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[shadenight123]

That the case, Italy should totally stop paying Libia for what happened during the Fascism.
It wasn't 'Italy' but 'Fascist Italy' who did it anyway.
And frankly, judging by the amount of immigrants that are coming anyway, they would have been better off as part of the Italian state to begin with.

Point in case, the 'Otto per mille' system is something that grates on the nerves. Sure, the State is worthless and should objectively be purged and replaced by a glorious new system, but why should I have the option of giving 8/1000 of what I pay in taxes to a church? Let me keep the money.
You (state) can't use it properly anyway and the Church can live without.

[Sheb]

Today the Swedish government voted through another law that compromises our democratic tradition to accommodate other European countries that want to keep official state(-organ) information from their populace. Huzzah, Progress.

More info please?

[Another]

That diagram looks downright wrong to me.

First - nitpicks: upper right is more commonly called "strong atheist", upper left - "weak atheist". At least some (and I guess a majority) of the agnostics would object to the implication of being categorized into one of the 4 quadrants and would claim to be around the middle of the arrow labelled "agnosticism".

Now - to the main problem. Lower left is said to both "believe in God" and "does not claim this belief to be true". Those 2 are directly contradictory. If you believe in something - that implies that you claim it to be true. There could be varying degrees of belief and doubts in them but agnosticism is not [primarily/only] about doubts and is just in a yet different direction from people who simply believe in God, but have doubts about that.

P.S. Historically and to this day the term "Gnostic" usually refers to something very different from anything on that graph. Ignoring that slightly obscure context can be justified in this case.

[Sheb]

Well, you can believe a God exist, but be aware that this believe is not based on much and as such not be sure that a God exist.

[10ebbor10]

Now - to the main problem. Lower left is said to both "believe in God" and "does not claim this belief to be true". Those 2 are directly contradictory. If you believe in something - that implies that you claim it to be true. There could be varying degrees of belief and doubts in them but agnosticism is not [primarily/only] about doubts and is just in a yet different direction from people who simply believe in God, but have doubts about that.

Different definitions of truth. I mean, just because someone believes in something, doesn't mean that they accept it as a literal truth. Which I believe is the distinction the system is trying to make. You can believe in a religious text (example Genesis) without claiming the existence of talking snakes, and angles with flaming swords, or that the age of the planet is a mere 6000 years. I mean, even the Vatican has acknowledged that the principle of Evolution is probably true. Doesn't mean they don't believe in that story anymore.

[scriver]

Today the Swedish government voted through another law that compromises our democratic tradition to accommodate other European countries that want to keep official state(-organ) information from their populace. Huzzah, Progress.

More info please?

One of the cornerstones of Swedish democracy is our system of "see-through-ity". Basically everything except military stuff is public information - every government decision, every letter sen to or within a state organisation, every court case and police investigation (though they're classified until after the court case), every economic receipt ("quittance"?), and so on. This is the reason all those Scientology books is now de facto in the public sphere - back when they were suing all those hackers to hell and back they sued a Swedish guy who responded by entering all their lierature into the case as "relevant evidence" (whatever the English or juridical term is), which means that it's now public information and anyone who wants can just ask the court for it and they have to share it with you.

Now, surprising noone, this level of transparency (yeah, I remembered the word now ) has obviously caused some ruffled feathers in other countries over the years. EU requires you to share a lot of stuff with other countries and supposedly a lot if that stuff counts as classified information in those countries which seizes to be classified the minute it touches a Swedish government branch. An example that were given was pharmaceutics - if the side effects of some medicine is classified in France, they still have to share the information with other EU countries, and when it comes to the Swedish Läkemedelsverket it turns into public information that anyone can read. Sweden has been getting criticism for this for years and years.

The effects of the law that was passed yesterday is pretty simple : it compromises this cornerstone of our democracy (and I do not exaggerate when I call it that - it is absolutely necessary for our kind of government to function and to root out corruption and it's very likely one of the main reasons our corruption level is so low to begin with) in such a way that at the tiniest squeak of objection from any foreign government official at any government level we'd be forced to classify information. And that makes me very angry and bitter. Rather than the EU following our example, Sweden is being pressured to make our system worse.

I didn't include any source since I doubt I can find any non-Swedish one, but I can try, if you want me to.

[Darvi]

The word you're looking for is transparency.

Edit: blehk, should read the whole dam thing before replying.

[Sheb]

Look like a great loss not only to Sweden, but to the rest of Europe too, as we benefited from that transparency. If the law is as bad as you say, it's a step back for all of us.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

And so it was that scriver joined the Pirate Party? This is the sort of thing they'd be against...

[Lagslayer]

Today the Swedish government voted through another law that compromises our democratic tradition to accommodate other European countries that want to keep official state(-organ) information from their populace. Huzzah, Progress.

More info please?

One of the cornerstones of Swedish democracy is our system of "see-through-ity". Basically everything except military stuff is public information - every government decision, every letter sen to or within a state organisation, every court case and police investigation (though they're classified until after the court case), every economic receipt ("quittance"?), and so on. This is the reason all those Scientology books is now de facto in the public sphere - back when they were suing all those hackers to hell and back they sued a Swedish guy who responded by entering all their lierature into the case as "relevant evidence" (whatever the English or juridical term is), which means that it's now public information and anyone who wants can just ask the court for it and they have to share it with you.

Now, surprising noone, this level of transparency (yeah, I remembered the word now ) has obviously caused some ruffled feathers in other countries over the years. EU requires you to share a lot of stuff with other countries and supposedly a lot if that stuff counts as classified information in those countries which seizes to be classified the minute it touches a Swedish government branch. An example that were given was pharmaceutics - if the side effects of some medicine is classified in France, they still have to share the information with other EU countries, and when it comes to the Swedish Läkemedelsverket it turns into public information that anyone can read. Sweden has been getting criticism for this for years and years.

The effects of the law that was passed yesterday is pretty simple : it compromises this cornerstone of our democracy (and I do not exaggerate when I call it that - it is absolutely necessary for our kind of government to function and to root out corruption and it's very likely one of the main reasons our corruption level is so low to begin with) in such a way that at the tiniest squeak of objection from any foreign government official at any government level we'd be forced to classify information. And that makes me very angry and bitter. Rather than the EU following our example, Sweden is being pressured to make our system worse.

I didn't include any source since I doubt I can find any non-Swedish one, but I can try, if you want me to.

The downside of global government.

[Sheb]

So Ukraine, whom everyone expected to sign an agreement with the EU this week-end in Vilnius turned around at the last minute and now suspended talks with the EU, saying they want tripartite talks that include Russia. It's hard to know what exactly happened between Putin and Yanukovich, whether Putin stopped asking for Ukraine to join its Custom Union (that would cut it from the EU forever) or if Yanukovich gave in.

Bad days for Ukraine I'd say. The only silver lining is that with Russia now in charge, I totally expect a backlash against Yanukovich at the next elections.

[Owlbread]

Yanukovich seems to have taken a big hit in his popularity lately. He's made a lot of terrible gaffs and he's not very good at obscuring the fact that he's just a patsy in Putin's schemes.

[Sheb]

He's not really a patsy. He's an incredibly corrupt guy trying to play Russia and the EU against each others. He need cash and trade to keep Ukraine's afloat, but the EU won't let him rig elections and Russia will only accept him as a vassal.

[Owlbread]

I suppose the question remains whether the Donbass folk will turn out in enough numbers to keep him in power. I do wonder though if the Ukraine joining the EU or NATO in the future is impossible unless Svoboda or Timoshenko's opposition somehow make it in, but surely that could lead to huge amounts of unrest in Crimea and the East.

[Sheb]

I don't know. The Economist quoted figures of 60% of the population favoring an EU deal against 10% favoring a Russian deal. Russia really managed to kill any goodwill Ukrainian still had for them with their bullying. The Ukrainians elections are in 2015, so unless a massive dollop of Russian cash comes in to buoy the economy before then, it's hard to imagine Yanukovich winning.