>> ^bobknight33:

There is a difference between fear, hate and what one believes what is wrong. If one believes that being gay is wrong then it is wrong.

The 2000 U.S. Census Bureau found that homosexual couples constitute less than 1% of American households. The Family Research Report says "around 2-3% of men, and 2% of women, are homosexual or bisexual." The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force estimates three to eight percent of both sexes. So who's right -- what percentage of the population is homosexual?


I believe 2+2=5, Belief doesn't make you correct. You should be listening to evidence, not belief.

@PostalBlowfish is absolutely right, you can believe homosexuality is wrong all you want. There are still lots of people who believe blacks are of inferior genetic stock, women shouldn't vote and that the earth is really flat and that we didn't go to the moon either.

Public policy, however, has a higher standard of evidence than what makes @bobknight33 and the other bible thumpers uncomfortable. Doesn't matter if there were only two homosexuals in the entire world or 200 billion, you still treat people with basic dignity and respect and they have a right to their pursuit of happiness as you do. Civil rights is not a popularity contest.

If homosexuality is so horrible and detrimental to society as you would have us believe, you shouldn't have any problem proving it without using the bible. I eagerly await your mountains of evidence.

Run away bob, run away to your next sift-trolling

I just think it would have been a better game if they had simply separated the single player from the multiplayer. That way you have a choice in the matter. Gamers like choices and hate it when you take those choices away. D3 isn't a MMO no matter how hard Blizzard tries to convince people it is. The only reason they made it into this forced co-op game is they were greedy and figured that was the only way they could stop piracy.
Problem is the people who were gonna pirate the game weren't ever planning on paying for it in the first place. So they weren't going to lose a dime to those people. Notch said something to that effect about Minecraft piracy I don't remember the exact quote but Notch could care less if you pirate Minecraft, hell he gives away the beta snapshot versions for free.
And if they hadn't forced multiplayer to be always on all these hackers wouldn't be exploiting that very same system to steal items and gold from people so they can then sell them for cash in their idiotic real money auction house. Which will be a disaster if they ever open it because the hackers will flood the market.
And then even though people paid $60 bucks for the game they expect you to shell out another $10 for a physical authenticator in order to hopefully keep your account secure. Even though they don't allow strong passwords on Battle.net.
Which is a moot point because these hackers aren't even hacking passwords in the first place there stealing session id's or forcing themselves onto buddy lists somehow that's why people can still log into their accounts after they have been jacked for everything their worth. But Blizzard is suspiciously in denial when someone brings that up.

All in all their choice to force online access to play their game has resulted in one of the most embarrassing disasters in the history of gaming. Which is sad because it really is a good game. It's just run by greedy idiots.

>> ^lampishthing:

I think Thumper was saying that Diablo 3 is clearly a multiplayer focused game and that Mr. Yathzee Esq. should not expect it to be excellent in single player. Being a games reviewer surely he should have given more attention to the multiplayer as this was the intent of the game etc. I really don't think that Diablo 3 can be blamed for shoving stuff down your throat. That's more your desire to play Diablo 3 shoving it down your throat.>> ^Auger8:
Maybe because some people actually like single player games.
And maybe he's the guy who doesn't need 15 people to go "hey nice backswing on that axe you got there" 50 million times like some attention seeking whore.
Or there like me and don't want their entire party to sudden scream like banshees if I decide to get up and take a leak or grab a snack or simply decide I don't want to play through the entire campaign in a single night.
That's not to say I don't enjoy Multiplayer I simply enjoy not having it shoved down my throat like D3.
>> ^Thumper:
How in the hell can you play Diablo 3 without playing multiplayer. He's the person you never go see a movie with because they ruin it with their trite non-conformity misery. Oh wait that's how, if no one wants to play with you. What a fucking tool.

