Leaderboard

Lithuania. First mention of Lithuania in 1009, unified under one Duke in the 13th century, Kingdom of Lithuania founded in 1253. Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the largest country in Europe by the 14th century, then it was transformed into the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania in 1569, then got partitioned three times by the Russian Empire, Prussia, and the Habsburg Monarchy in the late 18th century. Two unsuccessful uprisings in the mid 19th century, and then finally regained independece in 1918, only to lose it thanks to Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and be occupied first by the Germans and then given to the Soviets after the WWII. Then after ongoing partisan and dissident activities for over 40 years, the first Soviet-occupied state to announce the restitution of independence in 1990.

Made my first bowl today. Couscous salad with Falafel, Avocado Hummus and veggies.

Some Russian troops and equipment are allegedly going back Meanwhile

This warms my heart ladies and gents it truly does. This girl

"Allowed self-determination" Gee, I guess we should be thankful that we were "allowed" to restore our legitimate 980 year old state after 200 years of oppressive yet unsuccessful Russification policies.

oh well, I wanted to like it, it is better than 84 holistically. but I got Cutty Sark from a plastic bottle instead of Macallan 18. It's still whisky but you know

I loved the score too, and thought it was perfect in expanding the "otherworldliness" of Dune. Very unconventional, eery, atmospheric. Brilliantly captured the spirit, imo.

That wasn't Arabic though? As much as I'm aware, David J. Peterson created 4 artificial languages (2 sign languages, 2 spoken ones) and they were used in the movie score, too.

I actually loved the score I thought it fit perfectly with the world building. The throat signing was awesome, to each their own anyways. As far as Chalamet honestly I had no idea who he was going in but he was fine.

In my opinion the viable solution for small countries not in any cool countries club is to form a confederation to be taken seriously in world politics.

The rhetoric from Johnson and Biden and the front pages in the UK at least had a markedly different tone last night/this morning, suggesting that the invasion might not be as imminent and unavoidable as people have been suggesting. A cynic might suggest that with both Biden and Johnson under pressure domestically, Biden potentially losing control of the legislature at the US mid-terms and Johnson facing a police investigation and ongoing rumours of a leadership challenge and bracing for a difficult set of local election results this Spring, that perhaps both of them aren't ungrateful for an opportunity to make the Russia/Ukraine situation sound more perilous than it was before taking credit for a deescalation.

How many different long tables does he have?

No one apart from US and allies are evacuating their embassy staff, seems are bit of warmongering from their part.

I was reading that the last shah said the two names were interchangeable. Not that he is the authority but it goes to show that the name left and came back to some degree, moreso than Inglaterra

Okay, makes more sense. The video made it seem that the word was Greek origin, rather than a Greek interpretation of another word

Persia derives from the region Persis, which is now the province Fars in Iran (and the way you say Persian in Persian is Farsi). Persian is an ethnicity and the biggest ethnicity in Iran, but there’s a lot of different ethnicities in Iran so not all Iranians are Persian. The Greeks probably just called it Persia because most of the people there were Persian. But Iranian is the nationality and Persian is the ethnicity of most Iranians.

Part of me agrees with this because history shows if you appease a dictator with expansionist goals in Europe... well... we all know about WW2. On the other hand, I do find it funny that the loudest voices talking about protecting Ukraine's sovereignty being the US and UK... probably the two countries that have not respected other countries sovereignties in the last century. And when you couple that with things like Ukraine's president telling Biden to calm down with the imminent invasion rhetoric last week, it does strike me as a bit... odd... It's a bad position Putin is putting the EU in - they can't afford to sit by as a country actively demonstrates its expansionist intent, but the natural gas dependence the EU has on Russia might make it difficult for the EU to effectively take any meaningful stand to prevent invasion. I think if the West really wants to take on Putin, they've got to hit him where it hurts... hit his oligarchs. Cut them off from the US SWIFT banking system so they can't access their cash reserves they have in foreign bank accounts outside Russia and I think Putin's position becomes untenable as these billionaires clambour to replace him with someone who'll get them access to their money again.

Sunday's done right.

Yea, Michael. Don't be such a chicken and take one for the team!

If you stay, you could be our own frontline reporter though... Imagine the traffic it would bring to the forum!

Lazy Sunday

Useful as ever from Ros Atkins on the situation, for anyone like me who has a flimsy understanding of the politics at play whilst also not knowing who to trust for better information. I trust this guy.

We'll go to Amsterdam like @Stan said a while back.

I still found it hilarious and out of place. And to the layman, it DID sounds like Arab singing regardless of the made up language or not. Like something out of Team America, I actually thought of this scene when the terrorist first appeared. Then it blasts out at 11 volume over the rest of the movie like all of Zimmer’s osts from Inception till now I haven’t see anyone say anything about this movie besides ‘trust me bro, it is good’

The Sun, say no more

I have so many issue with Dune 2021, it might even be a worse adaption than Dune 1984. Lynch’s doesn’t pretend to be faithful and goes balls off the wall, Vileneuve does pretend to be faithful so every change is more jarring, 84 is a fucking stupid movie that is memorable. 21 is serious and boring that misses the point entirely. 21 might be an okay movie but a awful adaption it is

Dune 2021 - everything it does right it does two things wrong. I actually burst out laughing a couple of times. 5/10 part two is going to be a shitshow