Zoraptor

Article 70 (d) (e) oh, ok, if you insist. Of course Mr Graham would hypothetically be fine so long as he stayed in the US and away from anywhere with ICC jurisdiction. (You can think of the rationale for him actually being charged despite the US not being a Party this way: if he fired a Tomahawk at Karim Khan and hit him in Britain he could be charged at the ICC, since Britain is a signatory: same way Netanyahu can be charged despite Israel not being a State Party. If he merely threatened to do the same thing, well, Karim Khan is still in Britain and thus the ICC is still able to charge him for the threat since it's 'received' in Britain)

Nothing really surprising though. Have to admit, I'd laugh if the ICC brought charges against US senators for making threats against them.

The tweet is a bit more of a sensationalised version of the statement made on the subject on Syrski's telegram. There's no 'soon' or other suggestion of a timetable from Syrski, all he's done is sign the paperwork so they can come. Rational and accurate takes don't always get the retweets, likes and upvotes so much as telling people what they want to hear though.

It's probably the uncommitted troops on the northern border giving them conniptions rather than the relatively few actually committed. That was always going to be the problem with the RDK and pals' raids, not like all those Russian troops could be relied upon to just sit there twiddling their thumbs waiting for a new incursion. And since the strategic initiative seems to have shifted to Russia in at least the medium term they get to decide where and when to attack. There being NATO member countries' military personnel in Ukraine already was more or less confirmed by Germany last year (?) as their justification for not sending Taurus was not wanting to send any personnel themselves. Even if France sent people it'd be no actual change, if they're just instructors and not the Foreign Legion or whoever. Plus, the obligatory Soon™ for when they'd get there, (albeit that seems to be editorial and not from Syrski from what I've seen).

Ukraine captured the first T-90M on May 4th. May 4th 2022 though. At least a couple more during their Kharkov offensive too, iirc, so not a new development. Technically the 5/7 isn't FB's ('blogger' Fighterbomber, not facebook for anyone confused) claim but the Russian MoDs (?) "There were officially 7 missiles, 5 of them were shot down, 1 worked". Personally I think he sounds skeptical of that claim but mileage will certainly vary there given it's translated and FB is a bit, uh, idiomatic and restricted (for those not familiar with him he criticises the 'Laotian' military rather a lot. Coincidentally Vientienne makes exactly the same mistakes Moscow does)

Her stand is rather weird on the face of it. She actually dissented against more of the original provisions than the Israeli judge did. While she is of course entitled to her views she has been in a minority- sometimes the lone dissenter- on nearly everything about the case. (At the time of the initial preliminary release it seemed like it might be some sort of fundamental stand against provisional measures or on limiting the right of self defence. Doesn't seem to be either though from her opinion yesterday since she now seems to be supporting the original measures)

ICJ rules against Israel and orders a stop to its Rafah operation. As always, a certain amount of grim humour to be had watching Hasbara scramble for a coherent response in real time. I particularly liked that apparently ICJ judges don't know or understand international law- unlike the random redditor/ twitter/ facebook user saying it, with their lifetime's worth of relevant experience. (All block 13-2 votes, with the Israeli and Ugandan judges dissenting. Perhaps most interesting there is the Ugandan judge's reasoning, since this time there is a formal dissenting opinion of her "firm belief that the provisional measures previously indicated and reaffirmed by the Court adequately address the current situation in the Gaza Strip, including Rafah". For anyone who has forgotten- which would be pretty shocking as it's surely a critical event in most peoples' lives- she actually voted against those measures almost entirely...)

