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No
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Yes
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Author Topic: European Union thread  (Read 49657 times)

mainiac

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Re: European Union thread
« Reply #120 on: October 06, 2015, 03:16:34 pm »

I didn't realize GTA was so popular in the EU.

Now excuse me, I gotta go chase them Duke boys before they escape over the county line.
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Helgoland

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Re: European Union thread
« Reply #121 on: October 06, 2015, 04:59:19 pm »

glyphosphate
Cannot resist being That Guy: it's glyphosate.
I never noticed that. Makes sense, since the critter's not a phosphate, but I'd always thought it was named Glyphosphate anyway...
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TD1

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Re: European Union thread
« Reply #122 on: October 06, 2015, 05:00:04 pm »

Ptw
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martinuzz

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Re: European Union thread
« Reply #123 on: October 07, 2015, 03:42:09 am »

The police in the Netherlands arrested 5 people today, 4 minors age 14-17, and one adult age 21, for repeatedly DDOS attacking, and blackmailing our internet provider called ZIGGO, and our telecom company KPN.

They are now facing several years imprisonment, and might also be facing numerous public compensation claims from ZIGGO and KPN clients that suffered damage from the DDOS attacks.

Said clients had first wanted to claim compensation money from ZIGGO and KPN, but those responded that the DDOS attacks were accompanied by blackmail letters, and it would not be right to pay anyone anything at all, because of the blackmail involved.

So I guess those customers are now going to sue those kids for compensation.
So, today's wise lesson: Don't DDOS stuff in the Netherlands. We have laws for that now, and they are not mild. Years in prison is not were you want to spend your youth.

EDIT: the "blackmail" consisted of video messages demanding ZIGGO and KPN do more about their internet security, while warning that a much larger attack (by less benevolent parties) is to be expected. The DDOS attacks forced ZIGGO to upload new settings to the modems of 6 million users.
« Last Edit: October 07, 2015, 03:56:02 am by martinuzz »
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Sheb

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Re: European Union thread
« Reply #124 on: October 07, 2015, 04:29:46 am »

The difference between evolution and GM is that the former reacts, and the latter acts.
There is indeed no guarantuee that, in the example case of pesticides, resistant soil bacteria, or resistant weed species will evolve through process of random mutation and natural selection. Our tendency for monoculture (relative to natural biodiversity) and extensive use of (only a select few types of) pesticides probably have increased the probabilty of this happening by increasing selective pressure. Still, evolution is usually a process of 10s of thousands, if not millions of years, and seeing how very short our species has been using pesticides, on a evolutionary timescale, it is not very likely that we would see this happen within our, or our children's lifetimes, at least not on an uncontrollable scale.

However, if geneticists actively tailor genes, specifically deisgned to provide resistance against commonly used pesticides, knowing that there are already existing organisms in nature that can basically copy-paste genes, it is like handing it to said organisms on a gold platter, especially if you proceed to go about distributing your GM product to every niche on the globe were it can economically be grown. If evolution would throw us a similar mutation, it would probably start very local, and be more containable.

This is simply not the case? Did you even read my post? Glyphosate resistance is now common and widespread across all continents and a couple hundred of weed species, without any case of gene transfer. In case of intensive use of a pesticide, resistance will develop on a timescale of decades. Here, have a chart of herbicides plants developed resistance against.




Horizontal gene transfer between two eukaryotes is very, very, very rare though.
Knowledge of soil microbial life is only now starting to catch up from being a very undeveloped section of our scientific database of life on our planet.
Who knows, down there it might be less rare than we think.
[/quote]

We don´t really need to know about soil microbial life for this: we can sequence eukaryotic genome and see how many genes come from other eukaryotes. We do contain a fair number of gene that arrived via horizontal gene transfer - up to 100 in humans  - but almost all of them come from bacterias, and these were accumulated on a scale of hundred of millions of years.

