In the news

Stalingrad?

One of the fundamental tenets of the EU is subsidiarity.
Currently the UK is the EU's leader in both the development and deployment of clusterfuckery,
and,
I suspect the Germans are pleased to let us delude ourselves in believing that devoting our entire political establishment in both practical and theoretical clusterfuckery,
(and the concomittant billions of pounds wasted in 'No Deal' preparedness), continues to bolster the outmoded belief amongst petty brexiteurs that the UK is a World Leader in anything.

I think Riesendurcheinander would work. But theres no fuck in there.

I don't think you are right about that.

https://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/cjp_report_on_us_press_freedom.php

I think you’re right, I’d not seen that before. I was thinking more of his pardon for Chelsea Manning, but that’s a token gesture when you look at that article.

he does look a bit like jonny w

Huge fire in Notre Dame in Paris.

Some sad pictures.

Twitter full of awful people blaming yellow vests or Muslims.

Police say fire started in an area closed to public for restoration.

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Terrible, the spire's gone:

https://twitter.com/KlMJEONS/status/1117852483957743616

Massive sand clouds and outer space ice vortexs

They just said on C4 News that all of the insides are on fire too...

: (

If only the Donald was French President too. This would never have happened...

@SecCivileFrance

Hundreds of firemen of the Paris Fire Brigade are doing everything
they can to bring the terrible #NotreDame fire under control. All
means are being used, except for water-bombing aircrafts which, if
used, could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the
cathedral.

American lady tries to make amends:

Veuillez nous excuser pour notre crétin orange.

https://twitter.com/SecCivileFrance/status/1117874
924268376064

Terrible. Such a beautiful building.

But the right wing nutters are worse than the fire. The picture of the smiling Arab looking guys with the fire in the background without context? Fuck social media.

I just hope Quasimodo's alright.

Don't worry.
https://thehardtimes.net/culture/quasimodo-renamed-hunchback-of-nearby-holiday-inn/

That is horrible.
Surprising it burned so quickly, I forgot there was so much wood in it.
At least the out shell with the sculptures seem to have survived.

It went up so quick that I thought it must be foul play, but then I remembered the Cutty Sark fire from a few years ago that started from one of the renovators power tools overcharging.

Incredible, the heat must have been immense.

I think it was a vacuum left on for two days, and then the motor fused and the whole thing started to burn.

On the plus side, they'd removed a lot of the upper structure already as they were in the middle of a restoration process so a decent percentage of the ship simply wasn't there, which helped reduce the overall damage.

one of the renovators

That's one of my worries at the moment, that the (mostly right wing) press will try to pin the blame on one of the little people. In the way DM tried to blame a named tenant for all the Grenfell deaths.