Zoraptor

Rings of Power S2. 5? episodes in. Since it's free here for the time being, doubt I'd have paid for prime to watch it after S1. It's an absolutely massive improvement over S1, which lifts it to being ok, more or less, and I'm not regretting the time spent watching it which I- more or less- did for S1. I'm still going to complain a lot of course, but they are far more minor complaints at least and moderated a lot by the improvement shown. So it's still got the flaws of S1, but they're less prominent and mostly more... excusable, I guess. Many conversations still sound oddly circuitous but not bafflingly obtuse, there's still some feeling that everyone is a stage actor declaiming to the audience in front of static backdrops rather than being in a 'real' world but a lot less pronounced and less frequent (ie, the world feels a lot more lived in*), there's a load of slightly illogical minor drama for drama's sake** rather than it being basically all there was and you still find it difficult to credit the elves as being thousands of years old when Elrond and Galadriel act like they're teenage siblings half the time. The pacing is also still off a bit too due to too many threads- Eregion, Khazad-dum, Lindon, Numenor, Pelargir, (Adar/orcs); and the still not very good at all and extremely pointless seeming Gandalf and hobbits odyssey. Despite the number of threads a lot of things feel like they're happening far too quickly because there's too little time for things to develop. But it is, at least, reasonably engaging. Overall, if it continues the trajectory from S1-->S2 then S3 should be really rather good. *though it is still quite bad, which it really ought not to be. Spend millions on CGI, don't spend a relative pittance on extras to make the world feel like it has actual people in it is a baffling decision. **big exclusion: Celebrimbor acting like he got pithed between scenes specifically to up the drama..

Can't agree with that. There have been a lot of complaints- including in that article- about people being forced to go straight into combat after short training and the low life expectancy that brings. Or at least, there is the strong perception that that happens, which is probably more important than the objective reality in this case. And a fair few complaints at various times that even skilled/ specialist personnel are being forced into front line positions due to manpower shortages. End of the day if the majority were going into drone units or logistics or other 'cushy' jobs- or if that were the perception- they'd have a lot less problem with desertion in the first place. Not sure they can legally. Or if it was ever intended as a practical suggestion as opposed to a sort of 'aspirational' idea intended to put pressure on Russia and pander to anti immigration types. Don't think it really worked at all in either respect if it was.

The most surprising thing is the low incidence of violence towards recruiters. You'd think that a lot of the deserters at least would be armed even if the ones who were 'just' draft dodgers weren't. Similarly, only heard of one incident of fragging at a training center. Though I guess in both cases it'd be the sort of thing people would want to keep under wraps.

While the Houthis have not (mostly) been attacking shipping in international waters they have been attacking shipping in other country's territorial waters- mostly Djibouti and Eritrea- since shipping tends to hug the non Yemeni side of the Bab el Mandeb. Out of context that would usually be seen as being 'worse' than using international waters; but that does require ignoring any context. Of course outrage about those sorts of acts is highly selective. Unless, perchance, I missed Bruce's condemnation of Ukraine's recent attacks on neutral oil tankers in Turkey's territorial waters? I suspect I didn't though.

The Japanese PM is a pretty strident traditionalist and nationalist and for Japan there isn't much more traditional and nation defining than war with China. China is unlikely to do anything so long as she thinks that Taiwan will inevitably return peacefully or in a Crimea like low bloodshed manner.

Donald Trump should order strikes on the headquarters of the entity responsible for starting up crack cocaine importation into the US, and label it a terrorist entity. Save a bit on the fuel bills for the jets too.

New Zealand is all set to continue her unbeaten (since 1982!) run at football world cups by humbling Egypt, Iran and Belgium.

People say that sort of thing when it actually is the obvious guess all the time. Tim Cain is not going to come back and announce that he's there for NV2 (or BG4/ KOTOR3/ Fury3d2/ Halo RPG/ Minesweeper RPG or whatever else people might think) because that's what you have marketing for; plus of course you get the free benefit of the rumour mill. If it is NV2 there's an obvious tie in event coming up which would garner far more media attention than Tim Cain. (IMO there's a pretty strong- as much as circumstantial an be strong- body of evidence that it is for a Fallout title. It certainly should be, circumstantially. Wouldn't bet the house on it though to be sure)

It is a bit like what you'd get if you described Gothic to an alien race and they decided to try their hand at it to replicate literally everything about it. Apart from everything else I also haven't met a single woman (one women, not a romantically unattached woman. It's Piranha Bytes like, not Bioware like. Sorry Bruce) in my brief sojourn. I did catch a fish, and squashed some bugs (hmm) for a quest, so there are some animals I'm a genuine threat to.

I haven't had a significant bug yet in, uh, 90 minutes of play. It wouldn't be a gothic like if it didn't feel just the slightest, smallest smidge janky and have a plethora of minor bugs; they're part of the charm. Along with getting brutally murdered by the first bit of fauna you meet.

