213374U

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...=world_newsreel Airstrikes NATO plz! Good luck with that. And also, good luck with getting the colonel ultimately responsible for the unit under whose care the poor bastard died to answer for it before a court-martial. Not even platoon commanders were tried... heh. We simply don't much care what happens to them towelheads and monkeys, and it's high time we admitted it.

Wrong. (as usual) Funny how the rebels merely "suspect" those blacks of being pro-Q mercenaries -though apparently mere suspicion is enough to get you a bullet to the back of the skull in brave new Libya- yet you can give us assurances that they were. How's the weather inside your colon? edit: as for the "no racism" idiocy: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405...3328336026.html

@Wals: no, can't help you. We went back and forth in the original thread, it should be around somewhere. I can give you an example off the top of my head: Q absolutely HAD to be stopped from committing atrocities on civilians, but if it's the good rebels rounding up people and executing them just for being black, no biggie. I'm sure that you can find more examples on your own. Not on Stratfor, though. Just for kicks: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...ated-Libya.html http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/31/...E7JV2CF20110831 Yep, I'm sure things will be way better with these guys in charge.

Those are babies, clearly.

Interesting theory, but I'd like to see some evidence that this will actually be the case. Unless "eventually" in this context is to be taken to mean "at a completely unspecified point in the future". Which then begs the question why Q's removal at this point was so critical, and how it is going to be the inflection point in Libyan history. What with precedents not being exactly comforting and all. I'm not too convinced that removing Q will benefit us that much, either. Even disregarding the fact that that wasn't the rationale behind the UN mandate for bombing the bejeezus out of them, there's the issue that Q was basically without friends internationally and hard pressed to keep his own house clean and tidy. In spite of Krez's prosaic attempts to prove what an active terrorist Q was by linking to something that happened even before he was born, there's little actual evidence that Q was a threat that demanded such expeditious action. Is this going to benefit the West? Perhaps, but I doubt it'll be as you suggested. Oh, nice. I know it looks like I'm actively trying to get under your skin, but I think he couldn't have put it better. If we're going to go back to this tutelage of nations where it appears they can't handle their own affairs without a bloodbath -and only if it's economically profitable, as you admitted previously- can we at least be open about it and drop the propaganda and perversion of language? If it's the right thing to do -and frankly I have no idea if it is- why are all the bull**** and double standards necessary? What are we so ashamed of?

Those aren't really worst-case scenarios, we've seen them elsewhere so it's not much of a stretch to imagine that Libya could see a repetition of any number of those. As for Q's connections to terrorism and the notion that removing him will lead to less terrorism as opposed to more... that was then and this is now. Funny, too, because depending on who you listen to, the rebels are in fact connected to Al-Qaeda. We'll see if this revolution eventually amounts to anything in terms of real change for the people -much less what was advertised as- which shouldn't be too difficult as Q really sucked as far as statebuilding goes, but if things go wrong down the road, who is going to take the blame? Heh. Oh, my. I must have hit pretty close to home to get such a rise out of you. Yeah, I'm deeply ashamed that my compatriots reacted both cowardly and stupidly in the wake of the 2004 attacks, but we're paying the price for that and will continue to do so for a few more years at best. That's neither here nor there, though. The reference is in poor taste by comparison. WWII, and the North African campaign in particular only share with the present conflict the geographic location. They aren't comparable in motives and they are most certainly not comparable in intensity. If you want to draw parallels between standing up to the aggressions of Hitler and Tojo and going to some backwater dictator's turf to burn it down with guided munitions without even bothering to put in the legwork ourselves, be my guest. But this whole "fight for freedom" has a really rancid stench about it so I'm not buying into it, not this time.

Even if they are only replaced by nominal democracies that work for all intents and purposes like the regimes they toppled? Even if they are plunged into an intermittent state of civil war? Even if living standards take a hit for all but the leading "revolutionaries"? Even if it leads to an anti-Western sentiment across the board? Okay, so then, other than the obvious lucrative reconstruction, weapons and raw materials contracts, how exactly is that a success? A success for whom, anyway? That's the Desert Rats shoulder patch from, you know, way back when Brits actually fought fascism. I think the reference is in kinda poor taste...

