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Kurtofan posted:saw a dog turd on a bollard once The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > EU Politics: the European Union - saw a dog turd on a bollard once e: snipe! 
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Apr 22, 2019 11:36
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In fairness, the UK in general really is bad at not putting rubbish in bins. Part of that is there's not enough loving bins as a holdover from the days when people were irrationally scared the IRA would put a bomb in any bin they see. Part of it is just we're garbage people. Though if you really want to feel bad, imagine how much worse it was 25 years ago. It's so much cleaner now than when I was a kid.
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Apr 22, 2019 11:42
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Sounds like more garbage bins would solve that problem one way or the other then.
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Apr 22, 2019 11:43
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Fortunately we are happily consigning ourselves to the trash can of history through other means.
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Apr 22, 2019 11:46
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Well known victims of racism, the English The post was about Scotland though I expect we all look the same to you.
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Apr 22, 2019 13:02
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Flowers For Algeria posted:Hello there fellow European goons. I need your help for a project. Netherlands: Elections are organized on a municipial basis, even if they are not municipial elections. Counting is done by the members of the polling station offiically, but typically, many extra counters are recruited. The members are 3 to 7 people who formally are appointed by the executive board of the municipality, which includes the municipial executives (elected by the council, from the governing parties) and the mayor (should be above the parties, but usually has a party affiliation). I doubt this formal appointing amounts to much considering how many of them need to be appointed in cities, and how few volunteers there are. In the village of my parents it was mostly the same people each time. One of the members of the polling station is the chair. The members don't have to be paid but typically are. There are not many restrictions on who can be members of the polling station, they can even be people up for election, though this is discouraged by the national democratic coucil. They have to be over 18, follow a training (often an online thing these days), and thereafter must have "sufficient knowledge and skills". They cannot be already members of the central polling station of the municipality, have acted against the law in this function before, or be people who have been denied their eligibility to vote by a judge. Usually people express their interest by contacting the municipality, and most people get picked as there is always a lack of volunteers. In recent years I even saw recruiting agencies recruiting vote-counters in major cities. In general one strange thing about our counting procedure is that it's quite fast, and expected to be quite fast - there's even a competition between municipalities for who can get their results in first. So this is why they need many counters. Counting typically takes about 3-4 hours, and national results are expected to be in the next morning, with many municipalities already checking in before 2AM on the day of the election or so, and many working through the night. At 21h, the end time of every election, they start counting and sealing all voting passes and unused ballot papers. Then the ballot box is opened and counting of votes starts - first the ballots are sorted by party and party votes are counted (and blank/invalid votes), and later, within each of those stacks, votes for candidates are counted. The exact counting procedure is not specified more closely I think, and various systems for fast counting and dividing the ballots between counters are used. The chair of the polling station does the adding up of the different totals for each party (and blank and invalid). As far as I know, there is no requirement to have multiple people count the same ballots, though if there is a discrepancy between the totals of the different counting steps and/or the total number of ballots counted previously and/or the number of voting passes counted previously, the relevant portion of the ballots will have to be re-counted. This may also involve recounting the previously sealed voting passes, which will have to be re-sealed after. The chair records the numbers in an official report after all the totals match, or if re-counting does not result in matching totals, the discrepancies are reported. These polling station reports becomes public after the elections. The urgent part that is done the same evening is establishing the party votes, which are already passed on before the official report. The next part is to count candidate votes within each stack of party ballots. This is sometimes done the next day or even the next week depending on the type of elections. This also means the election results don't become official until a while later, although we get what is presented as 'the results' quite fast. The counting / countings is/are also public, you can go there and observe. I can also see them do it through the window as I now live right next to a polling station.
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Apr 22, 2019 15:55
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Were the 2000s considered simpler, more prosperous times for the EU, compared to now? Was the Iraq war a bigger issue than ISIS?
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Apr 23, 2019 01:10
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We didn't really care much about the iraq war as far I know other than being against it, but it going or not didn't affect us.
