I totally agree, but someone on the ship actually is responsible for following orders from whoever (Russia) to dump anchor and drag it along the seabed. I refuse to believe the captain did all of it himself, or held the crew at gunpoint to force them to do it. Most of the crew are surely innocent or, at worst, were actively ignoring the crime they collectively were doing. It is fully possible for the crew to ignore orders, they could possibly lose their jobs, but they decided their jobs were worth more than not propagating Nazi Russia’s stupid hybrid war.

Actions have consequences. Do stupid shit, win stupid prizes. And so on.

It is extremely obvious all these cable cutting “accidents” are done on purpose by Russia, Russian actors, or someone contracted by Russia. The ship should be seized and used for financing new cables, even if it the rusty bathtub is only worth a couple of bucks. Most importantly the crew (regardless of nationality) needs to be sentenced to something like 20-30 years in jail for acts of war or the like. Then future crews and shipping companies will realise the cost of accepting these contracts from Russia.

It ain’t really a secret that the EU wants to bottom trawl and surgically remove every fish in Norwegian waters. As can be seen every time the quotas are distributed and the EU is on the brink of threatening war with Norway over them.

Guess what would happen the instant Norway joined the EU with the current deal that’s on the table.

When the US introduces tariffs on smaller weaker nations (allegedly as a protective measure) the EU screams about how unfair it is and how it will hurt the global market and the US.

But when the EU introduces tariff on a smaller weaker nation it’s suddenly necessary, cool and rad.

Okay sure, sound logic.

I’m nowhere near being an expert on languages and phonology, but I think the Ø-sounds in the Nordic languages are more or less the same. With some tiny differences on pressure, pitch, and maybe tone. Close enough to be considered the same in my opinion. It probably boils down to what would mostly be accent and dialect differences between the languages.

Experience with English and Norwegian (should probably have sourced it), but also from wikitionary. There are some audio examples here: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/slut

IPA for the word “slut” is /slʌt/, the upside-down V sounds like this. While not exactly the same sound as Ø, the audio examples on wikitionary for “slut” sounds closer to Ø for me, as I use Ø daily in Norwegian.

Edit:

Norwegian uses this sound for the “u” in “slutt”, the full IPA for it is /ʂlʉtː/. For some reason there isn’t IPA for “slutt” in Bokmål, but the Nynorsk pronunciation is the more or less the same. Sadly there isn’t an audio recording of the word on wikitionary, but it has a double consonant which is a fun rabbit hole in Norwegian.

Sure, except the Norwegian spelling is “slutt”. The pronunciation is a bit different from the English word “slut”, the English one uses more of a ø-sound for the u. “sludd” is the Norwegian word for sleet, which is a mix of snow and water, this is even stated by your sources.

Can they standardize some kind of ice road driving experience requirement if you are driving somewhere it gets cold in the winter? It’s a constant problem with people who have never seen snow before racing around like maniacs on slippery ice roads in the Nordics, often with summer tyres. Both cars and heavy lorries from central and southern Europe often crash in the winter, and they’re always surprised at ice being more difficult to drive on than plain asphalt. There’s a reason it’s an obligatory part of driving education in the north.

They’ve been ramping up acquisition and production as much as they reasonably can the last few years. The rest of us should really follow their example. Luckily the production is increasing all over Europe, though it should have begun much much sooner than this. The hard part going forward is manpower (as stated in the article), and all the command structures needing to be rebuilt without the US. And, over time removing the dependence on America for air defence, both planes and land-based missile defences. Fully local drone production is also going to be a game changer, as we have seen the importance of drones in Ukraine.

God, they’re so desperate for the smallest possible propaganda win to spin into something big. They really aren’t update to date on what goes on outside their own backyard.

It’s impressive how much Fico and Orban keeps whining about LGBT, considering how firmly they’ve got their faces planted in Putin’s crotch.

It’s good to see Poland green shifting their electrical grid. Hopefully this can alleviate the dependency on coal plants during peak hours and nurture more renewable energy over time.

But, I really don’t like Europe’s general dependence on China for green energy. I hope politicians will finally learn to not trust autocratic regimes with the whole ongoing Trump thing.

I wonder what Trumps response is going to be when Putin rejects the offer. Doubt he’s going to go as hard on him as he did with Zelenskyy.

Does he wake up every morning and do a d20 roll on what his opinion is going to be that day?

Seriously though, I guess he REALLY wants his name on the peace deal, whatever the cost, so he can go on to demand a Nobel Peace Prize. I expect him to get real pissy if he doesn’t get one, whining about how Obama got one.