And this criticism of ‘the greens only show up every 4 years’ is in bad faith.

No, it’s really not. The Mayor of Galesburg, IL, a town of 30.000 is the highest office any green politician holds in the US. This is fucking ridiculous.

By their own admission, only 130 Greens are currently in office in highly influential positions such as Zoning Board of Appeals Alternate or Cemetery Trust Fund Committee. This party is a fucking joke. And that’s the party whose presidential candidate accepts an invitation from Putin.

still taking Russian oil

That’s a lie

Also: Germany’s coal power production drops to lowest level in 60 years in 2023

Stop with that bullshit

How is that a better solution than using another messenger app?

Diese verdammten Klimakleber aber auch! Was? Wie bitte?

The Shinkansen is absolutely great and I love traveling in Japan by train, much better experience overall than Germany. That said, there are still so many things that are oddly outdated. Like, why is there no app to book tickets? Even when booking online, physical tickets are still needed and have to be collected at the train station.

Now with the typhoon a lot of connections were cancelled. Hundreds of people had to go to physical counters to exchange their physical tickets to cash. Because there’s an emergency schedule on some lines, the ticket machines don’t work and customers have to go to counters to get tickets. Even Germany is more digitized than that. Granted, Germany has a lot more experience with cancelled train connections…

It’s like, Japan was ahead of everyone else and just stopped there. Still a great experience but it could be so much better with relatively little effort.

I don’t quite share your sentiment. Although FDP tends to yap a lot about car infrastructure, investments into train infrastructure in Germany are at a record high. Still far too low, I agree, but it’s not getting worse. And I don’t see AfD joining any government on national level anytime soon. Also, cycling infrastructure is more a local topic and most cities are still center-left. Outside of cities I don’t see biking infrastructure improving either, though.

Hm… let’s see, we let in Hungary, there’s a strong push against messenger encryption, and we kill a lot of people at our outer border. Yep, we’re great.

You’re working under the hypothetical that mankind would just one day stop consuming animal products and every animal would be released into the wild. That’s not what would happen.

There are two possibilities: policy-driven or consumer-driven, both essentially work the same way. We would at some point stop breeding new farm animals, be it because it’s outlawed or because demand for animal products would go down. Either way, this would be a gradual process over decades. Every animal that is already bred would of course still be slaughtered, just like they are now. This would lead to the extinction of the domesticated branches of some animal families, true. However, as they add absolutely nothing to biodiversity, there is no loss to nature. Their free cousins still exist roaming the planet anyway such as the red junglefowl and the wild boar.

Also, feral chickens, feral dogs, feral pigeons, and feral cats among many more feel hurt by your statement they couldn’t survive in the wild. For many domesticated animals it’s simply not feasible to release them to the wild not because they couldn’t survive on an individual level but because of their sheer number no potential habitate could survive it.

When we first domesticated animals we made a sacred pact with them

You’re very much romanticizing what happened here. A pact requires consent. Animals can’t consent, so there is no pact. Especially not a sacred one, I mean, what the fuck?

I wouldn’t go as far as calling what we’re doing slavery either for the same reason, human concepts of free will and consent don’t really work with animals. But if you think, we’re actually caring for these animals, I have a bridge to sell you.

The article is pretty well done and shows exactly why this discussion is moot. There’s simply no merit to the accusation, plain and simple.

If an accusation comes from Russia and only from Russia, it’s part of their misinformation warfare. That’s not ad-hominem, that’s paying some fucking attention.

They’re not?

Okay, then it’s exactly what I thought. Thanks!

other people’s voting paperwork

Same way as they would for the ID, They don’t. That’s not a common problem. Only people in the same household could possibly access the paperwork and as there are only 250-ish people voting at the same polling station, risk is high that someone voting twice with paperwork of a family member would immediately be found. That there are enough cases of this to sway election results is highly unlikely.

voting several times

Check list. Everyone that is registered at that polling station is ticked off on the list.

I mean, I like Elon

Honest question, why?

IDs are not routinely checked when voting in Germany at least. But there’s no voter registration necessary because everyone is registered with their municipality and automatically gets their voting paperwork sent home. You just need that paperwork to vote, no ID. I wouldn’t change that setup because giving poll workers ways to refuse voters is not a good thing.

Btw. I’ve never had to wait in line for more than a minute to vote. Voting booths are usually in walking distance (might be different in very rural areas) and each accommodates maybe 250 people for the day.

Also, there are polling stations in prison. The right to vote can’t be taken away.

True, Breezy is just one example. But that’s not the ones they were discussing with.

Is that remorse here in the room with us?

Just to make clear what I mean:

he said it’s the biggest mistake of his life - I sure fucking hope so. This is an empty statement, of course it is.

and he has to bear the consequences - that’s what grinds my gears. No, he doesn’t bear the consequences, his victim does. I would like for him just once to acknowledge that there is an actual victim here and it’s not him. He destroyed her life. Even that carefully crafted PR statement you posted here only ominously mentioned “those involved”. He doesn’t mention her, his organization doesn’t mention her. He calls it a misstep and a mistake, he doesn’t call it what it is, child rape.

If he were truly reformed, he would acknowledge what kind of pain his continuous presence in the public eye inflicts on his victim and others like her and would actually bear the consequences - step down on his own.

Fun fact Spaßtatsache: sind nur 7 Linien, die S5 existiert nicht und die S20 fährt nicht durch die Stammstrecke

I really like DS9 but there are a lot of worthy contenders for the worst episode. The one where Sisko renders a whole planet uninhabitable just because one guy pissed him off comes to mind and of course Move Along Home.

Worfs character gets assassinated a lot in TNG and DS9, mainly him being an extremely shitty father…

I hate that episode with a passion. Worf just randomly becoming a terrorist with no repercussions is just so extremely stupid.

Hmm… I think the Ezri character arc is actually pretty strong for being in the show for only one season of a show in the nineties. I mean, they had the whole conflict with Worf up to a new friendship and her dissing the Klingon empire, the episode where she helps Garak, the episode where she finds the killer, the episode where she helps Lennier detect the Houdinis, the episode where O’Brian goes missing and we see her family… The only thing I really didn’t like was how she was basically shown as incompetent in the Nog PTSD episode. That was a wasted opportunity showing her as a great counselor. But Troi was also always incompetent at her job, so I guess that’s tradition in Star Trek. But all of these episodes are unique to Ezri, except for AR-558, none of these story lines would have worked with Jadzia.