The Off Topic Topic

[Sheilbh]

I can understand USSR-nostalgia for people who lived through or grew up in the 90s in Russia.

What's sort of striking in the economic poll is that is a factor, but also the Putin-era has discredited "private property and market relations". But, again I think that's pretty understandable given the nature that model has taken in Putin's Russia.

Dunno, Putin is kinda nostalgic for the USSR, so professing love for the old Soviet Union might also be acceptable.

Although it is a bit mixed - there's nostalgia for the power of the USSR, but also strong rejection of communism or the "un-Russianness" of the soviet system.

I think Russia's relatively free in terms of people having or offering opinions or polling on an individual level - it's only if you try to organise in a way that challenges the system that you'll get smacked down.

[Duque de Bragança]

Soviet is open to interpretation itself. NEP, Stalinist period, Kossigyn reforms, Brezhnevian stagnation or Perestroika?

[Tonitrus]

Here is the age spread:

[Sheilbh]

Amazing

Formula One fan: 'Calm down, I'm not really your fugitive mafia boss'
Bruno Waterfield
Monday September 13 2021, 12.01am BST, The Times


The man, named only as Mark L, 54, a Liverpudlian, was mistaken by the police as Matteo Messina Denaro, above
EPA/POLICE/CORBIS

A British Formula One fan was arrested at gunpoint and taken to a Dutch high-security jail under the mistaken belief that he was a wanted mafia boss.

The man, named only as Mark L, 54, a Liverpudlian, was mistaken by the police as Matteo Messina Denaro, a fugitive who was sentenced to life imprisonment 19 years ago for bombings that left ten people dead.

He was handcuffed by elite Dutch police officers while eating lunch at a quiet restaurant in the Hague last Wednesday with his son and a friend. After being bundled to the floor he was blindfolded and despite protesting his innocence in a strong Liverpool accent was whisked off to the EBI maximum-security jail in Vught. "Suddenly there were seven cars in front of the business. Officers with guns drawn," the owner of Het Pleidooi restaurant said.

Messina Denaro, 59, is known by his underworld name of Diabolik and is considered capo di tutti capi, the boss of all bosses, for the Sicilian mafia. He is one of Italy's most wanted criminals, for murders including that of the anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in the 1990s.

The authorities refused to release the Briton, who had travelled to the Netherlands to watch the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, despite people, including his lawyer, vouching for him.

"If my client is a Sicilian mob boss, I am the Pope," Leon van Kleef, his lawyer, said. "It's like a bad movie, a nightmare. You are having a quiet bite to eat then a bag over your head and you end up in the EBI."

The tourist spent three nights in jail as the Italian European arrest warrant did not include fingerprints. He was released on Saturday. It is thought that the authorities believe that Messina Denaro might have built a new life in Liverpool after going on the run.

[The Brain]

Good thing they didn't Lillehammer him.

[Eddie Teach]

He definitely looks like a mobster. 

[DGuller]

Dunno, Putin is kinda nostalgic for the USSR, so professing love for the old Soviet Union might also be acceptable.

That said, with how the country has gone from the 90s, a lot of people are yearning for a "how things were better back when ..." like in many such cases.

These results are not surprising to me for a couple of reasons.  Russia these days has no ideology, Putin makes it up as he goes along, and it's hard to be a diehard supporter of autocratic kleptocracy.  There is also a lot of whitewashing of Stalin in state propaganda, and the idea is planted that USSR fell because it was undermined by highly ambitious and corrupt Yeltsin, not because it was a vegetable of a country by 1990ies.

[The Larch]

(...)and the idea is planted that USSR fell because it was undermined by highly ambitious and corrupt Yeltsin, not because it was a vegetable of a country by 1990ies.

And nefarious Western interference, of course.

[Sheilbh]

I think that's probably linked to Duque's point to because I suspect the USSR people are nostalgic for is Brezhnev stagnation/stability.

[chipwich]

Is the Canadian Prime Minister technically minister of the treasury like in the UK?

Why isn't the Governor-General titled Exarch or Viceroy?

[Sheilbh]

Is the Canadian Prime Minister technically minister of the treasury like in the UK?

Not sure - but I'd guess not because I think that's just a vestige of how the office of PM emerged. By the time it was being used in Canada it had kind of taken on a shape of its own.

Why isn't the Governor-General titled Exarch or Viceroy?

I think only India had a viceroy. My understanding is that Governor-Generals were appointed to most colonies, but in India there were also the maharajas who had sort of personal loyalty/fealty to the Queen/monarch. So in India there was one person who was Governor-General (of British India) and Viceroy (for the maharajas/princely states).

[PDH]

Jesus, Shelf, do you sleep?

[Sheilbh]

Jesus, Shelf, do you sleep?

Actually having trouble - woke up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep. Having a cuppa to maybe try and get a few more hours

[Grey Fox]

Is the Canadian Prime Minister technically minister of the treasury like in the UK?

Not really no. We call the person in charge President of the Treasury Board. We don't have the First Lord / Second Lord tradition.

[Barrister]

Canadian comedian Norm Macdonald, probably best known for his stint on SNL in the 90s, had died of cancer.

https://deadline.com/2021/09/norm-macdonald-dead-obituary-comedian-saturday-night-live-weekend-update-anchor-was-61-1234833212/