Zoraptor

Trump's VP will be fellow WWE Hall of Famer Terry "Hulk Hogan" Bollea.

I'd apparently be voting for Bernie- then Stein/ Clinton (lol)/ Johnson- and supporting the Green Party. No great surprises, except that I'd never vote for any Hillary other than Sir Ed. And he's dead, unfortunately. I quite like that test even if there were a couple of questions I wasn't really qualified to answer. I actually come out as mildly left wing and mildly libertarian on their 'political compass' rather than radically left/ libertarian as with the actual political compass test which is definitely a better estimate of my actual philosophy. And when I did the NZ version before the last election I was rather baffled to end up with a recommendation to vote for our Trump equivalent first time I took it.

Homeworld 3 is likely to be made. Though it may be crap when it is, of course.

KSA also bought nuclear missiles (sans warheads) off of China with no call to boycott. I'm always a bit baffled* by people who insist that KSA simply cannot get nukes off Pakistan just because when they sold nuclear tech direct to North Korea and various others- probably including Iran since their centrifuges were identical to Pakistan's- as well. *Not really, a refusal to accept the inconvenient is about the most intrinsically human trait there is. And there's going to be another 'cessation of hostilities' attempt over the weekend. It's equally unlikely to succeed.

I'd not so much be worried about whether Bioware can do a tactics game as whether they'd be allowed to do it properly. To be done properly it would have to be aimed at being a distinctly mid market game and that is something EA hasn't done for over a decade; it's all been low budget pay-to-win free-to-play or tie ins or AAA blockbusters. If they do it with the expectation of getting a million or so sales then fine, if they have EA expecting 5 million sales or there's pay-to-win mass grinding for instant returns then it would fail. Personally I think that a Mass Effect Tactics game would be the better bet.

I find that from certain angles he strongly resembles a certain computer game developer. OTOH Rubio has an almost uncanny valley effect, like he was cast direct from plastic.

Ceasefire/ cessation of hostilities has unsurprisingly been honoured by no one at all. Almost certainly not going to be a resumption of talks next week either, just more talk of escalations like the Saudis giving the rebels MANPADs and Davutoglu saying that Russia is genociding turkmen.

I think that zenforo does have an available plugin for it, at least the codex seems to have twit embedding now and also uses xenforo. Hmm, probably.

But then you have to wait to solicit donations. Yep, C&D fodder with no prospect of being completed even if it weren't. Some random news: Warren Spector is going to work on System Shock 3, running a studio for Otherside in Austin TX where it will be developed. Which would have been truly massive news, 15 years ago.

Britain is a far better example. Not just because of the multitudinous CCTV cameras and rulings like it being fine for the government to hack all your electronic devices but because the government has been pretty explicit that 1984 Britain was something to aim deliberately for. It's all under the aegis of protection from terrists or thinking of the children (though if there was one group I wouldn't want thinking of my children it would be Brit politicians) but Dave has been absolutely explicit about what the aim is: OK, so he didn't actually use the term 'wrongthink' but he might as well have.

It's probably Paradox's fault, they are the publisher as such things like upgrade paths and supplied SKUs are their responsibility. The only way it's GOG's fault is if they didn't ask for them or refused to implement them- both of which seem unlikely, if they didn't plan on doing them they would simply have not bothered mentioning upgrade paths at all- and if they aren't provided they cannot unilaterally offer them.

I can think of plenty more nightmare scenarios than Iran buying Su30s, but maybe I just have a more active imagination than the article author. Anyway, perhaps unsurprisingly it seems that Saudi has dialled back the imminent invasion talk, the "irreversible" decision to invade was apparently contingent on the US not only approving but agreeing to lead the invasion- or in other words, it was completely reversible based on public and political reaction plus Obama doing something he was never practically going to do. But they're going to hold military exercises with 350k troops and 20,000 (!) tanks etc. The rebels in north provincial Aleppo are done, with groups defecting to the government, Kurds and ISIS. They may hold on to the now pretty much irrelevant border crossing at Bab-al-Salame and the decent sized town of Azaz, but only if the kurds don't want to irritate Erdogan more. If the kurds want them gone, they'll be gone and it would take a proper Turkish intervention rather than random shelling to stop it.

