Michelle Roverelli, the head of communications for the European Broadcasting Union that runs the show, said ticket holders are only allowed to bring and display flags representing countries that take part in the event, as well as the rainbow-coloured flag.
The Geneva-based EBU reserves the right “to remove any other flags or symbols, clothing, items and banners being used for the likely purpose of instrumentalising the TV shows,” she told the Associated Press in a text message.
Martin Österdahl, the contest's executive supervisor, told TT that “these rules are the same as last year. There is no change.”
They've never allowed political protests. Nothing is different vs any other year. This headline sure is inflammatory, though
It's so annoying, really. I'd call myself pretty left-leaning (especially compared to the US political spectrum), but there are just so many inflammatory posts on Lemmy that exaggerate just for the sake of it, making anything but a circle jerk impossible.
The headline of this post leaves not much to do except hating the EBU because apparently they are actively trying to suppress any support for Palestine - except they aren't. It's the same rules as every year and nothing really changed.
We could discuss if this is a good policy or if the ESC should be more political or whatever. But headlines like this kill any nuance.
It is. I can accept train journeys (like, say, London to Rome or Stockholm to Barcelona) taking longer than flying, and would be happy with that in many cases (you can do things on a train, after all). Though when they take longer, are comprised of six discrete journeys which either fall apart if one train is delayed (and if Germany is in the path, this is likely) or require defensively allocating hours for waiting at provincial stations just in case, and cost several times the cost of flying, catching a sequence of trains out of principle feels like wearing a hair shirt.
What should be done: scrap the post-WW2 tax exemption for aviation fuel and use the funds to improve long-distance rail connections.
(Explanation, for those not familiar with politics: the liberal party in Germany is infamous for blocking progressive economical legislation reasoning it would impede freedoms. For example they blocked a ban in advertising food containing high amounts of sugar, claimingit would impede parents' freedom to buy candy for kids (it wouldn't).)
The answer would be high speed night trains. London - Rome takes a bit over 15h by train today. However that includes waiting for connections and a lot of stops on stations. So a direct train would be siginificantly faster probably more like 12-13h. That would mean you could go into a train station in London at 20:00 and end up in Rome at 8:00 for example.
Stockholm - Barcelona is a much longer journey. 2250km instead of 1400km for Rome - London. So a very long nigh train or a connection in Hamburg or Paris. with a night train going from there to Barcelona or Stockholm respectivly.
as much as I love trains (I'm on one while typing this) I can't get myself to spend 170€ for a 21 hour train, even if part of it is spent sleeping, when a 2 hour flight could do the same for 50€.
I don't know if it's just cheaper or if there's massive subsidies like other comments were saying, but for now it's highly unpractical and uneconomical
I am pretty curious on how this new trend of SMR will evolve in 20 years, I can see how it can be simpler and faster to build than full scale plant. However, I am not sure you'd save by multiplying the NIMBY to deal with and the whole support staff.
The idea seems to be to have small modular units of which multiple can be installed in the needed capacity at sites of existing fossil fuel plants, not to have a lot of single units spread all over the place.
Historically, reactors were sized like modern SMR concepts once. The issue was that they were even harder to secure and ratio of effort/benefit was worse than with fewer, larger reactors. Just like all nuclear projects, SMR construction will run behind schedule and outside of cost estimates, we've already seen that with the cancelled NuScale reactors in the US.
Governments need to stop throwing money at this deadbirth of a technology.
They won't evolve. Or at least not without massive subsidies.
Nuclear power is extremely expensive, even for SMRs, and most of the projections don't even account for the waste management, which will cost money for at least several decades (assuming you just dump it somewhere "safe").
There's simply no economic incentive, unless you hope to be subsidized forever and leverage the nuclear bros.
I think we should wait and actually see the real time frame first. Regular reactors seem to take way over a decade to build now and eat up a lot of money.
