Zoraptor

The french not wanting a competing currency in Africa isn't a conspiracy theory- they still muck around in west/ Sahel Africa as badly as they did when actual colonial masters and the 'franc' is a critical part of that- the US doing anything because of it is extraordinarily unlikely though. The currency wouldn't have worked since Gaddafi was not well enough liked/ trusted in Africa due to his other pan African ambitions which, much like his and others' earlier pan Arab ambitions, were fairly transparently aimed at getting him to be head of a more important entity than Libya. Plus he'd monkeyed around in other countries pretty liberally including fighting a literal war against Chad. Yuan maybe if the Chinese weren't so very obviously intending to leverage every bit of influence they can get with it, but the yen is tied to an economy that has been moribund for two decades and a country with a massive debt and declining population. The USD is a pretty dumb reserve currency in theory and is also tied to a massive debt and a country intent on leveraging its influence, but it has the very large advantage of inertia. The Euro isn't really an alternative either, as it has a bunch of problems with debt, it being a 'wonky' set up with a weird central bank structure and the still credible threat of countries dropping out of it. Guess there's always cryptocurrency as a potential reserve ahahahahahaha.

Obama was dragged into Libya by Hillary and Sarkozy/ Cameron. Sarkozy especially, since he wanted Gaddafi's illegal contributions to his election campaign kept secret. What has come after is the fault of Europe having neither plan beforehand nor spine after while making policy based on fantasy rather than reality, and the ludicrous internecine arab rivalries between secularists vs the ikhwan vs salafi/ wahhabis; all of whom Europe was relying on to keep the country together because... Europe is stupid and lazy, basically.

"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to". Then proceeds to make half a dozen Star Wars movies all centred around 'the past'. Ironic. 24 years since Once Were Warriors. I feel... old. I guess that Daniel Logan would be as appropriate as Tem given he played young Boba, but realistically we'll probably get The Rock smelling what Taun We is cooking (better be eggs) being a simple clone making his way in the universe.

Sad, but not unexpected. I didn't agree with him on everything but he seemed to be genuine, which is more than can be said for many games journalists. Renamed Disco Elysium, due to too many jokes about fursonas.

Did they say anything about PoE1 sales numbers? I don't blame Mr Galyonkin for keeping it going since he's put a lot of work in and it was a pretty decent statistical model he was using, but the privacy setting change has destroyed Steamspy's accuracy almost completely. Its strength was that as the default setting was to expose ownership the sampling method was independent (not wholly so since it wasn't the full population available, but good enough) and its sampleable population huge, however as an opt in system it's neither independent nor is the sampleable population large. Green Man Gaming is grey-market at best and your sale probably gave Obsidian $0. Sure you aren't thinking of G2A? GMG is almost always* an official reseller. G2A is not at all reliable and seldom an official reseller. *Witcher 3 is the only example of grey market selling I know of from them, and there were special circumstances there

That Pompeo facepalm sums it up perfectly. Bolton was a moron for bringing Libya up in the first place since it's obvious to anyone and everyone that no one in Kim's position wants 'the Libyan model' in any way, shape or form- hand over your weapons; then get raped to death with a bayonet when politically expedient while Hillary cackles- and DPRK going for nukes was largely a reaction to the earlier 'Saddam model'. Bolton may be the only person on the entire planet (ok, Bruce as well) who thinks Libya was a great idea. Trump's a moron for obviously not knowing about Gaddafi handing his weapons over, but had been doing a decent job of soft balling it prior to that and should have kept at it since that also would have hidden his ignorance. I'd have eaten my hat if Kim had handed over his nukes, but that's just handing him political ammunition for when he refuses to do it whether or not it's after a meeting with Trump.

Didn't most of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. team end up elsewhere by now. So it's basically a game using the name but made by different people? Or am I getting that wrong? Not sure if I should be excited or scared right now, so I'll just go for both. The whole studio was basically shut down for a few years so it would be pretty much a new team unless some return. Having said that, the people who left largely seemed to be obsessed with turning Stalker into a MP game except the Metro guys who left earliest, and Sergei G himself seems to have a decent idea of what made Stalker memorable. They have done Cossacks 3 since re-opening which seems a poor fit for Stalker, but then again they'd only (?) done Cossacks1/2 prior to StalkerSoC as well and that didn't do it much harm, ultimately.

To be fair, since serial codes are usually associated with some form of drm they are very rare on GOG as they're only needed for external MP- and since gamespy died often not even that- and occasionally for things like forum access so they won't be prominently displayed. The only retail game with a serial code on GOG is Witcher 3 (?), on steam every retail game with steamworks has to have one.

