XXL
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Posts posted by XXL
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On 6/15/2020 at 2:26 PM, horn said:
Japan, Australia & NZ, you're next to feast on Chlorinated chicken!
Basic food standards under threat from US trade deal
Government backtracks on legal protection for safety and animal welfareHormone-treated beef, pigs and chlorinated chicken could soon be on the menu and on supermarket shelves.
The trade agenda is moving at pace – talks with the US and Japan are underway, while negotiations with Australia and New Zealand are right around the corner too. The US trade talks are the most advanced and today, the government begins its second round of negotiations with the US. Everything’s on the table – including our food. Up until now, the government has said it will uphold our food safety and animal welfare standards. But this week, it started to backtrack on this.
https://www.which.co.uk/news/2020/06/basic-food-standards-under-threat-from-us-trade-deal/
Che schifo
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On 6/15/2020 at 2:13 PM, horn said:
Since when I said China is decent or good?
All are equally bad but Dumpster is even worse.
One gets condemn by the western media while the other almost walk free?
Why the one sided opinion?
Talk about "bullying", when Dumpster wanna kill Huawei (in order to win the trade war) just because of speculation of backdoor hacking (till this date US has yet to publish any concrete evidence... remember what US said about Iraq WMD?), he told his allies (Australia, Canada, UK, Italy etc) to do so and threaten them that he will impose sanction if they don't follow his order.
This is "bullying".
Mind you, Cisco from US, has 10 times more proven & documented backdoors than Huawei (Remember Snowden? He leaked about NSA planted backdoors in Cisco products, that's why US wanted him dead so badly) but you don't see them accusing Cisco? Why? Because it's a US product and you don't see China banning Cisco.
And when Australia bans Huawei to please his master Dumpster, China had to retaliate to protect themselves instead of allowing others to stab on them freely without any consequences.
This is not "bullying".
Why are Dumpster allies closing one eye on whatever Dumpster had done? Middle eastern countries have worse human rights record than China (Women in China can drive, can be a CEO, can drink, and wear anything they like etc) but you don't see Dumpster condemning them. Dumpster addresses them as an ally openly. Since Saudi is a "friend" of Dumpster, he's also a friend of Dumpster's allies.
And yes, I don't know why you keep painting western countries as some beacon of decency too.
Substitute Dump with USA governments/CIA and you have a more accurate picture. What you have described and the feudalism mechanisms that tie other Western countries to the US is a broader American Foreign Policy issue, not just a Trump one. The US knows China is threatening to end its economic and energy resources monopoly on the world, it just all stems from that
That doesn't mean that China isn't an autocracy of course but the way US governments and its secret service agencies run the world is not any less murderous, corrupt and based on sheer lies, irregardless of what the UN has to say, in fact the UN have become a mere decoration of what was once supposed to be the voice of the ENTIRE world. Not the US and Israel's puppet
That we are even having this conversation is astounding, the West is in the wrong just as much as China and Russia are
You cannot be an ally and sponsor of Saudi Arabia and reclaim some sort of sainthood for yourself. Saudi Arabia, the mother of Al Qaeda and ISIS
But yes keep playing tricks to save an (imposed) reserve currency ($) that's doomed to collapse regardless. Fact is that the US doesn't want Europe to tie any relation with the rising East. They use the same pathetic tactics they've used in South America for decades. "You're either with us or you're dead"
Anyway, anybody who voted Brexit voted for more of the above, wittingly or unwittingly, i.e more bullying from the United States of America, Trump or not
From food poisoning and allowing carcinogenic crap like Monsanto to invade European tables to more acts of violent military aggression
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While Spain’s existing self-isolation requirement is due to be lifted on Sunday for many nationalities, the government in Madrid is indignant that its citizens must quarantine on arrival in Britain – even though Spanish rates of infection are much lower.
Spain is the favourite overseas destination for UK holidaymakers.
Arancha Gonzalez Laya told HardTalk: “We will be checking what the UK will be doing.
