You say I'm wrong but nothing, absolutely nothing backs up your claims. It's all nonsensical bullshit that is completely contradicted with what's actually happening in reality.
"Why should I buy into artificial Russia - West conflict when it's already long obsolete?"
Because some people still crave power and suffer tribalist tendancies? Do you really have this little understanding about the world, how old are you, 10?
"But pretty much all what Putin's government does would be ignored if he was, say, French president. And such double-standard is what I abhor. "
No it wouldn't. The US and the UK suffered a massive blow to their reputation due to their shenanigans in Iraq. There is no double standard - you invade a neighbouring country, you create laws that discriminate against minorities, and you get called out on that. Look at Uganda, it similarly got attacked for it's anti-homosexuality laws.
Again, I can only assume you're about 10, or 13 or something. Your complete naivety of the world is astounding and I can't believe anyone could reach adulthood with such an insanely weak understanding of the world around them.
You're exactly right. I work in finance as a software developer in the UK and had to undergo a criminal records check, a credit reference check, and 10 years worth of employment references checked.
None of it was an issue though as I'd already had all this a few years before when I was given security clearance to work on a number of defence projects at a previous employer, but that's another example of an industry you don't just go into without some serious checks on your history.
Finance and defence are two major industry sectors which will do these sort of checks pretty much routinely on new employees.
Minor correction - this changed with the introduction of the UK's Supreme Court, whose judges are politically appointed.
The government of the time created it specifically so that they had a top court they could take advantage of when they found that whole independent judiciary thing inconvenient.
You're right we've always had a great system and we do still have a great system for the most part, but the UK's Supreme Court has put an end to that to some degree as the government can always just escalate to them when it doesn't get it's own way.
"I thought it was to overturn the decisions of national establishment and replace them with decisions made by a supranational establishment instead."
That's what it does, the person you're responding to gave the reason as to why that's what it does - to prevent anything like Nazi Germany happening again where the government turned on select minorities of their own people leaving those groups with no one to turn to for justice.
"With respect of the human rights laws, they seem to be more of a stick to beat the government with than anything used to really protect human rights"
Completely wrong. They're a stick to beat the government with because the government is repeatedly violating human rights.
"the latest scam from the ambulance chasing human-rights lawyers is the case of a foreign criminal who used the human right to a family life to defend himself from being deported after serving his sentence. Only in this case, he was had threatened to kill his family and was banned from seeing them."
Ah, I see, you're a Daily Mail reader. I forgive your confusion about human rights then.
"Is state snooping on communications against our human rights? Is it against the human rights legislation?"
If it's done arbitrarily which it is then yes absolutely, it's a violation of the right to a private life. I'm not a threat to the state, I never have been and never will be. There is no legitimate reason for the state to arbitrarily harvest my e-mails and browsing history. The European Convention on Human Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights both state this giving exemptions only for the purposes of law enforcement, but given that there's no reason I should be a target of law enforcement then that get out clause is irrelevant, hence why it is a clear breach of my rights.
Interestingly I was surprised they praised it for being 12 year old technology. This puts it around the kind of era where processes were just brutally inefficient, where they were just chucking out silly amounts of heat down a path they couldn't continue on because processors were getting too hot and dying too early.
So I'm surprised they cite stability and reliability as a reason for maintaining a processor of this age as the advance in processors over the last 12 years has largely been in efficiency, reduced heat waste, increased stability, lower power consumption.
I'd have thought a newer processor would've been superior in every way than something from 12 years ago. I understood this argument when 12 years ago meant something like a 386 or 486 that didn't even need a heat sink, but 12 years ago from now means something disgustingly inefficient and high power consumption.
It's not just video games either for what it's worth, I've seen it in the great Lego debate recently.
Lego has increased the ratio of male/female characters in sets (for IP it controls) so that you now have a fairly fair split of male/female builders, firefighters, police, and even criminals. I've seen a number of feminists criticise this for not being appealing enough to girls and for fire engines still being boys sets.
Yet Lego also do a line of girl only sets with just female characters, where everything is pink and so forth, there's even a Disney princesses line and guess what? They criticise this for forcing girls to conform to gender biases and so forth.
So even toy companies like Lego just cannot win no matter what they do.
"What benefit? Russian gas was very reliable and inexpensive."
Reliable compared to what? inexpensive for whom?
I can only guess you've been paying no attention to world affairs because Russian gas was only reliable if you did what Putin wanted. Did you miss the whole gas cutoffs to Ukraine and parts of Europe the last time Ukraine tried to pave it's own destiny? Did you not see the prices Russia was demanding of Ukraine the second time Ukraine tried to pave it's own destiny?
Yes Russian gas is inexpensive and reliable if you do what Putin wants and that's exactly what abusers do. Just like the guy who gives some whore cheap drugs to fulfil her addiction whilst she gives him blowjobs and cuts off the supply when she decides she wants to try and get a better life for herself. Europe shouldn't have to be Putin's whore when there are better alternatives available.
"And now, thanks to the hubris of some stupid politicians we'll probably have to import the way too expensive LNG from USA."
Have you not been paying attention to prices over the last week or so? Have you missed the news in recent years about an increasing tendency towards renewables? Have you missed the growth of fracking in Europe? All these things mean that whatever happens Europe is going to be paying less for energy over the next decade than it has to Russia over the last decade.
"That will lead to a recession. In fact, thanks to the sanctions Germany has already only narrowly avoided it, but it still can happen next year."
