Germany, which overcame its initial reluctance to support Ukraine to become the country’s biggest European supplier of military aid, looks poised to change course as the finance minister said the government would slash future assistance by half in order to fulfill other spending priorities....
BERLIN — Germany, which overcame its initial reluctance to support Ukraine to become the country’s biggest European supplier of military aid, looks poised to change course as the finance minister said the government would slash future assistance by half in order to fulfill other spending priorities.
Speaking after the cabinet approved the draft budget, Finance Minister Christian Lindner said Ukraine would have to rely more on funds from “European sources” as well as hoped-for income from frozen Russian assets.
The decision to cut aid to Ukraine, which was first reported by Reuters, resolves a mystery surrounding the German coalition’s unexpected agreement over the budget following an all-night bargaining session two weeks ago.
Scholz’s government has dragged its feet on helping Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s onslaught, drawing ridicule for an early offer to send helmets weeks before the full-scale invasion.
“The many promises of the chancellor and his defense minister to continue to support Ukraine are turning out to be hollow phrases,” Ingo Gädechens, a lawmaker from the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), told POLITICO.
At the same time, the coalition has been at odds over how to finance its own military needs in order to fulfill Scholz’s promises to rebuild Germany’s armed forces and meet NATO’s annual spending target of 2 percent of GDP.
The original article contains 697 words, the summary contains 215 words. Saved 69%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Yea, that’s plenty of time to get someone to investigate odd behavior. Obviously hindsight is 20/20, but you see stuff like that, have an officer go investigate and continue to keep an eye on the person. And yes, I get it’s easy for me to say that now we know what happened, but it would be a reasonable response.
Also, I know an officer did go up there and got a rifle pointed at him, but the situation should have been handled then, not after things went sideways. By either that officer or the counter sniper watching, who should have been keeping an eye on the situation.
Ugh. 1990 is almost 35 years ago [!!!], OK, but I'm still very happy to finally having finished Moving Pictures by #Pratchett. What a boring book, where each and every acting character is stereotypically cis male, EVEN BOTH OCCURRING DOGS!!1 🤯
[Pratchett of course writes really funny sometimes, in it, BUT. Will continue my journey through his creative realm, though!]
“It’s not a crime to be wealthy,” defense lawyer Sidhardha Kamaraju told the jury. “It’s not a crime to have a yacht or a jet or to wear nice suits. … It may be odd. It may even be off-putting to some, but it’s not a crime.”
No that sure isn’t a crime but that’s not the crime he committed, idiot. Stealing people’s money to buy that stuff is, and that’s what he did.
The energy giant Shell has quietly backed away from a pledge to rapidly increase its use of “advanced recycling”, a practice oil and petrochemical producers have promoted as a solution to the plastics pollution crisis....
I find it odd that Biden is apparently unqualified to be the nominee, and thus president, but he is currently the president. Why are there no calls for him to resign?
Nah, their corporate structure legit caused them issues making games, people like to think valve as this perfect company, but it’s hella flawed and it’s peak capitalism too.
Keep it in my pants is my strategy anyhow because I’m an antinatalist and do not gamble with my ethics. There isn’t a scenario where I’m trying to impregnate someone who doesn’t want it, so don’t come at me with a chip on your shoulder like that.
I had a friend who was born despite his father’s vasectomy. I don’t care what the odds are. I don’t play with odds.
I’m guessing the odds are so slim that vasectomy plus condom is so close to impossible statistically speaking that you would be safe. I’m not trying to criticize your personal choice, which is perfectly valid.
Looking at France panicking because 2 weeks after snap election there isn’t a clear majority, nor a coalition ready to propose a prime-minister to the president. What would be the standard time to do these negotiations in a functional democracy where doing coalition is common but doesn’t take years (so US and Belgium do not...
The American system is different because of how the executive branch is run, not the quality of elections.
Technically, the Electrical College could not elect a candidate, which would lead to multiple ballots within Congress until a decision is made. However, that only happened once and the Constitution was amended to reduce the odds this would happen.
Firefox new tab has a box in the middle of the page for you to click in and enter text to search in your default search engine - and it immediately starts typing in the URL bar. IF I WANTED TO USE THE URL BAR I WOULD CLICK THERE....
Definitely illogical and judging by the comments here, its a number of us who notice. It’s odd, because they went through the effort to preserve the option of separate search and address bars.
Of course it’s odd. Several rich people don’t get poisoned on the regular. The facts of the case probably point to organized crime or a nation-state assassination.
If you want a conspiracy theory, it’s that the FBI is involved because the U.S. is who did the operation. A more likely theory is that this is bigger than one country and no one is sure what’s going on.
In some respects you already have, just by existing. The odds of any single sperm managing to fertilize an egg are comparable to the odds of winning The Powerball.
Nah. 9+1 is satisfying cause 9 is almost there and the 1 completes it. 7+3 is premium because they’re both odd numbers resulting in a nice number. 8+2 is just really meh and nothing special
I use my hands to kind of do the same thing. It’s probably the behaviour they modeled Monk’s “hand thing” after. It still helps even if I’m searching using my memory and spatial awareness to recall and search through something I am not currently looking at. Somehow, narrowing the scope physically with my hands helps. It’s probably a muscle memory or proprioception thing.
