They have US military bases there

There are no US military bases in Cyprus. There are british ones(since Cyprus used to be part of the British Empire).

And there is 0% chance that Cyprus would let israeli military launch attacks from Cyprus.

Nor is there much strategic reason to do so, unless Hezbollah has some s-300/400 and Israel needs to go around them and attack from a different direction. But they dont. And even if they had, Cyprus has basically no reason to allow Israel to do that and there is 0 precedent for that either.

I think it is just Hezbollah being an attention whore.

It is chinese owned but Volvo is still a thing in Sweden. Geely bought them(Volvo Cars), gave them infinite money, so that Volvo could design and make cars like the 2nd gen xc90. In return Geely acquired the technology and know how on how to make quality cars.

Nowadays, Volvo can combine their world leading car design with Geely’s electric vehicle platforms. Thats how you get a car like upcoming volvo ex30, that is cheap and (probably) good.

When Volvo was owned by Ford, it was about to go the way of the Dodo(aka Saab). Geely saved it and made it a competitive car brand.

From what i have read, it was a freelancer dude who wrote 1 article for Al Jazeera, 5+ years ago. I dont know why there is this need to make everything so biased/black and white.

No, it isnt anything like that. The EU elections are different than the national ones and they arent explicitly connected in any way.

But they are implicitly connected. His party just did very badly in the EU elections. He could technically continue to govern till the next national elections or he could go to early national elections and ask the voters “hey, you didnt vote for me in the EU elections, do you still want me to rule this country or not? Please confirm that you still continue to support me”.

Basically Macron is saying “You just saw how fucked things are, with the far right getting over 30% of the votes in the EU elections. Vote for me or the fascists will win”. It is a move intended to rally the voters to his party but he also risks losing the elections(resulting in a fascist government).

As a general rule, in many countries the governing party does worse in the EU elections, because the EU elections are often used as an opportunity to vote for small/minor political parties or protest vote. The EU parliament isnt as legislatively relevant. They dont make laws, they just approve/reject laws proposed by the EU Commision.

The EU Commision isnt directly elected by the voters. The european country governments appoint EU Commission members(one from each country) and the EU parliament votes for the EU Commission leader. This is a point of contention.

Technically it is “democratic” because eventually everything comes down to either national european governments(who are democratically elected) or the EU parliament(which is also democratically elected). But many people think it is weird to have the most powerful EU institution appointed instead of directly elected. The procedure isnt as transparent as people would like and it involves a lot of backdoor “politicking”.

PS On the other hand, directly electing the EU Commission would give its members a lot more political power, basically on par or higher with the elected country leaders. Being directly elected greatly increases your political power.

This looks awful. The rifle keeps going up and down while it is walking, no stabilization and they didnt show any accuracy data. You might as well ducktape a rifle to a roomba.

Aiming at targets far away is very hard. Even if it has to stop to shoot, how does it aim? By moving the body of a giant robot dog? That doesnt seem it has the sensitivity it needs. If the rifle is moving that much during walking, how can you accurately aim at anything, since you dont know where the rifle will be aiming when you stop? The camera seems to be on the robot and not on the rifle and everything is jiggling.

Also why even use a full goddamn rifle? You wont have a human holding it, you can just use a modified barrel basically. Are they not embarrassed by how bad this looks? Are they so clueless?

What he is saying is that Gotland is extremely strategically important to Russia(and Sweden/NATO). It is also an island with 50k population, basically deserted, which can be used as an excuse(would countries be willing to go to WW3 over such an island?). An island that Sweden demilitarised in the past.

If Russia wants to fuck with the Baltic States(high probability, especially if things go well for them in Ukraine), Gotland will be part of that plan. Russia wants to deploy anti-air missile systems there that would enable them to air blockade the Baltic States.

This messaging is essential in order to signal to the world that a threat exists so if shit goes down, the world(NATO allies) will be mentally prepared to be involved.

It is “very easy” for Russia(or many countries who dont care about diplomatic fallout) to create a fait accompli and conquer small stuff. And then it is up to the morale of your country and your allies, to see if they have the will to fight back, like Ukraine did for example.

Actually Halo Infinite might come out on ps5. Microsoft is publishing a lot of their games to Playstation atm. Sea of Thieves, Hi-fi rush, Grounded, Pentiment are all out on ps5.

Sea of Thieves was one of the big xbox exclusive games, developed by Rare, which is owned by Microsoft since 2002 and all the games they have made in the last 15+ years have been xbox exclusive.

