AndreasHG

Musk is of no help to the ADF. Okay, they share an enemy: the IG Metall, Germany's (and probably Europe's) most powerful employees trade unions. Musk is using all sort of tricks to keep the IG Metall out of its Berlin Gigafactory, and IG Metall is doing the same to keep the AfD out of government. The issue is that while there is a long tradition in Germany of Trade Unions trying to influence their members' vote, it is not clear who, the richest men on Planet Earth, of South-African descent, who left the country after the Apartheid was abolished, is trying to influence, by promoting a political party that is openly racist. His Berlin employees? Knowing Germany pretty well, especially West Germany, Musk's open support for the AfD seems more like a kiss of death rather than a helping hand. But the man is too narcissistic to realize the damage he can do.

What Trump will do is yet to come. Let's focus on what he is doing for Ukraine. In my opinion it's the right thing.

I don't think my English needs translation. Also, because something always seems to get lost in your translations. See a psychiatrist. The problem lies in the cavity where the brain of human beings is usually located. Try to understand what has replaced the brain in your cavity.

In a democracy you can express your dissent and also create an organized opposition to anything you disagree with the government about. But I don't understand what's wrong with Trump's proposal. Ukraine doesn't have the resources to take back all its lost territory. And for a simple reason: In 2024 Russia lost 420,000 men to gain 4,168 sq km of Ukrainian territory (1,610 sqm), mostly agricultural land, good to grow potatoes. Each square mile of potato fields costed Russia the lives of 260 soldiers (link below). Which other country is so idiotic to sacrifice the lives of 260 young man for each square mile of potato field gained? Only countries where human lives have very little value and are considered expendable cannon fodder, like Russia. But we are lucky: our countries, Ukraine, Europe and the United States, are different and we understand that human lives are our most precious resource. Ukraine, under the European or the American or a combined shield, will resurrect stronger, richer and freer than ever. Just like the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). It's what Russia fears the most. Let's make Putin's nightmares real. https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-31-2024

I love Trump's proposal to have European troops stationing in Ukraine. 80 years after the end of WWII, it's time Europe steps up to the plate, sets aside its convenient pacifism, and takes charge at least of its own defense.

I recall it too. But regardless of what we recall, the time has definitely come to side with the commander in chief when he does the right thing. And, with regards to Ukraine, I feel Trump is doing and will do the right thing.

Ignorance is bliss and it cuts two ways. In the direction of those who maintain that what is invisible cannot exist, and those who maintain that if we can only imagine it, it means that it must exist. I therefore believe it is better to stick to the known facts, such as a clearly shot down plane, 38 corpses, the control tower in Russia which forces the damaged plane to fly over the Caspian Sea, in the hope that the plane sinks to the seabed with all its passengers and follows the fate of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. Things didn't go according to plans, and Russia ran out of luck. It's time for Russia to apologize and pay its dues to the victims.

Ukrainian welcomed the Nazis only because they were coming from years of hunger, misery and death, under the Russian yoke. They assumed that nothing could be worse than Russia's rule. Fill the void that constitutes your abysmal ignorance by learning what the Holodomor was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

"Idiot" suffices

You must be seriously mentally sick. This is just an example of your "sound" logic applied to real life. And if you don't like the result, it's because it's your logic to be deranged.

Which cut and paste? Mussolini never used the expression "Make Italy Great Again". But he wanted to restore Italy to the greatness of the ancient Roman Empire, and he clearly expressed this intention. For this reason he tried to imitate Julius Caesar, reintroducing the ridiculous "Roman salute" and exploiting the ancient Roman ruins for military parades. Times change, but the tools used by dictators and wannabe dictators are still the same. As the saying goes "those who don't know history are deemed to repeat it over and over again".

Yagoda, you keep on confusing... You confuse the expansive and extravagant Trump-style Nazi campaign promises, intended to attract voters, with the policies actually implemented after Hitler's coming to power. However, I see a merit in your logic. Here are some of the points included in the Nazi manifesto: These points are integral part of Trump's manifesto. Trump promised to: eradicate immigration, deport illegal immigrants, replace ObamaCare with something better, bigger and cheaper, being tough on criminals protect motherhood struggle against wokes and wokeism whose activity is injurious to the general interest reconstruct the American education system Therefore, by applying your logic, we can safely conclude that: many of Trump electoral promises are clearly taken from the Nazi "electoral promises play book" Therefore Trump must be a Nazi Nazism is Socialism Therefore Trump must also be a socialist. Which is a very interesting and consequential conclusion.

