In today's news...

[Ranger Princess]

Re: In today's news...

Maybe it's the raging lefty in me bleeding through, but if your culture can't handle a few new types of people and beliefs, it's not much of a culture. Older cultures only disappear if there's nobody to remember and support them. If it's been around for centuries, I'd say it's probably safe. Besides, maybe some of those immigrants are decent people that are worth having in society. You'll never know unless you get to know them.

As for the Labour election, wow, that sounds like a party in search of an identity if I ever heard one. Interesting that the membership disagrees with the senior leaders of the party. Personally, I'm more interested in the deputy leader. There are some interesting candidates there like Stella Creasy, and that position might end up being more important down the road if Corbyn is elected.

 

[Crawdaddy]

Re: In today's news...

(I)f your culture can't handle a few new types of people and beliefs, it's not much of a culture. Older cultures only disappear if there's nobody to remember and support them. If it's been around for centuries, I'd say it's probably safe.

Well, in fairness, thousands of unique cultures have been eradicated across the globe through various deeply unfair means. Ironically: chiefly by us Europeans.

I don't oppose support of marginalized cultural aspects in a country myself. People such as the Saami of Northern Scandinavia were discriminated against by the Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish governments for centuries, and so them getting public support to revitalize their languages and traditions is a mark of at least a certain level of decency.

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I think it's important to state, however, that the whole immigration debate typically tends to spiral into extreme strawmen, where immigration skeptics are caricaturized as raging racists or greedy isolationists who just want to wall all the world off unless they're investors who've got money - and where immigration positive people are caricaturized as naive hippies who just want to open all borders for everyone and just give away all the money no questions asked. No one benefits from that kind of debate.

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Lastly, the Labour Party "crisis" (if it can be called that? I haven't been watching it too closely) was probably long time coming: European social-democratic parties have long been veering off towards the right (economically speaking), accepting the neoliberal paradigm with such ideas as new public management and so on. It's come to the point where many people have problems really seeing the actual differences between the policies of Labour-style parties and conservative parties. Over in my country at least, the impression many people seem to have is that Labour goes towards the same as the Conservatives (privatization, transnational liberalization), just a bit slower.

After the economic crises since '07, it's not exactly strange that a lot of people are looking elsewhere than classic neoliberalism for answers (the growth of right-wing populists that basically blame everything on "the foreigners" is one example). Whether they are right or wrong I'll not judge, as I'm afraid macroeconomics is not my forte.

 

[Ranger Princess]

Re: In today's news...

Well, in fairness, thousands of unique cultures have been eradicated across the globe through various deeply unfair means. Ironically: chiefly by us Europeans.

I don't oppose support of marginalized cultural aspects in a country myself. People such as the Saami of Northern Scandinavia were discriminated against by the Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish governments for centuries, and so them getting public support to revitalize their languages and traditions is a mark of at least a certain level of decency.

I think I might have been unclear. I'm not opposed to supporting marginalized cultures, though I don't really view it as a specific issue. It's basically supporting diverse education, religious and linguistic freedom, and spending on history and art museums - which are all things that I support regardless of what culture it is because they are important parts of a functioning and vibrant society. What I am opposed to is the idea that an influx of new people erodes native cultures (European, American, etc). Of course lots of cultures have been wiped out over the years by violent means, but this situation doesn't have anything to do with that.

I'm not sure if Labour is in crisis either. It's more just interesting to me that the likely new leader seemed to come out of nowhere and didn't have much support among the actual MPs. But then again, maybe that's a good thing.

 

[XSI]

Re: In today's news...

Maybe it's the raging lefty in me bleeding through, but if your culture can't handle a few new types of people and beliefs, it's not much of a culture. Older cultures only disappear if there's nobody to remember and support them. If it's been around for centuries, I'd say it's probably safe. Besides, maybe some of those immigrants are decent people that are worth having in society. You'll never know unless you get to know them.

Plenty of cultures have tried to handle new people and beliefs, only to be messed up by it. I do agree that Europe is probably safe in that aspect though. There's been efforts by Europeans against eachother to get rid of eachothers cultures for centuries and most of that didn't work. This won't do real damage to the cultures either. And of course, there are plenty of good immigrants as well. I've personally met a bunch(And also a bunch of bad ones, but that's life) so I can tell that they are definitely not all bad, but it's overall a pretty shit situation still
(Edit: Other note, local Dutch news reports that ISIS says fleeing to Europe is a sin worthy of death. But that of course assumes that they won't just kill everyone anyway)
(More edit: Also reports that local questionable businesses have used these 'refugees' by forcing them to work 17 hours a day, 6 days a week. Definitely cruel)

And then this following bit isn't helping it either

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Masked gunmen from the Greek coastguard’s special forces have turned pirate and are robbing refugees in boats in the middle of the Mediterranean, migrants and aid-workers claim.

Migrants have told MailOnline shocking stories of how 'commandos' wearing balaclavas and armed with guns have struck in dozens of attacks between Turkey and Greece during July and August.

