IndiraLightfoot

Contrary to the belief that he is a simple psychopath, i think that he is more like Homer and misunderstand the situation in his own funny way. Funny that this simple statement and posting of a Homer clip feels more exhaustive than all those bloated biographies on George W Bush. Sometimes simplicity is best, and Occam's Razor and all that.

This article sums it up very well. IIRC, similar observations have been done in a lot of EU police departments as well, and also been elaborated into sociological studies and such. This is the one thing PDs need to address and come to terms with, using routines and follow-up programmes, the lot! And like others here already noted. There are a number of unfit cops out there. They are indeed sometimes trigger-happy, but like the last incident (the one filmed by the gf), some are just downright bad cops - nervous, twitchy, etc. There must be a way to weed these jittery Joes and Janes out while they're in training, no?

Very informative, Soropx! Thank you! And do get where you're coming from. A finely tuned CRPG game system makes for some great game experiences and fun replayability as well.

A bit late, but my sincerest condolences, Bartimaeus. @ShadySands: I'm like your wife in that regard: I just can't take air whiffing in my face over and over. I can barely have a window open, then... Boom! A cold, or a sinus infection. Of course, all in accordance with that Murphy law, my wife is like you. Let's just say - we've tried to arrange some kind of compromise during hot days (which are rare this far north, thankfully.)

For instance, during the 1880s, over 1% of the entire population emigrated annually. What a bleed! Loving genealogy as I do, I have over 40 confirmed American emigrants during that period in my family alone.

It's one of the most covered subjects in Swedish history. I should have written "one of the poorest", but here's an exhaustive title to sink your teeth in and whet them on: https://books.google.se/books?id=_3std3h6K6oC&pg=PA128&lpg=PA128&dq=Sweden+1880s+poor+country+Europe&source=bl&ots=USGSiM4-rX&sig=jCO0NCzpkOW6IAmumZzDSqS-kso&hl=sv&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi49r2fhd_NAhXBZpoKHTMKDtAQ6AEILzAD#v=onepage&q=Sweden%201880s%20poor%20country%20Europe&f=false

Leferd: Mary Blige has a great voice, but one of my favorite singers is... [Youtube] ...Lauryn Hill. This is my favourite song. Once, I listened to it for a whole day, and saw that it was time to go to bed: [Youtube] And when I said Americans saved the asses of us Europeans, I truly meant all Americans. A week ago, I watched this documentary, as a 4th of July prep thingie on one of the channels over here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5XzpA2s4H0

Your women log on MMOs looking for military husbands to get citizenship and military benefits off of. Oddly enough, Swedish TV3 has a long-running successful TV-show that you can translate as Swedish Hollywood Wives. You're onto something... Brain drain, and now this!

I've been meaning to write something like this for quite a while now. The United States of America get so much flak from all sorts of groups and political parties and organizations hither and dither. Some of it may be justified to some extent. Heck, what do I know? Well, I know this for sure: My everyday life, most of the objects I use and love and surround myself with, have their origins in American culture and innovation. I suspect, it's like 90%. It's almost bizarre. No country, as far as cultural artefacts are concerned, have been som darn successful and copied in such a short amount of time, historically speaking. When anthropologists went and sought out the last remote "undiscovered" cultures in the 1980s - they had a few American items in their huts and dugout canoes. No kidding! The lifestyle of my family and friends is almost American. Many of the shows we watch are certainly American. The vast majority of our media entertainment is all-American (that's a good chunk of our lifetime right there.) At work, we all use American inventions that have changed the way we view the world and even the entire universe, forever. Whenever we enjoy the freedom of democracy (already in the late 1700s, the French Revolution), sexuality, the pill, the gay rights movement, you name it. It has USA written all over it. Americans died en masse just to save our asses big time from madmen and dictatorship, and this twice in a row in two world wars. I'm humbled by your contribution, and wish the world never forget these wider strokes of reality. Still, the US tries its hardest to sort out bloddy messes that almost nobody else dare to. Often, you hear that Americans act in self interest - weapon lobbies and trade all that - but nearly every country does the same thing, but rarely sacrifice anything in return. Peaceful and neutral Sweden is a huge weapon export country per capita, for instance. Ironically, Sweden was one of the poorest countries in Europe in the late 1800s, and a quarter of the entire population emigrated to Ellis Island to start a decent life, and up until 1945, German was the second language of choice here, especially in the upper classes and in academy. I wonder why that changed? Then, it slowly trickled into English, and now American English, which Swedes do love. We also changed our traffic system, from the British left system to the American right. Sometimes, you actually hear that Sweden ought to be the 51th state of America, because all of the influences now permeating almost everything past the year 2000. Happy 4th of July, America! You deserve it in spades, and I say this as someone that would be best described as a Left liberal. I don't care. Right now, my eyes are star-spangled!

