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And somehow, reasons for the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt are consistently reported to be the high unemployment rates and skyrocketing food prices. It's no coincidence that the increase of the prices and shortage of bread is one of the oft-cited reasons -along with disproportionate taxes on the bourgeois class and the king's unwillingness to listen- for the breakout in Paris. So I'm sticking with my idea that people don't stand in front of tanks -or bayonet charges- unless they don't have much to lose. Yeah, we'll see for how long that holds true, with millions of people having exhausted unemployment benefits and little hope of ever getting back in the labour market, with a very real risk of public bankruptcy looming in the horizon.

[citation needed] <insert links on the AKP's struggle against the judiciary and their constitutional reform work> There is an ongoing effort on the part of the AKP to dismantle if not secularism, at least Kemalism, as embodied in Turkey's constitution. This is not an either-or between a return to a less secular Turkey and simply greater powers for the executive, it's actually both. Semantics. It doesn't matter if the changes were confined to the Age of Enlightenment, while the intellectual foundations of those changes were laid down a century or two earlier - history is a continuum and "Age" markers are never universal, indicative of actual changes, or even uniformly agreed upon. It begins with intellectuals starting to risk their necks by publishing seditious material that is in direct conflict with an organization of society based on the idea of civil authorities drawing their power from -and therefore being defined by- Divine Right. Didn't happen overnight, but it did happen. I am greatly ignorant of Islamic philosophical currents past and present, so I would be grateful if peeps could point me to works and figures with comparable leanings within Islamic academia.

Underwhelming, to put it mildly. Those are basically retextures, as even Miranda's armor is a reskin of femShep's Cerberus Assault Armor. I would be less pissy if they at least made those available through the Cerberus Network, but alas it was not to be. And so much for "listening to the community", when response to their obsession with eyewear has been uniformly negative. Bah.

ORLY?

Yeah, me too. I'd say not too feasible until we appoint Skynet as Supreme Ruler, though. Or, more eloquently: Seriously though, it's worth noting that good ol' Marxism was also advertised as "scientific", much to the damage of actual science. Say what you will, but there are similarities. Also, one of the biggest hurdles this sort of thing needs to overcome is transition and implementation. The Paris commune, the Russian Revolution, the Ukrainian Free Territory, the role of anarchists during the Spanish Civil War, all show that when it comes to putting similarly revolutionary principles into practice, things tend to come apart at the seams, which results in being crushed by competing forces, or a shift towards more traditional, tried-and-true, models. How do we go from what we have now to the proposed utopia? The nature/nurture question on the origin of greed is interesting, but there's no questioning that progress is tied to trade - and greed, coupled with need drives trade. So while there may not be a purely evolutionary advantage to greed, I'd say there's at least a motivational one, for which you'd have to find a substitute. And on a deeper level, you'd probably have to re-wire large portions of mankind from a self-centered scale of values to something different. I don't think science is advanced enough to develop a scientific theory and practice of human societal organization that's really worthy of the name. For the time being, it's just trial and error.

I suppose you could say that idea is wrong and then point to the fact that we have perfectly well-adjusted "Christian democratic" parties elsewhere (ahem, gay rights and abortion...), but to what degree do Islamist parties accept the legitimacy of a democracy to overrule Qur'anic tenets? (not rhetorical, btw)

Nah, the PC is still the superior platform, because it's probably just a matter of time before people crack the PCC file format and start releasing content like that (and better) for free. In the meantime, DLC that's actually decent can still be purchased without loaning MS/BW/EA a penny.

Miranda's armor looks like it may be the only thing worth using of the pack, and the monocle appears subtle enough not to seem out of place, but it's nowhere near enough for me to purchase BW/EA points for that (tangentially, did you know that MS got sued over their points bundles practices?). How hard can it be, Bioware? (LotSB spoilers)

So... here it is: A monocle and light armor for Miranda (remains to be seen if she'll get a proper helmet), orthodontics and disco armor retexture for Grunt, and some Tali fan service to appeal to the legion of Tali creeps at the Bioboards. Why do I even bother? **** this.

