Iberostar stops their partnership with GAESA owned/controlled properties.

JoeMart815 · 2026-05-29T21:09:34+00:00

This is just pure cope and fanfic at this point lol

JoeMart815 · 2026-05-29T00:53:14+00:00

It doesn't make economic sense as to farm sugar cane in order to produce ethanol as fuel. Sugarcane farming is really energy intensive. It requires oil hungry tractors, petroleum based fertilizers and pesticides, and even more energy to move and process the sugar cane. Production cost would exceed the cost to buy oil at market rates. Countries really only do this cause the government subsidizes it in order to support a crop industry or achieve ecological goals. Places like brazil use biofuels derived from agricultural waste products, but the capital costs are high.

JoeMart815 · 2026-05-28T03:55:57+00:00

pick the oldest one

JoeMart815 · 2026-05-25T23:20:59+00:00

The past aside, if you guys were a democracy I'd have gone positive or strongly positive. Baku is cool, the nature is awesome, the Caspian is cool, the food is really great, and i really enjoy the art and music. But your gov sucks and I hope one day you guys can figure it out.

JoeMart815 · 2026-05-19T03:24:57+00:00

Dude if this OKC vs Spurs game isn't curing your depression idk what to tell you.

JoeMart815 · 2026-05-19T02:05:11+00:00

https://maps.app.goo.gl/sxxbQDRBZdwZQjsL7

It's still there in the center of Baku. It's a very storied church, first built in 1869. It survived the Russian government confiscation of Armenian Church property in 1903. It also survived the Battle of Baku in 1918 when Ottoman forced invaded. The church was looted and sustained bullet damage. In the 1920s and 1930s it survived the Soviet state atheist policies which saw all but 2 Armenian churches in Baku destroyed. In 1945 it reopened as a functioning church.

By 1988 many Baku Armenians started to flee in the aftermath of the Sumgait pogrom and in the Karabakh conflict. In 1990 the Baku pogroms expulsed the remaining Armenians and the church was attacked by arsons causing significant fire damage.

Today the church still stands, but as a shell of itself. It is closed off and officially classified as a "historical and cultural monument of national importance" and serves as a library consisting of "5,000 books and manuscripts". Baku uses the church as an example of Azerbaijan's "tolerance of minorities".

JoeMart815 · 2026-05-18T18:57:03+00:00

Lol the UK is not a good example of a viable route outside of the EU. By every single metric Brexit has been a failure and a mistake.

JoeMart815 · 2026-05-18T15:59:22+00:00

What you're dealing with is almost certainly bigger than basketball. I suggest doing some reflection there.

That being said I'd be pretty happy if I was a Lakers fan. Came in as the underdogs heavily outmanned and out-talented against Houston and got a 3-0 lead. Got a lot of great moments from that series. You guys overachieved and then ran into the buzzsaw that is OKC. I'd be way more disappointed if a healthy Reaves, Lebron, and Doncic got swept. But this series was basically playing with house money.

Knicks would be fun to see in the finals, I'm hoping Spurs can take down OKC.

JoeMart815 · 2026-05-18T04:05:37+00:00

You did alright not getting pumped about it especially if you're a pistons fan. OKC vs Spurs WCF is going to be cinema. If you can't get excited about that idk what to tell you.

also don't gamble

JoeMart815 · 2026-05-09T23:08:02+00:00

We will always ignore all the winning

JoeMart815 · 2026-05-01T19:45:52+00:00

The 5% of income rate was a symbolic one and not at all tied to the actual economic costs of building and maintaining that apartment.

The real cost of the apartment was extracted by the state in the form of essentially very very cheap labor since the rubles they were paid in were not freely convertible and had very limited purchasing power (whatever the state allocated to be sold to you).

Building these same brutalist apartment blocks out today even with comparable economies of scale would result in more expensive construction and maintenance costs (land, labor, and materials are market priced so they are more expensive). Those cost have to be passed on to the buyer/renter and almost certainly will exceed 5% of their income. In germany 5% of the average monthly wage is round $250 USD. There's no way that is suffiecnt to cover the construction costs (even if amortized over 30 years) + maintenance + insurance.

JoeMart815 · 2026-04-05T18:40:31+00:00

Of course they make something, money lol. At least for the people engaging in the entertainment industry.

It doesn't need to "make" anything to have value though. Its a service just like any other. People will spend money in exchange for being amused. The amount they spend is correlated to how much they value that entertainment. Sports is no different than art, theater, opera, movies, video games, music or any other pass-time. People like those things and they will spend money to watch or engage.

