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Yeah it (like many nations) is an extended part of the German value chain.
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Oct 9, 2021 13:50
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We have low corona deaths but higher then usual deaths per capita. Go figure. I mean way higher average yoy death toll than the rest of Europe apart from basically Russia and Belarus.
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Oct 9, 2021 15:55
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Also the ratio of positive test results was pretty wild in the previous waves (like 30+%), so the testing methodology wasn't that useful (not sure how the results are now though).
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Oct 9, 2021 16:07
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Babis loses his election in Czech Republic and Kurz resigns in Austria. Today was a bad day for corrupt, xenophobic dickheads and a good day for everyone else.
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Oct 9, 2021 20:22
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Blurred posted:Babis loses his election in Czech Republic and Kurz resigns in Austria. Today was a bad day for corrupt, xenophobic dickheads and a good day for everyone else. The problem with Babis losing is that he is being replaced with a coalition of "socially liberal fiscally libertarian" pirate party and the even more corrupt conservative coalition. He might be a dickhead but thanks to his socdem/communist coalition he was the most left-wing option. I mean just look at the post-election statement of the leader of the winning 'pro-business' conservative coalition: “We have brought a chance that we will stop getting in debt, that we will remain a part of democratic Europe,” Note that he's a eurosceptic and by "democratic europe" he means the likes of Britain and Hungary, not the EU. It's really not great, especially since both major leftwing parties (socdems and communists) failed to get into the parliament. Policy-wise there's going to be some dark times in the near future. That said the political zeitgeist is firmly in the grasp of the center-right, even trying to advocate for leftwing policies is seen as distasteful by most people. At least the eurosceptics are still very much in the minority so hopefully things will go more in the direction of traditional conservative shitheadery as opposed to Poland/Hungary-style borderline fascism. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Oct 10, 2021 |
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Oct 10, 2021 02:29
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Apologies for the double post but here are some concrete policies I expect to see: - Drastic cuts in the public sector and to benefits - Return to flat income tax - Removal of employer-sponsored sickness benefits (as incredibly meager as they are) - Pension cuts, especially for working pensioners - Further privatisation, particularly in education - Less recovery spending - Cuts in spending on tax investigations and corruption fighting - Immigration reforms making it harder to get a work visa (Czech Republic is currently one of the easiest countries in the world to get a work visa in) - Generally working to stop EU action against rule breakers, EU spending and to prevent further integration e: It's a bit like Blair losing in the UK for me. Everyone was so happy to see the bad man gone they didn't realise the people replacing him have far worse things in mind (and are even saying publicly, it's not like they're shy about it, but nobody cares to listen). Oh and I also expect to see fellating of Israel and general anti-muslim rhetoric. Babis was at least ambivalent about it, which is not good, but, well, better than going full hog. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Oct 10, 2021 |
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Oct 10, 2021 03:20
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Yeah, sadly I would take a corrupt narcissist who at least kinda respected the status quo vis a vis the welfare state, over people who have proven themselves to be even more corrupt and sociopathic, and are nakedly in favor of destroying society to boot. This isn't a victory for fairness or justice or whatever.
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Oct 10, 2021 09:18
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That said I still have some hope they'll be merely incompetently corrupt and won't be willing to cancel most of the social advances made under the last two governments out of fear of public opinion backlash. There is a long tradition for it in the ODS - it's really only the 2010 government which went hard on right-wing policy (before falling apart due to scandals within 3 years, thankfully).
