Eurovision 2022

It's funny, you know. Sure I was aware of the poll which found that Finns trust Swedes the most and vice versa, and yeah, we've 800 years of history together, and Swedes sent A LOT of equipment and volunteers to Finland during the Winter War.
Yet, when asked what they know about Finland, Swedes tend to stare into the distance, and mutter something about the cold (like Sweden's in the tropics), knives (thank the Slussen idiots for that), or that Finland's technologically, culturally, socially, and economically stuck in the 50s (thank Aki Kaurismäki's movies for that image). Finns say Swedes are pussies, naïve, tree-hugging hippies etc.

But now I know something for sure. Yes, there's the Kavli prawn cheese which I love, and Atria's lördagskorv which Swedes love... but we're a team. We stick together, and we've got each other's back.
Of all the neighbors in the world, ain't a goddamn better one than Sweden.
Or New Zealand.

@DarkMage7280
If I may contribute something as a non-participant: from the outside, it looks to me as if the Nordic states are like brothers in any normal family: you hang out together forever, now and then you fight, but when the going gets tough, you stand together.

@DerDings

Exactly. It's precisely like that. <3

@DerDings

Very true, except possibly with Denmark and Sweden where part of the dynamic for both of them seems to be "Hey, you can't threaten/trash talk him like that. That's my job!!" ;)

@stevep59 That's exactly what having siblings is like though

@Wuzzle2 True.

@DarkMage7280
Not to draw parallels, but 15 years ago I could say the same about Ukraine and Russia =(

'@molotovinpeikko' Strong disagree. Ukraine's national identity as anything but a slave-territory has traditionally been something Russia denies and disregards. It's actual ethno-national identity is quite interesting (and colorful) but does not lend itself toward empire-building.

It does lend itself to being hardcore as f*&% though.

@boring7

> Strong disagree

Please tell me what you know about Russian-Ukrainian relationships in 1990–2010.

> Ukraine's national identity as anything but a slave-territory has traditionally been something Russia denies and disregards

"Slave-territory"? Are you out of your mind or what? Russo-Ukrainian history is way too complicated to be oversimplified like that. Next thing you'll be telling me Poland had always been nice and friendly towards Ukraine and Ukrainians (and vice versa).

The problem now is that Ukraine is seen (by some) as a part of Russia: not a colony as in "British colonies", but yet another region. Like Austria was seen by Hitler and his Reich.

@DarkMage7280 Sweden is especially a good neighbor considering who your OTHER neighbor is.

@Bottas_Heimfe Awww, now, Norwegians are super nice, too.

"No, I meant the other neighbor."

...But Estonians are good neighbors, too.

"No, I meant R--"

Oh, you mean Those We Do Not Speak Of.

@DarkMage7280

Technologically backwards? Have the Swedes never heard of Nokia?! Like, I get that the phone companies managed to crush Nokia in the US because it offered so many features that the providers wanted to charge for and they were so durable the companies couldn't make money selling you new crap every couple of years, but I thought Nokia would still be big in the Nordics.

@CorruptUser Yeah, it baffles me, too. They tend to think Nokia's Japanese.
But things are improving now, with both of us going to NATO, and having something of a shared destiny. Turkey's stonewalling things, of course, but even Erdogan can't do it indefinitely.

@DarkMage7280 > Of all the neighbors in the world, ain't a goddamn better one than Sweden

Of course, being Finns, y'all don't really care for neighbors anyway, so this all makes sense :P

@txag70 True, that. But if we're to have neighbors, it's good to have Sweden, and not Rus--- Oh, right...

@DarkMage7280 You're Finns. We know how good y'all are at being badass snipers. Y'all will be just fine.

Heh, I'd love to visit someday, but then I see how even your summers are cold and my southern soul is like "aw hell no". It's gonna be perfect here today: about 35C and humid.

Russia is sitting alone in the cold while Sweeden and Finland tells him the "bad news" is prieceless.

The extreme irony being that it was Russias leadership that pushed both Sweden and Finland into joining Nato. I know that at least the swedes are pretty upset over loosing 200 years of alliance freedom and neutrality, but all the threats and intrusions into swedish airspace made it more or less impossible to stay out of it.