Nonsense. The UK is now well out of recession and equally has a sizeable export market to Russia that has now been destroyed. Europe's been in and out of recession for many years since well before this occurred. Europe's economic woes have nothing to do with Russian sanctions - the fact the UK economy is doing so well when it took such a different economic path that it was heavily criticised for is evidence of that. The impact of sanctions is negligible compared to the structural economic flaws of many major European nations like France and Germany. France is too busy propping up a failed economic model with government subsidies rather than modernising and Germany is still intent on competing in manufacturing with China whilst trying to maintain 1st world living and working conditions making it economically uncompetitive to do so. If the sanctions were the cause then given the massive financial focus of the sanctions the UK wouldn't be looking at 3% growth this year when finance is one of the UK's most important industries.
"Trade is what keeps peace, but apparently, it is now too long ago since the last war, several EU chickenhawks are eager for a new one so they've started an economic war already."
Wait what? Ukraine and Georgia were major trading partners of Russia. Russia still opted to invade them both. Trade is only a stabilising factor if you're dealing with countries that have grown out of childish imperialist tendencies, something Russia still has a major problem with. You seem to have completely forgotten how this whole thing started, it's like your memory of the situation only goes back about a month. Europe has spent the last 20 years trying the whole trade based approach to improving relations between Europe and Russia. It clearly has not worked.
"Russia may need the income, but their debt is miniscule compared to every single first world country and their people are accustomed to bad times."
Countries set a budget, how much they intend to spend based on how much they make. Putin set a budget recently that requires around $150bn more than his country is likely to make in the next year. It doesn't really matter how small his debt is, when he's got a spending plan so utterly out of whack with the amount his country is going to earn through falling fuel prices and sanctions then any advantage they have now will be irrelevant within 12 to 24 months because it will have been more than wiped out - especially as the cost of borrowing for them was high because of the
Why is it embarassing for the EU at all? it was embarassing that the EU was sending so much money to a country desperate to rip it to pieces in the first place, the fact that Bulgaria loses out and has to find money from elsewhere is small fry compared to the massive benefit of Europe finally starting to ween itself off of Russian gas which gave Putin a stranglehold over vast areas of European politics. Europe gets to be independent again, Gazprom, a de-facto Russian state owned organisation doesn't get to control the gas and pipeline.
It could've been a problem for the EU if it meant energy prices had gone up, but the massive decline of oil prices, the subsequent decline of gas prices means that that one single major disadvantage has been more than wiped out.
It's not Europe that's seeing $100bn wiped off of it's economy by falling gas and oil prices. Turning Putin away on this one and getting what they wanted anyway because Russia is so desperate for income was just icing on the cake.
""massive gas pipeline that will travel from Russia, transit through Turkey, and stop at the Greek border â" giving Russia access to the Southern European market. In effect, Russia will still have access to the Southern Stream endmarkets""
Which ironically means that it's piped into Europe proper by third parties, which is all the European Union was asking for in the first place because the EU doesn't like the same company to control both supplies and pipelines.
Or in other words, Russia's new project is an embarrassing climb down for Putin dressed up as something completely different. He's basically just doing what the EU asked with a slight diversion to maintain control of the whole thing as far as he can (i.e. through Turkey, a non-EU state).
"The Brits seem a bit hamstrung when it comes to dealing with internal security. That's not to imply that the UK is somehow more careful about justice or respectful of privacy and citizens' rights than the US: the UK has an obvious (and at times overbearing) internal security apparatus that is ineffective in dealing with some major internal security problems."
Without knowing what the security services are doing in the background it's really hard to say whether this is the case. The thing you have to realise is that the UK does have a very strong separation between it's judicial system and politics, but just because someone like Zatuliveter didn't get arrested or deported doesn't mean she isn't being monitored by them.
It's easy to condemn failure to deport Abu Hamza but look at Abu Qatada - the UK stripped his and his families rights away left and centre but couldn't deport to Jordan for a decade and spent millions in and out of court trying to get rid, and guess what? when they finally did, he went on trial in Jordan and was found not guilty.
So whilst I agree there are people the state recognises as threats but doesn't have the strength to prove but it can't just make use of politically appointed judges to deal with them because it has that much greater separation of the judiciary and politics than the US has - ultimately it doesn't matter what the state does or doesn't believe, it still has to satisfy an independent judiciary at the end of the day.
Now this has been changing somewhat in recent years, obviously there have been the countless calls to do away with the human rights act, and pull out of the European Court of Human Rights - things the government cannot control and there has of course been the creation of the UK's supreme court, which is a new top court with politically appointed judges (some argue this is how they got the ruling they wanted against Assange even though it seemed to conflict with UK law).
So it's ultimately that cleaner separation between politics and justice that causes the UK authorities the headaches we see. It's a double edged sword - good in that we don't end up with rulings that satisfy the politicians rather than the public, but bad in that we can't deal with cases like those you cite where even the public support the government on them but the judiciary still stick vehemently to the letter of the law.
Okay I guess you're living in your own world and I can't really discuss things any further. I really have no idea what's going on in your world but it has nothing to do with what's happening to reality.
There is plenty of unified stances in the West, and Russia doesn't want to be part of it, he wants his own groupthink that he controls.
That's what's happening in the real world FWIW, what's happening in your world may be completely different so there's no point comparing.
