Maedhros

Agree 100% that schools need to focus more on personal finance and "life hacks". Something that helped me a lot economically was not buying a car. There is simply no need for me when the collective transport is good and inexpensive. Yet it's so imprinted in everyone that they NEED to have a car, even when they have no money or important use for it. It's a luxury for sure, but not worth taking an expensive loan for just to get to the shop 5 minutes faster than you would when walking (or cycling). Luckily many of the things that can kill you economically are quite inexpensive here. Student loans are very fair here to the point that you should probably get it and invest it in something even if you don't need the loan. Healthcare is incredibly cheap. Except dentists. Bloody dentists. I feel so sorry for people who are unlucky with their teeth.

Legendary stuff by Prince near the end. Also, George Harrison wrote the two best Beatle songs and I'll fight anyone who disagrees.

Hamas firing rockets is like the tiny kid trying to fight back at the big kid who bullies him. You can understand why he snaps and tries to fight back, but it'll only end worse for him in the end. Netanyahu welcomes these attacks for sure.

Don't go for the "I drink wine, therefore I am sophisticated" look unless you know why the stem exists! Currently reading:

Yeah the main character and his abilities were the least interesting thing about this film.

Haven't tried CK3 properly, for that very reason. I want to play it when it's great, not when it's "merely" good. I'm still enjoying CK2 way too much to take a step back.

Currently watching a show called Dorohedoro on Netflix. The premise is that the main character has a reptile head and amnesia, and is trying to figure out how that happened. His world ("The Hole") is bleak and downtrodden, and sorcerers are teleporting in daily to abduct, and experiment on its inhabitants. It's got a weird lighthearted tone, despite being very dark and creepy. I'm halfway through it, and so far I can recommend it. Before that I watched Kimetsu no Yaiba: Demon Slayer. For a shounen (is that the term?) show it was really good. Very likeable main character, unlike other series in the same genre.

It's quite resilient, but also reliant on the world economy of course. It has 1,4% of all stocks and shares in the world. It's so diversified it's hard to see if political pressure against investing in a sector/certain companies should matter much. Throughout the years they've exluded companies they deem to be unethical, hasn't seemed to have done much harm.

No one wants to implement socialism though. No one except loonies on the fringes. Wanting a government that cares for its people (affordable education & healthcare, proper labour rights, etc) is what most left-leaning people want. That's not socialism, that's just common sense.

Started playing Dota 2 a bit again. Apparently your account is now reevaluated based on how long you've been gone from it. About time they added something like that!

I watched Fate / Zero, which I liked well enough. Currently watching the sequel, Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Bladeworks, and I'm a bit dissapointed at the lack of connection between the two shows. Many of the characters are the same, but they never really talk about what happened before, as if it never happened.

I love using Jerusalem artichokes instead of potatoes sometimes. Last weekend I made a puree of some, as well as chips from what remained. Worked like a charm alongside duck breast and a red wine sauce. Doesn't look very delicate, and I should've reduced the sauce some more, but it tasted good!

They're actually less popular than they used to be. They've seen up to 15% of the votes in earlier elections, now they're polled at around 8%. As far as "far right" parties go, they're kind of mild and hard to categorize. They attract the nationalist loonies though, that's for sure, and I wonder how they'll fare with if Sylvi Listhaug ( https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-36102329 )becomes their new leader, which looks like it'll happen.

We all pay taxes (I'm guessing). It's completely reasonable to expect something back. Hold your government accountable if it doesn't provide good services for the money you pay them. One thing I like that's started happening here in recent years is that food stores in cooperation with the government made a pledge/commitment to massively reduce food waste. So now all food stores have big discounts on stuff close to its expirey date. Would have loved that stuff back when I was a student.

Their bread has also been ruled (in Ireland) not to be bread! https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/01/irish-court-rules-subway-bread-is-not-bread

It's quite sad how mediocre those films were.

It's not really a double taxation, the same person doesn't pay it twice - being dead and all. From a reciever's point of view - everything you earn should be taxed. Including the money you earn from your dead family members. (Edit: I guess recieve is a better word than earn here. You don't really earn your inheritance money. All the more reason to tax it, imo).

A few antifa "members" might have been there to document what's going on, or to stir the pot even. 99% of the ones who stormed the building however were Trump fanatics, there's little doubt about that.

Kind of ironic that they at the same time want to limit the freedom of gay people. https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-54191344 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT-free_zone Europe's Alabama.

Key point underlined. Breivik will spend the rest of his life in jail.

The people will do what they're told. Trust in government and in experts is very high in Scandinavia. So the problem starts when the "expert" is wrong, like what happened in Sweden. When he tells people masks aren't necessary, people will listen to that. And when no one wears masks, no one wants to stand out in a crowd as one of the few who does so. As soon as masks became mandatory here in Norway (also too late, but way way quicker than in Sweden), everyone started wearing them immediately. Edit: I believe his reasoning was that there wasn't any science that indicates masks helps (there is), and that masks would give people a false sense of security. That they then wouldn't care about social distancing.

It has been an ongoing failure though. Look at Sweden's numbers compared to Norway and Denmark. Tegnell was a fool to doubt the effectiveness of masks, and the new requirements came way too late. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1113834/cumulative-coronavirus-deaths-in-the-nordics/

Will be? They already are and have been for a long time. They'd be an economical powerhouse in Europe with or without Brexit.