Basically, Putins threats about us joining made us join.

'@Deviant' I hope it works out. Treaties are usually a good thing.

Wouldn't mind a tripartite treaty where the "neutral" countries are guaranteed protection from either side by the other side (i.e. "If Russia attacks you NATO protects, if NATO attacks you Russia also promises to protect"). This war might not have happened if Ukraine had been given more "solid" guarantees against aggression.

Russia alone. I can say only one thing, Putin is red flag person, russian people sometimes normal, sometimes bad

@Koska Like everywhere. It's just a shame that bad people seem to have a lower density than good and normal people, so it's much easier for them to float to the top.

@Kemm Well, it's more that they are supported by all the densest people at the bottom, really.

@OneTruePing Nope, it's more that somebody CAN murder an opponent to get to the top, and somebody can't. Those that cannot make for pretty decent governors. Those that can just eliminate every opponent, to be sure. Ever heard of Nemtsov? Right. Next. To Kremlin.

@Ninian Russian and western ideas of democracy are historically different. Marx and Lenin had a very different version where you vote once and then everyone has to obey (democratic centralism) which was originally necessary to organize the communist revolution between a bunch of separate in-fighting communist cells and factions. This means the elected leaders are judged absolutely right because you voted for them, and disagreement after the vote is sabotage. You can only say the voted action was wrong only after it is completed - which is why the Soviet Union had five year plans to limit the scope of any ruling. This mechanism allows keeping a dictatorship by forcing people to vote certain ways, and by faking votes, because the only point where the peoples' opinion matters at all is at the voting booth, at the end of a gun.

The west is a more continuous process with criticism and dissidence allowed at every point. Governments can be thrown over by a vote of non-confidence. Russia is still missing this; you do not understand the point of democracy.

@Eikka Of course we don't, not like we had Kronstadt sailors rebel against Lenin, not like we had entire Civil War because of disagreements, not like we had massive protests in 1991 and 1993, not like we had massive protests in 2012 and 2018. Not like we *do* criticize government actively, after all. It's all just fifth column propaganda, in fact even I am a fifth column propaganda, I do not exist, and never have attended over a dozen protests since 2018, never volunteered to Navalniy's electoral campaign before it was shut down, never trespassed on government property to take discriminating photos of illegal trash dump at my city, we never doubt our government, never criticise it, never distrust it past the election day, we absolutely do not understand that to make a corrupted piece of shit work you need to constantly bash him with a club because otherwise he'll take a seat at your neck and strangle you to death while simultaneously robbing away your money and raping your daughter just for the kick of it.

@Ninian
Of course do not misunderstand me. Russia as a country does not understand democracy. Despite efforts, you do not have it. If you have 150 million people and 50 million still don't get it, you do not have it. This is a problem that is only solved by time, because you cannot force people to think differently.

In western multi-faction democracies, 20% is enough to win elections sometimes. It's even possible to form a government with minority support (<50%) because the rest of the parties do not agree to join in opposition. Nobody likes this happening, but they can trust it because they can challenge it. If the people did not believe in the values of democracy and there were no mechanisms to challenge the elected state, we would have Putin as well.

Finland's little thumbs up gesture just kills me, I don't know why it's so funny.

Unpopular opinion: NATO should have been deleted in 1992 because the fall of communist tyranny ended its reason to exist. As far as I'm concerned the role of helping integrate the Eastern bloc into the democratic realm should have been spearheaded by the Western Europeans, not the US...

That being said, how the hell did you not see this coming Putin -- ofc the Finns and Swedes were gonna see you go into Ukraine and say "yeah we'll go ahead and join an alliance to protect ourselves against *that*"

@txag70

> NATO should have been deleted in 1992 because the fall of communist tyranny ended its reason to exist

Why though? It's not like it's been rendered obsolete immediately. The world wasn't too peaceful back in 1990s, so why not keep it for a while?

> how the hell did you not see this coming Putin…

You misjudge his intentions, IMO. Putin uses NATO as a propaganda prop to bang about "external threat". He essentially claims that Ukraine is sorta part of "Greater Russia" or whatever, hence invasion justification. It's hard to say the same about Finland and Sweden, and attacking them is way too mad even for him, so their plea to join NATO is spun as a part of "Evil West hates us" trope.

