Zoraptor

Whenever I see CHP I expect either our old Christian Heritage Party (disbanded when their leader was convicted of, uh, paedophilia) or for it to involve Erik Estrada and that redhead bloke who wanted to be in Miami Vice. The accusations of false flags are pretty old, this just adds some detail. The only two credible scenarios involve usage of chemical weapons by rogue elements in the Syrian military or usage as a false flag by the opposition, probably using Libyan CW rockets and possibly Libyan Sarin- certainly the (Libyan) rebels were accused of using Sarin in Bani Walid well before their use in Ghouta- or Turkish precursors if the MPs statements are accurate. That would have involved firing from rebel territory over government territory or similar to make it look like it was the government doing it. Certainly the timing was suspicious as there was already a UN chemical weapons team in the country, so it was a moronic time for any official use of CW. There's no conclusive evidence for either scenario though.

Perhaps a compromise? The Russian Federation would happily take Sarah Palin off your hands in exchange for Alaska and Vladimir Zhirinovsky. That would be a particularly good deal I feel since Zhiro would make an excellent potential Presidential candidate and act as an excellent foil to Mr Trump.

Any association with St Petersburg makes it inherently unreliable, since Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin comes from St Petersburg and as an ex KGB agent is known to control all its citizens' thoughts as well as its media. It's no accident that Carson/ Trump come out worst and Bernie best in those results, Putin wants a weak Bernie Presidency so he can annex Alaska without any interference. Don't worry though USA, as a benevolent leader he doesn't want to deprive you of Alaska's greatest contribution to the Union, Sarah Palin, so you get to keep her.

Melissan.

Won't be doing much on Christmas day since we've got family coming in from Ockerland on Boxing Day, big meal then though. Always fun having a turkey when it's 26 degrees and 90% humidity. It's a midwinter/ yule symbol appropriated off Hibernian Druids.

Nice to see Time awarding its person of the year to a Villain again.

Going by his current approach hitting him where it hurts would be stripping him of his WWE Hall of Famer status- if that meant he could no longer deliver policy speeches like he's doing a wrestling promo.

With Twitcher 3 selling well they could probably afford to have two full teams running in parallel now anyway. I'd expect a fair number of TW3 people to have been transferred over to Cyberpunk already though. A Twitcher3: EE or some extra dlc/ expansions wouldn't need a full team, nor would preproduction on a 'TW4'.

Funny thing about EA is that Dead Space was a perfectly decent System Shock in all but name- and if it had kept the System Shock name it originally had I'd have been happy enough with the sequel- in marked contrast to Syndicate. I actually liked MoO3 too though, so my taste may be called into question. It's certainly not surprising SS3 is coming, SS2 has sold extremely well at above 1.5 million copies*, it was recently free on GOG as a promo and Night Dive teased it recently. While SS1 has not sold well some sort of SS3 was a no brainer once ND got the rights back. *It was above the million selling Twitcher 3 in GOG's sales ranking even prior to being given away in the previous sale, and Steamspy lists it at 650k on steam.

They'll do an InXile and kickstart SS3 before Underworld is finished. Practically they'd start work on something else before Underworld wraps even if it were not announced. I'm pretty happy with the announcement, far better than Night Dive trying to make it themselves or other likely scenarios, and some unlikely ones like Ken Levine making it at 2k.

Ironically, I rather think that Erdogan wants to be Putin. Some Syrian Army soldiers got blown up by an air strike, US blames Russia (ironic, since most of their media output is accusing the Russians of bombing only the 'moderate opposition' which doesn't exist in the entire Deir ez Zor governate) and everyone else including SOHR which is usually wildly pro west blames the US. Probably a mistake either way unless Saudi Arabia/ Qatar/ Bahrain has reinstated their bombing of ISIS, in which case it would have been a 'mistake'. The stated facts don't really match anyone entirely.

Kind of annoying that they had the Doctor kill a guy with a gun just to establish that timelords can randomly become different races and sexes. Obviously Capaldi's Doctor will regenerate into Colin Salmond, and Craig's Bond will regenerate into Idris Elba. Absolutely typical Moffat episode, chock full of good ideas which were stitched together into a bit of an incoherent mess. His tendency to set things up and then handwave the conclusion is deeply annoying much as it was with the last series of Sherlock. Guess it shows how much the Doctor hated Adric, too, since he couldn't be bothered to go back and save him.