They've been doing it in the UL for some time. Note that their SMRs there are relatively-large, getting up towards conventional reactors in size -- they're putting more emphasis on the "modular" and less on the "small".
Article doesn't really specify which Rolls Royce it's referring to, and most people don't know there's two completely different companies called Rolls Royce, but im assuming this deal is being done with Rolls Royce Holdings; a major aeroplane engine /aerospace/defense company.
It has nothing to do with the car company; Rolls Royce Automoted Ltd.
His voters won't know about this. Government propaganda is in a different world. He just met with Zelinsky, Putin and the Chinese dictator, and couldn't achieve anything, obviously. In government media he is praised for trying to bring peace everywhere but the evil EU and US don't let him succeed, and we have to vote him otherwise Hungary will get pulled into the war.
Oh, there is Euro football match today, so everyone will hear about this. During the half time break there are not just ads, but also a little news segment where you can hear about his latest achievement. So those who are not interested in politics but football can hear about the adventures of our glorious leader.
Yeah, for sure. I just take comfort in knowing it bruised his ego a little.
As for getting rid of him it's going to take a lot more. Poland gives hope, but the situation there was not as bad as in Hungary.
I just hope that him trying to play an increasingly bigger role globally will lead to his downfall somehow. He clearly has a distorted image of himself and his abilities, which is not a great starting point of aspiring dictators.
I don't generally see videos of politicians, as I get my news primarily from written sources and I don't have much of an interest in rhetorics. It's fascinating to see his words are as idiotic as his actions.
I guess he manages to come across as more convincing in Hungarian.
Because Hungary had been strongly social democratic basically since WW2 (though much of that was behind the iron curtain), and they'd been hugely improving up to their entrance to the union, with only a little mistake of electing Orban once, before going back to a sane Premier.
And then 2010 arrived, and the entire country took a swing Hard Right and down shit street, but by that time they were already in.
The EU countries in general just cannot get over the right wing tendancies and xenophobia of which they are a deep cause. By exploiting developing countries and shitting toxins into the environment we make their countries worth fleeing from, and where else to flee than prosperous countries. They are only following the wealth that was extracted from their countries.
Our reaction is to act surprised and say "no room here, we're struggling too", after having voted for parties that will take the wealth and move it upwards away from the common people. So instead of using our "superior" education to vote for parties that want to redistribute wealth, we vote populist - people who find scapegoats in the poor. "Immigrants are the problem!", "Leftists are the problem".
I'll just add that Fidesz (the right wing governing party) started out centrist in 1990. In 2010 they'd moved towards the right, but in a lot people's minds they were one of the big, reasonable parties since the end of Soviet control. And also just in general "the opposition".
The social democratic governing party also was inept and admitted as such (see Őszöd sleech).
So what happened was the left side of the spectrum lost all support, and what in many people's minds was the centrist or centre-right opposition picked it all up. Just over half the votes gave them a supermajority and from that point they gradually attained complete control over all institutions as a result.
We in Europe have a similar problem in Slovakia at the moment with PM Fico with a similar autocratic (and pro-Russian) approach. Europe will have to adapt to the rise of the extremists from the right (and soon from the left too?) and other global development.
Come on, our prisons are not Istanbul bad and the people that we jail are killed very rarely. Additionally policemen never go to prison so you know you're protected by the best that society has to offer.
It baffles me how short lived the memory of people is. The whole affair around Gorch Fock should have made a persona non grata, especially after blatantly refusing any collaboration with the authorities (very convenient that all the incriminating chats were deleted and she can't remember a thing anymore...).
On the other hand, looking at the SPD and Scholz' appearance for the Warburg Bank investigation was not any better.
And yet, the ultra right found the expression of "green filth" due to one minor case of irregularities of a few officials who got into office before the department it is associated with got a green secretary.
Btw, the Greens are the party with the fewest scandals of all parties that were ever in a german government (and at least one that (luckily) never was). And it ain't even close.
