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

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Tue Mar 03, 2015 11:18 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:So. How come despite similar immigration rates to the U.S. European countries don't have the same 'waaaugh, H1-B visas or whatever the fuck are replacing all of our engineer-type people with low-paid brown people' problems?

In countries where it's at all possible for a party outside the top two to get started and have some power, the nutcase racists have done so. I think the difference with the US is that this often takes manpower away from trying to take over one of the big parties; imagine if the tea party had 5-10% of the seats in Congress rather than dominating the party with ~50%.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Fri Mar 06, 2015 4:58 am

Why is it that in a country beset by endless stupid horrific inhuman decisions by governments at all levels...

... Australia's decision* to send fucking Guy Sebastian to Eurovision is somehow both surprising and depressing.

Even though I don't especially care about Euro-vision.

Or even entirely understand why it is we suddenly get to send an entry.

Whatever, it's not like they will be inviting us back after we send worthless dreck like him.

*not actually a decision made by "Australia" in any reasonable sense

edit: PS, I even found myself checking how close we were to April 1st. Fucking hell SBS, really, Guy Fucking Sebastian???

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Fri Mar 06, 2015 5:02 am

Sane countries send fuck-ups to Eurovision, so as not to be hosts for the next event. Maybe that's what's at play here?

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Fri Mar 06, 2015 5:15 am

MisterDee wrote:Sane countries send fuck-ups to Eurovision, so as not to be hosts for the next event. Maybe that's what's at play here?

The group that made the decision is SBS. SBS is a partially commercial TV channel.

Having what I'm pretty sure are exclusive rights to broadcast the Eurovision song contest, live I think, in Australia is just short of the one high rating thing the crumbling broadcaster has left.

For them Australia hosting Eurovision would be an improbably huge ratings bonanza.

Though frankly I don't see why they would be worried about Australia winning Eurovision, we could send ABBA fronted by the resurrected ghosts of Freddy Mercury and Micheal Jackson and they wouldn't win. We're fucking Australia everyone knows we don't even belong in the contest.

Sending Guy Sebastion is just reminding them of that.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Fri Mar 06, 2015 2:56 pm

PhoneLobster wrote:Why is it that in a country beset by endless stupid horrific inhuman decisions by governments at all levels...

... Australia's decision* to send fucking Guy Sebastian to Eurovision is somehow both surprising and depressing.

>Australia
>Eurovision
Man, and here I thought Australia = Austria jokes were too old already.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Mar 06, 2015 3:15 pm

I assumed it was "Their PM is English, they have the Queen on their money, they're so British Empire they out-British fucking England". But no, it's just because we've been loyally airing Eurovision* for the last seven hundred years or however long. They pretty much extended it as a special "Thanks for being such a great fan" award, in the usual Euro way of classifying things based on whatever seems like a good idea at the time.

I mean, we're on the "You don't need a visa to travel here for up to 3 months" list for the Schengen Area, and that list is basically for countries in the European Economic Area. Go on, have a look at that area, then see where Australia is. I'll wait. Anyway, it's not that odd for the EU to make weird exceptions in general (carrot jam), and specifically for us.

*Without much fanfare, mind you

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Mar 06, 2015 4:18 pm

Germanys chosen one actually declined and had the 2nd one sent.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 5:05 am

So how are Netanyahu's election prospects looking? I hear that he's surprisingly weak going into this electoral cycle, which makes me happy.

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 4:55 pm

According to my local news source (which probably just parrots AP stuff on the matter, but AP is generally accurate for that kind of stuff), Likud may very well lose by a few seats to the labour party. I imagine that this means they'd lose enough not to have an effective majority by allying with other parties as well, as I'm pretty sure local news don't want to explain the intricacies of coalitions in their articles.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 7:15 pm

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/12/world ... rlife.html

icyshadowlord · Post by **icyshadowlord** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 7:25 pm

Terry Pratchett died today...

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 7:42 pm

Ancient History wrote:http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/12/world ... rlife.html

From the article wrote:Chinese Communist Party leaders are afraid that the Dalai Lama will not have an afterlife. Worried enough that this week, officials repeatedly warned that he must reincarnate, and on their terms.

Tensions over what will happen when the 14th Dalai Lama, who is 79, dies, and particularly over who decides who will succeed him as the most prominent leader in Tibetan Buddhism, have ignited at the annual gathering of China’s legislators in Beijing.

Officials have amplified their argument that the Communist government is the proper guardian of the Dalai Lama’s succession through an intricate process of reincarnation that has involved lamas, or senior monks, visiting a sacred lake and divining dreams.

Party functionaries were incensed by the exiled Dalai Lama’s recent speculation that he might end his spiritual lineage and not reincarnate. That would confound the Chinese government’s plans to engineer a succession that would produce a putative 15th Dalai Lama who accepts China’s presence and policies in Tibet. Their anger welled up on Wednesday, as it had a day earlier.

Zhu Weiqun, a Communist Party official who has long dealt with Tibetan issues, told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday that the Dalai Lama had, essentially, no say over whether he was reincarnated. That was ultimately for the Chinese government to decide, he said, according to a transcript of his comments on the website of People’s Daily, the party’s main newspaper.

