EXTRA EXTRA! Post all about it! (new news thread)

[FreddyKnuckles]

Last night the DC fox affiliate did a human interest piece on basement house shows and its delivery was hilarious.  The one they focused on was this lady who has three kids and the house shows were more focused on kids 14-18.  It was right before their piece on how streetlights might give you CANCER

[diesel_powered]

Martha eats Emeril.

He knows the power of the dark side.

[FreddyKnuckles]

http://www.abovethelaw.com/2008/02/lawyer_of_the_day_kirk_watson_1.php

[Antero]

He's not in Africa. He's in BIZARRO WORLD.

In Bizarro Africa, condoms make you catch AIDS.

Ah fuck, I guess Bush isn't the only one there.

[FreddyKnuckles]

you know that article is 4 years old right?

[Andrew_TSKS]

http://www.abovethelaw.com/2008/02/lawyer_of_the_day_kirk_watson_1.php

oh god, i was watching when that happened. i was HORRIFIED. i kept going "immigration reform! cooperative weapons reduction! aid to the congo! COME ON!"

i guess i'm more informed on obama than some of his supporters in the government.

[Thermofusion]

Rioters Break into Belgrade's U.S. Embassy

Goddamit. 

Way to support every negative stereotype about the Serbian people, guys.

[Andrew_TSKS]

i don't know about that, but i think a lot of people need to chill the fuck out about kosovo wanting to be independent. "sets a precedent for separatist groups" my ass. maybe people in places like east timor and kurdistan and palestine and tibet have VALID REASONS for wanting their own country. isn't THAT possible too? god damn.

[slow west vultures]

i don't know.  i just think we shouldn't ruffle the austria-hungarian empire's feathers. 

[elpollodiablo]

i don't know about that, but i think a lot of people need to chill the fuck out about kosovo wanting to be independent. "sets a precedent for separatist groups" my ass. maybe people in places like east timor and kurdistan and palestine and tibet have VALID REASONS for wanting their own country. isn't THAT possible too? god damn.

Don't forget Quebec

[dieblucasdie]

you know that article is 4 years old right?

But topical 'cause Bush just renewed the funding with the abstinence-only stipulation intact a day or two ago.

[Andrew_TSKS]

i don't know about that, but i think a lot of people need to chill the fuck out about kosovo wanting to be independent. "sets a precedent for separatist groups" my ass. maybe people in places like east timor and kurdistan and palestine and tibet have VALID REASONS for wanting their own country. isn't THAT possible too? god damn.

Don't forget Quebec

quebec could be awkward, since it's in the middle of canada. i don't know what newfoundland and nova scotia would do. that said, i think they've got a pretty good argument. not as valid as that of kurdistan, east timor, and tibet, though. i'd put kosovo somewhere between the two.

[dieblucasdie]

I think pollo's point is, "Who decides what people are worthy of self-determination and what people aren't"? 

For an even stickier example than Quebec, what about Basque separatists?

[Andrew_TSKS]

what about them? what do you have against the basque people being separate from spain? personally, i have less of a problem with that than the quebec argument.

[dieblucasdie]

My point being that self-determination is an all or nothing affair--either people have a right to it or they don't. 

[Andrew_TSKS]

sure, and in that argument i will always take the position that people have a right to it. the problems i see with quebec becoming independent have mostly to do with how much of the citizenry of quebec want it. i've heard (and this could be incorrect) that the population tends to split right around 50-50 between those in favor of independence and those wanting to remain part of canada. that makes it tough to say what should be done. if it's actually more like 75% in favor of independence (or, conversely, 75% in favor of staying in canada), it's much easier to say. i'm never going to favor separatism when it is a movement by a lunatic fringe or even a relatively small yet vocal minority, but if it's something the majority of the people want, then i don't see any reason why they shouldn't get it. granted, governments will have a problem giving it to them, which is why (most) civil wars happen.

[dieblucasdie]

Well, but that's going to have a massive destabilizing effect.  How about Kurds in northern Iraq and southern Turkey joining together to form a state?  And should we always back self-determination when it's based on racial/ethnic/religious separatism?  Shouldn't we be in favor of promoting pluralism?