Set volume contracts is the reason iirc with Venezuela struggling to fulfill their commercial contracts due to poor maintenance. They do get some reciprocation from Cuba though, since Cuba has an excess of medical personnel and also makes a lot of drugs etc and they're things that Venezuela needs. Heather Nauert looked the most nervous I've seen her in her press briefing when asked about it, fluffing lines and fiddling with a disorganised sheaf of papers. NK has already cancelled the meeting with Moon scheduled for tomorrow. That's the problem with bigging up the meeting as a Trump masterstroke, it give Kim a whole lot of PR leverage if he threatens to pull out as that would make Trump look weak and not like the master negotiator he wants to look like- Kim is meant to be desperate to have it, and Trump is meant to be the one threatening to walk out.

Most likely Israel would be busy invading Lebanon and Syria, and the US will have the 'help' of Saudi etc instead unless they get them to go draw an F15 in the corner while the adults are working. Six months later we'll get "who would have thought international relations were this complicated?" It certainly doesn't help that the only time the US media as a whole ever gets behind Trump is when he's firing missiles at people. The preference for stupid 'strength' over nuanced sense isn't just from Trump. Israel trying both would be a disaster, I would wager, as well. Heck even one. Israel would 'win' even against both, but very much with the air quotes. Their main aim would almost certainly be to restart/ exacerbate the civil wars there to get their enemies fighting each other rather than doing prolonged fighting themselves. They might achieve it, but it seems unlikely since the single unifying strand in Syria and Lebanon is hatred of Israel, so anyone helping them will be viewed as a traitor. Plus there's the question of what Russia would do under such circumstances, and while Putin seems OK with some limited strikes by Israel he's temperamentally unlikely to back down if Israel tries more than that. Fundamentally though, any invasion of Iran will result in their proxies fighting whatever 'coalition' is scraped together throughout Lebanon to Iran, and that practically means that Iraq, Syria and Lebanon become involved whatever anyone wants; and that will involve Israel either invading pre-emptively or being dragged in.

Most likely Israel would be busy invading Lebanon and Syria, and the US will have the 'help' of Saudi etc instead unless they get them to go draw an F15 in the corner while the adults are working. Six months later we'll get "who would have thought international relations were this complicated?" It certainly doesn't help that the only time the US media as a whole ever gets behind Trump is when he's firing missiles at people. The preference for stupid 'strength' over nuanced sense isn't just from Trump.

Early Iraqi election results don't look good for the US either- Moqtada al Sadr leading and the head of the PMU Al Ameri and Abadi fighting over second. Probably not as good for Iran as they might have hoped though, Sadr still holds a grudge for them over not supporting him vs the US, though the PMU leader is pretty proxy like. Still, the grudge Sadr holds against Iran is nothing compared to the one he holds against the US even a decade+ after the Mehdi Army, and Al Ameri doing well is even worse since he's the closest to a direct Iranian proxy in the race. Sad for Abadi if he doesn't make it, he managed the juggling act better than anyone else has since Saddam (who'd just shoot anyone who noticed if he dropped any balls) and probably ought to be regarded as a near Churchillian* figure right down to potentially losing an election after winning the war. *stereotype Churchill, not reality Churchill of course.

I'm sure it is easy (or easier, at least, as we're habitual RPG players) since just about everyone is saying that. I'm just speculating on the reasons why it's easier, ie lots of complaints about combat and difficulty in the first game, and its low completion rate.

It's also a six month old article reinvigorated now because Donny took a dumpikins on international relations again so some PR firm wants a way to slander everyone who disagrees with him. The Politico article it's based on reads like a tin foil conspiracy where everyone except the US and a couple of its client states is involved in the scheme from the usual rogue gallery to Europe and Africa and the author is outraged! outraged! that anyone might have a foreign policy independent of the US or that Iran and Lebanon had the sheer temerity to place their countries near US bases. It's exactly the sort of article that makes me want to reach through my monitor and give the author an atomic wedgie for his troubles, and for wasting my time reading that overly long load of tosh and old cobblers; starting from the conclusion and working back from it is exactly the sort of approach which got US soldiers blown up in Iraq in the first place Mr Meyer. The NYP article on in contrast is at least brief and doesn't repeat itself a dozen times even though it's been Murdoched, as expected.

I didn't find the combat in PoE1 particularly hard, but there was just so much of it and 90% of the time (or it felt like it) you got nothing more than slightly meaningful from it as you'd already maxed the xp and the loot was ultra generic. I think I got roflstomped by Raedric first try then went back later and crushed him easily so I will say this for PoE1, though it didn't feel like your characters were improving much each level practically they were. While I'm not playing PoE2 the lowish difficulty seems to be a common observation. I presume that's from feedback and an attempt to get more people to actually finish the game.

95% of paywalls (including that one) can be bypassed with noscript, private window or clearing cookies. That article is... lol, and in a good way. Not what Bruce meant to link to, I suspect That is literally the lead, I'm not making that up, honestly. To be fair, digging deeper involves sophisticated techniques not available to most journos like, well, google searches, google earth, making phone calls etc instead of just repeating the good oil some dude in the pentagon gave you and waiting for your resultant pulitzer to arrive. Syrian nuclear centrifuges: Iranian centrifuge site: DPRK 'nuclear site' Not a bad reference for the next time someone tells me that leaks from 'unnamed official' are 100% accurate, ta Bruce.

