2008 was when the conclusion was unavoidable

The Iraq invasion and all the Halliburton bullshit was when I began to realize that the justice system truly has two separate tracks.

At his press conference yesterday, Magyar was extensively asked about his views on Russia and called for “pragmatic” relations between the countries (Europe Live, Monday).

Hmmm

He argued that Hungary “cannot change geography” as it still relied on energy supplies from Russia, even as he suggested he would push to diversify these sources in the future.

Well, yeah. And the reason Ukraine has been so (justifiably) obstinate about wrecking energy supplies that go to Hungary is because Orban was refusing outright to explore alternatives, with predictable consequences.

I think it’s too soon to tell, tbh, but it’ll surely be an improvement from Orban - though that is really not a high bar.

In actuality, it’s more accurate to say that this is how uncritical and self-deceptive his followers are. The followers we are talking about here are Christian Dominionists (aka adherents of the 7 mountains mandate).

They largely don’t care about his insanity because they genuinely believe orangeboi and the regime are a means to an end - and, you know, they’ve finally got a shitload of Christian Dominionists in the regime’s leadership now. Them caring about the initial post was a rare outlier of them actually caring about this shit, because it began to tread - and reflect very poorly and obviously cultishly - on their messianic worldview.

To be fair, it was likely by accident

I feel like you’re way too invested in whatever hill you’re trying to die on here, and nobody else understands what you’re doing either.

What’s your endgame here? What are you trying to do? Are you an energy vampire, or do you just enjoy being a pointlessly argumentative pithy nonce?

If you think that’s the only thing China cares about, you are deluding yourself. What do you think the belt and road initiative is for, and why do you think China was willing to put up with it being deeply unprofitable for them for so long?

Frankly I’m just happy some progress was made, and that Hungary wasn’t so far gone that Orban became president for life.

You think any corporate board is gonna voluntarily paint a target on their back like that?

Or: look at the currently unfolding ramifications of Anthropic telling the pentagon to piss up a rope when they tried to order Anthropic to remove all the guardrails from Claude.

Holy shit, fantastic result! Orban deserved that lol

It’s even more darkly hilarious, because the Strait was opening, after a fashion, but the US was getting nothing out of it, and everyone was doing their best to just steer clear of any US connection at all. But being pointedly cut out of a deal made orangeboi BIG MAD. So uh… we’ll see what the rest of the world does now that we’re functionally blockading most of it .

I prefer paper villages myself

You do get that the vast majority of Europe is trying to lean away from their respective imperialist pasts, right?

I do rather hate that so many news orgs seem to be using polymarket et al as a drop-in replacement for actual polling, because polymarket is loosely affiliated, if at all, with reality. It’s a fucking betting platform. There’s nothing scientific or statistical about it that aligns with demographic realities.

God I hope so

More scandalous than fucking a 13-year old?

More scandalous than threatening to start a nuclear war because you’re having a tantrum?

Tell me more, couchfucker.

All of this was built on slave labor

The speed and prevalence with which China is stepping into a global leadership role while the US imbecilically cedes it is both distressing and extremely predictable. What frustrates me is how completely the EU seems to be almost entirely dropping the ball in that regard.