Varana

Welcome to America. I agree - you would've thought that people would look to include non-CC options from the start after their first large campaign; this comes up every time. OTOH: PayPal has some restrictions and additional fees attached to it that make it a lot harder to use it for crowdfunding. If you can read German, here's a blog post from a German crowdfunding site about why they gave up on PayPal: https://www.startnext.com/blog/Blog-Detailseite/b/Warum-wir-PayPal-als-Bezahlmethode-abschalten-803 (In short: You have to have a verified PayPal account as a project creator, as well. The payment is reserved for when the campaign ends but without guarantee that the account still exists, has enough (or any) money in it to actually pay, or anything like that. There are tight limits on how much you may pledge and how often, how much you may include as a reward, and how many campaigns you may run at the same time. No crowd investment, like what Fig does. Also, there's a substantial cut that PayPal takes as a fee.) That article is from 2014, so maybe some things changed, but it's not that blame lies only with crowdfunding platforms, here. PayPal, for some reason, decided to be somewhat bitchy about the process. Also, payments via PayPal are consistently a lot less in all games I've seen numbers for. That may well be a chicken-egg issue (not having PayPal as an option leads to fewer people using it), but adding it in my experience doesn't change the outcome substantially, and might very well not be worth the hassle in the first days of setting up the campaign.

Nations are constructs, not natural things. Ethnicity is mainly a function of culture. New ethnic groups can separate from others, or people can pass from one to another. Religion is one aspect that may be a deciding factor in this process. It is a question of self-identification, not for others to tell them. So while there may have been a time when there was no Bosnian people, there is now. The same with Serbs. Or Norwegians, or whatever. Neither is it necessary that all members of an ethnic group live in the same state. Or a state of their own.

The first set of Ovtcharov vs Tokic ends on 31:33.

The ICTY also unequivocally states that the Serbian forces were guilty of ethnic cleansing and war crimes in multiple cases. They just didn't find that Milosevic personally approved of these things even though he knew what was going on. So, yeah. Good for him.

The EU doesn't grant them citizenship. But the point about the refugee camps is: Generally speaking, these countries are basically overwhelmed. The Lebanon is notoriously unstable, Jordan is almost completely desert, both countries suffer from weak economies, huge unemployment, and low income already, even without the Syrians. The largest part of the appalling conditions are not due to unwillingness but basically the inability to cope with this task. So I think it's quite unfair to blame these particular countries for what's going on. At least they don't shoot at refugees (looking at you, Turkey...)

One can make the assessment that Europe is rich and stable because they aren't controlled by extremists, be it of the Islamist, nationalist, Christian, communist or any other variety. Also, yes, numbers can be your friend. The EU has more than 500 million people, in 2015 there were 1 - 1.5 million migrants. Not all of them were Muslim, only a small minority of Muslims are "extremist Islamists". You can work out the percentages and stuff for yourself.

He was imprisoned and tortured for some time in 1949/1950. Nothing personal with Churchill (who wasn't even P.M. in these particular years), "just" British colonial regime.

The funny thing about that Churchill speech is that the UK is clearly meant to watch from the sidelines: Bearing in mind that that was a time when Britain still had some sort of Empire, even if he's already having delusions of grandeur there. :D But anyway: How far on the way to a United States the European project should go, has been a contested question from the start. And many of the inconsistencies and flaws of the current system stem from that tension: That those who drove for an ever closer union and those who wanted to limit the EU to an economic union, had to compromise somewhere. Both positions have been prominent (with everything in between), and up to now, no one has found any reasonable way of dealing with that conflict. When it comes to Muslim-majority states accepting refugees, we shouldn't overlook the tremendous load that states like Jordan, Lebanon, and even Turkey are bearing (for Syria and, to a lesser extent, Iraq), or that millions of Afghan refugees live in Iran, and so on. Ranting about the Gulf monarchies is all fine*, but complaining that Muslim countries don't do anything, is, in this general sense, simply wrong. Compared to the consequences of the Syrian crisis for already poor and conflict-ridden states like Syria's neighbours, the influx of refugees into Europe, one of the most absurdly rich and stable parts of the planet (and that includes, let's say, Bulgaria), is kind of ridiculous. That refugees were brought to Germany as workers, or something like that, has been mentioned now and then. I seriously doubt that it was ever a major reason for presenting a more welcoming image. I wouldn't be surprised if the origins of that thought already came from opponents of the refugee policy, mostly from the left-wing or anti-capitalist side of the spectrum. Germany had done something like that quite extensively in the past (inviting workers from Southern Europe and later Turkey) but that was when jobs, even in manufacturing, required a lot less education and language skills, and it's broad consensus that there have been substantial mistakes in dealing with those invited. After all, it's quite clear that integrating refugees into the workforce will take its time, is a much more difficult way of getting people you want (in contrast to, e.g., actual immigration), and last but not least, Germany already has open borders with almost all of Europe, so if conditions are right, people will and can come. And you can blame Merkel of many things, but stupidity is rarely among them.

