213374U

Corellia is the climax of the Inquisitor's story. You mean that or the planetary arc? I completed the class story a while back but I stopped doing the planetary story arc somewhere around the second quest hub/zone but I've completed it on a couple other characters (one Sith and one Jedi). While trying to go back through it now I realized why I quit before, it's just so boring and such a hassle to get to and finish all the quests. Now I'm contemplating if I should either take my main through the new content first or taking the gimme 60 or one of my alts and seeing how things shake out Yeah, I know what you mean. Typically I've done the planetary arcs and bonus series (where applicable) of all planets only with the first character I rolled in each faction. The rest I leveled through class missions only, PVP and Flashpoints. Since I don't raid, I don't really have a "main", but I'll probably still take the insta-60 character through the new content first.

"Space Magic"

I made a few million credits selling augment kits (MK-9 an 10s), which in a few hours will be transformed into MK-8s. I still have to decide if it was a good move or not. Oh well, more money is never too much of a problem. Unless you are a FIFA official, I guess. Corellia is the climax of the Inquisitor's story. You mean that or the planetary arc?

Thanks. Now I know exactly what to point at when somebody asks me about my asocial tendencies. And if they still aren't convinced, I'll just suggest they read the comments. Also, Mark Hamill's absence from the poster is pretty conspicuous. Or is it?

4.0 Patch Notes Massive overhaul. Some good (mats cleanup) some bad (mandatory level sync), some WTF (heroics repeatable on a weekly basis only).

I'm somewhat underwhelmed that there are only 2 stretch goals and also by the second goal Anyway, only 16 days left Huh. I checked this yesterday, it was at ~1.7M. Nice bump! Still doubt they'll make it to 2.5M... and it's probably for the best too.

It didn't help that it was buggy as hell, with ship cutscenes not firing when they should, etc. The final act of the game is a mess of barely coherent scenes and the conclusions to various semi-mutilated plot threads awkwardly thrown together in an obvious rush to get the game out the door in time for the holidays. For a game that relied so much on "show, don't tell", to have that much stuff cut out was pretty crippling. I hear the various restoration mods basically fixed the game in that regard, but I haven't played them myself.

I don't know about the whole "'Murica **** yeah" myth as I've never been there. But you can find fictional representations of gov't agents and US soldiers as brave, selfless heroes just as easily as works depicting them as overweight dummies, remorseless killers or just ineffectual morons, depending on the scriptwriter's bent. Except IRS people. Those are universally reviled. It's like a modern day Gestapo or something. Personally, I have had nothing but good experiences with Americans. Haven't had to deal with the US government yet, though.

Unused TSL track which I remember for being part of a deleted sequence where Nihilus' ship crashed on Citadel Station. Because why the **** not.

Bah, that's the kind of flaccid mindset I was talking about. Nowadays whether its left or right whenever it's religion that's used as the ideological justification for any kind of action suddenly everyone will give these impotent excuses about how "it's just human mature maaaan". Rarely see other ideologies get this kind of free pass. Well, now that I'm officially one of them flaccid contemporary progressives, I wonder what's the next step. Register a Twitter account? Go vegan? Crossfit? Go vegan and post it to Twitter? What exactly are you referring to when you say "religion"? Is it the power structure oriented towards societal control? The myriad cosmogonic myths? The concept of the flying spaghetti monster? Have you identified any particular concept that is common to all religions that you deem to be especially pernicious, or perhaps a set of psychological mechanisms unique to religion that make it the go-to method to turn perfectly well-adjusted citizens into bloodthirsty barbarians? People killing each other has been a constant ever since we learned to use sticks as tools, and possibly earlier. Only the justifications have evolved, and perhaps our ability to use these justifications to manipulate one another, but we haven't. I don't see anything inherently virulent or vicious in religion, or at least not any more than in, as you say, other ideologies. On the other hand, religion, or the biological traits that cause it to emerge may serve an evolutionary purpose, what with it being a constant throughout virtually all human cultures and all. Me, I think trying to blame religion for whatever is a cop-out. If you want something to put your finger on, I'd suggest looking at economics. And even that still wouldn't be the whole picture.