Agreed, I don't think Putin is funding all or maybe even any anti-franking protests because like you I'm anti-fracking but also most definitely anti-Russian imperialism. However he IS funding the far-right in Europe. See here for example:
There are other far right parties in the UK that Russia likely has a hand in funding but are much harder to prove. One example is UKIP in the UK. Some years back a Lib Dem MP in the UK, Mike Hancock got in trouble for having an affair with a young girl (less than half his age) because the security services warned she was a Russian spy and a Russian whistleblower (a general) outed her as such also. The MP in question was on a number of British security committees. The girl in question, Katia Zatuliveter, was allowed to stay in the UK because the courts ruled there was not enough evidence of her being a spy. Case closed, end of story. Right?
Fast forward a couple of years, and we get a news story that seems completely unrelated, UKIP announces that it's got a new donor that's defected from the Tories, he donates £100,000 to UKIP. The Tories state that they've no idea who this guy is and investigation into official finances show that the guy was bluffing about having been a major Tory donor, despite claims of having donated over £100,000 to the Tories it seems he'd only ever donated about £20,000. The guy responds by saying he's "offended" by the Tories belittling his donation and ups his UKIP donation to £1million. It seems odd that UKIP and this guy were willing to lie about the scale of relevance he had to the Tories in order to pretend it was a much more major coup than it was, but so what, who cares, what has this got to do with anything?
Well, this little known small fry Tory donor, Arron Banks, defecting to UKIP to become a major political donor is married to none other than a Katia Zatuliveter, the claimed Russian spy who he was married to before, during, and since she "cheated" on him with strategic defence knowledge filled MP Mike Hancock.
All a massive coincidence? Maybe. But given that we know Putin is overtly funding France's far-right national front it doesn't seem too much of a stretch to think he might be subversively funding similar far-right parties like UKIP (who have gone out their way to try and pretend they're not far right and are respectable even though their far-right nature shines through when they fuck up almost weekly) in the UK too.
So funding fracking protests? Maybe, probably not. Funding attempts to rip Europe apart? Well we know for a fact it is in some countries, we just don't know quite how far it reaches.
I wondered after the European elections why Europes elite didn't opt to listen to the eurosceptics, and opted to continue on a path of integration rather than giving the eurosceptic view the time of day in light of the amount of support the eurosceptic crowd had gained with it's well funded campaigns across Europe. It didn't make sense that they'd just ignore them altogether, but now I wonder if these guys know full well about all the Russian money being poured into far-right and eurosceptic campaigns then they may well recognise that much of the eurosceptic vote is simply Russian stirred dissent.
All those claims Russia made about the West stirring discontent in the Ukraine rather than it simply being a grass roots campaign for change that's been going on in the Ukraine since at least 2004 with their orange revolution? It seems that whatever Russia is accusing the West of doing, it is most definitely doing itself- even if you're willing to give the benefit of the doubt on some o
But even that's not true, there are tons of male civilian NPCs of all race, colour, age, and size walking around.
"Is there a way to go around indiscriminately kill characters in GTA V without being misogynist?"
Yes absolutely. Just go around shooting all the men instead.
This is really the problem with his, and Anita Sarkesian's depiction of GTA and other games - they claim they're misogynist games, because you can kill women, but there's no reason you have to kill women anymore than men and you'll be forced to kill far more men throughout the game. One women even calls a hit squad after you to have you killed as a male protagonist.
So much of their argument about misogyny through killing women is actually wholly a choice they make about how they choose to play the game rather than an inherent thing you have or need to do within the game. Effectively by GTA opting to put an equal mix of male/female NPCs roaming the street it seems they've opened themselves to misogyny claims, but if there were no women in GTA so you couldn't kill male and female NPCs equally then wouldn't they then call the game misogynistic for not having any women? It ultimately seems like a lose-lose situation because the feminists are going to find an excuse to attack it whatever they do.
Well murders, manslaughters, and violence caused A&E admissions have been declining too which comes with the implication that the violence that is happening is less likely to result in death or hospital treatment which means that the violence in question is probably actually less violent too (unless people engaging in physical violence have all become well disciplined marshal artists who all know how to attack only to stun). What exactly is your point? that although less people are punching each other they might be punching a little bit harder because they've played GTA?
Get a grip and stop talking nonsense. You've turned into a Jack Thompson like nutjob on this issue, there's nothing more to it than that. Video games don't cause violence, we've got an entire generation brought up in an era of violent video games now and guess what? they're the least criminal generation of young folks possibly ever:
So if video games are turning people into prostitute murderers as you're suggesting where is the evidence of this? where is this actually happening? Why has an entire generation brought up on ever more violent video games become more placid than ever?
Your narrative on video games, violence, and women bears no semblance to reality. You seem to have got yourself so tangled up in that childish gamergate thing which is from what I can tell fundamentally just a battle between two different groups of Twitter attention whores and has fuck all to do with the many other millions of people who actually play video games in practice and are actually normal decent human beings that you've lost all sense of perspective on this issue.
And yet levels of violence have been drastically declining despite sales of violent video games drastically increasing making it almost impossible to claim violent video games have any kind of measurable impact on increasing violent crime levels.
Fallout 3 was based on the US too but that doesn't mean nuclear war has actually happened and that people are living or have lived post apocalyptic lives across America.
"The whole thing is a comment on American society"
Yes, that's why I said:
"some forms of entertainment like to explore the reality of the world"
You don't have any idea what you're on about do you?
