heywoodu

Every year again it amazes me how in a semi-civilized country, redrawing maps to favor one party or another is so normal

Awesome news! is obviously in Now let's see if produced anything the past year.

First registrations are officially done, so now we really can say that @brunamoura's first races of the Olympic season will be in Muonio! Two weeks earlier than we had planned a few months ago, originally the idea was to start in Italy at the end of November, but the Italy/Germany/Austria route this year (at least pre-Christmas) just doesn't have the right races, surprisingly and unlike previous season. Scandinavia it is then, starting with Muonio next week https://www.skimuonio.fi/ilmoittautuneet2?lang=en If anyone has information on where to watch that (I don't see it in YLE's program), that is obviously very welcome.

Verona van de Leur, yes

Linking it to GB canoeing was kind of dumb if true. Other than that, starting an adult content career on the side (especially on a platform made for that) should very obviously not lead to any kind of trouble for his sports career whatsoever. Same kind of nonsense as American teachers being fired because of having an Onlyfans page.

To be clear, when I posted that, it was not even 3 minutes after watching it live on TV, give them a moment

Jenning de Boo just posted a sub-34 (33.98) on sea level in Heerenveen

Got a nice present last night from a colleague after a recent trip he made @hckošice

We had Pim Fortuyn as massive new star in the beginning of the century. Until he was shot dead.

First and main exit polls show D66 is likely to be the biggest. PVV second, but with that also one of the main losers.

Absolutely Polling stations close in around an hour, so until then of course there will be no exit polls and such, but after last night it mostly seems to be between two parties: Geert Wilders' PVV (far-right) and Rob Jetten's D66 (centrist). It is very unlikely the PVV will have a massive win as they did two years ago, since even when he was part of the government, Wilders kept torpedoeing the government and even go against his own ministers. Right now, it is getting more and more clear for people (finally) that a vote for Wilders is a vote for an unbelievably unstable government, if one can even be formed. A lot of parties have already said they will not form a coalition with the PVV, both because of their far-right stances and because forming a coalition with him simply means you are going to have another political crisis - most likely instigated by Wilders being in opposition to his own coalition. D66 seems to have the momentum in the last few days. Then there's the rather far-left GL-PvdA team-up, two left parties that joined forces last time and are lead by the rather unpopular Frans Timmermans. They do have an outside shot at being the biggest today though, definitely the main option for those on the left. More on the right side is the VVD, which has been in every coalition since the dawn of time. Everyone always complains about them, yet apparently always enough people vote on them. Then there's the more central CDA, the Christian Democrats, the party of Mark Rutte's predecessor Jan-Peter Balkenende. Totally collapsed last time around due to one guy (Pieter Omtzigt) leaving and starting his own party, gaining a ton of seats. Omtzigt has since already left politics and his party (NSC) has now collapsed, they might get 1 seat today, who knows, most of it goes back to CDA and they too have an outside shot at winning. Personally I expect something like this: D66 PVV shortly behind it or maybe even equal GL-PvdA a few seats behind them VVD/CDA fighting for 4th JA21 (far-right party of a guy who switches party on a near-weekly basis) being an almost certain 6th place. Then there's some stuff like the populist farmer's party (BBB) which was super big for a short moment and was part of the 4-party coalition drama that led to us having elections now. The super strict Christians of SGP (oldest party in the country I believe, always good for 3 seats, or sometimes 2 or 4, since their fanbase is never-changing - fun fact, their leader comes from a tiny town that's part of my also fairly small municipality). The less strict Christians of the Christen-Unie, Volt and a few others. To give a sense of the sheer number of options: yesterday were the final debates. First there was a debate with the small parties, 6 in total. Then came the debate with the big parties, 9 of them. That's 15 parties who are all in some way likely to get at least 1 seat. Not even counting the 10+ who participate without a real chance for that

There is no chance they'll be part of a coalition (which by itself is already going to be a massive nightmare to form), but my vote did indeed go to Volt @Gianlu33 Not to their number one though, he has the charisma of a wet piece of cardboard, but at least to the party.

She has been to Brazil earlier this month and casually won the 1 rollerski race she competed in Two days ago she left home again to go to Sweden, where she is now training in Idre, the first time on snow since the Trondheim world championships. Then it's off to the first competitions in a few weeks time and by the time she gets back home, halfway in December, she'll likely have done around 8 races already (before then going back basically on Christmas, but this time more towards Central Europe). Preparation for the season has, so far, gone very well. A bit of a cold a while ago, but I'm sure 90% of athletes have that at some point, that's no problem.

Hassanal Bolkiah laughs at those rookies. When Lukashenko rose to power, he was already head of state for a good 27 years and he still is

Sinterklaas is one of the most divisive things we have, the fact that elections are coming up has kept that mostly quiet so far this year luckily Latest polls are showing 4 parties being very close together btw, with potentially a 5th one, that would be incredibly tight. More and more likely that we will have the 'smallest' winner ever, which is going to make a formation, again, massively difficult.

Next Wednesday we have parliamentary elections here, again Not sure yet who I am going to vote for, although some parties are quite easily crossed out for me, so only a few realistic options are left. If I am not mistaken, @Gianlu33 might be happy to know my frontrunner so far is Volt

Tony Two Laps has an Olympic silver and a World Relays gold, I wouldn't worry too much about that in regards to Bol's participation

Yep, quickly checked the calendar but it is indeed not nearly 1 April Apparently she wants the challenge and she's planning to focus on it for the next few years.

Femke Bol has announced her switch to....the 800m

It's kinda funny to see the live chats and social media and such now: first the MAGA cult wanted nothing more than their Messiah to get the prize, and now that he didn't, the prize is 'woke' And yeah, sorry, I meant senator instead of governor. Former governor, it is.

It goes to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/María_Corina_Machado Nominated by Florida's governor Rick Scott, the first decent thing he seems to have done so far.

Meanwhile, in about 10 minutes the Nobel Peace Prize laureate will be announced. Might be Donald Trump, or, I don't know, Kim Jong-un, Xi Jingping, Vladimir Putin, you name 'em!

Are you just purposefully reading the headlines only or what? Both of these things can very clearly be true at the same time. There can be severe malnutrition and famine in Gaza right now, while at the same time UNRWA can indeed have enough stock ready to enter the area when possible to last three months.

Wow, that's early. Such a massive talent early on..

Apologies if this was already known, but in case it wasn't: there won't be 1 'opening ceremony' There will be 4 (or 5) separate ones on the venues, which on TV will be made to look like one. So not really a Parade of Nations and such, just 4-5 shows which are merged into one. Not really a big deal for the average viewer, but very sad for many athletes who this way won't really get to experience the real Olympic opening ceremony vibes