leicsmac

I guess such things are subjective, as a lot of things are. Which brings it back to the policy platforms of such individuals and how they're applied, which can often be much more objective.

... ten points to anyone who knows what happened roughly around the last time the "hard right" had the same figures as today.

It would also be interesting to see how this translates to projected seats.

Perhaps. It's either incompetent or deceptive whichever way it comes out, though.

Trump denying any knowledge of the group chat and what happened within it. So... government officials are making unilateral discussions on military operations without the knowledge or consent of the commander-in-chief of those military forces, then? That's a good look.

I'm not sure that all of them are idiots, to be honest. At least some of them are power hungry and willing to go to serious lengths of malice to exercise that power, IMO.

Yep. Gaslight and disparage the reputation of the journo involved to make it look like no big thing. The worst thing is the amount of people who will actually believe that is the case despite the evidence to the contrary.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cg70xgxl3vmt The White House confirms that a journalist was inadvertently added to a group chat where senior US officials discussed plans for a strike against the Houthi rebel group Whoops. "At one point in the thread the JD Vance account, the name of the vice-president, griped that the strikes would benefit the Europeans, because of their reliance on those shipping lanes, adding: "I just hate bailing Europe out again." The user identified as Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, responded three minutes later: "VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It's PATHETIC."" As if there was any more proof needed of what this administration thinks of Europe and the UK.

And unfortunately that's the road we've gone down now. It begins with criticism of the assessment of a political figure (whether valid or not), simply because that figure is political, and it ends with the entire idea of expertise and the scientific method on every matter being called into question, as Sagan predicted. I get the idea of being sceptical of personal bias from an expert towards a divisive political figure, I do. But the death of trust in scientific expertise that starts there ends nowhere good.

Speaking personally, I think that the damage of the actions caused by the current US administration - both present and over the next couple of years - matter far more than the reasoning behind why they're happening anyway. The fact that the very idea of truth is being subverted and that is deeply consequential for our future is the big thing.

" If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him." - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

No idea. In any case, it's good to see that the Greenlanders, Danish and most other folks outside a particular breed in the US not buying into any of it.

They would be well within their rights to refuse them permission to land.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g0718g3jwo Greenland's politicians have condemned plans for high-profile US visits, in the wake of President Donald Trump's threats to take over the island. Second Lady Usha Vance will make a cultural visit this week, and a separate trip is expected from Trump's National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. Outgoing Greenlandic Prime Minister Mute Egede described the plan as aggressive, and said the duo had not been invited for meetings. Meanwhile, the island's likely next leader accused the US of showing a lack of respect. Those last three words pretty much sum up the current US administration.

And to add to this, that form of government and action is utterly incompatible with the survival of civilisation in the longish term anyway.

Didn't you get the memo? Because science has become "politicised", the viewpoint of a decades-long expert in the field and someone with a slick manner and a YouTube channel are equally valid. See vaccines, climate change etc.

https://phys.org/news/2025-03-earth-drylands-affecting-billions-climate.html As Earth continues to warm, more and more of the planet is becoming dry. A 2024 UN report found that in the last three decades, over three-fourths of all the world's land became drier than it had been in the previous 30 years. Drylands now comprise 40.6% of all global land (excluding Antarctica). In addition, the number of people living in drylands has doubled over the last 30 years to 2.3 billion, which represents over 25% of the global population. In a worst-case climate change scenario, this number could climb to 5 billion by 2100. Drying is occurring in many parts of the world, including the western U.S., Brazil, most of Europe, Asia and central Africa. If greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current trajectory, 3% more of the world's humid areas will become drylands by 2100. Drylands would likely expand in the U.S. Midwest, central Mexico, parts of Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina, the entire Mediterranean area, the Black Sea Coast, and southern Africa and southern Australia. There are no regions of the world that are expected to go from drylands to a more humid climate in the future. It's going to get really fun when those areas that contain a lot of people become too dry to raise crops or source enough potable water for everyday use.

That is entirely understandable. There's so many "big" problems that, given the accessibility of information, we are now inundated by. Honestly don't know the best way to deal with that.

It can be both and not be mutually exclusive. It's perfectly possible to employ people of all different demographics while using AI as an adjutant to make the resources within those jobs more efficient. And while it's a good idea to hold the current government feet to the fire to keep them as honest as possible, it should be pointed out that the current high polling alternatives are...rather worse across the board, as we've seen in the last decade and is abundantly clear from Reforms counterparts across the pond.

I think that timebomb will only become more acute if (as predicted) resource scarcity really starts to hit a lot of places, because I think a lot of it really just comes back to fear and malice based on self-interest.

I think it's also because some people simply view the problem as abstract right up to the point it punches them in the face. Again, empathy not progressing beyond ones line of sight spatially or temporally. That being said, the massive elephant in the room wrt carbon emissions and their consequences is still energy generation; international travel, while a piece of the puzzle, is a rather smaller one.

Yep. Don't bother to spend on redundant systems, because you won't need them... ... up until the day that you do.

I've talked about this before, but it's rather unreal how almost everyone takes the mechanics of civilisation - from the production line that produces a single pencil to a system like this - so effortlessly for granted. "In an urban society, everything connects. Each person's needs are fed by the skills of many others. Our lives are woven together in a fabric. But the connections that make society strong also make it vulnerable." - Narrator, Threads.

Apparently Trump would like the idea of the US joining the Commonwealth. I'm beginning to think that the seeming envy/affection he has for the monarchy is something that could really be used by the UK to help neutralise at least some of his worst excesses.

Quite right, such is why (to use an extreme example) the law makes a distinction between murder and manslaughter based on intent. However, I do think that effect matters more in a lot of instances, and also beware those using a shield of incompetence to disguise their malice (there's a lot of that going round right now).