No violence you can choose to commit against women in GTA is because they are women. None. In fact, even the games most psychopathic protagonist Trevor right at the start of the game takes a woman hostage and lets her go opting to run away instead.
So yes there is a double standard. At least play the game through before commenting because currently you're just making shit up in a weak attempt to try and justify your viewpoint.
"As to if it is acceptable... Well, I'd just question why it is there at all."
You could ask the same question of any scene in any book or movie involving sex or violence.
Why is it there? Because it's not meant to be acting as a beacon of how the world should be but instead is fictional commentary on how the world is.
Setting the world to rights isn't GTA's job anymore than it's the job of Hostel, or 50 shades of grey.
"Movies make an effort to censor themselves. War films don't show the real horrors of war because it would give the audience PTSD."
Absolute and categorically incorrect bullshit. Movies show stuff that video games can't even come close to showing, if you put anything like Hostel, The Hills Have Eyes, or the Human Centipede in a video game it's an instant ban for that game. Manhunt was far far tamer than all those films yet it was banned. War movies show far worse graphic violence and far greater impacts of war than any Call of Duty or Battlefield game ever has.
"They could, for example, make the prostitute disappear after the act off-camera so she can't be murdered"
Yes, and 50 shades of grey could be a book that says "A women has fantasies about being dominated, but the man respects her too much so refuses to. The End." but it's not, because some forms of entertainment like to explore the reality of the world, or our fears, our thoughts and so forth in a bit more depth than that.
The fact is there are parts of the world, even in Western countries like the US where the sort of shit as in GTA happens. Why should video games be held up as some medium cannot explore the reality of the world in which we live in like movies and books can? Why hold them to different standards and suggest video games may only be used for the purpose of advertising the ethics and morals of an ideal world rather than as an exploration of the real world?
Nothing in GTA says "You should go and do this for real".
No, the Xbox One / PS4 versions were recently released and have quite a boost in terms of graphics and content since the 360/PS3 versions came out and so they're currently in heavy sales territory again as it's been a well received and well selling re-release of the game.
But you're right regardless, a handful of stores in a country with a population of only 20 million have stopped selling it? Seriously who cares. Anyone in Australia that wants it will just buy it elsewhere and Australia isn't exactly a very big market anyway.
You realise that a lot of that text is there as a constant patchwork to close all the loopholes companies have been looking for?
"Pay 21% tax on profits" isn't difficult for anyone or any company to understand, yet apparently Google, Amazon, Apple, Starbucks et. al. have exactly that problem - the rest of tax law doesn't make it difficult unless you're explicitly looking for loopholes NOT to pay it.
So using the excuse that tax law is too complicated to be worth paying tax is a sick joke.
Well you're shifting the blame of arbitrary seizures of corporations away from him and onto the victims so how can that be seen as anything other than apologism?
I'm not terribly sure how Putin can ever be called a Western parrot when he's spent the last decade or more so desperately trying to stir up confrontation with the West.
I can only conclude that you're an incredibly confused individual as nothing you say bears any resemblance to reality or makes any kind of sense.
It's no more emotional nonsense than your apologism of Putin's authoritarianism is. If you want to discuss the issue rationally you'll have to start by quitting with the apologism and start accepting reality - that numerous companies have been hijacked by Putin and his cronies not because those companies were failing (how could anyone call VKontakte failing under this guy? It's been growing like crazy in Russia) but because they didn't do what Putin wanted.
You blame the business leaders and offer excuses for Putin like all too many Russians do, when in reality Putin is the problem. Until you can accept that Russia is going to continue it's century long problem of failed imperialism and subsequent eras of abject poverty when it keeps on collapsing then nothing will change with Russia.
Russians need to start recognising their leaders are the problem time and time again if they've ever any hope escaping their constant cycles of weak rises followed by massive falls.
"But I did buy a PS1 (because I hate Nintendo even more than Sony) and a PS4 (because MS made all the wrong moves in the early days of the XboxOne). So that says SOMETHING about the quality of their consoles."
No it doesn't. Microsoft making wrong moves pre-release says nothing about their actual released system.
I have all current gen and last gen consoles. The PS4 has the least polished software and controller, but has the nicest physical console design and best specs. The Xbox One has the most good games, by far the best controller, and a joint best UI with the Wii U, but the Xbox One is physically much to big and ugly. At release the Xbox One was also overpriced relative to performance but now it's often much easier to get it cheaper than the PS4 so offers better value for money at this point just over a year in to the X1/PS4 release.
The Wii U is different, it's UI is polished, it's games are almost entirely consistently excellent quality, but it's underpowered relative to it's price, and there aren't enough games even though the bulk of what's there is incredibly high quality.
So they all have their pros and cons, there's nothing inherently high quality about Sony's console, in fact, whilst the Xbox One and PS4 both had far more release issues than they should have I'd argue the PS4 had the lowest quality launch in terms of number and seriousness of defects. Neither were ready for release when they were.
Because Putin holds grudges. Defy him and you're on his hit list.
Putin's regime has a long history of not just seizing companies or putting a stop to things that dare defy it but also crushing the lives of the people who carried out the defiance in the first place.
Look at Litvinenko, he hadn't been in Russia for years, was a British citizen, yet they were still willing to send Lugovoi to poison him in London with Polonium.
Like all brutal authoritarian regimes, it's about sending a message - do as we say without question, or we'll kill you.
Slashdot Mirror
You say I'm wrong but nothing, absolutely nothing backs up your claims. It's all nonsensical bullshit that is completely contradicted with what's actually happening in reality.
