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My wife and my baby boy visiting me in Germany

Watch it. The Last Samurai is fantastic

A lovely visit from our daughter and Kaiden, the wee man has more hair than me!!!!

I didn't know the specifics but things like this is more what I was in reference to and hijab was just a poor example.

Imo the biggest things changes to hope for are: 1.) Banning/ending Velayat-e Faqih (which means guardianship of the jurist - but this is basically the justification used for religious clerics having full control over the country) 2.) Removing the Supreme Leader & Guardians Council from the structure of Iranian government. Outside of these 2 things, Iran's got the framework for a robust democracy... so long as parties and candidates aren't barred from running (which getting rid of the guardians council would do) and as long as the president and majlis (their parliament) doesn't have to ultimately answer to a dictator. 3.) Banning IRI officials from holding elected office for at least 20 years (maybe for life). This one's maybe hypocritical because I've been an advocate for letting people make choices. The thing is, these people have demonstrated that if you let them they will take away all choice from people. 4.) Unbanning banned political parties (except MEK): Many of these political parties still exist, even though they are ultimately meaningless because they can never have power as things currently stand. Opposition groups are pointless unless they can back the opposition with representation. These would be massive changes that would fundamentally change life in Iran, political and otherwise, pretty drastically. Anything else, imo, should be addressed after Iran's figured out wtf it would be doing next if they are able to free themselves from the IRI.

Tbf Chelsea haven't really operated the way most clubs do in a very long time - I think it's sort of become part of the club culture to not have much stability or long term planning. I think that's not going to change quickly.

Usually when we take pictures or take him anywhere he looks mad, but overall he is a very happy baby and laughs a lot. On most of his pictures though he looks like a villain.

Only in select movie theaters, I believe... And yeah, I see where you're coming from; the quantity does seem to be the preference over actual quality these days. I don't think I would have many movies released in the last decade or so on my all-time favourites list. Actually a good idea for a thread, maybe. I mostly watch TV series these days, both because the length of episodes makes it much easier to fit it into the day, and also because I genuinely think that good TV series are easier to find than good movies nowadays.

I've never heard of that one, do these Apple movies make it to the movies or do they only make it to their streaming channel? If it is the case they only make it to the streaming channel I don't like the way movies are going, I loved the traditional big screen followed by general release system. Netflix, apple and even Disney seem to be throwing out movies for fun at lower budgets. 40 years from now there won't be any classics, just thousands of rushed low budget movies thrown out to keep streaming service customers happy.

I know, and I tried several times... What I need is replacing Cruise with some deepfake throughout the movie Tom Hardy deepfake will do

On a sidenote, you don't have to believe my figures, you can check them here: http://bundeshaushalt.de/DE/Bundeshaushalt-digital/bundeshaushalt-digital.html if you click "Jahresvergleich"

For your information, the annual budget from 2018 was 348bn Euro, the annual budget of 2019 was 357bn Euro, and the annual budget of was 443bn Euro, taking them since they are all annual budget under Merkel government. The first 2 weren't even affected by Covid, and under the treated black nill regime. So while it might be not sustainable for South Africa, it's not an issue in Germany.

You have a very individualistic view on things on Europe generally and Germany especially, if you believe that pile of shite. Living in Germany I can guarantee you, Germany is one of the richest nations in the world. Even, if the gas and electricy issue, I don't deny them being existing, should have the worst possible outcome, Germany won't go bankrupt and it's ridiculously out of touch with reality to suggest anybody would be going to starve here. We're fvlattered you're that concerned about Germany's future, though.

Or into Germany...

Your boy's expression: Wonderful picture though!

Doesn't look like your boy is all that into selfies...

the great reset is going so well right now. better get those solar and wind farms up quick. Europe should be happy they got what they wanted, cut Russia off by duping citizens into believing it was because of Putin bad but the outcome is the one they wanted. then they woke up and realised Russia has every valuable element from gases, oils, metals to living amenities like fertilizers and the organic farming Europe touted is not going so well. the real shit will hit the fan when people starve.

