I spent some time thinking about your response and I’ll give it to you that Poland is heavily investing in their military which is probably a good thing long term for themselves and the EU. I think my qualm was specifically with the statement that they have been building one of the largest militaries on earth.

On the evaluation of their investment by % GDP they are certainly investing heavily, this website puts them somewhere in the top teens out of ~265 regions (broken down even more than the 195 recognized by the UN). Another metric to look at is the raw total military, not just investment in %GDP. I don’t think it’s particularly fair to compare Poland with other countries which have dissimilar GDPs, for example that website says that Armenia invested 5.5% of it’s GDP in comparison to Poland’s 4.2%, but Armenia’s GDP is $27 billion to Poland’s $1.1 trillion and their military is ~1/3 the size.

To your point (investment in equipment) we have to take into account the quality of the military, not just quantity; you can have 100x more troops but it doesn’t mean much if they are completely outclassed in gear.

So yes, of the ~195 countries of the world Poland is in the top ~10% and if you review their investment by %GDP they are probably closer to the top 5%.

The top 4 militaries by troops (China, the US, North Korea, and India) all have >1,000,000 troops and the top 4 by raw expenditure (US, China, Russia, and Germany) are all >$88.5 billion (and Germany is pulling that group way down).

Let’s break down these metrics. 5% of the average of the top 4 in quantity is 76k troops and only ~50 countries have that amount or more. 5% of the average of the top 4 in expenditure is ~$19.3 billion and only ~21 countries meet that value.

All this is to break down that Poland is in the top 5-10% of world militaries, but if you remove all the countries doing basically nothing they are basically in the middle (31/50 in quantity, 13/21 in expenditure). Poland is definitely making one of the strongest militaries in Europe, but a big part of that is that the other countries in the EU aren’t doing much. If you count up the EU countries that are included in that 21 listed above (UK, Germany, Ukraine, France, Poland, Italy, Spain, and Netherlands) Poland makes up $38 billion of the groups combined $423.5 billion (~8.9%), but all of those are half of the US expenditure ($997 billion) and 77% of the combined BRICS members in that group ($549.1 billion).

EDIT: I totally missed that the Ukraine isn’t part of the EU, I had removed Algeria and Turkey as well, so that should change the % values; however, I kinda feel like if the Ukraine pulls through they likely will join the EU so I’m not gonna change things here.

What makes you say that? I’m 100% in agreement that he’s probably a sexual deviant, not meant as a bad thing but rather than just being a missionary only puritan, but I never got the impression he was a pedophile.

Yeah, it may have changed. Here is the website for commissary eligibility, it looks like civilian employees get limited access (mainly grocery store like items). Here is a link to the Exchange, they get limited privileges or conditional unlimited privileges depending on their situation. Here is the website posting the Army Civilian benefits. Looking online they do have access to on base housing, but active duty get higher priority and may have to wait for an opening.

Here is the general DOD website for the civilian employee benefits, it looks like they get general federal employee insurance (generally considered to be good), and the general federal pension (20 years of service by 50 years old). This site also has more information about the exchange and family care.

Because it’s Nebraska police and they’re always feared for their life.

It fascinates me that people care this much.

To add to this, something I like to point out to people, but (for the US) only ~60% of military personnel are ever deployed. Of those 60% only 10-20% will ever see combat. To top that off ~25% of the military are actually civilian service members, people who work for the military but are not soldiers.

So in summary, for each soldier that sees combat there are:

• ~6 deployed soldiers who will never see combat.
• ~11 non-deployed soldiers who never will be.
• ~6 civilian military staff who will probably never need to move for work.

Of these 24 people, all have access to the commissary, retirement and pension, top tier insurance, paid child care, up to 26 days of paid time off with 13 sick days and 11 fed holidays. The only things the military civilians don’t get are the VA, loan programs, and special protections.

So unless you’re a complete block head with no skills or talent your odds of joining the military and basically getting socialism with no risks is pretty high. Remember this the next time someone gets mouthy about respecting “the troops” or “serving their country,” odds are they didn’t do shit.

I used to work with a whole group of guys who their whole military career (20 years) was running a wastewater treatment plant on an Air Force base in the US, that’s it.

The thing with politics today is that most of the time the hosts of the debate don’t have the courage to enforce the rules of debate. If you talk out of turn they should turn your mic off and verbally scold you. Shut your mouth or else we will end this debate and give the remainder of this time to your opponent without any censor.

I remember a reddit post from forever ago where the guy said that the grocery store had asked his mom to let them know when their son went to college because him leaving would impact the quantities of chocolate milk they stocked.

Oh yeah, definitely agree, that’s why I said the Republican view point is naive and blind.

From what I understand the Grand Jury reviews whether there is enough evidence to go forward with an indictment, not whether someone is guilty or not. I did a bit of digging and this event occurred Feb 6, 2024, and the Columbus Nebraska police did not start regularly wearing body cams until March 30, 2025. So that’s what, 3 officers word vs 2 parents of the deceased? At the end of the day there probably just wasn’t enough evidence. The Grand Jury trial was for prosecution by the State AG’s office against the Columbus Police officers. Government prosecutors typically won’t take a case to trial unless they are certain they will win, that’s why they have something like a 95% trial success rate, not because they are good prosecutors but because they drop any they aren’t certain of.

In the case of Canada I think that is inherently the problem. US Republican’s have been complaining specifically about Canada since about 2016 and how they aren’t meeting their NATO requirements, have no plans to ever meet them, and how Canada is basically free loading. I remember an article from ~2019 where a Canadian economist was quoted saying that if Canadians are going to be taxed more politicians are not going to spend that money on defense spending over programs which improve quality of life because defense isn’t a concern for Canadians due to being next door to the US.

All this talk about Canada freeloading has some merit, but from a US perspective it completely ignores the huge economic benefits the US/Canada relationship has had for the US. At its heart a significant portion of the US has strong opinions and beliefs about the importance of military preparedness and a fascination with naive blind fairness. In their minds the US and Canada have a good relationship, but Canada isn’t doing their fair share and that makes them angry. For them they see Canada as a mooch and a bad friend.

Canada not investing in it’s military defense both caused US conservative politicians to be upset and also puts Canada in the uncomfortable position they are in now. So yeah, Canada has a “strongest monkey with the biggest stick” problem in that they don’t have much of a stick.

Yo, that Tiffany Days song is fire.

Haim - Forever

Trevor Something - What is real?

Jeff Rosenstock’s cover of Bizarre Love Triangle by New Order

For the last one Jeff Rosenstock is a maniacal bastard because it’s the only cover of Bizarre Love Triangle of it’s kind, he’s been literally offered money to make a full length cover and said no. I get his reasoning, but I hate that the world will never hear what could have been. The rest of the jam session is worth watching as it’s phenominal.