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

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Thu Aug 27, 2015 8:03 pm

Drive me closer, I want to hit them with my expensive TV camera!

On related news Usain Bolt is still better than Justin Gatlin+top tier doping drugs.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Thu Aug 27, 2015 8:59 pm

Attempted local-scale gerrymander backfires.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Fri Aug 28, 2015 8:16 am

Well. That escalated quickly.

So anyway, by "that" I mean the Australian Border Force, our new paramilitary immigration office enforcers with their snazy SS style uniforms and lets face it, role, just managed the quickest retreat from attempted fascist police state bullshit seen by anyone.

This morning? "PRESS RELEASE! -> Operation : FORTITUDE! is GO! As part of a multi-agency joint mega crackdown on Melbourne the AFB will be stopping everyone they meet and asking for their papers Visas in the capital city of Victoria! NO ONE WILL ESCAPE US!".

Within a few hours the public backlash generated protesters stopping traffic near the site of the announced press conference to explain more.

About every single political party and our many balance of power holding independents immediately held press conferences to condemn it as a fascist police state action.

Then the press conference was cancelled.

Then half an hour later the entire Operation : FORTITUDE was cancelled.

Now they are running home crying begging everyone to believe the entire original press release was a bungle by a low level employee rather than say, all the higher ups in the department including the minister (like such announcements usually would be) and that no one ever even meant to suggest for a second that the AFB can even stop people and ask for their papers, and they certainly weren't going to DO that, the entire probably multi-million dollar operation was just going to be them being there, er... um... not doing anything I guess!

I don't think this particular story is over yet, a lot of people seem to want Minister "Worlds most incompetent minister at anything" Dutton's head over this, and frankly in anything other than this government they'd have it by mid tomorrow morning, hell, even with this government it's a possibility...

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Sep 10, 2015 10:33 pm

Not entirely sure where this fits, but...

Rupert Murdoch just bought National Geographic...

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Fri Sep 11, 2015 6:46 am

Short story short.

Our prime minister and our immigration minister just got caught on an open mic doing basically two things.

1) Calling Pacific leaders/Pacific Islanders lazy and unpunctual (worth noting Tony Abbot is kinda famed for being late to important stuff).

2) Sharing a good long laugh and a lame joke about how Pacific Island nations are facing the existential threat of ending up underwater thanks to our actions on climate change. (that's the setup AND punchline!)

In the same week that the Pacific Islands forum just focused almost entirely on begging Australia to stop trying to drown them all.

In any other government Dutton's head would be served up to those he offended on a plate some time mid tomorrow morning. Yes, AGAIN, it's the same god damn Dutton.

That's less likely than ever since Abbot himself is caught up in this one and like hell his head ends up on a plate even if he drags the entire party and maybe the nation itself down with him.

But seriously, ANY other government, EVER.

Interesting side story. There is apparently some poor American bloke also named Peter Dutton who gets all our immigration minister's richly deserved hate mail (hate tweets?) on twitter. That guy had better get off the grid pronto for at least the weekend.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Fri Sep 11, 2015 5:19 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Attempted local-scale gerrymander backfires.

That is fantastic. I hope that that sales tax doesn't go through.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 3:16 pm

So, Tony Abbot got ousted.

I assume PhoneLobster and Koumei haven't commented on this because they're busy dancing drunk in the streets and riding in the kangaroo races or covering themselves in vegemite to form huge crowds spelling out 'FUCK YOU ABBOT' or whatever silly activity Australians do when they're really really excited.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 3:23 pm

In Australia, "live dangerously" means going to the toilet without checking for spiders.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 9:14 pm

It's actually a bit of a good news bad news thing.

Good news. The crazy bastard is out. Bad news, pretty much the same bastards are still in power, but NOW they are electable!

Expect pretty much the same policies only slightly toned down and with less laughable needless gaffes on a daily basis. Then expect them to win the next election and keep doing for about 4 years instead of just a bit less than 1.

There were details about the run up yesterday I could cover but whatever.

Instead let me make a prediction.

Labor now needs to chuck waste of space Shorten for someone better pretty much now or they will (barely) lose the federal election some time in the next year. I don't know WHY Australians like that two faced asshole Turnbull, but they do.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 9:47 pm

Actually, let me make a few more baseless predictions on policy changes.