I mean, just think of the sheer unlikeliness of your scenario: some virus or bacteria has to take just the right piece of DNA, keep it in its genome (and unlike a metabolic gene, a resistance gene to a plant heribicde is of little use to a bacteria), then give it to a weed. We then have ONE resistance specie, the extremely unlikely process needing to be repeated for every new resistance specie.

Compared to the proven evolution of resistance in dozens of weeds over a timescale of decades the far-fetched scenario of massive HGT is not an issue at all.
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Sergarr

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Re: European Union thread
« Reply #125 on: October 07, 2015, 10:30:11 am »

EDIT: the "blackmail" consisted of video messages demanding ZIGGO and KPN do more about their internet security, while warning that a much larger attack (by less benevolent parties) is to be expected. The DDOS attacks forced ZIGGO to upload new settings to the modems of 6 million users.
So, they're still going behind the bars?
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martinuzz

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Re: European Union thread
« Reply #126 on: October 07, 2015, 03:44:56 pm »

Up to the judge and jury
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Loud Whispers

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Re: European Union thread
« Reply #127 on: October 07, 2015, 08:45:54 pm »

Actually people did give a shit about non-replantable seeds, largely because they were angry by the fact that replantable seeds were pointlessly being treated as non-replantable for profit and not for sanity
Agriculture is already wasteful enough as is, does not need to be more so just because; seeds grow plants which grow more seeds
I am sorry, but you just don't know what you are talking about. F1 hybrids cannot be replanted (Well, technically they can, but the offspring lack the parent's quality). F1 hybrids have been used for close to 100 years now. By 1960, virtually all corn grown in the US was hybrid. Rice, wheat, sunflower, sugar beets are all crops which are almost only grown as hybrids in develloped countries.
No, you do not know what I'm talking about. Landraces can be replanted, are replanted and are done so across the world. America is not the world, and it is the country that is most responsible for the rest of the world slowly adopting American crops over their own local seed. It's easy to address criticism when you're not addressing it, and again, America is not in fact the world. Farmers the world over who grow from locally grown seed need not buy seed for they can merely replant their own or that of their neighbour.


Also in more EU noos, given the recent slowdown in growth from BRICS countries threatening to cause a new recession with everyone panicking for little reason, there have been recent calls within the EU for the Krauts in Berlin and Frankfurt to stimulate the economy within the EU to ensure that the Yuros do not befall the same fate as the Yanks and Shanghais of the world. I think it's funnier to post this from 2013 since peeps have consistently been calling for German overlordship and the Germans for obvious reasons are more content being a Chinese or modern-Russia style hegemon, influence and economic control without any of the downsides of direct political control. This may come as a surprise to hear that I am in favour of French or German domination of Europe, though perhaps it is more accurate to say I am in favour of French or German (or both) dominating the European continent; once the UK is free from the "ever closer union" and is allowed to do its own thing on the world stage I would be much pleased to see the European Empire in the East become its own nation, at least in practice if not also in legality. They've had some setbacks what with some countries regaining borders and control of their own nations but the economy is still dominated by Germany and that's what matters the most. Charlemagne 2: Electric boogaloo indeed. Although I may wish to also see Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Portugal join the UK in its independence fully, for the most part I wish to see what French and German paranoia of American dominance will achieve; the UK stands to profit quite well from such a powerful standoff, and a single Eunited Sates of Europia would in tandem with China be able to bring a considerable bout of prosperity from one corner of the continent to the other. Possibly at the expense of Russia.

Also on the national level in Britpol, amongst labour they've still got their infighting; with moderates fearing they will be purged from the labour party after most of the new labour lot already had a mass exodus from the party when Corby (hard-left leader of the opposition, old school dino socialist marxist, friend of Argentina) won their party election. Amongst libdem well, they haven't been doing much that the media has bothered reporting on. Amongst UKIP they have been busy with the UK referendum, and amongst the Tories a most interesting thing is happening. Theresa May (home secretary, imagine Margaret Thatcher spliced with a 16th century spymaster and you've got her, seems most unforgiving of the three), George Osborne (chancellor of the exchequer, somewhat like a British version of Americans' neocons in that idea of economically conservative but socially liberal, calculative pragmatist) and Boris Johnson (utterly bizarre character, somewhat similar to the Americans' Ron Paul in that idea of a libertarian above party politics, only in Boris's case that also includes being humorously "quirky") have been beefing up their claim to leadership of the Tory party and by extension, claim to leadership of Great Britain come the next general election. With exception to some scandal occurring or political turmoil gripping the nation I imagine 10 years from now the UK's political climate will be split between a hard left and a hard right, gone the centrists of yesterday.
Or perhaps not. The centrists did plan for this occasion.

