A little or a lot more every year. Though humanity is pretty resourceful and nature has tardigrades, “never say never” to some post-apocalyptic 10k populations of one or the other surviving somewhere.

There are 202 proven uses for a dead cat, plus the ones when it’s still alive.

Depends on what kind of relationship you have, which I think in turn tends to depend on the age and the sex of the children, among other things.

A 14-year-old boy, yeah, rather gross, especially if he is uncomfortable or sucks at expressing their affection any other way on other days.

Me, a 40+ year old woman who has a warm relationship with my mom, now with an additional layer of “two old ladies”, and a history of dirty jokes: Nah, I hope she got a chuckle out of the pic (I visited a week early, didn’t think of making something like this).

That cat is loving it. Bunny well trained.

Weird case to make anyway.

The primary language of most non-UK non-Irish Europeans is not English/American/Australian/“International English”/whatever.

Yes, English/American/Australian/“International English”/whatever is the de facto lingua franca.

Would I rather that it was Esperanto or some other easy-for-all-to-learn manufactured language? Yes. Does it really bother me it is what it is? No, I’m just happy we have one.

I’ve got a few pieces from them, and they really are worth the praise IMHO.

Varusteleka. Alpa for alpaca wool, no zipper, more colourful options, more expensive.

Sweet sweet yum yum.

I did this too! Started out as a “test” or temper tantrum, but afterwards it felt so safe he didn’t start talking, that it really was a space where I was in control.

Stupid clever therapist.

None has moved completely, but two family members and one friend have installed Signal to chat with me. Contacts are ok, people know I don’t have WhatsApp and use SMS in stead, but social neighborhood/hobby/association groups won’t move and it often leaves me out of the loop unless they remember to toss an email.

Have you looked at zooplus.co.uk or their “outlet sibling”, bitiba.co.uk? German company selling many German cat foods, such as Animonda Carny (my regular), MAC’s Cat (my cats’ favourite), or anything made by Matina Gmbh, such as the similar but cheaper wet food brand Smilla (varied acceptance by my cats, also has dry foods). All these wet foods have a rather “chunky spam” consistency, adding a bit of water and mushing it in may make it tastier (and add water yay!), but it also means it’s very nutrient dense. You only need about 200g/day/cat, whereas you need about 300g/day of eg. Whiskas, essentially paying for water.

In the context of start-ups. Where workers presumably are also rewarded with stock options or similar. Takes a certain mentality and a definition of “winning” that I don’t share, which is why I don’t and wouldn’t work at a start-up. And besides, the message is chiefly directed at founders. I don’t find it -that- controversial.

Ehhh.

As much as the traditition of yearly votes on some version of Chat Control sucks, it’s just two mentions (The Register missed the reference to COM (2022) 209 under “Fighting serious crimes/child sexual abuse”, because of course it’d be there) in a document with way juicier tidbits. Like

• actual enforcement of the DSA (finally some consequences for social media giants gleefully profiting from manipulation, or an affront to freedom of speech, depending on your opinion)
• overhauling Europol’s mandate to make it “a truly operational police agency”, whereas the current mandate doesn’t cover such things as “sabotage, hybrid threats or information manipulation” (cool or creepy)
• “strengthening border security”, “countering weaponised migration”, “security considerations in EU visa policy”, and “revision of the Visa Suspension Mechanism” are all probably necessary steps, but taken together paint a picture of something that shouldn’t be allowed to go too far

The DSA enforcement is something strongly opposed by social media giants, so I’d expect more denigration of the document as a whole in the future.

As someone with shit income but a nice savings buffer, holy shit it makes things so easy, compared. “Cool dress, I’ll get that for next summer - cool coat, I’ll get that for next winter”, no problem. Just got my cat’s meds for the next 4 months at a sale, and the next sale should be in that time. Also could get her thyroid radiotherapy, that’s already paid for itself (compared to permanent expensive meds, of course not compared to no treatment). Appliance starting to make a noise or performance dropping, time to add that to my second hand watch list and keep an eye on sales of quality brands, rather than being forced to risk it failing and then getting something in a hurry, possibly on some payment scheme with a high interest rate. Pantry items on sale and/or in bulk. And of course the kind of main shoes that have held up for 5+ years, just could use a resoling soon.

