Posts by wiredfalcon2

shadowcobra89 said:Don't worry, the Russians aren't foolish enough to strike at the biggest players within the European Union...

It is quite telling, actually, how much more Andrej Plenković has pivoted toward France rather than Germany lately, especially seeing how all the cooperation regarding this drone situation is being handled with them...

I mean, let's be real—when it comes to dumping cash into military tech within the European Union, France is the heavy hitter.

Justin James10 said:Your faith in this central committee known as the European Commission is truly something to behold! 🙏

The reality is, they simply lack both the authority and the actual willpower to pull off something like that.

What kind of "faith" are you even talking about? The guy just asked how many signatures they need at the EU level to get things moving, and I gave him the answer. Honestly, comparing the EU's political structure to some central committee is probably one of the dumbest comparisons I've heard—the whole architecture of the EU is anything but centralized. If anything, because of all those checks and balances and that messy power split between the Commission-Parliament-Council, everything feels slow to everyone. That’s the exact opposite of how a central committee works. Get real.

Adam King6 said:And just how many signatures do we need to actually get a referendum on the ballot? 🙂

If my memory serves me right, you need about a million signatures before the European Commission is even forced to step in.

Karl Nehammer, Austrian Chancellor:

"An EU army just isn't happening. Nobody has the stomach for it right now, anywhere. Why? Because The entire political will Has not developed yet to actually bring a military deployment of an EU army onto The ground."

Pfft.

There was this one time when some guys from India accidentally launched a rocket toward Pakistan just because of a massive human error. They immediately called the Pakistanis to let them know everything had gone sideways and that a projectile was headed their way. And honestly, that’s not even a one-off. Back in the 80s, Americans nearly launched a nuclear warhead at themselves during routine maintenance on the heads. At the end of the day, soldiers are just people.

Kyle Campbell4 said:Reading letters from Russian journalists has been one of the most absurd things lately. If even a fraction of it is true, then Putko has completely lost his mind and gone off the deep end.

Do you have a link to that letter?

neonfalcon16 said:The modern EU, drowning in decadence, green agendas, and whatever this "woke" activism is? I seriously have my doubts.
They desperately need a massive overhaul. On second thought, maybe a total reset back to the Cold War era would have been better; at least then, everyone understood where the lines were drawn.

Good grief.

Neither my dog nor I have heard a peep about this. Keep pouring money into those preschools, folks, if that's what you want to do ☕

boldbadger1 said:Look, by buying these roses, I'm basically boosting the American GDP—I can't even help myself at this point...

It’s like when your aunt tries to export a single rose overseas; you know how much of a struggle that is, right?

P. S. I swear I see a tear welling up in Franja's memorial eye every time I lay down a rose—though, honestly, it might just be the dew. 🤷

Those of us who stuck by Franja know his forehead turns beet red with fury whenever he sees devils like you...

boldbadger1 said:Actually, you've got that wrong. Franjo never once labeled the old Minken battalion or the diaspora as traitors, nor did he ever suggest they had been bought off by Jewish interests.

It is pretty obvious who he was actually referring to when he mentioned "devils"—especially the yellow ones—and where those "Jewish coins" were supposedly coming from.

Even a hundred roses won't wash your sins clean in front of Franjo...

boldbadger1 said:You really have to look at the context behind when that was said. 👋

The context is pretty simple: American taxpayers footed the bill for your education, and instead of giving back, you headed off to boost Germany's GDP. Franjo would tell you straight up—you sold your soul for a few measly bucks. 👋

boldbadger1 said:

Here’s one specific instance—the reason why people love to mock him—though I suppose there are a few of us who might actually argue he’s got a point here

You say he's "dead on," but let's be real—you'll still be cashing those Euros in some global hub that's basically bankrolling everything the former Chicago Bulls guy was fighting against. 👋

here are the shots
https://twitter.com/NT_HidroTech/sta...2F2346368.aspx

Justin James10 said:Because let's be honest, the world isn't some idyllic meadow where happy little children skip hand-in-hand through the grass, right? 🙂

There are plenty of bad actors out there who would love nothing more than to see Europe reduced to ashes.

Most ideological wars these days are playing out on a local level. You've got different tribes fighting over scraps of dirt they claim belongs to them—Mexicans and Americans, Israelis and Palestinians, or Sunnis and Alavites. But most of those are basically civil wars, not international ones. It's about messy borders or a country splintering because someone wants independence, not some grand military plan to conquer an entire continent. The actual international wars we've seen over the last 30 or 40 years? Those are just about grabbing resources—energy, raw materials, or some strategic foothold.

If you count everyone in Europe who isn't technically in the EU, we're talking maybe 600 million people? Even if someone managed to conquer us militarily, who's going to actually police that much ground? And if they turned the place into a smoking crater, who would they even sell their stuff to? We're the biggest consumers of pretty much everything.

On the flip side, people living in wealthy countries aren't exactly itching for a fight. Why go die in a trench when you can watch girls on OnlyFans during a gaming break? I don't think economic success necessarily breeds a hunger for war. Sure, there are psychopaths who’d happily flatten a whole continent, but personally, I’m more worried about the poor people than the (future) rich ones.

Justin James10 said:The devil is in the details, 🕺 and if we lose our footing tomorrow, the bombs start falling.

What makes you say that?

