Was that when Obama capitulated to Putin and permitted him to annex Crimea? Perhaps that was the "more flexibility" that he secretly promised Putin he would have after his election. I wonder what he got in return for it.
In the real world, NATO is a highly exclusive club, which is very reluctant to accept new members and extend its mutual defence clause to them. Ukraine and Georgia sought to join NATO after Russia had already begun violating their sovereign territory, but NATO allies caved to Russian pressure and denied membership to both Georgia and Ukraine. Russia then used this opportunity to invade them without triggering the full arsenal of NATO.
Russia is not a cornered cat, but a nuclear-armed colonial empire that has expanded through war and conquest for centuries, growing from a small city-state into the largest country in the world, exterminating countless native ethnicities in the process:
Yes it is, and Russia is increasingly being recognized by scholars as such.
This is especially visible in the war against Ukraine, which is colonial in nature. Russia has invaded another country on imperialistic justifications ("reunification of Russian lands" etc), is using domestic minorities as cannon fodder to alter the ethnic composition of Russia in favor of Russians, is committing genocide against Ukrainians to destroy them as an ethnicity, and is resettling ethnic Russians into occupied territories to permanently alter Ukraine's ethnic composition.
The whole "NATO expansion" narrative is complete bullshit when the initiative to join NATO has come from Russia's neighbors, who want to gain the protection of its mutual defense clause in the hope that this would deter Russia from invading them.
Russia has been the aggressor in this part of the world for centuries, and the rest is a reaction to that. Russia is the sole reason why Northern and Eastern Europe have militaries at all; if it weren't for Russia, they could be disbanded overnight.
This was all widely reported. The problem here is that people don’t read and they routinely dismiss stories based on source, not content.
The 9/11 attacks were incredibly bizarre from day one. Everyone with any knowledge of the world immediately started asking questions.
Also remember that the attacks were the largest terrorist incidents by death for non-American countries. NY is a world city. More British people died that day than in any other single terrorist event - and that’s a country dealing with the IRA. That meant immediate global press and government investigation.
Seriously, though, just being online and having a good memory for stuff like this. And watching people like Ben Swann, reading wikipedia etc. Literally two of the links are on wikipedia
I don’t just watch once source, I look at different viewpoints, especially because some of my friends wanted to debate stuff like 9/11. Like for example I looked at the Popular Mechanics issue that did an overview of physics. I wondered if Assad actually gassed his own people, or whoat happened with the Kakhovka dam, etc.
I guess I like to have a healthy skepticism of official narratives, but also try to stay away from conspiracy theories and thus enjoy collecting proven things that people have mostly forgotten because they were swept undee the rug.
Usually they point to extreme negligence and then coverups. I like to say “at least negligence”. But then again I am a libertarian who criticizes politicians and governments for theie failures, so…
If you like that, then I guess “the wiki” for this stuff is literally my own blogs…
There was coverage but there were too many scattered points to draw an arc and from memory… most journos quickly gave up and moved on to the next thing.
I'm not sure I agree with that totally, but for sure threat of force from the US is worse for the middle east stability than Iran getting nukes.
My point was that preventing countries from getting nukes used to be an acceptable, if not a majority opinion, and a lot of countries more or less accepted it. From now on, I feel that that opinion will become a minority opinion, even on the anti-nuke/hippie left. And if the hiipies start agreeing with the tankies on a point, you can be sure it's the majority opinion in the non-west world.
Another fun fact, from Wikipedia, the name Frisia "stems from Latin Frisii, an ethnonym used for a group of ancient tribes in modern-day Northwestern Germany, possibly being a loanword of Proto-Germanic *frisaz, meaning "curly, crisp", presumably referring to the hair of the tribesmen."
In German Frisur, and in south slavic languages Фризура, means hairstyle, which is also related to the english word Frizz
Its beyond minid-boggling how you spend 1300 a month on rent and gym and other stuff. Which neighbourhood are you in? How many roommates? I've usually paid around 3-4K for a studio...
I'm in Kensington with two roommates in an old house. It's definitely a great deal but if you are willing to live with roommates in a somewhat uncool area, similar deals are definitely possible: https://streeteasy.com/for-rent/nyc/price:3000-4000%7Carea:3...
I was curious too, and it seems feasible. Assuming at least 2 other roommates, you can find a 3 bed for less than 3600/mo. Here's a small 4 bd/1.5 ba for 3350/mo, so about 1120/mo.
actually i used to live in flatbush the first year i moved to nyc in a "coliving" space, and the rent was very low around 1.2K p/m, but never again going back to that area... Parkside ave station was disgusting honestly.
I was in a hurry and hoped others would continue the thread. Cline is open source, pay as you go, using your own Openrouter API keys. You can use any model you like. Its more expensive than Cursor of course, depending on usage and models.
The project of Skopje 2014 was actually a big money embezzlement scheme for the regime back then which was borderline dictatorship and mafia. The top dogs actually squeezed the whole government budget for themselves getting contracts and tenders, and because there was not any more money left to embezzle they came up with Skopje 2014 and got a 1-2 billion euro loan from european countries in order to build it. The project was to renovate and build the city centre in baroque style, and create massive monuments from people all the way back from Ancient Macedonia, to more modern revolutionaries from 19th-20th century. This was in line with their nationalist and right wing rhetoric. Saying that is anti-albanian because the albanians have protested actually doesnt mean much, because political parties there usually illegally pay people to attend protests to further their own agendas. The political parties in Macedonia are actually segregated by ethnicity, with 2 big ethnically macedonian parties and 2-3 smaller albanian parties. One party cannot achieve majority to form a government, and back then the leading party called VMRO DPMNE, which started the Skopje 2014 project, actually had a coallition with the leading albanian party called DUI. This project was voted on by both parties, which achieved legal majority in the parliament and was approved. Not to say there wasn't massive corruption, but definitely not antialbanian, since the leading albanian party approved the project. In addition, despite 20% of the population being albanian, it doesn't mean that the country and its history and culture is albanian. Half of the albanians living in macedonia at the moment immigrated in the 90s because of the kosovo war.
And regarding the ancient borders of macedonia being currently in greece, after the Ottoman empire collapsed borders were drawn in the region as a result of war, not as a result of ethnicity. Thessaloniki before WW1 a quarter of the population was slavic speaking bulgarians and macedonians, a quarter jewish, the rest was greek and turkish. There were pogroms against macedonians both in bulgaria and greece, all the way from around early 20th century to around WW2, and it stopped when the current borders were drawn because of the Yugoslav partisans. In fact, in the first balkan war, bulgaria could've occupied and kept thessaloniki if their army arrived a day earlier, but they were beat only by a few hours by the greek army led by the king, because the ottoman general decided to surrender the city and not fight. Not only that, but macedonia as an independent country was first theorized (not sure if its the right word) by macedonian and bulgarian revolutionaries that were operating in thessaloniki, with the goal of getting rid of the ottoman occupation. So, the current borders dont mean much. Macedonia was actually divided in 3 and stopped existing in one of the balkan wars, because all the neighbouring countries got a slice of it. Luckily Tito and the yugoslav partisans won, and hence the borders are now what they were post WW2. If the axis had won WW2, the current Macedonia would've likely been a bulgarian province right now, joining the western side of bulgaria which is also called macedonia (pirin macedonia).
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/06/us-ukraine-rus...
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