It... isn't. Specifically the headline's phrasing is inaccurate, and while it implies it's an urgent, new, and significant change of policy it, well, isn't. Not a new development? NYT Dec 2023 "Putin Quietly Signals He's Open to a Cease Fire in Ukraine". Or back even further than that: October 2022. And of course the negotiations that actually happened in Turkey. Inaccurate phrasing? Every previous statement has them being 'open to negotiations' or similar, see Peskov's quotes from both the articles above. That's a far cry from 'wanting' a 'ceasefire', all the urgency has been added by the editor into the title. Indeed, the body text of the Reuters article itself says much the same and actually says that Putin wants negotiations, at best interpretation and for a fairly broad definition of 'want'. Peskov's official statements on the matter are also specifically that Russia is open to negotiation. Note that the Reuters paraphrase of Peskov's response to the question they put to him- presumably deliberately- leaves out the 'open to negotiations' part of it, but it is included on other articles on their article. Compare: "Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in response to a request for comment, said the country did not want “eternal war.”" from Reuters with "Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Reuters Russia was open to talks and that Putin did not want "eternal war."" from the Newsweek article. Pretty obvious Reuters left the first bit out so they could keep the headline and get the hits.

Duckduckgo. It's been giving me 'weird' results for a while now. Not all the time by any means, but sometimes it's completely useless when looking for something specific if you don't know exactly what the algorithm wants used as terms. If I search for "Drunk robert muldoon calls snap election" it is there, it seems that adding 'new zealand' and '1984' and not specifying Sir Rob was 'drunk' makes the video irrelevant somehow.. ..and if I do a search specifically for videos it isn't there even when using the exact title.

Weird, do the search now and I do at least get two relevant videos- but not that one. (then Reagan meeting Muldoon, Reagan vs Mondale, Reagan's 1984 SotU, Reagan's year in 1984, a random John Key video (at least he was a PM here, just 30 years later than Muldoon), a video about the Filipino (?) 1986 snap election, Mitch McConnell 1984 vs 2014, 2 x Boris Johnson calls a snap election, and most randomly the All Blacks drawing with Scotland in Rugby)

Rishi Sunak announces UK general election for July 4th. Bit boring really, snap election announcements should have some added interest about them* and getting audiobombed by a Labour supporter's music ain't enough. Might have expected them to cling on as long as possible given that polling has them losing by a landslide. *weirdly there doesn't seem to be a single video of Robert 'Piggy' Muldoon's iconic 1984 snap election announcement on youtube**. Get roaring drunk and make the announcement complete with slurred speech and swaying to a random reporter expecting a comment on something completely different in front of your clearly appalled party president, now that's mem(e)orable. You can even get a pithy title for it like 'Schnapps Election'- sadly his snap election announcements were by far the most competent thing about his leadership. **what is up with the absolutely awful changes to the search algorithms lately that make them utterly useless? I don't want a million Reagan vs Mondale videos thanks, that's why I specified 'New Zealand' 'snap election' and 'Robert Muldoon' you complete clown.

Despite their obvious problems in a multitude of areas (no territorial control, bad rule of law, no elections etc) Palestine would have been internationally recognised this year if not for yet another US veto at the UNSC (/15670: 12-1). Also 143-9 at the UNGA a month later though they of course need the UNSC recommendation for it to be binding, so it was just kicking the ball to the Security Council for another inevitable US veto. The indictments/ arrest warrants if issued are unlikely to change anything in that respect as Haniyeh is in non signatory Qatar and the other two are in Gaza where the PA holds no sway. Indeed, a lack of capacity to act is specifically one of the reasons for the ICC being able to act in this case. --> the currently much abused term "complementarity"; ie is the state in question able (Palestine, no disputation Israel is able to) or can the state be relied upon/ is willing to prosecute (both Israel and Palestine).

Article 63 of the Rome Statute states that "the accused shall be present during the trial". So they cannot do anything in absentia. Indeed, that article is titled 'Trial in the Presence of the Accused', so it's not really something that can be got around. This was pretty much the absolute minimum the ICC could do to keep any shred of credibility; and it is only applying for arrest warrants. A step they, of course, skipped when it came to Putin. Still utterly ridiculous that Israel can outright kill more than 10k children yet Putin 'kidnapping' 'a few hundred' is considered genocide by Karim Khan and sufficiently worse than killing those 10,000+ to justify skipping the application step. Someone might want to update Lindsey Graham on what all the protests in Israel were about up until October 7. Hint: they were about Netanyahu, well, removing the independence of the judiciary.

