Sure, though at a national level it’s more significant, and resorting to whataboutism isn’t really helping your argument.

The reference is the Metropol 2018 case where Salvini met with the Russian deputy prime minister Kozak. Later there was a meeting at the Metropol hotel with Salvini’s associates from the Lega (his political party) to agree a mechanism of the financing of the Lega for the EU elections. The agreement was for the Italian state to buy Russian energy (oil) and the price difference, around €100 million, was to go to the Lega.

Isn’t this the version of Cross Road Blues on Robert Johnson “King of the Delta Blues” album, released by the label Colombia-Legacy in 1998? Available on Streaming.

The BCE Central European Bank published an editorial in the FT on 7 April saying energy dependency was a serious problem in Europe. While say Spain, which has invested heavily in renewables for a sustainable economy, has an energy cost of 40-45€MWh, Italy has a energy cost, perhaps the most expensive in Europe at 130-140€MWh. Salvini is in government as deputy PM, how is he coming to terms with this? They have a financial package to reduce energy costs, though that’s just Italian state money to the supplier. But that’s only going to get it down to 100-120€MWh - nowhere near 40-45€. Now Salvini’s proposing to buy more from Russia? Meanwhile Spain can spend their tax money on other projects rather than proposing to give it to a different country.

More than just opt-out. There is a class action lawsuit presented to U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, San Francisco Division on the 23 jan this year saying that [The privacy of] “WhatsApp users’ communications is false. As the whistleblowers here have explained, WhatsApp and Meta store and have unlimited access to WhatsApp encrypted communications, and the process for Meta workers to obtain that access is quite simple” That’s the content of the messages not just the metadata Meta, unsurprisingly, deny the allegations

Thanks I’ll try that.

There’s Saba Alizadeh (ambient) last month released Rituals of the Last Dawn on the Berlin Karlrecords label

Ata Ebtekar (ambient) - a bit like being present in an earlier Soviet sci-fi . He also publishes under the name Sote for more abstract techno

Thanks. The big driver was the EU’s European Interoperability Framework (first version 2004), which promoted: Open standards, Vendor neutrality, Long-term accessibility of public data. It was envisioned for public administration, businesses and citizens: And notably the framework was updated 2015-2017 - the period the Munich administration steered away from it. Though I see they are now saying they should reconsider their move to MS, or maybe that’s just a negotiation tactic.

There was the Munich public administration before that ran everything on Linux 2003-2017 until MS paid for a big new HQ in Munich - I don’t know if the then mayor, Dieter Rieter, had any direct incentives. The French Gendarmerie have been using their version of Linux too (Gendbuntu) since 2005. Regions of the PA in Spain use it too. It’s also fairly common in European militaries.

Didn’t they lose two of those big transport planes in the operation too? Not what they would normally send for picking up 1 airman

Thanks for the update fix! - I didn’t sign in to MS - as I only use it very occasionally - a program on an old usb drive only reliably works on Windows 10 (and not 11)

I can’t? People who are very convinced of their opinions will use the tools developed for use in forums like Reddit to further their agenda. Other platforms will use bots here to marginalise it. On a small platform like Lemmy you don’t need many.

I put Linux Mint on a laptop last year that was running Windows 10 (dual boot) as MS said they were no longer supporting or providing security updates for Windows 10. Mint has worked well (although it does seem to want updates every day). I opened up Windows last week and MS said that they would actually continue to provide security updates for Windows 10 if I logged on with a MS account - so I guess they are actually noticing the migration away from their OS.

Really? I think there are a lot of bots here, maybe more than Reddit.

The US the first with Labour Unions?

Follow the money: the current system makes more sense for private insurers, pharma, and large healthcare providers who all benefit from things staying as they are.

But it’s not just about corporations. The US also built its system around employer-based insurance back in World War II, and now healthcare is tied to your job. That creates risk: leaving your job can mean losing coverage, which naturally makes people more cautious and dependent on poor employment. This also makes people more cautious about starting up a business so the economy becomes controlled in the hands of a few - and so more oligarchic

There’s also a cultural angle. In the US, “freedom” is often seen as freedom from government involvement, even if that sometimes means less practical freedom (like being unable to change jobs easily), and the individual spending more on insurance than they would on taxes.

So it’s not one single reason - it’s money, history, and mindset all reinforcing each other.

Rigidity and social control also show up in other countries with strategies like high housing costs.

I don’t use the phone that often as a debit /credit bank card but I use it for payments (bills invoices etc.), paying on line, transferring money to people and accounts, and just managing accounts. The phone app is very useful for those functions - especially if the alternative is going into a bank and queuing.

A phone OS that will not work with banking apps is not really a contemporary solution. iOS or Android are the only reliable options at the moment in the US/Europe - Iiuc Open Source Android has to sandbox Google Play for banking apps to work so that’s not viable long-term solution, as Google will only make that more difficult in the future.

Given the issues with the judges at ICC and US payment systems, building an alternative to Google and Apple is a high priority

U.S. planes moving from bases in Europe to their bases in the Middle East like Jordan, Qatar, carriers, or Israel, is U.S. national logistics - the fact that European countries denied assistance shows this is not NATO logistical support.

I expect everyone who can will have spy planes and satellites observing what’s going on - that does not mean they are participating. In terms of logistics, that’s not reported so you will have to support your position

That’s correct the Title is misleading, possibly deliberately, there is no NATO involvement - the UK even said the USA couldn’t use UK air bases for this. Turkey, Türkiye, the NATO country that borders Iran is against military action. Military action is just by Israel and the US.