A vote for 'Error!Error! Filename not specified' is a vote for WTF


  • FoxDev

    It's more of a slang term nowadays



  • Yes, like 'thee' and 'thou' and 'foreasmuch'



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Right; except the House of Lords does, and they're equally un-elected. And the royal family only gave up their voting rights in 1998. 1998. Approximately 3 centuries after it should have happened.

    That's a feature, not a bug. Unlike in the US-of-A where everyone and their dog in government is elected (House of Reps, Senators, President, and in some states even judges) by average schmucks, and so all of these people are more interested in what looks good to voters, or who contributes to the next election campaign, rather than what is actually good for the country.

    The alternative is a system where legislation is introduced and debated by elected officials, and then debated again by a body of "sober second thought", as is the saying in Canada. Hence there is the House of Lords in the UK and the (unelected) Senate in Canada... although both are quite different in many ways.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @aliceif said:

    What is the House of Lords?

    From Jonah Goldberg's G-File today:

    Also, I think Tony Blair’s reforms of the House of Lords were a mixed bag. Personally, I liked hereditary Lords, but if you’re going to get rid of them and strip them of any real power, the replacements should obviously earn their seats through trial by combat. You don’t have to be an Enoch Powell disciple to see that Britain is rapidly losing its common culture (which is just one reason why Scotland wants to leave). Who could dispute that fighting pits -- preferably using weapons chosen at random from a giant spinning wheel -- would unite all classes and races around a common institution. And if Russell Brand can emerge victorious from a subterranean garden-rake-and-frying-pan fight with Jason Statham, then by all means give the man a powdered wig and a seat in the Upper Chamber.



  • That idea is stupid.

    Obviously the arena should be in the form of a dome with the weapons hanging on chains from the roof.



  • Is this a good thread to mention that a guy in Serbia had managed to register a party under the name "None of the above"? And that a lot of people ended up circling his party on the ticket, thinking they are boycotting the elections?

    Since he had managed to register himself as a "protected minority" party (like he's representing interests of some small nationality), he got lowered requirements and managed to get a seat in the parliament (that's how he was able to pay for the registration and collect the signatures too). He then spent the next 4 years sucking up nice paychecks and living the good life.

    This was a real thing, that really happened in Serbia a few years ago. Couldn't find English story, but you could try to put this through google translate.

    So the next time you UK folk feel sorry you can't watch porn without Cameron's permission slip, remember, some of us are even worse off.


  • FoxDev

    @cartman82 said:

    So the next time you UK folk feel sorry you can't watch porn without Cameron's permission slip, remember, some of us are even worse off.

    So, Serbia had a politician who did absolutely nothing at all? Sounds like a bonus to me 😄


  • BINNED

    Oh bloody hell... is there just a cyrilic to latin script translator that operates on the whole page so I don't have to let Google mangle all the content?

    Also, I should learn cyrilic already. It's getting pretty silly now, me not being to read stuff like this without having to use extra tools... it's just 30(ish?) freaking letters FFS...



  • @Onyx said:

    Oh bloody hell... is there just a cyrilic to latin script translator that operates on the whole page so I don't have to let Google mangle all the content?

    Also, I should learn cyrilic already. It's getting pretty silly now, me not being to read stuff like this without having to use extra tools... it's just 30(ish?) freaking letters FFS...


  • BINNED

    Ooooh! Is that automatic? As in, every sr page gets a sh couterpart?

    And thanks.

    Also:

    😆



  • @Onyx said:

    Ooooh! Is that automatic? As in, every sr page gets a sh couterpart?

    Have no idea. Just saw the link...

    BTW it's a travesty I still don't have a good solution to translate Cyrillic crap into Latin. Super annoying.



  • @Onyx said:

    Ooooh! Is that automatic? As in, every sr page gets a sh couterpart?

    I’m guessing it’s the versions of the page in Serbo-Croatian aimed at Serbs and Croats, respectively, since Serbo-Croatian is kind of a two-languages-in-one¹ deal that differ mainly in one using Cyrillic and the other Latin letters.

    ¹ Not 100%, but close enough that apparently,² if you speak one, you also speak the other.
    ² I don’t speak either.


  • BINNED

    @Gurth said:

    Not 100%, but close enough that apparently

    Pretty much, yeah. The words that differ are usually something you can figure out from context.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Gurth said:

    I’m guessing it’s the versions of the page in Serbo-Croatian aimed at Serbs and Croats, respectively, since Serbo-Croatian is kind of a two-languages-in-one¹ deal that differ mainly in one using Cyrillic and the other Latin letters.

    Now that they're separate countries and have fought a proxy war in Bosnia, expect the languages to diverge, probably initially in phrase selection: if there were originally two ways to say something, one side will pick one way and the other will prefer the other, just to demonstrate that they're different. It's been observed elsewhere too, and many times.


