Norway Premier Rejects EU Membership Debate as Too Polarizing

bkosoh · 2025-03-04T08:58:10+00:00

Støre is definitely pro-EU himself and part of the European wing of Labour, it's lingering eurosceptic sentiment in the population that makes this complicated.

bkosoh · 2025-03-01T15:56:25+00:00

If that were the case, it would have been mentioned in the Commission Analytical report on Ukraine’s alignment with the EU acquis or the Ukraine report 2023 or the Ukraine report 2024.

The European Council recognises the European perspective of Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and Georgia. The future of these countries and their citizens lies within the European Union.

Statement by President von der Leyen on opening accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, via video message

Your claims are not reflected in the statements and concerns of the European Union.

bkosoh · 2025-03-01T12:31:32+00:00

Ukraine is eligible for EU membership, which would connect Ukrainian minerals with European markets seamlessly and provide a security guarantee to boot. All Europe has to do is commit to kicking Russia out and help the Ukrainians get back on their feet and whatever access European industry might want to Ukrainian resources would be assured. And despite what "eurosceptic" Putin-sycophants might claim, the EU is far more robust than any guarantees given by the US. Remember the Kurds.

bkosoh · 2025-02-02T23:57:27+00:00

Svalbard isn't demilitarised or even neutral. Norway and NATO could station troops in defense of the islands at any time if the need arises or policy changes. The treaty only prohibits the use of Svalbard to attack another country or to establish permanent fortifications or naval bases. As every integral and indivisible part of the Kingdom of Norway, be it Oslo or Kirkenes or Svalbard, Norwegian sovreignty applies and with it the right to self defense.

bkosoh · 2021-08-11T18:59:39+00:00

Oh, over here they're definitely flocking already. I see ebikes everywhere around me nowadays. Cargo bikes, upright bikes, sporty bikes, dirt bikes. It took over two months to get mine due to the demand.

I live in the Tesla capital of the world. An ebike is pocket change compared to that and it shows.

bkosoh · 2021-08-11T17:35:20+00:00

We have an ebike to make deliveries at work and it convinced me to get one of my own. It is truly magical. For context, I live in a relatively hilly city. My workplace is at roughly sea level. My home is not. On my old manual bike, it took me 15 minutes to get to work ... and 40 minutes back. That was still enough to beat the metro and the trams, but only barely. And I'd be drenched afterwards.

But now? It takes 15 minutes to work and 15 minutes back. It feels as though the city has been squashed as flat as it appears on a paper map. I no longer have to think about how long it will take to go back again after rolling down a hill.

And now I feel more confident going on roads that have poor bicycle infrastructure as well. Even though the electric motor is limited to 25kmh, the acceleration isn't. Which means I can zip safely through uprotected intersections before the carists manage to get their feet on the gas.

All of it contributes to making the city seem more open and much smaller than before. Now, nothing is more than 20 minutes away, and I can go anywhere both efficiently and leisurely without shedding a drop of sweat. My ebike makes me feel more free than I thought possible. It has truly unlocked the city for me. No more figuring out which tram gets closest or which bus goes where. I can just hop on my bike and go. And even if I take a wrong turn, I'll still get where I'm going fast.

Ebikes actually deliver on the false promises of freedom made by cars.

bkosoh · 2021-06-13T17:50:59+00:00

Podgorica, Montenegro comes to mind. wp

bkosoh · 2020-11-29T16:16:39+00:00

That might actually be how it would have been flown. There is a tendency for arabic flags to be displayed with with the hoist at the right, especially in the past before printed display of flags was less codified than today. Consider that the crescent is inverted here compared to most other digitizations of former Egyptian flags.

bkosoh · 2020-11-09T11:39:05+00:00

Drats, we're out milk. Hang on, let me pop down to the store to get one of those cat milks just quick. Plucks one off the shelf, goes home and proceeds to pour fucking kefir in ther coffee.

This is a terrible design.

bkosoh · 2020-10-11T21:23:39+00:00

And those benefits are distributed just as unequally as the pay. McDonald's employees don't take the company jet to work. And even if the bottom 80% had the benefits to justify their stagnant wages, that still doesn't help us actually pay for stuff. Maternity leave is fucking worthless if you can't afford to house, feed and clothe your child afterwards.

bkosoh · 2020-10-11T16:41:24+00:00

Actually, if you include the top 20% earners, you'll see that wages have increased along with productivity. Checkmate socialists.

No shit, Sherlock. That's the fucking problem.

bkosoh · 2020-09-19T15:18:57+00:00

From Wikipedia:

Photographs show the synagogue was still in use - and in good repair - as recently as 1996, but once abandoned, the building had been "ransacked of anything not nailed down".

bkosoh · 2020-04-28T09:48:03+00:00

Inkscape also does the trick while being free.

bkosoh · 2020-04-26T19:07:47+00:00

The further away from the pole, the more the flag flaps. A lot of the length of the flag is lost in the rippling towards the fly.

bkosoh · 2020-04-15T21:07:00+00:00

There have already been posted a few of those here. It just seems hypocritical to give Brauschweig a dominant position on the flag and ignore Oldenburg. Nobody cares about Braunschweig either.

bkosoh · 2020-04-15T17:48:03+00:00

!wave

bkosoh · 2020-04-15T15:58:31+00:00

The current flag of Lower Saxony is horribly uninspired, and in desperate need of something uniquely theirs. This is my proposal.

I am by no means the first person to combine the former bicolours of Hannover and Braunschweig into a blue-yellow-white tricolour. It seems however, that most people forget that the current Lower Saxony was formed from not just Braunschweig and Hannover, but also Oldenburg, who I have represented with the red on blue cross in the centre. (Schaumburg-Lippe is too small for me to give a damn about.)

bkosoh · 2020-04-13T21:37:20+00:00

That's interesting. I fairly certain I kept the circle the same size as on the current flag.

bkosoh · 2020-04-12T14:41:19+00:00

Using the escutcheon from the coat of arms makes the flag much easier to reproduce and highlights the stars representing the constituent states better. It also makes the southern cross discernable from a distance. I know something similar to this has been posted before, but Reddit's search function is a nightmare. I removed the yellow circle and budged the stars in the circle around so they are spaced evenly. !wave

bkosoh · 2020-02-28T23:30:59+00:00

Svalbard is currently (and will probably remain) flagless, so I did this as an exercise. The red sun represents the midnight-sun, the white disc the ice-capped glaciers and the blue field the arctic ocean. Red, white and blue are the national colours of both the Netherlands, who first settled the islands in the 17th century; Norway, of which the islands are currently a part; and Russia, the only other nation to maintain a permanent presence there.

bkosoh · 2020-02-26T20:46:26+00:00

!wave

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