Posted in: World's highest bridge opens in China See in context
Travelled through Guizhou last year and saw this bridge under construction; both the bridge and its surroundings are spectacular. In fact most of Guizhou is pretty spectacular, it could be a massive tourist draw but they need to sort a few things out (very few hotels are licensed for foreign guests, for example, and I trekked around a bunch of hotels and ended up being taken by the police to the only one in the area that could take me, which was a) way more expensive than i wanted or needed and b) very badly located for public transportation access to the places I wanted to visit, including a famous canyon near the above bridge... CCP's need for control trumping common sense, as per usual)
4 ( +4 / -0 )
Posted in: After Berlin attack, Europe weighs freedom against security See in context
Why do otherwise sensible people recoil at the mention of sensible immigration policies?
Tearing the EU apart because people are scared of terrorism isn't a sensible immigration policy; the likes of Farage and Le Pen wish to tear the EU up - not because they want sensible immigration policies, but because the EU is anathema to their worldview - and are playing on terrorism fears to achieve their goal by dressing it up in a veneer of only wanting to discuss sensible immigration policies. People in Barnsley voting to leave the EU in order to keep immigrants from Muslim countries out, for example, is a clear non-sequitur as the EU has nothing to do with immigration to the UK from Muslim countries.
This very worrying trend in Europe could have been avoided.
How though? Unless you're talking about the silencing somehow of Le Pen, Wilders, Farage et al, or you think you could have prevented the 2008 financial crisis, or you have the solution to the Syrian war and refugee crisis, I'm not sure what you're driving at. These politicians are using the financial crisis fallout and the Syrian war fallout to manipulate opinions, how do you suggest this could have been avoided?
-1 ( +2 / -3 )
Posted in: After Berlin attack, Europe weighs freedom against security See in context
Europe doesn't need to, and shouldn't, scrap Schengen; what it needs to do is a better job of policing the external Schengen border and preventing illegal immigration into the zone. Anas Amri wasn't a refugee, and Tunisians have no business claiming asylum in Europe, so it's right that his claim was rejected and a real shame that he wasn't deported in time before murdering a dozen people; but his act can't be pinned on Schengen, and the likes of Le Pen and Farage are a disgrace for seeking to score their nationalist political points from this attack.
2 ( +4 / -2 )
Posted in: Islamic State claims responsibility for Berlin Christmas market attack; driver still at large See in context
It doesn't take a "genius" to blow a hole right thru your arguments
My argument is that your statement about Beeston being a Muslim community is baloney, and have completely failed to blow any holes in that argument. Beeston is white working class; just admit that you don't know very much at all about Leeds and stop making stuff up about it in order to demonise Muslims, and if you're not big enough to do that I suggest you just stop talking about a place you know so little about.
As for the arrests you mention; what is your source for saying the lack of evidence was a result of lack of cooperation from their community? The lack of CCTV footage in London, for example, can't really be blamed on Muslims in Leeds, can it?
0 ( +1 / -1 )
Posted in: Islamic State claims responsibility for Berlin Christmas market attack; driver still at large See in context
Jeff,
Beeston is the hometown of the 7/7 bombers. They attended the local mosque
I'm well aware of that. The facts are correct, but your conclusion totally illogical and not fact based. Beeston is a white working class area, you just took a couple of facts and then jumped to a nonsense claim with them. Doubling down doesn't hide the fact that you don't know what you're talking about when it comes to Leeds and Beeston. I'm from there; I have actual memories of the swarms of armed police, closed roads, reporters, helicopters overhead, etc. But just as an IRA bomb in Manchester didn't make me irrationally fear all Irish or all Catholics or all white people, a handful of suicide bombers from Leeds doesn't make me irrationally conclude that all Muslims are terrorists to be feared. Yet that is your apparent logic. Again, your post is baloney.
not a single person was convicted for the most deadliest violence on British soil since World War 2
Because they blew themselves up genius.
Outrider,
It is you ignoring facts. The most difficult for you to explain is why you're so scared of all Muslims when in fact the Muslim population is over a billion, and the number carrying out terrorist attacks is <0.01% of that. My "delusional narrative" .is evidence based; yours is spin based.
0 ( +4 / -4 )
Posted in: Islamic State claims responsibility for Berlin Christmas market attack; driver still at large See in context
And some of the terrorists have received protection in large Muslim communities like Molenbeek and Beeston
I grew up a few miles from Beeston, and your statement is baloney. Beeston isnt remotely close to being a "large Muslim community"; it is overwhelmingly a white working class area. Have you ever even been to Leeds?
Many of those polls are conducted by the world's most reputable public research firms
And many of them are agenda-pushing non-research by drivelmongers like Breitbart.
