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Good lord, it's like Bruce Willis in Die Hard.

er... with portapotties

I wholly disagree with that sentiment. They would be better off free in the ocean. We don't need to keep an eye on them. They aren't like great white sharks randomly swimming along the shore taking bites out of people. No. They're too smart for something so lowest-common-denominator as that. Yes, they're called "killer" whales for a reason, but you have nothing to fear from releasing them from captivity and enjoying all that the deep blue sea has to offer those beautiful creatures. Speaking of beautiful, I wonder if they share any relationship with panda bears, genetically speaking. They're very different except for the whole black and white thing. And what gives with that whole look anyway? Yes, it's badass and cute, but how does that fit into the whole natural selection deal? How does being black and white make you fitter? Hmm.

Did you ever see Free Willy? You couldn't have. Anyone who's seen that would never endorse keeping these beautiful, intelligent creatures in a cage, much less doing it just to "keep an eye on them." FOR shame!

Such a tremendous waste of young lives.

And I can't help but wonder, no Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you "The Cause?"
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

You want to talk about trivial stories getting media coverage?

Yesterday, the island of Vanuatu was all but destroyed by a cyclone. 24 people confirmed dead, tens of thousands left homeless and "the development of the country wiped out" but what was the headline on NZs largest news site (and bear in mind that NZ is the closest developed nation to Vanuatu)?

Some d-list celebrity said something mean on a reality tv show, and the country lost their shit.

So, when someone threatens "the deadliest school shooting in American history" at your speaking engagement, that is not "faux victimhood". That is genuinely fucking scary.

Bad shit happens to people every fucking day and it's not deemed newsworthy. If you really want to get pissy about it, why does this one womans awful experience merit more support than the 200+ schoolgirls that are still missing?

The answer is that it's not a zero sum game.
I can say that I feel that the representation of women (and non-caucasians while I'm at it) in video games is pretty bad and should change.
I can also say that this woman had an awful experience and I wish it hadn't happened.
And I can also say that I sincerely hope those girls don't get sold in slavery.
And a million other issues of social justice, environment, etc.

Some of those are more important than others. Doesn't mean the "lesser" ones should be ignored.

Well, Syriza is an acronym for Coalition of the Radical Left (roughly), and everything left of the Berlin Consensus is considered to be radical left. So they are going to call Syriza a radical leftist party until the political landscape itelf has been pulled back towards more leftist positions. But you're right, if they were judged by their positions, they'd be centre-left in theory, if centre-left hadn't turned into corporatism by taking up the Third Way of Schröder/Blair/Clinton.

They are, without a doubt, radically democratic though. As your Grauniad article points out, they haven't turned on their election promises yet, which is quite unheard of for a major European party. Francois Hollande in particular was a major letdown in this regard. Few people expected him to bow down to German demands so quickly. Aside from his 75% special tax for the rich, he dropped just about every single part of his program that could be considered socialism.

Grexit... that's a tough one.

Syriza cannot enforce any troika demands that relate to the programmes of the Chicago School of Economics. Friedman ain't welcome anymore. No cuts to wages or pensions, to privatisation of infrastructure, no cuts to the healthcare system, nor any other form of financial oppression of the lower class. That is non-negotiable. In fact, even increases in welfare programs and the healthcare system are pretty much non-negotiable. Even if Syriza wanted to put any of this on the table, and they sure as hell don't, they couldn't make it part of any deal without further damages to an already devasted democratic system in Greece.

So with that in mind, what's the point of all the negotiations?

Varoufakis' suggestions are very reasonable. The growth-linked bonds, for instance, are used very successfully all over the world in debt negotiations, as just about any bankrupty expert would testify. Like Krugman wrote today, Syriza is merely asking to "recognize the reality everyone supposedly already understands". His caveat about the German electorate is on point as well, we haven't had it explained to us yet – and we chose to ignore what little was explained to us.

Yet the troika insists on something Syriza cannot and will not provide, as just outlined above. Some of the officials still expect Syriza to acknowledge reality, to come to their senses and to accept a deal provided to them. Good luck with that, but don't hold your breath. Similarly, Varoufakis is aware that Berlin is almost guaranteed to play hardball all the way.