I think Thumper was saying that Diablo 3 is clearly a multiplayer focused game and that Mr. Yathzee Esq. should not expect it to be excellent in single player. Being a games reviewer surely he should have given more attention to the multiplayer as this was the intent of the game etc. I really don't think that Diablo 3 can be blamed for shoving stuff down your throat. That's more your desire to play Diablo 3 shoving it down your throat.>> ^Auger8:

Maybe because some people actually like single player games.
And maybe he's the guy who doesn't need 15 people to go "hey nice backswing on that axe you got there" 50 million times like some attention seeking whore.
Or there like me and don't want their entire party to sudden scream like banshees if I decide to get up and take a leak or grab a snack or simply decide I don't want to play through the entire campaign in a single night.
That's not to say I don't enjoy Multiplayer I simply enjoy not having it shoved down my throat like D3.
>> ^Thumper:
How in the hell can you play Diablo 3 without playing multiplayer. He's the person you never go see a movie with because they ruin it with their trite non-conformity misery. Oh wait that's how, if no one wants to play with you. What a fucking tool.

Maybe because some people actually like single player games.

And maybe he's the guy who doesn't need 15 people to go "hey nice backswing on that axe you got there" 50 million times like some attention seeking whore.

Or there like me and don't want their entire party to sudden scream like banshees if I decide to get up and take a leak or grab a snack or simply decide I don't want to play through the entire campaign in a single night.

That's not to say I don't enjoy Multiplayer I simply enjoy not having it shoved down my throat like D3.

>> ^Thumper:

How in the hell can you play Diablo 3 without playing multiplayer. He's the person you never go see a movie with because they ruin it with their trite non-conformity misery. Oh wait that's how, if no one wants to play with you. What a fucking tool.

>> ^bareboards2:

Oh, I understand everything. I just choose to not argue with someone who can't think clearly, @dirkdeagler7
Bullshit. Bible. One paragraph. Equals snit fit.
Ignore all the words inbetween.
You talk about context but don't apply your own logic.


Perhaps if I said he was criticizing their faith in addition to their stance on homosexuality you would disagree less?

I'm the one not thinking clearly? You've ONLY given your own opinion of MY assessment and have not used a single argument or comment to refute anything I've said or to give your own opinion with regards to the things I touched on. Since you're apparently far more enlightened than I am, please explain to me what was the ultimate point of this 3min. commentary (keeping in mind that the beginning and end of the video clearly indicate it was a small piece of some larger lecture he is giving).

I'm not in the mood to be trolled by someone that criticizes my clarity of thought or my understanding of context and logic yet uses none himself.

To be clear I've only commented on the context and seeming POINT of what he was saying and how he said it. I did not go into whether I agree or disagree with him did I? But since you're obviously trying to imply I'm an unreasonable Bible-thumper let me declare my religious stance just for you.

I am a non-practicing christian with a very loose tie to organized Christianity. I do not believe the bible is direct truth and I probably know more about cosmology, the big bang, and science than even most science enthusiasts because I love and respect science and knowledge. I'm not an opponent of gay rights or gay marriage and I believe that sexual preference is no business of anyone but ones self.

I personally would not have walked out that day. I also would have lost respect for someone who takes a benign opportunity to discuss a topic with other enthusiasts (journalism) to parade his/her own personal opinion in a forum that was not intended for this purpose.

That's weird. I guess I didn't notice that about the chart (woops). I think you are correct in that measuring average deviations is a better / more responsible way of using this information for the global warming debate. As you indicate, it still have holes in being presented as a definitive. The Earth is big and old and it has a lot of moving parts. >> ^messenger:

Not sure you understand that chart. It's actually two statistics about Texas which happen to correlate. The x-axis is rainfall, and the 2011 dot indicates that last summer was a wee bit drier than the driest ever -- significant. But the temperature is double the previous largest deviation from the average (previous largest deviation was 2.5 degrees; 2011 was 5 degrees) -- incredible. Now, this is interesting, but nowhere near conclusive on its own -- freak weather things happen all the time, but it is huge, and it is for a very large area -- all of Texas -- not just some statistically anomalous hole that was purposefully chosen to quotemine. Cenk's overall point here with the other freak weather states is that there is a massive increase in really freak weather incidents. I'm still not convinced, and would want some information on what the average number of heat records usually is in a given period. It could be that thousands of places reporting all-time weather highs is normal.>> ^Thumper:
I meant around 3:45. Where he has the chart up with 2011 being a big red dot. And Yes, I think the chart data isn't indicative of anything other than our local weather history. The Earth's temperature has always fluctuated. We as an element on the Earth do not have the impact global warming suggests. At most we should be concerned with the pollution for our health reasons, not because we're throwing the Earth's climate out of whack. >> ^messenger:
Not at 4:45 he doesn't. And I don't understand what you're saying anyway. Are you saying this gigantic temperature spike that annihilates previous records is normal if regarded in the right context?>> ^Thumper:
at 4:45 he says 2011 is off the charts but really it's only off the charts based on the general direction. If you follow the lines increase and compare the distance from the 2011 dot to it, it's no more further out than other years that reach out and above the line. This is my problem with global warming charts. I mean no one really puts forth evidence that is clear because if you follow that line back in time I'm sure as a whole movement it fluctuates with smaller fluctuations locally as seen in the chart he shows.

