OT - England crashes out of their Group . . . the EU that is.
England, along with the rest of the UK, have voted to leave the EU. Nobody thought they would do it, but they have.
Stock market's going for a ride boys.
Lot's of coverage on www.BBC.com
Interesting day to be an England fan at the Euros, no?
Bet you they dont!?!?!?! Feisty people they are!
Where does the blue come from? I thought only Scotland had blue in its flag.
I don't think the UK would change its flag even without Scotland, though. It's too well-known as the "brand" of the country to change it.
Kind of like us still calling it the Big Ten.
will never let them have. The Royal Navy is still the 4th largest on Earth.
Fourth largest, or smallest, the British Navy is not something to trifle with. Those gentlemen have been fighting wars at sea since they decided to be a country. They know what they're doing on the high seas...
A buddy of mine was a US Marine in the late cold war era and he used to have to train with British Marines sometimes. He said that they would kick our asses in a fight if the numbers were equal. He was particularly impressed by the way they deployed from helicopters. Head first straight to the ground to make the trip down the rope just a little faster..
Also Gurkhas are scary as fuck.
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Um, tell that to Argentina. I don't remember the royal navy faring all that well in the Falklands!
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 United Kingdom |
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| 3 civilians killed by British shelling | |||||||
Fourth largest, or smallest, the British Navy is not something to trifle with.
I dunno, man. I once got a tour of one of their Trident missile submarines. The control room had floral patterns everywhere. How badass can a navy be when their nuclear missile submarines look like your Great-aunt Millie's breakfast room?
Of course, the rest of the story is that the guys who gave us the tour - and the ones in the control room at the time - practically begged us to ignore that. Captain's a bit weird that way, they said.
The Scottish vote was actually 62% to 38% to remain in the EU--still significantly different than the overall UK vote, but not quite 70% to 30%.
Sinn Fein would be smart to wait until Scotland votes. There are very few things that could've opened up a Northern Irish path to breaking from the UK. The Brexit may be one, but Brexit + Scottish independence is a much stronger one.
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I think one of the big reasons was control over immigration.
People are surprised about Brexit, the same way they were surprised about the Trump movement. But it is the same phenomenon: very strong anti-immigrant, anti-globalization sentiment by people who feel they are being left behind.
There are a lot of people in this category worldwide, a lot more than has been acknowledged. Governments will need to address this in earnest before the entire world is turned on its ear.
Yeah, the England-France snits are always quite entertaining.
"Treat every Frenchman as if he were the Devil himself." -- Lord Admiral Nelson.
Should be epic today.
The general British view - Fawk those folks on the continent, what with their actually tasty food and ... teeth!
We've got a huge clock and a huger Ferris wheel. We drive on the right (i.e., left) side of the road. We make great gin and two good beers. We have Elizabeth Hurley, Pippa and I'm sure one or two other gorgeous women. And the EPL!
Let's go it alone!
Eh, it was still surprising.
London voters voted to remain at over 60%. Scotland voters were also over 60%. Leave won via the more rural parts of England and Wales, as well as edging out remain in suburban England and the smaller, industrial cities.
If Trump does win, it will be for the same reason that Brexit happened.
It's being driven by a lot more than just a handful of disgruntled rednecks, as is the popular narrative would have you believe. This is a global issue.
As M-Dog says. I've seen a lot more racism and sexism in Manhattan than I ever saw in Petoskey or up here in redneck Adirondack country.
Also, though, I'm not sure about the truth in the statement that "people voted to leave... never thinking it could actually happen." The late polls certainly showed it was a possibility. And I think a good number of people wanted Brexit to actually happen, just like a good number of people really want Trump to actually happen. Whether or not they understand the consequences is an entirely separate issue, and one that applies to all political events in general.
it's not the immigration. it's the lack of assimilation.
Most countries except maybe Japan and Saudi Arabia have welcomed immigrants, refugess in need. The problem occurs when they bring 700 migrants into a small German hamlet of 100 people Yes, then you quite often have a problem, turns out people like their regional language, cultures and history and for some reason are not happy to be told they now have to change.
This. The morons at Slate or Mother Jones will scream "xenophobe" at you until they're blue in the face for pointing that out, but the reality is that people just want reasonable immigration policies instead of open floodgates.
What's wrong with not wanting tens or hundreds of thousands of immigrants to come into a country at one time? That's not fear-stirring or isolationism - that's common sense.
Immigrants typically congrete in bunches and may drastically change the character of an area that the existing citizens prefer. That's a potential problem. They likely hold very different values than current citizens and there may be assimilation problems. That's a potential problem. Wages are generally impacted by large swathes of underemployed moving into an area. That's a potential problem. Etc, etc.
