Gorth

Trying to catch up on some of all the links people share... An interesting bit of history in there... thanks

Nope, the church, the Catholic one in particular is very powerful in many aspects of society. Hence, the welcome to the 19th Century remark. That's also why the churches managed to cover up the rampant child molestation taking place for so long, it took a year long Royal Commission to uncover just the tip of the iceberg. We are talking about thousands of cases of rape of young boys by the priests, all of them covering each other and pulling strings to make sure even if caught, they don't/didn't get prosecuted. The whole child abuse thing is such a touchy subject that the Church leaders are trying to stop legislation making it mandatory to report it https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/23/catholic-church-opposes-expansion-of-child-sexual-abuse-reporting-in-wa Edit: From the wiki page for those unfamiliar with the term Royal Commission: A royal commission is a major ad-hoc formal public inquiry into a defined issue in some monarchies. They have been held in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Saudi Arabia. A royal commission is similar in function to a commission of inquiry (or, less commonly, enquiry) found in other countries such as Ireland, South Africa, and regions such as Hong Kong. It has considerable powers, generally greater even than those of a judge but restricted to the terms of reference of the commission. Emphasis mine, part of the reason it scares those who are subject to their investigation, sometimes being both prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner in the same body. It was particularly delightful when they took on the big banks and aired their dirty laundry and shameless business practices, right down to exposing how they charged dead people for financial advice offered after their deaths, billing the relatives.

In case anyone wondered, Australia is an oddity. A country with a first world economy and a third world society. One of the more embarrassing cases: Rugby player gets sacked because of discrimination against the LGBT community. He now sues the Rugby organization because they are discriminating against his religion, because it (his religion) says it's his god given holy duty to make sure that gays suffers and burns in hell (which is what he was campaigning for in social media). I guess if they cave in and let him get away with it, next stop would be allow literal interpretation of Sharia Law for Muslims too? His first fundraiser campaign (run by a fundamentalist Christian group, that would make the Westboro church proud) got canned by the fundraising site (GoFundMe), they apparently didn't want that kind of person being supported through them, but the ACL (Australian Christian Lobby) doesn't give up that easily and will raise funds through other means. Their message seems to be "Stop discriminating against our discriminating other people!" /roll eyes Hypocrites much? Yeah. Much of Australia still seems to live in the 19th Century, despite some areas having electricity and even internet now. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-48753566

Considering Trump's dislike of a free press, I'm sure he was privately celebrating the murder of one, even if it wasn't a US journalist

That didn't seem to be a major obstacle for them in Iraq which was what? 70% Shi'a (rough numbers)?

I'm sure Isis would love to get a new patch of land to call home (so many Shi'a Muslims to kill, don't even have to search for them), now that they have been evicted from Syria and Iraq, especially if this new territory was kindly sponsored by the US tax payers. I'm surprised that the Americans don't pass on a larger part of their military expenses to the Saudis than they currently do to be honest, since it's mostly their work they are doing for them.

I guess Monty Python would say here, now for something completely different... Help! We're too rich, we need to be taxed more! American billionaires are arguing for more taxes for the super rich: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48752927 " While the group did not back a particular candidate, it praised a proposal by Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Elizabeth Warren that would lift taxes on those with more than $50m, a measure that would affect the 75,000 wealthiest families. She estimated that it would raise $2.75tn over 10 years. " Numbers are of course all estimates by people with agendas, but even if missing the real figures by a mile, a few trillion dollars could always be used for something other than gathering dusts I guess Edit: "The letter pointed out that fellow billionaire Warren Buffett has said he is taxed at a lower rate than his secretary. "

No, the Americans have that market cornered in this region (USS Vincennes managed to shoot down an Airbus A300 with 290 people on board before it could release it's torpedoes against it, or whatever was the official Pentagon explanation at the time) As for the actual drone in question, the picture isn't particularly credible, because it just looks way too small to be the downed drone: "Global Hawks are massive surveillance platforms, in operation since 2001, with a wingspan of more than 130 feet and a maximum takeoff weight of more than 16 tons, equivalent to roughly seven shipping containers of cocaine. "

5 years of tanking on a PT and never got to do a nim ops with him. Shadow (thats the pub version of assassin) tanking almost feels like cheating

It's not like Bioware themselves had many choices at the time, when they were told to can Infinity Wars (the run of the mill RTS game they were pitching), but hey, maybe they could do a CRPG with the engine???

