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[sluissa]

I admittedly don't know nearly enough to comment on this, and it might simply be some variant on blown out of proportion, but this thing happening in Finland seems... odd.

https://twitter.com/akihheikkinen/status/1043508304369078272

The TL;DR of it is: Some Russian shell company is buying up archipelago land near sea lanes, building fortified housing there, and buying up old Finnish Navy ships and docking them at/nearby. Then the Finnish government sends in the troops and invokes a no fly zone over the whole area. While investigating "financial crimes". Simply weird.

[ChairmanPoo]

It's clear the soviets are trying to build their own chronosphere

[Rowanas]

It's clear the soviets are trying to build their own chronosphere

I was saddened that I can no longer play that ruski timetravel game on my rig.

[Loud Whispers]

My understanding is that it's a bit the other way around. England wants Ireland and N. Ireland to continue having a more-or-less open border, because that's been good for keeping the peace and good for N. Ireland's economy. The EU says, "Nope, you want out, you're out." And that means treating the Irish-N. Irish border the same way that the England-French border will be -- checkpoints, customs, the whole nine yards. Trade between the two will slow down immensely, and for a lot of older Irish, it'll be a symbolic return to the days of the Troubles.
Now, at first glance, it might seem the EU is being an unreasonable hardass here, threatening peace and security over a border issue. But -- if they don't enforce the same border rules, you can beat your bottom dollar that British companies will figure out a way to exploit a soft Irish border to circumvent the hard border between Dover and Calais.
It's a bit of a shit situation, and one of the reasons most of Northern Ireland (especially the constituencies along the Irish border) voted Remain. Along with the fact that those areas tend to identify more as Irish than British, while the Unionist areas voted Leave.

It's worth noting that the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland made their agreements before their EU membership, or before the EU existed. What's more, the UK and the ROI have both been outside of EU integration such as in the border-less Schengen area, with the British Isles and the European continent operating at odds regarding a European state. If the EU allows the UK and the ROI to continue enjoying peace and prosperity whilst being outside the EU, they are obviously going to fret and concern that the UK leaving is going to create such a circumstance that the ROI cannot be integrated further into the EU without causing turmoil which will result in the ROI being ejected from the EU. In short, the EU is perfectly happy to let Britain deal with terrorism and sectarian violence if it means the EU is not threatened by further withdrawals; letting the ROI and NI be close while being close to a UK that is not under EU control is going to be a spicy issue long after, or if, Brexit is ever done

[TD1]

Feck it, I say. A border is better than no border.

It's better than a strong Theresa May loling her way through putting a border down the Irish Sea. Much better to have a weak May Fly who needs the DUP, annoying as they are, to keep her from doing something ridiculously uninformed and... well, English.

[Loud Whispers]

Good ol' British politics. The Leave party is led by a remainer and the Remain party is led by a leaver. The PM makes a plan which ends up getting opposed by the party, the shadow party, the DUP and the European Union. The Strong and Stable government isn't strong, stable or a government

[smjjames]

And if NI ever joins into ROI, the ROI is still going to have to deal with the same populations that have been clashing. Though I guess it'd be easier since ROI was never a pro*/an-tagonist (depending on which side you're on) in the whole deal that is modern NI.

*Not directly I don't think. It'd be more complex historically anyway.

Good ol' British politics. The Leave party is led by a remainer and the Remain party is led by a leaver. The PM makes a plan which ends up getting opposed by the party, the shadow party, the DUP and the European Union. The Strong and Stable government isn't strong, stable or a government

The BBC has recently been making it sound like Corbyn is/was/will attemping a political coup on May in order to become PM. I initially thought that's what it was, looked a bit more and it's just party conference politics.

[Loud Whispers]

WHAT WAS CORBYN IS
WHAT IS CORBYN WILL


...

WILL CORBYN WHAT?
WHAT WAS WILL BE NATIONALISED

At any rate Corbyn isn't couping May. He's just waiting until the general election where his chances of winning are high since Theresa May is fairly unelectable and only held onto her seat by virtue of holding the country hostage. Hilariously the Labour MPs are still trying to get rid of Corbyn because Corbyn is apparently unelectable, but chances are if they'd supported Corbyn in the last election they'd be ruling in Westminster today. Britpol is right now a race between whether the lions or wolves get to eat us

[scriver]

I just learned that the reason wine don't have content information on their bottles/boxes in the EU isn't just that they don't have to provide it and thus choose not to - they're actually forbidden to provide that information by law. The fuck what, EU?

[smjjames]

I just learned that the reason wine don't have content information on their bottles/boxes in the EU isn't just that they don't have to provide it and thus choose not to - they're actually forbidden to provide that information by law. The fuck what, EU?

I'm guessing the French because they don't want competition.

[scriver]

It's probably because the French don't want anyone to know the main ingredient in "French wine" is actually Spanish wine.

[Loud Whispers]

I just learned that the reason wine don't have content information on their bottles/boxes in the EU isn't just that they don't have to provide it and thus choose not to - they're actually forbidden to provide that information by law. The fuck what, EU?

https://blog.drinktec.com/wine/wine-bottle-labels-eu-standardization/
This thing says it's German beer and French wine that's most of the pressure for this, as their research shows consumers are less likely to buy a wine if they know it's had grape juice added for example

[smjjames]

But wine is just fermented grape juice.....

[Kagus]

But wine is just fermented grape juice.....

Well... Not just. And there are a lot of ways of arriving at "fermented grape juice", some of which are more convoluted than others. Remember, distinguished names have a particular flavor profile that they need to maintain, and mother nature doesn't generally play nice on the consistency field. Sometimes you need to fiddle with the process in order to "fix" various batches.

Then there are preservatives like sulfites, which are at least mentioned in passing on most labels.

[scriver]

Mostly it's probably because Spanish wine is what makes French wine famous though