Gorth

in Soviet Russia, firefighters use nukes to extinguish fires... (no kidding)

Some old school Rammstein (from a 1997 concert I *think*)

Tell me about it. Young people these days... On a more serious note: "I know you quoted this from somewhere else but there is a massive difference between your 4 points, which indeed should concern anyone if we experience it like the rise of the Nazis, and wanting to curtail the harmful and insidious influence of well meaning but deeply unsustainable socialist policies " That just rubbed me the wrong way, because I was familiar with the (original, German) version of the quote as well as its context. I think you were barking up the wrong tree, unapologetically at that. As for socialism, your mileage may vary. I grew up in a hybrid system with strong trade unions. The unions eventually made themselves obsolete (today they nothing more than footnotes in politics) because they achieved their goals. Decent pay, maximum work hours, generally humane conditions. Danes may rant every now and then against the taxes, but you can still become wealthy and I don't think they feel particularly oppressed by the political system. Now if you ask them how they feel about banks on the other hand... Edit: As for the quote... basically if you don't stand up for other peoples rights, don't expect them to stand up for yours.

How about doing a little research... The quote is from Martin Niemöller, a German priest and diehard opponent of Hitler. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists Edit: And also, yeah, I remember that quote from history lessons way back in basic school (I would have been 12-13 at the time)

Tesla is getting competition in the electric car market...

The US already has the death penalty, time to introduce pay per view for networks to show live executions, gladiatorial games in the arenas, prisoner inmates vs. lions... you name it. Keeps the populace calm and increases the government revenue. It worked for a while for the Romans https://sites.middlebury.edu/circusmaximus/files/2013/09/intro-conclusion-activity.pdf

Have you hugged a cow today? If not, you should. Cow cuddling is apparently good for humans http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20201008-is-cow-hugging-the-worlds-new-wellness-trend

I got a bit of tax money back the other day, so decided to upgrade my old gfx card. Out went the old ti1050 and in went a slightly larger rdx2070. Some noticeable performance improvements (of course it sounds much simpler than it was actually getting it to fit inside the case)

My current game of "War in Russia" is going well. Actually, a bit too well. As the Soviet side, I got weather patterns I've never seen before in 15 years of playing the game. A statistical oddity that I couldn't have planned better if I had somehow cheated and bribed the weather gods. It also means, the match became way, way to uneven as I'm only in the summer if 1942 and I've already taken Romania and subjecting the cities and towns in eastern Poland to sustained artillery bombardments. I'll probably be in Berlin before the end of the year. As for the weather, a bit of explanation: The game starts with Axis forces have a bonus to supply and readiness for the first 6 weeks of the campaign to simulate the preparations and stockpiling taking place before operation Barbarossa. However, once winter sets in, Axis forces lose a lot more readiness than Soviet forces and every once in a blue moon, the weather is supposed to change from snow to blizzard. During blizzard conditions in the winter 1941, Axis forces (except Finland, which is counted among Axis forces for this campaign) lose so much readiness that a single sneeze from Stalin sends even elite SS troops fleeing for St. Tropez, having much better things to do than fighting a war. Basically, any Axis unit you attack during blizzard conditions crumbles and shatters. It's supposed to be an exception. I got it 9 weeks in a row, then a single week of snow and back to another 12 weeks of blizzard (after which it turned to rain and mud, which makes movement almost impossible) I completely destroyed the Wehrmacht, the Hungarians, Italians, Slovakians and Romanians. It freed up troops I could redeploy and overwhelm Finland, which surrendered after Red Army units marched into Helsinki. Now I have a staggering surplus of men, material and resources and am facing an enemy that is completely annihilated already. I guess I'll I finish the campaign just for trying out the unusual circumstances. Edit: Slovakians, not Slovenians

This... so much this! Also, some of the companions in Jagged Alliance 2 with some of their personality quirks. Just deciding they don't like the company, packing up and leaving. Where is the professional pride of mercenaries??? Edit: Honorable mention to Kai Leng, even if as mentioned above he wasn't a companion, the entire concept just felt "stupid" (and yes, just like the Malak fight on board the Leviathan in Kotor, it feels stupid beating the **** out of your enemy and wiping the floor with their bloody carcass, just for the game suddenly deciding that you have been overruled and declared the loser of the fight after trashing Kai Leng/Malak)

Yes. Monsters of Rock 1991 in Moscow. Estimated 1.6 million people at the concert.

Scottish separatists better start hiding in The Highlands.... those English military drones will be out to get them!

