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Yep - the forums are also highly modified for SEO (or so I think ) and validate almost all the way through.  post.php does not validate as I am using the modern BB code mod (which I modified very slightly).

Overall, very, very cool.

Sure...I'm using apache mod_rewrite to do that.  I don't have an official mod put together, and there are still a few bugs I need to work out, but here is what I did:

1.  Create the rewrite rules in an .htaccess file.  The file looks like this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^topic/([0-9]+)/(.*)/new/$ viewtopic?id=$1&action=new [L]
RewriteRule ^topic/([0-9]+)/(.*)/([0-9]+)/$ viewtopic.php?id=$1&p=$3
RewriteRule ^topic/([0-9]+)/(.*)(/?)$ viewtopic.php?id=$1 [L]

RewriteRule ^forum/([0-9]+)/(.*)(/?)$ viewforum.php?id=$1[L]

2.  Added a function in the file functions.php.  I put the function just below the function pun_htmlspecialchars().  The function looks like this:

function simplify ($str)
{
    $replace = array('`','~','!','@','#','$','%','^','&','*','(',')','_','=','+','\\','|','}',']','{','[','"',';',':',',','<','.','>','?','/',' ');
    $str = str_replace($replace,'-',$str);
    $str = str_replace('\'','',$str);
    $str = preg_replace('/[-]+/s','-',$str);
    $str = preg_replace('/-$/s','',$str);
    return $str;
}

Again, kind of brute force...

3.  Worked through the code in viewforum.php and viewtopic.php to change the links from the old viewtopic.php?id=1 or viewforum.php?id=1 to the new URL's.  This is definitely the most time consuming part.

4.  I also had to work my way through some files to make sure that all links started with a forward slash (<a href="/index.php"> as opposed to <a href="index.php">). 

Again, I wish I had an official mod, but that is basically what I did.  If you have specific questions about what I did, I'd be glad to offer any assistance I can.

Thanks.   Yes, although the football forum is still on an older version.

Unfortunately my members get comfortable very quickly with the way a site looks, so making any major changes needs to be done carefully.

Thanks.

Yes, a function would make life quite a bit easier.   Its the second time going through things, so it took a little less time.  I did get hung up in one spot, however.  When you go to the last post, why is it formated as viewtopic.php?id=3#3?

Rickard, thanks for your response.

Middleground, I have to say you made some great responses as well.  Although I do not have the time to go quote happy again, I will try to address a few of the major points in contention here.

1.  The Bush Video - Again, he is a poor public speaker in formal environments.  The video is quite funny, but if you want to see something really funny (and if you have 12 minutes), watch John Kerry change his positions on Iraq:

http://real.stream2you.com/rnc/101104v1.mov

I highly recommend this video.

I can't say that Bush didn't get help getting into Yale and Harvard, but did his father do his homework and take his tests?  My point is this: graduating from Harvard Business School is an accomplishment regardless of how you got in.

2.  The War was based on WMD's - Well, not exactly.  That is a point that the democrats have successfully focused the world on.  The war was over Iraq's failure to comply with UN Resolutions.  That did not change in the inspections as Hans Blix had to report more than once that Iraq was being uncooperative.  10+ years of Saddam thumbing his nose at diplomacy, you think the world body would have gotten the message that he wasn't going to be serious about working diplomacy in a serious way.

3.  The UN, its role, and world body - The UN is a peacekeeping body, this is true.  However, in certain circumstances the UN has authorized the use of force when necessary.  Rickard made a great point in saying that peace was needed before you can maintain peace.  Middleground also made a great point in stating that Iraq was firing at our planes on a daily basis.  Those planes were enforcing the UN sanctioned no-fly zone that Iraq refused to recognize.

Just because France, Russia, Germany, and a few other world powers didn't agree with the war doesn't make it a wrong war.  Some have talked about those countries financial interests in Iraq, but I personally like to stay away from conspiracy type theories. 

4.  The Kyoto Treaty, Energy Consumption, and Beyond - I honestly have not done a whole lot of research on the Kyoto treaty, so it is hard for me to talk intelligently about this.  My impression from what I have read is that it unfairly places burdens on the world superpowers which would have a negative effect on their economies.

If you want to punish the largest economies, the effect would be a negative world-wide effect.  We should be encouraging clean production as opposed to simply punishing productive economies.

Remember, the world does pay for our consumption, but the US also pays for the world's prosperity in many ways.  I am not saying that the world is dependent on America, but America does quite a bit for the world body.  Yet this is often overlooked.

Alas, I couldn't stand back any longer.   Evidently my resolve is not that strong.  I wanted to respond to your intitial response.  I apologize for not being able to respond to everything, but I am working on a new implementation of punBB over at my main website, Site-Reference (take a look at the development at http://forums.site-reference.com).

So, with no further delay...on to the responses...

Ok, lets stop there for a moment.  Yes, Bush did have a "privelaged" upbringing.  Yet what evidence do we have that he is stupid?  Because he isn't a good speaker?  Einstein was noted for his absent-mindedness yet was regarded to be one of the most intelligent men in history.

