International Politics Thread - Disease and Disaster

[Phoenix Dark]

There's too much at stake for such a confrontation. Seems more like a show of nationalism than steps to real war.

[a slime appears]

There's too much at stake for such a confrontation. Seems more like a show of nationalism than steps to real war.

I think you're absolutely right, or at least I really hope you are lol. I'm just a little concerned about the consequences. Especially after what's going on with Russia.

[Kara]

As promised, here you go Esch.

http://marxistleninist.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/a-question-of-state-revolution-china-market-socialism/

[Big Barry Jazz]

Broseidon please explain

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/sainsburys-offers-shoppers-chance-to-get-the-slave-look-with-12-years-a-slave-display-mannequin-9395708.html

What the hell? I usually go in that store every other day and never noticed it. They must have got it down pretty quickly.

[benjipwns]

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[benjipwns]

EU elections

 

France National Front storm to victory - 25%, 25 seats; Centre-right UMP 21%; President Hollande's Socialists a poor third with 14% - lowest ever EP score
Britain Eurosceptic UKIP in first place, with 27%, Conservatives on 24% and Labour about 25%, Greens beating Lib Dems
Italy Centre-left PM Matteo Renzi scores strong 40%, fending off ex-comic Beppe Grillo's anti-establishment Five Star with 22%, and ex-PM Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia with 16%
Germany Angela Merkel wins another election - 35% for her Christian Union, 27% for the centre-left SPD. Eurosceptic AfD score strong 7%
Greece Partial results show far-left Syriza on 26%, PM Antonis Samaras' New Democracy on 23%. Far-right Golden Dawn set to get three MEPs, with 9%

[milchs evil twin]

I'm fascinated by the results of the AfD, mainly because they stole votes from other parties across the whole spectrum.
There's about 110,000 voters who went from the far left Linke to the very much right wing AfD despite their rhetoric about keeping people out of the social system.

At least it looks like Die PARTEI got a seat. Sample poster:



("Hands off the German dick. No to the EU norm penis!")

[benjipwns]

AfD's logo kinda looks like a dick too. And the Nike swoosh.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

The EU election results came in and UKIP was the leading party in the UK and the National Front was the leading party in France.  Remember when GAF was really hyping up the Liberal Democrats and Nick Clegg as the future of UK politics?  I think Cheebs was one of those people.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/european-election-results-2014-farright-parties-flourish-across-europe-in-snub-to-austerity-9434069.html

[Phoenix Dark]

Anything that lets me laugh at the UK is fine with me.

[Great Rumbler]

One candidate for the far-right Austrian Freedom Party was forced to withdraw after he called the EU a “conglomerate of Negroes”.

But her key ally – Geert Wilders of the Dutch Freedom Party – has seen his party drop two seats in the Parliament, after a xenophobic outburst in which he asked his supporters if they would like “fewer Moroccans” in The Netherlands.

Golden Dawn – whose supporters perform Nazi salutes and have been arrested for assaulting migrants – managed to get around 10 per cent of the vote, sending at least two MEPs to Brussels.

[Fifstar]

I'm fascinated by the results of the AfD, mainly because they stole votes from other parties across the whole spectrum.
There's about 110,000 voters who went from the far left Linke to the very much right wing AfD despite their rhetoric about keeping people out of the social system.

At least it looks like Die PARTEI got a seat. Sample poster:

(Image removed from quote.)

("Hands off the German dick. No to the EU norm penis!")

Linke is the most euro sceptic party of the established parties, so they have that in common. Plus lots of protest voters.

[Kara]

Glad you enjoyed the link, Esch. I also highly recommend IWW agitprop for its complete lack of self-awareness.

maybe i don't understand socialism well, but shouldn't a socialist system avoid horrific class divides?  and how can they be considered to be battling imperialism when china themselves are engaged in worse imperialistic behaviour than almost any other country?

if china is considered socialist, even loosely, then socialism is a pile of worthless garbage that is saddled with all of the same failings as capitalism's extremes.  but in my opinion, they're even less socialist than fucking canada.

It depends on what you mean by socialism. To a M-L, socialism is a step on the path to communism, and it will still have many of the warts that prior stages of economic development had because it's still a society based around subsistence. (The origin of all class divides is the allocation of the methods necessary to subsist.)

[Broseidon]

King Abdullah's reaction to seeing the Syrian ambassador (20 seconds). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-27580654

[Phoenix Dark]

all they need is a charismatic, powerful leader. And this time the US will be too broke to save them. 

[benjipwns]

I'm pumped, DICE puts out some great game trailers.

[Positive Touch]

europe being mad at unwanted people coming into their countries (and changing the culture lol) has gotta be one of the dumbest things in the history of all things

[benjipwns]

europe being mad at unwanted people coming into their countries (and changing the culture lol) has gotta be one of the dumbest things in the history of all things

We were invited. Punch vas served. Check vit Poland.

