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[ChairmanPoo]

I will say, however, that it has further been argued since then that "the Basques would have blown some shit up by now".

...I was kind of wondering if the conversation was along those lines.
I'm kind of curious because back home the worry that we all had was that this would result in 20 years of violence.
Back in the nineties this sort of incident would have ended up with dead people.
I think that there is some awareness of the risk in the political class. Despite how bad things are, people in both sides of the current conflict have shown out of character restraint at times, preventing the situation from fully spiralling out of control

[martinuzz]

Belgian pharmacists and their customers are getting blisters all over their face from excessive facepalming.
The Belgian government decided a while ago to distribute 4.6 million boxes of iodine tablets to it's population, in case there ever is a disaster with a nuclear power plant in Belgium.

Dutch people who live within a radius of 20km of a Belgian nuclear plant have also been provided with them by the Belgian government.
Now while all Duth got them delivered by mail, the Belgians themselves have to pick them up at their local pharmacists.

Pharmacists are getting really tired of the same conversation over and over.

Customer: <Crunch Nom Nom> So now I am protected against radiation?
Pharmacist: <Facepalm> NOOOOO You shouldn't take them now, you should take them 3 days before a nuclear disaster happens
Customer: Oh, so how do I know when a nuclear disaster is about to happen in 3 days?
Pharmacist: I dunno. <looks at report on the state of Belgian nuclear plants> Just take them now, I suppose
Customer: <Facepalm>

[MetalSlimeHunt]

That stuff doesn't even protect you against radiation anyway, it only protects against bioaccumulation of radioactive iodine. I'm no radiation sickness specialist, but I gotta question the risk-to-cost on this.

[ChairmanPoo]

Sounds reminiscent of the swine flu scare and the stockpiling of tamiflu that followed

[smjjames]

I certainly hope they don't go Three Mile Island or something. A Chernobyl shouldn't happen because I don't think they're designed like that.

Marine LePen proposes renaming National Front to National Rally. I get the idea of rebranding, but wouldn't a rebrand be more of a departure from the old name besides changing the second part? And honestly could have been more imaginative maybe.

[Sheb]

Well, it's still part of making the Front sounds less threatening. Front sounds more combative that "Rassemblement", which means rally but also the act of gathering, as in gathering the nation together.

[ChairmanPoo]

It might be also an attempt to make a callback to the National Assembly of the French revolution

[martinuzz]

Or maybe Le Pen sr. threatened to sue Le Pen jr. over the name rights.

[Sheb]

It might be also an attempt to make a callback to the National Assembly of the French revolution

Nah, doesn't really feels that way in French. Plus, the National Assembly is still the name of the lower house of parliament, so not somehting you want to associate yourself with if you're campaigning as an outsider.

[martinuzz]

Our government found out why a large part of our air raid sirens failed to go off during the monthly test.
It is because of the clocks that are running behind because of Kosovo and Serbia.

One of the air raid's hacking preventions works simply by comparing the siren's internal clock with the activation signal's timestamp. If those are more than 3 minutes apart, the sirens won't fire.

Only those sirens that had had their regular checkup (which includes checking the clock time) went off, the clocks of the other sirens were too far behind.

For now, the government has ordered the clocks to be manually checked and corrected more frequently to solve the issue.

EDIT: in other news, it is expected that May will officially blame Russia for the nerve gas attack on Skripal (who is still in critical condition in hospital, along with his daughter).
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43367515
The police officer who was poisoned when searching the victim's appartment is also still in hospital, and very ill, but at least he has been able to talk to his family.
The cemetary where Skripal's wife and son are buried is under investigation as well, rumour has it that their bodies will be exhumed, and there will be an investigation to see if their death maybe wasn't natural after all.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Boris Johnson has stated that "Russia has become a malignant and disruptive force. They have been launching cyberattacks at UK infrastructure that I increasingly think we should categorize as ... acts of war".

[Antioch]

Our government found out why a large part of our air raid sirens failed to go off during the monthly test.
It is because of the clocks that are running behind because of Kosovo and Serbia.

One of the air raid's hacking preventions works simply by comparing the siren's internal clock with the activation signal's timestamp. If those are more than 3 minutes apart, the sirens won't fire.

Only those sirens that had had their regular checkup (which includes checking the clock time) went off, the clocks of the other sirens were too far behind.

For now, the government has ordered the clocks to be manually checked and corrected more frequently to solve the issue.

EDIT: in other news, it is expected that May will officially blame Russia for the nerve gas attack on Skripal (who is still in critical condition in hospital, along with his daughter).
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43367515
The police officer who was poisoned when searching the victim's appartment is also still in hospital, and very ill, but at least he has been able to talk to his family.
The cemetary where Skripal's wife and son are buried is under investigation as well, rumour has it that their bodies will be exhumed, and there will be an investigation to see if their death maybe wasn't natural after all.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Boris Johnson has stated that "Russia has become a malignant and disruptive force. They have been launching cyberattacks at UK infrastructure that I increasingly think we should categorize as ... acts of war".

It's actually kind of funny that that monthly siren check proved useful for once.

[Loud Whispers]

Minister of Foreign Affairs Boris Johnson has stated that "Russia has become a malignant and disruptive force. They have been launching cyberattacks at UK infrastructure that I increasingly think we should categorize as ... acts of war".

Oh boy

[SaberToothTiger]

Crimean War 2: Electric Boogaloo when?

[smjjames]

Our government found out why a large part of our air raid sirens failed to go off during the monthly test.
It is because of the clocks that are running behind because of Kosovo and Serbia.

You guys in europe need a less integrated electric network, because it makes sense to have separate blocks in case of faliure, or in this case, two countries screwing with each other.

Also, Serbia and Kosovo (Serbia in particular) need to be smacked around with a trout a bunch of times and be told to knock it off.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Boris Johnson has stated that "Russia has become a malignant and disruptive force. They have been launching cyberattacks at UK infrastructure that I increasingly think we should categorize as ... acts of war".

Oh boy

They could always invoke article 5....

In the daily press briefing, The WH condemns the nerve gas attack on the ex-spy and his daughter, but doesn't point the finger at Russia. Pretty much what you'd expect from an adminstration that seems afraid to criticise Russia.

[martinuzz]

Theresa May has given Russia until wednesday to explain how it is possible that a nerve agent determined to have been synthesized in Russia was used to perform an assassination attempt on UK soil.
If Russia fails to come up with a probable explanation, the UK will have no choice but to consider it an attack with chemical weapons on British soil by Russia.
Theresa May will reveal her plans for retaliation wednesday.

The investigation into the nerve gas used concluded it was Novitsjok, a rare nerve agent fabricated by the Russian army.
The UK says there are two possibilities: Either Russia has lost state control of their weapons of mass destruction, or the Russian government ordered the hit.
Contrary to earlier assassination cases, the British government's tone is harsh, and no longer cares about diplomatic relations. The difference with earlier attacks is that this time, innocent UK citizens were also harmed.

https://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/britse-premier-may-rusland-moet-zenuwgasaanval-voor-woensdag-uitleggen-anders-volgen-represailles~a4580423/

Heh, we could genuinely have an Article 5 incoming