An App Meta bought and turned into Facebook Massenger.

The US spends 3.4% of GDP in defence. Israel is at 5.3%. Also the US only spends a bit more then 3x what China spends and well US products are more expensive. So the US can probably fund its military for quite some time, without too many problems and right wingers love to do it, to bomb the shit out of people.

Lenin ended any oppurtunity for none CPSU members to be elected to the Soviets and banned factions in the CPSU in 1921. He then eliminated opposition with the Cheka. Even before that the Communists acted under “war communism”, which meant killing anybody not 100% in line. That very much included Machnos work in setting up a Soviet Democracy in Ukraine, due to them being Anarchists. Stalin then abolished the Soviets in 1936.

The Soviet Union had a bit of it, in the very beginning, but it failed and turned into a statist dictatorship. That is why Stalin ordered the Anarchists to be killed in Spain as well, the Prague Spring got crushed due to moving into a more democratic direction as well as many other movements of worker uprisings.

Socialism means collective ownership of the means of production. The issue with the Soviet Union was that all means of production were controlled by the state. However there was no way in which the people controlled the state, since at least 1936 and argueably earlier then that.

For wind turbines that is still strong. It is just solar that is the problem. For the most part that was doing well, due to heavy subsidies for new solar installations in Germany. As soon as Chinese solar panels appeared, they were cheaper then German ones. Then subsidies got slashed at the same time and protection was low. So the domestic market shrunk a lot, while China was taking market share. Really bad government response.

The alternative is to give subsidies to European production as well, as to counter Chinese subsidies. That makes both significantly cheaper and allows for mass investment. Also China can export to other markets as well. It does not matter, where green technology is deployed, just that it lowers emissions.

Foreign policy decision need to though and sanctions are such decisions. However sanctions against the settlers on the West Bank are already in place and Germany voted for them.

in 2006 Hamas wins the elections so, if we accept the result, it seems that most of the civilians, who probably know what Hamas is/want, agree with them. To me this look like a free choice from the population and, like every choice, it has consequences.

This year is 2024 and since 2006 there were no elections in Palastine since 18 years. Obviously some in Gaza agree with Hamas, but it was unpopulare before the war started, due to the already bad situation in Gaza.

BTW, ending the suffering of the innocent palestinian civilians is easy: just ask Egypt to open their border and let the refugees in (like Poland did with the Ukranian for example) and help them (EU could also help Egypt to take care of them eventually). This way who remain in Gaza is fair game and the innocent civilians are safe. Oh yes, Egypt do not want Palestinians, like every other muslim country, so maybe they know what the facts are.

Or Israel actually provides zones were civilans can take shelter and recieve the absolute basics necessary for life, such as food a clean drinking water. It is not like Israel has a lot of land right next to the Gaza strip, where that could be done. Obviously not perfect, but they then could return to the Gaza strip. Even just letting aid into the Gaza strip would be easy for Israel to do. Egypt actually does that.

a two state solution (which incidentally was the solution proposed in 1947) was on the table a number of times and more often than not it was the Palestinians that rejected it. it is true however that also in Israel there were some opposition.

The has not been the case in the last couple decades. Palestininians have been willing to accept Israel in the internationally reconginsed borders, but Israel is unwilling to remove its illegal settlements on the West Bank. Even the US say so. Obviously that would not stop all terrorism and Palestinians would not love Israel, but it is possible and the only way the conflict might end.

Or maybe people will discover the inconvenient truth that it is in the open: that Hamas want their civilians to be killed by IDF so they can cry that IDF is bad and need to be stopped. (they already said it) After all it is the perfect strategy for Hamas: let us to kill all the innocent civilians we want and then hide behind ours when the enemy, inevitably, hit back. Do you think it is a good idea to allow this ?

Obviously that is part of it, but Hamas is not blockading aid coming to the Gaza strip and again there are ways around this.

