Armstrong 1st MRB

May be interested in coming back in, though fair warning my work schedule shortens up my available time span unless its a statutory or rain day.

Canadian here. I personally don't have a problem with guns and kids. I don't think you should just throw a loaded gun to a kid and expect them to understand how to use it properly, but that like anything else it can be taught proper usage. I think if any accident occurs involving a child and a gun, just like anything else a child does, it falls on the responsibility of the parents, or anyone who teaches others how to use a gun. Its the parents to judge whether or not they think their kid is capable of wielding a gun and having as much respect for its capabilities as anyone else who uses a gun. Like many other things, I don't believe anything needs to be banned, just explained through. Don't be stupid, and don't be surprised that if you're lax or stupid in how you handle something that something stupid happens.

I'm not going to come out here and dispute the fact that the Residential Schools were terrible. They fucked with the lives of a lot of people and kids, they tried to destroy an entire ancient culture of humans, and were in principle a very bad thing that deserves to be remembered and paid for. Having said that, there is an argument to be made that the situation could have been A LOT worse, and that there is some way for the views espoused there to make sense. A friend of mine who looked into the history said it to me like this: The guy who proposed the idea of the Residential School system was considered a "softie" on the issue for his time for believing that the "savages" could be "civilized". His opposition wanted total genocide closer to the American model, as in send in the army and extradite or kill everyone on the Reservations that they could. In that respect, it COULD be said that the people at the time had "good" intentions, in that rather than total murderous genocide they decided cultural genocide was preferable. Of course, looking back, we can say that either option was total shit, and that the overall outcome was still a terrible outcome because of the objective and the people involved, but in my experience, such can be said about almost ANYTHING in history, especially anything that's over 50 years old. Again, I have sympathy for those that suffered, and I understand full well that the whole system was barbaric looking back on it. But understanding the context of the times helps understand why some people who analyze it all today could come to these sorts of conclusions when understanding these sorts of issues. Its almost the same thing as people not understanding period pieces and why they utilize words and actions which would otherwise be unacceptable today. Such views, words, and actions were commonplace or different back then, and understanding how ones can hold such views, use these words, and perform these actions IMO is critical to achieving a deeper understanding of humanity, and these various issues themselves, as you can come to understand why people could commit these kinds of acts and still be human beings defined by their times.

Samuels and I swam across there one time, we had some pretty nice cover thanks to fog when we came in. Nobody was there, our main concern was dealing with how cold we were by the time we landed.

I found the tent, went through zeleno and picked up a few medical things and some low caliber ammo, most notably a crossbow and a bunch of apples to replenish our food stocks if we need em. Didn't encounter anyone, but I also found the orange cargo truck that's been sitting in Zeleno is basically tuned up, so obviously someone has been working on it even though it hasn't moved its position yet. BTW Marsden those videos you posted apparently aren't saved.

I thought I grabbed a box or two and put it into one of the tents, or I have one on me that I found searching. May be wrong. I did the weird suspicion that someone had poked through our shit though. Not that whoever did took much.

Made it back to camp, our barrel is gone but most everything else seems untouched. Ran into 3 different crashed helis on the way over. Got into a firefight in Zeleno Mil Base, just barely got out of there with a wounded leg before people just unloaded whole clips in there.

I got into it on the second game as well, thought it was a great title and I agree that #3 is great up until its ending. I wasn't that pissed, but I could see why lots of other people would be pissed, and I was very disappointed they didn't end up going with the "Indoctrination Theory". Personally, I'm not all the interested in ME:A. What I have heard coming out of their writing department by one of their leads hasn't been promising just in terms of general behaviour, leading me to think the writing probably won't be any better at best, even worse being the more likely scenario. And in terms of other odd design choices, these people intentionally made the default female protagonist ugly in order to try to: (paraphrasing) "draw in more women gamers who are turned off by playing as unreachably beautiful characters". Meanwhile FemShep design was made by the community, and lots of people liked her WAY better than MaleShep in many cases, and she even featured in some of the promotional content of the game for ME:3.You'd never see this potato-head character be on the poster with any marketing team who's competent at their jobs saying it would genuinely draw in more people than by giving them a more aesthetically pleasing design, its silly. Other than that, I've heard the first couple hours are boring busy-work (meaning they haven't learned much from some of the critiques of Dragon Age: Inquisition), the narrative isn't anywhere near as compelling as that of the original Mass Effect trilogy's, and a lot of the voice acting is garbage. So . . . yeah, I'm not anxious to rush out and buy it. I have tons of games on back-log anyway. Nier: Automata has my attention right now.