Yep, and right they are. We're dangerous terrorists and our opinion that we should change our way of living instead of destroying the planet before it's too late is a very dangerous thought that terrorizes their simplistic minds.
I would venture to suggest that perhaps Eurobarometer polls might be more-representative of the population than your circle of friends and family.
I remember the first time I saw a poll as to the percentage of people here in the US that believed in ghosts and was very surprised. If you'd asked me prior to seeing poll data, I'd have guessed that the number would be below 1%.
This year's results showed a slight drop in Americans who say ghosts are real. In 2019, 4 in 10 Americans believed in ghosts, and more than 46% agreed that supernatural beings exist. In this year's survey, about 41% of adults said they believe in ghosts.
Slate Star Codexhad an article a while back about the remarkable impact of social bubbles. It was really talking about how people isolate themselves into "political bubbles" of Democrats and Republicans, and how people in each camp should be more tolerant of each other. But I think that one can generalize the mathematical side of what the article was talking about, that one can have a social circle that is statistically insanely not-representative of the population as a whole, because of tendency of people with similar viewpoints to cluster.
A quote from the article:
There are certain theories of dark matter where it barely interacts with the regular world at all, such that we could have a dark matter planet exactly co-incident with Earth and never know. Maybe dark matter people are walking all around us and through us, maybe my house is in the Times Square of a great dark matter city, maybe a few meters away from me a dark matter blogger is writing on his dark matter computer about how weird it would be if there was a light matter person he couldn’t see right next to him.
This is sort of how I feel about conservatives.
I don’t mean the sort of light-matter conservatives who go around complaining about Big Government and occasionally voting for Romney. I see those guys all the time. What I mean is – well, take creationists. According to Gallup polls, about 46% of Americans are creationists. Not just in the sense of believing God helped guide evolution. I mean they think evolution is a vile atheist lie and God created humans exactly as they exist right now. That’s half the country.
And I don’t have a single one of those people in my social circle. It’s not because I’m deliberately avoiding them; I’m pretty live-and-let-live politically, I wouldn’t ostracize someone just for some weird beliefs. And yet, even though I probably know about a hundred fifty people, I am pretty confident that not one of them is creationist. Odds of this happening by chance? 1⁄2^150 = 1⁄10^45 = approximately the chance of picking a particular atom if you are randomly selecting among all the atoms on Earth.
About forty percent of Americans want to ban gay marriage. I think if I really stretch it, maybe ten of my top hundred fifty friends might fall into this group. This is less astronomically unlikely; the odds are a mere one to one hundred quintillion against.
People like to talk about social bubbles, but that doesn’t even begin to cover one hundred quintillion. The only metaphor that seems really appropriate is the bizarre dark matter world.
Apparently nearly 70% of US is religious, so I don't know why you'd be surprised about people believing in ghosts. I would even say you need a deeper understanding of the world to understand why ghosts can't exist.
Do spirits of souls stay as ghost according to us christians? I thought one of the core tenets are that souls get judged and then accepted to heaven or thrown into the trash heap or hell depending on reading
Nuclear energy is not clean. Less CO2 intensive, maybe, but definitely not clean. It might be good in the short term but the long term looks grim regarding nuclear waste, among other issues.
Yes CO2 is the existential threat. Even in socialist countries CO2 is produced.
Economic systems and forms of production do not make energy sources clean. Socialist and capitalist countries both ought to and must fight against CO2 production.
Socialist countries? Of course definitions vary, so which ones are you referring to?
Also neo-libs don't want any state interference on business, unless it involves bailing them out with tones of money. So which capitalist country will do otherwise with so much lobbying going on?
My argument is that we CAN manage nuclear waste. That facility shows that we CAN. Poland CAN build such a facility. Ergo we CAN.
More importantly we CANNOT manage CO2.
