Zoraptor

One of the games I recommended has gone (UGGettysburg) so hooray, I guess. Someone needs to take Quadriga (roman charioteering, Tim Stone review) and I'd add a recommendation for Stardew Valley as well, very much a makework farming/ exploration/ relationship game but extremely charming, and I'm not someone who gets charmed easily.

They're releasing it in sections which Comey can't do anyway since he has only one (relevant) case and they hadn't (officially) seen the emails yet. There's nothing inherently wrong with staggered releases, it happens all the time both within and without politics. Game companies don't release all their promotional media in one big blob, political parties stagger the release of policies that were usually developed at the same time, big media scoops/ investigations get multiple articles over multiple days or weeks etc. It's about prolonging and gaining maximum exposure. A good comparison would be to the Panama Papers, where the leakers blew their load quickly and they then disappeared from public consciousness and memory just as quickly. Maximum exposure is not the FBI's aim, Carlos Danger sourcing notwithstanding. It's no revelation that Wikileaks is about self promotion, every media organisation is about self promotion. They're just not wholly about self promotion, they're also about providing a safe place to leak stuff.

Comey is in the exact same position as Wikileaks is, he's in an impossible position because whatever he does influences the election. Sit on the information and he influences blue+/ red- or release it and influence it red+/ blue-. The only thing that changes is which of blue/ red likes/ dislikes him. And WP is pretty definitely on Team Blue or at best Team Establishment. At the end of the day if Hillary had not run the private server and didn't have a reflexive need to dissemble and obfuscate if not outright lie then none of this would be happening, and the attempted hatchet job on Comey has the exact same method and aim as the "Russian puppet" accusations against Wikileaks. It's all about shifting the conversation and discrediting the source rather than addressing the issue. And the trouble with that is while it is normally Politics 101 it doesn't work well for a disliked candidate as people are presupposing the worst. Similar with Trump and his sex scandals, though at least he can outright deny them as well as targeting the accusers.

If it's even real. I can't find the equivalent page on HRC.com and it doesn't wholly match the site set up either, though either could be due to it being a javascript infested hellhole or indeed it might not even be HRC.com but the Democrat Party homepage. More to the point though, why does the 'after' page start at Oct 28 and the 'before' page start at Oct 29 when you'd expect them to be the reverse? Which is why if you're going to do infographics you should put the source urls somewhere. Heh, found the page. Judge for yourself or TLDC; it's a load of old bollocks and the 'before' page is actually the 'after' one. Pretty obvious why this infographic got no source URLs [i'll laugh if somehow I'm getting a cached page and the infographic is right]

A few more EA games have been released- Crysis, Crysis Warhead and MOH: Pacific Assault. Also Divinity OS 2 (Warp?) has been released as an In Dev ('Early Access') title and for redeeming from the kickstarter.

That's... arguable, at best. If you take west as OECD then the US is ahead of at least Turkey, which probably counts as 'west' since its OECD and NATO (and Australia, NZ, Japan would usually be counted as part of the west, and we're far more east than Turkey is). The most usually cited WHO list also has the US ahead of New Zealand and ROK, for example, but it's old data plus see below. There's also massive differences in how 'quality' or 'outcomes' is measured, if you have an unlimited budget for treatment the US is probably the best place to be sick. If you exclude people who cannot afford healthcare/ only use emergency rooms then the situation of the US improves dramatically, if you weight results towards high end treatment then the US does a lot better as well. If you use a per capita basis and focus on things like prevention and cost/ benefit the US does poorly despite its good high end because its low end is... poor, as when you have people using expensive emergency treatments once they're already seriously ill and suchlike. But in any case, that's why quality of healthcare data sets are pretty inconsistent between each other. In most cases where treatment is actually received the US actually provides top 10 healthcare in absolute terms and is ahead of many/ most western countries- it's the selective supply that's the problem and many (not me personally, but I do think it's a valid argument just one I disagree with) would say that that is a separate issue from quality/ outcomes of the system itself. Actual indictment is irrelevant for election purposes though, as she can't/ wouldn't be indicted in less than two weeks. And there isn't much Comey can do to ensure indictment/ prevent a post investigation whitewash himself; that's up to the prosecutor/ AG and whatever integrity she may have or not have. FWIW, I had to agree with his initial report in that while I have little doubt that Hillary did stuff which was illegal, and did so deliberately, it would be impossible to prove it in a court.