Good research certainly does constitute evidence
Firstly, only if it's soundly conducted and reported (see above); secondly, I didn't say it wasn't evidence per se - I quite clearly said it wasn't evidence for the position Outrider was claiming. Again, whatever those polls say and however soundly or not they were conducted and however disengeniously they were spun (or not), they don't in any way constitute evidence us that terrorists are anything other than a tiny minority. To say that they do is unscientific, anti-factual, dishonest, and dangerous.
even if it does contradict or upset the narrative you've decided to follow
I'm not ignoring anything though, am I? I'm simply pointing out the flawed conclusions that some people jump to. You make a good point about contradiction of narratives; take the fact that many of the polls quoted above actually show things like Muslims reporting more pride in being British than the UK population at large, yet those quoting them are (of course) ignoring that side of them and choosing to fixate on the agenda-driven Breitbart quotes to push their chosen narratives.
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Posted in: Islamic State claims responsibility for Berlin Christmas market attack; driver still at large See in context
thoé polls reveal a shocking but inconvenient truth for those who like to charracterize the situation as the acts of a few muslims who are out of step with the rest of the muslim world
They do no such thing. A tiny - tiny - minority of Muslims engage in terrorist acts, and those opinion polls (however sensationally or misleadingly they may be spun) don't constitute evidence otherwise. These acts are the acts of a few.
I'm not saying radical Islam isn't a problem - it clearly is. But the narrative you're pushing, that all Muslims are a problem, is not only not the solution, it actually makes the problem worse by feeding into the us vs them mentality of radical groups. Don't do their work for them.
1 ( +4 / -3 )
Posted in: Islamic State claims responsibility for Berlin Christmas market attack; driver still at large See in context
@edward
We should all thank the USA and Obama for all the recent terrorist attack
Obama? No; we're now reaping what was sown by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Blair, with their illegal and unprovoked invasion of Iraq in 2003. I doubt you'd ever even heard of Obama in 2003.
So then the next option is sponsor ISIS
The US is sponsoring ISIS? Any evidence at all for that, or is it just what RT says?
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Posted in: 'Comfort woman' statue at Sydney church upsets Japanese-Australian community See in context
Japan was the only country that had not been taken over
Except Thailand, and Korea (which had been taken over by Japan), and Taiwan (which had been taken over by Japan), and Mongolia (which was then part of China), and of course most of China itself - except a few ports taken over by Europeans, and the massive chunk annexed by Japan.
This Japan the 'liberator' and Japan the 'victim' narrative doesn't really stack up against Japan's brazenly aggressive expansionist moves against its neighbours in 1895, 1910, 1932, and 1937.
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Posted in: 'Comfort woman' statue at Sydney church upsets Japanese-Australian community See in context
Realitycheck,
you don't deny or you can't deny? then did you make sincere apologies? when and how?
The UK doesn't deny. It doesn't deny e.g. Amritsar or Bloody Sunday, etc; while it hasn't formally apologised for everything, it acknowledges the events and doesn't deny them. My point is that Japan's revisionist denials and obfuscations are what brings about the pushback we see with statues etc
CH3,
The question is if you admit that you are responsible for the atrocities your nation did
That isn't the question at all. The question is if my nation acknowledges what it did.
1 ( +2 / -1 )
Posted in: 'Comfort woman' statue at Sydney church upsets Japanese-Australian community See in context
Yes but my point is that we (British) don't deny what was done (by Britain), so we don't get pushback from people trying to stop us denying it. And by extension, my point is that that is exactly why Japan gets confronted with these statues; if they weren't trying to deny and revise, it wouldn't be happening. So that's why I responded to your example of the Raj.
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Posted in: 'Comfort woman' statue at Sydney church upsets Japanese-Australian community See in context
Imagine for a moment you are a British citizen... and you are on holiday in India. How would you feel if people everywhere kept reminding you of how bad your ancestors were during the Raj?
I am British, I have been to India; Britain isn't in the habit of denying what it did in India, so India isn't in the habit of reminding them. Fairly simple really.
11 ( +13 / -2 )
Posted in: Putin himself involved in U.S. election hack: NBC See in context
Russia backing the odious regime of Assad. The USA backing rebels who make Assad look like an enlightened teddy ebar.
Is that a reference to ISIS, who the CIA clearly is not backing? Or do you mean the other rebel groups? Presumably the latter - so how do they make Assad look a teddy bear? Got any evidence showing they've killed more civilians than he has? I doubt it - you've just chosen the propaganda you wish to believe.
The real question is why on earth would yo take anything the CIA says at face value, especially with the present situation?
A good question, but why would you take anything that Trump, Breitbart, or mos of all Putin and the FSA say at face value?
