xor

It makes it difficult to use the pavement, especially for elderly people and people with disabilities, costs the council a bunch of time and money to repair, and doing the repairs often require killing off the tree

Technically, Gilead is a breakaway state from the US ☝️🤓

Hitler used the burning of the Reichstag as an excuse to clamp down on political dissidence and consolidate his power. It’s still not clear whether it was intentionally caused by the Nazis or just a convenient opportunity for them.

They’re both the respective heads of state, and they’re both not members of the legislative branches.

So yeah, in this context they are effectively the same.

I wasn’t claiming that he hasn’t been the president of France; I did, in fact, notice.

I said that’s not what the president of France does.

It’s like getting mad at the King of England for Canadian laws, that’s just not his responsibility, even if he is head of state.

There’s loads of issues with Macron, but I don’t see how he’s responsible for any of the above

The president doesn’t legislate, and he doesn’t command the police, he’s the executive head of state.

I think that’s largely for the same reason; their legal obligations to ensure they don’t facilitate illegal stuff means that the risk of working with companies that do e.g. amateur porn makes the potential consequences (financial processing ban, i.e. effectively the entire company being shut down) massively outweigh the potential benefits.

So you’re right that PH’s legal liability was part of the reasoning, but that pressure largely came from payment processors, for whom the legal consequences are more severe.

Oh no, a toggle switch! Whatever will we do?!

Actually, the Finns already spend 2.4% of their GDP on defense, making them one of the highest defense spenders in Europe (relative to GDP). And they’re famously very well prepared for wartime scenarios.

Turns out sharing a border with Russia makes military spending look very appealing.

No, it isn’t. Acknowledging that a strategy is ideal for the people executing it isn’t the same as agreeing with that strategy.

In fact, the idiom “a perfect storm” refers to a disastrous situation caused by a combination of multiple problems. You wouldn’t argue that using that phrase means you support the disaster.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by web tech? I don’t know much about how matrix works

GIMP is really powerful, but goddamn its UX is abysmal, unfortunately

Find hot Nicoles in your local Fediverse!

Well yeah, there was a deal on nuclear disarmament until Trump tore it up. Not surprising they’re not interested in going through all that again just so he can back out of it for a second time as soon as he wants to look tough.

In the British monarchy, the monarch (“the Crown”) and the person who is the current monarch are considered distinct “people” with their own separate possessions (i.e. King Charles as the Crown owns property separately to Charles Windsor the private citizen).

So these oaths are meant to be pledging loyalty to the Crown, in its role as the embodiment of the British state, as opposed to the king personally.

The commons library is a treasure trove of information about the UK’s fascinating and complex constitution, I’d strongly recommend giving it a read if you’re interested in this sort of stuff!

Commons Library: the Crown and the constitution

In particular, I’d recommend checking out The United Kingdom constitution – a mapping exercise, which is a document intended to be a reasonably thorough summary of the UK’s constitution and where it comes from. It’s ~300 pages so I wouldn’t recommend reading the whole thing, but it’s great as a reference for the parts you find interesting.

Jesus Christ man. All I said was “it’s possible there will be some form of peace treaty someday” and you’re acting like I shat in your cereal.

Stop being an arse.

Edit: and don’t call people mate before ranting at them. I’m not your friend.

66% of wars end in some form of compromise (source), and it’s highly unlikely there’s a scenario where Ukraine causes the total collapse of the Russian government, or that the fighting just naturally dies down.

It’s all well and good to say “no peace with the bad guys” but that’s a position you’re taking because you don’t want to negotiate with Russia, not because doing so necessarily achieves the best outcome for Ukraine. “They’re mean so I won’t do any form of diplomacy” is, frankly, dogshit statecraft.

If you want to actually understand how wars do, and specifically the Ukraine war could actually end, I strongly recommend reading that CSIS report I referenced.

Well because every war ends with a peace treaty. Ignoring that fact now and making it harder to do so in the future just because a peace treaty isn’t viable now.

All I’m arguing for is making decisions while aware of all the factors? I don’t understand what you’re disagreeing with, really

Well yes, I am aware that Russia has violated numerous treaties. But I’m not arguing for the treaties to be the same, not even for a peace treaty to happen now. Nor am I saying we shouldn’t give some portion of that money to Ukraine.

Are you of the opinion that trump can bring peace to Ukraine quickly?

I feel like I’m being pretty clear that I don’t think anything close to this, no? But your questions seem to be on the basis that I do.

The point I am actually making is that at some point in the future there will be some form of peace negotiations to end the war. That’s not coming from a Trump-esque “peace now because I say so” angle, but from a “every conflict ends in some form of settlement eventually” angle. The fact that this money would act as significant leverage in that scenario means that this isn’t just magic free money, but a tradeoff to be made.

That doesn’t mean it’s the wrong tradeoff, necessarily, just that to actually decide whether or not that’s the case, you do need to consider that it is one.

I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make here, are you arguing that we should aim to keep the war going indefinitely? Because the only way a war ends without a negotiated settlement is with the total dissolution of one of the sides in the war. I don’t see Ukraine fully annexing Russia any time soon, frankly.

The war does need to end sometime, even if that time isn’t now, and creating a peace treaty that’s self-enforcing is the only way that works. If using that money as leverage (e.g. the funds are gradually unlocked as the treaty phases progress) makes a lasting peace viable that otherwise wouldn’t be, then it’s an option worth considering.