What's in the news?

[Beorning]

Meanwhile in Poland, the new cabinet (the one I fear) has been sworn in. Some related political news from the last few days are:

1. The new government's coordinator of special services is a guy who has been sentenced for prison due to abusing his powers back he had been in charge of one of these services. He was currently appealing this verdict... and now, he's out of trouble. Why? Because our new president (who was a member of the same party that is behind the new government) pardoned him. Just like that.

2. Mere days after the new cabinet was created and the new parliament started working, the goventment party forced extremely speedy changes to the law regarding the Constitutional Tribunal... which is a body overseeing whether the constitution is being upheld.

3. The new president I mentioned? When swearing in the new cabinet, he went into a speech on how the governing party's leader is an amazing man etc. It shows, IMHO, that the president is going to be the party leader's puppet.

4. Yesterday, the new minister of culture tried to force one theater to drop the premiere of their new play. The minister accused the upcoming play of being pornographic and demanded that the theater should stop the premiere.

All of this is worrisome...

[TheGlyphstone]

Is your new party leader by any chance Austrian and sporting a toothbrush mustache?

[Beorning]

Is your new party leader by any chance Austrian and sporting a toothbrush mustache?

No, but he currently does hold an amount of power that makes me uneasy. Basically, the new prime minister and the president are his puppets. As I mentioned, the new president already made his "you're a great man" speech... and the new prime minister? She's a figurehead, she probably didn't even have too much say in who was chosen for her own government. Everything is being decided by Law & Justice's chief, Jarosław Kaczyński. So, the separation of power became kind of... nonexistant right now?

Oh, and BTW. I think I did mention some time ago that the new minister of defense is a conspiracy theorist who believes that the presidential plane crash of 2010 was an assasination, didn't I? Well, it seems that the new government might really try to re-open the investigation of that plane crash and start pushing that conspiracy theory as truth. The new president has already declared that the previous investigation's results are "just hypotheses that don't hold up when faced with scientific evidence".

Let me reiterate it: the conspiracy theory says that presidential plane has been crashed by Russians working together with the previous government. That Prime Minister Tusk conspired with Russia's Putin to murder President Kaczyński. And now, this theory might start being pushed as official truth...  >:(

[Iniquitous]

The Satanic Temple in Minneapolis is offering help to Muslims afraid of backlash...

Let that sink in for a few moments cause it speaks volumes about what's wrong with those professing to be Christian.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/19/satanic-temple-offers-helping-hand-muslims-amid-su/

[TheGlyphstone]

The Satanic Temple in Minneapolis is offering help to Muslims afraid of backlash...

Let that sink in for a few moments cause it speaks volumes about what's wrong with those professing to be Christian.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/19/satanic-temple-offers-helping-hand-muslims-amid-su/

This was being discussed over in the Terror Attacks thread. It doesn't really say anything about Christians that most of us don't already know - the Church of Satan/Satanic Temple is effectively a group of atheists with funny hats on. They're just good people who are doing a good thing.

[Lustful Bride]

The Satanic Temple in Minneapolis is offering help to Muslims afraid of backlash...

Let that sink in for a few moments cause it speaks volumes about what's wrong with those professing to be Christian.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/19/satanic-temple-offers-helping-hand-muslims-amid-su/[/size][/font][/i]

You mean the fact that they are Christians in name only and give the rest of us a bad name by being complete and total bigoted assholes? Yeah trust me, I know..fuckin hate them.

[Ironwolf85]

already posted and responded to on the previous page.

[TaintedAndDelish]

Clock kid wants  $15 million in damages now.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/23/texas-ahmed-mohamed-clock-lawsuit-apology

Something about this just rubs me the wrong way. I get that calling his rogue clock in a suitcase or whatever the hell he slapped together was probably somewhat damaging at first, but this kid got a trip the to white house, job offers from huge companies and a free college education in the end. So after all this he turns his nose up at our country and go off to study in Qatar, then bites the very hand that reached out to help him with this lawsuit.

I'm trying to ask myself how I would feel about this if it happened to my own kid. To be honest, this is the best thing that ever happened to him. I don't know, something about this just stinks.

[ShadowFox89]

 Welcome to America.

[LisztesFerenc]

Clock kid wants  $15 million in damages now.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/23/texas-ahmed-mohamed-clock-lawsuit-apology

Something about this just rubs me the wrong way. I get that calling his rogue clock in a suitcase or whatever the hell he slapped together was probably somewhat damaging at first, but this kid got a trip the to white house, job offers from huge companies and a free college education in the end. So after all this he turns his nose up at our country and go off to study in Qatar, then bites the very hand that reached out to help him with this lawsuit.

I'm trying to ask myself how I would feel about this if it happened to my own kid. To be honest, this is the best thing that ever happened to him. I don't know, something about this just stinks.

  There is still the consideration that the police handcuffed him and took him into custody yet didn't evacuate the school. So either the police

1. Genuinely believed the bomb threat was real and were criminally negligent in their handling of a bomb threat at a school
or
2. They knew it wasn't a bomb and chose to humiliate a teenager for, well presumable being Muslim

  If the lawsuit aims to highlight this, then I am all for it. If it is just for personal gain, then it is more questionable.

[TaintedAndDelish]

Honestly, I think option #1 is a lot more likely. Given the climate of terrorism that law enforcement has to deal with and the recent school shootings, I think it was plausible for them to be suspicious. Personally, I would rather they err on the side of caution as they did than to ignore something like this and end up with a crater and a whole bunch of missing people - followed by negligence lawsuits.

[TheGlyphstone]

So the headline of that is 'FAMILY OF 15-year old boy' is suing. Not him, cause he's obviously a minor, but his family/guardians are suing 'for him'. That makes me intensely suspicious, but of their motives, not his (he made out pretty good, as noted).