Decided to give the gothic like Of Ash and Steel a go. vaguely stilted dialogue, somewhat odd voice acting, and got killed by an oversized rat immediately after leaving the tutorial area. 10/10 for being a gothic like experience so far.

That is obviously doomposting. The situation isn't that bad, though it is bad. Ukraine clearly isn't going to accept just any old deal just from the events of the last few days even if they've shifted significantly in terms of what they will accept over the last few months. Europe also clearly doesn't really care that much about the current corruption scandal given who they just welcomed with open arms- Yermak, probably the second most important guy who has been implicated; and the chief negotiator with Rubio and the Euros. Which, one suspects, was Zelensky calling their bluff as much as anything, making sure there's lots of footage of Euro politicos shaking hands with him in case of more pressure to sack him. The collapses are strictly localised, at the moment. The problem is that while Ukraine can still stop the really critical ones they just shift elsewhere, which then eventually become critical themselves, and the timeframe for the collapses is accelerating. They are at real risk of losing three very important towns inside a month which hasn't happened since the start of the war; one of which people would have thought you mad suggesting it was in play a month ago (Huliapole; for all that people make fun of Russia not learning you'd think Ukraine would have some defences facing north for a major defensive city after 40 months...). The desertions are a big problem though, that isn't overstated. Getting actual figures is difficult, since there are at least three classifications for desertion adjacent absence from service (~awol, 'missing*', and criminal desertion) and the whole thing is highly politicised. Best estimate seems to be at least a 5 figure number deserting every month and something like a quarter of a million total. The interesting recruitment method videos are also so ubiquitous now that only the most die hard of Ukraine supporters think they're just Russian propaganda. *though more usually that's dead rather than deserted, and used to avoid paying widow pensions/ compensation it's also for those who desert under combat conditions or surrender without a fight and don't want to register with the RC for fear they'll be traded back.

There isn't really a comparison between the two. BM has literally no detail at all and its only 'enforcement' 'mechanism' is consultation. It's specifically written to avoid committing any of the big players to anything concrete. OTOH, language like "such actions as it deems necessary" is about as explicit as you can get in treaties. It's far more direct and committal than the contemporaneous ANZUS alliance's III/IV/V, for example. And so long as the eventual text includes an article 5 provision and a trigger mechanism ('art 4') it is effectively enforceable, even if it isn't a big T Treaty. If everyone is happy with it- or more realistically, not unhappy enough with it- you could even get it through the UNSC at which point it is to all intents and purposes an actual treaty. Yes, there are various ways it might not work out that way, and yes, even for NATO triggering article 5 does not necessarily mean the invoker gets exactly what they want. But there's literally no treaty anywhere that has literal forced compliance which isn't a surrender document; because in the end countries have the last resort of simply repudiating treaties and obligations whatever they state.

We've done this before, but the BM is not a security guarantee since it isn't a treaty. It has all the legal weight of a new years' resolution. It's also been abrogated by every signatory to some extent- China the least- people just tend to ignore that it 'prevents' western interference in Belarus every bit as much as Russian interference in Ukraine. Article 5 does have legal weight though, which is why the 'article 5 like' usage is important in either document. The EU does actively extend/ renew the sanctions every six months, apart from the 19 packages that have been approved unanimously including one within the last couple of months. That includes Hungary, every time, and Slovakia every time. Orban's position is a lot closer to the old UK one- we want carve outs, to benefit Hungary- than actually being pro Russian. ie if he were pro Russian he'd veto the sanctions, not approve them. It was also the old stridently anti Russian Slovak government that got Slovakia's carve outs, not Fico. They obviously weren't pro Russian; Orban largely makes a convenient scapegoat for the sanctions not being anywhere near as effective as Europe hoped. That does make it beholden on you to show how it would actually be different to now; because per above they both approve sanctions, now. The weapons, I personally kind of agree that that reflects reality. But, at least in theory Europe itself does not agree at all. We get monthly news of supposed modern weaponry deals. 100 Rafales/ SAMPT++ this month, 100 Gripens++ last month, and there was a UK announcement a month before. German IRIST++ before that. Personally, yes, I reckon those deals are pie in the sky for a continent that cannot even spin up artillery production over nearly 4 years. But europe seems to expect people to take them seriosuly at least. (with the caveat that both documents are leaked/ 'leaked' so not definitive, where appropriate)

Fun game: replace every instance of Ukraine in that plan with Palestine. Does make you wonder if the whole point of that proposal is to make Euro politicians feel good about themselves. Doesn't even have the advantage of 'standing firm' or whatever, since it's notably worse for Ukraine than their previous 'proposals' that have been floated. I do rather like the blatant Trump sops though. Freeze along current lines- except Trump gets the energy infrastructure held by Russia.

That's more than a little overstated. Ukraine demonstrably got 2/3 of the things listed without any security guarantee other than the BM, if you count that. They'd get the same, at least, again.

