StringJunky

Some 'shield' the inhabitants have been. They've been quite the opposite because they wouldn't be where they are now, giving Putin spirited resistance, if the able citizens had been passive. Putin been bombing/killing them regardless. Until Putin has taken Mariupol there is no land bridge. He's after a consolation prize. You need better news sources. If Belarussian soldiers join in, the Ukrainians have a bespoke regiment waiting for them to join, when quite a few of them are expected to defect. It is suspected that Lukashenko knows this and wants to keep them in his oppressive bubble. It appears that much of the Belarussian people's struggle and goals are the same as the Ukrainians: democracy.

Not keeping it real or sincere. An analogy would be those building facades you see in the old spaghetti westerns... they are all front with no depth.

Jefferson and Washington had slaves.

Alcohol addiction is a very serious state to be in. Government mandates can't change that, although it may reduce new users in the long term. Same with gambling addiction, it will have just moved underground. This is not a uniquely Russian problem, it's the same everywhere. Prohibition solves nothing... it's cosmetic.

@MSC Thanks for your thoughts. He does seem to be a bit of an anomaly. Here's some of his views he has expessed on race: https://justicethomas.com/justice-thomas-jurisprudence-on-racial-preferences/ Social engineering in order to aid minorities appears to be anthema to him. He has a strict notion of 'equal'. He appears to have an absolutist position on ethnic matters.

Also you'd have to be at least mid-forties to remember it, so the soldiers out there now wouldn't likely know about it, especially given the tendency towards secrecy in the communist bloc at the time. There would be know reason for modern Russian youngsters to know about it now. Some of them, unfortunately, are going to learn that history hard way.

This all assumes Chris Rock knew she had alopecia. I don't think it would be hard to spontaneously come up with an association and make that joke.

Talking about nukes, Russian soldiers are driving through the 'Red Forest' around Chernobyl kicking up the dust and raising radiation levels; I suppose there will be a rise in cancer cases in the coming years.

You do like wasting server space.

They are just buying time with the talks.

Short version: Clarence Thomas is a rotten apple and Republican stooge. Longer version: Over the last dozen years I've been on here and taken an interest in SC and US politics, he is clearly the outlier to what constitutes a good SC judge. His wife's antics being out in the open kind of explains his past voting record. I can't quite compute that he's black and yet holds this ideological position. Did he see a novel and fast track way to get where he is today in a Republican-leaning field not well-represented by minorities i.e. it's not about principles, but about personal advancement? As far as his wife goes, it's not difficult to mistake her words for that of Marjorie Taylor Green.

I've had over half a century of deaf jokes at my expense. I'm pretty bullet proof. Some are funny. I would have thought the Natalie Wood joke funny as youngster, but not anymore.

Yeah, CR's got nowt on RG. WS has apologised to CR.

My pleasure. I don't know much but I know how to find things.

Jokes are nearly always at the expense of somebody, he should be well aware, being a comedian himself. Whether it's actually funny is subjective.

Here's the slides: https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/biodiversity/bio.pdf

Maybe something will stick from this.

Gotcha, cheers. Yes, that is very dodgy for normal forum linking. Never used one like that. I use a url shortener but it doesn't do that. It removes the extraneous additions to the site url that cause redirects through adservers so they can't track a user. Actually, it's called a 'url tracking stripper' that I use... it's effect is to shorten it but that's not the addon's actual aim. I used the wrong description, it turns out.

@PeterkinIt shortens the url to only contain the basic address. As far as justifying them goes, they limit tracking information that ad servers can use when one is site hopping.

Have you made an alpaca jumper yet? Have you seen the price of alpaca jumpers! £150-200 here. Wow.

Seeing your post, I had a look online and they appear to have a nice nature. The article, by an alpaca farmer, said you should never have less than three because having a group hierachy is important to their well-being. Is that why you have three?

Arr! What's the pecking order?

That price for a physical book is to be expected when it's not massively popular.

Yes.

S2 is seconds per second.