Any opinions on AL Chief Justice Roy Moore's stance…

Fantastic.
I like how HG Wells was not bothered what happened to his soldiers.  How very WW1General of him!

3 Friends who loved golf were on the golf course having a good time.  A storm came in and struck all 3 down with lightning killing them.

In the afterlife all 3 found themselves on a prestine golf course loaded with ducks.  A booming voice announced to them “Your reward for having lived such good lives is that you shall know heaven as being this golf course, the only rule here is that THALL SHALL NOT STEP ON THE DUCKS!”

One of the friends asked “why not”?

DO NOT QUESTION ME! - and suddenly God was gone.

A hundred years pass and the friends have a great time playing golf, but inevitably one accidently steps on a duck.  God Swoops down from the heavens with a hidiously ugly woman who he chains to the man and says “This is how you will spend the rest of eternity”.  And than they are gone.

The two remaining friends look at each other and say “Shit, DON’T STEP ON THE DUCKS!”

Being extra careful they play golf for a 1000 years, but unfortunately one of them does step on a duck.  God swoops down and grabs him up and chains him to a woman x1000 times worse than the first and says to him “this is how you will spend the rest of eternity!”

The last guy is paranoid as hell not to step on a duck.  10,000 years go by and he NEVER steps on a duck.  Still, God comes down and swoops him up.  But this time he chains him to the most drop dead, cum in your pants, hot girl you have ever seen - and than flies away.

Dumbfounded the guy tells the girl 'Wow, I don’t know what I did to deserve this".

She responds “I don’t know about you, but I stepped on a duck”.

I meant before you took the 4 year break or whatever…

The worst invention in my opinion ever invented would be Video games. Talk about a waste of time and money for kids. About 99.5% of all video games may bring joy, but do nothing for the people plying them. They spend hundreds of hours playing them only to end up with NOTHING in the end. Nothing!

Not to mention it is the universal agreement between these companies to continue upgrading as fast as they can to get new systems to the market. It’s like they can’t wait to make these machines obsolete and squeeze another 300-400 bucks outta some family.

Oh, ……and I think Nuclear Weapons is a dumb invention also. I see many people already said this one. Good for all of you.  :-D

That’s rather funny actually if it wasn’t so close to the truth.

Rune Blade

I think most of the backing came due to two facts:
(1) the USSR needed reforms, that was obvious.
Still, they probably wanted a long term leader that could be influenced => a younger one, after the two short reigns of Andropov and what-was-his-name… Probably, the influentials wanted some change, but surely not that much that it would threaten their power-base, one of the reasons for the coup that failed due to Jelzins help for Gorbachev.
(2) The general secretary and all the other positions he fills made him the most powerful man in the USSR. Probably, whoever put Gorbachev into place, underestimated him. Pretty much the same underestimation that Hitler faced when he was appointed Chancellor, but luckily Gorbachev used that to reform positively, and i consider the new freedom of information, the right to ask wether the party is right and that the crucial reform.

So, I don’t think that there was “real” backing, i believe Gorbachev was kind of a compromise candidate, kind of a makeshift. Of course, once he was into power, you ccouldn’t remove instantly, that would have meant that the party made a mistake (which was not “allowed” before Gorbachev). And he was clever enough to stay into power, and use his popularity at the beginning (which soon, after the economy started to collapse openly, was reduced to more or less nothing) to enforece the reforms.

Never mind… 20/3 is NOT a round number… ignore me