Zoraptor

Citation They definitely (or at least it was a very convincing fake right down to altered bank records) were paying people to comment, because one of them was publicly complaining about not actually being paid the agreed amounts.

I read the first three books and that was pretty much exactly my reaction, so it probably isn't the translation's fault. I'd add rampant continuity errors as well. The author doesn't care about them, but to me they're the mark of a highly sloppy writer. OTOH they are worth checking out as a lot of people do like the Malazon books a very great deal.

Just blame it on Yeltsin, really. The west didn't help, but Yeltsin was just terrible and poisoned the well for any 'liberal'* successor. The neoliberal privatisations and kleptocratic oligarchs were stupid and stupidly implemented at least partly on western advice, but he could have said no. And he picked Putin as successor. The west wasn't obligated to help, their worst contribution was contributing deliberately to the sense of humiliation, triumphalism and then being such narcissists as to be surprised at the revanchist response. Which is ironic really, ask any western leader and they'll say that Putin has squandered/ subverted the Russian democracy Yeltsin bequeathed him, but they gleefully humiliated Yeltsin at every step and made him a laughing stock themselves. Which is partly why Nemtsov himself was such a footnote, too much association with Yeltsin, and too many western politicians trying to big him up as if western endorsement isn't politically counter productive in Russia. *except Zhirinovsky's incredibly inaptly named Liberal party.

Ooookay. roflcopters (better effort overall, still too obvious though)

Well, you can go look at some historical results if you like. Pretty sure Mr Kim or Saddam wouldn't tolerate a 5.8/10 for presidential performance (a C grade) or a mere 16% saying that things would improve (vs 45% saying they wouldn't), both results from previous polls by the same people while Putin was in office. Afraid you'll just have to face the FACT!s, Putin is genuinely popular. And it's largely the west's response that has made him so. If they weren't so keen on talking Russia down he'd have had far more domestic backlash, but nobody likes traitors and at the moment Cameron, Kerry et alia are managing to make anyone pro west look like a traitor.

Don't confuse not believing it's a necessity with it being a bad thing. It's a simple yes or no question, there is no need for the defensive deflection. I'd put 'black woman' fourth on a list of three things about her, behind being a racist and a pain the butt plus leader of Vault City. She isn't like Sulik or Marcus where their, uh, ethnicity has a major effect on their characterisation, she's just someone who happens to be black. If I were describing them then Tribal or Super Mutant would be near first because it heavily effects their behaviour, but for Lynette skin colour is not significant. Really, Jacob from ME2 would be just about the most memorable person in the whole Mass Effect franchise if skin colour (/ sexuality) were key to being memorable, as he is black and (potentially) gay as well. In reality he's about as interesting and memorable as a block of concrete and probably the least interesting companion in all three games- unless his skin colour and sexuality is considered important.

Ehh not really. I'd be pretty sure that is close to exactly what their reasoning was. You don't have to agree with it, of course, but I very much suspect they do quite genuinely believe that. Only real dissent from me would be whether people were just 'reporting on the article', there certainly seemed to be far too many articles doing that too quickly to be coincidence- but then again, it's not like people in general don't immediately leap on and enbiggen stuff they like and agree with even if they didn't have #DeadGamerTears to label it. I do kind of wish they didn't actually believe what they do much of the time, but that's a rather different sentiment. The 'Gamers are Dead' article had a basic, supportable premise- from a certain point of view. It was also poorly thought out and was, charitably, always going to be very inflammatory by its nature or less charitably, was deliberately designed to be such. In context it was deeply misguided in execution at least, if not in intent.

Wonder if they'd apply that law to Blue Division members and suchlike retroactively. I'm betting not.