Dear Yagoda, only your abismal ignorance can catch up with your arrogance. Mussolini add a long list of "Enemies of the people": Anyone who opposed Mussolini. Anyone who opposed Mussolini's plan to "Make Italy Great Again". Anyone who jeopardized the purity of the Italian racial and cultural identity (race "Razza" in Italian) All opposition parties were deemed "enemies of the people": Liberals, Christians, Monarchists, Republicans, Radicals, Socialists, Communists. Make Italy Great Again meant, among other things, ensuring Italy had its empire, a fair share of the world's reaches, which was a prerequisite to gain full sovereignty. The main obstacles of the path of securing an empire were the British Empire, its smaller allied, the French Empire, and its far away ally, the USA. According to Mussolini, these democratic countries were ruled by "plutocrats" and its citizens led a dissolute life. He called the British people "the people of five meals a day", and described them as effeminate and incapable of winning against the warriors born of the Italian race. Like Putin today with Ukraine, he considered France presence in Tunisia as a gun pointed at Italy, a threat to its sovereignty, and to its effort to build an empire in Africa. Make Italy Great Again meant also ensuring the purity of the Italian race and culture. American jazz was forbidden because "musica nera". Mussolini sent Italian Jews and gypsies to German concentration camps.

You keep on overlooking...

"Idiot" suffices.

Yagoda's is possibly the most childish, silly and simplistic definition of socialism and fascism that I have ever read. Both these radical ideologies divide humanity into "good guys" and "bad guys". Dividing the humanity into good and bad guys is a typical tool used by dictators to control their subjects. It's the latin "divide et impera" ("divide to rule", "diviser pour mieux regner" in French), and it has worked since the dawn of time. However, Yagoda completely overlooks the fact that they do so according to different and not always mutually exclusive parameters. Socialism divides humanity into "good guys" and "bad guys" based on their social class (exploited and exploiters, workers and capitalists). Fascism divides humanity into "good guys" and "bad guys" based on their race or nationality (Arians and non-Arians, Americans and non-Americans, etc.). Both ideologies give priority to the greater collective good over the pure satisfaction of individual needs. The aim to achieve a greater collective good (the “social” component of these ideologies) is yet another tool used by dictators to justify the sacrifices they impose on each individual. “I deprive you of personal freedom, but it is for a greater good". The greater good of your social class in socialism, or of your ethnicity or nationality in fascism. This tool is extremely useful to get rid of dissenters, skeptics, and those who march to a different drummer, in politics, economy, arts, etc. Any "exploited" who disagrees with the socialist dictator (or "Arian" with the fascist dictator) is easily and quickly dismissed and labelled as antisocial. Often the final destination of these individuals has been the mental hospitals, both in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Both ideologies give dictators wide freedom to get rid of their opponents, which is why most dictatorships embraced Socialism's class struggle or Fascism's nationalism to gain control of their subjects. The "Class enemies" or the "enemies of the people" must be annihilated, being them exploiters, profiteers, Jews, gypsies, blacks, homosexuals, immigrants, foreigners, sociopaths or antisocials. Anyone, at any time and at the sole discretion of the ruling socialist or fascist party, may be assigned to one of the aforementioned categories. Re-education and extermination are synonymous, because they lead to the same result, either in a Gulag or Konzentrationslager.

Interesting video by BBC. 'I want the war to end and for us to win' - Russian hopes for 2025 https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/ce327we7w7zo

It's not that I just "think": I know. I trust my senses when it comes to judging the quality of what I eat. As a child I was used to eating homemade cakes (not unusual in Europe), and I enjoy cooking and baking cakes myself, even if only for my own personal pleasure, using the best ingredients I can find (e.g. real butter, milk, sugar, eggs, flour, fruits, etc.). Starbucks locations receive frozen baked goods from Starbucks suppliers. They don't bake anything: they just defrost their bakery and sell it as "fresh" sometimes even after two days from the moment of defrosting (small pieces), sometimes after several days (cakes sold in slices).. Do some research on the internet. With thousands of current and former employees, there are no secrets to how Starbucks works. It is not by chance that Starbucks' business model is consistently facing headwinds since a while (Microsoft PowerPoint - Q4 and Full FY24 Earnings at a Glance_Ready for Review.pptx).