The Western centric way of thinking like Spike, forced hijab bad but ban hijab kinda good so maybe let's try it is exactly the reason why reactionary movements come as a push back with severe repercussions like Iran 1979. Erdogan's rise in Turkey is a reaction to the brute witch hunt against conservative population in Turkey from 1997-2007. Women were striped and beaten in and around parliament just for wearing hijabs. Like now there is a reaction against theocracy in Iran. Imagine going to India and be straight up like I'm gonna ban your caste system. Once it's 'forcefully removed' no one will choose it since it's social conditioning. Good luck with that cause you're in for a surprise that you may expect people lower in that hierarchy to be repulsive of that system but many are actually fine with it. They recreate it further down the line. Don't disturb the social fabric of societies based on a whimp otherwise there will be a severe backlash.

Nah the Shah wasn’t really even close to a socialist - he even banned a few big socialist/left wing parties in his time. And his relationship with the left always needs to be put back in the frame of reference of how his dynasty was restored to power in the first place. From a MI5 & CIA led coup that took out National Front’s democratically elected government - which was going to nationalise their oil industry so they could sell oil at the same price as their neighbors. So a lot of the country never really saw his rule as legitimate in the first place. There’s a lot of reasons why the Shah’s time fell apart. He did not have a particular free society - it had similarities to today’s Iran, but it wasn’t even close to as extreme. But there was lack of political freedom, heavy censorship, a secret police (SAVAK) that beat and tortured. He tried banning hijabs (which imo is just as bad as mandatory hijabs, I think religion is stupid but people should have a choice in a free society) & reducing the political influence of the clerics. That pissed off the religious right. Being a U.S. puppet and going hard after left wing parties and groups made him really unpopular with the left. The 70s were a time of really bad economic times and a lot of people that weren’t incredibly wealthy saw their lives get much harder. The Pahlavi wasn’t a particularly good or competent leader… and was pretty corrupt and didn’t really care too much about the optics of opulence while many of the country struggled. So regardless of political ideology, a lot of people just didn’t like him because they felt their lives get worse and things got harder. He ended up losing the support of most people other than the ultra wealthy & military officers (though he lost a lot of support in the enlisted). As a US puppet he made the mistake of cozying up to one party while ignoring the other for a number of years. So when Carter took power and Iran was a big part of the OPEC pricing that created petrol shortages in the US… he didn’t have the same loyalty to Pahlavi as Nixon did. They shared the same Sec of State I believe, Kissinger, who had a good relationship with the Shah. Carter opposed Kissinger’s suggestion that Pahlavi use the military on protestors - the Shah didn’t do that. Imo it was his incompetence and corruption that was his downfall. It’s one thing to be an unpopular puppet government, but if you alienate potential leaders of the puppet master… you only have yourself to blame when it comes crashing down. There’s also this to further complicate things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter's_engagement_with_Ruhollah_Khomeini?wprov=sfti1 The first government after the Shah’s reign ended was different to what Iran has now… but the Iran-Iraq war and some pretty brutal purges that took out the left leaning opposition and the last remaining leaders of National Front & large chunks of the military. And led to the creation of the IRGC. But that’s why the diaspora is mostly made up of people who are super pro-monarchy or very left leaning, aside from the educated people post revolution that are just getting the fuck out because they’ve got highly sought after skills so they can. I don’t understand the people in the west who’s family left that are wanting the Pahlavi’s to be back in power. I don’t see what the point is, surely a democracy is more ideal than a monarch.

Not saying we did well but we had more than enough chances to score more goals. Also two of the four goals were own goals easily both avoidable. Oh we definitely had worse games performance and management wise even this season, just for example Leeds away.

The only movie with Tom Cruise that I managed to watch from start to finish and actually like despite Tom Cruise being in it was Minority Report. I also think he was fantastic in Born on the Fourth of July. I really, really wanted to watch The Last Samurai for ages, I think it would be a perfect movie for me due to subject matter. But I can't get past the first few minutes of Tom Cruise in a drunken raging state

Still Tom Cruise's best role to date IMO.

Happens every season for him. Once he hits elite levels as a right back, he sustains a long injury that sets him backwards. So fucking annoying. Now we have to see Azpilicueta every week unless Potter can work some magic with other options. Ruben should be starting there imo.

Bit of a photo dump, me and my eldest daughter back 2007 Paragliding in Oludeniz Gorge walking with my mates earlier this year.

Me and my niece on a walk

Don’t you want to win the league again?

Russian defence ministry officially blamed UK navy personnel for blowing up Nord Stream pipelines.