Source for that claim? I certainly don't doubt that there are a lot of refugees with mental problems - coming from a war zone, losing family, taking the grueling pseudo-Darwinian route to Europe ("only the strong survive")... How does someone know that "a lot" fake that?

Where is "here" where you're reading this? Ethnic, maybe. Religious, not really. Bullying, mostly. I find that apparent need to put this into a religious context interesting. Why? We can probably infer from his parents being Iranian and his name, that they are Shiite Muslims. That's all. Absolutely no information we have up to now suggests anything about the boy being motivated by religion. The same goes for the bullying. Then why depict it as such?

What is "part Islamatic" supposed to mean? As far as we know, religion didn't play any role in what he did. He also didn't "try to murder strictly Turkish people", that's just BS.

In some cases, that's a bit of an hen-and-egg problem. If you're suicidal, and happen to be Muslim, Islamic extremism is a rather obvious direction to go for getting maximum attention. In all of those recent cases, the guy who did it was quite unhinged in the first place. Even in Munich, which - as far as we know - had nothing to do with religion or politics at all, people suspected Islamic terrorism, even going as far as fake-reporting "Allahu akbar" cries. If you want attention, this is a very easy way to get it, and if you're looking for easy answers to complex problems and personal issues, fundamentalism of your preferred ideology is an obvious choice. Also, Islamic extremism has succeeded in what basically is creating a terrorism franchise. I don't think that something like that has existed before. The first to achieve this were probably al-Qaeda; now ISIS has eclipsed them both in outreach and on the extremism scale. Together with their sometimes quite professional presence in social and even classical media, ISIS managed to almost monopolise Islamic terrorism. For that reason, attacks that might have been seen as separate or only superficially linked contribute to a feeling of deliberate warfare, esp. as we're prone to look out for connections and causality. And ISIS would like us to think so - that way they have managed to get way, way more influential and to appear much larger than they actually are. That war exists, sure, but it's too easy to just file every similar case under the same general heading and assume that we're dealing with them in an appropriate manner if we're acting on sweeping generalisations. That said, contemporary Islam has, of course, a serious problem with extremism and terror. But in today's atmosphere, with the demand for conclusive answers instantly from overwhelmed and underinformed journalists, with the echo chamber of social media, and the rise of the politics of fear and feelings (seriously, Colbert's "Trumpiness" is a brilliant analysis, not only of Trump), it's becoming increasingly difficult to actually look at things in context and perspective without being drowned out by the screaming and yelling from the sidelines. We live in an unbelievably complex and interconnected world. Every time someone has an easy answer, you can bet he's dead wrong.

He did try to lure people there - how many of those reading this were his actual acquaintances, remains to be seen, as he used a fake Facebook profile (made-up name, history and pictures and things copied from elsewhere). Also, none of those killed seem to have been in contact with "him" (i.e. the girl he posed as on FB). Once there, he apparently fired randomly at people.

Not an immigrant. I wouldn't put it past them. :D Edit: "Amok" (at least as used in Germany) and premeditation are not mutually exclusive. In Germany, "running amok" is not necessarily spontaneous; in fact, the more prominent similar incidents (school shootings in Erfurt and Winnenden) were very much planned in advance. "Amoklauf" in Germany is basically a killing spree, usually ending in the suicide or planned death of the perpetrator.

