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

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Apr 18, 2016 8:51 pm

Okay, so this is olds rather than news, but it gave me a chuckle: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... heads.html

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Apr 18, 2016 8:55 pm

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016 ... -marijuana

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Apr 18, 2016 9:06 pm

@Hat
I can't help but think that ze german Pickelhaube would have done a better job at that O.o

Eikre · Post by **Eikre** » Tue Apr 19, 2016 2:33 am

I can't help think that ze Pickelhaube constitutes prior art.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Tue Apr 19, 2016 2:36 am

I like how you can only recall the Oz senate for stuff like urgently maintaining the rule of law and such.

So they said their bullshit little union-bash was "maintaining the rule of law in the workplace". Because the new law wouldn't be maintained unless it was passed.

It's just so pathetic. People hate early elections, what were they thinking? It's like the shit Labour there went through a couple years back with changing leaders in the run up to an election. Obviously that just makes you lose worse like it always does.

I guess the mindset is "we're going to lose, we have to do something!"

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue Apr 19, 2016 3:54 am

tussock wrote:It's just so pathetic. People hate early elections, what were they thinking?

They were thinking "people will be hating us WORSE than they hate early elections by the time of the next regular election".

I mean remember, they have to try and get their shambles unscathed through another god damn crazy ass budget before then. Something, I think it is worth noting, this government in it's various forms under various leaders, has yet to successfully achieve.

But anyway. As to the labor party attacking the greens. Rather miraculously this magical senate recall has seen unusual unity between labor and greens and unusually favourable reporting of that unity. Well. Sort of. The Greens did the same thing they usually did and openly supported Unions (something labor does not always do), and some tiny piece of the media noticed that and reported it as "Greens trying to make up with unions after angering them with senate voting reform!". Only the Greens didn't anger the unions with senate voting reform that had nothing to do with them and it was business as usual for the Greens, but whatever at least the media didn't do what they usually do and spin that somehow into "Crazy Greens Attack Unions, Unicorns and Motherhood!".

Labor for it's part actually attacked the conservative party and in an unprecedented (temporary) display of spine even attacked the governor general for this whole "fake urgent senate recall" shenanigans thing. But then Bill "Back Down" Shortnen backed down on the attack on the GGs obvious party political complicity and reprimanded the rather obviously and carefully pres elected fall guy who made the populist base pleasing attack on the GG.

Still. Better politics than labor usually manages. If they can keep up at least that level of performance and the conservatives manage to keep up at least hand shake snub levels of dumbfuckery labor is in with a tiny chance of victory.

Even if they do win though, odds are it will be a very close Gillard style "totally not really a coalition with the fucking Greens who WILL support us forming government and we need them but fuck if we will admit it or treat them as an actual coalition partner".

Schleiermacher · Post by **Schleiermacher** » Mon May 09, 2016 7:38 pm

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ebt-relief

Deja vu all over again?

Edit: Actually, there seems to be good news, or at least the potential for such -the wind is turning and it looks like people might be starting to listen to the IMF that the demands levied on Greece are counterproductive and that debt relief is the only sane solution.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Mon May 09, 2016 10:45 pm

Sadly, you are forgetting that the IMF is, like the EU, some mix of incompetent and evil. The IMF's demands are not intended to create a plan which will lead to a Greek recovery. The IMF's demands are intended to keep payments flowing from Greece to Greece's creditors, and they believe that despite the amount of human devastation it would inflict Greece could sustainably make payments on the IMF plan, and therefore in the long-run bullying them into adhering to that plan for as long as possible is just a better way to get money out of them than this rolling bailout bullshit where we give them money and they immediately give it back to us and then we meet again twice a year to do the same thing.

Greece is in no position to run 1.5% of GDP budget surplus, and even if they did so and got the haircut down to 120% debt-GDP that the IMF is insisting on they would be paying off that debt for generations. Meanwhile in reality land they still have 25% unemployment and fully one-fourth of their potential workforce isn't actually fucking working and is instead being supported by the three-fourths who are - i.e. their family, charity, or tax-funded government programs. You cannot realistically run a surplus in that situation. There simply isn't enough fucking money.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Mon May 09, 2016 11:17 pm

They could probably sell Macedonia to the Republic of Macedonia. That would bring in some money and settle the naming dispute. I mean, if I was in charge of Greece I'd just start auctioning off territory to pay off the debt.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Tue May 10, 2016 5:06 am

If I were Greece I'd have told the IMF to go to hell. There can and should be no more negotiation with those monsters.

An easy statement for a man in the UK to make, but if there's a single thing that defaulting will do that's worse than what the troika already demand I've not heard of it.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue May 10, 2016 6:52 am

The IMF isn't even the bad cop in the Troika. The European Commission and the European Central Bank are way worse actors. And sadly, those assholes have a lot of leverage over Greece. What with the fact that Greece has surrendered its sovereign control of its currency to the ECB and more than half of its trade is regulated by the EC.