“We will be in dialogue with the UK to see whether or not we should be introducing reciprocity as they have different measures than the rest of the EU.”
There is general bemusement in many European countries that the UK introduced quarantine at a time when its infection rates are much higher than those in almost all other countries.
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New Zealand ends Covid-free run with two cases from UK
Pair drove nearly 650km to visit dying parent after being released early from quarantine but officials claim public were not at risk
New Zealand has recorded its first new cases of coronavirus for 24 days after two women who arrived in the country from Britain were found to be infected.
The pair were released early from government quarantine and permitted to drive from the city of Auckland to Wellington, the capital – nearly 650km away – before being diagnosed or even tested, health officials said.
Their trip was an approved exemption from the mandatory isolation period for new arrivals to the country in order to visit a dying parent. The women had “done everything right” and had not put other members of the public at risk, said Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand’s director-general of health, on Tuesday.
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Spain may quarantine British visitors in response to UK policy
Foreign minister says coronavirus situation worse in UK as Spain reopens borders
Spain is considering introducing a quarantine rule for UK visitors when the country reopens its borders to EU and Schengen area members on Sunday, the foreign minister has said.
Arancha González Laya said the measure was being considered in response to the British government’s decision to require all international arrivals into the UK, including returning British residents, to self-isolate for 14 days.
“We will be checking what the UK will be doing and we will be in dialogue with the UK to see whether or not we should be introducing reciprocity as they have different measures than the rest of the EU,” she said on the BBC’s Hardtalk programme
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On 5/31/2020 at 3:35 PM, Butter9 said:
I had an opportunity to be one but I didn't take it . At that point in my life I could not see myself living anywhere but in Thailand
I see
You did what you felt was best for you at the time
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A cargo ship keeps trade going during the Covid-19 lockdown. The government is preparing to complete a trade deal with the US that will hit food standards and British farmers
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Covid is getting the headlines, but a trade agreement with the US is fast taking shape. And it does not look like a good deal, says FRANCIS BECKETT.
https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/donald-trump-us-trade-deal-with-uk-1-6689064
Britain is being fattened up for a trade deal with Donald Trump designed to strengthen his chances of re-election in November.
The latest move is the Agriculture Bill, which has passed all its stages in the House of Commons and is due for its second reading in the House of Lords on June 10, and which effectively removes both food standard safeguards and protections for British farmers.
Its significance lies, not in what it says, but in what it does not say. The most important farming legislation in generations, it was the opportunity to replace EU food safety standards and protections for rural industries with a home-grown version.
Neil Parish, Conservative MP for Tiverton and Honiton, tabled an amendment to protect UK farmers from low-standard food imports. It would have prevented future trade deals from allowing food into the UK which was not produced to the standards required of our own producers.
The government ensured its defeat by 328 to 277 votes. Parish could muster only 22 Conservative colleagues to vote for it. And only one brave Conservative MP – Helen Grant, MP for Maidstone and the Weald – voted against the unamended Bill. Conservatives with rural constituencies, who have previously expressed serious concerns about the Bill, fell into line.
A former Ulster Unionist MEP, Jim Nicholson, says it is potentially “the last nail in the coffin for agriculture in Northern Ireland” because “it opens the floodgates to cheap food imports into the UK from around the world. This food will not have been produced to the same standards achieved consistently by farmers in Northern Ireland.”
This means, among other things, the famous chlorinated chicken. An RSPCA report explains: “The problem the EU has with chlorinated chicken is that antimicrobial treatments can be used to compensate for poor hygiene along the supply chain, particularly on farms for example. Ever since 1997, member states of the EU have refused to accept imports of chlorine-treated poultry and this has been a point of contention with the US. The EU maintains that chemical washes are a form of quick-fix covering up for lower treatment standards, including lower animal welfare standards.”
