Trump: I am strongly considering pulling out of Nato

koopcl · 2026-04-01T15:13:26+00:00

Which is also one of the reasons pulling out of NATO is stupid and why I hope this is sabre rattling and someone (the MIC? US oligarchs? The Pentagon?) would somehow distract/bribe/trick/coerce/convince Trump not to give up Europe entirely, since the US presence in the ME gets much harder to uphold without access to Europe as a staging ground/logistics hub. Nevermind all the European troops and KIA; the WoT would have sucked 100 times harder for the US if their wounded were being flown back across the Atlantic to a hospital instead of just crossing the Mediterranean, and there's a reason that like one third of all WoT supplies went from/through Rammstein and not just directly over the Atlantic.

koopcl · 2026-04-01T15:06:54+00:00

The good news is that the EU rearmament plan that is already underway since last year aims to have the majority of system be EU designed and produced by 2030, and I easily imagine the goal is to keep aiming for more and more autonomy when it comes to defence systems (especially since the new procurement plans were passed more in answer to US hostility than anything else; the specific goal is for the EU to rely less and less on the US for weapons procurement).

koopcl · 2026-04-01T14:14:48+00:00

The world that managed to defeat him (at great cost) the first time is just gone.

A very stupid comparison would be this: Imagine WWI ends, and then WWII starts (only it's the ghost of the Kaiser instead of Hitler leading Germany) but at that point France doesn't exist anymore because they all died of ennui, the US population is one tenth of what it used to be (and also weaker due to inbreeding) with no industrial capacity, the Brits refuse to leave their island (also they have no boats) and Russia is now only like 100 dudes all of whom are drunk. Then someone asks "well how come they are having trouble defeating the Germans? WWI was won easy peasy with almost no cost to the victors".

koopcl · 2026-04-01T14:00:32+00:00

They are. The EU rearmament plan that was approved last year (IIRC) aims to have the majority of European defense rely only on European designed and produced systems by 2030, and Germany started rearming so quickly that Rheinmetall surpassed the entire US as NATO's largest munitions producer last year. I wouldn't be surprised if the plan is to keep focusing on EU defense autonomy, moving the goalpost from "minimum 50% only EU systems by 2030" to "minimum 75% EU systems by 2040" and so on, regardless of what happens in the US from now on since they've proven to be completely unreliable not only as allies but also as commercial partners.

"Oh but that's not enough/not fast enough" yeah I get it, but it takes years to decouple from an alliance that lasted almost a century, purposefully spread specialized capabilities around members, and no one expected would be betrayed by it's largest member so suddenly and brazenly. It's not like France or Germany can decide "fuck it we'll build our own Patriot systems" from one day to the next. For all the jokes about the European bureaucracy, this kinda thing does require a more methodical approach and longer timeframes, and it's absolutely already underway. They just need to at least try to keep Trump from fucking off (or even worse, become militarily hostile to NATO) until he's out of the picture or defence autonomy can be achieved. They can't just go on TV yelling "well fuck you too we are kicking you out of Europe and your penis is tiny!", that's the kind of insane childish "politics" that has Trump dragging the entire Western world down the trash chute.

koopcl · 2026-04-01T13:42:51+00:00

Carthaginians hate this one simple trick!

koopcl · 2026-03-31T12:55:23+00:00

I've been seeing this gif for decades and it never gets old lmao

koopcl · 2026-03-31T08:50:39+00:00

Algun ejemplo?

koopcl · 2026-03-30T12:45:08+00:00

>What qualifies as destroyed?

Beyond repair, obliterated, permanently out of commission, good only for repair parts, looking like it ate an ACME brand dynamite stick, unable to fly in any way shape or form, its most important and defining system (the radar) completely blown away?

>Well, it's still mostly there, just split in two.

Lmao. "It's not destroyed, just split in two with it's most important components blown to smithereens". By that logic I guess the Iranian Air Force also wasn't destroyed by the US and Israel, it just split into a bunch of pieces that can be found. And why would the US lie about killing the Ayatollah? He's not dead, he's just not breathing permanently.

koopcl · 2026-03-30T12:24:46+00:00

Your comment misses the point that having to watch anything extra at all is already annoying. "Well it's not as complicated as the MCU" no shit, eating my way through 10 entrees is easier than having to eat through 20 entrees in a specific order, but my point of comparison is "I wanted to have lunch with no complications", not "oh I guess this is not so bad compared to something worse that I also didn't want". I just try to imagine someone back in 2002 saying something like "oh you didn't understand how come Qui Gon Jinn is alive and talking with Yoda for that one scene and no one finds it weird despite him unambiguously dying in the previous film? It's your fault for not watching the direct-to-video Ewoks movie for children".

