Politics & Stuff

[Vesper 30,234]

3 hours ago, cosmicway said:

Have we all been hoodwinked ?
Who owns Paris St Germain ?
If you don;t know it is a country that begins with Q and ends in r.
So Messi gets his long sought after trophy, Mbappe scores a hat trick in the same match and all is well.
As for Kolomuani he aimed it straight at the keeper.
Those who think Q...r is an innocent party also believe Santa Clauss is real.

 

 

Not everything in life is a conspiracy. 

[cosmicway 1,333]

1 hour ago, Strike said:

The ref decisions in the final were all correct. You are just stating things that happened. Don't think there was any major controversy in the final. Few weird refs in the tournament as a whole but nothing major that altered the course of the tournament I think?

The diabolical ref is a rarity these days.
Admittedly we have Anthony Taylor but an Orebro is impossible these days.
This is not however what the Argentina conspiracy theory says.
According to the theory there was a round table agreement.
 

[Vesper 30,234]

 

[Vesper 30,234]

Police: 6-year-old shoots teacher in Virginia classroom

https://apnews.com/article/newport-news-virginia-88dfe91f65173cbbd198a8816a21b5be

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — A 6-year-old student shot and wounded a teacher at his school in Virginia during an altercation inside a first-grade classroom Friday, police and school officials in the city of Newport News said.

Experts said a school shooting involving a 6-year-old is extremely rare, although not unheard of, while Virginia law limits the ways in which a child that age can be punished for such a crime.

No students were injured in the shooting at Richneck Elementary School, police said. The teacher — a woman in her 30s — suffered life-threatening injuries. Her condition had improved somewhat by late afternoon, Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew said.

“We did not have a situation where someone was going around the school shooting,” Drew told reporters, later adding that the gunshot was not an accident.

Drew said the student and teacher had known each other in a classroom setting.

He said the boy had a handgun in the classroom, and investigators were trying to figure out where he obtained it. The police chief did not provide further details about the shooting, the altercation or what happened inside the school.

Joselin Glover, whose son is in fourth grade, told The Virginian-Pilot newspaper she got a text from the school stating that one person was shot and another was in custody.

“My heart stopped,” she said. “I was freaking out, very nervous. Just wondering if that one person was my son.”

Carlos, her 9-year-old, was at recess. But he said he and his classmates were soon holed up in the back of a classroom.

“Most of the whole class was crying,” Carlos told the newspaper.

Parents and students were reunited at a gymnasium door, Newport News Public Schools said via Facebook.

The police chief did not specifically address questions about whether authorities were in touch with the boy’s parents, but said members of the police department were handling that investigation.

“We have been in contact with our commonwealth’s attorney (local prosecutor) and some other entities to help us best get services to this young man,” Drew said.

Newport News is a city of about 185,000 people in southeastern Virginia known for its shipyard, which builds the nation’s aircraft carriers and other U.S. Navy vessels.

Richneck has about 550 students who are in kindergarten through fifth grade, according to the Virginia Department of Education’s website. School officials have already said that there will be no classes at the school on Monday.

“Today our students got a lesson in gun violence,” said George Parker III, Newport News schools superintendent, “and what guns can do to disrupt, not only an educational environment, but also a family, a community.”

Virginia law does not allow 6-year-olds to be tried as adults.

In addition, a 6-year-old is too young to be committed to the custody of the Department of Juvenile Justice if found guilty.

A juvenile judge would have authority, though, to revoke a parent’s custody and place a child under the purview of the Department of Social Services.

A school shooting involving a 6-year-old is extremely rare, said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Boston’s Northeastern University.

Fox told The Associated Press Friday evening that he could think of one previous incident involving a child that age.

In 2000, a 6-year-old boy fired a bullet from a .32-caliber gun inside Buell Elementary near Flint, Michigan, 60 miles (96 kilometers) from Detroit, striking 6-year-old Kayla Rolland in the neck, according to an AP article from the time. She died a half-hour later.

Fox analyzed school shooting data sets going back to 1970 from the Center for Homeland Defense and Security, which is located at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He said the data listed school shootings involving children ages 7, 8, 9 and older, but not 6-year-olds.

Another factor that stands out about the Virginia shooting is that it occurred in a classroom, Fox said. Many occur outside a school building where students are unsupervised.

From 2010 through 2021, there were more than 800 school-related shootings in K-12 schools that involved 1,149 victims. Thirty percent of those occurred in the school building, said Fox, who published the 2010 book, “Violence and Security on Campus: From Preschool Through College.”

“There are students who killed teachers, more typically high school students,” Fox said. “I don’t know of other cases where a 6-year-old shot a teacher.”

[Fulham Broadway 17,335]

''Guns dont kill people, people kill people'' NRA.   (I think the gun probably has something to do with it.)

NRA logic - the only way to stop this is for all teachers to have automatic rifles and head teachers to have grenade launchers

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,920]

A 6 year old is waaaay too young to charge for a crime, but they are going to end up with a fate worse than the Juvenile system. Foster care where there isnt a huge line waiting for kids as old as them.

[Vesper 30,234]

7 hours ago, Fulham Broadway said:

''Guns dont kill people, people kill people'' NRA.   (I think the gun probably has something to do with it.)

NRA logic - the only way to stop this is for all teachers to have automatic rifles and head teachers to have grenade launchers

Kindergarten Battle of the Bulge in 'Murica

 

Edited January 7, 2023 by Vesper

[Vesper 30,234]

[robsblubot 3,595]

On 07/01/2023 at 05:59, Sir Mikel OBE said:

A 6 year old is waaaay too young to charge for a crime, but they are going to end up with a fate worse than the Juvenile system. Foster care where there isnt a huge line waiting for kids as old as them.

the main problem here is that the parents aren't liable for the obvious negligence they are culpable of.

[Vesper 30,234]

Fucking raging about Brexit & Sweden RWers. 🤬

Sweden may be doing away with dual citizenship, so IF they do this, we will have to choose between keeping our UK status and losing EU status (and renouncing Swedish citizenship, which may force us to have to leave here), or renouncing our UK status (fuck that), OR, the most likely, leaving Sweden whilst still citizens of it with full EU rights of migration and obtaining another EU passport (and keeping UK citizenship) and ditching Swedish citizenship.

The Swedish RW is fucking insane if they try and do this. We are already talking to people who are planning legal action via the EU system.

[cosmicway 1,333]

KING CONSTANTINE, WHY HE LOST HIS THRONE ?

Last week king Constantine the second of Greece died at the age of 82.
Many royals from all over the continent came to the funeral.
From the UK princess Anne.
King Charles wanted to come but as it was not a state funeral the protocol did not allow him, as well as prince William, to attend.

The story is dramatic as well as strange, so I will try to resolve the mystery.
It all started with two butterfly effects.
First butterfly effect was the untimely death of Sophocles Venizelos - the son of Eleftherios Venizelos.
Sophocles Venizelos was the deputy of the Centre Union party.
He died from pneumothorax in a boat as medical assistance could not arrive in time.
If he was alive in 1965 there could n't possible be a government crisis. Leftists and rightists would just not have the power to cause a governemnt crisis.
Second butterfly effect was Andreas Papandreou being the son of George Papandreou, the popular centrist prime minister.
Andreas had some strange leftist ideas but if he was n't the son of George Papandreou that would amount to nothing.

In 1965 the king suspected Andreas of trying to take over his father's party and subsequently turn Greece into a neutralist baathist state.
So he made George Papandreou resign and tried to form a new government made up by the conservatives and some centrist defectors.
All hell broke lose, but in the end this succeeded and a royalist government was formed.
But the success was only temporary. Two years passed and elections had to be held.
The Papandreous were certain to gain something like 55% of the vote. There were no gallop polls at the time and the lowest estimate for the Papandreous
was 49%, made by no other than Evangelos Averof the deputy of the conservative ERE party. But even 49% was easy overall majority.

Was Papandreou something like a baathist (Saddam - Assad) ?
Well now we know for certain that he was.
His father denied everything strenuously at the time and the people believed him, but now we know Andreas was something like that.
What we don't know is to what extent - maybe just a little Baathist to be fair. 
We also don't know how really dangerous he was back then as he was n't the party leader himself.

But the king believed that Andreas Papandreou was the danger man and that maybe he even had secret ties with the Soviet Union
(n.b. the same mistake Anthony Eden made about Naser in the Suez crisis in 1955 - Eden believed Naser was a communist while Naser was something else really).
So -the mystery starts now- why did n't the king declare a dictatorship himself ?
He did n't. 
He believed a dictatorship was bad and also he himself would become an outcast by the other royals of Europe, including the Queen of England.
It was disaster either way (or so he thought).
But just at the moment the colonel's arrive ! George Papadopoulos and co.

It was the 21st of April 1967 and what did I do two days before ?
On Wednesday 19th of April after school I took the train to Philadelphia stadium to see Greece U21 v. England U 21.
The match ended in a 1-1 draw, Glezos scored for Greece and Francis Lee for England.
But the important thing here is the platform in the central train station, Omonia.
This is a place where you can see all of the country's newspapers in the kiosks, small and big, political and sports.
So I read "the known junta man Papadopoulos new district commander of Athens region !". Below that it said "it's yet another plan of the dark circles of disorder that will fail" !

So can that happen unbeknownst to the king ?
Really no.
The only explanation is this:
Without knowing Papadopoulos or his "brothers" personally he allowed them to command key posts.
So a dicatorship from the lower echelons of the military, but without him getting involved.
Is there any other explanation possible ?

So on the 21st of April the coup d' etat takes place and indeed the palace itself is surrounded.
What does Constantine do ?
Everybody is hiding the truth but here is what he did:
He calls upon the leader of the conservatives Panayiotis Kanellopoulos and says to him "listen here, whatever happens you and your party will have no relation whatsoever".
At the same time he manages to send a message to dame Vlachos the conservative press editor and says to her "close down your newspapers".
This last is imporant because just the day before she wrote this: "even a small dictatorship would n't be bad to get rid of the monster Andreas Papandreou" !
But now ordered by the king shuts down her newspapers and declares herself against the dictatorship !
After that king Constantine accepted to swear in the junta government and they were of course crazy people with fascist ideas.

It is mighty strange is n't it ?
But what was the plan ?
The plan was this:
Allow the Papadopoulos government to prevent the elections and to stay for three-four months in power.
Then kick him out.
Then replace them with the generals.
But the generals would not call themselves dictatorship. Rather something like "government of national conciliation".
After all this he reckonned the politicians would accept his terms, the elections could be held and things would become normal.

Well, this was the plan.

Now three months later, on June 15 they say, his advisers break the bad news to him:
"your majesty the plan has failed. Papadopoulos controls everything, we have no chance"
He did n't like this at all.
He started making small comments against the colonels in public, such as when he went to a UN meeting in New York and said "this is not my government".
Eventually he did try to overthrow them. The counter-coup of the 13th of December 1967.
It failed and many people call him "silly" and "incompetent" because of that.
But that's not the truth. The truth is he did not have enough loyal forces and the chances were slim.
Then he fled the country and went to Rome where he lived for the next seven years.

However it is from now on that he makes the big mistakes.
For seven years he says nothing.
In Greece he remains the king nominally until in 1973 the colonels organize a pseudo-referendum and depose him.
It is absurd but he said nothing !
Should have turned his Rome residence into a "radio freedom" but he did nothing.

At the same time Andreas Papandreou was making statements everyday from his exile in Canada.
Andreas Papandreou was detained briefly in 1967 but after the intervention of US president Johnson he was set free and went to Sweden and then Canada.
But the people of Greece were not really looking forward to Andreas Papandreou to liberate them from the junta,
Much much later, in 1981, Andreas Papandreou was made pm, but during the junta years it was different.
Andreas had not become unpopular but he was too radical to really have any hope so the best bet was Constantine Karamanlis.
Karamanlis lived in Paris and he too was making frequent statements against the junta.
Karamanlis was the Greek p.m. from 1955 to 1963. Used to be an ultra-conservative but not anymore. 
He condemned the junta and everyone saw in him the viable alternative.
Yet Karamanlis and king Constantine had a strange vendetta between them. They disliked each other intensely after an old quarrel !

So the king by staying silent precipitated his downfall.
Why did he do that ?
He already had an issue with the Papandreous and he was -of course- an anticommunist but why fail to at least partially remedy things ?