Yeah, I rather doubt most intelligence services have any problem assassinating anyone they want and getting away with it no matter how gullible or not people are. Set up an alternative (often suicide) with evidence then label everyone who disagrees as a conspiracy theorist- worked pretty well for Tony Blair vis-a-vis David Kelly, after all. Find it rather doubtful that it was an 'official' assassination, personally. Pretty sure that Putin doesn't care that much about the 14% of Russians who don't approve of him, and he has other tools to tackle those he wants taken out of the picture, per Khordokovsky and Navalny so has very little to gain and there was no imminent threat. Muslims, some oligarch he's annoyed, someone thinking they're doing Putin a favour or someone thinking they're being a patriot appear far more likely.

Nah, it may be rational but it's certainly still chauvinist. The British didn't do it for anyone else's benefit except their own, they didn't give a crap about the Serbs (or Belgians), they did it to preserve the status quo in which they were top dog. After all, the British didn't threaten war on A-H over Bosnia's annexation any more than Russia did, for all that they were theoretically similar situations. As for the rest, you've made the decision that the war was due to German/ Austrian 'chauvinism' and disregard anything else. So what if A-H had plans to attack Serbia, many countries have plans to attack others and advocates for such attacks. They were given the perfect excuse, and the declaration of war was on the face of it reasonable in context and under the circumstances- the heir had been assassinated and with support from members of the Serb governmental structures. As I said, if Iran assassinated Joe Biden then sure, we can say that the US obviously had plans in the broad sense to attack Iran beforehand, but the reason would be the assassination and not the plans themselves- and labelling that attack as unjustified or chauvinist would be unfair even if it ultimately resulted in some sort of US/ Russia/ China free for all.

Can't really agree with that. Of all the belligerents the only two that entered the war 'reluctantly' were Britain, who would have found some other excuse to enter to protect the status quo even had Belgium not been invaded as that had been their doctrine for literally centuries plus were genuinely rather scared about the new German navy challenging them; and more genuinely reluctantly the US. Certainly the French and British attitudes were as chauvinist as anything the CP had, indeed the British and French were pretty conclusively (per Sykes Picot) still in their "White Man's Burden" phase- they were, especially Britain, just peak powers rather than ailing or aspiring ones. Most of the belligerents had no real war goals either. Britain and Russia were (ostensibly at least) protecting 'allies' in Belgium and Serbia rather than wanting anything themselves, Turkey had some rather vague notion of making themselves relevant again, the US had a very vague punish the Hun aim and Italy sold themselves to the highest bidder. Of all the main belligerents the only ones with somewhat clearly stated aims were France- despite being again ostensibly dragged in only via alliance to Russia- who wanted Elsass Lothringen back and A-H. The rest were very vague containment/ decontainment type stuff. Because the allies won people tend to think they had solid aims because they were able to dictate terms and take Germany's colonies, divide up the ME etc. Had the CP won we would almost certainly say the same thing about them nicking French and British colonies though, they certainly, if temporarily, dictated terms and achieved what might be classed as real aims wrt to Russia. It wasn't really personal and irrational reasons that kicked things off- Princep was certainly connected with the Serbian state and what he did was the equivalent of... assassinating Joe Biden, I guess. Were Biden assassinated by someone with equivalent connections to, say, Iran's intelligence infrastructure it would not personal/ irrational for the US to respond militarily and while not all the people would agree I would bet anything that the vast majority of politicians of any ilk would even if they hated Biden previous. WW1 was actually very much like the equivalent that happens in Victoria 2 quite often, war kicks off as a minor scuffle like the 'War of Austro Hungarian Honour' and becomes the Great War, you then add a bunch of completely ad hoc war goals and apply them if you win.

Nah, Luke and Leia is the only good romance in all of Star Wars. Well, that and Han/ Chewbacca. I really did dislike Carth rather a lot. So much so that I always, always nuke Kaidan in ME1 as it's the closest to killing Carth you can get. Indeed, if you could kill Sky in Jade Empire that would be one of the few things that could prompt a replay of that game.