Private Speech fucked around with this message at 11:13 on Oct 10, 2021 |
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Oct 10, 2021 11:08
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I thought that the great coalition would collapse sooner than later, but with Pirates having so few mandates, it seems more and more likely we are in for a full term government. Especially with Slachta being gone in a year or two and those votes freed. EDIT: Also I do not think Babis+Okamura+stooge would have been any better. Gladi fucked around with this message at 12:55 on Oct 10, 2021 |
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Oct 10, 2021 12:51
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Finally read some, if brief, legal analysis on the vote by Constitutional Tribunal of Poland. Grim stuff, since there will be no way for Poland to be an EU member state if PiS decides to double down on it. If Articles 2 and 19 objections could be partially salvaged, in theory, objections against Articles 1 and 4 are extremely dire, and I must admit that I sincerely hope that the new German government will not seek to prevent France from butchering Poland with a dull knife. I think if decides to double down on it is key here. As in, if they do use it to push bullshit to reach a you-know-and-I-know situation. If it stays an act of dickwaving then, while definitely not a great look, it's actually somewhat legally tricky - not unlike what happened with Germany's Contitutional Tribunal ruling from May 5th 2020. It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation, where the international act is supposed to have precedence, but is also specified as only existing because governments legitimized by constitutions agreed to it (unlike, say, human rights, which despite really working the same way we pretend to just magically exist with the treaties just sorting out fine details. Nobody's going to sanction you for not liking the EU). So it kind of has to be superior law to work as agreed to, but if the constitutions aren't superior to it you end up with a case of immaculate conception. In less hoity-toity theoretical terms, you still got stuff like Art. 3b of the Treaty of Lisbon - and the EU we've got was built specifically to appease all the people being babies about the spectre of a federal euro union. It could all probably be avoided, were the treaties strongly worded like the WTO ones, but as it stands you cannot really unequivocally cut this bullshit without introducing a number of implications that'd require everyone to be onboard with the spooky scary eurostate - and that's very much just not possible as things stand now. It's a huge mess, basically, and if it happened in more benign circumstances there's a fair chance the EU would spend a handful of years cooking up some ruling to marry theoretical agreement paired with practical disagreement. But given this is a hostile, bad faith act forming a part of a larger, noticeable internal problem in need of stamping out - yeah, there's quite some pressure to focus on the practical applications first and foremost. Still, I expect this to unfold way messier than going "ok, Poland, just gently caress off". [edit] Just in case it's not clear, I don't really want to devil's advocate this suicidal dickwaving poo poo. It's just that the fuckers know they actually have some legs to stand on once the matters go from headlines and current politics to actually trying to introduce changes to some fundamental laws behind the EU. Kind of like China abusing the developing country status is a mix of complete bullshit and kinda legit, making it somewhat tricky to deal with. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Oct 10, 2021 |
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Oct 10, 2021 14:35
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I don’t think the if is a particularly realistic one here. De jure, Polish government is not under an obligation to implement the ruling, and it is not legally binding until they do so, but not doing so will look like walking into a bar fight with a shotgun, and then throwing it out once you discover it’s loaded. Now, you could say the above matters not at that stage, but when Poland will set to make a decision on what is an appropriate follow-up for the governmental adoption of the tribunal ruling. This is where I would like to bring up the referenced German case. In Germany, it was judges who did decide to comment on a specific aspect of ECB policy making - the government did not implement the ruling, and yet European Commission of von see Leyen launch infringement proceedings against Germany. Here, in the Polish case, we had Polish government request the court to judge EU as fundamentally illegitimate. This is a much more serious attack, and it will absolutely force EU to defend itself.
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Oct 10, 2021 16:20
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Private Speech posted:Apologies for the double post but here are some concrete policies I expect to see: I generally agree with these takes, although I think a 5 party coalition has like 4 big picture things in it before it definitely falls apart to bickering whose take on right wing politics is the one that should be made into law  However, some of your other posts make me wonder whether we live in parallel dimensions, because quote:Oh and I also expect to see fellating of Israel and general anti-muslim rhetoric. Babis was at least ambivalent about it, which is not good, but, well, better than going full hog. I remember Babiš making a big deal on how he fought against immigrants in the EU for our country (lol) Private Speech posted:He might be a dickhead but thanks to his socdem/communist coalition he was the most left-wing option. I remember Babiš"s tax cuts as "solution to get the economy moving again" that were massive giveaway to high earners. (Yes he passed them with ODS, but he could also... not pass them, or pass them together with proper progressive tax through socdem and commies) Private Speech posted:“We have brought a chance that we will stop getting in debt, that we will remain a part of democratic Europe,” Babiš was the guy who invited Orbán to Czech Republic and then publicly fellated him. So yeah, I don't but that Babiš would be the lesser evil, especially not if he ended up with coalition with SPD. -------------- Also wtf? Private Speech posted:"socially liberal fiscally libertarian" pirate party
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Oct 10, 2021 17:53
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Speaking of Czechia, is Zeman dying or something?
