Your local news

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Re: Your local news

Postby Marcuse » Tue Feb 21, 2017 2:22 pm

My understanding of the government's position on heterosexual civil partnerships is that they're claiming that because of the extension of marriage to same sex couples, that there's no longer any need for civil partnerships at all. Everyone should just get married.

That seems a really faint basis to uphold a logic that was most commonly used to oppose legalising gay marriage: that it's possible to define the sex of participants in a legal union in such a way to exclude certain couples. Civil partnerships are currently closed to heterosexual couples on the basis that they are only between two people of the same sex, the opposite of which was asserted in opposition to the legalisation of gay marriage (ie. Marriage is between a man and woman only).

As such, this appears to be a manifest injustice, flying in the face of the precedent set by the legalisation of same sex marriage, that one cannot specify the sex of participants to specific legal unions without discriminating and therefore treating people unequally. The upholding of the ban on heterosexual civil partnerships operates on the same logic.
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Re: Your local news

Postby Arkyle » Tue Feb 21, 2017 3:35 pm

I just have a guy waterskiing on a street being towed by a Landy...

Image

https://www.goodthingsguy.com/fun/bloemfontein-street-skiing/
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Re: Your local news

Postby Kivutar » Wed Feb 22, 2017 2:46 am

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Re: Your local news

Postby Absentia » Wed Feb 22, 2017 3:57 pm

Gov. McAuliffe vetoes bill to de-fund Planned Parenthood. I guess the Republicans thought maybe he'd changed his mind since last year, when he vetoed a similar bill.

I don't really like McAuliffe, but since the GOP has gerrymandered itself a perpetual majority in the legislature having a Democrat as governor is the last line of defense against their bullshit.
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Re: Your local news

Postby cmsellers » Wed Feb 22, 2017 5:39 pm

Nothing stands out in Austin particularly this week but three connected articles highlight a major issue Austin has.

A developer needs to get a piece of property rezoned for high-density development in order to build a development he was going to use to fund a center for adults with autism.

Another developer wins a lawsuit allowing him to build two homes on a lot instead of one, and the neighbors are hysterical about how this will ruin the character of the neighborhood.

Austin is slightly worse-than-average when it comes to pedestrian fatalities from motor vehicles in cities.

What's the common denominator in all of these stories? Austin is a sprawling city built around cars. On one hand, that means that it's a very green (in terms of the color, certainly not in terms of being ecologically-friendly) city, even apartment buildings are usually surrounded by grass and landscaping. On the other hand, it means that it sprawls out much more than it needs to, contributing to the infamous Austin traffic.
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Re: Your local news

Postby Aquila89 » Wed Feb 22, 2017 7:56 pm

Budapest will not hold the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Back in 2013, our government decided that we should hold the Olympic Games, because why not. However, in 2017 a civil organization started a petition to have a referendum in Budapest about the Olympics. Their main arguments were that we shouldn't spend money on this when education and health services remain in a terrible shape, and that the government would use it to steal public money. The Olympic Games give a great opportunity for this; that's why the 2014 Winter Olympics, held in Russia was the most expensive ever, far exceeding the costs of the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Well, our ruling party is pretty good at stealing as it is; I thought we should not make it easier for them, so I signed the petition. So did 266 thousand other people, far exceeding the 138 thousand to hold a referendum in Budapest. In the face of a losing referendum, the government decided to scrap the bid.

Hooray, I guess. Well, not really. They'll remain corrupt and the schools and hospitals won't get any better. At least they don't get everything they want.
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Re: Your local news

Postby gisambards » Wed Feb 22, 2017 8:11 pm

You really dodged a bullet there. Even besides the corruption issues, a nation holding the Olympic Games without proper financial control can really cause major damage. The poor handling of Athens 2004 contributed to the eventual meltdown of the Greek economy.
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Re: Your local news

Postby Albatross727 » Thu Feb 23, 2017 4:56 pm

The UK continues to be battered by Storm Doris. Seriously? That's even worse than Storm Barbara; at least with that one I could imagine Barbara Windsor chucking someone out of the Queen Vic.

In serious news the storm has caused one confirmed fatality, a woman was killed by flying debris while sitting outside Starbucks in Wolverhampton.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39060095

Transport and business has also been disrupted in various parts of the country.
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Re: Your local news

Postby Marcuse » Thu Feb 23, 2017 5:36 pm

I for one welcome our new Doris overlord.
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Re: Your local news

Postby Tuli » Fri Feb 24, 2017 11:42 am

Today is the 99th birthday of the Estonian Republic. Yay!