For example, if I want to find something to eat in the fridge. I generally won’t be able to think of anything by just opening the fridge and looking through it. Unless there is something super obvious like a leftover pizza box or something else impossible to miss like that. Just trying to search by looking at each shelf only increases the odds of finding something by like 5%. But when I use my hand and slowly move it down the shelves, I can somehow think more clearly about what is on each shelf than I could without using my hand. And, as I mentioned, it also works even if I am no longer looking in the fridge. I can do it with the door closed and still more clearly recall what was on each shelf.
It also helps when scanning through my whole house looking for something, with and without currently having eyes on it. Like scanning through the whole house room by room while still sitting at my computer, I do a much better job if I am pointing my hand at the place I am thinking about as I scan.
I should probably mention I am Autistic, my spatial awareness and proprioception are two areas I have seemed to benefit. But it’s very easy to get confused or distracted if I have too much information at once. So that is mostly what is going on. I can’t just imagine that I am pointing at something in my imagination to gain the benefit, I have to be literally, physically pointing. Although I can translocate, like not be at my house or fridge and still scan my house or fridge by pointing relatively where each thing would be if they were there.
It’s not limited in scope as far as I can tell. Though it is kind of limited in resolution. The bigger the area I am scanning, the less detail I can recall about it when I am not there, or “looking through walls”. But when I am there, I can go as fine grained as the search demands, just takes longer.
Whenever you are loading the washing machine, or hanging the laundry to dry/loading the dryer, don’t put the socks straight away. If you get one sock, set it aside, and wait to have the other sock before putting them wherever they need to go. This way you drastically reduce the amount of odd socks/ socks with no pair.
If you find a single sock when you’re at the dryer, look for it in the washing or on the floor; you know it has to be there because you make the habit of always loading the pair. If you have a single sock at the washer, don’t wash it; wait until you find the other one, keep it in your basket.
I didn’t hear anything suggesting he used irons, that’d be a very odd choice. Most modern ARs don’t come with irons or an optic and you can get red dots much better than just irons for under $200.
And irons would decidedly be harder but 100 yards still is very achievable by a novice who follows fundamentals.
Serious question, if you don’t mind. How did a selective termination save twins’ lives? Was your wife originally carrying triplets or quadruplets in a high-risk pregnancy? I’m entirely pro-choice, the wording is just a little odd and I’m having a hard time parsing the meaning.
I have addressed what you said repeatedly in fact, and even gave you concrete examples. The most hilarious part about this is that you make it clear that you’re utterly clueless on a subject you’re attempting to argue confidently about. Here are just a few obvious factors that lead to an emphasis on short-term planning and decision-making.
The primary objective of corporations is to maximize shareholder value. This translates into a focus on short-term financial gains, such as quarterly earnings, to keep investors happy and maintain or boost stock prices. In fact, executive compensation packages are often tied to short-term financial performance, incentivizing managers to focus on immediate results rather than long-term sustainability.
The practice of issuing quarterly earnings reports, while providing transparency, can also reinforce the focus on short-term results. Companies go to great lengths to meet or exceed analysts’ expectations, often at the expense of long-term strategic goals. Likewise, investors, especially those with short-term investment horizons, often expect quick returns and may react negatively to any signs of underperformance, putting pressure on companies to deliver immediate results.
Furthermore, the competition in capitalist markets pushes companies to prioritize short-term strategies to gain a competitive edge, secure market share, or respond to rivals’ actions. The ability to execute short term strategies comes at the expense of long-term planning. What happens five years down the road isn’t going to matter if the company can’t survive the current year.
Overall, the pressure to demonstrate quarterly profits and compete effectively is a fundamental aspect of capitalist enterprise, that leads to a short-term focus that’s directly at odds with long-term interests of companies or society as a whole. Hence why nobody with a clue on the subject was surprised by the way companies behaved with regards to Russian market.
Don’t have to take my word for it though. Here’s an article from the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance exploring the tension between short-term pressures and long-term value creation in corporate decision-making. …harvard.edu/…/the-modern-dilemma-balancing-short…
Despite billions of dollars in additional weapons and security assistance that NATO announced this week, allied officials said Ukraine would not be ready to launch a dramatic counteroffensive or retake large swaths of territory from Russia until next year....
That’s not what is being reported. They are still making advances. Even pro-Ukrainian channels are reporting this.
Advancements of a few sq. kms a day mean nothing compared to 2022 or 2023 style movements that the Russian 1st Guards Tank Army (when Russia attacks) or Ukrainian Counter-offensive (in late 2022) performed.
The line is more static today than ever before.
Kinda false, there are a number of videos showing artillery hitting moving targets, maybe those are rare, but they are non-zero.
It requires special rounds like Copperhead (laser guided artillery), or BONUS (Infrared Guided / Heat guided Artillery). These rounds are very special and are not typical artillery. And they only work in very specific circumstances.
