Europe, Boring Until it's Not

[Hastur]

Here's an other variant. It's a floating arm trebuchet. Very nifty.

[Montegriffo]

I prefer to use a more traditional design. Wood over steel every time. Eventually I'd like to make a real Medieval copy in oak using only genuine techniques and tools. That would cost a lot of money but I could possibly earn something dragging it around to re-enactments. I should look into crowd funding it......

[Montegriffo]

Here's an other variant. It's a floating arm trebuchet. Very nifty.

I might have a go at a little F.A.T. one day. They are more powerful because the counterweight drops vertically rather than in an arc but they are a bit more complicated to make. Even quite small ones (1m cubed) can throw a golf ball half a mile or more.

[BjornP]

Russia issues ban against Jehovas Witnesses, confiscating their properties, and denouncing them as an "extremist group".

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 93671.html

“The Supreme Court has ruled to sustain the claim of Russia's ministry of justice and deem the 'Administrative Centre of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia' organisation extremist, eliminate it and ban its activity in Russia,” said judge Yuri Ivanenko.

“The property of the Jehovah's Witnesses organisation is to be confiscated to the state revenue.”

Russia changed its legal definition of extremism in 2006, removing requirements for violence or hatred but stating the “incitement of….religious discord” as criteria, leaving the Jehovah's Witnesses with the same legal status as Isis or Nazis.

This includes Jehovas Witness litterature:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/04/20/rus ... -witnesses

According to the Justice Ministry, since 2007, local courts have banned at least eight local Jehovah’s Witnesses organizations, and 95 pieces of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ literature have been banned and placed on the federal registry of banned extremist materials.

And just to make things "fair and balanced" for the morally relativistic, a Pew report criticized Denmark for:

Harassment of Christians in asylum centres, social pressure against circumcision, intimidation of religious minorities and religion-related terror attacks were all cited as causes for concern in the Scandinavian country.
...

The Pew reports states that religious freedom in Denmark regressed significantly between 2007 and 2015, leaving the country amongst Europe’s worst 25 percent of countries in the area.

https://www.thelocal.dk/20170420/denmar ... f-religion

The harassment of Christians in asylum centres refers to the lack of protection for Christians against Muslim co-residents, not that government workers are harassing the Christians. Which is true, there were stories back when there were loads of refugees, that they don't have enough staff in the asylum centres. And we banned halal butchering some time ago (this was discussed on the DCF, btw. I was opposed to the law, but alot of Danes support it).

But at least we're not actually banning Judaism, Islam, Catholicism and similarly non-native religions.

[heydaralon]

What is the sectarian breakdown of refugees? I would imagine most are Sunni muslims but there are probably some Christians, Druze, and Alawites from Syria too. I imagine it would be hard to really get an accurate picture.

[BjornP]

What is the sectarian breakdown of refugees? I would imagine most are Sunni muslims but there are probably some Christians, Druze, and Alawites from Syria too. I imagine it would be hard to really get an accurate picture.

Latest refugee numbers are around 42% Christians 39% Muslims. Can't find numbers for wether most Muslim refugees are Sunni or Shia. Eritrean refugees seem to be the largest single Christian group. Syrians the largest Muslim one.

[heydaralon]

Eritrea has a shitty leader, but gimme a fucking break. That's like all of Africa. How are they just gonna piggyback off the Syria crisis and seek asylum? Not that any of them should be there in my opinion.

I knew a few refugees were Eritrean but that is ridiculous.

[BjornP]

Eritrea has a shitty leader, but gimme a fucking break. That's like all of Africa. How are they just gonna piggyback off the Syria crisis and seek asylum? Not that any of them should be there in my opinion.

I knew some of the refugees were Eritrean but that is ridiculous.

They are not piggybacking and Eritrea is the North Korea of Africa. All of Africa isn't actually ruled by military dictators in faux general's outfits. If you were faced with the prospect of being a slave of the state for most of your teenage and adult life, you might want to live somewhere else, too.

Aside from that, ignore the 42/36 % numbers in my post. I was looking at a statistic for refugees and immigrants, not one for refugees only. It's still early in the morning here...

[TheReal_ND]

France’s far right National Front sent shock waves through Europe tonight after leader Marine Le Pen made it into the second round of nation’s presidential elections, according to exit polls.
The hard-line anti-immigration candidate stormed into the final ballot to face centrist independent Emmanuel Macron.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ction.html

H A P P E N I N G

[StCapps]

France’s far right National Front sent shock waves through Europe tonight after leader Marine Le Pen made it into the second round of nation’s presidential elections, according to exit polls.
The hard-line anti-immigration candidate stormed into the final ballot to face centrist independent Emmanuel Macron.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ction.html

H A P P E N I N G

Le Pen vs Macron, May 7th.