I don't even like PA, I find them incredibly dodgy and suspicious. I just don't think we can take seriously an anti-terrorism enforcement regime which cracks down on grannies with placards harsher than on the actual UDA!

fun fact about the difference between being in western and eastern europe: if you google "nearest bomb shelter" in english you get apocalypse prepper websites and if you do it in lithuanian you get an actual answer from a government website. i don't think this is good

Marxists who praise foreign tyrants do so because they want to put on the boots of tyranny to stomp on your neck at home. It isn't solidarity with the "oppressed", it is a sadistic power fantasy. A Marxist who praises the Iranian morality police simply craves the power to be the morality police.

i enjoy how the only two places you can seriously make a credible argument for the collapse of the USSR being a bad thing for are Karabakh and Central Asia and one of them is still a place where the USSR literally killed a sea

I have a very strong urge to 'um ackshually' every American on here sharing their very strong opinions about Ireland this morning, but it's probably not the time. All I'll say is the people responsible for this wouldn't take too kindly to you calling them Irish this morning.

there were already many reasons to do this but Elon Musk actively encouraging racist violence in Belfast should be the final straw for every UK government institution to stop doing business - including being on X - with him in any way, and for him to be barred from entry to the country.

Also, here’s a fun fact: people who act like abusive weirdos in public are often even worse in private. Celebrate that behavior at your own risk

The Ukrainian decision to double down on drone warfare, from the battlefield, to mid range and long range strike, and not to draft all of its young men to make infantry, will be seen by historians as one of the most important decisions in 19th-21st century warfare.

Almost every aspect of my life, from work to dating improved exponentially when I realised I wasn't behaving like the kind of person I would want to spend time with, and tried to fix that.

Someone here a while back said that the average Union soldier went from “why am I fighting this war?” to “I’m going to burn every square inch of the accursed south to the ground and salt the ashes” when they realized how much sexual depravity was baked into southern plantation culture.

My position on the death penalty is straightforward: Some people deserve to die for their crimes. But our system of justice is imperfect, and because of that, we are incapable of making that decision in a truly fair manner. Given the consequences of mistakes, we must eliminate the death penalty.

Bupa's online services perhaps the first example I have encountered of 'a chatbot that has created a job for a human being' in that a bunch of things you used to just be able to just fill out a form for you now talk to a chatbot, who fails to to the thing, and then passes you onto a person.

Fascism lies in a specific mixture of individually far more common elements, whose combination is far more toxic than the sum of the parts.

Neck and neck promotion fight in Hell's Ironic Punishments Division between the devil who cursed Reform voters with the agony of living in areas run by Reform councilors, and the imp who cursed Reform council candidates with actually having to do the hard, boring, thankless jobs they campaigned for.

"for the hantavirus lockdown i'm doing this" "if there's another lockdown i'm not doing that" bitch there's not going to be a pandemic but if there is they're going to let you die on the street like a dog

flat earth is one of those things where if the conspiracy is true you should just let them win. *every* government with a space programs is in on it as well as *all* astronomers ? what do you think could prompt that level of cooperation? they've got reasons. leave 'em alone.

With the sequel of “he also stabbed a Muslim man”. He stabbed his friend in Southwark then travelled to Golders Green, noticeably not stabbing anyone else between the two! I think we can reasonably surmise both had specific (and different) motives!

Hot take into the void: "ultra-processed food" is basically the antivaxx conspiracy theory for people who think they're far too well informed to get hooked into anything like antivaxx.

Yeah, but it's a bit like really bending a plastic ruler. Uo to a point, increased interest rates tell people to stop being stupid and stopped bending the ruler. But if the ruler has snapped then higher rates just make things worse and it flips to stimulus being better (you need to buy a new ruler).

I feel like I'm going crazy. Very few people would honestly object to an MP having a glass of wine at a reception. That is not the accusation. The accusation is: "Your MPs are getting wasted on the job and then casting votes". No part of their role remotely justifies that, obviously? Right?

During my check-up I asked the Doctor, "Do you think I'll live a long and healthy life then?" He replied, "I doubt it somehow. Mercury is in Uranus right now." I said, "I don't go in for any of that astrology nonsense." He replied, "Neither do I. My thermometer just broke."

People who ask why politicians can't just "talk like a normal person the way Mamdani does" remind me of the guys who claim they "prefer women without makeup" based on Instagram photos of models wearing hundreds of dollars of natural-look makeup applied by a professional.

when you are a vulnerable people in a hostile world being able to speak in your own words that your enemy does not understand is a guarantor of sovereignty

These Catholic converts are more Protestant-coded than an apple and mars bar sandwich after an Orange march in mid July.

