Gorth

I suddenly feel a lot smarter than I am! Wait...

@Gromnirmentioned rain a few posts ago (hope the dog is ok!)... Had a bit of rain in SE Queensland too this weekend. Accompanied by wind speeds of cyclone strength, despite there being no cyclone. Up to 450mm rain overnight here (that's 17.7" for those of you across The Pacific). Things are a bit soggy and humid today Parts of inner QLD got 700mm (27.5") of rain. The silver lining however.... it helped getting the bush fires on the neighboring Fraser Island contained (after weeks of being out of control) https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/batten-down-the-hatches-cyclonic-storms-to-batter-the-south-east-20201213-p56n1j.html

I do miss the 80's...

Only in West Australia... https://thoughtcatalog.com/callie-byrnes/2017/10/this-man-couldnt-get-the-atm-to-work-so-he-taped-a-fish-to-it-for-a-truly-bizarre-reason/ "I think every normal human being has gotten frustrated with an ATM that’s out of order. But at the end of the day, do we really do anything about it? Usually I just end up going home angry and annoyed. But not Troy Buswell. He’s a man of action and quite possibly the most unconventional hero I’ve ever seen. When he noticed his ATM was STILL out of order, he did what any desperate person would do — he taped a fish to the machine." Edit: The mans message to the bank, weird sentence structure included (probably rage messaging) "hey COMMONWEATH bank, how about you SERVICE your ****ING atms in BUNBURY so punters like ME will not hav to TAPE FISH to them so youll have NO CHOCE but to come and FIX THEM. i have more fish and tape and will,, power than youre intire organisation. FIX THEM NOW."

Bought and watched "Suicide Squad". It was fun. Not pretending to be any Haute Couture, just a good old fashioned action romp (Dirty Dozen Lite). Story was weak in several places (hey, it's a super hero universe, no big surprises there), but the acting was generally good and while some characters felt tacked on as the token characters, most of them were interesting enough. Special fx were decent. Not bad for an approx 6 us dollars dvd purchase. I know I've spent a lot more money on way worse entertainment.

Dusting off my old DVD collection, I rewatched Finding Nemo for the umpteenth time. One of my favourite movies As a counterpoint, wash away the sweet taste, Event Horizon was next. Somehow that movie always make me think of the WH40k universe

A bit more Rammstein...

It was so long ago that I've responded with a "no known allergies" when a doctor asked me, but because it was so long ago, I've almost forgotten that my smallpox vaccination almost killed me as a kid. My body reacting very violently to it. I better remember that if asked again. Sort of related to a previous post of mine, but I noticed an interesting little detail that had escaped my notice so far (AZD1222 is the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/11/astrazeneca-to-trial-combination-with-russian-covid-19-vaccine "While the Sputnik V jab uses human adenovirus vectors, AZD1222 relies on adenovirus from chimpanzees. Both are administered in two doses." I see all kinds of potentials

Switzerland.... the country famous for its mercenary activities (even more so than its cheese) I wonder how much China is paying for this kind of access to just swoop in and retrieve people? At least the CIA does it covertly when it abducts people and hide them in secret prisons around the world https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/11/china-to-renew-secret-deal-with-switzerland-over-nationals "Switzerland gave Chinese security agents free run inside its borders and the rest of Europe for five years as part of a secretive immigration agreement between the two countries, according to human rights watchdog Safeguard Defenders. While the agreement officially expired this week, Safeguard Defenders warned that it was up for renewal in a report released on Thursday."

Was that the supreme court lawsuit? If so, it got summarily dismissed by the court https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55283024 "The lawsuit, filed this week by the state of Texas, sought to invalidate results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. President-elect Joe Biden won all four. The lawsuit was supported by 19 state attorneys general and 127 Republican members of Congress. But the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that Texas did not have legal standing to bring the case, in a brief order rejecting the bid."

Yeah. No end to the friends money can buy The disputed region of West Sahara is apparently quite rich in oil. Wouldn't that make Israel and the US the only two countries in the world recognizing Morocco's claim on it?

The UK may have a bad case of Russophobia, but that doesn't seem to stop the scientists... Behold, the Frankensteins Monster! https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-55270942 "As we mentioned earlier, UK and Russian scientists are teaming up to trial a combination of the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Sputnik V vaccines to see if protection against Covid-19 can be improved. Mixing two similar vaccines could lead to a better immune response in people."