US chickens are raised in such cramped conditions that the only way to stop them arriving on our dinner tables diseased is to dunk them in chlorine
The government has pressed ahead despite opposition from all the food producers, including the British Poultry Council and even the National Farmers’ Union, normally a loyal Tory ally. “The most significant deficiency with the Bill is the absence of any commitment or means of upholding British farming production standards in the context of international trade negotiations” an NFU statement says.
“The NFU believes that it would be futile to develop a comprehensive and ambitious domestic support policy, simply for UK farmers’ efforts to be undermined through the importation of products not produced to the same level of environmental or animal health/welfare standards expected of them domestically.”
Farmers Weekly columnist Jacob Anthony puts it bluntly: “The fact that the majority of the people running this country are happy to use agriculture as a bargaining chip has left me and many other farmers furious.
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UK on track to become 51st state of America under Boris Johnson
Francis Beckett’s article “We’re being fattened up for a one-way deal with Trump” was depressing enough, but added to Boris Johnson’s love for all things American, as quoted in his book Life in the Fast Lane, it becomes extremely alarming.
There is no point in asking Boris to stand up for Britain as he would evidently be happy for the UK to become the 51st state of the union.
A campaign as forceful as that which opposed TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) is needed urgently, and this time the UK won’t have partners in Europe to work with. Conversations with friends and letters to local media must give this wide exposure, as well as pressure on one’s own MP.
The virus will eventually end but a trade deal with Trump’s US will change our politics and society forever. We must resist.
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17 hours ago, VogueMusic said:
This shit drives me CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The amount of people I see on social media flocking back to beaches and lakes and restaurants is fucking INSANE. It's like, people just think 'hey, it's summer. Fuck it.' Like the whole thing is over.
No social distancing. No masks. No nothing. WTF?????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Quite amazing how utterly selfish and careless humans are...I'm truly at the point where I don't think we are intelligent enough anymore as a species to survive...anything.
IKR
But British media was to worried with this kind of titles rather than questioning their own government demential Comedy Central handling of this emergency, then and even more today. The BBC top of the list
Isn't it ironic?
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On 6/7/2020 at 6:54 PM, Kim said:
Well, I think that WAS Django's original point. Anyway, the "this country isn't quite as bad as that country" stuff is just a distraction. Institutional racism is everywhere, the tiny bit we happen to see filmed on mobile phones these days is nothing compared to what's actually going on, not to mention the really insidious, sneaky racism that almost goes unnoticed but is threaded through so much of society. One could almost say at least the US is honest about it, right there in broad daylight...
I agree that there are forms of insidious, sneaky racism here. I was not stating that Europe is racism free
I was trying to make a point about the drastic difference between the US and Europe, to have no accountability for police forces is not the same as living in a place that guarantees it.
You cannot shoot unarmed black people and be sure to walk away scot free. Also in Europe you don't have that toxic firearm culture
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On 6/7/2020 at 8:57 PM, Raider of the lost Ark said:
Well, I would like to argue that Germany is no more racist than any other country in the EU. But there is no question the UK and the USA is far more racist than Germany
And for very specific historical reasons. That's why they work well together and occasionally team up on bogus brutal empire wars. On top of sponsoring one of the worst rogue states in the world. Saudi Arabia, a country that is de facto the incubator for ideological and material terrorism
The governments, not necessarily the people, although obviously you can have large segments of the population who might be racist
Racism and any feeling of hatred, any negative emotion or seeking to harm others for the sake of it can be found anywhere, it's part of the dark side of human nature. It is not based on nationality and casting stones is somewhat tricky because history teaches otherwise
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On 6/7/2020 at 6:40 PM, karbatal said:
I don't agree with much, but this is not the thread.
The point is that these demonstrations would be incredibly positive if focused on black or brown people being attacked, killed or let alone to die in our own countries.
What's the point of marching if not?