EA18G Growler kgambit gave enough info to find the answer, there are only two planes with AN/ALQ99s in service.

Oh god yes. The butthurt would be eternal. Might be a way to get Biden back into the Presidential race as well, if they need a bail out option due to Clinton cratering.

KSA's casualty numbers are rubbish. So is the 150k troops though, at least as combat troops. They may well have lost 81 soldiers but Saudi has a pretty byzantine organisation of its armed forces- a holdover from the times they had things like the army ordering SAMs with the explicit purpose of shooting down their own air force because two rival princes ran the two branches- where you have lots of little armies like the National Guard (better than regular army) and Border Guards (armed with Abrams and Bradleys...) as well as the regular army. The Border Guard in particular has taken a lot of casualties, fair bit more than 81 documented by itself, and been spectacularly incompetent. Their aim in Syria would be to establish a safe zone for the rebels from where they could continue the war without getting spanked by air power, using an anti ISIS stance as an excuse. Ultimately they want a compliant leader in Damascus (seems unlikely at this point) or at least a 'sunnistan' of eastern Syria and western Iraq. If there's any good news it is that it may well only be Saudi, Turkey and the UAE involved with perhaps some transit via Jordan and they may back down if they don't get enough support. They've been shelling government forces in Latakia the last two days as well, which really is about as far from ISIS as it's possible to get. Should be said that the Turks at least claim to be responding to fire, though it's pretty laughable that the Kurds and gov would both start randomly shelling Turkey on the same day- it's just a provocation to try and get article 5 activation for any retaliation.

As above, I think there's not any dislike of Turkey itself especially in NATO (not so much EU, who will never let them in), just its leadership. And when Erdogan is gone Turkey will remain, in its strategic position, and that will be the determining factor in any response. There's already been a war fought over that concern, it was just 150 years ago. As for the second I hope you are right, but they seem tied to the Saudis who certainly give the impression- and indeed outright stated via their FM- that they are all in against Assad up to and including direct military intervention to remove him. Since there are now Saudi planes and troops in Turkey if it is a bluff it's a very, very believable bluff.

They haven't acted very likable way in last decade. Like for example censoring and blocking social media platforms and apps. Using violent methods to stop protests Jailing political opposition Instigate violence against their minority population Questionable actions when it comes to ISIS etc. Okay I suppose that makes sense....but if you exclude the last reason all those points apply to countries like Russia and China who seem to very popular on these forums to some members ? I would guess that is because they work as opposition for western politics and criticizes western leadership therefore they score points from those who don't like current western politics and decisions by western leaders for one reason or another. Where Turkey is seen as western puppet that just behaves badly, so they just score those negative points. Does anyone support China? Can't recall anyone regularly doing that. There isn't much dislike of Turkey, it's dislike of Erdogan/ AKP who happens to be its leader. That's different from, for example, the generalised dislike of Russia which is seated in old Anglo/ Euro orientalist stereotypes developed and actively nurtured since the time of Ivan the Righteous; that's a healthy dose of paranoia and propaganda leavened by hatred of anyone baulking strategic interests. Those were all in evidence even when that sot Yeltsin was in charge, and the west loved him. The view of Turkey has changed mostly over the past decade, up until then it was largely seen as a model for 'westernised' secular muslim nations- with problems such as an over powerful military (seen by some as a plus), bad relations with Greece/ Kurds and the Cyprus situation. The only one of those to go has been the powerful military, sadly replaced by monomaniacal neo-Ottomanism and religious conservatism; and those last two are far more dangerous to the outside than a military that might decide to coup. Kind of ironic, but Erdogan clearly models himself on/ admires Putin.

