Random News Article Discussion

Smudger

I wouldn't mind Europe being ruled by one power if it was done properly, and more importantly fairly.

Its not like it could be worse then what we've currently got. lol

loneassassin

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Bill_Nighy_2780-1.jpg/220px-Bill_Nighy_2780-1.jpg > http://www.astromax.org/images/Bill-nye.jpg

Bill Nighy portraying Bill Nye would be awesome

Crossword

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/126813218.html

The hell? This is like something out of a Tarantino movie!

Rogues' Gallery

@crossword:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/126813218.html

the hell? This is like something out of a tarantino movie!

Holy Fucking Jesus Christ Shit! Now, I'm here in California, but I have to ride public transit multiple times every day to and from the community college I attend. This is just disturbing and fearful on so many levels. No wonder so many people are afraid of standing up for themselves, when even a trivial comment or opinion could get you KILLED.

Monkey King

@Smudger:

I wouldn't mind Europe being ruled by one power if it was done properly, and more importantly fairly.

Its not like it could be worse then what we've currently got. lol

Looking at you guys right now the best candidate would be Germany, of course you wouldn't have any problem with that would you.

Nami

@Monkey:

Looking at you guys right now the best candidate would be Germany, of course you wouldn't have any problem with that would you.

ahahahahahahahahahhahaha.

Darkstorm

Any kind of european integration is enough to get folk literally apoplectic in this country.

Monkey King

At last! It's time for a Slovakia run Europe.

Outerspec

@Mr.333:

Entire Mexican Town's Police Force Quits, leaving the 13,000 people of Ascension without local police protection:

http://news.yahoo.com/mexico-towns-police-force-quits-attack-232518398.html

"Mexico's Media now censors their own coverage, fearful and intimidated of reprisals by ruthless drug gangs and corrupt police on their payroll."

http://news.yahoo.com/under-fire-drug-war-mexicos-media-falls-silent-145223504.html

Things are getting worse and worse over there. I read this one story awhile ago where a very brave college student volunteered to become the police chief of a violent town and she got the job because no one else wanted it. Absolutely no one else wanted it so it was given to a college student! She later quit due to impeding threats to her and her family even though she said she wasn't going to get involved with the drug lords. She was still very in unbelievable danger. Oh wait, here's an article on it. Yep, from last year.

http://www.blippitt.com/marisol-valles-garcia-20-year-old-is-new-sheriff-in-town/ Her heart was in the right place but reality was too harsh.

Smudger

@Smudger:

The way I see it most of these places will collapse leaving the few places doing well to buy up and re-stabilise the rest of Europe till it gets back on its feet. Germany will probably be top dog after this, using all the surrounding areas as its bitches. lol

@Monkey:

Looking at you guys right now the best candidate would be Germany, of course you wouldn't have any problem with that would you.

…..........****…..........

Akumu

Hey look, we got downgraded anyway!
http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/05/news/economy/downgrade_rumors/index.htm?iref=BN1&hpt=hp_t1

Maybe if those fools in Washington had actually worked together they could have come up with an actual deal instead of the PoS they tried to pass off as one.

Instead they they tantrums, pointed fingers, and did nothing but try and make themselves look good for when reelection roles around.

Screw you Washington. You've managed to increase my hate for politics tenfold.

S&P also cited dysfunctional policymaking in Washington as a factor in the downgrade. "The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed."

However, one of S&P's explicit criticisms of the compromise was that it didn't address the biggest drivers of the nation's debt – Social Security and Medicare -- and didn't allow for additional tax revenue.

Boehner. You're gone. You just screwed yourself out of office thanks to the many times you declared no tax increases.

The democrats should be able to recover from this and Obama will retain office, because it's easier for them to push the blame on the Reps, and it's thanks to Boehner being so vocal about resisting revenue increases.

Either way they all need to go.
Obama is too weak willed to fight for anything, and the Republicans have proven themselves to be morons when it comes to today's economy.

God help us all, the Tea Party is going to seize control. Most of the no votes came from them, and they'll be able to play that angle beautifully. And the public will eat it up.

Time to start building my bunker.

