I’m not really deep into WordPress, but that Mullenweg guy seems to have a couple conflicts of interest.

How so? I haven’t really kept up with 4B, so this is a genuine question.

Not all batteries in the world have to be made of lithium. Depending on the use case other materials cab be even superior.

Unless you’re ready to fill the country with a thousand battery farms,

Oh I am totally ready to do that. A third of these batteries will be actually farms, a third will be sitting stationary in everybodies cellars and sheds and the other half will be rolling on the streets in form of electric vehicles.

Top off your own batteries and EV with surpluses during excess production and drain them during dry situations. Most people seem to forget that EVs can work both ways.

Russia also has one of the largest reserves of uranium in Eurasia as well, only behind Kazakhstan.

Also Germany would only trade one teat for another. Energy indepences is only possible by using renewables.

Lastly every energy corporation has said they won’t touch nuclear with a twelve feet pole because it is too expensive and there is no insurance agency willing to back them up.

The nuclear horse IS dead.

OK, let’s trade then. Mine are often cold despite the blanket/bed sheet.

Ok, right continent, wrong coast. Close enough.

More info for people like me.

Hold my bacon, one can patent the idea that a game character switches mounts depending on a given state? (Image 3)

Who puts a blanket on their legs but not their feet? Also, wearing slippers on the couch? If your feet are cold, put them under your blanket and get those dirty soles off the furniture!

Kids these days …

after this election that I have an unexpectedly pressing need to wave large obnoxious flags

I might be ignorant here, but was this a submission for the Maine state flag referendum?

SPRICH

Laws that demand violence to be used in proportion with the danger posed by the individual(s) and damage caused?

Proper checks and balances to enforce said laws?

Yes, but there is a quite a gap between ordering tanks and equipment and receiving said order.

South Korean armouries might have to start working overtime soon.

The “Ready Player One” approach might also help.

I have no English sources on hand, but there have been multiple parcels found across Europe that contained firebombs. In one case, the bomb didn’t go off mid-flight because the flight was delayed.

The heads of German intelligence agencies had their annual public hearing recently, making it very clear that Russia considers Germany an enemy. As far as I can tell, the response by our senior political figures has been deafening silence and inaction.

So Putin is not stupid at all. He is just counting on the continued indecisiveness of most western leaders.

Yes and it starts a riot.

That’s alright as long as I can use the Cyclops instead.

Smoking accidents can happen everywhere! Only YOU can prevent forest fires!

inb4 Russian state media headline “Ukraine running out of troops. Hiring mercenaries! In other news: Don’t bother about the weirdly speaking comrades from Vladivostok!”

NATO maintains that it is a defensive alliance. If NATO starts adding countries Russia is currently at war with, it becomes an offensive alliance.

I don’t think so. Ukraine is in a defensive war. Actively joining their side doesn’t turn it into an offensive one. The difference between offensive and defensive conflicts is the goal: In an offensive, you want to gain something. In a defence, it is about keeping what you have. Just because NATO would come to their aid, Ukraine wouldn’t want to conquer Russia.

That being said, why wasn’t Ukraine added earlier?

Multiple reasons probably:

• Ukraine was and to some extent still is a post-soviet state: Oligarchs, corruption and all that comes with it.
• There was the Budapest Memorandum in place which guaranteed a sovereign Ukrainian state affectively as buffer between Russia and other NATO countries. Which was subsequently broken by Russia in 2014.
• “Don’t anger the Russians”. See where this got us?