Username checks out, he’s the designated driver while fighting for freedom!

They make about 820 million euros in champagne exports to the US (keep in mind this is only for champagne wines and only exported to the US) .

This is natural, but those in power are under a delusion: there will be a change at the mid-terms and then the next presidential election. The same one they had with Trump’s first presidency.

It’s bonkers how they never learn and how much they seem convinced that there will be mid-terms and a next presidency when everything points to a slow but constant regime change.

It won’t happen.trump isn’t the only one to always chicken out. Brussels is quite a reference in that game.

As Stallman said: " it’s free as in Free speech not as in Free beer".

Money in FOSS keeps projects going.

But as another said: in the case of LLM agents, monetisation is a way to get the automated skimming out of their lives. It eats resources, time, causes havoc on hosts…

Cards give access to all your funds, or at least a sizable amount, cards also work without codes, get into data leaks, be used in your name without you knowing.your spending is traced with cards, not as much with cash. Cash is only a fraction of your accounts.

Cash or phones are still more secure than a chip & pin card. I’m afraid cards will go the way of the DVD.

Wero is QR code based.

About the “only run on American approved phones”: not really. They work on most phones (and the number of degoogled OS is growing) and banking apps not using NFC often DO work on those phones. You only need to lock the bootloader, not root and use microg. A few companies now sell refurbished (or even new) phones equipped this way so your average non-techie can buy a geopolitically agnostic phone.

They will still be able to use their credit/debit cards but not the visa/MasterCard part of it, there is a french parallel system that is used by default if the payment is done by a french bank account to another french bank account. But it does block them off the rest of the EU.

The bunkers they built on Maori land? They offered them to new Zealand, remember? Oh… They really thought private land ownership protected them from the government/ people from taking them back at any moment?

Two things: One: The US economy will go down the drain the moment they try.

I think Ukraine showed us you don’t need much to destroy mining operations… And if the local population refuses to open mines, it’s because they don’t want to become an Alaska.

China isn’t leftist.not even a bit.

Yeah: you are correct. My french wife is also a US citizen and he works in hospitality (nor she or I are loaded). Her tax is high enough here that it annuls any taxes she should pay to the IRS.

Tax is not on the bingo card. What is on the bingo card is that France never never extradited it’s own citizens. And if you are sought after by another country’s justice system, no matter how heinous your supposed crimes (like being an influencial democrat supporter in the current US ), you will be 100% safe on french soil if you are french.

This is at the heart of a scandal he triggered in France. A lot of people would have prefered him not to get fast-tracked when he doesn’t qualify for the minimum requirements ( this is from his own confession) when so many are getting bumped out when they are more “worthy” ( not in financial or influence terms).

Drink cycling is fun, red wine and white wine is a good cycle option, stay away from gin and vodka though. Ohh not that drink cycling…

If you don’t go, don’t invest over there. You won’t have to submit them anything. So like North Korea, Iran or China: stay away.

This is all correct. It’s insulting to the intelligence of foreign governments though.

Militaries don’t “have to” follow orders. They accept full responsibility for these orders. They can refuse orders and will have to accept responsibility for not following them.

Evaluation of the legality of the order happens in court, both entail respect of the constitution AND international treaties the country has signed, both use judges, lawyers and prosecutors. Are formalised to the extreme.

Following orders of such an unpopular government is the biggest long term threat on any soldier. Most understand this, I hope.

I believe it’s the same thing in France. People despise and mock the US administration yet love the local versions of Trump. Their minds are taken on by a oligarch media frenzy mixed with massive russian/Chinese social network attacks against western values replacing them with hate towards our own people but different from the historic skin color/religion and a focus on exaggerating the perception of corruption among those we have freely elected.

They lack clarity to the point I hope solar flares soon knock out the internet for a few weeks before elections. The short and long term damage from said solar flares would probably be way lower than what we might otherwise see happen! I can’t believe I’m saying this seriously, yet I see it.