leicsmac

Erudite. And then the thought turns to where that particular train terminates, and what it might take to change its direction at the next of very few remaining signal switches. Frankly, fvck knows.

Several independent agencies and parties are able to corroborate their record on scientific matters and energy policy implementation, for instance. Of course, it is possible they're engaging in a massively successful deception operation regarding their modernisation and progress, but if they are that just means they're heading into the same pit as the West.

More from the point of view of simple continuity and ensuring that there will be any future at all than their all round human rights record, but point taken.

https://www.space.com/astronomy/moon/china-is-making-serious-progress-in-its-goal-to-land-astronauts-on-the-moon-by-2030 More on this. Yeah, they'll stick to it.

Western civilisation, perhaps. I'm of the thought that the Chinese, to say but one, are doing just fine.

I think this was true up until about a decade ago, but I'm not sure how well occupying the centre is working for Starmer right now, for instance. Of course, the point also has to be made again that the Overton Window is a thing and the very definition of what the centre ground is in terms of viewpoints on issues varies wildly.

I hope for that too, but at the same time I wonder what exactly it will take to neutralise the more toxic element of the sentiments seemingly taking hold in the UK right now, as it must be neutralised?

If it does happen, then it certainly does not need to go unanswered, either by those actually with a conscience or by the authorities.

The Mail excelling itself today then - not one, but two front page headlines that at least flirt with being libelous and at most are flat out untruths that are solely ideological in origin and designed to incite ill feeling. I'm guessing it's not a step too far for the press regulator, though, given the track record of that particular paper.

From what I can tell the ban is in place in the vast majority of schools of their own volition anyway, so a general ban would either be easy logistically to implement or unnecessary, depending on who's looking at the situation. There's also studies that point in both directions regarding mobile phone use and academic performance/student mental health, so there's not a massive consensus of data on that right now.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c776ye6lrvzo.amp South Korea has passed a bill banning the use of mobile phones and smart devices during class hours in schools - becoming the latest country to restrict phone use among children and teens. The law, which comes into effect from the next school year in March 2026, is the result of a bi-partisan effort to curb smartphone addiction, as more research points to its harmful effects. Lawmakers, parents and teachers argue that smartphone use is affecting students' academic performance and takes away time they could have spent studying. The ban has its sceptics, including students, who question how it would work, its wider implications and whether it is addressing the root cause of addiction. A place more phone-crazed among the young than the UK applying a general ban. I wonder if the UK will follow suit rather than just leaving it to the schools.

That's a shame. He looked in good form, too.

“Don’t just say this is about ‘thoughts and prayers’ right now. These kids were literally praying..."It was the first week of school, they were in a church.” - Mayor Jacob Frey "Join all of us in praying for the victims," - JD Vance About sums it up.

When things like up for her, Raducanu is formidable. The issue has always been having enough of those days in a row for it to really matter more than once. Hopefully the consistency matter is one she's either getting a handle on or will do soon.

Then Mother Nature will bat last and push even those ones that think they are all powerful to desperation. Either way, what I said above stands. The way the big boys do business with their nationalism cannot, will not, survive the way the world is changing.

... if that's true, then bring on the nuclear holocaust some folks believe is around the corner because not only will that attitude guarantee such an outcome at some point, our species will thoroughly deserve it for not being able to rise above the limbic instinct for power and domination. No one should want to live in a modern world where such principles are so primitive. And no one will.

A NATO member triggering Article 5 against another NATO member will be...amusing, I guess?

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20043-0 We investigate the relationship between individual differences in cognitive reflection and behavior on the social media platform Twitter, using a convenience sample of N = 1,901 individuals from Prolific. We find that people who score higher on the Cognitive Reflection Test—a widely used measure of reflective thinking—were more discerning in their social media use, as evidenced by the types and number of accounts followed, and by the reliability of the news sources they shared. Furthermore, a network analysis indicates that the phenomenon of echo chambers, in which discourse is more likely with like-minded others, is not limited to politics: people who scored lower in cognitive reflection tended to follow a set of accounts which are avoided by people who scored higher in cognitive reflection. Our results help to illuminate the drivers of behavior on social media platforms and challenge intuitionist notions that reflective thinking is unimportant for everyday judgment and decision-making. Interesting study.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0j9l08902eo Denmark's foreign minister has summoned the top US diplomat in Copenhagen, following a report that American citizens have been conducting covert operations in Greenland. Denmark's public broadcaster DR quoted sources as saying the aim was to infiltrate Greenland's society and promote its secession from Denmark to the US, although it was unable to clarify who the men were working for. Danish intelligence warned Greenland was being targeted by "various kinds of influence campaigns". The mask continues to slip.

I can see why they did it at the start - such organisations have had a disconnect where the stereotype of the type of person/scientist working for a space company made them appear unrelatable and goodwill (and funding) for such companies suffered as a result. So they wanted from the start to humanise the people working for SpaceX. I don't really think it's all that necessary for that purpose any more, though.

Pretty much. To be honest though, I think I'll repeat a point made here before and say that in world that is changing as quickly as it is, the descriptions applied over two centuries ago for such things are looking very dated.

And so they did. Pretty much everything they set out to do went as they wanted on this one. Well done, onto the next! https://www.space.com/space-exploration/private-spaceflight/spacex-launches-starship-flight-10-critical-test-flight-video

Yeah, I would have thought treating all human beings regardless of demographic as exactly that - humans - and not some kind of lesser species, as well as viewing the future of human civilisation and the species itself as important enough to be policy on, would not be exclusively left wing properties.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/articles/c1kz18d3wjro The United Kingdom has "almost certainly" had its hottest summer on record, according to provisional statistics from the Met Office. The mean temperature across the country - which includes overnight lows as well as daytime highs - currently stands at 16.13C (61.03F) with less than a week of the season left to run. This is well ahead of 2018, the previous warmest summer, which had a mean temperature of 15.76C (60.37F). Temperatures during the rest of August would need to be four degrees below normal to prevent the record being broken - and this does not seem likely. This is in line with evidence that summers are getting hotter and drier because of climate change.

https://phys.org/news/2025-08-scientists-harsh-grades-trump-administration.html The laws of thermodynamics don't care about political ideology. Nor do their consequences.