leicsmac

Hopefully, at some point, he will finally get a much needed, very public, lesson in humility.

It's darkly impressive that Trumps claim that LA would be "burning to the ground" if the national guard hadn't been called in (unilaterally at his request) isn't even the top 10 biggest lies he has come out with.

And to try to get things back on topic:

Well, at least there's a modicum of common ground being found here now.

This. Why are people so bound and determined to get people to pick a side other than the one that simply wants innocent life not to be taken and this ridiculous, puerile and self-destructive adversarial model of humanity to not perpetuate?

Exactly. "For the enemy is not Troll, nor it is Dwarf, but it is the baleful, the malign, the cowardly, the vessels of hatred, those who do a bad thing and call it good." - Terry Pratchett, Thud! And the worst thing about such of the baleful and the malign are that they try, so very hard, to put across that such malignity towards other human beings - and other life - is somehow justifiable because life has "always behaved that way" or "human nature" or somesuch. As if that is in any way a reasonable excuse for our species to follow suit.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8xgk1ek19lo The UK has sanctioned two far-right Israeli ministers over "repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities" in the occupied West Bank. Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich will both be banned from entering the UK and will have any assets in the UK frozen as part of the measures announced by the foreign secretary. David Lammy said Finance Minister Smotrich and National Security Minister Ben-Gvir had "incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights". In response, Israel said: "It is outrageous that elected representatives and members of the government are subjected to these kind of measures." The sanctions are part of a joint move by the UK, Norway, Australia, Canada and New Zealand announced on Tuesday. Good to see the UK following the equitable application of such things by the rest of the civilised world.

Possible, but again, only time will tell there.

I was thinking more from the point of view that it's hardly the only priority policy right now, though obviously economics influences a lot of other policymaking.

Perhaps so. That being said, there's a lot of things that can't wait two years either that are in the queue with it.

Make Measles, Diphtheria, Tetanus and Polio Great Again.

I guess we'll see where we are in a couple of years on this one to judge with any degree of accuracy.

The UK making moves to begin building its first fission plant in over 30 years. Should have been doing it a rather long time ago, but now will have to do. I'm hoping those against the idea have their own alternative that won't result in a much bigger cost in money and lives in the near future?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clynq459wxgo The [UNFPA] has taken its strongest line yet on fertility decline, warning that hundreds of millions of people are not able to have the number of children they want, citing the prohibitive cost of parenthood and the lack of a suitable partner as some of the reasons. UNFPA surveyed 14,000 people in 14 countries about their fertility intentions. One in five said they haven't had or expect they won't have their desired number of children. The countries surveyed - South Korea, Thailand, Italy, Hungary, Germany, Sweden, Brazil, Mexico, US, India, Indonesia, Morocco, South Africa, and Nigeria - account for a third of the global population. They are a mix of low, middle and high-income countries and those with low and high fertility. UNFPA surveyed young adults and those past their reproductive years. "The world has begun an unprecedented decline in fertility rates," says Dr Natalia Kanem, head of UNFPA. A topic that's cropped up a bit here recently, and it remains difficult to see the best way forward imo. Obviously fertility rates tailing off will result in big problems that various places are ill-equipped to handle, but seeing them rise at rates similar to recent history with the associated continual population increase at an exponential rate will probably result in bigger problems.

Hopefully so.

It's still an option that they have when other options are exhausted, though.

They will always have the Samson Option available to them no matter what, so I don't see why they should fear anything that Iran do short of developing that option themselves.

And they used a very, very sophisticated virus to wreck such a plant again more recently. It really comes down to how discreet and discriminate about it they want to be this time.

I think that would depend on the method used and the level of restraint shown in so doing. It's not like the current leadership there appears squeamish in terms of doing what they believe to be necessary no matter the body count, is it?

Well, I don't suppose that Israel can become any more of an international pariah than they already are. But it may be that they might try...

This situation in LA could escalate very badly, very quickly.

In all honesty, if anyone is surprised by the behaviour of the various goon squads across the US given a free hand by their ochre overlord, then they haven't been paying attention.

Yeah, no disagreement there about the lack of control. I stand my point that taking them hostage would serve whoever did it no useful purpose whatsoever though.

... or he might understand the distinction between the governance of Gaza now and a bunch of hard-line Salafist militants (who even Hamas at the time tried to keep in check when he was taken).

Absolutely, which is a big reason why the Israelis were always going to stop it. My point was that there would be absolutely zero utility in those folks being taken hostage should they have made it to Gaza.