Trump is ahead in polls. If the US doesnt provide help to Ukraine, Ukraine has 0% chance of winning. Europe does not have the military inventory or production to provide meaningful longterm help to Ukraine, only the US has that.

I also struggle to imagine a scenario where Russia puts boots on Estonian ground and the other Baltics, Poland, and Finland don’t step in to help. Czechia would also not be far behind.

If Ukraine is mostly out and US is mostly out, then these countries dont have enough to resist Russia. Poland might have enough, combined with Finland and Sweden, in 5+ years but not atm.

As for your North Korea example, that’s actually a very instructive one, because they have practically zero power projection aside from their hit-and-miss missile program.

Do not underestimate North Korea. Their missile program is legit. In fact, probably some of the ballistic missiles Iran launched were based on North Korean designs. And some were modern iranian designs that are a lot better. These things are expensive and hard to shoot down.

Their psyops have also reached their apex, I think. Trump will not win and people are (slowly) becoming more wise to foreign influence online.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-20-how-us-allies-are-working-iron-out-bugs-2024-04-24/

“Germany is waging a charm offensive inside the Republican Party. Japan is lining up its own Trump whisperer. Mexican government officials are talking to Camp Trump. And Australia is busy making laws to help Trump-proof its U.S. defense ties.”

"Britain’s Labour party, now in opposition but strong favorite to win elections expected by year-end, may have a steeper hill to climb to reach a good relationship with a Trump administration.

Labour’s nominative foreign minister, David Lammy, once wrote in Time magazine, opens new tab that Trump was a “woman-hating, neo-Nazi sociopath”. Lammy is now working to build ties with Republicans, said a Labour official."

By not going to full war but using hybrid warfare. Trump might get elected tomorrow, he will want to promote isolationism. Without the US, the EU is not that much stronger than Russia, in terms of military.

Just because you are richer, doesnt mean you can magically create tanks and ammunition by burning money. We can already see how hard it is to get artillery ammunition for Ukraine, even though EU is willing to overpay for it. These things take time(to build factories, train people, etc) and a major policy adjustment(ie cut funding on things in order to redirect it to defense spending).

Tomorrow Russia might “want to protect the rights of oppressed russians” in the estonian city Narva, that has 90% ethnic russian population. And they just march some “peacekeepers” in, like they did with Crimea. Would the rest of Europe go to war over an estonian city that has 90% ethnic russians(dont ask how it got so many russians, that is not kosher)?

What if the initial reaction is to actually go to war but then Russia goes “ok, my bad, i just wanted to help my people, i am out of Narva”. Even in this “ideal” scenario, the original dilemma would have created some friction and fractures within EU. Hungary and Slovakia would be extremely reluctant in opposing Russia.

Keep repeating this, increasing friction in the EU, forcing EU to redirect funding to defense spending(thus degrading social services in EU) and eventually there will be enough resistance. Eventually enough german citizens would go “Why are we part of this bullshit? We could have been spending those billions to improve german lives, instead of this. It’s not as if Russia will ever invade Germany”. And thats Russia’s winning scenario.

You can do a lot of things, if you dont care about your own population. North Korea is a great example of this. They are poor as fuck but they got nukes and missiles and a huge military. As long as your population thinks that this is necessary for the survival of the country, humans can tolerate a lot. And people in charge of authoritarian countries like this, think that people in other countries are soy cucks who will surrender the minute they cant get their daily avocado toast.

Tiktok probably doesnt like some privacy features/extensions you use. Try using incognito in another browser that doesnt have those(like edge).

https://www.tiktok.com/@panpapaioannou/video/7361117397736017184

https://www.tiktok.com/@hara_nik/video/7361093019724008736

Videos from Greece. Or Arrakis. Or Mexico.

While not exactly wrong, Greece has a lot of marine life and even exotic animals like giant turtles, seals and the occasional whale. This isnt a well known fact because these animals are endangered and are protected. I think there were issues with too many tourists trying to check the turtles and/or using beaches. Some beaches are protected and dedicated for turtle use only but people are allowed in most beaches. I am sure the turtles loved covid, they could chill and bury their eggs in peace, wherever they wanted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loggerhead_sea_turtle

Greece is the most popular nesting site along the Mediterranean, with more than 3,000 nests per year. Zakynthos hosts the largest Mediterranean nesting with the second one being in Kyparissia Bay. Because of this, Greek authorities do not allow planes to take off or land at night in Zakynthos due to the nesting turtles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monk_seal

Its current very sparse population is one more serious threat to the species, as it only has two key sites that can be deemed viable. One is the Aegean Sea (250–300 animals in Greece, with the largest concentration of animals on Gyaros, and some 100 in Turkey); the other important subpopulation is the Western Saharan portion of Cabo Blanco (around 200 individuals which may support the small, but growing, nucleus in the Desertas Islands – roughly 20 individuals)

And of course the sea is full of dolphins and less exotic sea life.