If there's one thing Europe has acquiesced to frequently it's Trump ordering them how to spend their money. Indeed, that's almost certainly one of the reasons the slush fund provisions are there for realz rather than being laughed at. The EU/ US (and UK) trade deal is riddled with 'EU will spend this, EU will do this' provisions quite apart from accepting the tariffs. At the time of course we were told getting the US to keep helping Ukraine was one of the reasons for von der Leyen's capitulation. (I am of course of the opinion that the agreement is more realistic than spouting pie in the sky 'stay the course/ more of the same but harder' rhetoric and insisting on conditions Russia would never agree to as if you're winning. But it's exactly the sort of agreement you'd expect from Trump, especially after he's been encouraged to see the EU and Europe as pushovers. In the end, if you fold every time because standing up to Trump is hard then having your opinions marginalised is the obvious result precisely because you've told Trump that you'll fold when pressed)

Yep, it was definitely an Amazon original. It was on network TV here which is what I was remembering. (Same was true for Orange is the New Black/ House of Cards and whatever the werewolves show was with Famke Janssen for Netflix, all were on network tv here but not in the US. And funnily enough, Rings of Power is on a domestic free streaming platform at the moment here)

Fallout is hopefully a good comparison, considering they've got some pretty good and committed talent involved. Not Nolan level in absolute terms, but in relative terms about as good as you could hope for. (The Jordan stuff was a bit complicated: the first book of WoT was written potentially as a standalone. Which is why it has some... oddities in its conclusion. All the books had a lot of foreshadowing, some for things that happened much much later so it was obviously planned from the start as more than three books; if it sold well. Still, compares well to a certain other fantasy author whose planned trilogy is meant to be 7 books if he could ever finish the sixth one more than a decade later) Amazon didn't make The Expanse, it just funded the last three seasons. The same people made all six seasons, and the first three were not Prime exclusives (->on Syfy in the US). (Pretty sure it was the same for Bosch, not really my thing but I'm 90% sure I remember it on network TV)

Eh, they were good friends, to Zelensky. To Ukraine, not so much. Time honoured tradition though, Yulia Timoshenko infamously went from owning a video rental shop to billionaire when she got the natural gas concession. Very little- none, really- chance that Zelensky didn't know what was going on and what was going to happen, after all he tried to effectively shut down NABU's investigation in July this year by subordinating it to him and the attorney general. While coincidences do happen, sometimes, them targeting his associates and potentially him was the obvious reason for that.

That's the trouble with losing a war, the longer you wait the worse the concessions will be. The worse the situation is on the ground for you the better it is for the other side and the more than can simply take. The situation on the ground for Ukraine, well, it isn't necessarily developing to their advantage. "But it's unfair" is irrelevant if it's the best offer you're going to get and the alternative gets progressively worse. If the rest of Donetsk and (the remaining .002% of) Lugansk are taken by force the next offer will be for Kherson/ Zaporizhia, then Dnipro/ Kharkov/ Odessa, then Sumy/ Chernigov/ Mikolaev. No one is negotiating for Crimea, now, because there's zero prospect of Ukraine being able to retake it and everyone knows that and, realistically, there's no negotiating for Lugansk either for the same reason. As soon as they're taken they aren't a bargaining chip any more.

Ah yes, the democratic elections where 1 in every 3000 people got to cast a vote. Every one of them, selected by al Jolani's hand picked committee, as were the candidates they could vote for. Makes you wonder why he bothered only directly appointing 1/3 of them really. I don't really need to say much except the guys that al Jolani 'accidentally' sent off to genocide alawites on the coast a few months ago? You know, when the western media buried their heads in the sand because al Jolani changed his name and is a Good Guy now? Hamza division? Sanctioned by the US for genocide against kurds? One of their fricking leader is on it (M. Ali M. Yassin). So is at least one other 'ex' al qaeda guy, and another who was associated with the genocidal turkish proxies, and at least three other turkish stooges. A couple of liberal sops there so the cheerleaders aren't too embarrassed, but they're Quislings.

Images, supposedly. Guess Gamespot wants you to click while ign just tells you straight out in the url/ headline. It wouldn't be a surprise if the plot was AI slop as well, though maybe they just hired the writers from Amazon's Wheel of Time now that they're free.

Poor old Juan Guaido. A standing ovation in the the US Congress one day, off to the scrapyard of history the next. Someone must have finally pointed out his resemblance to a certain former President to Trump. Still, I guess at least neither he nor Machado were deputy to ISIS' first caliph Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, which puts them one up on Al Jolani. That obviously stood her in good stead with the Nobel Committee.

Dunno about that. As a comparison going by the name you'd expect The Moscow Times to be, well, pro Russian instead of pro western (Dutch). It isn't, as it has always been aimed at westerners who couldn't be bothered to read Russian and wanted positive reinforcement of their existing views. It infamously didn't even have a Russian language edition for 28 years. I don't know much of anything about Steigan, but a quick web search suggests they've always had some of those sorts of articles, at least. eg, from 2014.