Yes, the family reunification for people with this status has been a controversial issue in Germany for years. While some people end up with a refugee status similar to other countries, many others are recognised as “with subsidiary protection status” or even plainly have their application rejected altogether. Critics have long since advocated for an end to family reunification for people without full refugee status. Some have even proposed cutting social payments to non refugees like several other EU countries do. For now it’s only this somewhat limited measure, which is still controversial among the left. My personal prediction is that with far right political pressure increasing the current centre government in Germany will continue to develop its refugee and asylum policy more in the direction of Denmark and less in the direction of Merkel.

Canada used to be the largest source of international visitors to the United States by a large margin. I suspect that Canadians especially will take, on average, quite a bit of convincing to travel south of the border now.

The sender of the goods was a company from Spain, and the recipient was from Azerbaijan.

I’m sure these legitimate businessmen could perhaps consider transporting their wares via Turkey and Georgia? You know, along the well established transit route for commercial cargo between the EU and Azerbaijan.

Europe got lucky there. While I’m happy that Romanians chose wisely in the end, the margin is still very worrying for our future.

With initial, preliminary results from actual votes being counted now coming in it looks like Dan only has the slightest of leads thus far. Since this only includes votes from within Romania it now looks likely that the votes of Romanians living abroad will swing the election in favour of Moscow. It seems incredibly frustrating that people not living in the country get to (perhaps) change the outcome of the vote for the people who actually live within the country and therefore need to live with the consequences.

From my experience it’s just part of the cultural differences. While many Americans, at least in the Midwest where I spent a lot of time for work, are very friendly and outgoing, I hardly ever got the impression that it’s deep or meaningful. From my experience it was very easy to have great conversations with people whom I hardly knew or had met just an hour ago but hardly ever did it go anywhere meaningful.

Now to the question of how does one become this outgoing kind of person: just try and talk to people, remain friendly and open. It will likely take some practice and maybe not be reciprocated by your average European.

The weirdest combination I’ve ever met was a set of female twins. One was named after their mother. The other had a different first name. Must have been really odd when growing up.

Exactly. Above all real world combat experience cannot be trained. Nobody can predict how you react when under fire, at least that was my impression in Charikar province, Afghanistan in ca. 2004. Knowing the basics will definitely be helpful though.

He’s right, you know. If you own an AR you shouldn’t slack on practice. Go to the gun range regularly. Train how to clean and maintain it. You may one day be facing people who are well trained.

He is Catholic after all. Luckily I live in a jurisdiction where it’s legal to refer to the Catholic Church as a “cult of child fuckers”, which seems a very accurate description in my opinion.

He seems to be better than the last guy when it comes to Russia’s war. That guy really thought it was the fault of NATO/Ukraine/whoever…

The difference between a unilateral decision that blindsided the cult leader and a coordinated decision where the messaging is supposed to divert any future blame away from the cult leader is easy: was the person supposedly at fault fired? No? Then it’s all just talk, since the overall outcome nicely aligns with the policy goals of the red team.

I remember visiting Mohenjo-Daro in the mid 1990s and being impressed by the sheer scale of time between these remnants of civilization and myself. It’s sad that the site isn’t as developed as it deserves to be, since it is among the oldest proofs of civilisation still around.