I wonder who’ll be next week’s Prime Minister?
Politics and Current Affairs
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Someone has been very, very stupid. That isn’t going to fly.
If the aim was to create a republic, it’s a good start.
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Looking at the reasons why this was done, I kind of get the idea:
This “homage of the people” replaces the traditional “homage of peers” where hereditary peers swear allegiance to the new monarch. Instead everyone in the Abbey and watching at home will be invited to pay homage in what Lambeth Palace described as a “chorus of millions”.
So, you know, it’s an attempt to democratise the monarchy, comparatively. And while I personally think it’s a fucking scary idea to have millions of people pledging unquestioning allegiance to their leader in this kind of ritual – well, I guess, it’s what monarchy is all about, after all.
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As the government runs our country into the ground and working people struggle to find the means to heat their houses and feed their families, I look forward to us all pledging allegiance to the pampered millionaire who’s getting a new gold hat.
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Billionaire, peasant, billionaire.
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I don’t think his personal wealth actually extends that far, but certainly if you include all the assets he now oversees as king then it’s up into the billions.
Either way, it’s a fuck of a lot more money than most people will see in their entire lives.
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If only there was anything one could do about having kings.
Oh what’s that here? A portrait of King Charles I?
Just saying, it’s the same name and everything. You guys have options.
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Montana: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/transgender-lawmaker-faces-expulsion-montana-house-republicans/story?id=98871630 This might go under the radar, (like the fact that more states under the GOP are banning books), but it reminds me of that writing “First they came for…”. It is very subtle.
And now they are fighting back:
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Just saying, it’s the same name and everything. You guys have options.
Don’t worry, the Metropolitan Police have just issued a statement saying they will have a low tolerance for any beheadings at the coronation.
Rapes and racist assaults by police officers, they’re all fine. But no beheadings, please.
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Just saying, it’s the same name and everything. You guys have options.
Don’t worry, the Metropolitan Police have just issued a statement saying they will have a low tolerance for any beheadings at the coronation.
Rapes and racist assaults by police officers, they’re all fine. But no beheadings, please.
Can you rape the severed head?
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Proud Boys members, ex-leader Enrique Tarrio guilty in seditious conspiracy trial
Twenty years is better than nothing.
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Just saying, it’s the same name and everything. You guys have options.
Don’t worry, the Metropolitan Police have just issued a statement saying they will have a low tolerance for any beheadings at the coronation.
Rapes and racist assaults by police officers, they’re all fine. But no beheadings, please.
Can you rape the severed head?
I think David Cameron is probably the expert on exactly what the pigs will let you do to a severed head.
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Well played sir.
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What you call an “elected representative”, basically ;)
I get it though, the pomp and circumstance of royalty are appealing to many people.
Elected presidents are kinda boring.I mean, like, this is King Charles:
And this is the German head of state, Präsident Frank-Walter Steinmeier:
Not the same.
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I thought the crowns were a bit too tall, they looked kind of comical on their heads. But that golden jacket that Charles wore was badass.
Funny thing about that golden jacket is it had Redditors comparing him to Supreme Leader Snoke.
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Supreme Leader Charles even had a ceremonial saber handed to him.
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Obviously the reason to have an elected President to replace the Monarch is to follow in the steps of civilised nations like Ireland, but you don’t need a separate head of state and chief of state. You do however end up with a figure like the American President who has executive power but also embarks on the high-profile diplomatic fluff.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, there are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. It’s worth noting as well that in the US for example, the Speaker of the House is closer to the Taoiseach (and other barbaric equivalents of same) in terms of how they gain power – they’re the internally selected leader of the party with the largest number of seats – but they have less power than the Taoiseach overall.
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I don’t understand why you need a head of state at all.
I do. I think there is an issue where the head of state is politically aligned, you basically get more than half the nation not liking/respecting them. You can have someone doing all the meeting and greeting and soft diplomacy without baggage.
I prefer the Irish or German system to the US one. As usual though no system is perfect because as Christian says barely anyone knows who the German President is, the Irish one has the advantage of looking like a Hobbit so it’s impossible to dislike him.
I listened to a New Statesman debate on the existence of the monarchy with pro and against speakers and basically the only ‘pro’ argument that does stick is the ‘soft power’ one. To put it simply world leaders are always very keen to meet the British monarchy because they are celebrities. My wife asked me to put on the TV to see the coronation when I wasn’t that arsed. She asked why so may of the women were wearing ‘Alexander McQueen’ clothes (now just a label as he’s sadly passed away). The answer is because the brand is British, it’s an advertisement.
