Gorth

The HP Lovecraft Historical Society just makes some of the most fun Christmas songs (I bought the original boxed set they released on DVD, just to get the tentacle stocking)

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-59644494 Tl;dr; if **** hits the fan climate wise, lots of people are going to get wet feet Scientists are warning of dramatic changes at one of the biggest glaciers in Antarctica, potentially within the next five to 10 years. They say a floating section at the front of Thwaites Glacier that until now has been relatively stable could "shatter like a car windscreen". US and UK researchers are currently engaged in an intense study programme at Thwaites because of its melt rate. Already it is dumping 50 billion tonnes of ice into the ocean each year. This is having limited impact on global sea-levels today, but there is sufficient ice held upstream in the glacier's drainage basin to raise the height of the oceans by 65cm - were it all to melt. I.e. if it breaks off and drifts north towards warmer waters, you don't need to waste money on post apocalyptic movies in the cinema

it sure made headlines around the world... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59646803 In a statement, the Sioux Falls Stampede and the CU Mortgage Direct bank said: "Although our intent was to provide a positive and fun experience for teachers, we can see how it appears to be degrading and insulting towards the participating teachers and the teaching profession as a whole. "We deeply regret and apologise to all teachers for any embarrassment this may have caused." ... Each teacher received at least $500, they said, adding that the teachers were each "profiled and introduced prior to the event". They will each now receive another $500, and another $500 will be given to the other 21 teachers who were not selected. Sorry my ass. Wanna bet the only thing they're sorry about, is the PR backlash?

@Malcador I didn't know Uderzo and Goscinny made documentaries

Mieruko-chan 11 is out.... Miko has had some run ins with the temporary teacher in the past, being convinced that he's a notorious cat molester and therefore constantly surrounded by a swarm of dark, spiteful cat ghosts. She also arrived at the conclusion, it's the teacher and his entourage of angry cat spirits that is constantly draining her friend Hana of "life force" and make her ravenous all the time. She stalks him, confronts him, and finds out he's not a perpetrator, but a victim of an abusive mother, like a page torn out of Hitchc0cks "Psycho". She mentally abused him throughout his youth and punished him by killing kittens that he was trying to save. She keeps doing that now that she's passed on and Miko realised, the big, nasty ghost always following him is the ghost of his late mother. Ironically, it turns out later, that Zen (the teacher) thought Miko was the one killing all the cats in the neighbourhood. Realising her mistake, she makes use of her third (and last) "extra life", that she got from the shrine guardian and sics it on the evil ghost mother (by confronting her, revealing that she can see her), to free up the young man from her constantly making his life miserable, even from the afterlife.

I think the simplest way I can explain is... I like Americans as a people but not America the nation state (gross oversimplification)?. I know so many great Americans, but I think their society has some issues that requires a thorough shake up and a rethink of the country and it's future, like where do they really want to go the next 100 years. Because, as it is now, it's like the old de Havilland Comet plane. A marvel of its time when it was created, like WAY ahead of anything the world had seen at the time. The "Founding Fathers" did an exceptional job in creating a resilient and robust framework for a country, but like the airplane, eventually metal fatigue keeps wearing it down and some day will do it in. Nothing lasts forever. It's not specific to any country or empire, just a fact. Change is inevitable. The interesting parts are, when will it happen and what will be in its place afterwards. Will it become a new China with a populist strongman and a giant monolithic state (and state apparatus/bureaucracy running it)? Will it become the nation of Lousiana covering much of the south, bordered by the Grand Duchy of California and the New England Republic? Will it become 52 independent countries constantly warring with each other (like Russia and Ukraine) over territorial disputes that was effectively a non issue when being one nation? Will it become a theocracy along the lines of Iran? Or a loose federation of smaller unions of states, similar to say the EU?

The vaccination rates varies a lot from state to state. Biggest problem in Melbourne and Victoria are the neo nazi and alt right organized "anti vax" rallies, but the vast majority of people now ignore them. A few thousand might sound like a lot, but not out of a pool of 5 million people in each city, with double vaccination rates approaching 90%. It's harder in South Australia, West Australia and the Northern Territory in particular, simply because of the geographical and infrastructure challenges. Much of it desert, rain forest or otherwise sparsely populated. Queensland is to Australia what Florida is to the US. The home of the local variant of Florida man. We call them bogans. Yes, they are meme worthy too, but any vaccine that doesn't come either disguised as a six pack of beer or has the word 'BBQ' on the packaging and if it doesn't get delivered by a 1970's V12 held together by sticky tape and chewing gum is suspect and the instinctive first reaction is rejection. Need no foreign stuff polluting a gene pool carefully cultivated through generations of inbreeding!

Basically what it says in the posters other thead: For the less Russian speaking people around.

Since I'm going to have company this Christmas, we're probably going to be hanging out a bit at my place, we already got tickets for some interesting theater performances (experimental theater, where the audience is in the middle of the play), visiting Australia Zoo in Beerwah (the place created by the late Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwing), doting on said friend's little 6 month old niece (and visiting the nieces parents I guess), getting a rental car and go for some rain forest walks in the national parks north of Brisbane, making BBQ at my place, getting drunk in cider and sake... so much to do and sooo little time. Edit: And a Merry Christmas to everyone around here, whether they celebrate it or not (I don't, but I won't turn down the opportunity to have a good time with friends either, as they don't my a grumpy old agnostic like me) Edit2: With the Omicron variant around in Australia too, I should probably stockpile on toilet paper before the holidays

You are as bad as McCarthy area USA when it comes to BLM. You see them everywhere the same way the McCarthyists saw communists hiding behind each street lamp and behind each window curtain, ready to tear America apart! The word is 'paranoia' I think... in a society where poverty is a crime, sometimes punishable by death if you have the wrong skin colour and politicians threatens their children with the commies comming and taking them if they don't eat their dinner, people live fearful lives. Add to that a very badly functioning healthcare system for decades (one of the worlds most overpriced and inefficient ones), the lack of workers protection, the lack of security if you lose a job, making many people working 2-3 jobs at a time (making the statistics look nice, but in truth the US workforce is under-employed (and often grossly underpaid). Lack of mental health care. Lack of social welfare. Lack of higher education for large demographic groups... oh yeah, and also knowing that every weirdo who was never questioned about anything can buy an AR-15 and use for anger management purposes. https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Americans-live-in-fear You need a google or facebook account to read the related questions and anwers... Lets forget the silly, constant BLM boogie man for a moment and look back at 2016. Trump campaigned on fear. Fear of losing whatever manufacturing was left in the US, fear of immigrants, fear of Muslims, fear of empowering women and black people, fear of socialism (which was apparently everywhere as soon as daylight waned), fear of people taking your guns away, fear of a liberalization of society, fear losing status and prestige... and yes, he had this unhealthy, pathological obsession with Obama and Obama's popularity in particular It's almost like he made it his life's goal to destroy anything Obama created, being somehow an abomination in his mind. The better and more popular, the more effort was put into destroying it. **** envy much maybe? As for the bullet points: 1) The fear of "socialism" never left the McCarthy area (the 50's). It's like a cultural, collective memory thing, where there is absolutely no reasoning. If it gets labeled 'socialist', its inherently bad, regardless of any truth of such a statement. Truth is not important, the unreasoning fear is important (and exploitable by savvy politicians who keeps fanning the flames of fear in that regard). 2) Look at the number of unarmed black people killed by police compared to the number of unarmed white people? Look at the job opportunities in different layers of society? (not just burger flipping or garbage collection), look at how often people of various skin colours have been sentenced to life in jail or even executed after a death sentence, only to be cleared 20-30 years later by DNA evidence? I'll give you a hint, it's not white people who are dis-proportionally represented. 3) Unless something changes the current trajectory, yes, I think the US is perfectly capable of oscillating between the extremes until some government in the future does away with pretending and assume centralized executive power. Trump failed 2016-2020, but NOT for lack of trying. If not Trump in 2024, somebody else makes a case study of his presidency may succeed. Yes, Trump overtly supported (and was supported) by alt right groups and everything from right wing, armed militias over QAnon to The Klan.

I think I quoted all the important parts of your post... but since you already know the answer, why even bother with the question in the first place? It's a society that spends a disproportionate part of its existence living in fear. Racism and McCarthyism is alive and well, even if it's 50 years past its best by date. To this outsiders eye, it looks like Trump got elected because he wasn't Hillary and Biden got elected because he wasn't Trump. Yet those are just symptoms of much deeper issues with a much longer history. In an atmosphere of fear, you have a fertile soil for demagogues, if history is anything to go by. Just lie, accuse, point fingers and blame anything and everyone for every woe, real or perceived (especially the latter). It's worked like a charm since the ancient Persians.

It's a long and complicated story No. We were never "partners". Nor "friends with benefits". She's the best friend I ever had though. The one you can share everything with and vice versa, you get to know inside out. She sort of dragged me out of a deep, dark place I was in about 5-6 years ago. She's half my age and could be my daughter, so no, never an "ex", just a really good friend.

Todays weather forecast for Australia (pictures from yesterday I think). Unchanged from the the stuff I posted in the weird and random thread a few days ago, it looks like it's going to follow this pattern for most of the summer (which is the other half of the year down here compared to you people up north): Warm weather in the west: And a lot of humidity in the east: Unless some yet unknown border restriction comes into place between now and the day after tomorrow, a friend of mine will arrive from Melbourne and stay at my place for a month. Really looking forward to it. Haven't seen her for almost two years, since the on and off lockdowns started. I better get used to not leaving the shower and the kitchen a mess when I'm done

The Catholic Church... so removed from reality, always living in a state of denial! https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59626108 Italian church apologises after bishop tells children 'Santa does not exist'

I read a funny comment on Texas on one of the previously posted twits, something to the effect of the state the puts more effort into removing womens rights than fixing their broken power grid.