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Apr 23, 2019 01:15
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Celexi posted:We didn't really care much about the iraq war as far I know other than being against it, but it going or not didn't affect us. then
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Apr 23, 2019 08:12
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Celexi posted:We didn't really care much about the iraq war as far I know other than being against it, but it going or not didn't affect us. The 2004 Madrid and 2005 London terrorist bombings were both very much inspired by the Spanish and British governments' support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Grouchio posted:Were the 2000s considered simpler, more prosperous times for the EU, compared to now? Was the Iraq war a bigger issue than ISIS? Iit was definitely a simpler and more prosperous time for the EU though; many member states benefited (temporarily) from the lower interest rates caused by the introduction of the Euro, and the EU even responded wisely to the global financial crisis at first by adopting stimulus measures instead of austerity, but that ended with the Greek crisis starting in 2009. And of course the EU was hugely expanded with 10 new member states in 2004. There was an ongoing battle to reform the EU improve integration through a European Constitutional Treaty, but this attempt was shot down by Dutch and French voters in referendums in 2005. Eventually though, many (but not all) parts of the Constitutional Treaty ended up in the Treaty of Lisbon of 2009, which among others made it easier to take decisions in the Council of Ministers by requiring unanimity less often and also strengthening the role of the European Parliament. It also, fatefully, included a new provision formally allowing member states to exit the EU if they so wished. Pluskut Tukker fucked around with this message at 10:27 on Apr 23, 2019 |
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Apr 23, 2019 10:23
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Grouchio posted:Were the 2000s considered simpler, more prosperous times for the EU, compared to now? Was the Iraq war a bigger issue than ISIS? I mean, as hinted just before this post, you did notice the 2008 financial crisis, right? Which we've still not really recovered from? The 2000s were more prosperous (relatively) times for everybody in the First World, pretty much.
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Apr 23, 2019 10:34
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feedmegin posted:I mean, as hinted just before this post, you did notice the 2008 financial crisis, right? Which we've still not really recovered from? The 2000s were more prosperous (relatively) times for everybody in the First World, pretty much. Not for almost half the EU. The Czechs, Poles, Romanians, Slovenians, Slovakians, Bulgarians, Croatians, Hungarian& Balticians saw a huge increase in living standards over the last decade thanks to the EU.
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Apr 23, 2019 10:45
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Opferwurst posted:Not for almost half the EU. The Czechs, Poles, Romanians, Slovenians, Slovakians, Bulgarians, Croatians, Hungarian& Balticians saw a huge increase in living standards over the last decade thanks to the EU. They had a far, far larger one in the 2000s. In fact they've also been comparatively stagnant since, even if they've done somewhat better than the rich parts. 
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Apr 23, 2019 10:51
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Pluskut Tukker posted:There was an ongoing battle to reform the EU improve integration through a European Constitutional Treaty, but this attempt was shot down by Dutch and French voters in referendums in 2005. Eventually though, many (but not all) parts of the Constitutional Treaty ended up in the Treaty of Lisbon of 2009, which among others made it easier to take decisions in the Council of Ministers by requiring unanimity less often and also strengthening the role of the European Parliament. It also, fatefully, included a new provision formally allowing member states to exit the EU if they so wished. Hey Pluskutt, could you tell me what parts of the european constitution didn't make it to the Lisbon treaty ? For my own enlightenment. Also, I keep hearing from everybody that the Lisbon treaty strengthened the EUParl, but I have to disagree. Yes, I know that the codecision procedure was extended, giving more say to the parliament in more areas. But at the same time it includes a straight bypass procedure in the form of article 207(3) that states that the commission and the council decide on trade treaties on their own. Which, to me, explains both the failed TTIP and the succesful CETA. It was a way to approve a ton of really unpalatable things without asking the parliament. Those trade agreements included a lot of poo poo like private arbitration, and investment protection. The latter, despite it's positive name, "investment protection" means that countries will be challenged in court if they change the law and the company feels its investments are threatened. That is one big step in transforming the EU in a dystopian, corporate-ruled hellworld, if you ask me. So yeah, I hear that soundbite very often but it's just not true.
