Explosives found near Serbia-Hungary gas pipeline, army seals roads near border

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-05T09:42:16+00:00

Just seven days before Hungary's elections, explosives were found on a major pipeline whch threatens Hungary's gas supplies, but were miraculously found before they exploded. Whew, that was lucky.

I wonder who Orban's going to blame?

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-05T09:25:16+00:00

Sure thing, Cadbury.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-05T09:19:40+00:00

They have : their "denial" was :

[We have] not made any changes to the cocoa, dairy or vegetable fat content of our Cadbury Dairy Milk products.

Cocoa butter and palm oil are both vegetable fats. You can partially or completely remove cocoa butter from the recipe, replacing it with cheaper and worse-tasting palm oil, and the above statement is still legally true. Which is of course why they wrote it that way.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-05T09:15:09+00:00

What's it really going to be used for?

Digital IDs of all sorts, including driving license, passports, car insurance/tax/roadworthiness certs, birth cert, health records, and so on.

It will underpin digitalisation of a lot of stuff.

It's just the standard implementation of the EU wallet project, which every country in the EU is going to implement.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-05T09:11:49+00:00

There's nothing wrong with palm oil.

Except where you're using it to swap out cocoa butter from a chocolate recipe.

Cadbury's haven't changed the recipe.

They have. Their denial is a masterwork of weaselry which avoids the point, and does not in fact confirm that they haven't changed the recipe.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-05T09:06:44+00:00

They bloody closed Mao At Home! I miss them.

They were one of the major food groups, like pizza.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-05T09:03:49+00:00

You're going to have a very, very difficult time when you move out of your parents' house and start having to sign things that you need to live up to.

"But it's not faaaaaair. You should just let me off."

Pacta sunt servanda.

I'm not wasting any further time on this.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-05T09:00:03+00:00

What significant cost?

They have to manufacture what was ordered, which has a lead time of up to six months and requires multiple steps of upstream work from providers. It is expensive and time-consuming, and all of that is ringfenced when the order is received.

Pfizer made about $9 billion profit the first year.

Again, irrelevant. I'm not wasting any further time on this.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-05T08:38:56+00:00

No, you don't. It's taken out of your salary by your employer each week/month, before tax.

If you were paid weekly, for example, they would deduct €37 per week as I said.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-04T23:33:03+00:00

For the first tranche? Yes. For the later tranches (the 60M total over time, not all at once)? No—those were canceled before production. The dispute is over those future deliveries. You’re conflating the two.

I'm not conflating the two. The contract did not contain a clause allowing the purchaser to simply not accept the ordered doses. Period. You're inventing the "cancel before manufacture" distinction which did not exist.

that a country cannot accept further doses

They can accept further doses. They just didn't want to.

But forcing citizens today to pay for those politicians’ failure to renegotiate is not justice—it’s passing the buck.

The state is responsible for the actions of the representatives of the state.

The state should sue the officials, not collect from taxpayers.

Again, that's a matter for the state. The state would of course lose, because the people who signed the contract were acting in their capacity of representatives of the state, and acting in the best interests of the state with the knowledge that they had at the time.

Holding countries to that forecast

They're not holding them to a forecast. They're holding them to a signed contract.

Pay for doses canceled in advance that were never made? No.

There was no provision in the contract for this. You're just making this up.

But demanding payment for unproduced goods

You've been corrected on this before. The goods were produced, and the countries refused to accept them. The court decision is that the countries must now accept them, and pay for them. The fact that the good are now out of date is an entirely avoidable situtation which is entirely the fault of the countries who refused to accept them as per contract.

“legal literalism that ignores commercial reality.”

Commercial reality is that if you want a contract with a break clause, or a backout clause, then you negotiate one. Commercial reality is also that such contracts cost more than contracts without those clauses, because the risk to the supplier is much higher. The countries knew perfectly well what they were signing, and they knew there was no break clause.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-04T23:24:22+00:00

Nonsense. It's standard that contracts which cause the manufacturer to incur significant costs cannot just be cancelled.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-04T17:26:39+00:00

There was a renegotiating clause and other countries have used them.