That brings back fond memories of cold winter days back in Denmark... resting first one foot, then other etc. on the Commodore 64 power supply on the floor

From a comic artist named Trudy Cooper, residing in Australia. Some of her stuff is NSFW, but not all...

Finished Mieruko-chan episode 10 Short rundown. Hana's appetite is not just cringe worthy. It turns out it might actually be supernatural in nature. Yulia (the diminutive wannabe worlds greatest spiritualist) accidentally reveals she can see auras and Hana is glowing like a 100w light bulb in the dark, constantly attracting malicious ghosts, who chew away at her aura so to speak, hence her constant need for fuel. Miko want's to ask Yulia more about what she sees, but she of course still thinks Miko an evil overlord out for world domination and remember how she tried to choke her to death, so she runs off. In the park, a childish looking ghost tricks Miko into revealing that she can see him and comes for her. The shrine guardian from a previous episode intervenes and destroys the ghost, with an ominous warning "2", which Miko suddenly realises means, she's used 2 of the 3 extra lives shrine guardian offered her. She now decides she needs help, just constantly ignoring the ghosts is not a recipe for a long life...

I wonder if Nier: Replicant and Nier: Automata would qualify as watching anime?... they sure as heck feels like watching some very elaborate anime movies (complete with awesome soundtracks).

Watched Death Parade 2 & 3... Episode 2 was episode 1 seen from a different perspective. An (yet) unnamed woman gets let to the bar by a what I assume is a senior arbitrator. She is going to work as Decim's (the bartender) assistant (like an intern/trainee really). It shows how they experience from their perspective, what we, the viewers saw from the other side in the first episode. Episode 3 was a young couple, who had grown estranged since childhood and now suddenly realized, too late, that maybe they were meant to be together. Not exactly a "happy" ending (they are dead after all), but a lot less antagonistic attitudes all around. And now off to get episode 10 of Mieruko-chan which seems to have come out in the meantime

Australia really is a land of contrasts at times... West Australia today: East Australia at the same time:

...and to something a bit further from home... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59582146 A senior Western intelligence official has warned that if Russia decides to invade Ukraine, a conflict could spill over further into Europe. Somewhere at the end, the article eventually gets to the point, what is it really about. It's a reverse Cuba crises. Back then, The US didn't want Soviet forces withing easy striking distance of the US heartland. Now, Russia doesn't want Nato within easy striking distance of the Russian heartland: Russia wants assurances that Ukraine will never be allowed to join Nato; that Nato members will have no permanent forces or infrastructure based in Ukraine; and for a halt to military exercises near Russia's border. Of course, not without a bit of hypocrisy... But the alliance has also made clear that it believes that Ukraine has a right to make its own decisions as a sovereign nation, and it is not willing to give Russia a veto on Ukraine's future. Cuba was never given the same courtesy of course, like being allowed to make it's own sovereign decisions about what happened inside its borders. Whats better than having a standard? Two standards!

No actual examples yet, because the law hasn't been passed yet. It's just the gist of the proposed law (and the background I provided above, what went before and lead to it)

It means you can legally refuse to hire someone who is gay for example, because it offends your religious sensibilities. It would be similar to refusing to hire somebody whose skin has the "wrong" colour being legitimate because it offends whatever values you profess to have.

A bit of background information... it all started with a rugby player who got fired from his club because he went on a hate rant on social media against the LGBT community. He sued his then employer for wrongful determination, because he did nothing wrong according to the bible and his religion (I'm not kidding, that was the basis of his claims) So, the Liberal party saw an opportunity to get back at the LGBT community because of the lost referendum in 2017, which the church handled very badly. Enter stage left, a new law that would allow to discriminate as long as it fits the narrative of your (the Christian) church and give it some fancy name like the Religious Discrimination Act, which is ostensibly about not allowing people to discriminate against religion, but in reality is a carte blanche for religious people to discriminate against minorities not to their liking. Because if something is offensive to the church, it's obviously discriminating against the church, right? So, lets give the church some added protection by allowing it to discriminate at will. They have since then watered down the text a bit, as it now does not allow doctors etc. to refuse to treat minorities, even in life threatening situations (which was possible in the original wording of the law), because if they were part of LGBT community, they were obviously sinners and it would be ok for medical staff to just let them die. That's The Australian Liberal Party and the Australian Church (bunch of hypocrite child rapists that they are) for you.