Zoraptor

What about Albanian albinos then? Have to admit that I personally have some Wight privilege, due to having relatives off the coast of Hampshire.

It's a classic left/ right agnostic debating tactic. Privilege arguments suggest you should be embarrassed by accidents of birth, the rightest equivalent is to suggest that any poor person is such because they just don't try and just don't work hard enough- or there's the classic Randian 'parasite' label if you prefer. Same rhetorical coin, different face. White privilege is simply the politically correct term for "racism vs white people" Nah, it is at least in part real and not just racism vs white people. That there are certain inherent biases in society is obvious, in the end that is all that privilege theory itself is about, and so far as that goes it's valid to examine. The zealots tend to take things to extremes and make the word a caricature and apologists tend to use it to make excuses, but they do that for all sorts of things not just white/ male/ whatever privilege labels. Really though, Ineth was right posts back in that money is the biggest 'privilege' there is and trumps anything else.

I was talking about the JPost article Grommy posted there- title "ISIS estimates Iran could build a bomb within a month". That article doesn't cite the IAEA at all, only ISIS. I agree that there's a lot more to making an actual bomb than just enrichment, which also rather helps me since it has never been proven that they've taken those steps. Frankly, if Iran decided they wanted to build 100k+ centrifuges that would only be taken as evidence they want to build hundreds of bombs a year instead of a dozen, by those convinced their only aim is weapons. That's the nature of things. Nerp, from Mossad via RSA intelligence, only published by Al Jazeera and confirmed as genuine by Israeli sources. Puling about it won't make it less true, I'm afraid, there's no comparison to your easily debunked explosion claims. Lol. There is no proof that they did any spherical geometry studies. From your own quote, previous post, emphasis left such as Parchin, a facility where high-explosive experiments linked to nuclear triggers may well have occurred. That's not a definite any more than up to 40% means 40%. And apart from that everything else is dual use, you have to show military use for a nuclear weapons program. Well of course, when Brazil refused inspections in 2004 that was because they had a clandestine program... hmm, no it wasn't. It's also yet another out of date complaint, given the agreement made. What you need to do is show how the 2015 agreement fails to fulfil those requirements. Because if it does address them, you've lost and I've won. Heh, well I can't say I didn't give you a chance. Here's some choice quotes from ISIS on the current state of things after the 2015 agreement, not from two, three, six or twelve years ago. Note, the JCPOA is the 2015 agreement. "The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) appears to require Iran to resolve the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s) concerns about the possible military dimensions (PMD) to Iran’s nuclear programs." "The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) provides extensive provisions that collectively provide an adequate base for blocking the plutonium pathway to nuclear weapons in Iran for at least 15 years." "For ten years, this agreement creates the conditions that any serious effort by Iran to build nuclear weapons will be highly time consuming and will be vulnerable to detection, allowing time for a harsh response. The JCPOA will likely do as it claims and this is the most notable strength of the agreement" Their sole substantive complaint is about what happens in 10-15 years time. It's gone from your posted articles talking about a one month time scale to 10- 15 years. Yet somehow I'm sure I'm about to be told that it's still an epic failure because Something. Oh dear, your only mention of the actual 2015 agreement and it's directly contradicted by ISIS's own summary statements- they say plainly that it will resolve concerns about possible military dimensions and make it basically impossible for Iran to make a nuke for at least ten years, and will 'do what it claims'. Really, "what kind of deal do you want?" is a pretty decent question to ask, under these circumstances. And that's why you shouldn't rely on deprecated blogs and opinion pieces, they tend to get invalidated when you can go straight to the horse's mouth and read the agreement and its mechanisms. "37. Upon receipt of the notification from the complaining participant, as described above, including a description of the good-faith efforts the participant made to exhaust the dispute resolution process specified in this JCPOA, the UN Security Council, in accordance with its procedures, shall vote on a resolution to continue the sanctions lifting. If the resolution described above has not been adopted within 30 days of the notification, then the provisions of the old UN Security Council resolutions would be re-imposed, unless the UN Security Council decides otherwise. [..]" The only thing that can be vetoed is continued lifting of the sanctions, it's the exact reverse of the normal situation. If President Trump wants to throw the deal in the trash all he has to do is bring a complaint, then veto continued lifting of the sanctions and they go back on. Nothing China or Russia can do about it.

I kind of presumed that Rhys Darby would have something to do with the Lone Gunmen when he was announced, he'd fit in there just about perfectly.

I certainly do know how to pick them- I don't want you weaseling out by claiming bias as you tried with Mossad saying Iran had no active weapons program, after all. As it is your assertion with respect to the explosion and sealing is now utterly debunked, by a source you like, which establishes inaccuracy and scaremongering from you and your sources pretty conclusively. Frankly, a source that says Iran can build a bomb in a month, in 2013, 22 months ago rather helps me rather than hinders me, since they haven't built a bomb in that timeframe but instead agreed to limit their nuclear programme. The accusations wrt to Parchin were from 2000-3, and never substantiated hence why ISIS say may have occurred, indeed you're circularising again and using a simple accusation as being proof that the accusation is correct. Understandable, all opponents and all scaremongers in general do that, including in that report (that may mysteriously morphs into 'has' half way through, after all). The IAEA visited in 2005, most of the information about Karchin came from exile groups who had such a great record in Iraq contemporaneously, why it's not like we had mobile weapons labs made up by someone to please his CIA handlers or anything. Mainly though it's the classic argumentation technique on insisting that a negative be proved when it's the reverse that needs proving, nobody can prove that Iran never had a weapons program as it's fundamentally impossible to prove such a thing, so you'll use that lack of proof as evidence that they had one- it's the 'when did you stop beating your wife, if you ever did stop?' technique where you start from a conclusion of guilt and work back from there. So, such zingers, saying that Iran may have had a weapons program in 2000-3, how several posts ago, plus abject scaremongering about Iran being able to produce a bomb in a month in 2013. Shame one is postdated thoroughly by those pesky intelligence assessments from Mossad (2012) and the US (2007, 2012) saying they don't have a weapons program and both are- crucially, and which you steadfastly refuse to actually address- by the 2015 agreement. What you really need to do is show how the 2015 agreement fails to address concerns, not reiterate 12 year old accusations that have never been substantiated.

That's for mobile devices. The masterrace versions are $19.99 each. I'd wait for either Christmas or the inevitable pre-SoD sale. The PC version has already been on sale for half price (or less) several times. IIRC the mobile EEs also have $9.99 dlc for them which the PC version gets for free, which explains the price disparity.

Looks like your 'wayward companion' is blind since she has cataracts, that would count as a disability. It would also explain why she is 'wayward', I guess. They've clearly thought things through pretty well there. Have to admit, I'm moderately interested despite it sounding like something the 'codex would come up with as a parody.

US sanctions prevented them from pursuing hydrocarbon extraction and refining efficiently, nuclear is an alternative source that is not subject to sanctions as the Russians don't give a flying asterisk and will happily sell their civil tech to Iran whatever the US says. [pdf link added editorially, page 3 is most relevant as it shows how far apart the two areas are] Specifically, the area the explosion occurred in was dedicated to rocket research. And the paving preceded the explosion (in 2013, explosion was Oct 2014; and was in a different area too) rather than followed it. And no, it's not that ISIS.

The dialogue of K2 holds up well, as does the unique* perspective to Star Wars albeit both are now formally non canon. The gameplay (in both, really) always was pretty meh, combat is pretty boring 90% of the time and you get massively overpowered quite quickly especially with K2's big levelling increase, the graphics are... well, early/ mid noughties and not very advanced even for then. Still worth playing for the story and dialogue, was never really worth playing for anything else. *OK it's not actually unique, but a more accurate usage than most.

Are you really that obtuse, or do you simply not want to understand what Gromnir wrote? Dunno, you've given a pretty good impression of not understanding what I wrote, at least after the first couple of lines. Basically, Rostere's first paragraph is correct. Perhaps I should have explained what dual use is rather than presuming that people would understand, but I did presume that anyone commenting would have some background on the subject. Dual use technologies are stuff that have a definite civilian use, and a possible military use. Under the rules of the IAEA these technologies are legitimate because they have that civilian use, the only illegitimate stuff is stuff that has only a military use. Dual use technologies cannot be part of a weapons program by definition of the IAEA, in other words, only the parts that have solely a military use can. So long as Iran sticks to dual use stuff it does not have a weapons program, by definition. It was designed that way for several reasons including commercial ones, but mostly because it makes basic logical sense. Even low enriched uranium has a potential radiological military use in a dirty bomb or as a precursor to high enriched uranium, after all, define that as a military use and everyone with a reactor or nuclear industry is infringing. So, fundamentally, all countries have a right to nuclear energy and civilian technologies under the auspices of the IAEA (well, for those signing the NPT)- not just ones we trust and like. Any other approach is circularised special pleading- these people want legitimate nuclear technologies to actually make bombs and our proof is that they want nuclear technology. Plus we don't like them.