And because I'm such a huge nerd:

MSNBC disagrees. Great summary, though.

Wals, in general you are a fairly sensible chap and not at all suspect of distorting facts, which makes your stance in this all the stranger. You say Boo's points are arse, however: 1) In fact, intervention went lightning fast - less than one month after Q had started bombing towns; things were rushed when it looked like he would indeed succeed in using his airforce and armor to crush the rebels in Benghazi. I wouldn't exactly call depleting the ordnance stocks of some coalition members "understrength bombing", either.2) We both know that allied special forces are operating on Libyan soil... the question is only the depth of their involvement. 3) Sure... decapitation of his forces and insta-airstrikes on anything heavier than a technical. The difference in the amount of heavy weapons controlled by each side was one of the biggest problems in the early days of the war, remember? That has somehow ceased to be a problem... So how about we all stop with the bollocks, old boy?

Other than the obvious fact that the game failed to attract your attention, you mean? Heh. @Ros: DX is a great game, if you can get past the terribly dated graphics, even worse animations and lackluster gunplay. The plot and characters are what the game is all about, so if for whatever reason they aren't up your alley, you'll find playing it a chore. You should at least give it a shot.

Fascinating. Do you remember your first time fondly?

I very much doubt it. Unmanned may be fine for the drone's current role of cheap and cheerful ground attack but the idea of some sort of centralised control for air to air combat fighters? Too prone to ECM, too little situational awareness/ more ephemeral 'feel' and instinct aspects, too much latency. Not to mention that the idea of having aircraft basically stop working if their control centre is destroyed strikes me as a terrible idea- damage a carrier and all its aircraft drop out of the sky/ go into some sort of holding pattern/ nuke a chunk of the Nevada desert and suddenly a third of the airforce is unusable/ take out the satellites and effectively ground the entire airforce. And there's no realistic prospect of wholly independent combat robots in the near future (or pretty much ever, imo) as you simply cannot program for all the vagaries of combat. part o' the problem is that the aircraft has finally reached a performance level whereby the pilots is a limit on their efficacy. am not thinking we is talking 'bout wholly unmanned aircraft anytime in the new future, but is more likely than coming up with a new generation o' fighters... is no more great leap in fighter craft design 'cause the pilots simply cannot handle another serious leap in performance; you cannot improve the planes without also improving the pilots. major refinements o' avionics and weapons is gonna continue, but most indicators suggest that this is the last generation o' manned fighters. I'm also thinking that it's possible to come up with systems to circumvent the vulnerabilities arising from remote, centralized C3 setups, but unless genetics and drugs make a quantum leap in the next ten years, there's just no way to have human pilots come closer to the performance of machines. Also, considering the costs of pilot training and the risk of loss in combat, it stands to reason that officials would seek ways to make sure that as much of the investment as possible isn't directly in the line of fire. This seems to be one of those instances where technology does away with hard human limits and substitutes with a management question that can be solved easily by the Harvard crowd. Also, doctrines evolve, though not at the same pace as tech does. Air superiority as a role for specialized aircraft may be on its way to obsolescence, as happened to heavy and night fighters and, to a lesser extent, interceptors. Drones armed with guided munitions seem to have also phased out dedicated ground attack aircraft such as the A-10... but who knows what war against someone with credible AA would look like, today. At any rate, the Raptor and especially the F-35 look to me like the bloated, wasteful proof that US officials and brass are, as usual, "fighting the last war". And of course <rant about the MIC>

An example of the great music Origin used to put in their games...

IWD2 had some neato music, and it was pretty well placed. I like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjBvgt_s7Pw ****, yes. Origin games used to have awesome music. I wish plunging the world into a new dark age sounded as good as

The power-hungry demagogue in me would immediately choose 1, but I know these boards are chock full of weary stiffnecks...

So basically they are just showing that no police force can be everywhere at all times. They are apparently coordinating the attacks in a similar fashion as the Arab revolts did last spring, only this time is more Blackberry chat and less FB. I'm not sure if this is good or bad brand publicity. "Blackberry, the tool of the 21st century professional hooligan" It's kinda weird the complete ineffectiveness the police have demonstrated so far because Brits have a lot of experience fighting urban guerrillas and rioters in Northern Ireland. I wonder once police and/or military response gears up to actually put the riots down, will Sarko move to initiate humanitarian airstrikes on the evil repressors too? Will he ask for RAF support?