Fixed that for you. I initially included Israel myself, but in terms of ISIS specifically I'm not really sure that they had much effect- especially compared to Saudi- so I took them out. Certainly true in the more broad context though, along with any human assets their own intelligence agencies have that say what they want to hear such as Chalabi in 2003. That's like asking an oncologist to treat someone who has gone off on an alternative medicine bender and has had their melanoma become dozens of secondary tumours throughout their body. There's nothing he can do except invent a time machine and convince the person that the frauds peddling snake oil should not have their advice followed. Hmm, my burgundy passport has expired and I haven't noticed any drop in my sanctimony levels as a consequence.

Your question is irrelevant as I would not have invaded Iraq in 2003. I would have won by, well, not being a moron in the first place. Which is the best way of winning, all things considered.

Lol. Said it before and I'll say it again, so long as the west lives in a fantasy of wishful thinking and ignorance and uses the psychotropic melange of (uncritically accepted) Saudi 'intelligence' to decide their ME policy they're doomed to asterisk things up over and over because they aren't even slightly grounded in reality, they're grounded in what they want to be true (basically, that everyone wants to be just like us if only they were given the chance; usually via flattening all their infrastructure and institutions without helping to rebuild them meaningfully then going "now, be like us!" and washing their hands of the whole mess and pooh poohing them/ absolving ourselves of blame when they inevitably fail having had to rebuild their institutions from scratch and create a 'democratic tradition' out of thin air) and what a country with a vested interest in turning every arab country into a loony toons salafi thugocracy want to be true.

The big problem with KOTOR is that the 'twist' was pretty obvious, from the first dream which you had... immediately after landing on Taris? Plus the Malak battle Gorth mentioned, the level cap kicked in about mid way through the last star map segment search and a few other things I disliked, but nothing too serious. Apart from that it was enjoyable enough while I was playing but it isn't a game I've ever felt any urge to replay, unlike its sequel. It's just kind of bland in just about every respect, it was all decent enough, the characters, plotting, systems, everything was OK, but just OK.

What, people have never heard of (American) Ninja Warrior, the TV show? OK, it's not a drama though, it's more like that greco-roman wrestling audition and training show, NXT.

Unsurprising, to the max. Annoy the west, remove litigation and get extra cash, why wouldn't they- especially after cancelling the last deal solely due to western pressure. Heh. Both Mossad's and the USNI assessments are that they haven't even been trying for a bomb, in the US case that's their belief from 2003 to present. There's a massive disparity between what is reported, what politicians say and what the actual analysis is. The isolation campaign is pretty stupid though. If they want Saudi to moderate some of their stuff (massive support for all the scenery chewing loony tunes Salafi nutbars currently asterisking the ME and radicalising Islam with their crap) having a counter weight is actually good, plus the policy hands Iran to Russia on a plate- and if Russia ends up wanting Iran to have nukes there ain't anything anyone can do to stop it.

Too popular isn't quite the right phrase for it, imo. The academy are capable of voting for popular movies (such as the really quite rubbish Return of the King, by far the worst of the three lotr films, Titanic) but there'd be a fair few people there who would find the more gung ho/ war pr0n aspects of it distasteful in a way they wouldn't find, say, The Hurt Locker to be. Kind of like what happened with Zero Dark Thirty.

I'm always reminded when knees jerk up through tables over terrorism that the only act of international terrorism here was by the French DGSE, ordered by the French Defence Minister. What, exactly, the reaction to that would be in the current climate is really rather an interesting question, since it wasn't committed by the 'right' people to push any particular agenda- for the French not much except for the embarrassment of getting caught by crack counter intelligence agency the 1980s New Zealand Police and for us... well, I can't see us deciding to spend $150 million on monitoring people saying 'zut alors' in comical accents while wearing stripey skivvies, onion coils and berets on the chance they might be radical French agents bent on mayhem. They might enjoy all the back episodes of 'Allo 'Allo they got to watch though. More people die from just about anything other than terrorism, and there's already too much information. Both the Charlie Hebdo guys and this guy were already 'known', adding an extra order of magnitude to those 'known' is hardly going to improve matters, when the vast majority of suspects never do anything.