Timing suggests this isn't a whitewash. In two weeks time it would have been irrelevant, this will effect the election, potentially significantly. If they wanted a whitewash they'd do what the State Dep (?) did with scheduling release of a bunch of Hillary's emails for a post election day (originally at least Nov 31st, a day that doesn't even exist) If you honestly think its peoples salaries that have broken our healthcare system then I guess we will just have to agree to disagree. 'For profit' is the problem*, and salaries are inextricably tied to that since they are linked to profits. Salaries are a symptom rather than the cause, but they're a direct consequence of the fundamental problem due to performance bonuses and the like which are based only on profit made and which encourage the CEOs to only take that into account. *It's fine in most circumstances, but with healthcare it provides a rubbish service at a high price because the onus is to make money rather than treat people effectively. The temptation will always be to jettison anyone who starts costing you money and to emphasise the cheapest option rather than the most effective. And because the insurers tend to act as a cartel you don't even get the competitive benefits a capitalist service is meant to give. Private insurers here are cheaper and offer better services than in the US, ironically, because they do have to compete- with a mostly free (albeit limited for elective stuff) government run service.

Literally did, both KP and Hurlshot used the term. I mean, Gfted is being his usual self and it's just a wonder he hasn't suggested droning countries with single payer for being uncapitalist and resisted ending his post with 'comrade'; but 'villain' definitely has been used. I personally prefer the term 'parasitic scum sucking tapeworms ensconced deep in the bowels of society' but I guess that probably implies 'villain'. To put that in perspective, that's nearly our cost for a full single payer system with no deductibles. US system is moronic, delivers poor overall service at top prices- but you have the freedumb to shop around for the least bad deal and that surely counts for something.

Theoretically yes, especially since a lot of Hillary supporters are in the 'just hate Trump more' camp and aren't really keen on voting for Hillary. I'm not sure how aware Hillary strategists are that their support is soft though, they do seem to genuinely believe Hillary has run a tremendous campaign. The strategy if Hillary's support doesn't materialise will probably be to blame Russia. No doubt contesting an election will be fine if Hillary does it because of 'outside interference', it's just bad if Trump does it.

That's also why 'propaganda' outfits like RT are far more effective than they should be. People in general think that they're either propaganda or slanted traditional media but that is only part of their purpose- the other part is to point out inaccuracies and foster distrust in traditional media. Indeed, it doesn't really matter if RT's take on something isn't believed, so long as the CNN/ BBC/ etc account isn't believed either. And in that section of the information war RT has no greater friend than western media itself who can be relied upon to shoot themselves in the foot and discredit themselves with very little encouragement. Combine that with both instant and permanent information from the internet and it's far more difficult to get away with things, and while it may be relatively few people who lose trust over a given issue trust tends to be lost permanently so they add up quickly over an extended period.

It and Flash have the same problem with every second villain just being an evil version of the hero. How many damned archers are out there? I don't think that's Arrow's problem particularly- Flash, yes, too many speedsters and when it comes right down to it speed is a somewhat limited ability and there are only so many ways you can use it during your 23 episodes per year; that and the rather formulaic episode/ plot structure where 90% of the time Barry gets his arse kicked then gets a pep talk, some tech and wins later on gets tiring. While Flash has been the better series over the past two years overall, by far, I would not criticise Arrow for having too many archers, personally. Both Flash series' antagonists have been speedsters, only one Arrow series' antagonist (excluding S5, as there may well be a second one) has been an archer- Malcolm Merlyn. Have to admit that I can't remember too many archer villains of the week either, just Cupid, Komodo and I guess various League of Assassin mooks might count as well.

Arrow is actually pretty good this season. 3 episodes and the worst of them was still decent quality.