The point of marching is to highlight the racism present here too and there should be more marches of course but to say those Floyd marches over here in Europe are hypocritical because we don't march enough for other forms of racism it is wrong imo. And if you're disagreeing about the role of Italy welcoming people in during the past 25 years you're completely off the mark
It started with the 90s Yougoslavia situation and continued with the destruction and subjugation of the Middle East sold to the Western masses under a false guise
It was only in 2015 with the Syrian refugee situation that Northern European countries started to understand that it is not only something that needs to be dealt with by Southern European countries. And Merkel taking in 1m refugees etc
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9 minutes ago, karbatal said:
Yes, it's a very different situation. But Italy has precisely shown the worst face of racism this past year with Salvini blocking the landing of refugees and even shrugging when they were being left to die. The Spanish NGO boat rescuing those migrants from the sea was even facing an Italian trial, accused of helping the human trafficking mafias.
Every country has a racist and xenophobic story that's being exacerbated these past years. Sometimes it's a policeman suffocating an unarmed man. Others, letting people die.
In Spain illegal immigrants from Central Africa were sleeping on the streets near big slaughterhouses during the lockdown because they had no job and no house.
Just a reminder
Italy is the one country in Europe that has done the most to take in more refugees than any other country in Europe in the past 25 years, when in the mid 90s the Mediterranean Sea was being turned into a graveyard and of course Northern European countries were dead silent, to not even mention Britain that's always enjoyed keeping one foot in its former colony the US (while continuing to exploit all of its Commonwealth territories) and one foot in Europe, and we all know how that's ending up ...
If Salvini did what he did it doesn't mean that Italy as a whole is massively racist, mind you the current prime minister was in government with Salvini and he enjoys good to great international approval ratings
Also do please remember that many of those NGOs are involved in human trafficking and are involved with George Soros foundations who back in 1992 profited from the collapse of the London Stock Market by a one billion
figure, so not exactly Santa Claus
In any case this was not the issue being discussed here, the point WASN'T that instances of racism do not exist in Europe as well, but that in the US it's a broad daylight, cold blooded, weekly, almost legalised system and what armed forces can do there and are allowed to do there versus what they are actually allowed to get away with here
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1 hour ago, jonski43 said:
Nobody has said there isn't racism in Europe. There is, but, once again, the continued, frequent gunning down of black people by American cops for literally nothing and clearly supported by government is something way beyond anything seen here.
This
I'm speaking for Italy specifically now
If a cop starts shooting in the street indiscriminately, for no reason, he or she will be arrested, prosecuted and go to jail. And it's vastly the case for most of Europe.
Racism does exist EVERYWHERE duh
John Wayne's weekly, state sponsored and totally unaccountable shoot out only happen somewhere else. There's a significant difference
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4 hours ago, jonski43 said:
This!
The police are so much better in Europe. The UK police aren't even armed most of the time. We cannot compare our forces to those of the US where black people are being slain for 'looking suspicious'.
If just one of these crimes happened here, the country would be in uproar.
But this goes right to the top in the US and ties in with gun control, the NRA, white supremacists with Trump at the top.
And I don't see how it will improve. I still think Trump could win the next election.
Totally
I'm sorry but to say the US and Europe are on the same level of tolerated, state sponsored, unjustified violence is utterly false. Also, European leadership does not know an equivalent body to the NRA holding them perpetually hostage, with which they'd happy to do business with and take money from for electoral purposes
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2 hours ago, karbatal said:
Guys please... Maybe violent racism is not as normal as in the USA but Europe is incredibly racist. Look what happened with the refugees. The illegal immigrants from central Africa being exploited in Spanish fields. The corona cases in slaughterhouses in Germany where immigrants lived in horrid conditions. Even then economic racism against South European countries from northern countries. And I'm not touching the UK issues with black communities, where children die by the dozens by stabbing from different gangs. In Paris during lockdown there were revolts in the neighbourhoods where poor Muslim people suffered brutality from police when asked why they were on the street.
That's why I find a bit hypocrite some of those marches for Floyd here in Europe.
