[Non-US] News That Makes You laugh/cry/neither...

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Tue Feb 23, 2016 9:15 am

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/f ... er-flights

Goddamit

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Tue Feb 23, 2016 10:08 am

Longes wrote:http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/f ... er-flights

Goddamit

It's a cargo ban. Unless you are in the business of manufacturing, distributing, or selling lithium-ion batteries and just had your supply chain mildly disturbed, it's not going to affect you at all.

The ban is intended to address concerns of lithium-ion batteries in the cargo hold of passenger planes overheating and causing a catastrophic chain detonation, something that has nearly happened a couple times before. We're talking about cargo pallets stuffed with the things. You don't even own enough lithium-ion batteries to even begin to fill such a thing, so your personal belongings are just not a concern and won't be subjected to any extra checks or restrictions.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Wed Mar 09, 2016 7:50 pm

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/m ... -1m-people

So, apparently, dams that hold back billions of tons of water and were build on porous foundations will collapse if they aren't properly maintained.

It's pretty much inevitable at this point that hundreds of thousands of people will die, possibly a million. It's just a matter of time before it breaks.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Wed Mar 09, 2016 8:06 pm

Yeah, but that's not news.
That's been in the news over half a year or so ago i think?

In other, far more eastern . . or maybe, from the US side, western News:
NSFW PAGE
https://www.sankakucomplex.com/2016/03/ ... reaks-out/

The Yamaguchi-gumi yakuza crime syndicate have apparently been consumed in an “all-out war” with its breakaway Kobe faction, causing police to recognise the first major gang war in 30 years.

This apparent “war” was declared by police who have documented 49 criminal cases involving the two groups since September of last year (the breakaway gang was formed in August), with the most recent incidents being the most deadly and gruesome yet.

Thankfully Japanese police have responded to the situation (a rarity) and have formed a headquarters to deal with the Yakuza conflicts, additionally ordering the prefectural and metropolitan police departments to follow suit – although naturally they have not actually arrested the yakuza leaders in their swanky corporate headquarters.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Wed Mar 09, 2016 8:22 pm

Why are you using sankaku as anything else but a porn repository?

The actual article: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_new ... 1603080048

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 12:28 am

Eh, i use it for general entertainment purposes, not for Porn.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 1:53 am

Mask_De_H wrote:Why are you using sankaku as anything else but a porn repository?

The actual article: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_new ... 1603080048

I use the rating:s tag in the gallery to find inspiration for roleplaying characters.

phlapjackage · Post by **phlapjackage** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 2:16 am

So I was talking to a guy from New Zealand the other day, and he mentioned Jeremy Corbyn (?) as the British equivalent of Bernie Sanders. I'd never heard of him, and so the NZ guy gave me shit about being a "typical American who doesn't know about world news".

Anywho, can people give me a rundown on this Jeremy Corbyn guy? I did some research online but I'm not sure I'm getting an accurate picture. And to be fair to the NZ guy, I am pretty ignorant of world politics...

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 2:36 am

phlapjackage wrote:So I was talking to a guy from New Zealand the other day, and he mentioned Jeremy Corbyn (?) as the British equivalent of Bernie Sanders. I'd never heard of him, and so the NZ guy gave me shit about being a "typical American who doesn't know about world news".

Anywho, can people give me a rundown on this Jeremy Corbyn guy? I did some research online but I'm not sure I'm getting an accurate picture. And to be fair to the NZ guy, I am pretty ignorant of world politics...

Tell him to fuck right off.

Like, your typical american is probably ignorant of world politics, but not being ignorant probably doesn't require knowing anything at all about the head of minority parties in other countries. Now don't get me wrong, I would love it if Jeremy Corbyn was Prime Minister, because that would mean the UK wasn't run by the shit party, but the only argument he can have for me needing to know the name of Jeremy Corbyn to not be ignorant involves a recitation of Sigmar Gabriel and his importance and whomever the fuck would be equivalent for France (I can't even tell, they have like 12 parties, I don't know who counts as leader in opposition at all).

I'm guessing New Zealand Fuck doesn't know fuck all about those, and he only knows UK.

But as for Corbyn, I mean sure, not that I'm an expert, but he's apparently a new left and he's now head of the party, but you know, he's not actually in charge, and he only became head of the party in 2015 right when the party lost to the fucking Conservatives.

phlapjackage · Post by **phlapjackage** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 3:16 am

Thanks, yeah, I did say something similar to him (in more polite/passive terms), but I was left with a feeling that I should fill in the gaps somewhat.

