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After Catalonia's leader missed a deadline to clarify the government's stance on an independence referendum, and missed another deadline (Thursday calling for an unambiguous renouncement of the independence referendum, the Spanish government plans to strip Catalonia of its autonomous status:
Spain was preparing to impose direct rule over semi-autonomous Catalonia after the region's leader Carles Puigdemont declined to categorically renounce an independence referendum, the prime minister's office announced Thursday.
Spain's government said it would hold a special Cabinet meeting and "approve the measures that will be sent to the Senate to protect the general interest of all Spaniards."
At the Cabinet meeting, the government would invoke Article 155 of Spain's constitution allowing it to strip Catalonia of its self-governance. That would take effect on Saturday, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's office said in a statement.
Madrid had given Puigdemont a 10 a.m. (4 a.m. ET) deadline to clarify his government's stance on a non-binding declaration of independence passed by the regional legislature following a successful referendum on secession. But the Catalan leader insisted on keeping his options open, but that wasn't good enough for Spain's government, which had insisted on an unambiguous "no."
Bloomberg reports "Merkel and Macron Have Spain's Back as Catalan Crisis Escalates":
European Union leaders offered their support for Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy as he prepares to suspend the powers of the Catalan administration to clamp down on its push for independence. EU chiefs arriving for a summit in Brussels on Thursday said they backed Madrid and stressed that the issue of Catalonia's independence was a domestic one for Spain.
"We're looking at this very closely and support the position of the Spanish government, which is also a position that's been adopted across parties," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "Of course this preoccupies us, and we hope that there can be a resolution on the basis of the Spanish constitution." Asked whether he supported the Spanish government, French President Emmanuel Macron said "always," adding that "this summit will be marked by a message of unity of its members in regards to Spain."
Also at BBC, The Guardian, and EUObserver (opinion).
Previously: Spain Trying to Stop Catalonia Independence Referendum
Police and Voters Clash During Catalan Independence Referendum
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday October 23 2017, @04:16PM (1 child)
It's like Yes and No about being a realistic project.
Yes, it's realistic that we could actually launch it.
But the purpose of doing so may be unrealistic. "The Great Filter" may be that intelligent civilizations destroy themselves because their technology and weapons grow faster than both biological and social evolution. So all intelligent civilizations destroy themselves during their World War III.
Thus, while we could launch a record of our existence, and the unvarnished truth about us, there may not be anyone to read it. And there may never be anybody to read it. The universe itself has a finite life. And it has a much shorter period where it is habitable by intelligent life. If nobody found our new Titanium plack, because nobody ever reaches the level of technology for interstellar travel, then the only possibility of it being read is that it (eventually, and by pure dumb luck) happens to land (and survive re-entry) somewhere that there beings who recognize it as an object created by a technological race1.
So yes, and no to it being a realistic project.
1But maybe that is how it would ultimately succeed. Warn some other poor hapless race of what we did to ourselves. Even if the odds of anybody benefiting are astronomical against.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday October 23 2017, @05:51PM
"The Great Filter" may be that intelligent civilizations destroy themselves because their technology and weapons grow faster than both biological and social evolution. So all intelligent civilizations destroy themselves during their World War III.
This one seems pretty ridiculous to me, just like the idea of there being no other civilizations. There's 1 trillion stars in the Milky Way galaxy alone, and several trillion more in nearby Andromeda. We're now finding that exoplanets are very common. Planets with habitable conditions conducive to evolving life may be much more rare, but there's still trillions of chances there just in those two galaxies. So even if there is a "Great Filter", the idea that ALL civilizations destroy themselves just doesn't make sense; nothing with astronomical numbers like that ends up all-or-nothing. There has to be at least some small percentage of civilizations that avoid this fate.
So again I disagree. Given the 1 trillion stars in the galaxy, sure, the odds are poor that one of these small number of civilizations that avoids the Filter will find it, but the possibility is there. Plus, if a civilization manages to avoid the Filter, and is also an exploratory species, they'll probably build lots and lots of long-range probes, so they'll just be limited by transit time, but they should find us eventually, or what's left of us. If we build these landers to be easily found (perhaps with some large reflective array that unfolds on landing), then chances aren't so bad that my golden records will be found, eventually. Remember, the ETs have literally billions of years.