Democrats are hard neolibs, which is another way of saying pro-Oligarchy (they want the State to not regulate Money, making the latter the greater power of the two, which is anti-Democratic since the State is led by elected leaders whilst Money is not) - in their pyramid of power, those with most money sit atop, then come them, then the State, then comes the rest - whilst Fascists put themselves atop, then the State, then Money, then the rest.

The “plebes” are not represented by either one (for either they’re just supposed to produce wealth and provide manpower to maintain the power and priviledges of the higher levels of the power pyramid), but they are different beasts from the point of view of the elites.

All this to say that a vote for a Democrat is not a vote for Fascism, though it’s also not a vote for Democracy or to actually be represented in any way in the power circles.

It’s a sad, sad state of affairs in the US.

It looks a lot like in a way History is repeating itself: the Democrat Establishment in the US (who are a hard neoliberals, not lefties) fielded directly and without a Primary a guy like Biden who is less than in his prime and even supports an ethno-Fascist regime commiting Genocide (and, more importantly, is unwilling to walk back on that support even to improve his odds of winning against Trump, which is what we are being told is the most important thing in the World) all of which is making it far more likely that the Fascists will get power.

There are vast contradictions between what we are being told is the danger of Trump getting elected and the DNC and Biden persistently making choices that increase the chances of Trump getting elected and not walking back on those.

Surelly if “Stop Trump” is the most important thing in the World for them, the Democrat Establishment too would be walking towards the wishes of the electorate not just trying to push the electorate to do all the walking towards the wishes of the Democrat Establishment.

Well, the more light you reflect out the better (I would expect that, for example, darker color curtains would be a problem) and ideally you want that whatever light does get converted into heat does so outside.

As it so happens, were I live the heat has been a problem in the Summer since well before AC was invented, so roll-up external shades are standard for all houses and apartments and that stuff definitely works if used as I described it.

Around here, Portugal, were every Summer the temperature exceeds 40 C for at least some days in August, we have outside rollup shades on every window, so one of the tricks is to keep the shades down and and the windows closed during the hottest and sunniest parts of the day, at the very least the afternoon.

Then at night you open the windows and let the cooler night air in (even better if you do it early morning, around sunrise, which is the coolest time of the day).

Note that this doesn’t work well with curtains or internal shades, because with those any conversion of light into heat when the light heats the shades/curtains (as they’re not mirrors and don’t reflect all light back) happens inside the house and thus that heat gets trapped indoors.

I’m sorry but unwaveringly supporting a nation ruled by ethno-Fascists when they’re committing Genocide because of the ethnicity of the majority and the leaders there is the same old extreme racism as in the old days and passing laws to punish anybody who criticizes that ethno-Fascist nation is the same authoritarianism in defense of Fascists claiming to represent an ethnicity as in the old days.

If the mindset that was the foundation of Nazism had changed in Germany we would neither be seeing such an extreme version of supporting a regime that claimes to be supporting some people because of their ethnicity (even against the will of many of those very people, who again and again point out that Israel and the dominant ideology there does not represent them), nor would be we be seeing the use of the Law to force everybody else to either go along with it or shut up.

A Germany where the power elites had learned the Humanitarian take of “never again” (i.e. “never again shall this be done to anybody”) rather kept the racism going and hence using a racist version of it (i.e. “never again shall Germans do this to Jews”), would not be doing this, not even close.

What’s going on in Germany is not merely “crushing guilt of what happened in WWII”, it’s the racism and authoritarianism coming out of hiding with the excuse that “It’s for the Jews rather than for the Arian Race, so it’s alright”.

Your “you’re not with us so you must be against us” is an old Fascist trope.

Might want to tone down that rabid tribalism as your “arguments” are awfully close to the other guys style of argumentation.

If everything was started from scratch tomorrow, the likelihood of present day California and Texas naturally ending up together in the same nation is pretty much zero, IMHO.

Those two are kept together by pretty much a country-sized version of a Sunken Cost Falacy.

One can’t even count on language or culture as a unifying element, otherwise the whole of Latin America would be 2 countries, Brasil & Everybody Else.

That’s the rational take and I’m sure plenty of people will vote Biden following that rationale.

The top poster’s “pestilence is a good thing” (i.e. Biden is a “good guy”) statement on the other hand is insanelly tribalist and pure fantasy.

Being a Lesser Evil by comparison with an extremelly Evil option is not at all the same as being Good.

Lots of talk, no action: that’s bullshit Political Propaganda 101 when a politician in power wants to do something which most of his voters are strongly against.

His Administration’s actions are exactly the opposite, from the weapons shipments to Israel going around Congress that included 2000lb bombs to UN Vetos and saying that the ICJ shouldn’t even be evaluating the case against Israel for Genocide (clearly this Administration fears a veredict of “guilty”, which means they do believe Israel is likely comitting what amounts to Genocide under International Law).

The non-sociopath path for America would’ve be “Perfect Neutrality” (no action at all), yet Biden choses actual military and diplomatic support, including condemning anti-Genocide demonstrators as “anti-semitic” and condoning the use of police violence against them all the while in this specific subject lying just as shamelessly as Trump.

