Gorth

Hey, attribute the quote correctly (it was the guy in the video who said that, you should watch it, it's funny)

Sigh... here we go again. Seeing the shadows of BLM moving in every corner of society, being behind every evil and injustice in the world. I wonder if the Freemasons are secretly being operated by BLM's too? 😂 On a more serious note, you can be part of a racist system without being personally racist. Actually, that's the very definition of systemic racism. It's the system itself that is biased and is based on "being white" being the default and being non white being the aberrant situation. If you go down to the bank asking for a mortgage, you are more likely (stressing the work "likely", exceptions exists just like everywhere else) to get it. If you have a name that sounds like you're Asian, African, Arab, something else, be prepared to have to provide a lot more security and bring a lot more documentation proving you're capable of repaying the mortgage. Applying for a job, much less a management position? Same thing. The bias exists whether you like it or not, when it comes to who you consider "trustworthy" or not. Fashion magazines, entertainment, you name it. White is the default. Even Disney got into a few problems when they did some not so subtle white washing of their movies. The "family friendly" company showing its true colours (yes, bad pun) 🙄 https://act.colorofchange.org/sign/Disney_stop_whitewashing_us/ Then there is the whole socio-economic "inheritance" thing. People being born into wealth and privilege or born into poverty and gang lift, based on centuries of racism which excluded population groups from keeping up with the dominant group. Basically, if you are born the wrong colour in a white dominated culture, you're ****ed from birth and on wards. Doesn't matter if the legislation has changed the last 50 years, you still start life with a large debt, that you need to service first before you can even hope to compete with those born to white parents. That's for me part of systemic racism too. The game is rigged from the beginning. Of course, for many people it's a big taboo to suggest something like free education, because that's "communist" (and threatens the white male privilege, which they after all inherited from their white, male fathers). People can twist words and make up excuses all they want, but the western world is largely racist to this day. Some individuals resist it and fight it, but they are up against a rock wall, created by centuries of prejudice. For the mandatory what-about-ism, Arabs regarded African captives as trade goods just as much as white traders did. Heck, even today, rich Arabs consider Philippine and South East Asian workers and laborers as little better than slaves, that can be sexually abused, beaten and the bodies disposed of in a garbage bin somewhere without consequences (because they're not "real humans" in the eyes of Allah after all). Any modern country ruled by fear and nationalism seems to move from systemic (or low key) racism to overt racism as a tool to focus peoples anger... from Germany 1933 to Trump 2016

Not my recordings, although I do have some footage of my own recorded on my phone from a couple of years ago... For some reason, Brisbane just loves these low altitude flyovers, especially with the jets coming up and down the river and then swerving in and out of the taller buildings. One video shows what it looks like seen inside an office building 😂 (it's usually part of the annual Riverfire festival) Edit: My jaw almost hit the footpath first time I saw it with my own eyes (must have been about 4-55 years ago), some F-18's doing slalom runs between the highrises.

(After guessing every party's political affiliation wrong so far) Let me guess, your communists are not really communists? Oh, they are. Why are they in parliament, should they not be deployed executing land owners??? 😂

So, you better not insinuate the Earth might not be flat...

Finally got started on JoJo's Bizarre Adventures... truly bizarre indeed 😁 Not sure how to describe it really (only 5 episodes in btw, still 19 to go of this part of the story). Sometimes it really is an animated Manga (literally) and sometimes you get more exposition in the moment before a fist hits a face than a full novel 😂 Interesting enough so far to keep me going though. Need to find out more about that stone mask that turns people into vampires and Dio needs some kind of horrible, final death too...

My motorcycle had a 20L tank I think? A bit less than 4.5 gallon unless the internet is lying to me 🤔 Fuel prices didn't really cause me much of a headache. Dangit, I really miss my bike now. Next on my to-do list

Maybe it's a pun on Evil Sardines?... Aka "surströmming" 😟 Edit: Nurgle cultists trying out "Evil Sardines"

Oh no, she isn't. It was just unusual for me to actually have any close friends at all (after not having had that for decades). Anyway, I'll let hear from me in a week or so when I've tried the Kimchi stew

Speaking of IKEA... best IKEA advertising ever! (and it's not even a commercial)

Similar in most European countries I think. Power split and re-split continuously, no party or bloc of parties staying in power indefinitely. The head of state being either a president or a monarch. The alternative would be either single party state (China) or two party state (USA) which I just can't imagine being on any Europeans wishlist.

I'm not sure what is so hard.... The (now ex) centre-right government lost the snap election which they called themselves and the socialist party won an outright majority in the election? A bit confused about what could be confusing 😕 Edit: Ah, I get it. The word "ruling" 😂 Edit2: What do you expect from a news organisation that puts this under art and entertainment 😁 Edit3: It means they went from being a minority government ruling with the help of other parties to have absolute majority. I get it now. Edit4: Not the worlds best written article, I would agree on that.

