Clueless Northman

This is purely legalese bullshit. What matters for pretty much everybody is who has nukes and who hasn't. That they actually signed a treaty is moot. It's basically assumed that it applies to everybody on the planet, because this is the only way to ensure everybody's safety, or it's just a waste of paper. Heck, one could even argue that if Israel doesn't want to sign on the NPT, on the ICC and other internationally binding treaties, then it should pretty much be considered an outlaw and pariah state until it decides to abide by everybody else's rules (and yes, to an extent, this also applies to Trump's America). But keep telling yourself that technicalities will shield you from the terrible opinion the rest of the world may have of you when you don't give a damn about basic principles. Because let's face it, if not signing the NPT is enough for the US to let you have nukes without coming after you, then pretty much every single country on Earth should sign it off and be done with this joke.

Israel isn't the Security Council, last time I checked. Besides, sure, Iran is in violation of IAEA, but it's not as if Israel isn't either, since it actually has nukes, in blatant violation of all treaties. It is, literally, the very LAST country on Earth to be justified in complaining about any other country trying to get nukes. Heck, if the rest of the world had applied Israel's current logic against Iran to Israel itself, that country would've been bombed back to the stone age decades ago. Considering how the West / the US has sponsored terrorists and regime change, including by direct military invasion, all across the Middle-East, that's a bit rich. Or is it different when the USA do it, because somehow they're special, they're different, they're exceptional, they're the good guys and everybody who disagrees is actually evil to the core? If you want to know why nobody with half a functional brain outside the West will never ever again take seriously any Western leader, you have your answer right there: the blatant hypocrisy and double standards is off the roof, it's over 9.000. Besides, since somebody has to state the obvious, this is counter-productive in the long run: Iran with nukes back in 2022, before the first bombing run months ago, would've most probably meant MAD between Iran and Israel for the rest of the century. Iran with nukes once the current mess is over means a significantly higher risk that somebody in Iranian top leadership could be pissed off enough due to past attacks to actually be ready to use them against Israel in a first strike; not overwhelming odds, but considerably higher still. And at this point, it should be blatantly obvious that Iran will have nukes, sooner or later. So better hope that Iron Dome (or its successor) will be able to stop such an attack - assuming Iran doesn't decide to blast a nuke high enough in some wide-ranging EMP attack first.

Ah, so Putin's logic? Then pray tell me why Russia is blamed and sanctioned by the same Western powers who claim they will actually defend the attacker in this specific case? Ah yes, I forgot the key difference: Russia isn't committing another crime against humanity by starving to death an entire foreign province and regularly bombing a couple of other countries, all the while waging the war in Ukraine, they're just focused on that single one Ukrainian issue. I guess Putin should just bomb Finland and the Baltic States if he wants to have the same Western respect Bibi gets right now. To be brutally honest, I can't fucking wait to see the same reasoning be applied to the current crop of worthless Western leaders. And this is why I'm grateful for Trump 2.0, with a genuine legitimate majority in his reelection. From now on, the rest of the world can't pretend anymore that American rule over the world is any different from the Tarkin doctrine.

This right here is the issue. There's no justification possible for Israel to have nukes and Iran not to have them. This may have been the ancient world, a few decades ago, but it's definitely not the world that's emerging right now. And of course anybody who thinks a post-Islamist Iranian regime wouldn't go for nukes is as deluded as anybody who thinks killing Putin means a weak peace-loving president will replace him. Topple the mollahs and the next guys will have learned the same lesson: Iran must have nukes, period. Israel just made sure this genie is now out of the bottle, forever.

At this stage, most governments and administrations should be busy googling "How do I join BRICS"...

These buffoons really have no clue and are mentally impaired. I mean, if a country has VAT, all products are taxed the same way, whether they're US-made and imported, or made in that country. So there's nothing unfair, since there's no price difference due to where the goods are coming. Tariffs and import taxes are explicitly made to artificially make imported products more expensive, in a bid to protect internal production of the country. This is so basic understanding that it should be used as a test to check of somebody is intelligent enough to be allowed to have full citizenship rights or should be considered too dumb to vote. Besides, this kind of racketeering should be faced by a level of retaliation and sanctions from the rest of the world that would make Russian sanctions look like kindergarten play. Alas, most countries' leaders are feckless cowards and corrupt scum, so I don't expect any serious pushback, but at most reciprocal measures.

Oh they were very sloppy, and stupid, and cocky. Thing is, it's pretty much like the Tour de France. They all use substances, but only the careless ones get caught at once; the good ones are never caught, and those who are too "in your face" fall, but it takes a lot of time, effort, years of various competitions until they're brought down (think Lance Armstrong as an obvious example). Same here: all parties abuse the system for their ends, but the most experienced now know the tricks and slip through the net. Yet if you actually decided to look into it and be thorough, you could probably sentence half the parliament and wreck parties and incoming elections. Obviously, no ruling party is going to investigate itself, though it can try to hamstring its main opposition if it's been too arrogant in its shenanigans (Fillon obviously, Le Pen and Melenchon now, Juppe decades ago - Sarkozy is a different beast, he wasn't convicted because he merely used EU money to pay staffers for national campaign, it's way worse). As for not changing anything in national politics, we'll see. Hopefully, yes, but look at the effect of Trump's various lawsuits. In fact, the main effect might not even be in France but in the rest of EU: there, it'll be very easy to portray this, the Romanian non-election, various attempts in other countries, various declarations of EU top leadership, as being typical of a bureaucratic monster that is out of control and has no democratic check left - whether that's hyperbole is beyond the point, the timing and the accumulation of these cases will be enough to sway many people who don't look thoroughly at this mess. Besides, claiming that the EU is an undemocratic behemoth bent on oppressing peoples is an old complaint from the European left, back in the 1990s/2000s, which mostly lost ground and is rarely made nowadays because the ultra-Right has at long last opened its eyes and is now the main supporter of such a claim.