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Oct 10, 2021 18:08
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Inshallah This is the hell timeline, so he will survive but be in commma for 3 months so we won't have government
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Oct 10, 2021 19:03
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Xarn posted:Also wtf? They absolutely are, the party leadership is literally made up of techbro entrepreneurs and tech managers who think unions are a problem not a good thing. They might be socially liberal on things like green policies, europe and immigration, but they are very much silicon-valley-style bandits as far as employee exploitation and meritocracy goes. I'm not disagreeing with any of the rest beyond pointing out ODS openly calls itself eurosceptic and conservative and so is hardly any better. Also as you admitted they are pining for the policies I listed, and if you think those are good things, well. e: That said yes any coalition with SPD would be far worse than ODS. I don't actually like Babis, I'm just not going to celebrate a victory of a right-wing coalition which saw both social democrats and communists slipping out of parliament. If we look at the flagship policies of the last ODS government there's a) workfare, especially for "problem minorities" a.k.a. Roma (great optics there), b) corruption as one would expect, including cash-for-access scheme ran by the prime minister himself, which eventually brought down the government (or rather ran by his PA/lover, but he knew what she was doing, so), c) tuition fees, d) opposition to the Greek bailouts, e) flat income tax, f) privatisation. Wonderful stuff. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Oct 10, 2021 |
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Oct 10, 2021 19:22
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Private Speech posted:That said yes any coalition with SPD would be far worse than ODS. I don't actually like Babis, I'm just not going to celebrate a victory of a right-wing coalition which saw both social democrats and communists slipping out of parliament. Communists? There have not been any communists in Czech or Czechoslovak parliaments since 1929. Yes, I am one of those idiotic 0.002 percents that vote Levice, why?
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Oct 11, 2021 15:27
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Gladi posted:Communists? There have not been any communists in Czech or Czechoslovak parliaments since 1929. Okay yeah but they do call themselves that, and despite being socially conservative as all hell they've been making some vaguely Melenchon/Die Linke-like noises in the last decade or so. Which is to say eurosceptic and totalitarian-apologetic (a.k.a. tankie, but then most of their party is made up of people who agreed with the normalisation period, so literally tankies) but generally leftist. Which is not necessarily good mind you, I wouldn't actually vote for them or DL/LFI respectively, but they can be useful for passing fiscally-leftish policies (while socially-progressive policies get support from the center-right instead). I vote for social democrats myself despite them becoming really poo poo ever since they lost and got into coalition with Babis, as well as being just as poo poo as the German ones during the Schröder/Zeman era. There was a brief period where they were good under Sobotka and they still seemed the best of a bad bunch. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 15:58 on Oct 11, 2021 |
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Oct 11, 2021 15:39
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IIRC they also nominated the hard core Christian idiot to CT's council. While I am kinda sorry for čssd not making it, ksčm can go die in a trash fire.
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Oct 11, 2021 15:54
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Gladi posted:Communists? There have not been any communists in Czech or Czechoslovak parliaments since 1929. I would actually consider them under different voting system.
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Oct 11, 2021 15:55
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Private Speech posted:Okay yeah but they do call themselves that, and despite being socially conservative as all hell they've been making some vaguely Melenchon/Die Linke-like noises in the last decade or so. Which is to say eurosceptic and totalitarian-apologetic (a.k.a. tankie, but then most of their party is people who agreed with the normalisation period, i.e. literally tankies) but generally leftist. Same here, same here. Here's to hoping the big coalitions violently explode like all the Czech political coalitions before them, Babiš loses face trying to cling to power, and we end up with a period of no real government followed by snap elections where the CSSD make some sort of a resurgence. That's probably the best case scenario right now.