*Harry wore a French Dior suit as he’s a rebel but everyone else of note was wearing British designers quite deliberately.
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Celtic fans singing “You Can Stick Your Coronation Up Your Arse”
For context there is a weird thing in Glasgow where they have 2 teams, Celtic and Rangers, and they broadly follow the sectarian politics of Northern Ireland.
Rangers are pro monarchy and the UK and Celtic are anti both. Celtic fans chanting against the coronation is as shocking as a bear shitting in the woods.
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Santos indicted on 13 counts, including wire fraud, money laundering
George Santos is shady. In other news, water is wet.
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Celtic fans chanting against the coronation is as shocking as a bear shitting in the woods.
Wait, what?`Where did he do that? And why? What happened next? Did they ever find him? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH THAT BEAR???!!!
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Celtic fans chanting against the coronation is as shocking as a bear shitting in the woods.
Wait, what?`Where did he do that? And why? What happened next? Did they ever find him? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH THAT BEAR???!!!
I think the bear ate a Catholic pope who was also shitting in the woods.
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How much cocaine do you need before you eat a shitting Catholic Pope?
Not as much as you might think, or so I have been told.
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The Count of Binface is accurate:
Ist der papst katholisch? pic.twitter.com/IR8I53smbv
— Count Binface (@CountBinface) May 10, 2023
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I think the bear ate a Catholic pope who was also shitting in the woods.
The Pope is featured quite extensively in Rangers’ terrace chants.
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Yeah, this shit is going on all over the place. Over here, a trial has started against a group of fucking pensioners for planning to overthrow the government.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-far-right-group-stands-trial/a-65647852
The trial of five suspected members of the “Vereinte Patrioten” (United Patriots) group begins on Wednesday (May 17) at the Higher Regional Court in the western German city of Koblenz.
The four men, along with a 75-year-old woman who is suspected of being the group’s ringleader, are accused of planning to overthrow the German government. According to federal prosecutors, they got together in mid-January 2022 and called themselves the “Vereinte Patrioten”. They are now charged with founding or being a member of a terrorist organization.
The group stands accused of wanting to unleash a civil war-like situation by causing an electricity blackout and kidnapping German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach. Their goal: the end of the parliamentary democracy in Germany.
After their planned takeover, the accused wanted to assume control of government agencies themselves. Federal prosecutors, therefore, accused them of “preparing high treason against the federal government.”
Investigators have described “concrete preparations” by the accused, who communicated primarily via a chat group on the Telegram online messaging service and met several times in various locations.
One of the accused scouted targets for attacks on the electricity network. Another planned the kidnapping of the health minister, “if necessary, by killing his bodyguards.”
To that end, the group obtained kalashnikovs and pistols as well as ammunition. They also wanted to import barrels of explosives from the former Yugoslavia.
Fucking 70-year-olds with kalashnikovs having a shoot-out with the cops, that’s what we would have got. For fuch’s sake.
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But that’s the thing, given the situation we’re in, what the extinction rebellion people are actually doing is nothing at all – I don’t think they actually damaged one artwork, it was all done in a way that it hit only the glass of the frames and the like – and they’re blocking streets and highways now and then for a bit, and everybody is going crazy and comparing them to nazis and terrorists and whatnot. It’s pretty insane. Lorry drivers have been beating protestors up, and now the state of Bavaria is going after them as a “criminal organisation”. The reaction is insane considering their demands are actually very much reasonable and also backed by the majority of the population (I think).
But even if they did go violent: If that would do any good, would it be crazy? Is it really immoral to hurt a few people now if it could save millions of people in the future? Wouldn’t that actually be a moral obligation?
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Why does Colorado keep re-electing this bitch?
When they say stuff like this, they mean they want to go after conservatives.
Their tactics are straight out of the USSR's playbook. https://t.co/bnICe9b6zO
— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) May 25, 2023
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Why does Colorado keep re-electing this bitch?
From the Denvergov.org website:
Adults 21 and older can purchase up to 1 ounce of retail marijuana, 8 grams of retail marijuana concentrate, or marijuana products containing up to 800 milligrams of THC in a single transaction. A single transaction includes multiple sales to the same customer during a single business day.
