Sorry for your loss, lol

Bought from Russia with no plan for an alternative supplier of gas or electricity, of course.

Regards, Angela Merkel.

Are we sure they don’t just mean that you can’t use the Amazon store to download new books? I know that is not what they literally write, but it is likely what they mean.

Plenty of dictatorships around the world treat foreign tourists well enough. The special thing about the US is that they seem to be happy to treat even tourists like shit. For example “German tourists’ ordeal reportedly ending as they are returned from US detention”:

Jessica Brösche, a 29-year-old tattoo artist from Berlin, will reportedly join Lucas Sielaff, 25, from Bad Bibra in Saxony-Anhalt, who is reported to have returned to Germany on 6 March, after being arrested at the Mexican border on 18 February before being detained for almost two weeks.

The families of the two tourists, who were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), had compared their ordeals to “a horror film”.

I agree that Google removing “don’t be evil” is bad. But mentioning that change in this context is a non sequitur.

So not giving away 15GB of free storage is evil? How does that even work…?

I thought being evil was about doing, like, evil things?

oh no a 24 hour ban!

So they didn’t do the worst censorship they could possibly do. But it is still censorship.

Submarine cables exist because it is superior

Submarine cables are usually cheaper and simpler at intercontinental scale, especially because they avoid negotiating rights-of-way across many countries. But unlike oil tankers, internet traffic is not physically constrained to the Strait of Hormuz itself. Capacity could be rerouted over terrestrial fiber links around the Gulf if the economics changed enough.

The bigger issue would probably be the time, permits, and infrastructure investment needed to build enough alternative land routes. Not any physical impossibility of carrying the signals over land. The cables themselves are likely pretty cheap.

And permits should be quite easy to come by, in the empty desert of the Arabian peninsula.

But Iran would be pissing off everybody - for example China and India. Not just the US.

War is pissing other people off. But does Iran want to be at war with all other countries in the world?

Seems pretty short term gain for Iran by pissing everybody off.

Because surely the cables can relatively easily be rerouted over land, instead of paying Iran’s tolls. Unlike the tankers, the Internet signals do not need to go though the water.

And how would Iran even justify forbidding the cables from going through the part of the strait which is not their territorial waters? The same way Iran “justifies” forbidding ships from doing that? - as in, no real attempt at a moral or legal justification.

is this the onion or is this true?

Not the Onion: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/feb/11/germs-are-not-real-fox-news-host-pete-hegseth

Real. Which is really not better.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/feb/11/germs-are-not-real-fox-news-host-pete-hegseth

Not always. For example, if I were “caught” eating pig meat in a Muslim country, I would probably be defensive. Without that actually meaning that I genuinely thought there were anything bad about eating pig meat.

As an analogy, you can in theory be defensive about watching Joe Rogan without genuinely thinking there is anything wrong with Joe Rogan.

Examples please?

Trump is governing by executive order. Hence the Democrats have to proactively pass laws to stop Trump. It is not a bill Democrats can filibuster in the Senate.

Whereas Democrats actually try to pass bills, as the system is supposed to work. And when Biden or Obama did try to use executive orders, they were often blocked by SCOTUS. Because US voters allowed Republican Presidents to stack the courts with partisans.

Also, generally Democrats are trying to build stuff. Whereas Republicans are trying to block or destroy stuff. destroying stuff is inherently easier.

They. Don’t. Have. The. Power. To. Do. So.

Voters have not given Democrats the power to block anything. Republicans control both chambers of Congress. How is that so hard to understand?

Because

1. SCOTUS is corrupt, filled by Republican partisans, after voters gave Republicans the power to choose judges

2. It is way easier to block stuff, than to pass stuff. So when Republicans right now is preventing a minimum wage increase, Republicans can do that

3. “Democrats can remove the pedotus by any means necessary.” - which requires a supermajority in the Senate. Whereas leaving Trump in power requires nothing. So Republicans “win”.

Democrats have not had a filibuster-proof majority for almost 20 years.

Sometimes I think Americans don’t know how democracy works. You can’t blame a party for not passing stuff, if you don’t give that party the power to pass stuff.

Democrats have not had a filibuster-proof majority for almost 20 years.

Sometimes I think Americans don’t know how democracy works. You can’t blame a party for not passing stuff, if you don’t give that party the power to pass stuff.

these people still trying to pass fake bills?

Telling voters what to expect, if voters give Democrats power, is not “fake bills”. What do you want, for Democrats to not tell voters what they would pass, if given power?