Not sure you understand that chart. It's actually two statistics about Texas which happen to correlate. The x-axis is rainfall, and the 2011 dot indicates that last summer was a wee bit drier than the driest ever -- significant. But the temperature is double the previous largest deviation from the average (previous largest deviation was 2.5 degrees; 2011 was 5 degrees) -- incredible. Now, this is interesting, but nowhere near conclusive on its own -- freak weather things happen all the time, but it is huge, and it is for a very large area -- all of Texas -- not just some statistically anomalous hole that was purposefully chosen to quotemine. Cenk's overall point here with the other freak weather states is that there is a massive increase in really freak weather incidents. I'm still not convinced, and would want some information on what the average number of heat records usually is in a given period. It could be that thousands of places reporting all-time weather highs is normal.>> ^Thumper:

I meant around 3:45. Where he has the chart up with 2011 being a big red dot. And Yes, I think the chart data isn't indicative of anything other than our local weather history. The Earth's temperature has always fluctuated. We as an element on the Earth do not have the impact global warming suggests. At most we should be concerned with the pollution for our health reasons, not because we're throwing the Earth's climate out of whack. >> ^messenger:
Not at 4:45 he doesn't. And I don't understand what you're saying anyway. Are you saying this gigantic temperature spike that annihilates previous records is normal if regarded in the right context?>> ^Thumper:
at 4:45 he says 2011 is off the charts but really it's only off the charts based on the general direction. If you follow the lines increase and compare the distance from the 2011 dot to it, it's no more further out than other years that reach out and above the line. This is my problem with global warming charts. I mean no one really puts forth evidence that is clear because if you follow that line back in time I'm sure as a whole movement it fluctuates with smaller fluctuations locally as seen in the chart he shows.

I meant around 3:45. Where he has the chart up with 2011 being a big red dot. And Yes, I think the chart data isn't indicative of anything other than our local weather history. The Earth's temperature has always fluctuated. We as an element on the Earth do not have the impact global warming suggests. At most we should be concerned with the pollution for our health reasons, not because we're throwing the Earth's climate out of whack. >> ^messenger:

Not at 4:45 he doesn't. And I don't understand what you're saying anyway. Are you saying this gigantic temperature spike that annihilates previous records is normal if regarded in the right context?>> ^Thumper:
at 4:45 he says 2011 is off the charts but really it's only off the charts based on the general direction. If you follow the lines increase and compare the distance from the 2011 dot to it, it's no more further out than other years that reach out and above the line. This is my problem with global warming charts. I mean no one really puts forth evidence that is clear because if you follow that line back in time I'm sure as a whole movement it fluctuates with smaller fluctuations locally as seen in the chart he shows.

>> ^Thumper:

at 4:45 he says 2011 is off the charts but really it's only off the charts based on the general direction. If you follow the lines increase and compare the distance from the 2011 dot to it, it's no more further out than other years that reach out and above the line. This is my problem with global warming charts. I mean no one really puts forth evidence that is clear because if you follow that line back in time I'm sure as a whole movement it fluctuates with smaller fluctuations locally as seen in the chart he shows.


What?

