Gorth

"Do private security guards have the skills to handle highly volatile situations that police officers have been expertly trained to tackle? "... Seriously? It's not like police officers have a good track record of handling anything that doesn't require brute force to solve

This article is so stupid, it *has* to have originated from a Murdoch Media source somewhere. The Eastern European governments of today are ranging from centrist over right to alt-right. Perfectly happy to acknowledge they are authoritarian (and for many of them, in a very bad way). The wrong premise just means the conclusion is the exact opposite of what they were hoping to reach.

Nothing that you can't fix by throwing more tanks at the problem

I wasn't really familiar with it, but looked it up on wiki (yes, boo, hiss). Interesting read. Apparently only the British and Russians used Christie suspensions (something about prophets and not being accepted their native countries seems to apply) From the wiki about US Army trialing it: "Army officials clocked a Christie M1931 tank attaining 104 mph (167 km/h), making it the fastest tank in the world: a record many believe it still holds"

The T34 is a weird thing. So simple, yet a stroke of genius in many ways. A right tool for the right job kind of thing. Decent stats (mobility, protection & firepower), easy to produce in large numbers, simple to operate and simple maintenance (what little low tech stuff that could break could be fixed by a peasant turned engineer with a hammer). edit: I sometimes think the whole wh40k STC tank concept is based on the history of the T34

The only SR I ever played was SR3 I only played it in co-op with a friend though (and she's a killer with a gun!). No idea what it would have been like playing it solo (Some of the DLC stuff was pretty fun too, like the sci-fi parts, silly, but fun when doing it co-op)

Got a similar anecdote to share... I doubt i would be able to get a mortgage in Australia, as I don't have any debt (to prove I can pay back debt) and not having had a credit card for 8 years, not making the banks any money. Doesn't matter I make a decent living, if they don't have it on print that you are a profitable customer for them.

Yes. Gary Oldman

Probably some souvenir scam, taking a cheap western lighter and glue/solder two fake plaques on it and voila, genuine made in the CCCP! (at least according to some thrifty entrepreneur somewhere) Edit: Regardless of who made it, the guy restoring it did a good job of it

Maybe it's a lot harder when you have to make it look like someone specific compared to when you have "free hands" to sculpt a face?

Why do I always imagine Gromnir looking like Ricky Gervais?...

Still, how did Bioware end up with this (Miranda's voice actor and model for the looks) Looking like this

Come on, everyone loves beating up English people. Even the English do it

Which is sort of the problem... the "major power" in the Middle East is an apartheid state and heavily supported by very influential lobby groups in the US, to the point where the rest of the world thinks of the US as Israel's bitch. Eventually, either the apartheid system has to go or a population group has to be genocided out of existence (a traditional European, including the UK, way of solving problems), but this is getting increasingly harder in a world where so many have access to current affairs and news. Which leaves the first option. Either turn it into an all inclusive, equal rights for all state or a two state, with two viable states mind you, solution. Co-existence would of course have been easier, but blame nationalism and religion on that. Edit to add: Part of what keeps the problem constantly current is 1.5 million displaced people that were kicked off their land live in refugee camps in neighboring countries with no future to look forward to. A good as any breeding ground for resentment and extremism. It's of course not the only problem in the Middle East, but it's hard to think up modern solutions to deep rooted, sometimes ancient problems. Just look at the Balkans how quickly populist politicans and nationalists can turn a civilized country into a smoking ruin. And even there, the problems are far from solved, they are just dormant at the moment, waiting for the right spark to flare up again. Same with Northern Ireland. If those two places are struggling, guess how hard it is to think up something useful for The Middle East. Old hatred and grudges just runs deep.

