International Events IX: I feel like a mushroom

[Jace, Extat]

Taiwan is a sovereign nation. The suggestion otherwise is capitulation to communist propaganda and contrary to United States Pacific interests. 

 

[TheLastWolf]

Sanna Marin

Twin blows

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, TheLastWolf said:

Sanna Marin

Twin blows

Unless, I’m missing something. Why is this story such a big deal?  Even if she was pictured shagging the man, it should only be a matter for her husband.

[TheLastWolf]

48 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Unless, I’m missing something. Why is this story such a big deal?  Even if she was pictured shagging the man, it should only be a matter for her husband.

She's cool, I'm cool, woke media is cool, not the opposition jerks calling for her to resign. And I'm expecting the drug test results they asked for and which she nonchalantly took to be nothing. She's a good dancer, one more reason I'd vote for her if I was Finnish.

BBC

[mormont]

The bar for 'wild partying' is being set pretty low here.

As for the 'intimate dancing', what I see is a dude trying to dance intimately with her and her trying to deal with it (while clearly a bit drunk) without making him angry. She goes along with it a bit, but look at how she uses her hands and elbows to maintain a space between their bodies without obviously pushing him away. It's a familiar move if you spend any time in clubs watching drunk women trying to deal with drunk men coming on to them.

[SeanF]

48 minutes ago, TheLastWolf said:

She's cool, I'm cool, woke media is cool, not the opposition jerks calling for her to resign. And I'm expecting the drug test results they asked for and which she nonchalantly took to be nothing. She's a good dancer, one more reason I'd vote for her if I was Finnish.

BBC

There is a story that has been reported in Estonian media that could - if true - have an enormous impact on politics, both in Finland and the UK, but this is certainly not it.

[Heartofice]

I think it says more about the opposition that they demand drug tests for anyone going to a club. How fuddy duddy do you need to be to assume all the kids are doing drugs when they go out 

[Spockydog]

The Palace of Westminster is literally covered in gak. Many of our MPs routinely turn up for work off their fucking chobblers. So the BBC and the Mail and all the rest of them need to STFU and leave this woman alone.

 

[SeanF]

5 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Many of our MPs routinely turn up for work off their fucking chobblers, so the BBC and the Mail and all the rest of them need to STFU and leave this woman alone.

 

When you have one MP sucking the nipples of another he gave a date rape drug too, this is very small beer by comparison.

[Which Tyler]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

I think it says more about the opposition that they demand drug tests for anyone going to a club. How fuddy duddy do you need to be to assume all the kids are doing drugs when they go out 

I'd put (a small amount of) money on it being projection.

[lacuna]

And I'd bet that Russian click farms are going ballistic trying to give the non-story legs.

[DMC]

So the Finnish opposition party wants to be John Lithgow in Footloose.  To a 37 year old woman.  That'll get you far.

And I like how in the coverage I saw the bullshit claim was that the concern was because she was "on duty," which considering it was the weekend is a pointless term that effectively means every waking hour.

[The Anti-Targ]

11 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Horse shit.  No words justify physical attack like Salaman Rushdie suffered.  None.  
 

If someone wiped their ass with consecrated communion vestments there is no justification for violence against that person.

If you got from my post that the violence was justified then you read it wrong. The violence being predictable, including that some kind of violent reaction should have been predicted by those publishing the cartoons is not the same as condoning or justifying it. I don't think violence to Rushdie would have been so predictable at the time he published his book, the context was different and the severity of the reaction somewhat more surprising. That the threat is still so real and present even now is hard to believe. But it's also instructive. Know thine enemy if you are going to get into a battle of political rhetoric or something even deeper. Women dressing in the way they feel comfortable to go out and have a good time aren't entering into that kind of arena of battle; or at least they shouldn't feel like they are in most of the countries we here live in.

 

[maarsen]

5 hours ago, DMC said:

So the Finnish opposition party wants to be John Lithgow in Footloose.  To a 37 year old woman.  That'll get you far.

And I like how in the coverage I saw the bullshit claim was that the concern was because she was "on duty," which considering it was the weekend is a pointless term that effectively means every waking hour.

They must be taking advice from Canadian cons. Every time Trudeau is seen enjoying time off the hysteria starts.

[Gorn]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/21/two-russians-and-one-ukrainian-arrested-after-suspected-spying-raid-on-albanian-arms-factory

Quote

 

Two Russians and a Ukrainian have been arrested after an apparent bungled spying raid on a military base and arms factory in central Albania, the Albanian defence ministry said on Saturday.

One of the male suspects allegedly attacked the guards with a paralysing spray while trying to take photographs of the Gramsh factory, which is used for dismantling derelict weapons, the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry added that two of its soldiers were injured while trying to stop the raid, but the three foreign nationals were detained.

 

That's fourth case that I can think of since 2006 that agents of Russian government have used a chemical weapon on a NATO member territory, which murdered or injured citizens of a NATO country. Add to that the attack on a Czech ammunition warehouse by GRU which murdered two Czech soldiers in 2014, and that's a total of five direct acts of war (not an exaggeration) by Russia against NATO since 2006. There was also an attempted coup in Montenegro, which is sort of a gray area since it wasn't officially a NATO member yet.