The monument is celebrating the liberation of Bulgaria from the Nazis by the Red Army. The slight problem being that Bulgaria was an Axis member, who in 1944 turned on the Axis and even declared war on Nazi Germany to be invaded by the Red Army a day after declaring war on the Nazis.

Somebody wants to pay Wirecard and send FSB money all across the world.

Germany has cut back in EV sales insetives, but not in subsidies for building up factories. Right now half of the battery factories being planned in the EU are planned in Germany, with German car makers being a massive driver of it. Volkswagen sells twice as many EVs as Stellantis and BMW is only a bit behind Stellantis. As for German car makers in China, they are all starting to wall of that site of the business from the rest of the company. So they can sell it quickly or are at least in a better position to cut it off when sanctions start.

The Schwieberdingen plant develops combustion engines. Certainly not relevant for EVs. The other site in Feuerbach is for logistics and office stuff, so the first thing they cut.

The simple truth is that an electric drive train is much simpler then a combustion engine one. That means less workers.

Can he not change the head of TVP and probably Orlen, which would really change the media landscape in Poland?

To be fair East Berlin was among the best places under Communism, due to being the capital, the GDR being rich compared to other Soviet satellites and the competition with West Berlin.

The rule is that a Eastern European country as defined by the UN should host the COP. However Russia is blocking everybody on the unfriendly country list for Russia. Now they also block the Azeris, who are not even on the list. Not only that they also are a large oil and gas producer. Basically unless they host it in Russia or Belarus, which a lot of countries would block, it ends up with Germany, which Russia also considers an unfriendly country. Not only that you just have to look at EU voting on climate issues to see that the current German government tends to be harder on most climate issues then even the EU members further east.

Basically this is Russia being a dick and getting about the worst deal it possibly could in the matter. The host is a huge part in preparing these events and I can not imaging how Germany would do a worse job then Azerbaijan from Russias perspective.

The funny part is, if they can not agree on a host Germany is going to host it.

Since when does Germany have first past the pole?

The heating bill was unpopular because it is a massive hit to the gas industry, which has a famously great lobby and amazing connections to the media. Germanys gas imports are down by 71% comparing September this year with 2021. That is mainly due to the lack of Russian gas transit via Germany, but it massivly hurts the industry. Half of Germanys gas consumption comes from heating buildings, which will be solved by the heating bill. That kind of attack would not happen in an election year.

As for Merz the current polling of the Union party would be considered bad under Merkel. For Laschet a stupid joke was enough to kill his chances of victory, Merz does worse on a monthly bases. He should be at the 40% mark and not at 30%.

As Clinton said: “It is the economy stupid”. The conservatives had two economic crisis during the last 16 years. After the big financial crisis 2008 Merkel could have been deposed, if the SPD would have been willing to go into a coalition with the Left. They next crisis was Covid, which brought the current government. At the same time the SPD is not that popular to begin with. 2017 they got 20% of the votes and the last conservative canidate was really unpopular so Scholz was able to beat him. Now they are 5% lower, which is bad, but no crazy. The Liberals have only ever won with protest votes anyway and they can not hide while in government. So that is normal too.

Also really important to mention that this is about half time. The next federal election is in two years. So right now is the time politicans do the unpopular, but necessary stuff. Then the population forgets that that happend. The heating bill is a great example. It was hugely unpopular, but it passed and nobody talks about it anymore.

What is really bad is the current budget crisis and you have to admit that having an unconstitutional budget is a massive problem and a failure of the finance minister to do his job. Obviously this is unpopular.

Anyway there are two more years to go. The economy propably recovers until that point and the government ends up setting up a huge gift package to be reelected. There is also plenty of time for a scandal and Merz has done a few of them already.

That was under Conte, a leader Trump called a “really great leader”. With five stars and the League supporting him. Idk what currently consitutes a “leftist” government in Italy, but for most countries in the EU that is pretty right leaning to right wing.