Right, so now the Iranians have a 'nuclear weapons program' where they aren't making any nuclear weapons... Or, as it is otherwise known; not a nuclear weapons program. Except, of course, in the paranoid delusional world of special pleading, where anything is possible. And everybody would be complaining really, trust you on that they're just trying to 'save face' (from what exactly, plus of course the logical corollary is that Saudi and Israel are losing face with their complaints) and Egypt and UAE complained despite you giving no actual evidence of such. Par for the course. Dual use is dual use, and dual use is legitimate use, the IAEA is absolutely explicit about that. Ironically, that position is held in large part due to the US lobbying for it to be that way- pule all you want, but places like Brazil and Japan would be under sanctions if it weren't. All the rest is wailing and gnashing of teeth about how you totally don't like and don't trust Iran so special rules have to apply because the sky will fall otherwise. Particularly amusing, shifting from wsj to the Daily Fail, at best a sideways movement in quality- particularly lol as it appears you only read the headline for it and I've read the report it was talking about :smug: As is the Fail's wont, it makes a sensational headline and never backs it up in the body, quoting anonymous sources about Iranian research which is actually from 2003, well before the (2007, 2012) US and Israeli reports saying they weren't developing nukes. If you were Bruce I'd suspect you'd done it deliberately. Apart from that, quoting a 2012 study to show international disapproval of a 2015 agreement that didn't exist then and prevents Iran from making nukes is utterly ridiculous, specious and... pretty typical of your slapdash approach to both logic and statistics, throwing anything no matter how outdated or irrelevant at an argument. It's the same issue with the Rand article too, using an out of date study that cannot take the 2015 agreement into account to try and denigrate that 2015 agreement is at very very best a circular approach. And, the source on the Mossad stuff is a leak from them via RSA intelligence. It's been verified, much as it may pain you, including by Israeli sources contacted by Israeli media.

Shrug. You've had plenty of opportunity but could only provide two countries that didn't like it while weaseling those two as being 'numerous' and linking to blogs and the like for validation. If only two countries in the world don't like something, well, a concentrated assault on that something by a bunch of conservatives giving sky-is-falling analyses is scaremongering. Facts are that only Saudi and Israel oppose it, both Mossad and US intelligence say that Iran is not seeking a bomb, and the scaremongering is coming from a very specific group only: Israel fans like you, or Saudi fans beneficiaries. There's room for legitimate concern about Iranian conduct in foreign affairs- as there is for every country in existence- but very little related to this deal. The stuff that people object to Iran doing it's already doing, isn't related to the nuclear issue and is not being effected by sanctions anyway. As for the wsj, it's close to The Sun for stock brokers at this point when it comes to its opinion pieces.

Egypt has 'expressed concerns', lol or if prefer, lol. UAE was pretty much entirely positive. Even the Saudis weren't entirely negative. So, two countries are 'numerous', exactly as I said. Stop reading Murdoch rags, they're politicised rubbish. And that USAToday article is once-over-lightly drivel that only actually says that Saudi doesn't like it, the rest is unsourced speculation based on, apparently, religious identity which would see Bahrain applauding the agreement from the rooftops and ignores the three gulf countries that have welcomed it not being majority shia. Well, unless you count ibadis as shia, most seem to count Yemeni zaydis as shia...

WWE Hall of Famer Donald Trump getting excellent heat. Does this indicate that McCain is turning face, or is it just another example of inconsistent WWE booking? Hmm, McCain has rather less hair to shave off than Vince had.

lol wut? When you claimed I said sanctions had no effect and provided no evidence of it despite numerous requests to do so- indeed, your attempts to show it showed completely the reverse, misquoted your experts via linking to recursive blogs hoping I wouldn't read the original paywalled source, changed what you were arguing half way through and disowned your original sources as not being what you 'really' thought but just put there for discussion (actual lol when you pulled that out), claimed food prices were rising massively in Russia due to the counter sanctions when they were less than expected from the value drop of the rouble on exports etc etc. It's like when you thought earthquake effect was measured by Richter scale not Mercalli, you still thought you were right despite not even having the most basic of groundings in the subject. That's why I don't feel the need to engage with you because you're not in any way connected to reality. Unfortunately I'm kind of obligated to occasionally correct your more egregious 'facts', so others don't take your ramblings seriously and don't end up making themselves look silly repeating them. If you want to reiterate this then do so in six months time, then we can see how your claims stood up. You won't though, precisely because you know they won't stand up, and you'd end up having a weasel avatar for a year. And to illustrate further how you work back from your conclusion rather than forward to it: numerous middle eastern countries means... two; Saudi Arabia and Israel, hate this deal. The governments of Turkey, UAE, Qatar, Oman, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan (not technically ME, but an Iranian neighbour), Jordan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Lebanon have all welcomed it, to one degree or the other while Kuwait, Bahrain and Yemen haven't commented so far as I can find. So, numerous nations = two, but the two that happen to support your position.

