This is great, But using Microsoft Windows should be illegal for public services in EU.
We can no longer allow ourselves to depend on American IT infrastructure.

Only as long as Microsoft allow it, and only because a lot of work was put into that shit. The first couple of years it was very flaky.

There are so many graphs where things start to decline under Ronald Regan.

Personally I see the victory of Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter as the turning point, but you make good points about it already happening under Nixon. But at least Nixon was removed for Water Gate, while Reagan came out of the Iran Contra affair completely unscathed.
As I see it, Jimmy Carter may have been the best president USA ever had, he had the right foresight about sustainability symbolized by the solar panels he put up on the White House, and he warned about consumerism, and was 100% a decent human being.
When USA elected Ronald Reagan instead, they abandoned all those values, very much like they did when electing Trump. An obvious malignant narcissists, the most dangerous personal disorder that exist!

And yes the media is a huge part of the problem too, that was already extremely obvious under Bush, where in the beginning there were opposition to a war in Iraq based on false intelligence, that was decidedly contrary to what the UN observers reported. But the media turned 100% one sided to support it, and even questioning it became anti American!
American news media are generally pretty bad, an example of that was when John Stewart on his comedy show provided more accurate news than the actual news! Also like him or not, the firing of Keith Olbermann was a 100% political decision, and American media has systematically weeded out news sources they consider too anti Republican.

Where USA is now is a very sad turn to where we were headed in the 70’s. We do have a bit of the same problem in EU, but nearly as bad, but abandoning traditional values do happen under the guise of pragmatism. Even here in Social Democratic Denmark, the protection of the week is not nearly as strong as it used to be.

OK then make traditional factory jobs pay well enough to own a house and see your children through college again.
A factory worker makes less today than they did in the 50’s!!! Because the 1% has managed to grab all the money in their infinite greed. The money grab of the rich is the biggest heist in the history of mankind.

Also not every billionaire needs to flaunt with how enormously ignorant they are on basic issues of society.
The rich need to be taxed on their fortune. Nobody needs to be as rich as the 1%.

I have always followed USA closely, both regarding culture business and politics. In the 70’s as a child/teen, I really admired USA and everything looked so promising. American heroes were the best heroes back then.

It’s very disappointing to me that it hasn’t turned out better, all the good ideals used to be there, and USA has so much culture.
Europeans that claim USA doesn’t have culture, seem to forget that USA is the biggest exporter by far of cultural content.

I thought that when Bush was elected the second time, it would be a lesson to the American population, so I kind of gave up hope for USA already first time Trump was elected, because he was so obviously way way worse than Bush. Of course Americans don’t have the luxury of just giving up, without having to live with the consequences and without hope.

But people like Musk, Zuckerberg, Thiel and Bezos and of Course Trump need to go, and there needs to be a limit to how much money and power an individual or a family like can have, like how the Koch Brothers ruined so much. Also there must be a limit to how much power a single company can have. At least that’s my opinion.

OK so when did you hear of an actual successful attack that could have been avoided if the user had used secure boot?

Microsoft secure boot is 100% made to be a pain in the ass for Linux users. It doesn’t add any security, but is instead a huge added unnecessary risk factor for data loss for users.

if at some level they understand that a Russian victory is a green light to other dictators

We absolutely do, and did from the start, way before Trump threatened with invading Greenland and Canada.
USA has been a big disappointment in this situation even under Biden, but with Trump the disappointment is complete.

Just as you feel ashamed for the actions of Trump, I also feel sorry for all the non crazy Americans that are suffering through the political insanity that exist in USA.
As I see it, USA as a country is mentally ill, and it’s not just Trump, it’s the general population that elected him.

Of course that doesn’t mean everybody, but just like cancer can kill a person, even though not all cells in the body are cancerous, so has USA as a country gone crazy, because a sufficiently big part of the population has.

I can’t even begin to imagine how it must be as a sane person to live in USA right now? Especially considering I’m living in Denmark that is one of the worlds best democracies, and we are in EU, surrounded by neighbors that also are strong supporters of democracy, international law and human rights.