Not at 4:45 he doesn't. And I don't understand what you're saying anyway. Are you saying this gigantic temperature spike that annihilates previous records is normal if regarded in the right context?>> ^Thumper:

at 4:45 he says 2011 is off the charts but really it's only off the charts based on the general direction. If you follow the lines increase and compare the distance from the 2011 dot to it, it's no more further out than other years that reach out and above the line. This is my problem with global warming charts. I mean no one really puts forth evidence that is clear because if you follow that line back in time I'm sure as a whole movement it fluctuates with smaller fluctuations locally as seen in the chart he shows.

The regions of which you speak belong to another era. Villages out there take days to walk to along mountain trails in some of the highest mountain ranges in the world. Is similiar to a lot of terrain in Afghanistan. Natural forts.

They've never really been conquered or been part of established empire. People are still organized along tribal lines, with the tribes engaged in continuous inter-tribe warfare. Every kid is handed a gun as soon as he's old enough to shoot and raised to abide by the honour code (pashtunwali, yes they even have a name for it). When the tribe is under attack, you don't question right or wrong, you defend the tribe. They're no electricity, television, newspapers, literacy, or any other medium that counters this message. I know it sounds racist but those boys are like klingons, the Pakistani government has never really dared to take them on.

Couple that with the decades of training provided in the arts of guerilla warfare; including drug running, weapons manufacture, crude bomb manufacture, etc. by the CIA and ISI during the cold war and the Soviet invasion, means they are a force to be reckoned with as the US is finding out in Afghanistan.

Despite all of that they've never really bothered us until the "war on terror". They've always bbeen kind of our crazy cousins. We don't wanna be around them but they're family. Most of the country is similarly undeveloped (as in people still live like 3000 years ago undeveloped) and backwards. Bringing them into the modern era is a long term project but there's a 150 million more people on that waiting list.

Since the war on terror Pakistan has taken a serious beating. This was supposed to be our decade of growth instead the economy is in shambles. We've been through yet another round of Western supported, foreign policy obsessed, military dictator leaving our civil institutions in shambles. We've lost around 4 thousand soldiers another 8.5 wounded. 40 thousand civilians killed and 3.5 million internal refugees (dirt poor and starving variety).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_North-West_Pakistan

Those are big numbers, people are angry. The Americans are unlikely to win in Afghanistan. They're putting tribe against tribe. All this talk of democracy vs. extremism/terrorism is not something the average Afghan understands. The average Afghan is illiterate and does not understand complex ideas. He understands this: foreigners, christian army, my tribe has chosen this side because we always hated those other fuckers anyways. Americans will leave, leaving Pakistan with a mess. They did it before and we've been screwed since. There's a huuuuge (as in a small city big) Afghan refugee camp near where I live that's some thirty years old, from the last time American boys were in the region playing their geopolitical monopoly game. It's horrible.

From the Pakistani perspective the War on Terror has been a disaster. It's solved nothing and created tenfold the problem it aimed to solve. The Afghans are a primitive bunch (made more so by warfare) and need to establish a government, after which they will slowly over time, maybe a century, join the civilized world. Pakistan wholeheartedly supported the Taliban (as did the US) when they took control of the country and brought peace to it. Warfare is the real bitch not how "extreme" they are. Saudi's are equally nuts and there's not a single American president who doesn't go pay a visit right away upon taking office. Best friends.

Now the government/military of Pakistan is in a tricky situation, we have to play both sides, thus the lack of trust. Either side has the ability to seriously take Pakistan on and bring it to it's knees. The government the American's have propped up in Kabul wouldn't last a month without them, is corrupt, and allied to the Indians, with whom we see ourselves as being in a state of justified war. What to do!? What to do!? (in a indian accent).

I guess my point being, we're actually not a bad bunch. Just in a shitty situation. Come sometime and I can show you around. Most of the country is safe. Safer than mexico anyways.

