[Non-political] News that makes you Laugh/Cry/Both...

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 11:10 am

And more about France. After Paris Attacks, French Cops Want to Block Tor and Forbid Free Wi-Fi.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 4:27 pm

Longes wrote:And more about France. After Paris Attacks, French Cops Want to Block Tor and Forbid Free Wi-Fi.

This is the non-political news thread. I think you wanted the non-U.S. political news thread. But while we're talking about France, National Front kicked ass in the latest regional elections.

Europe looks a little more fucked every day. It's... genuinely horrifying. I knew abstractly that shit was going to get bad when the "austerity, always and forever" camp prevailed in the Greek crisis, but I was expecting it to play out much differently. A far-right nationalist party would sweep a small periphery state, turn it into a fascist hellhole, and then the elites would fucking panic and something would happen - not necessarily something good, but there'd at least be a change in strategy when far-right anti-establishment movements started winning governments. But instead of that, it's 2015 and France's current centre-left leaders are building a police state that far-right nationalists might very plausibly be holding the reins of within the next decade.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 4:37 pm

They are, somehwat, trying to counter it at least, if i understood it corectly . .
one of the centre/left parties in france that's smaller than the national front has decided to not have their own candidates for the next election and rather work together with a left/centre party that's bigger than the national front so the left/centre front is closed against the right.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 5:14 pm

DSMatticus wrote: But instead of that, it's 2015 and France's current centre-left leaders are building a police state that far-right nationalists might very plausibly be holding the reins of within the next decade.

Well, unless the centre-left leaders ban opposing political parties and candidates. That is where abuse of emergency powers goes, after all.

Not that it's a particularly better outcome that way.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 5:45 pm

wonder what a centre/leftist police state would look like . .
probably like something straigh out of jeremy clarksons nightmares.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 6:01 pm

I'm guessing basically take any description of any police state ever and do a find-replace on the identities of political opponents. They'll just accuse people they don't like of hate speech instead of being Jewish/Communist/Capitalist. They've already used emergency powers activated in response to an Islamic terror attack to arrest climate protesters, so it's not like they haven't already set a precedent of arresting people for disagreeing with them rather than being associated with a group that they're using as a justification for being allowed to arrest people indiscriminately.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 6:34 pm

Why are we, and apparently the far left in France, pretending that the party built on oppressing Muslims and Silencing Climate Change Protesters is a centre left party?

I mean, yeah they haven't specifically told the poor white people to go die in a ditch yet... but like, if the Democrats tomorrow revealed their new plan going forward as "We would like to oppress black people and disband all unions" would we still call them a center-left party?

EDIT: Nevermind, I just realized I was describing FDR/Truman, so I guess we would still consider them center-left.

Occluded Sun · Post by **Occluded Sun** » Mon Dec 07, 2015 11:01 pm

Stahlseele wrote:wonder what a centre/leftist police state would look like ..

There were examples. They were called the USSR, the Khmer Rouge, the People's Republic.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Tue Dec 08, 2015 5:25 pm

Occluded Sun wrote:
Stahlseele wrote:wonder what a centre/leftist police state would look like ..
There were examples. They were called the USSR, the Khmer Rouge, the People's Republic.

Lacking from your examples: centre.

Occluded Sun · Post by **Occluded Sun** » Tue Dec 08, 2015 9:06 pm

nockermensch wrote:Lacking from your examples: centre.

That's a societally-relative category, even presuming that we're willing to force things into the left-right pigeonhole in the first place.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Wed Dec 09, 2015 4:50 pm

Everything repeats itself.
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/consume ... ck-n373611

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Wed Dec 09, 2015 4:51 pm

Holy shit, Coke brought Surge back?!

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Wed Dec 09, 2015 5:59 pm

Whipstitch wrote:The history of religion can easily be summarized as a bunch of assholes yelling "No true Scotsman would ever..." at one another.

You called it

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Wed Dec 09, 2015 10:39 pm

Shrapnel wrote:Holy shit, Coke brought Surge back?!

SurgeRunner

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Fri Dec 11, 2015 11:52 pm

Don't do pranks, kids

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat Dec 12, 2015 4:22 pm

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/this-m ... -the-earth

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sun Dec 13, 2015 11:56 pm

http://mradilbert.tumblr.com/

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Mon Dec 14, 2015 2:13 am

Ancient History wrote:http://mradilbert.tumblr.com/

Wait, Adams is an MRA? Shit.

This is why I maintain you should never meet or even learn about your favorite authors/artists/etc.. You only end up disappointed.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Dec 14, 2015 2:17 am

I'm pretty sure it's a parody of Dilbert, akin to Garfield Minus Garfield, albeit based on Adams' mysogynistic views. I don't think he's expressly an MRA, just a blatant mysogynistic asshole.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Mon Dec 14, 2015 2:19 am

Ah. Well, he's still a jerk, which still makes me not want to learn too much about authors I like.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Dec 14, 2015 2:41 am

Pretty much. I'm lucky that I stopped finding Dilbert particularly funny a good five years before his stupid views were becoming apparent.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Mon Dec 14, 2015 3:01 am

It's Dilbert using quotes from Adam's blog. I'm not sure which of the bewildering array of acronyms for misogynistic assholes he can be most closely associated with.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Dec 14, 2015 3:31 am

Knowing it's lines from his blog makes it even better

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Dec 14, 2015 3:36 am

Was wondering how they had so many quotes of him saying monstrous things, given that I couldn't see any reason anyone would want to interview him, but I guess blog makes sense.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Mon Dec 14, 2015 3:50 am

It's hard to find the quotes though. Scott Adams deleted the blog post they came from after people called him out on it. Someone saved the article and put it on their blog, but eventually deleted it as well. Fortunately the Wayback Machine has us covered!

Adams' reasoning for deleting his article, listed in a comments section of an article on his post.