Elerond

In 2017 Afghanistan's budget balance was in -2.5 billion dollars and it got worse after that, but they have only 1.3 billion of debt, so without foreign aid there would be nothing left of those 7 billion worth of assets today. Also currently Da Afghanistan Bank does not have official leadership and it does not have official position in Taliban governance, so its formality is not that simple. Taliban is also bit on thin ice when complaining about US seizing those funds considering how much foreign assets Taliban seized when they took over the Afghanistan

Technically they weren't Afghanistan's money but international aid to rebuild Afghanistan, which is why they were in US and why US was able to freeze them and take over them. They were mostly money paid by US tax payers. EDIT: They were Afghanistan's money in sense that they were promised to them and there was already budgeted targets for them, but all those projects were cancelled when Taliban took over, so technically Taliban should start again all those projects again in order to get access to that money.

Corporal punishment had been illegal in Finland now 35 years and we are in brink of anarchy, as young people don't have any form respect towards their elders.

Aren't they guilty by association same way as BLM protesters? And it would be acceptable to take them all away in unmarked cars by people not wearing uniforms?

They have applied to it already several times

It become even harder to get credit when your credit score is lower just because of zip code for area where you live because it is seen as poor/bad/etc. area, which is true for almost all areas where majority population belongs to minorities in USA. https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201209_Analysis_Differences_Consumer_Credit.pdf

So they can't teach anymore that Jesus is God's son?

There has been lack if good leadership for past 80000 years, which is why we have seen constant change of leadership EDIT: Costa has been PM of Portugal for over 6 years now. His win is surprise because people have not liked his policies, but it seem that they like opposition even less. EDIT2: with that win Costa was able to keep his promise that he doesn't let hard left parties like Communists and Left Block in the government

Russia has already seen this as possible scenario and created alternative SPFS, also EU has planned INSTEX to trade with countries that aren't part of SWIFT

ironically one of reason why we are where we are is because Ukraine gave up of its WMDs, because Russia and USA (plus UK and France) promised to ensure its territorial integrity

Joining Nato needs change in Finland's constitution and in order to do that parliament needs to have 2/3 majority and then next parliament needs to also vote for change with 2/3 majority. Or parliament needs 5/6 majority to change constitution without need for next parliament to accept the change. Or government can organize constitutional referendum. There is no 5/6 majority that supports the joining to Nato and referendum seems hopeless considering that only 25% of people support joining to Nato, so if government wants to join the Nato they would need to take risk and face election after starting unpopular change in constitution.

Trump's and Biden's actions have almost ensured that Finland will not join in NATO in next 10 years. As only 25% of Finnish people support joining Nato, as it is seen increasing problems with Russia and bringing only hollow promises of help in case of invasion. Majority of members of Finland's parliament have supported joining Nato from 1995, but support for Nato among voters has not increased in past decade much. Finland and Sweden are members of EU and its defensive pacts so it is quite open that we are not neutral, which we say in every time it is asked. In case of Nato vs Russia, Finland has military co-operation agreements with both, Sweden has only with Nato, neither has defensive pacts either Nato or Russia. Concept Finland and Sweden being neutral come from Cold War, when we didn't join either NATO or Warsaw Pact and had trade and diplomatic relationships with members of both alliances.

Which is reason why classes that teach critical thinking are now more important than ever, because if you aren't able to real knowledge from falsehoods that pool of knowledge in your hand does little to help you, but instead leads you to hazardous waters of false information that has high likely hood cause damage to you and people around you.

Yeah that is true, Disney can't afford MS, but MS has cash on hand half of Disney's market value, so MS could actually buy Disney if it they want and Disney is on sale

An example of artist trying to market themselves and cash in by using design flaws in copyright system. Like how they registered their copyright two months after LEGO published their set Argument is that LEGO copied their arrangement of the elements as art in elements itself are different from the original piece and you can't copyright jackets. Arrangement of elements claim is mainly based on feeling to see art on jacket (which can't be copyrighted) as LEGO has added some elements in it and removed other elements. Feeling based claim get boost from that LEGO's set is official Netflix Queer Eye product and as the jacket was used in the show the set clearly tries to imitate spirit of the jacket and therefore spirit of the art in the jacket. Interestingly artist has not sued actually breakers of his copyright Netflix and Queer Eye, which used jacket without getting permission from the artist. Although artist gifted the jacket to member of Queer Eye in hopes that it will used in the show, which gives implied permission to use it in the show, but as this LEGO set is marketing for the show implied permission to use the art becomes more muddy. And it seem that they have used in Queer Eye multiple pieces from this artist and this jacket was only one which they have not got license to use art in the marketing of the show. But in the of day it looks like one of those copyright cases were person sues big company in hopes to get settlement, because copyright court cases are long and expensive.

https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/malnutrition/by-country/ It seem that I looked wrong line for Venezuela. Correct one is 1.97 per 100k. They use WHO's numbers, which of course can be wrong but I have not seen better ones

~2966 people die per year because of malnutrition in USA every year (0.9/100k people) ~540 people die per year because of malnutrition in Venezuela every year (1.9/100k people )

It is bit double edged sword thing, as almost all the countries where there has been socialist goverment-managed economy have had socialist revolution because majority of people there didn't have money or food and no prospect for better life which lead them to support socialist revolutionist who promised them better life. So they were already countries which economy was failing, but it is true that socialists who have taken over those countries don't have good track record when it comes to fix their countries failed economies. Usually their policies have lead their countries to worse than they were before revolution, but often they have suffered from trade sanctions from the world riches countries for various reasons.

But BruceVC they are fighting against local Kazakhstan equivalent of BLM movement

Using pepper pray against people is only war crime in war, when police uses it against civilians it is okay

It is communists that people fear Like for example Germany's Strafgesetzbuch section 86a which prohibit public showing of Nazi symbols was adopted during Cold War to block communists parties in West Germany as side effect it also bans Nazi symbols.

In vegan diet problem is often that people that go full vegan also go full organic, which means that they need to have good knowledge of sources of different vitamins and dietary minerals and make their meals versatile in order not have any deficiencies. In organic mixed/meat diets there is often same problems that you are missing some vitamins (like A, C and D vitamins especially during winter in areas where sun only is up couple hours) and dietary minerals like iodine and calcium. As people have accustomed that they don't need make their meals very versatile because of all added vitamins and minerals in typical products that you can by from store, which is people have more often problem with excess of things than deficiencies in their diets.

It was surprise, because we added infectious disease section in the constitution after swine flu in 2009, to give government tools to react quickly to pandemics, but we found out that it had lots of design problems when it come to restrict people's right to travel and gather and business right to do their business. Government had to use quite lot emergency powers meant to for war times, which our parliament felt were governmental overreach, which is why enabling restrictions using them took quite long time and no proactive measures could be used. We also found that competition laws prevented government giving direct assistance to companies, so government had to use development funds to support businesses impacted by covid measures, which meant that businesses had to come up with some sort development plan for their business in order to get assistance. I hope that during next pandemic we have bit more flexible laws that allow to do proactive measures against the disease instead of waiting that situation gets worse enough to allow usage of emergency laws

During this pandemic we have learned that Finland's constitution makes all sort enforcement difficult even if they are meant to protect people from pandemic. Because of business reasons clubs, large social events etc. can disregard all restrictions and guidance if they check that their customers have covid passport to show that they are fully vaccinated or have negative test result from last 72 hours