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[Sergarr]

Actually, challenging him to a pub knife fight would be the perfect solution to the problem. Then you just shank him and be done with the fucker.

Sure it leaves a power vacuum, but hopefully we've learned to deal with those as soon as they come up instead of letting them suck in shit before coalescing(I've always wanted to use this in a proper sentence ) into the likes of ISIS.

From what I've recently heard from one of Turkish posters, the guys who're likely to take power if he dies are even worse. Like, Erdogan is just an egomaniac who panders to his base, but Davutoglu, the next in line, apparently "really believes he can reestablish Ottoman Empire, the Empire that did no wrong and was the greatest state ever, and if he shows enough strength, all Balkan and Middle Eastern countries will fall into line begging for admission back into the Empire."

tl;dr Erdogan is just a symptom, Turkey itself and its growing delusions of supremacy are the problem.

[martinuzz]

Jan Böhmermann is gone into hiding and is being protected by the German police, out of fear for attacks by Erdogan loyalists in Germany, according to the German opinion magazine Focus.

http://www.focus.de/kultur/kino_tv/akut-durch-anhaenger-erdogans-gefaehrdet-jan-boehmermann-steht-unter-polizeischutz_id_5431142.html

[Antioch]

The Dutch government is currently contemplating disowning and renationalizing the railway contractor ProRail, to put an end to chronic overdue maintenance of the tracks, and stop the culture of failing directors getting off with a goodbye bonus of several 100 thousands euros.

It's a step in the right direction. Now let's hope they continue this trend, and disown and renationalize the train service, bus services, landline telephone services, postal office, health insurance, gas and electricity, waterworks, and others, and put an end to the neo con nightmare of selling out every public service to the highest bidder.

Finally, the current construction was completely unworkable.

Privatisation only makes sense if a business can actually be punished for failure or allowed to go bankrupt.

In case of ProRail it did not matter how much they failed, the taxpayer had to always bail them out anyway, otherwise we would have no railways.

Basically it meant that if they did good they were a private company and could give those juicy bonuses to the management, and if they failed it was suddenly the governments responsibility.

[Helgoland]

Helgo is a Schrodinger's Citizen. Until his views on any specific subject are reviewed, his political leanings are in superposition.

Hello, new sig!

[Frumple]

If I understand you correctly, you want to persecute crimes differently depending on who they hurt. That violates fundamental judicial norms.

Bit late to the party, but it very much doesn't. Laws regarding minors are probably the biggest example of just what you're talking about, with dependents/disabled in general following afterwards. Assault against a kid is rarely treated the same as assault against an adult, et al. There's occasionally stuff in contract law, too, just off the top of my head -- the mental acuity of the victim of fraud and whatnot can determine how the fraud is persecuted, or even if it's persecuted at all. Pretty sure some whistleblower stuff falls in that area, too; sometimes what amounts to corporate espionage (and is definitely contract violation) is given a pass due to information provided. Then there's still like harassment, which is almost defined by who the victim is; a phone call to someone random doesn't have the same implication as one to someone you've been calling repeatedly. Crimes are prosecuted differently depending who the victim is fairly often, even to the point of relabeling some based on that criteria alone.

Skimming back over, I'm pretty sure most of that isn't exactly applicable to what was being discussed, but calling that a violation of judicial norms is just... kinda' wrong, y'know?

[smjjames]

Actually, challenging him to a pub knife fight would be the perfect solution to the problem. Then you just shank him and be done with the fucker.

Sure it leaves a power vacuum, but hopefully we've learned to deal with those as soon as they come up instead of letting them suck in shit before coalescing(I've always wanted to use this in a proper sentence ) into the likes of ISIS.

From what I've recently heard from one of Turkish posters, the guys who're likely to take power if he dies are even worse. Like, Erdogan is just an egomaniac who panders to his base, but Davutoglu, the next in line, apparently "really believes he can reestablish Ottoman Empire, the Empire that did no wrong and was the greatest state ever, and if he shows enough strength, all Balkan and Middle Eastern countries will fall into line begging for admission back into the Empire."

tl;dr Erdogan is just a symptom, Turkey itself and its growing delusions of supremacy are the problem.

I'm gonna guess 'shows enough strength' includes militarily annexing said states. Which is something I HOPE gets Turkey kicked out of NATO because that would include attacking other NATO members.

Besides, Iran isn't going to let Turkey attempt to annex Iraq and Syria.

Also, Ottoman empire at it's greatest extent: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/OttomanEmpireIn1683.png (linked instead of making an image post because it's a HUGE image)

Ottoman empire at the turn of the 20th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_and_modernization_of_the_Ottoman_Empire#/media/File:Map-of-Ottoman-Empire-in-1900-German.svg

[Baffler]

Bombing the Kurds, poking Russia and the EU, and harshly punishing 'terrorists' is plenty for now. Even if they had the desire to annex Iraq and Syria (and they'd have to be absolutely insane to want such shitholes even if they wouldn't get dogpiled by the whole rest of the world) I doubt they would be able to maintain a strong enough military presence in the region to keep it under control. They're decent for a Middle Eastern army, but that's not really saying much.

[Sergarr]

Bombing the Kurds, poking Russia and the EU, and harshly punishing 'terrorists' is plenty for now. Even if they had the desire to annex Iraq and Syria (and they'd have to be absolutely insane to want such shitholes even if they wouldn't get dogpiled by the whole rest of the world) I doubt they would be able to maintain a strong enough military presence in the region to keep it under control. They're decent for a Middle Eastern army, but that's not really saying much.

I've seen some people saying that Turkish army is the shit and would be able to roll over every other country in the region simultaneously, citing their experience in working together in Iraq or around it, don't remember the context very well. I don't know how well the Turkish army has survived the Erdogan's pro-loyalty cleansing (my guess is very badly, judging by the case of Iraqi army before and after Maliki has replaced most combat-capable Sunni/not-pro-Maliki officers with loyal-but-inept Shia/pro-Maliki ones), but I would still be careful with saying that it could be measured by Middle Eastern standards.

[Baffler]

My understanding was that they were in a similar place to Saudi Arabia. Well equipped compared to their neighbors, but with a disorganized and adversarial officer corps, and poorly trained and unmotivated at the level of NCO's and enlisted men. As I recall they don't have it nearly as bad, mostly because the military isn't as politically involved, but it's still a very real situation.

[martinuzz]

Geez. I knew that our current King and Queen aren't the brightest lights in the country, but what our queen Maxima did now is just plain retarded.
She went on official visit to Neurenberg wearing this:


the designer Claes Iversen "ofcourse never intended to have patterns in the queen's coat refer to nazi symbols".
He just "wanted to include some unconventional embroidery materials to add a classic geometric element to the coat".
The Bild Zeitung headlined "Maximal insult". The correspondent from the Dutch RTL channel even said the complete dress resembles a Wehrmacht uniform. "A queen should know better", he said.

For some reason I suspect this to be a drunk bet by the designer with his drinking buddies.
"Hey, wanna bet I can get away with having the queen wear a swastika during her state visit to Germany?"

[Antioch]

Geez. I knew that our current King and Queen aren't the brightest lights in the country, but what our queen Maxima did now is just plain retarded.
She went on official visit to Neurenberg wearing this:


the designer Claes Iversen "ofcourse never intended to have patterns in the queen's coat refer to nazi symbols".
He just "wanted to include some unconventional embroidery materials to add a classic geometric element to the coat".
The Bild Zeitung headlined "Maximal insult". The correspondent from the Dutch RTL channel even said the complete dress resembles a Wehrmacht uniform. "A queen should know better", he said.

For some reason I suspect this to be a drunk bet by the designer with his drinking buddies.
"Hey, wanna bet I can get away with having the queen wear a swastika during her state visit to Germany?"

How did nobody think this was a bad idea beforehand.....

[ChairmanPoo]

Geez. I knew that our current King and Queen aren't the brightest lights in the country, but what our queen Maxima did now is just plain retarded.
She went on official visit to Neurenberg wearing this:


the designer Claes Iversen "ofcourse never intended to have patterns in the queen's coat refer to nazi symbols".
He just "wanted to include some unconventional embroidery materials to add a classic geometric element to the coat".
The Bild Zeitung headlined "Maximal insult". The correspondent from the Dutch RTL channel even said the complete dress resembles a Wehrmacht uniform. "A queen should know better", he said.

For some reason I suspect this to be a drunk bet by the designer with his drinking buddies.
"Hey, wanna bet I can get away with having the queen wear a swastika during her state visit to Germany?"

How did nobody think this was a bad idea beforehand.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee3oSKr2v4E

[Helgoland]

Apparently Merkel has decided to allow Böhmermann's case to be reviewed by the German courts. SPD, Greens, and LINKE are verbally running amok. The SZ has a collection of reactions. I especially like the last one:

The government has decided to leave the verdict to German courts. I find myself unable to be upset with that.

[Shadowlord]

The Nazi swastika goes the other way...
 

[hector13]

The Nazi swastika goes the other way...
 

Swastika's a swastika man. Gotta allow the media to sensationalize it all.