Jonathan Barnes5 said:🕺😢

We never actually settled on how big the handle should be.☕

Justin James10 said:Do you really think that’s what I’m claiming? 🙂

The world is watching us... and let's face it, even if people don't like it, we are all in this together. It's practically common sense—or as our neighbors to the East might put it, "two eyes in one head." 🤣 But China is moving forward aggressively, and I won't pretend I'm happy about it; they are ruthless and they don't play fair.

Look, I don't actually have an issue with the Chinese being successful. It doesn't bother me, really, as long as they aren't dropping bombs on us. I think we need to chill out a bit. Having the highest GDP per capita isn't everything if the average person already has everything they need to live a good life. Honestly, the average person in the US can lead a pretty high-quality life—everything from food choices and healthcare to having a roof over your head, plus all the travel, partying, drugs, or skiing you want. At the end of the day, you can only eat one lunch, not ten of them.

Back when the US was hitting its stride, a ton of companies rushed over to China because of capitalism, which basically made us dependent on their manufacturing. We've known for a while now that we need to fix that, obviously. Of course, you can't undo fifty years of neglect overnight, but again, as long as nobody is bombing us and we still have the quality of life we currently enjoy (ignoring the recent war stuff, obviously), what do you actually need? Do you really need to be able to send some Pyong Yang Lin a link to TradingEconomics just to brag about who has a higher GDP per capita? Most of that money just goes toward junk funds, Netflix subscriptions, and piles of clothes they don't even need anyway.

I'm telling you, as long as nobody starts dropping bombs, there’s nothing to worry about in America. Everything will be fine.

Justin James10 said:We claim to be the best, yet a crew of incompetent bureaucrats and party loyalists works tirelessly to ensure we stay that way. We are stumbling, Vekjo, losing ground while critics from across the oceans laugh at us! 🕺 Karlo Ressler and Dubravka Šuica are the perfect embodiment of where we are headed. 🤦

And you really think there isn't someone like "Dubravka Šuica" tucked away in the Chinese or American establishment? Like everyone over there is just a bunch of Einsteins?

Justin James10 said:Honestly, this whole performance is completely unnecessary. Forcing anyone in ahead of schedule is pointless and totally undermines the entire purpose of the Union. Most of the newer members haven't even fully settled in yet, and hitting Western standards remains an unreachable dream for many. If we start jumping the queue, we'll just end up dragging in struggling nations prematurely. 🤣But hey, I guess we should give those poor Ukrainians a little bit of false hope, right? Of course. It would be much better to just keep sending them Javelins rather than dealing with these empty gestures and hollow political nonsense.

I don't know what you consider a "performance nobody asked for." People applied for membership. It’s perfectly normal for the Council of Europe (which is made up of political reps from member states—so, not the EC or the European Parliament) to respond to an application earlier than scheduled, especially given the mess we're in right now. It's basic procedure. Look, the EU—if we're talking about the whole stretch from the European Coal and Steel Community all the way through the Lisbon Treaty—didn't just expand once and call it a day. They didn't reject candidates like Spain once and then suddenly speed things up. It fluctuates. Ever since we decided to be partners instead of rivals within Europe, this has been standard stuff. We talk, we negotiate, we work things out, instead of throwing bombs at each other or swarming government institutions like sheep and goats. That's why we're the best continent on the planet.☕

So, word on the street from the halls of Versailles is that they’re debating Ukraine's bid to join the EU today. Apparently, the Netherlands and Denmark are playing hardball, acting as the biggest roadblocks because they don't want anyone jumping the line—mostly because if they let Ukraine skip ahead, then suddenly you've got Georgia, Moldova, and Mexico all knocking on the door too. They might settle on some "candidate plus" status instead, which sounds a lot better than just filing a standard application that sits gathering dust at the bottom of a pile for years. One of the big sticking points is hooking Ukraine up to the EU power grid, just so Ukrainians can keep the lights on even if the Russians manage to seize all the nuclear plants or something crazy like that. We'll see how it plays out.

Washington, D.C. was (until yesterday) basically the epicenter of corruption in America—if you can actually add 2 plus 2, it’s pretty obvious. All that local-level graft you see in places like Omiš, Slavonski Brod, or Žminj usually just results in some cushy job at a municipal utility or a shady concession where you open a cafe that goes bust in five years, creating nothing more than local chaos. It doesn't spawn organized crime syndicates on the level of Petar Pripuz or Zdravko Mamić. Milan Bandić had confirmed indictments totaling more than the entire annual budget of Osijek, and the unconfirmed stuff was three times that. Washington, D.C. is the only city with county-level status, a place where municipal land was bought and sold for tens of millions in massive corruption scandals, no joke. Even the regional court in Washington, D.C., led by Turudić, is among the most corrupt in the nation. Obviously, that doesn't excuse the stealing and graft happening in Rijeka, Pula, Makarska, or Požega, but given the sheer scale of the money moving in places like the capital, that kind of corruption is way more destructive to society.

On the flip side, people don't grasp the political architecture of America at all—like how Split doesn't even control its own beaches; until yesterday, they didn't even control Marjan or the three main roads in the city—it was all under the jurisdiction of the Split-Dalmatia county. Everyone’s always arguing about who’s in charge of what, how the HDZ ruling the county obstructs city projects, or how the road to Dugopolj has been under construction for over 30 years. You don't deal with those specific headaches in Washington, D.C. And that "brilliant" system wasn't designed by Split, Rijeka, or Osijek. We all know exactly who cooked it up.