As an example: Russian news avoid saying "country X joined NATO", instead it's "NATO expands again, incorporating X". As if it's a unilateral decision. At the same time Crimea "joined in with Russia", of course =)

@molotovinpeikko Putin doesn't want all of Ukraine. He just wants the parts with Russian majorities. And regardless of what Putin says about NATO, nothing can deny that NATO is a corrupt organization. Russia has even asked to join 3 times and was rejected each time because NATO wants to keep Russia as its enemy.

@Loki_Isaxon
> Putin doesn't want all of Ukraine. He just wants the parts with Russian majorities

I don't have any reliable information to support either of these statements, and I doubt you have =)

> nothing can deny that NATO is a corrupt organization

Could be; most organizations are, I can hardly judge from the outside =)

> Russia has even asked to join 3 times

Is that official? I heard both parties "floating" the idea, but there hadn't been anything serious/official.

@molotovinpeikko It's not quite as easy as just "hey I want to join" to get into NATO

It requires things like arms compatibility and military planning cohesiveness. IIRC France left NATO in the 50s and rejoined it later on for something related to this. Russia did not have serious intentions to merge capabilities each time they "asked".

@txag70
> It's not quite as easy as just "hey I want to join" to get into NATO

I imagine so. Did you mean to reply to Loki? =)

@molotovinpeikko I think I did. I gotta be honest, I don't care for the way comments on this website work...

But yeah, I think we let the Russians, and much of Eastern Europe too, by not offering to them what we did to Western Europe in 1945. Communism was such a disaster that y'all absolutely needed a Marshall plan of sorts -- not just to help transition (SLOWLY! "shock therapy" was a bad idea) out of a failed economic system, but to teach the Russian middle class how to do business. One could claim that's wasteful spending, but imagine a Russia that went the way of Finland or Estonia after 1990... one that would have helped against the fight on radical Islamic terrorism... one that would have perhaps exported more of its nuclear technology to help decarbonize the world... I think Gorbachev perhaps would have had a better shot at such a future than that lowlife Yeltsin. It's a pity.

A missed opportunity to be sure.

@txag70

> I gotta be honest, I don't care for the way comments on this website work

Can't blame you, this site has literally the worst comments in the known universe

> y'all absolutely needed a Marshall plan of sorts ... but to teach the Russian middle class how to do business

Well, it's debatable. Disclaimer: I'm just a Russian born in 1984 (although I like to see myself as a more intelligent one than the most, but it's debatable as well), so I don't have an adult recollection of 90's, and neither an economic knowledge for that period.

I don't think that the culprit was "Russians not knowing how to do business". If 90's were less harsh and cruel in Russia (e.g., because of US aid), it might really change the perception of "free market", "democracy" and "liberal values" among the majority of Russian population. These things tend to stick =(

On another hand, here in Armenia things got *really* tight back in 90's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_energy_crisis_of_1990s), and Armenians are still much saner at large =)

> but imagine a Russia that went the way of Finland or Estonia after 1990...

I prefer not to, that breaks my heart =)

> I think Gorbachev perhaps would have had a better shot at such a future than that lowlife Yeltsin

Who's to know now =(

@molotovinpeikko My heart goes out for you and everyone who was born in Russia during the Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, and Gorbachev years. What many Americans and Europeans don't understand is that what Russia went through in the 1990s was three to six times what the US went through in the Great Depression. That's DEVASTATING. It was a minor miracle (and did we ever have the President for the job!) that the US didn't fall to either communism or fascism in the 1930s. I cannot fathom the economic damage you had to witness under the guise of "free market/democracy". No wonder y'all would embrace Putin after the mess Yeltsin left you!

Re: "teaching Russians how to do business" -- I apologize, I wasn't insinuating anything about the Russian people's ability to learn "how to capitalism", so to speak -- but more helping smooth over the rough patches for lifelong lower-level party-member bureaucrat types who in the USSR would have likely found themselves quite alienated by the new economic system and perhaps thrown into the unemployment line as the role of government in the economy slowly shrank.

