Iz 🌟

Trump is eliminating the Department Of Education. but worry not, I'm sure there'll be a reasonable explanation for why the Republicans want to fuck up the education of American students any minute now.

(bit odd to randomly bump a year-old ranking thread like that but hey-ho) I normally do a May ranking as well as a March ranking, shame, I would have put Doomsday Blue at a far and away #1, at nearly a year later I'm still blown away by how good that performance was. Might be my favourite Eurovision entry of the 20s so far.

I mean, I agree, I prefer to stick to the facts and there is no evidence of any wide-scale vote rigging in the 2024 election, and left-wing people who insist there was, a thankfully small number, lose the high ground a bit from Trump's couping lot from Jan 6. What is undeniable though is that Elon poured a lot of money into helping Trump get elected, as well as basically swing the central operating apparatus of a large social media site into campaigning for him, which is somewhat against the spirit if not the rules of fair elections and coming from a UK political background with strict campaigning spending limits, has me pretty aghast. The common argument is that 'he's a private citizen', but most private citizens do not have the resources to spend so much, and he seems unique among billionaires in his recent obsession (without too much psychoanalysis, getting divorced and clearly being narcissistic has helped this), plus even the biggest donors normally don't tend to end up with huge roles in the resulting administration which adds to the feeling that he bought it. It's a problem with American media in general, they're slavish towards their ideological benefactors without holding truth to power in the way European broadcast media tends to, and they essentially turn regular consumers of their media content into electoral zombies. But really, far better use of energy to look towards what's next and in America that seems to be a choice between Schumer's defeatism and inability to grasp the scale of the problem Tim Walz is doing a decent set of town halls though, he's clearly doing his best to set himself out as a leader of some kind within the Democratic party, which they sorely need. also re the above clip, lel

Japan first nation through to the 2026 WC today! as usual of course due to their strength compared to most Asian teams and the early dates of the qualifiers but I have this impression they are doing well potentially for the finals.

(or it could even have been page 27 being the last page for over a year because now I've started a new page it doesn't seem to be there? people post in my NT more thx)

I had noticed this, when rejigging my first post to get rid of all the links that had been turned into embeds (I will rebuild them once I get a spare moment). Bøtanikkä's thread is even older and doesn't have this issue, so it's probably just some formatting thing that's on the first page of mine. I'll see if I can fix it up, I'd rather keep the thread going in perpetuity if thread post limits aren't a thing because then I have my country's whole history easily accessible. until then, avoid the first page if that bothers you (but it seems to fix itself if you click off to the forums)

Patty Gurdy - Peg Leg Silly-Billy (feat. Christopher Bowes) It's about that time of year where I get swept away by a nautical ditty, and Patty Gurdy, the folksy German pop singer with expertise on the obscure instrument known as a gurdy has provided. She also has connections with a bunch of artists in the European folk metal space that she collabed on her latest release Tavern, including Marko Hietala, formerly of Nightwish, Adaya of Faun, and of course Christopher Bowes of Alestorm, who joined her on my entry, 'Peg-Leg Silly-Billy'. Her previous BJSC entry 'Brighter Days Come' is also on this album. 'Peg-Leg Silly Billy' is a very good, if light-hearted, addicting track and I love the way Christopher's incremental verses give the energy for Patty's incredible chorus. Actually I first became aware of Patty prior even to her appearance in Germany's Eurovision selection process, it was when she sang on one of Alestorm's career highlights so far (out of MANY), 2020's 'Zombies Ate My Pirate Ship', a heartwrenching Alestorm "ballad" about xylophagic undead causing terror to an honest pirate - listen below if you want more collabs in this fashion (and this isn't the only other one they've done! she also collabed with them on a 2024 song)

Måns' is going through an apparently messy and public divorce, the kind where it really doesn't look good for him. Sweden really dodged a bullet huh.

Yeah, Trump was never going to be a long-term brake on Netanyahu.

To not throw out the good with the bad, this morning's announcements had some good surprises in them - the scrapping of reassessments for the most severely disabled, which was up to now a reoccurring reminder of the Tory system's inhumanity with occasional stories of 'are you sure you're still a bedbound paraplegic', scrapping work assessments and schemes for those on the cusp to try work while reducing fears of losing benefits if you take a job. UC is also being raised. Those all help make the system more efficient, will save money by freeing up workloads, and make it more effective as a tool for those out of work looking to get back in. All while being less cruel to those on it. Which makes it even more disappointing that the main thrust of the cost savings and cruelty comes from radically making it harder to be eligible for PIP. The thrust is of course reducing the amount of people supposedly living off the state after the pandemic and increased awareness about mental health increased those numbers recently, and there's undoubtedly some among that number who'd be better off working full-time or have the means to be supported into part-time roles. Almost certainly nowhere near the amount who will lose payments, fail to replace them with anything, as there won't be enough jobs, fall through the cracks of society, and some of whom will sadly, likely die. That is not a Labour policy.

