And then they bitch and moan when they get blown up and shot at?
You act like a dick in a foreign country? You'll be treated like dick by locals.

One who follows the guidelines for not getting shot or blown up in an ambush.

There are some that suggest May or the tories in general are trying to lose the election so that Labour WILL take the backlash. Ultimately no way to know how that will go, but right now there is severe backlash towards the tories and the narrative is swiftly changing towards Labour. I see an election win as the start of a very, very long conversation. Activists will have to continue the fight, press standards will have to be changed either through public pressure or through legislature. And in Britain that might happen because the press here are the most distrusted in europe (52% disapproval, or 52% considered biased/corrupt, or something).

I said in the past that the UK was ready to change. Essentially, the narrative was there to be taken right back, but I didn't know if Corbyn's team had the skill to do it. I have to say that I am blown away by Labour's campaign, it has been almost flawless. I say that because i think the narrative is there to be taken on Brexit. The tories called the referendum to hold onto power. They arrogantly called the general election to consolidate power, with Brexit talks imminent, only to whine about being too busy to do interviews because they're thinking about Brexit! They have then made a catastrophic hash of their campaign, u-turned 5 or 6 times, contradicted themselves, and generally shown themselves to be weak, without answers, and bullies. In 10 years time, who knows what we will think? But in the short term at least, this can be framed as a "they fucked it up, but we'll take over in a crisis and try to fix it."

At the end of the day, a Corbyn government has always been so out of the question that i don't know what to expect if that were to happen. Is another referendum on leaving out of the question?

At the very least, for now, i would say Brits prefer the idea of Labour sorting out Brexit than the Tories, and the average attitude towards Brexit in the country is rather one of resigned acceptance - we know it's bad, but we did it, so now we better get on with it. But we're very suspicious, and don't want to get shafted by irresponsible or reckless politicians. True for the left and right, but obviously for different reasons.

Ha! I totally gave him a chance, but he had already blown it in week one.

By non political missteps, you mean public witness intimidation, admitting obstruction of justice on national television, and attempted public blackmail of a law enforcement official using the threat of releasing illegal recordings?
Those are just last week's impeachable offences.

Your video, tomi lahren from the blaze goes full blown snowflake, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

No, but my kids saw a video of a weatherman just dropping that place name casually, and decided to learn it and do the same myself at some point. Minds were blown.

This is insane! He obviously had a concussion the way he was stumbling around and repeating himself.

So much incompetence - starting with the person that hired the guy who thought it was OK to assault a passenger.

How did the all of the other staff just standby and watch this happen?

My mind is blown.

I hope this poor gentlemen is compensated very well.

i had read about that possibility.that a bomb had blown up a chemical warehouse.

either way,until i see some evidence,i remain skeptical.

I've been playing this... the gameplay is alright, the worlds are great looking, but everything else is lazy and feels like a first pass.

Aside from the horrible head models and lack of character and facial animation, most conversations have an abrupt start... you may have just activated a door, but you are likely to suddenly snap inside and be in a conversation. Dialog feels disjointed, likely from moving lines around instead of in the order of how they were recorded.

There's a few places where the wrong models were used, blown up shuttle is supposed to be the alien one (according to dialog and the scanner description), but it's the alliance one.

I get the impression that the world team cared about their job and had the right people in place, but the designers, writers, and animators either were lacking talent, didn't care, or woefully mismanaged.

Look
If you had
One shot
Or one opportunity
To release all the energy you ever wanted
In one moment
Would you abuse it
Or use it for good?

They've armed the weapon
Countdown clock is set and
J. Robert Oppenheimer is sweatin'
Eyes are red and he's nervous
Cause on the surface this is armageddon
The shock bomb, but we're set upon and threatened
And with no sound the whole Alamogordo ground
Is glowing and cowed under one smouldering cloud
He's choked and wowed, everybody's open-mouthed
And over the ground the shock front blows, kapow!
Snap back to the alchemy
Hope before tragedy
Showed with bold math that we broke the whole atom
We choked; controlled action with poles of cold cadmium coat
To go capture neutrons and slow fracture
We broke, postponed that and we chose to go fashion
A most radioactive plutonium gadget then
Fat Man and Boy and Enola goes laughin'
As Nagasaki is blown and Hiroshima's blasted

You gotta choose, yourself how to use it
The knowledge you hold and
Don't ever let a letter go
You only get one shot to stop
And one chance to know
Responsibility comes once you're a science guy, yo!