I can’t even imagine the constant stress living without it would be. Ow. :/

surely you can show me a shittone of examples of such a massive campaign of kidnappings happening to people forbidden from leaving the country […] that happened in […]let’s say last two centuries?

I’ll just give you a partial list of European countries that 1) had wartime conscription, and 2) executed deserters, in WW1 or 2, which would indicate an equally/more drastic “kill or be killed” choice, and is way easier to find. Or do you know better how conscription worked in the WWs off the top of your head?

• Britain and the Commonwealth
• France
• Germany
• Italy
• Soviet Union (estimated around 150 000 executed in WW2, including returned POWs executed for “desertion”)

Conscription is done in preparation for “mass kidnappings of cannon fodder”, as you put it.

No?..

…yes? Or do you think the countries with peacetime conscription do it for shits and giggles, and the massive economic benefit of half the population losing about a year of working life?

Russia has conscription but not kidnapping part and forbidding to leave the country part. So do many other countries.

Russia has a larger population than Ukraine, and thus the luxury to not need everyone, and still they have called in reservists in “partial mobilization”, exact number unknown. As Russia has conscription, every adult man who has performed their service is in reserve. As of 2023, reservists called into service are not allowed to leave and are subject to restrictions until they report to duty, which seems like high-tech enforcement/“kidnapping” to me. The conscriptions have also hit poorer regions, often with large ethnic minorities, more harshly, but I’m sure that’s just coincidence.

There are reports of some military districts closing borders, of mobilized men being ill-equipped and used as cannon fodder, being killed in large numbers, you name it. As with all war reporting, hard to get well-verified factsfacts, especially from a country hostile to neutral reporters. We do know that protests are broken (and male protestors sometimes drafted).

But yeah, probably not needing troop replacements to the same extent as Ukraine. Who, I’m saying again, are fighting for the survival of their country and culture.

I said “countries that are considered “good” and “democratic”” by the west. Does Cuba fit that definition now?

I honestly don’t know that much about Cuba, seems like country much like any other that has trouble because of a difficult neighbor and making the best of it? But if we’re talking about whether mandatory military service is sometimes justified, not whether mass media is biased (duhhhhh), perceptions held by the majority are inconsequential.

“Conscription” - that’s not what am I talking about though. Conscription (which is also absolutely wrong of course) is indeed present in a lot of countries. Mass kidnappings of cannon fodder that is not allowed to leave is quite unique to Zelensky’s regime.

Conscription is done in preparation for “mass kidnappings of cannon fodder”, as you put it.

Edit: Also kudos for not trying to defend ethnic Russians’ history of ethnic cleansing.

A brief scroll of Wikipedia (the sources seemed legit) shows that, for example, Cuba (which I’m assuming you admire?) has mandatory military service, no known policy of alternatives for conscientious objectors, and harsh punishments for evading it even in peacetime, to the point that people have attempted to injure themselves to get out of it. They haven’t been tried in modern war, but can’t see them suddenly relaxing the rules when actually tested. Border countries tend to take defence very seriously.

For countries and cultures bordering Russia, this really is an existential question. The forced population transfer/ethnic cleansing of Tatars, Ingrians, Chechens and Ingush, Balkars, etc. show what tends to happen. And before you say “well that was Stalin”, I’ll point to the Russification efforts of Alexander III and Nicholas II, and to… well, just about all speakers of Uralic languages still existing in Russia, facing steadily or rapidly declining numbers. Also the number of people identifying as ethnic Russians in the Baltics and Crimea, directly attributable to said forced population transfers; Transnistria, where the change happened more organically but was nonetheless used as an excuse for invasion; and to some degree in eastern Ukraine, that saw significant russification attempts and Russians moving in to man the industrial centers during SU, inflating the numbers of ethnic Russians and prevalence of the Russian language at cost of the native population.

True. I’m still shocked. This should be taken more as low estimate of corporations than admiration of their accomplishments. You know those goals were set as low as they could be, with as many tricks as there could be, and still I expected something like maybe 20% to stick to them at best.