I can't recall, I think Samuels ended up leaving it in favour of Mottola's ATLAS. Took the clips for it though. Cocksuckers out of Dolina fucked me and Mottola over on the way back (me twice), but I've made it halfway back now and managed to find a Mosin.

Mottola and I both got shot, twice. I'm try and make my way back over before we all meet up though. On the bright side, with any luck we may be able to clear up some tent space. LOL

Marsden, Samuels, and I all logged at the Checkpoint just west of Severograd, founds lots of alright loot, full of weapons, and handling things fairly well. Decent luck on avoiding wolves and other players for now.

I'll be getting it as well.

I must say just based on the trailers, this game will probably be able to make better WWII-esque Machinima Films out of than DoD:S, and I saw some pretty damn good DoD:S ones.

Old fashioned landmarks and memory then, eh? Still gotta figure out why the hell this game won't run for some reason. I didn't have this problem on my shitty prior rig, but now it won't even run on my upgraded one.

I still think of GoT as one of the best shows on TV at the moment, but does anyone else who's read the books as well feel a little disappointed by how things have progressed in some respects from page to film? I've mostly been able to understand all the changes they made early in the first few seasons of the series (paychecks, summing up scenes and information into other scenes more simply for film, cutting out unnecessary characters, etc), but I've been left scratching my head more and more the past few seasons on occasion, especially since the series has only gotten more and more money AFAIK. How they cut out Stannis to me just came across as a cheap way to end his storyline that doesn't make much sense, this guy is supposed to be one of the best tacticians in all of Westeros, yet not only does he let a sadistic fuck not even half his age with 20 men cause complete pandemonium in his camp, he makes the completely wrong call for the morale in his army by burning his own daughter alive for a change in weather that makes fuck-all difference, and keeps marching on to certain death. Heck, most of the Stannis arc started to piss me off as it went on with how they basically threw out the Melisandre/Davos dynamic in terms of vying for Stannis' mind, but that's besides the point. The Ironborn have repeatedly disappointed me throughout the entire series with the exception of Theon. I mean, if anything, everything we see about these guys just shows exactly why they're confined to a bunch of shit islands and got completely crushed in their rebellion, they'll kill each other at the best opportunity, they'll run away at the slightest resistance, and they do almost literally fuck-all with what they do manage to take. I'm pissed with "Yara" (she's always going to be Asha to me), I'm pissed that they waited so long to bring Euron in if he is even in (seriously, what the fuck are they going to do with him with only a couple seasons left and the White Walkers literally on the horizon, and Dany already back home with a bunch of allies?), and I'm pissed that Victarion the viking badass won't make an appearance. On a side note, IDK if any of you were keeping track, but by the film storyline, Balon Greyjoy, not Stannis Baratheon, won the War of Five Kings by virtue of being the last of the five still alive. Then there's the Dornish. If there's a single plot line I'm most pissed at with how they handled it, it had to be this. So many cut characters, dramatically changed character personalities, and just to me doesn't feel anywhere near as satisfying as the books. The house that managed to survive hundreds of years of attempted Targaryean occupation and conquest of other houses gets laid low by its own bastard branch in less than a season because Doran's apparently a complete idiot compared to his book-self. Also's a shame that the fan theory about Rickon won't happen show-wise. Would have been interesting to see the one Stark who gets the least amount of attention the whole series and was least likely become Lord of Winterfell at the end. Guess we're taking bets on whether or not Sansa will live or not since Arya has no interest, Bran's in no shape to do it, and Jon probably will have a bigger seat to fill than Winterfell if fan theories are correct as to what will happen.