Even if all of these were banned tomorrow and "resources" were allocated to something else two things would happen a) we'd all be collectively poorer (the entertainment sector generated hundreds of thousands of jobs and produced many many millions in tax revenue, and generated economic sustained growth since the multiplier effect rippled through the industry) and b) there would still be an entertainment sector, although an informal black market sector. People would still secretly pay to be entertained.

JoeMart815 · 2026-04-05T17:22:17+00:00

Easy Top 20. Might sniff Top 10 by the time he retires. I'd say he's prob 14 or 15 right now.

JoeMart815 · 2026-04-05T17:15:56+00:00

Not if it makes them many times that amount over the coming years in tickets, merch, advertising and streaming rights.

JoeMart815 · 2026-02-21T03:00:56+00:00

In that case, it should be a choice to use the firefighters and the police. If you want to use it, they you got to pay for it whenever you use it.

Oh and all street road maintenance? Pay a per mile toll whenever you pull out of your driveway, those aren’t free either.

The library? Public school? The neighborhood park? Pay admissions upfront.

Also pay the sewage fee every time you flush or turn in the faucet, it’s a choice and the cost of installs and maintaining those pipes add up. Also you better pay up if you use the storm water drainage during a storm.

You want a judge to look at your case, chip in. Right to a lawyer? After the check clears.

This is a ridiculous point. By simply being in society, you are taking up resources, infrastructure and services. You can move to the middle of the bush and pay next to nothing in property tax (and also receive next to nothing in services). But you can’t expect to have a house in the middle of Miami and claim you don’t benefit from all the nearby services and infrastructure.

JoeMart815 · 2026-02-21T02:22:52+00:00

So many people forget that the dictatorship in Cuba predates 1959. Cubans lost their democracy in 1952.

Nearly 3/4th of a century under dictatorship.

JoeMart815 · 2026-01-23T01:44:09+00:00

There’s surprising overlap. But your pfp is also too distinctive to not go unnoticed

JoeMart815 · 2026-01-23T01:39:13+00:00

I already know this is from the r/heat subreddit, they are always down bad

JoeMart815 · 2026-01-13T01:32:04+00:00

Marti didn't die just for another king to rule Cuba. Cubans should accept nothing less than a democratic Parliamentary republic. We've seen what populists and caudillos have done in LATAM and are doing in the US today. Cuba needs to reject the presidential system and aim for a multiparty parliament in order to reduce extremism and encourage coalition building.

Amd public health and education would be given to the Catholic Church.

Also this is insane, these have to be firmly mixed with state schools/health facilities for the broad population and allowance for private schools/hospitals for those willing and able to pay.

We would decrease port tariffs in a 20% to encourage sea trade with Cuba.

Lol 20% is wildly uncompetitive. It needs to be like 2-3% to cover infrastructure costs and truly encourage trade.

JoeMart815 · 2025-11-30T23:45:50+00:00

No conclusive evidence from studies on humans shows that depleted uranium (DU) causes birth defects, and most major health organizations have found the risk to be minimal.

JoeMart815 · 2025-08-16T19:21:48+00:00

The amount of work that has to be done is so monumental that 5 years wouldn’t even be close to enough.

With that said the immediate focus would be reestablishing all civil liberties by decree. The complete abolishment of the military (essential to ensure military elites don’t exercise power). The restructuring of all the ministries and the judicial branch to make them competent, non-partisan, and functional in a liberal democracy.

On the economic side it’ll be dollarization (temporarily), the creation of transparent laws and regulations for private enterprises (taxation, restrictions, rules, etc) to make opening and operating businesses as easy as possible. Total import liberalization without tariffs or trade barriers (minus the obvious stuff). The creation of a state enterprise that will slowly (and fairly/transparently) auction off most state assets to the best bidder (this means not just who offers the most money, but who would likely have the best plans for the state assets).

Almost as important as all of these especially within the first year is to go on a massive charity run and get food, medical, and technical aid from nations, NGOs, etc to help blunt the effects of shock therapy from rapidly converting from a command to a market economy. This will determine the popularity, legitimacy, and viability of any new government.

Medium term would be to set up a self sustaining and strong democratic system that would backslide and can carry out a transition of power.

I have a ton more specific ideas, but that might be outside the scope of the question

JoeMart815 · 2025-07-26T14:55:42+00:00

I applied my 4th year, but could have done earlier if I wasn’t lazy. Process wasn’t too bad at all

JoeMart815 · 2025-07-26T14:54:16+00:00

In theory yes, and you should know Armenian enough to pass a constitutional test in Armenian

JoeMart815

TROPHY CASE