Yeah... no. Introducing a bill doesn't equal passing a law. And again, laws can be reviewed by the courts, which are independent. So there is no single "ruling" body. That's what the "rule of law" + "separation of powers" results in. Power has to flow from somewhere, doesn't it? Do you have a better plan? This is false. You can operate on it, and it is in fact your duty to do so as a citizen. Just claiming that "judges are all inepts/corrupt" when, after appealing, they keep not find merit in your 9/11 conspiracy theories just doesn't cut it and doesn't say much about you or your theories. Go fundraising. With the amount of anti-American sentiment in general and anti-Bush in particular, you should be able to find someone that wants the "truth" to see the light. If nobody cares or takes you seriously, chances are you have nothing. Chances are, and this is important. You may well be the Galileo of our times, but that's beside the point. A democracy is as functional and virtuous as the electorate it draws its sovereignty from. If people are fine with their rights being trampled on and being fed some bull**** as justification, the problem isn't with the system... it's with the people. edit: "you" in this case, doesn't refer to you personally.

No. Again, nobody "rules", except for perhaps judges, in some cases, and more often than not at the behest of the people. The Prez can't just write any legislation (in fact, he can only sign things into law, the legislative power is Congress), he is constrained by the Constitution AND the judiciary which is, again on paper, supposed to be independent. I'm not sure exactly what you are complaining about. Is it about democracy as a concept? Maybe how the system works in practice? What? Because if it's the former, I'm always happy to discuss possible alternatives. And if it's the latter... shouldn't you be doing something about it like, I don't know, running for office yourself? As for the other points you made, I think your mind is made up on how corrupt politicians are and how little power they have in comparison to corporations. Not much to discuss there. I could ask for PROOF! but that never ends well. So meh. No. The analogy you made isn't just imperfect, it's fallacious. The raison d'

And that's a fundamentally poor analogy because seatbelts can't kill (well, in the proper hands...), but freely disseminated state secrets can. Therefore, the risk needs to be balanced vs the "right". Besides, read the post I was quoting. I'm not saying information in the hands of the general public can't help, ever. Rather, I was simply questioning the implied "information ergo protection from tyrants" relationship that Calax was suggesting. And I wouldn't be so quick to use Ben Ali's fall as an example of the triumph of freedom of information, just yet. It remains to be seen if the change is going to be for the best, assuming there is a real change. And at any rate, an authoritarian regime that doesn't have the backing of the military establishment is a card castle. Anything could have sparked a revolt, be it its corruption being exposed or some street vegetable seller self-immolating in desperation. Can you actually prove this? Further, can you prove they do so to a point it's detrimental to their function as public managers? Because if you can, chances are you can get a judge to kick them out of office, be it due to a conflict of interest, unjust enrichment, embezzlement, influence trafficking or any number of things that actually mean the politician in question is using his power for personal gain. And what happens if two or more different groups with conflicting agendas make substantial donations? Do they cancel each other out? Do they block the President from acting? Do they turn the President into a schizophrenic puppet? I think the importance of special interest groups is overrepresented. Mostly because what the President can and cannot do is constrained not only by the Constitution but also by Congress. And that is a melting pot of conflicting interests itself. Funny you say that, because the US is remarkable by the level of closeness and accountability between candidate and constituency. In other "democracies", voters don't have a say about candidates, only about parties. Think about that. But also, I'm going to turn your argument around. If Mr. X was a President "from the hood", he would understandably want to help his homies, and this may come through adopting policies and making decisions that place undue weight on those issues, which may or may not work against the general interest. How is that any more fair than helping the fat bankers with the top hats? Or do you think all Presidents derive some sort of sick pleasure from seeing the poor suffer? Wrong. The President doesn't rule. Senators and Reps don't rule. Civil servants don't rule. A body of written principles rules. It's not a coincidence that one of the pillars of Western democracies is called "the rule of law". Making and changing laws is neither simple nor instantaneous, and there are safeguards in place to prevent excesses, as well as a whole body of people entrusted to protect the people from the abuses of possibly unjust laws. Enlightened democracy is ostensibly a response to the excesses and shortcomings of (quasi) absolute rulers. You'd think they'd try and come up with something that didn't have the same flaws as the system they had just torn down, right? Of course, excesses and even a steer towards authoritarianism aren't impossible, but then, show me a flawless system and I'll show you a fantasy.

