nausea

Passing on genes, in a narrow sense and a broad sense, is my best guess; your concious self is just a bewildered passenger on its brief journey from an awakening awareness to oblivion. You can, of course choose to ascribe other meaning but, assuming there's no God, it really has no foundation and melts away into nothingness upon detailed examination. There's a lot to be said for living your life in blissful ignorance rather than torturing yourself with these metaphysical speculations that lead nowhere, though, I suppose you could argue they are a pleasant diversion, if not taken too seriously.

Giving carte blanche isn't diplomacy.

Hubba Hubba Doo!

One thing's for sure, you can't be casualty averse in urban warfare.

Sickening, whoever's to blame.

I checked - Thailand is a signatory to the Rome Statute of the ICC.

Phil. - unfreeze state pension; in fact, it's only laziness really, that keeps me here.

O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!

Hell hath no fury ... .

Because cheap and cheerful isn't really a priority if you're mega rich.

Sad indeed. Optimism bias - "it will never happen to me".

These guys were missing, not hostages. It's a total clusterf***k situation.

You'll be lucky to keep a single lock the way things are going, not that I care, state pension is frozen anyway.

It's looking that way - sense of malaise among the general population and a political elite that's out of ideas.

Ngū suay.

Do enough to stay under the US radar; anyway, they have bigger fish to fry, i.e. India.

Optimists (Drake, Sagan) yes, pessimists (Fermi) no, historicists oo'er. The only inevitability I believe in is the speed of light being constant.

Timing is everything.

The transfer of wealth to an ever smaller elite is an inevitability of history.

He's not returning calls.

"Everyone sits on their own arse" - The Seventh Seal.

Shame about the cat, magnificent looking snake.

Don't care one way or the other - cigarettes, and whiskey, and wild, wild women, remain my distractions of choice.

Won't affect me, I assume, cos double taxation is a thing. If I had a choice though, I'd rather pay tax here than in the UK; rankles me that I pay UK tax but my state pension is frozen, doesn't seem fair somehow.

Problem is it distorts the laboor market - better pay for some in the formal economy but less jobs in this sector overall. Won't touch the black economy, which is significant.