I'm fairly close to Toronto and I was well enough aware when the G20 Protests happened several years ago and the massive fuck-up involved with how police handled the situation there. To make a long story shorter, they basically allowed violent protesters to run up and down Bay Street and smash every storefront window in sight, burned a dozen cars and a couple cruisers, and basically caused chaos the whole day without much action by police. The very next day after that, the cops have a small army of riot cops go through and grab ANYONE who's on the streets within certain areas, corral them into intersections and surround them to leave them out there for hours all day until it starts raining where they finally let them go (arresting a bunch throughout the whole day as well, and tons of accounts of police using excessive force and brutally treating a bunch of people [one case I heard of a guy who was beaten up with his own false leg in front of his daughter because he wasn't moving fast enough, then arrested, then denied to be given his false leg until he was released because it could be used as a weapon], and bad conditions at the makeshift jail camps they had setup for the occasion.) And Toronto is not known for its protests getting out of hand, so I basically was relatively close to the worst case scenario of both sides. IMO, and from my vague understanding of standard police procedures, the cops were within their rights to use non-lethal methods of persuasion in order to enforce compliance when the protesters refused to move. They do it all the time with small-scale, one-on-one encounters with people they suspect to have committed a crime. If the suspect is non-compliant in their orders, they will use whatever methods at their disposal to enforce compliance going up in caliber depending on how the suspect is behaving or acting (the simplest being restraining them with handcuffs tightly enough to cause physical pain, the highest of course being drawing their lethal firearm). If the suspect is compliant, they have no reason to use any of these methods. Have cops abused their power in certain situations before? Yes. Have Protesters also blatantly refused to cooperate with police? Yes. I personally don't know enough about the situation to say which is more likely to have happened here with any certainty (Hill probably knows better than me on this, or others in the Unit who have been in law enforcement, like Hall used to be). I will say though, I find it amusing that the places protesting this non-issue are all places that predominantly voted Hillary anyway, like anyone's supposed to be shocked that they're basically throwing the equivalent of hissy fits that places like Texas did after Obama got in (though I will say, Portland is the only case I've heard so far of the protests turning this violent and of one person getting shot and it wasn't by police-on-protesters apparently). I also find this terrible to have happened on Veteran's Day (Remembrance Day up here).

Exactly. One thing I also noticed about Michigan and Wisconsin is that both states in the Dems primary voted for Bernie which made me think of a reason why some Dems may have turned. The revelations by Wikileaks relating to all of the bullshit surrounding the democratic nomination I have no doubt pissed off a lot of Bernie Democrats who managed to find out. Doesn't matter if the DNC didn't actually break any laws or not, they pulled some of the scummiest plays you could think of in order to ensure the candidate they wanted to win, won. They were already getting lumped in by large parts of the media falsely as being just as like Trump supporters, and then they find out that the whole system was basically rigged against their favoured candidate from the very beginning. I'm not surprised Bernie hasn't really said anything after the latest bit revealing Hillary had had the questions told to her before anyone else, I'd be speechless. As for Trump though, yeah, I think the Dems lost the confidence of a lot of voters who voted for Obama. Obama, Trudeau (up here in Canada), and Trump all based their campaigns around the same general principle: Change. They all claimed to bring change to what was basically an institution that was had remained the same and was stagnating over years of the same administration. Whether or not they can convincingly pull it off is what determines if they are remembered as successful. Obama effected some changes, but he was hamstrung by the Houses not being in his control. Trudeau has mostly made changes that mean fuck-all beyond appearances despite controlling a majority in the House of Commons and not too much opposition in the Senate while so far not being able to deliver on the few concrete promises he did make. As for Trump, we'll just have to see what he does with both the Houses under his party's control, and very likely a Supreme Court under his majority control before the term is up. Thx, glad to see my University education paid off for something. I'm a cynic or skeptic when it comes to most things even though I consider myself a Leftist (I'll be damned if I call myself a Liberal here in Canada), I find it helps it a lot to dissect a situation that is made out to look too cut and dry. You've no idea how many people go through University in the Humanities and Social Sciences and never actually learn how to do that (then again, from what I hear, some Profs don't want to do that, and many students protest against having their minds expanded as well). As for Trump, I've seen some of the most crude and crass people take high political office (One Premier out of Alberta from years ago actually flipped off his opponents in debates and did all kinds of crazy shit, yet he smashed all the opposition in the election). Some of them have been the most amazing people to hold those offices, and others have been absolutely terrible. Trump could be a hero, a zero, or the devil. We won't know a thing though before he actually gets into office he and his party starts enacting his plans. Apparently though, some people I've seen talking in other communities are comparing it to basically similar reactions to a lot of Republicans at Obama's elections. A lot of hissy fits, Texas threatened to leave, but now because Social media is bigger (ironic since Twitter is slowly going down the tubes in finances) its an even bigger backlash here. Hopefully things don't get too out of hand, but I guess we'll have to see if all of the so-called "revolutionaries" now are actually willing to back up their big talk (not that I think they'll accomplish anything than make themselves look worse to others if they do at this point), or if they'll be remembered as a bunch of spoiled whiners who cannot stand democratic processes that don't go their way.

