The unimportant news thread

[Todd]

So European education systems are failing as well?

I liked the 90s.  Maybe we should return to, say, 1998.  You know, a pre-Google world, where Amazon only started selling items other than books, and the biggest concern was proper use of cigars.

[ritter]

...
I liked the 90s.  Maybe we should return to, say, 1998.  You know, a pre-Google world, where Amazon only started selling items other than books, and the biggest concern was proper use of cigars.

But there were no online discussions of complete Beethoven piano sonata cycles then, were there?

[Todd]

But there were no online discussions of complete Beethoven piano sonata cycles then, were there?

Sure, on Usenet (rec.music.classical.recordings).  Usenet stretches back to the 70s, though I think the first classical music threads started in the 80s.  I could be wrong.  I'm sure AOL had some chat rooms that would have covered the subject ca 1998 as well.

[ritter]

Sure, on Usenet (rec.music.classical.recordings).  Usenet stretches back to the 70s, though I think the first classical music threads started in the 80s.  I could be wrong.  I'm sure AOL had some chat rooms that would have covered the subject ca 1998 as well.

Well, the 90s had it all, then!  Let's find someone who takes the world back to those years (and we were younger, too!).

[Karl Henning]

The same thing that is wrong with Americans, I'm afraid....

No kidding. I guess America isn't all that "exceptional"

[Jo498]

I liked the 90s.  Maybe we should return to, say, 1998.  You know, a pre-Google world, where Amazon only started selling items other than books, and the biggest concern was proper use of cigars.

I also liked the 1980s and 90s, probably  because I was young. But nostalgia should be resisted because the 1990s in some ways "begat" the following decades.
That doesn't mean that our descend in to decadent madness is easy to explain. But it is impossible to explain if one thinks in the 90s everything was fine.

These last results are quite easy to explain. It's the counterswing of the pendulum from the delevopment of the last decades that saw delegating national sovereignty to unlected, corrupt and arrogant EUrocrats, general dominance of global capital and organizations, and left leaning liberalism having gone wild with e.g. uncontrolled migration (not from Japan or Canada but from mostly african, balkan and near/mid eastern failed states) and branding positions that were perfectly central (and probably shared by >90% regardless of stances on tax rates or legal smoking age) even in the 1990s (like thinking that "natural families" are natural and that having control over borders and migration should be one of the core functions of national states) as "far right".

[Jo498]

I don't know about chatboards or mailing lists of the 1980s because I was too young. Usenet exists since 1979, I have been there since 1994 or certainly 1995. And yes there were and still are classical music groups (although I now access them only via archives not in the classic email-style way).

[Todd]

But nostalgia should be resisted because the 1990s in some ways "begat" the following decades.

Everything has been going downhill since August 15, 1971. 

On the upside, one can stream most content now, so in the end it's all good.

[Todd]

Sterling crumbles to all-time low, euro at 20-year low

Will the pound drop below parity?  To think, the pound used to be fixed at $5 to £1. 

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Sterling crumbles to all-time low, euro at 20-year low

Will the pound drop below parity?  To think, the pound used to be fixed at $5 to £1.

I heard that on the news earlier today.  Last I heard, it was about $1.08 USD.

PD

[Karl Henning]

Yowch!

[Karl Henning]

And: just in time for mobilization?

Putin grants citizenship to Edward Snowden, who disclosed U.S. surveillance

[Spotted Horses]

And: just in time for mobilization?

Putin grants citizenship to Edward Snowden, who disclosed U.S. surveillance

When does he reply to Ukraine? 

[Florestan]

The return of fascism in Italy is nonsense on stilts. Fifty years ago Giorgia Meloni would have been a mainstream Christian Democrat.

Actually, if there's anything in contemporary Europe that ressembles fascism it's precisely the European Comission: elected by nobody (at least not by the peoples) and responsible to nobody (at least not to the peoples) they work hard to impose the ideology, practice and interests of global capitalism on increasingly reluctant and fed up peoples. And when such a people react by electing leaders not to her liking, the un-elected Madame von der Leyen has the guts to threathen them with economic sanctions.

It looks like in today's Europe only one man -Zelensky - and only one people - the Ukrainians - are allowed to be nationalists (including by extolling real fascists like Bandera) and look after their own interests. All others should give up their sovereignty, including over their own borders, and acquiesce to the dictates of an un-elected clique of bureaucrats on the payroll of global big business. The hypocrisy is mind-blowing.

[Florestan]

These last results are quite easy to explain. It's the counterswing of the pendulum from the delevopment of the last decades that saw delegating national sovereignty to unlected, corrupt and arrogant EUrocrats, general dominance of global capital and organizations, and left leaning liberalism having gone wild with e.g. uncontrolled migration (not from Japan or Canada but from mostly african, balkan and near/mid eastern failed states) and branding positions that were perfectly central (and probably shared by >90% regardless of stances on tax rates or legal smoking age) even in the 1990s (like thinking that "natural families" are natural and that having control over borders and migration should be one of the core functions of national states) as "far right".

Amen to that!

[Todd]

Italians Didn't Exactly Vote for Fascism

The Atlantic editorial board apparently changed its mind.  Didn't take long.

I do wonder what Roman voters had in mind the first time they voted in Rachele Mussolini.  Now she can run on her record, of course.

[Todd]

UN meeting produces sense that a 'new epoch' is arriving

There isn't a name yet "for the new epoch," Kőrösi said, "but we feel that it has arrived."

Amerikadämmerung?

[Florestan]

Quick test for the editorial board of The Atlantic--- who said the following:

1. A Country is not a mere territory; the particular territory is only its foundation. The Country is the idea which rises upon that foundation; it is the sentiment of love, the sense of fellowship which binds together all the sons of that territory.

A) Benito Mussolini
B) Giorgia Meloni
C) Giuseppe Mazzini

2. We are all committed to serving our country according to the indications of the popular will.

A) Benito Mussolini
B) Giorgia Meloni
C) Alcide de Gasperi

3.The liberal conception in economic matters is effectively unsustainable, as there is a need for control according to the most complete ordering of the world economy, also and above all to achieve the greatest possible prosperity. When we say control of the economy, however, we do not mean that the State must be the manager of all economic activities, but we refer to the State in the complexity of its powers and therefore largely to the State which does not exclude individual initiatives, but coordinates, disciplines and directs them.

A) Benito Mussolini
B) Giorgia Meloni
C) Aldo Moro

4. The universal revolt against capitalist civilization, made in the name of an ideal of human dignity and justice, proves that the Christian conscience can fall asleep, but it cannot die.

A) Benito Mussolini
B) Giorgia Meloni
C) Amintore Fanfani

5.  To all morally free and socially evolved men, to those who in the love of their country know how to combine the right sense of national rights and interests with a healthy internationalism, to those who appreciate and respect the moral virtues of our people, [...] we appeal and ask to join our program.

A) Benito Mussolini
B) Giorgia Meloni
C) Luigi Sturzo

[Todd]

Bank of England warns of risk to UK financial stability as it intervenes in gilt market

[Karl Henning]

(* knock on wood*) The Windows 11 update seems to have been smooth.