Icelandic Pirate Party Wins 3 seats In Parliament 92
First time accepted submitter Thorhs writes "According to preliminary results (all votes counted, no official word yet) the Icelandic Pirate Party was able to secure 3 members of the national Parliament, the first PP to reach a national Parliament. Things were hairy election night, the PP lost all their MPs when they dropped below the 5% barrier 'needed' in the somewhat complex election system. Thankfully they managed to slip back up above, with 5.1% of the total votes. The old 'crash parties', the ones in charge before our epic financial crash, (Independent and Progressive parties) are the prime candidates to form a new government with just over 51% of the votes, getting 40 of 63 seats. RUV (Icelandic) has good coverage."
Re: official statement (Score:3, Informative)
rista punktur rassinn sjóræningjar
Google translate: slash dot butt pirates
Re: official statement (Score:4, Funny)
rista punktur rassinn sjóræningjar
Google translate: slash dot butt pirates
Certainly! You just go straight until the grey brick house, turn left, 100 metres, and it's there on your right by the maple tree.
cheers,
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rista punktur rassinn sjóræningjar
Google translate: slash dot butt pirates
Certainly! You just go straight until the grey brick house, turn left, 100 metres, and it's there on your right by the maple tree.
cheers,
His eyes widened as he made the sudden horrific realization, "My, what a cavernous bum you have!" said little brown posting hood...
Re:opinber yfirlýsing (Score:4, Funny)
How boring, maybe you could have said: ''fyrsta færslan'' :-)
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America all the losers are on the right, and in Europe they're on the left
That's because if you get into deep water, it means that you've gone a bit too much to the right if you're American and a bit too much to the left if you're European.
What's so complex about it? (Score:1)
Is it actually complex, or is this one of those americanizations where anything with more than two possible outcomes is considered complex?
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A real Pirate party would not win seats (Score:1)
they would steal them!
Re:A real Pirate party would not win seats (Score:5, Funny)
they would steal them!
*sigh*
We've been over this before... making exact replicas of PM Seats is not "stealing".
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He meant steal as in "Plunder".
Arrr, me hearties!!!
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they would steal them!
*sigh* We've been over this before... making exact replicas of PM Seats is not "stealing".
Exactly. It's 'unauthorised copyright infringement'. After all these years, you'd think they'd get it right for once...
Re:Great! (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, not too many years ago, the Greens in Sweden (and, I strongly suspect, Germany) were the dumping grounds for nutjobs no other party wanted to do with. I strongly suspect that is a phase any new party has to go through on the way to become a long-term viable political force.
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I don't really like politics but speaking of environmental nutjobs (not about to bash AGW)... IMO, the Greens in Sweden are more left than the Left (formerly known as the Left Party Communists) judging from their debates. The Centrist Party (formerly the Farmers' Union) who tried to be a more balanced green party have gone more or less neo-liberal, completely alienating their core voters. So neither of them are long-term viable political forces at the moment. I don't know anything about Germany though.
The S
Re:Great! (Score:4, Interesting)
Single-issue parties are not unusual; they use the fact that they have no commitment to other policies to engage in political horse-trading in favour of their issue of choice. Everyone in Iceland now knows where to go to get three votes for their policy du jour, and what it's going to cost them.
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1. Vomit
2. Commit Suicide as the vomiting would never stop.
Merkel is worst chancellor Germany had in decades. All talk, nothing gets really done except making our neighbours very angry.
She is the George W. Bush of Germany. Albeit a lot more intelligent. Which isn't difficult.
And all mistakes are blamed and deflected on someone else.
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And what has how the major parties have become a US-like collection of corrupt scum where only the name on the door is different have to do with the fact that the German Pirate Party has turned into its own parody?
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Since you don't even have the slightest idea what you're talking about, do us both a favor and go back to play with your sand molds.
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The German one at one point in time polled at 13% of the popular vote. [www.welt.de]
What happened? Some vested business interests got scared and started "digging up some dirt" on candidates? Insert moles/saboteurs in the party?
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When all the nutjobs came streaming into the party it basically imploded.