Of course, nothing is certain and they might strike a deal during their meeting in Wednesday that offers Greece a way out of misery. Or maybe the ECB decides that to stabilize to Euro, as is their sole purpose, they need to keep Greece within the EZ and away from default. That would allow them to back Greece, to provide them with financial support, at least until they present their program in June/July. Everything is possible. However, I see very little evidence in support of it.

Therefore Grexit might actually be just a question of who to blame it on. Syriza is not going to exit the EZ willy nilly, they need clear pressure from outside, so the record will unequivocally show that it wasn't them who made the call. No country can be thrown out, they have to leave of their own. Additionally, Merkel will not be the person to initiate the unravelling of the EU, as might be the consequence of a Grexit. That's leverage for Greece, the only leverage they have. But it has to be played right or else the blame will be put squarely on Greece, even more so than it already is.

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Edit #1: What cannot be overstated is the ability of the EZ to muddle through one crises after another, always on the brink of collapse, yet never actually collapsing. They are determined to hold this thing together, whatever the cost.
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Speaking of blame, Yves Smith linked a fantastic article the other day: Syriza and the French Indemnity of 1871-73.

The author makes a convincing case why the suppression of wages in Germany led to disaster in Spain, why it was not a choice on the part of Spain to engage in irresponsible borrowing and how it is a conflict between workers and the financial elite rather than nations. He also offers historical precedent, with Germany being the recipient of a massive cash influx, ending in a catastrophe similar to Spain's nowadays.

It strikes me as a very objective dissection of what happend, what's going on, and what needs to happen to get things back in shape. Then again, it agrees with many points I made on that BBC videos last week, so it's right within my bubble.

Who did you see on the list?

Kareem Abdul-Jabar
JJ Abrams
Alan Alda
Christiane Amanpour
Jon Batiste
Big Bird
Cory Booker
Tom Brokaw
Ken Burns
Bill Clinton
Andy Cohen
Francis Collins
Cookie Monster
Bob Costas
Katie Couric
Bryan Cranston
Mark Cuban
Jeff Daniels
Bill DeBlasio
Maureen Dowd
James Franco
Thomas Friedman
Vince Gilligan
Doris Kearns Goodwin
David Gregory
Terry Gross
Mike Huckabee
Arianna Huffington
Dean Kamen
Toby Keith
Henry Kissinger
Nicholas Kristof
Paul Krugman
Alexi Lalas
Cyndi Lauper
David Leonhardt
George Lucas
Yo Yo Ma
Barry Manilow
Senator Claire McCaskill
Tim Meadows
Willie Nelson
Randy Newman
Grover Norquist
Eleanor Holmes Norton
Ric Ocasek
Keith Olbermann
Mandy Patinkin
Stone Phillips
Samantha Power
Pussy Riot
Charlie Rose
Dan Savage
Smaug
Shane Smith
Eliot Spitzer
Gloria Steinem
Jon Stewart
Patrick Stewart
Michael Stipe
Andrew Sullivan
Matt Taibbi
Jeff Tweedy
Neil Degrasse Tyson
Sam Waterston
Elijah Wood

(http://www.vox.com/2014/12/19/7419893/colbert-finale-song)

Yeah, and Bruce Willis is a ghost in the Sixth Sense.

I think the statute of limitations has run out on Seven by now!

You thought correctly. What a blast.

Even despite your recommendation, I expected it to be a run-of-the-mill action flick. Mucho pow pow, cheesy zingers everywhere... the usual. So it was all the more captivating when it turned out to be a proper dystopian cesspool of desperation.

When Dredd lured a group of them to a terminal, covered them in what looked like Willie Pete and set half the quadrant on fire -- that's cold. And if I didn't know Lena Headey to have quite the rock 'n roll personality, I'd be worried by how naturally the persona of an ice-cold murderer seems to come to her. Both Urban and Headey, now that I think about it. Very disturbing indeed.

Anyway, great recommendation, would have never touched it otherwise.