Walid Jumblatt is a weathervane, and perhaps the most skilful politician anywhere in the world. He's parleyed the very weak position of his tiny minority into constant powerbroker status in Lebanon for decades. Which side he backs is an extremely good indicator of who has the upper hand, so he really isn't 'pro-Hezbollah' or 'pro Hariri', he's pro winning- and definitely a pro at winning. He's in a difficult situation wrt Syria though because the Druze in Syria almost exclusively back Assad, indeed Assad's most successful and high profile general is Druze. Not that that article really says he's backing either side, doesn't really say much at all of note. I could see elements in the US, perhaps, giving an OK to Turkey but NATO overall? Hollande at least would have been peeved at Turkey derailing his grand coalition and would never have gone along with it.

He definitely had a north caucasus accent, him being a chechen is unsurprising. And if anyone sent him as a spy it would likely be Kadyrov. There have already been reports of russian boots on the ground doing actual fighting, though only spetsnaz types.

Friends, Obsidianites, internauts, lend me your eyes, I come to bury Oby, not to praise him, The evil that posters do lives after them The good is often interred with their account So let it be with Oby. The noble Monte Hath told told you that Oby was a troll If so, 'twer a grievous fault And grievously hath Oby answered it Here, under leave of Bruce and the rest- For Bruce is an honourable poster; So are they all, honourable posters- Come I to speak at Oby's funeral. He was a poster, mildly obsessed but more than just to Russia But Walsingham said he was a bot; And Wals is an honourable man. He hath brought many posts to Obsidian.net Whose content did the forum fill; In this did Oby seem ambitious? When the ****poster hath cried, Oby hath wept: Trolls should be of sterner stuff Yet Chilloutman says he is an alt, And he is an honourable man. You all did see that on the Orthodox New Year He didn't actually realise the date He was thrice offered a Putin avatar Which he did thrice refuse, was this Trolling? Yet Gromnir says he is a troll And Gromnir is a man I speak not to disprove what these posters say But here I am to say what I know You all did vaguely tolerate him as Lord of Flies, Krezack, Cycloneman, BruceVC, Qistina, Zoraptor, not without cause, What cause then withholds you to mourn for him? O judgement you are fled to 4chan and teh codexxx And men hath lost their posting privileges Bear with me My post is in that moderation queue there with Oby's, And I must wait 'til it comes back to me

Write in vote for Awesome Brotocols sequel. Or Omega Methodology/ whatever to avoid Sega.

They're getting significant manpower support from shia groups from Iraq and Iran (plus Hezbollah, though they've been there ages) which will help a lot, while theoretically ad hoc those are often better formations than regular Syrian Army. The big problem they've had is not direct lack of manpower but having it in small dribs and drabs trying to hold lots of land which allowed the rebels to hit and run almost at will and which made it very hard to make any meaningful attacks themselves since reserves and the effective formations were constantly being rushed around to respond to the latest attacks, plus some bad morale and relying on low quality conscripts fighting highly motivated (if often as lightly trained) jihadis. An effective airforce helps massively with the first problem, it makes it a lot more difficult to attack the dribs and drabs when your column of pickups can get taken out in full by a Hind, or seen and the target warned by a drone/ artillery support/ air strike support delivered; while conversely making it a lot easier for the government to concentrate their forces. The morale problem is helped a lot by success and new equipment, plus the obvious and apparently long term commitment from their allies. On the ground the government is, broadly speaking, winning at the moment when they were losing two and a bit months ago, badly enough that they'd managed perhpas one significant victory all year. In contrast they've had two significant victories in the past two months- relieving Kweyres airbase and taking a big chunk of the south Aleppo countryside.

Mi-28 is pretty impressive too, though I can't imagine it being all that useful in Syria. I actually mentioned TOS-1 earlier, IIRC- there's a video of a buratino lighting up a hillside in Latakia on youtube. Quite impressive, I certainly wouldn't want to be on the receiving end; though it's pretty far from MOAB level impressive. And in rather unsurprising news, apparently the arab side of the 'coalition' hasn't actually bombed ISIS in multiple months. Even Jordan, who got one of their pilots burnt alive hasn't bombed them in 4 months. It's more than rumour, some extra deployment is definite. The 120 certainly isn't confirmed though and would almost certainly be 'copters and planes combined, perhaps also including strategic bombers based in Russia. That would also require more SAMs and troops to guard the air bases- certainly there have been a lot of new weapons deliveries since there are T-72Bs and even T-90s* in theatre and in actual action instead of just glorified guard duty now, including ones with improved protection against anti tank missiles (modern explosive reactive armour and the shtora soft kill system). *which are really just rebadged modern T-72s, russian tank builders are as bad as nVidia at rebadging old stuff as new. He's almost certainly just some unfortunate chechen/ dagestani who has pissed off an emir or tried to desert and is being made an example of to make a point. He's a russian from the north caucasus, as is the guy doing the beheading for that matter but I doubt Russia or anyone else (potentially except some arab states) has much human intelligence at all within ISIS, far too easy for them to get randomly killed given that there are multiple different groups bombing them. If anyone has much human intelligence it's probably Assad's Mukhabarat and their contacts within the civilian population. Summary execution of 'collaborators' 'spies' or 'fifth columnists' in graphic manner is pretty common even in more moderate rebel areas- not that Assad is actually much if any better in that respect, they just tend towards secret torture and executions rather than public.