Karbatal I disagree
My premise wasn't at all that racism isn't present in Europe or that we don't have nationalist, populist or downright racist parties, I've said what's been going on on a regular basis in the US for years, i.e. unarmed black people being shot for no reason at all or teenagers armed to the teeth shooting down everyone they can hit in high schools it is absolutely not the norm.
You can't compare shooting someone unarmed for "looking suspicious", and it's more often than not if they are black, to the examples you produced in the above post
The police here have to abide by a certain code of conduct. In the US there's no code to begin with. Huge difference.
Can you imagine here a policeman chocking someone to death in broad daylight and not being immediately arrested? With visual document of the crime to boot. Absolutely not. There are no comparisons to be made
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10 hours ago, VogueMusic said:
Another one sounding the alarm -
Ex-Defense Secretary: White House Is ‘Leading Us Down The Trail Toward A Dictatorship
https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/william-cohen-donald-trump-dictatorship-081355341.html
There you go
Awful but definitely a possibility
I cannot believe that after everything that's happened in the past five months alone between the arbitrary killing of that top Iranian military official, internationally condemned, then the global health scare and now his current handling of the George Floyd's case he still stands a chance at re-election
Either way I have some sort of ominous feeling that, considered the radical split of the population between nutters and fanatics of all types who are emboldened by Trump's madness and the sane part of the population, whether Trump ends up winning or not, the US will be going down a long and tumultuous period of civil unrest.
It's fucking scary and inexplicably bizarre when you think about all the progress made in the 20th century on many issues, yet here we are, 20 years into the new millennium and it's like we're heading over a century backwards
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4 hours ago, Django said:
Yeah, these things and similar happen also in UK, France and for sure Spain knowing how our police acts during peaceful demonstrations. And the Guardia Civil is basically a fascist organization from the Falange.
There's obviously racism and violence everywhere in the world, Europe included but never to this ingrained and institutionalised level where you have similar incidents on a monthly if not weekly basis and police forces for the most part showing such complete disregard for lawful and civilized procedures AND not being held ACCOUNTABLE by the State. It's the culture and the laws that are fucked up in the United States
Also, on the twin issue of violence and gun control, let's not kid ourselves, in Europe you have very specific laws if you want to buy a fire arm, it's not like anyone could walk into a store and get a gun or rifle stat with no serious checks and red paper processes to go through FIRST
Whereas so many certified mental cases can easily get access to weapons in the US. Things in Europe are VERY different on both fronts and those two issues of racism and the whole "I'm entitled to my rifle" culture are very much intertwined. It's all about "lemme show ya what a big man I am"
Fuck that toxic mentality
The entire US system should get real
And say hello to 2020
This instead looks very much 1820
I don't even know what we are arguing about
It's all so blatantly obvious. Just get that 360 overhaul you badly need. And send the army and police to those who preach hatred and violence instead
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55 minutes ago, IsaacHarris said:
Madonna CLEARLY disagrees
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10 hours ago, VogueMusic said:
Retired top general joins Mattis dissent from Trump, warns of 'beginning of the end' for democracy if troops are used against protests
It's funny how about everyone who has been initially chosen by Trump is now leaving the shit show, or made to leave, little it matters, they are calling it out and calling him out for what he is
He must be insufferable to work for with the tantrums and lack of awareness and preparation
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6 hours ago, nightcutter said:
That's awful.
I'm sorry.
Thanks Nightcutter
It's been many years but obviously I was young and still very sensitive on the issue, I didn't make any provocation, I never talked to her about my private life, I was just a kid and gratuitous statements like that leave you to do a lot of questioning as to why some people think that being mean spirited or being snobbish or talk out of their conceited smelly ass for brains is a sign of some sort of unproven superiority when it's actually the exact reverse
I've learned to contextualise people who act a certain way just for the fun of it. They're really not worth a fraction of society's time, the healthy part of it for sure
The fact that her own kids, one aged 26, the other 28 almost don't speak to her at all because of her obsession with that highly divisive cult is proof enough to me
Anyway the point was:
these nutters decide US politics!
so not a great sign uh
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