In today's news...

[Dragontear]

Re: In today's news...

Speaking of the Freedom of Speech/Freedom of the Press, just saw a BBC reporter's look at the state of Turkey's Media - Journalists being made to vanish, sentenced to life imprisonment for 'acts of terrorism', their head-of-state blaming the international media for bad impressions... yah.

Makes our celebrity-lead 'Hacked Off' group and grubby-handed people in Britain look oh-so very meek in comparison.

 

[XSI]

Re: In today's news...

We should probably switch to the debate thread if you feel strongly that this is a "free press" issue...

Nah, I don't particularly care about Snowden or his stuff. The idea was that governments putting out threats of causing vaguely defined bad things to happen to news agencies or their staff for not agreeing to demands is kind of against free press stuff, like what Dragontear posted about Turkey just now, but a bit less extreme. My stance on this is simple enough. If they had the legal right to get those hard drives, they would have gone in and gotten them already. If they need to send vague threats, they're playing dirty and that should not be encouraged.

If someone takes an oath and then breaks it, they're awful, awful people in my opinion. If they release information that is actively harmful to people(Field agents, etc), then they're even worse since they're both breaking their oaths and actively hurting people who are upholding theirs. I'm not in favour of that at all, if someone promises something, or makes an oath, they better stick to it.

So here's some science news to read instead of trying to debate this stuff

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Physicists create synthetic magnetic monopoles
May lead to entirely new materials, such as superconductors

Edit: Decentralised internet too, could be useful, but most likely just neat theory

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An ambitious project has been launched that the developers hope could one day replace the current internet.

And science figuring out a bit more on consciousness..Which is really complicated and apparently uses..Quantum something. Sorry, I don't really understand the thing, but science is making good progress

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[Hopeyouguess62]

Re: In today's news...

I found this interesting... I was doing some reading on the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP), essentially the military arm of the European Union, when I came across

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, claiming that "Biblical prophecy" warns against a "newly resurrected, globally dominant German empire." What a crock of shit.

It did provide me, however, with a working link to a recent

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on their emerging role as a guarantor of international security, and the need to intervene in global crises (with the agreement of the United Nations and multilateral support).

Personally, I think this is a fantastic development--I would love to see the European Union take a more active stance in global security affairs. I'm rather curious to hear what some of our European members think, though.

 

[XSI]

Re: In today's news...

Personally, I think this is a fantastic development--I would love to see the European Union take a more active stance in global security affairs. I'm rather curious to hear what some of our European members think, though.

It would probably be a good idea if the EU wasn't as corrupt as it could get without being actively hostile, and incapable of even the most basic organisation. That said, it's unlikely to lead to any sort of positive result with the system in its current form, unless spending a lot of money to achieve nothing is what you consider a positive result. In which case, the EU is working great!

I would assume all military or global security affairs will stay with the individual member states for a long time - Especially as nearly all of Europe wants the EU to be less involved, and less of what the EU bureaucrats call 'cooperation'

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Semi-official Iranian news network:
Nazi aliens from space are the US shadow government and Obama is just a puppet

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Apparently, they were the ones in control of nazi Germany during WW2 and jumped ship to the USA in 1945. The NSA is their way of hiding their existence from the world and set up so that they could gain complete totalitarian control of earth for seemingly unknown purposes.

It's a little bit far-fetched, maybe, but the US does kinda have an image problem.

 

[Nunu]

Re: In today's news...

i dont know i'd trust any source called farce news. That would be like trusting faux news.

 

[XSI]

Re: In today's news...

Here's one I got linked just now, it's google translate to what seems to be a local Swedish site so I can't check how authentic it is

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Immigrant molests a whole lot of children in public in Sweden. Then says it's Swedish culture that is at fault for punishing child molesters, because in his African nation's culture it is normal to do that.

- I do not like boys, I love boys! exclaimed 29-year-old on another occasion when he was confronted with having tried to drag away two little boys by lifting them up into the armpits.

When he was taken away from the crime scene, he pulled down his pants and showed his genitals to the female police and proclaimed that "the woman was created for man."

In previous trials describe the man that he feels offended by how he was treated in Sweden.

"He has been coming to Sweden as part of the UN's refugee quota but he does not think he has become respected. His human rights have been violated many times in Bromley, "reads the judgment.