And here's some bizarre news relating to that. It's tradition that people place wreaths on the Independence War memorial monument. But this time, some people who wanted to place their wreaths on the monument before the president's ceremony were interrupted and their wreaths (temporarily) removed, supposedly so the president's wreath would be the first one, then other officials, and finally regular people. This hasn't really been the protocol in the past. What makes this weirder is that, according to the president's office, these instructions did not come from them and the president is now demanding an official explanation and apology for the incident. The military is in charge of organizing the event. Why they chose to implement this change now is anyone's guess, but it hasn't been received favorably by the public.
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Re: Your local news

Postby Albatross727 » Fri Feb 24, 2017 12:44 pm

Labour lost a by-election in Copeland to the Conservatives, a seat that Labour has held since 1935. Unsurprisingly this is being viewed as a damning indictment of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. Labour did manage to hold onto their seat in Stoke Central against a determined challenge from the new UKIP leader, Paul Nuttall, although some are saying this is more of a failure by UKIP (the party of Brexit) than a victory by Labour to hold a seat that voted 69% (81,563 to 36,027) to leave the EU.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39064149

I honestly don't know what to make of this one. For Labour to lose a seat they've held for 80 years while in opposition is simply inexcusable. Now you can blame Corbyn for being a hopeless leader, you can blame his MPs for consistently undermining him or you can blame the press for making him into public enemy number one, but sooner or later it always comes back to the man himself. I'm still a supporter of Corbyn, at least as far as his policies go, but if he can't lead the party to win elections then he is objectively failing as a leader. That said I don't want this to be the cue for the Labour right to bring back the Tory-light policies of Blair through Miliband.
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Re: Your local news

Postby gisambards » Fri Feb 24, 2017 1:23 pm

The Copeland loss is a clear rejection of Corbyn's brand of politics. It was very apparent that the people there simply did not feel represented by Corbyn and his people. This wasn't because of the press, or rebellious MPs. It was because an out-of-touch, patronising millionaire with feel-good rhetoric instead of actual ideas on how to improve things is not a good candidate for the working classes, no matter how much middle-class Corbynites try to tell them that's the case.
I think it's further telling of the dire straits the party is in that they're having to celebrate that at least they didn't lose both of their safe seats.
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Re: Your local news

Postby IamNotCreepy » Fri Feb 24, 2017 4:25 pm

gisambards wrote:It was because an out-of-touch, patronising millionaire with feel-good rhetoric instead of actual ideas on how to improve things is not a good candidate for the working classes...


Does that make for a good candidate? No. Can they still inexplicably get elected? See: Trump.
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Re: Your local news

Postby Aquila89 » Fri Feb 24, 2017 4:56 pm

gisambards wrote:You really dodged a bullet there. Even besides the corruption issues, a nation holding the Olympic Games without proper financial control can really cause major damage. The poor handling of Athens 2004 contributed to the eventual meltdown of the Greek economy.


Well, that's assuming that the IOC would've given the Olympics to Budapest over Paris and LA had we not withdrawn. Which I don't think is likely. This referendum was more about sticking it to the government. But we're saving money in any case, because the bid itself is already costly.
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Re: Your local news

Postby Tesseracts » Fri Feb 24, 2017 5:07 pm

So many people went to Castle Island yesterday that the news reported on it. The food place on Castle Island opened 2 days early, which is a big deal. The first costumer was a guy named "Fitzy," which may be the most Irish name I've ever heard. Everyone who went there yesterday was dumb enough to stand in line for an hour for a slightly cheaper hot dog. They could have just drove down the street and gotten food somewhere without a huge line. Which is anywhere. The only reason Sullivan's is famous is because it's old. It's not the best food, it's just the oldest food. So either Boston had a really slow news day yesterday, or everyone was exceptionally stupid yesterday, or both.

Castle Island is where everyone goes to play Pokemon Go. I really wanted to go yesterday, but I stayed home because I had stuff I wanted to get done at home. There was an Unown there. Unown is impossible to find. This isn't okay at all.

By the way Castle Island is a complete lie. It's not a castle, and it's not an island. It should be called fort peninsula.
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