Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/05/11/netherlands-disqualified-from-eurovision-song-contest-after-mysterious-backstage-incident.html
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Always vaguely surprised who’s allowed to enter Eurovision and who isn’t. (“Israel is part of Europe now?”) But that’s just a foolish antiquated attitude about ‘etymology’ - as even Russia now has an entry. wikipedia
(it’s more of a ‘No Western Hemisphere’ club …plus no China, Korea (which likely could really bring it), India, and Japan)
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I suspect Putin will be exercising a lot more control over who represents Russia in the contest going forward ever since the fallout from Little Big.
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If what I’m reading online is accurate, the Dutch entrant was being hassled by camera crew, and the EBU is reacting to his response,
I thought Eurovision would be less chaotic after last year’s voting drama, but everything is kicking off this year
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Always vaguely surprised who’s allowed to enter Eurovision and who isn’t. (“Israel is part of Europe now?”) But that’s just a foolish antiquated attitude about ‘etymology’ - as even Russia now has an entry.
If you read the article you linked you’ll find out 
Europe != European Union != European Broadcasting Union
I’m more surprised that the USA keeps calling that bilateral sporting event the “World Series” 
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It’s the same in football. Israel are a member of UEFA, they joined after several years of problems in the AFC where other teams would forfeit games instead of play against them. This includes the time when they qualified for the World Cup without playing a single game, although FIFA weren’t having it and made them go into a play off with lucky loser Wales (Israel lost).
There’s probably a similar thing going on with the EBU, although it killed their plans to include other non-European Mediterranean countries.
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Meh… Gimme the classics…
Excuse me while I change into my velour top and white jeans…
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Why wouldn’t Russia be considered part of Europe? Most of it may be in Asia but it’s a huge country, and a good portion of it, including all of Kaliningrad Oblast, is firmly within the European continent. Kalingrad is surrounded by E.U. member states.
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Now Australia on the other hand. Not really got a lot of geographic association with Europe.
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No, but it’s a settler colony…
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That can explain Israel too but not Morocco.
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It’s almost like the concept of “Europe” is amorphous and based in ideology… but that can’t be true…
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All in all, maybe we dodged a bullet when we didn’t win last year. Having this whole mess in Helsinki wouldn’t have been fun.
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Baseball’s World Series was originally sponsored and presented by a newspaper called The World.
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I hope “The World” reported news from more countries.
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It stands to reason that a small, local paper fulla small, local stories would not have the $$$ and other resources to put on such a show.
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Russia has been banned since 2022. Pro-Palestinian campaigners wonder why Israel can’t be banned as well.
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Lol about Korea really bringing it, they might win literally 70+% of the time
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They were grandfathered in as former participants in the Pangeavision Song Contest…
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