TheGrandNagus

TheGrandNagus , vor einem Monat

We all want fewer cars on the road. Objecting to cars/buses/other road-using vehicles (which will certainly be here for the short-medium term future whether people like it or not) transitioning to using clean energy in both the production and usage stages of their lives achieves nothing other than keeping us burning fossil fuels for longer.

Even if everywhere could use rail, it will take decades to build that infrastructure out everywhere. In the meantime, cars, buses, vans, and lorries exist and they should be as clean as we can make them. You're letting perfect be the enemy of good.

TheGrandNagus , vor einem Monat

That might be possible in cities (if we're being extremely generous to your position). But not everyone lives in cities, some of us aren't that privileged. What do those people do, stay at home?

You're living in another universe if you think it's possible to move away from road vehicles in the short term.

Road vehicles will exist for the foreseeable future. So they may as well be as clean as they can be.

TheGrandNagus , vor 2 Monaten

Oh nooooo that's awful. So tragic. It makes me want to celebra- er I mean cry.

TheGrandNagus , vor 2 Monaten

As it stands, there's no real way to compete on price with a country like China that can do so much processing of raw materials in-house, has practically unlimited, very cheap labour, very cheap energy, almost no environmental regulations, outright steals tech, and straight-up uses slave labour.

Some form of protectionism is likely needed.

That said, car companies have been pissing me off recently. The prices are insane, and I don't particularly want to give them even less of a reason to keep pricing competitive.

TheGrandNagus , vor 2 Monaten

I mean they're not really wrong. If the UK can't refuse migrants arriving by boat on the basis of them coming from France, which is a safe country, then it stands to reason that Ireland can't refuse ones coming from the UK. Thinking one of those is fine but the other isn't is certainly hypocritical.

That said, I do find the political football of boat crossings to be quite tedious. They make up a tiny portion of immigration into the UK, yet it's all the government and media seem to talk about.

TheGrandNagus , vor 2 Monaten

That only applies for citizens. However, I don't know how policed that actually is.

And of course there's nothing at all they can do about them going to NI since you can just walk right over the border.

TheGrandNagus , vor 2 Monaten

I believe that was basically what Nigel Farage campaigned on when going for Brexit.

As did basically all Leavers in the public eye.

But as soon as they got what they wanted, it switched to "cut off the EU entirely and depend they don't exist". Disaster capitalists willing to trash the country and sell it out to their chums or hostile states, so long as they get a little cut out of it themselves.

TheGrandNagus , vor 2 Monaten

Funny how it's always the nationalist parties, the ones who wrap themselves in patriotism, and shout from the rooftops that other parties hate their own country, that prove time and again to be the most willing to sell themselves out to hostile nation-states.

TheGrandNagus , vor 2 Monaten

Huh, I could swear I read an article years ago saying it had been made illegal. I must've imagined it. Or perhaps it was just spoken of by MPs but not actually put into place.

TheGrandNagus , vor 4 Monaten

Sexual violence is so prevalent in the Russian armed forces even within their own troops that it shouldn't surprise anybody that they treat Ukrainians this way.

Sexual violence (and other physical and emotional abusive behaviour) between their own officers and their subordinates is such a widespread phenomenon that it has its own word - Dedovshchina.

Dedovshchina encompasses a variety of subordinating and humiliating activities undertaken by the junior ranks, from doing the chores of the senior ranks, to violent and sometimes deadly physical and psychological abuse, not unlike an extremely vicious form of bullying or torture, including sexual torture and anal rape.

There have been occasions where soldiers have been seriously injured or killed.

The Russian armed forces are absolutely evil. I have zero doubt of these reports.

TheGrandNagus , vor 4 Monaten

But clueless people online always tell me that Sweden is a socialist country. You're not telling me those people were full of shit, are you??

TheGrandNagus , vor 5 Monaten

He wasn't talking about people above the age of consent.

TheGrandNagus , vor 5 Monaten

It's not underage if it's above the age of consent. Europe isn't a country, it varies across Europe. And it's also 16 in most of the US.

TheGrandNagus , vor 9 Monaten

You ever considered that maybe the US deserves to be ridiculed for seeing children die and choosing to do nothing about it?

I understand it's a touchy subject, but come on. It's a serious stain on the US. The US deserves immense criticism for it.