And some are worried that sending some weapons to Ukraine is an "escalation".

Edit: Correction, Litvinenko poisoning was with polonium, for some reason I thought it was Novichok. So, that would be three chemical attacks and one nuclear attack instead.

[Padraig]

On 8/20/2022 at 12:35 PM, The Anti-Targ said:

The violence being predictable, including that some kind of violent reaction should have been predicted by those publishing the cartoons is not the same as condoning or justifying it.

I imagine the reaction to most of these things is predictable.  Certainly, the reaction to Pelosi going to Taiwan was very predictable.  Sometimes the level of response is uncertain but nobody would recommend doing nothing because they aren't sure what the response would be.

While we can all think up cases where being provocative is going too far, in a lot of cases, there is a good reason for being "provocative".

[The Anti-Targ]

3 hours ago, Padraig said:

I imagine the reaction to most of these things is predictable.  Certainly, the reaction to Pelosi going to Taiwan was very predictable.  Sometimes the level of response is uncertain but nobody would recommend doing nothing because they aren't sure what the response would be.

While we can all think up cases where being provocative is going too far, in a lot of cases, there is a good reason for being "provocative".

No disagreement from me there. To turn it back on Islam, a bit, if Muhammad hadn't provoked the religious establishment that held sway over the Arabian peninsula back in the 7th century Islam would not exist today. If Jesus hadn't provoked the religious establishment in His time there'd be no Christianity.  So, if you want to change things provocation is often necessary.

Of course one needs to think about what sort of change one might bring about from one's provocation, so don't just provoke to provoke. Provoke with a goal in mind, understanding the possible responses, so that you provoke in the way that will help achieve that goal, and that whatever sacrifice might happen as a result will have been worth it. If you think your provocation might have dangerous consequences that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, but perhaps don't just do it for shits and giggles... or do if you think shits and giggles is a good enough reason.

[Zorral]

Why India has been suspended by FIFA – ‘Everyone has screwed up. It’s a mess’

https://theathletic.com/3527926/2022/08/24/india-fifa-ban-why/

Quote

 

You may not have noticed but the proportion of the world’s population who live in a FIFA member country just dropped by about 20 per cent.

That’s because India, home to 1.4 billion people, has been temporarily suspended from international football. 

Last week, FIFA said the All India Football Federation (AIFF) had been banned after “flagrant violations of the FIFA statutes” because of “undue influence from third parties”. The unanimous decision was made by the Bureau of the FIFA Council, which is made up of president Gianni Infantino as well as the heads of each of the six continental federations.

On Monday, the Supreme Court of India handed control of football in the country from temporary administrators back to AIFF officials in a bid to get the problems fixed. 

Insiders are confident the ban will not last long but chaos is raging in administrative circles in New Delhi and beyond, with the country’s plans to stage the Women’s Under-17 World Cup in October under serious threat.

The Athletic spoke to experts on Indian football to explain what is going on and what might happen next.

“This issue has been going on for the last four years,” explains Mihir Vasavda, a journalist at The Indian Express. He says the saga began when the Indian government came up with new rules for sporting federations in the country.

The new law — the Sports Code — was designed to address allegations of shoddy governance in sporting bodies, which have been plagued by allegations of corruption.

“Some of these federations had people in charge for more than 20 years and were running them like fiefdoms,” says Pradhyum Reddy, a former footballer who now works as a TV pundit.  “People who were 75-80 years old. Lots of them do not have knowledge of the sport they are in charge of.”

Under the new rule, the country’s supreme court disbanded the AIFF in May and appointed a three-member committee after Praful Patel, a 65-year-old career politician and member of parliament for the Nationalist Congress Party, had completed three terms as president in December 2020 but remained in office.

This led to FIFA stepping in due to its rules banning “political interference” by national governments.

“They thought FIFA were just making threats,” adds Vasavda. “It started out on a simple thing where the constitution should be fixed.”

Indian government officials are now scrambling to meet FIFA’s criteria for overturning the suspension after football’s world governing body ruled that Indian government arbitrators had overstepped the mark.

“The arbitrators tried to do too much,” says Reddy, adding that the committee tried to bring in ambitious rules such as introducing equal representation from each state as well as recruiting ex-players.

“They should have known FIFA was going to object,” he says, adding that Benin, Kuwait, Nigeria, Iraq and Pakistan have all been similarly sanctioned in recent years.

FIFA says the ban will be lifted when “the AIFF administration regains full control of the AIFF’s daily affairs”.

Although the situation is not difficult, the status quo in the IAFF was also unacceptable, says Vasavda, arguing that “public perception of the IAFF was terrible”.

He adds that one of the greatest problems with football in India is the nation’s clubs having little say in how things are run, despite them being some of the key revenue drivers. ....

 

 

[Spockydog]

Well fancy that. Just checked, and it appears that India has never played in the World Cup finals.

[TheLastWolf]

Isn't it a sports topic...

1 hour ago, Spockydog said:

and it appears that India has never played in the World Cup finals.

I can't remember the last time we qualified lol.