@Asmo

Except my daughter doesn't want to play other games--she wants to play Mario Brothers games. They have excellent game and level design. Why should she have to go elsewhere? Are you trying to say Mario Brothers games not for girls?

All my daughter is asking is to be allowed to play as the Princess--maybe after you free her from Bowser. That doesn't seem like much to ask, as it would have exactly zero effect on gameplay.

Personally, I'd go much farther and say when a game series continuously sends the message that women are helpless victims who need to be defended by men, when they're continuously objectified as trophies to be passed from player to villain and back to player again, then something is very wrong with that game and things need to change. Yeah, other games may be great, but why should that prevent people like Sarkeesian or myself from pointing out the games that aren't? Why should the trend itself not be pointed out when we can find examples of it outside of the Mario series?

No, it's not required that every game have a male/female playable character. It is, however, good business sense not to insult potential female customers of a product by portraying females (playable characters or NPCS) in sexist ways (or homosexual characters in bigoted ways, or ethnic minority characters in racist ways, while we're on the topic). This doesn't seem very difficult to understand and clearly game companies DO understand it because most are making great efforts to be diverse and more realistic in their portrayals of characters. However, just because some are trying doesn't mean we shouldn't point out the bullshit in those that don't. Games like the Mario platformer series, for instance.

You disagree with the way Sarkeesian presents her message... okay. I don't have a problem with that. I think everything you wrote grossly misrepresents what she's saying about games and gamers, but you're entitled to your opinion there.

Moving on... sorry you felt insulted. That was never my intent. But your comments on this issue are written in an extremely emotional manner as if you've somehow been personally wronged. If you don't want people to take it in that manner, you might want to think carefully about the tone your posts on this topic take. I have no idea what that link you provided was supposed to prove, so I'll just leave it alone.

On "Damsel in Distress," it's "your trope" because you've been--throughout this thread--defending it as if it is some bastion of literature that must be preserved. You are quite literally the only person I've ever seen actually try to defend it. And as I said, if it is that dear to you, you can have it. Games will still get made using it.

Other media,though, have long since moved on from it. Take the movie Die Hard as an example. Yeah, the main character's wife gets taken hostage by terrorists and that provides a nice emotional hook to move the plot forward--damsel in distress, right? If it were a game, though, we never would have heard from Holly Gennarro McClane again until Bruce Willis killed all the terrorists. Or maybe a video recording of her would show up after every "boss fight" where she tells John McClane, "Sorry honey, but I'm being kept in another part of the building."

But that's not what happens is it? The character of Holly is central to the plot of the movie and she appears nearly as much as John McClane does. She tries actively to subvert the terrorists by hiding her true identity and by taking responsibility to make sure the hostages are treated well during their captivity.

In other words she's portrayed as a real human being with personal agency throughout the movie.

And that's the point that you seem to be missing. That doesn't happen often in games despite the fact that it does happen in every other form of media (or at least in the examples from media that we generally consider "good"). When we are talking about the "Damsel in Distress" trope in games, THAT is what is being critiqued. Not the fact that someone was kidnapped to provide an emotional hook, but that one particular gender is always targeted and--to add insult to injury--is presented as weak, helpless, and without any agency of their own. They exist for the sole purpose of being rescued.

Thanks for the pro tip, BTW. Had no idea you were a pro at being a patronizing git but I'll take your word for it.

@ChaosEngine

Nobody is saying she needs to wear earbuds. She's welcome to tolerate assholes. You seem to be saying there should be stricter limits on their speech.

To me this video suggests a reverse power dynamic. It's about telling lower class folk to be comfortable being ignored by the privileged class. It's about telling them to only speak when spoken to. They should know their place.

It feels like Willie Horton ads all over again. It seeks to instill fear that dark skinned men might rape your white woman at a moments notice. That southern strategy, it gets you eyeballs.

I read somewhere that there's a difference in the tastebuds of men and women that makes whiskey more palatable to men. Something about mens tastebuds not being as affected by the bold flavor. I'm pretty sure I cringed as bad as these women after my first shot. Even now it can give me the willies sometimes.