Gorth

Agnostic

I hear the former president of Sri Lanka is looking for a new home 😛

Before the war, Ukraine was one of the most corrupt countries in the world (also a reason why they were not really welcome in the EU at the time). With 1 being the best, Ukraine ranked 122 out of 180 countries https://www.transparency.org/en/countries/ukraine This mentality is unlikely the have changed completely in a 12 month period, even when at war. "Entrepreneurs" will still try to make money in whichever way. HIMARS are a bit more tricky to stuff in the back of a van and sell on street corners

The Soviet Union banned god from the classrooms. No problem.

A bit of film music... an adaptation from The Fifth Element (depending on the day, it's either that or Galaxy Quest that takes the place as my favourite space comedy)

This Gen X is not getting it...

A brief training course is indeed no substitute for a combination of theory (how it's supposed to work) and practical exercises in the field (how it really works). Just thinking back to my own civil defense training. The theory was all nice and well, but getting chased out at 4am, sent into the dark and rescue 80kg dummies, that had to be carried out (tied to stretchers) from subterranean sewer tunnels with no light can not be explained in a class room by an instructor. Although I only ever got to use the fire fighting training and first aid training a few times in "real life" in the following decades. It was still nice to have done extensive hands on training. Edit: I'm sure the instructors had a blast, literally, on those training sessions, lobbing generous quantities of flash bang and smoke grenades everywhere to improve the immersion (it was supposed to be war after all) Edit2: Which is my anecdotal way of saying the amount and the nature of training matters.

Maybe that's why 95% of the worlds countries have designated Hamas a terrorist organisation?

The yield curve sort of corroborates my claim from a few years ago, that the global economy was headed towards the abyss in 2020 with the speed of the GFC from 2008. Covid masking both the cause and the effect, because everybody were busy pointing fingers at lock downs and blaming that for the tumbling economies. Now the world has to face it, the economic systems in their current form just doesn't work... blaming the war in Ukraine as a cause for prolonging the downturn is just insulting peoples intelligence.

Watched the first 4 episodes of Slime Diaries (the "side stories" with things happening in parallel to Tensura Nikki season 1 and first part of season 2, not to be confused with the OAD's). Nice change of pace, as it's mostly about fleshing out the setting. "Innocent" stuff like planning the farming work, characters getting fleshed out and nothing so far that interferes with the main plot, just adding a bit more depth to the setting so to speak. Since I liked season 1 a lot, I figured maybe I should give other Animes in the "Isekai" genre a go and tried 4 different ones (those ridiculous long and convoluted names that nobody remember in their next life), watching episode 1 of each. Argh.... it was bad 😖 I guess I just got lucky in the first try, finding one that hooked me completely.

Drachinifels... my favourite youtube channel ☺️ (although his many hour long DryDock Q&A videos does take a bit of stamina to watch in a single day 😂)

The good old VW Bug 😂

Nothing new there. As absurd as the urban legend that is 'trickle down economics'

Continued from old thread...

More war this way...

I probably wouldn't ban it, but like other things, I would restrict access to it. You don't sell porn magazines and uzi's to 12 year olds for a reason. Doesn't mean those things don't have a place, but but it is intended for audiences who knows how to handle it.

Book burnings… popular since 1933

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