palordrolap

Sounds like a perfect opportunity to bring the court case forward, and when he inevitably doesn’t turn up (not that he would have if everything ran to the original timetable), make the finding in absentia, presumably “guilty” but at least worse than it would be if he’d bothered to turn up, and then…

Sanctions? Heck. What else do we have to hold him to account? An ever bigger tariffs war? Forcibly close US embassies and consulates? Seize US assets?

It’d be a fine line to prevent the Big (cutter of) Cheese from bugging out and declaring war.

People with a serious criminal record. Murderers and worse. Those who leave their victims alive but scarred mentally or physically.

Then those with less serious criminal records. Fraud. White collar crimes. That sort of thing.

Then other “undesirables” depending on who isn’t liked by whoever’s in charge.

And then the goalposts for what’s desirable will start to move.

And the scope won’t just be limited to social media. Websites will be categorised further. Some might remain open access to all people (except the ever increasing list of those to be protected and those who shouldn’t have access) but others? No. Those sites themselves are undesirable.

Who’s next to be blocked?

I mean, now that the infrastructure and policies are in place, it’s only a matter of time.

Because he’s been on Russia’s payroll for a while (and likely his dad too), so like a stopped clock being right twice a day, when Don Jr. suggests that the US is thinking about not supporting an enemy of Russia, it might be worth thinking there’s some truth to it.

Lib Dems to the left of Labour? I would have thought with the Overton window shifting, they’d still be occupying a position between Labour and the Conservatives like they always have… but I guess it’s possible with some of Labour’s suspiciously Conservative decisions lately.

Well, there was a period in the 90s through to the early 2000s where we had a centre-left party (New Labour) running the show and mostly improving things, but then 9/11 and the Iraq war happened and the country went scurrying back to the Conservatives again.

The conspiracy nut that lives in my brain is convinced Putin’s taking control of Russia in 2000 has everything to do with every single bit of the above after “but then”.

We currently have New Labour (now just “Labour”) in charge again, but politically they smell an awful lot like the pre-Thatcherite Conservatives.

They’ll find a way to launch it. They’ll go back into the old Soviet mindset of throwing blini at a wall until something sticks sending cosmonaut after cosmonaut until they have a success and then pretend the others didn’t exist.

And they’ll fill the minds of young would-be cosmonauts full of propaganda and tell them that there was definitely no-one before them who died up there, especially not in pain or terror. Those were unmanned test missions. Strap yourself in, you’re going to space!

Interesting to compare and contrast with Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe who deliberately wore a toothbrush moustache and referred to himself as “The Hitler of our time”.

Also interesting that now Mugabe is dead, there seem to be quite a few potential candidates for that title.

But, as best as I can tell, Uunona isn’t in the running there.

Will the war end if he dies?

There are places waste is, by law, supposed to end up and places it isn’t.

You might argue that the law and good environmental sense don’t always agree on where waste should go and how it should be treated, but they’re in clear agreement on this particular dump.

And that means someone is in deep … waste.

When “You look Chinese, why aren’t you Chinese?” turns into an international incident rather than just plain racism.

We’ll have to get rid of the politicians in the back pocket of those corporations first.

There’s a reason the new legislation doesn’t say anything about them.

IIRC Thatcher claimed to sleep for four hours, and she only did that because she thought it was necessary to be able to do the job properly. The job of, you know, running a country.

Sleeping for two, and then expecting a regular salaryman / career woman to get on the same level and then do that for a lifetime is an entirely new level of ludicrous.

Don’t complain people have stopped loving you when you’re the one who built a wall around your heart.

Fun fact: The closest English equivalent might be “Roderick”.

But names have a funny habit of doing that. Nothing for decades, then it becomes a fashion and everyone and their pets have the same name, and then back to obscurity again. Rinse and repeat.

Facial expressions say everything.

“This is my powerful friend who I am just like and we both rule large landmasses and he will help me with my special military exercises.”

“There’s a good chance I’ll get my hands on Taiwan if I keep pretending to be friends with this clown.”

Well, it worked with Crimea…

Edit: This response is not showing up where I want it to. I can’t tell whether my stupidity is preventing me from replying in the right place or this interface is suddenly acting screwy. @[email protected]

Perhaps I should reword one of my previous comments:

Me: The Earth is flat.

Them (You): Several paragraphs patiently explaining that it’s round.

Me: …

Sensible things look a lot like lies when you’re stood on your head.

Perhaps I should reword one of my previous comments:

Me: The Earth is flat.

Them: Several paragraphs patiently explaining that it’s round.

Me: …

Sensible things look a lot like lies when you’re stood on your head.

Apparently I’ve misunderstood the word liberal every time it’s been used across my life in the same way that people think that “epitome” is pronounced “ep-i-toam” because they’ve only ever read it.

When I looked up liberal, one of the places I looked was https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/liberal but I did not click through to liberalism, which might have taught me a thing or two.

But please note the bit at the bottom of the link where the meaning has recently split into meaning “leftist” which is a lot closer to what I thought it meant… so apparently it hasn’t been just me getting it wrong, but a significant portion of the English-speaking world.