Enoch

See chapter 7 of this .pdf (2.5 MB), a publication of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. Is it really hard to understand why the citizens of a proud nation would resent a foreign power for propping up their authoritarian government? Or how a homegrown despotism can play on the insecurities of a people and maintain popularity by shifting focus to the struggle against a foreign power? "Some people"? Who? And how is what they say relevant? If only I had listened to "some people" and read that "thread a couple months ago," I could be informed, too! Gorth hit on the bottom-line. This movement simply isn't about fundamentalist Islam. The people in the streets aren't there to air religion-related grievances. Of all the problems that mainstream Egyptians have with their government, its attitude towards religion isn't one of them. Which means that, of all the likely changes that are to come in Egyptian society and government, significant changes to the religious posture of the government is not likely to be one of them. The Muslim Brotherhood has expressed support for the protests (as would any opposition party banned by the current regime), but they're hardly at the front line on the barricades. The influence of islamists is something to keep an eye on in whatever leadership emerges after the dust settles, but it's a manageable concern that can be dealt with when and if it arises.

Don't look at the public governmental proclamations-- look at who owns everything worth owning in the society. The Revolutionary Guard does depend on the clerics for popular support (which comes largely from the poorer element of society, where they're still very popular, as opposed to the more urban middle class youth who comprised most of the recent electoral protests), but they're firmly in control from a foreign/economic/military policy point of view. Modern Iran isn't anti-Western because it is islamist. It's anti-Western because the West (specifically, the U.S. and Britain) spent about 80 years propping up oppressive strongman rulers. The political stance of the mullahs became what it is and became popular because Iranians hated America, and they had pretty good reason for doing so. The bigger risk to U.S. interests-- in terms of (badness of outcome)*(likelihood of occurring)-- isn't that Egypt will turn out like Iran in 1979, it's that Egypt will turn out like Iran in 1953. (Refresher: that's when a coup with CIA support ousted a popularly elected prime minister who had eroded power from the U.S./G.B.-backed, dictatorial Shah, largely to save the proto-BP's interests in the Gulf from nationalization.) And you're also painting a lot of people with the same brush. I'm no friend of the Muslim Brotherhood, but they're not Taliban-level violent and insular. (They've renounced violence as a political tool, and have been a prominent enemy of Al Qaeda for decades.) Edit: added the quote, just to make sure that Gorth's post and the page-break don't confuse matters.

Abolish Human Nature!!! Edit: The last time something like this was tried on a wide scale, the result was the French Revolution.

I don't understand rpg games these days that don't give players lots of on/off options. I'm no programmer but it doesn't seem like it'd be that hard/complicated to put them in the options menu as some kind of already-installed mod option concept perhaps. I realize some stuff may not be easy/doable to give options for, like AI or complex, nit-picky gameplay difficulty options, but compass, essential companions, whatever, shouldn't be? Relying on the fact that "pc users can mod the game" seems a bit of a cop-out to me when so many use consoles now. *shrug* Well, only speaking to the quest compass specifically. I think they don't want to hear the whining, a la: "I CAN"T FIND CAIUS COSADES YUR GANME SUX!!11!! WHich apparently was the number 1 complaint the devs got about MW and very traumatic, and which was swiftly answered with the compass in Oblivion. Bethie probably dooesn't WANT anybody to be able to turn it off, even by mistake. (Note: quote edited only to remove extra blank lines) It wasn't just that "users are dumb"-- locating things in Morrowind was a legitimate problem. The game's journal function sucked royal goatballs. All the (not particularly clearly written) directions the player was given were transcribed in the journal, and if you went off to do some other exploration or quest-completion before following them, they would just be buried in a wall o' text. To their credit, Bethesda tried hard to fix this problem. But, much like with their reaction to Morrowind's "everything is incredibly easy after level 15" problem (i.e., Oblivion's level-scaling), their chosen solution left something to be desired. Also, if you don't have a quest arrow (or if you have an option to turn it off), you probably need to give written/spoken directions to things. That means more VO and translation costs.

Really, you mean like the Iranians or Hizbollah that just took over Lebanon? First, "tend to" Second, it's tough to make that kind of comparison without getting into "what if" scenarios. Just how dangerous and violent would the Iranian mullahs and Hezbollah be as underground organizations? And how different would whatever other government in those countries be if these groups didn't have the influence that they do? (For example, I'd argue that current Iranian government is, in effect, a pretty secular oligarchy with islamist window-dressing-- the Revolutionary Guard actually runs the country, and gets the official stamp of approval from the clerics whenever they need it. Remove the islamist elements, and not much changes.) My core point is that I think the risks of Egypt going hardcore-islamist are distant, easily overwhelmed by the overall benefits of democratic reform.