We could have picked y'all up and helped you like we did with West Germany and Japan in the 40s and 50s... instead we "spiked the ball". Part of me believes had we kept Bush in office in '92 things would have turned out far better for Russia than Clinton, who wasn't a "bad" president per se but did not have the vision that Truman and Ike did in terms of rebuilding a potential new ally. Not to mention -- when 9/11 would have happened, we'd have had a VERY strong ally willing to crush radical Islamic extremism with us. What a shame.

Ah! You're in Armenia? I hear that's a pretty place. I'll be honest, all I really know about it is System of a Down :P

@txag70

Thanks, mate =)

> No wonder y'all would embrace Putin after the mess Yeltsin left you!

No wonder indeed. But the funny thing is that what Yeltsin *left* was an economy mostly transitioned to free market and ready to grow, and so it did. High oil and gas prices helped as well, so Putin mostly kept things the same and reaped political dividends. For example, by 2015 we had one of the better and more advanced communication and banking industries in Europe. It's always a surprise for expats how expensive and complicated things usually are =)

> I apologize, I wasn't insinuating anything about the Russian people's ability to learn "how to capitalism", so to speak

No offence taken, I just wanted to clarify my point =)
What I think might have helped, is some sort of co-management and massive investing in manufacturing and agricultural industry, so that key employers wouldn't have collapsed and transitioned to free market successfully. But it's only my uneducated guess =)

> What a shame

Yeah. What could have been!..

> You're in Armenia? I hear that's a pretty place. I'll be honest, all I really know about it is System of a Down :P

Is it because there never were any SATW comic about Armenia? =p
Yep, Armenia is very nice. It's on the poorer side, unfortunately, but its history and culture is matched only by places like China and Greece, and people are simply the best.
Also, Armenia is the birthplace of viticulture and vinification… So there's that!

@molotovinpeikko Viticulture!!! You don't say... Here in rural SC, I bought a home that grows Triumph Scuppernong grapes in the back -- going to first make wine with it, and then, with the little shed in the back and... let's go with lenient... laws around these parts, a little moonshine brandy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scuppernong

@txag70
This is such a weird thing you got there
If you showed me the photo, I would have guessed it's green tomatoes. The word that immediately springed to my mind was "bulbous".
The name is great, though, I like when American names have a native ring to them.

Good luck with your plan, mate =)

@molotovinpeikko They taste great. They're sweet and can be made into all sorts of wonderful things. The name comes from a river up in North Carolina where the mother vine is located. Europeans first discovered them in the 1600s and, fun fact, pirates of the area often ate 'em. The Pamlico sound area was where quite a few pirates used to set up base.

'@molotovinpeikko' Signs point to no: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93NATO_relations#Suggestions_of_Russia_joining_NATO

Key phrase: "No serious discussions were ever held."

And "NATO is corrupt" only works if you're being extremely vague with what "corrupt" means. NATO plays the game of states, same as everyone else; but frankly it plays it cleaner than most of its opposition or it's individual member states. It can be harder to sell a war of exploitation to the whole group than to a few profiteering members. America can sell guns and bombing brown people on Tuesday but recent developments in Germany make it political poison until Thursday, by the time Thursday rolls around German headlines have a "scary muslim pedophile" criminal case but America's backing off from Mosque-burning and a KBR executive going on trial for war profiteering.

I mean it's not like Ukraine is a flower of perfect peace. They have their ups and downs and terrible ethnic bigots too; but Ukraine is not engaging in a genocidal invasion at the moment so they are the party to side with. Life isn't some cartoon with perfect good guys and irredeemable bad guys, it is Life. But sometimes the good or bad guy of a particular situation is quite simple indeed.

@boring7
Are you sure you're arguing with me, not Loki_Isaxon?

@Loki_Isaxon

... Dude... Russia wasn't rejected each time because NATO wants to keep Russia as it's enemy, it was rejected because they refuse to meet the requirements of joining NATO.

Among those requirements are to have the general populace have a strong say in their government and to have general policies against committing ethnic cleansing.

@LilithRose Yeah sure. You clearly have been indoctrinated by western propaganda.

@LilithRose But just so it's clear. I'm not pro-Russia, I'm just anti-NATO.

'@Loki'_Isaxon Sure thing, tankie.

Meanwhile, in reality, everything you said was ridiculous.

