I’d be willing to introduce national backsides to Euro notes so they can put their King’s mug on it.

Because they went to Eton which teaches important skills such as talking utter bollocks with absolute confidence. People trust them.

Not to mention that the UK originally joined the EC in the early 70s precisely to fix its economical problems.

Joining the EU might indeed be a bit off because everybody is weary of a not actually fully committed UK but that doesn’t mean the UK can’t join the single market, or at least a customs union. Turkey currently is more closely integrated with the EU than the UK is.

The whole situation is BS in the first place, back in the days the concept of gender was introduced to allow some flexibility in the social aspects while keeping sex (as in phenotype) a binary which science already knew it wasn’t. Bimodal distribution, yes, binary, no. Things get complicated fast once you go past egg cells and sperm, that’s the only actual binary that exists.

English in particular uses transsexual because back in the days activists wanted to avoid associations with sexuality, to not get tangled up in people’s homophobic sentiments. Other language use precisely that term, transsexual. Hirschfeld coined “transvestite”, back then a catch-all term for behaviour not conforming to your sex assigned at birth (and you could get a transvestite pass in Imperial Germany to stop the police harassing you for “inciting public disorder”), Benjamin coined “transsexual”, in English, as a diagnosis separate to “just liking to dress up differently”, it got replaced later on don’t ask me for a source right now.

It’s not genocide for the same reason that straight-up euthanising, say, schizophrenics isn’t: Neither are a people, but a subset of every people.

I’d lump it in with eugenics but genocide is catchy so I’ll permit it despite better semantic judgement.

Detractors have that fixation on straws, for the EU legislature it was just another regulation among many.

Also the plastic straw fixation is now kinda fading in favour of attached bottle caps. People will literally lose 50 IQ points and stub their nose to spite Berlaymont instead of rotating the bottle 90 degrees.

Btw, the democratic tradition in Germany was barely 14 years old

The SPD was founded 1863. Germany had been a constitutional monarchy with a parliament for quite a while, based on Prussia’s introduction of the thing in 1848. That was introduced not so much by grace of the King but because of the people demanding it.

And, no, the Americans didn’t have a plan going into Germany, either. Not having plans is kind of their thing. They didn’t even plan on entering the war, remember. I could go into endless detail here but that e.g. VW still exists is due to the Brits, definitely not US policy, and let’s not forget the French keen on overcoming arch enmity and turning it around into European integration.

We had just come out of commiting the worst genocide in history and most of us cheered for it.

For claiming to be German you know preciously little German history.

Under the american occupation, afghan women and minorities enjoyed more protection and participation than they ever had in the last 100 years.

Yes. And it was a grave mistake to not arm the women. Imagine the Taliban trying to take Kabul if there were two or three women battalions around, very much fighting in self-interest, calling their male colleagues limp-dicked over not putting up a fight.

There’s three more currently in parliament, including a Nazi (Harald Weyel, AfD).

You’re vastly oversimplifying.

Afghanistan as we know it was created by Pashtuns, the majority ethnicity in Afghanistan back then in 1747 (A large chunk of Tajiks settled in North Afhghanistan fleeing the Red Army, that’s why they’re so numerous now). It’s already post-colonial, in the sense that it’s not part of Persia (or Greece) any more and avoided becoming Russian, it fought for its independence. Saying “it only exists because it’s convenient to colonial powers” is a fucking insult.

You’re erasing their own struggles and achievements for your own messed-up white saviour complex, “Oh poor brown people are poor and behave like assholes that must be because we did it”.

No, colonial conflicts did not instil misogyny in Afghanistan, least of all during the Soviet or US invasion. That’s a mixture of ancient tribal values reinforced by convenient interpretations of Islam. The US could certainly have supported nicer people than the Mujahideen to fuck with the Soviets trying to colonise but it’s not like Afghanistan was a beacon of progressivism before, on the contrary. Some enlightened absolutism in Kabul, yes, the Royals got around and studied abroad, everywhere else, very much not.

If you ask me the mistake the US made, big-picture, was to not arming women.

Years of competent and cooperative occupation? 5? Thats how long it took in Germany.

I’m having flashbacks to Iraq, or rather talking to Americans about the thing when they were all gung-ho about it. “It’s going to be just like Germany!” is what you always say, completely ignoring that Germany had a democratic tradition, proper civil society, well-educated population able to re-industrialise in a couple of years, Universities that pre-date Columbus, and in many ways created those very values you claim you instilled. Do I have to remind you of the US’s domestic Apartheid policies at that point in time gods fucking thanks you didn’t instil shit.