Ah, you were being serious then? Not even a little droll? As for incorrect, I wouldn't say you are "factually" wrong, but the argument you're making is that religion killed people, whereas it really didn't. The Spanish Flu killed people. On the other hand, religion was simply an excuse for the Spanish Inquisition to kill people, whenever it was convenient for whoever happened to sit on the throne at the time. To be *strictly* right, you'd have to prove that without religion, people wouldn't have found some other rationale by which to oppress, brutalize and kill each other. In addition to what Leferd said, during the "Golden Age" of Islam, there was a focus on cultivating the sciences and the Caliphs sponsored the preservation and spread of knowledge gained from the then-decadent classical civilizations. Francis I of France, while favoring rather expeditious methods to deal with Protestants, was a well known patron of the arts and hosted and sponsored Leonardo da Vinci until his death. Etc. Can't separate the good from the bad. We have outgrown the whole Divine Right thing, right? We replaced it with popular sovereignty and natural rights which are still easily perverted or outright abrogated to pretty much keep doing the same thing when needed. Where religion was banned, some of the worst recorded abuses have been committed. It's not religion, it's just people, man.

On Steam it's essentially a completely separate game, rather than an update to the original W2. I'm not sure if that's how it works in Galaxy (Galaxy doesn't exist for my OS yet). It's the same thing in GOG (non-Galaxy). Funny thing, the DC edition is actually a smaller download (6.5 vs 9 GB).

Yeah... I get the feeling Gfted1 was being a wee bit facetious here... Poe's law at work.

You mean systematically, as the word is used in the Cambodian or Armenian cases? No idea, to be honest. Consensus among historians seems to be that natives were treated rather brutally by colonizers, were often worked to death, and conquistadores had a habit of razing towns to make a point. But a standing policy of rounding them up and murdering them en masse? That's harder to establish and contrary to reason as the economy of the New World was strongly dependent on native labor. Killing too many of them was literally bad business. But hey, since when is evidence a requirement for trolling or political statements?

Also Starring: Brent Spiner as Jedi Something. In case you want to to take a look at what's coming before committing your CCs: mined CM items in KOTFE

We tend to remember the name of the first person to do anything conclusively and leave a good record, but we don't necessarily enshrine those who came close, those who attempted it but failed, those who lent the shoulders on which historical figures stood or what have you. We remember Neil Armstrong, but the names of the Apollo 8 crew aren't known nearly as widely (and even Aldrin...). It's unfair, but what can you do. Well, the homeland of the original Vandals evolved to be the economic and cultural center of modern Yurop, for instance. Given sufficient time, it's impossible to know what those peoples would have accomplished left to their own devices. That said, I agree with the sentiment. Alternate history and hypothetical scenarios are fun, but ultimately pointless. Personally I can't take anyone who uses either as a basis for an argument seriously. In other news, the mayors of Barcelona and Cádiz have refused to participate in festivities of the national holiday and have gone to Twitter to denounce the "celebration of the anniversary of a genocide", causing equal amounts of lulz and indignation. Apparently "change" around these parts means that political representatives become massive internet trolls. Le sigh.

EFF's take on the leaked final version I wonder if the rest of the treaty is as bad. Here's hoping the EU crashes and burns before they get to sign the Atlantic equivalent.

"Palumboism", as that condition is commonly known (in reference to Dave Palumbo, a notorious case), is an affliction whose causes aren't fully understood. It's likely that it has something to do with substance abuse, not just anabolic steroids, but also IGF-1, HGH and insulin, as none of the "Golden Age" guys displayed it, but there must be other factors at work, because it's not consistent and it only affects some bodybuilders. Note that not only the midsection is deformed — the lats, pecs and arms are also lacking the size you'd expect a pro bb'er of the mass monster era, and especially compared to earlier pics of the same guy. Moreover his skin isn't looking particularly healthy and accelerated aging seems to be an additional concern. Fun times.

No, I don't see how it is. If purposefully killing outside of immediate self-defense is unacceptable, blood ties cannot make it worse, as "unacceptable" is an absolute. You are making an emotional argument, not a rational one. Killing is killing, as you say. People reacting differently is precisely why we have courts and laws to decide on this sort of thing coldly, instead of letting it be handled by angry mobs with torches and pitchforks. I don't know how it works in the US, but my understanding is that aggravating circumstances work roughly as follows: a) whether there is premeditation of some sort (separating manslaughter from murder, mens rea) b) whether the means are chosen deliberately so the victim cannot possibly defend themselves (i.e. using a gun or a bomb, running them over with a car or poisoning, thanks Mr. White) c) whether abuse of superiority is involved (i.e. a parent killing a child, a cop killing a suspect in custody etc.) Blood ties are a essentially a non-factor with regards to the gravity of the killing itself, unless the victim had a dependence relationship that was exploited by the killer(s). This doesn't seem to be the case here as she was standing on her own two feet. If she really depended on her family, then you are right, but that is already accounted for as an aggravating circumstance, which makes the case being a "honor killing" just an anecdote of shock value only because we are used to "other" sorts of killings around these parts.

