Gorth

The sad thing is, at the moment, it wouldn't surprise me at all if that is the current Russian way of thinking. Throw more bodies at the problem and the problem goes away.

Hmmm... so if they throw a million man at it, they would end up somewhere 300km west of Kyiv?

She actually did... being the pro she is, she just continued very fast past that "slip of the tongue"

Ask ChatGPT about Mudcrabs (ugly creatures)

Yeah, that pipeline is dead in the water alright Just too many viable options with no hard proof at the moment. Guessing is fun of course, but anything short of live underwater video footage of the act itself (or an official confession) will always have the stigma of being government tampered evidence associated with it

Something close to an 80's "Cold War Anthem'... a bit of German pop music. She modified the ending a bit here, as against all odds, the world didn't go out in the expected global firestorm (followed by a few centuries of nuclear winter)

I could put on my tinfoil hat and suggest it was a renegade Russian commander blowing it up (whatshisname leader/owner of Wagner?), in order to escalate the confrontation? As said, entering tinfoil area. It could end up like the JFK assassination with an official version and 117 alternative versions of various degrees of plausibility.

Quoting the original Danish newspaper and then translated by me... "Det tyske medie T-Online og open source intelligence-analytikeren Oliver Alexander har tidligere beskrevet, at specialfartøjet SS-750 var et af i alt seks russiske flådefartøjer, der kan have været i området i dagene op til sprængningen af rørledningerne. Det baserede de blandt andet på oplysninger fra anonyme kilder og satellitbilleder, der viste, at SS-750 havde forladt havnen i Kaliningrad samtidig med blandt andre fartøjerne Aleksandr Frolov og SB-123." The German media T-Online and open source intelligence analyst mentioned previously, that special vessel SS-750 was one of six Russian naval units in the area in the days preceding the blowing up of the pipeline. It's based on anonymous sources and satellite pictures show SS-750 having left its berth in Kaliningrad together with the vessels Aleksandr Frolov and SB-123 -- "Som Information tidligere har beskrevet, var det tydeligt på reaktionen fra flere landes militære enheder, at der skete noget mistænkeligt omkring den 21.-22. september 2022 i området øst for Bornholm. Inden for få timer sendte både dansk, svensk og tysk forsvar fartøjer til området, der også blev patruljeret af overvågningsfly fra både Sverige og Polen. Yderligere befandt der sig også amerikanske fartøjer i nærheden, ligesom en amerikansk overvågningshelikopter var i luften over Østersøen." As Information (the Danish newspaper) mentioned earlier, it was obvious from the response of several countries naval units, that something was going down (pun unintended) during the 21-22 September 2022 in the area east of Bornholm. Within hours, Danish, Swedish and German naval units were in the area, as well as surveillance planes from Sweden and Poland. In addition, US Navy vessels and helicopters were in the area. /edit: The Danish military did not release any information about the the specific US Navy vessels/helicopters spotted operating in that area on 21-22 September. The article doesn't mention if they refused or simply weren't asked Provided as a courtesy for our Danish challenged forumites.

For some reason, watching internet "debates" make me stop and appreciate this one even more... Edit: It's about 2 minutes and worth it for the laugh when recognizing certain patterns

Feel free to (re)use

DeSantis would fight to make Flat Earth as mandatory curriculum and ban Darwin from the classrooms if it gave him more votes (which it could in Florida)... He'll probably spend the rest of his political life fighting literacy and enlightenment to appease his chosen followers. Doesn't mean that anything he says is to be ignored, as it should serve as a warning of what is wrong some communities. Edit: I.e. somewhere, somehow, something is very, very wrong... Edit: Insert picture of Don Quixote fighting windmills here

From what I've seen being attributed to her the last 24 months (quotes), that is probably no state secret. I find it worrying that anyone actually listens to her (and by extension justifies her existence in the media landscape).

Actually, there is a third option... both are right (both the mathematics and the participants in a debate). (complex numbers can give you some really oddball looking results when adding the imaginary component to the equation) Like arguing whether an object is round or green... sometimes both are right, even though they can't see past their own narrow perspective and close off their mind to additional information. 'Or' being the problem, as neither can accept 'and' in its place.