Nowadays they're basically just arguing over gender equality (the usual feminazis turned it from a valid objective into an insane obsession), basic income guarantees (without any idea beyond "money for nothing") and useless infighting by some self-obsessed idiots.
At the same time they're getting ass-raped by the government (new laws, selling out people's right to privacy and presumption of innocence more and more with every new week) a
Re:Europe is insane (Score:5, Insightful)
What? Having two parties you can choose from doing exactly the same (except in equality questions) is sane????
In what world? That's not democracy.
Articles with more info on Icelandic Pirate Party (Score:5, Informative)
The Pirate Times introduces the 3 elected representatives: Iceland Report #4 : History Made by a Hair’s Breadth [piratetimes.net]
Rick Falkvinge, founder of the original (Swedish) Pirate Party, comments: celandic Pirate Party WINS, Enters Parliament [falkvinge.net]
Another article on TorrentFreak: Pirate Party Enters Iceland’s National Parliament After Historic Election Win [torrentfreak.com]
vote and vote often! (Score:1)
I'm glad my vote made a difference...
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I am guessing you're British ? The point of Europe : go to flanders fields, please. hondreds of thousands of reasons lie buried there.
Re:EU looses. Iceland wins. (Score:5, Interesting)
The WWI Western front is the point of Europe? That's what you said just then.
Yes, WWI and the Sequel WWII are some of the prime motivators behind the European Union. It has grown far beyond that but the people who originated the EU were partially motivated by the idea of preventing future wars by increasing economic integration to the point where war had become a sport that was to expensive to indulge in. and for what little it seems to be worth to conservative anti EU tossers these days, hundreds of thousands of those reasons that are buried in Flanders, and whom the GP spoke of, are British.
Where's Iceland fit into this?
Iceland exports in excess of 70% of it's manufactured goods to the EU. Iceland has enacted about 75-80% of the laws needed to join the EU and Icelandic politicians have proven them selves to be a bunch of incompetent nepotistic tosspots who cant keep the inflation graphs from looking like a set of sharks teeth. If you want to have a laugh compare the inflation graph for Iceland to that of Germany:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/iceland/inflation-cpi [tradingeconomics.com]
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/germany/inflation-cpi [tradingeconomics.com]
Notice how the German figure hovers between 0 and 5%, now compare it to the Icelandic graph. You would laugh even harder if you could see data from before 1989. Inflation in Iceland since 1944 fluctuated between ~3% to as high as 25-30% and occasionally topped 100%. In 1979, these wankers that make up the Icelandic political class, finally had to index-link loans to inflation to motivate capital owners to start loaning money. What that means is that if your loan carries 6% interest and there is 8% inflation you are effectively paying 14% interests. Now try to imagine what happens when inflation hits 20% and you will understand why Icelanders are so angry they are spitting acid. Joining the EU would force their brainless politicos to... well... behave. And additionally when you export 70% of your manufactured goods to the EU it's kind of dumb to want to have no say in how the EU's inner market evolves which makes me wonder why the British, who depend on the EU for 50% or so of their exports want to leave the EU. It's kind of like robbing yourself of the ability to influence how your country is begin governed by voluntarily relinquishing your right to vote.
Re:EU looses. Iceland wins. (Score:4, Insightful)
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That's fine, medicine rarely is nice.
But compare, how successful was their previous non-German economic model? At least the German model is proven to work, so are you advocating that they should've stayed with models that collapsed and demonstrably did not work?
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I'd love to know what was flamebait about this. Are there people in countries like Greece who honestly believe their economy was sustainable in the face of the fact that it obviously by definition wasn't given that it collapsed? Are there people who believe the German economic model doesn't work even though it does?
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Countries like Greece could easily pull out of the euro but they want to stay in it because it benefits them - to say it benefits Germany/France doesn't make a lot of sense as it's mutually beneficial - it's devalued by the economically weak countries making German exports cheaper outside the EU, but increased in value by countries like France and Germany which increases their spending power. Also, the option of pulling out has always been on the ballot but pro-euro parties have always won out - the Greek p
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I'm not sure that's true, it's not as if that's a big enough export area to justify such problems.
