Current Affairs - The Bear and Badger

RedDave2

Ah, the famous "Simpsons arcade game" defense. If you agree that players using Bart could hit enemies with his skateboard, you must acquit...

Escape

Facewon

https://twitter.com/TimMedin/status/1455370743538192387?t=kxWzA233SHitu4wrR_ygxg&s=19

Pole assassin

RamSteelwood

no one would believe it as a film script!

Skade

I've been watching a bit of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial.

A boy driven some 70 miles to a riot by his mum, with 2 assault rifles, killed 2 and injured 1. Is going to be going home a free man/child.

The judge right now won't accept a video from an iPad as evidence because it uses zoom!!

Fuck me, what a fucking state America is in.

dynamiteReady

The situation in Belarus/Poland is fucking crazy.

dynamiteReady

Skade wrote:

A boy driven some 70 miles to a riot by his mum, with 2 assault rifles, killed 2 and injured 1. Is going to be going home a free man/child.

It is the most remarkable fucking thing.

Don't forget the Ahmaud Arbery case either. A great deal of unjust chicanery in that one, too.

DrewMerson

nick_md

I think he made everyone applaud a defence witness because he was a vet and it was veterans Day or something.

b0r1s

Whites gonna white.

LivDiv

dynamiteReady wrote:

The situation in Belarus/Poland is fucking crazy.

Really bad.
The bloke in charge in Belarus appears to be a total prick. He is weaponising migrants which is a special kind of messed up regardless of if the migrants need is legitimate.

davyK

LivDiv wrote:

dynamiteReady wrote:

The situation in Belarus/Poland is fucking crazy.

Really bad. The bloke in charge in Belarus appears to be a total prick. He is weaponising migrants which is a special kind of messed up regardless of if the migrants need is legitimate.

He'll get his soon enough when Putin has no use for him.

In the meantime someone else needs to take a lead and get those people out of that freezing forest. Just make him and his master look like the inhumane arseholes they are to the world.

GooberTheHat

davyK wrote:

LivDiv wrote:

dynamiteReady wrote:

The situation in Belarus/Poland is fucking crazy.

Really bad. The bloke in charge in Belarus appears to be a total prick. He is weaponising migrants which is a special kind of messed up regardless of if the migrants need is legitimate.

He'll get his soon enough when Putin has no use for him.

In the meantime someone else needs to take a lead and get those people out of that freezing forest. Just make him and his master look like the inhumane arseholes they are to the world.

They don't care.

davyK

Maybe we should then.

GooberTheHat

I'm not sure I get your point.

davyK

I meant the UK should try and intervene in some way. Show the EU up and score some points? Maybe influence others to help? What about the Commonwealth?

I know. Fat chance with the crew we have at the minute.

But isn't that what leading nations are supposed to do instead of sabre rattling?

GooberTheHat

I'm not sure how anyone can intervene in any real way.

dynamiteReady

Our government is probably worrying about gas supply in a situation that's already surprisingly volatile.
The Russians route a lot of natural gas through pipes that roll through Belarus, into Poland.

The Russians themselves say they'll guarantee the pipelines will stay open, which doesn't sound like Lukashenko will be offered much protection if things escalate. But this impasse crystalized in such an unpredictable fashion.

The EU want to impose trade sanctions against the Belrussians to resolve the impasse.

But the Belarussians have engineered this crisis in response to sanctions imposed on their government after the Roman Protasevich affair, which I'll admit, barely registered with me at the time.

One of my key questions about this, is why is the EU so prepared to risk this much, over this one particular political dissident?

I digress. Apparently, the current plan is for the EU, backed by NATO, to respond to Lukashenko with further sanctions. Lukashenko fired back with the gas threat.

Given the strange state of affairs in Armenia, Georgia and, of course, Ukraine, it's hard to imagine the Russians wanting to throw this bellend under a bus. But it's also hard to imagine what they would do to support him.

Of course, there'd be no border crisis in the first place, if the Taliban weren't able to sweep Afghanistan so rapidly...

On the other hand, if Belarus was stable, the refugees would have tried to come through the more amenable route through Turkey, which I suspect they'd have always tried first (language and distance), if it wasn't for this odd state of affairs that's currently in the news.

In the middle of all this, are the refugees themselves.

Normally, I'd pay slightly less attention to this. There's so much going on right now.
But after reading just a little about this particular affair, I was incredulous.

Like, you think about other geopolitical atrocities (say, Cuba, for example, but we can go on forever), and you can at least trace a 'why'. Even if the chief operatives and benefactors are cunts.

In this one, I (think I) can only understand the refugees for trying to maximise their chance of a successful migration.
And possibly Roman Protasevich.

Everyone else has been negligent, at the very least.

acemuzzy

So what's going on in Liverpool? Explosion, one dead, wasn't thought to be terrorism but now three arrested? Hmm. Hope it's isolated nonsense whatever it is...

LivDiv

Definitely looks like a terrorist thing now.
I've seen suggestions there was a Remembrance Day (Im not calling it Poppy Day, fuck off with that reductionist shit) gathering nearby that may have been the actual target.

I will be honest I was shitting stuff like this yesterday as my mum marched at the Cenotaph with the WRAF for Remembrance Day.

Diluted Dante

Who the fuck calls it poppy day?

LivDiv

Unsurprisingly the front pages of the Mail and the Express today.

mistercrayon

The taxi driver who locked the bomber is braver by a trillion than I could be.

LivDiv

Indeed, proper hero.
I am wondering if he diverted to the hospital instead of driving the prick where they wanted.

Wookienopants

LivDiv wrote:

Indeed, proper hero.
I am wondering if he diverted to the hospital instead of driving the prick where they wanted.

I have heard through friends who live in the area (so take this with a pinch of salt, cannot provide a solid source) that the driver was told to drive to a Remembrance Day event but he saw wires on him, got suspicious and drove to a hospital car park before locking him in to try and reduce risk to people.

Again I have no evidence other than anecdotal but yea, smart and very brave

LivDiv

Somewhat worrying that it wasn't prevented by Intelligence but they must have known something to jump on the other 3 so quickly.

drumbeg

Wookienopants wrote:

LivDiv wrote:

Indeed, proper hero. I am wondering if he diverted to the hospital instead of driving the prick where they wanted.

I have heard through friends who live in the area (so take this with a pinch of salt, cannot provide a solid source) that the driver was told to drive to a Remembrance Day event but he saw wires on him, got suspicious and drove to a hospital car park before locking him in to try and reduce risk to people. Again I have no evidence other than anecdotal but yea, smart and very brave

I grew up around there. As a result I've had loads of WhatsApp messages with accounts and footage. That's pretty much what I've heard too, except the bomber knew he wouldn't make it in time to target 1 as he was stuck in traffic so asked driver to reroute to hospital. Bomb was programmed to go off at a certain time no matter what and driver only realised at last moment what was happening.

All told, it was a Mr Bean level attempt at a bombing that resulted in little more than some pyro effects.

Close call.

(p.s. the accounts I have been sent may also be total horseshit!)

drumbeg

LivDiv wrote:

Somewhat worrying that it wasn't prevented by Intelligence but they must have known something to jump on the other 3 so quickly.

Apparently the driver picked the bomber up from an address in Kensington. Maybe he told the police the address.

acemuzzy

So this has become my thread for Blasphemous updates. So yeah I'm at I think the penultimate boss. And things beyond that have got somewhat obtuse - some limestone statue dude - and that's led to another thing and yeah I'm getting close to being happy for it to be over... But it's still pretty darn good IMO,!

mistercrayon

what.

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