It is not about my opinion, it is about my experience as customer. While I agree that Spotify is bad regarding some practices, as a person that listen to music I am not as negatively affected by those policies as with others video streaming platforms. Same with steam: while there are some questionable practices linked with steam as monopoly, from a consumer prospective it is still not “shitty”.
I would argue that Europe is much less dependent now then during the cold war. From the 1990, thanks to the EU, europe began a process of equalization, capable of dealing with the US as peers. While the economic interdependency is still high, and the military collaboration in NATO is undeniable, Europe is growing less and less dependent from the US. The fact that Europe depends on the US for military protection is fantasy. Is the economical interdependency that gives the US leverage, not NATO. The US already abandoned europe defence in Ukraine and is actively damaging Europe with his illegal aggressive war in Iran. The idea that Europe wants to maintain good relationship with the US because of military protection is laughable. Europe want to protect one of the biggest export market for european economies.
Still paying for Spotify. At least Spotify is not shit from consumer prospective. Stremio/Kodi + a debrid service are better then any subscription and cheaper.
Sure, let’s punish Trump giving Trump what Trump want. Great strategy…
While this is totally true, you cannot fault the EU for not acting on the in-house science team info given the EU commission had no authority on policing car manufacturers. At the time that was the duty of national authorities. Now the EU commission has granted itself the power to conduct vehicle audits and fine those responsible. Positives changes over embarrassing scandals are a positive outcome to me, and not the norm in modern politics.
The EU did not prevent Dieselgate because the EU was lacking the regulatory framework to do so. And after Dieselgate, lots of new laws were put into place to address a market wide breach of consumer law (the representative actions directive and the omnibus directive). That is exactly what a good governing body should do: act within the boundaries of the law, and improve the law when something bad happens. I very much doubt it will happen again. We are talking billions in fines before there was an actual framework in place to address this. Today the result could be in the tens of billions.
How is dieselgate the fault of the EU? The main offender was Volkswagen. Chat Control and Qatargate are the result of lobbying and corruption, and while the EU is not immune to this kind of influences (being a government body made by people), the aggregate result of EU bureaucracy is much better then any other power block currently active in the world in my opinion.
This, 400 million is very little in the context of an all-out war against the main US military adversary since the Second World War.
How do you poison baits not purposefully?
They understand that very well, but to keep up the appearances force the US government to either reaffirm their commitment or look like the traitors they are. Ukraine should never give Trump excuses to drop support, even if it is just theater.
Italy has always been a trend setter. Trump is just a cheap mashup of Berlusconi and Mussolini
Not really true. Trump administration is also consistent on advancing Israel foreign policy. Israel and Russia, so many things in common.
People use the term “the West” interchangeably with “US and historical allies after WW2 in Europe and North America that I will pretend are a single coherent block with the same history, social issues, internal affair and foreign policies (the US one) and that I will hate because of war/colonialism/slavery/lgbtq+”
The fact that France, Italy, Denmark, Poland, USA, and Brazil are radically different Western countries is unimportant to most that uses the world “West” in normal conversation.
I do not really care about west being used while geographically makes no sense. We are full of label that makes no sense. I would like at least to have a consistent definition.
Iran is the aggressor against the gulf state. No gulf state has made aggressive action against Iran, and there was no military action from gulf states except self defence. All gulf states have no interest in getting involved in the conflict and asked for deescalation at the UN. In a joint declaration from the middle east council on global affairs:
Despite several Gulf states stating that their territory could not be used for the war by the U.S. or Israel, Iran has targeted U.S. military assets across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, with an impact on civilian infrastructure.
When Iran decided to attach civilian targets totally unrelated with the conflict then it became aggressor. Iran can be the aggressor and the target of war at the same time.
No, it is not an act of war. Article 51 of the UN Charter explicitly grant right to self defence. Inviting other nations to assist in that defence is a right granted by the UN Charter. Iran can obviously consider Ukranian personal as hostile, that is their prerogative, but that does not mean that shooting down drone in self defence is an act of war.
Ukraine is not at war with Iran. Ukraine is helping defend against Iran attach to countries around Iran. The US is attaching Iran. The US asked no help to Ukraine.
BTW, the US aid didn’t stop since the Epstein class of senators did approve 600 mill plan of military aid for Ukraine in 2026.
As of today 0 dollars are coming to Ukraine as the president has effectively stalled them
Helping puppet states (like gulf monarchies) and interfering with other regions warfare just proves that this Ukraine regime is another puppet for western imperialism.
Helping some independent states (not western) to defend themself is proof of western imperialism? Sure thing… you are making a lot of sense.
And you continue to ignore that the US stopped support for Ukraine as soon as the epstein class came to power, that Trump attacked Zelensky numerous times, tried to force a peace deal drafted by Russia onto Ukraine (demanding recognition of occupied territories and more), and the suspension of Intelligence and Residual support (now provided directly by Ukraine and France as Primary alternative provider).
Helping Gulf states is instrumental is creating defence partnership that fuel Ukraine war economy against Russia. This is done as the US is not supporting Ukraine anymore and is arguable more favorable to Russia (easing of sanction to Russia, normalizing Russia-US economy cooperation, and redirecting military supply paid by Europe for Ukraine to domestic needs instead)
What you say is just false.
Trump explicitly rejected help from Ukraine with drone defence. And he has done so multiple times. The help Ukraine is given is to UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Jordan, not the US.
Most? With the amount of people running laptop docked I would say that is not the case for most business laptops for sure.