Back in 2014 I thought we are witnessing the beginning of WW3 and even went so far as to head down to the shops and buy enough food for ~ 2 weeks.

Call me cynical, but in 2022 I felt more like “You guys are surprised about this? Really?”

1. It can be viewed as part of your privacy to not be subject to defamation.
2. If it reaches the threshold of defamation it is punishable. Whether its enforcement is feasible is another matter.

I think given the current state of the Russian military, implementing Red Storm Rising is off the table.

Trump also undermined Denmark’s claim to Greenland, saying it was “very far away and really has nothing to do” with the island.

Well, except, you know … the whole Nordic/Viking settlements thing?

It is somewhat bewildering to realize that we have come all this way in technology but somewhere something is always turning water into steam to drive a piston of some sort.

Nope, all they collect is date of registration and last time the client connected to the server. Has been proven in court.

I am not 100 % sure I understand your point here. Using paper ballots doesn’t mean you have to submit your vote via mail. You can still use local polling stations.

I assume you are from the US, so here is what we do in Germany:

• You are notified via mail of the upcoming election you are eligible to take part in (No special registration required, only the usual registry with the municipality if you move to a new place)
• Option A: You opt in for a (paper) mail ballot
  • You receive a ballot via mail that you fill out and then double wrap the ballot: The ballot goes into an official unmarked envelope that is later placed with every other mail-in ballot of the district. The unmarked enveloped goes into a regular envelope for transportation via mail (which is free of charge)
• Option B: On the day of the election, you head to your assigned local polling station
  • You identify yourself by one of the official forms (Personal ID, driving licence, passport)
  • You are handed a blank paper ballot ([example from northern Germany](file:///home/se/Downloads/Muster-Stimmzettel_zur_Bundestagswahl_2025_im_Wahlkreis_1.PDF))
  • You make your choice behind a privacy screen
    • Law declares that the head of the local election council has to be able to view both the booth and the voter (but of course not the vote) except in some special circumstances.
  • The ballot is then placed in a sealed urn
  • After the deadline at 18:00 the urn is unsealed and votes are counted
    • Critically: This counting is public. While not many people do, it is explicitly allowed to watch the officials at this stage
  • After tallying the votes, the ballots are bundled up, sealed and handed to the officials on the municipality level.

One of the many issues with electronic voting are those last two steps: Examining the votes can never be public, as we are simply unable to look at the state of all electrons in a computer.

+1 for paper ballots (relevant xkcd )

-9999 for banning voting booths

I’m eagerly waiting for his upcoming book about this terrible disease.

I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a bit longer as John probably has to add a few more chapters due to current events …

US simultaneously wants the world to depend on them while also treating them like second class Allies.

That’s a core principle of colonialism: The colony acts as a cheap resource provider and sales market for the colonizer at the same time while having no actual autonomy.

We also can see a similar dynamic in modern globalism where production facilities were moved to countries where labour is cheap. Which is the reason many people call globalism colonialism 2.0.

I know it is reassuring to believe there is some form of higher power, be it religious or in your case some form of deep state waiting to spring into action but the simple through is: There is no one coming to save us from ourselves.

It sounds cliché but: Be the change you want to see. You don’t have to become the next Luigi or otherwise “give yourself to the cause” but simply do what is within your means. Help where you can readily do so and even if you have to participate in the system you can do so in the least efficient way possible.

Even better you can also do a GDPR to change your email. The GDPR doesn’t just cover your right to deletion but also the right to correct wrong information.

A minority government of Red-Green-Red (SPD, Grüne, Linke) would force the conservatives to either work productively with the other democratic parties or side with the fascists of the AFD. It would basically boil down to whether or not Merz will do again what he promised he wouldn’t do (working with the AFD). Should he do that, I very much expect the CDU to “decapitate” itself by splitting from left to right: The MAGA people around Merz, Linnemann, Spahn and Dobrindt get ousted by the traditional conservatives.

Most likely outcome? Probably. Most favourably, though? Probably not.

I’m not mure what you sean?

What foes the thinking? The flesh.

“Capable” in this context doesn’t just refer to training alone.

As laid out in the video, Russian recruits are getting older and older (as in: have sometimes even fought in Soviet era conflicts) and recruitment standards are dropped more and more (apparently having Schizophrenia is OK for a Russian soldier) to keep a steady influx of warm bodies. Next, Russian recruits appear to be broadly separated into two groups: The meat shields who are rushed to the front with minimal training to plug the biggest holes in the units (stark examples include only multiple days between reported recruitment and death). The second group is going through a more traditional training regiment but also shortened. This shortening also applies to officer candidates.

In short: Recruits are getting less physically capable due to the average age increasing drastically over time, and militarily less capable due to shortened or basically nonexistent training.

As for the Ukrainians: I expect the video with analysis on their casualties and recruitment to drop this week.

Russia won’t run out of troops, but they will run out of capable troops: Russian Casualties & Force Generation - Losses, Recruitment & Sustaining the war in Ukraine

Apparently I misinterpreted this statement by Scholz. I initially thought when I heard about it, he was speaking on behalf of the whole SPD and not just himself.

He is not leading anything at the moment. His party won the most votes, but is far from having 50% + 1 seat. Merz depends on forming a coalition, and he basically alienated everyone.