Raithe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkVHOoCUmu0

Hm, so is this PETA just being PETA? PETAs death squad arrives in Houston

Handled the online pre-registration stuff for my return to university life. Dang. All the flashy "student portals" and "dashboards with apps" to handle all of this. Part of me is feeling all old man grumpy about this use of flash technology.

So word is... New Indiana Jones movie won't feature Shia Labeoufs character

And Syfy cancels Dark Matter

Princess Mako officially leaves her royal status to marry a commoner with a "bright smile" For that touch of Japanese politics of a sort...

Heh. Distractify -Fox Poll

I suppose in a sense this could go up in Politics, but eh, it might be more for the conspiracy theorists... - Why are so many Russian diplomats dying?

Penzance world record attempt failed due to pub

Americas Clowns say new IT film costing them money

Ah, see, to me that slides politics not weird news.. That and juggling too many things to pay attention to everything. Edit: And I probably got distracted by the korean bbq.

On the law enforcement aspect... NBC - Utah nurse arrested for refusing to give a patient's blood to police without a warrant

Gamespot - Shadow of War adding dlc character to honour developer who died

Plus, as ME Andromeda has shown, having all single player content and care stopped while they continue to push the Co-op/Multiplayer full of micro-transactions is a wee bit annoying. Sure, the multiplayer aspect is "optional" , but people don't pick up a ME game (or similar) to play multiplayer. For me it's all about having an interesting (or silly) story to enjoy and have fun with, and poke at what consequences might spiral out from my actions as I play through. So while on a certain level, I can't rant against optional multiplayer, it does seem silly to strip away resources that could go towards improving the main focus of the game. Most of my gamer friends are in different countries and on wildly different time zones to me, so it's not as if I'd ever really get into regular co-op play with them, and having to deal with random strangers who get introduced to you for half an hour, who might or might not speak the same language, does tend to suck any thought of actual strategy away turning it into a general crapshoot.

On another consideration, I was re-reading Ilona Andrews Hidden Legacy trilogy - Take that setting which is a relatively modern day world, which magic happened to be discovered on, and has created a secondary system of "celebrity / pseudo-nobility" in the form of Houses with magical talent. Types of magic tends to breed true, and so they've evolved into that economic powerhouses that have literally been forming marriages and alliances to make sure the children produced are smarter, stronger, have greater magical power. If a House doesn't have enough "significant" members, they get stripped of being a House and all rights and responsibilities there of. That would be an interesting type of setting to do that mix of political / epionage rpg with some management aspects. If you could do an Alpha Protocol style choice and consequences but more aimed at political machinations, behind the scenes intrigue, defending from (or arranging) assassination attempts along with outright "House Wars" carefully conducted under specific laws, limits and tradiitions... Trying to keep your House and family safe while growing in power and influence.. Managing the financial aspects of your House, along with physical assets, family members, oathsworn guards and the like. Different factions of other Houses, local city / country civil structures, non-magical groups, and various civilian agencies...