Well, they seem to be replenishing their submersible fleet in the Black Sea with lots of new under water vessels: for every ship they lose they get a new sub…

Also a lot of the late Soviet Union military technology came from Ukraine, plus their military were also trained in the same kind of school of thought as Russia and still know it.

So it makes sense that, when push came to shove, the Ukranians would fast come up with asymetric war solutions against Russia, that Russia wouldn’t be as fast in effectivelly countering them and Ukraine would be quicker at developing new or adjusted solutions once Russia found a counter (or, more generally, that Ukraine would remain ahead of Russian in the cycle were each side develops a counter to the other side’s counters).

Had Russia’s initial blietzkrieg attack worked, it would’ve been a different story, but at this stage it makes sense that Ukraine has the technological edge, not just in the weaponry it gets from the West but also in their own weapons development, especially now that it has much better AA to protect the installations far away from the frontlines working on weapons tech.

Russian Propaganda: “Our Glorious Nation has acquired a brand new submersible to help its fight against NATO in Ukraine”

I’ve noticed that the loudest the politicians in a country rant about how great a Democracy that country has, the less of a Democracy it is.

In Europe, for example, you get British Politicians going on an one about how the country has the “Oldest Democracy in The World” (this in a country with a King who a few years ago - well, his mother - was found to actually have some power over what legislation gets passed, an unlected second chamber with members who inherit their seat from their parents and First Past The Post for Parliament) all the while in The Netherlands (who, IMHO, have probably the most Democratic system in the World, including Proportional Vote, though with a powerless King) politians pretty much never rant about the quality of their Democracy.

At least in the West, the most loud and relentless proclaimers of how great their Democracy is by a large margin are American politicians.

Please don’t become the thing you likely abhor (Trumpists and alike) by reacting in a knee jerk fashing to things that “insult” your tribalist morals with a variant of the Fascist take “If you’re not with us, you’re against us”.

It’s perfectly rational and reasonable to think that Biden is not a “guy with good intentions” whilst also thinking that Trump is no better, whilst it’s irrational and unreasonable to think that just because one doesn’t like Person A, one must like Person B.

By any human being standards anybody who supports somebody mass murdering children with weapons is a shit person, hence Biden is a shit person. That doesn’t mean Trump is any less shit.

Even by American President Moral standards (which, sadly are way lower than Normal Person Moral standars, when they should be higher), activelly supporting with weapons a nation committing Genocide is pretty bad, though far from novel.

The point being that trying to pass that specific sandwish as “gourmet” doesn’t make this less of a contest of shit-sandwish vs double-shit-sandwish.

The take of top poster of this thread - that Biden is an “old man with good intentions” - is quite a different and far more tribalist and propagandistic take than your “the one that’s a bit less enthusiastic genocide supporter”.

Your take is perfectly reasonable, whilst the original take is, as the previous poster pointed out, complete total bollocks for anybody but a complete total sociopath (who would be ok with mass murder) or ultra-tribalist numpty (who is ok with whatever their tribe’s leader supports, no matter how inhumane).

A guy that supports a Genocidal ethno-Fascist regime doesn’t have “good intentions”, not even by the lousy standard of the subset of politicians that climb their way into the position of “leader of a major country” - normal human beings don’t give guns to people purposefully murdering tens of thousands of children, starving 2 million people and targetting journalists and medical personnel.

“Not quite as extremelly bad intentions as the other guy” would be a more correct take.

Trying to spin this as a “good guy vs bad guy” is quite a tribalist take on a plague vs pestilence contest.

Clearly the profound racism never disappeared, otherwise the German power elites wouldn’t “unwaveringly support” a nation because of the ethnicity of the majority of its people and its leaders: the more visible artifacts of ancient germanic symbols, goose stepping and the brown shirts might be gone but the thinking that some people are more worthy than others purelly because of their ethnicity is still just as strong.

Additionally, that the German authorities are now going so far as shown in this and other news in support of the ethno-Fascists of a specific ethnicity, also indicates that the authoritarian tendencies too are alive and well in the mindset of the German power elites.

It looks a lot like the foundations of Nazism are alive, well and returning to prominence, with a different symbology and façade, but still the same view of humans as ethnics and the same authoritarian forceful imposition of a race-based view of the worth of human beings on others.

It’s actually quite scary to watch from the outside as Germany goes back to overtly using force to suppress dissent on its power elite’s racial supremacist views for the benefit of an extreme form of ethno-Fascism, even if this time around it’s not the Arian Race that’s being “supported”.

You were supposed to have an antenna.

That would make it plagiarism, which ethically is a whole different matter than merelly copying that which is free to copy.

The anti-semites are probably ecstatic at the whole linking of a nation that commits Genocide and kills little children with snipers, bombs and starvation to the entire Jewish ethnicity.

It makes it incredibly easy for them to grab some particularly nasty action of the state of Israel as an example and say “See, that’s how Jews are like”.

Non-Jews going around telling other people, including Jews, that people who mass murder civilians, including very purposefully children, journalists and medical personnel, represent the Jewsih Religion and hence implying those actions are Jewishness, is the most antisemitic thing around.