jope

11 hours ago, faraday said:

...

 

And btw, The Bureau will have a season 5!

 

Very good news. Where did you hear that? Does it mean he actually survived, or do they bring new staff in?

I like to watch the news from both sides.

CNN, BBC and the likes for the Western side.

RT Int'l for the eastern side.

Having done that everyday since some years now, it obviously gives me more than a single perspective to base my opinion on what happens in the world.

Both versions certainly defer, but it's an interesting exercise to do, rather than simply swallow - and repeat - the information given by the western media without a second thought.

After some years of listening to both sources and both sides, I became kind of "anti west", and pro-Russia though...




Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

Saw the first episode of Divorce. Some well known faces in it including Sara Jessica Parker and more importantly: it is from Sharon Horgan. One can notice by the nasty dialogues and speeches. I found it rather entertaining but I find almost everything from or with Sharon Horgan entertaining ("Pulling" and "Catastrophe" being my favourites). If you like this kind of humour, give it a try.

18 hours ago, sweatalot said:

elected government?

in Thailand?    buahahaha   ^:-)))

 

who in Thailand would be qualified to be elected?

- and who in Thailand would be qualified to elect?

 

 

Bloody Hell, I did not know that I have to be "qualified" to cast my vote or to be elected.. Thanks for the heads up.

Just out of curiosity, what would these "qualifications" be and who is determining them?

8 hours ago, GinBoy2 said:

Well this looks like a promising show from Hulu, headed our way Oct 19th.

 

 

Surprised to see Earl's brother Randy (Ethan Suplee) from "My Name is Earl", but in the brief moments he appeared in this preview he looked rather terrifying. What happened, Randy? Steroids?

Definitely looking forward to this one.

May I refer to my previous post, by which I so eloquently explained why this is not going to happen? :-)

But seriously, even if another member state had the secret wish to leave (opinion polls in all EU states point exactly into the other direction), does anybody truly believe that that would happen before it is clear how it will turn out for the UK?

What do you think as a sceptic (?) remainer?

2 hours ago, dunroaming said:

jope

 

I voted to remain in the EU but only because I didn't think that it would collapse and because I figured it was better to try to get change from inside rather than outside..  However the indications are that brexit is causing a great deal of uncertainty now in the EU along with the immigration issues.  Germany is certainly the ringmaster and the most influential player.  What do you think will happen if Merkel is replaced?

Despite some recent and probably future successes of the (anti immigration party) "Alternative for Germany", the centre-right and/or the centre-left parties will build the next government. From the humble beginnings in 1951/1952 to the EU as it is today there has been a consensus among all these parties that Germany will always support the EU and that the goal is a united Europe (Yes! The new unmentionable: a federal state, The United States of Europe :-) ). In short: it does not matter at all who will be the next German Bundeskanzler. German politics regarding the EU will not change, which means politics in regard of Brexit will not change, either.

But as you mentioned change from inside. What do you think that should change within the EU? Don't get me wrong, I am all for reforms. But on this forum I have the impression that "reforms" means something completely different than what a "federalist" like me would mean when talking about change.

1 hour ago, useronthenet said:

Assuming there will be an EU left, after the UK makes an exit. Most have forgotten the fact that the UK is the second biggest contributor to the EU pot. I wonder who will be prepared to make the shortfall?

"Der Spiegel" reported that the German finance ministry expects German contributions to the EU budget to rise by around 4.5 bn EUR (worst case).

Sounds like a lot but to put it into perspective: we will spend 20 bn EUR on refugees over this and the next year. The finance minister is talking about tax incentives in 2018 worth up to 15 bn EUR. In other words, we will manage.

And for those who are currently speculating that the EU will collapse: it is not going to happen because we (Germany) do not want that. I hope that annoys all EU-haters on this forum sufficiently.

On 10. September 2016 at 1:54 PM, JHolmesJr said:

Quarry, a new tv show on FX looks good….about a vietnam vet (lots of those on TV no doubt) who returns and gets caught up in crime.

Liked it very much, found it slow but rather intense. People look definitely very 70s. Really curious how the whole thing will develop. For me, that's a keeper.

On 22. August 2016 at 11:39 AM, Will27 said:

Tv series - Fleabag

 

An excellent start to this new 6 part series from Amazon.