Eh, I'm no fan of Joe Biden but that is a bluntly partisan report. I don't think there's any doubt that Hunter Biden regularly trades his status as Joe Biden's son for money, but then it's also obvious Joe Biden cannot control Hunter's behaviour.

Dunno about that, after all the US didn't actually start sending lethal aid to Ukraine under either Obama or Biden, it was the guy in the middle who did that. He'd have put pressure on Ukraine to have made a permanent settlement of some sort for sure, but he'd also have put pressure on Putin to accept it. Whether that would have been worse for the country than what it has now is an open question, but probably not. It would probably have been better for the US too in retrospect. Nope, clearly Putin's fault, to whit "..no wonder Putin sought to weaponise corruption in Ukraine" -- Anthony Blinken. Pretty much sums up current US diplomacy that that's an actual factual quote rather than made up to make him look silly.

Artillery wise Ukraine has also outright lost a lot of systems. 40% of donated m777 and m109s if you go by Oryx (more if you go by Lostarmour, which reflects the biases involved). Even higher proportion of Krabs most likely. Caesar and PzH not so much, but they're also there in far fewer numbers- and PzH allegedly isn't on the front line much due to reliability issues. (Ukraine has a lot of issues to deal with- less motivated troops, better Russian tactics/ responses, better Russian systems and the Russians catching up/ surpassing them in drones- but the biggest problem for Ukraine in terms of sheer balance are the glide bombs. Doesn't seem any accident that the Russians have been advancing constantly- slowly- since they've been in significant use. Building fortifications to defend against 152/155mm shells with ~10kg of HE is relatively easy, not so much when it's 320kg. Especially so when there are thermobaric variants and for the really tough nuts F/K/ODAB1500s. Not the sort of tactics which will get you much in the way of plaudits for genius or flair, but effective and without an effective counter. And all the comments from Ukrainians on the ground in places like Avdiivka have implied that they're absolutely awful for morale in addition to the physical damage done. HiMARS/ ATACMS/ Storm Scalps/ JDAMs etc might garner the upvotes on twitter or likes on reddit but they aren't being used anywhere near the 70-100 per day that the UMPKs are. Maybe... 1% of that, which is probably generous, and only the JDAMs have anywhere near equivalent scale. Apart from that... the very occasional Tochka or Krim and not much else)

Well, if you polled the general public for name recognition Patrushev would almost certainly be behind even someone like Dugin. Who it isn't even certain has actually met Putin, let alone influenced him. Certainly behind Lavrov/ Medvedev/ Shoigu/ Prigozhin/ Gerasimov/ Zakharova/ Mishustin who all have (had for Prigo) fairly prominent public roles. If you know, say, who the head of the FSB is and what the SVR is without looking them up you'd know who Patrushev is; but then that requires more than passing familiarity. If you don't... (yes, any article on Putin's inner circle isn't complete without a prominent mention of Patrushev. Those are by their nature infrequent though, and since he's 'quiet' even those who read them will still tend to remember the forementioned people a lot more)

Technically a promotion for Shoigu since he's going from implementing policy to setting it, at least in theory. Practically... it probably is a promotion. Patrushev is one of the biggest influences on Putin few people have heard of and very highly trusted. Apart from chairing the security council for 16 years he was Putin's* first appointee to the head of the FSB- and Putin's replacement there. If he weren't Putin's age he'd be a solid contender for a designated successor. Anyone replacing him is going to be similarly trusted. Only caveat is if Patrushev's new unannounced position supercedes the security council head in some way, which it might. *technically Yeltsin appointed him, but that was late stage 'may have had some blood in his alcohol stream' Yeltsin where Putin was running everything.

Lots of reports of fighting along the Ukrainian/ Russian border in Kharkov and Sumy oblasts. Actual progress or lack thereof is rumours* but the fighting is genuine without seeming particularly significant, yet. Always likely to be the problem with the Ukrainian raids, if Russia stations troops there Ukraine has to as well so there's very little benefit, and it gives Russia the ability to launch raids as well plus obfuscate any larger scale operations. *varying from the al Sahhaf-esque 'not a metre has been lost' to the entire RDK running away leaving a massive gap in Ukrainian lines.