The perpetrator apparently had collected material about various killing sprees in recent years, Breivik's only one of them although of course prominent. A "link" is not the same as "basically identical". The link has apparently more to do with planning and how to go about a mass killing, not with motives or victims. http://pastebin.com/QE9RviaS (I don't speak German, so I can't vouch for the fidelity of the transcript) It's basically correct, with a few more obscenities and "a-holes" and "wankers", but nothing substantial. Anyway - that's a real gem: I highly doubt that there's anything the BND has "under tight control", including its own people, activities, and public relations. :D

The Turkish military has seen itself traditionally as the protector of Kemalist laicism, an ideology that has been steadily abandoned by Erdogan's rule in the last few years. Erdogan has made quite a lot of progress in bringing the military under civilian rule, bringing supporters of his into positions of power in the same time. If some in the military wanted to use the armed forces to reinstate Kemalism and curtail the AKP's Islamist policies, they had to act soon - in fact, the putsch probably has shown that the majority of the military was not prepared to do that, any more, for various reasons. But as far as we know, the insurgents have said very little about their aims, yes. So while the coup d'état may resemble earlier ones, it remains speculation that that is the case. It's been a gift to Erdogan, though, that's certain. I don't think the existence of a list of judges to be fired proves anything, though. The conflict with real and perceived supporters of Gülen is nothing new, and they probably would've looked for reasons to fire those people in the next months or years, anyway; the coup just provided the opportunity to speed things up, considerably.

Really? That's neither evil nor edgy, that's... yep, Blackadder is an apt comparison. "Ok folks, another village ahead. There are 347 subjects in this locale, 295 of whom should be welcoming our arrival - Jay, you'll be counting. Here's Zed; he's our local Watcher. According to his reports, the village elder's daughter doesn't wear the prescribed colour of the day most of the time. Two subjects ran away three weeks ago; there are 17 relatives remaining in the village. Six days ago, a troupe of strangers passed through; Zed has the names of those who talked to them. He also managed to listen in to several conversations complaining about our weather plan for this year and expressing dissatisfaction with the Second Vizier's hunting expedition last week. Remember that our target for tonight is in the 36 to 48 range. With the culling of the obviously tainted ones, we should manage to get most of these. For the rest, we need to give the villagers the opportunity to restore the purity of their community by working closely with us. Remind them that the service in the Swarm is an honour. And refrain from any irregularities, as the Divinity commands."

The drama over these things is usually way, way exaggerated. "Unplayable", "there's still bugs in it so it sucks", "completely broken" - jeez, you really need to get your priorities straight. And if you're going to get worked up that much, do it over something important, like world hunger or stuff. In this case, though, there is some reason to be slightly irritated. The bug was known (and acknowledged by a developer), the patch was in beta for quite a long time, and generally, why even do a "beta" when nothing changes anyway? At least some remark along the lines of "didn't fix Confident Aim because reasons" would've been nice. Generally, though, the support for PoE has been quite satisfactory. :D

Ukraine is a topic for another thread, just this: Yep, "meddling" is rather inadequate a word to describe an invasion of another country, annexing its territory, treating it as part of your "natural sphere of influence", and waging a semi-delared war there with thousands of casualties. I just borrowed Junai's words there.

Junai: It is one of the EU's main problems that many voters don't realise how important and influential European elections have become. It is not the fault of the European Parliament if voters don't know what they're voting for. Contrary to earlier elections, the European parties (at least the two main ones) prominently featured their candidate for Commission President. In contrast, how not to democratically elect a country's leader, has been clearly demonstrated these last days in Britain - a bunch of shady back-benchers whittle down a list of contenders, and the last one standing simply got the job handed over by a Prime Minister who was "elected" because his party got a majority of seats with just 37% of votes in an election that was held under very different circumstances, so probably doesn't really represent the people's will anymore. Compared to that, Juncker's election was a pinnacle of democracy and transparency. (I don't suggest that it was. It's just standard procedure for a representative democracy, and there's way worse systems in place in various member states. Like, the UK.) The EP can introduce legislation indirectly (by requesting that the Commission propose a law), and of course they debate about laws put forth by the Commission. In the vast majority of them, they have to find a compromise that both Parliament and Commission accept (like in the US, where Senate and Representatives have to agree on a law), and in almost all others, they can veto the Commission's or Council's proposal. Sure, that's not equal to what a national parliament can do. But then, the EU is not a state but a confederation of sovereign states. In that regard, I am very much in favour of reforming the EU - to shift the balance of power even more away from the nation states and towards the Union, and away from the Council (that is, the national governments, where much of the power lies at the moment) and towards the European Parliament. Unfortunately, that's still a long way off. Because usually the same people who complain about these problems are the very ones who resent reforming the EU to give more power to the Parliament, to limit states' veto powers, to restrict the influence of the national governments. Regarding the Lisbon treaty - yeah, right. Voting against a treaty that would give the elected representatives more power. Great move. An EU army - why not? It's not really necessary, though - we're way better off with NATO, anyway. Especially when it gets to standing up to Putin's meddling in Ukraine.

