BruceVC

Both sides are gaining and as usual much more Palestinians will be released for each Israeli and the IDF has to withdraw from parts of Gaza The butthurt from the Israeli far right is hilarious but compromises needed to be made. We had no progress around 15 months of war so this makes sense https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/15/world/middleeast/ceasefire-netanyahu-israel.html " Critics of Mr. Netanyahu’s government, including many of the families of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, have repeatedly accused the prime minister of sabotaging past efforts to reach a deal in order to preserve his coalition — the most right-wing and religiously conservative in Israel’s history — and remain in power. Mr. Netanyahu and his loyalists have blamed Hamas for past failures to reach a deal. The current agreement was expected to gain government approval even without the support of the two far-right parties, since a majority of cabinet members are in favor of it. "

Yes, its not all because of Trump and Blinken deserves credit for his tireless effort and Qatar also needs recognition But I dont think its a coincidence that 10 days ago Trump was threatening " all Hell would break out " and now after 15 months we see this agreement Pressure was also put on Israel as I mentioned but it was done privately to agree to terms like Palestinian prisoners being released and Netanyahu wouldnt have wanted to do this because several of them would be implicated in the killing of Israelis but I dont think he had a choice Trump is a good deal-maker and loves to think of himself like that and that type of hubris has its positive aspects. Trump didnt want to become US president with the hostage deal unresolved so he made point of putting real pressure on Israel End of the day if it happens both sides will have gained something and that makes sense in the interests of compromise

https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/israel-hamas-gaza-ceasefire-hostages-01-15-24/index.html Real progress around the hostage release deal, both sides are gaining something and are in agreement on the terms Some of Netanyahu's right-wing ministers are not happy with this deal but he has enough political support to survive them leaving the coalition if they do But compromises have to made to get the hostages released so this is good news And I think Trumps deadline made a big difference in expediting this agreement so well done to Trump

I watched parts of the questions, it was typical of what I would expect with complete support for him from the GOP and the Dems being completely opposed to him Duckworth and Warren did seem overly worked up The Independent, King, asked the best questions where he asked relevant questions about the Genevan Convention and things like water boarding and Hegseth tried to avoid answering them because of previous comments he made Im not sure how Hegseth is going to be as Defence Secretary , it will be interesting to see

I dont recall that happening, if you can find links of Russian POW saying that it would be interesting

I really enjoyed it, its hard to think of Hugh Grant in a diabolical role but he did a good job The movie raised lots of religious and existential questions in an interesting way. I did assume it would be more supernatural but its well worth watching I watched this captivating movie last week https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Order_(2024_film) Its based on a true story about a white nationalist group that operated in the US in the 1980s and Jude Law is brilliant as usual @Gfted1 and @rjshae You should enjoy this movie

I dont know, there are lots of Russians who have been captured by Ukraine and I never heard it reported on that " we dont want to go back to Russia as a prisoner swop " In fact I cant recall any prisoner of war story where I have heard that? But I can believe that some NK soldiers would say that because this is specific to the reality of life in NK

It sounds good fun around its overall mechanics, I enjoy these types of RNG survival games I will play it

I do believe many NK if given an opportunity would love to not live in NK We have lots or precedent around NK citizens trying to escape the authoritarian hellhole they live in So yes its not hard to believe that some NK soldiers fighting in Ukraine dont want to go home

But you now believe that NK troops have been deployed to Ukraine\Kursk and you do accept that the original reports were true? Because initially you didnt believe it because only Western media was reporting on it?

Im about 12 hours into Witcher 1 and its been an excellent and nostalgic experience Now that I know more about the Witcher lore and world I am appreciating the game even more The combat mechanics are not great but Im use to them now but Im using a mod called FCR (full combat rebalance ) I had to use a cheat in the Beast battle because of how badly designed that battle was, I hate using cheats but I had no choice You end up having to fight the Beast with no potions and you immediately get attacked in a relatively small area and having to use the frustrating overall W1 combat system It just wasnt worth spending hours to win this battle, so I loaded a cheat mod that gives you 1000 health and then once the Beast was defeated I uninstalled the Cheat I am having loads of fun with the Romance card system, it makes sense because its better than the silly Bioware Romance scenes And then W1 highlights again what an honourable person Geralt is compared to many of the " good " humans he meets like all the degeneracy and iniquity in the village on the outskirts of Vizima The hatred towards Abigail from all the influential hypocrites in the town made my decision to support her easy It surprised me when someone like @Hurlshot said he doesnt like Geralts personality because Geralts core beliefs are about justice and helping the downtrodden and he is a good person at heart who demonstrates real humanity in a harsh world that lacks it

https://www.nknews.org/2025/01/ukraine-ready-to-hand-over-kim-jong-uns-soldiers-in-prisoner-swap-zelensky/ Further evidence of NK deployments in Ukraine But what made me laugh is one of the soldiers would rather stay a prisoner than to be returned to NK Imagine how terrible it must be in NK when you would prefer being a prisoner than going home " But video of the soldiers’ interrogation that he released the same day suggested at least one of the POWs may not want to return to the DPRK, raising concerns about the potential for exchanges to violate prisoners’ wishes and international laws against sending people to countries where they could face persecution. "

It looks good, I had never heard of it How is it compared to Sunless, it does seem simpler but similar?

