Why are there still people wondering why Israel and Australia are participating in the Eurovision Song Contest?

We've been over this time and time again.

Israel is part of the European Broadcasting Area. So is every single country on Western Asia and Northern Africa that borders the Mediterranean.

Each of the 54 countries you see marked as "Current" EBU members on the map can participate in Eurovision (Belarus and Russia have been put in the naughty corner. Belarus' suspension actually expires next year, but something tells me they won't return soon), with Tunisia and Lebanon actually getting pretty close (1977 for Tunisia and 2005 for Lebanon) but eventually withdrawing because of Israel. Lebanon had even submitted a song, Quand tout s'enfuit by Aline Lahoud. Though I'm assuming even if Israel wasn't an issue the gays might eventually scare them away, like they did with Turkey and Hungary (allegedly)

Morocco has participated too, in 1980. Israel was absent that year so there weren't any issues there, but they came second to last with Bitaqat Hub by Samira Bensaïd, so they vowed to never return forever and ever.

Australia gets a special pass because their broadcaster had been an associate member for over 30 years by the time of their 2015 debut. The 2015 contest in Vienna marked the Contest's 60th anniversary so they initially allowed Australia to join as a one time thing, they were even automatic qualifiers to the final for that reason, but because they did really well they kept inviting them every year after. In 2019 they drafted a contract that would allow them to keep participating up until this year. Obviously, they'll most likely return next year too so I guess they're renewing that contract.

Kazakhstan is in a similar situation. Although they have a part of their territory in Europe, they are not active EBU members but only associates, like Australia. They have still been allowed to participate in the Junior version, regularly, and there have been talks about allowing them in the actual contest but this has not materialised yet.

Know your history people 🤣

In 1909, the biologist Jakob von Uexküll noted that every animal exists in its own unique perceptual world — a smorgasbord of sights, smells, sounds and textures that it can sense but that other species might not. These stimuli defined what von Uexküll called the Umwelt — an animal’s bespoke sliver of reality. A tick’s Umwelt is limited to the touch of hair, the odor that emanates from skin and the heat of warm blood. A human’s Umwelt is far wider but doesn’t include the electric fields that sharks and platypuses are privy to, the infrared radiation that rattlesnakes and vampire bats track or the ultraviolet light that most sighted animals can see.

The Umwelt concept is one of the most profound and beautiful in biology. It tells us that the all-encompassing nature of our subjective experience is an illusion, and that we sense just a small fraction of what there is to sense. It hints at flickers of the magnificent in the mundane, and the extraordinary in the ordinary. And it is almost antidramatic: It reveals that frogs, snakes, ticks and other animals can be doing extraordinary things even when they seem to be doing nothing at all.

~ Ed Yong, NY Times Opinion, 6-21-22

gotta be honest and say it's insane to me that a bunch of people 'misremembered' nelson mandela dying in prison in the 80s even though he lived to become the president of south africa in the 90s and instead of thinking 'wow, i really should learn a bit more about international politics outside of north america and europe because not knowing such a basic fact like this about one of the most influential political figures of all time is kind of embarrassing', they became convinced that this was proof that parallel realities exist and they were having memories of an universe where mandela died in prison somehow. that's presumptuous on a level i can barely conceive of

cards 0-5 in my muppets major arcana

More women

Thank god they decided to make more

Wow

Dolly Parton has really been hard at work

But In doing so…she created her biggest enemy…Jolene

The tags fucking one shotted me

Damn she really musta been working 9 to 5 to make those women

What a way to make a living.

What is Ukrainian groove metal

First cat video ever? 1899, colorized & speed corrected.

We straight up forgot the world still had color before film had color and went, “Wow; so realistic.”

...

Proposed state of Delmarva.

@DelmarvaState

Middle Eastern Geopolitical Alignments January 2021

@busbug

someone: have you seen breaking bad?

me, remembering this video: yeah it was amazing

I hate hate hate hate hate hate HATE that people spread this version of the song around. It had a fucking hard as hell time tracking down the original versions.

like, why not just link to the youtube video so people can easily link through and see more of the creator’s work? Freakin’ reposting.

Amazing Shirts (And Other Things) I Want: Part Five

Hey Tumblr,

With the 2020 United States Presidential Election on our horizon, we wanted to proactively beef up our Community Guidelines to stymie any political interference. 

There’s precedent—not paranoia—backing this decision. In 2016, the Internet Research Agency or IRA (a group with close ties to Russian intelligence)  was found to have created hundreds of fake accounts across most social media platforms, including Tumblr. Their sole objective was—is!—to sow dangerous seeds of misinformation. The declassified DNI report refers to the IRA as “professional trolls.”

These “professional trolls” are not welcome on Tumblr, and we wanted our Community Guidelines to reflect that. We clarified our “Confusion or Impersonation” section by renaming it “Impersonation and Non-Genuine Behavior,” specifying that impersonating a public official is not allowed. Parody? Totally fine. Pretending to be Bill de Blasio to spread false info about NYC? Absolutely not fine. Also, it doesn’t even sound fun.

We also added a whole new section on integrity:

The last addition we made to our Community Guidelines reads as follows: “Repeat violations of our Community Guidelines may result in permanent blog or account suspension.” This is not a new policy—it’s just reworded to make our stance as clear-cut as possible: We do not tolerate repeat violators of our Community Guidelines.

Democracy requires transparency and honesty. If we are made aware of any targeted disinformation campaigns on Tumblr from the IRA or groups like them, we will swiftly take action. We have a moral obligation to you, ourselves, and the future of democracy to do whatever is within our power.

If you want to help combat misinformation, check out this video on @world-wide-what for some helpful tips, share this infographic by Tumblr Creatr Ellis van der Does (@ellisvanderdoes) for the National Association for Media Literacy Education (@medialiteracyed), and please (please!) make sure you are registered to vote. 

Stay safe, Tumblr.

Maybe im missing something here but by specifically saying in the guidelines that it is about the US election does that mean you will allow misinformation that damage other countries elections and democracy?

Or is this yet another instance where Tumblr forgets there are A LOT of other countries represented in here?

This is a perfect analogy for describing how stupid “all lives matter” is, thank you for accidentally making it.

Except it is not, cause in the case of manipulation of information the US is not worse off than the rest of us.

Also, protecting all countries from this is AS EASY as changing the wording to something like “You may not use Tumblr to defraud or impede of any official census or local, regional or national elections”…

Also, by making that comparison you are in fact saying that out of all the countries in the world the United States deserve more protection because they are more vulnerable and/or are oppressed… Which is fucking ridiculous because 90% of the time it is the fucking US of A being the oppressor getting into wars and meddling into other people’s elections and governments, so in that case we (rest of the world) need protection from you (if you are american, if not change it for “them”)

So yeah… Seeing as this is a GLOBAL website and misinformation is a GLOBAL problem, only protecting one country from it its not logical, or fair, or anything good, and making the US out of all countries into a victim that needs to be protected seeing its history is laughable.

I've NEVER seen him go off this hard on the internet before ...... the king shit in this bus is astronomical

Wishing ill to happen to others is never appropriate, and people shouldn't make fun of the violence and tragedy in American society.

But there is a list of things the American majority online need to quit fucking doing.

1. Treating the American experience like it's the default one (yes 90% DO do this, even if they don't realise/ mean to)

2. Continue to proclaim they are the final authority on freedom, despite being the developed country with the least grasp of freedom on the planet.

3. Treat non Americans as inferior/ make fun of them for no reason other than 'they aren't American' this includes making fun of accents.

4. Point out other countries flaws constantly and then get indignantly furious when a non American points out American flaws.

If this upsets you, refer to point 4 and die mad.

Trust me, as an Aussie who has to deal with constant ridicule about such pointless shit as the emu war, and then watched Americans get offended by 30 to 40 wild hogs memes (yes there were plenty who got very upset) that shit aint cute, it's annoying. And if you don't do any of these things, I'm afraid there's a few million other Americans who are doing it right now, and this isn't all about you specifically, it's about an entire culture that really needs to get itself in check.

Costco has run out of TP for the next 23,000 years. People are taking this doomsday prepping too far