Neoliberal bastard think would fire all public servants and replace them with telecommuting Cambodians and Laotians, who would then be replaced six months later when it's obvious it's a disaster because they can't speak Greek. But it saved money for the department, so the exec who came up with the idea gets a bonus... The problem with tackling corruption is what it always has been, if it's systemic it's difficult to tackle because half, three quarters, ninety percent of the time the people tackling the corruption are themselves corrupt. It's a similar concept to politicians tackling the problem of them getting pay and benefit rises that far outstrip the people they're governing, it's very easy to fix if you take the matter properly out of the hands of politicians- have a plebiscite to tie it to inflation/ cpi rises or average national wage rise- but the politicians prefer their 'independent' boards that they know will award them 3x average increases and give them air travel for 10% cost for life plus a pension if they last more than nine years in the job. You also have dishonest people accusing the honest ones of corruption and a slew of other problems making it very difficult; you need a large staff to do the investigations, even with the best will in the world a fair number of them will be corrupt even if the guy at the top (who is probably appointed by the politicians) isn't. There's also plenty of corruption in 'protestant' economies, it's just more codified into quid pro quo of directorships on retirement for politicians, political donations and the like rather than direct bung taking.

Meh, arguing with you is pointless, you always work back from your conclusion to the evidence rather than the other way around. You'll just end up admitting you don't know what the Mercalli scale is or claiming Russia would be bankrupt in 6-12 months (already past the six months...) again. Fact- and it is fact- remains that Pakistan happily sold tech to pretty much anyone including their theoretical enemies in Iran plus North Korea and Libya, yet you'd have it be that they wouldn't sell to their friends and financiers because... handwaving. While I broadly agree with you that isn't really how the Iranian system works. The Guardian Council, which vets presidential candidates, is largely appointed by Khamenei, and Khamenei is still effectively above the president in the pecking order. The GC could readily have rejected Rouhani had they wanted to and only approved conservative candidates or approved multiple reformists to split the vote- eg in 2009 there were two reformists and two conservatives; while in 2013 there were 4 conservatives vs Rouhani; they'd practically guaranteed Rouhani would at least make a run off vote with that split. The most sensible interpretation was that Khamenei was fine with Rouhani winning and that he was likely even his favoured candidate; he's a reformer, but a pretty 'safe' one so far as the Islamic Revolution is concerned. The appearance of Rouhani being a 'maverick' 'reformer' however is very useful when it comes to negotiating with the west- contrast with the views on Ahmedinejad- and increases impetus on the west to make an agreement since one of the reasons the moderate Khatami was succeeded by Ahmeninejad in 2005 was because he couldn't deliver on his promises. In effect Rouhani is an excellent compromise and pragmatic choice between conservatism and reform, acceptable to both the Ayatollah and to western negotiators.

There really are two separate issues regarding that. Firstly, having someone other than a white bloke being the protagonist. That really cannot be done, because simple historical fact is that it would be extremely unusual, approaching unique, for that to happen. Having a woman or a berber/ arab/ tartar or even a jewish or gypsy character becomes a trivial choice if you cannot follow through on the implications of offering that choice. Realistically, any of those options would be remarked upon in the setting, and some would be regarded as being 'against god' and similar by near everyone you meet. So, it stops being the game they want to make and either becomes a game about potentially playing an arab or woman in Bohemia and dealing with the discrimination you'd receive, massively increasing the game's scope; or you have to ignore the historical context which is a stated aim of making the game and have the woman or berber play basically the same as that white dude does. I have more sympathy for including ethnic minorities as 'npcs', but it still has to deal with the reality that medieval Europe was not an enlightened place nor in that sense ethnically diverse except in specific areas, and runs the risk of tokenism too. Going off to the Jewish Banker to borrow money is realistic, but many would not take kindly to the stereotype even if it is historically accurate; having Saracens or Moors wandering around would be rather unlikely given the religious mores and persistent religious warfare etc.

sigh Pakistan was asked to contribute soldiers to the Yemen campaign, according to their Defence Minister. Debated in the Pakistani parliament as well on that basis, that plus the request to exclude shia soldiers lead to their refusal to contribute. KSA have bought CSS2 ballistic missiles from China, which are installed- and were designed specifically for carrying nuclear warheads. They financed the Pakistani nuclear program. Many of those 'anonymous western sources' people love to quote when it's convenient (but ignore when inconvenient) say there is a deal fro nukes, as do unnamed Pakistani sources. They sold nuclear secrets to North Korea, Libya and Iran- the Iranian IR1 is a direct copy of the P1, with P standing for... Pakistan, Dr Khan confessed to supplying DPRK and supplied evidence that it was governmentally sanctioned and Libyans gave Pakistan as a source for their nuclear program as well. You'd go a long way to find three more 'pariah' states to sell to, selling to Saudi would be small potatoes comparatively. There's a lot more evidence for that than there is for Iran having an actual and active weapons program and ability to quickly produce a bomb like the scaremongers say, Iran has consistently said they aren't doing so as have Mossad and US Intelligence assessments plus they have a fatwa from The Ayatollah himself banning them. Saudi probably won't buy a bomb, but it is because Iran probably won't produce one.

