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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • Nope. Aldi was created by brothers who, after pioneering the discounter model and being quite successful with their stores, broke apart their empire over a disagreement – which was whether selling cigarettes was a good idea, in particular whether the theft rate would be too high. Completely fucking un-dramatic (very much in contrast to Puma/Adidas which is a feud that’s still going on), they always cooperated a lot in procurement etc, and definitely don’t compete with each other: The world is split into Aldi North and Aldi South, referring to their territories in Germany. The only other country where both are present is in the US because Aldi North bought Trader Joes, ages ago, it’s the only country where they’re technically competing but not really because they’re serving quite different market segments. Aldi South (under the Aldi brand) has been in the US for ages too, btw, but mostly kept a low profile. They both like to grow organically, no flashy fancy billion buck investments. In Aldi North stores at least in Germany Trader Joe’s is the store brand for nuts, dried fruits etc.

    The two Albrechts got into the business because their father, a learned baker, got ill with baker’s asthma and turned to bread trading instead, they expanded the product range of the business, after the war focussed heavily on high throughput on low margins and opened more locations, then introduced the supermarket model in Germany. Even in Germany it took some people quite a while that their quality was never shabby, on the contrary, but combine their low prices with the back then right-out warehouse atmosphere and you definitely didn’t see rich people there.

    Lidl is wholly separate and not founded by brothers. It technically predates Aldi and also the brother’s expansion before the split and rebrand (they were known as Albrecht Discount before), it was a small fruit trader which then got bought by Joseph Schwarz, then turned into a larger but still regional fruit trader. Lidl stores as we know them only go back to the 1970s when Dieter, son of Joseph, was already at the helm.

    Lidl is much more common outside of Germany than inside, though, long story short establishing yourself as a hard discounter in a market where Aldi is already present is hard. They did make Aldi turn away from the warehouse aesthetic, though, yes you can have nice signage and lighting and stiff be efficient.






  • Oh they’ve elevated it to an art form. They did actually say quite a lot while saying so little though, always pay close attention to what they’re comfortable talking about (such as Germany’s stance towards the ICC and the rule of law) vs. what they’re not comfortable talking about (what that stance implies, concretely, in this situation). If you think that’s unsatisfactory then they will, I quote, take notice of that, but they won’t humour you and spell out what can be inferred so you (or rather press) have a soundbite that would cause the foreign service diplomatic headaches.

    And, yes, the journalists have also elevated making them squirm to an art form, to make sure that the interviewed officials don’t waffle when it is merely convenient, not expedient (at least according to the officials). Also of note the conference is run by journalists, not officials.




  • Yep the birth of Christ just coincidentally coincides with the end of Brumalia, which of course noone noticed when the emperor suddenly insisted everyone become Christian and had the bible written by committee. And it’s of course a coincidence that that was (back in the day) exactly the winter solstice. And it’s also just a coincidence that Jesus’ life story has quite some parallels to that of earlier sun gods from the general area.

    Most current Christmas traditions are more Germanic in nature, though, e.g. the Christmas tree. While in the current form a quite recent invention, decorating the house with evergreen stuff was common through the ages – branches, wreaths, not whole-ass trees. The needles btw are fine smudging material don’t just sweep them away.


  • Alas, it’s not trivial to move houses from deserted villages into booming cities. Plenty of European cities already have anti-speculation and rent controls in place, it’s not really helping.

    Quickest and cheapest option would be to expand public transport actually, I think, spread out the pressure, combined with more remote work. Once you’ve got a steady, if overall tiny, de-urbanisation trickle going on urban prices are going to tank.



  • We’re talking in the range of billions. Roughly $200M a year. That’s a lot of money for a country as poor as Ukraine.

    That’s less than Germany gives Palestine each year and Palestine is vastly smaller. 200M are about five bucks per Ukrainian, per year. That’s five litres of milk. A not entirely shabby bottle of wine. Five bucks a year are about 40ct a month, or about 1/1250th of the average Ukrainian wage. You can get a metro ticket for that. And how much of that was even spent in Ukraine itself, as opposed to paying people in America to decide what to do with the money.

    Ukraine is Europe-poor, not Africa-poor. It’s a fully developed and industrialised country. 200M is ballpark Poroshenko’s yearly increase in wealth while in power. Not, mind you, all of it ill-begotten (by capitalist standards) he does produce some fine chocolate.

    I’ll make some claims and please tell me if we agree on them (I believe we will, because you agree $$$ influences democracy)

    Not what I said. I said that politics can be bought, not that all money buys politics, or that all politics is bought. On top of that it’s not always a bad thing, say funnelling some money to an NGO or newspaper keen on exposing corruption.

    Starts to fill in a pattern. Remember Occam’s Razor. What’s simplest is probably what is true.

    She’s a witch, she did it!

    Occam’s razor cannot account for leaving out context, for data not considered, for tunnel vision. If you’re only reductionist enough you can use it to justify absolutely any conclusion.

    It was just a coincidence that the coup led to a pro-US government.

    WTH is “pro-US” supposed to mean. I’m not aware of Poroshenko selling state-owned enterprises to US corporate interest or such for way below value, that would the the usual thing to look out for.


