Zoraptor

I suspect there's a schism between the two that predates Rumsfeld and that it is schism between the career military DoD and the whole civilian apparatus rather than just the CIA. I can only imagine the facepalming that went on amongst actual generals who understood what firing a quarter of a million+ trained soldiers would do when that moron Bremmer disbanded the Iraqi Army, for example, and the costs of that decision were not borne by Bremmer/ Rumsfeld/ Bush/ Cheney/ Blair but by the army. And people in the region as well, but certainly not be those who made the decision, indeed they've done everything they can to duck even the mere responsibility.

It's a bit of a balance certainly. You don't want to leave the big questions unanswered but at the same time the desire to actually ask additional questions or ponder the (answered) questions further is a critical component in a good/ compelling story- if you finish a PST type story not wanting to ask any questions about it and not thinking about it then the story has generally failed because it hasn't left you wanting more. If I were to use something from Kotor2 to illustrate a 'good' unanswered question I'd use the Kreia/ Handmaiden relationship. You're clearly intended, if you pay attention, to think that Kreia may be her mother but there's too little information to be sure either way. That isn't due to cut content (well, so far as anyone can tell) but is deliberately crafted to be almost easter egg like with consequences for how you view Atris and Kreia if you pick up on it. Certainly not a deep philosophical question nor one that has to be answered in order for the plot to make sense but one that adds to the world building and adds nuance to characters and situations.

It would explain the clusterasterisk that was the DoD run moderate rebel recruitment program though, if they were deliberately sandbagging the effort. There's been a massive disparity between the DoD efforts and the CIA ones when it comes to Syria.

Indeed. I've made the switch to quail and I've never looked back. (lol at the 'mere' 17% defence spending)

Indeed. PST leaves unanswered questions primarily because you want to ask them and seek them out, and because it elicits actual thought about the subject matter. It's not because of any cut content or such. KOTOR2 is normally a decent comparison to PST for obvious reasons, but it was utterly butchered when it came to cut content unlike PST. It's lazy and facile to compare unanswered questions generated by increased interest in the subject matter to questions posed by plot holes/ cut content. No story can- or should- answer every question unless it's utterly simplistic plus it's 'unrealistic' for you to learn everything; and it's far worse to end a game (with a story/ philosophical focus) with zero questions because that almost always means you simply don't care about that story which is meant to be a primary focus. That's not true for all games of course since many don't have a set narrative or it isn't the focus, but it's true for any game with pretensions towards philosophy especially, questions are kind of intrinsic to proper philosophy, or story depth.

The genuine crusaders against corruption would still care, and there are a few of them at least- they just don't have any power. But yeah, I don't think we'd have the US judicial system throwing a wobbly if they were hosting. And to show that FIFA is still FIFA the favourite for Blatter's replacement is from a hereditary absolute monarchy and implicated in torturing protesters and (about the only thing that actually could be used against him at FIFA) football players who were protesting for democracy a few years back. Might as well kill two birds with one stone by seeing if Bashar Assad fancies a stint in FIFA instead of being President of Syria.

Yeah, though that's mutual- Clinton loved the drunken incompetent Yeltsin every second he was running Russia into the ground. But it is definitely true that a 'recommendation' for any US presidential candidate from Putin is no reason to vote for them, even if it is a genuine recommendation rather than diplo-trolling. He's giving it for his own (or country's) benefit, not anyone else's and certainly not for the benefit of the US.

Because Bosporus and it's unthinkable for anyone to leave NATO unless you're France and have air quotes around 'leave', let alone be chucked out. Russians opened their Su24 black box couple of days ago, it was pretty munted though it should be readable with a electron microscope if they really want to embarrass Turkey and are sure of what it will show. And the basis for a peace agreement has been decided at the UN. With minimal contribution from the actual warring parties and none at all from some of the largest ones, which makes it all a bit of a joke.

Well yeah, the media landscape is garbage. But the Daily Fail and Rupert Murdoch aren't the edges by any stretch of the imagination, they're just mass market outrage bait and the opposite side of the coin from archetypal 'Nazi SJW Daily News' 'progressive' outrage bait, they could both just as easily be run by Gawker. They're as much part of the problem as the agenda pushing media you disagree with. It's infectiously stupid, lazy and designed to hook people just as much as any drug is. I'm equal opportunity when it comes to media analysis; I hate the spineless, censorious, preachy 'progressive' press and the arbitrary, dishonest, differently preachy 'conservative' press with an equal passion; and both sides obsession with writing what might as well be fairy tale narratives rather than facts.

When Putin wants a worthy opponent he just looks in the mirror. Dude, a continuous litany of fauxnews and daily fail articles? At best you'll give yourself an ulcer worrying about bollocks designed to get page views from knee jerk reactionary morons, at worst you'll rot your brain worse than a gallon of methanol a day and spread the infection like a slavering zombie biting poor innocents and giving them a yearning for poorly written absymally 'researched' pseudo journalistic crack equivalent. They're a gateway drug to Alex Jones, Breitbart et alia. Just Say No to Stupid Fear Mongering; it's time to declare a War on Clickbait; Friends Don't Let Friends Read the Daily Fail or Fauxnews (Unironically, At Least).

He said couldn't have done it. Which leaves three basic interpretations 0) They pitched to Disney, not EA. Seems unlikely though, since everyone knew about the exclusivity deal with EA 1) They pitched to EA, but EA is contractually obligated not to subcontract Star Wars titles and he found out about that after leaving 2) They pitched to EA, but EA has a directive not to subcontract any titles to external studios and he found out about that after leaving 3) Bioware/ someone else is already making Kot(O)R so a pitch was pointless, and he found out about that after leaving IIRC (and I may not because, honestly, I don't pay much attention to this stuff) Obsidian/Fergus indicated they planned to pitch/pitched KotOR to Disney before the EA deal was announced. So my (totally baseless) speculation (based on vague wording that everyone interprets differently) is Disney were already working on/finalizing the deal (or had but hadn't announced finalizing it) with EA when Obs pitched so Disney wasn't in a position to approve such a pitch OR Disney plonking everything in LEGENDS but the films and TV cartoons with no plans to continue any of that stuff meant they weren't ever in the market to do more KotOR so the pitch was pointless regardless of the EA deal. I would have said those two were probable as well, but he definitely seems to say directly that he learned the pitch was impossible after his departure which was June (?) this year. The EA deal and EU -> Legends were both known well prior to that. There's also the (Legends) TOR itself which is still being developed, though he could have learned that it was an exception to a 'no more Legends' policy as an ongoing product after leaving. There's definitely another option too, though it's definitely not likely- Disney themselves have unannounced plans for the KOTOR era for comics/ tv/ movies.

I've got a GOG code for Divine Divinity as well, if anyone wants it.

He said couldn't have done it. Which leaves three basic interpretations 0) They pitched to Disney, not EA. Seems unlikely though, since everyone knew about the exclusivity deal with EA 1) They pitched to EA, but EA is contractually obligated not to subcontract Star Wars titles and he found out about that after leaving 2) They pitched to EA, but EA has a directive not to subcontract any titles to external studios and he found out about that after leaving 3) Bioware/ someone else is already making Kot(O)R so a pitch was pointless, and he found out about that after leaving

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.