Not saying everyone in Colorado is high, but maybe just enough of them…
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I love this woman:
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Why does Colorado keep re-electing this bitch?
When they say stuff like this, they mean they want to go after conservatives.
Their tactics are straight out of the USSR's playbook. https://t.co/bnICe9b6zO
— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) May 25, 2023
To be fair to those of us in CO…most of Colorado can’t stand her, but she’s in a deeply red district that is like +10 for Republicans historically. Yet she won reelection by only about 500 votes.
There’s reason to hope she could get ousted in 2024. Her seat is a prettiest big target after she showed such vulnerability in 2022.
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Eh I don’t think they’re doing good, they’re as deluded as the Chinese communists who messed around with agriculture leading to a famine that killed tens of millions. I think there’s a good chance their ideas if enacted could cause collapse of human civilization, rather than prevent it.
Uh, I don’t know what the Netherlands variation wants, but in Germany…
The group, akin to the UK’s Extinction Rebellion group, wants to draw attention to what it perceives as the government’s lack of urgent action over the climate emergency. Among their demands are a 100km/h speed limit on German autobahns as well as a permanent offer of a €9 a month ticket to use public transport.
That’s some really civilisation-ending shit right there!+
There other big demand is this:
The group’s main demand is the creation of a ‘climate social council’ that would bring ordinary citizens together to work out how Germany can end the use of fossil fuels in a “socially just” manner for 2030.
“Citizens’ councils are already provided for in the coalition agreement,” says Aimée van Baalen, spokesperson for Last Generation.
“We call on the federal government to make one of the councils currently in the planning stage the social council on climate that we are calling for.”Crazy motherfuckers.
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I think Christian is auditioning to play the villain in the next X-Men movie.
Well, he was.
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North Dakota’s Republican governor set to launch US presidential bid
Never heard of him.
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Sure, let’s give up fossile fuel.
We will and to some degree have.
The absolutionist approach to this on both sides is not very logical and largely influenced by money. Wales is currently a net exporter of energy, all coal powered stations have been closed. They produce more (primarily wind) energy than they use.
In 1999 I took a holiday in Cuba, the entire resort I stayed as powered by solar because following the fall of the Soviet Union, who used to have a deal to swap sugar for oil ‘one for one’ died. I live in Malaysia now and despite a tropical climate with loads of sun they have fewer solar panels than my dreary grey hometown in the UK.
We can do a lot more, if we want to. It may not suit the dividends for rich people.
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But that’s the thing, given the situation we’re in, what the extinction rebellion people are actually doing is nothing at all – I don’t think they actually damaged one artwork, it was all done in a way that it hit only the glass of the frames and the like – and they’re blocking streets and highways now and then for a bit, and everybody is going crazy and comparing them to nazis and terrorists and whatnot. It’s pretty insane. Lorry drivers have been beating protestors up, and now the state of Bavaria is going after them as a “criminal organisation”. The reaction is insane considering their demands are actually very much reasonable and also backed by the majority of the population (I think).
Coming back to this, I think with these protests there’s a bigger picture to consider than just the question whether the cause is a correct one that has public support.
I think the wider question that needs to be considered is: are the protests actually working? Are they encouraging positive change?
Because if they’re not – and for most of them there’s not much evidence that they’re changing minds one way or another – I think there’s a risk of them being counter-productive.
As an example you can look at the Just Stop Oil protests at today’s rugby final or the recent snooker finals or the Chelsea Flower Show. While I agree that a lot of people probably support the underlying cause and the protests are well-meaning, I think you have to balance the positive impact that these protests are having for that cause – which I think is fairly minimal – against the negative effects that are being caused, particularly the backlash that’s being provoked against the protestors who are disrupting public life in a way that’s irritating a lot of people for the wrong reasons.
If there was actually some good coming out of this, some kind of change being effected, then I think it would be easier to justify the protests – but in these recent cases I don’t really see that. Ultimately I think protestors need to be able to do more than simply say “well my position is the morally correct one on this issue” to justify any kind of disruption they please.
Because if the protests are not actually advancing the cause, they’re just empty posturing that’s pissing people off and potentially giving these movements a worse reputation among the general public than they deserve, given the good that they’re trying (somewhat cackhandedly) to do.
They’re getting visibility for their protests, but I don’t think all publicity is good publicity.
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Yeah, that’s exactly the point.