Outerspec

The U.S. being downgraded does more psychological damage than it does economic damage. Countries have been downgraded before with little impact on their economy and have managed to be upgraded again. I think the economic impact on the country will be lessened even more due to the fact that this was expected and we were warned months in advance that this could happen, so it doesn't come as a surprise. Now believe me, I'm not saying this is no big deal. I'm saying this is not something to freak out over as I'm sure many people will do as they treat this like the apocalypse. You know, America is #1 we're the best how could this happen to us oh nooooo… http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/05/downgrade-us-standard-and-poors_n_919867.html

The downgrade is likely to have little to no impact on how the United States finances its borrowing, through the sale of Treasury bonds, bills and notes. This week's buying proves that."Investors have voted and are saying the U.S. is going to pay them," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics. "U.S. Treasurys are still the gold standard." He noted that neither his parent organization, Moody's, nor Fitch, the other of the three major rating agencies, have downgraded U.S. debt. Japan had its ratings cut a decade ago to AA, and it didn't have much lasting impact. The credit ratings of both Canada and Australia have also been downgraded over time, without much lasting damage.

"I don't think it's going to amount to a lot," said Peter Morici, a University of Maryland business economist. Still, he said, "The United States deserves to have this happen," because of its clumsy handling of fiscal policy.

Monkey King

@Akumu:

Hey look, we got downgraded anyway!
http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/05/news/economy/downgrade_rumors/index.htm?iref=BN1&hpt=hp_t1

Maybe if those fools in Washington had actually worked together they could have come up with an actual deal instead of the PoS they tried to pass off as one.

Instead they they tantrums, pointed fingers, and did nothing but try and make themselves look good for when reelection roles around.

Screw you Washington. You've managed to increase my hate for politics tenfold.

Boehner. You're gone. You just screwed yourself out of office thanks to the many times you declared no tax increases.

The democrats should be able to recover from this and Obama will retain office, because it's easier for them to push the blame on the Reps, and it's thanks to Boehner being so vocal about resisting revenue increases.

Either way they all need to go.
Obama is too weak willed to fight for anything, and the Republicans have proven themselves to be morons when it comes to today's economy.

God help us all, the Tea Party is going to seize control. Most of the no votes came from them, and they'll be able to play that angle beautifully. And the public will eat it up.

Time to start building my bunker.

Your governor is scaring me, because I feel like people will be dumb enough to vote him in, and his fiscal policy involves flooding super low wage jobs and of course praying for god to make things right.

Akumu

@Outerspec:

The U.S. being downgraded does more psychological damage than it does economic damage. Countries have been downgraded before with little impact on their economy and have managed to be upgraded again. I think the economic impact on the country will be lessened even more due to the fact that this was expected and we were warned months in advance that this could happen, so it doesn't come as a surprise. Now believe me, I'm not saying this is no big deal. I'm saying this is not something to freak out over as I'm sure many people will do as they treat this like the apocalypse. You know, America is #1 we're the best how could this happen to us oh nooooo… http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/05/downgrade-us-standard-and-poors_n_919867.html

Here's the thing, with how our government stands right now, this issue will never get resolved. It'll keep growing and growing until we get downgraded again.

It's a lot easier to get downgraded than it is to get upgraded.

And in all honesty, we probably should have been downgraded before. I don't know how we managed to avoid it this long.

And the economical impact has already started to be felt. Wall Street knew this was coming and that's why the Dow took it's largest drop since the. It's dropped like 1,500 points in the last week and a half.
Then there's the impact on the global economy to consider. That's the most important thing to be worried about.

This is bad. Washington is trying to downplay it because their asses are on the line.
Also, in this situation, it's much better to prepare for the worst than to assume it's not gonna be that bad.

@Monkey:

Your governor is scaring me, because I feel like people will be dumb enough to vote him in, and his fiscal policy involves flooding super low wage jobs and of course praying for god to make things right.

Ugh. Perry is insane.
I share your fears. The people of Texas have been dumb enough to re-elect him term after term. And it's odd. Because about half the people I know are conservative, and all they do is complain about him. Yet come election time they always say the same thing "Lesser of all evils."

I can't stand Perry.
If he gets elected, I might have to move to Canada before Perry decides to secede form North America.

In other news, his day of prayer is tomorrow. I know way too many people who are going that actually believe that their prayers will fix the economy.