I don't really disagree with you, I'm just saying the issue gets complicated.

[Andrew_TSKS]

promoting pluralism is really almost the same thing as the neo-con "promoting democracy" agenda, though. if you force people to do what you think they should already want to do, they will never want to do it. what's more, you will never be able to point your gun away from them, because as soon as you do, they'll stop doing what you want them to do. and therefore, they'll never evolve culturally, because they'll spend all their time thinking about how much they hate you and want to destroy you because you won't leave them alone. so yeah, i think if the kurds want their own state, you gotta give it to them, regardless of whether their desire for separatism is based on racial/ethnic/religious separatism. maybe if you give it to them, they'll eventually evolve beyond their hatreds. god knows forcing them to do whatever the "benevolent"/"advanced" western powers have wanted them to do at any given time hasn't caused their culture to advance and become open-minded. more of the same isn't gonna solve anything, and regardless of whether there's an easy quick fix available, in the end we should all be acting in favor of sovereignty and self-determination for everyone. that's the same reason that the argument that we can't leave iraq because it'll break out into civil war doesn't sway me--it's obviously gonna happen whenever we leave, even if that's 200 years from now, so since we can't stop it, we should probably just let it run its course and deal with whatever arises afterwards.

[dieblucasdie]

Hey FK, did you see this insanity?

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/125075.html

(Rehberg is one the signatories btw).  Funny the GOP being all "woo AMERICA!! PATRIOTISM!!  Unless the Supreme Court hands down a ruling we don't like!  Then we're fucking seceding!"

Also, did you see the uproar when DOJ filed a not-2nd-Amendment-ey enough brief for Heller?  This shit's going to get crazy.

[Augo]

i don't know about that, but i think a lot of people need to chill the fuck out about kosovo wanting to be independent. "sets a precedent for separatist groups" my ass. maybe people in places like east timor and kurdistan and palestine and tibet have VALID REASONS for wanting their own country. isn't THAT possible too? god damn.

Don't forget Quebec

quebec could be awkward, since it's in the middle of canada. i don't know what newfoundland and nova scotia would do. that said, i think they've got a pretty good argument.

Hey Alaska seems to manage...I'm sure Nova Scotia and Newfoundland would get by.

That said, regardless of what the people of Quebec want, it's just not gonna happen anymore.  They had a fleeting chance in the late 70's (I think? Maybe the early 80's) but now, if Quebec decides they want to secede the whole country gets to vote on it and I can't speak for 30 million people but my guess is the rest of the country would say "Sorry bub, yr stayin'"

[dieblucasdie]

15 boxes of jfk assassination-related documents found in safe in dallas county courthouse. experts divided on veracity of oswald/ruby transcript.

this is fucking huge, dudes.

How's about this, too:

There were two shooters at the RFK assassination, and Sirhan Sirhan did not fire the fatal shot.

When shit like this continually rolls out, one can't help but wonder if the conspiracy theorists of our time will be vindicated in the long run, as well.

[santaclaustral]

Well, but that's going to have a massive destabilizing effect.  How about Kurds in northern Iraq and southern Turkey joining together to form a state?  And should we always back self-determination when it's based on racial/ethnic/religious separatism?  Shouldn't we be in favor of promoting pluralism?

I don't really disagree with you, I'm just saying the issue gets complicated.

Also... natural resources... oil, fertile land, the only road through the mountains... when you have (as in Bolivia) the people in the resource-rich areas wanting independence so they don't have to subsidise the people in the areas that have no natural resources of which to speak, you've got to consider how those really poor people are going to feel about being locked out and what they might feel driven to do about it and exactly who that's gonna benefit.

Self-determination can be the nationwide equivalent of a bunch of rich dudes deciding they're not going to pay taxes.

Also, in America, you have the luxury of free passage between states. In the EU, we have the same thing between EU countries and it's easy to take that for granted. But what's gonna happen if the countries around a newly declared country close their borders to the goods and people of the new country (c.f. the Gaza Strip clusterfuck)?

I'm not sure what I think about it all either, but it's really not as simple as saying 'you want self-determination, you've got it'...

