With the money problems the country has why are we continuing one of the biggest in failures in recent history? Like the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs has been nothing but a toilet that we as a nation have been flushing money down since Nixon started it. Not only does it take away resources police can use to instead go after rapists, murders, serial killers and the like it also wastes prison resources. It costs $50 million to run prisons in the country and 42% of the countries prison population are their for drug related crimes.

Those who support the Drug War say that it's for the public good. Remember the last time people claimed that banning a substance was for the public good? Prohibition was the last time we tried banning a substance people consumed on their own free will. Remember how well that turned out? Al Capone, politicians, police, judges and other local officials being bought to protect crime bosses and their allies from justice. All this corruption was for what? To prevent people from having a good time with alcohol. Well at the same things happen with the current drug war. Police, judges and local politicians are payed by organized thugs to look the other way and selectively enforce the policies.


Another reason to end the Drug War besides saving federal and state budges money is that the Drug is considered racist. According to recent statistics 72% of drug users are white while 37% of those arrested for drug related crimes are black. Many of those who support the war on drugs tend to have racist tendencies. True anti-racists like Ron Paul believe that the war on drugs is nothing but a huge failure. It has been proven that throwing someone in jail for having drugs. Drug addiction should be treated as a medical problem not as a criminal one. Would throwing an alcoholic or a gambler in jail help them break their addiction? NO it wouldn't, so why do pro-Drug War people think it would be different for a drug addict? The fact is that the drug war has been another social engineering...

It seemed that all hope was lost for NY to make it to the playoffs. Both teams had done very badly in the last three weeks. The Jets had a two game losing streak until last week but the victory was more contributed the careless mistakes made by the Bills rather than the Jets actually playing well. The Giants were on a three game loosing streak. They were making basic mistakes unheard of for the Giants.

The Jets lost badly to the Seahawks 3 to 13 making their record 9 and 6. They were in a three way tie for the division with the Patriots and the Dolphins and both teams won their games so the chances of the Jets making it to the playoffs is slim to nil. It's really sad because I had very high hopes when the Jets signed Bret Farve as their quarterback but as I have seen he has not delivered.

The Giants were lucky to still have their division thanks to the Cowboys losing their game last week. Last night it seemed that the Giants' up hill climb was going to get worse when the Panthers were leading 28 to 20. It wasn't until the last five minutes of the game that the Giants were able to tie up the game and hold up the Panthers offense to bring the game into over time. The Giants were on their third attempt at a first down and it seemed that the Panthers were going to get the ball until Derrick Ward was able to rush the ball to the two yard line. Then Brandon Jacobs was able to power through for the touchdown. The Giants had officially clinched their division last night and hopefully the Giants have gotten their act together and can once again head to playoffs and then the Super Bowl.

Much noise is being made in Albany in who will replace Hillary Clinton as Senator of NY. In NY, the State Constitution states that the Governor hand picks the replacement. One name that has come up is Caroline Kennedy, the only surviving child of John (JFK) and Jackie Kennedy. Niece to Ted "One drink too many" Kennedy. Since this is my state I had to check it out and to my "surprise" this woman has nothing in regards to public service. All I was able to find that Caroline has worked in various charities and she spends most of her time in Washington DC while her official residence is in NY state.

Now some people have said that I demand too much out of my leadership and that the politicians I want in office are unrealistic. While true in today's modern political climate but at the very least I want my leadership to be at least 80% in line with my views. One qualification that is a must with me when it comes to national office is experience. Does this person have any experience in the public sector at all. I typically only reserve this for national elections (House, Senate, Presidency). If you are going to represent me and my state on the national stage I want someone that knows what they are doing. Caroline Kennedy is only being whispered by the Albany elites because of her last name being Kennedy. She has nothing accomplished in regards to public service or holding any sort of public office. What has Caroline Kennedy done to deserve the Senate seat? I'm going to go with nothing. I am really hoping Governor Patterson is thinking long and hard about who he will appoint to fill Hillary's Senate seat. Patterson's reelection chances in my opinion will bank on how he handles the states' budge problem and who he picks as Hillary's replacement.