Turks are formally attacking the SDF (Kurds&Friends) with artillery now, with no previous provocation (or 'provocation') as there was with the previous incidents. Probably the start of their anti ISIS operation by, er, attacking the people who have done most of the fighting against ISIS recently. ronpaul_its_happening.gif

Nothing wrong with getting methanol from wood byproducts, theoretically it's a very good idea much as getting methane from rubbish dumps is as well. It's probably a lot more sensible than the US getting ethanol from corn and certainly more than us getting methanol from natural gas which are both previous/ ongoing projects elsewhere. Something like the Brazilian ethanol project have been very successful though.

The truce is likely to try and make sure they don't have to make that particular decision. Saudi invading and getting their nose bloodied could be shrugged off with some Stern Words about Russia and Assad- nobody cares about dead Colombians and Pakistanis mercenaries, after all, and nobody likes Saudi (well, except Bruce) plus Obama has far more leeway for ignoring them given he's late 2nd term- but Turkey could easily lead to big escalation, there would be no article 5 protection theoretically but any Turkish attack on the airbase at Hmeimem and Russia would have to hit Turkey proper and at that point article 5 and who started it would go out the window and all bets are off. So long as it stays in Syria I doubt it would escalate whatever happens, but neither Saudi nor Erdogan like being baulked at all, Erdogan in particular may make the above calculation and instead decide that he can safely escalate from behind NATO.

Saudis have been at least handing out stones since the beginning- right near the start they demanded Assad release a bunch of islamist political prisoners (though given what happened they were probably legit preventative detentions) as part of reforms and a show of good faith then used them to foment the rebellion; ironically that was then used as evidence by many to 'prove' that Assad deliberately turned the rebels islamist. And the TOW anti tank missiles and much of the other supplies the rebels get are direct from Saudi stocks. I still find it very hard to believe they'd actually invade, though that's assuming they're acting logically. Saudi leadership literally believes they're appointed by God Himself and the new king has been particularly unpredictable. If they aren't going to do it then they've put a decent effort into the bluff.

Enslaving nations with necromancy is actually a pretty cool idea, I ain't knocking it. And if it's BG3 as a 'real' BG3 (yeah, unlikely) it'd probably be a good guess for one of the things you would expect to be able to do.

That's always been the way though- it's collective responsibility when convenient for the government; or individual responsibility when that is convenient. Nothing new except the specific situation it's applied to.

Seems likely, except the starving to death part. The pattern has been rapid advance followed by consolidation while pulverising rebel counter attacks since the russian intervention, by that measure there should be another advance coming within the next week. I'm sure they'd far prefer rebel surrender/ truce or withdrawal from east Aleppo rather than surrounding them, the SAA is not good at urban fighting and they already could stop most supplies getting into east Aleppo anyway- the supply route along the Castilo Highway is only about 2 km wide and has been for more than a year, easily hit by mortar or artillery let alone easily bombed. Truce talk is also to try and short circuit any thought of direct intervention from the other side due to 'government intransigence'. It looks like Saudi Arabia at least is actually going to go through with intervention though; Al Arabiya is Saudi version of Qatar's Al Jazeera so that comes direct from government. It would at least explain why the rebels were so keen to withdraw from the peace talks despite losing badly on the ground. Another potentially big development is a government attack towards Tabqa, which is at the bottom end of a hydroelectric lake on the Euphrates, half way between Aleppo and Raqqa. If taken it would cut all of ISIS's territory in Aleppo off from its rump holdings, and Raqqa off from the Turkish border. Not going to hold my breath over that happening though it would be very bold if it did.

Awakening was fine. In retrospect the resources would almost certainly have been better put towards DA2 instead, but that is with retrospect and the expansion itself was pretty good. In any case I'm pencilling 'enslave nations with necromancy' into the putative feature list for BG3/ suffix.