If there was actually some good coming out of this, some kind of change being effected, then I think it would be easier to justify the protests – but in these recent cases I don’t really see that. Ultimately I think protestors need to be able to do more than simply say “well my position is the morally correct one on this issue” to justify any kind of disruption they please.
Because if the protests are not actually advancing the cause, they’re just empty posturing that’s pissing people off and potentially giving these movements a worse reputation among the general public than they deserve, given the good that they’re trying (somewhat cackhandedly) to do.
They’re getting visibility for their protests, but I don’t think all publicity is good publicity.
Their argument is that they’re doing it for the visibility, and that the media won’t cover them if they just stage “normal” protests. I also have my doubts that they’re actually achieving anything.
Sure, let’s give up fossile fuel.
Well, we can also just destroy our civilisation within the next fifty years, if you’d rather go down that road.
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A guy literally set himself on fire to protest climate change and the news didn’t cover that, so…
…there are maybe more effective ways to change the world.
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…there are maybe more effective ways to change the world.
Honestly, I am not sure about that. A lot of the times in which the world changed, it was because of massive civil upheaval and people willing to put their lives on the line. The labour wars in the US (and the arrival of communism changing things similarly in Europe), the suffragette movement, the Civil Rights movement, even Ghandi. Would any of those situations have changed without these people’s willingness to break the law and pay the price for it? I don’t know, man.
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What happened before: Protesters do protest, get media coverage, probably very critical but still coverage.
What happens now: Protesters protest, no media coverage of it or only minimally so. Add in very limited coverage of protester trials, including judges preventing defendents making their case, and it’s all very bad.
At least that’s how it’s going in the UK. I don’t think apathy is the issue but more people feeling disempowered and hemmed in.
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Blocking roads is at least somewhat linked to reducing the use of oil, so I can understand that. But disrupting sporting events or defacing artworks is not a great way to protest against the use of fossil fuels. It’s not exactly Rosa Parks in terms of a thoughtful, meaningful act that will capture the public imagination.
That’s a fair point and I think they should stick to blocking roads and especially focus on places where the government itself does its work. Really drive them crazy.
Police have also in going after them found some of them planning to sabotage an oil pipeline, which is much more along the lines thinking that Arjan is afraid of, and I do think they should well stay away from that kind of thing.
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That’s a fair point and I think they should stick to blocking roads and especially focus on places where the government itself does its work. Really drive them crazy.
Yeah, I think something like that is more likely to earn public sympathy.
I get why places like museums and sports events are targeted – they’re low-risk in terms of being pretty easy to smuggle protesting kit into, and you’re unlikely to get into big trouble as a result of the protest – but I do think more meaningful targets could help to make the point better.
We’ve seen some activists disrupting political party conferences here too, which I think is much better in terms of being an apt venue and audience for a protest against government policy, while still being something fairly visible that will make the news and also not really piss off the general public.
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As an example of smart disruption goes, Joe Lycett getting on the BBC’s politics show has to be one of the best. No idea how he pulled it off.
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…there are maybe more effective ways to change the world.
Honestly, I am not sure about that. A lot of the times in which the world changed, it was because of massive civil upheaval and people willing to put their lives on the line. The labour wars in the US (and the arrival of communism changing things similarly in Europe), the suffragette movement, the Civil Rights movement, even Ghandi. Would any of those situations have changed without these people’s willingness to break the law and pay the price for it? I don’t know, man.
Yeah, I mean obviously there are examples of movements gaining traction, with powerfully convincing leaders of these movements helping to convince society to make positive and progressive change.
I’m just not sure these current protests fit into that model. And a big part of that is that I don’t think the protests are strongly enough linked to the injustice or problem they’re protesting against.
Blocking roads is at least somewhat linked to reducing the use of oil, so I can understand that. But disrupting sporting events or defacing artworks is not a great way to protest against the use of fossil fuels. It’s not exactly Rosa Parks in terms of a thoughtful, meaningful act that will capture the public imagination.
And because of that I think it risks being written off as more of a public nuisance than a worthwhile stand to support a worthy cause.
