Gorth

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.

You could argue, the whole disaster around the Russian army's antics north of Kiev was an attempt to preempt the need to occupy the whole country (eliminate the leadership). Nice thinking, poor execution. Like eating a nice dinner with a hammer and a fork...

More like the superior numbers army Soviet losses were almost 4:1, losing 800000 men (out of a starting army of 1.8 million) to the Wehrmachts 200000 (our of a starting army of 760000). But the Soviet army had another 1.5 million men in reserve, east of the salient to start an immediate offensive the moment enemy was worn down at Kursk. And yes, Operation Zitadelly ("Citadel") was the third largest engagement in WWII after Barbarossa and the one without any catchy names in the far east when 1.5 million Soviets destroyed over 750000 Japanese in Manchuria (600000 casualties), the Japanese surrendered 2 weeks later. All 3 engagements also featuring obscene numbers of tanks and aircraft. Contributing factor to Hitler losing interest in Kursk was the allied landing in Sicily and a new vulnerability on the southern front. Edit: Moved Kursk conversation to the military thread...

This one is really more for the military thread, but iirc, Kursk was the last serious attempt by the Wehrmacht to encircle a large number of Soviet troops?

"I'm the only person here I've never heard of..."

Bought a pair of games on sale at GOG. X-Com 3: Apocalypse (I have the Steam version, but I prefer to have my games from GOG where possible) and X4 Foundations. The latter is a bit of a gamble, because as promising as X1-X3 looked, I never could play the Steam Versions. Sound is completely FUBAR and some of the fun goes out of it if you have to actually mute your speakers completely. I'm hoping the GOG version runs better on post 2010 PC's

Dang, I could have saved the $50 I paid for Borderlands 3 (I never got into the game mind you, writing was a major disappointment after the first two games ) Anyone tried Trine 4? I loved the first 3 Trines (fun coop game)

It wasn't me, but a friend shared this on his Discord server...

I feel a bit sad when thinking back to the 70's, for us kids/young teens, he was just a "B Movie Star", featuring in all those old vampire and horror movies. Only finding out the last ten years or so, what a rich history the guy has/had (special forces soldier, stage performer, Tolkien scholar, voice actor, singer etc.)

I know people like to blame the war in Ukraine for the worlds economic woes at the moment. It conveniently showed up when Covid could not be believable blamed for. Both of which in my opinion masks underlying causes for a world economy that was about to implode most spectacularly in 2020 just before Covid conveniently struck (and people could point fingers at something else for explanation) https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61830925 A few numbers from the link: Markets had already been in shaky territory, with the S&P 500 down more than 20% from its January high ahead of the US rate hike this week. ... On Friday, Japan's Nikkei was 1.5% lower, while Australia's main stock market index was down by more than 2%. That came after Thursday saw a sell-off in the US, with the S&P 500 falling by 3.2%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped more than 4%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 2.4%, pushing it below 30,000 points for the first time since January 2021. ... In the UK, where the Bank of England warned inflation could hit 11% this year .. When the war in Ukraine ends, a lot of people in positions of power will run out of excuses for why the roller coaster that is western economies, keeps dipping sharper and sharper and more and more frequently since the great depression and the 80's...

I actually found it more interesting to hear about BBC's failed attempts to get access to eastern Ukraine before the war... hence trying to emphasize the article itself and not Lavrov (as funny/sad as it is, the quoted line is probably the first true words he had said for a very long time)

Since I was spending a bit of time in the 80's recently, I suddenly remembered that once upon a time, I actually spoke a bit of French too (never mind that I haven't used it for close to 40 years, so don't ask me to show it, it's gone) Sadly some of those old, non-English videos haven't been preserved well, if at all...

I know, not the man anyone here wants to hear from, but I found the article as a whole interesting (it covers more than just the interview) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61825525 Lavrov: "Russia is not squeaky clean. Russia is what it is. And we are not ashamed of showing who we are."

No idea if it's any good in a fight, but I will give it a few bonus points for the artistic impression

Inspired by the obituary thread... I've never seen Twin Peaks, but I remember the voice

I haven't turned all casual (yet), but I do struggle with games I would have played 24/7 and "devoured" 20 years ago. I still haven't finished neither Witcher III nor Pillars or Eternity. Shorter games that I know well are fine. Love playing a game of Master of Orion 2, War in Russia (old SSI turnbased strategy), Jagged Alliance 2 etc. Games I can save and put aside after an hour or two. Same thing with Guild Wars 2. I deliberately stay clear of anything that looks like raiding or other team activities that *used* to be like a second day job when it came to time commitment required....

That sounds like 20 years of my life...

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/11/george-pell-appeal-cardinals-lawyers-argue-jury-wrong-to-reject-improbability-claim https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-07/george-pell-appeal-jury-system/12129940 https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/sep/30/george-pell-returns-to-rome-after-acquittal-on-child-abuse-charges https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/29/australias-holy-see-ambassador-under-fire-for-saying-she-wants-to-change-narrative-away-from-george-pell https://www.cathnews.com/cathnews/43029-why-did-vatican-send-2m-to-australia-cardinal-pell He effectively got what was life without parole (6 years) because of his age, for raping two young boys. He had powerful friends however, including a very religious Scott Morrison (no kidding, for being a liar, a fraud and a thief, the guy claims to be very Christian), so eventually he was allowed to appeal. Since the appeal was a confirmation of his guilt (as established already by a jury), more appeals were needed in a few more courts until they found a judge, which just so happens to be an old mate of Scott Morrisons. Still, it was a 2-1 decision (of course in Murdoch media, 2-1 is "unanimous" ) Tl;dr; between them, they managed to put the whole legal system in doubt. What's the point of having a trial by jury system if you can go free anyway fi you have rich and powerful friends? For those of us who are not above the law... we'll just sing along with Tim Minchin. Edit: As for the systemic sexual abuse of children in the church... the Royal Commission registered a bit more than 40.000 cases of sexual abuse of minors, of which ca. 2500 could be prosecuted https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/

You've posted enough over the years to recognize a "pattern". Now how people interpret those patterns may vary. I'm sure there are at least 42 different opinions about what kind of person I am. But you come across as someone with an almost primordial fear, not of fire, but of anything that may hurt bottom lines on balance sheets, to the exclusion of all else. Somehow "the far left" has become your bogeyman and you see it everywhere, imagined or not ( because sometimes they *are* out to get you after all). That, and the obsession with BLM as the new Illuminati, which has reached a level where I'm sure it will be a forum meme for a long time still The above mindset affects a lot of posts about politics and social issues.... influencing the tone, nuances, choice of words, choice of real world examples, the direction you want a debate to head etc. It's fine to be opinionated though, Odin knows, I sure am But the conversations seems to always repeat themselves. You love the capitalist world and dislike anything that threatens to destabilize it (that is at least my impression from your posts). Some of us (that means myself and the voices in my head) are less enthusiastic about a number of aspects of western values and would love to see changes (anarchist on deck) in areas of responsibility and accountability. Especially the latter. To answer your original question, the use any agreeable answer to throw back at people and claim "BLM are criminals and people here agree with me"....

Uh oh... dad's in trouble now

That is rich coming from the head of the worlds largest pedophile ring... the same guy who paid millions of dollars to get a child rapist out of jail and flown back to Rome so he could go free