Zoraptor

Most likely 'escaped vetting' or whatever just means that whoever read through it didn't see any negative interpretation. 'Escaped vetting' or similar is probably a bit of a disingenuous description in that case since it implies that the negative interpretation should have been caught when, really, you have to be looking to be offended by it to be offended. Still, it is certainly politic to say that since it implies it won't happen again, and I'd be certain they wish they had caught it earlier as this whole situation is lose/ lose for Obsidz whatever happens. I don't think it's as bad as it seems. That sort of thing is always self reinforcing, because those that don't care much about it may only post once or twice- they don't care much, after all- but those that are outraged will post more often and are also encouraged to post more often by seeing others who agree with them doing so, or to dispute with those that don't care much. While it's a bit subjective and based on what I've seen only (and I ain't systematically reading through 40 odd pages, for my sanity) most of those who are expressing outrage/ boycott/ money back demands here don't even have kickstarter or PoE badges. And at least the replacement poem has a decent amount of properly directed snark, too. And as for anyone expressing the desire to boycott Obsidian over it, well, you can always cheer up and have a look at the boycott CoD steam group jpgs to see how well the average gamer sticks to boycotts. (Hope c2b was just brofist harvesting on the 'codex, where else would I get my Obsidian news?)

Yeah but that's like going back through all Trevor Noah's back material looking for things to be offended ab... hmm no, not for Kuchera.

#StopKony2013! Ultimately the only answer to muslim extremism is to tackle Saudi Arabia, which is where the vast majority of extremism has its spiritual, educational and financial home. Won't happen of course, because drawing the link between wahhab/ salafi extremism and Saudi is politically inexpedient. And of course all the blunt instruments like bombing KSA will end in disaster as well, but it really is a choice between slowly unfolding disaster as Saudi funds more and more radical madrassahs and extremist 'resistance' groups, 'coincidentally' leading to more and more radical muslim terrorists and extremists while running around putting out dozens and increasing regional extremist brush fires; or tackling it head on at the source. A choice between two nice options, as always.

Found SoC and CoP and registered them in thirty seconds. I fear I may have ritually burned the box for Clear Sky, though they come close to giving that away every time it's on sale anyway.

"We have decided to replace 'experience points' with Sword Coast points that can be earned by performing tasks or may also be purchased directly by those with less time and who just want to experience our wonderful story and sensational character upgrade system. We feel that this fits well with D&D's philosophy and with best multiplayer practices"

From New Zealand, also British citizen- and I can/ do/ (have) write equally as baldly about the economic stupidity here; hooray for economic growth based on property speculation and overleveraged personal debt plus cow juice, What Can Possibly Go Wrong? Plus most of out supposed growth is based on rebuilding a city largely flattened by an earthquake, a rather unusual event not linked at all to the competency of those running our economy... but I doubt most people would find that interesting or relevant most of the time, despite it being most relevant for me. As I said though, everybody fudged them, not just Greece or Spain or whoever. France, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, everyone including the supposedly stronger and more responsible ones. Except Luxembourg, and fair due to them on that count but they aren't exactly the largest economy in Europe. Critically though, far from the Euro being dragged down by Greece or whoever being a disadvantage for Germany it has historically been an advantage, as it improves international competitiveness above what the old DMark would be at and Greeks etc didn't have German imports increasing in cost since they use the euro instead of a floating drachma; that is near pure advantage for Germany, at least up to the point where is becomes clear that the problems with the euro are fundamental ones and money lent is unlikely to be paid back. We're at that point now, and I don't see any way they'll genuinely recover without massive reforms which one way or the other will be unpopular and disruptive, because fundamentally, those weaker economies can never deal with their debt as the euro is structured. The idea of dealing with the crisis genuinely collectively is deeply unpopular in the stronger economies ('rewarding profligacy' etc) but the only real options are either that with proper enforceable fair rules for all to follow, or letting the weaker economies plain drop out. A barely tweaked status quo will not work. They're a special case, since they have the world's reserve currency. Anyone in their situation would leverage that advantage, and it's why they defend their status as such so vociferously.