So this is one of the interesting things. A lot of grassroots political campaigns that were successful in the past tend to be whitewashed and recuperated and sanitised after the fact. The Suffragettes bombed postboxes as well as chaining themselves to buildings. MLK was portrayed in the media as a violent thug the exact same way BLM are now, and while he preached non-violent protest, his message was very much “you deal with me peacibly or they riot” and he fucking hated moderate liberals to the point of writing about it. Even in my own personal experience the pro-choice movement in Ireland was dragged through the gutters by the press here, op-eds constantly running about how we were doing everything wrong and we’d never win Repeal. Only for the same people to offer utterly bizarre justifications for why we did win that were similarly divorced from reality. In 5 years time the same columnists will be talking about how they were always on board with our successful messaging.
It becomes very difficult to say “well this group is doing badly as opposed to this historical group” because what we think of as the history of whichever group is usually inaccurate.
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Yep. Everyone these days thinks they’d have supported the Suffragettes – because it’s a cause that is now uncontroversial and almost hard to conceive had to be fought for in the first place – but given the reaction to modern protests using similar tactics, it’s clear they wouldn’t have. Emily Davison throwing herself in front of the king’s horse for instance – which because it happened in the past for a worthy cause that “won” gets lionised – would get the same reactions the protest at the snooker or Chelsea did.
I can’t stand all this “but it’s a sustainable garden!” talk. From what I saw of it in the protest videos, it’s mostly a patio. But Chelsea flower show generally is in no way sustainable: hundreds of tonnes of flowers, soil, stone, concrete, furniture and other structural materials transported across the country to be constructed for a week or so, so the designers can pat each other on the back and impress the aristos, then be dismantled, some to be transported again and rebuilt in some rich dude or corporation’s garden, but mostly to be broken up into parts. It’s a massive waste of fuel, materials and water.
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MLK was portrayed in the media as a violent thug the exact same way BLM are now, and while he preached non-violent protest, his message was very much “you deal with me peacibly or they riot” and he fucking hated moderate liberals to the point of writing about it.
Not to mention that it’s debatable whether MLK would have been successful if there hadn’t also been a more violent aspect of the movement with Malcolm X and the Panthers at the same time.
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MLK was portrayed in the media as a violent thug the exact same way BLM are now, and while he preached non-violent protest, his message was very much “you deal with me peacibly or they riot” and he fucking hated moderate liberals to the point of writing about it.
Not to mention that it’s debatable whether MLK would have been successful if there hadn’t also been a more violent aspect of the movement with Malcolm X and the Panthers at the same time.
MLK wasn’t even successful, the Civil Rights Act passed after he was assassinated because black Americans were rioting in the streets over his death.
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The point is more that we in the moment won’t know, it’s history that will decide if they are effective or not. And most historically successful movements have been through the liberal recuperation mill so the common version of their story is rarely accurate.
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Yeah, that’s fair and I think that historical perspective is important to have.
Ultimately these climate/oil protests are ones where I sympathise with the cause. I just feel a bit frustrated to see what feels like misdirected energies that have the potential to provoke backlash against that cause. But maybe that is to some extent a price that all disruptive protests have to pay.
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That’s totally fair as well, of course. Radical action is meant to make people feel uncomfortable – or worse – after all and it’s diametrically opposed to the liberal paradigm of gradual change towards better solutions.
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Well, the idea of gradual change has certainly fucked us over when it comes to stopping the climate catastrophe.
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That’s the major difference between people our age and older and the younger generations. For us, climate change has been this background thing that’s getting worse but on a long enough timeline and it probably won’t get too bad in our lifetimes. But for our kids it’s a far more pressing issue and that’s why we’re seeing an increasing level of radicalisation around climate action.
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…there are maybe more effective ways to change the world.
Honestly, I am not sure about that. A lot of the times in which the world changed, it was because of massive civil upheaval and people willing to put their lives on the line. The labour wars in the US (and the arrival of communism changing things similarly in Europe), the suffragette movement, the Civil Rights movement, even Ghandi. Would any of those situations have changed without these people’s willingness to break the law and pay the price for it? I don’t know, man.
The suffragette protests in Britain largely–actually, entirely–failed. The movement was founded in 1903, and over 10 years later there had been no shift despite ever-increasing protest activity. What made the difference was when they stopped protesting and started working within the system in World War One:
At the commencement of World War I, the suffragette movement in Britain moved away from suffrage activities and focused on the war effort, and as a result, hunger strikes largely stopped.[63] In August 1914, the British Government released all prisoners who had been incarcerated for suffrage activities on an amnesty,[64] with Pankhurst ending all militant suffrage activities soon after.[65] The suffragettes’ focus on war work turned public opinion in favour of their eventual partial enfranchisement in 1918.[66]
Women eagerly volunteered to take on many traditional male roles – leading to a new view of what women were capable of.
