leicsmac

Fair point, but when the other batters are in this mood I'm not sure how much it matters. Duckett, Brook (from 9 off 20 to 72 off 52) and (hopefully) Livingstone again, too.

Quite. What makes it most depressing for me is the attitude of national insularity/superiority it infers - as if the idea of nationalism itself is going to solve all or even merely survive the problems we face as a species ahead.

Appreciate the heads-up. Well... Firstly, there would need to be more than hearsay, innuendo and the word of one person to establish whether this is true at all. That rich and powerful people have looked to manipulate society for their own ends is hardly in question, there just needs to be a lot more proof of it in this particular instance. Secondly, this reads like similar theories regarding Covid/education systems/globalism where such theories are floated without much in the way of hard evidence backing them. I can understand a. such evidence is bloody difficult to come by and b. people want to feel that a human-shaped boogeyman is doing the dirty rather than simply acts of nature (sometimes exacerbated by human action) because it gives them an element of control over their lives, but it is, quite simply, living a lie. Sometimes bad things just happen, and sometimes nature is badder than humans could ever be, and sometimes there is no one to blame. And no man is ever an island and to believe otherwise is simply wrong. Finally, if such a conspiracy is true, it is taking place with the (at least implied or deferential) consent of the entire climate science corps. What exactly do they have to gain from this? They, as well as anyone, know that such a conspiracy based on consequences beyond human control wouldn't make any sense - because the overall objective for those running the conspiracy is control and power. It doesn't make sense that some of the smartest people on this planet would go along with such a lie without there being some evidence of what's in it for them. So yeah, there's really little of substance here - it's just a bloke scared of the changes to the status quo affecting him personally so he's trying to bury his head in the sand and put out misinformation that puts off the necessary changes until they don't affect him - at the cost of massive amount of materiel and countless lives in the future. Self-centred to the extreme. NB. As an exercise, remember the reverse Pascals Wager here: if he's right and the entire climate science corps are wrong, then the worst possible outcome is 1984. If he's wrong and the entire climate science corps are right, the worst possible outcome is the Mad-Max-style downfall and eventual extinction of our species in a mass extinction event that will cause incredible damage to the biosphere. I don't know about anyone else, but I would rather choose an overthrowable (in time) dystopia over irreversible annihilation.

Badenoch: "...saw people bringing cultural disputes from India "to the streets of Leicester"..." Clearly courting the Reform vote then.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd6q2zwy9j0o Interesting look at how the world diplomatic corps see things. And a prize for one of them for stating the bloody obvious: One minister from the region told me that climate was the main area where the US candidates’ differences worried them. “In terms of having real commitment from the US government and for the US government to provide leadership,” the minister said it’s "definitely Democrats".

I think that when people possessed of that rhetoric are in the political cabinet of a nation - no matter how marginalised it may seem that they are - then it becomes meaningful. But I hope you're right and the kind of solutions proposed by those two in their entirety never gain the traction they need to become totally fulfilled. Same with the ridiculous Wahabists and their political power in the Middle East, too.

I guess we'll find out. Either way, it's a judgement that two people like those two have been granted the power to affect government decision-making in any capacity (which they clearly have; I'm pretty sure Netanyahu has acquiesced to their position more than once to prevent the collapse of his government and losing power himself). Edit: Additionally, people of the same mindset as those two are on record as saying that they would, without hesitation, target Middle Eastern and European cities with nuclear weapons should it look like Israel will be overcome and no help is forthcoming.

I hope you're right about the bolded part.

No mention of Smotrich or Ben-Gvir, either, for that matter.

It's the basic Adam Smith idea of the market working. "Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it". Or it shows rather clearly just how blatant and corrupt a front for money laundering the "fine art" world is. Or both. Take your pick.

Clearly nearly went full Trump. Never go full Trump.

Yeah, it's ineffective. So is chucking the soup. I think this discussion cropped up before on the Tech thread and it ended with us both (or maybe just me) being called out for justifying terrorism.

Certainly any entity with limited resources has to make decisions like this - but I'm not sure how much that has to do with the attitude of some people that rather clearly infers they're happy for the vulnerable to risk death (and actually die) as long as their own lives are not impacted in any way at all. IMO the true value in this enquiry will be an established strategy to deal with such natural disasters going forward, yes. But that being said, in the absence of a control group, controlled variables or repeated testing it's always going to be inconclusive about whether or not one particular strategy would have worked much better than another and the next one that comes along may be much, much worse than Covid, so such a strategy will clearly have to be flexible and have multiple different outputs and cover multiple scenarios.

As per just above, I do think the sentence for the former should have been much longer. International law states pretty clearly that you don't put military HQ's in civilian neighbourhoods, yeah. That being said, even if this is the case and you're the "good guy" in a hostage situation and you shoot through the hostage to get to the "bad guy", there's a certain amount of blood on your hands for choosing the path of least resistance and someone dying who didn't have to die. There is due process for the "good guy" following such incidents, so should there be here. WRT the final sentence, I'm not sure at all that the events of today were overly "defensive" than a display of military superiority to threaten escalation, but fair enough. Personally, I think it clear to see that warfare has dehumanised the leadership on all sides, that's evident in their actions and reactions and it's the innocent people on all sides that are suffering because of it. And it's allowed to happen again and again because those with the power to address it in a lot of places choose not to because it is more politically expedient for them to let it spin on. If I'm wrong about it simply being a matter of will and there really is no addressing the ideological divide, then that's very bleak.

The only thing that I'll add to this is if the kak does hit the fan, they will not be the only guilty party that should be held accountable for the consequencesthat ensue, and far from the biggest.

Elon is an old friend (on and off), sadly. The narcissism would be amusing were there not so much at stake.

That's entirely possible. Either way, as someone deeply invested in both the problem and the solution it's very frustrating. Yeah. Personally I struggle with this one a bit because I was rather pleased to see people so clearly displaying supremacist ideology locked up for picking a fight with the fuzz on their way to directly and indirectly terrorise those of a different skin colour to them.

Yeah. Which would be laughed out of court were the circumstances any different at all.

Not sure how important the context is for that harsh language and stones being used is, to be fair.

We had quite a long thread on JSO somewhere. They are clueless. The issue they highlight is the most serious facing our civilisation and our biosphere today and it isn't even close.

... amazing how all of these "precise operations" result in so many dead civilia- sorry, "collateral damage" that clearly is the fault of the people themselves for being there, isn't it?

And yet thanks to some social media savvy and tapping into horrible prejudices and making them fashionable again, the guy is still about even money to win in November. Goodness only knows what any sentient aliens watching us must think.

... what is it with self-interested quasi-sociopathic leaders of nations and really shite haircuts/toupees?

The populist Internet nutjob movement starting around 2016 has a lot to answer for.

As of last year, can confirm they don't do it anymore and also that at least some cabbies over there are utterly mental. And then you have the tow truck drivers...