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[TheDarkStar]

France breakup? What are you talking about?

Isn't France the place with a few states that want to become their own countries? Or is that Spain?

You're probably thinking of Spain with Catalonia.

Right.

[Loud Whispers]

We all agree that Saudi Arabia is indeed, horrible.

No we don't

You gonna get Salman slapped for your insolence like Sweden

Likewise, I doubt the House of Saud cares about world opinion as long as the money flows and the oil sells. If anything, they're more vulnerable to outside pressure right now because the Saudi economy is hemorrhaging thanks to cheap oil.
Although it should be noted that any progressive changes which are due in part to foreign influence would likely be the target of a reactionary backlash. As if reactionary Arabs don't hate the rest of the world enough already.

Also creating an embargo on Saudi Arabia would suddenly crush the Saudi government's ability to continue social benefits via oil shekels, leaving a large unemployed fundamentalist reactionary youth whose only education is in theology suddenly without their neet benefits. Jihads for days would be the result

I don't suppose the king can do something about it? Though I guess he'd have the same reaction from Spaniards as Queen Elizabeth would from the British people if she tried to overtly exercise whatever major governmental powers she has.
Though maybe if there was a real crisis going on in British parliament....

Yeah but to be fair that's because Queen Elizabeth started off her reign basically by saying she was handing her power over to Parliament to exercise and has stuck by that since. If Prince Harry rode a motorbike into parliament and socked Cameron I'm not sure if any people besides butthurt metropolitans would give much wink to it. I suppose in a weird sense that would be more dangerous than the Queen intervening, as there are constitutional limits on rulers but not other royals. CIVIL WAR 2: THIS TIME WE RETAKE CALAIS

Then why state that in the UK's major economic newspaper instead of in a French socialist one?

FT is not THE economic newspaper for the UK, we got loads and FT's readership is international, not UK specific

I was also not aware that French socialist newspapers had very large presence as that's a very specific niche, whereas with an international readership you ensure your message is heard. Think of it this way, when Putin slags off Westerners on Western media he is talking to Russians, not Westerners

You know, if you look up by which means he achieved that reduction you'll begin to understand why funding him was not exactly something the EU could or wanted to do.

But the EU did want to and did do it lol, it was a part of the EU's strategy to destroy Europe's internal borders and replace them with a functional external border
They only stopped when we started blowing them up for reasons that were probably clearer back then

Face it Helgo, EU doesn't give a fuck who's killing who as long as the power and shekels flow in the right direction

http://www.theweek.co.uk/6515/how-libya-kept-migrants-out-of-eu-at-any-cost
Last summer he asked the EU for €5bn to prevent Europe from "turning black". In October he received a promise of €50 million over the next three years as part of a 'co-operation agenda' signed by the European Commission.

Tip kok

[Antsan]

Could we at least agree that selling weapons to Saudi Arabia is bad?

[Grim Portent]

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/02/clean-queen-campaign-tory-britain-its-worst

The more I see shit like this campaign the more I get the urge to slam roughly two thirds of the UK parliaments faces into a belt sander until the screaming stops. 

[martinuzz]

Isn't France the place with a few states that want to become their own countries? Or is that Spain?

It's the UK, silly.

[Loud Whispers]

Isn't France the place with a few states that want to become their own countries? Or is that Spain?

It's the UK, silly.

Ya France crushed and assimilated their separatists fully about a hundred years ago, today the most serious secession movements are in the UK, Spain and Italy

Could we at least agree that selling weapons to Saudi Arabia is bad?

Not if it just result in Saudis buying from China or Russia to do the exact same things, or worse still Saudis just getting overrun by insurgents

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/02/clean-queen-campaign-tory-britain-its-worst
The more I see shit like this campaign the more I get the urge to slam roughly two thirds of the UK parliaments faces into a belt sander until the screaming stops. 

Motivation is not the problem. People are not, on the whole, unemployed or underemployed because they are lazy or feckless or make poor choices. People are unemployed because there are fewer jobs available, and those that remain pay far less than they once did as the cost of living continues to rise.

