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Some European news, as we approach the EU elections (early June):

The Dutch still don't know who's going to be Prime Minister because the obvious candidate has come down in a scandal, also the right-liberal VVD look like being kicked out of the European liberal party for working with the deeply anti-European PVV.

Also, even more darkly amusingly, the Identity and Democracy group in the European parliament, which is to say the most fascist of the formal groups, is blowing itself up on the cusp of the elections because the German fascists are increasingly too obviously Nazi for the French fascists. Being too Nazi for Marine le Pen is not something anyone should ever want to achieve, but turns out it's happened, and it does look like le Pen has actually ruled out sharing a group with the AfD after the election, which in turn will force the other ID parties like Lega, the PVV, the Austrian FPO, etc, to decide which part of the split they go down. Possibly the result is that le Pen goes to the ECR, since she's moved to a much more publicly anti-Russian stance to deflect her own past dealings with them whereas most of the rest of ID is more anti-Ukrainian.

We're also just a week away from South Africa's election: the ANC might just scrape a majority still, they've recovered a tiny bit of ground in the last few polls. The DA look a bit stuck, probably doesn't help that they've got a white leader which may blunt their reaching out to most of the rest of the country. The new MKP have clearly taken a chunk off the ANC based on Jacob Zuma's personal vote, but the radical EFF don't look like they've made much progress either: the ANC aren't being crushed, just losing bits off all sides to different political parties.
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Forum Games - The Beer Cellar! / Re: Word Association
« Last post by Jubal on May 22, 2024, 10:26:04 AM »
model
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Forum Games - The Beer Cellar! / Re: Word Association
« Last post by Glaurung on May 22, 2024, 09:39:39 AM »
statistical
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Forum Games - The Beer Cellar! / Re: Word Association
« Last post by Jubal on May 22, 2024, 09:32:41 AM »
Sample
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Past NASA disasters have not had that effect, but a collapse in confidence in NASA might be damaging.  Another of Ceglowski's points is that only national space agencies have expertise in the tedious issues around keeping primates healthy outside the atmosphere.  The private space firms focus on rocket science and telecommunications even if their patrons have dreams of space stations or Mars colonies.
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Forum Games - The Beer Cellar! / Re: Word Association
« Last post by Glaurung on May 21, 2024, 12:04:44 PM »
stool
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History, Science, and Interesting Information - The Great Library / Re: Space yays
« Last post by Jubal on May 21, 2024, 10:05:34 AM »
Ceglowski has posted a long essay in the style of a business or policy paper with his criticisms of the Artemis program. I sure would take a bet that NASA will not land astronauts on the moon by 31 December 2026 but having some manned spaceflight seems better than dropping more bombs on Arabs or tax cuts for billionaires or other things the actually-existing United States would do with the money. https://idlewords.com/2024/5/the_lunacy_of_artemis.htm  And half a dozen countries or alliances have serious space programs now so if the USA loses interest the rest of us will keep going.
I substantially agree with you, though I'd be more worried for the future of space exploration about things like the critiques he makes of the lander system: having a bunch of astronauts die on the moon after their multi-storey landing capsule fell over feels like the sort of thing that would really tank wider support for space travel.
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General Chatter - The Boozer / Re: May pub - 30th or 31st?
« Last post by Jubal on May 21, 2024, 09:41:31 AM »
Ooh, do let us know how that goes though!
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General Chatter - The Boozer / Re: May pub - 30th or 31st?
« Last post by indiekid on May 21, 2024, 09:40:58 AM »
I can't do either as traveling down to the UK Games Expo. Enjoy folks!
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Ceglowski has posted a long essay in the style of a business or policy paper with his criticisms of the Artemis program. I sure would take a bet that NASA will not land astronauts on the moon by 31 December 2026 but having some manned spaceflight seems better than dropping more bombs on Arabs or tax cuts for billionaires or other things the actually-existing United States would do with the money. https://idlewords.com/2024/5/the_lunacy_of_artemis.htm  And half a dozen countries or alliances have serious space programs now so if the USA loses interest the rest of us will keep going.
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