  • Same is with Ukraine - I do not need them.

    You need Europe. The US pulling out of providing aid would be one thing, the US trying to force Ukraine into giving into aggression would be interpreted as blatant betrayal of the alliance by every single European country. Don’t expect us to stay allies when you actively work against our security interests, and don’t expect us to let it happen. We can defeat Russia in Ukraine, or we can defeat Russia in the Baltics, in Poland. We prefer doing it in Ukraine: Unlike you we know what war is like. Not war as in “dad comes home with shrapnel in his leg and PTSD”, war as in “your hometown is gone and everyone is either dead or starving”. You have no fucking concept.

    And if you think that the US would fare well if Europe considers it a strategic threat… my sweet, sweet, summer child. You’d be unable to afford your own military-industrial complex without those arms exports and that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the economical abyss you’d be in. That would not be popular, and that’s also precisely the reason why Trump would rather waterboard himself than risk it. Especially for a loser like Putin who can’t even re-take Kursk.

    I don’t care. I don’t want to, my life is comfortable.

    Life in Ukraine was nice, once, too. Don’t think something won’t affect you just because you don’t want to deal with it. Life ain’t a bowl of cherries. Noone is expecting you to fight. Solidarity, though? Think about it. It’s what friends do.



  • The very concept of hierarchy

    Hierarchy is an outgrowth of a local decrease of variety in an interconnected system. The issue is not that there exists the guy you call a boss, the issue is that that’s the only relationship capable of defining your workplace because you lost the internal freedom to have it influenced by other factors. Instead of containing chaos that can give birth to a dancing star, you’ve reduced the possible internal states you can occupy to that of a ball point pen. That’s more than a stone, but not particularly appreciably so. Cover your bases: First only raise your entropy, maximising the number of micro-states you can occupy while still occupying the same macro states. Have a million different ways to push out and retract that ball point as expected when your button is pressed. Use those states to gather feedback, to understand the thumb that’s pressing you, and once you do, pounce. It will be a decision that is simultaneously action and decision of heart and mind, like the stuff martial artists talk about, it will be swift, accurate, absolutely lethal to shackles, and, maybe best of all, completely unseen. “Just a random occurrence”, “an unavoidable accident”, the lethargy and apathy that seeks to conquer our society will say. The waves will continue to break against the beach, but now you have a towel and a caipirinha.

    (SCNR I was feeling like waxing poetically).




  • And the king has no political influence. The gripe of the Aborigines is with the people actually running the country, with (portions of) the prevailing sentiment in the rest of the population, not the king. The king is just a symbol, a mascot, a piece of ceremony, this is like blaming Bugs Bunny that your movie script got refused.

    The king didn’t make the Voice referendum fail. That was, best I can tell, a mixture of Chinese bot farms and “yep we should do something but this is not it”. There’s of course also racists around but they would’ve been drowned out by the rest of the electorate where it not for those factors.

    I don’t think reconciliation failed, I don’t think even the Voice idea failed, but it needs more workshopping, say, having a wider set of established advisory bodies (just spitballing). Over here there’s a minority party which is exempt from the electoral threshold, that’s another idea. Whether Australia is a monarchy or republic has quite literally nothing to do with that, it’s an orthogonal issue.

    …and how come I’m the fucking only one in this thread actually talking about aboriginal rights? Why’s everyone so fucking focussed on the monarchy thing, at the expense of those issues?


  • it’s a coincidence the guy they decided on just happened to be the guy who ended up being Prime Minister for two terms, right?

    One of those being the interim guy and the other not being complete, getting fired because lacking a majority. All in all he served two years of a usual five-year term. You’re embellishing some things, and discounting others, to reinforce your conclusion.

    And, no, of course it’s not a coincidence: Nuland is a politician. The parliamentarians in the Rada are politicians. The Rada ended up electing Yatsenyuk as a suitable interim prime minister because they judged him to be. And so did Nuland.

    And I agree with that assessment: While Klitschko is absolutely popular and without doubt honourable, he’s not as politically savvy. Yatsenyuk was the better pick. Klitschko is also a Hamburger, as such if I were partisan here he’d have been my first pick.

    You shouldn’t be terribly surprised if politicians from different places come to similar or identical conclusions. That’s not coincidence or conspiracy, but confluence. Like minds think alike.

    Do you believe money holds influence in US elections and do you think people with money actively try and influence elections?

    Of fucking course they do. Different question: Do you really think that a couple of millions from the National Endowment for Democracy have influence that can overpower Ukraine’s own oligarchs or people? If you think so, please have a look at the net worth of Poroshenko, the guy who became president next. Traditionally, in Ukraine the filthy rich become politicians because that comes with immunity from prosecution. It was a proper oligarchy, not the smoke-and-mirror highly financialised US one or Russia, which isn’t an oligarchy: There, a central figures allows loyal viceroys to amass wealth, all the power emanates from the Tsar, not the money.

    Yet another angle: The Russians weren’t able to successfully influence Ukrainian politics to their liking. Why, then, should the US have been able to? The US invested way less and also cares less.


    Then, last thing: Why, with all those holes, is this thrown around as smoking gun evidence? Who benefits?