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Apr 23, 2019 11:06
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I know you were already replied to but I think it's probably worth summarising some of the short replies.Shibawanko posted:This is not really a political question so much as a social one but why is British culture so hosed up? You can say this about a lot of cultures to be honest so you have to be more specific. Shibawanko posted:The littering is what gets to me most. This month I'm staying in a working class neighborhood in a big Scottish city. Behind the neighborhood there's a stream that would have looked nice it if weren't for the shopping carts half submerged in the water every 5 meters. There is trash literally everywhere, of a level you won't see in the worst neighborhoods in the Netherlands, levels of trash in every corner that I didn't even see in Italy during the time when the garbage wouldn't be picked up at all. I walked along the beach today and it was nice but again, the place is just covered in heaps of trash left by groups of young people, who walk around with stereos blasting terrible music. The littering is accompanied by a combination of arrogance and disregard that's really alien to observe. It's not just this neighborhood, it's just everywhere. As others have said you get this all over the place, Paris is swamped with rats and people making GBS threads on the streets because they don't give a gently caress. Paris Syndrome exists for a reason. But as was importantly mentioned, it used to be better in the heydays before the financial crisis and the subsequent Tory grifters implementing austerity. Bin collections have stopped in parts of the UK, and even a Tory local government went bankrupt from central government funding cuts (significant because the Tories fudged the numbers to cut less funding for Tory councils and way more for 'enemy' Labour/Lib Dem/etc. councils). We used to have street cleaners out in force all the time picking up litter and cleaning up (low-effort) graffiti and just generally keeping the streets pristine. Shibawanko posted:There's booking offices everywhere and I don't get how it's not illegal to have this many. Are there no ordinances against that poo poo? This isn't a British cultural problem it's a vulture capitalist problem. The Tories deregulate because it benefits their donors. Labour's current policy is to brutally crack down on gambling. One of Corbyn's former members of staff was a recovered gambling addict and helped shape their policy towards preventing people being pulled down the rabbit hole. Shibawanko posted:https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/how-i-learnt-to-loathe-england This article pretty much sums up how I feel about this place now. I think the author is right in saying that there's a general combatitive element to British culture that we don't have on the mainland, a tendency to turn everything in a zero sum competition. Everything is serious business, you have to defend the bit you are entitled to aggressively or you will lose it, you have to get ahead of others and gently caress them over, there is no such thing as public good. The article is about England but most of the things described apply to Scotland as well, and they only seem to be against Brexit to annoy the English, again, because of this pathological competetiveness. This is what happened when the post-war consensus broke down in our country, and also an effect of Murdochisation of the national press. Same way Fox News screams "THE Shibawanko posted:I really think this country does not belong not only in the EU but in any kind of European community. It's not a European country. I mean, I don't know if you've been through the entire EU28 but the British disease is not quite as unique as you're making out. I do loathe the Americanisation of our national discourse (or should that be Americanize ho ho ho), though.
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Apr 23, 2019 11:25
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Private Speech posted:They had a far, far larger one in the 2000s. In fact they've also been comparatively stagnant since, even if they've done somewhat better than the rich parts. That's nominal, non-adjusted GDP. If you look at the PPP adjusted numbers the slumps should more or less disappear. IRC Hungary has pretty much returned to its old growth rate two or three years after the recession, which is pretty impressive considering that growth should become increasingly harder as their economy converges with the western EU ones.
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Apr 23, 2019 11:31
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Dawncloack posted:Hey Pluskutt, could you tell me what parts of the european constitution didn't make it to the Lisbon treaty ? For my own enlightenment. The biggest difference between the Constitutional Treaty and the Lisbon Treaty is really that the Constitutional Treaty was a symbolical step towards genuine European statehood. The symbolism matters here: the Constitutional Treaty specified what the EU flag would be, and its anthem, and its motto, and by its very name the Constitution would form the basis for statehood. It also codified the principle of primacy of European law over national law, instead of leaving that to a theoretically contestable (but generally accepted) bit of jurisprudence from the 1960s. Now materially that might not make a lot of difference, but symbols really matter to people even if the practical impact of all of these changes was a lot more modest. So all of these got scrapped from the Constitutional Treaty, and the orange-card procedure for national parliaments was added where they can object to EU legislative proposals if they decide these violate subsidiarity. Dawncloack posted:Also, I keep hearing from everybody that the Lisbon treaty strengthened the EUParl, but I have to disagree. But Article 207(3) doesn't create a special bypass procedure? As the reference to Art. 218 indicates, the consent of the European Parliament is still necessary for the conclusion of trade agreements with third countries. The problem with TTIP and CETA is really only partly with the procedure; it's mostly that there are too many conservative and/or neoliberal governments in power in Europe.