Thats a good and quick summary of the Lost ending and overall narrative , it works for me more or less I still think there were unanswered questions But the main point for me is From must be more definitive around its ending Why dont you start watching From, it would be interesting to get your insights now while its still on season 3 with all the questions Its better than Lost and if you watched Lost to the end and enjoyed it you will be more than happy with From?

And what do you think the US deserves, can you give 2-3 examples that would be relevant to Trump becoming president? I sometimes hear this but I never hear specific examples of what it means?

Great read, its not a surprise that the common thread in most of the blogs is the appreciation and love of the strength of Obsidians story telling and world building Someone might say " but every RPG has to have good story telling " but thats not necessarily true. You can find entertaining RPG that are strong on combat mechanics or quest choices that you enjoy but the overarching narrative is not fantastic A grand and compelling narrative that is truly thought provoking is an art that Obsidian delivers on. And I gauge that on when I literally have to stop the game and think for 15-20 minutes about what choice I need to make and the consequence around that choice Like with PoE2 and with F: NV and who I should support around who ends up controlling NV

Not really because most people voted for Trump around the main voting issues which the Dems ostensibly failed on miserably And these issues were the border\illegal migration and inflation. They didnt vote for Trump because of his stupid comments about him wanting to annex Canada or Greenland

I have been preparing for my Witcher series replay I am going to start on W1 EE and I found this informative modding guide which I am following

I just want to clarify, did you watch to the end of Lost and did you not enjoy it? Or are you saying you didnt enjoy the ending and explanations but you enjoyed the formulae of " not knowing whats really going on " ? I loved Lost, it was the first time I had ever watched this type show and it blew me away with all the possible theories. I was disappointed by the ending, I thought they rushed certain things or changed certain things that were not part of the original idea. Like the smoke monster But Lost is still one of my favourite series and there were so many memorable scenes or developments like this one with Charlie, one of the saddest and most evocative moments I had ever experienced in any series.

I do have a problem with it and its one of the main reasons I said I didnt want Trump to become the US president He doesn't take the job seriously or he makes comments like this But thats not the same thing as me believing he is going to somehow annex Canada or Greenland

But Trump is not serious about wanting to annex these places. He is basically trolling, exaggerating and grandstanding about Greenland and Canada becoming part of the US

At least Russia is no longer involved in Syria and Assad is gone, so there is potential good news for Syria becoming a stable country and then millions of Syrians living in refugee camps can return home Thats something to be hopeful about

Im not sure why people believed that because it doesnt reflect the reality of the ME especially since 7 October and Trumps support of Israel and what Netanyahu considers is necessary to secure Israel from another attack There is as inaccurate view that Trump wont commit the US to any wars but there are certain geopolitical events the US has no control over but will get involved because of alliances But this particular " deadline commitment " from Trump is silly because what more can you do to release the hostages? Hamas has demonstrated " to the last Palestinian " so I dont see how the US getting involved will change that. You cant bomb the rest of Gaza to the ground because then you will kill the remaining hostages? Iran has some influence with Hamas but how much would they have around releasing the hostages?

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/07/politics/trump-warning-gaza-hostages-negotiations-inauguration/index.html Trump said lots of things in his latest media interview yesterday And as usual it was combination of theatre, hyperbole and things he believes and can implement But he stated several times " all hell will break out in the ME if the hostages arent released " by the time he becomes president "“It will not be good for Hamas and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone. All hell will break out. I don’t have to say anymore, but that’s what it is,” Trump said in remarks at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Tuesday, adding that “there should have never been” the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel." So this is what I call a Trump deadline commitment and he now has to to deliver on it The question is really what more can the US do to get Hamas to release the hostages, Gaza is already utterly devastated and Irans proxies have been severely eroded and still the hostages havent been released? It would have been better if Trump had said something like " one of my first priorities will be to get the hostages released " but now he has created a deadline that he needs to act on

I completed the main Underrail narrative after about 130 hours As I mentioned in previous posts its an excellent game and well worth playing What stands out as exceptional are these main mechanics and components Combat and how you have to adopt different strategies to win. In most large battles you cannot use the same approach exploration and the vastness of the map and then different places to find how you can use different builds to solve quests, lots of effort was put into this and it works The single hardest battle I had outside of the final battle was with an enemy AI called IRIS, it took me about 12 tries but I finally succeeded by using mines, EMP grenades and my PSI abilities and then I used the side room to control how the Robots could attack me and then I could focus my attacks on a specific area The only real criticism I have is the final Mutagen puzzle was too hard, I have never come across a puzzle that was so difficult to understand. I ended up using guides to finally create Exitus which is a basically a Mutagen and helps in the final battle I find it hard to believe that anyone could solve this puzzle without guides but obviously some people did that. If you a gamer who prides themselves on being good on solving puzzles here is an example of the solution to this. If you havent played Underrail it might not make sense but this link is an example of the complexity of what is expected https://steamcommunity.com/app/250520/discussions/0/412449508288532344/ And now Im playing Expedition and its great fun. I really appreciate how they add components like the NavCom device to help you navigate the map without making it too easy I like the factions and Im aligned with Aegis