In the news

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/24/french-police-make-woman-remove-burkini-on-nice-beach
a) wtf
b) that's not even a 'burkini', it's just a long-sleeved top
c) wtf

Bloody hell. That is truly the thin end of the wedge.

elsewhere where there's a wider shot of the incident there's a bloke in jeans on that beach, he's the real deviant. get him.

How to deflect blame and stir hatred in order to stop questions about your own shortcomings...

Was this (at least partially) staged for the camera? Otherwise, how it takes 4 officers to do this is beyond me.

F*cking dreadful.

France has really overreacted here. The terrorism excuse is also bullshit.

By trying to protect women from sexist cultural thing that is excused by religion*/as a reaction to something that relatively new **now women are again in more trouble and of course racists feel empowered. And as the article say there have been fights in places.

• Men aren't under the same scrutiny
  **France always had Muslims but thanks to shitty regressive forms now burqinis/face veils have been introduced [look at traditional muslim dress VS what SA has introduced]
  
  

So now what? This isn't secularism, as banning dress isn't, but it's part of wider problems (racism on one end, and lack of acknowledging women's rights on another end)

the city barred clothing that “overtly manifests adherence to a religion at a time when France and places of worship are the target of terrorist attacks”

I assume Jesus sandals are also out.

Don't wear a Richard Dawkins t-shirt either :p

In France you are a citizen FIRST and religion/other identies comes next. If anything is seen to cause issues due to religion for the state/other citizens, well that's too bad. But a ban that only affects Muslim women is obv. fucked up.

The terrorism excuse is also bullshit.

Kind of, it's being seen to do something for an audience of racists.

Its kind of makes our Brexit related racism seem pretty tame in comparison.

there is a meme of a load of nuns frolicking on the foreshore in their habits

I don't think it's simple racism if you had to endure several terrorist attacks. Not all Brexit racism/xenophobia is pure dumb racism too, there are lots of issues under the surface.

I'm rather pissed off how Exit blamed everything on immigration and then when the pure racist/xenophobic fuckwits feel they're right just slinks away like they had nothing to do with anything. No excuses, no nothing.

The attacks in France were BLAMED on Islam, though by the time things have been investigated it wasn't Islam, and even if it was, this isn't a reaction that makes anyone safer. But saying "oh, we never had these attacks but it's OK nothing to do with anything" isn't going to work.

The other side is of course that currently Islam is promoted as THE cause of terrorism, which doesn't hold true in all cases. That's media bias/dumb politicians (Hollande shouting about more bombing the next day)/lazy stereotyping.

As with Brexit, it's complicated but it also empowers the racists/xenophobes as there's no counterbalance and no nuance.
Bear in mind that IRA terrorist (Irish out...) and "socialist" terrorism (Rote Armee Fraction) lead to overreactions also.

TL:DR Don't empower assholes, don't put in moronic laws, but don't avoid the issues either.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/24/worlds-biggest-aircraft-crashes-bedfordshire-airlander-10

I suppose this shows that it can crash land relatively safely.

Bad publicity, though.

That must be the slowest crash landing in history.

Boop.

#thanksbrexit

Literally, it's funded by both UK and the EU.

Me and Le manfriend has a few childish sniggers at the looks of it: But I hope it works out, it's an ambitious newish concept so kudos!

I hope it doesn't use Helium that's getting rare.

Le manfriend

What do you think this is? Reddit?

*finger hovering over ignore button*

This will blow over once there have been a few more explosions in France. Talk about playing into their hands. Its not exactly like photos of Russian soldiers tearing gowns from Chechyan women in the early 90's. Expect some one handed bearded bre to be using images like these to try to get London youts to sign up for blowing shit up in five years time.

I don't think it's simple racism if you had to endure several terrorist attacks.

It pretty much is. It doesn't take a lot of intellectual consideration to see the difference between those that are perpetrating acts of terrorism and those that aren't. After all, all of those attacks have been perpetrated by men but nobody is calling for a blanket law governing the behaviour of all men. In fact if you're going to pull out the terrorist attack argument, that makes it worse because women haven't perpetrated those acts but are the ones being subject to scrutiny of "good morals and secularism".

All this really is just very simple racism. There may be a lot of elements that used as justification that but ultimately all of it leads to the descrimination of one group of people with a shared cultural identity. It's actually not that complicated at all.

No it doesn't justify it. And what you already said about women paying the price. And what you said about anti-muslim sectarianism. I completely disagree with the terrorism factor. And no I don't get how anybody can take it that far, but people aren't rational when scared and the media has been exaggerating things.

But the terrorism part (which is pure BS) is not the only thing that's feeding this law. A group started a fight because some people took photos of a woman, and some groups police women. [which not only Muslims do btw it happens in the UK by strict Jewish sects also, and we are back to bias]

Currently there's a whole discussion if this is even Muslim, if this is suppression of women and the discussion should have stayed a discussion, not a kneejerk ban of "Oh let's just ban things" empowering the xenophobes (anybody shouting go home needs their head looked at) and a woman having her clothes taken off by armed police, cos WTF.

TL:DR I don't think racism/xenophobia/sectarianism exist in a vacuum of "Let's be racist" bar a few unhelpable cases, the media and frustrations all play a part. That doesn't make it right btw.

What is the point of this thing ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-37174417

All you need is a bow and arrow

I just can't work out why the hell a woman shouldn't be allowed to wear a burkini for swimming if she so chooses. The association with religion is completely lost on me. Sure, some people may wear it because of that, but plenty of others may just choose to wear one for completely non-religious reasons. I wonder if they'll stage any burkini flash mobs to show the absurdity of these regulations.

Oh Ed, I leave the goal wide open for you, and do you score? Nope.

This crash is what happens when you lean.

:)

But I bet everyone of us prefer bikini rather than burkini.

That's not leaning, that's diving.