@Loki_Isaxon Thanks to Putin that corrupt gargantuan now has a fresh excuse to go on living and to even expand. Oh joy, war coming to streets next to me this summer. Tickets for premiere already sold out.

@Loki_Isaxon

Three points to consider.
a) He has denied Ukraine's right to exist which doesn't match your suggestion. Definitely a quick strike on Kiyv as occurred at the start of the war doesn't either.
b) His definition of Russian is often anyone who can speak Russia which because it was pretty much mandatory across much of the USSR includes the majority of Ukrainians. That they don't want to either 'be' Russian or be ruled by a murderous idiot doesn't matter to him.
c) He has repeatedly said that the greatest disaster of the latter 20thC was the collapse of the USSR. Go figure.

'@stevep59' Also they don't (well, DIDN'T) have a majority in the Donbass region. What they DO have is oil and natural gas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donbas#Demographics_and_politics

As usual, it's about stealing something.

Of course they've also been kidnapping people again, just like the filtration camps of the Chechen war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_filtration_camps
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filtration_camp_system_in_Chechnya

@stevep59
> He has repeatedly said that the greatest disaster of the latter 20thC was the collapse of the USSR

Well, it sort of was, wasn't it? a) most of post-Soviet states had a rough time in 1990s; b) majority of USSR population didn't want to dissolve USSR (including Ukraine at the time).

That is not to say USSR should be restored, but to show you how these sentiments are met by a significant portion of (not only) Russian populace.

@molotovinpeikko

I don't know. Some groups, especially those who have no memory of what the USSR was like for the ordinary people probably like the idea of Russia being a massive empire again. Plus some of the old former elite like Putin.

However many even inside Russia itself would rather than freedom and prosperity. Let alone across most if not all of the people of the rest of the former USSR. There has been massive protests in places such as Belarus and Kazakhstan but that's again massive corruption and repression and with a desire for human rights not even worse corruption and repression. With the possible exception of Armenia, where many people might think it would protect them from hostile neighbours I doubt any other former USSR subject state would wish to return. The Baltic states and Georgia definitely wouldn't and similarly the wider former empire in eastern Europe definitely prefers being free and democratic.

@stevep59
I'm sorry, but your comment feels like a "Westsplaining". What are you trying to say?

> who have no memory of what the USSR was like for the ordinary people

As if you know how it was.

> the idea of Russia being a massive empire again

As if it's not massive empire right now.

> However many even inside Russia itself would rather than freedom and prosperity

If you want to indulge in superficial Putin-bashing, I'm not really interested, sorry.

> There has been massive protests in places such as Belarus and Kazakhstan…

What else is new.

> I doubt any other former USSR subject state would wish to return

I never said they would *now*. Including Armenia.

> The Baltic states … definitely wouldn't

Don't generalize. All Baltic states have a significant portion of ethnically Russian population, look up recent conflicts in Riga etc. Hell, there's even a huge diaspora of Russian and other ex-USSR immigrants that are sorta pro-Putin. People are complicated.

My point was "USSR collapse isn't seen as a particularly great thing by very many people". It was a complicated thing, politically and economically, and 90s in ex-USSR have been very harsh, and for many those were much worse times than Soviet 80s. For understandable reasons.

@Loki_Isaxon Putin invaded Kiev. Kiev is NOT an area with a Russian majority.

He wanted to install a puppet over Zelensky in Kiev -- one of his original demands was to force Zelensky out of power.

@txag70 I get the impression that the Russians were half expecting Ukrainians to accept them as liberators.

When they didn't, Russia switched from Plan "Anschluss with Austria" to Plan "Slice off the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia".

As I see it, there's only two possible outcomes of this war:

1) Russia wins and chops off the southern and eastern pro-Russian parts of Ukraine;
2) Russia loses, Ukraine remains intact, but has to expel all its pro-Russians the same way Czechoslovakia expelled its Germans after WW2.

The thing is, Ukraine would be far better off if it kept its Black Sea coastline. Unfortunately, it's also the part of the country mainly inhabited by ethnic Russians.

@txag70 He invaded Kiev to break the Ukrainian morale in hopes of forcing them to relinquish Donbas. Not to annex Kiev.