Gay Marriage : Instead of "maybe a plebiscite we don't need or a harder to win referendum we really don't need some time Loooong after the election trust us" he will hold the plebiscite before the next election. The party room will grudgingly eat it and the electorate will love it, oh and it will pass, easily, but that was never in doubt.

Climate Change : He will have a science minister, he will stop trying to defund the few surviving climate and clean energy bodies. He will not reinstate the lost ones. He will not properly refund the CSIRO cuts, but there won't be more, but there might be more corporate privatization trash. He will keep Abbots lame fake climate change fighting legislation, but will use the loopholes quiet frankly put in it by accident that will let it do... basically the things Labor would have/already were. Which won't be enough, but will be a lot more and pretty much internationally acceptable.

Refugees : Labor went so right chasing Abbot that he COULD even position himself to their left and DESTROY THEM on this issue. But he won't, because actually he can't. Because his own party would rebel wildly. Expect very minor toning down of the insanity. The contract might go to a less insane private security provider, the abuses will be slightly less bad. They might actually do something about the child abuse, but that's it.

The Economy : You can't do worse than Joe Hockey on this, and Joe Hockey will NOT be treasurer any more, not because he was so bad, but because he loudly proclaimed his undying loyalty to the sinking ship Abbot like YESTERDAY. There is a complex history behind that what with him not actually being a "real" Abbot faction loyalist, but whateves. However economic policy will still be mostly neo-liberal claptrap, tax cuts for the rich, kicks in the nuts for the poor. Just expect them to be able to show some small amount of restraint on the nut kicking in order to get their tax cuts passed, which the prior treasurer couldn't do and they will do it with less gaffes and, in those few fields that neo-liberalism doesn't screw up they will be more competent instead of alarmingly publicly outright innumerate.

Worker's Rights : Would die tomorrow if ANY liberal politician had his way. Under Abbot they WERE going to take "death to all unions and defund the labor party by legislation!" to the next election, whatever they might have told you otherwise. Malcolm will probably recognize it as a bad idea in the current context and just apply some minor discrete nut kicking on work place conditions. Just the "usual" slow slide into slavery we've been doing for the last few decades.

Fascism : Abbot and his inner circles were a genuine definition conforming fascists. Malcolm may well be a Tory, a Conservative, an actual literal millionaire banker, and in general just as much of a stupid wannabe aristocrat. But he isn't a fascist. Expect some elements of our sudden rapid slide to fascism to halt and maybe even reverse. He is also a former lawyer so expect some vague respect for this whole "rule of law" thing we'd basically thrown out the window, and less attempts at legislation that is actually unconstitutional (unconstitutional legislation being MUCH HARDER to come up with in our country).

Gaffes : There will be less of them. How many less is unclear. Removal of Abbot alone probably results in 30% less gaffes... IF they can now shut him up. But it is unclear how many of his walking embarressment machines they CAN remove from the cabinet and which ones flipped and supported Turnbull just so they could stay (or get into!) the cabinet).

Competency : See Gaffes, but also note, the Liberal and National parties have NO TALENT, they sort of had it in the past, and Turnbull has a bit, his supporter Julia who won him the leadership contest and became deputy has... well, at least not reverse talent, but if she has real talent it's mostly at looking like a scary lady. And that is IT. All the rest of the potential talent in the liberal party has been purged in the collapse of the Howard government, and the leadership and interfactional struggles of the last 30 years. No one even knows who the rest of the party is and they are basically jokes when it comes to experience or even basic skill sets.

Predictions over.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Sep 14, 2015 11:27 pm

Nananana... nananana...

But yes, PL is on the mark there. On the one hand, WE HAVE A NEW INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONPRIME MINISTER! And it is impossible for this guy to be as bad as Abbott.

On the other hand, four more years. Unless Labor arranges an unfortunate accident* for Bill Shorten, they're fucked. And make no mistakes, Turnbull was a hilarious opposition leader, a source of great amusement until Abbott showed he could be even funnier. (And then the joke was on us.) A hilarious opposition leader is not a great PM as Abbott has shown.

So this means "Until the election" is going to be somewhat better in some way that may or may not even be measurable. But if this carries them to a second term as opposed to basically anybody else winning the position, then it's for the worse over all.

