The Parliament would decide to ratify Ukraine’s accession to the EU, but the official papers are signed by the president, so he could use his veto to block it.

The decision goes back to the Parliament, and if it passes with a 2/3 majority the president is forced to sign no matter what he thinks.

Again, I’m not 100% sure it works like this in Poland, but it does in several countries.

As I understand, the president can still use his veto, forcing the question back to the parliament requiring 2/3 majority to overrule the veto.

Rice shortage?

It would be 1939

The title is, unsurprisingly, heavily exaggerated. The study does not claim there are “billions more people”. They studied 307 different dam construction projects around the word, and found the actual number of affected people in those rural areas was like 40-80% higher than estimated.

Their conclusion is that it’s likely the population of the world is quite underestimated, but they don’t want to guess by how much, that’s all cooked up by the “journalist”.

Finn here. The common answer is that all sad people kill themselves here. The suicide rate is surprisingly high.

For a more serious answer, you have to look at what the survey actually measures. There are 3 big factors in this survey.

1. Social support, the people believe they will get help if they need. While healthcare system receives lots of criticism due to constant budget cuts, it’s still fast and cheap enough for those who really need it. Economic security is possibly the best in the world, where you receive decent support if you’re poor enough and a small apartment if you’re homeless, without any preconditions.

2. Freedom, the people feel like they’re free to do what they want with their lives. There are both laws that protect you from things like trespassing, meaning you can walk anywhere you want in rural areas, while the police are really lenient in urban areas and don’t really care what you do as long as you don’t disturb others. Also in general, people don’t want to bother others as much as I’ve seen in other countries.

3. Perceptions of corruption, the people believe in the government and media. We enjoy a strong democratic system that, although not perfect, is among the best in the world. The political climate is also rather mild, with the largest party in every election being centre-left, centre or centre-right. Although the right-wing has recently been on the rise, it seems like that trend is starting to turn. As for media, the state sponsored YLE is about as unbiased as media can be, although their coverage of global events can be somewhat lackluster. Also, despite being state sponsored, they operate completely independently.

I’m not Danish, but I think he meant 4.5 instead of 2.5. It’s like halfway from 4 to 5, not from 0 to 5.

A similar word exists in Finnish too, when going from 1 to 2: “puolitoista” translates to “half second”, like halfway to the second number, and is commonly used to refer to 1.5, BUT without any multiplication shenanigans.

I feel like I have to introduce a counter-example, this song has been absolutely stuck in my head in the last few weeks. I’ve listened to it literally hundreds of times in that timeframe and it’s still an absolute banger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK3HOMhAeQY

I’d say the issue here is that the rest of the song is in English. It’s literally only this one word that is supposedly in Maltese, in the sentence “I do it all the time, serving kant”.

In order for negotiations to conclude, both sides have to agree. The US isn’t one of those sides. In 2022 there were a lot of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, but they were so far from agreeing that they realized there’s no use in negotiating for a long time.

There’s nothing Biden could have done, apart from sending even more aid, to help the situation. And now with Trump chatting with Putin, there’s hardly any difference. No deal will be reached without Ukraine agreeing, which they’re clearly not.

The only result from this will likely be that the US completely stops all support, forcing the EU to send even more aid, and the war will drag on a lot longer, probably years.

Can you explain how they’re different? The definition I found makes them sound identical: “theft; the action or crime of stealing” (Oxford dictionary).

As a non-Englisman, I’d say it’s pretty normal for devices and house appliances to have physical text in English but software in another (local) language.

Here’s a good video that talks more about the power of the rich in SK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRgp8oBiAmw

Depends on the size of the area you’re considering. In some area, one nuke would blow up 100% of the mines. But in some other, larger, area, it would only blow up 50%.

But to be fair, using nukes to clear mines is probably one of the least effective methods considering all the collateral damage on villages, fields and nature.

THERE AREN’T COUGARS IN GARDENS! (It’s a reference, let’s see if someone gets it)

The issue with these statistics is that they look at the average, which is heavily boosted by the exceptionally expensive weddings of the higher upper-class. The median is significantly lower.

https://silkstemcollective.com/median-and-average-wedding-cost/

Also I’m not American, maybe people there just spend a lot more on weddings in general than what I’m used to.

I have no clue how you define “middle-class” but not even the fanciest weddings I’ve been to have spent even close to $250 per person. That kind of expenditure sounds quite a lot more like upper-class to me. Assuming you invite 100 people to the wedding, an average Joe will not have 25k to spend on one party.

I also feel the need to remind people that while most combatants are male, not even close to all males are combatants. If only women and children (probably almost all civilian) made up 60% of all deaths, then the remaining 40% includes all male civilian deaths, which very well could be higher than combatant deaths.

Yup, if someone works “harder” they’re either being exploited or they live in a less advanced society where technology doesn’t help the working class as much.

“Northern Europe” but Belgium/France/Germany. Welp, I guess the Nordics don’t exist.

To be fair though, there are also about to be some severe floods in Lapland quite soon, albeit for a completely different reason: exceptionally warm spring weather melts the snow faster than usual causing rivers to flood.