Fishing - Ot new game version

oh, oh, they added a login detector ..here is the article for those ( like
myself) that hate signing up for anything

oh, I guess posting this is some kind of major affront to the "dignity" of
Usenet, but I think it's very funny

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Monopoly captures George W. Bush
COMPASS: Points of view from the community

By JEFF FAIR

Anchorage Daily News
(Published: April 1, 2004)

I marvel at the media silence over the recently released George W. Bush
Edition of the Monopoly game. Perhaps his election-year spinmeisters had
second thoughts over the audacity, the realism, injected into this special
version. The board appears much the same, but subtle differences pervade.
For example, the luxury tax is now a user fee deductible for certain
players. All four railroads have been replaced by failing airlines, and the
electrical company has gone nuclear (spelled "nuculer" on the board).
Waterworks remains, but is now a privately run bottling outfit, and one
loses a turn upon landing here in order to be tested for arsenic. Free
Parking is now $40 unless you're playing with a certain kind of token, and
either way you skip a turn here in order to wait for an open space. Finally,
the Go To Jail corner has become Go To War, the old Jail to the southwest
has become War in the Middle East, and no one is allowed to just visit.

The currency is all newly minted, multicolored and in significantly larger
denominations. There is also a pad of blank checks for holders of a
Corporate token to write to themselves in case of national emergency. But
I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

The real new twist to this latest version is that the game is now played
between two teams: Corporate Players and Taxplayers. Teams are identified by
their tokens or "mover" pieces. Corporate tokens include a cooling tower, a
Humvee, a miniature Exxon Valdez (listing slightly), and a variety of
senators. The box lid claims there are three additional tokens in the form
of weapons of mass destruction, but I could not find them. Taxplayers still
have the familiar old shoe, the wheelbarrow, a steam-iron, a compact car and
a surprisingly heavy little globe. Each team must now use a separate set of
dice. I noticed that the gold ones on the Corporate side have at least one
extra six-point face -- a manufacturing oversight, I presume. The Banker,
now a paid position, is selected solely by the Corporate Players.

The new rules are a little different for each team. For example, the cards
on the board are still in two stacks: Chance and Community Chest. Taxplayers
draw only from the Chance deck, and only when told to; Corporate team
members draw from the Community deck, and do so pretty much as often as they
like (until the Taxplayers tire of it and recall a Senatorial token or two).

I glanced through the cards in both stacks. Each deck contains a "Get out of
the National Guard free" card, and each contains one which reads, "Go to
War -- Go Directly to War -- Do Not Pass GO, Do Not Pass the U.N." The
Corporate (Community Chest) card continues, "Collect $50 Billion in military
and reparation contracts and oil revenues." Oddly, the Taxplayer card
instructs the holder's team to pay out just as much.

Another Community Chest card announces, "Big Tax Cut! Receive $100 Billion."
A related one in the Chance deck reads, "Big Tax Cut! Pay $100 Billion."
Also in Community Chest I found the Enron card, which allows the holder to
clean out the Bank and leave the board.

Looking closely at the George W. Bush version, one notices a new shortcut
from Mediterranean across three blank spaces (the middle of which is shaped
suspiciously like the White House) to Board Room--formerly Boardwalk. Only
Corporate tokens may pursue this route in order to just keep passing GO and
collecting money.

Beyond houses and motels, Corporate team players may now install a third
level of development: Gas Wells and Pipelines are far more expensive to put
in but generate untold revenues, which the Corporate team determines on its
own in another room.

The remainder of the rules follow pretty much according to earlier versions.
I regret having had no opportunity yet to play this newest edition of
Monopoly. None of my Bush friends up here in the Valley are willing to be a
Taxplayer.

Jeff Fair is an independent game biologist who lives in Palmer