  • kills Dumbledore

    @RaceProUK said:

    Serbia had a politician who did absolutely nothing at all?

    Sinn Feinn MPs do nothing at all. They refuse to swear allegiance to the Queen, so they aren't allowed to take their seats or vote. They still get the pay and expenses though.

    As an aside, here are some stupid Facebook people



  • @cartman82 said:

    BTW it's a travesty I still don't have a good solution to translate Cyrillic crap into Latin. Super annoying.

    Google Mistranslate will translate to the best of its marginal ability from whatever language it knows into Latin, if you pick Latin from the drop-down on the right-hand side.

    Or did you mean "translate into the Latin script", in which case there isn't a good solution, for at least three reasons:

    1. There isn't a unique mapping of sounds into Latin-alphabet letters. Each language (and sometimes each dialect) that uses the Latin alphabet uses it differently.
    2. Even if you restrict it to Latin-alphabet-as-used-by-English and pick some "standard" dialect of English, there are Cyrillic letters that correspond to sounds that aren't in English, and therefore that English has no way to spell. I'm thinking notably of the one that looks like an X, (too lazy to find the correct glyph), which corresponds to the throat noise that the Germans write "ch". That sound doesn't exist in standard English, so you can't write a reliable transliteration of it. It's often transliterated as "kh".
    3. This task is transliteration, not translation.


  • @Steve_The_Cynic said:

    Google Mistranslate will translate to the best of its marginal ability from whatever language it knows into Latin, if you pick Latin from the drop-down on the right-hand side.

    Or did you mean "translate into the Latin script", in which case there isn't a good solution, for at least three reasons:

    There isn't a unique mapping of sounds into Latin-alphabet letters. Each language (and sometimes each dialect) that uses the Latin alphabet uses it differently.
    Even if you restrict it to Latin-alphabet-as-used-by-English and pick some "standard" dialect of English, there are Cyrillic letters that correspond to sounds that aren't in English, and therefore that English has no way to spell. I'm thinking notably of the one that looks like an X, (too lazy to find the correct glyph), which corresponds to the throat noise that the Germans write "ch". That sound doesn't exist in standard English, so you can't write a reliable transliteration of it. It's often transliterated as "kh".
    This task is transliteration, not translation.

    I meant Serbian written in Cyrillic letters to Serbian written in Latin letters. There's 1 -> 1 mapping. You could do it with regex.

    I just still don't have anything handy to do it on the spot.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Steve_The_Cynic said:

    That sound doesn't exist in standard English, so you can't write a reliable transliteration of it.

    Funnily enough, the English have very little problem with that sound; they're used to the Scots, where it's written ch



  • I think may be someone should point out the realities of the British constitution.

    The house of Lords has very limited power. Legislation is passed to them and they can propose amendments but at the end of the process the final version is whatever the house of commons says it is. Their effective power is to delay and to propose sensible changes (which they do). However, the house of lords is strictly speaking the supreme court (but see below)

    However, the Monarch has considerable power which, by convention, is not used. The Queen effectively appoints the government by selecting the Prime Minister who then selects other ministers. Only the Queen's nominated government has the right to propose legislation. Once legislation has been passed it doesn't count until it has received "Royal Assent". So - quite a lot of power. Also the star chamber - officially appointed by the queen but like everything else following convention - can effectively rule by proclamation. The Queen is also commander in chief of the armed forces, final arbiter of the legal system. The main limit on power is the inability to do certain things without legislation which must be passed by the house of commons. Dating back to the restoration after the English civil war all British tax legislation is limited to one year and without the consent of parliament all taxes lapse. That is the real limit on the "official" power of the English Monarchy.



  • :barrier: 📮



  • @Kanitatlan said:

    The Queen effectively appoints the government by selecting the Prime Minister who then selects other ministers

    I guess this is about the same as in Sweden. If she didn't select the, by the people, elected prime minister (or in the case of Sweden; open parliament), she'd be out of a job sooner than she can yell "guards!"



  • @Kanitatlan said:

    Only the Queen's nominated government has the right to propose legislation. Once legislation has been passed it doesn't count until it has received "Royal Assent". So - quite a lot of power. Also the star chamber - officially appointed by the queen but like everything else following convention - can effectively rule by proclamation. The Queen is also commander in chief of the armed forces, final arbiter of the legal system.