With one exception: super long term thinking here. If this means Labor lose the next election and Bill topples from power and either Labor followers properly flock to Greens (as they have gradually been doing) or Labor then gets its head out its arse and becomes progressive and left wing again. If suffering through another "not as bad as Tony" Liberal term leads to an overall progressive shift, then it could be for the best in the long run, but you'd be amazed how many people can die as a result of their decisions during that time.

*Having arranged two power shuffles himself which ultimately paved the way to him becoming leader of the party, he then changed the rules such that basically it won't happen again. Convenient, that.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue Sep 15, 2015 12:46 pm

Well, seems like I'm already (probably) wrong about the Gay Marriage policy prediction.

Turnbull's image is pretty much as left as the Liberal party gets (even if that is still largely center right). And I'd actually say he honestly holds some pretty left leaning ideas... predominantly on culture wars issues and technology.

But he is limited by a lot of things. And the big limiter now is that in taking leadership he relied on support from factions OTHER than the "left" faction of the party. And those factions are demanding things about policy.

Now I thought I was safe on the Gay Marraige prediction for two reasons.

1) It's exactly the policy I expected even the middle right faction, even the far right faction of the liberal party to throw to the wolves to save their own skins.

2) He had already basically announced the policy change.

Turns out one day later he announced the policy would stay the same instead.

Why? Because hey, the National Party, the far right deep outback nationalist party that is the other part of the conservative coalition.

They haven't flexed their muscles on anything ever. Their grass roots hated Abbot, but then their grass roots hate THEM now too since they have been total sell outs who haven't done dick squat for the bush rather openly for about 20 years or more now.

But, Tony Abbot had used them in some grand standing in getting his way on delaying Gay Marriage until "always tomorrow never today" possibly against the wishes of his own party.

The nationals inexplicably demanded that the coalition agreement be renegotiated under Malcolm, which is just short of unprecedented, and their conditions so far seem to have been.

1) Gay Marraige remains "always tomorrow, never today"
2) We're going to symbollically side with the greens just to spit in your face on some anti-big business monopoly legislation that will never pass since both major parties oppose it.
3) We want you to push through the "Fuck it we just want to drain ALL the rivers with impunity and ban the government from GIVING US GIANT PILES OF FREE MONEY to stop it!" legislation for our greediest yet stupidest farmers.

Is that list of demands crazy and incomprehensible? Yes. Did it come out of nowhere? Yes. WTF? Yes.

My take is as follows. While the big issue destroying the National Party (right now, there have been many and it's already a pretty near dead party) is Mining, specifically giant coal mines and fracking destroying or threatening vast amounts of prime farm land (on, let me remind you, A DESERT CONTINENT). The nationals are doing NOTHING to stop it and it is driving crazy old coot conservative farmers into the arms of the Greens party of all people.

But despite that the nationals were basically bought whole sale by big business about 10ish years ago when their value had dropped low enough due to the destruction wreaked on them from things like all the backing of privatizing all the stuff the bush didn't want to sell.

One of those big businesses is coal mining. To the point that they just voted in, unopposed a major lobbyist for the biggest coal mining project giving them electoral pain right now as basically their most important major party official.

Who else was owned and operated 100% by crazy coal? Tony "coal is good for humanity" Abbot. Malcolm booted Tony Abbot. So big Coal phoned up their National Party properties and demanded they spit in his face publicly on the first thing they had going and sabotage what might have been one of Malcolm in the Middle's most immediate, and otherwise least difficult to achieve, policy turn around successes. Because fuck that guy because he ousted their pet paid for loyalist in the middle of their expensive and laughable "little black rock" advertising blitz.

Seriously. The bush doesn't really give a flying shit about gay marriage. The national party ARE backward cave grognards, but they don't ACTUALLY give more than a passing shit about it either. This looks like at least 90% far right corporate lobbyist revenge sabotage. Turnbull's reign might yet end up short and "interesting" if this keeps up, and so far it's just day 1.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Tue Sep 15, 2015 1:40 pm

PhoneLobster wrote: Is that list of demands crazy and incomprehensible? Yes. Did it come out of nowhere? Yes. WTF? Yes.

