Remember maybe eight years ago when Apple refused to help the FBI crack an an encrypted iPhone involved in a mass shooting and was super proud and principled about it?

Wouldn’t air resistance pose a similar problem for wheeled trains and maglev? Or is it the air resistance of the wheels and supporting structure itself that creates the difference?

Die Linke seems to be gaining some traction this campaign, and the (pat-soc?) splinter party BSW may not even get a seat. But the real draw for the AfD right now is the migration issue, not realpolitik vis a vis Ukraine and Russia. So much of a draw that all mainstream parties except for Die Linke have effectively signed on to the AfD’s immigration policies.

Let’s play the thought experiment forward one election cycle. What if the AfD were to win say, a coalition with the conservative CDU? Merz has already shown his willingness to cooperate with the AfD, so let’s assume they get a significant amount of their migration agenda done. The problem is that they’ll only be able to do so much in five years, meanwhile conditions for Germans will worsen. At that point the voters will either reject another term of AfD-CDU at the next election because there was no improvement in their lives, or they double down because the billionaire propaganda pushing fascist policies and parties keeps going and keeps convincing people that if just one more migrant (read PoC) man were to be deported everything will be fixed.

Now that I think about it, I wonder if being open to a relationship with Russia actually does the AfD favours in terms of opening up possibilities for trade again. Then again, the average German is at this point so Russopobic and such a Putin hater that this would be a non-starter. It’s probably also the case that any trade gained with Russia is trade lost with the US, so it could be zero sum.

You aren’t truly free if you don’t have the ability to burn a gallon of gas for every mile you drive and run over cyclists like a kid stomping on ants.

/s

The unthinkable: act in its own best interest.

Reminds me of the Business Insider article a few years ago which was extremely positive about the Nazi tactics on the eastern front.

Yeah, it basically is.

DKP is fringe and minor in because they were oppressed by the West German state. After the KPD was banned, the DKP was built years later from whoever was left and has been kept under close watch from German state intelligence ever since. Another part is the rampant anti-communism West Germany has implemented since 1949.

Die Linke should be a strong left party, as they were created from the remnants of the SED which didn’t immediately leap right into reactionary opportunism (cough Merkel). But instead it’s been coopted and made irrelevant.

Smaller left parties are oppressed even more. The SGP was declared anti-constitutional by a judge because they don’t support liberal property rights, which are enshrined in the constitution.

Even the labour unions (including the largest industrial workers union in the west, maybe even the world) choose to cooperate more with corporate executives than with the workers they ostensibly represent.

Boox just run normal Android out of the box, so you may be able to do what you want with one of those, no jailbreaking or OS flashing required.

Just to add to this. Interestingly enough Kobo brand runs Linux so it can be pretty easily modified. Tolino brand (the European brand name for the same Rakuten produced product) runs Android and is much more awkward to install different apps on.

Dems too, they’re just tactful and subtle about it.

There was a Cixin Liu shortstory about how someone privatized air so everyone had to live in phone booth sized things and if they went out they’d be in lifelong debt just for breathing.

Half? I’d guess much more. Other than wages for the people themselves everything would be sourced from a private contractor.

They build the armored cars too.

Yeah. Being offensive isn’t funny, it’s just mean.

Even the classical liberals knew that the “personal liberty” thing was all bunk and twisted themselves into knots either justifying slavery or just not counting the enslaved and lower working classes as part of those entitled to personal liberty.

Canada also classifies Germany as yellow due to “risk of terrorism.”

Edit: so China is yellow due to the “arbitrary enforcement of local laws.” Maybe to do with “the two [spy] Michaels”? Obviously with no self reflection because Canadian authorities do what they want and are not held accountable.

The article says that Die Linke is the party which has gotten a lot of new memberships. BSW (Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht) is just named as their primary challenger on the nominal left, although I imagine it also has a lot of new members since it’s only about a year old.

There must already be seismographs which are sensitive enough to detect a crash landing and explosion from 2000km away.

Reminds me of the time I parked my car on the street and overlapped the entrance to a driveway by about 3cm. The homeowner came out and yelled at me for blocking his driveway.

Another time someone yelled at me for parking 90° offset to how people usually park on a specific area. Given that it was guest parking only I ever used, I didn’t see the issue, but I was shaking with fear and anxiety when that encounter was over.

To your question, this was already really noticeable in his first term. By being brash and uncouth and calling things what they are, rather than using doublespeak or just doing things in the shadows, he made the contradictions of imperialism really uncomfortable for a lot of people. In being direct he created the beginnings of pushback from people who would otherwise be perfectly fine with kids in cages, seizing other countries’ natural reources, etc.