Zoraptor

I'd suspect there's at least one person in the WH who's all for AWB free speech, let alone the AfD. Trump should have produced a video about Ramaphosa's role in machinegunning striking workers. Except, of course, Trump and Musk probably see that as something to aspire to rather than condemn.

Handled rather better by Ramaphosa than by Zelensky. Given what happened with Zelensky Ramaphosa was likely far better prepared. Might have been interesting if Nelson Mandela has still been around. Trump probably would have put him back on the terrorist list and deported him to South Sudan.

No one said it was good. It is however better than, well, invading countries and getting a million people killed, training genocidal militia and getting a million people killed and the rest of the things France, Britain, the US and Russia have done. Some of them multiple times. No country accepts Taiwan as independent. It'd be like, well, Georgia deciding to invade reintegrate South Ossetia; except of course that would be an invasion because we like Taiwan and don't like China- and Taiwan makes rather a lot of computer stuff we really don't want China getting their hands on. In terms of actual invasions there's been one from China in the past 60 years which lasted six weeks and resulted in no occupation or similar. Which is just a tad better than those other countries mentioned. Though neither of those examples are exactly great since there are more than a few examples of the west kidnapping people. As well as extrajudicially blowing them up. And invading their countries, and murdering their citizens, then imprisoning the people who blow the whistle on that behaviour rather than the perpetrators. All depends on how you couch the terms of reference. When it comes right down to it most people only care about other people's governments when it effects them- or they're told to by the media. Hence, the use of 'internationally'. China's conduct towards certain ethnic minorities is without doubt genocide; though as we've continually seen recently genocide, torture, mass killing of protected classes like journalists and medics etc is not actually a bar to western support, if we like the perpetrator.

Always kind of amused by this sort of thing. It's truly shocking that China is an enemy to the west if, and only if, the west isn't an enemy to China. Which by any objective measure it quite clearly is. This sort of thing is entirely reciprocal but you're supposed to think that anything They do is wanton aggression, while us doing the same thing is purely defensive. Ever so very slightly Orwellian. Anyone paying attention knows that the west and the US specifically has been sending black boxed systems to China (and everyone else) for literal decades. That's tremendous- everyone says it's tremendous, people stop me on the street to say it- for our security, not so much for theirs. Well, it's tremendous for us so long as our interests coincide with US ones, and the US is a rational player, and has a rational President, and doesn't put its economic precedence first and only and, uh, yeah. By any objective measure China has been by far the best behaved of the major powers internationally. That just isn't saying much, considering how badly the other four permanent members of the UNSC have behaved.

Bethesda games are a great practical example of how good actors cannot spin crap dialogue into gold. To be fair to the people doing the remake, Bethesda faithfully recreate 320 year old bugs into their new games as well thanks to still using Gamebryo with renderer++.

Ironically, given their prior conduct he'd probably do better at the ICC than ICJ. Just wouldn't be able to turn up in person.

BruceVC is a very anglo name. He'd need to change it to something like Janie/ Fanie/ Faf/ Kepler/ Wilhansie/ Bakkies/ Reuben/ Jan or JoostVC in order to claim to be afrikaans. (Does my entire knowledge of Afrikaans first names come from rugby and cricket? Seems so)

My friend, have you not heard the good news about The Prosperity Gospel? God wants you to be wealthy, and if you aren't, it's because you're a dirty sinner. Let's be honest here, strip away the name 'Jesus' from the teachings and an awful lot of Christians would regard them as being 'woke marxism'.

Yep. Without the direct EU access the UK has been trying to make trade deals with anyone. They even joined the Trans Pacific Partnership despite, well, not being anywhere near the Pacific except for intrinsic and important parts of the realm like Pitcairn Island. They were very close to a deal with Biden's administration last year. Not a free trade deal like the TPP, but then this one isn't by any stretch a free trade deal either. It may even have been delayed specifically to give Trump an ego boost.

