Random Thoughts (Political Edition)

http://15percentgroningen.blogspot.de/

short: In the loveley City of Groningen (NL) with it?s big university, there has been a law passed that limits the amout of university students living in a street to 15%, making it illegal for Students to rent appartments and Flats if there are already 15% in the street, and threatening "excess students" to be relocated. The town goverment is trying to regulate the housing market in a way that it wants to decide to whom or not a Landlord is able to rent an appartment or house to. They argue in a way that if you replace the words "Students" with "black" or "Jewish", you can clearly see from wich playbook this is coming. Even the blindest of blind people would be able to see - this is simply discriminatory. Against University Students. The Future of the Country.
I?d laugh at the stupidity of it all if it wasn?t so damn sad.

facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/113317542132658/
 
http://15percentgroningen.blogspot.de/

short: In the loveley City of Groningen (NL) with it?s big university, there has been a law passed that limits the amout of university students living in a street to 15%, making it illegal for Students to rent appartments and Flats if there are already 15% in the street, and threatening "excess students" to be relocated. The town goverment is trying to regulate the housing market in a way that it wants to decide to whom or not a Landlord is able to rent an appartment or house to. They argue in a way that if you replace the words "Students" with "black" or "Jewish", you can clearly see from wich playbook this is coming. Even the blindest of blind people would be able to see - this is simply discriminatory. Against University Students. The Future of the Country.
I?d laugh at the stupidity of it all if it wasn?t so damn sad.

facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/113317542132658/

You sure you guys are not German - they'd enjoy legislation like this? How can you tell if someone is a student, if they ask you tell them to get stuffed. ...
 
I don't really know what to make of this. The whole policy seems rather badly worded. You could probably get the same results by enforcing fire safety rules rather strictly. Stupid and needless policy in the end.

You sure you guys are not German - they'd enjoy legislation like this? How can you tell if someone is a student, if they ask you tell them to get stuffed. ...
Students get rather nice benefits from the government, free public transport (nationwide), student loans and a grant. The grant actually depends whether someone lives with his parents and how much money they earn. The grant for someone living alone is currently 246 euro, while the homestayers get 76 euro, so the city knows quite well who is a students as those are registered with them. This of course only counts for the dutchies, foreigners are often not registered, but their housing will often be registered as student housing. Those renting illegally, are probably safe.
 
There is an expression in designing a ship "steel is cheap and air is free" however these ships weigh much more and are overall larger than the smaller yet superior French carrier.
Aircraft like Harrier or F-35B are great for a secondary capability like on US amphibs or on cheap and cheerful small carriers like the Invincible class or the Giuseppe Garibaldi but for something so massive? Typical British bespoke idiocy (same as the Nimrod AEW and Nimrod MR4, the original design of the Type 42 destroyer, the Chinook saga and the half asses design of the Type 45).
I suppose the F-35C would work well on this larger carrier, however, the STOL capability of the B is nifty. And if I'm not mistaken, the USMC is taking in some 400 F-35B's to replace their fleet of F-18s. The F-18 is a very capable fighter to replace, I would like to add.

And even if the F-35B is a less capable than the A and the C in some respects, it's still a big improvement from the Harrier, which was my original point. :p
 
'Real' reason to take the 'B' is its easier to fly than a Harrier. Th US Marine Corps gave them (Harriers) to less capable and less well trained Pilots loads crashed - it is a very difficult aeroplane to fly.
 
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Obama Drops His Name Into the Other Presidential Biographies

The Heritage Foundation?s Rory Cooper tweeted that Obama had casually dropped his own name into Ronald Reagan?s official biography on www.whitehouse.gov, claiming credit for taking up the mantle of Reagan?s tax reform advocacy with his ?Buffett Rule? gimmick. My first thought was, he must be joking. But he wasn?t?it turns out Obama has added bullet points bragging about his own accomplishments to the biographical sketches of every single U.S. president since Calvin Coolidge (except, for some reason, Gerald Ford). Here are a few examples:

  • On Feb. 22, 1924 Calvin Coolidge became the first president to make a public radio address to the American people. President Coolidge later helped create the Federal Radio Commission, which has now evolved to become the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). President Obama became the first president to hold virtual gatherings and town halls using Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, etc.
  • In a 1946 letter to the National Urban League, President Truman wrote that the government has ?an obligation to see that the civil rights of every citizen are fully and equally protected.? He ended racial segregation in civil service and the armed forces in 1948. Today the Obama administration continues to strive toward upholding the civil rights of its citizens, repealing Don?t Ask Don?t Tell, allowing people of all sexual orientations to serve openly in our armed forces.
  • President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare signed (sic) into law in 1965?providing millions of elderly healthcare stability. President Obama?s historic health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, strengthens Medicare, offers eligible seniors a range of preventive services with no cost-sharing, and provides discounts on drugs when in the coverage gap known as the ?donut hole.?
  • In a June 28, 1985 speech Reagan called for a fairer tax code, one where a multi-millionaire did not have a lower tax rate than his secretary. Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the Buffett Rule.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2...residential-biographies/#.T7Jhwuezd84.twitter

Hmmm.......a bit tacky.
 
