BruceVC

Yes but as I said if the lockdowns dont stop the virus anyway then its pointless which is our SA narrative And the impact on the resources on hospitals matters if you have a real concern with hospital resources. But in SA it made no difference because people werent dying in hospital corridors But my point is you avoid the strain on hospitals if you take the vaccines but if people dont want to take vaccines its their choice and they must accept the consequence But the lockdown need to end, they become pointless if you offer vaccines?

I have some great news, its a public holiday in SA on Monday and I have decided to play Oblivion again but this time I will be using mods Any Oblivion mods suggestions would be appreciated but I generally use mods that are lore friendly and enhance the default game. For example extra monsters, more dungeons, more spells and animals with enhanced AI @HoonDing I found a nice adult mod for Viconia from BG as a companion with full Romance options You need a Nexus user account to view it https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/15200

Their is no point to any lockdown if they dont stop the virus spreading because then all you doing is harming your economy. Their is no real debate around " if lockdowns were excessive ", they were absolutely excessive and in SA we could only Constitutionally justify them by using some anachronistic Natural Disaster Act. Anytime you have to justify a policy like lockdowns with Natural Disaster Acts then its excessive. Their is no other way you could frame it But to make things worse in SA despite our annoying and inconsistently enforced lockdowns we had 4 waves 2 variants 80-90% of SA populations apparently had the virus but they were mostly asymptomatic We only achieved 35 % more or less of vaccination rate for our citizens So for me its obvious going forward. Since the lockdowns made no difference to the virus spread their is no point implementing them because they just hurt the economy. Vaccines in SA are free and available so if people dont want to take them thats their choice but we cant prevent people who take vaccines from having a normal life Also the SA vaccine reality disputes the exaggerated view around " vaccine hoarding\nationalism " that basically suggests that the only reason Africa and other regions have had the virus spreading is because they have been denied vaccines by the racist\colonial\capitalist\Western countries who are hoarding them In SA as I mentioned we have plenty of free vaccines but a failure to convince 65% of the population to take vaccines still exists. And the main reason for the 65% not taking is that they simply dont trust our public sector healthcare and government spokespeople. Because our government has followed the science and only endorsed vaccines and has never questioned their efficacy officially or publicly

Yes I know you dont drink, thats why I said you need to start

I just finished Vampire: Coteries and it was a quick but overall enjoyable sojourn in the WOD universe. I know Bloodlines 2 is an ARPG and is going to be a completely different game than Coteries but I really miss the WOD lore and game world I hope Bloodlines 2 is finally released , I really do

Are you talking about Snowden and Assange? They both accused of criminal charges, they stand accused of several real crimes.They not trumped up at all But you seem to assuming they will both be automatically found guilty as if the US judicial system is corrupt and a kangaroo court? Their would be lots of US media attention on these cases and lots of people supporting them due to the interminable US political " left vs right " debates and dichotomies So their is no way the Federal government would fabricate charges that could somehow survive public scrutiny So they will only be found guilty if they broke the law and I know we all support one of foundations in all our countries which is a free and fair and transparent judiciary and overall legal system . And we all support people who commit crimes being punished ?

Thats such a ...Elerond thing to say But thats also one of the reasons I like and respect your opinion because you very consistent. In fact I find myself agreeing with you probably 90% of the time I have only really disagreed with you when you bad and you say things like " Huawei\Chinese backdoors in their 5g equipment is the same as Facebook having access to Facebook private user information " and similar things

But its not just non-Westerners being charged in the ICC or the Hague You have numerous Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian military people who were charged in the International Criminal Court for Yugoslavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Tribunal_for_the_former_Yugoslavia#:~:text=The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia,ad hoc court located in The Hague%2C Netherlands. And more important than that the ICC and similar Hague based prosecutorial institutions, like the ICTY, is its not a kangaroo court and you wont be automatically found guilty. Their are several cases of African warlords who were not found guilty in the ICC and released and acquitted https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/13/africa/congo-warlord-sentence-release-duplicate/index.html

" its rude to jump the Hague queue "

But Elerond whats your personal opinion? Should Russia be charged with war crimes ?