Sir, sir, this is the Eurovision rankings thread, not the 'I swallowed the Kremlin narrative so hard I deny the Soviet genocide of the Crimean Tatars and instead think it's all a Ukrainian lie' thread. '1944' is far from being morally questionable, in contrast it's one of the most morally righteous Eurovision songs of recent times, nor is it Ukrainian propaganda, as it's a truthful account of the events that happened to Jamala's family within the genocide and deportation of the Tatars. Useless, wanting whataboutist claim. I do have reasons for shunning Azerbaijan, Israel and now Georgia's participation in the contest, because in the current political climate Eurovision can act as a cultural defense point of democratic liberalism against authoritarianism, and authoritarian nations are not welcome in the contest (and I wish them a speedy regime change so they can return). These reasons are all fairly self-evident, against autocracies, against cynical whitewashing of a nation's reputation and actions it has taken and abusing the stage for nationalism where the point is freedom of cultural expression. Doing so by not ranking their thankfully woeful efforts and ignoring their participation as much as possible is how I like to engage with that.

glad I didn't choose a more blue shade of teal, I think semi 1 looks better for me. amazing concept

first full ranking: BARA BADA BASTU 01 🇸🇪 Sweden - Kaj - Bara Bada Bastu amazing, repeatable entries 02 🇬🇧 United Kingdom - Remember Monday - What The Hell Just Happened 03 🇦🇺 Australia - GO-JO - Milkshake Man 04 🇫🇮 Finland: Erika Vikman - Ich Komme 05 🇱🇹 Lithuania: Katarsis - Tavo akys 06 🇸🇲 San Marino - Gabry Ponte - Tutta L'Italia 07 🇦🇱 Albania: Shkode Elektronike - Zjerm very good entries 08 🇮🇪 Ireland: Emmy - Laika Party 09 🇱🇻 Latvia: Tautumeitas - Bur men laimi 10 🇮🇸 Iceland - Vaeb - Roa she kant quite enter the top ten... 11 🇲🇹 Malta: Miriana Conte - Serving good, potentially with room to grow 12 🇬🇷 Greece: Klavdia - Asteromata 13 🇵🇱 Poland: Justyna Steczkowska - Gaja 14 🇺🇦 Ukraine: Ziferblat - Bird of Pray 15 🇩🇪 Germany - Abor & Tynna - Baller 16 🇮🇹 Italy - Lucio Corsi - Volevo essere un duro 17 🇳🇱 Netherlands - Claude - C'est La Vie 18 🇲🇪 Montenegro: Nina Žižić - Dobrodošli 19 🇦🇹 Austria - JJ - Wasted Love 20 🇩🇰 Denmark - Sissal - Hallucination 21 🇨🇭 Switzerland - Zoë Më - Voyage 22 🇫🇷 France - Louane - Maman 23 🇷🇸 Serbia - Princ – Mila 24 🇦🇲 Armenia - PARG – Survivor average 25 🇨🇾 Cyprus - Theo Evan - Shh 26 🇵🇹 Portugal - NAPA - Deslocado 27 🇪🇸 Spain: Melody - Esa Diva 28 🇱🇺 Luxembourg: Laura Thorn - La poupee monte le son 29 🇧🇪 Belgium: Red Sebastian - Strobe Lights Awful 30 🇪🇪 Estonia: Tommy Cash - Espresso Machiato 31 🇨🇿 Czechia - Adonxs - Kiss Kiss Goodbye 32 🇸🇮 Slovenia: Klemen - How Much Time Do We Have Left? 33 🇳🇴 Norway: Kyle Alessandro - Lighter 34 🇭🇷 Croatia: Marko Bošnjak – Poison Cake not rating due to morally questionable regime propaganda, in order of how 'good' the song is (they're all pretty bad anyway) NR 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan: Mamagama - Run with U NR 🇮🇱 Israel: Yuval Raphael - New Day Will Rise NR 🇬🇪 Georgia: Mariam Shengelia - Freedom it's a very unusual year to have either Sweden or the UK towards the top of my rankings, let alone both. Kinda happened in 2022 I guess, but outside of that. I'm normally leading team anti-Sweden and I can easily disavow home entries, but KAJ and Remember Monday both have two of the most interesting and replayable songs in the contest. Ditto with Milkshake Man, I love when Australia send JOYFULLY AUSSIE entries and Gabry Ponte is incred as always. shoutout to Croatia for the most genuinely bad song I can recall in Eurovision for a long time, often the bottom of my rankings is just a terminally dull song, rather than an offensively awful one. adding Georgia into my Eurovision pariahs given the events of last year, Shengelia's documented support for the government and sending a song called 'Freedom', Azerbaijan and Israel remain there. Might start codifying this list against the Democracy Index 🤓 (though that has Ukraine at 4.90 and Israel at 7.80 which is... a choice)

