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

Fwib · Post by **Fwib** » Mon Apr 13, 2020 4:17 pm

Would having some sort of fairer election system encourage these massively different groups to stop pretending to be one party?

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Mon Apr 13, 2020 5:20 pm

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Apr 13, 2020 6:22 pm

Fwib wrote:Would having some sort of fairer election system encourage these massively different groups to stop pretending to be one party?

Yes, First past the post forces single allegiance to larger parties and trying to fight over the power in that party.

In actual kind of democratic proportional systems you get to just vote for your actual party and then you can openly say "I'm part of the socialist party but I will coalition with you, the people who are of a different party and hate me, because we can work on what we agree on" without having to do all the dumb "we agree on all the same things but just have different ways to get there." bullshit.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Mon Apr 20, 2020 3:29 pm

Gunman goes on shooting spree in Nova Scotia dressed as dressed in a police uniform.

pragma · Post by **pragma** » Mon Apr 20, 2020 6:14 pm

Kaelik wrote:Yes, First past the post forces single allegiance to larger parties and trying to fight over the power in that party.

Some interesting scholarship in the past decade suggests that this may not be perfectly true. There are lots of modern democracies where Duverger's Law doesn't hold, and political scientists are now suggesting that electoral reform is an effect of a viable third party emerging rather than a cause. I don't have a strong opinion: the reasoning behind Duverger's Law seems sound to me but the data doesn't hold it up.

EDIT: and now that I read the last post in the thread I realize this might not have been the time to lob an argumentative hand grenade. That shooting is horrifying.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Apr 20, 2020 6:42 pm

pragma wrote:
Kaelik wrote:Yes, First past the post forces single allegiance to larger parties and trying to fight over the power in that party.
Some interesting scholarship in the past decade suggests that this may not be perfectly true. There are lots of modern democracies where Duverger's Law doesn't hold, and political scientists are now suggesting that electoral reform is an effect of a viable third party emerging rather than a cause. I don't have a strong opinion: the reasoning behind Duverger's Law seems sound to me but the data doesn't hold it up.

EDIT: and now that I read the last post in the thread I realize this might not have been the time to lob an argumentative hand grenade. That shooting is horrifying.

I'm not so sure about Duvergers law specifically.

But it is certainly true that in the united states, however much it has OBVIOUSLY failed, trying a left takeover of the democratic party was a better idea than trying to build the Green party up.

Likewise, the fuck off centrists who deliberately sabotaged Corbyn won in the Labour elections and the people who tried to defect to the Lib Dems didn't accomplish much. And likewise, it makes more sense for the left to try again on taking over Labour than to try to create another major party.

It's not so much about Duvergers law as it is that if you WIN the fight you sort of co-opt the huge section of voters who have might generally oppose your policies because they oppose the other side more and they have no where else to go instead of enraging those people at your and making them hate you forever if you try to raise an alternative party.

In proportional systems when you are "part of the coalition" it's a lot easier to pull voters over to you because they haven't been trained to see you as the enemy who is responsible for every election loss they have ever suffered, and it's easier for people to "defect" to another party rendering co-opting less useful.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Apr 25, 2020 11:31 pm

Apparently the greatest election loss ever so bad where labour lost a bunch of leave seats.

The people at fault are now the people in charge, not corbyn.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/labo ... Od0aFd5jHw

Labour officials ran a secret operation to deceive Jeremy Corbyn at last year’s general election, micro-targeting Facebook adverts at the leader and his closest aides to convince them the party was running the campaign they demanded.

Campaign chiefs at Labour HQ hoodwinked their own leader because they disapproved of some of Corbyn’s left-wing messages.

They convinced him they were following his campaign plans by spending just £5,000 on adverts solely designed to be seen by Corbyn, his aides and their favourite journalists, while pouring far more money into adverts with a different message for ordinary voters

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sun Apr 26, 2020 10:24 am

I gotta say that is some pretty dastardly shit right there. But it's interesting that 5k was all it took to keep Corbyn, all his aides, AND the journalists he trusts in the dark.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Apr 26, 2020 10:48 am

Apparently micro targeting is relatively cheap when it comes to targeting names individuals which is uhh... weird as fucm that you can even do that at all?

Kevin Mack · Post by **Kevin Mack** » Sun Apr 26, 2020 12:44 pm

Also lets be honest most of em probably only check the thing once and mostly in a "So how does the new ad look?" way where there getting the thing directly from the ones doing the decieving.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Apr 26, 2020 3:04 pm

So . . North Korea . .
Kim Jong Un dead?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Apr 26, 2020 4:26 pm

Stahlseele wrote:So . . North Korea . .
Kim Jong Un dead?

Maybe? The TMZ story doesn't make a lot of sense and that isn't their actual beat. Kim Jong Un hasn't been seen for a couple of weeks and has missed major national holidays (North Korea has a lot of holidays).

