Gorth

There, fixed it for you. Both China and Russia are about as fascist as you get. Big business is *tolerated* as long as they dance to the tune of the presiding autocrat, whether Putin or Xi. Russian billionaires who thought themselves safe are wetting their pants, fearing the knock on the door from intelligence officers. Chinese billionaires are "disappearing" after mock trial and sentence according to the new Hong Kong rules (basically, anything critical of the regime is a crime punishable by whatever we can make up at the time).

I suppose there are hobbies and there are hobbies! https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-58077039 "The defendant, 84, has been handed a suspended prison sentence of 14 months and has been ordered to pay a fine of €250,000 (£213,469). Officials found the tank and other World War Two-era military equipment at the defendant's house in the northern town of Heikendorf in 2015. The army had to help remove the items. On Monday, the court ordered that the defendant, who cannot be named under German privacy laws, must sell or donate the tank and an anti-aircraft cannon to a museum or collector within the next two years." No constitutional rights to have tanks and anti anti-aircraft cannons at home in Germany by the looks of it 🙄

DeSantis... "The Florida Butcher"? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58077209 "US health officials say 11,515 Florida residents are currently in hospital. Many are younger and healthier than patients seen earlier in the pandemic. On Saturday, Florida set a record for most new infections in a single day. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis opposes efforts to make vaccines or masks mandatory. Across the US, one in three new cases last week were recorded in Florida or Texas." Sort of a giveaway what parts of the US *not* to be in, at least at the moment I suppose.

I *think* they (or the wife at least) is a bit homesick for Serbia. They had planned to go back for an "extended vacation" this winter (that's summer time in Europe, i.e. July/August). Obviously not going to happen. We sometimes sit and watch pictures and google earth/streetview from her home town and hear the stories about them having to take cover when Nato planes were bombing the area.

For whatever reason my Serbian friends don’t like Djokovic and always cheers for his opponent. Even when we went to see one of his matches live at Australian Open. Something about him seems to rub people the wrong way.

I thought fika was Swedish slang for sex 🤔

Never underestimate the importance of motivation. The Taliban believe in their cause. Government troops believe in the paycheck that may or may not pay their next rent... if it doesn't bounce because the government is broke.

And you thought the tax authorities were persistent 😛

Sort of "discovering" one of the other game modes in Guild Wars 2, the wvw aka World vs. World. If running with a group of like minded IDGAF it can be fun on a different scale. Especially in the voice chat 😁 A squad leader that is reluctantly squad leader (because nobody else wants to), an alcoholic, a handful of girls that are the meanest butchers and killer pvp players around (as long as they have other players to kill, they are all giggling and having fun), old timers like me who plays more of a jack of all trades character, theory crafters, etc. Just plain fun. Taking keeps, towers, supply camps, killing supply Dolyaks (aka "cows") to starve defenders out, running away from mobs that outnumber you 80 to 10 and try to build defensive siege engines (I love pouring burning oil on people) and so on. Edit: wvw is pitting populations of one server against two other servers in a 3 way fight on a number open world maps dedicated to it. Each server ("world") has it's own borderlands to defend while trying to attack the other two servers territory. A large, compact map is in the middle which is sort of a prestige thing to hold the central keep in.

You might not be doing yourself any favours (other than the fun of it of course) when dealing with certain personality types like aforementioned sharp_one... https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-disorders/narcissistic-personality-disorder.htm " It’s more accurate to say that people with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) are in love with an idealized, grandiose image of themselves. And they’re in love with this inflated self-image precisely because it allows them to avoid deep feelings of insecurity. But propping up their delusions of grandeur takes a lot of work—and that’s where the dysfunctional attitudes and behaviors come in." ... "People with narcissistic personality disorder are extremely resistant to changing their behavior, even when it’s causing them problems. Their tendency is to turn the blame on to others. What’s more, they are extremely sensitive and react badly to even the slightest criticisms, disagreements, or perceived slights, which they view as personal attacks." That being said, could I ask as a favour if people would take discussions of mental health issues to the old mental health thread or create a new one? That being said, maybe some day a thread about LBGTQXYZ (honestly no idea what letters are used today) would be an idea, to discuss why people are so afraid and insecure when dealing with people that are different from themselves (or things they don't understand). A problem with society that is not necessarily a political problem, but one of psychology and intellectual shortcomings.

You could just check out their youtube channel, all the publicly available videos current and past are there 😎 Being a Patreon backer just means getting an early preview (and support their work, so the videos keep flowing)

As mentioned previously (at least I think I mentioned it), the latest Honest Government Ads take on the Australian governments handling of the situation in Australia

This 😎 Not going to move existing posts (too much work on a phone *cough*), but please continue this subject in one of the other threads. Politics or Covid

Do we need to close the borders to space? 🤔

Or get used to having your annual covid vaccine shot for the next 300 years... 😛 Edit: I have no idea, but @Zoraptor may know some typical figures for how long it takes humans to adapt to new diseases and co-exist so to speak. No idea what the guy does for a living, but I suspect his knowledge of virology and dna/rna is more than just casual.

Can they issue the death penalty for politicians that deliberately kill people (outside of stuff like war etc.)? Edit: After all, if they are so keen on getting people killed, they should really appreciate experiencing it themselves.

Who said anything about masks outside? And please... not even going to click a link to daily fail. About as trustworthy as Fox News, which means not at all. If that is the source of your debunk that is, you need to find better. It's worked for 12 months without fail down under. The only reason it didn't work this time was because a local government decided to believe that kind of crap (the same position which also failed miserably in Sweden, hence why the other Nordic countries closed their borders to Sweden, no idea if they've reopened them since) More likely, but that's my own speculation, business interests pushed them to *not* do a lockdown this time, when the federal quarantine system failed yet again (something it's been doing at least once a month the last 12 months). The reason the lockdown didn't work this time was, they didn't do a lockdown. Only now, after the bird left the cage and it's to late to fix it easily, did they realize that their not so bright ideas might come back to bite them.

I can't link to any direct quotes, because they never said it directly (afaik). Just 12 months of constant criticism of the other state PM's in the media for enforcing mask rules and doing snap lockdowns (to prevent lengthy lockdowns down the road). If you repeat a message often enough, people think you actually stand for what you say and that forcing people to wear masks and do lockdowns is a bad idea. Edit: And yes, I the failure is first and foremost on a federal level because of the complete lack of a program to handle travelers entering Australia (something local state PM's have no jurisdiction over) and the completely ****ed up vaccine situation. But, unlike when Australia was burning down to the ground, there is no option for Scott Morrison to just put his family on a plane and flee to Hawaii (to go on "vacation" while things comes crashing down back home). Edit2: To compound the issue, there are not even *signs*, that the federal government is trying to fix any of their many mistakes. Neither the quarantine situation nor the vaccine situation.

So, just to recap. The quarantine arrangements, which are the federal governments responsibility has been shown to be completely not working for 12 months. Facilities are there, that could be used, but they aren't The vaccine supply and distribution is the responsibility of the federal government, has been shown to be completely not working for 12 months. Australia is currently rock bottom amongst OECD countries. This means, Australia is completely unable to handle a major outbreak one were to happen. Guess what? Yes, the federal governments local party branch in NSW has the "honour" of completely losing control of the situation and is now panicking. So is the federal government by the way. Not that they give a **** about Australians, but it will hopefully get them wiped off the map at the next election. The "geniouses" in the NSW government spent most of the last year mocking the other states for doing snap lockdowns of 5 days each, in order to cover for the federal governments constant **** ups. Most of their contributions being to tell other states how stupid they are and such measures aren't needed. Now they managed to completely lose control after it happened in their own backyard and nobody else in Australia has any sympathy for their plight. More like gloating, except people are now dying again because of their mismanagement. Besides the federal government wanting to seize what vaccines the other states have and redistribute them to their fellow party members, they are also digging into the national treasury to support NSW financially (something other states didn't get, when suffering from the federal governments constant failures). The NSW government's solution? Well, they have encouraged their own population very loudly so far, to resist lockdown measures, social distancing, mask wearing etc. and now they have decided to do a hard lockdown of an indeterminate duration. Not only that, because they "educated" the local population so well, nobody listens to them talking about lockdown measures, so now the army has been called in to keep them in check. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-58021718 "Covid in Sydney: Military deployed to help enforce lockdown" Way to go Liberal Party. I've mentioned it before, Australia is really a third world country in so many ways. Hard not to think of the term Banana Republic when describing it. That would be insulting to bananas though, and the QLD bananas are great... Honest Government Ads have made a new video about the subject, I'll see if I can find and share it when it becomes available to the public (currently available as an audio preview on their Patreon page)

I know the Italian police have a number of Lamborghinis (donated by Lamborghini btw.). But other countries police forces are no slouches either... https://topgear.com.my/these-are-the-worlds-best-police-cars Edit: "Dubai police Ferrari FF Announced on Twitter, Dubai’s police force admitted that yes, they had bought a V12-engined pursuit vehicle in the shape of the four-seat Ferrari FF. The four-wheel drive will doubtless prove vital for all those snow-and-ice police chases across the UAE."

Ah, the potential for gravity drives... Event Horizon one step closer to become a reality 😁

Nostalgia time... some old German rock from my teenage years (when music was something you bought as vinyl records!) 😎

Thunderstorms can be a bit crazy in Brisbane at times. Haven’t had good ones recently, (only noticeable one was 71.000 lightning strikes) but 6-7 years ago I managed to catch a few minutes of light show on video. It was non stop lightning over a weekend, from Friday night to Sunday night. 200.000+ lightning strikes in 48 hours over the city All of the state got to feel the static that year (from the news) @majestic look at the bright side, if ocean levels rise significantly, lots of Austria will suddenly become attractive beach properties 😁

Ask Electronic Arts how much their reputation matters to them... Ok, just kidding. For some companies, it's all weighed up in their chart of accounts. Acceptable losses if other gains makes up for it. I must be getting soft. Sat up all night watching the GW2 live stream on twitch together with a lot of guildies on Discord. Got to bed around 4am 😊 Got some questions answered and some questions just got what I would consider teaser responses. From memory: Taking place in Cantha (already knew that). Adding a new mount. A two person mount this time, with one driver and one gunner. It's a siege turtle. Yes, Mad Max meet Aqua World. Also mentioned in passing as useable in a WvW context. Skiffs. Not only in the new area, but old areas to be retrofitted with the ability to sail around on your small boats. Fishing. Multiplayer fishing too. 200+ different fish species to be caught all over the world (retroactively adding catchable fish to existing areas) 😂 New guild hall. A small paradise like island with a distinct Asian theme. Lots of water features and lush greenery. DirectX 11 support to be beta tested and hopefully released before the expansion. Significant rework to how match ups works in WvW. The aim being to let players form alliances between their guilds and then pitch alliances against each other rather than the current server vs. server (the guild wars are truly coming). To be beta tested and hopefully released before the expansion. 9 new elite specializations. Only one was shown (a new Mesmer specialization). Four public beta test sessions scheduled, the first one in a few weeks time. Each of the first three sessions to test 3 specs each and the fourth to test all 9 together. New strike missions (think Raid 'Lite') and new encounter mechanics in general, scaling enemies by adding more abilities rather than turning then into hit point sponges with increased damage output. Five new mastery tracks, of which the first three are to improve your fishing, skiff piloting and siege turtle skills. The last two to be revealed later. I probably forgot a lot of details because it was a bit late and I haven't watched it again. Open for pre-purchase now. Release date currently February 2022. Edit: There was something too about the use of all that jade they have. When the human gods had a falling out with each other, one of the collateral damages was the ocean around Cantha got turned into solid jade (hence the name 'The Jade Sea'). Apparently this very magically charged jade has given rise to a new form for technology. An interesting scene towards the end of the new trailer shows a woman in something that looks like a server room, with a mix of magic, steam punk and green glowing jade everywhere.

Still nothing wrong with getting a wage that allows you and your partner to survive without slaving away at two jobs each, simultaneously and then have the bank seize your home when little George breaks his leg in a freak accident. The way it works at the moment, in many parts of the world (including parts of the US) is very similar to the feudal system, where you're completely at the mercy of your liege and their whims. Including financial institutions happily gambling your money away to get the bonus they need for their CEO's second yacht. Edit: I doubt the usual solution to this problem would be appreciated... Roll them in pitch and torch them or off to the Guillotine once enough is enough. Edit2: UBI is never going to work as a patch on the problem, it will only lead to explosive inflation and the top 1% getting richer still, while the rest keep getting poorer.