So, you can't gas them, you can't use rubber bullets against them, you can't douse them with water cannons, and absolutely no tasering them. Mobs leaving people homeless and sending officers to the hospital is perfectly fine, but a few riot cops appear on TV roughing up some bottom feeder and placing him in restraints, and the progressive-PC crowd will waste no time crying bloody murder, racism, police brutality, etc. Ah, things are looking up.

Is it wrong that I'm more interested in threads like this than those dealing with new games? I've all but given up gaming, but if the bug bites me, it's going to be either BG2 or DX. OT Thanks to Walsingham's creative thinking it's possible to outmaneuver some annoying mythology character and keep Drizzt's trash, but frankly I don't see the point. When the devs decide to be so in-your-face with the cheats, playing by the rules is absurd. Much more satisfying to turn into a flayer and devour his brain. Or would be, if the fight didn't go like *switch to cutscene mode, wizard walks up to you, wizard casts cutscene-Imprisonment while you stare at the pretty colors*. I think there was a mod out there somewhere that modified the encounter so the scripted shenanigans became an actual fight.

Maybe you should consider a career in marketing. I'm only half-joking - there's a lot of people like Krez.

And don't forget the antidepressants. PTSD is a bitch.

Hahaha. Irony.

Am I the only one who thinks it's Stanley Kubrick-absurd to suggest responding to gunfire with pinpoint rock throwing? Even without getting into a debate about effective ranges and stopping power... flying bricks? Seriously? And the only ones who would consider weight lifting to be an activity even remotely related to combat are perhaps some of those who dream of being bodybuilders. "This new program I'm on is DEATH... for the shoulders", "I'd KILL for 20″ arms", "Check out these GUNZ", etc. facepalm.gif This is why I love coming here.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...among-dead.html Facts, once again, trump fantasies. An unarmed policeman (unsurprisingly) failed to stop the gunman and got killed in the process. There's of course the fact that most victims were teenagers who would have a hard time subduing a healthy strong adult. But hey, what do I know. You can take out n00bs with knife headshots in Counterstrike provided that you are bold enough, so it obviously must be doable IRL. Even if you, uh, don't really have a knife. Oh, and oby, the attack you are referring to was a knife attack. The attackers themselves were rushed by a mob armed with sharp and blunt objects themselves, so they were both outgunned and outnumbered. But yeah, the West is weak and decadent, because political leaders here don't wrestle polar bears before breakfast. So, fantasize on, Obsidian forums!

Either you or Ros don't understand what tolerance means, as a political and moral concept. However, given your mutual general posting tones, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you are misrepresenting his position to build a manichaean fallacy regarding "tolerance" in the West. Tolerance isn't about smiling politely at public stonings or nodding sagely at genital mutilation because they are performed by people from "other cultures", and obviously, rejecting that is not intolerance. Tolerance cannot be understood separately from other concepts like moral minimums and therefore, suggesting acceptance of actions, conducts or beliefs that contradict such minimums -and to a much lesser degree, the laws embodied by them- doesn't fall within the realm of tolerance. Tolerance is the political path to peaceful coexistence of different cultures in a society. It has worked in the past -the Muslim state of Al-Andalus is a particularly relevant example- and is strictly different from either cultural assimilation or the kind of parochial nationalism you seem to favor. Pending a conclusive psychological evaluation, I wouldn't put much stock on whatever he has to say. Considering his methods, his choice of targets and his personal history and lifestyle, I'm more inclined to believe that he is, in fact, just another misfit whose only remarkable trait is the single-mindedness that allowed him to plan and carry out the attacks. So, yeah, just another rampage killer with delusions of grandeur. No, there was also an unarmed plainclothes cop among the victims, from what I read. I guess he was "inept" too? Have you ever tried to disarm someone who was wielding, say, a knife? I'd like to see you not soil your pants in a similar situation, tough guy.