It's a currency union without a fiscal union and the 'rules' for its entry and for entrants were and are routinely ignored by everyone (sole honourable exception to Luxembourg) and that has made it primarily responsible for the mess the PIIGSCetc have found themselves in. They no longer have the tools available to manage their debts because their currency is run out of Frankfurt so devaluation and the like were out (well, until it suited Germany) as options. And because their currency value was tethered to the far stronger German* economy it was overvalued relative to their own economy and their exports were artificially uncompetitive; in contrast Germany's economy was tethered to their weaker ones so the Euro was artificially lower and they were more competitive internationally. Net effect was weaker economies getting weaker as their competitiveness decreased (through no direct fault of their own) while Germany's got stronger, this further exaggerated the difference between the value of the Euro and where a 'real, sovereign currency's value would be both ways, further strengthening Germany and weakening the others. This was further exacerbated by Germany lending money to those weaker economies so they could continue to buy German products; and everyone ignoring the rules on fiscal responsibility. This meant that not only did weaker economies have overvalued currencies, they also had increasing debt burdens. Unsurprisingly, this was unsustainable and the house of cards fell down, and is still in the process of doing so as austerity ratchets up the economic disparity even further, all in the name of paying back the German banks that loaned irresponsibly and with no responsibility being taken by the technocrats who made 'rules' then never enforced them. The PIIGSCetc will never repay their debts, the best that can be done is a structured default without using the actual words, but it ain't going to stop them blaming the victim and exacting their pound of flesh prior to that inevitability. Fundamentally the eurozone is big B Broken. It's a mish mash compromise designed to appeal to politicians and Unionists, and offend as few people as possible; it is unbalanced, unfair and unworkable; a grotesque totem of pointless and ill thought out 'european integration' done solely for the sake/ appearance of said integration and either without any actual intention of being beneficial to all or being done with such horrendous incompetence that any good intentions were irrelevant. It's also close to completely unreformable. It has to be either a complete fiscal and economic union enforced with actual rules rather than follow them if you want, no worries if you don't- which won't happen; and even if it did would necessitate a sort of economic Marshall Plan that would be deeply unpopular in the wealthier states who completely lack the introspection to accept that they spent a decade sucking the lifeblood from the weaker economies with barely more morality than a crack dealer- or it has to go completely. There won't be a genuine recovery until either of those two things happen. *Not just Germany, effectively any stronger than average economy got the benefit)

How about an arranged marriage as an example... 16/18 daughter (over AoC, anyway, and not explicitly saying she's opposed to the marriage) brought in to cake shop by parents, going to be married to their 70 year old business partner. Traditional immigrant type dress, but no obvious religious affiliation implied. So there's no real legal impediment to the marriage, but a fairly huge potential moral objection, based on the vendor's morality and their perspective on the situation plus it has the potential for protest action whichever way the vendor goes.

Oby isn't delusional, he's just trollin'. But, the are actually pretty significant, mostly because the eurozone as it stands is fundamentally broken and there is no political will to fix it properly, only enough to paper over the cracks; and all the debt restructuring etc being done is just kicking the can further down the road.

Well, that's what the Romans said. It's basically propaganda, Rome pulled some extraordinarily shady stuff to justify its territorial acquisitiveness including things like claiming entire cities were not were they actually were and clients had a very... odd tendency to leave their kingdoms to Rome rather than their children. Most ancient historians are embarrassingly partisan*, much more so than even modern ones. Then again, oby's version doesn't really bear much resemblance either except perhaps as an off kilter reference to foederati. Most 'allied' Roman tribes/ kingdoms had ended up becoming genuine Roman land by C1 AD, and most of their neighbours didn't have recognised kings to depose or were too strong/ competent to do so (Parthians, Hermann/ Arminius) Or as someone else put it with deep sarcasm: Rome, the only city to end up with an empire by only ever fighting purely defensive wars against aggressors. Oh yeah, stratfor is pretty rubbish, but they certainly aren't in any sense 'the best western strategists', they're armchair generals with a reasonably prominent online following. *Which is why Thucydides is so good. About the only bias he displays is against Cleon, the guy who got him Ostracised. Yes, it's biannual Thucydides appreciation time.