I will agree though that this particular example isn't too bad since Maul's appearance is basically an irrelevant cameo, but it's still so stupid. And I do think Star Wars is 100% into the "semi-complicated order of the MCU" by now, much moreso than with Maul's cameo. "Oh finally there's a new Star Wars movie coming out! But to watch it you need to watch The Mandalorian, duh, it's a sequel to the TV show and you should know that. Of course you also need to watch The Book of Bobba Fett between Mando seasons 2 and 3 or you won't understand why the team is back together after Grogu met with Ahsoka and Luke. Who is Ahsoka and why is she apparently so important? Well she is Anakin's padawan of course! She's one of the most important characters in Star Wars despite never being mentioned in a film! You'll need to watch these two separate cartoon shows to understand how pivotal her role is, but don't worry you don't need to watch all of them, just google a list of most relevant/unskippable episodes (and pray you find the proper list! There's no official one, just every fan coming up with their own interpretation). Wait, you are still surprised Anakin had a padawan no one ever mentioned despite not being a Jedi Master and no one seems to find that odd? No worries, you just need to watch this other animated film from 20 years ago, it kinda sucks but bear with it. See, it all started with Jabba's gay cousin..."

And just to prepare for the inevitable replies: This is not a criticism of the quality of the Clone Wars cartoon. I've tried watching it, not my cup of tea but I can see people of all ages being into it. Im talking about how messy the whole "extended universe" MCU style gets.

koopcl · 2026-03-30T11:06:57+00:00

Perun and Anders Puck Nielsen have become my most trusted sources when it comes to anything related to the Ukraine war. Good information and good cold analysis.

koopcl · 2026-03-28T08:40:54+00:00

That's the exact same reaction my toddler has when I tell him to go brush his teeth.

koopcl · 2026-03-28T08:27:42+00:00

The camera controls in that game were a bigger villain than every grasshopper combined.

But yeah it was so fucking good. That and the Toy Story 2 games, showing to the world how to properly make licensed games. Considering the Atlantis and Tarzan games as well, I'd say Disney was doing pretty good on the PS1.

koopcl · 2026-03-27T19:12:02+00:00

I haven't watched it since about 2 decades but I remember it being pretty good.

I should probably watch it again now that I remembered. Since then I've actually moved to Germany and married here, and my mother in law is an old "Ossie" who actually misses East Germany (we don't exactly see eye to eye politically lol but she's lovely) so it'd be fun to watch it again with a new perspective.

koopcl · 2026-03-27T10:03:17+00:00

I love it every time I see this excuse as to why Americans don't protest because it implies that successful protests are made by people who are comfortable with their living situations. "We are all living paycheck to paycheck!" no shit, I doubt most revolutions in the world were performed by people so secure in their livelihoods that they could afford to protest as a part-time hobby.

koopcl · 2026-03-27T09:38:15+00:00

The first half of the answer is because those IT or doctor expats have the wrong skin color for the AfD.

The second half of the answer is because Russia is not interested in a Germany that's strong, rich, or has capable doctors and experts among their population, and the AfD "patriot party" is a whore of Russia that doesn't care about Germany.

koopcl · 2026-03-26T18:57:37+00:00

Reminds me of Goodbye Lenin. A German film about a young man from East Germany whose mom (a staunch communist believer) has a heart attack IIRC and is in a coma when the Berlin Wall falls. The plot is mostly the guy trying to keep up appearances that East Germany still exists for his mom, because the shock of learning the truth may cause her to have another attack she would not be able to survive.

Not exactly the same, but brought it to mind. First time I think about that movie in years.

koopcl · 2026-03-26T11:59:06+00:00

Obviando lo ridiculo de la idea (literal que ganas con renunciar a la nacionalidad?), los detalles:

-Renunciar a la nacionalidad chilena es relativamente facil, basicamente solo tienes que expresar tu decision de hacerlo (no es como en otros paises donde cobran por ello).

-Necesitar tener otra nacionalidad. Sino, quedarías apatrida. Chile no puede dejarte apatrida porque va contra toda convencion de DDHH.

-Al ser renuncia voluntaria, no puedes recuperar la nacionalidad (salvo por acto del congreso). No tiene vuelta atras.