Grammar Nazi !!!

I have stopped being appalled and surprised by the Russian propaganda, the only reason I still follow it is because its still raised in our SA media by Russian apologists so I need to be aware of it when its discussed on our talk shows which I am active on

That makes sense but surely NATO could still launch nukes from the Baltic states? Because the specific point made in SA from RT anchors and the Russian embassy is " Russia doesnt want nukes on its border " ?

One of brothers has just discovered this and sent me this specific video, I told him I have been aware of Juice Media for 18 months or so since you shared these videos on this forum I sent him a link where he can watch previous videos, he is very impressed and has is going to watch them this weekend

Brilliant as usual, I love the " but if Putin had done it we would have imposed sanctions "

@Zoraptor You are really the only active person on these forums who generally responds to questions about this conflict and I wanted to understand something One of the reasons from Putins propaganda to justify the invasion is the fear of nukes being moved by NATO to Ukraine which means nukes on the border of Russia But both Estonia and Latvia are on the border of Russia and both countries are part of NATO. So if NATO wanted to move nukes to the border of Russia they could do with Estonia and Latvia ? So how does one justify this argument for an invasion of Ukraine?

I dont understand the argument that we dont have free will, I am not saying you are saying that I want to state unequivocally that I have absolute free will on every aspect of my life, if I dont want to pay my rates or go to work I dont have to. Yes I will be fired but its choice And if I want to end my life I can, how anyone say we dont have free will boggles my mind ?

Same as me, I like to keep things simple around how I understand them and how they have influenced my lived experience So I want to go back to the question " are our futures predetermined " ? The belief in fatalism has been around for centauries. In WW1 many soldiers on the Western front and particularly soldiers who were involved in " going over the top " started believing in fatalism because of how some people died and some people just survived so soldiers were cynical and fatalism seemed the most realistic form of belief https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fatalism I dont believe in fatalism as the primary reason for future events. Christians believe in free choice and free will so to me that translates, from a religious perspective, to a future that you decide on the outcome. Some religious people believe a higher power has already decided your future but that doesnt really make sense to me because of free will So I dont believe in accurate prognostications around most human futures but I do believe in prognostications around very likely world events, like WW1 due to the reality of European nationalism at the time, and obviously we can predict with 100% accuracy future events like Haley's Comet coming back to the earth

You posted that link about the failed Russian air military strategy, it was very interesting and why they dont have air superiority

Nah, we fine with charging Russia with war crimes for what they have done to the Ukrainian civilians If want to bring up Iraq again then we must also charge Russia for war crimes in Syria Lots of blood on Putins hand, I would say he is lucky to only be charged for the terrible carnage in Ukraine

We have a Russian apologist " socialist " political party in SA called the EFF ( Economic Freedom Fighters ) and they have been parroting the Russian propaganda and meeting the Russian ambassador and openly shaking his hand and agreeing and repeating all the Russian gaslighting Now to be fair to the EFF they dont have any qualified economists or historians in their leadership structures so in the SA narrative they typically make these ridiculous and controversial comments like " nationalization of banks " and their leader is facing about 4-5 separate charges in court ranging from assault to hate speech Anyway when one of their politicians was asked " what about all the killing of civilians in Ukraine by Russia " he said "Russia is not targeting any civilian buildings or killing civilians, the Ukrainians have released people from prison and they killing civilians and its the US propaganda that is showing fake news about the bombing of towns and civilian buildings " So you must never be surprised by the blatant lies and propaganda from Russia and those people who repeat this misinformation

Those are hilarious, "faceboo "

Is this serious or a joke because Putin threatened to take over the assets of any foreign company that pulls out of Russia?

Malc you really need to start and drinking and socializing with your WASP coworkers , it builds important and durable work relationships if you have any kind of sales role ?

Seems unnecessary, most Ukrainians would be Roman Catholic?