I think Fallout after '76' is in the same boat as say Mass Effect after 'Andromeda'. It's going to be a very steep uphill battle to change public perception.

From a strange time when the world seemed to come apart at the seams and enemies were no longer the eternal evil and your "friends" weren't necessarily particularly friendly when not needing you anymore... but hey, the total nuclear annihilation with less than 30 minutes notice part was postponed a bit.

Sure about that? (edit wiki, so take with grain of salt) "Well before 1976, Venezuela had taken several steps in the direction of nationalization of its oil industry. In August 1971, under the presidency of Rafael Caldera, a law was passed that nationalized the country's natural gas industry. Also in 1971 the law of reversion was passed which stated that all the assets, plant, and equipment belonging to concessionaires within or outside the concession areas would revert to the nation without compensation upon the expiration of the concession.[6] The movement towards nationalism was experienced once again under decree 832. Decree 832 stipulated that all exploration, production, refining, and sales programs of the oil companies had to be approved in advance by the Ministry of Mines and Hydrocarbons. Nationalization become official when the presidency of Carlos Andrés Pérez, whose economic plan, "La Gran Venezuela", called for the nationalization of the oil industry and diversification of the economy via import substitution. The country officially nationalized its oil industry on 1 January 1976 at the site of Zumaque oilwell 1 (Mene Grande), and along with it came the birth of Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) which is the Venezuelan state-owned petroleum company. All foreign oil companies that once did business in Venezuela were replaced by Venezuelan companies. Each of the former concessionaires was simply substituted by a new 'national' oil company, which maintained the structures and functions of its multi-national corporation (MNC)-predecessor."

This looks like the pertinent part... (correct me if I'm wrong) "So there are primarily two related causes that have resulted in the steep decline of Venezuela's oil production, despite the sharp increase in the country's proved reserves. The first is the removal of expertise required to develop the country's heavy oil. This started with the firing of PDVSA employees in 2003 and continued with pushing international expertise out of the country in 2007. Second, the Chávez government failed to appreciate the level of capital expenditures required to continue developing the country's oil. This was in no small part due to inexperience among the Chávez loyalists that were now running PDVSA, but it may not have mattered in any case. When oil prices were high, Chávez saw billions of dollars that could be siphoned to fund the country's social programs, and that's exactly what he did. But he failed to reinvest adequately in this capital-intensive industry." Tl;dr; Chavez purged the national oil company of expertise in 2003 and then invited foreign oil companies to participate (i.e. invest) and then changed the deal Darth Vader style, leading the expropriation of Exxon and ConocoPhilips assets (and generally alienating the outside world, which he would have been better off not inviting in the first place)

What exactly happened there in 2006/2007? I tried to look it up, but couldn't really find anything (edit: or rather, anything relevant to that got bumped too far down on google for me to keep looking, yeah, lazy. What I do know is Venezuela nationalized it's oil industry for good in 1976, but that was like 30 years before the time period you mention)

That un-gimped Tzar Bomba is a blast! ... Yeah, pun intended. Good thing it is too big to be practical.

Funny, that's exactly what Lukashenko says too. A kindred spirit of yours? Sometimes things wont get better until you fix the cause. You can shoot and kill the symptoms, heavy handed too, but the problem will persist until actually addressed.

Fascinating and scary at the same time... looks like the virus may have evolved at some point into first "drugging" it's victim to keep it calm and THEN whacking it over the head with a big. spiky club (after spreading to even more recipients)

Double post, rather than editing the previous one, I guess if there is a god, maybe he/she does have a sense of humour Hypothetical situation, if the covid kills Trump in say 3 weeks time, where would that leave the Republican party? Iirc, they didn't have anything like the process of voting for a candidate, appointing runners ups etc. Do they just take whoever he had designated his running mate as the new presidential candidate or what? Curious how that would work, because there would be very little time left.

Let's see if both parties even have live candidates when we get to November... US President Donald Trump has said he and First Lady Melania Trump have tested positive for coronavirus and are now in quarantine. The president, aged 74 and therefore in a high-risk group, announced the news in a tweet. "We will get through this together," he wrote. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54381848

The tl;dr version of current Australian economic policy...

Keep the food, bring on the Gautier Cognac (1762) and some nice company.

You saying Kotor 2 wasn't perfect at launch, despite having had an ocean of development time??? Honorable mention to two mods I also quite liked: Ja1.13 and "Dungeon be gone" to skip Irenicus' dungeon