I was in Arizona to watch the election on the last night of my vacation. My thoughts as a Canadian viewing an American election? I'll count them down. One, I found it endlessly hilarious how wrong the entire media and all the "experts" were about the predicted results of this election. You asked anyone, including myself (though I will say I do not make it my professional business to try and accurately predict the results of elections beyond anything other than hunches, unlike many of these people) a couple weeks ago as to how they thought the election would turn out, and NOBODY predicted it would go like this, and I personally think Trump and his team were surprised as well by the results just by how he reacted with his victory speech. To me, this indicates my suspicions that nobody should ever trust the media or polls when it comes to politics (Political issues, especially), as they evidently have no fucking clue what is actually going on, or were actively lying about the situation to suit whatever political agenda they want (if they do such things, as some particular media branches do do). Two, the results tell me that the answer as to why Trump succeeded is not simple. I don't care what supposed "expert" tries to spin to explain why he won, they've already proven they have no fucking clue simply by the fact that next to none of them even suspected he would put up a substantial fight, let alone win. He had supporters among minorites, he had supporters among women (in both cases apparently, even higher than Romney did in the last election), and among various classes and very likely among some former Democrat voters. There was no way he could have flipped Michigan and Wisconsin otherwise, and the evidence is even more clearly seen in places like Pennsylvania and Iowa (I think) compared with Obama's results. However Trump won, IMO he did not win simply because he was believed to be a racist or a bigot or a misogynist. So when Van Jones came out with what I thought was some ridiculous statements last night (some were on point, but I think he got worse as the results came in) of saying: "How are parents going to be explain this to their kids in the morning?" To me, it only rings of how these people still do not understand how anyone could even THINK of voting for this guy, despite the fact that the numbers do not lie. They cannot disassociate why people would vote for him away from all of the negatives they believe regarding him, therefore so many are outright claiming roughly half of America is full of racists, bigots, and misogynists. Such simplistic and IMO arrogant reasoning to me resounds of people who are pissed their candidate lost and are throwing hissy fits, not that they're willing to even understand WHY their candidate lost. IDK entirely myself, but I know for a fact it not so simple. Three, I find the irony of many reactions to be amusing. Simply because, let's say Clinton had won. Everyone was predicting that Trump might not accept the results, or his supporters and many even suspected large protests or perhaps even violent actions by his supporters would occur as a result. We'll never know if that would have happened, but what we can see is how Clinton supporters are reacting to Trump's "unexpected" success. And I gotta say, if the roles were reversed, I don't think there would be any sympathy by the media, or anyone else. You know what I think the reaction would be? "Shut up and accept the damn results. Your favoured candidate lost, now lets just give her a chance and see where it goes from there." Now, to be fair, Obama and many others have basically told people to do just that in far politer terms regarding Trump, but just seeing how many reactions are playing out across the states and elsewhere, I cannot help but see exactly why I was right in assuming that there would be conflict regardless of who won. People have the right to be disappointed and fearful as to what a new electoral candidate may bring, especially with an American election that was as divisive as this. But these actions and behaviours with so many Progressives and people of various stripes losing their minds making outrageous accusations, calling for everything from cessions to revolution, to mass protests ALL BEFORE HE HAS EVEN DONE ANYTHING, has just showed me how many people have forgotten the golden rule of politics: Words are wind, and campaign promises are worth nothing until someone actually tries to make them real through action. The fact that they aren't even willing to give him a chance to prove himself just goes to show me that apparently it wasn't merely the reactions of Trump supporters potentially losing the election people had to fear. Not to mention the fact that I'm willing to wager had it actually been them in this position, the tone of their coverage would be completely different, even though both effectively equate to the same thing. We would be seeing the results hailed from the heights as the dawn of a new age of progressivism and I'd wager a mostly disregard for any complaints, rather than the message that its a "step back" for women, minorities, etc or "Not My President" being widely covered along with the unexpected success. Four, I think most of my countrymen and women, though they have the right to feel worried or afraid about what goes on south of the border, love to forget that we have as much effective influence down here over these matters as a snowball's chance in hell. The amount of generalizations I've seen by many of my friends and fellows I find to be astoundingly stupid or simplistic to the point of arrogance, especially since I believe they should know better from our own elections alone. IMO, the people of America spoke, and made their choice as the democratic process demanded. I do not believe this choice was simple for many, as most election and political decisions rarely are, and I can come up with all kinds of reasons just based on what I know of the situation that do not inherently paint half of America as full of assholes (by this metric, I'd argue most of America is full of assholes of one stripe or another were I to take that type of argument seriously.). I also believe that trying to act as if that is the case, or simply to not wait and see if he truly does live up to what many fear, will accomplish nothing other than to make the nightmare that everyone fears will happen, become that much closer to a reality.