And yet labour brought in immigration under the pretense that the British were unmotivated, lazy and feckless in taking up blue collar jobs, said we needed to depreciate wages with immigration to make the economy more competitive and then said immigrants not touk urr juuurb in spite of today's job shortages.
Conveniently during the time they tried divorcing themselves from the working class vote. top lels

Also just look at job sectors like nursing and medicine, there is a shortage of positions that is not being filled by Britons. Why? Dunno, there's something wrong with British today. They're the lowest performing students in London and they all tend to grow up into 20y/o kids with no job skills put plenty of red hair dye

Britain is a dirty place, but the grime is where it’s always been – below the surface, settling into the cracks in sixty million anxious human hearts. If you’re wondering what this has to do with the Queen, the answer, of course, is nothing at all. The Queen is ninety years old. She does not care if the bins get taken out, and neither does the Cabinet, as long as we’re not out there actively upending wheelie bins in disgust. The Queen’s birthday is merely a convenient occasion for another cloying appeal to this country’s most subservient, cap-doffing instincts: don’t make a fuss. Sit up straight, peasants. Put on a proper suit and tie. Don’t talk about poverty. Don’t talk about inequality. Stiffen that upper lip while you sing the National Anthem. Polish your front step till it shines. Scrub and smile.

Laurie Penny has subtle opinions that do not in any way affect her judgement
And yeah she was born Westminster to a lawyer's family and tends to say clever things like the Germans clamping down on immigration in response to the NY mass sexual assaults is racist and the Germans really need to attack themselves because they are the white patriarchy. Basically you got your jimmies rustled by a professional ruser
FFS she's talking about upending wheelie bins in disgust when she lives in the richest area of London, one of the richest areas of the world? Nah get dunked, another rich white girl pretending she's living the hard life and getting payed mad shekels to do so.

Now I had not heard of this campaign amidst all the buzz around my area mainly being the whole Turkish / Kurd demonstration going on but I looked this up and it's all in Hammersmith, which makes sense now why I haven't heard of it as I'm on the wrong side of the city, but I can say this is not about littering. The people genuinely trying to say if you turn your own neighbourhood into a shithole it's someone else's fault or the people genuinely trying to say cleaning up your neighbourhood will make the Queen happy, nah no one here is really getting fired up over cleaning up. This is just two sides trying to win a twitter war, which is perhaps one of the most pathetic things everyone could be doing right now.

Here's the most obvious response for anyone who actually cares about not swimming in rat feces:

Councils across England spend more than £340 million per year on street cleaning and litter picking. In 2014 to 2015, Southwark will spend around £6.4 million clearing our streets of litter and other rubbish.
What can we all do clean up our streets?
Don't drop it
The simple message is 'bin it'. There is no need to drop litter. If there isn't a litterbin near by, wait until you get to the nearest one or keep your rubbish until you get home. If you drop litter you could get fined. The law allows us to give on the spot fines of £75 to anyone we see dropping litter.
http://www.southwark.gov.uk/info/200089/street_cleaning/417/litter_and_street_cleaning

Yeah but what we really need is more privileged white girls telling us we're not responsible for our actions and it's the privileged white boys who will save us from consequences 

[martinuzz]

In Macedonia, police tried to keep Slavic nationalists and ethnic Albanian nationalist from attacking each other.
Both sides responded by throwing rocks at the police, and many people were injured.
Many hundreds of orthodox Slavic Macedonians wanted to chase away ethnic Albanian Macedonians from a city square, where they (the Slavic nationalists) want to erect a 55m high metal crucifix, in response to a gigantic statue of an eagle that has been erected in a neighboring city district, as a symbol for all Albanians on the Balkan.

Ethnic Albanians form about 30% of Macedonia's population of 2 million. The country has been plagued by political crisis, which have prompted early elections to be held in june this year.

http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/veel-gewonden-bij-nationalistische-rellen-in-macedonie~a4257552/

[Sergarr]

In Macedonia, police tried to keep Slavic nationalists and ethnic Albanian nationalist from attacking each other.
Both sides responded by throwing rocks at the police, and many people were injured.
Many hundreds of orthodox Slavic Macedonians wanted to chase away ethnic Albanian Macedonians from a city square, where they (the Slavic nationalists) want to erect a 55m high metal crucifix, in response to a gigantic statue of an eagle that has been erected in a neighboring city district, as a symbol for all Albanians on the Balkan.

