Finland and Sweden had such a sweet deal going for decades. All the benefits of membership but none of the costs.

Now they’re going to get what? A nine-figure obligation to buy shitty US-made suicide helicopters so that you can host a den of heavily armed drunken rapists who will be the first folks smashed into paste on the day one of a shooting war into St. Petersberg?

Name one Unaligned state that didn’t come out of the Cold War better than they started? Meanwhile, all the big power players in NATO - your UKs and Germanys and Hungarys and Slovenias - are absolutely eating shit right now. Ukraine just asks to join NATO and now half their country is owned by Russia. Just an absolute raw deal, even before you compare them to any of the BRICS.

That’s why 25 year olds in software are making 250k in the US

I know a few folks in software in the US, and the lion’s share aren’t making $250k/year. The ones that are all have Masters/PhDs and are leads/specialists in the Top 20 industry leaders. I don’t know who you’re working for that pays a quarter million per code-monkey flailing at python, but if there’s a job opening that pays this well please let me know. I’ve got over 15 years experience doing big boy shit for a Fortune 500, and I’d love an extra $100k/year.

The best way to get promoted is to change jobs every 3-6 years.

Europeans: “Those perfidious Russians and the nefarious Chinese are the two single biggest threats to our domestic security. Why… they’ll just hack into any old thing and fill it full of evil communist propaganda. They’ll shut down our critical infrastructure, hijack our data services, and spam us so full of phishing attempts that you won’t know what’s safe to click on! And all just to watch us fail, then laugh at us. The fiends!!!”

Also Europeans: “Google’s CEO said we need to dismantle the last ten years of digital safety standards so we can undermine the YouTube adblocker. Make this our top priority.”