Copperhead needs someone at the frontline shining a laser to pinpoint the target. BONUS only works vs hot tanks or vehicles. So “some”, very rare very expensive artillery rounds, can hit a moving target. But we can ignore them for the most part since the 99% of artillery rounds used are dumb rounds.
If the glide bombs are easy to intercept, why are Uranians complaining about them all the time?
Because Ukrainian defenses only work vs glide bombs if they have an ambush setup. And Ukrainians have very few anti-air missiles. Russia only has to attack randomly along the front, and the Ukrainian ground defenses are too slow to reposition to the movements of Russian aircraft.
But Ukraine is 100% allowed to intercept and kill Russian fighter/bombers using these glide bombs. Ukraine simply doesn’t have the capacity to effectively and reliably do so however. That’s why F16s are so important, they are fast enough to launch air-to-air missiles vs the glide bombers and whittle the Russian aircraft down more reliably.
As for the American systems, it seems odd that if Ukraine already has unlimited permission, why are there still articles about Ukraine asking for it repeatedly?
Its not what you said earlier. What the Ukrainians wish is for more permissions. Ukrainians want deep strikes that can target Russian Air Bases. Ukraine wants to hit the fighter/bombers on the ground before they take off. These locations are so deep into Russia that USA is nervous about authorizing it, as it’d definitely be another escalation.
But Ukraine is 100% allowed (and already has), shot down Russian fighter/bombers on glide bomb maneuvers. Its a difficult shot for a ground-to-air system like Patriot. But it should get much easier to do after F16s arrive.
To be honest, we both want Ukraine to win, and all was saying is that in a modern war where both sides have access to a lot of resources, there are no wonder weapons that will shift the game sufficiently to push for a quick win and that we should not underestimate the enemy. Things help and we in the West, should be doing more to help.
F16s should be key for the glide-bomb problem. But I’m seeing estimates that Ukraine needs 200+ F16s for that to really be enough.
A dozen or so F16s is barely moving the needle. But at least Ukraine has some F16s coming and can start doing something about that particular problem.
Germany slashes Ukraine funding in savings push (www.politico.eu)
Germany, which overcame its initial reluctance to support Ukraine to become the country’s biggest European supplier of military aid, looks poised to change course as the finance minister said the government would slash future assistance by half in order to fulfill other spending priorities....
President Biden tested positive for COVID-19. (www.whitehouse.gov)
Secret Service spotted Trump rally shooter on roof 20 minutes before gunfire erupted (abcnews.go.com)
Need help routing Wireguard container traffic through Gluetun container [Solved]
The solution has been found, see the “Solution” section for the full write up and config files....
Exiled Chinese businessman convicted in US fraud case. (www.voanews.com)
Shell quietly backs away from pledge to increase ‘advanced recycling’ of plastics (www.theguardian.com)
The energy giant Shell has quietly backed away from a pledge to rapidly increase its use of “advanced recycling”, a practice oil and petrochemical producers have promoted as a solution to the plastics pollution crisis....
Biden Says He’d Consider Dropping Out if a ‘Medical Condition’ Emerged (www.nytimes.com)
Archive link...
Valve runs its massive PC gaming ecosystem with only about 350 employees (arstechnica.com)
YSK there is a massive Google Doc of U.S. gynecologists that will tie your tubes without asking about your kids, marital status or age. (docs.google.com)
Over half of women who have had abortions have had a previous child....
How long does your country need to appoint a government after election
Looking at France panicking because 2 weeks after snap election there isn’t a clear majority, nor a coalition ready to propose a prime-minister to the president. What would be the standard time to do these negotiations in a functional democracy where doing coalition is common but doesn’t take years (so US and Belgium do not...
Firefox search box jumps focus to address bar (imgur.com)
Firefox new tab has a box in the middle of the page for you to click in and enter text to search in your default search engine - and it immediately starts typing in the URL bar. IF I WANTED TO USE THE URL BAR I WOULD CLICK THERE....
FBI joins probe into deaths of 6 foreigners at Grand Hyatt Erawan in Bangkok | The Straits Times (www.straitstimes.com)
Povertymaxxed and bolognapilled (lemmy.today)
How do you rank sums of single-digit numbers ?
tiermaker.com/…/sums-of-single-digit-numbers-2-9-…...
Anon is a truck driver (sh.itjust.works)
What life hack is so simple yet so effective, you're shocked more people don't know about it?
Sniper took picture of Trump rally shooter, saw him use rangefinder before assassination attempt, source says (www.cbsnews.com)
Jack Black cancels Tenacious D tour and places future projects on hold after Kyle Gass comments on Trump (www.bbc.co.uk)
Jack Black announced on Instagram that he’s cancelled the rest of the Tenacious D world tour and placed future projects on hiatus....
Western Companies Are Now Paying for Russia Sanctions (foreignpolicy.com)
archive.ph/rD9Kx
NATO’s Pledges to Ukraine Fall Short for a Counteroffensive This Year (www.nytimes.com)
Despite billions of dollars in additional weapons and security assistance that NATO announced this week, allied officials said Ukraine would not be ready to launch a dramatic counteroffensive or retake large swaths of territory from Russia until next year....