I think both of them are jokes, its more a question of which liar and/or criminal do you prefer to have in the White House. I don't envy Americans' choice coming up here. Though I am curious that Clinton hasn't capitalized on those tidbits of information yet. Maybe she doesn't want people focusing on her issues either since bringing attention to those would indirectly bring more attention to her own emails scandal. Hanging around Arizona though, it seems a fair number of people around here actually believe his shtick about cleaning up the corruption in the White House since her emails apparently detail tons of pay-offs to the Clinton Foundation in order to buy diplomat positions and tons of other things. I've also yet to see a single Clinton sign from Flagstaff to Scottsdale, but then Arizona isn't a swing state from my limited understanding. All the same, we're in for a wild ride whatever happens here.

Just saw a pop-up in my feed about the US 1st Infantry Division (The Big Red One to those familiar with their patch) deploying 500 troops to Iraq this Fall. Just found it interesting since 1) I haven't heard of that specific division doing much lately (then again, I'm only familiar with their WWII exploits, so its not like I've gone looking for them). 2) It could mean that the situation in Iraq is changing again to the point where the Spec Ops and Trainers and Pilots they're deployed already to assist the Iraqis and Kurds against ISIS are not enough to accomplish the tasks they want, so now they're sending in part of the longest serving Infantry division in the US army to help deal with the situation. Personally, despite all the political rhetoric on the whole thing about avoiding another full-scale armed conflict in the area where troops are involved, I really don't think American or allied forces are going to be fully leaving the Middle East anytime soon. This is just another sign of that fact. If the "trainers" from years ago had actually worked, the Iraqi army wouldn't have left ISIS to overrun roughly half the country, as all sources basically say most of them dropped their weapons and ran before finally regrouping after the Kurds actually made a stand, and some of the Syrian Rebel groups and State Army actually started fighting them as they went west.

