Jiral

It is almost as if Iran had written the vaccination guidelines for the US air force.

If you want to be better than that, look for cars with LFP battery. They tend to be used in the less expensive cars and in lower capacity configurations. Their carbon footprint is roughly half of the regular NMC batteries and the only mined metal they need is iron and no zink, mangan or cobalt are needed in their chemistry.

That and try to use renewable energy, eg with home owned photovoltaic. If you do all of that, the break even is way before even 2 years and life cycle CO2 footprint is only a fraction of an ICE vehicle.

Isn't it a bit late for St. Patrick's Day?

Pretty insane how well that disinformation works. If you are worried about nickel, mangan and cobalt, just get a car with an LFP battery, which doesn't need those heavy metals (it is based on lithium and iron phosphate). The only other critical resource in appreciable amounts is neodynium for permanent magnets. We are talking about 1-3 kg per car.

If you think that makes EVs worse for climate or environment than ICE vehicles, think again.

Not that anyone cares but I think Austrians view Czechs the same way that Czechs view themselves in that image. I don't know how it is the other way round, if they hate Austrians for the counter reformation, the monarchy, Nazis or all of the above.

Hey, but we all love powidl, don't we?

Full price at 0 EUR shipment on 1EUR order? By which magic can that cover shipment across the world, no matter how it is done?

Wrong. The micro orders via Ali Express standard shipping to Austria are distributed on their last leg by the Austrian Post, the same company sending any other letter.

Yet shipping can cost as little as nothing, on a 1 EUR order. You still maintain this is not dumping and instead cost covering?

I am talking about Austria because to compare it with other parliamentary democracies it helps to chose one concrete example, you can chose another one if you like. How about Germany, the largest member state. There Parliament's position in this regard is actually weaker than in Austria.

I have no idea where you are coming from but you seem to lack knowledge how parliamentary democracies work if you hold the completely outlandish view that they are on the same level as the Chinese system in terms of democracy.

Back to the EU Commission. Its election is obviously a system where both, the Council / member states and the EP hold power. ("election" is the word in the treaties btw) This is by design. Power is not centralised. It is common in parliamentary democracies that parliaments elect/consent on members of the government but don't choose them. However government with members that are not to the liking of a majority in Parliament won't be elected/voted into power. The same is the case in the EU and there is precedent for that as well. The vote on VdL yielded a paper thin majority im the EP and only because VdL was giving the EP concessions in return. If the EP targets candidates as not acceptable they will not make it into the Commission. Again, there is precedent for that.

If that sounds like Chinese "democracy" to you, half the democracies (ie all parliamentary democracies) on earth are in reality a Chinese style "democracy". Seriously?

Mistral has recently shown a good trajectory of improvement. It is already an important thing that there is a European mid range open weight model that can compete. (Frontier models need a lot more resources, it is important to compare apples with apples) This is good enough for many applications were data security and sovereignity are prime concerns. Of course, it would be good to have a frontier model, lets see how Large 4 will perform when we get there.

The EU commission is elected by the directly elected European Parliament based on suggestions by the Council/member states. The Commission can be voted out of office anytime when it loses support in the European Parliament.

The Austrian government is elected by Parliament based on suggestions by the Chancelor candidate (the latter chosen by the President). The parliament can vote the government out of office anytime.

According to you the one thing is utterly undemocratic while the other is not. ok.

The EU Commission is not the EU, but it is its executive and administration. I f you just kill that, you let everthing derail. Bureaucracy is a dirty word but there without it political entities implode.

Mistral Medium 3.5 isn't that far behind comparable current open weight models.

Who knows? That is either just an excuse to protect that illegal facility of an oligarch or they are really using that facility to target girl schools in Iran.