Agiel

It seems to have been for the most part a geopolitical Kabuki dance. The damage had largely been mitigated by giving the Russians advanced warning, who subsequently passed this to the Syrians so they could move anything of value from the pre-planned aimpoints, while giving the larger public the impression that Trump would be firm where Obama would not. The Russian MoD's claims of a 50%+ failure rate for the Tomahawks seem to have largely been for domestic consumption to further downplay the strike and give justification for not being particularly reciprocal to the US-led coalition (and not just because the balance of combat power in Syria is far less in Russia's favour than they'd like to admit). We saw the same effect when those Vagner mercenaries got beaten back by the coalition a few months ago (there was even whispers that their decision not to interfere with strikes against them may have been the top brass' way of taking the PMCs down a notch).

I don't think it's weird at all. It's difficult to imagine that when the dust starts to settle that the Assad regime will be any less repressive than it was prior to 2011, and plenty of reasons to believe it will be even more. Particularly when the response from the international community is fairly muted, the messaging of Assad's outward denials are not mutually exclusive to the implicit message for domestic consumption, that being something to the effect of: "In the future I will resort to overwhelming force to suppress anything that even begins to resemble a revolt. And if you think anyone will come to stop me, then you need only look to the international response thus far to dispel that notion."

A Ghost Recon DLC announcement heralds the return of Michael Ironside to the role of Sam Fisher: Now they have me 50% onboard for a new Splinter Cell game. If it turns out it was what Clint Hocking was brought on to do when he rejoined Ubisoft then they got me for the other 50%.

Mom gave me a call that she got laid off this Friday, on top of a hyperthyroidism diagnosis from her doctor. She's never been one to be a layabout, seeing as she was the type who always kept busy on the weekends doing freelance stuff, so here's hoping that she won't have any trouble finding work of her caliber at her age.

A theory that's been stewing in my head for the premise of Stranger Things Season 3:

Near as I can tell to play Ubisoft games past a certain year running it through Uplay is _required_. In fact, if you wish to play Ubisoft games from now on it would make more sense to simply purchase it from their own service, maligned as it is, as getting it through Steam would seem to just add an unnecessary hoop to jump through just to play the game.

Bravo Zulu, Finland.

Watched <<The Death of Stalin>>, some idle observations: 1. While the casting was strong already, Michael Palin (whom every Python fan worth his or her salt knows is the best in the group) was what really brought me on board. Of course one can't watch something with Palin involving the Soviet Union without thinking of a certain Monty Python sketch: 2. Thanks to this movie, I now can't picture Georgy Zhukov speaking _without_ a Yorkshire accent. On that note... 3. In spite of rather positive reactions from Russian film critics the movie nonetheless got banned in Russia with one of the reasons stated being "Marshal Zhukov is portrayed as an idiot," which gives me the impression that the censors didn't even bother watching the flick, as he's probably the most likable, competent, and morally upright character in the film (participation in ostensible coup d'etat notwithstanding, though nobody is going to lose sleep over the victim).

Vermintide 2: We finally get polearms in this game! The Elf can also now be a High-Elf Handmaiden or a Dark Elf Shade, but would much rather have preferred a Wardancer, speaking of which... The game calls the two-handed sword the "Wardancer's Blade," which is a bit of an odd choice; Wardancer in the tabletop could only carry either two hand weapons or a spear, though granted one of the models in the kit only carried one hand weapon. My Witch Hunter alt. He can also be a Bounty Hunter, which in the current meta is a better choice, but I think I'll stick with him as is, because goddamn _hat_.

I want to see Klovis and the Redemptionists.

Valve are “going to start shipping games again,” were jealous of Nintendo So are they going to re-hire Marc Laidlaw, Erik Wolpaw, Chet Faliszek, and Clint Hocking (whom I presume left Valve after briefly working with them because of the lack of focus on single-player games)?

