Monday, September 20, 2010

Oh good lord he's actually updating on time! Foreign Lands Roundup

OMG THIS IS THE MOST SHOCKING THING EVER! An on-time blog post? What even is that? Clearly I need some kadooz (thanks, Ramona from Real Housewives of NYC) for this.

Oh also, this week I will be on vacation at the beach. Without a laptop. So you all will have to follow the foreign lands on your own. DEAL WITH IT.

This is the face of a modern chic, inexpensive, DIY bedroom set Neo-Nazi party

  • Dear Europe, You no longer get to say a damn word to the United States about race relations. The surge of far-right parties whose roots go back to the most exciting neo-Nazi movements the world has seen really just confirms what everyone's been thinking since you decided to colonize everywhere: you're just as racist as everyone else. Oh sure, you can pretend that you're no longer a "neo-Nazi" party, but when your platform consists entirely of race-baiting anti-muslinism (and for clarification, the Republicans in the States have many other planks in their party platform, that's just one of many), GUESS WHAT. THAT'S RACIST. So thanks, Sweden (and Germany, and the Netherlands, and Belgium, and France, and the UK...) for just coming out and admitting it. It's good that you, too, Sweden can elect these racist assholes to public office so that they can put their ethnic cleansing plans (and yes, the expulsion of an entire religion amounts to as much, see Bosnia 1995) into effect. So now Sweden is good for two things: cheap chic DIY furniture and terrifying neo-Nazi politicians. [BBC News]
This is from Guinea. It is a country in Africa. Allegedly.
  • Guinea, one of the sad, unknown countries in west Africa, had a presidential election a couple months ago. As this seems to be the new hot trend for elections, no one person won a majority. However, unlike several other, more ridiculous developed nations (looking at you, Australia, Great Britain, and Sweden!) Guinea decided to do the sane thing and head to a runoff. I don't think, though, that "runoff" was properly explained to the people in charge in Guinea, as they seem to think it means "prolonging the election indefinitely." This is not American politics, people! Elections begin and end at a specified time, and if you have to have a runoff, you do it in a timely manner! We do have to cut them some slack, though - it was their first democratic elections since independence from France in 1958 (way to go, deGaulle), so it's understandable that they're a little confused. Now someone just hold their hand (again, preferably someone with experience in having sane, successful elections...Spain, maybe? Ireland? has that even happened before?) and walk them through the second round of voting and we can all be on our merry way, chalking up yet another African success story. Hooray! [France24]
Sorry guys, but I'm totally phoning this one. Some other stuff happened this week, like Nigerian election season kicking off, a deadly train crash in India, and something about Mexico, I think...but I'm just too checked out. I'm leaving for vacation in an hour, so these are all you get this week. Tell you what, though: if you're good, and promise to eat all your vegetables AND three bites of kimchi, I'll try to do another one on Monday PLUS trip updates next week. So be good everyone! OR ELSE.

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