-Username17

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Tue May 10, 2016 8:37 am

I think they actually are the bad cop, and this is just a story about the bad, the ugly, and the badly ugly.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Tue May 10, 2016 8:39 am

Omegonthesane wrote:If I were Greece I'd have told the IMF to go to hell. There can and should be no more negotiation with those monsters.

An easy statement for a man in the UK to make, but if there's a single thing that defaulting will do that's worse than what the troika already demand I've not heard of it.

Indeed pretty easy for someone in the UK to say, since last time Greece said there would be no more negotiating with Germany, things got much uglier than they are now.

Call of ECB/EC: Economic Warfare is not pretty, but still a lot better than bullets and bombs warfare.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue May 10, 2016 8:58 am

maglag wrote:Call of ECB/EC: Economic Warfare is not pretty, but still a lot better than bullets and bombs warfare.

Of course, that gets bad for everyone in general, not just the Greek people. So possibly they should just tell Merkel "We intend on getting out of crippling debt the same way your country did back in the '40s. I'm a bit foggy on the details, so I'll go check Wikipedia and get some ideas together, and in the meantime you might want to talk to the rest about fucking off."

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue May 10, 2016 9:04 am

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/m ... g-industry

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Tue May 10, 2016 1:15 pm

Ancient History wrote:http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/m ... g-industry

I thought that was just something the writers of Gattaca made up. Holy cow!

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue May 10, 2016 2:03 pm

not only in india.
South east asia as well.

Eikre · Post by **Eikre** » Tue May 10, 2016 2:51 pm

hyzmarca wrote:They could probably sell Macedonia to the Republic of Macedonia. That would bring in some money and settle the naming dispute. I mean, if I was in charge of Greece I'd just start auctioning off territory to pay off the debt.

That makes you a malleable fuck that would play the willing rube and enable the evilest conspiracy-theory style outcomes to the fullest possible degree. Please, go on, I'm interested in your other policies. On a scale of "pogrom" to "final solution," what's your stance on the Jews?

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Tue May 10, 2016 3:54 pm

Eikre wrote:
hyzmarca wrote:They could probably sell Macedonia to the Republic of Macedonia. That would bring in some money and settle the naming dispute. I mean, if I was in charge of Greece I'd just start auctioning off territory to pay off the debt.
That makes you a malleable fuck that would play the willing rube and enable the evilest conspiracy-theory style outcomes to the fullest possible degree. Please, go on, I'm interested in your other policies. On a scale of "pogrom" to "final solution," what's your stance on the Jews?

Would invade Persia as revenge for Thermopylae. Don't care about the Juice. They're not a problem. It's the Persians that are invading our country and killing our Spartans.

Institute mandatory homosexuality in military. All military units will be made of pairs of lovers, Sacred Band style, for better cohesion.

Cancel all future elections. Dissolve legislature. Declare myself Emperor. Eliminate capitalism, switch to full command economy, develop nuclear weapons.

Eventually invade Macedonia, reclaiming the land that was sold and annexing the whole republic.

Eikre · Post by **Eikre** » Tue May 10, 2016 4:50 pm

Hmm. I take it back, that is a solid and methodical platform. You have my vote.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Wed May 11, 2016 2:18 am

A guy was arrested for posting a video of his girlfriend's dog trying to do a Nazi salute.

http://news.sky.com/story/1693135/man-a ... -pug-video

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Wed May 11, 2016 4:31 am

Hate crime charges? How does that apply to a pug doing a salute?

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Wed May 11, 2016 5:04 am

In parts of Europe, it is an actual crime to #triggered people.

Or more seriously, there are laws against discriminatory speech, and the laws make no (or very weak) distinctions between promotion and parody. So the laws intended to prosecute people for standing up and calling for the mass execution of Jews can also be used to prosecute people for posting videos online about teaching an ugly-cute dog to do something inappropriate because it's mildly hilarious. Generally speaking, sanity prevails, but...

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed May 11, 2016 5:23 am

Scotland also has Blasphemy laws. So for example, you could totally be arrested for saying "Hey, God doesn't exist." I mean, you probably won't be, just like you probably won't be arrested for being a white person who smokes pot in your house in Colorado, but you are technically violating the law, and could totally be arrested at any time if say, you get popular, and some asshole with a hate boner for you is high up the food chain of people who make the decision to prosecute.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Wed May 11, 2016 11:13 pm

Illegal fake Jellyfish is a big business in China.

http://shanghaiist.com/2016/05/11/fake_jellyfish.php

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-36253779

Unfortunaly, the fake jellyfish are made using dangerous amounts of aluminum and can cause a wide variety of illnesses, including brain damage.