Zoraptor

Well, that about sums it up, really. Find a way to blame Iran for everything, up to and including the 'theory' that Iran was using the sunni radicalism they supposedly (and in reality do) hate and which hates them and which was also fighting their friends in Iraq as a proxy, as some sort of 'PR tool' while it was also fighting their friends in Syria. That's outright ludicrous. The history of ISIS is well known, their pedigree politically and leadership wise stretches back to Al-Zarqawi's Al Qaeda in Iraq franchise, through Al-Baghdadi mk1 to Al Baghdadi Mk2/ 'Ibrahim'. They got defranchised for going against Zawahiri, as Al-Q-in-I they got plenty of support from Saudi and Qatar etc as Al-Nusra still does and did so right up until Al-Baghdadi became 'Ibrahim' with the fairly explicit claim against Saudi Arabia that a Caliphate implies. They have always fought against Iran's interests, and as with all the official Al Qaeda branch of Al Nusra have spent plenty of time fighting moderate sunnis, radical sunnis/salafis they disagree with and any and all religio-ethnic enemies. Which is everyone non arab/ non muslim and those not radical enough. That Persian shia Iran were somehow running them is simply not believable; the only way to get that conclusion is to start from Iran being evil and to blame for all the ME's ills, and to work back from there.

Yeah, nah. Having cheerfully oppressed the majority shia for decades there was no way the sunni would retain power democratically, and it was not a South Africa type situation where a minority willingly (more or less) gave up power so earned some goodwill. The only thing democracy has to do with it is that shia were a majority so won democratically, and far from being given a reason not to be vindictive (per South Africa) they were given every reason to try and stomp the sunni into the ground due to all the suicide bombings and the like. Not nice, but then it the shia response was considerably more mild than they would get from Saddam, or Al Zarqawi, or Al Baghdadi/ 'Ibrahim'. Iran wants a strong(ish) Iraq, it just wants people friendly to it in charge. Which is more or less what most of those involved want, it's just that the GCC etc being sunni want the minority rather than the majority in charge. All the various destabilisation attempts from the GCC types have done is ensure that Iraq will be driven into Iran's sphere permanently, long term their ISIS proxy (now gone spectacularly off reservation) is going to get stomped, hard. And frankly blaming Iran for every conflict in the ME is laughable. As just one (neutral) counter example, Turkey vs Kurds, perhaps the longest running of the regional/ internal conflicts. The most common factor in ME/NA conflicts is actually nutbar sunni/ salafis, who fight shia, other religio-ethnic groups, moderate sunni and other nutbars that they disagree with without much discrimination in Syria, Israel/ Palestine, Libya, Afghanistan, Algeria, Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen and for the vast majority of international islamic terrorist incidents. Most of those places listed have zero Iranian influence, either. And I don't see why replacing Iranian influence in those areas with Saudi influence is in any way better. I might agree with Syria, if the two strongest opposition groups there by far weren't ISIS and Al Nusra/ Al Qaeda- neither of which is renowned for being in any way moderate. Basically though, I view Saudi influence as utter poison. I don't think Iran is a good guy, but it certainly is the lesser of two evils in that comparison. No amount of state sponsored propaganda from Al-Arabiya and the like will convince me otherwise.

The merits of the invasion can be debated forever, but after it they didn't really have a choice- as soon as Iraq became 'democratic' it was inevitable that the shia would get power, no matter what else. Much of the sunni power structure was deeply ingrained in the ba'athist party, no matter what as soon as the shia came to power those structures and their leaders were going to go. And, of course, most of the opposition which the US relied on was shia/ kurd based, not sunni, so they could not simply install a Saddma V2 who would be happy with the status quo pre 2003. In many ways the US could scarcely have done worse, but that at least was always going to happen. It's also fundamentally not worse than what came before, after all the shia are a majority, the 'disruptive' elements now just come from the opposite direction than before. Much as voting along sectarian lines is not something that generally happens in the west any more the 'rules' of democracy are that if you can get a majority you get to make the rules. Plus, of course, as much as Iran has interfered somewhat it has hardly been alone, sunni/ wahhabi states like Qatar and Saudi have poured billions into destabilising shia countries and marginalsing shia themselves, there is no doubt at all that they are very much, and very genuinely, the enemy so far as shia are concerned. Most of the extreme sunni groupings don't even see shia as muslim, hence how you get salafis and other extremists justifying their mass murder. It's also why any 'GCC mediated' 'peace plan' for Yemen can be discounted as laughable propaganda, the GCC is run by the same people who have been financing ISIS and Al Qaeda plus the other nutbar salafiesque extremists in the first place.