My assumption is that he has COVID. The "heart surgery" story doesn't sound likely because there's no reason for him to have needed heart surgery unless he contracted a case of high velocity lead poisoning.

A surprising number of people are thirsty for his evil sister to take over because it turns out that she is the only person in the Kim dynasty to have avoided the ugly stick. I would be cautiously optimistic if she - or anyone - took control of the country because the Korean conflict is extremely harmful and stupid and every new leader comes with a chance of winding that shit down.

-Username17

The Adventurer's Almanac · Sun Apr 26, 2020 5:33 pm

I've heard she's even worse than he is.
Of course, I have no proof of this whatsoever, but that's what they get for living in a secretive dictatorship. She certainly doesn't have any happy pictures like the jolly fat man does.
If he did die, I wonder how long it would take for the rest of the world to find out? Day-of?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Apr 26, 2020 7:00 pm

The Adventurer's Almanac wrote:I've heard she's even worse than he is.
Of course, I have no proof of this whatsoever, but that's what they get for living in a secretive dictatorship. She certainly doesn't have any happy pictures like the jolly fat man does.
If he did die, I wonder how long it would take for the rest of the world to find out? Day-of?

Boris Johnson had COVID for three days before they admitted that he was sick. I don't know how long it took for the intelligence agencies to figure out he was sick, but the doctors in our department had concluded he had COVID 48 hours before the announcement.

But there definitely are pictures of her smiling and not acting like the villain's assistant from a Bond movie. Encouragingly, she seems to be able to pretend to be a normal person in talks with South Korea. Which is absolutely the place I want her to talk like a normal person.

-Username17

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri May 01, 2020 11:11 pm

Apparently Kim is back about and we should still probably ignore sensationalist stories about how extremely reliable secret sources know something very newsworthy that doesn't say anything of real substance about North Korea.

Thaluikhain · Post by **Thaluikhain** » Sat May 02, 2020 3:10 am

Kaelik wrote:Apparently Kim is back about and we should still probably ignore sensationalist stories about how extremely reliable secret sources know something very newsworthy that doesn't say anything of real substance about North Korea.

Not exactly cheering at this news, but at least people will stop going on about how much they stan NK's leader due to them being attractive.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Sat May 02, 2020 3:28 am

Thaluikhain wrote:
Kaelik wrote:Apparently Kim is back about and we should still probably ignore sensationalist stories about how extremely reliable secret sources know something very newsworthy that doesn't say anything of real substance about North Korea.
Not exactly cheering at this news, but at least people will stop going on about how much they stan NK's leader due to them being attractive.

You cannot unring a bell.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Wed May 06, 2020 2:49 pm

The gorilla rangers that posed with gorillas some time ago got killed in an ambush:

https://www.tuko.co.ke/354873-13-congol ... _medium=ps

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Wed May 06, 2020 2:51 pm

OgreBattle wrote:The gorilla rangers that posed with gorillas some time ago got killed in an ambush:

https://www.tuko.co.ke/354873-13-congol ... _medium=ps

---

Not exactly cheering at this news, but at least people will stop going on about how much they stan NK's leader due to them being attractive.

It does work though, the pretty Myanmar leader gets a pass on mass killings, the Filipino leader gets flack for police killings but the pretty Thai leader that did the same (with a higher death rate) just got remembered for being pretty posing with President Obama.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Wed May 20, 2020 9:07 pm

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... ists-algae
Climate change is turning parts of Antarctica green, say scientists

Researchers map ‘beginning of new ecosystem’ as algae bloom across surface of melting snow

Just ever so slightly disconcerting . .

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Mon Jun 08, 2020 10:10 pm

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politic ... ls-chinese

So what's with China's star soccer player calling for the end of the party and hanging out with that exiled billionaire and steve bannon?

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Tue Jun 09, 2020 3:41 am

https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/research/resea ... se-tracker

How tough are/have been the coronavirus restrictions in your country relative to others? Click on the map and add a few countries to compare them. I thought it was interesting.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Wed Jun 17, 2020 6:23 am

India & China border dispute turns fatal, soldiers got killed over Himelayan border

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... 416561.cms

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Mon Sep 07, 2020 12:03 pm

https://ooe.orf.at/stories/3065683/
Sort of both US and non US News.
Its in German, short summary man got an 1200 Dollar check from Mr. Trump.
He thinks he may have gotten it because he worked in 1960 in the US for 2 years.
Why his wife also got one, which wasnt ever in the US, he has no theory about.

So far 45 such checks got cashed in, in that brand of Bank.
Are there cases from other countries (besides Austria)?

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Mon Sep 07, 2020 8:11 pm

Stimulus payments were sent to Social Security recipients. So if he's receiving even just a couple $$ a month in SS, he was still counted as a legit stimulous payment.