Ubiq

Did any of the other major agencies cut the credit rating or just Standard and Poor? If it's all three of them, that's one thing, but S&P alone isn't as big a deal. Primarily because a lot of the overwrought handwringing about the debt was manufactured by them in the first place; a lot of that really comes down to them being pissy about the fact that Social Security funds are administered by the government and not a private organization which could loot them without ever having to worry about paying it back.

Darkstorm

Only S&P .

Outerspec

And there might be proof that S&P's calculations were "fundamentally flawed". Of course that could just be the White House trying to cover their ass or a reminder of S&P's reputation in helping crash the economy by selling junk bonds and rating crap as AAA. There's a record of incompetence with them as well as our government, but the 2 other rating agencies have expressed no desire to lower our country's rating.

Aohige_AP

@Crossword:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/126813218.html

The hell? This is like something out of a Tarantino movie!

This is awesome. Get Tarantino on the phone right now.

Taggerung

@Outerspec:

The U.S. being downgraded does more psychological damage than it does economic damage. Countries have been downgraded before with little impact on their economy and have managed to be upgraded again. I think the economic impact on the country will be lessened even more due to the fact that this was expected and we were warned months in advance that this could happen, so it doesn't come as a surprise. Now believe me, I'm not saying this is no big deal. I'm saying this is not something to freak out over as I'm sure many people will do as they treat this like the apocalypse. You know, America is #1 we're the best how could this happen to us oh nooooo… http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/05/downgrade-us-standard-and-poors_n_919867.html

Yeah but the stock market is basically based on psychology and the US is extremely invested in the markets which means the world is extremely invested in the markets. So when Wall Street starts panicking and stock prices dive the rest of the world dives with it regardless of true nature of the situation. Because we're so heavily invested in the markets and because every brooker will be trying to get as much short term money out as possible the market will continue to suffer as they sell and exchange to better currency which will, ironically, and depressingly, only make things worse. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy and they know it and they really couldn't give a fuck.

This whole Presidency has really opened my eyes to flaws of our government. Obama has made concession after concession in the name of crisis while continuing to bleat that Dems and Reps can work together to solve problems. He's basically continued all of Bush's wars, tax policies, foreign policies, education policies. The Democrats only saving grace right now is that they are not the Republicans and thats counting for less and less as this goes on. When the Dems ha control of congress they failed to do anything. Now the Reps are in charge an they're basically doing whatever they want. The gov't gives away billions of dollars a year to "job creators" or their friends or their wives but i doubt any of that's getting cut. The "stimulus package" and all the legislation associated with it is just blatant robbery of the American public. Completely serving the 1% that control 40% of the wealth while unemployment remains basically unchanged and in some demographics worse.

I really don't want Obama in office come 2012 but i want even less to see Bachmann, Romney, or Paul. Hopefully they don't gut FAFSA too soon so i can get my degree and get the hell out. I do speak a little deutsch….

loneassassin

http://news.yahoo.com/protesters-throw-fruit-chiles-rescued-miners-145539469.html

Kingloser

@Outerspec:

And there might be proof that S&P's calculations were "fundamentally flawed". Of course that could just be the White House trying to cover their ass or a reminder of S&P's reputation in helping crash the economy by selling junk bonds and rating crap as AAA. There's a record of incompetence with them as well as our government, but the 2 other rating agencies have expressed no desire to lower our country's rating.

Yeah, they didn't fudge their projections as much as the Whitehouse. This was bound to happen especially with the expansion of entitlement programs over the last 50 years. S & P painted themselves in a corner by calling for 4 trillion dollars in reductions which of course the president was never going to be able to deliver on, you have to buy them votes after all.

tigerlilly

Wow man wow!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14450248
London's still going ballistic!

Also on other news Tymoshenko from the Ukraine arrested again
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14442659
Anyone knows if they are going serious with their bullshit accusations this time?

Ubiq

So, the stock market.

Flux

What was the reason for so much London violence anyhow? I've not heard too much on it, but that the police shot a black man and people arranged protests and riots via social networking. But it seems way too big now for everyone involved to have cared about the reason. Have people just jumped on the bandwagon?

I keep hearing the police are standing by doing fuck all though.

