Gorth

Great, I just read the firt few pages and moved it to the POE section...

Over a period of a fortnight, it's roughly a 50/50 split between spending time at the clients place(s) and working from home. I try to visit our head office once a month.

Not quite out in the country side yet, took the first and best apartment I could get to have a roof over my head. Not that it makes much difference at this time of year. It's as cold and miserable as Scandinavia, so a disproportinal amount of time is spent indoors anyway. I've actually never been to the UK when it hasn't been winter. Looking forward to experience it through spring, summer, fall etc. So besides the inside of offices or whatever is next to the m3, m4, m25, m23, m20 etc. I haven't had much of a chance to experience what the country has to offer yet. I get along quite well with the locals though, wherever I go, whether it be Cornwall, Sussex, Essex, Surrey, Kent or the Greater London area. If you have lived off German food for a year, anything else is considered a delicacy (I've mentioned it before, one of my pet peeves with Germany was the atrocious quality of the "food" products in the supermarkets and grocery stores, specialty stores may be exempt from that generalisation)

A bit lazy of me because I'm at work right now. The rundown Wiki page about the event My own tl;dr version, Maastricht Treaty was about the ever increasing integration and erosion of national sovereignty, giving that up in favour of the EU institutions. In true democratic nature, the "Eurocrat" politicians in Denmark were horrified when the voting results became official and promptly decided a new referendum was needed (and they would probably repeat that until the stupid people finally voted the way they were supposed to). In order to prevent a repeat of the first result, Denmark got 4 exemptions added to the agreement that pretty much left the country out of those key elements and letting the Danes have more autonomy in areas that other countries weren't offered (because the politicians there never asked people if they wanted it, they simply signed away chunks of sovereignty to Bruxelles at the time). I voted no at the second referendum too, but sadly the second result was a yes (with the key elements of the Maastricht treaty not applying to Denmark). It's also the reason Denmark could keep it's own currency for example.

Exactly my point right here! The constitution of the Unites States specifically FORBIDS the Federal Government from interfering with the governance of the states except in the execution of the responsibilities assigned to the Federal Government by the Constitution. Social things like gay marriage is not among those. That he thinks he can is a problem! That he does so and gets away with it is a bigger problem! Not directly related to the US election, but similar sentiments is what keeps most Scandinavians (and the UK) from ever having developed warm feelings for the entire European "Union" concept. Free and open markets, etc. yes. A super national construct telling individual countries how they should run their countries, no. Proud voter of "No!" to the Maastrict treaty in 1992

Most of those changes of PM's in Australia the last 10 years were internal party squabbles in the Labour party. They have this weird thing that gives the unions a disproportional influence and they practise cloak and dagger politics a lot. Kevin and Julia taking turns gathering enough votes at political meetings to have each other dragged out of office in the middle of the night and replaced with new labour leader cliques, replacing the top powerstructures with "loyal legionaires" while disposing of anyone loyal to the ruling Caesar PM. It's quite entertaining in a tv drama kind of way. Australia also has an unusually short maximum term of 3 years before new elections are required, making it even more impressive that they backstab each other before elections are up anyway. Yes, I was referring to Kevin and Julia How does a PM get replaced in Oz before his term ends? Who can vote them out....it just seems like a fragile system because the reality is you can't expect the average common citizen to really understand who is the best person to run a country? Get enough important party members to summon an impromptu caucus and elect a new party leader. Simple as that. The people vote for the party, not the person, so in the end, the party decides who resides in the "cottage" (the PM's residence, like the White House and 10, Downing Street).

Most of those changes of PM's in Australia the last 10 years were internal party squabbles in the Labour party. They have this weird thing that gives the unions a disproportional influence and they practise cloak and dagger politics a lot. Kevin and Julia taking turns gathering enough votes at political meetings to have each other dragged out of office in the middle of the night and replaced with new labour leader cliques, replacing the top powerstructures with "loyal legionaires" while disposing of anyone loyal to the ruling Caesar PM. It's quite entertaining in a tv drama kind of way. Australia also has an unusually short maximum term of 3 years before new elections are required, making it even more impressive that they backstab each other before elections are up anyway.

Invoking Bruce. I'm betting he's standing in front of his mirror chanting ONE BRUCY VC, TWO BRUCY VC, err... uhm, like, right now. "Bruce" even rhymes a bit with "Beetlejuice"

Yes it correct you dont charge the ladies ...but you shouldn't charge the guy then as it was consensual In South Africa we dropped the age of consent between young people to 12 and 16....so you wont get charged From Volourn's link: "The case has come before the courts in County Kildare in the Republic of Ireland where the age of consent for males and females is 17. Boys under that age can be prosecuted for statutory rape, but females cannot." I guess the Irish still need to catch up a bit on the equal rights front?

Moved as per request

Wasn't that Scotty? http://youtu.be/PRdpA6if4vc

This thread was growing really fast... nothing like sex, lies and presidential elections to motivate people More election stuff here

Start of previous thread End of old thread Kicking off round 3...

Most "memorable" (because it's recent memory) for me would be the improved relations with Cuba and a possible normalisation of relations. One more small cold war leftover on the way out.

I watched 10 minutes of one of those debates featuring Trump once, must have been about a month ago? Not sure if it was any better or worse than those reality shows that TV is full of these days. I don't believe he'll win the general election (the US would probably enter a decade of isolation then, as much of the rest of the world would regard him as a pariah). He could still learn a lesson or two from Italy's ex-premier Berlusconi. Regardless of any qualitifications for the position he hung unto the post for a long time because he wasn't just a "media favourite", he OWNED the media and that made for very one sided election campaigns. As an outsider with little knowledge of the candidates other than the popular news channels, it looks like our poor American cousins are fubar regardless of who wins at the end of the year

Yeah, drop the "near" part. He was an unmitigated disaster

+ = Never underestimate the power of advertising...

Wouldn't that be Moussolini (all hail our new rodent overlords)?

Just for good measure... Yesteryears discussion

I know, 30 posts short of the usual 500 mark... Apparently it's 2016 now

Moved to support/tech question section as the developers involced are more likely to spot it here...

So, where is the world wide call for a boycot of all Saudi exports and a freezing of assets?

Let me tell you son, you've got no balls! Yeah, that's a really bad mistake to make. Haven't heard about it, but I sure hope he had the kids he intended to have in life.

Started playing Mordheim. Unlikely to stick with the current party, but I guess I had to start somewhere to learn the basics of the game. No, it's nothing even near as fun as playing a game on the table with friends and a few beers, but when said friends are far away and 10+ years in the past, I guess it's the second best thing. Edit to add: I wouldn't mind if they gave Gorka Morka the same treatment. That was a game I never got to play.

I'm taking the wait and see approach. Eventually the whole package will get re-released in some "GOTY" edition (all DLC's included) at bargain prices