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Americans are so much better than yupies at doing this sort of thing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/may/08/royal-navy-cuts-somalia-piracy-patrol

What amazes me is that it has taken so long to get stuck in, and the getting stuck in seems to be hovering in a chopper with a machine gun randomly (more or less) shooting people. The Royal Navy (when it existed) used to take care of this sort of thing no problem. I mean before the cuts of the 1960s.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...try-of-Defence-faces-2-billion-more-cuts.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...defending-Britain-after-Defence-cutbacks.html

"Defence cuts have left the stretched Royal Navy unable to provide an emergency standby ship to protect British waters for a month."

That is not one, zilch, nada, nothing, zip. ...
 
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http://www.indianexpress.com/news/angela-merkel-sacks-environment-minister/950488/
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has sacked her environment minister Norbert Roettgen, three days after her party Christian Democratic Union (CDU) suffered a crushing defeat in a state election.[On Sunday]
Merkel announced the decision to dismiss her cabinet colleague at a hurriedly convened press conference in Berlin yesterday, but gave no specific reasons for taking this unusual step.[...] Merkel had on Monday defended Roettgen against the criticism and said that he will retain his cabinet post.

Ministers (Secretarys) usally don?t get fired, they are told to resign and usally do so ... especially not after being publically backed first 2 days earlier.
 
Yeah, even with R?ttgen's failure to win the NRW elections, I really didn't see that one coming. Ironic, since part of failure was keeping his job as federal minister as backup plan for when losing the election...
 
Well, he showed great illoyality towards Merkel, when he tried to pull her into his fucked-up campaign in the last week before the elections by saying, that this elections were also about voting over Merkel's Euro policy. That was a very stupid move and I suppose Angie took it personally and as a sign, that R?ttgen would sacrifice anything in his own interests.

Also it is no secret, that Merkel is very unsatisfied about the slow progress of the renewable energy program. She has enough work to do in Europe and needs someone at home, who can take care of that. R?ttgen obviously wasn't the right guy for the job.

Some say, that R?ttgen's resignation speech as NRW chief on the evening of the election was his best speech ever.

And of course then there was Seehofer's rant on TV...

Add all that up and you have a classical case of "Sorry, this won't work out". It's just that nobody expected Merkel to be able to act that strict and "brutal". Usually such people are given the chance of resigning themselves but it seems that R?ttgen didn't get that choice.
 
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Perhaps. But that would have been extremely stupid. You can come back in another position, when you resign. But when you are fired, it's more or less the end of your career.

In other news: The opening of the new great, super-duper, ultra-modern big-ass Berlin airport has been rescheduled.

From now to... March 2013.

But then it will open. Guarenteed. Promised.

:rofl:
 
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Hmmm.......a bit tacky.

So glad that we don't have bigger issues to worry about than the White House staff editing their own web page.
 
I don't know whether this should go here or in the OT Random Thoughts thread. I'd embed it in the Cool Videos thread if I could. This is probably the best BBC news video I've ever seen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18104246
 
So glad that we don't have bigger issues to worry about than the White House staff editing their own web page.

Any hair that can be split will be dissecteded with religious fervor.
 
In other news: The opening of the new great, super-duper, ultra-modern big-ass Berlin airport has been rescheduled.

From now to... March 2013.

But then it will open. Guarenteed. Promised.

:rofl:

When I was a tike I lived in C.O. while D.I.A's construction was being delayed continuously. Near the end it was suspected the airport was being built on top of an ancient burial ground. Thankfully they were able to move past that and work with the evil spirits.

SL_Mustang2_0.jpg

Yes a red eyed zombie mustang status does exist outside D.I.A.
 
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Hmmm.......a bit tacky.
No, jetsetter, it is not. In the case of Reagan, it's picking up on one policy of Reagan, which is, in other word, dogmatically binding for the GOP if we are to believe the Reagan religion dominating that party these days, and showing that Obama is adhering to said policy, in effect, that on that very police, it couldn't matter less wether or not Reagan or Obama is president.

Never mind that Reagan was a compassionate conservative, he would never ever get the GOP nomination this year.

I don't know whether this should go here or in the OT Random Thoughts thread. I'd embed it in the Cool Videos thread if I could. This is probably the best BBC news video I've ever seen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18104246
Firstly, I completely agree with the campaign. The way the POA works in respect to this is the worst possible concequence of trying to be too British. Legislating British manners, to put it bluntly. It is, of course, both absurd and stupid.

That said, there's one big (and some may say situationally ironical) fault with the video: They beep the "fucks" and "cocks" and whatnot. That's utter stupidity.
 
When I was a tike I lived in C.O. while D.I.A's construction was being delayed continuously. Near the end it was suspected the airport was being built on top of an ancient burial ground. Thankfully they were able to move past that and work with the evil spirits.

View attachment 6851

Yes a red eyed zombie mustang status does exist outside D.I.A.

I'm afraid the only reason for the delay in Berlin is incompetence.
 
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