According to the discussion I had, it sounded like Corbyn might be in a position to become Prime Minister in 3 years or so? Wonder if British people are excited/scared/apathetic/etc about the prospect. Stop the destruction of the NHS and all that. Or is Corbyn a non-entity that most British people don't care about, and the NZ guy overstated his case?

As for Sigmar Gabriel, maybe the French equivalent is someone like Jean-Christophe Cambadélis...

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 3:23 am

phlapjackage wrote:According to the discussion I had, it sounded like Corbyn might be in a position to become Prime Minister in 3 years or so? Wonder if British people are excited/scared/apathetic/etc about the prospect. Stop the destruction of the NHS and all that. Or is Corbyn a non-entity that most British people don't care about, and the NZ guy overstated his case?

Well, I suspect that most British people don't want him to become Prime Minister based on the fact that most British people voted for the Conservatives. But I mean, sure as the head of Labour he's ideally situated to be Prime Minister whenever UK realizes that the Conservatives are destroying the country, allthough, your guess is as good as mine (and as good as your friends) when that will be.

Roog · Post by **Roog** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 5:24 am

Kaelik wrote:I'm guessing New Zealand Fuck doesn't know fuck all about those, and he only knows UK.

Articles equivalenting have been showing up in the papers here for the last year or more. So I wouldn't be suppressed to hear a NZer spout that opinion.

phlapjackage · Post by **phlapjackage** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 6:20 am

Kaelik wrote:Well, I suspect that most British people don't want him to become Prime Minister based on the fact that most British people voted for the Conservatives. But I mean, sure as the head of Labour he's ideally situated to be Prime Minister whenever UK realizes that the Conservatives are destroying the country, allthough, your guess is as good as mine (and as good as your friends) when that will be.

Damn good point.

Roog wrote:Articles equivalenting have been showing up in the papers here for the last year or more. So I wouldn't be suppressed to hear a NZer spout that opinion.

Hmmm, this could explain the fervor the guy had for the topic....

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 8:18 am

Oooh! Is this where we talk about how bullshit UK politics are? Yes it is!

The United Kingdom is the oldest country on Earth, and it has a political system that makes the US look sane and evolved. That is because the US literally has the British system with a few improvements to make things less bullshit. Yes. Really.

The party in charge are the Tories, who surprised everyone in the last election by getting a majority in parliament while getting less than 37 percent of the vote. This result defied the pre-election predictions of pollsters. Was it massive electoral fraud? A failure of the messaging of the main opposition party? The electorate's general resentment of Scottish people? People fucking up their tactical voting while trying to get rid of the last government that was a coalition that the Tories were leading? No one knows!

And no one is going to know, because no one conducts 538 style polls to try to figure out how elections are going to break down by the metrics that actually matter, which is district based. See the UK has first past the post elections, but there are 660 seats for a country with a population of 64 million. The country is divided up into districts with an average population of less than a hundred thousand people. There are 16 political parties that have held a seat at some point that also contested the last election, and 11 of those have seats now. So like in the US, your vote doesn't count unless it's for one of the two big parties. But it's the two biggest parties IN YOUR DISTRICT, and no one bothers to do district by district polls to figure out which those are for your area. You just have to fucking guess. Note that actual British people cannot name all the parties that are going to get seats, and less than one in five can tell you how to pronounce the name of Plaid Cymru (who won in 3 districts).

So the Ulster Unionist Party gets about zero percent of the vote, and they have 2 seats in parliament. This is because they could get a seat in multiply contested South Antrim with less than 12 thousand votes and a seat in tiny Fermanagh with 23 thousand votes. Meanwhile, UKIP got over 3.8 Million votes and have only 1 seat, and that one belongs to a Tory who changed sides. Because you get absolutely nothing for coming in second, third, or fourth in contests all over the country.

And of course, the Tories have a majority in parliament with 36.9 percent of the vote because getting a plurality in a majority of seats makes them the winner. Donald Trump would be proud.

Anyway, the secound biggest party is Labour, and their voters were pissed that the last election went so badly for them. And enough of them blamed the party's weak tea campaign of claiming the previous coalition government was doing "too much" kicking of the poor rather than arguing for an end to austerity bullshit that they voted in a new party leader who is a 1980s style hippie radical type.