A search for 'indian rafale shot down' is extremely funny at the moment. All the top results are Indian fact check sites insisting it hasn't happened while it's blatantly obvious they've lost at least one since there's a Rafale engine sitting randomly in a field all over social media. Stupid approach, since it just ends up making you suspect that the Pakistani claims are entirely accurate. If it's done one thing it's made it a lot more likely for India to buy stealth jets as a matter of urgency, and ones that cannot be turned off by the US if they don't like the targets.

Israel approves plan to seize all of Gaza. Funny how Hasbara insisted that was never going to happen, but now it is. Good news for the Palestinians, they're going to go into, shall we say, high density temporary accommodation. For their own protection. And in other lack of news noted orthopaedic surgeon Adnan al Bursh's body has still not been released more than a year after his death in Israeli custody.

Talking about elections with lessons for elsewhere: Romania. Shock win in first round to anti EU candidate, heaven and earth moved to get rid of him first due to 'Russian interference' (turned out it was actually another Romanian party trying to game the system, ho hum, still gets labelled as due to alleged Russian interference by the media), eventually got rid of on financial irregularities. Great victory for democracy. Redo first round election... a different nationalist anti EU candidate wins, with 40% of the vote instead of 23%. Might be better to try addressing the cause, rather than the symptoms.

Even AI thinks Trump is a bad guy. James Weeks confirmed as most successful politician of all time?

The second anglophone election since Trump's 2nd inauguration has gone much the same as the first- previously unexpected swing towards the incumbent left (well, 'left'). Though Australia's Albanese never had the horrific polling of Canada's Trudeau he managed to increase Labor's vote share and it looks like a 2:1 landslide, with the opposition leader losing his seat same as Canada. Extremely funny given how many people on the right thought Trump winning would usher in similar governments elsewhere.

Colour sizes mean 2/3 of sweet fanny adams. It's not an intensity map. For that you want something like this. Though even that only has four levels. It's always easy to say something and paint it onto a nice raster image for people to Just Believe. Did you know New Zealand has the highest deposits of unobtainium in the known world and so much gold we use it for toilet paper? Would you believe it if I put it into a graphic? Back in the land of reality though from the USGS, 2024. ctrl f ukraine, no results. This is utterly unsurprising as that graphic is based on 'Ukraine claims'. No wonder the reserve amounts are, heh, 'classified'. Much like the Rare Earths claimed by Ukraine there's only slightly more evidence they exist than the tooth fairy or Prince Idris Kaore, the temporarily embarrassed Nigerian millionaire who just needs a few hundred to unlock his account.

Make a note of the date, I agree pretty much wholeheartedly with Gromnir. The concept of what inflation is is easy enough to understand. If politicians genuinely didn't get the concept they should have nothing at all to do with economics. But fundamentally the classic politician inference that if inflation goes down prices will go back to how they were- which is obviously a load of bollocks- exists because that will get them votes and allow them to do things they want more easily while the truthful observation that prices won't go back down but will just increase more slowly, won't. You can pretty much guarantee the party that goes for approach A will be the one voters think is more economically literate because it's what they want to be true. eg it's brilliant rhetoric for depressing wages. Inflation is 5% but going down, and when prices 'return to normal' you'll still have that 1.5% pay increase! So you aren't really 3.5% worse off year on year, indeed you'll be 1.5% better off after the prices stabilise! Again, obvious rubbish if you know what inflation actually means. But it's what a lot of people- including many getting that 3.5% effective pay cut- want to hear.

I know a man ain't supposed to cry, but these tears I can't hold inside. Watching WoT would end my sanity, because it's just that, uh hmmm, plain crappy? etc etc and with copious apologies to Marvin Gaye. Not that he's likely to take offence any more. I certainly put in more effort than the show's writers anyway. Except when it comes to finding extra screen time for their boyfriend. (Wheel of Time has the most obvious astroturfing campaign I've ever seen. Starts one week before release, ends one week after the finale. 98% of the 'people' who loved it seem to have completely forgotten about how awesome it was, outside that window)

My weighting is certainly conjectural to a large part, but so is Russia not having the resources to go for more. It seems far more likely that Ukraine will hit its limit first, and once that happens things will go downhill fast. The balance/ compromise for Russia is getting less now against what they'd get when (if) Ukraine collapses and what that would cost them. Sure, if you believe that Ukraine has only had, what, 41k dead while Russia has had 800k then Russia doesn't have the resources to outlast Ukraine. That is not likely to reflect reality though, and anything even approaching 1:1 favours Russia massively- and for this matter most importantly that gets more so as time goes by.