Kingston-upon-Hull should leave the UK and govern itself, probably. Extremism and rhetoric - the lead-up to the referendum was quite nasty, in comparison to what people are used to. Not Trump levels, but nonetheless. (And while I personally think that the majority of the blame lies with the Brexiters, there was a lot of idiotic fearmongering and outlandish claims by Remain people, as well, not least because the campaign was so disgustingly inept and terribly half-a**ed.)

I can only assume that you're not from planet Earth, as the "EU" you talk about has nothing to do with the one we have here. The EU is just as natural and "organical" as the nation state. Europe has a long history of close contact between peoples, constant migrations, cultural exchange, cosmopolitanism, common values, coexistence of ethnic groups, religions, and traditions. It has also a long history of the negations of all those things, and the bloodiest and most destructive times were those where disunity and nationalistic fervour were at their height. The EU is the attempt to draw on the former and further cooperation and coexistence under a common roof. It is a common project of the peoples involved, not the bogeyman of centralisation some people put forward. The EU is a step in consolidating the common European heritage in a world where it becomes increasingly difficult for small states to stand on their own, and where these positive aspects of European history are still under threat - not in the least from those within Europe who thrive on antagonism, factionalism, and conflict. P.S. As someone who usually votes conservative in Europe, I would very much appreciate it if Meshugger's position were not called "conservative". One of the core beliefs of European conservativism, as I see it and has been in my country for the last 60 years, is exactly the support for European integration and unity.

The erosion of nation states is exactly the thing we need. We need not forget that the nation state was a much bigger destroyer of languages, customs, traditions and ethnic groups. The construct of a unified French, German, British, Polish, Italian, etc. nation is nothing "natural", it is an effect of the 19th century nationalistic movement. Modern society with large-scale mobility (even within one country), unprecedented means of communication, very influential mass media, and so on is a much bigger factor of levelling differences between regions and classes, than government ever is. Most governments today explicitly support regional traditions, minority languages, and specialist economies. That is a new development; a few decades ago, national governments did the exact opposite and actively tried to suppress minorities (look at the Welsh language, for example). It is an example where we have overcome the destructive effects of the ideology of unified nations and found a better solution. And that is what we need in Europe.

Sharp_One: Why do you change from Juncker to Tusk, now? In the last elections to the European Parliament, the political parties (i.e. the European alliances, like EPP and PES) very clearly said that if they got a majority, Juncker or Schulz (or others, though only these two had any real chance of getting elected) would be confirmed as President of the Commission. Yes, technically, he is nominated by the Council but he has to be confirmed by the Parliament - just as in Poland, technically the President appoints the Prime Minister who has to be confirmed by the Sejm. Juncker is as democratically elected as most other European prime ministers. The President of the European Council (i.e. currently Tusk) has basically no political power. It is an internal post: He has to mediate between the members of the Council but he has no vote himself. As such, it makes much more sense that the members of the Council agree on someone to take that job because in the end, it's only them who have ever to deal with him. (And to point that out again: The members of the Council are the democratically elected governments of the member states.) He is a prominent figure but without much real power - just like many heads of state in Europe. That the European Parliament had "barely any power" is one of the great misconceptions about Europe. In fact, it has a lot of power - it's just that most people tend to ignore that. And the blame for the EP having less power than desirable lies with the national governments. That the Council has a lot of power: the national governments are to blame. Electing a government which tries to limit the influence of the European institutions and then complaining about their lack of power is dishonest. Meshugger: No, the way it should be, in a few decades, is a closer union. The nation state was a somewhat decent idea (at least sometimes) - in the 19th century. Ultimately it led to the self-destruction of Europe, twice. We should try to find something better.

When did you vote for Szydło? Never. When did you vote for any specific government minister or bureaucrat? Never. But you voted for PiS (or another party) that got the majority and therefore usually confirms the Prime Minister. The election of Juncker worked exactly the same way. The large political parties in Europe ran with Juncker, Schulz, etc. as their top candidates for the job, and because the EP has to confirm anyone appointed as president of the Commission, the candidate of the majority got the job. That works almost exactly as it does in Poland. So - everyone who voted in the last EP elections voted for the Commission president, as well. For the rest, see Elerond's post above.