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KNOWLEDGE AWARDS

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A tie between total and TowardsLiberty

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PROFILE AWARDS

Best Signature Picture, Quote, or Personal Text
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Best Username
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ULTIMATE POSTER AWARDS

Newcomer of the Year
limey

2012 LNF Poster of the Year
CubaLibre

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to all that voted and nominated others. Special thanks to ranger4life for making the 2012 LNF awards contest very exciting by managing it and making polls for everyone to vote in each category. LNF Admin

HOT SEAT AWARDS

Right-Wing Poster of the Year
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OTHER FORUM AWARDS

Christian/Religion Forum Poster of the Year
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Toward Liberty

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leakingleopard (snow leopard pic)

Best Username
Makhpiya Luta

ULTIMATE POSTER AWARDS

Newcomer of the Year
CubaLibre

2011 LNF Poster of the Year
Toward Liberty

Once agains Mercy For All did a great job.

POSTER OF THE YEAR AWARDS
  
HOT SEAT AWARDS 

Political Forum Poster of the Year 
 
SolarRightwingExtremist

 
  
Conservative Poster of the Year
 
Taxed
  
       
       
Libertarian Poster of the Year
 
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Liberal Poster of the Year
 
Laudanum  
                               

Centrist Poster of the Year
   
MercyForAll            
   

OTHER FORUM AWARDS

Christian/Religion Forum Poster of the Year
 
MercyForAll  
  
             
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PERSONALITY AWARDS 

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Solar vs Realist  
         
  
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Maestro       
                         

Most Humorous Poster 
 
Jasmine 
       
                   
Friendliest Poster
 
LadyBug 
  
                                     

Controversial Poster
 
Truth, AKA Kfed 
  
  
Antagonistic Poster
 
Truth, AKA Kfed
  
  
                                     
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Harry 
                                           
  

KNOWLEDGE AWARDS  

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Shooterman

Maestro
 
       

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cclezel 
  
       

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Pepe   
  
                                           
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SolarRightWingExtremist  
       
                                           
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The Global Warming Threads

  
  
Most Volatile Thread
 
UPDATED!Waterboarding Worked After All (Solar) 
 
 
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FreedomLover  
       
                         

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Wally   
  
       
Best Signature Quote or Personal Text
 
HarleyWoman  
       
                                     

ULTIMATE POSTER AWARDS

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Federalist  
                  

***2009 LNF Poster of the Year***
 
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Impeach Barack Obama

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republicans2

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Shooterman

Liberal Poster of the Year

Lefty_Loosey

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Mercy for All

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Mercy For All

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Truth Hurts

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horselady

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Harry

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Simkin

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Demos

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forgotten_centrist interviews

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Iraq War (The only unanimous winner…guess why? )

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Fob’s electoral pseudonyms

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HarleyWoman

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cclezel

Ultimate Poster Awards:
Newcomer of the Year

Mrs. McCain [R-CA]

Poster of the Year

Harry

Possibly Logical

Global warming is perhaps the most misunderstood and misrepresented political topic today. One view sees global warming as the greatest risk to humanity through famine, hurricanes, and the extinction of the great polar bear. Another view sees global warming as a way for socialist academics to punish corporate America while spreading socialism. While these misconceptions represent the some of the worst understandings of global warming, commonly held beliefs are that global warming is either certainly happening or certainly not happening. Naturally policy recommendations are based on the state of the world they believe exists. There is a sufficiently strong scientific basis for greenhouse gas induced global warming. However, the nature of the statistical processes being used prevent any definite conclusion from being reached. As time continues to pass further information is acquired about the dynamic systems that regulate the earths temperature. The nature of the costs and risks suggest that the ideal course of action is to take some action to reduce greenhouse gasses as more information becomes available.  
 
In attempt to discredit the scientific basis for the study of global warming, many claim that there is no reason for greenhouse gas concentrations to affect the atmospheric temperature. However, greenhouse gasses are a necessary component for maintenance of a livable temperature, greenhouse gasses are known to cause a warming effect. Without greenhouse gasses the earth would be too cold to maintain life. A much higher concentration of greenhouse gasses would also render the earth uninhabitable. In small models the mechanics behind global warming leads to increased temperatures; however, the earth has a number of feedback mechanisms that, over certain concentrations, may reduce or eliminate the warming effect. Since the smaller models do not take into account the complex systems of the earth, we cannot rely on smaller models as an indicator of the effect of increased greenhouse gas emissions on the global temperature.  
 