Sorry to bring this conversation back up but I felt the game could have benefited from bigger player counts in a game as well as dedicated servers, bringing it in line with TF2 and made a game that I would have totally been on board with. Servers would go a long way towards building communities that regulars could come back to, and the bigger player counts would have had the effect of reducing the effect a sub-par or mediocre player would have had on the overall effectiveness of a team.

As I warned since 2015 and in the last iteration of this thread, those expecting consistency or loyalty from Trump are bound to be disappointed.

That seems to have happened, more or less, and at least one prototype has the new engines fitted already. So it is possible, just very unlikely. I wouldn't be quick to jump the gun to say that we'll see those airframes involved in actual combat ops, or even weapons release, so the blog's assertion makes sense if those Su-57s are in-country for a short stint for further testing and trials. Keep in mind that it's only been 8 years since the PAK-FA's first flight, where it took 14 years from first flight of the F-22 to introduction and 12 for the F-35.

New engines are not set to be implemented for quite a while.

Perhaps a better man would have rushed in to at least do something, even if it would come at the cost of his life as happened to Feis, but from the deputy's perspective he would have little idea as to whether he faced a lone gunmen or several (remember that the initial reports on the Newtown shooting claimed that were two active shooters) and listening to the gunfire one could easily conclude that in all likelihood he was vastly outmatched in firepower. And even at the moment of truth do not discount the possibility that even a trained person will blow it:

I guess you assume everyone is armed. convenience and accessibility is what makes handguns the real threat to people in this country, even if rifles get all the press. fear the government, then rifles make more sense. fear foreign invaders or indian massacres as were the fears o' founding fathers and rifles make more sense. want militia, then rifles make more sense. wanna reduce stoopid homicides and suicides (which actual vast outnumber murders,) then rifles makes more sense as the firearm deserving protections. a rifle is not so much an impulse weapon as is a handgun, and is gonna be making life less scary for cops to rid handguns and keep the rifles. I think the big gun control bugbear when I was growing up was less gang-bangers doing drive-bys, angry ex-husbands, or disgruntled workers shooting up the post office and more misfires and kids finding a loaded gun (or at least one that still had one round chambered) that wasn't stored properly and accidentally firing it.

Trump moves to ban 'bump stocks' 4 months after Las Vegas shooting If the most ardent defenders of the 2nd Amendment were expecting consistency or loyalty from Trump then they've missed three decades of signs to the contrary.

Trump: 'We want to get twice as many planes for half the price' Seems that he would find Soviet defence acquisition policies quite attractive. The above quote reminds me of a story in which a PVO Marshal boasted that his service was purchasing Su-27Ps for the same price as MiG-29As. Anyone with a passing knowledge of aviation would know that this is an absurd assertion, considering that the Su-27 is a larger and more sophisticated aircraft than the MiG-29, but given how the Soviet military mindset was of a weird parallel universe in which labour and materiel had no monetary value...

This is what you get when you buy stuff from fellow nerds overseas: If I'd known the guy I got this from would go all out with these stamps I would have asked him to use a Battle and Action stamps on this.

I believe it was really just a checkbox thing, though I myself never really gave it a fair shake. From what I remember when I was reading and re-reading articles on the first game during the long agonising wait I came upon a preview that focused on the multiplayer, which seemed to offer only somewhat more depth than Counter-Strike (something like teams that would hunt for Artifacts throughout the level to sell so they can buy better gear).

I rather liked the amount of reactivity Arcanum had, but I can't quite recall appearance having much of an impact in a whole lot of instances.

Or spend the ~$50 million a parade might cost on PTSD treatment and veteran care. If he wanted to see hardware on display he could just go on down to MCAS Miramar to see the air show or to San Francisco for Fleet Week. Something tells me he'd be at least a little disappointed if this thing does come to pass that the US doesn't employ TEL vehicles with phallic-looking missiles mounted on them like Russia does anymore: Hey, might explain that utterly inane Nuclear Posture Review they put out recently.

Some Enki Bilal artwork to commemorate the milestone: