January 19, 2019

OPINION Why it's dangerous to equate the Left and the Right

For reasons that are perfectly understandable, many believe we are living in an age of uniquely toxic and rancorous politics. From Donald Trump’s racist rhetoric to Europe’s atmosphere of rising nationalism and pervasive anti-immigrant sentiment there is a growing sense of crisis and anxiety in liberal democracies about which many are rightly concerned.

But amid this climate, it has become fashionable to contend—particularly in the media—that left and right share equal or near equal responsibility for this state of affairs. The equivalence isn’t simply false—in today’s world, it’s downright dangerous. In this all-too-popular framing of current events, politics are imagined to be a kind of horseshoe—with left and right diverging from a supposedly reasonable, level-headed middle ground and converging at each end. To put it mildly, this is a case of “both sides-ism” at its worst.

snip

A little historical perspective serves us well here. In the 20th century, left-wing anger gave us minimum wages, weekends, Medicare, and environmental regulation—institutions cherished by millions of Canadians. Even in some of its earlier and less hardline incarnations, the right resisted these reforms and sometimes sought to push things in the opposite direction.

snip

It’s also become evident that there is a real and visceral ugliness festering on the fringes of conservatism, one made frighteningly visible by social media. And, in the age of Trump, elements of even the mainstream right seem increasingly willing to flirt with exclusionary nationalism and entertain the crudest forms of xenophobia and cultural resentment.

link
https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/why-its-dangerous-to-equate-the-left-and-the-right/

January 18, 2019

DNA DISCOUNTS advertisement for "Aereomexico" airlines

Great Advertisement.
I especially laughed at the angry old guy when he found out his % and then his discount

January 17, 2019

Berlusconi announces candidacy for European elections

I had hoped that twit had died or was unable to leave his home due to ailment or was in jail
He's like a disease

Oh... and he's running out of a "...sense of responsibility."

trump, duerte, that ass-circus in Brazil and now this dip is back.

January 17, 2019

Witnesses claim to have seen Chun Doo-hwan play golf around time of his first trial

Former South Korean president Chun Doo-hwan, 88, who is being tried on charges of defaming the deceased, declined to appear at the first hearing of his criminal case in Aug. 2018 because he was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. But now the Hankyoreh has learned that Chun went golfing around the same time. Witnesses also say they saw Chun and his wife, Lee Sun-ja, at the same golf course this past December.

In a memoir published in Apr. 2017, Chun described the late Catholic father Cho Cheol-hyeon (also known as Cho Pius) as “Satan wearing a mask.” Cho testified that government martial law troops had fired on protesters from helicopters during the Gwangju Uprising in May 1980. Chun was indicted without detention on May 3, 2018, on the charge of libeling Cho.

Chun’s first hearing was held on Aug. 27, 2018, at the Gwangju District Court, but Chun didn’t appear at court, explaining that his Alzheimer’s symptoms were getting worse. He also failed to appear at the second hearing, which was held on Jan. 7, for similar reasons.

snip

Chun and his party were also spotted by an individual surnamed Lee, 50. “I saw them from less than five meters away. And while I was playing golf, I could see them on the course behind me. Chun was walking around without a cane and hitting the ball without anyone’s help, and he didn’t seem to have any major health problems. In fact, he looked young. He sometimes would walk instead of riding on the cart, and their game was going really quickly,” Lee said.

link
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/878816.html

Just call the assassin and dictator Trump Doo-hwan

As an FYI defamation is pretty serious here in Korea

January 17, 2019

Tucker Carlson gets help with his question

Tucker asks:



People Respond

January 17, 2019

Far-Right German Journalist Implicated In Firebombing Of Hungarian Center In Ukraine

KRAKOW, Poland -- A Polish man accused of involvement in the firebombing of a Hungarian cultural center in western Ukraine last year says he received instructions on the attack from a German journalist who has worked as a consultant for a German parliament deputy with the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Michal Prokopowicz, 28, told a Krakow court on January 14 that German journalist Manuel Ochsenreiter provided instructions for the February 4, 2018, attack on the headquarters of the Hungarian Cultural Association in Uzhhorod, the capital of the Zakarpattya region in western Ukraine.

snip

No one was injured in the attack, but the incident -- and another fire attack on the building weeks later -- exacerbated already strained relations between Kyiv and Budapest over a Ukrainian education law that Hungary says restricts the right of ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine to be educated in their native language.

Prokopowicz is one of three Polish suspects with links to far-right movements who went on trial in Krakow on January 14 for the attack. Ukrainian authorities investigated the case and passed it along to their counterparts in Poland, where the three men were subsequently detained.

link

https://www.rferl.org/a/far-right-german-journalist-implicated-in-firebombing-of-hungarian-center-in-ukraine/29708843.html

January 17, 2019

No Country For Bearded Young Men: Only 'Well-Groomed' Tajiks Getting Passports

DUSHANBE -- Authorities in Tajikistan are being accused of stepping up a yearslong campaign against full beards by denying international passports to men who turn up shaggy for their photos.

President Emomali Rahmon has publicly discouraged beards, which are regarded by many officials in this impoverished Central Asian state as a foreign intrusion on local culture or a telltale sign of religious or other extremism.

During one recent week, more than a dozen Tajik men told RFE/RL's Tajik Service that passport officials had demanded that they return without beards if they want those essential international travel documents.

"They told me directly at the state visa and registration department that a passport for a man with a beard is only possible if the applicant is over 60 years of age," 51-year-old Soleh Navruzov said after being denied a passport when he submitted a photo of himself with a beard.


link
https://www.rferl.org/a/no-country-for-bearded-young-men-only-well-groomed-tajiks-getting-passports/29705257.html

Tajikistan Government has set up a barber shop in the same building

January 17, 2019

Does Deadpool Promote Nazism? Russian Censors Think So

Deadpool Max, a comic-book installment of the superhero saga that stormed the U.S. box office, includes a chapter about the bungling superhero's face-off with Zemo, a white supremacist hellbent on repeating the Holocaust. Deadpool's adversary spouts radical anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on his way to the grave.

David Lapham, the author, follows the chapter up with a note of caution to his readers, explaining that the historical figures and events praised by Zemo -- the Holocaust, Hitler, and the KKK -- are deplorable. "I know you're all savvy readers who get sarcasm and satire," Lapham writes.

snip

On January 9, Russian comic-book publisher Komilfo said that it had removed the entire chapter from its Russian-language version of Deadpool Max, set for release on January 18, because Russia's consumer-protection agency concluded that it promotes extremism.

link
https://www.rferl.org/a/does-deadpool-promote-nazism-russian-censors-think-so/29711680.html

Was going to post this in lounge but I wasn't sure if it went there or here

January 17, 2019

The Badass Women Of The Nomad Games

Turkey's Janset Genel in full flight during the mounted archery event, which the 18-year-old would go on to win.



Aida Akhmatova, from Kyrgyzstan, awaits her run in mounted archery. The contest stipulates that riders wear their nation's traditional dress, firing arrows from horseback at three targets along a 120-meter track.



A stunt rider sets the pace during a performance. Organizers expected competitors from 77 countries to participate in 37 types of ethnosports at these 3rd World Nomad Games.



Ban Batar, of Mongolia, awaits her turn in the mounted archery.

link:
https://www.rferl.org/a/the-badass-women-of-the-world-nomad-games/29476494.html

cross post in sports

January 17, 2019

The Badass Women Of The Nomad Games

Turkey's Janset Genel in full flight during the mounted archery event, which the 18-year-old would go on to win.



Aida Akhmatova, from Kyrgyzstan, awaits her run in mounted archery. The contest stipulates that riders wear their nation's traditional dress, firing arrows from horseback at three targets along a 120-meter track.



A stunt rider sets the pace during a performance. Organizers expected competitors from 77 countries to participate in 37 types of ethnosports at these 3rd World Nomad Games.



Ban Batar, of Mongolia, awaits her turn in the mounted archery.

link:
https://www.rferl.org/a/the-badass-women-of-the-world-nomad-games/29476494.html