I kinda wanna bookmark this post and link it every time Trump does something horrible and Lemmy suddenly rediscovers the nuanced difference between the people and their government.

Which, hilariously, neatly matches the machine-learning approach of “just keep shovelling data, it’ll work eventually”.

I get the feeling it genuinely is just that it’s a part of north america on a risk map.

Well, there’s NATO, but there’s also the 414 Panzerbataillon/Tankbataljon. As I said, sliding scale.

Depends on where you draw the line of “sovereign”. You can’t really have, for example, an independent military in any reasonable way if you’re, idk, Belgium. But there is a sliding scale. The US, for example, is in theory just a highly integrated collection of loose states.

Is… Tharg unusual? Like, the rest are exaggerated for humor, but I’ve met more than one Tharg. Hell, at one point if I switched majors I’d be Tharg.

Why “overall”? What makes you think capitalism, as a system, cares about the economy “overall”?

Occasionally…

Bait used to be believable.

Señor_Chang.gif

The thing with slotted screws is that the screw itself is awful, but a flathead screwdriver in and of itself is such a useful tool you’re always gonna have one, so the screw kinda hangs around.

There were no (or only very few) cold warriors in the EU

Glances at the Baltics…

The point is, the “new cold war” crowd is imagining it invariably between “the west” and “the east”, with them being inherently “the west”(it’s why they instantly fell back on the old ‘asiatic hordes’ language). In actuality, the only reason the original cold war was between the Yanks and the SU was that Europe kneecapped itself twice in a row, and the vacuum left was filled by “the west” (US) and “the east” (USSR), and Europe split between them.

Before the Wars, you had, for example, the absolutist, profoundly religious Russian Empire ally with the secular French Republic against the Germans, because for all their differences neither could allow Germany to dominate the other, because they would be next. Meanwhile, you had the Austrians join their direct rival Germany and their ancient enemy Ottomans in an effort to contain Russia, for the same reason. Consequently, if you, now, have a severely weakened Russia, and a united Europe that is now rebuilding it’s military and attempting to break away from US dominance, it wouldn’t be that much of a surprise for the US to try and bolster Russia to counter a resurgent Europe - much to the disappointment of NAFO mouthbreathers.

Incidentally, now that I think about it, it’s kind of a part of how WW1 started, IIRC: Kaiser Willy started a massive naval buildup, in his mind, against Japan, and was completely shocked when King Eddie took it entirely the wrong way…

> Looks inside

> Unreadable gibberish

I love it.

I fiuly agree. In fact, I have a multi-step suggestion:

In Year 1 that useless letter “c” would be dropped to be replased either by “k” or “s”, and likewise “x” would no longer be part of the alphabet.

The only kase in which “c” would be retained would be the “ch” formation, which will be dealt with later.

Year 2 might reform “w” spelling, so that “which” and “one” would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish “y” replasing it with “i” and iear 4 might fiks the “g/j” anomali wonse and for all.

Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.

Bai iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez “c”, “y” and “x” – bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez – tu riplais “ch”, “sh”, and “th” rispektivli.

Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

Not even stronger, per se, just strong enough. What the overeager cold warriors in the EU miss is that Russia isn’t big enough to be the new Soviet Union… but the EU is.

Yeah, this is the correct take, I feel.

Yup. The major problem with cyclists and various flavors of scooter, both regular and especially electric, is that they seem to think of themselves as pedestrians, when they’re in fact vehicles (incidentally, a major problem for cyclists is being considered pedestrians by car drivers).

It’s plainly visible when you’re standing at a red light and see a bike split lanes, get on the zebra, veer right, get onto the perpendicular zebra, make the crossing like a pedestrian, and get back onto the road and drive off. Or, for an example I’ve seen in Amsterdam, a woman with a baby in the back, going 20kmh, just plow straight into 20 people with no braking and expect them to part for her like she were pushing her way through a crowd with a stroller. From my experience, cyclists in pedestrian zones treat foot traffic as bad if not worse than drivers treat bike traffic.

And everybody else’s!

At this time of year, in this part if the country, localised entirely in your kitchen?

…Why is the first sign different? The first two would be “e-lon”, right?