That's not a fault with representative democracy, or any other configuration you can think of - it's a "fault" with human nature. But defining such a basic and prevalent trait as a fault -and therefore suggesting that public servants be free from it- is a specious exercise of applying Judeo-Christian moral tenets instead of reason. Of course politicians are self-interested. If only because working for the community results in a better world for themselves. That does not mean they are incapable of being good managers. The fairness question is one of balance. When whoever's at the helm becomes more trouble than he's worth, it's time for him to go. That's the chief advantage of democracy over autocratic regimes, on paper. A good king is the best thing, a bad king is the worst. But you can't vote kings out of office. In a sense democracy is the result of the realization that humans beings are unfit to rule over human beings, and therefore assurances are needed that nobody will hold too much power for too long. Unfortunately the latter doesn't follow from the former. During WWII, thousands of Japanese Americans were interned in camps for no other reason than their Japanese ancestry. Whether this was necessary or not is irrelevant, the fact that it was an overt violation of the constitutional rights of those people is not. However, those who at the time held the power to overturn that decision chose not to do so. The general public doesn't need to know everything, and knowing everything doesn't in fact protect the general public.

I'm fairly sure I didn't have that bug. Saving the spaceport meant that a bunch of people got killed, but long-term viability of the colony was preserved etc. so the consequences are pretty much in your face as well. I have a game in which I haven't completed this assignment yet, so I'll check anyway and get back to you. I very much liked the concept of the quest and the dilemma presented, but not HOW it was presented. "Yeah, so we launch a bunch of missiles, but we may or may not be able to transmit self-destruct codes to them." Also, either the missiles don't travel at FTL speeds (which means the Normandy should be able to intercept them anyway), or they would reach their targets in seconds, again invalidating the premise of the mission. A pity when a good narrative idea gets butchered by lazy writing/design. RE Bio DLC. Yes, they have shown that they are capable of doing very good things (I haven't played LotSB myself but critical acclaim is pretty uniform) with DLC, so it's all the more jarring that they invest any effort on this sort of thing. Still, I'm hopeful it won't be just disco retextures for armor and 80's shades this time around.

Maybe. But there's a difference between not backing and actively standing against. Egypt isn't a secular state, so there may not be such a great drive to prevent the MB from attaining power, within the army. In any case, ****.

That's the grand deception in universal suffrage - it's implicit that every citizen with a right to vote is also capable of independent, critical thinking. In any case, the state cannot use a real or perceived mass manipulation of opinion orchestrated by media outlets as an excuse to control the flow of information; while being a complete tool isn't illegal, lying in a Congress hearing most definitely is. Interesting how both are deeply subversive of the principles of democracy, yet only the one that applies to public servants is generally perceived as harmful. However, the sort of paternalist mindset that concedes that it's fine to subreptitiously override the law of the land whenever whoever's in charge feels "it's for the best" is not only deeply at odds with the idea of universal human rights, but also unfortunately closer to the establishment of authoritarianisms both abroad and at home, than it is to a true democratic spirit. So it seems that ivory tower dissertations, at least as far as moral and political philosophy goes, have once again fallen short in the face of crude facts.

Yeah, there's no way in hell you'd buy their game... because it's a free game.