I have three old Avalon Hill games I 'inherited' from my dad- Gettysburg, France 1940 and 1776. Plus three years worth of Strategy & Tactics magazines (76-78) mostly still with the games that came with them. Guess the excellent Sid Meier's Gettysburg covers a computer version of one of them at least; and I'm sure I played another good Gettysburg game a few years ago too but cannot remember the name for the life of me. I am grateful I'm too young for SPI's Campaign for North Africa; I'd never have been able to resist buying it for the memes. Then again, nowadays simulating Italians needing more water supplied because they love pasta (an actual factual rule of the game, for anyone wondering) could be done a bit more simply via computer.

At the parade, gave an interview to TASS and was sitting at Putin's right hand during a interview/ statement thingy at the Kremlin. Bit of overkill in terms of proof of life, political or otherwise, really. The people at the table of the interview wotsit other than Putin did rather look like they were worried the ghost of Beria was about to leap out from behind the curtains with Makarov in hand if they so much as twitched though. (Only 'interesting' thing was him being described as "acting" Minister of Defence by TASS which would be a bit odd for someone in the job 10+ years. Then again TASS' translations to english are not always perfect)

Very similar situation there to Arkane I would have thought, they made games that review well, generally, but didn't sell well. Hi Fi Rush had great word of mouth, but it still took 5 years to develop and didn't sell (or 'sell', for gamepass) as well as its reviews or word of mouth implied. The main difference seems to be that Tango got chopped off earlier in the process, before making a Redfall but after the founder left.

Long history of this happening. Recent example: Embracer. Older example: EA's Bioware deal also included Pandemic Studios, which they obviously wouldn't have bought if it wasn't a bundle deal since they closed it down in the first major round of layoffs post acquisition.

End of the day, if you enter into a contract in any other field and find you're losing money you can't arbitrarily decide to cancel the contract, with no consequences. If your options are literally literally shutting down a server or going bankrupt... your company is figuratively literally in the crapper already. Otherwise you're just trying to dodge obligations that you don't think you should fulfill because now they're costing you money- and often trying to get people to buy [sportsgame_currentyear] instead of playing [sportsgame_currentyear--] they'd otherwise be perfectly happy with. Software companies have got away with a load of crap you wouldn't get away with if you were selling sandwiches, beds, cars or even service contracts like catering or cleaning just because it's software. So your Suicide Squad game released 3 months ago as a GaaS and sold appallingly? Tough noogies, that's the risk you take as a company, Warners. It costs you money to run the servers for the 27 people playing it you say? That's the risk you take. You can tell how hard up WBD is, Dave Zaslav only took home 300mn in pay and stock options over the past three years, wonder how many servers even 1% of that would keep running... [yes, I know it isn't shut down, yet]

Can't believe it needs to be said, but it is Bruce: mods are always use at your own risk. Eh, that's a massive non sequitor. If a company goes bust it also can't repay its debts, doesn't mean the laws saying it has to repay its debts are stupid because there are circumstances where they can't and don't. Gift cards, warrantees, obligations for items to be in reasonable working order and more all can- and usually do- go poof if the company does. You're not going to have lost the source code yet still be supporting a game, you need the source code for that, and the summary specifies reasonable working state when support ends. For physical goods that's a usual requirement under consumer guarantee legislation, no real reason for it not to be for digital goods*. So no trying to sue Looking Glass Systems or Paul Neurath personally for an old copy of System Shock 2 not working due to SafeDisc: it worked fine, when support ended in 2000. *indeed, the guarantee of reasonable working order for a reasonable timeframe already applies to software here as digital delivery is not excluded from the Fair Trading nor Consumer Guarantees Acts- and it cannot be contracted out via EULA. Even used to be mentioned specifically in the Steam Subscriber Agreement. And now that I check, still is: