Gorth

Nah, the bushfires in West Australia are out of control, I'm sure no Covid virus is going to escape Perth

I'm sure KGB uses Novishock, not Covid

They probably hacked every research facility in the world and used the best bits of each... UK, US, Chinese, you name it

And they still argue today if Oswald acted on his own initiative Edit: I know, selective quoting changes the meaning of the sentence a bit, but it's one of those "mysteries" where my curiosity gets the better of me and I would love to know the whole story, even its very simple, he just did because he felt like it. Similar to Jack the Ripper. To be a fly on the wall and figure out the actual truth of the guy. Yes, I'm weird like that.

My inner pragmatist is not in favour of something that could destabilize Russia. Navalny might consider himself a crusader, but being good at crying foul doesn't necessarily make you a good leader. Even less so if you have to pick up the pieces of what you broke. Just smashing stuff for the sake of smashing stuff isn't going to make the life of the average Russian any better either. This is not the West with half a century or more of democratic traditions. Slow and steady (and less belligerent than China) transitions to a more modern and open society preferred, thanks As for Aung San Suu Kyi, if the military walks like a duck, sounds like a duck... time to duck and cover, a coup in all but name.

<insert some catchy Petshop Boys tune here> Go west! Well, turns out it's now WA (West Australia) turn to deal with a quarantine breach and put Perth and everyone else "over there" in total lockdown for a bit (similar to what we had here in Brisbane a few weeks ago). Damn hotel security staff just can't keep their hands off the guests https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-01/wa-covid-lockdown-contact-tracing-system-in-the-spotlight/13107516 I'll blame the South Africans of course.

You had me at 'hello'

I suspect the Chechen war was both bloody, brutal and inhumane for the people living there. But you have to hand it to Putin, the region did get a lot more quiet. Maybe his KGB background came in handy? Like both how to instigate and how to quell a rebellion 101?

Nice music to sit and listen to while thinking...

You could join the anarchist party

Those darn Belgians should stick to making beer and chocolate... apparently a Belgian supplier is causing a major shortcoming in AstraZeneca production output. Sucks to be the EU, on the other hand, they were slower than most to sign up for delivery. Now they get the bed they made by the looks of it.

It's worth exactly how much money you can squeeze out of people for it.... Edit: regardless of whether it's actually "worth" anything. You could argue a McDonald burger is a health hazard and of no nutritional value. It still gets sold as "food" and they seem to do well financially. Good thing too, because a free (and unregulated) market leads to a totalitarian market regime, led by monopolies.

Reviving an old thread, just random sports indeed.

Moved. It's possible they may merge again some day, but I thought there was so much election specific noise up to the election, that other topics wouldn't stand a chance of being noticed

No idea about Facebook (don't care, never use it), but the very simplified version of the disagreement with Google is, Google makes a lot of money copying articles from Australian news sites and showing to people, earning Google all the advertising revenue. In return, the news sites and the journalists gets nothing from Google, who distributes their work and sticks the profit in Googles own pockets. Somebody thought that was unfair and that Google should pay for the content if Google earns money on it. Of course, Google wont have that and have now threatened to pick up their toys and leave, stopping all Google services in Australia. Edit: If it sounds like blackmail, stinks like blackmail and twitches like blackmail, then it might just be that, blackmail. I guess if you're big enough, you don't give a damn about appearances. What was the Facebook stuff about? Am I missing out on an interesting story?

Looks like China is testing the waters a bit more... will the US pull a "Syrian Kurds" on them or will they stand by Taiwan? https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/23/taiwan-reports-large-incursion-by-chinese-air-force "Taipei says Chinese combat aircraft, including nuclear-capable H-6K bombers and four J-16 fighter jets, entered its airspace." Edit: I'm guessing the timing isn't coincidental.

I seriously got no idea what you're talking about. Edit: China is not led by a communist regime, it's a totalitarian nationalist regime. Australia's PM is the Aussie version of Trump, but without the the military might to back his stupidity. So he's neither a right wing strongman nor a "leftist". His only skills were in marketing, i.e. he's good at lying and bull****ting and little else.

Looks like China thought it a good time, while the White House is busy and all, to allow their navy vessel to open fire and sink other nations vessels in the disputed waters. I'm curious to see how long they can sink other countries fishing vessels in those other countries own local territorial waters before it escalates to something larger. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/23/china-authorises-coast-guard-to-fire-on-foreign-vessels-if I wouldn't be surprised if China's next step is to make territorial claims on northern Australia (because it borders Chinese territorial waters, which they are trying to expand south of Papua New-Guinea) and Antarctica. Why oh why are we stuck with Scott Morrison as prime minister????

Who says they don't? And he's probably laughing his ass off at the stupidity of his cultists

You just answered your own question. Welcome to the real world. The anarchist party is still open for applications I once set up "Chicken" as a third currency in a customers ERP system while testing exchange rates between British Pounds, Euros and... chickens. Luckily the customer could see the funny side of it and no, they didn't offer to pay their suppliers in chickens.

Only 988 years left. You're almost there!

I don't think you're trying to mock people here, but no. There is a difference. My old favourite game, Star Wars the Old Republic had for years prohibited character transfers between US and EU servers, because the EU privacy laws were so much stricter than the US laws. It took some serious cleaning up of their backend systems and how they managed account information before data could be shared within the same company, between EU and US hosting.

Shoot first, ask for ID afterwards

Hey, welcome to the real world. The only thing that would scare someone like DuPond is getting caught. Because that hurts the dividends. I'm sure they supported Trump and his deregulation, getting rid of environmental controls and "anything goes for corporations" policy. It's never too late. There is always room for one more anarchist