Thoughts and prayers.

Rush Limbaugh has been off the air since Feb. 2.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/rush-l...pray-remission

Conservatives: "Democrats are the party of identity politics"
Also conservatives:

Iowa lawmaker wants public university employees polled about their political affiliation

?????

Terribly disappointed in some news outlets here.
Namely the BBC. I knew the daily star was junk and I wouldn't trust it. The BBC however is supposed to be very reputable news outlet.

Here is where the BBC lied or published something that wasn't true. The story is ex soccer star made 80M playing poker. I dont believe it at all.


https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...light=graveson


Here is a new article 5 years after from the daily star. Similar story about the guy a little more flowerful.
They are talking about a electronic video poker machine in in vegas where real people can play heads up for millions. Such a machine to my knowledge does not exist.

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/fo...rtune-23490143

"While in a Vegas casino, he became engrossed in an electric high-rollers game where he was locked in a 'heads-up' match with another player.

That means instead of being surrounded by a number of others on a table, there are just two going against each other.

On that night, that is when Gravesen lost a mass fortune, though he has had the last laugh by accumulating it back - and more."

German Officials Seek to Turn up the Heat on the AfD (Der Spiegel, article in English).

"Germany's domestic intelligence agency hopes to place the entire Alternative for Germany party under surveillance. It views the party as being hostile to democracy."

For those that don't know, AfD ("Alternative für Deutscland" / Alternative For Germany) is a far-right party that has grown substantially in Germany the last decade, and is today the 3rd largest party in Germany's parliament. It is a controversial party where links to extremists crop up a bit too much for it to be a coincidence (my take).

Still, a domestic intelligence agency seeking to place a large political party under surveillance is quite a story. It should be said here that Germany has far-reaching laws regarding extremism which are much harder than that our large American contingent of forum-posters are used to (and likely also stronger than what people are used to from most "western countries).

Yes tax them, surveillance them. They gained through all the refugee and covid situation since they are far right. My hope is when covid calms down they will break apart. They are already selfdestcructing themselves as they usually do. Since most of them are idiots. If not idiots them greedy bastards.


I have another issue that is the meat industry. I have just found out the ham industry is poisoning their customers basically with chemicals.

The ham you buy is not supposed to look pink.
Have you ever cooked or roasted meat? It never looks pink unless its rare or medium. They are injecting nitrite so it looks more appealing. And Denmark sued the EU and won!

See at min 13.30 the commissioner for the EUs health and food safety. It's hilarious.

TIL Denmark has a Nazi government.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...vantaged-areas

https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/de...bourhood-45125

What's the maximum percentage of blondes allowed per neighborhood that is wildy gross stuff

So, aside from the appalling racism this smacks of, I was especially struck by this:

Wow. Sounds like neighborhoods in desperate need of help.

That sounds like a start. So, what action are they taking to help?

Oh. I see.

I checked the story in Danish.

The legislation is not new, it is more an update on existing legislation. It has existed for a good number of years (since 2017) and basically entails listing certain areas as problematic based on criteria of crime rate, unemployment, poverty and assimilation. The law mostly affects a program called "allmenne boliger" (literally: "houses for all" or "public houses") in Denmark, which is a program meant to ensure affordable housing for all. Basically it is a system of private organizations building and administrating homes with partial public funding, but with mandated caps on rent. About 1 in 5 Danish homes are of this type.

Traditionally under this law communes and cities had a lot of leeway in who they refused such housing. Under the new system this autonomy was largely removed, but in areas designated as problematic when it came to unemployment, education levels, crime rate, poverty and assimilation it was made harder to settle for people in certain groups (criminals, unemployed, immigrants). The number of new housing projects in these areas were also reduced and built in other areas instead.

Basically the wealthier and more successful areas were forced to also carry their share, while housing was limited in the areas that made the lists.

The program has largely been successful, with an overall reduction in poverty, unemployment and crime rate and increase in education levels and many areas (13 of the initial 28) have now fallen off the lists.

The program has certainly been controversial, also in Denmark. The new measures are similarly discussed. The outer left-wing (which has no equivalent in the US) has especially been harsh in their criticism. The typical things that meets the harshest criticism is using ethnicity as a factor, using the term ghetto, that the lists brands areas and the experience of having your home called a problem. I would agree that the double penalties that are suggested seems ill-advised, more of a nod to Denmark's far right parties than something that will actually accomplish much.

For the daycare program I am not so sure. Female participation in the workforce is a problem in many non-western immigrant groups in Denmark (and Scandinavia in general), and you often see a cultural expectation that women should be homemakers. This clashes with the Scandinavian model of economy which very much rests on the idea of equal participation in the workforce. Mandatory daycare is certainly a big intervention of state force, but it should probably also be mentioned that it is a completely free program.

