Slashdot Mirror
Pirate Party Gains Seats In Iceland's Election (bbc.com)
The BBC reports that Iceland's Pirate Party "has tripled its seats in the 63-seat parliament, election results show. It is in joint second place with the Left-Greens -- with 10 seats each."
An anonymous reader quotes USA Today:
Iceland's hacker-led, upstart Pirate Party failed to make the nation's powerful Independence Party walk the plank after all. The Pirate Party -- led by a former WikiLeaks collaborator -- rode the populist movement sweeping Europe to make big gains in Saturday's election, but returns on Sunday gave the largest bloc of seats to the center-right Independence Party...
Pirate Party co-founder Birgitta Jonsdottir, who became involved with WikiLeaks in 2010 after its leader Julian Assange visited Iceland, said she was satisfied with the Pirate plunder at the polls. "Our internal predictions showed 10 to 15%, so this is at the top of the range."
Iceland's prime minister was forced to resign in April after the Panama Papers suggested his family had sheltered its personal wealth outside the country.
Pirate Party co-founder Birgitta Jonsdottir, who became involved with WikiLeaks in 2010 after its leader Julian Assange visited Iceland, said she was satisfied with the Pirate plunder at the polls. "Our internal predictions showed 10 to 15%, so this is at the top of the range."
Iceland's prime minister was forced to resign in April after the Panama Papers suggested his family had sheltered its personal wealth outside the country.
Shiver me timbers. A first post!
to 10 seats, so they had 3.333333~ seats before?
The anti-establishment Pirate Party, which was founded in 2012, won 10 of 63 seats.
Oddly enough, the anti-establishment candidates here in the US (Bernie and Trump) are also hugely popular, although I guess also not quite enough to win, especially with the backstabbing from the establishment.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Like say, Minnesota.
I can hack you through an exploit in the Akashic records.
You are welcome on my lawn.
of you nord's parliaments. Canada's too. It's not a prefect solution but it is a _hell_ of a lot better than what I got here in the states.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
with a dozen or more viable political parties, none ever getting a majority by itself, "coalition" governments, instant runoff voting, and strict campaign finance rules.....
about the Pirate Party. The ideal of a copyright free country must be a dream for inventors and tinkers.
Let me know when Minnesota has a seat in the UN, is a member of NATO (aka, their consent required for decisionmaking), has an EEZ that takes up half the area between Norway and Greenland, etc.
There are advantages to being a nation, even a small one.
"He's a god; it'll take more than one shot." â" Lady Eboshi, Mononoke Hime
Pfft. A vote in the UN? Yeah, that and a coupon for a free hot dog will get you a meal at Nathan's. NATO membership? When the last time the country was invaded, it was over by lunch? Just pray nobody bothers worrying about you in the next war. And hey, I'll trade your EEZ for a trip to the Mall of America. You really should visit. Probably has more stores than your whole country.
Besides, that name? It is really lame. Super-lame. Let's call it Airstrip Three instead. That's a much cooler name. People will love it.
You know we had three Cod Wars with the UK... and won each time, despite them being vastly larger, right? In each case, it was by virtue of Iceland being a country. The third time was the most extreme - the UK sent two dozen frigates, versus Iceland's piddly couple of coastguard vessels Iceland ultimately won by threatening to give the NATO base at Keflavík to the Soviets, causing the US to pressure the UK.
Think that would fly in Minnesota during a dispute? Being a nation gives an entity asymmetric bargaining power. Certain aspects of power are based on economic or military might, while others are based simply on status and sovereignty. Iceland's ability to defeat the UK in the Cod Wars is considered a textbook example of expression of soft power. On the international stage, when claims between two nations are evaluated on their merits in non-military, non-economic contexts, both entities are treated as being on equal footing, and their arguments are listened to equally. More powerful nations may try to apply hard power, but that doesn't always play out well in a modern multipolar world; you can end up looking like a bully and losing out in other fields that make the overall cost not worth the effort.
As for Iceland, what's wrong with it? Iceland's name is ~1150 years old, how old is your country's name?
"He's a god; it'll take more than one shot." â" Lady Eboshi, Mononoke Hime
I'm after less corporate and big money influence. Our senate, electoral college and constitution aren't there to slow change, they're there to keep the poor from voting themselves money from the wealthy landowner class.
I'd also completely disagree with your assertion that gov't sucks. Gov't, like most things, is exactly what you put into it. Below a certain level of material wealth everything sucks. Above that point (which we've been at for years) it's up to you and me.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
they should have kept it.
Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
Oh please, a fisheries dispute is a war? No, try fucking Argentina, they fought a war. You just wigged out over trawling rights. Which you are lucky they decided it was cheaper to give away.
Seriously, you'd have lost if they'd scheduled a test match with Liverpool and gave all their hooligans free plane tickets.
But you'd better be careful you don't do the same thing to your fisheries that you did to your forests.
Otherwise, the only victim of your wars was Arthur Treacher, they had to switch from Cod to pollack, and ended up merged with Nathan's.
Couldn't make it on his own any more. Your greed killed him. I suppose that makes you feel like a hero.
But have you considered a nickname? Like the Land of a Thousand Volcanoes? Now that'll bring in lots of tourists. Maybe start sacrificing virgins to Surtur. Even Hawaii does it better. They have had no less than four TV series. And the Brady Bunch visited.
What do you have? Half an arc in Game of Thrones?
Man, at least you won't be completely be flooded when the Ice caps melt.
Then you will really need a new name. The Country that was Formerly Iceland is a terrible choice.
Are we in the Carribean? Why is it not named the Viking Party, anyway?
Ezekiel 23:20
Who cares about Minnesota?
When they send frigates (hard power), and you defeat them with soft power? The discussion is about the power of nations versus states, and it's a clear demonstration of soft power that states do not have. A state can't just threaten to switch sides to the Soviets. A state can't get an even hearing in the UN or international legal institutions.
Ahem.
Tourism here is growing faster than we know how to deal with it, thank you very much.
And about 200 other TV shows and movies - here's just a fraction. Iceland has turned into one of the major "overseas" destinations for TV and movie shoots - not only because of the diverse, "unusual" landscapes, but also because in the summer movie crews can film outdoor scenes 24-7 and thus shorten their production time.
"He's a god; it'll take more than one shot." â" Lady Eboshi, Mononoke Hime
Oh please, please learn to overcome your self-esteem issues. You're confusing 'didn't fight' with 'defeat' which is an easy mistake to make, when your ego depends on claiming a victory. Don't feel bad, other countries do the same, including the US, Canada, Japan, Poland and China. The UN would have done jack shit if the Duke of, let's say, Kent had decided he wanted a new personal fiefdom. Same with NATO. It just wasn't worth a fight over a bunch of rocks and ugly fish.
Even Cuba wasn't worth a fight and they make some damn fine Rum and Cigars. So they sailed out a few frigates to give the crews something to do, then gave you what they didn't want anyway. And the only price? Storing a few tons of toxic waste.
And you missed my point, which was about Liverpool's hooligans, not their losers of a soccer team. Try to focus on what's important. You'd lose if they sent a swarm of those rowdies. England, on the other hand, would win if they never let them come back home. And heaven help you if you had to deal with the Raider Nation or the Cheeseheads. You'd pray for deliverance. And Viktor the Viking would look down and whisper, no way yah hoser.
As for filming, yeah Hollywood will go to any number of shitholes to film, they're a bunch of rapacious vultures with the ethics of . No surprise that they'd try to make people work from sunrise to sunset. They even went to Tehran in the middle of the Hostage crisis. Just to film. And it wasn't even a good movie, it was a rip-off of Star Wars. But setting a show there? Never going to happen. Unless you bribe Dick Wolf for another Law and Order franchise.
You still won't have anything to compare with Coach or the Mary Tyler Moore show, or even Fargo. People loke those shows. You just disappoint the Japanese by not having actual wildlings. Losers.
No, no, you have nothing. Not even Survivor Iceland. You have to watch the foreign versions.
My advice? Next time some country has a Civil War, you declare yourself the new capital, then surrender, and trick everyone into thinking you were part of it all along. At the least, maybe they'll pay you to go away.
Think about it, you could be like the beggars of Ankh-Morpork. Just don't try it with Michigan, that place is enough of a shithole that they'd probably move there just to get further away from Detroit.
And Cleveland. People forget how near Cleveland is. Surprising, the stench is unforgettable. Take pride in that rather than some sham war that never happened. Put it on your license plates "Nowhere near Cleveland" and I bet half of Ohio would try to emigrate.
Be warned though, you might end up getting paid political ads. They are a swing state. You know, somewhere that matters.
Also, for secession, try the Northwest Angle. They try it every few months, but nobody gives a shit.
The only thing less important is the Horcon Tract, which wasn't noticed for decades.
Good question, if they don't give a flip about Minnesota, why given even less attention to a floating hockey puck?
Iceland is not yet uncovering Excrement Colored Anthropoids turned pink with either white hair or in baldness passing as Nordics, right? Or just about to start hunting the strays?