International Thread 4

[TheLastWolf]

5 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I must also count my blessings for living in a country that is entirely religiously tolerant in law and in govt administration (individually it's a different matter), and the least corrupt country on the planet

And that is? 

[Fragile Bird]

3 minutes ago, TheLastWolf said:

And that is? 

New Zealand

[TheLastWolf]

2 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

New Zealand

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't several Scandinavian countries ahead in corruption free, religious tolerance, literacy, healthcare, education, environmental consciousness and basically best standards of living? But Jacinda Arden is my fav head of state. 

[The Anti-Targ]

3 hours ago, TheLastWolf said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't several Scandinavian countries ahead in corruption free, religious tolerance, literacy, healthcare, education, environmental consciousness and basically best standards of living? But Jacinda Arden is my fav head of state. 

I didn't say anything about education, healthcare, environment or standard of living. But corruption, New Zealand is consistently 1st or 2nd every time and 1st slightly more often than 2nd. And I qualified religious tolerance with law and govt administration. Our society as a whole has too many intolerant people to really try to say anything really positive about it, except that such people's attitudes are mostly kept out of the mainstream.

[Hereward]

Your quibbling is second rate. You didn’t even mention Arden isn’t the head of state.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Hereward said:

Your quibbling is second rate. You didn’t even mention Arden isn’t the head of state.

I am shamed and chastened. 

[TheLastWolf]

7 hours ago, Hereward said:

Your quibbling is second rate. You didn’t even mention Arden isn’t the head of state.

Oops 

7 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I didn't say anything about education, healthcare, environment or standard of living. But corruption, New Zealand is consistently 1st or 2nd every time and 1st slightly more often than 2nd. And I qualified religious tolerance with law and govt administration. Our society as a whole has too many intolerant people to really try to say anything really positive about it, except that such people's attitudes are mostly kept out of the mainstream.

Fair enough. I was taking everything into account. Education, Healthcare and all will be top class if corruption free. Believe it or not, if I could live in any country, NZ is top of my list. Christchurch was just an unfortunate anomaly. I love Mitchell Santner and Kane Williamson. Jacinda Arden, head of state or not too

[kiko]

Hmm...makes me very suspicious that they always make it to the top of the list. Is it always the same team of auditors compiling? I guess they are swimming by now in...lamb chops? Kiwis?

[The Anti-Targ]

3 hours ago, kiko said:

Hmm...makes me very suspicious that they always make it to the top of the list. Is it always the same team of auditors compiling? I guess they are swimming by now in...lamb chops? Kiwis?

If you want to always be the least corrupt country you have to pay top dollar.

[The Anti-Targ]

4 hours ago, TheLastWolf said:

Oops 

Fair enough. I was taking everything into account. Education, Healthcare and all will be top class if corruption free. Believe it or not, if I could live in any country, NZ is top of my list. Christchurch was just an unfortunate anomaly. I love Mitchell Santner and Kane Williamson. Jacinda Arden, head of state or not too

Fun fact, we also used to have the best dental care service in the world, but we also had the worst oral health among the developed nations. So, being the best doesn't always mean the best outcomes.

[TheLastWolf]

On 11/13/2020 at 2:21 PM, The Anti-Targ said:

So, being the best doesn't always mean the best outcomes.

Quote of the day 

[Winterfell is Burning]

Confirming what I said last week, essentially all of Bolsonaro's candidates in Brazil's mayoral elections lost, and lost heavily, and a few are going to a second round, but are expected to lose (BTW, yeah, we ended up counting nearly all votes in nearly 6 thousand municipalities yesterday- that's what happens when you don't use hand ballots, don't have 50 different states with a set of different rules, and don't have state legislatures imposing stupid measures to make Trump look like he's winning early on). Not only that, at least in some cases, the candidate was doing well until Bolsonaro begin to publicly endorsing said candidate, which then proceeded to go downhill.

Essentially, mayors that handled the COVID crisis by taking all scientific recommended measures did well or so their candidates do well, and those that tried to pretend it was a minor affair lost. And voters generally speaking moved away from more extremist candidates in either right or left, choosing more moderate ones.

So, pretty much the same process as the US- and, yes, that includes the supporters of "our Trump" calling fraud. It's also seems to be happening in other places in the world that had elections after the pandemic.

