dagss a day ago

And a Norwegian cafe renamed one of their dishes [edit: American pancakes] to "Canadian pancakes"!

Reminds me of "Freedom Fries"...

  • duxup a day ago

    Were they American pancakes before?

    Serious question, I just call pancakes, pancakes….

    • dagss a day ago

      Ah right, I guess that name for them is Norwegian/European.

      Around here, "American pancakes" are about 1 cm (1/2 inch) thick and the size of a hand. Contains baking soda

      "Pancakes" are larger, the size of a plate, and much thinner (a couple of mm). No baking soda. Like the French crepe but smaller diameter.

      They taste quite differently.

      • sergers a day ago

        Being canadian, you just described different styles of pancakes that we just call all pancakes.

        Thin, thick, size of a plate, sand dollar size, size of your hands... just all called simply pancakes.

        I find the thick ones not good.

        Theres a chain of big pancakes size of plate restaurants called dedutch pannekoek house, or just dedutch.

        • matt-p a day ago

          But if you go to a cafe and order pancakes how do you know what you'll get!

          A simply unacceptable gamble in my mind! Imagine looking forward to a normal pancake and getting a rubbery American one popped infront of you.

        • 1123581321 a day ago

          Do Canadians not call the Scandinavian crepe style Swedish pancakes? That’s the common term in the US regardless of size and fold.

          • yusaythat 16 hours ago

            This is not a common term in the US.

            • 1123581321 9 hours ago

              Yes it is. You’ll find it on breakfast menus in every part of the country, if they make them. There are variations though. What do you call them?

              • yusaythat 4 hours ago

                Well I'm 40 and lived all over the country and I've never heard it a single time. You sure you don't live in an alternate timeline? Also just to make sure I'm not crazy I looked at iHop's online menu and it's... just pancakes. Never heard anyone call a pancake anything other than a pancake.

      • craftkiller a day ago

        FWIW you can get pancakes 1cm thick in both the size of a hand and the size of a plate in the US. When they're the size of a plate you usually get a couple just stacked on top of each other. Source: I am American.

      • pier25 a day ago

        Those large pancakes sound like Belgian crepes.

      • duxup a day ago

        Thank you, this is new to me.

tim333 14 hours ago

There definitely seems a correlation between how close a country is to Russia and how opposed to Russia they are. The ones sharing a border seem very anti whereas the USA seems to have flipped pro Russia.

palata a day ago

Feels totally deserved, to be honest.

jononor 16 hours ago

This is very minor, just a friendly little reminder that cooperation is a two way street.

The big ones would be to no longer sell Norwegian oil and gas in USD. Or to move all investments of the Government Pension Fund of Norway out of American companies.

duxup a day ago

Trump administration is weakening the US in ways and with speed that our enemies could never accomplish.

  • netsharc a day ago

    Xi Jinping must be pleased, he can call countries around the world and be treated as the sane, reasonable superpower... (And he's got the superpower-wannabe Putin on a leash, and to continue the dog metaphor, Putin in turn has Trump licking his balls)

    • usefulcat 8 hours ago

      Exactly. Trump has gifted the Chinese a golden opportunity to really step up in a diplomatic, international sense. Even if not all nations agree with everything China does, they at least look like sane, competent adults compared to the shitshow that is the current US government.

      And even if we were to get a sane government in 2028 it wouldn’t matter much because Americans have already demonstrated not once, but twice that they will willingly elect an utterly incompetent fool.

  • dragonwriter 18 hours ago

    Our enemies could and did and Trump was the tool they used.

  • AtlasBarfed a day ago

    It doesn't matter if Trump is actually a conspiratorial russian asset/agent.

    The policies of the Trump administration are completely in line with him being one, and it is those actions that are the damage. To review a bit:

    - trade and tariff wars with near neighbors and allies

    - threatening to steal territory from allies

    - parroting openly false propaganda by Putin in the world media

    - disrupting the Five Eyes

    - mass firings at FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA

    - open support of right wing fascist parties in European elections

    - withdrawing aid from Ukraine

    - threatening Starlink access by Ukraine

    Of course he's now stating that the sactions will be ending soon as well.

    Honestly, this is actually MORE than I would expect from an agent, because I would assume the KGB or GRU or equivalents would have slow-played him for long term effect.

beefnugs 19 hours ago

Sadly, the jokes on them, the US will pull back from anywhere near russia to allow them to expand as they see fit, and just park as close to isreal to help them level the region

  • consumer451 18 hours ago

    That ship already sailed. Do you see Trump’s USA upholding their NATO obligations to defend other nations?

