Gorth

My life is a bit simpler Submitted my tax return form (took five minutes) and should get $1500 (Aussie dollars) back within a fortnight. Not quite as good as the Danish tax system though, where besides always being spot on with the tax amount, you also don’t have to submit tax returns (unless you have complicated investments or bankruptcies to deal with)

More details... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-62089486 Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has collapsed after he was shot at an event in the city of Nara. Mr Abe was shot at twice while he was giving a speech, causing him to fall to the ground. His attacker has been arrested. Ex-Tokyo governor Yoichi Masuzoe said in a tweet that the 67-year-old Mr Abe was in a state of cardiopulmonary arrest.

Why would you think that?

Game over… https://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-politics-62072419 edit: It's a rolling ticker tape kind of news page... headlines keeps getting added or pushed out. Cut and pasting a few paragraph titles (Boris resigned as conservative leader, but wants to hang on to the PM perks until Autumn as "caretaker PM"): The moment news of Johnson's planned resignation broke Pound trading marginally higher Palace declines to say if Queen has spoken to PM this morning PM should apologise to Queen, says former minister Campaign to replace Johnson has already begun Evict Johnson today or he'll cause carnage, Cummings warns Johnson has appointed full replacement cabinet Raab should become caretaker PM, 1922 Committee vice-chair says

Sure, if you define "effective" as lying through his teeth and initiating legislation to break any and all written agreements with the EU around the Northern Ireland Protocol after the fact. If I don't bother at all, at least trying to keep my agreements, I don't call myself "effective", just "opportunistic" (and maybe a few less savory words, like weasel, backstabber, Judas, betrayer, scoundrel etc. which would fit Boris)

Sounds like when ISIS are let loose on monuments... Speaking of nutcases... https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jul/05/queensland-police-arrest-12-members-of-religious-group-the-saints-over-toowoomba-death-of-eight-year-old-elizabeth-rose-struhs In short, because god is all powerful etc. etc. none of that satanic insulin for their 8 year old daughter (who suffered from type 1 diabetes). Prayers should be good enough, ergo. No surprise that she died a painful death while her parents denied her life saving medication. Some people should be disqualified from procreation...

@BruceVC you are needed! https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-62001426 Across most of the surveyed countries, more than half of respondents, on average, agree with the statement that the economy is weak under a democratic system. In every country surveyed, more than half also say they either agree or strongly agree that they are more concerned about the effectiveness of their government's policies, than they are about the type of government. -- People are fed up with democracy

Got busy with my screwdrivers today... a few weeks ago I bought replacement batteries for my old UPS. Dang those old batteries were just stuck inside With patience and disassembling it a lot more than it was designed for, I managed to get the old batteries out and the new ones in and lo and behold, I have an as good as new UPS to hook all my hardware up to (the batteries were less than half the cost of a new, same model UPS, so a few hundred dollars saved by an hour of work ) Edit: The batteries are only guaranteed to last for 3 years and mine were 7 years old, they stopped working a long a time ago

I mentioned fans earlier... sometimes the sports and politics collide... RaJa Casablanca Ultras from Morocco. No riots, just protest songs

Hey, leave Rimuru out of this!

The music critic has spoken...

The Minority Report says hello

I feel like playing Baldurs Gate 2 again... I have BG1, BG2 and their expansions (both original cd's and from GOG). I remember there was a mod that could enable BG1 to run on the BG2 engine, BGT (Baldurs Gate Trilogy I think). Time to dust off some old Baldurs Gate mod sites Actually playing... mostly Guild Wars 2 these days. Been hooked, badly so, the last 4 years on that game. Watched a few youtube videos lately with a few guilds, that specializes in different mounts. No kidding. There are guilds, that create some very nice videos of the capabilities. Sadly they're quite "lo-rez" quality videos, because you can gain insane speeds on some of the GW2 mounts and recording software seems to struggle with keeping up. [DRFT] ("Drift") specializes in Roller Beetle racing and [Wing] which specializes in Griffon racing ...and with a Griffon serving as the camera helicopter

@alanschu now that Canada has a land border with Europe (with the end of the Whisky War), I'm sure Canada would qualify for EU membership, more so than some other countries (come on, Australia is in the Eurovision Song Contest!)

It's very popular in Iran. Everybody loves the Theocracy according to the government.

Turkey is there to remind the world, that NATO is not a collection of Western Democracies

<insert clip of Monty Pythons Albatross skit here>

A few notable ones. The Soviet Union shot down a U2 spy plane (before I was born, so no memory of the event) somewhere in the middle of the USSR Later events (recently enough that I remember it being in the news): The infamous KAL Flight 007 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007 The Americans shot down an Iranian passenger jet which violated Iranian airspace... or the territorial waters of the USS Vicennes or some such https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 And China forced down a US spy plane near Hainan Island. Mostly to a lot of eye rolling internationally iirc, as the Chinese effectively reverse engineered all the interesting bits before letting the plane fly back to the US https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainan_Island_incident Ukrainian separatists shooting down a Malysian Airlines passenger jet, believing it to be a Ukrainian transport plane flying over "their" territory (because no sane operator would fly over a warzone) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17

Watched the five "OAD's" (whatever that stands for) of Tensura Nikki. I'll save @majestic's eyesight and not post pictures or clips of the swimsuit episode. It was funny though. Rimuru had taught the dwarven craftsmen how to make spandex and the tailors how to make bikinis of it. Lots of skin showing and Rimuru is really enjoying himself... until the guys shows up and start posing in their budgie smugglers on the beach The latter episodes elaborating on the life of the academy students (the ones Rimuru promised Shizu on her death bed, he would take care of). Teaching, training, good fun. Last episode ends up with the kids trapped in a training dungeon. They arrived earlier than planned and stumbled upon things best not stumbled upon. An undead character (Specter Lord of some such) and his human bandit henchmen wants to kill the 5 kids. The kids easily takes care of the bandits, but the undead boss is another league altogether. As he's about to kill the kids (which I suppose is something undead lords do for kicks), rescue arrives from an unexpected corner. A demon lord (which I know from watching youtube is "Diablo", aka the black primogenitor demon lord, aka 'Noir') says he wants to pay some respect to Shizu (which he met in combat in the last episode of season 1). Saving the kids from certain death ought to do. Then proceeds to completely wipe the floor with the undead lord and humiliate him a bit extra just for good measure. Basically dismembering him first, locking his head in a vice grip and then tear out his innards through his back while he dies screaming. Nothing like good role models for the kids Will rewatch the first episodes of season 2 and share (if I feel it worth sharing) later

You still have to wear them on public transports and airports with international connections, but otherwise we got rid of them a while ago. And good riddance too... nice to go shopping without a mask

Feeling a bit under the weather these days... even called in sick this morning (first time in almost 3 years, thanks to lock downs and social distancing). Sipping warm water with honey in it for my poor throat, which feels like I failed badly in a sword swallowing contest Just in case, I did a RAT test (to check for Covid) and while not a substitute for a lab test, it was clear.

Apparently, this (2022) years Isle of Man TT race was particularly costly with 5 dead drivers and 2 in serious condition. No, not going to link to the crash videos...

Too real mate, too real

If you decide to visit Australia some day, I would recommend doing it during the winter Temperatures rarely gets above 22c here in Queensland then

Also worth noting, "casualty" usually covers troops lost to the army. Some may return later. I.e. the above 800000 Soviet casualties were estimated to be 250000 (nice round number, sources invariably disagrees) dead and 550000 wounded, captured, lost unit cohesion/contact, deserted etc. Effectively unavailable to the army after the battle. Often makes it sound more impressive than it is.