More likely I think Germany simply believed Greece when the Greek government told them it was all okay.
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And additionally when you export 70% of your manufactured goods to the EU it's kind of dumb to want to have no say in how the EU's inner market evolves which makes me wonder why the British, who depend on the EU for 50% or so of their exports want to leave the EU. It's kind of like robbing yourself of the ability to influence how your country is begin governed by voluntarily relinquishing your right to vote.
Because you're giving up your freedom to manage your own country? Yes, you do get a small stake in where EU is going but it comes at the expense of jumping when Brussels says jump. Just because 75% of Canada's exports go to the US doesn't mean that Canada wants to apply to become the 51st US state and answer to Washington DC. Besides, it doesn't follow from size who needs who, here in Norway I wish we'd exit the EEC and get a free trade agreement like Switzerland, if the EU don't want to offer us a fair dea
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"Because you're giving up your freedom to manage your own country? Yes, you do get a small stake in where EU is going but it comes at the expense of jumping when Brussels says jump."
But you do that anyway. Because you want the trade.
"Just because 75% of Canada's exports go to the US doesn't mean that Canada wants to apply to become the 51st US state and answer to Washington DC."
Sure, but it has signed up to NAFTA etc. and fulfilled it's obligations under that which is a similar thing. Canada will still ofte
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Germany is a somewhat bad example.
The hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic is still in the collective subconciousness so any government that allows high inflation would be lynched instantly.
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since the founding of europe, no war has occured in Western europe, which essentially has been a warzone for more than a thousand years, up to the end of WW2.
Re:EU looses. Iceland wins. (Score:4, Informative)
from wikipedia :
The ECSC was first proposed by French foreign minister Robert Schuman on 9 May 1950 as a way to prevent further war between France and Germany. He declared his aim was to "make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible.
ec, eec and eu are just the current iterations of ecsc.
NATO ? That's a tool of the americans to drag us into wars into the middle east. I would like to get out of it NOW.
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I think Nuclear weapons are also reason for peace, A common enemy for a long time USSR. Sure economic integration helps peace as well but you can do that without a EU, just more trade between countries is fine.
Other reasons from Wikipedia that are relevant:
The Schuman Declaration that created the ECSC had several distinct aims:
- It would mark the birth of a united Europe.
- It would encourage world peace.
- It would transform Europe by a 'step by step' process (building through sectoral supranational communit
Not just the British, German mood too! (Score:5, Interesting)
I just read the comments in the FAZ (a major German newspaper) to the article about that election. Overwhelmingly BY FAR the comments were AGAINST the EU and they congratulated Iceland.
It is NOT just Britain! I am most certainly not "backwards", "anti-Europe" (in fact I prefer to see myself as "European", not German) or "right-wing", neither are those comments. Quite the opposite, actually! The point is, the EU is the LEAST democratic thing that Europe has come up with since WWII ended, and it gets worse and worse. Anyone who dares to raise any objection is immediately branded "right-wing" and "anti-Europe". It's like trying to criticize the role (and all the money for) of the military in the US - you just don't want to do that, unless you are a nobody in an Internet forum, because of the (sh..)storm.
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Most of those people aren't "anti-Europe" either. They're just against the bureaucratic cancer the "EU" has become.
Re:Not just the British, German mood too! (Score:4, Interesting)
"The point is, the EU is the LEAST democratic thing that Europe has come up with since WWII ended"
Technically as a British citizen I have more of a say in the EU than I do my own country due to the fact the EP uses proportional representation whilst the UK uses FPTP and I live in a safe-seat area.
This means no matter how small, my vote in the EP still has more effect and more relevance than my vote in British national elections.
"and it gets worse and worse"
It does? The Lisbon treaty and a number of others have actually decreased the powers of the unelected bodies of the EU whilst increasing the powers of the elected bodies, so how is this the case? It still has some way to go, but it's certainly not getting worse in this respect.