Interesting video by BBC. 'I want the war to end and for us to win' - Russian hopes for 2025 https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/ce327we7w7zo

The Ukrainians are treated by the Russians in the same way all the ethnic minorities subjected to their empire are treated: with no mercy. Why do you think Tatars, Chechens, Bashkirs, Chuvash, Avars, Armenians, Dargins, lose their lives by the thousands in the Russian army for a few dollars of sign-in bonus, monthly wage, and a super-bonus in case of death? It's because they live in appalling conditions, deprived of freedom, and barely able to satisfy their families' basic need. It's desperation that provides the Russian army with its cannon fodder. It has always been this way: under the tzars, the soviets, and now under Putin. Remember the Holodomor: The famine affected the Ukrainian SSR as well as the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (a part of the Ukrainian SSR at the time). Its consequences are evident in demographic statistics: between 1926 and 1939, the Ukrainian population increased by only 6.6%, whereas Russia grew by 16.9%. Russia has never been kind with the ethnic minorities subjected to its imperial rule.

Of course I am serious: below is the GDP (in USD) per capita of the Russian Federation compared to some benchmark countries in Europe and nearby. Russia's per capita GDP is lower than any of them, thanks also to the Ruble, which has been trashed yesterday for the second time in a bit more than one month. Poor Russia is a giant only when compared to Ukraine. Besides commodities and raw materials, Russia has never been able to produce anything in any meaningful quantity. Data are from the IMS: https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPDPC@WEO/RUS/TUR/BGR/ROU/POL/FRA/GBR/DEU/USA

She has not been arrested because of what she published or anything she has done or said. Apparently, she has been arrested in retaliation for the arrest of an Iranian-Swiss citizen (“drone expert” Mohammad Abedini-Najafabad) in Milan, Italy, on December the 16, at the request of the United States. He faces charges of conspiring to export sensitive U.S. technology to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a designated foreign terrorist organization. In the US, Abedini is accused of providing material support to the IRGC by supplying navigation systems for military drones, including those used in a January 2024 attack that resulted in the deaths of three U.S. servicemembers in Jordan. Where? In Iran, of course. But I would add to the count also the Palestinians in Gaza, the Libanese and the Yemenites, all of them expendable hostages of the Iranian regime and its proxies.

You can write to the daughter of the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mrs. Arzu Aliyeva, who owns the airline, together with other members of Azerbaijani political elites, and voice your displeasure. I am sure both lham Aliyev and Vladimir Putin will appreciate and prepare to welcome you when you'll be back in Moscow. You can find Mrs. Arzu Aliyeva in Baku. Arzu Aliyeva - Wikipedia

Misha, frankly speaking, your comments are childish, mis constructed and misinformed. The International Civil Aviation Organization (a United Nations agency which helps 193 countries, which would include Russia, to cooperate together and share their skies to their mutual benefit), states, under the Montreal convention, that "States and States alone maintain sovereign authority over their airspace". "This authority carries with it the responsibility to issue risk advisories regarding any threats to the safety of civilian aircraft operating in their airspace. Said threats may include, but are not limited to, armed conflicts, ash clouds due to volcanic eruptions, missile tests and rocket launches, etc." "States also have authority to close their airspace where certain safety threats may warrant that action". Even "ICAO does not possess the authority to over-ride sovereign States in order to close their airspace or reroute airline traffic". Airlines have some discretion in their decision making. "Aircraft and airline operators are responsible for assessing global airspace risks communicated by States, and/or third parties, before deciding where they fly". But do you really expect the flag airline company of Azerbaijan, a country which is a member of Russian dominated Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and which is de-facto and de-jure a military ally of Russia, to dispute the Russian authorities claim that the Russian territory is safe? Do you really expect the Azerbaijan Airlines to tell the whole World that Russia is lying, and its skies are dangerous to fly, because the Russian air defenses are crap? If you do, you are childish. https://www.icao.int/Newsroom/Pages/ICAO-Clarifies-International-Conflict-Zone-Guidance.aspx