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Posted in: 'Comfort woman' statue at Sydney church upsets Japanese-Australian community See in context
@jon_guy
Good comments. A point in response; you note that you found the plaques about the British at the Summer Palace to be informative and appropriate, but that you wouldn't be comfortable seeing the same plaques around the world. Fair enough; but then the UK doesn't have a government dedicated to denying or obfuscating the events in question or undermining the credibility of the accusations. That is exactly what Nippon Kaigi does, and a large chunk of the LDP are members, hence we get the denialist tone being set from the top for decades; if that hadn't been the case, the statues wouldn't have happened. The reason yamaoka doesn't like this isn't that it's intimidating for him, it's that he's trying to spread his revisionist position and this is the pushback.
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Posted in: Putin himself involved in U.S. election hack: NBC See in context
The convergence of pro-Putin and pro-Trump posts is a remarkable demonstration of the effectiveness of the Breitbart / RT media approach. I honestly can't tell who's a Trump-cheering Putinista, and who's a Putin cheering Trumpista; but my question is directed to the latter: prior to being told this year by Trump that Putin is awesome, surely you would have been appalled at the idea of US president getting into bed with Putin. No?
0 ( +3 / -3 )
Posted in: Putin himself involved in U.S. election hack: NBC See in context
Is it really worth going to war with Russian to get compliant candidate in the White House?
Russia is already going to have a compliant candidate in the White House.
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Posted in: Everest-conquering Japanese teen eyes explorers' 'Grand Slam' See in context
I think you're probably about right with those timings; and your "Commencing her Everest trip 2 days after leaving Mt. Elbrus" is a better way to describe that than the incorrect "two days later she was scaling Everest in Nepal" employed in the article. She likely arrived in Nepal - Kathmandu - 2 days later, but certainly did not scale Everest or even reach EBC for some time after that and certainly didn't make a winter ascent of Everest.
As for:
The month of March on Mt. Elbrus is still winter, winter lasts until April there, say the links I quoted
And quoting an Elbrus mountain guide website overrules the definition of winter?! Come on man, don't just quote anything on the first google result as gospel proof. By definition, April is in spring. This is determined by latitude, not by altitude. Yes, wintery conditions do persist into spring at higher altitudes, of course, but by definition winter is December - February; if she used the word 'winter' referring to March, fair enough I suppose, but if she'd tried an actual winter ascent in January she'd likely have perished.
Anyway my main quibble here was the confusing statements in the article about the dates, and I think we've got to the bottom of what she actually did.
0 ( +0 / -0 )
Posted in: Everest-conquering Japanese teen eyes explorers' 'Grand Slam' See in context
@Andrew Rouse
how does she afford the expenses of such trips at 19 years old
I'm wondering the same. The budget for what she's just done is a 6-figure amount. Pipe dream for most people, never mind most teenagers; as I said above, her determination is impressive but without equally impressive financial means the determination would count for little.
@lucabrasi
perhaps a straightforward confusion of "days" with "months"
Would explain it; like I said above, I didn't think the article was accurate about the dates, and that appears to be the case. A straightforward confusion of days with months shouldn't be happening in a news report!
@turbo
It's not calendar winter, it's weather winter
It's fair enough if she said winter about Elbrus in March - the confusion stems from the article saying 2 days instead of 2 months. But calendar winter / weather isn't a valid distinction to make re Everest; a winter ascent of Everest i.e. in January is absolute madness; that's why it's almost always climbed in May, in the short window after the severest conditions end but before the monsoon storms hit. Everest in May is still very much more severe than winter on most of the Earth, but that doesn't make it accurate to call a May ascent a winter ascent. It isn't.
My original point, that I didn't think it has been accurately reported that she climbed Elbrus in winter and then went to Everest 2 days later is born out by the dates you pulled from wikipedia. Thanks for digging those up; Elbrus in March and Everest in May makes sense; the article's description doesn't.
1 ( +1 / -0 )
Posted in: Everest-conquering Japanese teen eyes explorers' 'Grand Slam' See in context
Further to my last post; I'm not sure if I simply missed it or if the article has been updated since i first read it, but it does clearly say that she climbed Everest in May this year, not in winter. So something doesn't add up with her saying she climbed Elbrus in winter, and it saying she climbed Elbrus 2 days before going to Everest. A bad translation perhaps, or a misquote, or maybe she did actually say that even though she must've climbed Elbrus in April or May.
Anyway, still an impressive achievement whenever she did it.
0 ( +0 / -0 )
Posted in: Everest-conquering Japanese teen eyes explorers' 'Grand Slam' See in context
Strangerland,
I think it probably means she started climbing two days later, and that's probably two days after she completed her descent. Everest cannot be climbed in two days.
It takes around 10 days to reach Everest base camp from Lukla airport, and several more days to actually climb the mountain; clearly it isn't possible to climb Elbrus and Everest within a week, and as you say the article means she finished Elbrus and then travelled to nepal and started her trek to Everest 2 days later. That's plausible enough (though very expensive), and wasn't what I was questioning; rather, I was questioning the likelihood that she climbed Everest in winter. This is very, very, unlikely to be the case; yet it says that she climbed Elbrus in winter and then went straight to Everest. Highly unlikely. The Everest climbing window is in May.