I own about a third of the mystary games elsewhere, so I basically never buy them. I really don't need a third copy of Hearts of Iron 2 or EU3. I'd guess that some people would be interested in the LucasArts/ Film bundles though, with two Star Wars bundles and an adventure bundle. Again, I own about half of the titles retail, and the individual discounts aren't so great. Unless there's something great I'll almost certainly wait until after Christmas to buy anything further.

We actually got ISIS's accountant, he was called Abu Sayyaf and the US killed him plus captured his wife and records during a raid on Deir-ez-Zor. While nothing official has been released about their contents all the leaks have them confirming large scale links with Turkey and plenty of oil smuggling. And those petrol tankers? Obviously not petrol tankers, they were for... baby milk, yes, that's it! Russia is deliberately starving babies in Syria! When will the west take action to stop the madness of these barbarians! Kind Uncle Tayyip supplying the literal milk of human kindness even unto his mortal enemies in ISIS and that horrible bear riding exhibitionist from St Pete'sburg blatantly and callously attacked them. Won't someone think of the children? Syria does buy (though 'buys' is more accurate) oil from ISIS, strange as it may seem. It's a consequence of the government holding most of the electricity generation infrastructure but ISIS holding most of the oil and gas fields that supply it- ISIS still supplies them with fuel and gets electrical power back in return. Since the alternative is neither side having electricity that arrangement is likely to continue until such time as the gas fields in particular are recaptured. The US does accuse the government of actually buying [as opposed to swapping/ bartering] oil as well, but that's very questionable since they can very easily get petrol/ diesel supplies from Iran, if not Russia as well, without funding their enemies. Natural gas is far harder to supply though, if you don't have the existing infrastructure for supply, hence it pretty much has to come from ISIS.

I'd only feel like a hypocrite if I advised people to ignore your trolling and deliberate provocations then spent pages responding to your drivel myself, Bruciekins. As it is I content myself with the occasional one liner.

Your idea of Western Culture is a state with neoliberal ideals? Bruce's definition of the fantastic characteristics of western civilisation is, well, what Bruce himself believes (or purports to believe to get responses). Utterly unsurprising. Though I suspect in this case he'd be far from alone in that.

On the annexation front, Turkey has already stolen a bit of Syria previous; the part of 'Turkey' where the Su-24 was shot down was part of Syria until France gave it away and there was a referendum held to annex it which involved bussing large numbers of Turks in to ensure the right result was found. Indeed, that is a very easy way to claim that Turkey's airspace was never violated, simply say that it's occupied Syrian airspace (same for Golan Heights, where no one except Israel recognises their annexation). But in any case, getting Turkey out of any safe zone would be a big problem, anyone thinking otherwise can look to Cyprus.

Wonder if they're R-77-1s then, I would have said that they'd swapped from bomb only to carrying AAMs at all but there are pictures of Su-34 returning to base carrying missiles so some at least had air-to-air capable load outs before; if they are new weapons then they'd pretty much have to be R-77-1s. I'd bet everything in my bank account that Turkey wouldn't have attacked anything other than a Su-24 anyway, since it fundamentally cannot defend itself against anything approaching a modern fighter. Su-34 isn't really designed as a fighter either but it is actually modern and based on a fighter design, it wouldn't be the equivalent of sneaking up and king hitting an old lady like attacking a Su-24 was.

God ancaps are embarrassing. Not that ancaps aren't embarrassing, but I'm as prone to believe that actually happened as I would be to believe a story from Bruce about him getting beaten up by SJWs when he goes to one of their meetings and tells them he's an old money banker who loves Saudi Arabia. Story is too cliche and nobody is that dumb.