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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.
Copyright reform isn't really a major issue for us, although it is something we support. There's much bigger issues on hand. Namely, there's a lot of issues that the public overwhelmingly supports - 65-85% - that the conservatives have derailed. Pirates are all about giving power to the citizenry. There's also a huge amount of corruption that desperately needs to be taken on.
"He's a god; it'll take more than one shot." â" Lady Eboshi, Mononoke Hime
Well, Bernie had way more support than a sixth of the people. Sadly, in a first-past-the-post world this means jack shit.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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