Politics (formerly Election 2012)

I see an issue with the shirt, I really do. It is not appropriate work wear, especially for representing a big international organisation on a live motion feed.

I soo no sexism inherently in the shirt (it's a gag shirt), but it isn't work appropriate for anything official.

If he wore it on regular days and his colleagues don't mind, I wouldn't either tbh (I'm sure there are at least SOME women there that could speak out if they found it offensive).

Tl;dr - the shirt was inappropriate, but not because its sexist, because its 'too casual' for representation work.

Do remember though, it is ESA, a european agency, so mores differ (quite a bit) from the US in regards to being casual, and especially in regards to "sexism" (I think this mores disconnect also plays in in regards to 'that other thing' going on).

And then there's people that make a living out of being offended/butthurt.

It's one of those instances where as much as I support the general movement, I feel like opposing them out of spite over such an overreaction. Fuck the technological feat, let's all focus on a tacky shirt, made as a gift from a woman.

The fact that #shirtgate is apparently a thing now... it killed me a little inside...

Klaudandus wrote:And then there's people that make a living out of being offended/butthurt.

It's one of those instances where as much as I support the general movement, I feel like opposing them out of spite over such an overreaction. Fuck the technological feat, let's all focus on a tacky shirt, made as a gift from a woman.

A day will come when the light will shine and you shall see how poisonous the movement is.

I usually stay out of these discussions, but I have a complaint about the overuse/misuse of the word "offence" these days. Somehow it has become a way to legitimise your whining; as if saying "that offends me" when you're upset about something actually lends special importance to you and your personal discomfort.

Now, misunderstand me correctly here, or whatever. I'm not trying to say that this or that issue isn't important, but I wish society would pay a little less attention to things that, quite honestly, doesn't deserve the term offensive.

EDIT: Stephen Fry agrees: http://youtu.be/O-IX69mjpcA?t=1m9s

I just think there are more important things to complain about, like... i dunno, The Women of the Wall cause in Israel?

You want to talk about an assbackward country? Try the sectors of Israel where the Haredi are more prevalent. In a country where military draft is mandatory, even for women, these people photoshop women out of photos in their newspapers, and that's just about the most benign thing they do.

The Satanists amuse me on several levels.

If a bunch of atheists got together to oppose some Christian thing, the Christians plead oppression and cry for religious freedom and generally get what they want in a country where the majority at least give lip service to the religion.

But the Satanists oppose the unlawful imposition of Christianity by simply saying "yeah, us too!" to whatever the Christians want, and while the Christians know the Satanists are doing it simply to annoy them, they can't deny the validity of the Satanic Church without denying the existence of Satan, which they can't do because he's part of their religion.

There's a huge "hoisted by your own petard" factor that makes me smile every time I see them up to their antics.

Then there's the idea that not just the bad guys but The Baddest Guy Ever is actually on the right side of the law.

And lastly there's the fact that the Church of Satan freely admits they don't believe in Satan, but are in fact atheists, so you have atheists opposing religious people who can't invalidate the atheists because of religious beliefs.

Koatanga wrote:The Satanists amuse me on several levels.

If a bunch of atheists got together to oppose some Christian thing, the Christians plead oppression and cry for religious freedom and generally get what they want in a country where the majority at least give lip service to the religion.

But the Satanists oppose the unlawful imposition of Christianity by simply saying "yeah, us too!" to whatever the Christians want, and while the Christians know the Satanists are doing it simply to annoy them, they can't deny the validity of the Satanic Church without denying the existence of Satan, which they can't do because he's part of their religion.

There's a huge "hoisted by your own petard" factor that makes me smile every time I see them up to their antics.

Then there's the idea that not just the bad guys but The Baddest Guy Ever is actually on the right side of the law.

And lastly there's the fact that the Church of Satan freely admits they don't believe in Satan, but are in fact atheists, so you have atheists opposing religious people who can't invalidate the atheists because of religious beliefs.

I'd actually join the Church of Satan if I knew my mom would not get a heart attack because of that.

