Gorth

The thing about nuclear war is, there wont be a "what's left". This isn't a Fallout game.

He may surprise you. He's very religious, married (has some pretty daughters) and hates vodka, to the point that Russian vodka makers might be the first on the barricades protesting against Putin. So much misinformation floating around (doctored images, wrongly attributed video clips, you name it) https://www.bbc.com/news/60554910 From 2018 gas explosions to Ukrainian Palestinian girl telling Russian Israeli soldiers to go back to their own country.... lots of examples in the BBC piece.

Not necessarily the "truth" (nobody has a patent on that I think), but an interesting take on what makes Putin tick (warning 30+ minutes long, but quite interesting)...

It's so silent outside... for the first time in 4 days and 4 nights, my roof isn't getting hammered by rain. It's been literally non-stop torrential rain since Wednesday 😖 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-27/queensland-severe-weather-rain-flooding-bom-warnings/100864896 Brisbane river rising, Australian Defence Force evacuating areas, people dying... generally very wet at the moment https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-27/wivenhoe-dam-level-rising-staged-releases-more-rain-falling/100865762 Wivenhoe Dam capacity above 180pc and rising despite staged releases, more rain falling Looking at the bright side, the bush fire chances are very low at the moment 😌

Ever heard of the Spanish Civil War? While the Axis forces supporting Franco's Fascist army were regular military, a large number of volunteers (including Russians) fought for the Republicans. Lots of them civilians having been shown how to remove the safety from a gun.

Those BUK air defence systems seems better at taking down civilian targets than military ones... (j/k) Way too much misinformation and propaganda on both sides to trust anything on the internet at the moment. After a few years of fact checking, some of the messages may stand the test of time.

Speaking of cats... Australian breakfast TV 🙄

Umbrella: Check Stockpile of bottled water: Check Crackers and canned food: Check Torches: Check Good thing I live on high ground (we've had nightly rainfalls of 100-400mm rain for a while now)

If Sweden or Germany had joined Russia, they probably would (be looking for a fight).

All the best for your family Shady 🍀 Our own Ukrainian office has ceased operation and staff is being evacuated to Poland.

That sounds almost like the original Tomb Raider game (which was what made me love the game so much). Not sure how I feel about Dark Souls style combat though. Not that it's necessarily bad, just never played the game, so no idea if it's a good or a bad thing 🤔

Part looking for a new place to live (my friends live north of the river and I feel a bit stuck living south of the river) and crossing t's and dotting i's on my citizenship application. Only thing holding me back is, if I move it's a hassle to change address on an application being processed.

One problem with this last bit... those are NATO members. Nothing short of military engagement from NATO's side will save NATO as an organisation, if it comes to that. Edit: If NATO doesn't respond with full military confrontation to an invasion of the Baltic countries, Putin will have dismantled NATO even faster than Napoleon did the Holy Roman Empire.

Gary Brooker... no more whiter shade of pale for us 😢 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Brooker

A nice little video by ArenaNet as preparation for the launch of End of Dragons in less than week now (something I'm looking really forward to). For those who don't know the game, what impressed me with this video is not the technical quality of the gfx or the voice acting or anything like that, but that they somehow managed to cut and paste snippets from so many old cutscenes, that are completely unrelated to the story being told in the video, together and slapping a new narrative on top of the mish mash of videos, that the story and video clips actually seems like they were made for each other. ArenaNet did something slightly similar back in 2013 with their first anniversary trailer:

I suspect China's "game" in this, is to see how much force the west is willing to commit. I.e. boots on the ground and airplanes involved fighting over Ukraine. If none, they might conclude Taiwan is ripe for the taking now while everybody else is busy looking at Ukraine and the response wasn't scary (by Chinese standards)

Ironically, Kiev was the Russian capital from 996 to 1108. Moscow didn't exist before 11147

Split the thread in two for the time being... For Ukraine stuff For non-Ukraine stuff

Started this as a new thread to relieve pressure on ye olde general politics thread. Please stick all things Ukraine in here for the time being. Like the US election thread, a temporary measure until things gets less heated... Now watching this space for the news of the upcoming death of legendary Russian war hero Navalny who did a combat drop over the western Russian city of Kiev, unfortunate that his parachute came undone on the way down.

Starting a new thread for all things non Ukraine related. Please use other thread for that. Similar to the US election days, to give other subjects a chance without being drowned in the topic-du-jour... Old thread:

You didn't see his latest live performance on TV? Red faced and frothing at the mouth? It's a very, very angry man. Sort of knew something was about to happen after the live charade that was the Russian security council meeting transmitted live on TV. The poor spy chief got called back several times to the podium to rephrase his free and uninfluenced opinion to the viewers until Putin was happy with his message.

Regarding Ukraine, a diplomatic solution had been worked out but the Minsk Accord was never implemented. Regarding Games Workshop, I'm personally a lot more interested in "Warhammer: The Old World", with a return to the familiar Warhammer world. Talk about screwing up a setting and an existing fan base (i.e. me!) 😠

No, I'm old and wise... 😂 I recognize the subtle signals my nose sends me when my phone keeps falling back down and boinking my nose when I drift off while typing 😛

It’s 2:20am here, so I’ll have to give this thread a break until tomorrow afternoon (Eastern Aussie time) 👍

I don't really see nationalism (patriotism) as a "cause" for atrocities, but a means to commit such. The first war(s) probably started when the first field of arable land was cultivated and people started fighting over it (because the people cultivating it couldn't be picked up and carry it with them). Personally, I see the most significant cause wars as greed. The desire to accumulate as much wealth and resources as possible. Everything else, including nationalism are tools to mobilize as many people as possible to do the dying for you. It struck me as a very abstract and very absurd reason to kill your fellow man, that his home was located on the other side of some line, powerful people drew on a map. No, I'm not necessarily rational. Just thinking if a major tool for mobilizing people in large numbers to kill each other vigorously, faded away over time, maybe the world would be a better place. Edit: I know it wasn't exactly what @Gromnir said, but I guess we can blame the peasants after all....