Yes, the constant Muscovite sabre-rattling is why NATO countries are starting to take their militaries seriously again.

A truly shocking number of people don’t use any form of adblock. I doubt that driving off the adblock users will have a significant effect on viewership (and even if it does, why would Google care, it’s not like we’re making them money).

The 70+ age group was the one the AfD performed worst in. It’s young people voting fascist here in Germany, the old folks vote CDU because that’s what they’ve always done.

No, the assessment is stupid as well. It’s just parroting propaganda, while ignoring the mountains of information (in some cases literally officially published by the Kremlin, like Putin’s essay “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”) that Russian leadership doesn’t even consider Ukraine to be a real country and very much does want to annex it because it is “Russian”.

I’m going to have to disagree. It’s forced labour, no amount of pretty words changes that. It’s also not a “break” if you have to work, and considering that you’d be unskilled and probably physical labour with no (simple) way for you to quit if faced with abuse, it probably won’t even be under good conditions or compensated fairly.

Daggerfall Unity.

So what do you think Trump would do?

You’re not wrong, but at least there’s a chance that they’ll be released, and with therapy they might even have a normal life again some day. If you kill someone, they’re dead. Nothing you can do about it beyond maybe putting an “Oops, our bad, sorry about that” plaque on their headstone.

I will also say that prisons should not be cruel. The role of prisons should be rehabilitation, protection of society from those who can’t be rehabilitated, and lastly (and for once actually least importantly) punishment.

I’m not. Imprison her for life, but the death penalty is never acceptable as long as there’s even the slightest chance of a false conviction. As long as “the system” can get it wrong, it should not be allowed to carry out irreversible punishments.

I think you’re overestimating the familiarity most people, even generally politically literate people, outside of Ireland and the UK have with Ireland and Irish politics.

They’re writing for a global audience, and most people in the world simply wouldn’t know what they’re talking about if they referred to the taoiseach as taoiseach. It’s no different from referring to the Spanish President of the Government (the actual title of the office) as the Spanish prime minister, yes, that’s not technically the correct term but using language most people will immediately understand and understand correctly is generally considered to be more important.

We’re not the people they need to reach though. I don’t think either of us needs convincing that urgent action is needed on climate change, it’s our boomer parents, coworkers, etc. who need convincing. And if someone’s attempt at helping with that ends up making climate activists look like deranged vandals then please for the love of God stop trying to help.

People were talking about climate change though. Movements like FFF (until Covid took the wind right out of their sails) had quite a bit of momentum, and actually were making it a mainstream topic.

Protests like this are getting people to talk about what you did, not about why you did it.

Successful in pissing off the general public and causing them to ignore anything of substance that you have to say, sure. Pushing people away from your cause is not a good strategy if you want to effect change.

Always has been. Look up the 2002 Gujarat pogrom.

I’m sure that millions of Afghan women would disagree with this. The nation building in Afghanistan was fucked from the start because it completely ignored Afghan tradions of life and government, and the Western-style government was horribly corrupt and failed to inspire any sort of loyalty, but just leaving was incredibly destructive too.

The constant need for growth won’t go away. As long as the population grows, economic output needs to grow. All those people need food, shelter, clothing, entertainment, random crap, work, etc.

Yes, in the Western World a lot of it is a distribution problem, but even if we solved that you still can’t expect the rest of the world to just settle for lower standards of living than Europe and North America. They won’t. And they shouldn’t.

You do realise that an asteroid colliding with Earth is a real risk that could kill billions and potentially end all human life?

If the person behind the hostage is a serial killer who is certain to keep killing, yes. We’re talking about an organisation which has broken every ceasefire Israel has ever made with it.

It’s really very telling that you seem to think Hamas deliberately murdering random Israelis in alleged (and I don’t believe Hamas for a second here) response to the actions of Israel in the West Bank is somehow justified, but that Israel striking at actual terrorists and in the process unintentionally killing some of the civilians the terrorists hide behind is not.