All redbubble merchandise will need to be rebranded now.

That it was an EU ship that came to the rescue isn’t surprising. Despite the EU’s scarce naval resources, they are currently the only ones there. There isn’t a Prosperity Guardian ship within 500 miles. Back in May when the carrier USS Dwight D Eisenhower was present, the US had 12 warships on station providing a mix of missile picket and escorting duties. Now they have zero. The UK for one brief moment had three. HMS Diamond did some outstanding work as part of OPG but when she left, we left.

There can only be one conclusion: that the US has given up on Operation Prosperity Guardian. It wasn’t deterring the Houthis and it wasn’t reassuring shipping so they might as well go and do something else.

I'm shooting blind as I haven't looked too deep into how the blockade has impacted global trade, but I think this makes perfect sense for the US.

It isn't that much further away around the Cape than through the Suez to arrive from the South China Sea to the US east coast, and AFAIK most trade actually happens with the West Coast through the Pacific or through Panama. So higher shipping costs harm Europe much more than they harm the US in this case.

Just like the Ukraine War, sanctions on Russia and China and the Nord Stream, it seems the US is intending on using this blockade to cannibalise Europe's economy even further. Expect another year of negative growth in the EU, specially with China becoming a suitable replacement as a high-tech producer worldwide. They don't have to go either through Suez or around the Cape in order to ship to a majority of the world's population.

There's a sort of logic to having a weak military in Mexico. Their only land neighbours are the USA, Guatemala and Belize. Neither south neighbour is a threat, and despite the USA being really inefficient there's no way Mexico could fight toe-to-toe with them if they were directly invaded.

They also don't have any strategic overseas rival like an imperialist power would.

So not only can you save lots of budget in the military, but it also reduces the harm that a well-funded and organised military can be to the "internal enemy", which is usually poor, indigenous, black or otherwise marginalised people. (Usually with the cover of "combatting drug trafficking")

Bribing the military is also part of the CIA modus operandi for interfering in Latin America. Just look at the current investigation on the Bolsonaro coup attempt and how many of the relevant generals took part in the MINUSTAH.

But I also don't think the USA will ever be able to directly attack Mexico without gigantic repercussions to themselves. They're better off just doing another Allende.

But an increase in the construction of multiple-unit buildings has boosted the supply of apartments, which is slowly beginning to rein in runaway rents.

Oh cool, that means rent prices are going down, right? Supply and demand and all that.

The median asking rent was $1,713, which was down $4 from November and down $63 from the July 2022 peak.

Small gain, but I'm sure it's relevant in context.

However, median rent is still $309 higher than the same time in 2019, before the pandemic. That’s a 22% increase.

Oh.

How the fuck aren't Statesians living in constant rent strikes?

Italy has joined the "poor countries needing charity health work from Cuba". Who's the failed economic system now?

I'm also always impressed by how positive Cuban health workers abroad can be given the circumstances. Not only is their country being denied properiry by foreign powers, but in every country they go they are victims of demonisation campaigns by the bourgeois press, and they still manage to come out not hating the entire country they're sent to.

Knowing how these institutions work, this is effectively a life sentence without trial. Obviously his mental health will worsen in there, which will be used as justification for keeping him there longer. For stealing some mp4s of a video game. Yet another autistic kid institutionalised for life.

Unlike a human, Ashley always shows up for the job, has perfect recall of all of Daniels’ positions, and does not feel dejected when she’s hung up on.

Oh wow, truly the party that represents workers.

Considering GTA's historical treatment of women in their older games, I'll still hold my breath to see how the characters are written. Although gamers seething is always nice, I'm always pessimistic with the AAA games industry.

Not sure if this Chrome thing also applies to mobile, but this is as good time as any to remind people that you can now install uBlock Origin (and many other useful extensions) on the android firefox app.

It might be a good time to also change to a better projection than the "Huge Greenland" one. That one makes it seem as if Europe even has any landmass to boast. For reference, Venezuela has roughly double the area of France. And look at that tiny India!

I had to do it lol. Really wanted to see how the libs would react to such an obvious "are we the baddies?" moment. They ~~never~~ always disappoint.

At least I'm getting some gimp experience.

This quote is particularly telling.

Those concerns picked up steam in the past week after Ukraine launched a second push in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and has still come up mostly empty in the eyes of Western allies.

You know, like when you are doing a group project and all your "partners" just watch you do all of it, but in this case the project is made with other people's blood, and you already knew the whole class was gonna fail anyway.

It would be funny seeing the blame game getting heated between (what remains of) Ukraine and NATO, if not for all the senseless and pointless spilling of blood they could've avoided from the start. I bet eventually they'll agree on some third-party scapegoat a la WW1 Germany.