Crazy and incomprehensible lists of demands are a common negotiating tactic. You start by demanding things that no sane person would possibly give you, and then you let them talk you down to what you really want. It makes them feel like they won and you gave concessions, when in reality they gave you exactly what you really wanted.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 9:46 am

Germany is using the Dachau "herb garden" as housing for refugees

That's a damned heavy decision. But it's a good use for a place that was the site of so much pain and death, to be used to help people.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 7:32 pm

I don't think housing a migrant population that's the subject of prejudice in a former concentration camp sends a very good message. But then again, it's not like they have other places capable of housing thousands of people sitting empty.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 8:01 pm

Yeah, pretty much. It's a really terrible sort of message, but I don't think that message is intentional.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 10:26 pm

I think it's a great message when horrible places are repurposed for better ends. I think this quote from the article says all that matters about any symbolism people may find in it. Asked if he feels uneasy about the site’s history, Ashkan replies with a resigned smile: “I just wanted a roof over my head.”

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 10:38 pm

Definitely. I love that such a horrible place is being put to use to help people. The terrible message is only a potential one, while the actual message being sent is more one of atonement.

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 1:04 pm

So, the Canadian Conservatives have decided to resort to the time-tried "let's court the racist rural vote" strategy. Let's hope it goes exactly as well for them as it did for the Parti Québécois.

RedstoneOrc · Post by **RedstoneOrc** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 3:28 pm

maglag wrote:Drive me closer, I want to hit them with my expensive TV camera!

On related news Usain Bolt is still better than Justin Gatlin+top tier doping drugs.

I hope you're not implying that Bolt isn't on top tier drugs, cause he is. I mean the records he's breaking are from a Olympian whose drug tests we have had for thirty years and won't release.

Schleiermacher · Post by **Schleiermacher** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 9:19 pm

I know very little about contemporary Olympic sprint, so I'm not saying Bolt is clean, but I have no problem believing that the world's best clean sprinter today could beat the best sprinter+ top tier drugs of 30 years ago, considering the advances in training, nutrition, specialization (and not coincidentally, results) which have occured in pretty much all athletic fields since then.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 9:28 pm

I think it's widely accepted that all top-tier athletes are on some sort of performance enhancement, even if it's just blood doping.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 10:58 pm

RedstoneOrc wrote:
maglag wrote:Drive me closer, I want to hit them with my expensive TV camera!

On related news Usain Bolt is still better than Justin Gatlin+top tier doping drugs.
I hope you're not implying that Bolt isn't on top tier drugs, cause he is. I mean the records he's breaking are from a Olympian whose drug tests we have had for thirty years and won't release.

Yes I'm implying that Bolt isn't on top tier drugs, because he's running for Jamaica mon, and that means he doesn't have any super medical corp supporting him. He's simply one of those blessed people who was born with the best genes for something (running) and trained pretty hard to hone said genes.

This is, he's far too relaxed and easy going for someone who could be in risk of getting caught for cheating.

But otherwise yes, I agree that most top-tier athletes are on some sort of top-tier drugs. But most top-tier athletes are competing for countries that have top-tier medical corps to grant them said drugs.

Eikre · Post by **Eikre** » Fri Sep 25, 2015 7:36 pm

Holy shit, what are you even talking about? "Super medical corp?" They're not growing people in vats, you fucking weirdo. When you wanna roid up, you get a connec with a shady medic who knows a treatment that they can't or aren't checking for, and then that guy just does that to you. And I don't know what kind of blockaded hellhole you think Jamaica is, but they have doctors. Ones with supply lines, even!

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Sat Sep 26, 2015 2:26 am

Super medical corps are, you know, the guys who spend billions in drug research every year (and make gods know how much profits selling those drugs).

Bolt isn't some small time athlete, he's won multiple gold medals.

Which means that the tests he has to run through will most surely include any and all the stuff that shady medics could pull out on him.

Meanwhile Justin Gatlin runs for the USA, meaning he has direct acess to several of the top medics in known existence. And those medics have a direct interest in buffing him up for nationalist pride's sake. And even then Justin turns positive in tests now and then, while Bolt has always come out clean.

So no, Jamaica's medics aren't some kind of shady hidden genius that would be able to completely outperform USA's super medical corp treatments while remaining completely under the radar.