Bruce... put on your darn reading glasses 😛 Edit: To save you the reading, the former ruling party was called the Social Democratic Party (despite it's name, it is a centre-right party)

I honestly don't know much about Portuguese politics... maybe @Pidesco knows more about the background, but in a snap election, the ruling party managed to hand over a majority victory to the opposition. The socialist party now have a majority government and the far right party became the third largest party (the ex-ruling party being a center right party). Looks like they shot themselves in the foot with a sawed off shotgun??? https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-60194375 (no, don't ask me why the heck the BBC stuck that under entertainment and arts) 😂

That didn't stop Turkey from joining when it was convenient... I'm sure that Putin and Ukraine could've worked something out before western interference. Ukraine renounces their (illegal anyway) claims on Crimea and guarantees the civil rights (the removal of which was the trigger of the unrest) of the people of the Donbas region and Russia provides Ukraine with an agreed amount of LPG per year the next 100 years or so (or until Ukraine finds other alternative/eco friendlier energy sources)

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-60185733 Boris Johnson desperately needs a war too to distract from trouble at home... "I have ordered our armed forces to prepare to deploy across Europe next week, ensuring we are able to support our Nato allies on land, at sea and in the air." On a more serious note, the BBC did some detective work and a bit of investigative journalism. Turns out Djokovic not only lied about his whereabouts, it also looks like his covid test results are forgeries, made by the Serbian state to enable him to play.... https://www.bbc.com/news/59999541 Mr Djokovic was tested in Serbia, and received his results from the Institute of Public Health of Serbia. All these test results have a unique confirmation code. We wanted to check whether these numbers are generated in strict chronological order in a single national database at the time of processing. If so, it would bring into question why the earlier test had a higher serial number. So we collected data from as many Serbian test certificates as we could to plot these confirmation codes on a timeline. For those who don't want to read all the graphs and texts, the conclusion by the researchers investigations was, Djokovic's positive result was from the time between 25th to 28th of December, not the claimed 16th of December (i.e. his positive test was after his negative test, which was supposed to prove he was no longer infected at least two weeks before traveling to Australia). All nicely forged by the Serbian Health Institute. Nothing new I guess, politics and sports do seem to have trouble staying away from each other.

It may be different now, but last time I was there, it was the English “packaged tour” tourists you had to kick your way through. Easily recognisable too. The day they arrive, they’ll be pasty white. The first night, they’ll drink themselves senseless and the second day they’ll sleep it off on the beach. Usually turning red and outright blackish purple in the sun because of their firm belief, that a sufficiently high alcohol content in their blood makes them immune to UV rays. At least they acted that way. You didn’t really see them again until they catch the bus back to the airport, then all wrapped up in alufoil like bandages and boxes of painkillers in their hands…

My, are we curious... 😁 I think I may have covered it in the what you did today thread, but short recap, she's an old friend that I got to know online originally, while playing Star Wars the Old Republic. It turned into a real life friendship. This time around, she came and stayed at my place for a full month. Working from home some of the time, which meant she would work from home at my place and I would work in the office here in Brisbane (we work for competing products). When not working, she would split her time with me and her family up here. Her brother, in-law and a little niece that was born while borders were closed and nobody could visit each other. When not with her family, she and I would go to the theater and watch stage productions, try out Halal Snack Packs (https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g255068-d12435083-i299586287-Eat_Fresh_Takeaway_House-Brisbane_Brisbane_Region_Queensland.html), cook our own stuff (hence my previous post, a lot of the new things we tried out, get drunk, fool around, go for long walks, whatever two people do living under the same roof for a while. And no, it's not a "romantic relationship". She's 27 years younger than me 😝 We are very close friends however.

Before I started on JoJo, I got sidetracked by one of those short (12 episodes) animes, which I just couldn’t put aside once started, so I guess by the end of today I’ll have finished Goblin Slayer. Like watching a live action D&D session with added blood, gore and brutality. Who cares, I was entertained, good enough for my low brow needs 😇

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/1/28/ukraine-accuses-us-of-hurting-economy-by-stoking-panic-over-war Tl;dr; Ukraine blames the US for the current mess and it’s hurting Ukraines economy

Make sure you get football tickets!

My kitchen got subjected to a number of strange things over the Christmas and New Years period. Not at least because of that female friend I had staying at my place for a month. Rum Balls, Feta and Ham Filos, Pizzas (New York style), pan cakes. Egg Fried rice (with ham, green onions, carrots and some interesting sauces), various curried. Now in pondering if I should have a go at Kimchi Stew 🍲 Got a lot of leftover Kimchi that needs to be used soon

Two years of lockdowns and restrictions. People are getting restless and need tangible enemies...

I'm sure those people in Ukrainian uniforms attacking the Russian radio station were just media critics, wanting to deprive the Russian people of their freedom of speech! 😇 (what I'm talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident)