Trump and Putin their relationship isn’t going to reverse. Trump is a gullible idiot and Putin is not, if they meet and negotiate face to face, then Putin is going to get what he wants. Especially because Trump has said before negotiations even started, that he wanted to give the occupied lands to Russia. Trump is such a “master negotiator” that he sells out his own side before the talks even start. This is why Putin wants to negotiate alone with the usa, without the eu countries or NATO present.

The Observer is one of the oldest news papers in the world. Generally quality journalism I think, though I’m not a regular reader. Since a few decades under the same ownership as the guardian, but apparently sold 2 months ago.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Observer

And articles changing after first publishing happens quite a lot. It beats putting out a separate article for every small development in an ongoing story. For example: entity A said x about B, and later there’s an update wherein B denies x happened. In quality journalism it used to be done in clear updates at the bottom and/or top of the article. But now with Trump, A is claiming x and then later A realizes how dumb that was, so A claims they never said x and that they’ve always been saying y. Good luck reporting on that in a clear and concise manner.

Officially it’s allowed after April 17th, but there’s already an extensive list of approved devices.

https://www.test-aankoop.be/woning-energie/hernieuwbare-energie/nieuws/plug-and-play-zonnepaneel

There’s probably a french version of that article as well, but test- achats/aankoop hasn’t made it easy to switch languages :)

These plugin systems shut down automatically when there’s a power outage. To make sure that they really do shut down when needed, in Belgium only plugin systems that have been approved by the network management organisation may be used. The other countries that allow these probably have similar precautions.

Pickups have their uses in Europe as well. Where I live, it seems like most pest controllers (rat catchers, an easy to clean open trunk is probably very nice) and land surveyors prefer them over other vehicles. They all use smaller sensible size pickups from Japanese brands though.

I think I’ve spotted only 2 different modern USA oversized pickups in traffic. Both full black, never a speck of dirt on them, always tailgating someone. They are vastly outnumbered by the sensible pickups, but you just can’t miss spotting them in traffic.

I think that if food delivery was treated how my last postal package was treated, then all food would be arriving as a soup, or maybe as a goulash.

Parliamentary democracy with a monarch as non-executive head of state. So being monarch is a mostly ceremonial role, with the seldom used power to temporarily veto or morally object against bad ideas. Juan Carlos saved the Spanish democracy in 1982 for example.

The eu commission warning was officially only aimed at their internal services, it wasn’t a mandate that all organisations within the eu should stop advertising on x. Though it wouldn’t surprise me if it comes to a total ban in the eu, X is already under investigation for disinformation.

Years ago my university restaurant was modernized to have different kinds of food counters. After the modernization they had 2 problems with the salad bar: one problem was that some people were ordering meat at the grill counter and then piling salad on top to hide the meat, but more common was people building small salad towers, enough to feed multiple people with 1 plate. Eventually the restaurant resorted to billing the salads based on weight, which mostly solved the problem, but it also lead to a drastic drop in the consumption of tomatoes and cucumber.

I read an interesting article about this phenomen a few weeks ago; https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/aging-time-speed-faster-reason-cause-b2673746.html

What those statistics do not take into account is the different incidence rates of men/women being out alone at night.

Because women feel more afraid going out into the dark alone, they’re less likely to do so, creating less opportunities for them to be robbed/raped/killed.

To make an analogy:
What are my chances to drown in the sea if I never go swimming in the sea? 0% chance.
What if I go swimming once a week, with a risk of drowning of 0.5% each time I do so: then there’s ~23% chance that I’ll drown by the end of the year.
What if go swimming twice a year, but because I’m such an amateur the chance that I drown is 5%: there is ~10% chance that I drown by the end of the year.

Conclusion: even though it is 10x more dangerous for the inexperienced swimmer to go swimming in the sea, in a given year the experienced swimmer is still 2.3 times more likely to drown in the sea than the inexperienced one.

If you’re curious what their official children are up to: https://english.elpais.com/usa/2021-04-20/nicaraguas-political-dynasty-heirs-in-a-golden-cage.html

Tldr: the eldest daughter accused her father of sexual abuse and had to run to Costa Rica. The lives of the other 8 adult children + the lives of their families are mostly controlled by the president’s wife.

Also the same category as Reagan’s election and the embassy hostages + Iran contra affair. It’s part of the standard republican playbook now.

Canceling to downgrade your 365 subscription is the “normal” Microsoft way, so that part is not a new scummy practice that was invented for this scummy occasion. I do hope this forced upsell comes back to bite Microsoft in the ass, most consumers won’t be aware of the downgrade option, but consumer agencies shouldn’t let this slide, it’s setting a very bad precedent.

The ms instructions:

1. Go to Services & subscriptions and if prompted, sign in with the Microsoft account associated with your subscription.
2. Find your current subscription and select Manage > Cancel subscription.
3. The Cancel page will show you the features of your current subscription plan. If you’re switching to another plan with less features, select the plan that works for you.
4. Follow the instructions to complete the switch. Your existing subscription might not change immediately, but it will automatically change to the new plan when the plan renews. You won’t be charged for the new plan until it renews into that plan.
   https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/switch-between-microsoft-365-subscriptions-3fcc1efc-2722-427f-8efa-db94b9b0a36b

I had something like this on my hybrid, but it was fortunately spotted when I had my winter tires put on.

The problem was rust between the calipers and pads, which meant that the pads could come loose from even a mild impact.

Animal Farm is the allegoric tale about communism in Russia.

1984 is more general about totalitarianism, still based on stuff that went on in Nazi Germany + Soviet union + wartime England, but it wasn’t a full allegory of things that had already happened. It was more like a science-fiction prediction of the bad things that could happen in any nation if democracy and human rights were not protected.

I still would love to hear your explanation of why he is “waving” at the American flag.

So according to you, Elon Musk has his heart in his upper left side longue, close to his left shoulder. Sounds like one special kind of human.

And if that’s just waving, then why according to you did he wave to the American flag? Is that just how south-africans salute the usa flag, by “waving” at it?

And I also call bullshit on the claim of having watched countless videos. If you had, then you had seen a much greater variety of Nazi salutes. Nazis as they got older and/or higher in the Nazi hierarchy, they became sloppier with the Nazi salutes. Sometimes the mind is willing, but the body says no.

What the hell are you on about?

Elon Musk does an unmistakable Nazi salute, you claim he was just “waving”, despite there not even having been a waving motion, just the one swing from left shoulder to full extended right arm, which is a textbook Nazi salute. And now you come with whataboutism about Hamas and I don’t even know what’s the point of it.

What kind of troll are you?

Have you seen the video? He did an unmistakable Nazi salute to the crowd, then turned around and did the same Nazi salute towards the USA flag. This was as Sieg heil as Nazi salutes come.