I asked if you were being intentionally obtuse because you tried to reframe my argument as we ARE managing nuclear waste in all places properly. Everyone knows we are not. But the good news is that we can.
your argument boils down “Humanity has not managed nuclear waste for for 100.000 years. Therefore humanity can not manage nuclear waste for for 100.000 years“
If you feel in your heart of hearts that this is your strongest argument so be it.
I don’t feel this is a strong argument at all. I believe humanity can use the Finnish model and will do well. Hell we built tombs that have remained intact for over 2000 years. Those were built with Bronze Age technology. With modern technology I believe we can do even better.
This all being said the larger issue is that we CANNOT manage CO2. CO2 is the existential threat we must face.
As for insults I don’t want you to feel insulted. I believe people who read this thread will see that I was not insulting in any way.
I would argue that the alternative to fossil fuels is “both and”.
We should use both renewable, nuclear, and other approaches as we develop them. We need to keep an open mind here. Climate change is a major threat.
You keep on acting like there is no way to manage nuclear waste. Is building out a real and complete storage facility with 100.000 year management plan “trust me bro” in your mind? Because I see it as more than that.
The Finnish model exists and is well regarded. You can’t just pretend it does not exist.
I would argue that the alternative to fossil fuels is “both and”.
You argue a lot of things, as long as nuclear waste comes out as totally fine.
The Finnish model exists and is well regarded.
Well regarded by nuclear fans, of course. Nobody is denying that. Totally unproven to work because nobody tried it, yet. That thing's construction isn't even finished. Check back in 100000 years until making further claims. I'll revoke my misgivings once it's proven to work. Until then don't pile up new waste.
Nothing is "clean". Wind/solar manufacturing are themselves polluting and would need massive amounts of battery storage to be moderately reliable that generates even more pollution. Geothermal is probably best but depends even more on location.
It's not magic, but it has advantages that are hard to beat in terms of resource usage. Renewables also have advantages, but you can't handwave away their own problems and limitations anymore than you can do so for nuclear energy.
The US produces less than half the volume of an Olympic-sized swimming pool of nuclear waste per year in total, so it's not exactly hard to manage. Wind and even solar take up a lot more space than nuclear for the same energy, even if we were to consider decades worth of nuclear waste storage. Nuclear power production has about 130x higher density than wind, and needs 34x less space than solar PV.
And that's considering that the US doesn't even use their used nuclear fuel efficiently like, say, France. 96% of French nuclear fuel is recycled by them, while the US doesn't really recycle their nuclear fuel. Thanks to free market capitalism fuel recycling never got commercialized in the US, so the over of century of usable fuel we have in recyclable nuclear fuel is just wasted. It's cheaper to just buy new fuel rather than recycle, so of course companies don't recycle. American problems I guess.
If space were a big issue than nuclear would still win by a long shot even over the long-term. There's very little of it produced, it doesn't take up much space to properly and safely store for tens to hundreds of thousands of years, and the power production is extremely reliable so you don't need miles upon miles of giant batteries to store excess power just in case.
I should say up to 90-96%. It depends on the methods and the type of fuel you use. Currently widely used nuclear technology is more like 30-50% recyclable. That number is able to be increased by using more recyclable fuel technology, which is available.
French nuclear waste in total is 0.0018 km³ (three olympic swimming pools) after 8 decades of using nuclear and primarily using nuclear for 4 decades, so I'm not so sure how you imply that the "state of nuclear waste" is bad. Even with the "inefficient" ways of using/recycling nuclear, there's not a lot of waste produced in the first place.
Only ~10% of French waste is actually long-lived too, meaning after a few decades to 3 centuries, 90% of it will no longer have abnormal radioactivity. Meaning the radioactiveness of the waste just goes away on its own after a moderately short period of time and it basically just turns into a big rock.
And recycling is an abusive terminology for nuclear waste, since reusing waste creates again nuclear waste, waiting for "valorisation ultérieure" i.e. stored.
Considering that modern reactors seem to require well over a decade to be built, not really "short term", and certainly "too late" for any sort of climate related purpose of emission curbing.
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