    The only thing that US bases in the EU are doing at the moment is contributing to the local economies. Expecting anything more is magical thinking.

    • AntoniusBlock 14 hours ago

      >The only thing that US bases in the EU are doing at the moment is contributing to the local economies.

      Some US bases double as spy bases. For example in the UK, RAF Menwith Hill is an NSA spy base, and RAF Croughton is a CIA spy base. One bargaining chip Europe has is to oust these spy bases from their territory. This would obviously negatively impact the US' global intelligence efforts. In any case, I see little point in allowing a hostile nation have spy bases on one's land.

sirolimus a day ago

Go norway!

  • netsharc a day ago

    As much as I'm behind Norway in this little spat, I think Putin's Arctic fleet might smell an opportunity to mess with Norway a bit more, and then who will they beg for help?

    • palata a day ago

      Not sure if you follow the news, but the US aren't considered as allies (or dependable, or even stable) by anyone right now. Nobody is happy about it, of course, but it's not like anyone is counting on the US anymore, for better or worse.

      • marbro a day ago

        Wouldn't it be horrible if Europe defended itself without help from the United States?

        • bradchris a day ago

          It would be worse for the United States dollar, probably. The D in USD historically could’ve been associated with “Diplomacy”— the military was willing and able to globally enforce the value of the US Dollar by favoring countries that willingly supported its hegemony.

          When no one relies upon us any more, what makes our dollars and debts so special? What’s to stop everyone from taking their ball and going to play somewhere else? From calling in debts, from reneging on debts to us, from accepting our dollars, from providing land for military bases, from honoring our passports… because that is what happens to nearly every other country not at the Top.

          The global order currently only works in our favor because we’re on top. We are the ones who lose the most when other countries don’t need us, not the other way around.

        • jxjnskkzxxhx a day ago

          Considering how many weapons the US sells to its allies, wouldn't be great for the US defense industry.

          • anon91933 13 hours ago

            Europe has its own industry, but countries have made sure that they buy a significant amount of weapons from the US to keep them happy. That limits the size of the EU industry.

            There have been many stories of EU countries choosing the American alternative, even if it was more expensive. In return, they expected some goodwill from US.

            So when you read stories about EU countries not spending enough, consider that a large part of what they do spend goes to the US to appease them.

            Now, US is changing the expectations

        • V-eHGsd_ a day ago

          Wouldn’t it be horrible if the United States were a dependable ally?

    • watwut a day ago

      Well, America will support Putin currently. If Putin attacks Norway, America will bully Norway.

      • sirolimus a day ago

        That won't happen because of Norway's immense oil and gas supply and good relations. If Russia manages to take Norway, USA will be at an incredible disadvantage due to the immense oil and gas reserves on the coastline in addition to the oil-fund. If anything USA will annex Norway.

        • watwut a day ago

          Incomplete list of places USA bully, attacks or insults: Canada, EU, Ukraine, Mexico.

          Complete list of countries USA supports, admires and treats nicely: Russia.

          If Russia attack Norway, USA may try to make Norway a colony. Or use to situation to mock Norway, get their oil and then sell them to Russia once they have something.

          But Trump loves Putin and is scared of him, so I can see him to make a "deal" and give him Norway with its oil in exchange of something purely ego stroking.

          • sirolimus a day ago

            The oil lasts longer than Trump's presidency so hopefully the US will not become a dictatorship within that time and will be able to fix this shit before everything turns to hell.

            Democrats go!<3

            • mint2 17 hours ago

              Democrats?

              Jeffries, the top democrat in the house, is too busy with promoting his book and anyway has decided it’s all in gods hands now. He had one stop in Oakland on Feb 20, and is scheduled again on March 7.

              Gee whiz good thing there’s nothing else pressing going on to get in the way of his book tour stops! /s

josephstalinOk 12 hours ago

Interesting. There having multiple instances of boycott against Israel for the Gaza genocide but I never heard about any of those in Hacker News.

ETH_start 19 hours ago

I'm no geopolitics expert, so this might be way off the mark. But it seems like many in Europe are really overplaying their hand here.

  • dingle_thunk 19 hours ago

    On the contrary, the US is making the mistake of believing their own fake numbers.

    • ETH_start 18 hours ago

      The U.S. makes up most NATO spending.