That is why you have the distinction between 'tactical' nukes and 'strategic' nukes though. Tactical nukes are for tactical aims not strategic ones, same as there was a difference between tactical bombing in WW2 vs strategic bombing of cities and industry. Russia won't start a war with the intention of using nukes in it, they aren't going to attack NATO. But in a war with NATO in which they come under any genuine threat they will use tactical nukes to achieve tactical aims, because otherwise they'll lose. Does that make escalation likely? Yeah, but then so does the invasion, and you can rest assured (heh) that both sides have multiple redundant systems to deal with a strategic first strike by the other, the US won't hoodwink the Russians that way nor will the Russians v/v. Stating that nukes will be used explicitly has an explicit deterrent effect, otherwise, given NATO's history of aggression some McCainesque loon will decide that they won't really do it if we just bomb St Basil's or only assassinate Putin or something, everything will turn out fine; trust them, they know what they're doing. Nope, the result from that is exactly what trusting Sledge Hammer to know what he's doing would get you, a jolly red/ yellow mushroom cloud. Ultimately, if you only have nukes for deterrent value and state- or allow it to be accepted- that they won't really be used then they won't actually deter- because people think you won't use them. Tactical nukes are an escalation certainly and asking for more which is why you need to again have an explicit warning that they will be used, but they are less an escalation than turning the east/ west coasts of the US into glass instead, though that remains an option.

But the problem is, change the nouns around a bit and you have the exact same argument aGG uses against GG: Don't know about you, but I've seen that particular argument used literally (actually literally, not sjw literally) dozens if not hundreds of times to try and get proGG people to shut up because they're 'enabling harassment' or similar. Tempting as it is to use the same argument in reverse if you feel strongly about the subject- and while I am sure no malice is intended here and don't mean to imply any is- it is, at heart, the exact same type of argument as that. The problems with that sort of argument is the same whoever uses it; it doesn't really work to change minds, in fact it tends to make people hold their views more strongly/ think the person making that argument is being disingenuous/ strawmanning them and is just a cheap attempt to get them to shut up. By personal observation I'd put that sort of argument by aGG types against neutrals as probably the 3rd largest recruiter for GG, and probably largest for people who are mostly 'anti-antiGG'. Those sort of arguments certainly had a big influence on attitudes of high profile people like TB and Mark Kern, for example.

Seemed very much like that Alan did feel that way, which is why I wanted to quote his response. He probably won't have time to respond, but I think its a valid question regardless. Well, to me it seems like Alan is being an apologist for the bullies. Yeah, nah. That is pretty much identical to the argument aGG uses against GG in trying to get people to apologise for various anonymous twitter trolls and the like, as well as things like 'sea lioning'. It's not very fair there and it isn't really fair here either. You're only responsible for your own views, not for anyone else's nor for them taking their views to extremes, whether you're pro or anti GG. If you think Anita is a charlatan you aren't responsible if someone thinks that plus decides to threaten her. I don't agree with Allan overall and I don't think the limerick should be removed (though I agree that from Obsidz perspective not having it in in the first place would have avoided these problems) because it is a joke and an equal opportunity joke as well, but people can honestly hold the opposite view without automatically being tarred by association with the tactics of the rent-a-mob moral outrage brigade. Let's be honest here, there's very little chance of Allan trawling through the game looking for things to be offended by, and there's no reason to disbelieve that he is actually playing the game either- though it is likely that neither of those two things are true of some of the other very vocal complainants, especially anyone brought in by the 'retweet my outrage' requests. There is an entitlement to having a genuine opinion. Basically, don't be George Walker Bush- all a 'with us or with the terrorists' attitude does is create a whole lot of unnecessary terrorists.

That series has Cliff 'Uncle Bully' Curtis in it, so I have to support it. Funny really, he's done a huge amount of stuff both here and overseas including some reasonably big movies and TV series but here he's still most famous for being having the snot spectacularly beaten out of him by Jango Fett in Once Were Warriors and not having some eggs cooked for him. Pretty good TWD finale for a pretty good season overall, probably best since S1 at least.

It probably would have been sensible to exclude the PoE poem beforehand, this sort of controversy does not have a happy resolution for Obsidian since either the censorship or anti censorship will get upset whatever the response now. Still, the poem itself is pretty harmless overall. While I can see how it could be seen as transphobic arguably its inference that heterosexual men are so insecure in their sexuality that inadvertent exposure to dong would make them kill themselves is at least as potentially offensive, so it's balanced. (Good thing Croc Dundee came out decades ago, I can only imagine the reaction to its 'transphobia' now)

To most practical purposes the formal Yemeni government doesn't exist any more. But it is/was US/ Saudi friendly which allows them to call this an intervention at the request of the legitimate authorities. Much of the cabinet is captured in Sana'a, and the formal 'President' ('President' as he resigned but then unresigned later) Hadi ran off to Saudi Arabia, it's at his 'request' that the intervention has happened. Really though, the US has very little militarily to do with this. Most drones attacks were in the east of the country anyway which is away from the main military action.

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.