So in the grand scheme of things, Corbyn is like about as important as Debbie Wasserman Schultz to a much smaller country.

-Username17

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 8:22 am

Only like 24% of the people eligible to vote voted Tory. [EDIT: 37% of those who actually voted, as Frank says.]

This was enough, because in order to take control in the UK, your party needs to win a FPTP election in more than 50% of constituencies, so that more than 50% of the Members of Parliament are on their side.

The Labour party went into May 2015 led by Ed Miliband, a forgettable man with an incoherent agenda unwilling to directly challenge Tory lies instead of quibbling about how much destruction of the country was acceptable. Then he stepped down. Then Jeremy Corbyn took part in the leadership election hoping to drag the actual winner left, and it turned out that unlike the traitor Blairites who Blair had forcibly staffed Labour's parliamentary wing with, the actual party still remembered what it meant to be left wing.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 2:49 pm

Maj wrote:
Mask_De_H wrote:Why are you using sankaku as anything else but a porn repository?

The actual article: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_new ... 1603080048
I use the rating:s tag in the gallery to find inspiration for roleplaying characters.

You can use safebooru for that.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat Mar 12, 2016 1:41 am

http://www.thestreet.com/story/13489574 ... sages.html

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:19 am

nockermensch wrote:
Maj wrote:
Mask_De_H wrote:Why are you using sankaku as anything else but a porn repository?

The actual article: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_new ... 1603080048
I use the rating:s tag in the gallery to find inspiration for roleplaying characters.
You can use safebooru for that.

Ooh. Thanks. I also use Zerochan.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:35 am

Maj wrote:
nockermensch wrote:
Maj wrote:
I use the rating:s tag in the gallery to find inspiration for roleplaying characters.
You can use safebooru for that.
Ooh. Thanks. I also use Zerochan.

I've gotten some decent results from hunting through this list of boorus here. A booru for whatever ails you.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sat Mar 12, 2016 3:41 am

That will be good to know about if I ever search them for anything that isn't some form of porn.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sun Mar 13, 2016 9:19 pm

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2016 ... t-have-to/

phlapjackage · Post by **phlapjackage** » Mon Mar 14, 2016 2:47 am

@nockermensch, how are things going in Brazil?

https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comm ... sident_to/

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Mon Mar 14, 2016 3:01 am

Corbyn is the great left-wing (commonwealth nations) hope that the left is not dead.

That the right-wing "third way" people who took over the main left-wing parties in the 1980's may in fact have run their time and be due to exit the political landscape.

Corbyn won his election to the head of the Labour party in the UK by visiting town halls and making speeches non-stop for a year. Corporate media simply will not give air time to actual left wing policy platforms so he had to do it the old fashioned way. And it worked. Despite the bleating of the rich about the end times and instant economic collapse should he be elected leader.

But I think people forget that back when the left was really left, they did almost never win any elections, except when the right wing parties got too full of old people who refused to do anything about new problems on the grounds that it was uphill both ways in the snow when they were young and people should be happy.

So one can't really expect Corbyn to win a general election for the party, but he may shift ye olde Overton window somewhat to the left on issues of giving a fuck about people who aren't bankers simply by virtue of being the leader of the opposition and being allowed to participate in televised debates around election times.

More like Sanders in the US, in his effect on the country. Only Britain doesn't matter in the slightest, or perhaps matters rather a lot compared to New Zealand, except in how NZ quietly manages to fuck over all the climate conferences for the last ten years. Ignore us, we're just scamming the CO2 credit markets.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Mar 14, 2016 7:31 am

phlapjackage wrote:@nockermensch, how are things going in Brazil?

Seconding the request for this. Very interested in an informed perspective on what's going on over there.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Mon Mar 14, 2016 7:45 am

My understanding of Brazil is that basically everything and everyone is deeply corrupt. Every major party, every major corporation but particularly those that get government contracts (... par for the course there, I guess), every major media outlet, etc, etc. So it's very easy to point at the other guys and scream scandal and demand your turn to put your hand in the cookie jar. There's also a fairly horrible recession going on that I don't entirely understand. Demand for Brazilian exports is down (because the world is fucking broke) and investment in emerging markets is down (because they are some of the most fucked by the world being fucking broke, and despite its size Brazil is still basically one of those). I'm sure there are some very specific policy issues I'm simply not particularly well-informed about, but despite my best efforts to read up on it hell if I know.