Also the occupation of Germany lasted 45 years (1945-1990) but that’s a technicality.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
  But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
  And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—
       Merely this and nothing more.

In case anyone is curious, there’s also Aramand Zorn, SPD (just like Diaby), Awet Tesfaiesus, Greens, and Harald Weyel, AfD, of all parties. Also happens to be the only native-born German.

Diaby is member of the SPD, their left wing on top of that which makes him a target for Nazis in the first place and his skin colour of course isn’t helping. Neither is his constituency being in the east though do note that he didn’t get into the Bundestag over the party list, he won a FPTP seat.

Presumably when we’re talking off-site backups we’re talking about a separate company sitting somewhere in an abandoned nuclear bunker which can justify the price of a tape drive or twenty.

Do you currently spend your day celebrating revolting against even a fraction of the BS you’re exposed to? Not willing to even protest against the various injustices in your country, but your right to be a mall ninja, that is where you draw the line?

Lay down your neckbeard, trenchcoat, fedora, and katana, good sir, and have some perspective. Like, arm the homeless or something.

Actually American stuff is illegal in the EU, preservatives, bleaches, dyes, whatnot. What’s allowed to be called what will differ from country to country and you are not the biggest bread snobs, you’re just the most vocally snobbish.

In Germany there’s Toastbrot, actual bread though noone in their right mind would eat it without toasting first, then bigger and thicker and fluffier slices which are considered an “American-style” style of toast (again: don’t eat them raw ewww) but as said not the real deal. Those latter ones may or may not be legally bread, it’s usually hidden in the fine print while the big print is “sandwich slices” or something. Thing is the stuff needs to be made from 90% flour, sugar+fat together max 10%, and if you want something that’s recognisable to Americans as bread you need to blow that limit.

Oh and all are bound to use a proper sourdough process, over-engineered as it may be in an industrial setting they’re giving the dough enough time to actually pre-digest itself.

15cm is still 3cm more than what’s allowed to carry without good reason. Replica or sharp doesn’t matter in this context because the question isn’t whether you could hurt someone but whether the public might worry you’re going to hurt someone. You could reasonably argue that it has toy colours and therefore doesn’t count as replica but looking at the image you’re relying a lot on goodwill, there.

Also, a particularly stiff twig is a blunt weapon. You’re not supposed to run around with broomsticks if you’re not doing any actual sweeping, either. Or hang out in an dim underpass with baseball bats unless you’re an actual baseball player and are waiting for the train to your game or something.

That’s way longer. 20cm is the average blade length for chef’s knives. Over here in Germany, with way more liberal knife laws: Legal to own (duh) but also very much not legal to carry much less wield in public unless you have a good reason – like actually preparing food in public. You can transport that kind of thing without fanfare but transporting very much involves not having it at the ready.

Four months are still completely overkill, though. Impounding and maybe a week’s worth of fine (one day of disposable income == one day in prison here) if he was being stupid and careless but non-aggressive. Four months go way beyond “let this be a lesson” territory and very much into “the state is nuts and doesn’t make sense”. If you’re feeling poetic, how about some social hours in a charity store sorting donated fidget spinners.

Isn’t that what tapes are for.

There was no infrastructure to find these kinds of opportunities unless you knew a guy who knew a guy. The likes of airbnb were what enabled the spread of couchsurfing in places you did not have a prior connection to in the first place. Then bread and breakfasts and smaller hotels started getting onto the platform as it was a way for them to get customers, not having the name recognition and own infrastructure that big hotel chains have. Then, years later, came the fucks buying up multiple apartments to turn them into short-term rentals.

I’ll readily blame airbnb for not nipping that behaviour in the bud themselves but also that’s just not how VC investment works, they had no chance at that point. I’m generally not a fan of how Silicon Valley companies act regarding regulations but unlike e.g. uber airbnb hasn’t been trying to skirt them and find loopholes left and right, only thing they’ve been whinging about, particularly in Berlin, is that the administration doesn’t have its IT shit together and is generally slow, and pointed to Hamburg of all places as something to imitate. Very smart of them: “You’re worse than Hamburg” is one of the few viable ways to motivate Berliners to do anything. The other is to dangle VIP tickets to Berghain in front of their noses.

And for the folks who are saying “wHy n0t rUst”, you can always show me the (rust) code.

https://github.com/servo/servo

I really wish they would publish flatpaks because I can’t be arsed to either build the thing or get a non-standard precompiled binary to run on nixos.