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I love you guys.

Hey, bro. You might want to take a look at this, too. Only in Russia(n-speaking areas) right? Wake up. Never suggested otherwise, but we were talking about Ukraine. Are you capable of talking about this without deflecting with examples of US brutality, of which I'm sure there are many. Seems to me a lot of people are stuck in a simplistic binary view here. Everyone tries to manipulate the media, they aren't all this ham fisted about it though. Excuse me, who died and made you the sole authority on what "we are talking about"? The narrative is that Sloviansk's "People's Mayor" and his thugs were arresting journalists in an effort to intimidate the press. This deserves strong condemnation. It does indeed, but to issue a condemnation you need a modicum of moral integrity. Stuff like what I posted completely destroys any illusion that such integrity exists. Or are you suggesting that the reason why her case isn't relevant is because everyone agrees that the downward spiral towards a police state the US is on is self-evident and therefore no exploring it is necessary? Didn't think so. Problem is, it's not even comparable. Ostrovsky was released after three days, largely unharmed, except for his own account of being beaten. McMillan's mistreatment is well documented and she will go to jail for a long time unless the sentence is overturned in appeal. The authority of Sloviansk's "People's Mayor" isn't recognized by anyone, not even Russia, while the system that abused and convicted McMillan is actually the freaking US judiciary. I just figured that, in your outrage, you might be interested in this blatant violation of civil rights. I guess I was wrong, which makes your comment about a "simplistic binary view" all the more ironic.

Oh, I don't doubt it. I freely admit that I have peculiar tastes. Could never get into PST or Arcanum either. I'll probably give it a serious try at some point.

After trying—and failing—to get into TW1, I'm trying to set up a BGT installation with ~30 mods. The Big World compatibility document is more than 300 pages, and they apparently recommend using an automatic installer because it's such a headache and chances are good that doing it manually will break something. I checked the EE forums to see if the mod scene has picked up the slack, but some of the best pieces are still not compatible (Spell and Item Revisions, for instance), so it's still a no-buy for me. It's funny because it's almost as if this was a Bethesda game. If it doesn't work or I get bored while trying to sort it out, I'll probably go for a second playthrough of NWN2. The good thing about a forgettable OC is that it'll be like playing it for the first time again.

Hey, bro. You might want to take a look at this, too. Only in Russia(n-speaking areas) right? Wake up.

Don't make non-combat builds. Yeah, pretty much this. Or alternatively pick a clan that has Celerity and faceroll ALL the things.

That's a question you should ask Paul Wolfowitz, methinks. At any rate, the whole point is that Bruce is unhappy with the Nigerian gov't progress at dealing with Boko Haram. By comparison, the Americans swooping in and "dealing" with them would be, in his mind, quick and easy indeed. Because if it wasn't quick and easy, why the hell would he be suggesting it? You are right. Your info is out of date. America did not "wipe" the Viet Cong. America first shifted the burden of the fighting to ARVN after Tet, and later withdrew completely. The massive losses sustained by VC during Tet would have rendered it a phyrric victory if the South could have mounted a counter attack and destroyed them, but that simply didn't happen, as they still had the NVA to deal with. After the communists won the war, VC was dissolved as it no longer had a reason to exist. I guess my definition of "practically" is simply different. As for the Tamil Tigers, yes, that is, as I noted, one of those rare occurrences where an insurgent movement with significant popular support is defeated largely by force. The fighting had raged for more than three decades and in the end a permanent solution was as much political as it was military. That's, er, the point I was making. LOL "the US pacified Iraq".

You should go back and read the previous page to see how Valorian was insulted and baited by Drowsy and Sarex for expressing his opinion. Then comment on who is being rude to who I'm sorry, you mean before or after he said Serbs should be thankful for the NATO bombings?

What do you mean? I got it from GOG. I avoid Steam whenever I can. I can't tell if you're being facetious... but SR uses the Unity engine.

^ That's some quality baiting there, champ. I'm tempted to reply myself, and I'm not even Serbian! edit: Serbian? Serb? Whatever

Yes of course! An "effective" military campaign can do it, because if it fails to solve the problem for good, it wasn't "effective" to begin with, and your argument will emerge intact still, right? Only historical occurrences seem to suggest that military campaigns rarely can finish insurgent movements. No, not even in some magical "African context" where apparently force works where otherwise it wouldn't. A very progressive attitude, by the way. Oh, and the insurgency in Mali isn't over by a long shot, and we'll see what happens when the French pull out completely. The Sierra Leone civil war lasted for a decade. Quick and easy, right?

Seriously, "the Americans have the capacity and resources to deal with Boko Haram"? Like they have dealt with the Taliban? Like they dealt with insurgency in Iraq? Like they dealt with the Viet Cong? Read up on irregular and asymmetric conflicts: the Tamil Tigers, FARC, Naxalites, PKK, Shining Path, etc. In the (few) cases where conflicts involving guerrillas have been settled, it has taken decades of concerted economic, social, political and, yes, military efforts to reach a permanent solution. I simply can't wrap my mind around the fact that, after the military approach as been proven ineffective pretty much everywhere it's been applied, you keep suggesting that America must go in and fix it by force. Because hundredth time's a charm, right?

