I am never not fascinated by stories like this one.
Branko Milanovic looks at populism in the international context, from Trump to Putin. And China!
Well, this comedian is definitely an ass, but I am glad that’s protected speech in the US.
Michael Caine’s name is now Michael Caine.
Rocky Mountain high? (Haha, get it?) (I’ll bet Coloradoans are totally not tired of that joke.)
This makes sense for a number of reasons, one of which is that there is little “repeat business” angle for contractors, nor seeking recommendations for doing the same job somewhere else.
It’s really interesting that France is one of two countries where fear of crime is an issue for less than half of the population, given the Paris Attacks. (Which, I know, were not carried out by refugees, but demonstrated holes in the process all the same.)
The arms dealers: I’m fascinated by stories like this to. Nearly every time a story like this comes up, people think that they will be the ones that get away with it even though nearly nobody ever does. The people involved got off very lightly.
Syria: I’m not sure if things like this ever help. The intent is to put things into perspective, to let people in the developed world know how good they have it, and hope it gets them to help. Most people are either going to not know about this or if they do know get on the defensive or filled with despair and feel too impotent to do something. The usual suspects will still be cold to helping the children of Syria for the usual reasons. Notme will claim they are all Islamic State plants. Others will say, not my problem and that the kids need to help themselves.Report
On Syria I think there’s a serious question as to what we really can do to help. Also note that this is being published by a rebel organization that if I had to guess wants more military assistance from the West. I don’t think that Syria’s children will benefit much from America giving more weapons to random militants in the desert or dropping more ordnance.Report
The Canadian tribunal has always struck me as seriously problematic. Perhaps it operates under clear, objective criteria that I am not aware of, but my perception of it is that it’s rulings are very subjective.Report
Yeah the Tribunals are an absolute disaster. A literal kangaroo court.Report
The judges are Australian marsupials?Report
They really seem to be an awful non-solution to any real problem.Report
Frankly they are long overdue for a serious court challange. I’d give pretty decent odds they’d get severely on section 2(b) (Canada’s non-union first amendment equivalent) if it made its way through the court system. The current Supreme Court loves ruling in favour of plaintiffs on civil libertarian grounds, so I’d bet if a good challange got that high it would pretty sharply curtail the pontential for behavior people are so concerned about.
One of the problems is that Canadian administrative law give fairly broad remit for administrative tribunals to do their own thing, including making orders you can’t get from the normal legal system and its a considerable process to challange their rulings. The human rights tribunal process has been so rarely used to surpress speech that things haven’t been forced to come to a head yet (either in a big court challange or a big enough contreversy to force the issue to the table and the government table new legislation).Report
I should clarify that the federal hate speech section was repealed a few years back. Right now it is its equivalents in provincial acts which are problematic.Report
Mike Ward: So glad I don’t live in Canaduh.
Syria: Yeah, not running a sniper’s gauntlet or a barrel bomb one either only to face the border control “interview” upon returning. What part of “don’t get involved in a land war in asia” was unclear?Report
He still spells it wrong :^)Report
Another ISIS attack for folks to ignore.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3708394/Two-men-armed-knives-people-hostage-French-church.htmlReport
No one to deny this is ISIS?Report
ISIS? Never heard of them. Have they been in the news?Report
Naw, they are strictly the JV outfit. Purely existential.Report
Oh…well maybe we should send some troops or carriers over there. We could even support the guys fighting them.Report
Nope, just ignore them.Report
Wow that is a bad idea. Good thing our gov isn’t listening to you.Report
Hey, @notme, it’s turned out that the killer was a self-described “Aryan” who was obsessed with Adolf Hitler and Anders Breivik, and hated Arabs and Turks.
Did you forget telling us all that was another example of ISIS coming to kill us all, or were you just expecting everybody else to?Report
You’re thinking of the other other other other other killing in Europe. This thread is on the other other other one.Report
I meant to specify it was the Munich killer, but, you know, didn’t type that. In any event, here’s @notme mocking everyone for not immediately joining him in jumping to the conclusion that ISIS was behind it.
EDIT: On second read, he didn’t actually say it was ISIS, he just sarcastic towards everyone who entertained the possibility that it wasn’t ISIS. Which, you know, is totally better and he shouldn’t feel a shred of embarrassment over it.Report
Given that witnesses said the gunman made certain statements, the conclusion of ISIS involvement was reasonable.Report
Did I say it was ISIS? If I did, then I was wrong.Report
Nope. These guys seem pretty clearly connected to Daesh, and it was a terror strike.
On the other hand, the civilized world could do worse than attacks that kill fewer targets than attackers.
That just accelerates the endgame.Report
Sure, unless you are one of dead folks.Report
I think the difference in our ages is the difference in our perspective.
I was 5 when D.B. Cooper made hijacking a thing. I was 6 for the Munich Summer Olympics. I was 10 for Entebbe. I was 12 for Aldo Moro and Harvey Milk. I was 13 for the Iranian hostages. I was 16 for Beirut. I was 19 for the Achille Lauro. I was 21 for Lockerbie. I was 26 when the World Trade Center was bombed. I was 28 when Timothy McVeigh and Ted Kaczynski made themselves known.
Terror has been a thing for me since literally I was able to think for myself.
All through this time, there was the SLA, the Black Panthers, the IRA, Basque separatists, Red Brigades, Aum Shinrikyo, clinic bombers… And genocides in more than a handful of countries proving that terror can come from the majority as well as the minority.
Terror has never been, and will never be, a fishing existential threat. People die, and it’s a fishing tragedy. But 30,000 people die every year in traffic accidents. The worst thing we can do is make people who kill people on a retail basis seem as important as they think they should be.
Go after the money and power behind them, like, oh, like our government is – that’s the long-term answer.Report