Cyan D. Funk

London calling to the faraway town

Oga Simpson

It seems like the situation in London is just a bunch of so called "disenfranchised" youths using the economic and social situation they're in to behave like simple thugs. Now I'm not a big fan of the police or the government in this country, but these dicks aren't making any sort of political statement towards them, and for once I wouldn't actually mind the police using some heavy-handed tactics. I live nowhere near London, have no connections to the place nor have I even visited the city but these peole and this situation really pisses me off.

Smudger

Can't wait to go to London tomorrow.

Nothing more romantic than setting fire to a police riot van.

loneassassin

@Cyan:

London calling to the faraway town

My thoughts exactly.

My friend is from Tottenham (he's going to school at UCLA) and he told me that some asshole rioters tried to throw a molotov at his house but his father stepped out of the house with a hunting rifle and said (my friend's words) "You three will be on the ground dead before that has a chance to hit my house" and they walked away probably shitting their pants along the way.

Nami

@Smudger:

Can't wait to go to London tomorrow.

Nothing more romantic than setting fire to a police riot van.

Oh yes pls. Sounds like the perfect first date to me

I always wanted to riot a bit. No better place than London.

Cyan D. Funk

-Tanks have been spotted in Lomdon followed by more tanks

-Authorities rumored to begin bombing while the demonstrators enjoy tea time #LondonRev

-Rebel leaders have made plans to storm Cameron's residence

-Unarmed youth beaten for saying "shopping cart"

-Cameron: "THE CITIZENS LOVE ME THOSE RUFFIANS IN LONDON ARE DISRUPTING OUR HARMONY" #LondonRev

Nami

.. there wasn't a better time for this, right?

Smudger

Viva la revolution!

This is spreading, COBRA meeting happening tomorrow, PM jetting back from holiday. This could be huge if it snowballs any further.

Do i riot? dont i riot?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14449675

tigerlilly

Am I the only one who got a serious GTA: London 2011 feeling when they saw the footage of police officers charging in from bird's eye view?
Shit's getting out of control, it started as some kind of demonstration against lawless police violence, but now the fire has spread to many different spots.
I guess the central should be safe, but all you guys in London take care regardless.
Glad your friend's home wasn't harmed loneassassin.

Smudger

It started due to racial tension in the area revolving around the black/asian populations conflict with police. One man was shot dead a few days prior causing a mass protest towards the police station which then broke down into fights after a massive lack of talks with the police that spawned violence and further tension. From that small event spawned several other issues in London involving all groups and races, creating a vacuum of people that want to loot and impress as much chaos as possible.

Oddly enough the police haven't used any violence since this began, which in turn has given the mob/rioters the guts to raid entire areas without fear of repercussions.

Fires are being started and weapons being gathered to prevent any attempt as police gathering or getting a foothold into reclaiming control.

Now several other areas of London have exploded into war zones, and other cities in England are snowballing into riots.

The worst thing is so many of us have reasons to want to fight for this to carry on and make more headlines and pressure on the government to sort out the many issues that won't be dealt with how the public wants. I just don't think innocent people and businesses should suffer because of it.

To be honest I don't know how to feel about this. I'm raging at all the poor people being effected by this yet i want their to be actual change and solid progression that won't happen if the current government isn't scared into acting.

I hope all my mates are ok, though knowing them they are probably the ringleaders. lol

Also its going to reach the point soon where we don't have the capacity to hold any more people. We've already had over 300+ people arrested so far and climbing rapidly with police torn between paperwork and riot control.

Side note: fuck you Ken Livingstone for trying to use this as a weapon against Boris in the elections. What a fucking scumbag using such an underhanded slimy tactic, even though history shows the same thing happened during the last recession. History is repeating itself due to bad economics! Not due to bad leadership from Londons Mayor.

I swear if he gets into power again I'm grabbing a rag and bottle.

SuperSonic-Strawhat

As a black man living in a relatively stable society, it still comes across as scary and unbelievable that stuff like this happens literally every day.

Smudger

@supersonic-strawhat:

as a black man living in a relatively stable society, it still comes across as scary and unbelievable that stuff like this happens literally every day.

what the hell are you talking about!?

Monkey King

There are far too many Clash songs that need posting right now.

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@Smudger:

what the hell are you talking about!?