Don't take my word for it, there's a bunch of tech "support" forums in the Bio boards, go take a look. The game does run smoothly for the most part and for most people, but stuff like crashes caused by rearranging the hotbar is pretty bad. And you're probably right about artists doing most of the work here, but there's graphics-related issues too, like missing textures and "ghosting" (most obvious during the scene with Garrus and Sidonis), clipping, etc. The thing is, cosmetic changes like alternate appearance packs are precisely the kind of thing the community usually does. For some reason, someone chose to make things difficult for modders with ME2, to the extent that repackaging models or textures for use with the game is still not possible one year after release. So it's looking more and more like the idea is to sell separately a feature that was present in ME1 but removed - the inventory system, while at the same time keeping the proliferation of content that doesn't directly generate revenues to a minimum. Funny, because Horse Armor has become synonymous with DLC rip-off, but Beth at least released a toolset for Oblivion.

Yep. From Charge fizzling way too often, to the camera being locked in place, and issues with videos and single core CPUs. You mean to imply that planning, designing, executing and releasing DLC is a task in which exclusively character artists are involved? Interesting theory.

Aaand the next ME2 DLC is... Alternate Appearance Pack 2! Proper armor and vacuum gear for NPCs that currently dive into firefights in spandex suits? An actual armor customization system for NPCs? Who knows! My money is on more stupid ****, like turning Jack into Geordi Laforge. I know, I know. "If you don't like it, don't buy it", and that's a valid point. But that's dev man-hours that go into creating useless fluff instead of actual content, or you know, bugfixing. Sigh.

Sounds pretty interesting. Is it equivalent (or at least conducive) to any sort of standard education? How good is one's professional outlook after completing that and getting a few years of experience under your belt?

People are hypocritical, cowardly and mean-spirited! News at 11. Pretty much. The permanent and fundamentally impersonal nature of online communication means that Internet discussions can continue for far longer and get much uglier in the process than traditional exchanges. Where the latter would end in a fisticuffs -or an "agreement to disagree" to avoid that- the former can continue to the point where actual arguments are irrelevant and only personal insults are thrown back and forth for days on end - which may or may not be entertaining in and of itself, depending on tastes. In my opinion, an etiquette born of and evolved from contact with physical people doesn't quite cut it in the online -and international- channel, but I guess the 4chan alternative, amusing though it may be, isn't much better. That said, one of the things that I've grown to like from these boards is the moderation -despite the fact that I've been on the business end of the mods' bat more than once- because of the personal, friendly and generally hands-off approach they take. So, thanks for your patience; I guess you guys got the right idea, at least for the scope of these forums.

So because maximum effectiveness can't be realistically achieved, you shouldn't aim for that? Is that an excuse to implement a measure that could potentially have further negative effects on the warfighting ability of certain units? And no, it's not speculation. It's a well documented fact that females get pregnant while males do not. The protective instinct that males have towards females is not speculation either. But let's assume for a moment that the psychological effects are at present unexplored (which they aren't - you might argue that evidence available in cases where it's been allowed is insufficient or anecdotal, but there aren't any statistical studies on the effects caused by women serving in infantry regiments). If in the future they were shown to be grounded in fact... who's going to see to it that the reform is repealed? That would pretty much be a career-ending move for any politician, given the climate of gender fundamentalism we live in. Yes, because that's how, among other things, Occupational Specialties are assigned. Someone with an artillery specialty isn't going to see the same kind of action as an infantry soldier in the 75th Rangers, so they get different, specific training. Not everyone in the military is an infantryman, just like not every infantryman has a SF tab. They may get shot, but then again, journalists, NGO workers and pretty much anyone else in a warzone is liable to, and often is, blown to pieces. That does not mean they had a combat role. Funny, because physical ability is usually quite low on the concerns list for this issue, assuming it's mentioned at all. Because basic infantry duty isn't something that demands of soldiers much more than a basic level of physical fitness, and most women should be able to make the cut, I think, provided they have the right mindset (something which applies to men as well).