The News Thread

rms said:
When wasn't praha a young kid party City?? Shit show there
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Umm, it wasn't like this before. the point of the article is that the number of tourists increase and that the stay here is marketed as "FLY HERE GET DRUNK DO WHATEVER YOU WANT".

I'm basically programmed to avoid the touristy areas like I have a map in my brain and I walk through the side streets and hidden passages in the centre but it would be nice to get rid of stupid shit like BEER BIKE "GO AROUND THE CENTRE WITH UNLIMITED BEER ALL YOU CAN DRINK GET DRUNK AND SHOUT SHIT" type of services. Hate to say it but we need more regulations.

There was no beer bikes ten years ago, there was no stupid fucking Seqways or battery-powered scooters for drunks to get around, there was no Russian-owned apartments in the centre that are only used for AirBnBs etc etc.

Yeah about the AirBnBs, those are regulated in Berlin and other more progressive cities so the centre doesn't get fucked. I wonder how long it will take to push such regulations here.

Also I'd like to bomb the souvenir shops in the centre that are selling russian matrioshkas.

All in all though, saying that Praha is just a young kid party city is fucking stupid because all the things we've mentioned so far are limited to a couple of streets in the absolute centre and the rest is completely chill, so yeah.
 
You're city has been defined by their gaping need for more dollars, don't get mad at me that your country sold it's soul. Couple streets though? It's a small City! And when it's wall to wall madness of people...how can you understate how insanely packed it is there?! Hah

But it really was just that. Glad I got to Budapest years ago and in the off season, but Prague was a real let down
 
rms said:
You're city has been defined by their gaping need for more dollars, don't get mad at me that your country sold it's soul. Couple streets though? It's a small City! And when it's wall to wall madness of people...how can you understate how insanely packed it is there?! Hah

But it really was just that. Glad I got to Budapest years ago and in the off season, but Prague was a real let down
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Yeah the centre is packed. As I said, I avoid the touristy places like Charles Bridge and Old Town Square myself.

I can understand how it can be a let down, it must be a solid Paris effect if you expect the touristy spots not to be crowded. It takes some Googling or Foursquare to find the chill spots.

It's kind of saddening how disconnected the locals and tourists are. Must be similar in like, Venice, or, notoriously, Paris. Somehow Berlin is different, I love it.
 
Onder said:
Yeah the centre is packed. As I said, I avoid the touristy places like Charles Bridge and Old Town Square myself.

I can understand how it can be a let down, it must be a solid Paris effect if you expect the touristy spots not to be crowded. It takes some Googling or Foursquare to find the chill spots.

It's kind of saddening how disconnected the locals and tourists are. Must be similar in like, Venice, or, notoriously, Paris. Somehow Berlin is different, I love it.
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I don't know why people think these off the beaten path spots are easily shared to tourists yet they just don't go? Istill stand that Krakow is a better Prague :)
 
Onder said:
The fall of Prague: ‘Drunk tourists are acting like they’ve conquered our city’

Nice overview of the tuirist situation in Prague.

The article touches a recent story about two germans spraying graffiti on the fucking Charles Bridge. The story is ridiculous for multitude of reasons, including the fact that the tourists defended themselves saying "we didn't know the building was so important" and also the manner in which it was cleaned. The removal works were under way and supposed to take several weeks, up until the graffiti suddenly disappeared overnight. Basically the company that was ordered to clean it up arrived to work another morning and the graffiti was just not there. No sign of it. One dude then submitted himself to the police after like all media covered the story, saying he cleaned it up secretly, and even though it was done illegaly he was proclaimed a hero by the public. The mayor said he would pay for his services no matter what and media hurried to interview the guy, but on the interviews, he confessed to be a double murderer having killed his wife and her lover and spending most of his life in prison. This put the mayor in a tough spot as the murdering cleaner man refused the money and instead made the mayor attend a seminar on cleaning up stuff..... Only in slavic countries.
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uuuhhh...
...at least the graffiti got cleaned up...yay??...
 
In a unanimous decision, the California Supreme Court closed a “less demanding exception” to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement earlier this month. The case centered around Willie Ovieda, who threatened to commit suicide in June 2015. After receiving distraught messages from his family, Santa Barbara police descended on Ovieda’s home and formed a perimeter. But by the time police had arrived, Ovieda’s friends had already disarmed him, moving a handgun and two rifles to his garage. Following his friends’ advice, Ovieda voluntarily came outside, and was promptly handcuffed.