New, from Sweden: The human right to molest children.

 

[Hopeyouguess62]

Re: In today's news...

New, from Sweden: The human right to molest children.

And yet, the Federalist Papers would define those who would prevent this "right to molest children" as a "faction"--an ostensibly negative (and limiting) aspect of democracy's custody of liberalism. The damning part of administration and politics is the lack of an absolute good or evil... the easy answers provide ideologies, but no workable system of government. And anarchy is right out.

 

[Obsidious]

Re: In today's news...

And yet, the Federalist Papers would define those who would prevent this "right to molest children" as a "faction"--an ostensibly negative (and limiting) aspect of democracy's custody of liberalism.

However when it comes to this kind of terminology, many journalists don't share your feel of negative connotation. Every political decision nowadays is accompanied by great efforts of lobby and PR organizations to influence them. Although this is in my opinion a fact that should worry us, for many journalists it is simply a given and therefore neither good nor bad.

And that of course is because of an attribute every good journalist should have, however every bad one necessarily has: naiveté .

 

[Hopeyouguess62]

Re: In today's news...

However when it comes to this kind of terminology, many journalists don't share your feel of negative connotation.

Please don't mistake my meaning; I did not intend to convey that it was *my* opinion that "factions" are good or bad. I find some factions more agreeable than others.

I'm indifferent to the Republican and Democratic parties, as there I find myself switching between them on every issue (for example, I support LGBT marriage, but for the most part I agree with conservative financial policies). As for smaller factions, I generally approve of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and I disapprove of the Ku Klux Klan.

In other news:

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Seriously, how in the blue fuck does someone talk about sensitive information on a non-secure line? And why hasn't she [resigned/been asked to resign/been fired] yet? *RAGE*

 

[Tassadar]

Re: In today's news...

For those of us here in the US, Time Warner Cable and Comcast, two providers of cable internet (among other things) are attempting to merge. As this creates what is essentially a monopoly and merges two already bad ISPs together to create one that will undoubtedly be worse.

A derp video with a link to the white house petition to stop it included below.

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[Tassadar]

Re: In today's news...

Double post, but meh.

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despite the recent Day One fiasco, and is now threatening to sue if he doesn't delete his Youtube channel. I do hope he countersues, and we can probably expect a video detailing this from TB himself soonish. Basically, another indy game company made a shitty game, flagged TB's negative review of it on bogus copyright charges, and then he responded more or less as he did last time.

 

[Dragontear]

Re: In today's news...

I'm not normally one to be mean, but HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

With that out of my system, this merely solidifies why, exactly, it's so important for people like TB to keep on doing what he does, otherwise we may well have unscrupulous devs attempting to and successfully pulling the wool over our eyes under the guise of victim-hood. I sincerely doubt he'll counter-sue, as far as I'm aware, he hasn't been involved in that many legal shenanigans, as common-sense tends to prevail on his side before it gets too stuffed with legalise.

Also I do feel compelled to yak on about the whole 'companies issuing bogus take-downs on insignificant grounds' but he, and others, have already gone over that issue, especially regarding Youtube's apparent compliance with take-downs regarding 'copyright infringement', imagined or real.

Woof.

 

[ToxicShock]

Re: In today's news...

I didn't read your whole post, tass, cuz I had been aware of the situation, but I never put together that it was the same people who did that awful awful Guise of the Wolf.

 

[XSI]

Re: In today's news...

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This has been going for a while now, so I figured I'd drop an article on it

Following a Swiss binding referendum(Democratic majority vote telling politicians what to do) on mass-immigration being returned as the Swiss wanting it to stop immediately, the EU has been rolling out retaliations and threats and sanctions against the Swiss ever since.

To the rest of Europe, this just shows that the EU is not open to democracy or asking the people what they want, and that they are willing to use threats and retaliation to try to force people to be more in line with their ideals. Many Europeans agree with the Swiss on immediately halting mass immigration, as can be seen with the rise of the extreme-right wing parties all across Europe

 

[Obsidious]

Re: In today's news...

Well first of all the situation in the Swiss can't even be compared to the one of the EU members. The immigrant quota in the Swiss is a whooping 23%, and has been increasing dramatically over the past twenty years. As can be seen in the following diagram by the federal bureau of migration in Bern.

