Something super easy if you have an oven: Just put some soft cheese (for example Camembert) into your oven for about 20 mins at 180°C. Cut it open after about 10 mins the way you can see here:
If you don’t have anything to put it into for baking, just wrap in Aluminium foil.
Then eat it with baguette, chopped vegetables or even grapes.
What I’ve been wondering is why are (some) leftists defending Putin?
At least from my point of view there are two conflicting ideas at work. On the one hand there is Russia’s authoritarian system with all it’s problems that definitely should not spread and lots of leftists rightfully condemn.
On the other hand Russia still has considerable military power and just as the US absolutely did not want nuclear missiles stationed in Cuba (even though Cuba is an independent nation and the US should have absolutely no say in this, at least to their own logic regarding Ukraine) Russia does not want such missiles stationed in Ukraine. The US now claiming Russia should have no influence on whether the Ukraine can join the EU/NATO in the future is the pinnacle of hypocrisy. This is one of the reasons for the strong anti-Americanism.
From this perspective it becomes very clear that expanding the NATO into the east has always meant playing with fire. I absolutely do not want another Cuba-crisis and consider expanding the NATO an unnecessary provocation of the Russians.
Prior to 2013/14 when the Ukraine remained neutral the situation was much more stable and Russia had no reason nor intention to interfere in Ukraine. If the result of Ukraine getting closer to the US/EU/NATO is war, then I do not want it.
Hmm, Russia Today is reporting about celebrations in Donetsk and Lugansk because of this decision: https://www.rt.com/russia/550172-donetsk-lugansk-recognition-celebrations/ meanwhile western media and leaders as well as other parts of Ukraine are condemning this move.
From what I understand Putins’ decision is not too surprising. Ukraine has cut off the separatist controlled regions. This means for example it does not provide any pensions and apparently it’d be pretty hard to even get into other parts of Ukraine from these areas even if you wanted to. That’s why Russia recently started handing out passports. The percentage of ethnic Russians in this regions is pretty high, so a lot of Russian citizens live there now. With growing tensions and more and more armed conflicts this put Putin into a bad spot. After his previous decisions he hardly had a choice but to protect his citizens. So the first thing they tried was to evacuate them. But only few people actually left for Russia. Thus the current decision.
This is not meant to apologize for any transgressions but merely to state that this was somewhat predictable and I can understand why Putin would act like this.
Something that is being brought up even more frequently now is a full scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia. I do not see the point in that. What’s in it for Russia? I think Putin would be much happier with Ukraine as neutral buffer to other NATO members like Poland. Does the Ukraine have any natural resources? War is very expensive and Russia spends relatively little money on its military.
Thank you, in the post it says:
Anti-war demonstration in front of the USA embassy Kiev, Ukraine.
“Happening now - an antiwar rally in Kiev in front of US embassy in Ukraine. The protesters demand from US to stop intereference in Ukraine and pushing it to war with Russia. I bet no West MSM covers anti-NATO protests in Ukraine (they report only about our far-right militants preparing to fight russians, as I can see).”
It looks like this is not the original source. All I can find in that regard is lots of tumblr posts (this seems to be the first one: https://fuckyeahmarxismleninism.tumblr.com/post/675720711979008000/happening-now-an-antiwar-rally-in-kiev-ukraine) referring to Dmitri Kovalevich.
In my opinion there is truth to both sides here, as is the case in most arguments.
While the current vaccines against COVID-19 sadly did not fulfill the hope of being sterilizing and thus being capable to eradicate COVID-19, they sure help prevent many cases of severe illness and hospitalizations as well as deaths especially for the elderly. So I think it does make a lot of sense to get vaccinated if you are older or have some medical condition that makes COVID-19 especially risky to you.
On the other hand it is equally true that the vaccines have been developed at an incredible speed and they are based on a completely new technology, at least regarding tests on humans. Typically vaccines need 5 to 10 years for development 1. Being worried about the safety of this new vaccines is not unreasonable, especially considering that there have been a lot more reports about adverse side effects than you typically get for vaccines. So at least to me it is understandable as well if especially healthy younger people not really at risk, are reluctant about getting vaccinated.
On an unrelated side note: I think the mRNA technology is freaking cool and I hope we can put it to more good use in the future.
One thing to watch out for is that (ICU) Hospitalizations and deaths even more so lag behind the numbers for cases. So looking at these numbers right now is probably still inconclusive.
But I very much like that you posted these graphs, that’s something you can properly discuss as opposed to all those comments regarding COVID-19 that just voice feelings without backing anything up.
There is https://lemmy.ml/c/cooking looks rather inactive though, perhaps post your favorite recipe there?