The more I hear about the US, and the more I learn about all of its states, it seems like each and every one of them is like visiting a new country. I'm getting a sting of nation-envy right now. The US of A seems like Europe, but without all the fuss and any post-WWx2-anxiety. It's positively huge, and much of it still seems to be there for the taking. Green card, anyone? Pretty please!

So many wonderful sights and landmarks, and just cool places that beg to be explored! And yeah, that surely is a Stargate portal, no?

And the dormant wrath of this super volcano is not just humbling; it's down right frightening. Those magma chambers are like a number of small states in the US combined. *Shiver* Seriously, I'd love to go visit these great places and vistas. I'm into geology, so everything you've shown is just rad. Thank you for all of your photos, Hurlshot!

Nice post, Nonek! And as a parent I certainly relate to these stories as well. My daughter was extremely afraid of the dark at the age of 5-7, but then I came up with the idea that I could use one of my hobbies to help her take the edge of that phobia, and it worked really well (Nowadays, she's just slightly anxious about anything pitch dark). I started taking her out into the dead of night, letting her carrying the infrared mini-torch when I was star-gazing during the winter months, often in snowy conditions. At first she only made it a few steps from the house (inside of which I still killed all lighting first, to reduce the pesky light pollution, I explained. Then, after a few sessions, where she got to watch the Moon (it's always a good first fascinating object for a kid), and then we were lucky, and Saturn and Jupiter were available. Seeing those Galilean Moons, she forgot about that ominous darkness, and then when I showed the Orion belt, and the Andromeda, she was sold, despite temperatures of -10 Celsius and below for an hour or two. It didn't take long until she told her teacher, she was going to be an astronaut and go to Mars. That made me well up a bit, and also worry somewhat; since that may very well be a one-way ticket, as you Americans say.

I love your RV trip recounts and pics, Hurlshot! It's like a good ol' tradition on this forum now. It looks like great fun, and just now, it reminded me of a Frazier episode, Travels with Martin, where Niles, Frazier, their dad and Daphne go on a Winnibago trip that's pretty hilarious. Here's some glimpses from that episode (I'm sure you can watch it on Netflix some rainy day laterz): [Youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pegfTA_ucbE

I have a Scottish expat for a friend over here, and he's hoping that Scotland succeeds in getting their independence after a referendum this time round. Personally, given my own roots, and especially after their national team led by Bale excelling at soccer now, an independent Wales would be very neat.

ok While I appreciate the joke, **** you for topping mine. I just had to do it. :D

Fantastic clip. Hysterical!

Wow! They're leaving. This will be interesting. Hmm, the pound currency dropped 10%, time to head to Greenman Gaming for some juicy deals...

Yeah, I really like them too. Like 10 years ago, though a wild bee community had found an area between an outer wall and an inner wall near the roof, and then I heard tiny chewing sounds inside the wall, no kidding! When I noticed that what I feared was indeed true, I had to phone experts to take care of that hive of thousands of individuals. This one was merely 200-300, as a rough estimate. Our planet can never have enough bees - they are almost endangered and absolutely essential to our survival.