Maybe Extinction Rebellion needs to stop gluing themselves to paintings and just start building wind turbines or something.
(I’m speaking as someone who agrees with the cause, but doubts the methods are useful.)
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MLK wasn’t even successful, the Civil Rights Act passed after he was assassinated because black Americans were rioting in the streets over his death.
So what you’re saying is that somebody needs to shoot Greta Thunberg?
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Maybe Extinction Rebellion needs to stop gluing themselves to paintings and just start building wind turbines or something.
Or maybe we need a World War.
So what you’re saying is that somebody needs to shoot Greta Thunberg?
Might help. Can you do it in a way that also starts WW III?
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Maybe Extinction Rebellion needs to stop gluing themselves to paintings and just start building wind turbines or something.
Or maybe we need a World War.
So what you’re saying is that somebody needs to shoot Greta Thunberg?
Might help. Can you do it in a way that also starts WW III?
Good news – with the advent of WW3 you will no longer be at risk of dying from climate change.
Bad news – nuclear winters and radstorms are what you will die from.
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And in “Lauren Boebert is still a thing” news:
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You missed a few Republican candidates, Al:
– Nikki Haley
– Vivek Ramasawany
– Larry Elder
– Asa Hutchinson
– Tim Scott
– Doug BurgunPlus a couple of Democratic candidates:
– Marianne Williamson
– Robert Kennedy, Jr.And the People’s Party candidate:
– Cornel WestAnd we still have 18 months to go until Election Day 2024
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While I like your thoroughness @njerry, it still makes me cringe at all those choices.
I just kept it to the main ones. Wow…And Tr*mp is already starting the fat jokes on Christie.
This is funny. NOW Christie decides to spill the beans on Trump to who? MAGA🤣
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Well, this is good news, at any rate:
Supreme Court rules in favor of Black voters in Alabama redistricting case
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In a plot that could have come out of an episode of The Thick Of It, there’s been some amusement today with Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list.
Longtime loyal Johnson supporter and Tory MP Nadine Dorries was apparently in line for elevation to the House Of Lords, but a last-minute change saw her dropped from the list – apparently in part to avoid triggering a potentially damaging by-election.
As a result of the snub, she’s resigned as an MP in a huff, with immediate effect – thereby triggering a potentially damaging by-election.
Slightly less amusingly, elsewhere in the honours list (and coming close to devaluing the entire system at a stroke) we have knighthoods for such luminaries as Jacob Rees Mogg and Michael Fabricant, while we also can look forward to Dame Priti Patel.
I think the kindest way to describe this group is an absolute shower of cunts.
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It is a shitshow.
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Now Johnson has stepped down as an MP too.
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…including a charge under the Espionage Act.
This:
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Right-wingers and conservatives love to tout “small government” and capitalism.
Well, Hong Kong must be a libertarian paradise. I mean, it must, right?
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The ‘dark side’ videos are interesting. They have one on Singapore which I think is a place that is both very successful and worrying in other aspects.
The truth is pure libertarianism doesn’t work or make any sense, in the end as rich and clever as you can be you will want someone to serve you food and clean toilets. The ‘bootstraps’ for everyone that Jim used to like to profess here, work in tech and move around, doesn’t ever factor that in.
Maybe it would when we get robots to do all the manual work.
I think the UK and USA are approaching the HK experience, that house prices are ever more unattainable in areas that have jobs. I think Republicans and Conservatives would be fine with cage dwellings.
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The ‘dark side’ videos are interesting. They have one on Singapore which I think is a place that is both very successful and worrying in other aspects.
It’s behind a paywall now, but William Gibson was writing about these issues 30 years ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disneyland_with_the_Death_Penalty
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It’s behind a paywall now, but William Gibson was writing about these issues 30 years ago:
It should be said though that Singapore and SE Asia in general are moving away from the death penalty. In the last few years mandatory sentences have been removed or given more judicial leeway. Singapore recently legalised gay sex and held a pride event this weekend. Thailand just legalised medicinal marijuana and Malaysia are holding discussions to see if they follow suit.
It doesn’t make any of them liberal oases but there is a shift in that direction, and also pressure the other way, Islamic fundamentalists here are in the minority but make a lot of noise about banning concerts and alcohol, which are louder than in the past but don’t reflect in much legislation.