No science currently has the capacity to analyze the earth as a deterministic system, nor will they any time soon. Any analysis has to involve statistical methods that estimate the true effect of greenhouse gasses on climate, eliminating the analysis of many of the effects that we do not fully understand. While statistical methods do not provide the exact value, so long as the analysis is done appropriately, it provides the best available estimate of the true result. As time goes on, more information is acquired in terms of both relevant statistical data and an understanding of the complex systems allowing predictions that are more consistent with the state of the world. Current statistical modeling generally shows that there is a warming effect that is induced by greenhouse gasses.  
 
An appropriate analysis of the issue involves responding to the issue in terms of the statistical realization. If global warming is occurring and is costly the correct course of action is to reduce greenhouse gasses. There are consequences of waiting for more information to become available. Since greenhouse gasses are accumulatory, the gases linger in the atmosphere for many years; deferring action for an additional year means the necessary reduction is much greater and would be done over a shorter period of time. Because large reductions over short periods of time are much more expensive then small reductions over a long period of time, inaction would prove costly. If global warming is not occurring or has little effect the correct response is to do nothing. Reducing greenhouse gases would impose large costs on society without any benefit.
 
Since we do not know the true state of the world, we can only make estimates based on the current information available. Based on the analysis of the costs of a policy given various states of the world, we are able to determine the cost of each possible policy for each possible outcome. Combining the estimate of the probability of each state of the world and the costs associated with each outcome, it is possible to determine the expected cost imposed by global warming. The current research points to a decent likelihood of a significant increase in the global temperature due to greenhouse gasses. Since inaction is extremely expensive, inaction is not a desirable choice. At the same time the science does not show with certainty that global warming is happening so it is not desirable to proceed as though it is. Emissions should therefore be reduced but not be reduced as though global warming is a certainty. As better information becomes available policies should be altered to take into account the new reality, continuing the same process until the issue is completely understood.  

Poster of the Year Awards

Political Forum Awards

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Solar

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cclezel

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LadyLawyer

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Berggeist

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Mercy For All

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Lintree

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Best Debate Opponents

Berggeist vs Coracao

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Berggeist

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Bert

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Berggeist

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BookWorm

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horselady

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horselady

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Interviews by forgotten_centrist

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Ron Paul stuff

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Tribes vs Civilization (Rob Larrikin)

Profile Awards

Best Screen Name

Bert, variations of

Best Signature Picture

HarleyWoman

Best Signature Quote or Personal Text

LadyLawyer – “Beware the people weeping.”

Ultimate Poster Awards

Male Poster of the Year

Coracao

Female Poster of the Year

LadyLawyer

Best Poster of the Year

***Demos***

Congratulations to you all!

Tomorrow is January 10th… again. Every year, for the past 36 years, this date becomes important to me. It likely means nothing to you, but it’s special to me and those 20 or so who were there that day. No earth-shattering event happened then, nothing of note, nothing of any notoriety or importance. It’s just the date on which two insignificant, un-heralded, un-important soldiers died.

January 11, 1971 (local time)

It’s early morning. The tropical sun leaps above the hills to the east, illuminating the fog which clings to our little hilltop in Antenna Valley, south and west of Danang. Everything not close by is obscured by the fog which now diffuses the suns’ light, the luminescence engulfing us without actually revealing anything. We know what’s out there beyond our foxholes because we saw it yesterday, but we can’t see it now.

SSG Leo “Pops� Rose and SP/4 Allen Gray are sitting in their damp, dank, wet foxholes for stand-to, like the rest of us. We were awakened by the last guard shift an hour or so before sunrise to tumble into our holes (which are remarkably like graves) in anticipation of a VC attack just as the sun rises. It’s their favorite time to attack. We do this every morning, like clockwork, but nothing ever happens.

That’s not to say it couldn’t. It could, and especially here in this valley. We’ve been here now for about 4 or 5 weeks, off and on. We did an operation here back in early December and another one later in the month, which stretched into the new year. We got a couple of bad guys and few from the other platoons have gone home on Dustoff’s. The usual stuff. Get some; lose some. It never ends.

