in most cases anyway. The prison system is just so bad, though, that it's hard for me to understand why we bother locking people up at all. I've stayed a couple nights in the Rikers Island Hotel, and let me tell you, there is far more crime going on there than on the street.

First, some author notes: I have been on these forums for only a short time, but my original intent before registering was to create a City Journal. As you will see from my upcoming city journal, I am not the greatest at creating cities, though I pride myself on not being the worst. This is, of course, only the introduction; to follow, there will be histories, demographics, and, of course, screenshots. Anyway, without further ado, allow me to present: The Republic of St. Valerie.

Thanks for the comments, and the constructive criticism. Several things. 1. Slopes leading up to bridges being unrealistically steep ... It's hard to see from the picture, but all the bridges in that picture have elevated surfaces (Elevated rail, Elevated highway, Rail viaducts, etcetera). 2. Custom content. Yes, I apologize. You see, I play on a VPC machine -

Thank you very much. The embassies look great! The reason I didn't include capital is because St. Valerie is a city-state; St. Valerie is the capital of St. Valerie.

A lot of people make the mistake that a test will make you smarter, or that they are intended to make you smarter. That's not the point of the test. These tests are constructed so that the government has a better gauge on the school system, and the best way to do that is through standardized testing. If we are ever going to solve this problem, we are going to need as much information as we can get, and standardized testing is the best way to collect it.

Back in the 60's and 70's? Pittsburgh, all the way. There's nothing like a good factory town. But now that the mills have been reduced to hulks of metal that no one touches, I'd have to say Philadelphia.

I might as well add one for my upcoming CJ. Respublica Sanctus Valerie (English, Republic of St. Valerie; German, Republik von Valerie Heilig) Government: Absolute Monarchy Doge: Frederico Mebert Ambassador: Karl Lothar F

Has anyone stopped to consider it might be that big, giant ball of continual nuclear explosion in the sky? No, that couldn't be it at all. No, it must be the miniscule percentage of Carbon Dioxide that has been released into the atmosphere in the past hundred years ... I think most scientists know Global Warming is a crock. The fact is, they really want enviromental reform. Their whole "save the whales" campaign didn't work because the vast majority of people don't care about whales. So now, they've come up with something newer, faster, scarier. They can spout data that nobody really understands, and then argue that the whole world is going to be destroyed. How do we solve this problem? There is no real solution (mainly because there is no real problem), so they come up with this theory that basically, doing things that help the enviroment will save the planet. Like planting trees! (Never mind that trees are practically carbon neutral in themselves, and almost all of the world's oxygen comes from Algae.) Like shutting down Dupont Chemical! Like putting thousands of Americans out of work ... again!