Police brutality against ethnic minorities in first world countries. This same scenario has played out many times in the US (particularly in California for some reason). Riots and all.

SuperSonic-Strawhat

@Smudger:

what the hell are you talking about!?

The article you just posted. I live where it's nice and peaceful, yet outside of that, there's tons of conflict and disaster that I'm seldom aware of due to just hearing about it in the news.

loneassassin

I'm fucking bummed for the guy who owned the carpet shop, which was in his family for a couple of generations. From footage I saw it looked like his brother was gonna commit suicide since they lost everything.

Also fucked up that 26 families lived in that building and now have nothing.

Bill

Dear God South Africa,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/27/jacob-zuma-whisky-assault-charge

Smudger

@Monkey:

Police brutality against ethnic minorities in first world countries.

The thing is this is actually spreading in areas that are predominantly white and have mostly white people involved in the rioting. I know it started as a racial tension in an area of Tottenham, but its gone beyond that now into something that obscures the racist issue completely.

This has been bubbling since the student protest, only needing one group to sneeze loud enough to make it contagious.

Luphrecio

I will just leave these here:

The Economy is in a lot worse shape than most Americans think, and there is a LOT more Corruptions that Americans care to believe that has been causing all of this

Its such a shame that Obama is too weak to put the foot down and fight those racist GOP assholes, Im pretty Disapointed in him. . .

He could have steamrolled of the GOP a couple years ago with his party had control of everything….

Smudger

@Bill:

Dear God South Africa,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/27/jacob-zuma-whisky-assault-charge

Wow, I thought if any african related topics were posted today it would be revolving around Zimbabwe. From torture camps to NATO being branded a terrorist group.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14377215 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14452522

SuperSonic-Strawhat

It seems I need to catch up on my international news a bit. There probably isn't a place in the world that's happy right now.

Bill

@Smudger:

Wow, I thought if any african related topics were posted today it would be revolving around Zimbabwe. From torture camps to NATO being branded a terrorist group.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14377215 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14452522

Its definitely an injustice, he didn't do anything wrong really I think I posted it because a friend I knew was in a similar situation and I could relate to that.
But that's defiantly worse though.

Though I think Africa is a lost cause, maybe it will get somewhat better in 50 years.

loneassassin

Supposedly these are being passed out by rioters. Fucking state of things.

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Nothing else needs to be said.

Monkey King

@Smudger:

Wow, I thought if any african related topics were posted today it would be revolving around Zimbabwe. From torture camps to NATO being branded a terrorist group.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14377215 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14452522

As Gaddafi is slipping away the continent of Africa is busily rebalancing it's current insane dictatorship requirement by funneling more crates of horrible and batshit into Mugabe's little shithole.

Luphrecio

@super sonic eggman

Theres lots of places where stuff if going well, Japan (like south of Fukushima:ninja: and north of Tohoku…like...Hokkaido>.>) Canada, New Zealand, Austrailia, Singapore, China (depending on how you look at it)

most of their economies are doing well (Japan/China WILL do VERY well soon once they and china stop financing Americas Debt and start consuming their own production) Relatively safe (well maybe not Austrailia but thats becuase Austrailians are hardcore violent like that lol) but yeah in those areas, things are actually looking up.

Monkey King

@Bill:

Though I think Africa is a lost cause, maybe it will get somewhat better in 50 years.

Look directly west of Zimbabwe.

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@Luphrecio:

most of their economies are doing well (Japan/China WILL do VERY well soon once they and china stop financing Americas Debt and start consuming their own production) Relatively safe

Are you…. are you under the impression that China and Japan operate under economies that are in anyway similar?
Either you think Japan is part of the lower end of BRIC, or you're under the impression that China is a completed tiger economy. In which case what the hell are you talking about.

And lollll at mentioning China as a happy relatively safe place in comparison to the US and Europe ahahahahaha.
Yessir no racial/ethnic riots in China!
Choo choo! Let's all ride the one way train from Han China to Tibet! The heavy police state within a light police state!

Smudger

@Monkey:

As Gaddafi is slipping away the continent of Africa is busily rebalancing it's current insane dictatorship requirement by funneling more crates of horrible and batshit into Mugabe's little shithole.

Lol Mugabe is just terrified of being next on the hit list.