Gorth

Ummm... Governments and media varies a bit from country to country. Just saying. Here the government is struggling to procure vaccine in the first place, so nobody really tells any fairy tales about how great it is to get vaccinated. For some countries, it's the choice between hundreds of thousands of people dying or alternatively, suddenly all the vaccinated males running around with a constant erection (a joke, if you know what Pfizer is mostly known for). With Murdoch Media being the dominant media (80%) down here, we constantly get bombarded with how unnecessary lockdown and masks are and how we should ban all vaccines to make room for Hydroxsomethingcloride, that stuff the omnipotent, omniscient Trump in one of His revelations revealed to the world as the new fountain of youth that would cure all our ailments. Not kidding. Sky News eventually removed those videos from their news pages, but only just very recently. The narrative being spun by medias and governments can be/is very different from country to country. Edit: Tl;dr; the Murdoch Media wants to turn us all into the proverbial "Florida Man"

@Raithe Damn! That was deep. Loved it

Those doctors might also run out of chickens to sacrifice

“The true American embassy”

Public beta has started for Guild Wars 2 and the new elite classes. Every player (regardless of whether they have any expansions, f2p or otherwise) will get 3 new temporary extra character slots where they can create up to 3 insta-max-level characters for one of the first 3 elite specs to be tested. They come complete with all the gear and things needed to try them out. Only catch is... nothing those characters do will benefit your account. I.e. they can't accumulate wealth, map rewards or similar for you and they disappear when the beta ends. But, you get a bit of time playing them at max level and see if it's something for you. Four sessions are planned. The first just started. Further 2 sessions will feature 3 elite specs and the fourth and last one supposedly making all 9 available to test together. They'll probably monitor closely how they perform in all game modes.

Her and SloMo both. She screwed up NSW and Australia royally, but the former was responsible for the national quarantine measures (which has failed on a monthly basis so far, with no plans how to fix it)

Naughty, naughty Gorth... a bit more on topic https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58252784 The National Ignition Facility uses a powerful laser to heat and compress hydrogen fuel, initiating fusion. An experiment suggests the goal of "ignition", where the energy released by fusion exceeds that delivered by the laser, is now within touching distance.

Me too...

Sticky tape is your friend

Just a thought experiment on my part, but maybe the US, the UK, West Germany and other countries did their job a bit too well when supporting the Mujahedin financially, materially and politically in their fight against the Soviet Union. Lots of those old fighters (who later moved on to lead AQ and other groups) learnt that major, foreign powers can be defeated and driven off if you try hard enough, no matter how big they are. Not that the Soviet Union didn't screw up badly too, suddenly getting mixed up in an Afghan civil war between two factions.

Still better than being the poor sabre tooth squirrel

Several people (wrongly) assume that the vaccines are new. BioNTech had a decade of research already with the mRNA technology. The only thing "new" is they've repurposed it from it's intended cancer treatment to Covid treatment. We're talking about "adjustments", not innovation. Pfizer shareholders don't appear too unhappy by mass producing BioNTech's Covid vaccine instead of Viagra. Edit: The change of BioNTech's focus was probably helped a bit by some non-trivial monetary incentives from Mama Merkel. Unlike say HIV virus, Covid not only harms individuals, it hurts business. Most problems can be solved if you through enough resources at it. Humanity has so much potential locked behind a wall of stupidity.

I deleted a number of my first posts as GW started coming down hard on fan art and movies and videos getting removed from YouTube. Reposted a few from different sources

This is also the reason I prioritize the Chinese threat over anything posed by Russia these days. Russia's sphere of interest seems mostly internal and areas bordering Russia. China has much bigger ambitions outside what you would consider "core China" culturally and traditionally. I.e. militarily aggressive not just against immediate neighbours. Edit: Syria being admittedly a bit of an outlier, but I guess a nice little "contained" war is as good a place as any to test the quality of your gear, training, doctrines etc.

Things that are normally of little interest to western media... Siberia's wildfires out of control. It's a lot of fire.

Because I haven't posted some Rammstein in a while. Not surprised that an Australian mining corporation was involved in the disaster. They're **** when it comes to things like safety and environmental protection in Australia. Why would they behave differently when abroad (even if they don't own the government of Romania like they do the local government down here)?

Makes you wonder what's up with US intelligence services. At least superficially they seem to get rather important details very wrong quite a number of times the last couple of decades.

Maybe they were looking for brains in The Capitol

Putting it through google translate says pretty much the same as the thread title

Syria, Iran, Iraq and Turkey. The Kurds are today one the largest "stateless nations" in the world numbering around 30 million people. Subjected to discrimination and persecution in the four nations states the Kurdish lands straddle. England and France either didn't know what they were doing or didn't care when they carved up the middle east after WWI.

I did ask our overlords once if we could have a dislike button here. Sadly not available in this forum software

Ask the Kurds in northern Syria for elaboration on the joke

They (China) did attempt to get a foothold in Australia previously with the B&R tool (as well as attempts at massive farmland and industry buyouts) Luckily they eventually got sent packing and with a “don’t slam the door on the way out”

So did I when I got run over by a car as a kid. Doesn’t mean I appreciate the lesson

Speaking of misinformation, Murdoch's misinformation campaign not only in the US but back in his home country of Australia has taken a shot and are now rethinking their strategy... presumably how they can repackage the misinformation. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-58168048 Sky News Australia has removed dozens of videos from its websites, after YouTube suspended the channel for spreading Covid misinformation. The conservative TV network, owned by Rupert Murdoch, has been criticised for promoting conspiracies and questioning public health orders in its broadcasts. In recent days it has taken down about 30 videos without explanation or making corrections. Sky News Australia has declined to comment. While the videos are gone, they do leave behind an idea of their nature and what it says about Murdoch media, whether it be Sky News or Fox News.