[LisztesFerenc]

So the headline of that is 'FAMILY OF 15-year old boy' is suing. Not him, cause he's obviously a minor, but his family/guardians are suing 'for him'. That makes me intensely suspicious, but of their motives, not his (he made out pretty good, as noted).

  Does the US legal system have a way to sue someone and agree to in advance give any damages awarded to a specified charity/cause (- legal fees)? That would be a good way to use court cases to raise awareness whilst removing any suspicious that you are just doing this for money.

[TaintedAndDelish]

The Russians are saying that Turkey shot down one of their jets. I'm not sure that was a very good idea. The article suggests that there was communication which the Russian pilot ignored or defied and a disagreement about whether or not the plane had violated Turkish airspace.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/24/turkey-shoots-down-jet-near-border-with-syria

[Ironwolf85]

the turks say it was in turkish airspace at the time. Russian pilots ejected. a rebel group in the area clams to have shot one of the pilots as he floated down and let the other go.
Nato has called an emergency session.

well fuck  :o

[Zakharra]

  Both pilots are dead, shot while parachuting down by rebels in Syria, and the idiots are bragging about it.... >_<

[elone]

Aren't we helping the rebels?  Time to call it a day, let the Russians sink in this quagmire of hate.

[Zakharra]

 I think we are helping some of the rebels, but there are so many different groups that combine and split apart all the time, it's a little hard to make sure those we are supporting are even semi decent people, instead of all of them being just assholes.

[TheGlyphstone]

And if Turkey really did shoot the jets, but the Syrian rebels over the border shot the survivors, that makes it even more of a mess.

[consortium11]

Aren't we helping the rebels?  Time to call it a day, let the Russians sink in this quagmire of hate.

While it came at a huge cost, including a large number of civilian casualties and some pretty egregious human rights violations, it is worth noting that Russia is basically the only country that has experience fighting in this sort of conflict and winning.

The War of Dagestan and the Second Chechen War are a fairly close approximation of what is current going on in-and-around Syria. You have fundamentalist Islamic fighters invading another country and capturing a significant amount of ground (as the Islamic State did in Iraq) with the invaders having previously taken control of vast swathes of a neighboring country with the "legitimate" government basically only having power in the capital. Likewise in addition to the main conflict itself there were numerous and horrific terrorist attacks on Russia (much like there have been in Europe).

As I say, the cost was great, it took a long time to finish and there are still issues today... but Russia undoubtedly won and these days the Islamic fundamentalists are reduced to isolated attacks rather than being a significant force. There's a reason that the Caucasus Emirate is basically a non-entity now.

I think we are helping some of the rebels, but there are so many different groups that combine and split apart all the time, it's a little hard to make sure those we are supporting are even semi decent people, instead of all of them being just assholes.

Sadly these days basically everyone who matters is an asshole.

There was an opportunity for us to support more moderate and reasonable parties but the west balked and as such those parties were largely destroyed. Simplifying things at the start of the conflict you had Assad (stereotypical "strongman" leader; pretty much a clear asshole but an asshole who generally kept the country stable and was developing the economy) vs an unholy alliance of the liberal opposition (the sort of people most hoped the Arab Spring was driven by and generally the least assholeish of the lot) and the Islamic fundamentalists (with the Islamic State having the most prominence but being far from alone). If we'd stepped in and given real support to the liberal side of things at the start then they likely could have taken control. Instead we did little, allowing the Islamic fundamentalists to crush them, seize territory, establish themselves as the only real opposition and then start this grinding war of attrition with Assad.

It's the same story as in several of the post-Arab Spring countries where in the vacuum that the loss of a Strongman left fundalmentalists were able to seize enough power to lead to never-ending civil wars. And it links in to what was mentioned above about Russia; the West isn't willing to do the things Russia did to end these conflicts and as such they drag on and on and on.

[Beorning]

Okay, this might be a small thing - nevertheless, it's quite telling:

http://www.ft.com/fastft/430461/poland-removes-eu-flag-amid-shift-nationalism

Worried, worried...

[ShadowFox89]

 Posting a source that doesn't redirect away from the article if you don't sub.... http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/11/24/world/europe/ap-eu-poland-eu.html?_r=0

[Skynet]

So recently in Minneapolis a group of masked men with guns shown up at a Black Lives Matter protest and injured several people.

Apparently some folks who might be the alleged suspects uploaded a video of themselves to the Internet explaining their motivations four days before the incident.  Their use of some terminology and lingo on 4chan's /pol/ board is causing people to speculate they might be regulars of that subforum:

A video.

Shit like this makes me feel bad about my country.  I don't know whether or not these are indeed the guys, or what happened at the time, but time and time again I keep seeing hatefulness everywhere and I don't know when things will stop getting worse. :-(

[Lustful Bride]

So recently in Minneapolis a group of masked men with guns shown up at a Black Lives Matter protest and injured several people.

Apparently some folks who might be the alleged suspects uploaded a video of themselves to the Internet explaining their motivations four days before the incident.  Their use of some terminology and lingo on 4chan's /pol/ board is causing people to speculate they might be regulars of that subforum:

A video.

Shit like this makes me feel bad about my country.  I don't know whether or not these are indeed the guys, or what happened at the time, but time and time again I keep seeing hatefulness everywhere and I don't know when things will stop getting worse. :-(

I really want to call them domestic terrorists. Nothing but scum. They don't even deserve a trial other than to be sure they are the perpatrators.

[ShadowFox89]

 Domestic terrorist, sadly, is a term that I think the US is afraid to use. Especially when it comes to gun violence.