 

IMDB: A six-part comedy series adapted from the award-winning play about a young woman trying to cope with life in London whilst coming to terms with a recent tragedy.

 

 

Nice one! Liked it very much. A few hilarious scenes. Sorry to see that there are only 6 episodes (the last episode airing this week). Hope the BBC dare to make a second season.

14 hours ago, i claudius said:

Just downloaded  upstart crow by Ben Elton ,its about Shakespear and his family

most stuff by Ben Is really good , but this is utter rubbish and completely ruined by over the top canned laughter , dreadfull

Could not agree more. Hoped for something on the level of  Black Adder (I mean, not only Ben Elton but also David Mitchell, what could go wrong?) but was bitterly disappointed. Did not make it past episode 1.

15 hours ago, BookMan said:

Vanhelsing, episode 1 available.

 

A vampire futuristic show with zombie/survivior/apocalyptic themes.

 

Ticks a lot of boxes for me!  Comes to us via SyFy channel, who have consistently promised a lot but ultimately disappointed.

 

This one looks pretty good first episode and looking forward to seeing where it goes...Worth a watch in my view

 

 

Hm, I'd say, not really vampires but more like Zombies that can speak. Kept me interested...for now.

I agree with your assessment on SyFy with the exception of "The Expanse" (season 2 coming in 2017). I found that to be a high class production. The "Game of Thrones" of the Science Fiction genre so to say. :-)

This adjustment to law in Germany must be directly related to islamics raping German girls and woman. Instead getting rid of all muhammedans from all EU countries could clear the air and existing law could be upheld as it is. Perhaps.

This reform process was initiated before the Cologne incident. But as side effect, it may help to get a better grip on such a criminal behaviour.

What the proposed law in Germany means is to make sure that women's wishes are respected. The "nos" that you describe are something completely different.

As far as the "danger" you are referring to, even under the present law, there is nothing to prevent a woman reporting to the police a "rape" in the form prescribed by the present law. Here we are referring to decent women who are facing men who are not prepare to take no for an answer, Such "machos" should be punishable by law.

As far as I understand, the new law intends to remove all nuance of interpretation. No would mean no and that's it. The mere use of the word then implies rape, regardless of the context. The law certainly does need to take account of the context, and that's why a rigid 'no means no' rule is stupid. I don't think they could formulate a law that says 'no means no when it is said in a certain way'.

There has to be another way for the law to make the distinction. I don't see any problem with the 'free to walk away' principle.

The law will not use the words "no means no ". The law will probably say "against the victim's noticeable will" (my personal translation, probably not an accurate British English law translation, but I guess, you get the idea).

Still room for interpretation but better than the old version, which required the victim's physical resistance (otherwise the crime would not have qualified as rape).

Brussels sending emails out telling MP's to vote to cancel referendum

Similar to the "lost veto"-claim from MissAndry, your conclusion seems wrong to me:

the MP did not say " 'Brussels' sent me an e-mail", he said a Commission employee located in Brussels sent him an e-mail. Sounds more like a personal anger-mail of somebody. I would not be surprised, if this MP received quite a few of these anger-mails over the last few days.

So at the moment the UK is a member of the EU and has a full say plus a veto in EU policy, regulations and laws.

Britain has no veto powers at all, in any EU decision, Cameron gave up the last veto power a few months ago.

You gotta keep up!

http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/670220/Cameron-gave-away-Britain-valuable-EU-bargaining-Iain-Duncan-Smith

But apparently as an ignorant Brexit supporter, I shouldn't have known that.

And as an intelligent remainer voter, you should have known that.

I think this literally "unbelievable" claim should not be left unanswered.

1. The article does not say that the UK lost the right to veto. It only reports that one MP claims that Cameron gave it away.

2. During the negotiations Cameron actually demanded to have a veto right whenever it comes to decisions regarding the Euro-zone. The EU was not willing to grant the UK this veto right.

I think that is a tiny little bit different from "Loosing the right to veto".

Nice! We had "Dave Allan at Large" on German TV. And I never forgot this outrageous joke about apartheid. Hilarious.

Nice documentary. Enjoyed it very much.

It seems an EU member country can not make a trade deal, but they can trade with countries with out a trade deal.

The default is WTO rules.

The customs to be paid are just a minor part of the access to the markets. The bigger issue is all kind of separate restrictions which the countries require. This starts from the safety of the products and goes forward to what need to be printed to the packages on which the products are sold.