I can't believe I'm having to say this: When a democratic leader ignores the independent judiciary, it is a bad thing. They are there to put checks on power and ensure that the law is consistently and properly followed from adminstration to administration. It's a classic authoritarian strongman move to sow distrust in courts, tell their supporters that their decisions are suspect, and finally, when they have enough power, blocking them and concentrating all power into their own hands. It's not a bold move and it is despicable to say so, as that's just cover and an excuse for an anti-democratic, power-hungry wannabe dictator.

A seat that as that New Statesman article puts it, has been divided between a commuter/manufacturing town (Runcorn) in the north and a swathe of the Cheshire countryside, a newly created seat so more vulnerable to these unstable FPTP vote swings. Interesting that they are predicting the Reform strength to come from Runcorn as yes, if anywhere, it would come from there, the countryside is too old Tory-friendly for it to be too friendly to them, but the council results from May 2024 are all Labour with Reform nowhere near though of course that does predate their Faragian retakeover and general election campaign, before he rejoined as leader they famously were completely shit at council elections. The Labour candidate appears to be a local woman, no word on the Reform candidate yet (odds on them being a swivel-eyed loon reasonably high) I think this is just going to come down to which of Labour/Reform can motivate their voters to vote against the opposition, and for every Reform maniac ready to test the wheels of their electoral machine in a by-election, the local Labour party will respond with tying Farage to Putin or something similar. Constituency poll this early and telephone methodology likely to have high amount of variance with the actual result.

confirmed as why so séyetana (spiritually)

Which wouldn't have happened if he hadn't put a dumb worldwide tariff on metals! Stupidity entirely of his own making.

Wes Streeting has retweeted that tweet, indicating he's PROUD of it. God knows why they've decided to up the red Tory cosplay this week, this has to be playing awfully with their base. The BBC even has an article putting Truss and Starmer in the same sentence (due to the smaller government desires of the former going well with what the latter is doing this week) so the popularity seeking is going well.

Hard to say how it will go with the White House being an unpredictable force here - but that's definitely a rejection of the current peace plan and pushing the US to return with something more favourable to Russia. Layered in his actions and words is the idea that it doesn't fulfil the Russian vision of why he started the war in the first place. Which is to say that the US is going to find negotiations very difficult if they don't give everything to Russia (which they should not do, to be clear).

Enjoying the new single a lot, I don't think I noticed much of her work before now - but there's a good sense of fun and rhythm behind it.

Have been enjoying HANABIE songs for several months now, they're quite a revelation - particularly their debut song Osake Ni Shitsurei Shimasu (translated as 'Pardon Me, I Have To Go Now' but just a stock phrase to mean 'excuse me, I'm going') that was a call-out on Japanese sexist corporate culture.

Very nervous for the Spring Statement now, this is a morally indefensible move on the part of Labour - selling it as getting people back into work when yet more people will fall through the cracks. And the media for selling it as a loyalty test for MPs when it'll have real harms associated with it. Ain't good when Labour is outflanking the Tories on benefit cuts and immigration to the right, those were things I voted for them expecting and wanting them to move the other way on.

The President of the United States appearing in an ad-read for Tesla and calling people who protest against Tesla 'domestic terrorists', uh-huh going well. and his ludicrous efforts in the economic zone have wiped a portion of the savings of anyone investing (so now I'm personally mad, even in a diversified S&S ISA you feel it a bit)

Could be that they are testing Russia's supposed willingness. Not likely with the direction of travel but a pause in the fighting to bring things together...

this was released to little Eurofan fanfare on Sunday and I remembered it was out to listen to now. we still have the sickening peace ballads a la Russia in the mid-10s, but this is both less insultingly on the nose than Hurricane and more subdued. Multiple languages, will probably have a big televote still, so buckle up.