Not much actual evidence that Russian forces need rebuilding (or at least as compared to Ukrainian forces)- except the enormous ex soviet stockpiles which aren't ever going to be replaced by either side. Even if they did, we've been told multiple times that Russia has the GDP of Italy, and surely the collective west could out produce Italy when it comes to munitions. Saying that Russia can rearm while Ukraine cannot only happens if the west abandons Ukraine or if western aid is significantly less than Russia's output. Eh, the compromise Russia makes is ultimately the same one any winner in a war makes- not going for more. Which will greatly upset those who see it in moral terms since it's the bad guy winning, but this isn't a fairy tale.

I really don't know if it's the lack of experience or a deliberate strategy of some kind. It's been too consistent. Foreign policy is always a distant second to domestic politics/ policy and it seems that Zelensky thinks the... unique approach taken plays well at home or he'd try something different, surely. And he's been repeatedly advised how to best handle Trump but seems to have consistently ignored the advice. That ain't on Kubela or Podoliak. You don't need to be the reincarnation of Metternich or Talleyrand to get along with Trump- you just need to be able to fake a smile and mouth platitudes- or for a non Zelensky issue, realise that being described as 'low intellectual potential' is going to annoy Indians and Chinese completely pointlessly. Why pick a fight with Poland over Bandera? You know that's going to be a loser in every respect, except domestically, with a very vocal group. In the end I'm not sure that the constant acritical hero worship and feting from other western leaders is doing Zelensky (and Ukraine) any favours either.

Ukraine is never going to agree anyway, so it's irrelevant. Zelensky would be lined up against a wall and shot by the red and black flag waving Lion Rampant badged pagan iconography enthusiasts for signing over Crimea, and he knows it. Russia is fine with Ukraine joining the EU for the same general reason- no real chance of it actually happening. You only have to look at the reaction of farmers to the very limited amounts of Ukrainian agriculture that was let in, during an actual factual crisis as well, to see why. Joining the EU was never a red line, certainly not in the same way joining NATO was. Zelensky's attitude to Trump certainly isn't helping either. Been a bit of a pattern for Ukraine in general (the completely avoidable diplomatic faux pas have been... not insignificant) but he doesn't seem to know how to handle someone who doesn't fawn over him. Just massage Trump's ego ffs, it might be embarrassing but it's in your country's best interests and yours too really.

No comment on the unexpected occurrence and its merits storywise, but the 'moral' of the overall story ought to work better on TV. Indeed, in some ways it always felt like the game story was adapted from something more 'traditional'. Spoilered for a surfeit of safety.

Oh yeah Donnie, get those interest rates cut. Pump up the bubble because it looks good short term and on paper and makes you look less incompetent. People may like to compare Trump to Putin but the correct comparison is to Recep Tayyip Erdogan- funny money policies and lurching from manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis because it gives your supporters an endorphin hit. Then have fun with your 40% annual inflation while trying to keep your currency as world reserve. If there's one thing that'll get it dropped like a rock it's it being worth 60c instead of a dollar after a year.

Hegseth could at least have given the traditional bastion of top secret military leaks, the WarThunder forums, a heads up instead of keeping it to select officials/ family/ friends/ the mailman and a journalist.

Neville Longbottom's greatest fear is now... a black man, hiding in his closet! If you really do want to do colour blind casting it's absolutely fine. If you want to avoid all 'negative stereotypes' there aren't that many options when it comes to the main characters in Harry Potter except, maybe, Harry himself. Or McGonagal, if you count her as a mc. Not sure I'd like anything else about the series but I'm certainly going to have fun mentally replacing Dumbledore with Richard Solomon or The Trinity Killer in every scene.