Kevin's Watch

avatar - we may be going broke but we have time to argue such stupidty. american politics at it's finest.

our congress has come down hard on steroids in baseball. a private enterprise.

wonder how much money that cost us.

they have threatened to hold hearings about a playoff for college football.

bread and circuses.

You're not really going broke. And believe me, you're not the only place that's government argues about stupid things.

--A

We had a court decide that death threats written over facebook are not death threats because they use a different jargon on facebook yesterday. This was an appeal after the person making the threats lost the first time. Now it is appealed again. What a stupid decision. Writing something like, "when I see you, I am going to kill you." on Facebook isn't a threat? Silly. What if I phoned it? Is there phone jargon? How about if I sent a letter written with calligraphy?

Someone in the UK recently got off with only a suspended sentence after he sent a message to a female MP that included this: "We have sent a camera crew to photograph you and your kids and we will post it over the net including Twitter, c**tface. You now have Sophie's Choice: which kid is to go. One will. Count on it c**t. Have a nice day."

Seems like most countries haven't really worked out how to deal with online threats yet.

Problem is that tech evolves much faster than the courts can operate.

--A

Sweden's fourth day of riots starting to call into question integration of immigrants.

Sweden has a new left-wing government, but the big news is that the extreme right-wing party, Sweden Democrats, doubled their vote to 13%.

u.

Hashi Lebwohl wrote:They are still fringe, as all truly right-wing parties should be (along with all truly left-wing parties).

Actually, they are the third largest party in sverige now.

No one will work with them, though. You could say that the moderates would have probably won the election if they had. The reason no one wants to work with them is that they were founded as a neo nazi party and, while they have tried to shed that image a bit, they still have ties to it.

The reason they got so much of the vote is simple: immigration. None of the other parties are willing to take a strong look at multiculturalism and the state of the integration, the burden to the system and trying to pay for our quality of life with it and the preservation of culture. This is a real issue that many people want addressed for some or all of the reasons I mention, but the other parties are all scared to touch it. They fear being called racist. So, ironically, they let the party with actual racist roots be the only leader on the issue and so take the votes.

I was very disappointed with Stefan Löfven's (to be the new prime minister) victory speech. He talked about how 87% didn't vote for sverigedemokraterna (the newly third largest party) and how good that was. I really wish he had taken the opportunity to recognise that this is an important issue and to begin to try to take it on. Doing so would be good for several reasons including: it is something that needs to be addressed, it would take the one reason sverigedemokraterna get so many votes. Instead, he polarised more and essentially insulted the 13% who did vote for them. Keep in mind I say this having supported the environment party which is included in the new government the Löfven leads, so I voted for this government though not directly for Löfven's party.

Also, because of sverigedemokraterna having 13%, the new government does not actually have a majority. They might have a terrible time getting anything done if they cannot get another party that had been with the other side to work with them. We may have a new government again when they cannot pass a budget. Would have been smart to make inroads into that issue in the meantime to take the power of it from that party, or at least I would have thought.

Of note also is who voted for sverigedemokraterna. Looking at a map of the votes, it was about 6% in the coastal regions and a lot more in the central areas where, ironically, there are less immigrants.

Thanks for chiming in, Ananda. It's always enlightening when someone for the actual country is contributing.

I am coming to see immigration as one of the key future issues in Europe over the next decades. I have been, for a long while, an advocate of a liberal attitude towards immigration. I am not so sure now. Politically, it is out of step with most people and the problem with trying to maintain a PC attitude is that the extremists gain and gain.

A couple of major problems are beginning to appear in Ireland now. One of the most important relates to education. We do not have a fully State-run education system and the middle-class in Ireland is beginning to take control of the education of its children. One of the consequences is that immigrants are being subtly excluded from the better schools. It is not overt racism and the consequences are no different.

None of our major central parties has a strong policy on immigration and so it is the more extreme candidates that are reaping the rewards.

u.

Hashi Lebwohl wrote:Their beliefs make them fringe, not the number of seats or votes they win. I doubt most people in your country have feelings which could be even loosely described as "neo-nazi", Ananda. That is why I call them "fringe".

Hashi, they don't put swastikas on their campaign posters. They run on cultural preservation and immigration reform. They have whitewashed their roots, purged the more outspoken white power members in the leadership. this is their website: www2.sverigedemokraterna.se
cute flowers!

Sweden to recognise state of Palestine

This is an interesting move.

u.

As I said in the other thread, there are now about 70% of the UN member states who recognise it.

We just need to get rid of this veto rubbish.

--A

What they believe is/was a russian mini submarine was sighted in the inland waters off stockholm. Our military cleared the area and dropped depth charges. They heard what they said was an sos in russian after some of the bombings.

Avatar wrote:As I said in the other thread, there are now about 70% of the UN member states who recognise it.

We just need to get rid of this veto rubbish.

--A

Frankly we just need to disband the UN.

Rawedge Rim wrote: Frankly we just need to disband the UN.

+1000000

No, what we need to do is actually give them some power. Either that, or stop using them as a scapegoat.

--A

Avatar wrote:No, what we need to do is actually give them some power. Either that, or stop using them as a scapegoat.

--A

+1000000

Also, the hunt for red october is still ongoing. Here is the story in english.
www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29706661

Our military said they are preparing to use force on the submarine if it does not surface and surrender (and we find it!). Just saw a headline that says a russian ship is not responding to calls, too. Just like the 80s again, I guess.

On an unrelated note, our new left PM announced raised defense spending.

I forgot my eyeglasses, how many zeroes did you put into that? Avatar has a point. Unfortunately it amounts to the same conclusion of appointing an uber-regulator who would just become uberly-corrupt. The only way around the stalemate is to politicize the UN, making it like a Senate instead of the egalitarian parody it is now.