Random Rant Thread

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It's almost hilarious that they are *still* making a song and dance about Sweden's "success" when there is a country whose social restrictions have been only a little harder than Sweden's overall (but markedly softer in terms of capacity limits) and whose Covid fatality rate so far is 1/8 of Sweden's. Even though unlike Sweden said country pretty much fucked up on the vaccination and its timing, twice.

I'm beating the dead horse here, but the only reason for this strange omission, other than Orientalist biases, is that those who hate lockdowns and NPI's in general absolute hate masks too. The Venn diagram for anti-NPIers and anti-maskers is pretty much two circles one inside another. Japan is inconvenient for their narrative, therefore it doesn't exist.

Sweden is just a middling Western European country who has done worse than its neighbors. Nothing more, nothing less. Congrats on having done better than the UK, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Portugal and France. Great achievement.

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In case your skull is too thick, I wasn't hyping up or putting down any particular country; I was just telling you how shallow those "arguments" are. Utterly meaningless.

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I see the debates on the German media on Russian gas going absolutely nowhere.

It's interesting that German politicians simply do not trust the electorate no matter how loudly the polls tell them that most people wouldn't mind economic downtimes for opposing Russia. The war is a perfect excuse that you could blame anything on, but the politicians aren't taking the bait.

I kind of get why they don't, though. I suspect that most Germans don't quite grasp how outrageous the energy price could get.

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Oh well, jack, I totally agree with you on that.

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These "boring" little tweets give me so much more insight than the ones by pundits with one billion followers.

Twitter is wonderful thanks to these people.

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I've just heard that flour is gone at my old local supermarket in Bruges. How about your neighborhood in Germany/Netherlands/Belgium/Austria/etc.?

They started panic buy early.

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Dumbfuck corporations like Airbnb lack the basic human imagination so throughly that they never realize their stupid self-righteousness is actually making things worse for everyone. The only thing this kind of shit will do is rallying Russians around Putin even more and making the lives of Russian dissidents a helluva lot harder than it already is. Narcissists are the worst, man.

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Shaun Walker at his best. This is a very typical story about a town occupied by invaders, and how things go bad especially when the invaders/occupiers start fearing for their lives. There are many other towns like this, and the number of civilian victims depends on the circumstances. Unfortunately it's often the case that the braver the locals are, the more horrible it becomes for all the people in the town.

In any event there is a universal template for this, and this story has been repeated countless times in every war, everywhere, throughout history. Every war reporter has more than a dozen stories exactly like this in their file, few of which ever get published.

‘Barbarians’: Russian troops leave grisly mark on town of Trostianets
On a two-day visit, the Guardian found evidence of summary executions, torture and looting
www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/05/barbarians-russian-troops-leave-grisly-mark-on-ukraine-town-of-trostianets

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Thanks for being honest. They give a shit, but don't give a shit. Collateral damage.

"For some," heh. Very interesting definition of the word "some".

NATO says Ukraine to decide on peace deal with Russia — within limits

www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/04/05/ukraine-nato-russia-limits-peace/

For some in NATO, it’s better for the Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying, than to achieve a peace that comes too early.

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These are the kind of soldiers who truly deserve special medals. Textbook tactic, but it's a single T-64BV stopping a large enemy convoy. Absolutely remarkable.

But this happened over and over again in the first Chechen war too. You can do this if you can find the best spot quickly.

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The sanctions will hurt Russia a lot no matter what, but it is also true that Russians above a certain age who lived through the miserable 1980s and hellish 1990s are definitely made of harder stuff than their German/Western European counterparts. Russia has been so deeply integrated in the globalized economy mostly through its resource exports that the economic destruction has to be to a certain degree mutual.

You can ban coal imports from Russia all you want, but that's just a tiny fraction of Russia's exports. It stings a bit for Russia, but not nearly as much as "Total Russian coal ban!" sounds.

It's oil and gas. That's what truly matters.

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Yes, we do. Yes, they did. Yes, I would, yes, I would, yes, I would.

These macho nationalist blowhards in any country all speak the same language like bots. So incredibly annoying and tiresome.

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Needless to say... actually, I do need to tell you that Tom Friedman's latest is absolutely golden. Golden, I'm telling you!

We were kind of worried that he had lost it lately. He was in a slump. He made too much sense. He was too sensible.

But what a comeback! This is like Michael Jordan's return from the baseball bullshit/retirement. One of the biggest cocksucking nonsense bollocks that you have/will ever read. Enjoy!

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One of the most cringe-worthy wars in the history of humanity.

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Jen Psaki and me will never be on the same page philosophy-wise, but it's undeniable that she's very good at this peculiarly American stupid job called the WH press secretary (Memo to Americans: This is not a normal thing in other countries). She's so much more competent than all the freak shows in the Trump days and careerist creeps in the Obama days. I just wish people like her utilized their talent for more socially productive purposes. Her being so much better than her predecessors didn't help her boss even a bit, for one.

Her answer to that idiotic second question is pitch-perfect and note-perfect. Not even a single word is misplaced in those sentences.