Not to be pedantic but I actually would say that Rock You/We Are The Champions is bigger than Bohemian Rhapsody, in “of all time” terms.
Worlds Apart is the best Journey song.
I’m speaking in terms of historical and critical reception, as discussed by Rolling Stone, not in terms of personal preferences.
pfft we all know Bicycle Race is the biggest, most influential Queen song
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If we are talking big, I’d like to throw in Big Bottomed Girls.
Uh I mean - stop derailing this thread people 
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Oh goodness gracious. You can’t move the goalposts and change the parameters of your initial argument. Rolling Stone is a hack publication with hack opinions that only applies a very narrow Europe/US-centric POV to music, and this is the first you’re mentioning “as discussed by RS” … as if that means anything.
We Will Rock You / We Are The Champions is infinitely more widespread, listened to, and recognized by people all over the world than Bohemian Rhapsody. I’m not talking about which is the better song, which we all know is I’m In Love With My Car. Just consider any major football (soccer) event at any stadium in any country. Speaking from experience, even remote, rural peoples all over the developing world can recognize We Are The Champions. Bohemian Rhapsody doesn’t even come close.
and @Quinn — You’re wrong, man!
( @Urben FAT bottomed girls 
)
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I didn’t. I said two of the biggest songs of all time, no more, no less. That doesn’t necessarily mean in terms of popularity, but I would argue that BR is just as widely known as Champions and Rock You are, even though you’re more likely to hear the latter on the radio nowadays. I only threw in RS as one example of where to go for a source in the event you were to ask for one. No goalposts were moved.
Anyway, we’re derailing the thread here.
Benny Gantz and his National Unity alliance are expected to withdraw from the government later today. EDIT (Miscounted parties totals in the Knesset) This will cause Netanyahu’s ruling coalition to hold 64 seats compared to the opposition’s 56. According to The Times of Israel there are no negotiations attempting to keep Gantz in the coalition.
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He canceled the press conference, no new date was announced.
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Here is a more updated read. It appears he decided to delay the statements after hostages were sucessfully rescued earlier today.
I generally subscribe to this take by David Simon on the broader Israel-Palestine situation:
A reminder this is the General News thread, not “Accusations at forum members thread”
A lot of the things going on the world right now are unpleasant, a lot of people are suffering directly, indirectly and through empathy for their fellow humans.
A lot of people also have different viewpoints and understandings due to different:
- Life experience
- Sources of information
- Emotional connections to events
If you find someone who has a very different viewpoint to you, which is in fact likely caused by one of these issues then it is not appropriate to simply post and accusal and insist the forum guidelines are on your side because you want.
Particularly with say, let’s use a real world example of Israel & Palestine, where everyone who wants to comment on it is encouraged to remember:
- Israel was specifically the creation of League of Nations as a sort of hand washing solution to the collective failure of their nations to protect Jews from Nazis, Fascists and others.
- Because they elected to used colonized land, the act of forming Israel was itself an act of colonialism - which was considered fine by the status quo at the time
- The average Israeli had no personal involvement in any of this, let alone the events that lead up to it
- The average Palestinian also had no personal involvement in any of this, let along the events that lead up to it
- Israel has a long history of being involved in less-than-ideal actions which have been not just excused, but rewarded it due to politics largely relating to colonialism and influence over oil-rich nations in the region, often propped up racist ideals and the Evangelical theory that Israel is necessary for the End of Days
- That people in Palestine or who claim to act on behalf of Palestine are often doing things out of suffering or desperation, or a world view that was created by circumstances beyond their control is pretty much of no comfort to people who suffered from the actions
- That antisemites attempt to essentially play both sides and create bigger problems in the hopes it’ll lead to either wider hatred of Jews or the End of Days is a very real problem and that someone was duped by one is of no comfort to any Jew (or person mistaken for a Jew) who is harmed or feels threatened at the time
- All of this means reporting on the issue is very complicated and even basic statements like “It’s genocide and that’s bad” can come across differently based on the individual’s background with those statements and the issue.
So here’s some very basic, simple clarifiers on this:
- You can share news articles on this matter, but must take care to only share ones that are actual reporting
- You cannot direct them or comments about those articles at particular users as “gotcha”, assume if the person realizes they were wrong about something terrible they will feel bad about it on their own
- You can absolutely express sympathy or empathy for people who are suffering, dead, dying or injured
- You cannot cheer on or call for any deaths, even for ones you’re sure are groups of terrorists, genociders, etc Do not offer your two cents on why the deaths of people you never met and are only aware of thanks to inherently controversial reporting are good actually
- Do not speed post. When in doubt, talk yourself through it and then re-read it - that way you improve your odds of contributing something and not just using the thread as a Discord chat
- Assume your posts will be read by someone who has an entirely neutral view on you - they won’t see you as particularly moral, well informed, connected to it, etc. If you are any of those things, show it by sharing insights rather just counting on it giving your post clout
- Remember you are human and thus fallible
What is going on is terrible for many people and consists of countless unfathomable injustices, many of them going back far beyond the lifespans of any of us in their thread. I promise none of us know the solution, and that none of us will personally stop the tragedies going on there and that sympathy for your fellow persons can go a long way, but contempt for their existence will likely alienate you from fellow humans in ways you don’t anticipate.