Caffeine also does not have risks associated with chronic exposure* and isn't a bioaccumulator (DDT is as it is fat soluble, though not as much so as some other toxins) plus caffeine gets metabolised quickly. Glyphosate is a lot less toxic than ddt, but for any voluntary exposure and as far as possible for environmental exposure the precautionary principle should apply. Plus, glyphosate is used in formulations with other unpleasant stuff, wetting agents and surfactants aren't very pleasant either. *well, it has some for people with high blood pressure or who are sensitised to it and can get irregular heartbeats and other symptoms from it**, but of course you can avoid that via decaf and avoiding energy drinks. **from personal experience the feeling that your skin is contracting around your bones is particularly unpleasant, especially if you don't know what is causing it Bt and pythrethrins are pretty safe, far more so than non organic alternatives, as are other alternatives like neem oil or derris dust, the various vinegar and garlic types etc. Bt's withholding period is no days at all (indeed, GE crops have its cry protein produced permanently, so anyone eating a GE crop has likely eaten large amounts of its cry protein), while pythrethrins have a 1 day period. Neonicitonoids, carbamates, organophosphates and the like generally have significant withholding periods. Wouldn't want to eat any of them, obviously, but the organic ones are better. You wouldn't want to eat the main organic fungicide though, all copper based ones are pretty poisonous; and you wouldn't want to eat either fertiliser set.

DDT has an LD50 of 113mg/kg (for rats, don't really want to run an LD50 test on humans) so theoretically an average human could eat about 8g of DDT to have a 50% chance of dying- probably more to correct for metabolism but still, you wouldn't want to eat a tablespoon full of the stuff. Glyphosate ain't particularly toxic (ld50 ~5.6g/kg; less than table salt) though people have committed suicide by drinking it. While it might be theoretically possible to drink the stuff you wouldn't want to unless you were mentally unbalanced.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. (this thread gets derailed this way just about every iteration and nothing constructive has ever come out of it. If you cannot little i ignore him- the best solution- you may have to consider big I Ignoring him because otherwise the exact same thing with the exact same people will happen again, in a months time)

US is barely involved, won't cost anything much. Not nearly as much as is being spent on bombing ISIS, might even be a net benefit since Saudi will need to replenish all the arms they're going to use. Oby is just trollin' since it's basically the Saudis and their rent-a-mob (pretty much literal) going off to beat up what they see as an Iranian proxy who has beaten up their proxy. Which is kind of accurate, but the issues with Zaydi/ Yemen date back a very long time and are far more political rather than sectarian in nature: Saudi deciding to grab Asir about a century ago despite what Al-J and Al-A are busy saying it isn't just the shia Houthi opposing the nominal 'government' and there isn't widespread resistance to them, indeed there was a complete collapse of government resistance which is why there is an intervention the North (largely Zaydi)/ South Yemen divide, twenty odd years ago they were separate countries and many in the south want it so again the former President Saleh being forced to resign, while in Saudi Arabia, and the current 'president' becoming so after a patsy 'democratic' 'election' in which he was the only candidate lots of the typical Saudi destabilisation by exporting nutbar Salafi extremism, encouraging Al Qaeda involvement etc. it's basically Invasion Bahrain, mk 2, except the Houthi are far more formidable than some Bahraini protester with a rock. Saudi also tried invading only five years ago when Saleh was virulently anti the Houthi shia militia Saudi hates- and Saudi, with all their nice shiny toys got spanked, so much so that the ceasefire included the Houthi agreeing to withdraw from occupied Saudi territory. Saleh the former President is arguably more important than the Houthis are anyway as he's got most of the regular army loyal to him and defecting from the formal government. (In any case, I think we can safely say that Hodi is no longer President of Yemen. I have it on good authority that running away from your capital/ country means that you have actually resigned your post no matter what your constitution says. Just ask Jen Psaki, Barack Obama, the EU, Yatsenyuk, Poroshenko etc)

No. Because the other part of the equation is the practical enforcement of it being a service*, which can only be done with drm. With a drm free game it doesn't matter what they say, if you get banned or if GOG goes out of business or whatever, because you can always install from a backup and there is nothing that can be done to stop you doing so; to all practical considerations you own a product and aren't just leasing a licence to play. That is very seldom true for a game bought from Steam. *Also depends where you are. We're lucky enough to have software defined legally as a product rather than a service here, which puts it under the Consumer's Guarantee Act. Hence even Steam is forced to have a proper refund policy, though we're about the only place to get it.

