Retsdon

With all this time and nothing to do I've embarked on a project to teach myself about stock options. Not being mathematically inclined it's proving to be a real mental workout - like I have to painstakingly read each chapter at least twice before I can even attempt the course book exercises for that unit. But we're getting there and I'm really enjoying the sense of accomplishment. I'm doing 4 hours study a day, plus the homework on top of that, something that I would never have the time or peace for normally. So I can thank Covid and the lockdown for the opportunity.

That's the kicker actually. What I try and do is to try and stand above my own emotions and stress so as not to 'buy into' them. The trick (and it can be done with practice) is to get some mental altitude above the emotionally fraught, muddy pig- wrestling which so often constitutes the grind of daily life.. It'll be all the same in 100 years anyway. Why sweat it?

To be quite frank, I don't know a single living human being who isn't racist to some greater or lesser degree. Racist is a massive word that covers a whole spectrum of perspectives, instincts, emotions, expectations, and value judgments - not all of them necessarily negative, and most of them not even conscious - and like I say, I've never met anyone immune from these influences - ever. So personally I have no problem at all saying that I'm racist. I'd by lying, either to myself or someone else, if I were to deny it.

You're lucky. I have two outstanding flights - one for Mrs R to come here in March and my summer vacation flight in May - and I couldn't get a refund for either. The best I could get out of them were credit notes. As for holidays, I was due to fly back to Thailand a month ago this week. Now, it's looking more and more likely that I'm not going to get back at all this year because by the time flights start up again, with two weeks quarantine either side, I'm not going to have time to go and get back before I have to restart work in August. Which means that if - with luck - I get back in December for the inter-semester break, it will have been a full year without seeing Mrs R and my kids, or even leaving the walled campus here for anything other than weekly grocery shopping. And the reason I'm saying all this to make you feel better about your missed holiday. 😀 No matter how bad you think things are - it could always be worse!!! But as long as nobody's sick or dying- time will take care of the rest of it.

All these poor and hungry kids should organize themselves into an investment bank. There'd likely be no end of government largesse to be tapped.

😄I don't know why you're so surprised. I genuinely don't have any particular partisan standpoint. I just try and go with whatever makes sense to me, regardless of who or where it comes from.

This is an interesting one. In my view his age is irrelevant. Either it was wrong to push him over or it wasn't. But there might be more to this than meets the eye. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/trump-says-pushed-buffalo-protester-could-be-antifa-provocateur-who-fell-harder-was It's very seldom that I agree with Trump, but I think he might be right with this one.

I've had an international account with Charles Schwab is the States for years. Don't know how it works re the UK, but with me it means that I pay tax on dividends - I can't remember the exact percentage and I know it varies depending on where outside the US you're resident - but I don't pay tax on any capital growth, regardless of how long a stock or security is held for. Which over the last couple of months has been very good news indeed! There are no commissions these days either which makes a huge difference. As for buying just now, I don't know. The markets have climbed very fast - the S&P is back up to only 9% off its all time high - which considering that half the world's economy is currently on life support seems a tad optimistic. It all feels surreal and brittle, and personally I'm pretty much all in cash at the moment, waiting to see what happens. Another sudden big leg down would not surprise me in the least. But I'm always a bit of a pessimist... Anyway, look at today's VIX chart. Volatility is still sky high above normal levels (the blue line is the S&P) That kind of volatility is supposed to be bear market country.

I would have thought that living up your way she'd be pretty up on it already by this time. No? To the OP. Rosetta Stone is reckoned to be the gold standard of online learning courses. The hitch is that it's not free as some others are so I suppose it depends how committed you are. But honestly, you might want to try a couple of free ones like Duolingo first. Ow you feel now might not be the same a few months down the road. In that respect language learning software has a lot in common with home gym equipment.....

When I brought Mrs R to the UK for the first time we flew from Saudi, and after we'd found our our seats she whispered to me to check if I was sure we were on the right plane! 😁 Because other than myself I think there were only about a dozen other white people on it. There were a few obvious Saudi or other Gulf Arabs families probably going on holiday - and just about everyone else was of Indian or Pakistani origin. The immigration officials at Heathrow Airport startled her a bit too.... England didn't look like she had imagined it would!

There's none of us can be certain of course, but I wasn't planning on dying in the meantime.

Not setting the bar very high, are you? Although on second thoughts, the way this government are going perhaps better to wait until next year before making assertions like that.