@Loki_Isaxon Removing Zelensky from power has also been from day 1 one of his goals too. This would imply installing a puppet government in Kiev.

@molotovinpeikko The point of NATO was to be an allied bulwark against invasion from a hostile communist force. When communism croaked in 1989-92, that mission was no longer necessary (although in theory, I suppose working to integrate Russia in and then use it against a Chinese communist bulwark would be doable...)

I'm somewhat isolationist in terms of foreign policy -- in my opinion, what happens to Ukraine is both tragic and not the USA's problem. The european countries can fight that fight if they wish to. I think Putin is a brutal and bloody old-fashioned style tyrant, but he does not represent a threat to US security outside of the nuclear deterrent, which is also a situation we screwed up in the 90s and 2000s (I work in the US nuclear industry). Putin does represent a threat to US allies that have largely shirked their defense responsibilities for decades (cough *GERMANY* cough) while expecting Uncle Sam to be the security guarantor. In my opinion this is a European conflict and not one the US need get involved in. That being said, it's turned out rather nicely to the extent Ukraine's success in repelling the Russians will make Beijing think twice about fucking around with Taiwan.

@txag70 I'd mostly agree, the US wouldn't be needed for the European Union and or European NATO members, since as far as conventional military goes Russia wouldn't stand a chance anyway, comparatively low defense spending doesn't really matter much in this case since it's still more than enough for Russia. As far as the Ukraine goes, It's technically nobodies responsibility since there are no alliances to bind anybody, and how far helping them out is a necessity for humanitarian or strategic reasons is a decision the Americans have to make for themselves, it's certainly non of my business, I'm more interested in what my own country plans to do in that regard.

@nroejb I believe it is time for your country to accept its place as an economic and political bulwark in the European continent. I am aware of the historical reasons Germany has been hesitant to do this, but the past 75 years have proven y'all are capable of overcoming a dark past to become a prosperous society that values human rights of all people. What's more, y'all even managed to (given the circumstances) integrate well after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Europe needs a Germany willing to fight for freedom and human rights. To be frank, since 1945 y'all have a better record of that than we in the US do. The time for the US to be the guarantor for European security should have ended decades ago.

Now if only y'all would stop shutting down your nuclear plants... ;)

@txag70
I don't know about other countries or even regions, but in my state nuclear plants make no sense, they are quite expensive and only can survive due to governmental financial support.
That's not even including the waste disposal.
And seeing that my state is positioned between two Seas (North and Baltic), there is always wind. We have more than enough wind energy for this state even if the wind is at the lowest it ever gets here.

@nroejb Part of why nuclear power plants are so expensive these days is that because of the kafka-esque level of bureaucracy needed to build one, one needs an army of lawyers to even get preliminary plans looked at by the governmental agencies. A second is that, at least here in the US, because we largely abandoned new nuclear plants after the Three Mile Island Accident in 1979, many of the businesses that existed in the 1970s to make nuclear-grade components (think welders, concrete manufacturers, pressure vessel makers) no longer exist. A third is that nuclear plants work best when economies of scale are achieved. China is doing this with the Hualong 1, itself a modified version of the Westinghouse AP1000 design. South Korea is as well. To a lesser degree, this is why the RBMK was chosen in the Soviet Union, catastrophic faults notwithstanding -- it is cheaper to build and refine one design over and over again. Here in the west, we have tried to embrace competition, which due to the relatively small number of plants one would need to build, turns out to be less economically efficient than picking one design and sticking to it.

In Germany the main issue as far as I can see is that left-wing politicians in your country shut down fully functional nuclear plants prematurely, instead of letting them continue to produce power for their designed operating life for a more gradual phase-out. Germany did not at the time and still does not have the renewable infrastructure needed to replace those plants with something low-carbon -- so they didn't. Just like California when San Onofre closed, y'all chose coal (and extremely dirty lignite coal at that) and gas, the latter of which y'all imported from Russia at increasingly heavy economic cost. Your politics shot yourselves in the foot. It is why German electricity is very expensive, even relative to the rest of Europe.

As for waste disposal, it remains shocking to me that more nations have not explored nuclear recycling projects. Conventional uranium fuel rods that undergo fission in a Gen I or II nuclear plant retain about 95% of their internal energy when they are removed. There are several types of newer reactor ideas (MOX, IFRs, Breeders, etc) that would, in effect, be able to "eat" nuclear waste and produce power.

