de jokes ...

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

(FWIW: my favorite headline from last week was provided by Washington Post: Mother, child saved from bank fire in Paris riot)

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

The Home Office has refused asylum to a Christian convert by quoting Bible passages which it says prove Christianity is not a peaceful religion.

The Iranian national, who claimed asylum in 2016, was told passages in the Bible were "inconsistent" with his claim to have converted to Christianity after discovering it was a "peaceful" faith.

The refusal letter from the department states the book of Revelations - the final book of the Bible - is "filled with imagery of revenge, destruction, death and violence", and cites six  excerpts from it.

It then states: "These examples are inconsistent with your claim that you converted to Christianity after discovering it is a `peaceful' religion, as opposed to Islam which contains violence, rage and revenge."

The ALDE party will announce Vestager and former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt as the two leading figures of the liberal ticket during a campaign launch event in Brussels on Thursday (21 March).

Naming more than one candidate is not without precedent, as the Greens have also plumped two horses in the race - Germany's Ska Keller and the Netherlands' Bas Eickhout. Still, liberal eyebrows have been raised about the decision to name so many lead candidates.
[...]
Under the Spitzenkandidat process, the largest political group after the election gets ["]the first bite["] at ["]naming["] the Commission president, although it is still unclear whether this method will be used again after it made its debut in 2014.

Who are the candidates, what are their strengths and weaknesses, and what are their chances of success? ...  With the European People's Party (EPP) likely to be the largest group in the European Parliament after the elections, the Commission President is most likely to come from that party.

reference
Election of the President of the European Commission, Understanding The Process

The Treaties now require the European Council to propose a candidate for Commission President, 'taking into account the elections to the European Parliament' and 'after having held the appropriate consultations'. Article 17(7) TEU further provides that the proposed candidate is then to be 'elected' by the European Parliament, by a majority of its component members (376 of 751 votes, or 353 of 705 post-Brexit).
[...]
To the disappointment of many, the [voter] turnout in the 2014 elections did not increase but declined further --if only slightly-- from 43 % in 2009 to 42.6 %. The argument can  be, and has  been, made that, in the absence of the lead  candidates, the decline might have been even greater ... The degree to which the public was informed about ["]the process["] and aware of the lead candidates varied greatly, and the sheer novelty of ["]the process["] operated as a further impediment to sufficient voter mobilisation [whodat?], especially in combination  with  a  certain  'disbelief' whether --in  the  face  of  opposition from the European Council-- one of the candidates would indeed 'get the job'.

## Democracy is not well understood

archived practice, practice, practice
you have no jurisdiction over how the rest of us choose to use it.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

The ruling VVD is set to remain the biggest party in the senate with 12 out of 75 seats  but nationalist newcomer Forum voor Democratie is on target to take second place with 10
[...]
Backing for the anti-Islam PVV has fallen sharply and the party would take six seats in the senate, down from the nine it currently holds. The senate will be elected in May by the 570 members of the 12 provincial councils who were voted into power today.

Netherlands, South Holland provincial election

Peil exit poll

FvD-ECR: 16.1 (+16)
VVD-ALDE: 15.6 (-2)
PvdA-S&D: 8.5 (-1)
GL-G/EFA: 8.4 (+3)
D66-ALDE: 8 (-5)
CDA-EPP: 7.9 (-4)
PVV-ENF: 6.8 (-7)
CU-ECR: 6 (+1)
50+-ALDE: 5 (+1)
PvdD-LEFT: 4.5 (+1)
SP-LEFT: 4.3 (-5)

+/- vs. 2015 pic.twitter.com/Mx4PSKIHsF

— Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) March 20, 2019

Visitors to the online encyclopedia's German section [!] were greeted Thursday with a statement from Wikipedia authors urging them to contact EU lawmakers to try to stop the bill.

The most controversial section [!] would require companies such as YouTube and Facebook to take responsibility for copyrighted material that's uploaded to their platforms.

The Constitutional Council validated the measure in extremis in its decision on 21 March on justice system reform. Everything should be ready for prisoners to have their say "by correspondence" in the week running up to the 26 May.

The Europeans want to agree on a comprehensive list of demands, with implementation dates, during the EU-China summit to be held on 9 April.

"It is not a good method to discuss bilaterally agreements on the new `Silk Road'", said French President Emmanuel Macron after the summit.

Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte insisted that nobody asked for explanations when he spoke about the agreement with China.

"We agreed that we will reconvene on this, as they will catch up with us on the outcome of Xi Jinping's visit in Paris," he said.

This week, the former US ambassador to the UN and Republican governor of South Carolina took to Twitter to slam the Finnish healthcare system. "Ask them how their health care is. You won't like their answer," she claimed.

Haley was responding* to a two-week-old tweet by US Senator and 2020 presidential contender Bernie Sanders, who favourably compared the cost of having a baby in Finland to costs in the US.

It remains unclear what Haley's specific criticism of Finnish healthcare was, although she did subsequently retweet an article about the Finnish government's collapse over its failed bid to steer home an expansive package of social and health care reforms (known as sote).

archived CAMPAIGN 2019
Now what? Brief answers to 8 questions about gov't resignation
"First in the South"

--
* Haley's reply to Sanders and sub-threads not in same timeline as Finn snaps. Her US followers' chatter is alarming and predictably uninformed.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

I've no idea about local politics here, so "Moderates" could well mean hard-core neoliberals.

May's European parliament elections are presented as a faceoff between two camps: liberal Europhiles versus illiberal Eurosceptics: Emmanuel Macron versus Matteo Salvini. Or it is the "false prophets" versus the "European patriots". Alas, this is a misleading account. Establishment figures such as Macron have lost their credibility even with centrist citizens. To rally voters, they rely on the threat that nationalists such as Salvini represent. Equally, strongmen such as the Italian deputy prime minister desperately need a hapless European establishment to fashion themselves as worthy rebels.
The only way to break this repugnant loop-wrecking Europe is a credible New Deal for Europeans - an antidote to the depressing belief that the only alternative to this EU is its breakup.

Also, see Yanis's Breughel institute Stream from this afternoon (havent't had time to look yet)

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

In this case, I understand the offer of a visiting fellowship for Professor Peterson was considered by the Research Committee of the University's Faculty of Divinity in the normal way, and was granted on an academic basis.

Early last week, the Faculty became aware of a photograph of Professor Peterson posing with his arm around a man wearing a T-shirt that clearly bore the slogan "I'm a proud Islamophobe". The casual endorsement by association of this message was thought to be antithetical to the work of a Faculty that prides itself in the advancement of inter-faith understanding.

As a consequence of this, the Faculty's Research Committee reviewed its original decision to award a visiting fellowship and concluded that the offer should be rescinded. As is normal, neither the decision to invite Professor Peterson, nor to rescind the invitation, were brought to the attention of the senior leadership team until after they had been made.