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Here are the polls, by the way. Upper figure is the 2014 result, lower is current poll figures. Wallonia:  Flanders:  Hmm, yeah! Only downside I see is VB making a bit of a comeback. R. Mute fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Jul 1, 2017 |
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Jul 1, 2017 13:49
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 11:59 |
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The more I look at that Flanders poll, the more I hate this shithole region.
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Jul 1, 2017 14:49
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nimby posted:The disillusioned N-VA voters gotta go somewhere. Gotta say I'm a much bigger fan of Peter Mertens than I'm of John Crombez. The Flemish socialists have been fighting a defensive battle since forever, it seems, even while in the opposition they can't go on the offensive, especially with the PS being continuously mired with corruption scandals. Peter Mertens and the PVDA+, on the other hand, are looking great. Even if they fall short of those poll numbers, they're still making headway. They've always been the ideal of the whole 'act locally, think globally' ideal with things like Geneeskunde voor het Volk, but now that they're getting out there, they'll be able to keep expanding on that front as well. Their current impact, even with just two national seats, is already impressive - what with the Turtletaks, the healthcare campaigns and the fight against corruption/"graaien." More of that, imo. It's refreshing to have a leftist party with actual ideals they're not afraid to push. I remember having a conversation with some Scandinavian bloke in UKMT half a decade ago about the future of leftism, as you do. His argument back then was that leftists needed to come out with actual ideas - instead of anxiously holding on to what we have while it's slowly being chipped away. Said we needed to go forward and go on the offensive. Looking at the current situation, turns out he had the right idea.
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Jul 1, 2017 16:05
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fishmech posted:Tell me about the magical second-round candidate you could vote for that wasn't Le Pen or Macron! I really want to hear about this alternate universe you inhabit, and how you manage to post into this one!
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Jul 2, 2017 16:45
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fishmech posted:Americans were hardly clamoring for people to vote Macron much in the first round, that all came in the second round.
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Jul 4, 2017 21:27
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Greeks so poor they now can't even afford smoking - a 'rare feelgood story' from the Guardian.
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Jan 20, 2018 22:15
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double nine posted:belgians or expats in belgium itt might get a kick out of these fake election slogans:
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Mar 21, 2018 18:02
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re: Belgian planechat It just came out that there's proof that a bunch of generals knew about the Lockheed Martin rapport and purposefully withheld that information - because of course they knew about it. I'm also 99% sure our defense minister, Vandeput, knew about it as well and this'll just end up as a case of a couple of soldier boys falling on their swords to protect him. If they even have to fall on their swords, might just be a sternly administered slap on the wrist. As for which plane we should get: none. No planes. Zero planes. It's a huge waste of money and the entire purchasing process is just corruption all the way down.
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Mar 21, 2018 18:13
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GaussianCopula posted:No, there are a good number of situations in which an actual aircraft is the much better option, for instance rogue airplanes where you want your combat pilots to do some visual recon/intimidation before blowing them to smithereens
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Mar 21, 2018 20:52
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You don't buy an entire fleet of military jets to just perform check-ups on radio-less passenger jets. There are plenty of non-armed airplanes capable of performing that role if you really think it's necessary. Border air security also isn't high up on Belgium's list of needs.
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Mar 21, 2018 21:20
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Cat Mattress posted:You could go for unarmed fighters, I suppose. quote:Given that this is a mission that has been mutualized across the Benelux, the Netherlands will not be happy if Belgium decides not to do it anymore.
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Mar 21, 2018 21:39
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The reason why this controversy is such a disaster for our government isn't that it might expose the shady dealings in picking one of these jets over another, it's that when our current government came into power, they were simultaneously gung-ho about making massive cuts and about replacing the F-16 fleet - they rammed through the funding for their replacements at a frankly un-Belgian pace, actively avoiding any debate in parliament even. They're afraid that this attention and a possible restart of the procurement procedure might light up that debate again and pull into question why the hell we're cutting every public service we have, while at the same time wasting up to 15 billion on fighter jets. And that's not even thinking about what could happen if people start wondering what the hell our current fighter jets have been doing in the Middle East - that's another topic that's been kept very tightly covered up. Considering our current right-wing government's policy on controversial matters has been "ram it through, suppress any info on it and stifle any debate" - attention like this is the last thing they want.
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Mar 21, 2018 21:51
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They fed us the same line, really.quote:Sinds 1 juli 2016 voerden de Belgische F-16’s vanuit Jordanië 605 missies uit, goed voor 6.080 vluchturen, en dropten ze 675 bommen. Volgens cijfers van Defensie bedroeg de efficiëntie van de aanvallen tegen troepen van IS op de grond 85 procent.
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Mar 21, 2018 22:11
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Gee guys, maybe this Major General Frederik Vansina isn't the most reliable guy. Rough summary of the article: he knew about the extended life-span of the F-16's since 2016 and apparently called a Lockheed Martin rep to complain about the company mentioning during some international meeting that the F-16's could stay in service for much longer.
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Mar 21, 2018 22:15
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We usually don't get included on bar charts.
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Mar 21, 2018 22:45
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nimby posted:The N-VA solved the problem, turns out it was a socialist plot. Not the army guys withholding the info about upgrades, but the information now getting out. Yes, why wouldn't the leaker go to the minister who clearly knew about the rapport already and was straight up lusting after some shiny F-35s? A mystery for the ages.
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Mar 22, 2018 15:06
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Nah, I just wasn't paying attention.
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Mar 22, 2018 15:45
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If the Germans invade again, we'll beat them like we beat them last time: by collaborating heavily and basically waiting a couple of years until things blow over.
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Mar 23, 2018 19:08
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 11:59 |
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persopolis posted:It's actually always been my understanding that the resistance in Belgium was one of the most active and effective ones in occupied Europe, especially regarding stuff like protecting the Jewish population and setting up escape routes for spies and downed pilots. I got most of that from "Het Belgisch labyrint" by Geert Van Istendael, I don't know exactly how reliable his sources are, but I did see it mostly confirmed in musea like the Dossinkazerne. But at the same time, collaboration was also rife in Belgian society. You had the Flemish movement in Flanders with the VNV and Verdinaso, the straight fascists of DeVlag, Rex in Wallonia. The Catholic church and their political arm the Katholieke Blok was also heavily implied, with a bunch of village priests actively recruiting for the Flemish Legion. A lot of government agencies also got in on the action - most notably the police in cities like Antwerp. The capitalist class was also more than willing to work with their occupiers, fearing a repeat of the deindustrialisation of Belgium during the WOI and also because capitalists suck. Hell, even Leopold III got in on the action. And that's not even mentioning small scale collaboration, like Irma Laplasse. So yeah, definitely a mixed bag. The public knowledge of this history is also heavily influenced by past and present political considerations. So yeah. R. Mute fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Mar 24, 2018 |
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Mar 24, 2018 19:27
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