"Why should I buy into artificial Russia - West conflict when it's already long obsolete?"
Because some people still crave power and suffer tribalist tendancies? Do you really have this little understanding about the world, how old are you, 10?
"But pretty much all what Putin's government does would be ignored if he was, say, French president. And such double-standard is what I abhor. "
No it wouldn't. The US and the UK suffered a massive blow to their reputation due to their shenanigans in Iraq. There is no double standard - you invade a neighbouring country, you create laws that discriminate against minorities, and you get called out on that. Look at Uganda, it similarly got attacked for it's anti-homosexuality laws.
Again, I can only assume you're about 10, or 13 or something. Your complete naivety of the world is astounding and I can't believe anyone could reach adulthood with such an insanely weak understanding of the world around them.
You're exactly right. I work in finance as a software developer in the UK and had to undergo a criminal records check, a credit reference check, and 10 years worth of employment references checked.
None of it was an issue though as I'd already had all this a few years before when I was given security clearance to work on a number of defence projects at a previous employer, but that's another example of an industry you don't just go into without some serious checks on your history.
Finance and defence are two major industry sectors which will do these sort of checks pretty much routinely on new employees.
Minor correction - this changed with the introduction of the UK's Supreme Court, whose judges are politically appointed.
The government of the time created it specifically so that they had a top court they could take advantage of when they found that whole independent judiciary thing inconvenient.
You're right we've always had a great system and we do still have a great system for the most part, but the UK's Supreme Court has put an end to that to some degree as the government can always just escalate to them when it doesn't get it's own way.
"I thought it was to overturn the decisions of national establishment and replace them with decisions made by a supranational establishment instead."
That's what it does, the person you're responding to gave the reason as to why that's what it does - to prevent anything like Nazi Germany happening again where the government turned on select minorities of their own people leaving those groups with no one to turn to for justice.
"With respect of the human rights laws, they seem to be more of a stick to beat the government with than anything used to really protect human rights"
Completely wrong. They're a stick to beat the government with because the government is repeatedly violating human rights.
"the latest scam from the ambulance chasing human-rights lawyers is the case of a foreign criminal who used the human right to a family life to defend himself from being deported after serving his sentence. Only in this case, he was had threatened to kill his family and was banned from seeing them."
Ah, I see, you're a Daily Mail reader. I forgive your confusion about human rights then.
"Is state snooping on communications against our human rights? Is it against the human rights legislation?"
If it's done arbitrarily which it is then yes absolutely, it's a violation of the right to a private life. I'm not a threat to the state, I never have been and never will be. There is no legitimate reason for the state to arbitrarily harvest my e-mails and browsing history. The European Convention on Human Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights both state this giving exemptions only for the purposes of law enforcement, but given that there's no reason I should be a target of law enforcement then that get out clause is irrelevant, hence why it is a clear breach of my rights.
Interestingly I was surprised they praised it for being 12 year old technology. This puts it around the kind of era where processes were just brutally inefficient, where they were just chucking out silly amounts of heat down a path they couldn't continue on because processors were getting too hot and dying too early.
So I'm surprised they cite stability and reliability as a reason for maintaining a processor of this age as the advance in processors over the last 12 years has largely been in efficiency, reduced heat waste, increased stability, lower power consumption.
I'd have thought a newer processor would've been superior in every way than something from 12 years ago. I understood this argument when 12 years ago meant something like a 386 or 486 that didn't even need a heat sink, but 12 years ago from now means something disgustingly inefficient and high power consumption.
It's not just video games either for what it's worth, I've seen it in the great Lego debate recently.
Lego has increased the ratio of male/female characters in sets (for IP it controls) so that you now have a fairly fair split of male/female builders, firefighters, police, and even criminals. I've seen a number of feminists criticise this for not being appealing enough to girls and for fire engines still being boys sets.
Yet Lego also do a line of girl only sets with just female characters, where everything is pink and so forth, there's even a Disney princesses line and guess what? They criticise this for forcing girls to conform to gender biases and so forth.
So even toy companies like Lego just cannot win no matter what they do.
"What benefit? Russian gas was very reliable and inexpensive."
Reliable compared to what? inexpensive for whom?
I can only guess you've been paying no attention to world affairs because Russian gas was only reliable if you did what Putin wanted. Did you miss the whole gas cutoffs to Ukraine and parts of Europe the last time Ukraine tried to pave it's own destiny? Did you not see the prices Russia was demanding of Ukraine the second time Ukraine tried to pave it's own destiny?
Yes Russian gas is inexpensive and reliable if you do what Putin wants and that's exactly what abusers do. Just like the guy who gives some whore cheap drugs to fulfil her addiction whilst she gives him blowjobs and cuts off the supply when she decides she wants to try and get a better life for herself. Europe shouldn't have to be Putin's whore when there are better alternatives available.
"And now, thanks to the hubris of some stupid politicians we'll probably have to import the way too expensive LNG from USA."
Have you not been paying attention to prices over the last week or so? Have you missed the news in recent years about an increasing tendency towards renewables? Have you missed the growth of fracking in Europe? All these things mean that whatever happens Europe is going to be paying less for energy over the next decade than it has to Russia over the last decade.
"That will lead to a recession. In fact, thanks to the sanctions Germany has already only narrowly avoided it, but it still can happen next year."
