I had to look up the vaguely Kurdistan-looking flag in the background — for anyone else wondering, it’s this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Êzîdxan_Protection_Force

And the other flag is of course the pre-revolution flag of Iran (which always reminds me of St. Mark’s Lion on the flag of the Venetian Republic)

Does Ed ever miss? I suppose it must be possible, but I have yet to see it.

I think you meant to link to the “religion” section? Anyhow, I hate to defend BoJo, but there are worse role models than Pericles.

This is an old one

When I got to the punchline I realized you weren’t kidding.

He was never pro-Russia and sees himself as a defender of classical western virtues, so this isn’t surprising at all.

If anybody needed definitive proof that Elon`s purchase of Twitter was a deliberate political ploy to fuel the far right, here it is…

They’re obliterating entire cities, so yeah.

Given that most Palestinians are under the age of 14, this was to be expected: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_State_of_Palestine

Ah, thanks! This is interesting:

Selon Frédéric Encel, géopolitologue et spécialiste du conflit israélo-palestinien, « un policier ou un soldat en armes d’un autre pays n’a pas le droit d’y rentrer sans l’accord du consulat français »10, cependant selon Gérard Araud, ancien ambassadeur de France en Israël, ce domaine ne constitue pas, à la différence d’un consulat une « emprise diplomatique » aux termes notamment de la Convention de Vienne10.

The quotes say that a police officer or soldier of a foreign country cannot enter without permission of the French consulate, but that the region does not constitute a diplomatic enclave.

This is the first I hear about this territory being claimed by France, and there’s no mention of it on the French Wikipedia page for the Mont des Oliviers. Is there any source whatsoever to corroborate that?

Vaxry who got banned from Freedesktop for being an asshat? https://drewdevault.com/2024/04/09/2024-04-09-FDO-conduct-enforcement.html

Elon looks like one of the pointing soyjaks in that pic.

The EU could easily take on Russia militarily even if the latter weren’t already neck-deep in Ukraine.

It was fueled, as always, by white people.

Surplus of young single men?

There is one mega-union (the only permitted one) with officials appointed by the CCP. It’s essentially a sham, like the non-CCP parties in Congress that are nominally a type of opposition but can never hold any real power.

And yes, it is ironic and sad. Nordic countries are more communist than China is. China doesn’t even have truly free healthcare like Canada etc.

Yeah, it’s bad. There are fewer worker protections and unions are illegal.

In large part yes, but younger generations are also not especially motivated to have kids when they already have to deal with a soul-crushing workplace (much worse than in the west).

Gonna leave this here from a reply I made to a similar thread weeks ago. China’s demographics are in very bad shape.

Same. I wouldn’t put this past Hamas at all, but I’m going to need another source.