Gorth

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

Google translate to the rescue... 🤐 Signal set at the exchange store, which was only two days ago: Science suddenly disappeared. I can't see it in my purchase history. And I made a water bottle under the juice bottle, but the juice that was coming out suddenly doesn't come out even after a few days have passed... Can you check it out..? Playing on Steam

Do you *really* want to get closer to sharks...

One of the better Axl Rose imitations...

Joe the pigeon spared by Australia after leg tag found to be fake https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-55667045 Back story. Joe was first believed to be an "illegal immigrant", having crossed The Pacific from the US and was scheduled for execution (Australian immigration policy in action). Turns out he may be a domestic pigeon after all. "The department is satisfied that the bird's leg band is a fraudulent copy of a legitimate leg band," the statement said, adding that no further action would be taken against the bird."

Never heard that term before 🤔 Entirely anecdotal, but I've only seen secular used in the meaning of keeping state and church separate (edit: in regards to governments). Edit: As an example of a failed secular state, see Turkey. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk converted Turkey from a medieval, Muslim country into a modern (for its time) European country. Erdogan is busy dismantling all of Ataturks accomplishments and using both nationalism and religion to convert Turkey into something akin to Saudi Arabia and solidify his hold on both state and church by uniting them. Probably maneuvering around MBS as well as he can, biding his time a bit before declaring himself Caliph.

Exactly. Atheism is not believing in the existence of one or more gods (Not to be confused with agnostics, which accept the possibility that such might exist, but they don't worship them). The opposite of secular countries would be something like The Vatican, Saudi Arabia or Iran, where the clergy runs the country (theocracies) and legislate according to their religious scriptures. Edit: I'm fairly sure The Vatican no longer burns people at the stake when accused of witchcraft or claims Earth isn't the center of the universe (RIP Giordano Bruno)