That are completely devoid of British citizens now.
They live on a small island. It's not reasonable to expect them to accept an unlimited number of immigrants.
They have also failed miserably at assimilating the immigrants that are already there. All of that "all cultures are equal and we must accept their backwards ass attitudes and 13th century morals" BS has influenced their policies towards immigrants.
My people came here from Poland in the 1960's. You know what we did? We learned to speak English and like fried chicken and baseball.
This is arrogance.
Current immigrants to America are learning English at as fast a rate (Hispanics) as White Immigrants from past eras or at faster rates than those White immigrants (Asians).
If you want to make blanket judgments based on your 1960s polish immigrants in 2016, then you better wait until 2060 to do so for a Mexican family that arrived in America in 2010 or till 2065 for a Syrian family that arrived in Britain in 2015.
I do agree that assimilation can be a problem, but if you think it's anywhere close to one-sided on the immigrants' fault, you're deluded. White Americans don't make it easy to assimilate for non-white immigrants.
We all get to walk around proud that our ancient ancestry is 45% German, 30% Polish, 10% Italian and 15% Irish because that's cool stuff for white American kids to discuss, but non-white children of immigrants need to forget their culture? The United States is a nation that integrates new cultures and grows stronger from it. We don't get to pick and choose who gets to keep part of their culture and who must leave all of it behind.
One of my very best friends I just graduated from Michigan with is a first generation Indian Ameircan. She's binlingual in English and her state's Indian language, and spent most of her extra-cirricular time performing and organizing a classical Indian dance organization at U of M (across all types of Indian music and dance, U of M is a national leader in its diversity and breadth of those types of performances).
Yet, this friend of mine never missed a football game in the fall and screamed louder at the Big House when our opponents were on offense than any other girl (of any race or immigration status) I knew. That MSU catastrophe last year ruined her weekend just like it did all of ours. And she's thrilled to return to football games as an alum, just like the rest of us.
That's what immigration is about. Celebrating the old and embracing the new. Just because immigrants are doing the former does not mean they are not doing the latter. I'm sure your Polish family did the same in the 1960s and 1970s, just like my Croatian family did in the 1920s.
PS- As for "The UK is a tiny Island" comment. They have 65 million people. For comparison's sake, California (our most populated state) has 39 million. Texas, our second most populated state, has about 27 million. New York and Florida are at or just under 20 million. Michigan is less than 10 million and its land area is relatively similar to the UK. The UK is by far more densely populated than any part of the United States, and as such is not a fragile little village nation that will collapse via immigration.
At the expense of their money.
In the general media, there are two takes that were news to me:
(1) Boris Johnson and the tabloid press have been mocking the EU institutions as out of touch, undemocratic and corrupt for years. Many argue that's not true, but it is an assumption that has crept into the consciousness of many voters.
(2) Many British citizens (and they tend to be older; those under 35 voted strongly to remain) feel that they have lost control over some decisions to a body (the EU) that they feel is not democratic or responsive in the way they feel the UK Government is. They want democratic institutions as they understand them to have control over these decisions.
Their view of the "immigration" issue is rather different from over here. Their beef is that any citizen of an EU country came come to live and work in Britain. So, the issue for them is more about Eastern Europeans, rather than melanin enhanced people from UK Commonwealth countries. (Although, there are some fossils that have a problem with the later too.)
BTW, this is the real Michigan difference. I check into an M sports blog, and find a modestly nuanced discussion of Brexit and its effects on financial markets. We're NOT normal, and that's a good thing.
Meanwhile over on 11W, they're discussing Sponge Bob.
RCMB is not even awake.
I seem to remember like 20 years ago it was actually pretty tasty. Had a free meal coupon from work so it was basically the first time I had eated in about 15 years, ordered some up, awful, how do people eat this?
Looks like I'll trade my 401k for Irish reunification and Scotish independence. I'm fine with that....
the good news is, the dollar should strengthen significantly, not just in comparison to the Euro or the BP, but globally as people look to invest in stable and stong economies. SHort term, our paychecks to a bit further.
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It is the weakening pound and invariably the Euro or whatever currency countries leaving the EU will have that concerns me. A strong dollar is great for international travel but horrible for selling US goods overseas. That equates to a reduction in manufacturing and a loss of jobs.
Add the failures of countries like Greece to the equation, an agressive Putin and more concerns about Eastern Europe and yeah, Brexit will suck and be felt here in the US.