Also the vast majority of these foreigners come from Italy and Germany. Especially Germans go there in order to study and/or practice medicine, because of wages for medical professionals in Germany being the lowest of all OECD countries, and university places scarce. There are similar relations between the EU and Austria.

The referendum in the Swiss is not about stopping immigration btw, it's about regimenting it to a higher degree. Most folks in the Swiss welcome immigrants, as long as they contribute to the economy.

Then there is of course an entirely different matter: People from all over Europe, especially Germany yet again, going there to avoid having to pay taxes.


All in all the matter is a little more complicated than just an ideologic approach on how to formulate the plebiscite. But I have to agree with you on the fact that the increase of right-wing popularity in the EU is something to be concerned about. On the other hand it is only natural, since regarding what the EU commission does and CAN DO in comparison to the EU parliament there is a lot of misinformation being spread by mass news media (example: transatlantic trade and investment partnership, consequences of austerity politics etc.) it should not come as a surprise.

 

[XSI]

Re: In today's news...

The referendum in the Swiss is not about stopping immigration btw, it's about regimenting it to a higher degree. Most folks in the Swiss welcome immigrants, as long as they contribute to the economy.

Well, yeah, it is impossible to stop all immigration, so to 'stop mass immigration' is basically just to impose restrictions on it so only higher level immigration can continue, and the poor people from elsewhere do not come to take advantage of the social security systems.

As for the rest of that, yeah. Pretty much. The far-right parties are a reaction to all the stuff happening that people don't want, most of which originates from the EU.
The whole thing mostly just shows that Europe is not ready for unification, and it is unlikely that it will be within even 100 years from now, and all the things being done are going too fast without paying attention to the consequences and important details(Like the tax evasion you mentioned)

But then they try to push ahead anyway, and get told off by such a referendum, at which point they don't look to their own policies to ask why it happened, but instead they try to change popular opinion.
As example, the article mentions research grants, which is a different part of the EU that is not directly related to the part trying to push for more open borders.

It's always good to encourage people to do their own research on this stuff, since it's complicated

Also, to add some more news, NASA and 3D printed rocket parts

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[Obsidious]

Re: In today's news...

The whole thing mostly just shows that Europe is not ready for unification, and it is unlikely that it will be within even 100 years from now, and all the things being done are going too fast without paying attention to the consequences and important details

The European Union was not originally intended to represent a unification any other than an economic one, and it shows. And even 'economic' is a stretch. The economies in Europe are in parts very different from each other. A common currency is bound to complicate things a lot. BUT if we abolished the Euro now, the resulting revaluations of currencies would resulting in the German and French economies imploding more or less. A solution would be to develop wages according to productivity + target inflation, which hasn't been done in Germany for the past 20 years.

And again, as you rightly said the speed with which such measures are done are of the utmost importance. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, wages in Eastern Germany have increased way too fast, resulting in high unemployment and Western Germany to subsidize them until today.

But there has always been a small elite to have profited from all that, hasn't there.

 

[Hopeyouguess62]

Re: In today's news...

And Kiev has gone crazy once again, with protesters and police clashing. The police have shut down the metro for now, but it looks like

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over there (watch the video to see riot police taking a beating; two livestreams also included).

 

[Chibichibi]

Re: In today's news...

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This afternoon, on a party-line 17-13 vote, Republicans in the Arizona Senate bucked the national trend and gave final approval to SB 1062, a GOP-led bill that would create a special "right" to discriminate against LGBT people on the basis of religion.

Under the bill, which was introduced by Republican State Senator Steve Yarbrough, individuals and businesses would be granted the legal right to refuse services to people or groups if they claimed that doing so would "substantially burden" their freedom of religion.

In interviews with local media, Yarbrough made it perfectly clear that the specific purpose of this bill is to legitimize discrimination against the LGBT community. But during today's nearly two-hour-long debate, Yarbrough took a different tack, claiming that the basic rights of LGBT people victimize anti-LGBT Christians.

"This bill is not about allowing discrimination. This bill is about preventing discrimination against people who are clearly living out their faith."

The language in Yarbrough's bill is so broad that it could also potentially allow individuals and businesses to discriminate against other protected groups, including unmarried women and non-Christians.

So. I'm hosed.

 

[Nunu]

Re: In today's news...

My normal answer would be move to australia... but our politicians are apparently retarded, move to new zealand instead.