Even though police had no reason to believe anyone else was inside or in danger, two officers entered the home anyway with guns drawn, in order to conduct a “protective sweep to secure their premises.” Police never obtained a warrant. Once inside, they smelled “an overwhelmingly strong odor of marijuana.” Ultimately, officers found equipment for a hash oil lab and several firearms, including a 12-gauge shotgun, a .50-caliber rifle, and an Uzi.

Arguing that searching his home without a warrant violated his Fourth Amendment rights, Ovieda tried to suppress the evidence but failed. He pled guilty to manufacturing cannabis oil and possessing an “assault weapon” and was sentenced to 18 months of probation.

The state argued that entering Ovieda’s home without a warrant was justified under a “community caretaking” exception. Twenty years ago, in People v. Ray, three justices on the California Supreme Court argued that “circumstances short of a perceived emergency may justify a warrantless entry” into someone’s home. In turn, that would allow police to “resolve the possibility someone inside required assistance or property needed protection.”

This was a radical break from the Fourth Amendment. Courts have long upheld warrantless searches under “exigent circumstances,” or emergency situations that require “swift action” and when police don’t have enough time to get a warrant. Indeed, three other justices would have upheld the search in Ray but based on exigent circumstances. Only one justice, the late Stanley Mosk, dissented: “I strongly disagree with the assumption that the warrantless search of a residence, under nonexigent circumstances, can be justified on the paternalistic premise that ‘We’re from the government and we’re here to help you.’”

But the lead opinion in Ray only garnered three votes, not a majority, meaning it wasn’t actually binding precedent. Nevertheless, the appellate court in Ovieda’s case relied on that opinion when it upheld searching his home as constitutional.

Upholding a “community caretaking” exception would provoke a “sea change in Fourth Amendment law” that would “significantly erode Californians’ privacy,” the ACLU of Southern California argued in an amicus brief. Perversely, it would create a strong “disincentive to call 911 for help” and “make those experiencing a physical or behavioral health crisis less likely to seek aid,” as callers would shy away from dialing 911 if they knew it risked police barging into homes without warrants.

On appeal, the California Supreme Court unanimously decided to slam shut this Fourth Amendment loophole. That “diluted exception was not supported by our prior jurisprudence” and the lead opinion in Ray was “wrong to create one,” Justice Carol Corrigan wrote for the court. While exigent circumstances are supposed to be based on “articulable facts,” community caretaking instead “purported to permit a warrantless entry if some kind of police assistance might be rendered but the need was merely hypothetical.”
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicksi...ops-seize-guns-without-warrants/#13ba83e75c64

Seems like rare good news on the California and ACLU fronts. I don't really see how this is reconciled with the rapidly increasing support for "red flag" laws though.
 
No doubt that the West has a vested interest in Hong Kong's rejection of PRC demands, but I haven't really seen much evidence to suggest that the HK protesters/rioters are a direct result of Western meddling. But the whole thing is so full of shills and I don't speak Chinese which keeps most of the details out of my reach, so I'm not really inclined one way or the other.
 
Moved this out of the Metal 2019 thread:

no country for old wainds said:
there's nothing undemocratic about being against brexit, but the first paragraph of CiG's post echoes my thoughts pretty much
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Allfader said:
Why not? Brexit was voted and that will should be respected. Being against Brexit is basically the same as being against people's will, which is the definition of Democracy. It's no different than Congress trying to sack an elected president just because they don't like it.
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no country for old wainds said:
there's a difference between forcibly preventing something that was voted for democratically and just arguing against it though. surely it's possible to believe democracy is the best system of government while also thinking that the prevailing opinion of the time isn't infallible and can be subjected to counter-arguments even following a vote. especially in a case like brexit when a) the vote was extremely close, b) many people on both sides voted based on a lot of misinformation and lies, and c) the hindsight of knowing what a clusterfuck this would become might also have changed people's minds at the time.
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Allfader said:
People can (and many times is) farily dumb, sure.

Being against Brexit in the same sentence than being against Fascism is just funny. The inclusion of the topic in such post makes it look like they are not just giving their opinion, it's more like advocating a certain ideology or taking a side, which is more serious, even if it's just talking about it.
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Nothing wrong with being against Brexit, but if you're a person in a position of power with the ability to tamper with the process and you exercise that power, you can hang for all I care.

As much as I have sympathies for the right-wing reasons for Brexit, personally I tend to find the left-wing reasons for Brexit to be much more convincing, mostly because they deal with opposition to beaurocracy, globalism, classism and so on.

Mark Blyth and George Galloway in particular make great points in favour of Brexit.
 
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