Top Gear USA is also made by the BBC. As much as replacing the hosts is likely to be a trainwreck of epic proportions TG makes the Beeb 50 million profit a year and they have extensive contracts to supply it overseas. If they don't at least try replacements they're out that 50 mill at least, quite possibly plus penalties for failing to supply contracts as well. The BBC will be utterly rubbish at getting replacements, the current crop was more in spite of the Beeb rather than because of them, a lot of potentially good people will not want the stigma and potential negatives of 'killing' the show/ following in such successful footsteps and there will be quite a push to get lentil eating hybrid enthusiasts in because, clearly, that is what people really want rather than dinosaurs. But they pretty much absolutely do have to at least try. If they could get May and Hammond to stay they might have a chance.

Project Eternity is that six syllables? Four? Five? I find haiku hard (I don't need a key, I'm just amused that I cannot for the life of me count syllables properly. Which is kind of essential for haiku)

It should have been out for 7 minutes but it isn't. Bloody euro/ americocentrism. If you went for antipodcentrism* you'd get games 12+ hours earlier! *technically possible

Probably. Andrew is a prize muppet, but there's no actual evidence of him doing anything with underage coerced prostitutes. Not Voltaire. IIRC both of Voltaire's most famous equotes are misattributed as he never said the 'defend your right to disagree' one either, that was a... biographer? I think. (Ironically the best sourcing for the first quote is supposedly a white supremacist convicted of child pr0n offences)

But he did help shape the Baldur's Gate series! Fancy forgetting that!

That is pretty much what happens at some point in every internet argument because it is beautifully circular. Both sides end up accusing the other of arguing in bad faith and each side wants the other to admit that, in effect, they don't really believe what they are saying. Since in reality both sides think they are being reasonable themselves (90% of the time, sometimes people really are just trolling or are actually being dishonest) you end up with a rather pointless argument that cannot be resolved and which only hardens positions further. eg aGG Accusation: You only like feminists you agree with! Well no asterisks, Sherlock, I like feminists I agree with and dislike ones I don't. If I agreed with some other sort of feminist I'd like them instead. GG Accusation: You're in your ivory tower dictating to the unwashed masses! Well no, I'm trying to persuade you/ give my view and you disagree with me (and of course chances are that both sides will think that that summary is deeply unfair to them)

Meh, it's deterrence. In order to deter- as opposed to bluff- you have to actually be willing to use the deterrence and make it obvious that you will do so. That is all that this sort of redeployment and Putin putting nukes on alert over Crimea are meant to do, make it obvious that nukes are on the table so some moron on the other side doesn't decide that they aren't, really. After all, the west's military planners and especially their more hawkish politicians have not always been on the best terms with reality over the past decade or so. Whether Russia has good reason to think NATO will invade or whatever is largely irrelevant, Russia has basically one big card to deal and that is the ability to reduce all those shiny, technologically superior equipment and fine, well trained, handsome and generally awesome NATO troops to greasy smears and melted slag if they're ever used against her. If NATO ever goes after Russia it will be an existential threat and nukes will be used, nothing surer, because ultimately that's what you have nukes for. At that point whether it escalates further is moot, the mistake has already been made.

None of the Bioshock games are much good as fps. B2 is probably best as an fps, and even it isn't all that good. Conversely, what they are very good at is creating an atmosphere and (as long as you don't pay too much attention) telling a story, things which most fps aren't very good at. It's been that way since System Shock 2 really, much as I like SS2 if you play it as a straight fps it isn't much good, you have to treat it more according to its Thief roots, savour the ambience plus play on a hard difficulty and not rush around everywhere blasting everything; much like a Stalker title, really. The Bioshocks are far more about standard fps gameplay which unfortunately they aren't very good at, they do have tons of freedom in terms of tactics but there's very limited point in using half of said tactics because, by and large, just shooting stuff works better and there are just too many enemies to be creative. The stories and philosophy are pretty decent though. They're not great in any absolute sense, and if you look at the detail it's all too frequently incoherent but for games they at least try to put something a bit more into the story than most do, especially AAA ones.