All in all, fascinating events unfolding. I can guess with some confidence that all the diplomatic and espionage-based influence that can be exerted by the West and by the Saudis are working overtime to ensure that the new boss will be, as they say, same as the old boss with regard to Egypt's international relations. Fair elections, should they ever be conducted, will certainly allow hardline-islamist interests to gain more influence in Egypt than they had previously, but the likelihood of an outright takeover seems quite slim, and islamists with legitimate parliamentary representation tend to be less ornery and violent than islamists being oppressed by a U.S.-backed dictator. Edit: The foxnews screwup is entertaining, but not all that surprising. When you produce news programming around the clock, sometimes you've got to come up with graphics on-the-fly. Production staff were probably trying to re-use an old graphic that had Iraq labeled, deleted that name, and didn't tab over to type in the field that would have put the new label over Egypt instead.

http://forums.obsidian.net/index.php?showtopic=54106 Seriously old news.

Electricity grids are weird. After yesterday's snowstorm, there are still some pretty widespread power outages in DC and suburban MD. (Protip: In old suburbs where lots of the trees that grow along streets and in front yards are 70+ years old, it's probably a good idea to bury power lines wherever you can, and not have every damn one up on poles where falling trees and large branches can royally screw up your distribution every time there's a big storm.) On my 3/4-mile walk from the subway to my house, alternating blocks on either side of the road were still powerless, and the snow stopped falling roughly 20 hours ago. Fortunately, our block still has power (and cable internet). Unfortunately, they haven't gotten around to plowing our street yet.

I have never enjoyed horror elements in games. I use games to relax and distract myself from stress, and games that scare me increase stress rather than decrease it. As for what I'm playing, I'm starting a new ME2 character. Between the time that has passed since I played through it (once, shortly after release), a different character class selection, and some of the new DLC, hopefully I won't burn out on the game mechanics like I did when I started a second character shortly after my first run.

Thunder-snow is awesome.

The leaked/previewed tracks from the forthcoming R.E.M. album are . Reminds me a lot of their Life's Rich Pageant-era stuff, which is a very good thing.

I'll grant you that the underlying Irenicus/Bodhi story is disappointingly lame. But it is presented to the player in a quite effective way-- the first time one plays BG2, they keep progessing through the story largely because they want to know more about That Guy. In that manner, the mystary is more important than the content of its resolution is. Again, I (subjectively) see negatives in what others cite as BG1's strengths. The boss fight was stupidly difficult for stupid reasons-- the twinked out sidekicks who Sarevok bunkered down with, who had no backstory or narrative explanation. I also hated Durlag's tower. Too long, too reliant on "creep forward 10 feet at a time and wait to see if you detect any traps" as the core gameplay experience, and too frustratingly difficult without the use of summoning-cheese tactics. I have never finished it.

The chief advantage that BG2 had over BG1 was depth of character. The companions and the antagonists were far more fleshed-out and compelling than were BG1's "three soundclips and a character sheet" companions and the Generic Evil Overlord #37 they named "Sarevok."* I, too, suffered from Torment-envy when playing BG2, but the compelling mystery regarding the nature of the antagonists made it a much more satisfying experience to me than the first BG was. * Aside: Viewed from the other side, though, the shallowness of BG1's characters allowed Bioware to give us scads of them to choose from. If a player is of the type that mentally fills in the gaps of thinly-sketched characters through the course of their game, I could see that as being a more satisfying design (and something that makes BG1 look good when compared to all of Bio's efforts since).

Heh. I see all three of those "advatages" as negatives. AD&D was a terrible ruleset, FR was an awful setting, and, while exploration can be an interesting and fun gameplay element, the wilderness areas in BG1 were so lacking in entertaining content (exception: Korax the Ghoul) that the game would've been a more satisfying experience with at least half of them on the cutting room floor.

I only ever assigned a few hotkeys. 1 was the "cheap weapon" to use on low-threat mooks. 3 was my close-range room-clearer (usually a SMG or assault rifle). 4 was my sniping weapon. 5 was usually a second rifle, with a bit more punch than the gun in the 4-spot (e.g., my first Sniper rifle, when Ratslayer was still keyed to 4, or the Q-35 on my e-weaps character who sniped with a scoped Laser Rifle). I didn't regularly carry more guns than that.

Somewhat-related question that I didn't want to start a new thread on or search for an old thread to necro-post: Which, if any, of the non-free ME2 DLCs are worth messing with?