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Oct 11, 2021 15:58
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One interesting person in Czech politics is Schwarzenberg, for all the bad things passed under the coalition he was actually pretty decent on foreign issues as foreign minister. I remember reading an interview with him recently about I/P - as much as it could be just him opposing Zeman parroting Trump - and he came down strongly on the side of the Palestine and defended his record in the government regarding that. That is actually quite unusual in Czech politics which is strongly pro-Israel/anti-Islam. Now I have no doubts he is neoliberal to the core (as well as being a literal descendant of Austrian nobility) but he wasn't quite as bad as ODS on some issues. e: For non-czech readers, the country is opposed to organised religion in general, and the more restrictive the religion is the more opposition, which does not work out well for Islam - it's not even racism as such, though xenophobia is definitely a part of it for some. Even most of my family who are generally very socially-progressive liberals (voting for the pirate party) view Islam as somewhere between a cult and a male-supremacist gang. And regarding Israel there is a long history of cooperation, including providing weapons and planes for them during the post-war era when they have been under an international embargo. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Oct 11, 2021 |
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Oct 11, 2021 16:17
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A new totally not surprising development from Belarus. From now on even being subscribed to one of the 'extremist' telegram channels can land you in prison on extremism charges (up to 7 years). Previously you had to at least repost something, and the sentence was milder for that. The decree in question has been signed but hasn't been published yet. All major opposition and news channels have already taken a ~1% hit to their subscriber numbers. However, some of them have dedicated apps, websites, social media, etc., so it's far too early to say how much impact this new law will actually make. Also relevant to note that there were many cases when the police arrested someone, took their phone, and straight up subscribed and reposted from extremist channels, if the person had nothing incriminating on the phone. E: Despite what was explicitly stated by the internal affairs ministry press release earlier in the day, the new press release claims there's an extra step where a telegram channel first needs to be designated as an 'extremist formation' on top of just spreading or producing 'extremist materials', and only then all subscribers can be arrested. But then again, the actual text of the decree hasn't been published yet. Maybe they expected that everyone would unsubscribe in one day, but now that they're still looking at roughly a million of 'extremists', they realise it's too much work. E2: The head of the anti-extremism committee now says subscription is actually grounds for criminal charge no matter what the law says. At this point I think they just want to scare people off reading any non-state media, rather than start arresting more people (they already dedicate most of the police resources to that). Anti-Lukashenko and non-state news media channels have lost some subscribers, now closer to 5%, so even if it doesn't really change anyone's mind, Lukashenko's bureaucrats can claim it as a quantifiable achievement. Paladinus fucked around with this message at 14:26 on Oct 14, 2021 |
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Oct 13, 2021 14:26
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Huh, how the mighty have fallen. Poklonskaya now is Russia’s ambassador to Capo Verde.
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Oct 14, 2021 17:03
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Huh, how the mighty have fallen. Poklonskaya now is Russia’s ambassador to Capo Verde. Ngl, that sounds like a sweet gig
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Oct 14, 2021 18:00
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aphid_licker posted:Ngl, that sounds like a sweet gig It’s not a good sign for her career.
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Oct 14, 2021 18:14
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She was too principled.
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Oct 14, 2021 18:21
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cinci zoo sniper posted:It’s not a good sign for her career. Well that obviously yes!
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Oct 14, 2021 18:24
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She really was all over the place. Almost seemed like a decent person on good days!
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Oct 14, 2021 20:51
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Paladinus posted:She was too principled.
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Oct 15, 2021 06:34
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Budzilla posted:According to a google search she didn't vote in favour of raising the retirement age and didn't want to recognize Turkish Cyprus in exchange for Russia Crimea from Ankara. Are these the reasons she was given an obscure post? Indeed, the current thought, that I’m inclined to agree with, is that she’s getting punished for freestyle voting, and running her mouth at times.
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Oct 15, 2021 08:07
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Budzilla posted:According to a google search she didn't vote in favour of raising the retirement age and didn't want to recognize Turkish Cyprus in exchange for Russia Crimea from Ankara. Are these the reasons she was given an obscure post? I think going with Tsar Nicholas the second portrait to the victory day parade in remembrance of veteran relatives did it, among other monarchist nutcase crap
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Oct 15, 2021 11:14
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Still a better place to be than IK number 2
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Oct 15, 2021 12:09
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Wonder if Navalny is gonna ever play a role again when/if he gets out
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Oct 15, 2021 17:04
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It feels that the only thing that could get him out in a relevant way is a full-blown revolution. In other words, no.
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Oct 15, 2021 17:46
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That sounds about right!
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Oct 15, 2021 18:59
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https://twitter.com/JasminMuj/status/1449123394469830659 What the heck is going on in Bosnia?