[Andrew_TSKS]

15 boxes of jfk assassination-related documents found in safe in dallas county courthouse. experts divided on veracity of oswald/ruby transcript.

this is fucking huge, dudes.

How's about this, too:

There were two shooters at the RFK assassination, and Sirhan Sirhan did not fire the fatal shot.

When shit like this continually rolls out, one can't help but wonder if the conspiracy theorists of our time will be vindicated in the long run, as well.

OH MY FUCKING GOD.

[ellaguru]

i don't know about that, but i think a lot of people need to chill the fuck out about kosovo wanting to be independent. "sets a precedent for separatist groups" my ass. maybe people in places like east timor and kurdistan and palestine and tibet have VALID REASONS for wanting their own country. isn't THAT possible too? god damn.

Don't forget Quebec

quebec could be awkward, since it's in the middle of canada. i don't know what newfoundland and nova scotia would do. that said, i think they've got a pretty good argument.

Hey Alaska seems to manage...I'm sure Nova Scotia and Newfoundland would get by.

That said, regardless of what the people of Quebec want, it's just not gonna happen anymore.  They had a fleeting chance in the late 70's (I think? Maybe the early 80's) but now, if Quebec decides they want to secede the whole country gets to vote on it and I can't speak for 30 million people but my guess is the rest of the country would say "Sorry bub, yr stayin'"

RE: Quebec.

The most recent referendum was in 1995, and that was a pretty close one. There have been some grumblings since, but Quebec has largely taken to the bizarre strategy of electing a separatist party as its provincial and federal representation, but not actually try to separate. The tension seems pretty low these days (you can even speak English in most parts of Quebec without people glaring at you, which wasn't the case at certain points in time).

As far as their ability to separate, while it's technically true that they can't do it unilaterally, on the ground they really could. Basically, how it goes is that while (a) they don't have the right to separate without a federal OK, (b) the federal government does not have the right to withhold that OK. So if they want to go, we have to let them - but we do get input into timelines, strategies, post-independence relations (there have been economic union/political independence ideas bandied about over the years, &c.) and like that. So that very could well include some sort of guaranteed amicableness about shipping between the east coast and the rest of Canada, that sort of thing. Compromise. It is our way.

[Ashley]

i don't know about that, but i think a lot of people need to chill the fuck out about kosovo wanting to be independent. "sets a precedent for separatist groups" my ass. maybe people in places like east timor and kurdistan and palestine and tibet have VALID REASONS for wanting their own country. isn't THAT possible too? god damn.

Don't forget Quebec

quebec could be awkward, since it's in the middle of canada. i don't know what newfoundland and nova scotia would do. that said, i think they've got a pretty good argument.

Hey Alaska seems to manage...I'm sure Nova Scotia and Newfoundland would get by.

That said, regardless of what the people of Quebec want, it's just not gonna happen anymore.  They had a fleeting chance in the late 70's (I think? Maybe the early 80's) but now, if Quebec decides they want to secede the whole country gets to vote on it and I can't speak for 30 million people but my guess is the rest of the country would say "Sorry bub, yr stayin'"

RE: Quebec.

The most recent referendum was in 1995, and that was a pretty close one. There have been some grumblings since, but Quebec has largely taken to the bizarre strategy of electing a separatist party as its provincial and federal representation, but not actually try to separate. The tension seems pretty low these days (you can even speak English in most parts of Quebec without people glaring at you, which wasn't the case at certain points in time).

As far as their ability to separate, while it's technically true that they can't do it unilaterally, on the ground they really could. Basically, how it goes is that while (a) they don't have the right to separate without a federal OK, (b) the federal government does not have the right to withhold that OK. So if they want to go, we have to let them - but we do get input into timelines, strategies, post-independence relations (there have been economic union/political independence ideas bandied about over the years, &c.) and like that. So that very could well include some sort of guaranteed amicableness about shipping between the east coast and the rest of Canada, that sort of thing. Compromise. It is our way.

Also; much of newfoundland would try and jump the separatist boat even though we have a pretty shitty ability to do anything more than halfassed.