Yes, yes, and because the US won't send troops into Lebanon to root out Hezbollah it means they won't supply Israel with arms. They're two completely separate issues. Pakistan doesn't want to get involved in Yemen because it's a clusterasterisk where the Saudi proxy president has no support at all with them supporting southern separatists and foreign intervention with ground forces- the Egyptian one in the 60s and the Saudi one a few years ago- ended disastrously; and they have a significant shia minority who they don't want any chance of fighting at the same time as the Taleban- and who Saudi wanted specifically excluded from any Pakistani forces sent. Mostly though, we're talking Pakistan here, they helped North Korea get their nuke so they're not going to baulk the country which mostly paid for their bomb if they offer more cash for some working samples if they were willing to help a destitute non islamic pariah. Meh, the vast majority of times you have scaremongering the scaremongering is just that, scaremongering. People tend to forget all the times they're told the sky is falling when it doesn't actually fall, they just remember the occasional time it does.

The Saudis would simply buy a bomb so they don't need the infrastructure. They largely bankrolled the Pakistani 'Islamic Bomb', after all, and for just that purpose. That's pretty well known, amongst people who pay attention to the middle east and Saudi Arabia in particular.

I don't see the reason for scepticism. It's the Bibi redline* argument again but, if they've been two months (or six months, or a year) away from a bomb for years (decades) and if they want a bomb then why don't they have one? The only two answers are that they do want one, but it is harder than implied; or that they don't actually want one. As it is the sceptics try to have their cake and eat it too, the Iranians want one but are held back by... sanctions, [something] the brave defenders of freedom are doing, threat of violence or whatever else justifies their approach so, obviously, that approach has to continue. It is perhaps the classic self reinforcing circular argument where you start from the conclusion("Iran wants the bomb!") and work backwards from there. Of course it is rather hilarious to see Bibi, head of a country that doesn't have IAEA inspections for its nuclear arsenal, throwing a foot stomping paddy about anything nuclear related. *Contradicted in large part of course by those unrealistic and idealistic anti semite goons at, er, Mossad as well as by US intelligence.

Three classic Warhammer titles added, for those who like such things. Chaos Gate Shadow of the Horned Rat Final Liberation

There is no better loot that you have to buy in DAI multiplayer either, the purchases are optional. There's optional stuff to buy if you're impatient or like dress up (?), but it is optional. The strategy there is not just getting people to buy microtransactions though, it's also to keep the game in people's minds once the SP is finished in case there is are more dlcs/ sequels, or if the person with the demo didn't buy the SP they may later if they enjoy the MP. It's certainly an economic rather than an altruistic approach but... CDPR isn't doing their free dlc out of the goodness of their hearts either. It gets press, it garners goodwill from people who hate microtransaction/ trivial dlc and it keeps the game in the public eye and selling longer, and lasts part way until their paid expansion arrives. There's no doubt they could have released their dlc on a far accelerated timetable or even all at once, if they wanted to, or bundled it into the game at release as it is mainly quite trivial reskins and simple quests. They don't do that because they want the publicity. That is particularly important because of that already announced paid expansion pack for TW3- and exactly as I have said previously when this subject has come up: that isn't marketed as being 'dlc' but as an 'expansion pass' precisely because CDPR only do free 'dlc'. I like CDPR as much as anyone but their strategy is most certainly aimed at getting more sales, it just isn't via nickel-and-diming.

I don't blame Tsipras. His population wants the Euro, and any exit from it would rely on the goodwill of his neighbours and the EU, an unlikely commodity since Greece would have to default immediately on their loans. He cannot juggle the contradictory requirements of a situation that was caused by his predecessors and poor imposed policies/ lack of goodwill from the eurozone against the desires of his people for an end to austerity and remaining in the Euro. Since those requirements are contradictory and he didn't cause said contradictions I cannot blame him. I'd also largely absolve the IMF at this point, they made mistakes, largely admitted them and don't want to compound them further. Can't really ask for more than that from them.