It's not only the usual suspects doing it.... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-55232432 A dead professor and numerous defunct organisations were resurrected and used alongside at least 750 fake media outlets in a vast 15-year global disinformation campaign to serve Indian interests, a new investigation has revealed. The man whose identity was stolen was regarded as one of the founding fathers of international human rights law, who died aged 92 in 2006. "It is the largest network we have exposed," said Alexandre Alaphilippe, executive director of EU DisinfoLab, which undertook the investigation and published an extensive report on Wednesday. The network was designed primarily to "discredit Pakistan internationally" and influence decision-making at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and European Parliament, EU DisinfoLab said. EU DisinfoLab partially exposed the network last year but now says the operation is much larger and more resilient than it first suspected.

Not quite as old as the Proto-Germanic stuff, but from the year Gorth was born... ...and from a couple of years before ...and also from 1966 I think (might be wrong, will need to look it up)

A different use for drones... The "Prometheus Drone" When Hollywood director Ridley Scott filmed astronauts looking for aliens in his 2012 movie Prometheus, little did he know that it would one day inspire a Network Rail drone project. But, bizarrely, that's exactly what has happened. Network Rail, which owns and maintains most of the railway infrastructure in Britain - from vast stretches of track to thousands of bridges, tunnels and level crossings - has long sought cheaper and easier ways of surveying the many underground caves and abandoned mines dotted around its property. ... ... This is how the "Prometheus" drone project got its name and, although the caverns Network Rail hopes to explore with the device will be smaller than the alien tunnels in the film, the technological principles are almost exactly the same. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55191623

Is this the Supreme Courts way of saying "**** off!"? The US Supreme Court has rejected a challenge against President-elect Joe Biden's victory in Pennsylvania. Republicans in the state wanted to overturn certification of the result, but justices rejected the request in a one sentence ruling. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55243008

If you read the comments sections on a few Fox News "articles", you'll get an idea of at least something that is wrong. People are little better than illiterate and woefully uninformed by anything outside Fox News. They are scared and the Murdoch media is fanning the flames, using scare mongering that would make most sane people with access to more than one source of information cringe. But too many people just seems to be stuck in 1950's America seeing things crawling around in the shadows, the threat of communism dissolving their country from the inside like some insidious cancer. The next Democrat in the White House is bound to add the hammer and sickle to the stars and stripes, close their churches, take away their guns and force them to have free schools and healthcare and other things normally associated with the four horsemen of the apocalypse. McCarthyism is back, stronger than ever, 60+ years after it was supposed to be dead. Of course, it isn't the only thing that is wrong and might not even be a cause, but a symptom that is noticeable even for a foreigner like me.

@Gromnir , let us just enjoy the moment a little dammit But I hear you. Let the Trump cultists donate their money if they want. Lawyers have to live too I guess Made a donation to the Queensland Food Bank https://www.foodbank.org.au/?state=qld instead. The increasing wealth inequality is really making life harder and harder for an increasing number of families, struggling to provide food for their kids.

I never get tired of watching Trump lose. Again and again and again and... (beats putting a video on repeat, at least he keeps losing in slightly different ways this way)

Hey, I was living in England at the time, remember? Brexit was the main reason for me leaving the country. The antipathy towards EU citizens were tangible, even though most of the ire and rhetoric was directed towards the large numbers of Polish immigrants (there were so many that Polish is the second most spoken language in England today). Having an idea of how messy the whole thing could get, I moved back to Australia 6 months after the referendum. But I did follow all the sometimes heated arguments for and against and a lot of the rhetoric, sometimes up close and personal at the time, being there and being affected by it

More northern European stuff. Possibly an acquired taste, unless you're from there. Then it probably runs in your genes And of a slightly more martial nature:

Zzzzz..... Come on guys... you (the UK) don't want to be in the EU and the EU can't wait to get rid of you. Get the foot out of the door and close it already. Then start making new deals without the time pressure maybe??? This has been going on even longer than Covid https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-55240910

Not sure how well linking to BBC videos works... smallest possums around. https://www.bbc.com/news/av/embed/p090wggq/55240839 Main article: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-australia-55240839

I don't think I ever believed there was such a thing as a "real" Santa Clause, but I remember as a small kid (6+ or so) always loving the stories and imagery of Santa. Part of my childish curiosity back then wondered, if Santa is wearing the national colours of Denmark, would a Swedish Santa wear blue and yellow instead? (yes, the logic of children)