Like most things a lot of this stuff is quite nuanced and complex. Parts of Hong Kong and Singapore life have always been more government controlled than others, they have a huge influence over car ownership (heavily taxed) and great public transit. While the cage apartments are horrendous you see very few homeless people, unlike the US and UK where they increase every year.
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‘They’re losing’: Author explains why white supremacist groups are dissolving
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Opinion piece I can’t argue with:
https://thyblackman.com/2023/07/12/african-americans-justice-clarence-thomas-hates-black-people/
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There’s a Behind the Bastards episode about Clarence Thomas. He’s a fascinating dude.
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Opinion piece I can’t argue with:
https://thyblackman.com/2023/07/12/african-americans-justice-clarence-thomas-hates-black-people/
Yes.
Also, from some documents, Candace Owens herself went through something racial and somewhat traumatic which would explain some of her political and social stances.
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@LORCAN_NAGLE, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this video:
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Broadly accurate, but there’s a few things they missed, left out or are inaccurate. The major things that stood out to me are:
Generally, GDP is not used as a measure of economic prosperity here because of the distorting effect of the various multinationals headquartered here, the Irish government has developed a separate measure called the GNI per capita to try and correct for this. GINI coefficient is also used at times.
The point around differentiating between immigrants working in tech companies and native Irish people not working for them feels weird. As someone who’s worked for a few tech companies it’s been my experience that senior and sales roles are often taken by Irish people or people with really good English, while lower-level roles like call centre agents or people in non-public facing roles like manufacturing or account management go to non-Irish speakers. For call centre roles it’s often explicitly foreign language lines staffed by these people. Also there’s plenty of non-native Irish people working in the service industry, especially in shops and eateries.
On that front, they also gloss over the actual makeup of Ireland’s economic output, which is primarily high-tech, a lot of it is software but then medical equipment, pharmaceuticals and electronics make up the top four, IIRC. Agriculture is a still major one as well, of course. A lot of this is down to companies who chose to headquarter here in the 70s and 80s but Ireland is an attractive place for tech businesses separate to that because of the disproportionally highly-educated workforce.
Also on that front the tax haven stuff is overblown at this point. EU pressure has closed a lot of the loopholes that were offered in the past like the infamous “double Irish”, no company has been able to set up shop in Ireland and get the ultra-low tax rate in over a decade and the sweetheart deals are slowly expiring. This has lead to a spate of mergers where a multinational buys another company already headquartered here and the reincorporated whole then gets the benefits of the Irish-headquartered company’s tax rates. Part of why there’s little worry around these companies leaving when the tax benefits expire is the aforementioned highly-educated population and a well-developed manufacturing infrastructure, as well as being a gateway to the EU that speaks English.
Their analysis of the housing crisis isn’t wrong, but misses out on some major issues. A lot of Irish rental properties were removed from the market and used as AirBnBs, and a shocking number of properties are being sat on by investors who have no intention of renting them out as the value of the land is greater than potential rental income and it’s less hassle to just let them decay or spend a tiny amount on maintenance. The reality on the ground is that there’s something like 125,000 vacant properties on the island and less than 30,000 homeless people. Now, that first figure includes things like summer homes, properties that aren’t fit for use at present and doesn’t take into account geographical distribution but the solution isn’t just loosening the construction laws and letting builders run wild.
The big issue they left out is a common one – distribution of investment is spotty at best. The vast majority of government spending is in the greater Dublin area, and after that it’s concentrated around Cork, Limerick and Galway and then larger towns that have some level of business concentration like Navan or Athlone. The further you get from industry or tourism the more and more the country looks like it did in the 80s. And even in that, Dublin is being stripped of a lot of what made it a unique, vibrant city. Take live music for example. We have a bunch of pubs and small music venues, but there’s only one place that can hold about 1,600 and then the next venue up holds 13,000 and nothing in-between. The government has seemingly little interest in rectifying this, the main cultural investment seems to be building hotels and maintaining tourist-friendly spots. It’s like they just want planeloads of tourists to arrive, stay a few days as they visit the Guinness Storehouse, the Book of Kells and whatever, and then shuttle them off down the country for a week or two.
The major issue facing young Irish people is that everything is so expensive, entry-level jobs don’t always pay well, and there’s so little left that’s appealing to keep them here.
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