I think Cleveland deserves to burn more than Ferguson does
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ss ... hot_1.html

From my understanding of what Merkelactually means, she wasn't speaking out against net neutrality, but cautioning that the net is becoming so vast that getting bogged down is easy, and certain key infrastructure data needs preferential treatmen to be acually useable (telemedicine, driverless cars were mentioned) - if I am correct in what seh wants, I am actually in agreement.
These services are key infrastructure, so basically governmentally mandated, nor preferential treatment from paying for it, but from legislating it (as long as it doesn't go the other way at the same time it isn't counter to net neutrality, but is pro safety issues.

If you open it up to being government mandated, you're essentially saying the lobbyists will get to run the internet.

You can't have "some" here, it's an all-or-nothing kind of thing. Once we get driverless cars, they can either update GPS satellites to handle that traffic or launch dedicated satellites for it, and telemedicine works just fine wired.

Especially if the US ever gets out of the 1990s with internet speeds, oi.

I was at a seminar / workshop a couple of weeks ago on internet eand internet speeds through our "antenna association" (Provides us with television, an option for internet, telephony and cellular telephony).
The current need for a tele medicine call is ~30/30 mbps.
That speed is not an issue, but when it becomes mroe prevalent than it is now, congestion very easily could become a problem.

I understand that certain governments have problems with lobbyists being the true power, but really, I don't think lobbyists can sell off "service A" as a priority service, without actually being something thats necessary to go through for safety reasons. Remember also that europe, where Merkel is speaking from, does not have government priority sattelites like the US does. The GPS system is US launched and operated - yes there were (are?) workings to supplement it with a european equivalent, but that doesn't matter really - driverless cars don't just need to know where they are, they need to know where they are in relation to others, that requires communication, and not via sattelite (which also results in GPS being redundant for them most likely, as they will need to know where they are in relation, so they will automatically know where they are from the same communication system).

Imagine for a second that the US operated drones didn't rely on sattelites (which europe doesn't have), but on internet connections - that would be a pretty obvious one for legislating priority connection yes?

And of course you can have "some" priority services, and free for all besides that - thats how we have our society currently - the emergency vehicles are prioritised in traffic, the rest is traffic neutrality.

The big issue, the sine qua non, for net neutrality is that providers (including transit cable owners) are not allowed to give preferential service to private actors based on them buying such - at least not in any way that exceeds paying for a connection with a guaranteed speed outbound and inbound (which is todays market).

Pelosi is amusing with her antics

http://news.yahoo.com/willing-fight-dem ... 33940.html

I think the Democrats need to wake up to a certain reality: They've pissed off too many people with the way they've done things over the last half a decade or so.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/12/21 ... ush-admin/

Something that Brekkie might find interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFOhBAH3zPA#t=149

Really. I mean REALLY NOW?!

Io.Draco wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFOhBAH3zPA#t=149

Really. I mean REALLY NOW?!

What upsets you - the poor production values, the fact the kid would be expelled for bringing a gun to school, or the irony of a PSA implying kids should take their parents' guns to school practically on the anniversary of Sandy Hook?

Video is private now =(

What upsets you - the poor production values, the fact the kid would be expelled for bringing a gun to school, or the irony of a PSA implying kids should take their parents' guns to school practically on the anniversary of Sandy Hook?

All of the above. Oh and the fact the kid was breaking several CRIMINAL laws by stealing a gun and bringing it to school and thus would be arrested and thrown in jail?

Klaus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFoCxV6QQ-c

*reaction to video*

Klaudandus wrote:*reaction to video*

Exactly. I'm a pro-gun-control, bleeding heart liberal living in a nation in which ALL of the people are to the political left of the US, and all I can really say about that video is "you're doing it wrong".

Hey look! My favorite piñata is on the headlines again!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -2019.html

I had to laugh extremely hard at that news when I first heard it.

As for the utter cretins who are saying: We should ditch the gun.

No you worms, you can't ditch the gun. The entire plane was designed around having that gun inside. When Britain, to their idiocy, tried to ditch the guns in their Typhoons they discovered they couldn't without screwing with the aerodynamics of the plane.