What happens when the men are already at home, though? Couldn't find data on Germany (wonder what's up with that), but it's not like women being murdered by men is exactly a new thing here. Ah, wait. I remember now. Honor killings are absolutely more abhorrent than honor-less killings because <reasons>. *nods sagely* Btw, remember when police could "guarantee security"? Yeah... me neither.

It's apparently a tad more complex than simply "it works"/"it doesn't work". It's a phenomenon that has positive and negative aspects. Swiped from a Meshugger post in the previous iteration of the thread: The Downside of Diversity — What happens when a liberal scholar unearths an inconvenient truth?

October 12, Anniversary date of Columbus' arrival in the Americas (October 12, 1492). A US Federal Holiday. I believe it used to be a Federal Holiday for several South American countries as well, but I think these have been changed to things like Discovery Day (Bahamas) or Day of the Americas (Belize?) rather than to be specifically about Columbus. It's also the Spanish national holiday. It's celebrated in some Latin American countries, as you say, under various motifs (resistance against Yuropeans, Race Day, encounter of cultures, etc). It's not called Columbus' Day here, we call it "Hispanidad" ("Hispanicity"), though I'm not sure how much the sentiment is shared elsewhere...

I can't read Russian, which by extension means I can't very well discern your meaning, but at the very least, the green shirt guy photo was proven to be a hoax. IIRC someone mentioned it a few pages back, too.

1. But the first link is what your link is based on. It's literally the latest official available data. The quarterly report doesn't have sex distribution. Merkel's statement was on the first week of september, so no data available yet. Also, she was specifically referring to Syrians, not "mostly everyone". Syrians, as has been established, do not make up a majority of the asylum seekers. So what is your point, again? 2. Erm, yeah. That's kind of the point. Not every immigrant is entitled to political asylum, and nobody has argued that they be granted it no questions asked. They must properly demonstrate that they are facing persecution in their country. 3. Do you have a source for this? 4. Ugh. Fine, let's check for Afghanistan and Iraq. Somalia doesn't have data. A little over 34% of Iraqis consider that non-Muslims should have to abide by sharia law. It increases to a bit over 60% for Afghanistan. The fraction that would favor the harsher stuff is necessarily lower as you'd be multiplying by a factor smaller than 1. Again, nowhere near "morally paramount" for muslims, even from the most reactionary of countries. The video showed a politician making an offhand reference to "research" which she didn't produce and nobody called her on it. Do you have this research? 5. Nope, fortunately I already provided a non-wartime example, which shows a disproportionate rape rate in a developed country during peacetime. Which you conspicuously ignored. 6. Nope, sorry. It actually isn't, and let's see why: population in France as a whole is increasing. Childbirth resulting from mixed (one French and one non-EU parent) couples is about 80% larger than the number of children being born from non-EU couples. There are more than ten times more children being born from one or both French parents than there are children born from foreigners (EU or not). Sure, the trend seems to be a decrease in full-on French births, but it will take *decades* for that trend to "radically change the demographics". Provided the trend holds. Please be so kind to reference your claims in the future. 9. Taking refugees in isn't about what you or me happen to be "interested" in. It's about human rights, themselves based on moral minimums. Wanting to avoid being forcefully conscripted to fight a war has little to do with cowardice. Nobody has a duty to take up arms. Non-violence is a perfectly valid personal choice, look it up. Again, the effects that conscription have on the population abound in history (cf. post-WWII Germany), and that's even without getting into the more muddy questions of whether taking up arms is the same as "fighting for freedom", especially in this context, where different factions are struggling to impose their own blend of tyranny. But whatever, it took being discharged from the military (I wasn't a pencil pusher) and a deep personal crisis for me to realize a lot of this stuff. I don't really expect you to agree just because I say so. Good luck with your heartbreak, btw.