Awww.... he pulled a "government" on you and told you what you wanted to hear

Still chugging my way through Mass Effect 1 (from the legendary edition). Driving around in the MAKO still feels like a chore, the side missions you have to do there being a bit "samey". Find merc/criminal/warlord base and kill goons, scan some object and do the mind numbingly boring mini game (luckily I have a small stock pile of omni gel now, so I can auto solve the more tedious ones). I've only played ME1 once before, so I don't remember all the little side stories, which I guess is a plus. Exploring the Citadel was fun as was all the politicking and lobbying going on in various circles there. Combat is still the most fun in any of the 3 games IMHO. Probably helped by being a slightly less linear corridor shooter. Two things I miss in the first game though... Garrus polishing his big cannon 24/7 and my fish tank

I saw somewhere, that an all out trade war with China (i.e. no trade at all) would cost Australia 6% of it's GDP. It will hurt, but it's survivable. The process of replacing China with other trading partners already started a couple of years ago, to make the country more of less indifferent to what Beijing does in that regard. Doesn't mean Canberra will just sit and wring its hands if any allied country or territory gets embroiled in a war.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-65370284 A fundamental rethink of Australian defense strategy (called the biggest rethink since WWII). In order to counter the red paper dragon up north... Scrapping plans for armored vehicles and self propelled guns in favour of more HIMARS, long range missiles (300+ miles) and a few hundred extra cruise missiles, expecting a war with China being fought over long distances rather than massed ranks of infantry and armored battalions and lets face it, most of the area north of Sydney is about as populated as The Strip in New Vegas (unfair dig at the game, as that was really a console game limitation at the time) It recommends that Australia's armed forces switch focus from land-based armour to "longer-range strike capability, with munitions built in Australia", Defence Minister Richard Marles said. "We need to have a defence force which has the capacity to engage in 'impactful projection'," Mr Marles told reporters. The minister said the acquisition of "precision strike missiles" with ranges in excess of 500km (310 miles) would give the army "the firepower and mobility it needs into the future".

/nitpick That was actually an easy prediction to make. If you’re wrong nobody’s going to be alive hold it against you

Erdogans price may end up being steep though. It would require at least a few billion dollars on his Gibraltar and New Jersey bank accounts to buy Ukrainian membership

Having things in storage sucks... I spent 5+ of my life missing 2/3 of my stuff because it was in self-storage facilities... occasionally in a different country or continent It got messy too when I finally got reunited with my things. A number of things you just can't live without, so I had duplicates (and in some cases multiplicates) of a number of essential things like dishes, cutlery, cups (just about everything you have in a kitchen really), beds/mattresses/linen, furniture, clothes... you name it

The Nando one was great. Very clever. The KFC one... just a guess, banned for promoting (tire) burnouts? It's a big problem in some suburbs down here and I think that ad would get in trouble for those 1-2 seconds alone. The other ads were... ok?

Sadly, I changed my Windows 10 to a Windows 11. I just kept getting tired of the constant blocking my login, hiding the "keep Windows 10" button with it's microscopic text at some remove corner of my login screen or hit the big flashing upgrade to Windows 11 button in the middle of the screen. I'm sure that guy designing that, read the consumer psychology 101 about dark patterns and every other shady (and often illegal) marketing method... It took me a bit to get rid of the most obnoxious parts and ended up with the menu's back in the lower left corner, search bar removed etc. Only hiccup so far is possibly linked to the upgrade although it may have happened independently to it. My Kaspersky now regards Steam and the god awful new EA App as virus and blocks any attempt of the two programs to connect to the internet. I don't mind blocking the EA app, as I rarely play EA games (but yikes is that an awful downgrade from the old Origin program). Starts up with Windows and runs as a constant background service. No thanks. Disabled its automatic startup, only to be run on demand. I tried to add both as safe apps to Kaspersky, but it ignores it and blocks them. Time to check support pages I guess.

Best water heater I ever had didn't have a tank (a previous place I lived in Brisbane). It was a "heat on the fly" system, where the water would pass through some 's' shaped pipes over gas burners, heating up the warm water on a need basis. Only a tiny pilot flame in use when no water passing through the pipe, then lighting up all the heaters when water was passing through the pipe. No constantly keeping half a ton of water warm 24/7 wasting a lot of energy.

A comparison of two countries and their debt ceilings... a bit of hypocrisy I think, when suggesting the US should just get rid of its debt ceiling from a country that also has a debt ceiling in its constitution no less (I don't think many countries actually has that, but I didn't check) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64878254 Rather than address long-term fiscal sustainability through bipartisan reforms, lawmakers operate as if significant changes to American fiscal policy can only be made with "a gun to their head", he said. "I don't think this is how you get good policy." Mr Kirkegaard supports getting rid of the US debt ceiling, which he argues is more of a "nuisance" than a tool that constrains government spending. But he thinks neither party would risk doing it because "they are then vulnerable to the charge that they don't care about fiscal sustainability"

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