That seems to be just another example of Americans trusting their corporate overlords over everyone and everything else, including their elected governments and to some extent their own freedom.

But sure, phone numbers were once widely considered public information (along with postal addresses, which were also in the white pages - innocent times!). In Europe at least, I believe that has not be the case for about 15 years. New phone number registrations are not publicly listed anywhere.

The “sharing” of contacts lists is surely the original sin of privacy on the internet.

It’s an absolutely outrageous proposition when you think about it. “Give us the names and numbers of everyone you know, whether they consent or not.” By triangulating this particular data, the tech giants (and even some of the more successful app developers) know more about us than our governments do.

It’s infuriating that this practice has been accepted as normal. It makes it almost impossible for individuals to choose privacy, i.e. without being grassed on by their oblivious friends. It should never have been allowed.

Ha. Actually I believe there are hundreds of thousands who do (and good for you!). It’s a great model IMO. Foundation status with an endowment, free to access and beg banners saying “Pay so that others don’t have to”. Of course, the quirky status was a bit of an accident of history.

The total eclipse only passes over Iceland and Spain. And Iceland can be cloudy.

The solar eclipse is on 12 August, not July. Nobody much is talking about it yet, for whatever reason.

I plan to be in Spain for it (but probably would be anyway). It’s just before sundown so it could be pretty spectacular so close to the horizon. But then viewing in a city might be tricky and also there’s a higher risk of being foiled by clouds. I’m guessing the best guarantee of success would be somewhere on the Meseta Central, the high interior, which is normally dry. Maybe Teruel, which is directly on the eclipse path.

I did much cycle tourism in Spain last year, and took a bunch of trains. Forget the high-speed AVE and even some of the other faster services, they don’t take bikes. To be sure you will get your bike on, you need to book on the Renfe site and make sure the train says “Plaza bici disponible” (which you can then reserve for free but in practice there’s always space). It’s not the easiest country in Europe for bikes on trains but OK once you work out which services are possible.

Reminiscent of dumping on the Washington Post because Bezos.

The reason that quality independent journalism is so hard to find is that nobody much is paying for it. Including you, probably.

I listen to Politico’s EU Confidential podcast and it’s pretty good. The EU’s national medias are too parochial to cover Brussels, with Politico at least somebody’s doing it.

But late enough to miss WWI so could have been worse.

The picture of diggers flattening dunes is very China.

I read the article and non. […] strategic planification

Let me guess where you’re from.

Accepting the narrative of European culpability puts Brussels on the back foot, whether in NATO negotiations, countering Russia’s war, or even Trump’s pet project: tariffs.

Seems correct. Obviously Washington wasn’t doing this out of the goodness of its heart. Come on.

But as a European I find it pretty embarrassing and humiliating that we couldn’t fix the Balkans in the 90s and now we can’t fix Ukraine without the help of Daddy USA. This has got to end.

OK but I tend to think that this kind of hopeless cynicism kinda risks being self-fulfilling. There are fundamental differences between Russia and the West, ordinary people (especially in Western countries) do have some agency, and nothing about the future is set in stone.

A logical next step in Russia’s descent into the worst kind of police state. It will never quite be totalitarian, that era is over and anyway the Kremlin is too cynical and incompetent to actually control people’s thoughts. The model is obviously China. China has successfully locked down its internet and every dictator in the world has noticed.

Now that is some enthusiasm for the fediverse.

They really nailed it with the name.

Combien as-tu payé pour ce journalisme que tu décries ?

Sur le sujet, on est d’accord que c’est une contradiction.

In fairness to them, Greenland does constitute a nation with an aspiration to sovereignty. It’s also not in the EU.

“Access to source code reduces dependence on third-country providers, reduces vendor lock-in, keeps value and investment within Europe,” said center-right Finnish member of the European Parliament Aura Salla.

This. Open source is David’s weapon against Goliath. China is leveraging the advantage now in AI. Europe can too.

Of course the USA could “win” like it won in Baghdad. But what next? Nobody could ever subdue Afghanistan. Vietnam similar. Russia is now struggling against Ukraine.

A better example. The USSR, with its almost limitless tolerance for casualties, had to come to terms against tiny Finland - coincidentally also an Arctic nation few in number but that knew its environment.

Important not to underestimate the difficulty of asymmetric warfare against a determined foe combined with a limited tolerance for casualties.

The USA is (still) a democracy. If there were to be serious ongoing pushback in Greenland, that’s a story that would end just as badly for America as every other time in the last century. Against an accountable government, the motivation of the opponent matters a ton. Hence this news, which I found interesting.

Just as the term ‘constitution’ in 2005 diverted attention from the purpose of a treaty that was essentially codifying existing European legal texts, the term ‘federalism’ can unnecessarily inflame, divide, and polarize, when its ‘pragmatic’ nature should draw just as much attention.

It’s true. Those referendums were basically undone by this single word. Which is already much less scary than the F-word. After decades of peace and comfort Europeans have just become very conservative.

Asymmetric initiatives like he suggests are probably the only way forward at this point. As I understand it there’s already a mechanism in the EU treaty for it.

I had not even heard of it and now it’s being relegated to the history books.