Stat,
It doesn't say she summited Everest two days after summiting Elbus
No one said it said that.
2 ( +2 / -0 )
Posted in: Everest-conquering Japanese teen eyes explorers' 'Grand Slam' See in context
Bloody heck that's some going. All 7 in under 2 years, and Elbrus and Everest in the space of a week? The main thing required for this, even more important than determination, is a massive budget. She must be loaded! I doubt her single mentioned clothing sponsor covers all that much of the total cost.
As for it saying she climbed Elbrus in winter and Everest 2 days later, that seems most unlikely - a winter ascent of either is an extremely serious prospect, especially Everest, with an extremely high chance of proving fatal to even a highly skilled and experienced climber. I suspect that hasn't been accurately reported.
But with those two points made, very well done Marin and good luck for the final goal.
3 ( +3 / -0 )
Posted in: Matt Damon defends being cast for 'Great Wall' See in context
To those who find the idea of an English mercenary in (fantasy) ancient China offensive (despite it being perfectly plausible - far more so than dragons in ancient China) - did you also rail against the (also prefectly plausible) writing of a saracen (played by Morgan Freeman) into the Robin Hood story? If not, why not? I thought a saracen in Robin Hood was fine and I think an English mercenary in ancient China is fine.
It's not whitewashing to cast a white actor to play a white character. The issue here, if indeed there is one, is why did they bother to contrive a plot involving a white character in ancient China? The obvious answer is that they wanted to make an English language movie for greater international appeal and greater profits. Big deal? Not in my book.
2 ( +2 / -0 )
Posted in: Matt Damon defends being cast for 'Great Wall' See in context
Well I jolly well hope the dragons are all played by Chinese pixels to make up for this outrage
-1 ( +1 / -2 )
Posted in: Italian PM Renzi announces resignation after referendum defeat See in context
Again, all I'm doing here is pointing out that this was a domestic matter in Italy and not a plebiscite on the EU, despite how some are trying to spin it. Yes, Renzi shot himself in both feet; Italian politics has been a complete gong show for decades, this is but more of the same.
(Your closing sentence is completely unnecessary)
-2 ( +0 / -2 )
Posted in: Italian PM Renzi announces resignation after referendum defeat See in context
Again, there's no primarily about it.
I agree with you that Renzi was foolish to do this and brought about his own downfall. Doesn't mean that the EU is an Evil Empire run by Merkel, and I'll keep on pointing that out to those who huff and puff to that tune.
-2 ( +0 / -2 )
Posted in: Italian PM Renzi announces resignation after referendum defeat See in context
She's actually the chancellor of Germany. The next Italian PM will be decided by the Italian government, or by the Italian electorate if an election is called.
-2 ( +0 / -2 )
Posted in: Italian PM Renzi announces resignation after referendum defeat See in context
Why, have you appointed her as Grand Emperor of Eurolandia?
-2 ( +0 / -2 )
Posted in: Left-winger wins Austrian presidential vote See in context
Funk,
I feel bad for the people and the idiot racist politicians they have to deal with
Oh they dealt with him alright, by not electing him. He's accepted it graciously and lives to fight another day of course.
Stat,
You forgot to subtract the estimated 3M non-citizens voting illegally, that gives Trump a net +200K
There you go again repeating Trump's completely unsubstantiated, evidence-free alt right conspiracy theory propaganda nonsense, ad nauseum.
Not a tide of leftist populism
Obviously, no one is suggesting anything of the sort. Rather, this was an electorate rejecting a tide of rightist populism.
I have no idea why you're banging on about Austria's size.
5 ( +5 / -0 )
Posted in: Italian PM Renzi announces resignation after referendum defeat See in context
Another crack in the foundations of the Evil European Empire
There you go. It was a referendum on the Italian constitution, not on the EU, or even on your made up "Evil Empire"
1 ( +4 / -3 )
Posted in: Italian PM Renzi announces resignation after referendum defeat See in context
The referendum was focused primarily on constitutional reform
No 'primarily' about it; it was specifically a referendum on proposals forconstitutional reform. The far right are spinning this as another anti-EU victory to go with Brexit, but Italy's 60% no to constitutional reform voters doesn't equate to 60% far right supporters.
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Posted in: Biden vows to block Nippon Steel deal, seeks to triple tariffs on Chinese steel
Posted in: Japan opposition party to propose using BOJ's ETF dividends for child care
Posted in: In a future with more ‘mind reading,’ thanks to neurotech, we may need to rethink freedom of thought
Free market for me, zero for thee
Posted in: Biden vows to block Nippon Steel deal, seeks to triple tariffs on Chinese steel