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yes, fytoplankton, but those are plants too. THey’ll be extinct in +/-500 years because of the ocean acidification, which is a result of the sea absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere.

Fun fact! In the Netherlands, Elsevier publishes a weekly magazine about politics, which is basically the written version of Fox News for that country. Very nice that those people control like 50% of all academic publishing.

protesting over something so insignificant and inconsequential

Yes and no. The thing itself is small and inconsequential, but the subtext is a protest in favour of joining the EU and joining Schengen. The fact that relatively important EU-politicians are there to speech to the protesters makes that all the more clear.

(Imagine the opposite: like the head of the foreign affairs committe of Belarus talking to anti-governement-protsters in a EU-country. They’d be kicked out of the country immediatly and Belarus got themselves some extra sanctions.)

The current elite in Indonesia came to power by desposing the left-wing nationalist Sukarno and by murdering 2 timmion people suspected of being members of the Communist Party. It had 1 million members at that time. To this day, the perpetrators of that genocide walk around freely, and are celebrated as heroes for “saving the nation” from the “communist traitors”. There’s a museum which celebrates the genocide of the communists and the purpetrators are often on TV talking about how they murdered the inhabitants of village X or Y because it was a hotbed of communism.

For those who want to learn more about this forgotten history, read The Jakarta Method, a book about the Indonesian Genocide and how it functioned as a model for anti-communists all over the Globe (Guatemala, Chile…) and watch the film The Act of Killing, in this film a couple of participants are asked to reenact their killing of communists for a documentary (which they happely do, and in painstaking detail, because the only feedback they’re accustomed to is praise for their acts) which provides a horryfying insight into the way the killing of our comrades is looked at. It’s basically impossible to watch the film in Indonesia, to quote wikipedia.

it is highly risky to submit The Act of Killing, titled Jagal in Indonesian, to the Film Censorship Board, since the probability of it being banned would mean Indonesians can face charges for watching the film, and allowing paramilitary groups to heckle screenings

The question was if heavier cars should pay more. Heavier cars are more expensive to buy, so this means that people who can afford a big car, will pay more. It’s a sort of progressive taxation by proxy.

For context: don’t forget that this isn’t the US: not everyone drives an SUV/pick-uptruck. Here you can see the size of the most popular car in France, compared to a pick-up truck.

It’s scary how little debate this entails. Our countries are in war in Yemen, and I’d say 80% of the public doesn’t even know it.

They still, somehow, maintain one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

Where do you get those numbers? I find completely different ones.