Nonsense. The UK is now well out of recession and equally has a sizeable export market to Russia that has now been destroyed. Europe's been in and out of recession for many years since well before this occurred. Europe's economic woes have nothing to do with Russian sanctions - the fact the UK economy is doing so well when it took such a different economic path that it was heavily criticised for is evidence of that. The impact of sanctions is negligible compared to the structural economic flaws of many major European nations like France and Germany. France is too busy propping up a failed economic model with government subsidies rather than modernising and Germany is still intent on competing in manufacturing with China whilst trying to maintain 1st world living and working conditions making it economically uncompetitive to do so. If the sanctions were the cause then given the massive financial focus of the sanctions the UK wouldn't be looking at 3% growth this year when finance is one of the UK's most important industries.
"Trade is what keeps peace, but apparently, it is now too long ago since the last war, several EU chickenhawks are eager for a new one so they've started an economic war already."
Wait what? Ukraine and Georgia were major trading partners of Russia. Russia still opted to invade them both. Trade is only a stabilising factor if you're dealing with countries that have grown out of childish imperialist tendencies, something Russia still has a major problem with. You seem to have completely forgotten how this whole thing started, it's like your memory of the situation only goes back about a month. Europe has spent the last 20 years trying the whole trade based approach to improving relations between Europe and Russia. It clearly has not worked.
"Russia may need the income, but their debt is miniscule compared to every single first world country and their people are accustomed to bad times."
Countries set a budget, how much they intend to spend based on how much they make. Putin set a budget recently that requires around $150bn more than his country is likely to make in the next year. It doesn't really matter how small his debt is, when he's got a spending plan so utterly out of whack with the amount his country is going to earn through falling fuel prices and sanctions then any advantage they have now will be irrelevant within 12 to 24 months because it will have been more than wiped out - especially as the cost of borrowing for them was high because of the
Why is it embarassing for the EU at all? it was embarassing that the EU was sending so much money to a country desperate to rip it to pieces in the first place, the fact that Bulgaria loses out and has to find money from elsewhere is small fry compared to the massive benefit of Europe finally starting to ween itself off of Russian gas which gave Putin a stranglehold over vast areas of European politics. Europe gets to be independent again, Gazprom, a de-facto Russian state owned organisation doesn't get to control the gas and pipeline.
It could've been a problem for the EU if it meant energy prices had gone up, but the massive decline of oil prices, the subsequent decline of gas prices means that that one single major disadvantage has been more than wiped out.
It's not Europe that's seeing $100bn wiped off of it's economy by falling gas and oil prices. Turning Putin away on this one and getting what they wanted anyway because Russia is so desperate for income was just icing on the cake.
""massive gas pipeline that will travel from Russia, transit through Turkey, and stop at the Greek border â" giving Russia access to the Southern European market. In effect, Russia will still have access to the Southern Stream endmarkets""
Which ironically means that it's piped into Europe proper by third parties, which is all the European Union was asking for in the first place because the EU doesn't like the same company to control both supplies and pipelines.
Or in other words, Russia's new project is an embarrassing climb down for Putin dressed up as something completely different. He's basically just doing what the EU asked with a slight diversion to maintain control of the whole thing as far as he can (i.e. through Turkey, a non-EU state).
"The Brits seem a bit hamstrung when it comes to dealing with internal security. That's not to imply that the UK is somehow more careful about justice or respectful of privacy and citizens' rights than the US: the UK has an obvious (and at times overbearing) internal security apparatus that is ineffective in dealing with some major internal security problems."
Without knowing what the security services are doing in the background it's really hard to say whether this is the case. The thing you have to realise is that the UK does have a very strong separation between it's judicial system and politics, but just because someone like Zatuliveter didn't get arrested or deported doesn't mean she isn't being monitored by them.
It's easy to condemn failure to deport Abu Hamza but look at Abu Qatada - the UK stripped his and his families rights away left and centre but couldn't deport to Jordan for a decade and spent millions in and out of court trying to get rid, and guess what? when they finally did, he went on trial in Jordan and was found not guilty.
So whilst I agree there are people the state recognises as threats but doesn't have the strength to prove but it can't just make use of politically appointed judges to deal with them because it has that much greater separation of the judiciary and politics than the US has - ultimately it doesn't matter what the state does or doesn't believe, it still has to satisfy an independent judiciary at the end of the day.
Now this has been changing somewhat in recent years, obviously there have been the countless calls to do away with the human rights act, and pull out of the European Court of Human Rights - things the government cannot control and there has of course been the creation of the UK's supreme court, which is a new top court with politically appointed judges (some argue this is how they got the ruling they wanted against Assange even though it seemed to conflict with UK law).
So it's ultimately that cleaner separation between politics and justice that causes the UK authorities the headaches we see. It's a double edged sword - good in that we don't end up with rulings that satisfy the politicians rather than the public, but bad in that we can't deal with cases like those you cite where even the public support the government on them but the judiciary still stick vehemently to the letter of the law.
Okay I guess you're living in your own world and I can't really discuss things any further. I really have no idea what's going on in your world but it has nothing to do with what's happening to reality.
There is plenty of unified stances in the West, and Russia doesn't want to be part of it, he wants his own groupthink that he controls.
That's what's happening in the real world FWIW, what's happening in your world may be completely different so there's no point comparing.
Agreed, I don't think Putin is funding all or maybe even any anti-franking protests because like you I'm anti-fracking but also most definitely anti-Russian imperialism. However he IS funding the far-right in Europe. See here for example:
http://www.theweek.co.uk/europ...
al Jazeera has a decent article on the reasoning behind it here also:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indep...