This is a forum for discussing video games, not a counsel room for international politics, nor a generic social media platform. Take it as an opportunity to learn, and share the information you think others need to know - not one to posture as to what outcome you think needs to happen.
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See all that stuff I posted there? Now let’s think about this.
Someone saying “There is no genocide…” may do so out of a spectrum of reasons:
- Their information leads them to believe there is no genocide because the news they are used to trusting them tells them the situation is complicated, steps are being taken to spare people in Palestine and you can’t trust the news that’s said there is because of his history of antisemitism
- They perhaps due to having a personal connection to the term and so for them is a loaded term that triggers all kinds of emotional responses and concerns that people are vilifying their people etc
- They have been dealing with this claim not in terms of good faith discussions about concerns for the people in Palestine, but due to people sending them harassing messages, trying it into antisemitic tropes, etc.
All of these create these complications to which I refer above, and all the times I’ve pointed out that often people who are parts of groups who have legitimate grievances with the nation of Israel end up repeating antisemetic myths because antisemites have sought them out and gone to serious lengths to get them to promote this to validate the myth.
But that’s not really what happened.
You posted a demand the person agree that it’s genocide and demanded they clarify if they are okay with that, which means they weren’t replying to a report on an authority saying it was a genocide, or an analysis of what percentage of the Palestine people have died or been crippled as a result, the projections for them as a people etc. It was purely dropping your estimation and demanding a response, apparently so you could now demand the person be banned for failing to meet your standards.
This is the exact kind of thing that the first areas of the Forum Guidelines Primer says is not okay. You can’t just jump in to escalate things and then point at the other guy and demand they get banned.
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I have literally never relied upon you to tell me what my morality should be. I have however, generally upheld that escalation insult wars are bad.
There is literally nothing stopping you from, instead of posting abuse at various forum members from just finding more information on the suffering that is happening in Palestine.
You weren’t even the source of the news in this one, you were just angry that there is an opposing story from Israel which gives an alternative account. This is to be doubly expected because it’s very difficult to obtain accurate information from a war zone with a lot of heavy politics crammed into it.
But there were also very heavily reviewed analysis saying the opposite in December.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02713-7/fulltext
They will continue to be difficult to verify as the sheer volume of deaths has meant there has been mass burials, and the destruction means there are unknown numbers of people beneath rubble, etc.
All of this is to say that every single innocent person’s death is a tragedy, and while there are certainly many people around who are actively cheering for the idea of a genocide not just of Palestine but of all Arabic nations - there are also plenty of people who people who believe that this will get sorted out, the bad people punished and everything be better at the end of the day.
Why? Do they believe this? I don’t know. Personally I would think the Guantanamo Bay detention camp as a strong enough example of the inevitable conclusion of “we’ll just do whatever is necessary to wipe out the bad guys” leads to. In my personal life I absolutely do support Palestine, and try to contribute to attempts to get an official ceasefire intervention applied etc.
You know what I don’t do? Look for people who seem to have a personal investment in it due to being Israeli or just Jewish and send them personal abuse in the hopes that will somehow translate into people they’ve never spoken to staging an official intervention.
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An updating election results projector for the EU Parliament. (Warning the website runs really slow)
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French President Emmanuel Macron dissolves parliament after loss to National Rally
It’s a political crisis.
We will vote June 30th, and July 7th
In shock move, Macron dissolves French National Assembly
French President Emmanuel Macron announced shortly after 21:00 CET that he would dissolve the national assembly, arguing: “I can’t pretend that nothing has happened.”
His centrist Renew party was handed a heavy blow by coming in a very distant second in the European elections to the far-right National Rally, scoring 15.2% and 31.5% respectively.
Jordan Bardella, the RN’s lead candidate for these elections, had in his victory speech delivered shortly after the provisional results came out at 20:00 CET, called for such a move.
Macron, in his five-minute address released on social media, retorted that “the rise of the nationalists and demagogues is a threat not only to our nation but also to our Europe and to France’s place in Europe and in the world”.
“The extreme right is both the impoverishment of the French people and the downfall of our country. So at the end of this day, I can’t pretend that nothing has happened,” he added.
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I guess I’m a little confused why he would dissolve the parliament forcing new elections. Most likely his party RE will end up losing making his life slightly more difficult so why call them to begin with?
The only thing I could think of is maybe his hope is if National Rally wins that they’ll be tested by the French public and struggle to govern causing their support to begin eroding.
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I’m interested to see if they will work together more effectively this time or if they will go down the same path as NUPES.
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The leader of The Republicans (LR) Éric Ciotti said earlier today he wants his party to form an alliance with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally going into the parliamentary elections. So far many within his party haven’t taken it well with Gérard Larcher a member of LR and President of the French Senate calling on him to resign as President of the party.
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