Well, given that he didn't have any plans either to get away with his crime or to make this a murder-suicide, he probably contemplated that he would be caught and that his mugshot would be on front pages across the country. A fresh shave might well have been part of his preparation. Although the creepiness of the photo, to me, comes mostly from his smile and the just-slightly-off-the-camera look in his eyes.

I have to admit, I did get a good laugh out of the "it would've been easy for us to rest on our laurels" bit in the video. I want DA2 to be a fun game, but statements like that make a part of me want to see hubris punished a little bit. In short, nothing has changed my general 'wait and see and maybe buy when it's cheaper and I don't have anything better to play' attitude.

I'm sorry, but 98% of that is either wholly insubstantiated or just makes no sense. The only people wondering why jihadists hated America were people who had never had a single foreign policy briefing or read a single book about south/central asian foreign policy. I'd hardly characterize such people as a "ruling class." The real ruling class has been getting CIA briefings for decades spelling out exactly why jihadists hated America. The surprise of 9/11 wasn't that their motivation was greater than we thought-- it was that their capabilities were greater than we thought. And why do you assume that the powers-that-be aren't/weren't interested in understanding why anger-heavy extremism has been growing in signficance? Scads of studies have covered the subject over the past couple decades, both in scholarly poli-sci publications and in everyday newspapers and magazines. Opinions on the causes of these shifts in attitudes do vary, although it's not just a creature of the right-- the level of anger and involvment on the far left has crested as well, but they don't like to listen to the radio as much as diehard conservatives do. (Personally, I see a slow evolution. Heavily negative political campaigns really started rolling in the late 80s, and they worked. Iterate that over a decade or two, and combine it with some very public examples of regrettable behavior by public officials, and you get a much more cynical electorate. And a cynical electorate is one that is ready to reflexively believe the worst about their political opponents without looking too hard for confirmation. That's the kind of credulity that the popularizers of extremist rhetoric and conspiracy theories depend on. "Bush/Cheney is giving Iraq to Haliburton!" "Obama is raising our taxes to pay Muslim welfare queens!") As for reflexive crack-downs, that really doesn't happen much in America, absent something on the 9/11 scale. Sure, talking heads will yammer about how such-and-such incident illustrates why their favorite policy hobbyhorse is such a good idea, but that's a long way from actual significant changes in policy. How long did it take between James Brady getting shot and the Act commonly commonly referred by his name being signed into law?

It has now been 50 straight seasons since the Eagles have won a championship. This fact makes me much happier than it should.

Not just close games-- two of their losses were to the Cardinals and Browns. It was a very erratic season for them, so an erratic playoff result isn't a huge surprise. They were rightly favored, but there's always a chance of an upset in the NFL, and that chance rises when a talented-but-inconsistent favorite is playing on the road. NO's defense played terribly, and Seattle took advantage. That was easily the best game Hasselbeck has played in at least 2 years. Jets-Colts, on the other hand, went pretty much according to the script. Jets defense is good; Sanchez is a very limited QB; Peyton is Peyton, but his supporting cast and defense just aren't what they used to be, largely due to injury. Against a D like that, the step down from Dallas Clark and Austin Collie to Jacob Tamme and Blair White is pretty huge. And the Colts young injury replacements at LB and S simply couldn't stop the Jets with any consistency when they got the run game going in the second half. I had picked the Colts because I expected a few more LOLSANCHEZ moments, but the Jets coaches were able to get just enough offense while keeping him to mostly safe throws.

"OK, guys, the main story is out of the way, now lets get to work on loading the rest of the game up with 27 metric crap-tons of pure fan service!"

Oh, I am SO writing my legislators this weekend...

I preferred the later Richter vehicle where he played a private detective.

From a practical point of view, I expect that you're right. But I don't have to like it. To be fair, my perspective is apparently a bit odd in the present marketplace-- I like a Pause-able Real-Time system that expects that every player will use the pause function liberally. (I'm even odd in the niche marketplace, in that I think such a system is clearly superior to most turn-based systems for small-group combat.) As I detailed above, threat management just strikes me as inherently ridiculous, and wholly inferior to even a rudimentary system based on tactical positioning. But developers all seem to be operating under the assumption that gamers don't want to use pause functions these days, so it seems that this "aggro"-based nonsense is the best that we're going to get. Also, Grom is correct that, in a pen and paper D&D game, playing as the mage in the party generally sucks for a very long time. (I'm not quite the ol' timer he is, but this was still true in 2E AD&D.) Unless your DM is rather generous with the non-monster-based XP awards, it can take many months of weekly sessions where your character's contribution is nothing more than a couple sleep spells and some sling/dart attacks that miss 75% of the time. CRPGs gloss over this (with good reason) by either letting you control the whole party or by accelerating level advancement rapidly at the start of the game.