News/Current Events, discussion (Bullets, Ballots & Bombs)

[rublev]

[rublev]

rublev world update:



The retaking of the strategically important town a hundred British soldiers died in defending. Reports of 65% of Helmand being under Taliban control. Suicide attack also north of Kabul, killing six US service members. Questions over the long term future of Afghanistan.



Spanish elections see the breaking up of the traditional dominance of two parties - conservative popular party lost its majority while newcomers podemos and ciudadanos gained significant ground. Who knows what the next government makeup will be. Socialists have declined a coalition with (damaged by corruption) conservatives.



Europe looks the other way as Turkey cracks down on Kurdish population. The necessity of Turkish help in tackling both migration into Europe, and an agreement on Syrian future means the ramping up of rhetoric and violence, especially in the southeast.



UN brokered peace talks in Switzerland aimed at ending Yemen's conflict have ended without resolution. Officials agreed to resume negotiations in January.



Rwandans have voted overwhelmingly to allow president Paul Kagame to extend his term in office, prompting international criticism and expressions of concern from human rights charities. In effect it authorises him to stand for another term of seven years and two more after that of five each, meaning he could be in power until 2034.

-------------

two interesting articles from my fave weekly magazine (the economist):





*swivels around on stool and sips san pellegrino*

[WussWayne]

Whoa Japan is actually acknowledging something from WW2
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35188135

[rublev]

[rublev]

[Ques]

Taiwan's first female president!! Eager to see how this plays out with the mainland

[tomsfood]

good places to find articles to read to keep up with US/world news/current events and the like? also for long articles worth reading?

[rublev]

[ramseames]

http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/id ... 5?irpc=932

^ fucking terrifying

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-d ... -it-again/

lol

[rublev]

[CMYK]

So Scalia died... and Obama gets to appoint another left leaning judge!

EDIT: So this is going to be a shitshow. Looks like the republicans might? be able to stall long enough so the next president gets to nominate?

[Ques]

I think if Obama nominates Sri Srinivisan then the republicans might shift. otherwise this just means more democrats than expected will show up in november, enraged by the how blatantly the republicans are ignoring the constitution.

[ramseames]

http://news.sky.com/story/1642801/batac ... -have-guns

[rublev]

where does jeb have to come so he DOESN'T drop out?

also, whoever is in charge of the politico vine account needs to calm down

[ramseames]

If he doesn't come 3rd he's done

He probably will though, I don't see him losing to rubio at this point

[bels]

Thought you were going to comment on the EU deal there Rubble's.

Americana's stand to make a killing on eBay. CO.UK garms when sterling inevitably tumbles around referendum time.

[rublev]

the EU deal is like a hot pie being passed around that no one wants to eat (this is a new metaphor i'm working on)

the whole thing was farcical. those in brussels, really mining the catering depths of political discussion, jumped about determined to portray the whole thing as coming in a close second to the treaty of westphalia while pretty much everyone in the UK shrugged off the whole thing as being pretty inconsequential. the rest of the world are probably thinking, christ, if this is what happens when they try to settle something as boring as recalculating child benefit, imagine if they really tried to tackle the refugee crisis or russian tanks rolling into the baltic states. i get that it wasn't really 'just' about these small back of an envelope policies, and was really more about what it means for an EU state to enact unilateral treaty change - what could this mean for other leaders with an axe to grind in brussels? so many of the leading parties in euro politics now are hardly happy with the status quo. so a warning to others. for us in the UK the deal has done NOTHING to move the debate on in any direction. if anything it's probably pushed some into the vote leave campaign as people watched perplexed while cam-cam jumped through various hoops and lunches to change something they probably didn't even know about before yesterday. the referendum will be fought on 1) will the UK be better off financially in or out? 2) will the UK be safer (militarily, diplomatically etc) in or out? 3) what does it mean to be a 'european citizen' and do i want it? these can't really be defined in the short term and rely more on people forecasting about stuff that's difficult to forecast about. result = large portion of undecided voters and others that are a little closer to leave with play it safe in the summer and vote to stay.

[ramseames]

[ramseames]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016 ... lobbyists/

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/us ... erer=&_r=0

[adiabatic]

[Copeland]

Was looking up election stuff and stumbled upon this Paglia interview from last year, made me laugh out loud a few times from her wit and cynicism. One of my favorite intellectual personas regardless of her thought or politics.

[youtube]watch?v=88_3AhU0-B0[/youtube]

[rublev]

sorry only just saw this. yes, polling suggests it's pretty close between remain and stay here in the UK. but polling here is now taken with a massive dole of 'we actually don't know' after the 2015 election where they got it staggeringly wrong. regardless there is a large minority that want to leave (currently tearing apart grass roots conservatism) and a significant portion of 'not sure', which will mostly likely swing to the safe option. can't imagine what this is gonna be like until polling day, or who will be left standing in the higher echelons of the toy boy party. ben ben vs boris is already pretty fascinating.

in other news, EU and turkey strike a bizarre and apparently verging on questionably legal deal to try and solve the refugee crisis that, after a brief glaze over by my esteemed self, seems wholly impractical. also love how we're brushing away massive attacks on press freedoms and the full blown assault on the kurds while dangling EU access... can anyone else hear that... that... scrapping of the barrel?

[bels]

we need to absorb more young "democracies" into europe to care for our ailing population

[rublev]

please elaborate

i can't see turkey anywhere close to EU membership in the next 20 years

[bels]

I was being facetious. I just see everything in terms of the baby boomer retirement causing unsustainable stress on GB and I read (in a pamphlet on a turkish airlines flight about why turkey should be let into the EU) that they have a very young population.

This is probably projection on my part.

[rublev]

interesting that they stick that kind of propaganda in an airlines pamphlet.

generation y all over the place just now. looks like it's all down hill from here.

[ramseames]

They're just under 50% state owned, and probably stand to make $$$ off of EU membership

I don't think there's any politically viable way to deal with the retirement crisis at this time tbh. Make sure you're not counting your pension as a large portion of your retirement savings if you have one.

[ramseames]

[Cowboy]

Hillary Clinton vs Donald Trump I don't know who to hate more.

[rublev]

made in turkey