According to Wikipedia, one S-500 system has a ~ $2.5 billion price tag and it still is unable to protect itself ;)

Destroying one with nearly any ordnance available will give you the best bang for a buck one can possibly get. The murderous thieves may find it very hard to replace these with the sanctions up, which is nice.

This, definitely.

We got to live our teens and twenties without smartphones and social media - and it was so awesome.

You did something incredibly embarassing last weekend when you were drunk? No need to worry about photos or videos online and nobody would remember or care a few weeks later.

You date someone a few times and things don't match up? You move on, no need to worry about them stalking or badmouthing you online.

The world seemed to be on a course for the better and the dumbass populist movements were marginal in most countries. Future looked bright and it was easy to be carefree. We got to enjoy our youths.

There were no short or vertical videos. You had to read vast majority of the information available, which made you actually process the info. And someone had put in the effort to write the stuff coherently, because no-one would read the kind of crap that video bloggers are spewing out of their mouths.

By the time we started working, the economic situation was mostly stable and getting a loan for a house or an apartment was pretty much guaranteed.

And so much more. I count myself extremely lucky to have been born in the late 70's.

Correct.

Due to our location, we Finns did our best for a very long time to keep up good relations with Russia / Soviet Union. And for some time, it benefited us greatly with the commerce options it opened, but the price we had to pay was our diminished sovereingty.

That yoke was finally broken when the USSR fell and we joined the EU few years later. Some politicians tried to open a discussion about joining NATO, but the popular opinion was strongly against it and it was never considered seriously until Russia attacked Ukraine.

Then, like our former president stated, "The masks have come off, only the cold face of war remains". And faced with the fact that Putin revealed himself to be a totally unhinged megalomaniac, our nation's attitude towards NATO changed almost overnight.

Our defense forces are quite capable, but we will never again wish to go to war without allies. We could field an army of 900 000 troops if all the reserves were activated, and even after that there would be thousands of men in their 70's that would gladly take up arms to defend our land from the horror that is "Russkiy Mir".

If Putin is not stopped at Ukraine, he will continue attacking countries that were under control of the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire. He is an old man willing to happily sacrifice as many men he needs to fulfill his delusional fantasy. And this cannot be allowed.

Galadriel also has a pretty impressive list of horrors.

• saw the Two Trees die
• grandfather murdered by one of the gods before murder even was a thing
• witnessed the massacre of her mother's kin
• cursed by the Valar
• walked across the Helcaraxë
• saw the rise and fall of the Noldorin kingdoms of Beleriand
• escaped the sack of Menegroth
• present in the War of Wrath and the following ruin of Beleriand
• rules Eregion with Celeborn until Sauron's attack destroys the realm, escapes to Lothlórien
• daughter captured and tortured by orcs, leaves to the West heavily traumatized
• high royalty born into literal paradise, ends up holding the last pieces of elven civilization in Middle-Earth together and ruling over a forest

It's easier to do when you're a tall man and happen to look like a bike ganger ;)

A few years ago I regularly took the same morning bus to work. There was this maybe 16-17 year old kid who sat on the back and would listen obnoxious rap at full volume on his phone, while hogging the whole seat row with his stuff.

I had my headphones on but the hideous rap blared so loud I couldn't hear anything else. In my country we rarely interfere with other people's business, everyone was just sitting tight looking pissed off.

After few minutes I stood up, walked to the kid and told him to either turn that shit off, use headphones like everyone else or I'd throw his phone out at the next stop. He looked at me for a moment completely dumbfounded but turned the noise off and left the bus at the next stop.

He never took the same bus again.

My dad used to travel a lot in the 80's due to his job. I asked him to bring Turkish Delights if he ever came across them. I was so stoked when he opened his suitcase and handed me a fancy wooden box full of them.

This was one of the biggest disappointments of my childhood.

It's getting harder every year.

I remember well the constant fear of nuclear war in the 1980's.

I remember the wonder we felt when the Berlin Wall fell and Soviet Union collapsed. A hope of a tomorrow free of fear.

I remember the dreadful recession of the early 1990's and the steep economical rise that followed it.

I remember the amazing advancements in technology and the standard of living in the late 1990's. And at the same time, it felt like the world was coming to it's senses.

I was 21 in the year 2000. The world was full of promise, technological advancements were just pouring in, old mortal enemies were finding common ground and it seemed that we were slowly heading towards a Star Trek - like post scarcity utopia.

This age of hope eneded by the finance crisis of 2007-2008. Russia tried the waters with the war in Georgia. The general atmosphere of the world turned towards gloom again. And the downward spiral just seems to keeps going and going....

Yet I continue the work I started when I chose teaching as my profession in those golden years of hope. The kids are very different today, any class from 20 years ago would be a piece of cake compared with the problems they have now. But if a change for the better is to come, it will come from the kids. My generation is hopelessly lost in consumer greed and watching mindless "reality" shows that they somehow feel more important than real life.

I alone cannot be the change we need, but I CAN educate a few hundred kids and with good luck, maybe a dozen or few of them will have a some effect for a better future.

Ransom's voice actor Jerry O'Connell is complimenting his wife, Rebecca Romjin, who plays Una.

Yes, from a European point of view this is something straight out of a bad comedy sketch. If unions would be bad for workers, why the hell would anyone want to advertise against them?

I've had general anesthesia, it was just like falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.

If death is like that, then there's absolutely nothing to be afraid of.

Yes. For years now. And I am horrified.

I am a teacher and I've had students who could not find the article about lions from the animal encyclopedia I handed to them. And when I helped them to find it, one started crying, one tried to read it (stopped after a minute or so) and one asked "Isn't there some lion video we could watch instead?". It was two pages with a lot of pictures. But it was too much for these 5th graders.

Reading proper books has become almost impossible to kids because their attention span is almost non-existent with written material.

We've tried to add more emphasis on basic reading skills in the early grades for some time now, but it seems to have very little effect.