Everyone in Iraq/ Syria announces their attacks early for some reason. Except ISIS, and that may just be because people are too afraid to end up on A List if they read their output. Part of that is because they're trying to reduce civilian casualties, warning non-combatants to get out of the way. But the main reason is that every move has to be worked out beforehand between different factions with lots of competing interests. Americans are providing intel, air support, and special ops, but the forces involved are a smattering of Iraqi security folks, the Kurdish Peshmerga, Sunni tribesmen, and Shia militiamen (with the Turks not directly involved, but watching very closely), all of whom have their reasons for opposing ISIS, but who also want very different things out of the operation. MacArthur and Patton could act with "surprise" because the soldiers they were dealing with answered to their commands. Operations like this require hours and hours of negotiations beforehand. There's some justification when the US is doing it for the reasons stated, and also because when it comes right down to it they can just escalate/ continue until they do win no matter how much lead notice their enemies have. But the Syrian rebels regularly announce attacks ahead of time, the Syrian government does it too occasionally, the Iraqis do it even when they aren't using US air resources etc. Nobody has any operational security and most of the time they're giving official press releases announcing where they will attack next. Only time I've seen it have a positive effect is when the Syrian Kurds announced they were about to attack Raqqa and it was a bluff as they then went across the Euphrates instead to attack Manbij. I presume he mostly invokes Patton and MacArthur for their mystique as two famous successful (mostly) generals rather than anything else. He said that exact line at the previous debate as well. Pretty sure there was some laughter then too, though I doubt they'd minute the reactions at a Town Hall since they are so much more frequent. That's the crucial thing. Accepting the result is fine if the process isn't rigged; if it's fraudulent then it's not being a bad loser not to accept it, it's your duty not to. Or else it will not be fixed and it will be fraudulent next time as well. I'm not, however, sure that media collusion and the like- which is probably the charge Trump would be level- can be in any way construed as actually being fraudulent.

Boring debate. Far prefer the Town Hall style, at least for these two candidates as it's far more entertaining at least. Neither is going to give decent, nuanced policy statements anyway so it may as well be entertaining. Everyone in Iraq/ Syria announces their attacks early for some reason. Except ISIS, and that may just be because people are too afraid to end up on A List if they read their output.

It's not propaganda though. To be propaganda there not only has to be a desire to gain a particular reaction, there has to be manipulation to achieve it. There's no manipulation of the content to get a particular reaction- there's been no actual accusation that the stuff is editorialised, altered or similar; it appears to be the raw output of Podesta/ DNC etc; any reaction garnered is from the contents they wrote, not from wikileaks. The timing of release means little as well since they can only release stuff when they receive it, and 'Collateral Murder' with at least as anti Bush as their current releases are anti Clinton. In order to be propaganda they would have to suppress any 'positive' parts of the leaks, or know they were getting stuff from Russians (Assange at least has strongly implied they came from Seth Rich), or make the releases up. And, absolutely crucially, they could hardly release the DNC stuff on collusion between them and Hillary a year ago or whatever. We know they didn't have it then because it hadn't even happened yet. If they're releasing stuff on the election cycle their choices are, and can be, only two: (1) release it now and be accused of trying to influence the result or (2) wait... until it isn't relevant and Hillary is already elected. It's clear what any proper media should choose in that situation.

Per Hurlshot, it still has to be a reasonable approximation of fair/ not give a false impression to avoid being propaganda. Indeed, the best propaganda is almost always in the 'technically true' category, or at least the unprovable one. "Russia is bombing civilians, the international coalition are bombing ISIS". Both clauses are absolutely true, clear propaganda though. Both sides are bombing ISIS and civilians, the only dispute is the proportions of each and whether anyone is targeting civilians 'deliberately'. It's even better if your statement is backed up with statistics from some guy living in Coventry and being paid by British intelligence- ie the 'Syrian Observatory for Human Rights'; a name which is both technically accurate and also propaganda as well. You do also get propaganda that is based on lies, of course. And what might be termed 'technically untrue' statements where you take a true statement and drown it in conditionals. Both the technically true/ untrue statements are used extensively by supposedly objective things such as 'fact checkers' to massage their results to what is convenient for their favoured candidate. Thus when Trump said that Syria/ Russia were fighting ISIS his statement got rated as untrue (which is absolute propaganda since the rating is outright false) to 'half true' because 'not enough' of the Russian/ Syrian forces were fighting ISIS; a technically untrue answer since they clearly are fighting ISIS and the conditionals to get to half true are not applied evenly- the US clearly isn't using anywhere near its full resources to fight ISIS either.

