Guardians
Of
Paedophiles

This is something that concerns me in the UK... at some point the tipping point is going to be reached and Skilled Americans will start looking for work outside the US with in increasing numbers with increasing desperation as employment opportunities dry up stateside. We could be looking at a refugee crisis from a former 1st world country if Trump goes on too long.

Speaking of COVID conspiracy nuts... weren't we all meant to be dead now from vaccine hurties by now? Or is this something that keeps being pushed back like the Rapture.

They said we'd be in perpetual lockdowns... these were the first things to go.
They said we'd have to show vaccine passports everywhere for life... these never had more than a token effort before being forgotten.
They said it would just go away... It got worse before we developed a vaccine.

On that last point, it's still killing antivaxxers, over 2/3 of them in the United States. Usually easily contained infection diseases don't kill the majority of it's victims in developed nations but it's developed nations, particularly the US where there are a lot of anti-vaxxers.

Is there anything these nutters got right?

Erm, it happens all the time. It's not a zero sum game.

Travel, in particular air travel is proof of this as airlines stopped paying commission to agents (particularly outside the US), so you ended up with both lower prices and better service by booking direct.

Any hotel or airline that would opt for emtpy rooms/seats over lowing prices, especially when you can lower prices and still increase per unit profit will not be in business very long.

This is really the worst defence of an abusive industry (travel agents) that I've ever read. Speak to a hotelier, the thing their most livid about is that they are prevented from offering lower prices direct to the public by threats from online travel agents (which can be enforced by contract law in some countries). They'd love to sell direct at lower prices, the airlines stood up to the agents and they did offer lower prices.

They can, but it's so rare outside of specific scenarios that they don't bother, at least not these days as we don't really have a lot of threats running around like in the 80's.

I've only been pulled over once in nearly a decade of driving in the UK (as mentioned, 3-4 times a year in Oz just for an RBT) and he didn't ask me for my license, he just asked where I was going (he pulled me over outside of Heathrow and I had my bag on the passenger seat) and gave me a bollocking for going a bit fast, then let me go. I'm convinced the copper was just bored as this was 5 AM in November of 2020 (mid pandemic).

If you don't drive like a dickhead in the UK, you hardly ever have to deal with the police.

The problem is that you're only remembering the good episodes. the 5 or 6 a season that were quality, not the filler eps.

Cutting back on the number of episodes increased the quality of every episode as they had more budget and more time to create better episodes. How many terribad episodes of Star Trek TNG/DS9/VOY were there because they didn't have the money or the actors were all busy doing parts for bigger, better written episodes... Think Holodeck, Barclay, Lwoxana Troi, et al. Things far worse than the odd clip episode (which is something else that has died a death) which was again, because the actors were all too busy with other episodes to do anything more than a token appearance. The American style of 24 eps per season (which is 2 shows per slot per year minus the Christmas period) just produced a whole load of empty calories of TV.

Modern shows like The Orville may only have 10-14 eps per season, but has a much higher quality to filler ratio.

We really don't need more episodes like Jeremiah Crichton.

No, it's just that the government wants to be the only one who tells people they should die.

It would do both. You can offer a cheaper price that cuts out the middleman and gives a bigger margin to you.

But they sold out to the OTAs years ago so they have an enforceable agreement not to do that. Dug their own grave with that one, now the Priceline/Expedia effectively own them, piss us off and no customers for you.

I remember the 90s and 00s, hotel groups (Hilton, Accor, IHG) used to have really good loyalty programs but devalued them when OTAs became popular. It's a bit late to regret that now.

Is this going to end up ruining both companies, Intel buying NVIDIA with it's own money?

Here's the thing, in 20 years of driving I've not once been asked to show my drivers license to a cop... To buy beer because I look under 18, even at the age of 30, sure but never when stopped by a police officer.

Not once in living in 2 countries has a law enforcement officer asked to see my ID outside of an airport immigration official.

When I lived in Australia I used to get pulled over for random breath tests 3-4 times a year. Never came up with anything so never asked for ID. Nor was I asked the one time I've been pulled over in the UK. Cops just don't need to unless they're planning on arresting you or charging you and I'm pretty sure they still don't need to if you're being arrested as that detail can be sorted out down the station.

It strikes me as particularly Orwellian that in the US, not that a police officer can just demand to see your ID without cause but that it happens regularly enough that people plan for it (technically a UK or Australian cop could, but they just don't).

We already know who that is... It's the same people pulling the cheeto-faced Buttplug's strings. Miller, Vought and the Heritage foundation.

They're currently Trumps masters (and minders it seems).

The problem the US has are millions of people who only watch Fox news and refuse to admit there's even a problem.

How to lie by statistics... Lesson 1. pick the statistic that supports your side.

A Toyota Corolla will outsell the F150 globally, in fact the F150 is so terrible it's hardly ever sold outside the US and very rare if we exclude Canada. Smaller hatchbacks are the order of the day in a lot of countries. Smaller than the Toyota Corolla I mean, not just smaller than the F-series penis compensator. The only reason the F150 sells in the US is because it falls apart so quickly, if you want a pickup that will last forever you get a Toyota Hilux.

Toyota Corolla weights between 1,300 and 1,400 KG.
Tesla Model 3 weighs between 1,600 and 1,850 KG.

In a lot of countries they go even smaller to cars like a Hyundai I-10 which weigh between 900 and 1,100 KG (The I-10 is 990 KG, but other models are available). The Tesla is a lardy car no matter how you look at it, trying to pretend it's not by pointing to an even lardier car is being disingenuous at the very best. It's not even light amongst it's contemporaries (Family Saloon/Euro D segment) the top end Merc C class tops out at 1,700 KG for the biggest model, BMW's 340i is 1,650 KG. These are the largest, most powerful engines in their range (not to mention, better manufactured and equipped, so I'm being quite kind to the Tesla by even comparing it).

All weights are kerb weights (unladen but ready to drive).

How do we know the person didn't have psychosis before the event and the event was just what triggered it?

Knowing a few professors of psychology this is the first thing that gets asked as psychosis is rarely caused by one thing, it's usually a series of events that leads to a person losing more and more of their grasp on reality with each episode. Granted the science behind this is far from solid, psychology is still a lot of guesswork (despite the great strides made since Freud's day). Another question is, is it the chicken or the egg? Were they drawn to something because they were losing grip on reality, seeing and hearing things for example, rather than started having episodes after doing something.

You see this all the time with anti-drug nutbars (and other forms of single issue extremists), the story always goes "my friend had one whiff of THE POT and how he's psychotic for life, it does it to everyone"... now giving them the benefit of the doubt that they didn't just pull that obvious bullshit out of their arse, how do they know it was the one time they took drugs that did it (nor can they explain that it doesn't happen to the overwhelming number of users). People who have a hate boner for something love to find any excuse to link it to something bad.

My first thought when reading the headline was that Breach Forces is the name of a game eating Ubisoft's lunch. So much so they'd shut down the servers.

And with major publisher's new found love for always online games and DRM with activation limits you can expect more of this.. along with the decisions to shut down a game's servers because it's not selling enough any more (people have stopped buying gamble boxes and skins) which makes even the single player parts unplayable. Welcome to the future of gaming, if the publishers aren't shutting it down, the hackers will be.