And the American arms industry is the backbone of the military industrial complex, bringing in vast amounts of money to the US every year. The world’s biggest arms exporter can only benefit from someone else’s war. Without that industry, my guess is the United States treasury would become completely overwhelmed by their sovereign debt and collapse very quickly, so the government on either side of the aisle will protect it with all their might.

I wish I could agree with you, but the situation in Gaza looks more and more like something we’ve seen before. After the end of World War 2, the world reacted with shock at what had been done to the Jews - murder has never been committed on such a grand scale and in such organized fashion. Jews had been dehumanised in public long before, being equated to rats and other vermin. The Zionists currently holding on to power in Israel are using the same kind of rhetoric against Palestinians. However, one difference between then and now is that the Rwanda genocide taught us that the world is entirely capable of sitting back and watch the horror unfold, even though we’re all fully informed of what’s going on. A ship of brave volunteers being sunk would cause a stern letter or at best sanctions. Israel can act with utter impunity as long as they’re backed by their big brother Uncle Sam.

Reminds me of when I was having a chat with the owner of a company I worked at in London. We had just made ourselves a cup of tea, he got himself a digestive to go with it. He dipped the digestive in his tea, and mid-sentence only half of the biscuit came back up. Stunned silence. The look of utter misery and disappointment on his face stays with me to this day - this was the last thing he needed just then. I suggested it could be fixed by adding the rest of the packet of biscuits and enjoy it as a biscuit porridge - he wasn’t entirely convinced. 😄

This happened outside of Trondheim in Norway. Funny thing is that the homeowner didn’t even notice. He slept through the whole thing and woke up to a 135 metre cargo ship outside his window.

I had cat scratch disease last year, and do not recommend it. Very painful and uncomfortable. If a cat bites or scratches you hard enough to break skin, clean and disinfect immediately. If you feel ill after a couple of weeks to a month, test yourself and kitty for Bartonella Henselae. If positive, prepare for three months to a year of misery.

A lot of good points here about pros and cons when considering republic vs constitutional monarchy. I was myself against the idea of monarchy for quite a while, but I realize it’s mostly because I was living in the UK at the time and was exposed to how normal people are treated compared to the upper class. In addition, though the British royal family doesn’t have any power on paper, they have vast connections in all parts of the government and private sector with many ways to influence things. Also, the UK was until recently a two party state, which meant almost total power to whichever party won the election.

Scandinavia doesn’t have as much of a disparity between social classes (even counting royals), and what I see here is that the monarchy provides a stability and continuity that we wouldn’t get with a republic. Anyone can lie, cheat and bribe their way to getting elected president, but when you have a dozen different parties with different policies passing laws with a monarch as an anchor, it works out pretty well.

The King of Norway has a mostly symbolic role in day-to-day affairs. New laws that have been passed by the Storting (Parliament) will have their final approval signed by the King, but this is largely a token approval. The King does have veto power over any given amendment, but if he invokes it, Parliament has the right to vote the same amendment through a second time, at which point it cannot be vetoed. He is the head of the Church of Norway, and also supreme commander of our armed forces. Though command is delegated to other commanders, the King would have a more direct role in questions regarding central command or wartime. When representing our country abroad, he is very much considered a personification of the nation, rather than a representative of the ruling party. Norway’s main reason for maintaining our own monarchy stems very much from declaring independence from Denmark and Sweden, which ruled us for about 500 years.

non-renuable

Not a word, my dude.

Who needs’em? If Uncle Vlad hears that Ze Germans are rolling across the Polish border, he’ll be skipping on one leg back to Russia while changing his soiled pants. :D

Probably couldn’t trust Trump to come through, but you have to keep in mind that he’s not an autocrat quite yet. Not everyone in the US government shares his views on NATO and the commitments the US has pledged to under that alliance. Look at the rest of NATO. You have four of the top ten military powers in the world to start off with (UK, France, Turkey, Italy). Then add to that the rest of Europe and Poland’s own considerable military might. Canada would also join in, and those otherwise peaceful Canadians go fucking nuts when provoked. Even disregarding NATO, you have the Anglo-Polish Alliance, which is a mutual assurance that the UK provides military assistance (or vice versa) if their ally is invaded. Poland also has many close friends and allies in the old East Bloc, so the misconception that they would be left to their own devices is simply untrue.

Ukraine isn’t a member of NATO. In fact, their wish to join the EU and NATO could very well be the excuse Putin needed to start the invasion.

Most hilarious part of this meme is the people losing their minds in the comments. “Jesus wasn’t white, he was black! But he didn’t exist, stop with the religious nonsense!”

What else do we have left at this point?

Ukraine not being a NATO member yet is most likely among the main reasons Putin had the balls to send troops across the border. There’s absolutely no way he’d risk a full-on confrontation with NATO, because he knows it would be the end of the Russian Federation.

deleted by creator

An attack on Poland would immediately invoke NATO Article 5, drawing in the combined forces of continental Europe, the UK, the US and Turkey. The world wouldn’t need to worry about it going nuclear, conventional forces would have the Russians back over the Belarusian border by lunchtime.

I don’t even live in the US, but the internet has conditioned me to prepare myself for something batshit insane whenever I read the words “Florida man”. What’s up with that?

“Omg, wait, let go! Oh… That’s actually really nice and warm, purrrrrrr…”

I don’t nap, but it baffles me that someone would be horrified over someone else having regular naps. If a nap takes you to your happy place, you do you.

Have another downvote, on the house.