Now, we’re back again and, like the previous operations, the signs of the enemy’s presence is everywhere. We’ve already made contact this time, in the Landing Zone (LZ) when we landed, but no one was hurt. We’ve also nearly fired up another platoon in this dense brush and 1st and 3rd platoons have had a firefight with each other. This place is thick with bad guys and the sense of ominous doom is heavy.

This morning, though, is quite. No movement, no clatter of distant small arms or even the “crump� of artillery. It’s almost peaceful, as if the whole world has decided to sleep in because of the fog. We wipe the dew off our faces with the nasty, filthy green towels which we wear around our necks to cushion the weight of our rucksacks and prepare for the day. Who knows what the day will bring? Will we live? Will we die? It no longer seems all that important. We are grunts, common Infantry, and our job is to die whenever, and wherever, our leaders think it appropriate or when God decides. We have no say in the matter.

(continued below)

We fiddle with our stuff, searching through our over-burdened rucksacks for breakfast and tearing down our poncho tents, keeping a close eye on everything all the while. Is that movement there in the bushes? No, it’s nothing. Is that noise suspicious? No, it’s just an animal.

I’m not particularly hungry this morning, so I fish out a couple of C-ration packets of hot chocolate and dump them into my canteen cup. I mix in some powdered milk packets and a couple of packets of sugar (also from the C-rats) and try to make it as thick as I can. It seems a little lame and thin, but it’s the best I can do. Breaking off a chunk of C-4 explosive from a 2lb block of the stuff, I drop it into a used C-ration can which I’ve perforated with a “church key� and use as a stove. Lighting the C-4, which burns almost invisibly, I sit my canteen cup on my “stove� and await the boiling, which won’t take long.

Just as it begins to steam, my Squad Leader, SSG Jerry Tucker, comes by and says it’s time to go out and pick up our MA’s. An MA is a “Mechanical Ambush,� a Claymore mine rigged with a trip-wire which we use both offensively and as a defensive measure for our little NDP (Night Defensive Position). (“Booby traps� are illegal under the Geneva Conventions, so we call them “MA’s.�) The night before, we set out a few of them to cover likely avenues of approach and we have to go and retrieve them.

Normally, this isn’t something I would be involved in because I’m a member of the Machinegun crew. Dennis “Ching� Lau and I are the gunner and assistant gunner and our “Pig� normally stays right where it is when the other guys go out to pick up MA’s.

But, today, I feel compelled to go, so I offer to take the “Pig� for additional firepower just in case. Tucker accepts my offer, but “Ching� declines to go. No problem. Nothing is likely to happen anyhow and it’s no big deal.

I leave my steaming hot chocolate and join 3 or 4 others who have assembled for our purpose and Bob Jascek leads us to where he set out the MA yesterday at sundown. I throw my Machinegun up on a pile of dirt and aim down the trail toward where the MA is planted. Bob jerks on the battery wire, the Claymore tumbles backwards without incident, we retrieve it and return to the perimeter.

This is actually suprising. We’ve already had a couple of incidences of the enemy having sneaked up during the night, turning the Claymores around, and then making noise to encourage us to blow the mines in our own faces and at least one incident of a fragmentation grenade being placed underneath the mine. Today, though, nothing is remiss and I feel sort of foolish for bringing the “Pig.� It wasn’t needed and I only inconvenienced myself for nothing. As we said then, “It don’t mean nuthin’.�

When we get back to the NDP, my “hot� chocolate is cold, but I drink it anyhow. It’s just as refreshing.

Our Platoon Leader, LT Terry Haines, calls the Squad Leaders to a conference at his rucksack and the rest of us begin packing up. We know the routine too well: Pack it all away, walk to somewhere, hoping against hope that we don’t get ambushed, unpack it all, set up a tent and spend another night on some other hilltop pretending we aren’t going to die before sun up.

They decide that the platoons will split up this day, each squad performing a different mission, and re-joining later with the rest of the company. The CO has decided it’s much too “hot� around here for the under-strength platoons to be operating independently, so he wants the whole company together by days end.

(continued below)