Neutrons escaping from a source radiating
Merge and start atoms shaking; they begin
To unglue toward a decreased order
Entropic force distorts em
And supercharged with loads of protons they can only go farther
Cold war grows hotter--exothermal--Colorado to Joe Stalin
Coast to coast holes; silos but there's no farmer
Toe-to-toe drama
NATO and Warszawa in co-assured trauma
The globe groans everyone knows there's no calming
So show your foes and implode your core column
Quid pro quo Castle Bravo for Tsar Bomba
And move on and leave atolls exposed to gross doses of old fallout;
Slow-to-go toxins in shoals and so though we explode them no longer
Still the proof lives on in the blue lagoon water, father

You gotta choose, yourself how to use it
The knowledge you hold and
Don't ever let a letter go
You only get one shot to stop
And one chance to know
Responsibility comes once you're a science guy, yo!

When war games hit the stage of a gluon's rage
There's a military boot on the new doc's page
We were playing in the beginning, but grew up strange
Making radar and missiles, and new bombs blazed
And we kept grinding the lensed sights for the next sniper
Best believe son it'll pay to design fighters
All the gains of science analyzed by the
Man provide plans for sarin and cyanide
And our hands are blighted by crying
Eyes when dying lands are slammed if our grants expand the fire brighter
And there's no jury there's no sublime righter
This is our fight
And these minds are all ours so protect your pia mater
Try to feed and water good, seed trust, flee dishonour
Gotta be clean being Apollo stead of Vietnam and
Lay the armour down and be the one to stand up
And lead us on the trail of Spock
We'll elevate these motley progeny
To a future in a safer spot, an irrigated plot
Homicide a way forgot
Success is a lack of military options
Failure's not
Become a lover of a great and cosmic goal
We cannot condone these terror plots
So here we go it's our shot
Feel frail or not
This is the only world and humanity that we got

You gotta choose, yourself how to use it
The knowledge you hold and
Don't ever let a letter go
You only get one shot to stop
And one chance to know
Responsibility comes once you're a science guy, yo!

You gotta make your own mind up, man.

I will follow you, Namor! First, let me use my Quantum Bands to wreak havoc and sink the entire west coast of the United States into the Pacific. And with the help of the Fantastic Four and the more agreeable Deviants, shield the land mass from all harm and construct that utopia: Atlantis 5.

Yeah, the other Atlantises were blown up and or phased out of time and space, but i have high hopes for A5. Better than liberal hubs named after Mesopotamian cities! Death to the Night Watch and beware gov't telepaths...

Is there a signed treaty? No. But the US SoS (James A. Baker III) and the German Foreign Minister (Hans-Dietrich Genscher) are on the record in 1990

Genscher is on video tape stating very clearly: "Wir waren uns einig, dass nicht die Absicht besteht das NATO-Verteidigungsgebiet auszudehnen nach Osten. Das gilt übrigens nicht nur im Bezug auf die DDR, die wir da nicht einverlaiben wollen, sondern das gilt ganz generell."

In English: we are in agreement that there is no intention of expanding the NATO security zone eastwards. This applies not only to the GDR, which we do not intend to incorporate, but in general."

Or how about Baker's words, Feb. 9, 1990, St. Catherine's Hall at the Kremlin:
"If we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO's jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the East."

And the minutes show Gorbachev as having said:
"Certainly any extension of the zone of NATO is unacceptable."

To which Baker replied:
"I agree."

Again, no treaties, nothing. But some people, myself included, make the argument that unequivocal statements of a nation's highest-ranking diplomat are to be taken seriously, unless overruled by explicit, written agreements.

And from what we've heard from Gorbachev over the years, he took them for their words.

Admittedly, having been replaced by Yelzin who received massive "help" from the US might have made Gorbachev a little grumpy.

What remains at the end is this: NATO was created as a defensive alliance against the Soviets and wasn't dissolved when the Soviet Union collapsed. The highest-ranking diplomats of the primary players at that time (US, FRG) are on the record with promises that NATO wouldn't expand eastwards after the German reunification. Now NATO is closer to Russia's border than ever and the Ukraine had a democratically elected government (they were thugs, but elected) overthrown by forces that had massive support from the US. As a result, fascist militias wearing SS insignia are roaming free in Novorossiya, with government support.

If I were Russia, I'd be pissed.

But I'm in Germany, so now I have a strongman in charge of Russia, a thug who has journalists and opposition in general killed, on the one side, and the Americans who installed a Nazi-sympathising regime in Ukraine on the other.

What's not to like about it.

So when the US establishment then goes on a full-blown bender to position Russia as a scapegoat for now having to live with President Trump, they are playing with fire just to distract from their fucked-up domestic policies.