Sorry that was a long post





>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^FermitTheKrog:
Thanks for having a more nuanced understanding of the matter... thought I'd share a Pakistani perspective:
-Yes, no arabs here. Lots of Muslims though as in loads of other countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Muslim_population
-Pakistani's despise the drone strikes for the same reason we despised the Bin Laden assasination. It is a terrible loss of sovereignity to have foreign soldiers killing with impunity, racking up civilian casualties, within your borders. It makes the matter worse, Pakistan is radicalizing tremendously fast and every time the US flattens another village in Afghanistan or our border regions, everytime American troops accidentally kill ours, that pace accelerates.
-An analogy: If Mexico had drones over the US taking out gang leaders in LA, the US would flatten Mexico in response. All we do is get angry.
-Things are not that bad: Liberals are not dying off. We are in government by popular vote. The Pakistani military is not some tinpot force, it is very much in control of itself and thus of it's nukes. We will deal with the militancy problem over time; education, economic opputurnity, writ of law; not bombs. We are a third world country, Afghanistan has been a war zone forever now, these things take time, most of us still shit in fields, out people are hungry, we have bigger problems to deal with than car bombs.
-In Pakistan, conservatives want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Palestine is the example. Amongst the ultra right (3-4% of the population, I'm sure you have them too, wherever you are) the "we" is Muslims and the "them" is a collaboration of Zionists and American bible thumpers.
Liberals want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Saudi Arab is the example. If they go away we can educate our people out of the mental cesspit they seem to be headed into. American bombs make us look like traitors to our people and weaken our stance.
Thanks for listening. Open to discussion


>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^vaire2ube:
well the trick is eventually we dont tell the kids running the drones that its actually REALITY! Ahh! Ender's Game!
But by then the arabs formics will be gone.

The populations in Afghanistan and Pakistan are primarily Muslim, not Arab. There are in fact more Arabs living in America than there are in Afghanistan and Pakistan combined.
I know, not your point at all, but if you try and hash out the real news by reading through middle eastern news outlets you won't be able to make head from tails wondering why a pro-Arab outlet like Al Jazeera would willingly say anything bad about Iran. It's not until realizing that Iran is largely Persian and not Arab that it makes any sense.
I rant about this because it's crazily important and the details matter. American drone attacks have killed hundreds within Pakistan, but even by Pakistan's most anti-American media those people were largely militants responsible for killing Pakistani civilians. The Pakistani Taliban have meanwhile killed thousands of civilians, including former PM Benazir Bhutto, and there is infinitely more outrage and hatred for America's drones than for the Pakistani Taliban. It's something important to think about. What's more, there is MORE hatred in Pakistan over America's raid that killed Bin Laden than there is for the unmanned drone attacks. That's even more important to think about.
The reality is that the moderates in Pakistan are fighting an uphill struggle in Pakistan. We need them to win but they are being killed off faster than we can defend them, and even attempting to defend them is hurting their cause to boot. It's easy to declare that a strategy is bad and has horrible consequences, it's a lot more important though to propose a better alternative. Stop the attacks and do nothing means a Pakistan where the Taliban where still best friends with the military and intelligence agencies. It means a nuclear armed state that was best friends with terrorist organizations eager to use those nuclear weapons in their jihad while we lacked any way of assessing just how close and willing their partnership was. Don't dismiss this assessment as doomsday fear mongering. One of the debates in Pakistan's national assemblies after Osama's death included elected representatives bemoaning Pakistan's failure to protect a great Muslim hero like Bin Laden. Pakistan is a battle ground between extremist and moderate populations and we have a very vested interest in who wins that struggle.


Thank you for adding so much to the discussion, very much appreciated.
Yes, I do understand the sovereignty issue looms huge in the opinion of American actions within Pakistan's borders. I can really understand how that would enrage anyone with any manner of national pride. America is in a tough spot though too. The mountainous tribal regions along the Pak-Afghan border are not under the control of the Pakistani central government. On paper the border may run there, but in practice militants can relatively safely travel back and forth between the two. What's more, there still remain places within Pakistan's proper borders that are controlled by the local tribal leaders, and NOT the central Pakistani government. Those local tribal leaders are allying themselves to the Pakistani Taliban and providing them safe haven within Pakistan to launch attacks in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Afghan part does make it America's business. The Pakistani part in my humble opinion, should be a source of greater public outrage than it is.
I guess I find it worrying that extremists can be in de-facto control of large swathes of land within Pakistan's proper borders. So much so that it is still unsafe for the Pakistani police and even military to patrol there. To me, that seems like it is already an enormous sovereignty issue. America's attacks against militants in that region I can understand being a source of outrage. I don't understand why there isn't equal or greater outrage that those regions on the ground are no longer under the control of the Pakistani government at all and being used as a base of operations for launching attacks on the rest of Pakistan.
I think America's problem is knowing whom they can trust within Pakistan's power structure to work against rather than with extremists like the Taliban. Hamid Gul, former leader of Pakistan's ISI, scares the crap out of me. How many of his friends are still in the ISI that think like him? The JUI-F party declared Osama a muslim hero in Pakistan's National Assemblies. How much support has that party been able to hold onto within Pakistan still after taking that stance? Political parties like the PPP seem to share alot of moderate values, but have historically been ridden out of office by the military every few years.
Do you have good reasons that those fears are unfounded? From what I see and read(largely from "The News International") the moderates like yourself have always been in an uphill struggle against extremists and the opportunists willing to work with them.

>> ^FermitTheKrog:

Thanks for having a more nuanced understanding of the matter... thought I'd share a Pakistani perspective:
-Yes, no arabs here. Lots of Muslims though as in loads of other countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Muslim_population
-Pakistani's despise the drone strikes for the same reason we despised the Bin Laden assasination. It is a terrible loss of sovereignity to have foreign soldiers killing with impunity, racking up civilian casualties, within your borders. It makes the matter worse, Pakistan is radicalizing tremendously fast and every time the US flattens another village in Afghanistan or our border regions, everytime American troops accidentally kill ours, that pace accelerates.
-An analogy: If Mexico had drones over the US taking out gang leaders in LA, the US would flatten Mexico in response. All we do is get angry.
-Things are not that bad: Liberals are not dying off. We are in government by popular vote. The Pakistani military is not some tinpot force, it is very much in control of itself and thus of it's nukes. We will deal with the militancy problem over time; education, economic opputurnity, writ of law; not bombs. We are a third world country, Afghanistan has been a war zone forever now, these things take time, most of us still shit in fields, out people are hungry, we have bigger problems to deal with than car bombs.
-In Pakistan, conservatives want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Palestine is the example. Amongst the ultra right (3-4% of the population, I'm sure you have them too, wherever you are) the "we" is Muslims and the "them" is a collaboration of Zionists and American bible thumpers.
Liberals want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Saudi Arab is the example. If they go away we can educate our people out of the mental cesspit they seem to be headed into. American bombs make us look like traitors to our people and weaken our stance.
Thanks for listening. Open to discussion


>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^vaire2ube:
well the trick is eventually we dont tell the kids running the drones that its actually REALITY! Ahh! Ender's Game!
But by then the arabs formics will be gone.

The populations in Afghanistan and Pakistan are primarily Muslim, not Arab. There are in fact more Arabs living in America than there are in Afghanistan and Pakistan combined.
I know, not your point at all, but if you try and hash out the real news by reading through middle eastern news outlets you won't be able to make head from tails wondering why a pro-Arab outlet like Al Jazeera would willingly say anything bad about Iran. It's not until realizing that Iran is largely Persian and not Arab that it makes any sense.
I rant about this because it's crazily important and the details matter. American drone attacks have killed hundreds within Pakistan, but even by Pakistan's most anti-American media those people were largely militants responsible for killing Pakistani civilians. The Pakistani Taliban have meanwhile killed thousands of civilians, including former PM Benazir Bhutto, and there is infinitely more outrage and hatred for America's drones than for the Pakistani Taliban. It's something important to think about. What's more, there is MORE hatred in Pakistan over America's raid that killed Bin Laden than there is for the unmanned drone attacks. That's even more important to think about.
The reality is that the moderates in Pakistan are fighting an uphill struggle in Pakistan. We need them to win but they are being killed off faster than we can defend them, and even attempting to defend them is hurting their cause to boot. It's easy to declare that a strategy is bad and has horrible consequences, it's a lot more important though to propose a better alternative. Stop the attacks and do nothing means a Pakistan where the Taliban where still best friends with the military and intelligence agencies. It means a nuclear armed state that was best friends with terrorist organizations eager to use those nuclear weapons in their jihad while we lacked any way of assessing just how close and willing their partnership was. Don't dismiss this assessment as doomsday fear mongering. One of the debates in Pakistan's national assemblies after Osama's death included elected representatives bemoaning Pakistan's failure to protect a great Muslim hero like Bin Laden. Pakistan is a battle ground between extremist and moderate populations and we have a very vested interest in who wins that struggle.



Thank you for adding so much to the discussion, very much appreciated.

Yes, I do understand the sovereignty issue looms huge in the opinion of American actions within Pakistan's borders. I can really understand how that would enrage anyone with any manner of national pride. America is in a tough spot though too. The mountainous tribal regions along the Pak-Afghan border are not under the control of the Pakistani central government. On paper the border may run there, but in practice militants can relatively safely travel back and forth between the two. What's more, there still remain places within Pakistan's proper borders that are controlled by the local tribal leaders, and NOT the central Pakistani government. Those local tribal leaders are allying themselves to the Pakistani Taliban and providing them safe haven within Pakistan to launch attacks in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Afghan part does make it America's business. The Pakistani part in my humble opinion, should be a source of greater public outrage than it is.

I guess I find it worrying that extremists can be in de-facto control of large swathes of land within Pakistan's proper borders. So much so that it is still unsafe for the Pakistani police and even military to patrol there. To me, that seems like it is already an enormous sovereignty issue. America's attacks against militants in that region I can understand being a source of outrage. I don't understand why there isn't equal or greater outrage that those regions on the ground are no longer under the control of the Pakistani government at all and being used as a base of operations for launching attacks on the rest of Pakistan.

I think America's problem is knowing whom they can trust within Pakistan's power structure to work against rather than with extremists like the Taliban. Hamid Gul, former leader of Pakistan's ISI, scares the crap out of me. How many of his friends are still in the ISI that think like him? The JUI-F party declared Osama a muslim hero in Pakistan's National Assemblies. How much support has that party been able to hold onto within Pakistan still after taking that stance? Political parties like the PPP seem to share alot of moderate values, but have historically been ridden out of office by the military every few years.

Do you have good reasons that those fears are unfounded? From what I see and read(largely from "The News International") the moderates like yourself have always been in an uphill struggle against extremists and the opportunists willing to work with them.

Thanks for having a more nuanced understanding of the matter... thought I'd share a Pakistani perspective:

-Yes, no arabs here. Lots of Muslims though as in loads of other countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Muslim_population

-Pakistani's despise the drone strikes for the same reason we despised the Bin Laden assasination. It is a terrible loss of sovereignity to have foreign soldiers killing with impunity, racking up civilian casualties, within your borders. It makes the matter worse, Pakistan is radicalizing tremendously fast and every time the US flattens another village in Afghanistan or our border regions, everytime American troops accidentally kill ours, that pace accelerates.

-An analogy: If Mexico had drones over the US taking out gang leaders in LA, the US would flatten Mexico in response. All we do is get angry.

-Things are not that bad: Liberals are not dying off. We are in government by popular vote. The Pakistani military is not some tinpot force, it is very much in control of itself and thus of it's nukes. We will deal with the militancy problem over time; education, economic opputurnity, writ of law; not bombs. We are a third world country, Afghanistan has been a war zone forever now, these things take time, most of us still shit in fields, out people are hungry, we have bigger problems to deal with than car bombs.

-In Pakistan, conservatives want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Palestine is the example. Amongst the ultra right (3-4% of the population, I'm sure you have them too, wherever you are) the "we" is Muslims and the "them" is a collaboration of Zionists and American bible thumpers.

Liberals want the American's gone because they are an imperial force at our doorstep. All talk of human rights and democracy is hogwash. Saudi Arab is the example. If they go away we can educate our people out of the mental cesspit they seem to be headed into. American bombs make us look like traitors to our people and weaken our stance.

Thanks for listening. Open to discussion




>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^vaire2ube:
well the trick is eventually we dont tell the kids running the drones that its actually REALITY! Ahh! Ender's Game!
But by then the arabs formics will be gone.

The populations in Afghanistan and Pakistan are primarily Muslim, not Arab. There are in fact more Arabs living in America than there are in Afghanistan and Pakistan combined.
I know, not your point at all, but if you try and hash out the real news by reading through middle eastern news outlets you won't be able to make head from tails wondering why a pro-Arab outlet like Al Jazeera would willingly say anything bad about Iran. It's not until realizing that Iran is largely Persian and not Arab that it makes any sense.
I rant about this because it's crazily important and the details matter. American drone attacks have killed hundreds within Pakistan, but even by Pakistan's most anti-American media those people were largely militants responsible for killing Pakistani civilians. The Pakistani Taliban have meanwhile killed thousands of civilians, including former PM Benazir Bhutto, and there is infinitely more outrage and hatred for America's drones than for the Pakistani Taliban. It's something important to think about. What's more, there is MORE hatred in Pakistan over America's raid that killed Bin Laden than there is for the unmanned drone attacks. That's even more important to think about.
The reality is that the moderates in Pakistan are fighting an uphill struggle in Pakistan. We need them to win but they are being killed off faster than we can defend them, and even attempting to defend them is hurting their cause to boot. It's easy to declare that a strategy is bad and has horrible consequences, it's a lot more important though to propose a better alternative. Stop the attacks and do nothing means a Pakistan where the Taliban where still best friends with the military and intelligence agencies. It means a nuclear armed state that was best friends with terrorist organizations eager to use those nuclear weapons in their jihad while we lacked any way of assessing just how close and willing their partnership was. Don't dismiss this assessment as doomsday fear mongering. One of the debates in Pakistan's national assemblies after Osama's death included elected representatives bemoaning Pakistan's failure to protect a great Muslim hero like Bin Laden. Pakistan is a battle ground between extremist and moderate populations and we have a very vested interest in who wins that struggle.

>> ^Thumper:

What! You must not be a gamer then. The mouse controls are fine. It allows for intense combat. This game is the arcade version of Skyrim. >> ^Jinx:
Actually a good game if you can get over:
a)The lowest mouse sensitivity setting is high. The default setting is unplayable and the highest setting is what I imagine putting a camera in a blender is like. ie, you spin so fast everything merges together
b)The camera is indeed pretty awful. Targetting can often be a chore in combat.
But I enjoyed the rest of it. I hate WoW with a passion, but I didn't find the quests samey or boring. The game starts off relatively challenging, but it does begin to get quite easy once you start unlocking perks. I was also a roque type character and unlocked a bow attack that fired 7 arrows in a spread. Like him I found that the most effective use of this was like a shotgun on bigger enemies. 7 arrows all hitting together was enough to almost 1 shot even the largest enemies. Still, combat is fun. I'd say the lore is fairly good if not a little cliched in parts. 8/10. Try it after you are disappointed by Mass Effect 3 (you will be, don't worry).


I hope you are sarcastic :3. I use a pretty low sensitivity because I play a lot of FPS games. Precision is more important that how many 360s you can do in a inch of mousemat. Ofc, precision isn't really important for KoA, but its still a pain having to use a sensitivity I am not used to simply because their control options aren't comprehensive enough. Not that KoA is alone in this, I am consistently amazed just how badly developers can fuck up their control schemes. Skyrim for instance had a bug that scaled y sensitivity based on your framerate... Then there is mouse acceleration that frequently can't be turned off without editing a config.txt somewhere. I actually pirate games just to look at the options menu.

I'm pretty sure you just lost all credibility by plagiarizing the bible. >> ^shinyblurry:

I don't steal anything. Neither does "everyone" else. Some people actually do follow their conscience and don't steal content. Morality is a concept which is ingrained in all of us; you have a God given conscience that tells you right from wrong.
Companies have the right to do what is legal for them to do. You have the right to turn off your television set, take off your head phones, get up from your computer desk and do something productive in your life. You're caught up in the lust of the world:
Ecclesiastes 1:8
All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.
Proverbs 27:20
Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.
Your cravings for these things will never end. If it isn't one thing, it will be the other. You need to set your eyes on Heavenly things, on the peace of Jesus Christ. You need to turn from sin and turn towards Jesus Christ. When you start life sanctified by the riches of His grace and mercy, you will find true fulfillment.
>> ^Thumper: