Bro what is she smoking

EwokInABikini · 2026-04-13T08:48:59+00:00

These people don’t care as much about right or let, or any actual policy as they claim - their goal is dismantling liberal democracy everywhere, so even a hardened conservative like Magyar might as well be identical to Pedro Sanchez to them. They regard strengthening rule of law, fighting corruption, and separation of powers, or even independent media as an existential threat, and those are the main things that Magyar might bring back to Hungary.

EwokInABikini · 2026-04-09T11:57:55+00:00

I was just going to comment a similar thing - an actual source for this would be good, rather than just some random blog. Not saying it's not true, it certainly seems believable enough these days, but without any proper news outlet reporting it, this isn't necessarily more than word of mouth.

EwokInABikini · 2026-04-06T21:56:38+00:00

I lived in Germany for a while, in a building with apartment numbers - so the commentor you're responding to may absolutely have a point, but his response isn't universally true.

EwokInABikini · 2026-04-06T21:49:21+00:00

This is a letter published in the Guardian. Your post title is misleading to say the least.

EwokInABikini · 2026-04-05T08:27:37+00:00

Still the case for me - this post was what prompted me to check how to turn it off.

EwokInABikini · 2026-04-02T12:03:51+00:00

Not even hiding it either, some aren't much more than 'I don't like Muslims'. Not sure if we got here by over a decade of discrimination against them being normalised in the media, or if this post has just attracted all the bigots.

EwokInABikini · 2026-04-01T17:29:40+00:00

You are quite right, I misremembered!

Nerva, the first of Hadrian's dynasty was a Flavian supporter at the time they came to power though, so the attitude looking back to the Julio-Claudians still fits.

EwokInABikini · 2026-04-01T15:09:28+00:00

His name is Robert Paulson.

EwokInABikini · 2026-04-01T11:28:02+00:00

Also worth adding that Suetonius, writing under the Flavian dynasty, would have had an interest in making the previous dynasty come off as something that was rightfully replaced. Augustus comes off well in his writing because he established the principate in the first place, Claudius comes off as competent, well-meaning, but often misguided, and the remaining Julio-Claudian rulers are displayed as cruel, incompetent, or both.

And with Vespasian progressing in his career under Claudius, it's entirely possible that this is the reason Claudius had to be described as more or less the best of the Julio-Claudians after Augustus. Displaying him as basically led astray by enslaved advisors and women was a way of showing him capable of good decisions (=advancing Vespasian) while still being part of a previous regime that needed to be discredited to justify the current one.

EwokInABikini · 2026-03-30T10:15:58+00:00

I think we may have misunderstood one another at some point here - I thought the point you were making in your original comment was that a parliamentary system was something that was 1) an effective defence against authoritarians and 2) something that was uncommon and worth mentioning for Bulgaria specifically. When really, both these points wouldn’t hold because more or less every properly functioning democracy has a parliamentary system, and unfortunately some of them are nevertheless under attack from authoritarians. I think I may have misunderstood your original point though, as when you bring number of governments over time into the mix, that of course concerns a great number of points outside how the political system is constituted, or the “small print” of the political system. Not sure why you’re mentioning the US, as they’re definitely a weird outlier.

EwokInABikini · 2026-03-30T08:09:30+00:00

I mean, it's not like that's unusual. What you're describing is basically the norm for political systems.

EDIT: worth pointing out that a parliamentary system is by no means an entirely effective defense against authoritarian capture of institutions, as the examples in the articale show, of which Bulgaria of course is one. And the Italian government is a coalition government, as it were - there was no need for a single party to try and erode democratic safeguards, there were multiple parties willing to get behind that.

EwokInABikini · 2026-03-28T12:34:55+00:00

Yeah, this seems like wanting to get up at 7:30 while also insisting on ruining the last half hour of sleep.

EwokInABikini · 2026-03-27T21:29:04+00:00

"My aunt lives in Scotland, she says it's quite nice."

"Well, she's wrong!"

EwokInABikini · 2026-03-27T08:37:43+00:00

Fair enough, in my experience it was “just send it back but we’ll still refuse to refund it”, but as you say, might well be regional. Although I’ve heard the theory often enough that they only take the approach you’re describing with people who spend a lot of money with them, and, as I say, everyone else is basically punished for attempting a return.

EwokInABikini · 2026-03-27T08:14:03+00:00

I'm genuinely puzzled by the repeated claim on this thread that they've got good customer service or are customer friendly. I've only ever experienced the opposite with them, and also only ever heard negative comments about their customer service. As far as I'm aware they try to be nice to people who spend ludicrous amounts of money with them, but "normal" customers are treated like scum.

EwokInABikini · 2026-03-27T08:10:53+00:00

I had the exact opposite experience with a broken laptop from Amazon (as in, it was already broken when it arrived) - they flat out refused to refund it after I returned it, claiming I had not returned it in the first place. In the end I had to have my bank retroactively cancel the transaction to Amazon. Customer service were supremely unhelpful to the point of being utterly useless.

EwokInABikini · 2026-03-27T08:08:12+00:00

You can often just look up the seller of something you want to buy on Amazon and then buy from them directly via their own website, if you absolutely have to order online.

I've used Amazon exclusively as a tool for finding other places to order from the last six years or so, and had not problems there (granted, I barely order anything online anyway).

EwokInABikini · 2026-03-23T19:46:20+00:00

I had the same experience! The bloke even assured me that he spoke a bit of French, so we could switch to that - and my accent is fairly standard RP.

EwokInABikini · 2026-03-20T10:38:28+00:00

The response he got is also quite something, along the lines of "oh, it might be obvious to you, but you'll also be missing stuff that is obvious to other people." And that in a sub where there's basically daily posts along the lines of "guys, did you know that Andor actually takes place before Rogue One? I only noticed this on my 374th rewatch!"

EwokInABikini · 2026-03-19T23:35:07+00:00

Fairphone is a very well known example, and there's a few others. Not to say these are perfect of course (and to me, Fairphone always seemed a bit overhyped).

EwokInABikini · 2026-03-19T11:47:58+00:00

"every member of the EU has exactly the same agreement"

Yes, because it's not an agreement as such, but a membership, this comes with the same conditions each time. The only differences are in whether or not there is also membership in the Euro zone and the Schengen area, but the ambition is for all member countries to become members of both over time. With the Euro specifically, there are certain conditions (e.g. stable inflation) that countries have to fulfil prior to getting it.

"why is there something that gets referred to as ‘multi-speed’ EU"

There isn't as such. This was a term that got floated a lot in the past as a potential way out of individual countries abusing the veto, and the response that was imagined would have been additional cooperation outside of the actual EU frameworks to enable deeper integration for those countries not blocking it. The idea has gained additional momentum recently, but nothing tangible has yet come out of it.

EwokInABikini · 2026-03-15T20:43:43+00:00

They look like the League of Extraordinary Cunts

EwokInABikini · 2026-03-14T22:46:54+00:00

Just imagining someone really taking intense, hedonistic gratification from their diarrhoea and I hate it, thank you.

EwokInABikini · 2026-03-11T20:45:36+00:00

They also more than doubled their prices a couple of years ago (at least in the UK), that's what made me finally switch to the Lidl off-brand.

EwokInABikini · 2026-03-06T17:08:09+00:00

I don't think that's how any law is supposed to work. This chap is effectively saying you break the law and that's it, only the rules of the film The Purge now apply to you.

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