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Oct 16, 2021 19:30
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Not So Fast posted:https://twitter.com/JasminMuj/status/1449123394469830659 We've entered the secession zone
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Oct 16, 2021 19:57
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Meanwhile in Estonia we're doing about as well as Latvia and Lithuania on the COVID front. Which means that we're the worst in the world and not because we can't afford vaccines. There's plenty to go around. More people just won't get vaccinated. Hospitals are nearly full again and regular treatments will have to be stopped. Better not get into a traffic accident. I look around in the stores and they're full of shoppers, depending on the area 1/4 to half of the customers don't even wear masks. Or on public transport. I'M SURROUNDED BY IDIOTS. So how did we get here. We have ongoing municipal elections. That means an unprecedented wave of infrastructure improvements and ribbon cuttings scheduled to take place during the election week just to remind people who takes care of them. And of course the ministers of interior and social affairs (both from the Center party) don't put too much pressure on actually enforcing mask wearing and vaccination certificate checks in diners, spas, bars, etc. Because that might alienate their voter base (generally Russians). And therefore their power base in the biggest cities might be in danger. Because if they lose majority then their "food chain" that they've been setting up in our capital city for last about 17 years would be compromised. The results are in on the evening of the 17th. To make matters worse, those conservative racists that were in the government until January and until then did their best to fight COVID as part of the coalition are now doing the exact opposite by telling their supporters not to get vaccinated and that asking for a COVID certificate in businesses is bullshit. e: I voted for the new liberal center party, that's the best option out of all the bad ones. They're socially liberal. But still economically liberal. I shouldn't even be voting for their ideology, it should be about how to run a city. But somehow it doesn't come to that here. I ride a bike to work because it's doable for me, also affordable but coincidentally those conservative racists and some other politicians consider it something that only peasants do. As far as city and regional planning is concerned for past 30 years, it's always cars first. There's a token bus stop here and there but it's not competitive with cars because of ever increasing distances. And they won't invest in rail either. There's a railway running through the city and nearby towns, but let's definitely not develop those areas to be denser, with jobs and residences. jonnypeh fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Oct 16, 2021 |
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Oct 16, 2021 20:09
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jonnypeh posted:Meanwhile in Estonia we're doing about as well as Latvia and Lithuania on the COVID front. Which means that we're the worst in the world and not because we can't afford vaccines. There's plenty to go around. More people just won't get vaccinated. Hospitals are nearly full again and regular treatments will have to be stopped. Better not get into a traffic accident. As an American, I send you my deepest sympathies.
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Oct 16, 2021 20:30
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jonnypeh posted:Meanwhile in Estonia we're doing about as well as Latvia and Lithuania on the COVID front. Which means that we're the worst in the world and not because we can't afford vaccines. There's plenty to go around. More people just won't get vaccinated. Hospitals are nearly full again and regular treatments will have to be stopped. Better not get into a traffic accident. My condolences, I see you’re also less than enthusiastic about the ~society~ we live in. Here we only did enact some (inadequate as far as local epidemics specialists are concerns) restrictions this last Monday, so it’s going to be a wild couple of months. Daily infections are way past previous all times high for the pandemic, so is the total number of hospitalised patients in severe condition. Only 49% of the population are fully vaccinated, and for the majority the vaccine potency is beginning to wane, as everyone who genuinely wanted to get vaccinated was fully vaccinated by May-June. I expect us getting curfew with police and army patrols enforcing it within a month or so, and no real improvements until like November 15 (vaccination deadline for when a lot of public and private employers will be legally entitled to fire the unvaccinated) + 4-6 weeks. At the current vaccination rate, all things considered, we’ll go “back to normal” in like 2023. The most frustrating of all of this is the stupid Catch 22 with our pandemic management and vaccine uptake. The government is historically unpopular, and the coalition parties are hedging proper pandemic controls against preservation of their political careers, with opposition politicians at the same time being against controls as well, as opposed to actually doing them properly. Meanwhile, vaccine sceptics on the ground are now all of a sudden being politically engaged citizens who Totally Give A poo poo, deciding that killing themselves to deny fellow citizens medical services is the appropriate kind of grandstanding, and that it’s imperative to do so right now, because FoR hOw LoNg ArE tHeY sUpPoSeD tO SuFfEr fRoM oPpReSsiOn (hint: look up Latvian election turnout since 2nd independence). My favourite are the people who bribe their way into falsified digital COVID-19 certificates with proof of vaccination, who then refuse to admit that they’re unvaccinated as they vomit blood all over the hospital and get crippled for life, because they could be fined for a few hundred in theory.
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Oct 16, 2021 21:02
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