From the perspective of ideology and policy preferences, do you see any trends?

There is such a wild mix of parties that receive some significant amount of support that I’m having a hard time working out what the most important political splits and questions are.

The best I can see, from reading your posts, is that religious / ethnic divides are still relevant but secularism is stronger, with secularists split between pro-Iran and pro-West.

Meaning the biggest question defining national politics is really Iran vs The West?

Or is it even less ideological: the politics are chaotic at the national level because local politics are what really matter with the national result explained as simply the aggregate of local politics?

$47,000 for a knob lol. ROFL. Lmao even.

But $15? Is the new military sourcing program browsing Alibaba for deals?

Some interesting sub-points in the article and I enjoyed the perspective but I don’t agree with the core thesis.

Because of this [defense spending as stimulus and Ukrainian war debt], it’s highly unlikely that the EU will tolerate an early conclusion to the war in Ukraine. They stand to lose the justification for their spending, lucrative contracts for their defense sectors, tens of billions on loans that Ukraine will be unable to pay, and the massive investments they’ve made into military-industrial infrastructure.

I don’t agree with this assertion since they can simply flag the “Russian threat” as a justification to continue increased spending for another decade after this war ends anyway.

The article also makes points about the “Danish model” (Denmark investing in defense manufacturing within Ukraine) which seem to run directly counter to the thesis that the spending is intended as stimulus since that would function as stimulus better by spending it in Denmark or the EU.

Further, the loss of access to cheap Russian gas is a major factor in pushing Europe further into stagnation / recession, so it’s putting the cart before the horse a bit. At most the stimulus effect of defense spending is enjoying a bit of cream after killing the cow.

I think it’s likely accurate to say that defense spending is welcome economic stimulus. It’s also accurate that Europe needs a Ukrainian state of some kind to survive the war else they will have to write-off hundreds of billions in war debt.

But I suspect the cost of massively increased defense spending, loss of Russian gas, all the other costs of supporting Ukraine… surely these costs are massive compared to the cost of writing off a couple of hundred billion in debt? The idea that a desire to get that debt repaid is a driver of European policy towards Russia seems suspect since a few hundred billion in debt (that will probably be restructured or defaulted on either way) just isn’t that much in the true scale of things.

I think the best way to understand the wests motivations is to see them as geopolitical actors who want to curtail Russia’s sphere of influence in Europe.

including Tymur Mindich, a co-owner of Zelenskyy's media company, as the suspected mastermind

So this guy will escape to Israel and nothing will get pinned on the Z man

Concerns about rising mental illness prompt calls to just don’t worry about it, go for a walk and eat some vegetables. We all get sad sometimes just try smiling.

Mongol related, reminding Polish people that some Polish principalities were briefly tributaries of the Khanate makes them surprisingly mad.

“Nooo we weren’t part of the mongol empire, we remained pure.”

“R U awake? if yes, pl call,” Barak wrote Epstein, at 1 a.m

Wait so they’ll seize the money but use it for loans? Ukraine would still have to pay Europe back even though it isn’t Europe’s money?

Over the time span of a century, I think China would have a very positive impact on Latin American sovereignty.

But over the time span of 20 years at least, I see China accepting a hemispherical division.

I support the outcome of Clinton and Harris absolutely mauling each other in a bitter primary just for Michelle Obama to pick the crown up from the ground on the basis of this being the funniest outcome.

Commanders get fired for retreating, not for following orders, and the people giving orders care about optics.

Schindlers McMenu