“The creation of the new marine parks, one in the Ionian Sea and one in the Aegean Sea, will increase the size of Greece’s marine protected areas by 80% and will cover 30% of the country’s territorial waters, Mitsotakis said.”

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/greece-plans-2-marine-protected-areas-part-830-109297605

This number is “verified dead”. Obviously, the real number will be higher. Both sides have similar casualties, Ukraine has a few less(defender’s advantage) but ultimately it doesnt matter.

Is this map made by a turk? Why are half of the greek islands in Aegean Sea grey? Wtf.

Geforce now is amazing. Much better image quality(video stream), on top of running on pc(so better graphics and fps). It is obviously more expensive(and doesnt come with any free games) but you do get what you pay for.

The microsoft cloud is “almost kinda working”/“this is neat” while geforce now “wow, i guess cloud gaming is the future”. Now if only nvidia could persuade sony and japanese devs to release their games on geforce now(though dragons dogma 2 was, which was surprising).

I have to note that sometimes, the loading times on geforce now can be long, this is not normal and varies. Sometimes load times are normal, sometimes are fucky. I think geforce now has become more popular lately and this has caused some issues. Also if a game is really cpu dependent(like dragons dogma 2), the geforce now cpus arent that great.

Another issue is that since games often use weird launchers and drm, this can cause issues. But eventually these issues are resolved.

Ok. And this is relevant because?

Except Israel is one of the most secure countries against attacks like this, because they have experienced many attacks like this. And they are doing everything they can do to prevent similar attacks, including using racial profiling and other authoritarian tactics(apartheid).

It is much easier for radical islamists living in Russia, places like Dagestan/Chechnya or living in neighbouring muslim countries, to go to Russia.

Now you might say, why would they attack Russia? Because Russia has been attacking ISIS(and affiliates) in both Syria and Africa. And thats on top of the Chechen wars, Afghanistan invasion or maybe more relevant, the Tajikistani war(since the perpetrators seem to be from Tajikistan).

What you need to understand is that ISIS(ISIS-K) is against everyone. They are against the Taliban in Afghanistan, against Iran, against Pakistan, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_against_the_Islamic_State#Involvement_by_country

Literally every nation on earth(including Russia and China) is listed as actively opposing ISIS.

Here it’s a small fine

People will call it a cashgrab, that will mostly affect poor people(since the rich people both vote and also dont care about small fines).

it’s also a day off

Greek elections are always on Sunday and people can be given a day off if their voting location is far away(especially back in the day, when moving your voting location was hard).

Greece is a pretty failed state from what I’ve seen

I have been shitting on Greece for my entire life, but it aint cool when non greeks do it. Yes, Greece is fucked but i wouldnt really call it a failed state. It is a shithole but only greeks get to call it a shithole. It also relatively shitholey, in comparison to western european countries.

It just happens to be the worst “western” country. And yes, it is in the East, but the West/East thing was a Cold War thing and Greece was with the “West”. Nowadays, many “eastern european” countries have reached and surpassed Greece.

In any case, take a look at the wikipedia map, which countries have compulsory voting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_voting

If you exclude Australia, all other countries are shitholes. And i am sure australians will be the first to tell you that Australia is also a shithole and politically fucked.

As for why compulsory voting, it helps moderate extremism and represents most of society as a whole.

It doesnt. If anything, it might do exactly the opposite. When a greek neonazi party was popular, a lot of “apolitic” greeks supported it not because they supported neonazism but because “fuck the system, at least they will go in and smash some heads”. When clueless people are forced to vote, they might be clueless about what they are voting.

America’s issue is the first past the post, winner takes all system. If the US had a more representative system, that allowed third parties and coalitions(like almost all other democratic countries have), things would have been better.

You can not enforce new social norms like that. People, including voting ones, will revolt. They will call it undemocratic and a cash grab. You are just asking for trouble.