Justin

Yeah, the earth is actually a lot bigger than it looks on the photo. The photo is only a few centimeters, but the earth is at least 10x bigger than that!

Procyon lotor are only native to North America and are listed as an invasive species in the EU.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raccoon#Distribution_in_Germany

This small circle is the sun, absolutely dwarfed by the earth taking up the rest of the frame. Definitely unsettling.

The EU about to unleash the pirate parties on the US

The regulation text says that the measures are enacted by the European Commission putting out an implementing act. Article 7 says that they may repeal the implementation if the third country resolves the conflict. So it seems that they can only remove the measures if the third country gives up.

This seems to be referencing Regulation (EU) 654/2014, an EU law which allows the EU to unilaterally enact countermeasures against countries that break the WTO’s rules.

The countermeasures listed in article 5 are:

• Imposing tarriffs and customs duties
• Trade restrictions/quotas
• Cancelling contracts between the EU and the target country
• Cancelling the target country’s intellectual property rights (e.g. patents/copyrights)
• Banning public procurement from the target country
• Implementing price penalties for public procurement from the target country

The law was amended in Regulation (EU) 2021/167 in response to the Trump (and now Biden) administrations blocking the appointment of judges to the WTO and using a loophole to kill the WTO’s enforcement mechanism.

More context from the EU parliament:
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2020/652021/EPRS_BRI(2020)652021_EN.pdf

The fact that the EU can just suspend American patents and copyrights is pretty insane. Could be some huge benefits for European companies and movie pirates.

cheap beer? slava ukraiini!