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2 yr. ago

  • It does a few things. First of all Russia seems to lack military assets in the region, so Ukraine can advance rather easily. Russia has to take back that land, otherwise Putin looses a lot of his reputation and it is obviously something to be traded in in peace negotitations. So Russia has to move troops and material from where they have them, which is in the south. Ukraine has been blowing up train engines, so that is not easy and Russia has been loosing tanks, ifv and all sorts of other vehicles for years. They also need more fighting power to push the Ukranians out, which is most likely going to happen. In the meantime Ukraine gets to shoot at unorganized units setting up, take hostages and really make the Russians think about the war being worth it.

    If Ukraine pushes far enough, there is a very defensible line further north, which is shorter and mostly protected by rivers. However that is really pushing it. However if I would be Ukraine, now would be a great time to blow up the Kerch bridge. F-16 just arrived and with that probably some intressting new missiles.

  • There are too many connections as to believe that this is just passive support. Hamas knows it gets support from Israel and both sites benefit from it. Hamas itself is a deeply corrupt and downright evil organization, which is hated in Gaza for torture, rape and destroying public services. They need the big enemy Israel to justify them being in charge.

    Israel or better Netanyahu and his fellow fascists need Hamas to stop peace talks with the Palastinians. If there is a genuine peace in the region, he would almost certainly loose elections. Kind of a similar situation to Hamas really.

  • That is true of every generation. Call it a human flaw.

  • Even in the south in Oslo temperatures above 30C can happen, but are hardly common. So even with climate change, the climate would be about what Germany used to have.

  • The problem with Moroccan houses in cooler climates, is that they are designed so all windows are shaded as much as possible. This is done by having small windows on the outside with permanent shading structures, while there are large windows and doors facing a courtyard. That courtyard is designed to be small, as to make sure that as little direct sunlight hits the windows as possible. At the same time the airflow is disgned to be relativly costant. by using the relativly cool massive walls as a heat sink.

    For a place like Norway, you want pretty much the opposite. Massive windows on the outside facing the sun, as to provide more heat in winter. Places on the building with no direct sunlight, should not have windows, as to loose less heat.

    You then use moveable structures, like opening windows, moveable shading and the likt to adapt to the less common weather like cold days in Morocco and hot days in Norway. But designing a building for the desert, does not make it a good choice on the artic circle.

    • Washing area for clothes, with washing machines and clothes lines.
    • Tool liberary for common tools like hammers, drills and so forth
    • shared transport like car and a large cargo bike

    Another big one, which is often forgotten is to add space for shops or similar commercial use cases on the ground floor. Mixed use minimizes the length people have to travel. Also some of them can be in the back area. There are quite a few commercial spaces, which do not really need street access. Things like doctors offices, lawyers, but also many craftspeople come to mine(as long as it does not smell, is toxic or loud).

  • They are a good choice for places with climates like Morocco. Passive cooling is the last thing you want in say Norway for most of the year.

  • The last budget also only had €4billion for Ukraine aid. That was increased by €3billion to the €7 billion actually send in the end. The reason for that is simple. We do not know how the war will continue or even if. So the German government signs big deals with the military industry, which give the industry the ability to set up large scale production, but allow the German government to stop ordering more weapons quickly. Then additional funding is approved as need be. So if somebody takes Putins job and makes peace with Ukraine, Germany does not send unneeded arms to Ukraine.

    Sorry, but that is the background. German government communication sucks for a lot of reasons.

  • A Biden donor event, where Biden and Alex Jones fight to the death. All on a livestream and tv. It being offical presidental business it would be legal according to SCOTUS for Biden to kill Jones. Whatever the outcome the Democrats presidential candiate will be seen as fit as well. If Biden looses, Jones is being thrown into prison.

    And people say Trump is a showman....

  • Correct on a per capita bases Portugal has been growing much much faster then Germany. The simple truth it that Germany is not benefiting from austerity either. What should happen is that the German government massively increases spending. This would turn Germany from a net exporter, to a net importer. That allows the PIIGS to export products to Germany paying down the debt, but it also stimulates the economy. Germany profits from the increased spending as well.

    The simple truth is that German life expectancy is declining since a couple of years(being below Spain, Italy and Portugal btw). Median wealth of Italy, Spain and Portugal is higher then that of Germany, which is only slightly higher then that of Greece. Real wages in Germany have gone up by 3.8% over the last decade(not annually but the entire decade).

    The only ones who really profit from this austerity are the super rich. Other then that it is as bad a policy for Germany as it is for Italy, Portugal, Spain or Greece.

  • Spain has grown faster then Germany for most of the last decade(besides 2020). Out of PIIGS Portugal and Ireland also have done pretty well. Greece got hit hard and Italys economy has problems since the 90s(aka not a EU/Euro problem).

    Also Norway is not an EU member.

  • Those parties are in the current Spanish government. Also the issue of independence is talked about less. Hence this is possible.

  • If only Germany would not be willing to recognice Palestine, then this might happen, but that is not the case. France and Italy the two next most powerfull countries do not recognice Palestine either.

    Germany is usually fairly happy with the current state of the EU. The things Germany wants to change are usually also supported by Spain and that means blackmail is harder. The only exaption to that is finance. However Spain is not going to let billions go to waste to have Palestine recogniced. That is just more of a symbol, rather then massivly important.

    Also Germany leaving the EU would cause some massive problems in other EU countries as well. They would hardly be cheering for it.

  • Foreign policy needs consensus. So the EU can not force Germany to do anything in terms of foreign policy.

  • Unlikely. Germany most likely is not going to recognice Palestine for a long time.

  • First of all EVs do not need that much power. We are talking something like 25% more electricity production for a country like Japan. Then Japan has rather a lot of onshore and even more offshore wind potential. Mountains are a problem, but hardly something which can not be overcome. Solar can easily be installed on roofs and mountains are even less of a problem.

    Also really important to say it. Combustion engines in cars are massivly inefficent. So an EV is still better for the climate, even if run with coal electricity. The other factor is that Japans population is falling. So they will need less power over the long term.

  • Oil companies usually do not, but electricity companies do. The problem is that oil companies are great in geology, drilling and chemistry. Geothermal is a similar skill set and chemistry can be used in other products, but the first is small business and the other not renewable nexessarily.

  • The project was always dumb. The way you do it, is to have one large project in the new city center to grab headlines and create a symbol for the city. The rest should be cheaper lower end buildings. NEOM is just the expensive mega projects, without the normal construction.The simple truth is that Saudi Arabia has just such a project with the King Abdullah Economic City, with what is planned to be the tallest building in the world. The issue is that Saudi Arabia just can not be a playground for the super rich. There are just not enough of them to make it work.

  • There are a few ways of going about it. One is third parties. If you vote for the Green Party for example, you get voting reform, anti genocide policies and a much better enviromental policy. At the same time Biden is still much better then Trump and being realistic about what you can get should also be part of voting strategy. Also it is incredibly important to say, that citizenship does not end at the ballot box. You got to and can do more to influence politics. So I would probably vote Biden in a swing state and Green Party in an state, which is not a swing state. This matters in two ways. Firstly the more people vote third party, the more likely they can get into some actual power, but also the Democrats see that they can gain potential votes, by improving policies.

    Also no lesser evil has to be distinguised from compromise and deals. If you get an actual improvement out of doing something, it can be worth doing even at a price. So if two countries face a powerfull invader, it can be worth making a deal that country A gets 40% of the invaders land and country B also 60%, if country B is already stronger for example. In that case both get something out of it. However without the alliance both would probably fail. In this case the question is, if Biden would actually net improve the US compared to today.