In some instances, the pirates made off with tens of thousands of euros in cash that the migrants had taken with them to find a better life in Europe - as well as mobile phones. The pirates have often taken to stealing motors, sinking the boats the migrants are on and then abandoning the migrants at sea.

(I can't be sure on how legit this is, but since it's reported at two different sites so...Maybe?)

As for labour, that sounds like good old political incompetence and one guy who knows how to reach out to people
Neoliberal economic beliefs are definitely not going to help anyone get votes, I'd be surprised if any but the most zealous supporter of those still agrees with it

Edit: More news, Windows being retarded

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Every computer with Windows on it has downloaded Windows 10
You may not have installed it, but they decided to make you download it anyway

 

[Dragontear]

Re: In today's news...

My bad for being late, but still regarding the Labour Party voting, they've closed the voting, because of all the fracis involved. Results will be announced on Saturday on the BBC, if I'm correct.

One of the Candidates has already bowed in, effectively, Liz Kendal.

To the notion of culture; there is allowing other cultures to integrate with your own, then there is bending over backwards to appease all and punish your own, resulting not in a rich multi-cultural nation, but a muddle quagmire of self-contained cultural groups who, by the belief of people in power, can take precedent over the locals and should not have to follow the same laws and rules.

Also, because this makes me proud to be British, a Royal Marine by the name of Blackman has been given a life-sentence by court martial for killing an Taliban insurgent who been mortally wounded by an Apache-run by.

Suffice to say, the public are pretty pissed, the prisoners and staff at the prison he's staying in support him, many MP's support him, the court martial panel members actually apologised to him for the length of his sentence, and sent him a sympathetic message, also a well-respect Colonel has resigned in abject disgust.

To give a bit of context, (from what my flaky short-term memory can scrounge up, bear with me) RM Blackman was in command of a platoon sent out to secure territory in Afghanistan, checkpoints setting up here and there, unfortunately command continued the tick-box exercise even when he actually told them 'We cannot hold them anymore.'

His platoon and others in the area were under-manned, under-equipped and poorly supplied literally the moment he set-foot there, Taliban fighters had attacked on a daily basis, and even hung remains of the army from trees to provoke them, so when he came upon the insurgent (same dick who was part of other raids on Her Majesty's Finest), put a bullet in the bastard while muttering 'Shrug off your mortal coils, you c-nt, nothing you wouldn't do for us'. Apparently Command, as you might've gathered, knew about the over-stretched, under-manned and supported lads and have gone out of their way, including Politicians and our very own Prime Minister, to wreck his character - apparently 16 years or so of service leading up to one terribly slip of composure makes you a evil scumbag.

In the court, it has occurred that evidence supporting Blackman's defence was hidden or actively withdrawn, his defence team were incredibly incompetent, not even suggesting a lesser-sentence for shooting what Blackman believed to be an already dead fighter, and the Colonel I mentioned? He was going to give vital evidence, but was prevented from doing so, despite being told he'd be good to go.

Thankfully new evidence has come to light, that might go to the Appeals Court and see if we can pull some dignity out of this need to be 'Politically Correct for the world's benefit' (again, Colonel's words).

Yes, that does annoy me a bit. I don't have all the information at hand, but it should seem obvious that again one of our soldiers is being shafted as a scapegoat.

Alsooooo, moar news, "On Wednesday evening, Queen Elizabeth II has surpassed the record set by her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria, who reigned for 63 years and 216 days." Long live the Queen!

 

[AceofWind]

Re: In today's news...

Youporn reported statistics of people who watch porn on their site through video game consoles and Playstation has the highest amount of traffic followed by Xbox consoles who are in the middle and Wii consoles that has the lowest amount. Playstation owners have a high preference for milf porn, Xbox lesbian porn and Nintendo animated porn.

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[Ranger Princess]

Re: In today's news...

Youporn reports statistics of people who watch porn on their video game consoles with Playstation consoles giving the most traffic, followed by Xbox consoles and then Nintendo consoles. Playstation owners have a high preference for milf porn, Xbox lesbians and Nintendo animated porn.

I didn't know anyone watched porn on their consoles... but I have an xbox 360, so I guess that sounds about right.

 

[Crawdaddy]

Re: In today's news...

Playstation owners have a high preference for milf porn, Xbox lesbian porn and Nintendo animated porn.

The stereotypes... so confirmed. XD

I must admit, I didn't know it was possible to watch porn through consoles either, but as long as they have web browsers I guess it makes sense.

 

[Dragontear]

Re: In today's news...

Sorry to be a bother, moar Labour leadership mews.

The results have been announced, Jeremy Corbin is the new leader with a 49.6ish% of the total vote, between four candidates. If I'm correct. (Flaky memory ftw!)

Tis been revealed that not only have half the shadow cabinet, that is the inner-circle of any opposition party, have resigned, but also apparently 80% of the people that have recently joined the labour party have voted for Corbin, bringing up worrying implications that the Trade Unions have had a hand in picking yet another Union lad.

 

[Crawdaddy]

Re: In today's news...

