I don’t think it’s as much about the level of Argentina and more about the level Spain plays at. There’s basically no team that can beat them at the moment. The best you can do is defend and hope they don’t score (like Cape Verde did). They are so dominant and so good at holding the ball that they even made a team like France look incompetent. .

Most of the Argentina players didn’t play at their best (just like they’ve done all tournament) but Spain also just made it impossible for them. Add to that the injuries and forced subs of both of their starting centre backs, the red card and that idiot Paredes coming and only kicking players instead of the ball and there was just no chance of them achieving anything.

I feel bad for Messi, he really dragged the team all the way to the final only for his teammates to completely give up once they got there. It made it easy for Spain to neutralize Messi and with that, all threat from Argentina was gone. If Messi retires (which I think he will), I think Argentina won’t be much of a threat for the foreseeable future.

The amount of upcharge on anything wedding or funeral related is honestly insane nowadays. Want to rent a space for a party? Sure, that’ll be 2000 euros. Renting the same space for a wedding? Sure, that’ll be 5000 euros, catering not included. Ridiculous.

This. Countries around the world could save SO much money if they stopped subsidizing the fossil fuel industry. But no, better increase the tax on the middle class…

And will then most likely proceed not doing that. The current dems are a punch of wimps who bow to the corporate interests, just like the republicans.

This is not a smart thing to do.

Sounds very on brand for him then. I’ve given up on expecting there to be an end to this, I think it will just go on and on and on until Trump gets kicked out of office (and then some more because Dems are just as eager about this war and sucking off Bibi).

We’re slowly getting to the point where they’re get too greedy and moving past that critical mass point. I think Trumps presidency really turbo charged the idiocy.

Well I have been hearing them complain more about it being more difficult to make ends meet. Perhaps that’ll finally make them rethink their political stance.

I agree with that sentiment, shame I’m not actually from the US. My in-laws are but they’re (allegedly) too disconnected from politics to care. I still feel like they might be closeted Trumpers that don’t want to openly say so but who knows.

Ah yes, the Schumer classic.

While I agree with the sentiment, I’m not sure if the current democrats have enough of a spine to oust the sitting president, even if they get enough of a majority…

I mean, both sides are still continuing to shoot at each other so I’d say the cease-fire has failed before it even started. The west is hoping the strait will be reopened and is basically only talking about the cease-fire and not how the attacks back and forth are still ongoing.

When I saw Iran’s statement last night it mostly read as them being snarky and sarcastic. I don’t understand how the news here seems to think it’s all solved now.

I think what you’re describing here is the best case scenario (if he would drop one). The worst case scenario (the one I’m most worried about) is that other (adversarial) nuclear powers react to the US launching one by launching their own, aimed at either the US, Israel or (worst of all) somewhere unrelated, like someplace in Europe or on Kiev.

Germany has a lot of plug-in solar for balconies (Balkonkraftwerke) and it’s available at very cheap prices (example here). I know it only provides up to 800W on a very sunny day but that’s still a significant amount for an apartment. And the beauty of these is that they are so plug-and-play, everything is included. You hang it, connect the cables and plug it into a socket and then you’re done.

I live in the Netherlands but I’ve been seriously considering picking up one of these if my building HoA doesn’t want to do a rooftop solar project for our building.

There are people in the Netherlands that have the system you describe. This is pretty rare though due to the massive push for new energy meters that’s been going on for the last 10 years or so. And with good reason: lots of the old meters people had were pretty unsafe and unreliable. For most people, having automatic usage reports going to both them and the electricity provider far outweighs the downsides.

Most of us are in a similar situation as Germany. We have smart meters that allow you to provide power back to the grid and this is currently very profitable. However, from 2027 onwards they are (mostly) getting rid of the profits this brings the consumer, in order to make the grid more stable and also for other, less clear (most likely energy company and government spending related) reasons.

As someone who’s worked in the grid provider field for a bit I’m not necessarily against this change; peak power surges due to lots of people selling of their excess solar power production is a huge problem that’s making the energy transition that much more difficult. Even in local grids, we’re starting to have to use massive power cables to be able to handle this. This brings with it a lot of extra costs and permit nonsense, making the life of the grid manager that much more difficult.

I wish people would take this upcoming deadline to start electrying more things in their house. But if my parents are anything to go by, all they’ll do is complain about losing their golden goose that they’ve profited from for over 10 years. They could get an electric car instead of their nonsense plug-in hybrid, they could electrify their heating needs, they could install a home battery and so much more. I know it costs money to do so but you basically run all of it for free most of the year. And besides that, with all the current global issues that are going on the reliance on fossil fuels should be phased out rapidly.

I wish they would move all their stuff there. And then for a bomb to drop on them. That’d be great.

I can’t wait for it to crash and burn, this bubble is getting so ridiculous.

Let’s see how long it takes before he gets another pardon and a government position.

I think that people with access to higher education who also have constant access to world news is bound to lead to people not wanting to put their kids through it. If you compare that to someone who barely has access to the internet and whose main focus is trying to feed their family and it’s a whole different situation. Humans need meaning in their lives and in western societies this has been waning for a while now.

Nothing. The thing he said about openly shooting someone in the street without meaningful consequences is getting more and more true every day.

Bro… condemning them is such a low bar and these ass politicians here are not even willing to take that step. It takes almost 0 effort and is very low risk. We have territories that “belong” to the Netherlands close by that are afraid of what’s going on with their neighbor and you won’t even speak up about it. Weak.