Yay, welcome Numbers! https://youtu.be/sAn7baRbhx4 ... 15 years and even an offered bribe at some point hasn't brought me closer to figure out the FLoSD.OBE thing

Not sure I disagree as much as just put a different weight of importance on some of the previous events in history. As I see it, the Middle East has two major sources of conflict at the moment. One is the Palestinian/Israeli conflict and the other is the centuries old Sunni/Shiite conflict. Enough has been said the last 15 years on the former I think, but many people underestimate the hatred that Saudi Arabia is spreading in the region against Shiite's. The complete genocide of Iraqis, Iranians, the Houtis etc. all need to die, anything less will not make wahhabists in Riyadh happy and they will stop at nothing to instigate conflicts and distribute money to "special interest groups" like Isis and AQ to accomplish that long term goal. When they label Iran supporters of international terrorism, the irony is so bad it's not even funny. Hamas is a sunday school compared to the groups Riyadh is backing world wide. Trump thinks with his **** and his wallet and doesn't give a damn about ethics, so he'll say anything and support anything he thinks makes for better golf courses with the Trump brand on them. Why didn't he (Trump) call for international sanctions and a blockade of a regime that murders it's own journalists when they dare to reveal corruption? Well, my thoughts on the matter

Sorry, but those "credible" intelligence agencies weren't really that credible, even at the time. It didn't help that those in power took whatever musings they came up with as gospel because it was convenient for their own agendas at the time. Nothing but echo chambers. Just about the only intelligence agency I would trust to know what is really going on in the region these days is Mossad, and I wouldn't trust them to tell anyone outside their own clandestine circle what is going on

As good a motivation as any Edit: I wonder if my friends will buy it if I try to pass the complimentary wine off as complimentary "food"? I used to buy both South African and Chilean/Argentinian wines before I left Europe.

You really need to clear out your message box some day so people can message you

Judge away!

Hey, we're talking about a company who actually named a game 'Divine Divinity'. Anything goes

I worry about my love of red wine... I completely read that as cork conference

Or Microsoft... I'll still wait and see if/when a Steam key becomes available within a reasonable time frame. If not, the Microsoft store it is then.

Yeah, option 2 does indeed always seem to be the popular choice

If you see a guy who loves Trump, hates Hillary, makes bad jokes about women and black people in the humour thread, believing himself to be clever, you have found a candidate. People can change their appearances, but they can't hide from their personality, it always shows through the pretense. Sharp_One was never man enough to own up to his mistakes. Too much narcissism in that one, would be surprised if he stayed away. Something a bit more worthy of people's time, stuff happening in China and Hong Kong, is Tiananmen square v2 in the making? Will it become a drawn out test of patience or will Xi Jinping need to show he can crack down on dissent even more decisively than the protests in 1989? Bear in mind, this seems localized to Hong Kong at the moment, but it may spread to the mainland if allowed to remain unchallenged (my guess, pulled out my rear) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-48577907

This On both accounts.

Went to a concert last night with a few friends. No good videos from yesterday unfortunately, so a recording from Perth in January will have to do...

I would say at his point, Tottenham is punching under their weight. They are one of he wealthiest clubs in the Premier League, so it's not because other teams have more money to splurge, it's just that Tottenham seems to sit on their purse and spend nothing (never mind a fantastic new Stadium). Unless they change their approach the next 3-4 years and start planning for a more ambitious future (like Liverpool did after FSG took over in 2010 when they were in a much worse position, heading for administration and possible bankruptcy), they will slip back into mediocracy again. Always a lot of potential, never quite living up to the potential.

You learn something new every day!