[Varysblackfyre321]

32 minutes ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

Confirming what I said last week, essentially all of Bolsonaro's candidates in Brazil's mayoral elections lost, and lost heavily, and a few are going to a second round, but are expected to lose (BTW, yeah, we ended up counting nearly all votes in nearly 6 thousand municipalities yesterday- that's what happens when you don't use hand ballots, don't have 50 different states with a set of different rules, and don't have state legislatures imposing stupid measures to make Trump look like he's winning early on). Not only that, at least in some cases, the candidate was doing well until Bolsonaro begin to publicly endorsing said candidate, which then proceeded to go downhill.

Essentially, mayors that handled the COVID crisis by taking all scientific recommended measures did well or so their candidates do well, and those that tried to pretend it was a minor affair lost. And voters generally speaking moved away from more extremist candidates in either right or left, choosing more moderate ones.

So, pretty much the same process as the US- and, yes, that includes the supporters of "our Trump" calling fraud. It's also seems to be happening in other places in the world that had elections after the pandemic.

2020 hasn't been a great year for fascists.

[The Anti-Targ]

11 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

2020 hasn't been a great year for fascists.

Domestic crises that require immediate rational action and sound policy decisions, and that have immediate negative consequences when bad decisions are made, to help protect the local population will always expose them. It's even worse when the crisis involves sciencey stuff, like an infectious disease crisis.

[TheLastWolf]

18 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

2020 hasn't been a great year for fascists.

tRump 

[Toth]

23 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

2020 hasn't been a great year for fascists.

Let's just hope the EU has the guts to also make Poland and Hungary fuck off with their bullshit.

[Winterfell is Burning]

12 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Domestic crises that require immediate rational action and sound policy decisions, and that have immediate negative consequences when bad decisions are made, to help protect the local population will always expose them. It's even worse when the crisis involves sciencey stuff, like an infectious disease crisis.

Yep. Can't call COVID fake news when at this point pretty much everyone knows someone that either had serious symptoms or died.

In Bolsonaro's case, there's the additional problem (for him) that Trump's whole shtick he tried to immitate only works to the extent that it did because the US is a two party system and he knows his base won't go running to a Democratic party that is drifting further to the left; however, when you have dozens of parties, that stuff doesn't work. Indeed, the party that is (or used to be before Sunday, at least) the main left-wing one, the Workers Party, also had disastrous results, but that didn't help Bolsonaro's candidates at all.

 

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

On 11/16/2020 at 2:33 PM, Varysblackfyre321 said:

2020 hasn't been a great year for fascists.

President of Poland managed to pull off the reelection (of a somewhat murky legal status - thankfully the checks and balances had been all but dismantled, so the point is moot), running on a platform of rabid homophobia. So it hasn't been all that bad for fascists, either.

[broken one]

On 11/17/2020 at 1:55 PM, Toth said:

Let's just hope the EU has the guts to also make Poland and Hungary fuck off with their bullshit.

I'am afraid that EU is going to bend. Seems it is all mostly about trade, the values may be shelved.

15 hours ago, Ferocious Veldt Roarer said:

President of Poland managed to pull off the reelection (of a somewhat murky legal status - thankfully the checks and balances had been all but dismantled, so the point is moot),

The elections were not fair because candidates of opposition could not run proper campaigns (covid) and the PiS fuckers used public media for shameless propaganda (actually it is hard to call it "media" anymore, it is as credible as supermarket advertising leaflet) but I do not know what the dismantled checks and balances have to do with it. 

BUT

after the last weeks support for the regime decreased from 40% to 30%. the abortion mess, priests pedophilia scandals and general lameness of their rule... hope the trend is going to last and one day I'll see them behind bars (frankly speaking Id rather see them hanging from lanterns)

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

4 hours ago, broken one said:

I'am afraid that EU is going to bend. Seems it is all mostly about trade, the values may be shelved.

The elections were not fair because candidates of opposition could not run proper campaigns (covid) and the PiS fuckers used public media for shameless propaganda (actually it is hard to call it "media" anymore, it is as credible as supermarket advertising leaflet) but I do not know what the dismantled checks and balances have to do with it. 

Well, the Supreme Court's response to the challenges to the legality of the electoral process (i.e. holding the election during a de facto state of emergency) was "So we're not gonna dwell on that". And that was the brand new chamber of the Supreme Court.