All-purpose news and politics thread

[the4thpip]

Orf wiv 'er 'ead!

[the4thpip]

There'll be new elections in Greece.

My tax money at work.

[Iangould]

There'll be new elections in Greece.

My tax money at work.

You deserve it for those war criems you committed 30 years before you were born!

(Of course, all the European countries that fought with Greece against Germany are also being forced to pay up but fuck them is why!)

Edted to add: come to think of it, most of the worst:affected cuntries - Spain, Ireland and Portugal were neutral too.

[Nick Soapdish]

Still in Greece, their bloated media is a big part of the problem according to Michael Jacobides and George Pleios. They aren't self-sufficient from advertising or even their parent companies. So they're getting lots of money from the government - which is in danger because of the austerity. So they function either as shills for the government or cater to the extreme demagogues calling for a default.

It explains a lot about why the story in Greece seems to be radically different from what we're hearing here in the rest of Europe, the US and Australia.

[king mob]

How many people charged by the CPS get the chance to make a public statement saying they're not going to get a fair trial like Rebekah Brooks has? Plus as pointed out on the BBC all day, this is only the first charge of many that Brooks faces so are we goiing to get this sideshow the next time she faces charges?

[Charles RB]

Meanwhile, in Ireland, a bankrupt tycoon is accused of contempt of court for removing the overseas assets from his bankrupt company, despite court orders, so the Irish taxpayer is stuck with his debts and he gets to keep making money after fucking up.

What a prince among men.

It's got a fraud rate of 0.5% according to this governments own figures so what will happen when this money is removed from people is you'll have people unable to get to work, or get around

And then the government has to pay up anyway, because now there's more hospitalisations and workplace accidents and general fuck-ups. But the figures will look good in the short term.

[Charles RB]

The government is going to streamline and centralise the system for (English) special needs kids and their parents. The system as-is is pretty shite. This looks like it'll improve some parts of it - and there is that bit about how parents can choose to go private with the money, but they don't have to so that's not going the full Tory.

It'd look good except for the bit that says

the green paper suggested that "too many children are being over-identified" as having a special need, with this label being applied to a very wide variety of problems

which is both

a) true

b) something to be suspicious about when this government says it, because we can expect them to start with an idea of how many are over-identified than finding out and then making the cuts.

As is true with any policy that looks good under this government, even if they don't do something dodgy after all. They've lost credibility. You can believe in individual MPs - when Lynne Featherstone talks about wanting marriage reform, she seems to be telling the truth; David Davies clearly does care about civil liberties issues - but the body as a whole looks murky.

The German GDP showed unexpected strong growth of 0.5% in the first quarter of 2012.

And the French economy stalled. It's a good thing Sarkozy lost, imagine how embarrassing it'd be if he'd won and then that came out after all his "look how I saved the economy" talk.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/ma...course-justice

How many people charged by the CPS get the chance to make a public statement saying they're not going to get a fair trial like Rebekah Brooks has?

I liked when she brought up "I was editor of the Sun", in a blatant "do you know who I am?" moment.

[Charles RB]

Ecowas are fed up of Mali's coup leaders pissing around, and are threatening to bring back sanctions if they don't stand down as promised.

And new US legislation about Congolese mines, forcing any company that might be using mines owned by warlords to register, seems to be having an effect. The EU is similarly cracking down. (This, of course, does course pain on the ground for miners as well as undermining the funding of conflict) The tin industry has responded:

ITRI says it does not "generally support the imposition of trade restrictions".

And it insists that such measures are "unlikely to modify the practices that are of concern and are likely to disadvantage those who the actions seek to protect".

Their alternative solution is LOOK JUST SHUT UP AND BUY TIN ALRIGHT?

[Iangould]

Merkel and Hollande are talking about "growth measures" to help Greece if the Greeks stick with the bail-out.

Greece seems to have largely missed out on the solar boom in Europe so a bunch of solar power plants and the infrastructure to transmit power to Italy would be one possibiity.

The key here would be to maximize private sectr investment so you get the maximim amount of new jobs and new tax revenue for a given amount of public investment. But who's ging to invest in Greece when there's a real possibility that you'll lose 50% or more of the capital value of your investment due to devaluation?

[Gryphon]

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...229763,00.html

An Israeli advocacy group says it has won a $323 million judgment in a US court against Iran and Syria for supporting the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group that killed an American teenager and ten others in a 2006 bombing.

Washington, D.C., judge Royce Lamberth ruled, "When a state chooses to uses terror as a policy tool - as Iran and Syria continue to do - that state forfeits its sovereign immunity and deserves unadorned condemnation."


Floridian Daniel Wultz, 16, was among 11 killed when a Palestinian suicide bomber set off his explosives at a Tel Aviv restaurant six years ago.

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center said Tuesday that the group had won courtroom victories against Iran but never before against Syria.

[Iangould]

So when is the family of the Turkish-American man killed by the IDF during the Gaza Flotilla going to file a similar lawsuit?

[the4thpip]

The Obama Administration on Tuesday threatened to veto the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 over provisions related to Guantanamo Bay and same sex marriage.

The House Armed Services Committee approved the $642 billion defense budget last week by a 56-5 vote. The budget is $8 billion over the military spending caps imposed by the Budget Control Act of 2011.

The legislation would continue to prevent the Obama Administration from closing down Guantanamo Bay by prohibiting the transfer of detainees to the United States or a foreign country.

“The Administration continues to strongly oppose these provisions, which intrude upon the Executive branch’s ability to carry out its military, national security, and foreign relations activities and to determine when and where to prosecute Guantanamo detainees,” the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement (PDF).

The defense budget would also prohibit same sex marriage ceremonies on any military installation. The White House described the provision as a “troublesome and potentially unconstitutional limitation.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/1...efense-budget/

[the4thpip]

This sounds like a worthy cause:

The nonprofit citizens’ advocacy group Common Cause, a coalition of Democratic congressmen and a group of students are jointly filing suit in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. to declare that the Senate’s filibuster rule is unconstitutional and “violates the core American principal of majority rule,” according to a press release from Common Cause.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/1...onstitutional/

[Vibranium]

I don't know if i I agree here....the filibuster works both ways, it can stop really stupid legislation from getting to the floor as well

[Iangould]

This sounds like a worthy cause:



http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/1...onstitutional/

There are multiple problems with the law suit: the first is that the rules of the senate are just that rules, not laws. They're adopted voluntarily by the Senate and can in theory be revised at any time based on a majority vote in the senate.

Next, while the courts have very wide latitude, I'm not sure their power extends to telling the Senate how to run its own internal affairs.

Finally, the plaintiffs would have to show standing which implies a particular and individual material interest in the matter being litigated which exceeds that of the average citizen. (So, for example, if Bernie Saunders wanted to argue that he as the only independent Senator was disadvantaged by current Senate ruels he might be foudn to have standing.)