@txag70
"In Germany the main issue as far as I can see is that left-wing politicians in your country shut down fully functional nuclear plants prematurely, instead of letting them continue to produce power for their designed operating life for a more gradual phase-out."
Oh no you got that wrong. The left winged government under Gerhard Schröder in the late 90's-early to early 2000's did decide on plans to leave nuclear power, but that was to happen within several years. It was the conservative Government under Angela Merkel that boxed that plan and prelonged support for nuclear power again. But then they suddenly decided to leave nuclear power after all in wake of the Japanese accident. They did so prematurely and under breech of contract with the Energy companies, which rightfully did sue for it (I hate having to talk positively about anything Gerhard Schröder ever did, but he wasn't the one to mess this one up. I'm also not sure if the Angela Merkel government had to be considered centrist or right winged, so I just went with the genral "conservative" moniker since at least that is undebatable).

In the case of my state the high energy prices have other reasons. We went full into Wind energy since our state is ideal for that. We do produce more then we need as well, but can't export the surplus to other states since the infrastructure doesn't exist leading us to sit on needless costs due to other states being behind on schedule.

As far as I'm aware the newer reactor ideas you mentioned don't really solve the issue though. They can further make use of waste that older reactors can't make use of anymore, but the waste wouldn't vanish, and after the newer reactors make use of them as good as they can it's still radioactive waste.

@nroejb Well, the nice thing about the newer reactors is that, to drastically oversimplify, the waste produced has more transuranics -- while this is more carcinogenic, it also stays dangerous for far less time than 10,000 years, and it is in far smaller quantities. There's a lot of math and chemistry involved, but the only real risk of doing something like this is nuclear proliferation...which to be honest, I'm inclined to trust y'all Germans on handling ;)

As for the shutting down of nuclear plants after Fukushima -- yes, it was done under Merkel, but wasn't the reason she did that heavy pressure on the coalition she had built with the Greens, who are quite left-wing?

@txag70 Angela Merkel had coalitions with the FDP and the SPD, never the Greens. During the Fukushima incident it was the FDP (which is a centrist Liberal Party, from an American view somewhere between a Liberal and a Libertarian party).

@txag70
> The point of NATO was to be an allied bulwark against invasion from a hostile communist force

My point is that when the alliance is already there, disbanding it still requires some work, so you might as well keep it for a while to make sure it's not useful anymore.

> what happens to Ukraine is both tragic and not the USA's problem

That's a point I can understand. Still, as a Russian, I appreciate that your government disagrees. For once, USA militarism comes in useful =)

> it's turned out rather nicely to the extent Ukraine's success in repelling the Russians will make Beijing think twice about fucking around with Taiwan

I would imagine that for a US isolationist you wouldn't care too much? =p

I'm not too much of an expert on the subject, but from what I know, US is too friendly with China ATM now to involve itself in that potential conflict. At least, not to the extent of Ukraine. Also, one thing that I took from "our" war is that our army is still shit =)
It might, of course, be mostly the issue of morale (there's A LOT of reports by Russian soldiers), but still I don't believe Taiwan stands any chance. But then again, I was *so* wrong about Ukraine back in February =D

@molotovinpeikko During the 1930s the America First groups were very dismissive of Nazi Germany's expansionism and that the US should stay out of Europe, but were oddly very vocal about Japan expansionism. I guess it is just a strange coincidence but something doesn't seem quite white.

@Bobenstein My guess is that Japanese expansionism was more of a threat to American interests in the Pacific. Iirc at the time we had control over the Phillipines as an example.

@molotovinpeikko Disbanding NATO in 1992 would indeed have taken some work -- but giving it a new mission after communist tyranny fell wasn't work-free either. Hindsight, of course, is 20-20.