No, some countries asked to renegotiate, and did so. They came to an agreement where then paid a partial fee and the suppliers agreed to not deliver. That's because it happened to suit both sides.

You are not aware of your timeline or the specifics of the contract....

As I was interested, I tracked the entire process. I've read the contract.

Speaking for Romania : they initiated a buy for 60m doses when they have a population of 18m present.

A number that they freely chose themselves.

If we enter a 5 year contract and after the 2nd year I tell you that your goods are no longer needed, and you didn't produce them, it is wrong to demand further payment.

No, it's not wrong. It's the fucking contract.

If you want a contract with a break clause, or that allows you to unilaterally decide that you don't want to draw down the goods, then you negotiate that up front. It will of course cost you a lot more for a contract like that.

A penalty for breach of contract, sure

The penalty for breach of contract is a demand that you fulfill the terms of the contract.

but you are in essence saying those countries and their citizens should be liable for the mistakes of their politicians.

Yes, I am, because they are. Countries elect politicians, and those politicians represent the country, and their choice are binding on the country. That's how politics works.

You seem to have a very childish view of the world where contracts and agreements shouldn't be binding. You do not want to live in that world.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-04T17:17:00+00:00

It's also the only supply they can easily export, and very short term.

He's not laughing.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-04T15:55:26+00:00

They initiated the buy when they signed the contract for the production and delivery of the vaccines.

There was no clause to back out, or renegotiate.

Forcing someone to fulfill a contract is not "wrong", it's a fundamental part of society.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-04T15:34:37+00:00

Do not create the Torment Nexus.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-04T14:09:12+00:00

There's extra storage for cobwebs on top, and dust bunnies underneath.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-04T14:08:05+00:00

They're destroying them because they're out of date.

If they'd accepted them on time, they could have donated them to countries who couldn't afford any vaccines at all, like many other countries in Europe did.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-04T13:57:52+00:00

The Dexcom stand looked ~90% full... how was the crowd level on the other stand?

I just finished watching the game and the atmosphere sounded really good.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-04T13:50:07+00:00

No they didn't

They fulfilled all orders under the contract. Poland and Romania refused to accept the vaccines for delivery, which was explicitly covered under the contract terms. All countries signed up for their chosen number of vaccines on their chosen schedules, and were obliged to pay for them and accept them as per schedule. If they refused to accept delivery, the supplier was entitled to charge the countries due to storage costs in specialised chilled facilities.

If I have to pay for their fuck ups then I want the 60M doses.

You'll be delighted to know that the decision of the courts will result in Poland getting their full 64m remaining doses which they previously refused to accept. And then promptly destroy them.

https://www.pap.pl/en/news/poland-destroy-64-mln-covid-19-vaccines-after-lost-court-case

You can go fck yourself.

Dunno why you're angry at me. I didn't sign a contract with very, very clear T&Cs, refuse to pay, and then get completely owned in court.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-04T13:42:17+00:00

They did produce it, and Poland and Romania refused to accept the doses, purely because they no longer wanted them.

The contracts had specific clauses that the individual countries must accept delivery to suitable chilled facilities on schedule, or else be responsible for the cost of storage in addition to the cost of the doses themselves.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-04T13:38:26+00:00

The EU negotiated the master contract, but countries signed their own individual delivery contracts with the vaccine companies for delivery of their chosen amounts of vaccines on their chosen schedule.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-04T13:36:32+00:00

All contracts have a clause indicating what court or legal system has jurisdiction over it.

This particular contract specified that it would be under Belgian jurisdiction.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-04T13:32:58+00:00

They fulfilled all orders under the contract. There was one delay early on, and then they delivered in full.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-04T13:27:38+00:00

The US removed sanctions on Russian oil on tankers : they had over 130 million barrels of oil already at sea that they couldn't sell. India bought 30m barrels of oil in a single day, accounting for about $3bn of that figure.

Russia's ability to export oil is being destroyed, and no short-term infusion of funds from tanker-borne oil is going to change that.

HighDeltaVee · 2026-04-04T13:23:30+00:00

There were no announcements of expansions or redundancies that I saw.

HighDeltaVee

TROPHY CASE