And (to an extent at least) supporters of Hamas as well. It's one of those catch-22s, if Israel imprisons people without charge (or shoots them or whatever) it's fine, as they're preventing terrorism. If the PLO does it they're arbitrarily imprisoning people without cause and are Evil!!!- but also, if they don't they're allowing terrorists to roam free and are therefore also Evil!!! It's a perfect logical singularity from which not a single iota of reason can escape. Vologic at its finest in other words, and quite understandable in that respect since Volo always relies on FACT!s rather than facts- it's just a shame that so many people in international politics subscribe to exactly the same sort of 'logic'.

That's the authentic Bioshock experience in a nutshell though- looks great from a distance but if you spend any time looking at it in detail the whole thing starts looking just a bit shabby.

It's more likely that that bluster reflects his actual views. He's had plenty of time to act on a belief that there should be two states, and he hasn't done anything other than pay lip service to it so he gets invited to the right international shindigs and he gets more stall time. The only progress towards two states there will be with Bibi around is unilateral.

For this, it's a positive that he has so little time left. After all, Obama doesn't have to worry about being elected again and is seeking to establish some sort of legacy to be remembered by rather than his his current reputation as a generally photogenic but otherwise apathetic spineless jelly. Maybe he'll even end up post-hoc justifying that ludicrous Nobel Prize he was awarded all those years ago.

I'm slightly more upbeat about it as it will make it very difficult for anyone to argue to give (the) peace (process) a chance after this, which will greatly increase the probability of unilateral actions like recognising Palestine as a country. Realistically the past 15 years of peace talks have been stalling by Israel in order to get demographic facts on the ground established, neither Sharon nor Bibi had any interest in actual peace and it's now been made crystal clear to everyone. Once that is established it makes it far more difficult to stall, and far more difficult for the US to run interference. Who knows, maybe he's managed to annoy the White House sufficiently that some meaningful resolutions may even make it through the UNSC, certainly I can see them being more flexible towards Iran just to spite Netanyahu.

I'd suspect that they'd go for an agreement not to bring down the government with the Joint List rather than them being formally in government, that would cut down on problems getting other parties to join and is more compatible with what the arabs said prior to the election ie that they wouldn't join a government of any ilk. Even with just an agreement to abstain on confidence/ supply motions it would drop the coalition size required on the left to 54 from 61, assuming the Israeli system does not require absolute majorities on confidence/ supply issues. It may well come down to who ends up with the largest vote share, as they would presumably get first chance to make a government. Balance of opinion seems to be that Bibi has the advantage, even if it falls far short of being the great victory his speech claimed.

Not really what I was looking for. Batman got tied up/ captured pretty much every (bat) episode of the (bat) tv series, for example. The question was more about the reaction to being captured. Of those I would say that only the fourth one down comes close to being what I was looking for, which is something a bit beyond simply looking worried, the comparison would be more towards looking panicked or frightened as per the batgirl cover, and whether that tends to happen only* to secondary heroes, or women, or secondary hero women, or if it's more generally distributed. *I'd exclude examples like, say, Scarecrow from this, as their raison d'être is being able to panic even normally stoic characters.

To be fair, I can easily see that having a woman crying while being menaced by a (bad) guy with a gun in that manner has certain implications respective or irrespective of previous events- and that it would be unlikely that Batman or Superman or most other male superheroes would be shown crying in a similar situation. That might be because they're primary superheroes though, I don't know enough about the subject as to whether, say, Wonder Woman has been shown crying in similar circumstances or if she behaves more stoically as Bats or Supes would.

You're not obligated to agree with it, but it certainly isn't disingenuous. Plus you've been rather unfair in your implications, too. Sure, he says he did it 'voluntarily' having decided it was inappropriate, but that rather begs the question of why he made it in the first place if it didn't fit and was inappropriate- at some time his view must have changed, logically. That he has apparently been systematically blocking anyone who disagrees with his (new) view is relevant as it does not support that it's a decision he has come to by himself, but one he* has come to after listening to and being influenced by one side. Most significantly though, if it's disingenuous to post those tweets it was also disingenuous to imply it was a purely logical decision made by the artist alone devoid of external influences when it was certainly not*, and to imply that information had been left out when not only did the linked article mention it but so did the URL included in the initial post, to whit: '..comics-cancel-batgirl-variant-at-artists-request'. Can't blame the poster if people don't read the linked article, or even look at the url; that's the fault of the reader. *it's also basically impossible that it was solely his decision, covers are very heavily vetted by PR departments as they are usually the most prominent promotional material for a comic issue.