There's a key difference. Odds were still against Le Pen on 2nd round for 2027 and there was no way RN would come close to a majority in the Assembly, before that. Now, obviously, they're going to get more votes. Of course, it would be good if it was actually widely enforced all across the board with no exceptions, like Rippounet wishes for (though Melenchon would get hit as well, for instance). But since this is more targetted than widely applied, it's not that it was wrong to punish her, it's that it was politically stupid if now suicidal. Besides, having her out means a more unhinged and extreme RN candidate and potential future president - a bit like wishing for Putin to just die already and risking to have him replaced by bloody Medvedev.

As you said later, this comes and goes with time, actually. After all, Americans fought on their own and purely among themselves the 2nd biggest war (when considering troops size, casualties and scope of operations) of the 99 years separating the Napoleonic wars and WWI (the 1st being the Taiping rebellion), and it was quite a milestone of military innovation and industrialized slaughter, a bad omen of what was to come 50 years later.

Except the final boss of the main game, which is a major pain, requiring a specific setup for your guy, otherwise you're going to suffer or have to rely on blind luck to beat him. What's annoying is that you have to beat him to be able to launch the expansion. I'm still annoyed and basically dropped it after first playthrough, though I have to say it was really a decent game for its time, though I still prefer Dungeon Siege - and of course Diablo above all.

Ironically, this is pretty much Russia's official opinion of the US: you can't make deals with them, these never last. Of course, thanks to Trump, Iran knows this as well. And Europe and NATO are slowly beginning to realize this applies to them as well. Of cours, there's nothing new there, Trump just did it far worse and quicker than other presidents before him (W to begin with). Plenty of Native tribes could've told you so in the late 19th century already. It's just that the other Western and Western-aligned countries are now learning the hard fact (which was already obvious when it comes to trade relationships) that US unreliability and "America first, treaties second" mindset applies to them as well, including in geostrategic considerations. The only silver lining is that blind trust or blind obedience will soon be a thing of the past, and from now on, pretty much no Western leader will be able to deny the risk and say we couldn't know. As for Trump's current dealings, I wouldn't rule what some pondered: he might consider that some in Ukraine and Europe heavily opposed him and helped his opponents (both during campaigns and his 1st administration), so he's going for some petty payback - at least to make them sweat and extort a pound of flesh. Whether he might drop the ball entirely is another question.

It's a tie between Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Zola's Assommoir - same century, quite different styles and themes Or was it supposed to be limited to books released in that year, which will pretty much never happen (unless maybe GRRM or Scott Lynch releases some long awaited sequel) ?

All seasons had some not totally great parts, but indeed when they escaped New Caprica and settled scores, the series became considerably weaker at times, even if there still were plenty of good parts. Might not be the most popular opinion, but I've always thought the first 3 seasons of Big Bang Theory were amazing, because they kept a very high level of fun and nonsense, up to the point they set up Sheldon to meet his female equivalent - which actually had some promises. Then during the later season, scriptwriters began to take themselves seriously and turn the formerly cliches characters into more serious and slightly more realistic ones and to give them character arcs, which turned the whole series into something entirely different - and imho something far less interesting, because we already had series like this, How I met your Mother for a starter. I mean, most end up married and happy, in a reasonably balanced and mature relationship - when we've all seen how utterly hopeless they were as already grown-ups. Overall, I found the series way better when pretty much every episode could work as a standalone and (mostly) watched in whatever order you wish, and when it didn't take itself seriously at all and never tried to involve the protagonists with any "serious" issues that would conflict with the purely comical aspect of it. But then, there already were some parts of HIMYM, when it went too much into moralizing and feel good territory, that annoyed me.

Clearly. But then, you realize how many people would genuinely celebrate if Trump were shot for real, and you're not surprised anymore by that kind of things.

Odds are that, when it comes to this case, a lot of people feel the same but just can't express their delight or approval because of forum / social media rules, or even laws in most Western countries. Considering the tens of thousands of people who basically posted they wouldn't shed a tear, I'd bet that a decent share of them actually used nice words not to publicly state that they actually thought he deserved it and had it coming. What I'm really curious about is if others will follow that example, considering how many shooters and copycats one can find in the US - I have absolutely no idea how many people in America think things have gone downhill so much with the economy, and specially with the predatory healthcare, that "extreme circumstance" are reached, as Manhole put it. For years, I've been of the opinion that the people at the top - billionaires, major CEOs, top politicians - only feared one single thing, which is being killed - because they have so much money that they can pay whatever fines and will usually have enough money to pay lawyers and avoid jail time, except possibly if they were proven serial killers. As long as they don't fear for their lives, they won't give a damn about laws, rights and justice, and will continue to fuck the people over and to rob society. Of course, the day they fear for their lives, they'll begin to tighten the noose even more with police state measures, private security and whatever else - but just like with Assad's dictatorship over Syria, this will only accelerate the reaction and their come-uppance with a pissed off populace that will actually be out for their blood. The alternative being, these fucks stop being so greedy and begin to actually consider the people's and society's needs and well-being, and begin to act towards such goals. I mean, the revenue and wealth gap in USA could actually be bigger than what it was in pre-revolutionary France, and I'm not sure it's that far from 1910s Russia.