People are just pissy at the EU right now because they're looking at anything to blame other than themselves. Yes, I'm talking about people like the Greeks who thought it was a good idea to protest to maintain the ability to retire in their 50s, work a short working week, and have a tax system that was in effect pretty much just optional. Euroscepticism in the UK has the same problem, eurosceptics forget that EU membership was instrumental in pulling us out of the shit after our economy crashed in the 70s.
But perhaps more importantly, people also forget how bad Europe was before the EU - if you think things are bad now...
A very limited view (Score:2)
So, according to your very specific situation all others are wrong. Hmm, great way to form an opinion, I guess, makes your life very simple.
From other people's point of view, for example, me (German), our politicians over the last few decades (not just years) have gotten very good at this kind of game:
Whenever they want to achieve something that their population does not want, they let the EU do [insert whatever], then they explain "we cannot do anything, the EU dictates this", so the blame goes to the EU.
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"So, according to your very specific situation all others are wrong. Hmm, great way to form an opinion, I guess, makes your life very simple."
AFAIK far more countries in the EU use a less democratic voting system than that used for electing the EP, so it's not exactly a vary specific situation - it's relevant to the majority of UK voters (well over 70% live in safe-seat areas) and I believe the majority of EU citizens in general.
The irony in your comment though is that Germany is one of the few countries th
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What does the BBC mean by "slow down". Why should anyone *want* to join a farce such as the EU,
and then even worse, the Euro? As if joining the EU was inevitable.
The BBC probably said "slow down" because Iceland has already applied to join the EU and negotiations are already underway. It's not inevitable but it is a process they have already started.
As for why anyone would *want* to be a member there are of course benefits. The question is whether or not the benefits justify the loss of national powers. Iceland is already fairly integrated with the EU (more so that Britain in some ways - e.g. they are already part of the Schengen Area) so the benefit of full members
Cool (Score:1)
It's International Talk Like a Pirate Day!
Ég er frá Íslandi og eins lunda og spila Warcraft.
(Sorry, blame Google Translate.)
To put things in perspective... (Score:3)
Iceland has a 63 member parliament and a population of 319,000.
New York City has a population of 8.245 million and a city council of 51 members.
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so a much larger percentage of the population is doing beurocratic-busy-work? :-)
(j/k, nyc probably has 99% of the population doing beurocratic-busy-work).
Re:To put things in perspective... (Score:4, Informative)
And New Hampshire has a population of 1 million and a House of 435 representatives.
Areas with strong democratic traditions tend to have fewer constituents per politician. And Iceland has a very very long tradition of democracy.
Alingi / All-thing (Score:2)
You can say that again.. I like the way they called it the "Aling" meaning all-thing ("thing" here has the old connotation of law meeting; it doesn't mean object).
Althing [wikipedia.org]. Est. Anno Domini 930.
That's the essential core of democracy: everybody (well, only men in olden times) can go to the meeting and have their disputes settled and their plans discussed. On a gra
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And New Hampshire has a population of 1 million and a House of 435 representatives.
What New Hampshire has is a gerontocracy.
State legislators are paid $200 for their two-year term, plus mileage, effectively making them volunteers. The only other benefits are free use of toll roads and of state-owned resorts. A 2007 survey found that nearly half the members of the House are retired, with an average age over 60.
Government of New Hampshire [wikipedia.org]
A 91-year-old GOP state legislator in New Hampshire has resigned after saying people with mental illnesses should get a one-way trip to Siberia.
State Rep. Martin Harty, who turns 92 this month, made national news recently when he touted eugenics as a way to get rid of "defective people."
N.H. state legislator resigns after remark about mental illness [usatoday.com] [March 2011]
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Apples and oranges, the New York city council operates on a massive body of state and federal laws. And while you may have less regional issues you still need a full body of law whether you're governing 300,000 or 300,000,000. Yes, they're representing only some 319*5,1% = 16-17.000 people but that's not really the point. The point is that they're a sovereign nation, they're not part of the EU so if they want to change copyright law they can. With the Internet it really only takes one nation to make the who
Pirate party platform might suck for Free Software (Score:1)
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pirate-party.html [gnu.org]