I just read this. ' The Times has caught up (paywall) with yesterday's story about the government's plans to waive border checks on incoming goods, come the beginning of next year when the transition period ends.Apparently, it isn't quite the free-for-all that might have been imagined. The government is planning to phase the implementation of controls, with three "waypoints": January, April and July.From January, full customs checks and tariffs will be applied to what are known as "controlled goods". These include alcohol, tobacco and firearms. For other goods, importers will have up to six months to submit completed customs declarations and to pay any tariff that they have accrued. There is no general payment waiver, and records will have to be kept.There will also be limited phytosanitary checks, but these will only apply to live animals (which will, presumably, take in pets) and high-risk plants. The health checks in be widened out in April, when all products of animal origin including, meat and meat products, pet food, honey, milk or egg products will have to pass through inspection points. Pre-notification will be required and, on presumes, fees will be payable.After six months, starting on 1 July, the government then intends to make all goods will be subjected to customs declarations at the point of importation, with tariffs payable on entry. The levels have yet to be settled.' In other words, we're getting the outcome that we wanted; that's happening on the date we wanted; that we have known would be the inevitable result of our political red lines; that we've had years to prepare for - AND YET WE ARE STILL TOTALLY UNPREPARED. So we'll cobble together some kind of future 'plan' and announce it as if it were government policy. And when the time comes and that plan doesn't survive contact with its implementation (as none of our plans ever do) - no problem, we can always announce another one. It's a funny old way to run a country.

Sometimes you have to be careful about escalating these things though. I had a connection one time who (amongst his other somewhat opaque business ventures) mined diamonds in the hinterlands of Zaire. And he used to tell a (probably apocryphal) story about a newly arrived visitor to Kinshasa. Before he can get out of the airport this visitor - who's never been to Zaire before -is shocked to find that he has to pay $100 to get his passport back from the airport immigration officer, and then another $100 to get his bag through customs. But at last, relieved that he's got the hassle behind him, outside the airport he gets in a taxi and gives the name of the hotel. He's surprised to discover it's so close - just down the road 100 yards followed by a U turn and a few 100 yards the other way away. A 5 to 10 minute trip away at most. At the hotel, he gets out of the taxi, and the driver, after retrieving his bag from the boot, informs him that the fare for the journey will be $50. At this point, the man, who's had about enough of it by now, starts to get angry and an argument ensues. A small crowd gathers to listen and they take the side of the driver. Spotting a policeman across the street, the man beckons him across '.......and that's the absolute worst thing he could have done in Zaire'.. said my friend Bobby, '...because now his troubles really begin.The first thing the policeman does is ask him for his passport.....'

It's American, but the general tone is applicable across the board.

Talking of Nelson, for anyone who might be interested in the minutiae of the Napoleonic Naval War, I can highly recommend this book .https://www.amazon.com/Line-Upon-Wind-Great-1793-1815/dp/0393066533 . Those men were something else. They had a dedication to duty and a disregard for their own safety in the face of discharging it that, to us today would be unthinkable. And Nelson was the main man.

The sergeant in charge of the unit was the fly in the ointment.To gratify his own diseased sense of amusement he was deliberately hazing a drunk guy who was scared to death (literally as it turned out) by bellowing contrary orders at him while threatening to kill him. Unfortunately the cretin in the picture thought it was all real, and as he was just itching to shoot someone in the line of duty, he jumped at the first opportunity and opened fire. A proper emotional intelligence test should have weeded both of these guys out - particularly from an armed response role. Morons with a nasty streak.

If you are going to time travel morality, simpler to just tear everything down and start again from scratch. Year Zero. Erase it all. Go back 100 years, and it's a struggle to find anyone who wasn't racist because that's how they were. So just erase it all. There, job done.

The thing is, it's not really about the statues. If statues of people with different morality were all to be taken down, Rome for a start would lose half its tourist attractions. And does anyone really believe for a moment that any normal person is offended by a 2 or 3 hundred year old piece of stone? No, it's about the exercise of power. What these people are saying is that we know that YOU have cultural attachments to these statues, and so we're going to have a laugh and force you to grovel and to add spice, we'll use your own morality against you as our weapon. What I would say to these people and their gormless enablers is unprintable on this site.

As far as I know there was an inquiry and the cops were exonerated. I believe one of them, either the captain who was giving the commands or the shooter, took early retirement and lives in the Philippines now. Here you go. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver

https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Death-Europe-Immigration-Identity-ebook/dp/B06XDV5R78 should be required reading for everyone - even if be honest, it's probably too late to do anything about it. What will be interesting though, is how historians 300 years from now will view late 20th/early 21st century Europeans. Certainly it's hard to find another civilization in history that has committed cultural suicide with its eyes wide open. If nothing else we'll stand through history as a warning to others.

William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll..... Nothing much seems to have changed.

The whole immigration thing was never thought through. Unfortunately it's too late to turn the clock back now so the choice is between conflict or compromise. The problem though is that there are those who will never be happy with any concessions, and who use the term 'racist' as a stick to beat others they don't see eye to eye with. Ask them to define the term though, and they start to stumble.

What did he do with his rifle?

It was his oppo. George was driving the car and came in later only after the 'water official' had gained entry. I know, a minor distinction - but a distinction nonetheless. Anyway, water board impersonator or not his death seems to have stirred up an awful lot of cack. I just saw a live stream from New York with people just left to run riot, looting and vandalizing. And in Chicago, there are apparently gangs roaming the streets with AK47s and the police nowhere to be seen. It's a complete shambles and my instinct would be to turn out the military to put a stop to all this nonsense right now.The first duty of a government is to keep order.