I doubt they think that Trump's twitter earns him votes- I'd bet they think it loses him votes. Besides, without Twitter media would be reduced to mining Trump's Reddit/ Facebook/ Instagram/ Snapchat/ Myspace/ Bebo/ Digg/ Friendster/ Ashley Madison/ etc accounts for controversial content.

Good lord that's the most amusingly bizarre twitter chain I've ever seen. From Verizon giving technical support to the guy who trolled the media with Pepe == Racist, it's got everything. There are ~5200 10400 US boots on the ground in Iraq. Assuming each of the 5200 personnel have two feet and are currently wearing boots, at least.

They were charged (and acquitted) of manslaughter at a military court, which was probably a fairer (well, more likely to get a conviction) charge than murder. But no, you can't really trust the British military to investigate itself, unsurprisingly the military found that the military did nothing wrong. The whole thing stank since a key witness's testimony was 'accidentally' mistranslated leading to him being judged unreliable while the soldiers (sensibly) declined to give testimony; crucially when the soldiers were given an immunity guarantee at the later 'no foul no blame' enquiry- prompted by the court May wants to abolish the jurisdiction of- one of them gave a story that corroborated that witness's statement, when properly translated, near completely. Independent article on the 2016 report Grauniad article on the 2006 trial, which has some of the more ironic quotes lionising the soldiers now that what really happened has been established. The whole May thing is pandering to the moronic tabloid set who put the supposed honour of 'our brave lads' above anything else including any misdeeds of said 'brave lads' and wanting to avoid the embarrassment of being shown up constantly and getting inconvenient things like use of the 'Nuremburg Defence'- just following orders- and being told that they didn't think and had been trained not to think.

I think technically she didn't like 'SJWs' trying to do things like get soldiers in trouble for forcing an Iraqi child who could not swim into a canal where they left him and he, unsurprisingly, drowned. And yeah, that actually happened, the facts weren't in dispute. One case where I'm unreservedly on team SJW because otherwise I'm on team Outright Murder with Mrs May.

Apart from anything else they haven't produced a smoking gun and it isn't really news a revelation that Hillary and her campaign is full of crap. Ironically, it probably isn't damaging Hillary much because there isn't much of a good name to sully, and it isn't anywhere near as salacious as the Trump sex accusations. For what it's worth Assange has basically said it was a leak rather than a hack, and strongly implied that it came from Seth Rich.

Vast majority of the Kurds in that area are Barzani's tame and bought KDP rather than the anti Turk PKK. Turkey might asterisk it up anyway though, they've thoroughly antagonised the central Iraqi government by stationing troops on their territory without permissions so much so that there's almost as much talk of fighting the neo Ottomans as ISIS, and they are semi seriously considering bringing PKK fighters in (separatists, so no friend to Baghdad) just to further mess with the Turks.

What are you talking about? The theme song is always terrible. First couple of seasons are very rough, par for the course for modern ST but yeah, it does improve. I'd suggest skipping the finale though, Dexter level awful and somehow more of an insult to the fans who stuck with it than Lumberjack Dexter.

Sorry though, I didn't bring it up to humiliate you, it's just that- oddly enough- a whole lot of those '6-12 month' articles have started popping up again, which I find highly amusing given how poor (and generally forgotten) the last set of such articles were and the general theme of media propagated/ generated propaganda prevalent in the election.

Leaking an actual planned cyberstrike certainly would be pretty stupid, especially if you've been playing up such things being acts of war. In this case leaking it was probably most of the point and it's just a warning/ tough talk though. I'd rather suspect that Russia could do a lot more damage to the US with cyber warfare than vice versa, a lot of russian stuff isn't even integrated into the internet and as ex KGB Putin is pretty retentive about not sticking stuff onto computers for the sake of it. Two and a half years. I've been keeping count, thanks to Gromnir just starting a conversation about how sanctions would bankrupt Russia in 6-12 months. It's just one of those things which is always 6-12 months away, I guess.