People keep writing like Argentinians really believed Milei is going to fix the country. Most people were simply desperate and voted for him protest. If you still think they are stupid for protesting like this that’s fine. Let’s just be clear about what they did.

redistribution of stolen wealth

How are they going to get the stolen wealth back from US and Europe?

It’s a cultural thing. In Poland because of the climate, central heating and probably some other habits everyone has a carpet so you take your shoes off because carpets are hard to clean. In Spain because of the climate you don’t have carpets because stone floors help cool the apartment down. Bare stone floors are easy to clean and are cold during winter so you keep your shoes on.

Depends who’s protesting and what’s the support for the protests among general population. The problem with most of the protests you see is that the people that do the protesting are the same people that oppose the government. So yeah, no government is going to react to protests done by people that don’t vote for it, no matter how big. If the actual people that got the government elected protest or support the protest then they listen. Of course most of the time people know what they are voting and the government is doing exactly what it promised so they will not protest.

Brexit was the perfect example of how this works: one direct policy change, clear predictions from experts what will happen, clear statements from EU, clear success/failure criteria (better trade deals, stronger economy). 7 years later if couldn’t be clearer how complete failure it was but the party that did it is still going strong. Their excuse? The idea was right but the execution was flawed. Also it’s still better then what the other party would have done.

It will be the same in Argentina. Whatever will happen they will simply claim they did the right thing, it’s their opponents sabotaging their work that responsible for the failure, it would be even worse had they not done it, they are the only ones that can fix it. People expecting that everyone will just agree that what they did was stupid are delusional. It never happens.

Languages don’t care about complexity. Look at Polish. It’s like it makes things complex on purpose. Language evolution is not only about simplifying thing. It’s also about conveying meaning and will adapt to the culture that uses it.

War in Ukraine showed it’s complicated. They may have equipment but how it’s serviced? How competent the command is? From what I know Poland doesn’t have any navy (as in they don’t have any modern unit) but Ukraine also doesn’t have it and is still controlling the Black Sea. They do have Patriots and F-16 so way better than what Ukraine had and Russia never really got air superiority in Ukraine. I would expect them to have good enough artillery and ammo stockpiles to stop any ground troops, same as Ukraine did. My guess is that if they are properly prepared the would easily defend themselves.

Or that he’s governing anything.

Yeah, let’s see… So far Ukraine was able to take down planes deep into Russia’s territory, bomb Moscow, sink flagship of the Russian Navy, disable the most protected bridge in the country and bomb HQ of Black Sea fleet. All that with spare European weapons and toys. You really think that Europe would need US help to fight Russia? This war has proven that Russian army is in terrible state. Their weapons are shit and commanders are incompetent. They are struggling with a army 1/5th their size. Russia is once again back to their WWI strategy of sacrificing thousands after thousands of soldiers. At this point one has to be delusional to think Russia could fight Europe.

Reminds me of a joke: A guy walks down the street and mumbles to himself angrily: You cook every fucking day but no one ever calls you a cook. You fix your car all the time but people never call you a mechanic. You have a small garden and grow your own food but when people see you they don’t say “Hey, farmer!”. But you rape someone one single time…

But seriously, for the same reason you don’t ban drunk drivers from driving for life or shoplifter from shopping. People have to function in society somehow, even if they did terrible things in the past.

The glacier would move the stones if it would have been built before ice age. The big stones were most probably left there by the glacier and the wall was built after it receded.

It should have been clear 7 years ago that Europe can’t rely on US any more. Hoping US will become a rational partner again and dragging their feet on real action is probably equal part inertia and corruption. Hopefully they will wake up sooner than they did with Russia and energy independence.

Be the police that stops a robbery or rape. Don’t be the police that plants evidence to justify illegal raid, then murders the drag dealer to steal his money while selling guns to gangsters specializing in killing kids.

Still better than flying next to a baby.

The entire Ireland is in the EU already. Northern Ireland can access the single market without checks. The checks are between Ireland and GB.

They already won. They defended their independence and still form a buffer zone between Russia and NATO. You have to be delusional to believe that Russia is still able to take Kiev. Worst case (for Ukraine) Russia will take over the territories they held before the invasion started. It’s still a disaster for Russia and a huge win for Ukraine.

No to mention it exposed them to the world as a paper tiger it is and weakened their international position immensely. Who is afraid now of an army not even able to hold the Black see? It will soon start collapsing internally.

Never. Because it’s not. And we haven’t been.

While this is great, someone who doesnt mind paying a 100k for a car wont mind the extra fees.

Not just that, it removes the… let’s call it ‘shame factor’. Some people that would feel bad about driving big, polluting cars in the city now will feel perfectly justified: they are paying extra for the privilege. This will not reduce the numbers of cars and likely will increase them. It’s simply a bad policy. As you said, number of parking spots for big cars should be reduces each year putting greater and greater pressure on the owners to get rid of them.

It’s been a month but for anyone finding this thread… Pocketbook is a good alternative (pocketbookstore.com). I had one for years and it was doing great but I stepped on it like an idiot… The base model is cheaper than Kobo and has all the same features + buttons.