And we're not even touching on the hypocrisy of the US being outraged when some foreign nation meddles in their internal affairs. Of course Russia tries to influence US politics in their favor. Guess what, so does the UK, France, Germany, NZ, China, Japan, even bloody Luxembourg for all I know. Just like the US exerts influence on German politics (ie German Marshall Fund, Atlantikbrücke, etc), and on politics of every other nation of significance.

So what your saying is... the places where the people are... have the most people on welfare...

MInd.... BLOWN...

Course they have the most people not on welfare too... and the most people who drink water and breath air... its almost like this was my exact point... as enoch pointed out.

Okay, folks. History is converging here through six degrees of separation.

Long story. I think it is worth your time.

I grew up with a father who said terribly racist things, the n- word, disparaging remarks about all races. There was much screaming and bitter words from me for a lot of my childhood and well into my 20s.

After he died, I got into a short email exchange with someone I didn't know at all. A former co-worker of my father.

My dad's job, as I have said here before, was Range Safety Officer. His job was to blow up missiles that went off course. (No person has blown up more missiles, and no one will ever catch up to him, since they know how to do it now.)

In my email exchanges with "Teddy", I find out slowly that Teddy is a woman. The first woman in the Range Safety Flight arena. She tells me that she was treated horribly in those early days. Except for three of her co-workers, who mentored and helped her.

One of those men was my father.

Oh.

And then she reveals that she is Hispanic.

Dang.

So my dad talked nasty at home, and acted MORE THAN honorably at work. I wish I had known that when he was alive.

Then she tells me that her daughter became an engineer also, and is currently working in Range Safety.

Wow.

Fast forward to last week. I watch Hidden Figures, the movie about black women helping in the first manned space launches. They were in Langley VA, while my dad was stationed in Cape Canaveral, not NASA but the Air Force, working on unmanned missions. But still. It all came flooding back to me -- how my dad was one of the good guys. (It was also cool to see all the actual news footage of people on the beach and parades and what-all -- I was there with my family, doing those things.)

This reminded me of Teddy. I sent her an email, telling her that I was reminded of her story and how touched anew I was.

Then the Falcon 9 launch happened. This launch on this video.

The next day, I got a response from her. Here is her email to me, lightly edited:

Thank you so much for thinking of me. The 60's were a time quite different than today. This morning It came to me just how far we women have come since then.

I stood on the balcony of my house and watched the launch of a Falcon Rocket take off in all its glory from Vandenberg knowing my daughter was the Lead Flight Safety Analyst on that mission. For the last couple of months I have listened to her tell me about all the problems she has had to deal with in preparing all the destruct lines, impact limit lines and all the other things that go into getting the mission package ready for launch and knowing what she was talking about. Boy, was I jealous. I really miss being in the middle of all that. I was/am very PROUD of my little girl being part of the missions leaving out of Vandenberg and knowing I played a small part in making all that happen just like those ladies in Hidden Figures. I have not seen the movie yet but my friends and I are looking forward to it coming to Lompoc so I can see it

Your Dad would be surprised to learn that most of the new Flight Safety Analysts are now all women.

coffee and cigarettes are my last vice,and i ain't fucking giving them up!

how is that people feel perfectly at ease to just walk up to me,a total stranger,and offer health advice?

"you know those will kill ya,you should quit"

thanks captain obvious.

so i always offer them options,people LOVE options.

cigarettes or heroin i ask them.

which always stops them in their tracks and totally bewilders them,and gives me the silent giggles.

which of course they suggest neither,but i tell them i kicked my heroin addiction,my coke addiction,my painkiller addiction,my sex addiction,my porn addiction,i have plenty of experience with addictions.

"so why not lose the cigarette addiction?"

because i don't want to i reply,as i sip my coffee and take a drag of my cigarette.

and they got nothing,and they know it.

smokers realize that smoking is bad for them.that it will facilitate future health issues and most likely result in an early death.

so when you walk up to a stranger smoking and preach the dangers of smoking.you are not revealing some secret truth that they are not already fully aware of,your intentions may be good and your heart coming from the right place,but it is extremely condescending and patronizing.

and the dangers of second hand smoke have been proven to be totally over-blown.it is just rude of a smoker to be forcing anyone to be in the same air space while they enjoy their addiction.

i do not smoke in someone elses car,or in their home.i don't blow smoke in peoples faces.i go out to smoke on the patio.i try to be respectful.

and when you look at the statistics,fewer and fewer young people are picking up the habit of smoking.for all the tobacco companies whining and crying,it appears education is the very simply answer to address a very nasty habit,and even worse addiction.

so to all you well-inentioned do-gooders out there.please do not waste your time or energy pointing out the obvious to people like me.who will be turning 50 in a few months.save that energy for the young people.

coffee and cigarettes are my last addictions.think i will keep them.

hmmmm....coffee sounds good right about now.