There are other far right parties in the UK that Russia likely has a hand in funding but are much harder to prove. One example is UKIP in the UK. Some years back a Lib Dem MP in the UK, Mike Hancock got in trouble for having an affair with a young girl (less than half his age) because the security services warned she was a Russian spy and a Russian whistleblower (a general) outed her as such also. The MP in question was on a number of British security committees. The girl in question, Katia Zatuliveter, was allowed to stay in the UK because the courts ruled there was not enough evidence of her being a spy. Case closed, end of story. Right?
Fast forward a couple of years, and we get a news story that seems completely unrelated, UKIP announces that it's got a new donor that's defected from the Tories, he donates £100,000 to UKIP. The Tories state that they've no idea who this guy is and investigation into official finances show that the guy was bluffing about having been a major Tory donor, despite claims of having donated over £100,000 to the Tories it seems he'd only ever donated about £20,000. The guy responds by saying he's "offended" by the Tories belittling his donation and ups his UKIP donation to £1million. It seems odd that UKIP and this guy were willing to lie about the scale of relevance he had to the Tories in order to pretend it was a much more major coup than it was, but so what, who cares, what has this got to do with anything?
Well, this little known small fry Tory donor, Arron Banks, defecting to UKIP to become a major political donor is married to none other than a Katia Zatuliveter, the claimed Russian spy who he was married to before, during, and since she "cheated" on him with strategic defence knowledge filled MP Mike Hancock.
All a massive coincidence? Maybe. But given that we know Putin is overtly funding France's far-right national front it doesn't seem too much of a stretch to think he might be subversively funding similar far-right parties like UKIP (who have gone out their way to try and pretend they're not far right and are respectable even though their far-right nature shines through when they fuck up almost weekly) in the UK too.
So funding fracking protests? Maybe, probably not. Funding attempts to rip Europe apart? Well we know for a fact it is in some countries, we just don't know quite how far it reaches.
I wondered after the European elections why Europes elite didn't opt to listen to the eurosceptics, and opted to continue on a path of integration rather than giving the eurosceptic view the time of day in light of the amount of support the eurosceptic crowd had gained with it's well funded campaigns across Europe. It didn't make sense that they'd just ignore them altogether, but now I wonder if these guys know full well about all the Russian money being poured into far-right and eurosceptic campaigns then they may well recognise that much of the eurosceptic vote is simply Russian stirred dissent.
All those claims Russia made about the West stirring discontent in the Ukraine rather than it simply being a grass roots campaign for change that's been going on in the Ukraine since at least 2004 with their orange revolution? It seems that whatever Russia is accusing the West of doing, it is most definitely doing itself- even if you're willing to give the benefit of the doubt on some o
But even that's not true, there are tons of male civilian NPCs of all race, colour, age, and size walking around.
"Is there a way to go around indiscriminately kill characters in GTA V without being misogynist?"
Yes absolutely. Just go around shooting all the men instead.
This is really the problem with his, and Anita Sarkesian's depiction of GTA and other games - they claim they're misogynist games, because you can kill women, but there's no reason you have to kill women anymore than men and you'll be forced to kill far more men throughout the game. One women even calls a hit squad after you to have you killed as a male protagonist.
So much of their argument about misogyny through killing women is actually wholly a choice they make about how they choose to play the game rather than an inherent thing you have or need to do within the game. Effectively by GTA opting to put an equal mix of male/female NPCs roaming the street it seems they've opened themselves to misogyny claims, but if there were no women in GTA so you couldn't kill male and female NPCs equally then wouldn't they then call the game misogynistic for not having any women? It ultimately seems like a lose-lose situation because the feminists are going to find an excuse to attack it whatever they do.
Well murders, manslaughters, and violence caused A&E admissions have been declining too which comes with the implication that the violence that is happening is less likely to result in death or hospital treatment which means that the violence in question is probably actually less violent too (unless people engaging in physical violence have all become well disciplined marshal artists who all know how to attack only to stun). What exactly is your point? that although less people are punching each other they might be punching a little bit harder because they've played GTA?
Get a grip and stop talking nonsense. You've turned into a Jack Thompson like nutjob on this issue, there's nothing more to it than that. Video games don't cause violence, we've got an entire generation brought up in an era of violent video games now and guess what? they're the least criminal generation of young folks possibly ever:
http://www.independent.co.uk/v...
So if video games are turning people into prostitute murderers as you're suggesting where is the evidence of this? where is this actually happening? Why has an entire generation brought up on ever more violent video games become more placid than ever?
Your narrative on video games, violence, and women bears no semblance to reality. You seem to have got yourself so tangled up in that childish gamergate thing which is from what I can tell fundamentally just a battle between two different groups of Twitter attention whores and has fuck all to do with the many other millions of people who actually play video games in practice and are actually normal decent human beings that you've lost all sense of perspective on this issue.
And yet levels of violence have been drastically declining despite sales of violent video games drastically increasing making it almost impossible to claim violent video games have any kind of measurable impact on increasing violent crime levels.
Fallout 3 was based on the US too but that doesn't mean nuclear war has actually happened and that people are living or have lived post apocalyptic lives across America.
"The whole thing is a comment on American society"
Yes, that's why I said:
"some forms of entertainment like to explore the reality of the world"
You don't have any idea what you're on about do you?