Well, it is the "labour" party after all. Maybe a lot of people were tired of having Oxbridge graduates representing the working class. *shrug*

 

[Ranger Princess]

Re: In today's news...

If you look at his record, Corbyn sounds like a very independent minded person. There might be a slew of things to worry about with him, but I don't think him being a puppet or a tool is one of them.

The thing that irks me is that even with 99 female MPs in the Labour Party, they somehow managed to not pick any of them for the major leader positions.

 

[Dragontear]

Re: In today's news...

Puppet and tool he doesn't seem to be, happy to agree on that, but quite frankly I'm concerned he's the leader now - partly because he doesn't seem to have much of a fiscal understanding during a time of economic concern, and that his own party members admitted that if he was made leader, Labour would be made 'un-electable'.

Weak opposition is not good for the nation, however deserved it might be in some eyes for them to have a kicking after refusing to change. Biased it may be on my behalf, but I'm not the only one. However I might dislike them, I do actually hope they get their act together, a good opposition will not simply oppose for opposing's sake, but actually call the government to task and suggest viable alternatives if they believe current action won't be optimal for the nation and it's people.

In other not so grand news,

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[Crawdaddy]

Re: In today's news...

In other not so grand news,

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Holy shit.

The Welsh, man. The Welsh.

 

[Ranger Princess]

Re: In today's news...

Sometimes people aren't as unelectable as they seem. When I was but a wee lass in 2004, I didn't think it was possible that my country could re-elect a man that lied to the country about Iraq and broke dozens of international conventions, among a whole slew of other terrible things, but alas, we did. I've been kind of jaded about elections here ever since.

 

[Crawdaddy]

Re: In today's news...

Hah, just look at Donald Trump now. XD Apparently being out-of-the-closet-asshole does not make one unelectable.

 

[Ranger Princess]

Re: In today's news...

Hah, just look at Donald Trump now. XD Apparently being out-of-the-closet-asshole does not make one unelectable.

I'm trying not to! haha. Well, Republicans love assholes. That's their spirit animal. Not much surprises me with them anymore, but I'll admit I did a double take when I first saw him leading the polls. The scary thing is that Jeb Bush is considered the reasonable one in the party.

 

[Dragontear]

Re: In today's news...

But Crawdaddy... Dat beard. Seriously. The comments sum it up well; "He looks so happy when he said that." "I know right? He did a happy jump at the end too." XD

Agreed, sometimes the more un-electable somebody ought to logically be, the more people may vote for him or her. Inverse logic... logic? I don't know. And speaking of you-know-who, the lovely man who brought us into a possibly illegal conflict, the Chilcot Report into the Iraq situation has been ongoing for six years and the man leading it. John Chilcot himself, still refuses to set any sort of date, apparently using the 'Maxwellising' protocol that allows any individual brought under scrutiny or possible criticism time to respond has not only dragged the inquiry into, past and beyond parody, but that same protocol isn't even necessary. Considering Mr.Chilcot gained his position by Mr.Blair's grace... yah.

Speaking of lovely individuals, Nichola Sturgeon, leader of the SNP/Scottish National Party, has already laid out a possible time-table for a second Independence attempt in the run-up to the Scottish elections. Apparently having the majority of people vote one way and the former leader accepting it was 'a question answered for a generation' is easy to ignore. Also ignoring the fact, quite blissfully, that oil prices had fallen to half their value predicted by the SNP in their ah... creative view on finances in their bid for independence last time.

 

[ToxicShock]

Re: In today's news...

I'm trying not to! haha. Well, Republicans love assholes. That's their spirit animal. Not much surprises me with them anymore, but I'll admit I did a double take when I first saw him leading the polls. The scary thing is that Jeb Bush is considered the reasonable one in the party.

Republicans love assholes and hate men who love assholes.

 

[XSI]

Re: In today's news...

I think the whole Trump thing is mostly people going "Well, the country is fucked anyway, may as well give this guy a go"

Republican friends of mine say Carson is actually good at a lot of stuff, but of course he won't get a chance as long as Trump runs

In other news

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Shemitah, and Israeli security forces attack the temple mount. Highly religious Israelis are already pushing for them to get more stuff out of it. Nothing good can come of this

For those unaware, Shemitah is a Jewish holy day which is used by (Jewish) religious extremists to push for expanded rights for them and less for others. It is also when Jewish people are supposed to forgive debts so it is somewhat likely that the stock market will get messed up next time it opens

Israel considers the two groups the main cause of tension at the flashpoint site, holy to both religions. The Muslim groups, outlawed on “security” grounds, have been accusing Israelis of trying to change the situation on the ground and give the Jews expanded rights over the holy site.

Both of these groups, of course, would rather see the other one dead and driven out of Jerusalem. It's quite nasty of a situation

 

[Crawdaddy]

Re: In today's news...

Both of these groups, of course, would rather see the other one dead and driven out of Jerusalem. It's quite nasty of a situation

Hope everything stays safe... well, as safe as they can be in Jerusalem anyway.

Doesn't exactly help that the city's holy status attracts all the religious nutters.