Ah yes, Germany is in those early stages where the nazis deny being nazis. Just look to the US for a glimpse of the future. Next step will be to try to take the meaning out of the word, then they'll slip nazi rhetoric into their propaganda in small deniable ways, and eventually they just drop the facade and start saying "What's wrong with being a nazi?"
On one hand nazi is just a meaningless word for "I don't agree with them" but on the other hand the actual risk are all those left-green fascist degenerates trying to destroy the country... Why would the fascists have called themselves national socialists if they weren't left. wink wink
Nazi is already a term for "i dislike your opinion". Also, the AfD is using a lot of NS rrethoric.Björn Höcke is going to court for like the fifth time because he used NS speech.
If only the döner prices were exploding. Everything seems to be way more expensive, including the rents and the only imploding thing is the purchasing power of the general population.
Almost as if only a very small percentage of the population is profiting from those price hikes.
I've worked my ass of these past 5 years to advance my career, earning about 30% more, just to have the same buying power I had when I started. It's ridiculous and utterly demoralizing.
Utterly insane take from him. Based on the strength of a single referendum that was likely influenced by a foreign power and carried out by some of the most determinedly incompetent leaders we've seen in a generation, we are to lose free trade, influence abroad, freedom to roam, consumer protections, and countless other benefits, to continue for the lifetime of an as yet unelected PM who has purged his party of anyone to the left of Barack Obama.
It should be enough to know that Russia prefers the current situation. I'd happily ditch the pound on that basis - it's not exactly as if sir Isaac has been running the mint lately.
Eh, why feed Reform or Conservatives any on-the-edge voters at this late an hour by making them fear a vote for Labour is a vote for more Brexit madness.
His statements are full of weasel words too, as have other party member’s statements. It’s not an insane take, just a “I don’t think we will” to avoid arming opponents with something to fearmonger with.
They need a term, and if they can change the perspective on EU membership and see polling supports rejoining (and they’ve the funds to pump into the obscene political advertising it’ll require to not get drowned out by Conservatives like before the referendum), they just might go for it in a second term.
It's the early signs like this that needs the rest of the community to come out against the right hard and relentlessly. Just name and shame until they go away. Allowing them to keep spouting bullshit just gets you a slow roll into fascism. I hope they can accomplish it.
I mean, I don't want to sound like an old fogie or anything but when I was a kid when people would say stupid shit we would just ignore them and tell each other to walk on the other side of the street around them.
We would not listen for the crazy words that crazy people say and then run around telling them to everyone else as if there were any weight or value to those words.
I'm sure if you look hard enough you can find some crazy person saying some crazy thing about any topic you can imagine. Why are we taking those crazy people and putting them up on a planetary podium and putting a microphone in front of them?
The people who are giving the crazy people megaphones are bad people and should be stopped.
The problem as I see it is that those crazy people discovered the internet, and met the other crazies that reinforced the stupid stuff they believed. And when enough of them got together, people started to notice and someone was like, "I can make money off this by making them interact with non-crazies." The first probably was Facebook, but after others saw how profitable it was, they decided to have their own slice of the pie, which in turn made those fringe groups more noticeable.
Personal anecdote. I have recently been in China, specifically Shenzhen and a couple of other southern megacities.
Let me tell you all something: China is getting ahead of us. Shenzhen used to be known for its smokestacks. It is now at least as pleasant as any European city. Not only does it have an excellent metro, loads of green space and trees, wide sidewalks and cycle lanes. It also has silent streets with shockingly clean air. And for a simple reason: all the buses, all the scooters and motorbikes, and at least 40% of the private cars (not very numerous because of the great transit) are electric.
Europeans might be surprised to discover what a difference this electrification makes to a city. From personal experience of both, I can tell you that (IMO) Chinese cities are putting Swiss ones in the shade. This should be a pretty shameful situation for the supposed quality-of-life superpower that Europe imagines itself to be.
Instead of punishing China for getting ahead in a technological battle that will benefit us all, Europe should be copying it.
Shenzhen and Hong Kong and many other Chinese cities are really great, I have been there too. The point is that what we see and what you describe is the surface. China is a deeply autocratic regime. It's a shame what the CCP is doing to the Chinese people and their culture.
They have also been installing solar powerplants at a lightning rate. They installed more solar in 2023 than the US has in total according to an article I read a few months ago.
It's not about saving the planet though, they import the bulk of their fossil fuels, moving to renewables reduces their fuel import dependency
Increased solar and wind means little in terms of saving the planet when coal usage is increasing. I look forward to the day when we have some honest data from CN on electricitymaps
I agree with your point on curbing fuel import and dependence.
Unfortunately it only tells countries to make a good effort. But that's better than nothing, and the current policy of doing nothing is at least out of the window.
As someone whose country just put the moronic Farmers party in charge of the environment, this EU law makes me very happy
Do you have some kind of pointer to a summary of what concrete impacts it actually has? Like, the article here doesn't list any concrete material. I see some phrases like "20% of land and sea". Given that Hungary and Austria were apparently both reluctant and both are land-locked, I am wondering if it was "20% of land and sea", where sea can substitute for land.
Does it basically ask EU members to designate at least 20% of their territory as a sort of national park?
The EC has a section on their website on the thing, but it's...really fluffy and full of marketing material. Their factsheet on the law is...very sparse on actual facts about the law.
EDIT: This Wikipedia page seems to reference what is a superset of it:
But the targets there don't seem to match up with what is going through, like:
The EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 includes the following targets:
Protect 30% of the sea territory and 30% of land territory especially primary forests and old-growth forests.
...whereas the law that went through uses "20%".
EDIT: Okay, that's definitely a superset of what was planned for the law, because the page does reference the targets that were actually taken being 20%.
The factsheet is vague because it tells countries to find a way to fix a problem. All countries have to come up with a realistic method to improve natural areas, 20% by 2026, 30% need a concrete plan by 2030 and 90% by 2050.
More importantly, there's a requirement that Member States make a significant effort to prevent worsening in the meantime.
What those plans are, is up to the Member States, but they need to be solid and realistic, not the usual vagueness
No one in England even cares about this. It's literally just the government making random arguments up to throw at the right wing groups, it's all political. Pretty much everyone would be absolutely fine if we gave them back.
The only people that care about any of this are basically fascists anyway and they won't go and look at them they just want no one else to have them.
Even if they had permission from the Ottomans - it's beyond meaningless.
It's like arguimg Britain had permission from France to take [random African artifact located im a French colony] and therefore any and all claims by the affected country are now void.
The Brits are claiming that they had permission of the sultan, the governor and the city of Athens. However somehow no documents proving any of that are available in Turkey or Greece.
However Athens was part of the Ottoman Empire for 350 years and they had a lot more influence over it, then France had in Africa. It really is more like the Tsar giving permission to sell some mosaics from the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv.
The point is that the most active voters are older ones and they are much more likely to vote conservatively than younger voters, who are more likely to vote progressively.
theguardian.com
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