Don't know about Denmark in particular, but Europe in general tends to be less positive about diversity:



Even the European left (as of 2016) are closer to American conservatives in their view of diversity:

Yes, I would say this strikes me as a very correct assessment. Part of the reason, in my view, is that nationalism is a much stronger political force in Europe than the US. That isn't to say it doesn't play a part in US politics, but not at the dominant levels it has done in Europe historically and in recent years.

Other reasons are that many European countries are or have long been nation-states, with a relatively homogenous culture. How homogenous can it be? Well, I can use my own life as an example, I was about 16 year old before I met someone of a different ethnicity / ethnic origin. A rural background from a country with extremely low immigration will cause that. Homogenous cultures can cause more scepticism towards different backgrounds and also more xenophobia.

The third reason I would point to is one of geography. The immigration to Europe is a bit of a confusing mess, merely due to where it is located on the map. That makes it difficult to handle both logistically and politically, which makes it a ripe political target.

Yes without a doubt, identity in Europe is much more defined.

The US was not born of identity. It was born based on fighting on what they were not (British) as opposed to what they were.

As successive generations of migrants came to the US, each all hated and harassed by the prior ones, the only identity became 'assimilation is our strength' as the need for an ever expanding populace was a given. And a blended white, male euro culture was forming.

What happened in the US is that the assimilation expanded beyond mostly white 'other' Europeans, who all faced hate and xenophobia, but eventually got assimilated and became part of the norm, to countries that now look very different (POC) and that ties into a much challenging issue to over come, ...deep seated racism.

Matt Gaetz under investigation for having sex with and paying for interstate travel for 17 year old girl.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/u...stigation.html

Shocking!

Lady suing is a wokester who is the SF BOE commissioner. She had skeletons in her twitter profile....using racial slurs to describe asians. The board decided not to kick her off, and somewhat supported her, but did strip her of some duties. She is now suing the SF school board. Here is the story from local paper:

I’ve thought about this a lot. There is no easy solution because people are terrible. What my prediction as the most likely outcome is that : Hispanics and Asians will assimilate over time into the white community and America will become a light brown country with an assimilated white / White hispanic/ mestizo/ Asian class with a lower class of imprisoned African American / white “trash”/ Central American underclass. Also things like genetic engineering, robots etc will alter what is and isn’t seen as normal over time. We already see this playing out today with about a third of the country having criminal records and about a third of the country having college degrees.

The second most likely outcome is that America becomes the greatest country on earth, racism becomes a thing of the past , and a new era of human enlightenment begins.

I think the third most likely outcome is America becomes the most evil country in history.

I think you’re fundamentally right though in that Europe is just different than America. And that yes America was not born of identity.

One of the reasons I believe the USA was able to rise to sole ascendency as a world power is that because they had no real historical limitations to consider.

Whatever was needed to be done to succeed could be done with hand ringing over 'tradition', 'norms', 'history', 'power structure', etc. Everyone was basically free to chase the maximal outcome with very little governors on them.

Whereas in Europe with much deeper history, culture, norms etc you often hit paralysis by analysis or obstruction by old power wanting not to be usurped by new rising power.

The USA is now at a point where those things that hampered Europe historically are now impacting the US domestically. You cannot even remove a racist statue because ...'history'.

I vote for keeping this thread culture-war free.

national id--what is this some kinda nazi crap??

i'm here to vote--papers please--sure got em right here

I don't know about culture wars, but this latest topic does seem like it could fit elsewhere.

This river in Canada is now a ‘legal person’

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/...w-legal-person

'Montreal, Canada – Jean-Charles Pietacho says the belief that nature is a living thing that must be respected, has been at the heart of the Innu people’s way of life for generations. But now, that idea has been applied in a new way as the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit in February recognised the Magpie River, a 300km (186 miles) waterway in the Cote Nord region of the Canadian province of Quebec, as a “legal person”.'

Protections as a legal person is a principle we know well from corporate law and is sometimes also applied to other types of organizations. Applying it to nature is very intriguing.

^^^^^this was done with the whanganui river in new zealand in 2017

Oh, that is awesome, I didn't know that. I checked that story out, fascinating that this also involved indigenous efforts.

Benevolent Leader, Saviour of Russia and not a serial poisoner President Vladimir Putin has (for the benefit of Russia) signed a law allowing him to serve two more six year terms should he choose to and should he win the next two elections, which is hard to predict what with Russia being so transparent and democratic with nary a hint of electoral fraud.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vladimi...dential-terms/

I think this is the greatest idea ever and Putin is the greatest President ever and Russia is the greatest country ever and I will continue to think this until a cure for Novichok is invented.