      • CogitoCogito 13 hours ago

        I'm pretty sure no NATO countries actually consider the US a dependable ally at the moment. So US spending is kind of irrelevant really. And if the US were to actively work against its NATO allies (seems pretty likely at this point), US NATO spending would be considered more of a negative rather than a positive.

matt-p a day ago

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

garspin a day ago

Speaking as an non-american reading local & global news sources....

...does Trump not understand 2nd round effects ?

From afar he seems to be intent on Making America Great for Billionaires at the expense of any country less powerful than the US.

  • watwut a day ago

    I already read article about how Trumps people are fuming at Zelensky as the cause of Vance and Trump hysterical meltdown

    So, no, Trump does not understand that. He is protected from that.

aaron695 a day ago

If true [1] this is the insanity why Trumps team is right, U.S. warships are currently defending Ukraine.

Based on a 10 minute video, 24 hours later, they are cutting off the supply to the US which supports and defends countries like Ukraine in the region and further abroad like Africa.

The US isn't attacking Ukraine, FFS.

This should be illegal, as critical infrastructure Haltbakk Bunkers should have obligations they have been paid for.

Take their request as serious and stop refueling the US in the broader region. Europe will take up the slack of Ukraine and everything else the US does? Europe will struggle to even defend Ukraine. Trump will get his insanely large budget cuts and Europe can be blamed for dragging the world into disarray.

[1] Their Facebook post is down but was real - https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1895896267269808193

  • bigyabai 20 hours ago

    The US Navy is so large that it's basically impossible to not defend half of Europe while they're deployed. Systems like Aegis provide de-facto area denial to ballistic weapons when they're put anywhere, since we have 11 carrier groups it's not infeasible to send them out on patrol with our (former) allies. It sure beats paying COs merchant marine wages to jerk off in littoral waters waiting to eat a DF-21, fighting to defend America's god-given right to an iPhone 17.

    > This should be illegal

    Sounds like the US messed up cutting ties with the International Criminal Court then. Maybe one day this heinous act will be brought to justice. Maybe.

waltercool a day ago

It's their loss, literally. USA have ton of oil reserves.

I'm surprised that Norway, a "progressive" country with a huge welfare state, is only known for their oil extraction as wealth generation.

If they don't diversify their economy, they might face the same problem as Venezuela.

beebaween a day ago

Wonder how making the US your enemy is going to pan out lmao

  • palata a day ago

    Okay let's take a deep breath and read slowly:

    - Russia attacked Ukraine

    - The US is making enemies out of ex allies

    Not the other way around. It seems difficult to understand for americans, for some reason, but the order of the words does matter.

    • hedora a day ago

      It is only hard to understand for a minority of Americans.

      Many of the things Trump is doing right now are unpopular even among people that voted for him.

      • simonh a day ago

        If only they’d had any way to know what Trump is actually like.

  • duxup a day ago

    I think we’re making everyone our enemy…

    Considering the US administration’s childish choices yesterday, what do we expect? Hugs?

  • bigyabai a day ago

    In the case of famous petrostate Russia, evidently pretty great.

  • dragonwriter a day ago

    Seems to me a reaction to the US making itself their enemy.

  • anon91933 13 hours ago

    This was a private company, not the state of Norway. A democratic country can't force companies to trade.

    Please keep in mind that actions of a single company has no effect on the rest of the country. Why does everything have to be blown out of proportions?

    Norway's defense minister has made it clear that they support the US presence, and this was the actions of a single company. The ship was given what they asked for.

  • Terr_ a day ago

    > Wonder how making the US your enemy is going to pan out lmao

    Quiet part out loud: One or more thin-skinned criminals within the US government are likely to abuse the power of their offices to illegally harm the company in revenge.

    P.S.: ... And some people imagine that outcome, and their reaction is intense laughter, rather than disgusted anger.

    • johng a day ago

      [flagged]

      • wryoak a day ago

        Refusal of business is not harm. But telling someone to “use their brain” is tantamount to calling them an idiot

        • Terr_ a day ago

          TBF, my initial reply was not particularly charitable or steel-manning.

          However I do believe that US international policy and procurement ought to operate without bias around whether potential vendor's CEO has praised/insulted a US President.

  • create-username a day ago

    Wonder how making the world your enemy is going to pan out smh

    Edit: “treating your allies like enemies”

  • insane_dreamer a day ago

    The US is treating its enemies better than its friends right now

    • mdhb a day ago

      It’s because for all intents and purposes they have completely switched teams. The US is currently pro fascism