Even with the WTO rules enabled, it's just a first step to get products in to the markets.

In practice manufacturers might need to have separate product lines for products in different markets. The EU's idea of single market is to fight against these separate requirements. It's to give access to products to the whole EU market.

This would also mean that for example USA and China will have to make different products for EU market and UK market if their rules are different. EU being larger market, the unit price per unit is likely be less than for the smaller UK markets.

When UK company creates an product, it will have to pass the rules of the UK legislation as well as EU rules, in case the product is sold to the EU single market. This adds production costs, thus adds the price of the product, thus it's more difficult for the product to compete in price with other similar products from EU. Not to forget that there is customs fees etc to import the products to EU market.

Please watch the video, which was posted to here earlier. I personally didn't know these things before. The talk is about what the market really presents is somewhere in the middle of the video.

A company can identify it's market, ie USA and make the product to US spec rather than having to make the product to meet US and EU spec's so reducing production costs.

By making products to EU spec only you restrict your product to the EU market, it would seem impractical to take all the worlds markets and make a product that fitted all regulations, bespoke deals are much simpler and makes the product cheaper to produce.

Best advice ever. Eff the EU, go to the US instead, all problems solved.

What the UK will probably do ist trying to make trade deals with other economic communities in the world, eg. ASEAN, ECOWAS, Mercosur, CARICOM to name just a few. Particularly developing or smaller countries have realized (often with some help from the EU) that they carry to little weight to be successful on their own. So they join forces and build bigger markets that are attractive for traders and investors. Treaties with individual states may not make up for the losses the UK will probably face. So, I would say this is the way forward for the UK and lets hope that respective treaties will materialize for the UK in the future and that the City of London will not be decimated.

A bit strange, though: while many countries try to create larger trading zones and communities, the UK prefers to be on its own. Well, as has been mentioned here before, it is not all about social safety and jobs.

It seems an EU member country can not make a trade deal, but they can trade with countries with out a trade deal.

The default is WTO rules.

The customs to be paid are just a minor part of the access to the markets. The bigger issue is all kind of separate restrictions which the countries require. This starts from the safety of the products and goes forward to what need to be printed to the packages on which the products are sold.

Even with the WTO rules enabled, it's just a first step to get products in to the markets.

In practice manufacturers might need to have separate product lines for products in different markets. The EU's idea of single market is to fight against these separate requirements. It's to give access to products to the whole EU market.

This would also mean that for example USA and China will have to make different products for EU market and UK market if their rules are different. EU being larger market, the unit price per unit is likely be less than for the smaller UK markets.

When UK company creates an product, it will have to pass the rules of the UK legislation as well as EU rules, in case the product is sold to the EU single market. This adds production costs, thus adds the price of the product, thus it's more difficult for the product to compete in price with other similar products from EU. Not to forget that there is customs fees etc to import the products to EU market.

Please watch the video, which was posted to here earlier. I personally didn't know these things before. The talk is about what the market really presents is somewhere in the middle of the video.

For those interested, this is really a great presentation. Thanks for posting it.

It helps to know a bit about the EU institutions, but even without it is easy to understand.

Can someone answer this question for me:

"Are individual member states in the EU allowed to enter into trade agreements with countries outside of the EU?"

Easy:

No, they are not. Trade deals are exclusively handled by the EU (the Commission, to be precise).

It seems an EU member country can not make a trade deal, but they can trade with countries with out a trade deal.

The default is WTO rules.

Yes, if there are no other, more specific regulations.

Everybody can trade with everybody. But respective rules and regulations apply. In future the UK can sell Germany whatever Germany is ready to buy (with the probable exception of services). But goods from the UK must meet respective European specifications. In future Germany can sell cars to the UK but must meet British rules, regulations and specifications. The whole trade will become more cumbersome and more expensive.

So, not only the UK but also the EU member states will be in a worse position than before. But I fail to see how that supports the Brexit argument that it was good idea to leave.

BTW, I am not an expert. That is just general knowledge about the EU. Experts' corrections and comments are always welcome.

Can someone answer this question for me:

"Are individual member states in the EU allowed to enter into trade agreements with countries outside of the EU?"

Easy:

No, they are not. Trade deals are exclusively handled by the EU (the Commission, to be precise).