You can make your own, it's very easy since it's just vodka, sugar, lemons as the three essential ingredients. It's also the easiest way to get the right taste for you if you're having difficulty, since you can vary amount of lemon and sugar and any additions you might like such as cloves. Then again I like a strong tasting and fairly sour limoncello so my options are limited if I'm not willing to make it myself. The only commercial limoncellos here are imported Italian ones I've never tried and local ones which won't be available internationally unfortunately.

If you took possession of the keep and explored the weird statue levels, you are pretty caught up on the story, I think. Although I'm playing through again because I didn't like my character and never really did White March. White March is better than the main game as it's far better focused, but you can expect to hit the level cap only about half way through it, which is a shame. I'm holding off on Deadfire until a couple of patches have dropped. I didn't have any particular attachment to my character but I'd like to import anyway and that seems to be fundamentally broken at the moment. Plus I have both Andromeda (which is OK but clearly will get boring much as DAI did) and DivOS2 (way better than 1st play through; still deeply flawed) on the go.

The missiles were fired by 174th (?) Brigade, Syrian Arab Army, they even filmed themselves firing them in response to Israeli tank and artillery fire from the Golan. The Israeli military also said it was a pre-planned attack, and since Bibi landed 20 minutes before it was launched it was pretty obvious he went to Russia to ask Putin for permission for it, so it was coming days ago. Won't stop the media from reporting it as an Iranian attack starting the whole thing of course, even though they were all reporting an Israeli attack literally yesterday as well which they have forgotten about. For a country that supposedly wiped out half of Syria's air defences in February Israel seems inordinately proud of getting a single pantsir as well. And for those saying that you can't shoot down missiles, this time they clearly got at least one SpikeNLOS which weighs less than a sixth of the tomahawk's warhead alone.

Yeah, that's yet another thing the Brits can be blamed for. Arguably it's worse by any measure. Except for using the dollar and buying lots of expensive US made military toys for the shoeless Houthis to blow up while videoing themselves. Albeit some bloke in a bathrobe with two teeth and flip flops blowing up an Abrams with a 60s era malyutka isn't exactly a great sales pitch when trying to convince anyone else to buy. I guess at least Trump metaphorically set it on fire rather than figuratively, but then he's also the President and Rouhani/ Khamenei weren't doing it, just the Iranian equivalent of deep south Republicans. Certainly a guy with orange spray on tan, day glo hairpiece and a speech impediment theatrically signing a piece of paper while a rapt crowd of his followers applaud after threatening his friends for sticking to the deal is not exactly in the course outline from either diplomacy101 or subtlety101.

Oh yeah, the beta was backer tier based wasn't it, and I didn't back at a high enough tier. What a numpty. I presume that anything related to the game distribution is publisher controlled as that is sort of the point of them, to free Obsidian up from the administrative stuff. Then again Deadfire's publisher/ distributor has been so low key I can't even remember who it is.

Presumably that depends on the publisher. They didn't have the beta or the scavenger hunt stuff on GOG either. That's pretty much always the best way. Galaxy downloads used to be massive compared to direct or downloader files as well which made it doubly bad since they downloaded expanded files rather than compressed for some reason, but that at least has been fixed.

The Chinese say differently though, and that he's watching it closely, per Bloomberg: That's very likely to be DPRK conveying their response unofficially, given that Kim met Xi only a day or so ago and the guy is still a Chinese diplomat, even if not still their ambassador. It's certainly the official Chinese position on how Kim views it, though they aren't exactly a disinterested party it's unlikely they'd lie. The biggest factor is probably how Kim views the breakdown of the previous Clinton era US/ ROK/ DPRK agreement though, and whether their- not entirely unjustified- official position that the US instead of them reneged on it is shared at the personal level. Certainly if the talks break down it's nice for Kim to be able to point to any previous unilateral withdrawals as justification, especially with Trump so unpopular.

They haven't violated it at all- the IAEA said that there was nothing new in Israel's presentation. Even Trump's position is that they haven't violated the actual agreement, and his problem is with stuff outside the agreement's scope. But yeah, the trouble really is: what does the Iran situation say to North Korea, and vice versa? To Iran it says that they should get nukes, then negotiate. To North Korea it says that the US will pull out of its agreements so giving up nukes is a bad idea. People telling Trump how masterful he was over DPRK to boost his ego was a terrible idea, they're at the negotiating table because they already have what they want and see an opportunity to split the US from the south, and everyone knows it except Trump. Here, well, the US has directly threatened to sanction its own allies for following an agreement they signed, with the US as a co signature. That's either treating Europe like a vassal state or as an enemy, and either is a dreadful look to everyone except Bibi, MbS and a section of the US ruling class. If US strategy is about containing Russia and China about the dumbest thing you can do is push them into the same camp together.

What does MCA stand for? A guess as haiku: 'Mister Cool Awesome'