How often do we see Ru analysts or policy makers wondering what Ru did wrong to lose the West or its Eastern European neighbours? What it could've done differently to build trust and good will? Hard to think of any good, prominent examples, tbh, beyond Nemtsov.

Francis had a soft spot for left-wing tyrants, even if he was far from falling into tankie idiocy. Benedict and John Paul had major caveats with liberal democracy and a soft spot for right-wing authoritarians. This is the first Pope who just flat-out 100% believes in free, open, democratic rule.

Look, you are allowed to be a Catholic and say the pope got something wrong. But if you make a public statement like "Looks like the pope forgot a little thing called 'Just War Tradition' that says sometimes God *loves* war," then you are plainly too stupid to be in charge of wars, or anything else.

if I was a gambling man I'd happily wager that Pope Leo XIV (Bishop of Rome, Pontifex Maximus, Vicar of Christ, Servant of the Servants of God, Patriarch of the West, Master of Divinity, Doctor of Canon Law) has substantially more theological training than JD Vance.

Lost in all the Hungary news is that Russia shipped stolen Ukrainian grain to Israel. Which is a piece of news that should not be lost.

It's not just that Orbán losing inspires hope in other competitive-autocratic countries ruled by right-wing nationalist authoritarians. It's that his loss materially changes things in those other countries, because he's been operating as a headquarters and funding source...

you gotta understand that russophobia is simply the most politically progressive ideology there is

Ruszkik haza. That is all xx 🇭🇺🇪🇺🇭🇺🇪🇺

When the blue and yellow flag flies over Aqyar again - and it will - i am going to become so insufferable.

Governing by force rather than persuasion is another thing in politics that just works like a drug. You get hooked and dont want to stop and contrive reasons why you can't

i didnt boot up europa universalis iv to see if the grand duchy of lithuania can murder the muscovite snake in its infancy, i booted it up to temporarily transport myself into a land of fantasy where the grand duchy of lithuania has murdered the muscovite snake in its infancy

The Ukrainian army has gotten very little positive coverage or acknowledgement for not doing war crimes on a constant basis even when they are waging a war for survival against an explicitly genocidal invasion. This is honestly completely unprecedented in the history of modern warfare.

No like genuinely every single time I see people go "war is complicated!!! there will always be collateral damage!!!" I'm like dude I have seen /Eastern Europeans/ manage to not commit war crimes clearly it cant be that hard. And we are a rather volatile people

I’m sure they were aware this was happening but the reality is that they had no way to prevent it unless they could figure out a way to get thousands of bored men in the dead of winter give up every hope of getting laid

👇👇

More of those "If this had happened in Ukraine there would have been more outrage" articles, even though those exact things and worse happened in Ukraine, and there was not more outrage.

I don't think we are talking enough about the astounding historical twist that one of the most powerful institutions standing up to defend liberal democracy around the world today is the Papacy

My politics currently have two non-negotiable "litmus" tests: 1. Do they deny climate change? 2. Do they make excuses for Russia's invasion? Anyone who fails either is dead to me. A third is along these lines: Have they have clearly and knowingly lied about something to push an agenda?

This is, by the by, my litmus test for if you actually oppose the Occupation. You can be a Zionist, a two-stater, a one-stater, I don't care, if you're willing to condition military aid you are at least interested in addressing the problem. If you're not, you clearly don't actually care that much.

The absolute worst human being from India couldn’t get me to defend Lord Clive because I actually dislike imperialism as opposed to being ambivalent to positive about it

The thing about the leftists who are radicalized into antisemitism by their grief over Palestine is that they are so very very similar to people who are radicalized into Islamophobia by their grief over some other atrocity and they cannot see it.

I think the chiefest reason after just basic decency why Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is appalling and must be stopped at any cost is precisely because how can a people that longed for a lost homeland for 2000 years deny a home there to another?

I think a key problem with the whole Harry Potter thing is that some people, especially Americans, underestimate severely the degree to which Joanne K Rowling is an actual political actor.

If this indeed represents a moment when Trump is trying to end the Iran war, it should be noted that the only state to benefit from all this was Russia. Higher fuel prices, sanctions relief, Belarus rehabilitated, and a pro Russian government still in Iran. Funny that.

tankies, actual Lost Causers, Nazis, it's ultimately the appeal of a failed cause that wins the hearts of people who believe the world hasn't given them what they deserve: power over others. the ideology is mostly just an excuse.

Hi, political scientist here. Did you know we have an extensive body of research and theory that says if people believe you will violently betray them, they are less likely to enter into an agreement with you? I swear to God I have a real, non-bullshit job.