And that's a huge part of the problem.

Here in the UK we see little Canadian content despite being quite culturally similar and very close allies, I expect Canadians see little Australian content (as we also don't see much here in the UK). UK is a bit different as the UK has the second most powerful culture outside of it's own borders, it's not unusual to find Union Jacks on things in Europe or Asia where as a maple leaf (or southern cross) would be quire rare. Australia is better known for its animals (Kangaroos and Koalas) as a symbol than our flag.

This is largely due to the overwhelming and oppressive amount of US content. Even though the likes of China, France or India would kill to have the cultural dominance of the UK it's still a distant second to the US. It's so bad that a lot of British and Australian actors have effectively started playing "professional Americans", in the words of Idris Elba.

Hardly anyone really knows about this ruling. Any reputational damage to Airbus or Air France was done and over with years and years ago. With Airbus filling their order books almost as fast as they can open them they're not really that concerned and I suspect Air France isn't doing too badly either with 1.7B Euros profit last year. It was all so long ago that the events of AF447 have long since fled our collective memory and are only of interest to those of us with an interest in aviation.

To me this seems more like "someone had to be blamed" in order to completely close the case as most actionable items have long since been done (like modification to the pitot tubes (I believe this happened before 447 as the icing was a known issue and it was an older A330), pilot training updated, et al.) hence the fines are essentially slaps on the wrist, it was really just dotting the lower case j's.

Posted this earlier in the thread:

For somewhere like Arizona the difference between summer and winter daylight hours isn't that great. If you live in Maine it is. I live around 51 N (UK) and mid summer the sun is up from 4 AM to 11 PM (and I mean fully up at 4 AM, it starts getting light at 3), in mid winter it starts getting light around 8 AM and is dark by 4 PM (and I mean fully dark, like my mood). If we didn't have DST the sun would either be rising at 3 AM in the summer or not rising until 9 AM in the winter (which means both your commutes will be in darkness).

DST helps a lot when there literally is an 8 hour difference between summer and winter daylight hours.

This is the thing, it should be left up to the individual states.

For somewhere like Arizona the difference between summer and winter daylight hours isn't that great. If you live in Maine it is. I live around 51 N (UK) and mid summer the sun is up from 4 AM to 11 PM (and I mean fully up at 4 AM, it starts getting light at 3), in mid winter it starts getting light around 8 AM and is dark by 4 PM (and I mean fully dark, like my mood). If we didn't have DST the sun would either be rising at 3 AM in the summer or not rising until 9 AM in the winter (which means both your commutes will be in darkness).

The arguments for DST definitely apply if you live further north than California.

No it isn't.

Its just that some people in the US have gone so far to the right... Also they tend to call anything they don't like "left", even when it's other right wing concepts they just don't find right wing enough.

You're right for the most part, here's some additional context. One of the core tenants of fascism is the redefinition and reshaping of the language, Hitler wanted to reform the German language, one of the biggest things was trying to expunge any French words from the German language, because he believed that if you changed the language you could control the way people think.

Socialism was one of these words. They wanted to, in Hitler's own words, "take back the word [Socialism] from the Bolsheviks", Obviously this didn't work as to this day we use a Bolshevik definition. The Nazi ideal of socialism is closer to what we'd call a civic duty. You were meant to care for your community, contribute time and goods for the common good (common weal as Hitler called it). Even this kind of thing got twisted, as we saw from Aktion T4, the enforced euthanasia of anyone who didn't contribute (the disabled, infirm, elderly, birth defects, the feeble minded, basically anyone who might be a burden to the state).

Hitler and the Nazis literally had a different definition for "socialism". Of course it never caught on.

In this scenario, the hostage is the company who's data was stolen... the data is the gun being held to their head and the victims are the people identifiable by the data.

Your negotiation strategy would kill both the hostage and irreparably harm the victims.

A better strategy is to ensure that your dangerous gun is kept secure and away from children. Prevention is always better than cure.

Why is it, when my wealth is transferred to the already wealthy it's never called "wealth redistribution". Like class warfare... it's only called that when we fight back.

If you don't punish companies for firing, you end up with both less hiring and more firing... And those that are left have to do the work of 3 people because if they don't, they'll be fired too.

Countries with strong labour protection tend not to have higher unemployment but they do have a better quality of life.

"AI" has been replacing these jobs for years. When's the last time you had to go to a travel agent, no you just use Google Flights and book direct like anyone else with half a brain. Same with vacuum cleaner salesmen.

Also I long for the day where Karens get sent to AI, anyone who has ever worked retail sees that as a utopian future.

It's the same reason they mindlessly hate unions. They sacrificed, gave everything, bled for the company, sucked every corporate knob, shoved their tongue up every managerial arse and there comes along someone who had the audacity to stand up for their rights and get everything that the corporate drone was arse licking for and then some. Worse yet, this "unionist" might even be *gasp* working class and earning more than them.

In order to reconcile their bad life choices they buy into the corporate propaganda that unions are evil, that's the ticket... they aren't actually getting what they want, good wages, good conditions and benefits, it's the union being evil... Bosses love it when people blame the union instead of them, hence they reinforce this narative constantly so that the brown-nosers never ever, not once, think of organising and standing up for themselves.

It's not the only solution, but it's usually the correct one.

However I wouldn't count on it, as Winston Churchill once said "you can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they've tried everything else".

Don't assume it's a script, I mean that takes a modicum of skill where as a room full of Russians or Pakistanis are cheap and require no skill what so ever.

The one where you can watch a chubby, tanned bottle blond fuck thousands of average Americans.

Sony's going broke as well. They are both struggling to make money on their loss leader model these days as people are chafing under the "pay for everything" model they use. People are trying to find cheaper "Xbox/PS live "rape me"" subscriptions and buying fewer games (which publishers have to pay a fee to the console manufacturers to sell.

Nintendo is going to be the only one left because ultimately, Nintendo is the only one still making a console instead of a PC wannabe... as for the PC wannabes, they'll never be as good as a PC and are just as expensive (more so once you add on all your subscriptions for basic things).

Not that Nintendo is remotely benign these days either. I'll just stick to PC gaming.