An entire bee community had snuck in under a window sill near the attic. Something like a square meter just behind the old plaster. I didn't have any repelent at home, but then I had a bright idea. I took one fourth of an ordinary washing detergent, added very little water, poured it into an empty flower spray can, and adjusted the muzzle to a pretty sharp beam, then I began squirting the stuff along their entrances and cracks just beneath the sill. A few of them weren't happy, but I was madder. I darted up there 7-10 times, perhaps, within an hour using up half of that can. Already minutes later, at the start, I noticed that they checked in, but didn't check out (think: ****roach Hotels down under). Then, a few confused late-arrivers decided to swoop away for new pastures. Now, eight hours later, it's man vs bees 1-0.

Very interesting list, Meshugger! One set of contributors caught my eye: the Swedish Postcode Lottery plus the Swedish Postcode Foundation: In Sweden, this organisation has been surrounded by controversy a number of times. Most of the revenues aren't getting to the players or even the charity organisations claims, like WWF, but rather to a few top executives. Svenska postkodlotteriet (this is the Swedish name) is a pretty successful show on Swedish TV4 - which is considered a liberal rightwing channel here, and the host of the show has been a prominent Christian proponent (weird description, I know, but very few people in Sweden are openly religious in any form of public role, in mass media or otherwise). It all makes sense now. I'm not surprised one bit that they like Hillary Clinton's take on the world: a moderate liberal Christian one.

Truer words than this are hard to find, methinks.

And those Maersk ships are really something to fear too - I mean, they are humongous.

Comments are like when you clean a bathroom, accidentally peek underneath the bath tub, and instantly regret it, let alone even try to clean that mess below up.

I've always wondered what would have happened if that Leif Eriksson had made that beachhead of his last. If it had grown, oh my! The same goes for that Greenland colony, but the environment was certainly against them: An interesting excerpt from here: http://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/greenland/ "Of the first 24 boatloads of land-hungry settlers who set out from Iceland in the summer of 986 to colonize new territory explored several years earlier by the vagabond and outlaw, Erik the Red, only 14 made it, the others having been forced back to port or lost at sea. Yet more brave souls, drawn by the promise of a better life for themselves, soon followed. Under the leadership of the red-faced, red-bearded Erik (who had given the island its attractive name, the better to lure settlers there), the colonists developed a little Europe of their own just a few hundred miles from North America, a full 500 years before Columbus set foot on the continent. They established dairy and sheep farms throughout the unglaciated areas of the south and built churches, a monastery, a nunnery, and a cathedral boasting an imported bronze bell and greenish tinted glass windows. The Greenlanders prospered. From the number of farms in both colonies, whose 400 or so stone ruins still dot the landscape, archaeologists guess that the population may have risen to a peak of about 5,000. Trading with Norway, under whose rule they eventually came, the Greenlanders exchanged live falcons, polar bear skins, narwahl tusks, and walrus ivory and hides for timber, iron, tools, and other essentials, as well luxuries such as raisins, nuts, and wine." "As the Greenlanders' isolation from Europe grew, they found themselves victims of a steadily deteriorating environment. Their farmland, exploited to the full, had lost fertility. Erosion followed severe reductions in ground cover. The cutting of dwarf willows and alders for fuel and for the production of charcoal to use in the smelting of bog iron, which yielded soft, inferior metal, deprived the soil of its anchor of roots. Pollen analysis shows a dramatic decline in these species during the Viking years. In addition, livestock probably consumed any regenerating scrub. Overgrazing, trampling, and scuffing by the Norsemen's sheep, goats and cattle, the core of the island's livelihood, left the land debased. Greenland's climate began to change as well; the summers grew shorter and progressively cooler, limiting the time cattle could be kept outdoors and increasing the need for winter fodder. During the worst years, when rains would have been heaviest, the hay crop would barely have been adequate to see the penned animals through the coldest days. Over the decades the drop in temperature seems to have had an effect on the design of the Greenlanders' houses."