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Apr 23, 2019 12:33
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Opferwurst posted:IRC Hungary has pretty much returned to its old growth rate two or three years after the recession, which is pretty impressive considering that growth should become increasingly harder as their economy converges with the western EU ones. Not that impressive, Hungary has the advantage of still having its own currency which is great deal when you're surrounded by economies tied to a german-dominated euro. This goes double for every EU-country not fully in the eurozone. Grouchio posted:Were the 2000s considered simpler, more prosperous times for the EU, compared to now? Was the Iraq war a bigger issue than ISIS? Yup. Back then EU was surfing off the height of the banking bubble. Before the 2000s debt basically came at a huge premium for most of the EU, but after entering the eurozone banks rapidly went 'yup this country carries the same risk as lending to germany' and the floodgates opened up. Core banks were basically drowning the periphery and southern economies in cheap credit* which in turn fueled further imports of goods and services from the core. Things were loving fantastic, as they always are in the middle of a boom. *Oh and the same banks also had their fingers in the US because of course.
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Apr 23, 2019 13:31
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MiddleOne posted:Not that impressive, Hungary has the advantage of still having its own currency which is great deal when you're surrounded by economies tied to a german-dominated euro. This goes double for every EU-country not fully in the eurozone. Well, Slovakia is the only Visegrad country in the Eurozone, has higher growth rates than the other three and currently the lowest unemployment rate in it's history. Everywhere, CSSR-era housing and infrastructure is brought up to modern standards or newly build.. Even the highway-connection between Bratislava and eastern Slovakia, which had been planned since the late 1940s, has been built over the last 10 years and is now almost finished, thanks to EU structural funds. Median net household income has risen by 26,7 % since 2009 (Hungary 5,4 %, Czechia 13,2%, Poland 17,1%), so being in the Euro does not really seem to be a disadvantage?
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Apr 23, 2019 15:26
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Literally not what I argued and another subject entirely but ok.
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Apr 23, 2019 17:18
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Grouchio posted:Were the 2000s considered simpler, more prosperous times for the EU, compared to now? Was the Iraq war a bigger issue than ISIS? Is the title of this review question " CRITICAL THINKING: american intrerventionism in a simpler time"
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Apr 23, 2019 17:38
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Tesseraction posted:I know you were already replied to but I think it's probably worth summarising some of the short replies. Thanks for explaining. I made that post in a tired, foul mood, and seeing the beach littered all over by lovely teenagers had pissed me off. Littering in general pisses me off since all of that stuff ends up in the environment and it's just so profoundly lazy. Even if there are no bins, just take it with you and throw it away when you find a bin. I get how it's partly a matter of a lack of public maintenance though. Paris smells like piss yeah but it's romantic piss.
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Apr 23, 2019 19:27
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The bookies literally everywhere in the UK are pretty horrifying. As are the non-stop gambling commercials around any sporting event on UK tv. I wonder is it something in the English culture that makes them more susceptible to it? It doesn't seem to be as big as a problem anywhere else apart from Australia...which obviously has rather a lot in common culturally with the UK.
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Apr 23, 2019 19:35
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Blut posted:The bookies literally everywhere in the UK are pretty horrifying. As are the non-stop gambling commercials around any sporting event on UK tv. I wonder is it something in the English culture that makes them more susceptible to it? It doesn't seem to be as big as a problem anywhere else apart from Australia...which obviously has rather a lot in common culturally with the UK. It's capitalism, hth
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Apr 23, 2019 19:39
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
Opferwurst posted:Not for almost half the EU. The Czechs, Poles, Romanians, Slovenians, Slovakians, Bulgarians, Croatians, Hungarian& Balticians saw a huge increase in living standards over the last decade thanks to the EU. Also worth noting is the following countries joining* NATO between 1999 and 2004: 1999 - Poland, Hungary, Czechia 2004 - Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria * That's when it was completed, the process obviously starts years before Sulla Faex fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Apr 23, 2019 |
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Apr 23, 2019 19:47
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Blut posted:The bookies literally everywhere in the UK are pretty horrifying. The large number of betting shops is a fairly recent thing and a consequence of there being a limit on the number of fixed odds betting machines allowed in a bookies. These are very lucrative and there are plenty of empty retail units available in the deprived areas where these machines are most profitable.