I remember when that was the news of the day, way back... eventually Russia got so fed up with the blatant theft of natural gas going through the Ukrainian pipeline, they simply turned off the valves. Much tears and gnashing of teeth followed as people were getting hypothermia in their homes (it was in the middle of the winter iirc.). I don't remember all the details of what was arranged but something about Ukraine stealing less and paying more was agreed, but Russia decided they needed a safer option for shipping it to other parts of Europe as Ukraine would forever being a weak link in the supply. Edit: At the time, Ukraine was already getting it at a hefty discount for good old times (Soviet times) sake. Iirc, as part of a compromise was made, an "adjustment" a bit closer to market price for the gas they actually paid for and not mysteriously disappeared from the pipeline into the local, national gas network... which Ukraine also promised to look into. I don't remember the follow up discussions (probably wasn't aired on Danish news) Edit2: @BruceVC regarding The Middle East, tl;dr; the place has been a mess since the Turks invaded Anatolia and the collapse of the Byzantine Empire. A collapse that was helped by the traitorous city of thieves (Venice).

A bit of (troubling) news about Witcher 4.... starts about 6:45 and 15:00 into the video

I wasn't playing the game at the time, but swtor oldtimers in my then guild told me that the game had no end game at launch. The first boss of what later became Eternity Vault was added and later the entire operation followed. At which time 4/5 of the players had left the game. According to the same people (i.e. entirely anecdotal because I haven't checked it), the game was planned to have nine chapters for each class story, but ended after 3 as players were chewing through class story a *lot* faster than Bioware expected.

First they come for Miranda's butt, next they come for EDI's camel toe... Edit: Not a youtube comment

Thanks. You just saves me from a potential headache Not going to wonder even just a little bit if I should consider this version Important parts of Yvonne Strahovski missing from the game

Hamas has been stockpiling rockets for several years now. Actually, since the last major flare up. It seems to happen whenever Netanyahu faces jail time... this time he poked the bee hive by evicting people from their homes in the occupied parts of Jerusalem and and using a lot of force when people protested about their homes being literally stolen from them. Because the tensions weren't severe enough, he ordered the police to raid the Al Aqsa Mosque with guns and tear gas (an action that looks like it has had the surprising effect of making new best friends of Saudi Arabia and Iran). Netanyahu got what he wanted, a few hundred dead Palestinians, half which are women and children of all ages. He doesn't have to worry about jail as long as he can keep the military campaign in Gaza going. https://apnews.com/article/hamas-middle-east-israel-748a13f933111e2341fcf1d01f86bdb7 "Just over a week ago, the longtime Israeli leader’s political career seemed all but over. He had failed to form a coalition government following an indecisive parliamentary election, and his political rivals were on the cusp of pushing him out of office." At which point, many years of accumulated corruption charges seems to wait for him....

This thread needs more Rammstein...

What's wrong with 1111 1234 and P@$$w0rd! ???

I would love to try out various types of guns, small and large, on a firing range some day. I would probably hurt my shoulder and get bruises from it in the process, but I think it would be worth just for the heck of trying it once...

As for the India rules, it's not an easy question to answer and I might give you a different answer if asked twice about it. I can see the practicality of it, as most of the lockdowns happening after the initial lockdown last year was caused by people traveling from India. On the other hand, locking your own citizens out of your country is not illegal, but might be "questionable" ethically. Mind you, it's not like people in India can't travel to Australia, but they would have to be somewhere else in the two weeks before returning. I think the cricketers actually took a two stopover on the Maldives before returning from India to Australia. Effectively being quarantined somewhere else before returning. They have opened up a bit for travel from India now, but you have to produce a credible, fresh negative covid test before being allowed to board (and still have to be quarantined upon return) Edit: Australia technically has a constitution, but it has little to do with people and rights and is all about the power sharing between the federal government and state governments (responsibilities and limitations of each) Edit2: It has no bill of rights

I believe that depends entirely on the rest of the world and how it handles the pandemic. If anything, the tightening of the rules regarding India shows how far they are willing to go to keep the virus out of Australia. We can always kidnap some Kiwi's if we fear inbreeding... If the rest of the world doesn't get it's act together though, yeah, I think it will be a long time before international travelers become a thing.