It's a mystery but I have the answer:
He believed in a sort of "Don Juan" solution !
Don Juan as we know was nominated heir to Franco sometime in the sixties. Throughout he planned to transform Spain into a democracy,
something that Franco did not really mind (I 'm the life long president he said and when I die who cares ...).
So Don Juan succeeded Franco peacefully and he even allowed the old regime to continue to exist for a little before beginning to restructure things.
Constantine in Rome was thinking along these lines, but it was a mistake - his really bad mistake.
It's true that he had supporters in Greece. Hero major Moustaklis who was paralyzed after the junta tortured him was a royalist. But Constantine himself remained silent.

The post junta events now are better known to you.
Junta collapses in July 1974, Karamanlis returns and there are nation-wide celebrations.
But they don't call the king to return as well !
Instead Karamanlis orders a referendum in December 1974 (proper this time) and also declares himself neutral as to the outcome of the referendum.
Result, king loses and he becomes a deposed king after that.

In those 49 years since to his credit he never caused problems.
He always condemned the junta and maintained his innocence. It happened without him knowing anything, he used to say (but after the event everybody says what he likes, the critics might argue ...).
He acted as the informal ambassador of Greece, helped bring the Olympic games in 2004.
Recently he spoke out against racism and the antics of the Golden Dawn ultras.

Those who hated him are two groups:
One is the Papandreou lovers. The other is the communists. But the communists hated him more because of 1949, when their invading army was defeated in the mountains, not for 1965.

My verdict is he was unlucky and he also made the wrong decision when he was in Rome.
Karamanlis could not find a way to prevent his return in 1974 if it was n't for that.

Edited January 22, 2023 by cosmicway

[Fulham Broadway 17,335]

If Germany sends Leopard tanks to Ukraine it will be German tanks killing Russians the first time since 1945. If the supply of more weapons doesnt work, the war will escalate. Everyone is talking up the war. hardly any voices about talking and peace. Putin has already threatened to nuke Paris, London, and the US. Dangerous times, increasing daily death toll, and who benefits ? Arms dealers.

[cosmicway 1,333]

5 hours ago, Fulham Broadway said:

If Germany sends Leopard tanks to Ukraine it will be German tanks killing Russians the first time since 1945. If the supply of more weapons doesnt work, the war will escalate. Everyone is talking up the war. hardly any voices about talking and peace. Putin has already threatened to nuke Paris, London, and the US. Dangerous times, increasing daily death toll, and who benefits ? Arms dealers.

NATO should have sent forces back in February last year.
There is n't a chance in a trillion Putin would invade.
Now Ukrainians are stuck in the south because they have to cross the Dnieper.
The Germans are scared.
N.b. there are no arms dealers of nukes.

[Fulham Broadway 17,335]

1 hour ago, cosmicway said:

NATO should have sent forces back in February last year.
There is n't a chance in a trillion Putin would invade.
Now Ukrainians are stuck in the south because they have to cross the Dnieper.
The Germans are scared.
N.b. there are no arms dealers of nukes.

Last time I looked Ukraine werent in NATO ?

Germans and many other millions are 'scared' - or being pragmatic.

Too many gung ho warmongers about

[cosmicway 1,333]

1 minute ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Last time I looked Ukraine werent in NATO ?

Germans and many other millions are 'scared' - or being pragmatic.

Too many gung ho warmongers about

If Ukraine was NATO they would be obliged by treaty.
But they could have sent forces. There is no way Putin would have dared.
Look, don't you realise Putin started his bullying after the pull out from Afghanistan ?
And then he did not strike immediately, he encircled Ukraine and only when he saw the response was tame did he attack.
This was a capital mistake and the surrender monkeying now is another capital mistake.

[Fulham Broadway 17,335]

40 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

If Ukraine was NATO they would be obliged by treaty.

But they are not. So the rest of your argument is speculative. 

[cosmicway 1,333]

19 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

But they are not. So the rest of your argument is speculative. 

It's not speculative.
They could also have been given express membership.
Anyway the "keeping NATO out" policy failed.

[Fulham Broadway 17,335]

59 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

It's not speculative.
They could also have been given express membership.
Anyway the "keeping NATO out" policy failed.

''could have'' is not where we are unfortunately

[cosmicway 1,333]

[Fulham Broadway 17,335]

36 mass shootings in the US in 2023 so far - now up to 39 in the last two days.  Another 350 to go then this year.

Time for a 2nd amendment amendment ?