Nah. It's just that it's pretty much a given that abducting schoolgirls is a bad thing and so some folks here don't see the need to jump on the OMG bandwagon—others have that part well covered already. Rather, it's a matter of WHAT does the West do, how we do it, and most importantly, *why*. I have a right, nay, a duty to protest illegal or unethical actions my government takes because they are doing it in my name, but that doesn't hold true for foreign actors. One can go all Sir Charles Napier over this (seems to be what Bruce's calling for), but that implies that Nigerians are not ready to handle their own affairs... and thus Western tutelage is warranted. We all know where that line of thinking leads. At any rate, I'm not too sure what the point of this thread is... though I raised an eyebrow at the suggestion of incompetence on the part of the Nigerian authorities. It's not like the West has a magic wand for dealing with mass kidnappings or situations that involve entrenched gunmen and hostages, especially if the gunmen are keen on becoming martyrs. It's a **** situation no matter what flag is hoisted.

You brought it upon yourself, tbh. Don't post live executions stuff and other tripe and you'll be fine. I've butted heads with moderation here more times than I care to remember and it was always for doing stupid **** like circumventing the language filter or creating alts to avoid moderated posting, never for the actual content of my posts. Don't try to be clever. Also, I imagine there's a wealth of news items and different perspectives in Russian language sources, but as far as Spanish language sources go... heh.

It's longer than Dead Man's Switch. It has *some* actual C&C, slightly better gameplay, squadmates now have personalities—it's just better all around. The engine was patched to feature a "save anywhere" function that applies to DMS as well. It's standalone in the sense that both campaigns are unrelated (one takes place in Seattle, the other in Berlin), but you need the base game to run the expansion. I bought it for full price (~11€, and being the cheap bastard that I am, I never do that) and I'd say it was worth every penny eurocent. The only thing I'm disappointed with is that HBS are unlikely to release further expansions. edited for localization

I was going to write something... but I doubt I can put it better and more succintly.

Well, that's just great. Another chain of major foreign policy blunders that ends up playing right into Putin's hands. If Russia does indeed intervene, federalization (one of the proposed solutions by the Donetsk People's Republic) will basically be out of the question, and probably independence too. I wonder if this is actually the outcome Biden was hoping for? Disintegration of Ukraine and annexation of parts of it by Russia so it effectively ceases to exist as a buffer zone? Remember: if it's not on Wikipedia or the BBC, they are "random links on the internet", and they can be safely disregarded.

I'm sorry, you shouldn't read my posts under the assumption that all of them are crafted to fit in with my overarching anti-EU, pinko leftard, conspiracy theorist master plan. Only a vast majority. It seems to be a long-standing point of contention between you and me, and it's somewhat tangential to this thread. It goes back to other discussion where you argued that some international justice is better than no international justice, and that an actually impartial international justice system is unrealistic because the enforcer will never be impartial. My position was that "some" international justice is in fact no justice at all if some parties are both apparently immune and running the show while others seem to be consistently targeted, regardless. As a result of the perceived unfairness and the fundamental injustice that this represents, it's not surprising that some feel disenfranchised and rise to challenge the legitimacy of the system as a whole, often violently. Universality and consistency are two of the pillars of justice. But justice matters little when you can get away with whatever, because force, applied or threatened, and not reason, is the ultimate problem solver in human affairs throughout history. "International law" is little more than a way to play the Great Game while paying lip service to Enlightened ideas. But what goes around comes around.

So the logic here is, it's OK to use heavy weapons against insurgents if they are backed by Russia. If not, the government has no legitimacy to quell riots, it must fold to the insurgents' every demand, and the President must be dismissed and tried for treason. And if you think I'm being overly sarcastic, think again. It's actually how things work once you realize that laws aren't worth the paper they're printed on, that reasons can always be cooked up after the fact for the history books to help the masses sleep easy and that, indeed, might makes right. "Stop quoting laws, we carry weapons!"

^ You got it backwards. It is the government waging regular war against the separatists to retake parts of the country they had lost control over without any actual fighting. This is after going back on internationally brokered deals that were backed by Russia twice. I guess the separatists should just stand down and go home, right? Because that's what people at the Maidan square should have done once the fighting broke out? lel consistency

'PC games have surpassed console games globally' :smug: :masterrace:

I think it's fair to say that Ukrainian alignment with the EU and likely IMF bailouts would be like a root canal or some other medical surgery performed without anesthesia: a process that's long and painful, but the patient would eventually emerge better for it. And I've talked with some actual Ukrainians and they universally understand even if they were to magically join the EU tomorrow night it wouldn't fix things right then and there and that things would stay bad (if not get worse) before they got better. The EU may be undergoing one of its greatest trials and tribulations yet, but its future is brighter than Russia if it stays its current course. I asked this in previous iterations of this thread, and have yet to receive a concrete answer that is supported by the data we have. How exactly would Ukraine and the average Ukrainian benefit from a closer alignment to the EU? Why is this "long and painful" process necessary, and precisely what does "better" mean in this context? Better compared to what, at any rate? Can we see some actual figures instead of simply rehashing the same neoliberal articles of faith?

What? But... why? Another developer to scratch off my list, then. Bah. Thanks for the heads up.

^ I just checked. The Gamersgate version has Steamworks listed as its DRM. What the hell? Why bother setting up your own digital distribution service if you are going to force your customers to use the competition's anyway? The CK franchise didn't interest me all that much (I'm more a Vicky/HoI kind of guy) but the fact that it requires Steam is basically a deal killer. I hope it's not a trend.

So I got TW1+2 for like 5€ the other day in a GOG sale. Have downloaded TW1 but... can't be arsed to fire it up. Help me, Obsidianites. You are my only hope!