I just heard the stakes got raised tonight, apparently. What with apparently talks of a planned counter cyber attack against the Russians and Russia apparently threatening nuclear retaliation. Personally, it looks scary to see, but real politick me is asking: "Why would either of them use Nukes though?" MAAD is still in play as a principle when it comes to Russia and the US with nukes. Unless one has secretly been holding back on disposing of weapons equally (in which case they've also pulled the wool over the eyes of multiple witness nations and the Atomic Energy Commission, not just their opponents), their arsenals are still roughly similar, to the point where they'd still cancel each other out. Moreover, Russia doesn't have that many allies. Nobody in Europe AFAIK would help them, certainly not most members of the Security Council, the UN certainly wouldn't support them, and their list of allies in Asia is slim (China to me, benefits most from a status quo, not a war. Plus, they have the power to crush the US economically without even firing a shot just by cashing in all the debt they have with them. They don't even need to cause a war.) It makes no sense to start a war over this shit, certainly not a nuclear one. Putin's not stupid or crazy enough to do it, and the US isn't stupid or crazy enough to do it. Whoever throws the first war nuke since WWII will become a pariah on the world stage, it is all but guaranteed. And I don't think either of them are willing to take that infamy just to settle something like this. Which then its making me think: Okay, then what is the play here? Why are they both doing this? Part of it is likely old cold war tendencies that haven't died off completely, but another part of it is probably Putin is trying to flex his muscle on the world stage, and the US is flexing back so as not to look weak, and vice versa. This has happened a bunch of times since the "official" end of the cold war. Putin's done it with his jet fly-bys over Euro airspace, and with cutting American pork imports and exports, and with trying to publicly embarrass the Americans or make the Russians look like the pro-active ones on the world stage several times over the years. The Americans have responded with similar types of actions, economic sanctions, cutting diplomatic ties in this case, increasing NATO garrisons, etc. So, optimistic me is thinking that this is just another tirade in the great game of political dancing on the international stage. Mostly show, little actual threat beyond maybe some economic ones. War hasn't been fashionable between the major powers for a while, and most of the powerful nations on the UN want peace. If Russia or the US don't reach an amicable defusing of the tensions themselves, one can bet those others will try to. Part of me also wants to think Putin is trying to influence the US election through fear (I don't believe he had an interest in the US election particularly until now, but now that Hillary is basically using him and his country as a scapegoat, he's making it known that he's not just some toy to flicked about like he's nothing.). Hillary and the US administration are publicly antagonizing him, and he knows given recent events that Trump isn't likely to win on his own unless things change. This is Putin's ace, fear of a new and re-ignited cold war, and anyone smart enough to draw the connections based on recent stuff will see that tensions look only likely to increase if Hillary gets in, at least for the short term. Do I think Putin will back it up? No, because I think he has more to gain through the fear this could generate more than actually launching any attack. But then what do I know?

I'm in Canada, but looking down over at what's going on over in the US, I think the whole thing is a shit show. Its all about trying to make the other person or their party look terrible and make grand promises rather than actually propose astute ways of moving forward with the country. Had you asked me several weeks ago, I would have said Hillary. But several things recently made me change my mind to basically pick a result that'll never happen. 1) How absolutely ridiculous the whole Pepe incident has been overblown by the Hillary shills and propagandists. This has to be the single most ridiculous thing I've seen in a while in terms of politics. The fact that they think that their audience is so stupid that they can just spout bullshit over what a meme means and have people actually believe that its a white supremacist or racist meme inherently just because some fuck-wad edited it to put swastikas in its eyes or some shit. The fact that the US Presidential election has degraded to the point of arguing over fucking online memes in itself could be argument enough as to how big of a shit show this all is. 2) Hillary has shown she's just as willing to drop down to nearly the same rhetoric as Trump, even if she tries to be a lot smarter about using it due to her experience. Her statement recently basically condemning roughly 1/4 of the US (if we believe polls), "1/2 of Trump's supporters", as the most deplorable people in the country, really shows just how much she cares about what she says to win over supporters who're on the fence, right? Seriously, how many political candidates of any country could realistically get away with saying that 1/4 of the country sucks ass, and that they basically don't matter in terms of their views? Considering that Trump supporters are not singular in any respect, this rang to me to be especially stupid for someone who I had repeatedly judged to be an astute politician. You guys get to pick either wannabe Machiavelli in a Suit, or a reality TV star businessman with a questionable hairdo. Neither of which are truly capable of running the US effectively IMO. A friend of mine's father who is a lawyer has tried to predict what'll happen though: Hillary will likely win, there'll be several months with everyone with a big media presence saying: "Thank God Trump didn't get elected.", and then shortly after that dies off, those same people will be after Hillary. Both of them have major problems that make them "problematic" as heads of state, and whichever one gets in is going to have those issues become VERY public after they get in.

Looks like it failed and Erdogan's trying to rally the public to him. Last I heard over 260 were dead, over 1400 wounded or something so far. He's also calling for the US to extradite a Turkish professor back to the country since he thinks the guy had a hand in the attempt.

I don't have much interest in the game, but I assume people who are here have seen the latest controversy to spring up around it that just happened today (really its a wider issue with Blizzard than the game itself, IMO)? Really seems to have caused a backlash among many of the more vocal fans and testers, and Totalbiscuit made an amazing parody video of how ridiculous of a complaint that started the whole thing was, I highly recommend checking it out if you haven't, its a good laugh.

Was a while ago, but Cast recruited me (not that I passed BCTs the first time she directed me over to the recruit depot, Quarterman helped me pass the nade tests after several months).