Ethnic Albanians form about 30% of Macedonia's population of 2 million. The country has been plagued by political crisis, which have prompted early elections to be held in june this year.

http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/veel-gewonden-bij-nationalistische-rellen-in-macedonie~a4257552/

monument-measuring contest is a go

[SaberToothTiger]

smack dab a christ statue in dere

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Spoiler: Speaking about monuments (click to show/hide)

 

[Sergarr]

bah that monument isn't even 5 meter tall

clearly inferior to POLAN RAGE HULK OUT 33 METER OF PURE CHRIST

[Grim Portent]

I don't think I'll ever understand the mentality that thinks putting up monuments is a worthwhile use of time and money. 

[Rolepgeek]

Memorials are a form of monument.

Inspires pride and unity, which can help reduce crime, theoretically.

[Teneb]

bah that monument isn't even 5 meter tall

clearly inferior to POLAN RAGE HULK OUT 33 METER OF PURE CHRIST

Buddha and his buddies Guanyin, Yan and Huang would like to have a word with you.

[Sergarr]

Since Turkey's role in handling the current Big European Issue (i.e. migration) is quite important, this piece of news seems to be very relevant to this thread:

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/02/turkey-has-opened-at-least-1845-cases-over-insults-to-erdogan/

If you are unable to get past the annoying "register or bust" bullshit, here's the copy-pasta:

Turkey Has Opened at Least 1,845 Cases Over Insults to Erdogan

If there’s one thing Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made clear since he became Turkey’s president in 2014, it’s that he really would prefer his citizens don’t insult him. Journalists report routine intimidation; a doctor went to trial for posting a meme that compared him to the fictional character of Gollum; and the culture of fear surrounding insults toward the head of state was made obvious last month when a husband reported his own wife for changing the channel every time Erdogan came on TV.

Those are just a tiny fraction of the number of cases opened against people accused of insulting Erdogan. This week, Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said that at least 1,845 cases of alleged insults toward Erdogan have been opened in the past two years.

“I am unable to read the insults leveled at our president,” Bozdag said while defending the government. “I start to blush.”

Here are some of the insults Bozdag was apparently too embarrassed — or too scared — to repeat:

The professor

When Turkish philosophy professor Orsan K. Oymen published an op-ed saying Erdogan deserves to face trial for corruption and breaking the constitution, he probably knew it wouldn’t end well. The article ran in April 2015, and this January Oymen said he now faces four years in prison. He doesn’t deny writing the article; he just maintains it wasn’t an insult: Erdogan is “unable to distinguish strong criticism from an insult,” Oymen said.

The doctor

In October of last year, Bilgin Ciftci, a doctor, was banned by the Public Health Institution of Turkey for comparing Erdogan to Gollum, the small, slimy, fanged creature from J. R. R. Tolkien’s beloved Lord of the Rings series. In December, his trial came to an impasse when the judge couldn’t decide if that was an insult or not. Some believe Gollum to be more tragic than evil. The judges are expected to make a decision this spring.

The beauty queen

In 2006, Merve Buyuksarac was crowned Miss Turkey. Less than a decade later, she faced two years of prison time for posting a poem on Instagram that Turkish officials claimed insulted Erdogan. She claims she did not intend to insult him and removed it once she realized she could have committed a crime. “I did not personally adapt the poem titled ‘The Poem of the Chief,’” she said last year. “I shared it because it was funny to me.”

The students

Last October, a 14-year-old boy spent a night in prison facing charges for insulting the president in a Facebook post. The details of his case remain confidential, and he was later released due to his age. In late 2014, another student, 16-year-old Mehmet Emin Altunses, was arrested for calling Erdogan a thief during a student protest. In December 2015, another 16-year-old had to pay a nearly $2,000 fine for insulting Erdogan in a Twitter post.

Source

And now, for a rap pause:

saddam erdogan destoying kurdish towns at the speed of light and unable to tolerate being compared with Gollum while Putin can handle being called a fucking CRAB.

and some people call Russia as being more oppressive than Turkey

guess not for long now that Turkey has gone full third-world dictatorship