All I can say is best wishes to you, in the hope that USA comes to its senses, but I must say, the way things are going, my hopes are not great.

First past the post is undemocratic IMO. It tends to result in 2 party systems, where both parties tend to become bad options.

set a terrible preciseness

I guess you mean precedence.

needless deaths and way more money spent

100% true, if USA and NATO hadn’t put those stupid limitations on Ukraine to not attack into Russian territory or attack oil infrastructure for 3 years, Ukraine could have done what they are doing now a lot sooner, and undermined the Russian oil industry, making it impossible for Russia to afford the war to continue.

They say that a grain of rice can tip a scale,

And it’s true.
Overall good points IMO. 👍

I’m from Denmark, and I’m proud that our entire parliament supports Ukraine, and our government is among the most active in supporting Ukraine, and the population overwhelmingly supports the government in this.

Yet they chose to join EU, and then work against it?
Hungary was among the more progressive countries before the Soviet Union collapsed, so I still think it’s kind of Ironic they are now so backwards compared to many neighbors they used to be ahead of.

I understand your frustration, but the fault is not entirely hers, the real problem is that USA has a very flawed democracy, with only 2 realistic options to vote for, where better democracies have both more and better options.
The fault was also with the democrats and Biden and Harris for failing to realize they were in the wrong position morally.
I absolutely hate that “we” got Trump, but Ilhan Omar remains an ally against him, not an enemy.

By “we” I mean the world, because I am not American. But Trump has done a lot of harm outside USA too.

how many Ukrainians do you think Russia has trained to be extremely good at shooting a Browning M2 .50 cal heavy machine gun accurately

I’m guessing that considering Ukrainian military superior skills, 1 for each major city should be enough. 😋
OK just kidding, I get your point, Russia has made the entire Ukrainian population part of the war. Which makes Ukraine outnumber Russia even with a fourth the population.

You are 100% right, for example the original Shahed drones were pretty cheap, but now they need more sophisticated guidance systems so Ukrainians can’t take them down by spoofing them, and they are made faster to avoid being shot down. The result is that 1 new Shahed is almost 10 times as expensive as the original!
With the Russian economy becoming more and more stressed, it is getting harder and harder for Russia to scale up or keep up with Ukraine.
If EU manages to release the frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, Russia will be in a very dire economic disadvantage next year.

Also Ukrainians are innovating new more efficient and cheap systems, while Russia can only make better systems that are way more expensive. So new innovation seems to be better in Ukraine, despite Russia has both bigger population to draw from and a bigger economy. But the efficiency in methods in Ukraine are way way better than Russia.

It’s insane how Hungary persist in destroying their own economy for Putin.
When the old European eastern block countries were admitted into EU, Hungary was the richest of them all, now 21 years later they have become one of the poorest! And in GDP PPP Romania has now caught up with Hungary, that used to be way richer.

Same with Slovakia, since they split from Czechia to follow their more “socialist” which were actually just Russia friendly policies, Slovakia has fallen more and more behind.

AFAIK the 2 worst performing economies in EU, yet they stand by the old authoritarian corrupt traditions over embracing democracy and progress.

Thanks for archived link. 👍 😀

I don’t see how this can be viewed as anything but straight up murder.

Its decisions, however, are non-binding, as the U.S. has not ratified the treaty to enforce its actions.

The American way as usual, the country that proclaimed itself as the protector of democracy, is not a member of ICC with 125 member nations either, and AFAIK any of the stronger bodies that exist to protect democracy and/or human rights.

On the contrary USA has worked decidedly against such organizations!

Which distro has Factorio as part of the standard package system?
Seems like a nice way to save €32,-.

The USA now has death penalty just for being suspected of a crime without evidence.
USA is a rogue nation.

Allegedly it is a Russian tactic to try to exhaust Ukrainians for ammo!
The Russian cruelty is insane, not just against Ukrainian, but also against their own.