Bush graduated from Harvard Business School, not just Harvard.  HBS is recognized as one of the top 5 B-Schools in the world.  Getting into HBS is extremely difficult, not to mention actually graduating.

President of the USA is the most powerful office in the world, but it takes a heck of a lot more than being a genious to run in that office.  Bush is a solid, solid businessman.  He knows how to make decisions, and he knows how to adjust to the consequences of his decisions.  Give me a solid businessman any day over a bookworm to lead this country.

I have no intention of being patronizing here, but you do know that we do not go on the popular vote in our elections.  We use the electoral college.  The reason we do this is to make sure every region of the country, and every lifestyle is equally represented.  If we did not have this, then Ohio, Penn., Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, etc. would all be ignored in the campaigns.  Candidates would focus only on New York, Texas, and California.  Hardly a representive government.

BTW, America is not a democracy, it is a representive republic.  The goal is to represent the people's views.

Finally, no one knows who won the popular vote.  Although the official numbers have Gore winning, those numbers do not include a lot of absentee ballots.  The reason comes down once again to the electoral college.  Take California as an example.  On the day of the election, Gore had a very large margin of victory in this state.  Because his margin of victory was larger than the number of absentee ballots, the absentee ballots were not counted in their final numbers.  Being that most absentee ballots represent the military, and being that the military traditionally votes republican (80% traditionally), California's absentee ballots alone would have tipped the popular vote in Bush's favor.

I highly disagree with this.  Most Americans initially did not want war with Iraq until AFTER the case was made against Saddam.  Americans wanted a war against Afghanastan because they were viewed as the source of 9/11.

Saddam was a threat for over 10 years.  Every single day he was firing at our planes patrolling the no-fly zone.  He was a threat as he was using the oil-for-food program to fund his weapons ambitions.  He was a threat to the US as he was requiring his education system to teach a system of lies to Iraqi children, many of these lies describing how the US is an evil society.  Most importantly, though, he was a threat that had proven diplomacy was not going to be an option.

There are other countries that have WMD's or the technology to produce them, but there are other ways to deal with them (and containment policies, such as the one in Iraq before the war,is not one of those ways).  N. Korea is being dealt with through multi-national talks (an example of how Bush DOES use diplomacy to reach an end goal).  Syria has already agreed to dismantle their weapons due to Bush's influence.  Iran, well, Iran is having enough internal problems to not have to even think of war as an issue just yet.

The argument that there are other countries that are more dangerous misses the point.  The point is simple...Iraq was a threat that had no other options.

Yes, 30 out of 191 countries.  As Bush said, he didn't make the decision to be popular, but to do the right thing.  Other nations do support us in our efforts, many are neutral, and a few have opposed the actions all together.  Every nation has a right to their own position on the war, but the US was not alone in evaluating Iraq as a real threat.  To say so is demeaning to those other countries who have also made sacrifices.

That is exactly what Bush tried to do, make the UN more effective.  The basis of war, contrary to popular belief, is not WMD's, but rather Iraq's continued defiance of UN resolutions.  How many resolutions was it going to take?  A list of resolutions against Iraq can be found here.

The UN is not completely dead, but Saddam nearly made the UN into a meaningless body.  It is a peacekeeping organization, but as such it needs to deal with those who are not in line with keeping the peace.  Saddam was definitely not in line with keeping the peace.

Yes, that was Bush's argument, and I really don't see anything wrong with Bush asking for the responsibility to be shared more evenly.  Another glaring reason to not sign the Kyoto treaty was because it was bad science.  Take Russia for example.  Putin, the Russian legislature, and the Russian Academy of Sciences all stated that the Kyoto protocols were bad science, yet political pressures forced Russia to join (they wanted entrance into the WTO).

Regarding the gas prices in the US and electrical energy, I agree that we use way more than we should.  However, keep in mind that our transit is much different than in Europe.  Europe has a very well organized train system.  The US transit has been build on roads and personal ownership.  The result...we drive a lot more.  There are a lot of reasons we developed this way, and although it may not be the best thing, it is what it is.

Allow me to make something clear as well...I understand why people are upset at the US and Bush.  Bush had to make some very unpopular choices.  But in the grand scheme of things, any president or leader has to look after his people first, then worry about his stance in the free world second.

A lot of people died on 9/11, but more importantly, it showed that America can be attacked successfully.  The world was with us on 9/11, and I can tell you that every American was moved by the outpouring of support by the world on that day.  Many nations have disagree with the way that America has handled itself after 9/11, but remember that unless you are getting the intelligence that Bush is seeing on a daily basis, it is hard to say who is really going to be responsible for the next 9/11.

BTW, I hope you get the chance to come back to the US.  NYC is the greatest city in the world (I've been there countless times and would love to live there).  But there are a lot of great places to see beyond NYC as well. 

Finally (I promise this will be the end of this post), some people have asked whether Iraq is better off now than it was before the war.  To those people, I say yes.  Sure, it is more unstable, but at least there is hope right now.  Understand that these people have lived under a dictator for nearly 30 years, and now they are finally tasting freedom for the first time.  There will be a struggle, and it will be long and hard, but at least these people have the hope of security.  Under Saddam, they never knew when they would end up on his 'naughty or nice' list.