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Apr 23, 2019 19:58
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since I know there are a few belgians or expats to belgium who read this, I have a question - are there good belgium-focused discussion forums for left-wing politics? Sometimes I feel like I know more about the specifics and intricacies of american or british politics and political issues than I do about belgian topics. Where do I go for belgian debate?
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Apr 25, 2019 22:17
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https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1121083347785195522?s=19 This seems like a big deal.
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Apr 26, 2019 06:39
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OhFunny posted:https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1121083347785195522?s=19 They claim it's an automated anti-spam system and they're gonna reopen Podemos' account. They've also locked other parties' accounts yesterday for similar reasons. Podemos' account was locked last Tuesday and still hasn't been reopened so this may or may not be damage control.
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Apr 26, 2019 06:50
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When in doubt, assume the stupidest option.
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Apr 26, 2019 09:30
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OhFunny posted:https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1121083347785195522?s=19 Once bitten twice shy, and all that, but seeing "extreme election meddling by a foreign corporation" in this is ridiculous. Not every glitch and gently caress-up is a conspiracy.
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Apr 26, 2019 09:51
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Doctor Malaver posted:Once bitten twice shy, and all that, but seeing "extreme election meddling by a foreign corporation" in this is ridiculous. Not every glitch and gently caress-up is a conspiracy. Speaking as a programmer, if a glitch manifests as behaviour that is identical to deliberate fuckery surrounding a sensitive issue, that is a massive problem. The cause doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's automated or not. The only thing that matters is customer perception of results.
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Apr 27, 2019 02:14
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Yes, the cause doesn't matter from the business perspective of Whatsapp and Podemos. It should matter to anyone discussing politics, and it should extremely matter to journalists reporting on the issue. This Ben Norton guy too shows behaviour that is identical to deliberate fuckery surrounding a sensitive issue.
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Apr 27, 2019 06:57
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double nine posted:since I know there are a few belgians or expats to belgium who read this, I have a question - are there good belgium-focused discussion forums for left-wing politics? Sometimes I feel like I know more about the specifics and intricacies of american or british politics and political issues than I do about belgian topics. Where do I go for belgian debate? I only know about politics.be, but that place is pretty idiotic imo, it's poorly moderated, so it always seems filled with hysterical right-wing boomers.
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Apr 27, 2019 08:47
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Opferwurst posted:Not for almost half the EU. The Czechs, Poles, Romanians, Slovenians, Slovakians, Bulgarians, Croatians, Hungarian& Balticians saw a huge increase in living standards over the last decade thanks to the EU. Technically, those guys were the Second World you know 
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Apr 27, 2019 13:55
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feedmegin posted:Technically, those guys were the Second World you know Technically the terms First, Second and Third World stopped being relevant in 1989. You know, we've thought about it. Maybe the UK is right, maybe a temporary time-out in our relationship would be a good idea, so everyone can get their bearings, can get caught up about what's been going on in the world and so on. This doesn't mean we can't stay friends, but we really would appreciate it if you could move your stuff and 20th-century rear end out by the end of October.
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Apr 27, 2019 19:40
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Yeah definitely wouldn’t want to hold back the progressives of er Hungary and Denmark.
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Apr 27, 2019 19:44
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Pissflaps posted:Yeah definitely wouldn’t want to hold back the progressives of er Hungary and Denmark The UK has never in its EU-history been anything but a driver of neoliberalism and a road block to the democratisation and integration necessary to solve the issues the EU has. Just like you, I'm an avid lurker of the UK MT-thread and according to the latest polls, Farages old an new parties together will get around 30% in the EU elections, with another 15-20% for the Tories, so no, the UK will certainly not hold back "the progressives of er Hungary and Denmark".
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Apr 27, 2019 22:51
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Any of the Brexit hardliner leader pretenders with a Tory majority behind them, with the UK remaining in the EU, are a far higher damage risk to the EU in the medium term than Orban. Or anyone in Denmark. Orban at least keeps his right wing insanity mostly within his own borders. You British people keep trying to mess things up for the rest of the continent by exporting yours. Hard Brexit, a British economic collapse that finally exposes the lies of the last 30 years of the Tories to the British public, and a grovelling Britain rejoining the EU in a decade or so with no special snowflake exemptions is the best long term result for everybody here.
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Apr 27, 2019 22:54
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Oh, I really hooe that collapse hapoens, but the EU is the same so...
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Apr 27, 2019 23:18
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