In the Portugal their elections saw the Portugal Ahead alliance (centre-right coalition of two centre-right political parties) remain in power despite the European continent's recent leftwards swing in response to austerity of yesteryear. Pedro's centre-rightists are mild euroskeptics, as they're not quite full shitlord like UK ones; they will not campaign for independence, being only wary of closer political union without worrying too much of the negative consequences of EU membership (relative to UK ones anyways). On the topic of austerity, the Guardian makes the point that Pedro should be wary to conclude that his party's victory is a wide popular endorsement of Portugal's austerity, as the alliance did lose a lot of its voteshare. Second place goes to Portugal's socialist party with 32.4% of the voteshare compared with Portugal Ahead's 38.6%, with Portugal's socialist party receiving backing from the commies to help end Portuguese austerity if at all possible.

In minor news, the high GBP to NOK and to a lesser extent EU to NOK exchange rate has meant that British and Yuro investors in the Norwegian fish exchange have had quite a fun time, and fishing for these nations will be considerably profitable in spite of market slumps elsewhere in Europe and the world. Salmon can! This also happened in 2013, perhaps Germany is in fact ruled by a shadow government of fish?

And to recap on the Sep20 elections in Greece, Tsipras and the left-wing Syriza was nearly unseated by the New Democrats, the right wing opposition in Greece. Not by a surge in popularity with the New Democrats, as they stayed relatively the same in terms of support, rather turnout in the elections had dropped to an all time low as Greeks withdrew from the election process, somewhat tired and disillusioned. The not!Nazis remained in third place, which is considerably better than you'd expect considering how hard they got shut down; is it possible to vote for an illegal party?

martinuzz

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Re: European Union thread
« Reply #128 on: October 08, 2015, 07:41:46 am »

Head of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, stated that "NATO is prepared to send troops to Turkey to help it defend it's borders".

This, in response to Russian fighters repeatedly violating Turkish airspace, which according to Moscow, was "by accident".

Article 5 request when lol?
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Friendly and polite reminder for optimists: Hope is a finite resource

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Sheb

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Re: European Union thread
« Reply #129 on: October 08, 2015, 07:59:57 am »

Didn't NATO deploy SAM missiles to Turkey a couple of years ago after a few buzz by the Syrian Air Force?
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miljan

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Re: European Union thread
« Reply #130 on: October 08, 2015, 08:39:21 am »

Didn't NATO deploy SAM missiles to Turkey a couple of years ago after a few buzz by the Syrian Air Force?

They where, but are removed as the agreement expired so nato (german and USA) patriot missiles were removed

Turkey is getting angry that syria is getting direct russian support on the battlefield, as their support of several rebel organization  are now getting hammered by russia air strikes.
« Last Edit: October 08, 2015, 08:42:57 am by miljan »
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martinuzz

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Re: European Union thread
« Reply #131 on: October 08, 2015, 08:58:52 am »

Didn't NATO deploy SAM missiles to Turkey a couple of years ago after a few buzz by the Syrian Air Force?
Yes, it were actually Patriot systems owned by our Dutch forces. They have been retreated back to the Netherlands already though, I think last year or maybe 2013.
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Friendly and polite reminder for optimists: Hope is a finite resource

We can ­disagree and still love each other, ­unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist - James Baldwin

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SirQuiamus

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Re: European Union thread
« Reply #132 on: October 08, 2015, 09:30:03 am »

Mr Piggy says poverty is bad, promises to assault the poor to end poverty for good. Also notes that social mobility is stagnant because not everyone has an equal taste for bacon grease; vows to spend £50 per year on pork enrichment education.

EDIT: On a closely related note, Louise Mensch sez Pig-gate woz an insaid jerb:

Quote
And what about the fiction over friction? Cameron is not accused even of “having sex with a pig” as mad Corbynites claimed on twitter. He’s accused of something I won’t repeat here involving cooked food and placement of bits thereon, not a sexual act. It was an “initiation ceremony” for a society he wasn’t in. There’s nothing to it, other than that one shouldn’t get drunk and take clothes off.

You hear me? Piggy Cameron took part in an initiation ceremony involving cooked food and placement of bits thereon – he is not a pig-fucker, I repeat: Piggy Cameron is not a pig-fucker, capisce?

I'm glad we got that sorted out.
« Last Edit: October 08, 2015, 10:59:04 am by SirQuiamus »
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Loud Whispers

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Re: European Union thread
« Reply #133 on: October 08, 2015, 03:04:56 pm »

So he wasn't a pig squealer, he was two bits a full English breakfast? All he was missing was some beans, mushroom, toast, and tea; already had bacon and sausage

Quote
It was an “initiation ceremony” for a society he wasn’t in.

Anyone know how this can be verified?
[This is a pigpost, disregard my opinions].


In other less porkine news, calls for a limit to refugees have sprung up in German land after a paper forecast 1.5gorillion immigrants to sweep Germany into Sweden. Merkel stressed that the country will be able to cope because she intends to ship immigrants from Germany to the rest of Europe, so brave

Quote
The week before last, the German chancellor flew to the Big Apple to address the United Nations summit on sustainability, women's rights and climate change. But what she took home with her was the surprising realization that Horst Seehofer actually has a lot in common with Ahmet Davutoglu and Nawaz Sharif.
Seehofer is the governor of Bavaria and the head of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), the sister party to Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU); Davutoglu is the prime minister of Turkey; Sharif the prime minister of Pakistan. All three have recently conveyed the same message: Merkel must get tougher in the refugee crisis.
Far too late for that now in my porkine opinion, now is the time to see Germany reap her own reward

As a continuation of the Afghan/Syrian fight and the Turk/Kurd fight in Germany the most recent fight was between Albanians and Afghans, these Syrian migrants sure are whacky and not Syrian or refugees, but that's because

So anyways another German has been evicted to make way for more migrants, so this time they didn't TOK ER JERB and instead TOK ER HOUSE

Also after some cross hailers got religion of peace'd the German deputy head of police has said refugees should be housed separately by creed, presumably because he's a shitlord of the land

For committing international suicide Merkel's in the running to get the nobel peace prize and will rub shoulders with Obama who got his whilst blowing off the little legs of Yemeni children, the checki brekci bugger

In britbortion news Al Shabaab militiants have disagreed with Britain's aim to build a stable Somalian government with mean words which is not very nice
Jokes on them, they have shit flip flops

Baffler

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Re: European Union thread
« Reply #134 on: October 08, 2015, 05:21:33 pm »

As a continuation of the Afghan/Syrian fight and the Turk/Kurd fight in Germany the most recent fight was between Albanians and Afghans, these Syrian migrants sure are whacky and not Syrian or refugees, but that's because

So anyways another German has been evicted to make way for more migrants, so this time they didn't TOK ER JERB and instead TOK ER HOUSE

Also after some cross hailers got religion of peace'd the German deputy head of police has said refugees should be housed separately by creed, presumably because he's a shitlord of the land

For committing international suicide Merkel's in the running to get the nobel peace prize and will rub shoulders with Obama who got his whilst blowing off the little legs of Yemeni children, the checki brekci bugger

It was inevitable.

Quote
In britbortion news Al Shabaab militiants have disagreed with Britain's aim to build a stable Somalian government with mean words which is not very nice
Jokes on them, they have shit flip flops

Now this is interesting. The north has always been more stable than the south, but is a whole 70 people an actual contribution, or is it just a PR move?
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