Apparently initial proposals for this pre-date brexit by 26 years.
This is a Daily Express article. Utter trash, right wing yellow journalism. Rabidly pro-brexit, endorsed Liz Truss for PM. You know, the weird cheese lady who was outlasted by a lettuce.
Obviously brexit isn't going so well and neither is the latest tory PM, so it's time for their daily article about how the foreigners done ruined Engerland.
Fascists are boring. It's the same strategy for almost a hundred years. Orwell on Hitler:
It is a pathetic, dog-like face, the face of a man suffering under intolerable wrongs. In a rather more manly way it reproduces the expression of innumerable pictures of Christ crucified, and there is little doubt that that is how Hitler sees himself. The initial, personal cause of his grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is here. He is the martyr, the victim, Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds. If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon. One feels, as with Napoleon, that he is fighting against destiny, that he can’t win, and yet that he somehow deserves to. The attraction of such a pose is of course enormous; half the films that one sees turn upon some such theme.
Today's mice are an incredibly marginalised and incredibly small sexual minority. But fascists will pretend they're not, that they're part of the elite trying to cause degeneracy. Not billionaire rapists like Musk or Trump.
Not as if fascists are going to actually fix the big shit, like the economy, the environment, or affordable housing. Not as if they're going to stand up to the countries actually threatening western values, like Russia or China. No. Now they've decided it's some nobody in the arse end of America, who feels happier wearing a dress.
People who fall for that shit are morons. Not that most fascists actually believe their own bullshit. They just do it shock and disconcert people, and because they hate those they perceive weaker than them. Just like their Dear Leader considers them scum, has regularly said he is disgusted by them, because they're so weak that they've chosen to lick his boots.
Tarantino is overrated. You have to watch a lot of movies to come to this realisation, because otherwise you don't realise his movies are often in large part a collage of other movies. Movies which did what he does better. That means that it doesn't actually matter that Tarantino is overrated for most movie goers. More generally, this is why critics' opinions don't actually matter that much. They've watched too many movies and likely know too much about movies, to tell the average audience goer if they'll enjoy a movie.
Once you've watched a few thousand movies, and especially if you've ever studied film or read a few books about it, you'll often find you enjoy interesting but shit movies more, than very well made but unoriginal movies. People who truly love film, invariably aren't snobs. They enjoy absolute trash, they enjoy arty farty stuff. If someone has a related degree or even a doctorate or works in the industry, the likelihood is high that they're also a fan of B-movies. They don't need to pretend to be knowledgeable, because they are. A film snob will bore you with the details of a Tarkovski movie. A cinephile is more likely to bang on about 80s horror movies, lesbian vampire sexploitation movies, Albert Pyun's Cyborg, or Troma's The Toxic Avenger.
Their (far-)right government promised security, but delivered one of the largest intelligence failures and tragedies in Israeli history.
The ruling coalition failed to gain a majority of votes in the last election, only getting a majority in the knesset thanks to a rule change which prevented smaller parties from getting seats.
They'll try to double down and use this 'opportunity' to entrench their power. Because if Israel held free and fair elections next month, they're all out of a job.
Turns out that once elected, it's hard to get rid of the far right and right wing populists. They'll happily burn the democracy that helped get them elected.
Someone makes an admittedly lame jokey stereotype about the US.
A bit like a broad stereotype about the French liking baguettes, the Scots hating Scots, the Brits having bad teeth and talking like Austin Powers, or Germans not having a sense of humour. Even the Germans don't get offended. They've been taught that this is meant to be funny, and that the rules of etiquette suggest they should not be offended by it.
But the real punch line is always some humourless Americans taking it at face value and getting genuinely offended. "They're saying we don't have public transport. They're clearly idiots!"
Do any of you see times square on various holidays or have been to a parade?
No. No one outside the US has ever heard of New York. Just like everyone in the US drives a pickup truck everywhere. lol
Can I recommend reading/listening to Ursula K. Le Guin's Earth Sea books?
They're also coming of age books about a young wizard, which almost certainly heavily inspired Rowling (although AFAIK she never admitted it), but the author is far less problematic. Also arguably much better books, so they're more enjoyable to read for adults too.
Part of Schengen, part of the European Free Trade Association, signed a lot of bilateral treaties and enacted a lot of EU legislation, contributed to EU projects.
The Swiss electorate voted against becoming part of the EU, but the EU's a huge market so Switzerland is quite integrated with the EU while still being independent.
Norway isn't part of the EU either, but they're in a similar position as Switzerland, which is probably why they're also part of this proposal.
I've been saying it for a while now. Noticed it years ago, but it's now becoming very obvious due to reddit being more empty than usual. Here's a comment I made about it last week:
Reddit right now is like a car crash. It's hard to look away. However, there's a very good reason not to engage, the debate on reddit has become more artificial than most realise.
Reddit's inflated numbers by using bots and fake accounts since day 1. A quick google will result in articles where they admit as much. We all know reddit's had increasing amounts of bots, posting content and increasingly comments, but I don't think people realise how bad it's become.
It's not even that time that reddit's blog accidentally posted about Eglin Air Force base being one of the most reddit addicted cities. I think everyone knows (foreign) governments engage in influence operations online, and that this includes reddit. Even if it's just on an intellectual level, without truly realising that they've been semi-regularly interacting with bots while arguing on reddit. I also don't think anyone's naive enough to think that plenty of political content isn't artificially upvoted or promoted. Same thing goes for product placement.
But the recent shit storm just illustrates reddit the company is part of the problem. Recently, I've seen twenty different accounts post the same comment about not needing third party apps, and dusting off their laptop.
When you're visiting reddit, you're no longer even watching a car crash. It's a simulacrum. An imitation of what's actually happening.
And it's been like this for a while. I've seen naive redditers engaging with bot comments under bot promoted content, posted by bots on more than one occassion.
Reddit has become worse than a hentai date simulator. I don't think anyone who plays those is particularly proud of it. But what to think of the lonely people who engage in reddit discussions with bots, and think they've had a genuine social interaction?