    1. (right to propose legislation): Look up "Private bill" and "Private member's bill" some time.
    2. ("Royal Assent"): Yes, but it would be the crisis to end all crises if the monarch refused to give that assent.
    3. (star chamber): Which century are you living in, dude? The Star Chamber was abolished by the Habeas Corpus Act 1640. You may be thinking of the Privy Council, which is a completely different thing.
    4. (C-in-C): Yes, but again this is in name only. De facto control lies with the Government.
    5. (armed forces as final arbiter of the legal system): Of the legal system? :wtf: Stop drooling on the keyboard; you'll break it. That's a conceit that is normally reserved for the kookier elements of the libertarian slice of the US population. Or Third World banana republics.

  • kills Dumbledore

    @Steve_The_Cynic said:

    armed forces as final arbiter of the legal system

    I read that as the Queen being both the commander in chief, and final arbiter; as separate duties


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Steve_The_Cynic said:

    (C-in-C): Yes, but again this is in name only. De facto control lies with the Government.

    Operational control is with the government, but the armed forces are specifically not loyal to the government so much as to the monarch. That's who their oaths are sworn to. Similarly with the judiciary.



    1. private members bills are a convention, not a right. It is an arrangement that can be withdrawn
    2. I don't disagree
    3. Quite right, I meant to say Privy Council, but the principal satys the same
    4. meant to be a list. Legal authority is separate from the armed forces thing.

    I don't disagree that we now have a well established convention that royal power is not used but let's be honest this really is no way to run a country. There have been no real use of royal power in the last 100 years as appointing Churchill PM in 1940 whilst not following convention was "as recommended by politicians". The constitutional crisis of just over 100 years ago only involved the threat of the use of Royal power and, in that case , in explicit support of parliamentary democracy.


  • BINNED

    @Steve_The_Cynic said:

    Google Mistranslate will translate to the best of its marginal ability from whatever language it knows into Latin, if you pick Latin from the drop-down on the right-hand side.

    Or did you mean "translate into the Latin script", in which case there isn't a good solution, for at least three reasons:

    That's some nice pendantry. Have a 🏁.



  • @dkf said:

    @Steve_The_Cynic said:
    That sound doesn't exist in standard English, so you can't write a reliable transliteration of it.

    Funnily enough, the English have very little problem with that sound; they're used to the Scots, where it's written ch


    But if you're just looking at the transliteration, you can't tell whether a ch is a standard English sound like at the two ends of church or the throat noise. But it doesn't matter, because the problem appears to be just converting between two different native representations of the same underlying language.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Steve_The_Cynic said:

    (armed forces as final arbiter of the legal system): Of the legal system? Stop drooling on the keyboard; you'll break it. That's a conceit that is normally reserved for the kookier elements of the libertarian slice of the US population. Or Third World banana republics.

    No, we have actual law that prevents our military from being law enforcement. Unless you're talking actual armed insurrection / revolt / riots. Common example is calling out the National Guard (state controlled units who also function as reserve units for the national military).

    Of course, all the various police have guns and so forth and if you're saying that laws aren't enforced by force then you're just a certain kind of kook. And you are probably interested in whether the flags have gold fringe, amirite @blakeyrat?



  • Well, of course the laws are enforced by force. Duh. In some context, the force is a bit more subtle, in others, a bit less.



  • And I know what the National Guard is. I may be British, and living in France, but I also lived for most of the 1980s in the US.


  • FoxDev

    @Steve_The_Cynic said:

    living in France

    My condolences…

    Just kidding; if you're in the right area, France is really nice ;)


  • ♿ (Parody)

    OK, then you just confused me by talking about "kookier...libertarian" stuff.

    @Steve_The_Cynic said:

    And I know what the National Guard is.

    OK. I was just giving an obvious example that's an exception (most recently a couple weeks ago in Baltimore, BTW). And for other non-Americans' benefit.


  • BINNED

    @RaceProUK said:

    France is really nice

    If I remember he's rather up north, maybe even right up to the Belgium border.



  • @Steve_The_Cynic said:

    church

    /me thought the scots pronounced that 'kirk' anyway.



  • @Luhmann said:

    @RaceProUK said:
    France is really nice

    If I remember he's rather up north, maybe even right up to the Belgium border.


    Yes, that's right. The weather's a bit soggy at times(1), but the area is nice enough.

    (1) In the same sort of way that southern England's weather is a bit soggy at times...


  • kills Dumbledore

    Since this is the most recent thread about UK politics, I'll put this here:

    Farage tried to quit, but the party is apparently clever enough to realise that without him it's just a bunch of racists who nobody likes


  • BINNED

    @Steve_The_Cynic said:

    a bit soggy at times

    When I pas the sign Nord-Pas-de-Calais coming from the south I always fear that Ch'Ti wise the weather will turn immediately from sunny to severe thunderstorm.



  • There's TR :wtf:


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Jaloopa said:

    the party is apparently clever enough to realise that without him it's just a bunch of racists who nobody likes

    Now that is unexpected!


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