That's really weird and funny. Especially the part about how "the Dalai Lama had, essentially, no say over whether he was reincarnated. That was ultimately for the Chinese government to decide", which is at least nominally supposed to be atheist.

It's a matter of control and succession, sure, so it makes sense that DL#14 would piss them off saying there won't be a #15, but the fact that the argument has been pulled into debates over magical, religious weeaboo is what makes it so humorous.

Occluded Sun · Post by **Occluded Sun** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 9:19 pm

Wrong thread, never mind.

As an aside, how do Australians feel about being legally obligated to vote?

Blasted · Post by **Blasted** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 12:55 am

Occluded Sun wrote: As an aside, how do Australians feel about being legally obligated to vote?

Love it, because it means that the populace at large cares more about politics than they otherwise would. Doesn't stop complete turkeys like Abbott being elected, but it means that parties can't go into elections with crazy policies. They have to announce them afterward.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 1:38 am

Occluded Sun wrote:As an aside, how do Australians feel about being legally obligated to vote?

Best way to put it...

If you ran a referendum to change to non-compulsory voting* it would most likely fail. Probably fail pretty hard.

Certainly enough so that certain conservatives who think it will help them electorally would never put it to a referendum if they take a shot at removing compulsory voting.

*It's not really compulsory voting, you just have to turn up to the polling booths and get your name marked off, you don't HAVE to cast a valid vote. And in some elections non votes do, sort of, even count as a vote of no confidence in all candidates.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 6:46 pm

There's a rumor going around the webs that Putin has died. It seems like that's a question that should be very easy to resolve, but apparently not?

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 7:12 pm

Those rumors crop up whenever the leader of a nation with control over the media stops making the sort of public appearances where people could reliably distinguish them from an imposter. Mostly because if they died their subordinates totally could pretend they're still alive for a while.

Presumably he didn't quickly dispel them for the same reason he wasn't making public appearances to begin with. Probably health problems.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 8:30 pm

name_here wrote:Those rumors crop up whenever the leader of a nation with control over the media stops making the sort of public appearances where people could reliably distinguish them from an imposter. Mostly because if they died their subordinates totally could pretend they're still alive for a while.

Presumably he didn't quickly dispel them for the same reason he wasn't making public appearances to begin with. Probably health problems.

Russian state media aren't making any fuss, and talk about meetings Putin had as in the "business as usual" mode.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 9:02 pm

Putin was supposed to go to Kazakhstan and meet with the leaders of Belarus and Kazakhstan there. Instead of doing that, he canceled at the the last minute and made no public appearances. Rumors that he had health problems circulated, and the Kremlin attempted to quash them by releasing undated still photos of Putin meeting with the head of the Russian Supreme Court that were supposedly taken today.

This naturally just feeds speculation. If Putin was doing fine and wanted people to believe that, why not show up in a photograph with a datable object in it? Or get on some video and say something topical? Clearly either Putin didn't care or was physically incapable of producing actually convincing evidence that he was physically capable.

And as name here pointed out, this kind of thing happens all the time when a government wields great control over the media. The fact that the Russian media isn't treating this like a thing means absolutely nothing because they are known to be compromised. Since Russian media can be counted on to remain willfully ignorant of any and all evidence that the great leader's steady hand is not guiding the country, everyone else is forced to speculate that the country's glorious patriarch is having health problems every time he isn't being shown swinging his dick around in front of today's newspaper.

It's like North Korea. Only less so, because Russia is in no way as crazy as North Korea.

-Username17

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Sat Mar 14, 2015 5:59 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:So how are Netanyahu's election prospects looking? I hear that he's surprisingly weak going into this electoral cycle, which makes me happy.

I've read (not an expert) that while Likud may not do so well the coalition prospects are better on the right. Something about the religious parties being unpopular with centre & left parties.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Mon Mar 16, 2015 4:47 pm

Well, Putin has returned, with a conspicuous lack of explanation for his absence. Also, he's ordered military exercises, which could be completely routine, but which the speculators are trying to work into their various narratives.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 5:19 am

Likud did well, improved their vote from last time, all they had to do was promise more war on Palestine. Turns out Israelis don't give a shit about Iran, but still really hate their immediate neighbours, the ones in the giant prison they like to drop bombs on.

Reads like everyone tried to be extra racist in the last couple days, and the left wing voters kinda just stayed home in disgust. I wonder if they'll have an exodus?

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Wed Mar 18, 2015 10:28 am

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Well, Putin has returned, with a conspicuous lack of explanation for his absence. Also, he's ordered military exercises, which could be completely routine, but which the speculators are trying to work into their various narratives.

The anarchist twitter community thinks his girlfriend gave birth, and military exercises are just regular posturing because why not.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Thu Mar 19, 2015 9:34 am

Vandals graffitied "Kant is a moron" on [the successor of] Kant's house

Not for the first time, vandals are wreaking havoc in central Europe. Russian police say they're looking for the intellectually minded miscreants who graffitied "Kant is a moron"—along with a flower and heart—on the philosopher's home outside Kaliningrad.

With Arthur Schopenhauer dead for 155 years, however, authorities start off with few strong leads. They say no reason, pure or otherwise, was given for the crime.