I care about Taiwan because the US has rather foolishly allowed its semi-conductor industry to offshore most of its production... almost all of which has moved to Taiwan. My concerns are economic -- if China invaded Taiwan and semi-conductor exports from Taiwan were to therefore fall, the US tech industry would get hurt immensely, and that's bad for our economy, which very much *is* something I care strongly about. China is not stupid enough to fight Taiwan on the basis that they'd lose their #1 export destination and therefore cripple the strong economy they've built which is the bedrock on the legitimacy Xi and the CCP has -- Beijing can justify its political repressiveness because the Chinese middle class has prospered greatly since Chairman Mao went straight to the pit of hell. Invading Taiwan would cause instability in the People's Republic, and as such the Chinese may sabre-rattle but will not risk doing anything. Ukraine's success so far of course has only given them more reason to think very, very thoroughly about any military moves against Taiwan.

Ukraine does not present the same economic threat to the US as Taiwan does if one gets invaded. It's a much more grave for Western Europe, which is why I feel they ought to lead and the US, if anything, should follow and stay quiet and in the background.

'@txag70' "the role of helping integrate the Eastern bloc into the democratic realm should have been spearheaded by the Western Europeans, not the US..."

It was. The thing is, no matter what western european nations do and no matter how much agency they exert, they'll always be cast as "American Puppet-states" by the propaganda.

America did plenty too, there was so much money to be stolen at the time, but proximity alone meant Western Europe had greater influence.

> The thing is, no matter what western european nations do and no matter how much agency they exert, they'll always be cast as "American Puppet-states" by the propaganda

Can confirm.

@molotovinpeikko But why give the Russians the propaganda to work with??

It's just as dumb as how Jim Crow was something the Communists in the USSR often would point to as a way to dismiss criticism of the USSR. It was a total deflection from the problems within -- but why as Americans would we want to give such detractors easy propaganda to use against us??

This is the same thing as many of the Cold War dictatorships we propped up too. Why back the scumbags just because they were anti-soviet? Communism is a failed economic system and a failed ideology. Because we did that, it's easier to sell the concept that Western European countries are mere US puppets.

@boring7 Yes, there's a strange attitude that the EU and East Asia are somehow being held hostage by, and are therefore being directed by, the U.S. government, because of the presence of U.S. troops.

I'm not convinced.

We saw what happened when Trump suggested pulling U.S. troops out of Europe and East Asia: they complained loudly for him not to do that, and he backed down.

@BGMan The one thing I really did like about Trump -- holding the Europeans' feet to the fire about actually committing to defending themselves!

@txag70 Thank God NATO exists, it's the only reason I'm feeling relatively safe in my country right now.

@Phea Well, I'm glad it helped you Poles out -- you guys are one of the few Europeans that actually regularly meets defense spending contract requirements.

@Phea They won`t get through us ;)

I think most people are well aware that something like a 'liberal Russia' exists, unfortunately it doesn't exist in Russia :-)

@minando the problem is any Russian who stands up to Putin and protests the war is thrown into prison, they aren't even allowed to call it a "war" or "invasion" it's honestly very sad

@minando Well aware. Three of my ex wives among them. Ehm, yes. I had kind of a fixation. Now with an Ukrainian.

@EduardoSilva
> Now with an Ukrainian.

Easing out of it gently, are we? =)

@minando Don't hold your breath for the Mediterranean, either ... ;-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanov_Empire_(micronation)

Why isn't Finland the one holding the drink?

@CaptainGreybeard2 Well... it's a fancy cocktail and Finland is more into beer and booze. Also, Finland holding a cocktail might bring bad memories to Russia about Molotov cocktails... A very visible balloon gives entirely different idea.

'@Suominoita' As long as there aren't 99 of them.

I like Ukraine's pants, very.... Yellow

This is the only place that reminds me Eurovision exists... Also how the Shit did the UK get second? Must've been some good... "Favours"

@LuxVertas It was quite a good song. I feel bad for him honestly because I can imagine it's been a bit frustrating for him. If I were in his shoes I wouldn't want to complain, because obviously the public showing their support for Ukraine is very important, but it must suck to lose out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity because of a humanitarian crisis you had nothing to do with.

@mrfiddles eh, better than the bugger all we get!

@LuxVertas One might say it isn't...coming home....to the UK next year?

@txag70 eh, don't care.

@LuxVertas Well played then, good day.

Saw a Union Jack down on the beach at Hilton Head Wednesday and felt the instinctual need to bother a British person :P

@txag70 I can see why you'd say that!