It's been along time since I played a console shooter, actually Battlefield 2: Modern Combat on Playstation 2 was the last one strangely enough. Destruction and Chaos has always been a fun in shooters but Bad Company has brought it to a new level. In this game, everything and yes I mean everything can be blown to bits. No more does one have to get frustrated with noobs who camp in buildings to avoid your awesome tank skills. Now all you have to do is blast the building or if your feeling creative, just ram the tank right through the front door and say Hello!

Campaign:

I certainly enjoyed the single player campaign; it had a pretty decent story line. I wouldn't blame anyone either, your put into a squad which is basically cannon fodder I would go AWOL and chase some gold myself. The comments and personalities of the main characters are great for laughs, especially when Haggard destroys something and always says "This is why I love the army!". I also like how the campaign was Sandbox style, so you could go back to search for any gold bars or guns you have missed. There was one objective I believe in the second to last mission that had a time limit but that was it.

Mulitplayer:

Keeping with Battlefield fashion, Bad Company offers a treasure trove of unlockables which are good for players who like to mix it up. The new Gold Rush mode is pretty fun, it's similar in a way to Team Fortress 2's attack and defend modes. I was glad the EA decided to release a conquest mode download, because what is Battlefield with out its flagship Conquest mode? The squad system is a bit of a pain in the ass to get use to though but I mostly prefer playing solo anyways.

Overall Bad Company is a very solid game and I expect the Battlefield franchise to keep rolling strong.

As most people in the community know World War II games have been done to death several times over so World at War had to be something to wow those that are sick of World War II games. This was my first time exposed to the Call of Duty series and I was greatly impressed. The single player campaign was pretty decent; it’s even more fun when you do it in Co-Op mode. Learning curve was very small which is always a good thing for First Person Shooters. Multiplayer is very solid, not too many bugs or glitches as far as I can see anyway. I certainly enjoy the create-a-class system with perks; to my understanding Call of Duty 4 was the first game to bring such a feature to the table. Overall World at War is a good solid game; I highly recommend it for your Christmas lists. Those who are veterans of other World War II shooters such as Day of Defeat (1.6/Source), Battlefield 1942 (which last time I checked had maybe five servers still active) and of course the previous Call of Duty games should add this to their collection. World War II maybe be old and stale as a game theme but World at War is certainly not a game with an old and stale feel.

Contrary to what all the EA bashers say, Red Alert 3 was done just right. I have played through all three campaigns and have done a few multiplayer matches and couldn’t find anything wrong with any of it. The only buggy feature I noticed was the online co-op mode. To my understanding this is the first RTS to have a campaign co-op mode so typically I don’t expect a new feature to be completely perfect but it was a great feature none the less.

Gameplay:

As with all of the Command and Conquer games, the learning curve is very small and very easy for those who have never tried RTS before. A first in the series is that every single unit has secondary functions which are all activated with the simple stroke of the “F” key; no longer one must memorize or refer back to the manual for the two key combinations which has been more common in RTS games. Balancing was very important, especially after Yuri’s Revenge (the expansion pack for Red Alert 2) was considered a rush job by many in the Command and Conquer community. After playing the game fully I couldn’t find any balancing issues with the typical archetypes that are found in RTS games; brute force and numbers (Soviets), versatility (Allies), and last but not least hit and run (Empire of the Rising Sun).

Sound/Music:

The soundtrack once again does not disappoint especially since Frank Klepacki was brought back to do the flag ship song Hell March 3. I couldn’t find a track that didn’t fit with the game although there was some I didn’t like but with any soundtrack there will be some tracks that nobody likes. The voices of the units were quite amusing, my personal favorite has to be by the Soviet Conscript (“Promotion here I come, Just like in training video, He die like watermelon).

Cast:

When the cast trailer came out in the middle of the summer I was a bit disappointed that none of the original cast from Red Alert 2 was brought back but the new cast was great none the less. Tim Curry ( Soviet Premier Cherdenko), Jonathan Pryce (Allied Field...

Im usually pretty good when it comes to following server rules but yesterday I got carried away while being an Uber Pyro and spammed the mic. Usually on this particular server the first ban is only a day.