Don't know about sub Saharan Africans (the sugar digestion thing may well be lactose intolerance, which would actually lower weight gain from dairy foods and is highly prevalent in African genomes as well as fairly common in Asians) but Polynesians are certainly very prone to getting overweight, due to their historic diet being both very low in fat and having deprivation cycles from being on isolated islands; so the ability to put on fat as efficiently as possible in the good times is crucial. Here Polynesians are highly represented in poorer sections of society and thus tend towards eating fast or convenience foods a lot- which is bad for everyone if done too much but is particularly bad for them. Plus, due to the historic issues fat people are seen as being higher class, as previous only the very powerful got excess food. It's ironic though, because Polynesians tend to be extremely good at sports and extremely fit, so long as they control their diet.

Trying to hold Debaltsevo was foolish. The rebels retreated from Kramatorsk and Slavyansk in good order when they were obviously going to lose, that point passed at Debaltsevo a week or more ago.

It's CK2 and at least one other Paradox game, 'Lionheart'/ King's Crusade (albeit both have the original downloads still available) and gamergate has converted other titles to steam keys at publisher insistence- iirc both GTASA and GTAIV were direct GG downloads but the last patch converted them steam keys. There was actually a GOG thread in their forums with a list of the titles effected.

In all seriousness, I think I've been offended about twice in 21 years on the internet, though I may have professed to be so at people insulting my eHonour on occasion. And never here, even during rigorous debate on climate change. Well, it's probably a bit difficult to explain well, but I'll have a go. It is, of course, a fuzzily defined idea, and I'd freely admit the phrase I use is effectively a cop out due to that, but it's the best I can do for something that will always be doubly subjective: my guess of people's potential offence vs their actual beliefs; there cannot be hard rules on that. In the end the implementation of it is pretty simple, I weigh potential for offence against post value and try to maintain a balance between the two. If I think a particularly worthwhile post is also offensive I'll usually try and remove as much offence as possible, but in the end it is a balance. That process I see as essentially good manners and a matter of good faith. So, as a semi topical example I wouldn't post a Muhammad cartoon personally, despite believing that others have the right to, because I consider it is unnecessary and it is clear muslims find it offensive whether or not I do- and any point you can make by using it you can make without using it. Utterly subjective, based on my opinion, arguably PC- I don't really care, it's my view and I regard it as... dunno really, again good manners and good faith probably covers it. I have no problem with me voluntarily moderating my free speech because of something I believe. I've never been for all out freedom of speech as a goal in and of itself, ie saying whatever you want whenever you want to with full free speech protection for anything, and practically nobody is. Anything that causes objective damage to another- libel, or in the broader sense insisting you can smoke in non smoking areas- well, you're inflicting more than just your views on someone in those cases. It's the subjective damage which is always the question. It may be hubris but in the end I have to use my judgement on it as I hope everyone would. I also regard it as fundamentally reciprocal, neither I nor anyone else should censor others based on simple feelings. When it comes right down to it there are tools to allow people to ignore content they do not like beyond merely banning it outright- ignoring users or simply not opening threads. The alternative is like deciding the radio may only play elevator muzak because it's inoffensive and some people don't like the occasional heavy metal song, or country, or Bieber or whatever, when they can turn the volume down or switch to another channel. Not a perfect analogy of course, but the gist is there.

All of them are available steam free from alternative vendors such as Gamersgate, though Majesty 2 there at least had securom when I bought it. Of the ones listed that are actually Paradox Europa Universalis would have lowest barrier to entry, though I would rate Crusader Kings 1 as best overall its learning curve is near vertical. Majesty is also very good and easy to learn, but also very different from the others and most Paradox games as it wasn't originally a Paradox product.