leicsmac

Fair to say. But IMO the present and future should be the focus.

Personally I don't think that Europeans should be grateful at being the subject of what has been essentially a Mafia protection racket since the end of WWII from the world player who is a just slightly lighter shade of grey than the others. Speaking personally, I'm not deploring just them, I'm deploring the entire system that allowed them to convince the European nations that protection racket was necessary. I've said all along that realpolitik (and nationalism) are the ugliest of words that will lead to no good outcome, we may be seeing the truth of that very starkly even sooner than feared.

Exactly so. Might makes Right. Social Darwinism writ large. Not only is that morally objectionable, but also from a practical survival viewpoint oit leads to no good end. ... I'm going to be honest, this line makes it appear like the current actions of the US are somehow justifiable.

Schrodinger's Spook.

"The president is not our teacher, our tutor, our guide or ruler. He does not command us; we command him. We serve neither him nor his vision. It is not his job or his prerogative to redefine custom, law, and beliefs; to appropriate industries; to seize the country, as it were, by the shoulders or by the throat so as to impose by force of theatrical charisma his justice upon 300 million others. It is neither his job nor his prerogative to shift the power of decision away from them, and to him and the acolytes of his choosing." - Mike Pence ... it's just a shame you didn't arrive at this conclusion before the horse had bolted and then incited its followers to kill you, isn't it, Mr Pence?

It comes down to the base principle of self interest.

I wonder. I fear that all of this is going to lead to blood. And a lot of it.

Another one where you need both the and the reactions simultaneously. If nothing before, January 6th 2021 should have been the deal breaker. It's rather remarkable how so many people have managed to manipulate their denial of a violent insurrection attempt. The bigger issue is now that there's a similar coup attempt happening much more silently in the bureaucracy - and, so far, much more successfully.

It is. To be honest, the essential ingredient for any asteroid mitigation project, as I've said here before, is time. And in this case, we have more than enough of that. However, given what is currently happening to NASA, I'm no longer sure if we would have the resources if the need were to arise.

Well, considering the kompramat Putin is thought to have on him, I would say likely yes.

Appreciate the clarification. Reality is becoming more like Don't Look Up every day.

The language is pretty on brand for a known sexual predator tbf.

Apparently, Ukraine should "never have started" being invaded by Russia. Well...that's certainly an interesting way of seeing it.

https://www.chron.com/news/space/article/nasa-layoffs-musk-20173396.php By the end of Tuesday, NASA's workforce will be 10 percent smaller than it was at the start of President Donald Trump's second term. Per a report from Eric Berger of Ars Technica, sources confirmed to the publication that about 750 employees at the space agency have accepted a "fork in the road" offer to take deferred resignation later this year. The deferred resignations add to the Trump administration's firing of 1,000 probationary NASA employees, including new hires who joined the workforce within the last one to two years or long-time employees who recently moved up in position. The space agency once had a workforce of nearly 18,000 civil servants. ... just the thing the world needs when a city destroying asteroid has a greater than 1/50 chance of hitting Earth in the next decade.

I'm curious to know exactly what they could have done more that would have stopped the current situation occurring, short of being much more effective at neutralising Trump.

Two European nations possess nuclear weapons. That might give the bigger fish at least a moments pause before trying to throw their weight around too much. And to think I advocated for the UK to give up theirs around a decade ago because I never thought the US and Russia would become ideologically aligned in the cause of strongman repressive autocracy. How wrong I was there.

The Chinese are, at least, moving in the right direction. The other two, however... I fear the timeline of the next five decades might end up going down in (what's left of) history for all the wrong reasons.

I'd be with you on all of this apart from a word of warning on the bolded: current voting patterns indicate that enough people in enough places around the world still buy into that bigotry enough to significantly affect policy decisions, and,by extension, everyone else. They may be a minority, but they case a long shadow, and, more worryingly, they now increasingly include the younger.

"Personal" isn't always, or even often, the same as "important".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce85709xdk4o The UN climate summit in the United Arab Emirates in 2023 ended with a call to "transition away from fossil fuels". It was applauded as a historic milestone in global climate action. Barely a year later, however, there are fears that the global commitment may be losing momentum, as the growth of clean energy transition is slowing, external down while burning of fossil fuels continues to rise. And now there is US President Donald Trump's "national energy emergency", embracing fossil fuels and ditching clean energy policies – that has also begun to influence some countries and energy companies already. In response to Trump's "drill, baby, drill" slogan aimed at ramping up fossil fuel extraction, and the US notifying the UN of its withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, Indonesia, for instance, has hinted that it may follow suit. The current US administration, leading the rest of the world into catastrophe for the sake of short term self interest. Well, if the worst should happen, those that record it should be able to say for the benefit of those still left, very clearly, who was responsible.

Fair to say. For instance, Nixon created and greenlit a federal agency dedicated to safeguarding the environment. Trump is bound and determined to destroy that agency, with all the associated consequences for the natural world.

Trump: "he who saves his Country does not violate any law". Nixon: "when the President does it, that means it's not illegal". Any difference here?

Two reasons come to mind: - if Russia can't conquer or subjugate Ukraine (though they've had military support from elsewhere), I'm not sure they can take on another country equally if not better prepared at a similar time. - Poland is a NATO member, so Article 5 would be triggered, and though Trump is likely only paying lip service to NATO obligations, I'm not sure even he can ignore that without consequences.

I hardly ever get to use the word "turpitude". It's a shame because it's such a fvcking good word. Absolutely so. And so perhaps as time moves forward, so might the value structures of our species.

I emphatically agree. Perhaps with that in mind, people might reconsider the feelings of gratitude they hold at what was simply an act of cut-throat business and the actors that drove it - especially so long after the fact.