No violence you can choose to commit against women in GTA is because they are women. None. In fact, even the games most psychopathic protagonist Trevor right at the start of the game takes a woman hostage and lets her go opting to run away instead.
So yes there is a double standard. At least play the game through before commenting because currently you're just making shit up in a weak attempt to try and justify your viewpoint.
"As to if it is acceptable... Well, I'd just question why it is there at all."
You could ask the same question of any scene in any book or movie involving sex or violence.
Why is it there? Because it's not meant to be acting as a beacon of how the world should be but instead is fictional commentary on how the world is.
Setting the world to rights isn't GTA's job anymore than it's the job of Hostel, or 50 shades of grey.
"Movies make an effort to censor themselves. War films don't show the real horrors of war because it would give the audience PTSD."
Absolute and categorically incorrect bullshit. Movies show stuff that video games can't even come close to showing, if you put anything like Hostel, The Hills Have Eyes, or the Human Centipede in a video game it's an instant ban for that game. Manhunt was far far tamer than all those films yet it was banned. War movies show far worse graphic violence and far greater impacts of war than any Call of Duty or Battlefield game ever has.
"They could, for example, make the prostitute disappear after the act off-camera so she can't be murdered"
Yes, and 50 shades of grey could be a book that says "A women has fantasies about being dominated, but the man respects her too much so refuses to. The End." but it's not, because some forms of entertainment like to explore the reality of the world, or our fears, our thoughts and so forth in a bit more depth than that.
The fact is there are parts of the world, even in Western countries like the US where the sort of shit as in GTA happens. Why should video games be held up as some medium cannot explore the reality of the world in which we live in like movies and books can? Why hold them to different standards and suggest video games may only be used for the purpose of advertising the ethics and morals of an ideal world rather than as an exploration of the real world?
Nothing in GTA says "You should go and do this for real".
No, the Xbox One / PS4 versions were recently released and have quite a boost in terms of graphics and content since the 360/PS3 versions came out and so they're currently in heavy sales territory again as it's been a well received and well selling re-release of the game.
But you're right regardless, a handful of stores in a country with a population of only 20 million have stopped selling it? Seriously who cares. Anyone in Australia that wants it will just buy it elsewhere and Australia isn't exactly a very big market anyway.
It's probably because it's a French company doing a rollout in British territory. The French sources will quote km, the British will quote miles.
You realise that a lot of that text is there as a constant patchwork to close all the loopholes companies have been looking for?
"Pay 21% tax on profits" isn't difficult for anyone or any company to understand, yet apparently Google, Amazon, Apple, Starbucks et. al. have exactly that problem - the rest of tax law doesn't make it difficult unless you're explicitly looking for loopholes NOT to pay it.
So using the excuse that tax law is too complicated to be worth paying tax is a sick joke.
Well you're shifting the blame of arbitrary seizures of corporations away from him and onto the victims so how can that be seen as anything other than apologism?
I'm not terribly sure how Putin can ever be called a Western parrot when he's spent the last decade or more so desperately trying to stir up confrontation with the West.
I can only conclude that you're an incredibly confused individual as nothing you say bears any resemblance to reality or makes any kind of sense.
It's no more emotional nonsense than your apologism of Putin's authoritarianism is. If you want to discuss the issue rationally you'll have to start by quitting with the apologism and start accepting reality - that numerous companies have been hijacked by Putin and his cronies not because those companies were failing (how could anyone call VKontakte failing under this guy? It's been growing like crazy in Russia) but because they didn't do what Putin wanted.
You blame the business leaders and offer excuses for Putin like all too many Russians do, when in reality Putin is the problem. Until you can accept that Russia is going to continue it's century long problem of failed imperialism and subsequent eras of abject poverty when it keeps on collapsing then nothing will change with Russia.
Russians need to start recognising their leaders are the problem time and time again if they've ever any hope escaping their constant cycles of weak rises followed by massive falls.
"But I did buy a PS1 (because I hate Nintendo even more than Sony) and a PS4 (because MS made all the wrong moves in the early days of the XboxOne). So that says SOMETHING about the quality of their consoles."
No it doesn't. Microsoft making wrong moves pre-release says nothing about their actual released system.
I have all current gen and last gen consoles. The PS4 has the least polished software and controller, but has the nicest physical console design and best specs. The Xbox One has the most good games, by far the best controller, and a joint best UI with the Wii U, but the Xbox One is physically much to big and ugly. At release the Xbox One was also overpriced relative to performance but now it's often much easier to get it cheaper than the PS4 so offers better value for money at this point just over a year in to the X1/PS4 release.
The Wii U is different, it's UI is polished, it's games are almost entirely consistently excellent quality, but it's underpowered relative to it's price, and there aren't enough games even though the bulk of what's there is incredibly high quality.
So they all have their pros and cons, there's nothing inherently high quality about Sony's console, in fact, whilst the Xbox One and PS4 both had far more release issues than they should have I'd argue the PS4 had the lowest quality launch in terms of number and seriousness of defects. Neither were ready for release when they were.
Because Putin holds grudges. Defy him and you're on his hit list.
Putin's regime has a long history of not just seizing companies or putting a stop to things that dare defy it but also crushing the lives of the people who carried out the defiance in the first place.
Look at Litvinenko, he hadn't been in Russia for years, was a British citizen, yet they were still willing to send Lugovoi to poison him in London with Polonium.
Like all brutal authoritarian regimes, it's about sending a message - do as we say without question, or we'll kill you.