[Phoenix Dark]

Nothing wrong with wanting strict immigration laws. But when you start framing the issue as a war against the white race then my ears perk up because I know niccas and Jews are next.

[Phoenix Dark]

Man just think, in 100 years there will be white guys standing on the corner in Harlem kicking knowledge about how the black man knocked the noses off Mount Rushmore to hide the fact that America once had white presidents.

[benjipwns]

I'm terrible at video editing, but fixed:

(skip to like 1:10 if you don't want to watch the whole thing again)

[T-Short]

all they need is a charismatic, powerful leader. And this time the US will be too broke to save them. 

Jesus fuck. Hadn't actually seen this.

[brob]

Well, at least sweden also elected a number of hardcore leftists as well. There is even a Rroma MEP, whoa! such progress, much will be done, etc.

[T-Short]

Well, at least sweden also elected a number of hardcore leftists as well. There is even a Rroma MEP, whoa! such progress, much will be done, etc.

Yeah, I voted for her. hehe

[Great Rumbler]

Union of Former-Soviet Socialist Republics

[Phoenix Dark]

Doesn't Russia make up like 90% of the GDP and population of this new union? Short term it seems like nothing more than dick waving. Especially as the Russian economy hurls over a cliff.

[Brehvolution]

Even the Discovery channel has Russia fever. I've seen advert for 3 new shows all based in Russia.

[brob]

(Image removed from quote.)

someone pls make a full-body coli emote out of this one

[Phoenix Dark]

Big weekend!

Bergdahl released after five years of captivity in Afghanistan during prisoner exchange:

http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2014/05/breaking-american-pow-bergdahl-freed-prisoner-exchange/85555/

Hopefully this will clear some things up about his capture and captivity. The general opinion from people I've spoken with in the military is not very sympathetic—most seem to think he willingly left and was a defector. I wonder what we'll discover during his debriefing.

[Raban]

someone pls make a full-body coli emote out of this one

            praise allah
            /

[Great Rumbler]

[Phoenix Dark]

 

[Great Rumbler]

"In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony science's logic. But because, I am blessed by Allah."

[Joe Molotov]

wow
such beard
very halal

[Raban]

ftfy

In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony science's logic. But because, I am blessed by Allah.

         /

[Broseidon]

Guess I should post this here too

[Brehvolution]

Florida's humidity does something to you.
                /

[Kara]

You're from Eastern Province and named Yazeed

(Image removed from quote.)

Hey man at least his pops isn't named Muawiyah. 

[Broseidon]

[Brehvolution]

How much Arabic training did you get in the service, Biz?

[Brehvolution]

What was Jordan like?

[Broseidon]

http://www.businessinsider.com/tom-balmforth-major-players-among-the-seperatists-in-ukraine-2014-6

[Kara]

My new neighbors are Egyptian and don't know that I know any Arabic and I'm thinking of the perfect response to "oh you speak Arabic?" before I break kayfabe and introduce myself to them with an ahalan wa sahalan.

Leaning towards something like "kaan mukhabara ma3 jaysh-amrikiyya" but I don't want them to move out the next day. 

[Kara]

Fuck dat shit, it's dajaaj, not dagaag. 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I use G as a substitute already for qaaf because my spoken is (was?) a horrible pastiche of Lebanese and Baghdadi. I had to remember that it was kaan, not chaan for my last post.  :'(

[close]

[Kara]

How can something be gamil if it's such an ugly-sounding word?

 

[brawndolicious]

I don't understand what any of you are saying. 

[Boogie]

I don't understand what any of you are saying. 

Now you know how we have felt about most of your posts over the years.

[Kara]

I don't understand what any of you are saying. 

There's a standardized way to say every letter in Arabic, but for various linguistic reasons nonstandard substitutions have been made to those pronunciations in the regional varieties of the language throughout its history. (Arabic's diglossia is very pronounced, it is after all a language spoken over swaths of the world that have experienced different histories and interacted with different languages. Also some of the letters are just fucking hard to say. Yeah, I'm looking at you ghayn, what the fuck are you going to do about it?)

The Arabic letter ج (jeem)'s standard pronunciation is more or less the English letter J (as used in the word Juliet), but in other parts of the Arabic speaking world it has been substituted with the sound the English letter g makes in the word golf. Egypt's dialect is one such dialect where this substitution has been made, and it's rather infamous among Arabic speakers because Egyptian media has a huge reach in all Arabic media.

Biz was pointing out to me that my inappropriate joke might have to be spoken differently than I would naturally speak it for it to be immediately and viscerally understood by my neighbors without thinking about it (thus defeating the purpose of my mean and inappropriate joke) because it had a word with jeem in it.

This lead us on a tangent about this sound substitution. To those of us that don't speak the language in this manner this substitution makes certain words just kind of sound silly. Biz made the word for army sound more like something someone who had forgotten how to say geisha would come up with in lieu of geisha when trying to say geisha, I made the word for chicken sound like something you'd do if you ate rotten chicken, etc.

But instead of just running the mocking things for not being normative train into the ground, Biz went philosophical and pointed out that this substitution makes the word for beautiful (jameel) plain ugly sounding, which just blew my fucking ghareeb mind and I went Wee-Bey.

Arabic

[Kara]

The one letter I have trouble with is "ض" mostly cause I find the real correct way of pronouncing it to be difficult and idiotically so. I just use it as a harsher version of "ذ" or "the". Exactly like "ظ" almost. When it's even harsher than that.

If I'm not trying to speak correctly I will do this too.  (I don't mind saying daal, just one of those bad habits I picked up studying Baghdadi.)

Seems like there's more overlap between Najdi and Baghdadi than I thought, at least in pronunciation. (I sincerely doubt they ask "shaku maku?" down there.)

What's the point of learning a foreign language if you can't alienate the non-speakers? Still, that's a great summary.

shukran senpai.

[tiesto]

How do you pronounce 'Ibn'? Always wondered that...

[Mandark]

Wat.

I sort of want to know the backstory to this but I don't want the NSA recording my use of the necessary search terms.

[Kara]

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%86#Arabic

Click the play button.

Sorry it's nothing really special.

e: Hey man if you think I'm fancy now, there was a time in my life where I actively transliterated everything in Hans Wehr style.

e2: As a tangent, how do y'all feel about transliterating al- when it's a making a noun definite that begins with a shamsiya letter? (I prefer to preserve the laam even though it's not an accurate representation of the sound being made, this is English it's not like our orthography isn't fucked already.)

[benjipwns]

Wat.

I sort of want to know the backstory to this but I don't want the NSA recording my use of the necessary search terms.

...Wikipedia should be safe right...

Production, sale and distribution was illegal but not mere possession. But those things were only made illegal in 1999 and 2003 after pressure from the UN.

In June 2008, a bill proposing a ban on child pornography possession was submitted to the House of Representatives of Japan, where it was brought before the Diet in September, but failed to pass.[2] The Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito Party proposed to outlaw any possession of child pornography, but was countered by the Democratic Party of Japan with a different proposal.[8][9] The House of Representatives dissolved on July 21, 2009, and both proposals to revise the law were withdrawn. During the general election of the House of Representatives in August 2009, open letters written by politicians to a civilian organization showed that the politicians were divided on the matter.[10]

In 2008, the Japanese branch of UNICEF called on the government to outlaw simple possession of child pornography, as well as cartoon pornography depicting minors. It also called for tighter restriction of Junior Idol media under existing laws.[11] The United States ambassador to Japan has stated that Japan's lack of laws restricting possession of child pornography has impeded international investigations into child pornography.[2]

On August 25, 2011, the Liberal Democratic Party submitted a petition requesting stricter laws on child pornography, which included animated child pornography.[12][13] In late June 2013, the Liberal Democratic Party moved forward with their proposal. A decision has not yet been reached.[14]

A 2007 public opinion poll taken by the Japanese government showed that 86.5% of respondents believed that child pornography regulations should be applied to art and manga, while 90.9% endorsed regulation of "harmful materials" on the Internet.

While not considered explicitly pornographic, media portraying young idols is a large industry in Japan. Photobooks and videos of underage models in scant, tight fitting and revealing clothing are often taken to be provocative and pornographic in nature. The industry remains lucrative, with The Japan Times reporting an estimated 3 million idol photo books sold between 2006 and 2007.

Helpful map:

Green = child pornography possession legal.
Red = no kind of pornography possession legal.

[Kara]

I am extremely disappointed in Andorra and my dream home of San Marino.

[benjipwns]

Here's a bigger version of the map to see all the tiny nations: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/26/Pornography_laws.2012_09_02_05_30_42.0.svg/2000px-Pornography_laws.2012_09_02_05_30_42.0.svg.png

[benjipwns]

I pick Order a lot

[Kara]

@ Islam and Communism annihilating porn like it's Civ V

Show some fucking respect to the free market achievements of Botswana OK.

[benjipwns]

Only for culture victories and wide empires

It's funny how "communism" and "freedom" are viable, but the fascist option is garbage. Just like real life.

Yeah, I picked it one time to see how that route goes and when it was time to pick a ideology policy I was always like...eh...how about I go back to filling out these social policies instead.

Should make an Anarchism Mod where you play the role of arbitrator for the selected "corporation" and everything is randomly automated and the only thing you do is click next turn until it's time to arbitrate a dispute. (No war allowed obviously.)

[Kara]

In Tropico I tend to be a pretty weak handed socialist. I even stand in elections. 

[benjipwns]

I always wind up being better friends with the Soviets somehow. Americans get pissed at the drop of a hat seems like.

Maybe it's the whole "sure you can build a weapons factory" part.