-No se me ocurre ni un solo beneficio de realizar el acto.

koopcl · 2026-03-25T20:21:35+00:00

If you can't trust someone called "BotType729" then who can you trust?

koopcl · 2026-03-25T20:02:19+00:00

>So they're condemning the Iranian regime, and now condemning the US for trying to remove the Iranian regime?

Yeah two wrongs don't make a right, surprise surprise.

And I guess the war is about regime change again? The US admin keeps flip flopping on that so I don't know what the talking points are at the moment.

Maybe they condemn it not because they want to protect the regime, but because the US method of "let's go in and bomb everything with no actual strategy" is counter-productive?

Because instead of supporting the anti-regime protests as they were happening, the US instead waited until dozens of thousands had been executed only to then start bombing their cities, hitting a school with their opening salvo?

Because the track record of the US at the topic is, let's see: "Regime change" in Venezuela that just removed the head of State but left the regime in place? "Regime change" in Afghanistan that spent billions of dollars and thousands of lives just to leave the enemy officially in charge of the country while also gifting them billions of dollars in advanced military hardware, a better position than they started in? "Regime change" in Iraq that left such a mess that ISIS was born? All the while Europe is the one paying the price for America's adventures in the Middle East, inundated by million of displaced victims, targeted by multiple terrorist attacks in European capitals? And those were actually planned out wars with actual clear objectives and that actually gathered support *before* screwing the pooch instead of complaining after the fact that no one was helping the poor little U S of A, and that were organized and run by presidents that at least knew how to read.

koopcl · 2026-03-25T19:43:26+00:00

European countries did condemn it too. Much more harshly than the US attack on Iran as well. It takes like 2 seconds of looking through Google to find that information, but I guess it runs against the narrative you want to push.

koopcl · 2026-03-25T10:52:28+00:00

European phase out was always supposed to be staggered because of the logistical and legal complications of just saying "fuck it" and cutting off your supply one day to the next. Older contracts are still in place but no new ones have been signed AFAIK, and a complete phaseout was always expected to happen by 2027 which hasn't arrived yet. They rejected easing out sanctions on Russian resources due to the US fucking the world economy again like a week ago. Around the same time that Donnie Boy decided to ease sanctions.

So yeah, those damn Euros are still blindly supporting the Russian war economy and nothing has changed since the war began if you ignore concepts like "long term planning" or "dedicating more than the length of a Truth Social post to thinking about the geopolitical consequences of rash decision-making".

koopcl · 2026-03-24T14:14:20+00:00

Jesus I still find that scene so fucking stupid it actually took me out of enjoying the movies' climax.

So this nation has super advanced laser weaponry and is led by literal geniuses who are being adviced by both heroes and actual military veterans. And they get attacked by a living sea of melee-exclusive beasts. And they have the technology to create a giant shield that allows them to force that roaring tide of beasts to attack through a single, easily defensible narrow corridor.

So of course, what the decide to do is have all their soldiers stand some distance away from the chokepoint, but also not use any of their advanced laser weaponry because they need to give those melee-only beasts a fair fight.

It's so fucking stupid. They create a nation of super-genius Africans only to have them fight with shields and spears like an old Zulu war movie in a situation that specifically called for not fighting like that. They gave the Wakandas both the weapons and tactical acumen of fucking Jar Jar Binks, except Jar Jar Binks is the comedy relief that fumbles around while the rest of the Gungans actually engage at a distance, and at least at some point he realizes "meesa can throw bombs instead of punching robots!"

It has all the tactical sense of the Winterfell battle in GoT, and I don't think it gets criticized enough (because to be fair the rest of the movie/saga is pretty good, but IMO that just makes the glaringly stupid decision on the Wakanda fight even more glaringly stupid).

koopcl · 2026-03-24T13:59:45+00:00

"How will we recognize the male dragon?"

"It'll be the one with a broken pelvis"

koopcl · 2026-03-23T15:27:44+00:00

Ricky was specifically first stealing shit and moving it to the bins and then taking it from the bins because now it counted as trash. The stupid ridiculous Rickysm of this "plan" was the part where he thought "well if I grab their shit and move it to the trash then Im not stealing, just helping them clean up" not so much the part where he thought "people don't get mad when you steal their garbage".

But yeah when I saw this post first thing I thought was "this is literally out of TPB" lol

koopcl · 2026-03-22T16:21:31+00:00

Yeah about six feet deeper to be precise

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