leicsmac

Indeed. Also, on the topic of such things, I would very much recommend the book Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

"Hell is empty, and all the devils are here."

Over 70 million people considered the current occupant of the White House to be President material. Sadly the thought processes of quite a few people appear... rather inexplicable.

“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” Antonio Gramsci A better day will dawn. Or it won't. Either way, the status quo won't continue, and take comfort in that.

It is rather tiring to live in reasonably unprecedented times.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4wgzdydkeo Something a little different. How modern tech is showing a divide between generations, and how something can be made of nothing there to create clicks, engagement and revenue. And division.

Speaking personally, I don't think the urge for those who want to abuse power is any stronger now than it has been through history, but the difference is that recent advances in tech have made such means to abuse power more sophisticated, easier to apply and more far reaching. I will say though that the cold comfort is that the way such grifters and sociopaths choose to do things will end up consuming them in the end, and that end will be as horrible for them as it is for anyone else. It's just unfortunate that the rest of our species will also be along for the ride, so it's not exactly a desirable outcome even if someone might get a certain satisfaction at seeing their faces when they realise no money, no power, no pious little belief in whatever system they use to manipulate, will save them from what's coming.

It would be wholly hilarious were the consequences not so absolutely awful. As it is, it's humour of a rather dark kind.

Well, yes, but it's a rather new development that this kind of religious mania is firstly so blatant at the highest executive level, and secondly being utilised by policymakers to affect so many peoples lives negatively.

Further to this: https://phys.org/news/2026-03-reveal-significant-global.html Global warming has accelerated since 2015, according to a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). After accounting for known natural influences on global temperature, the research team detected a statistically significant acceleration of the warming trend for the first time. Over the past 10 years, the estimated warming rate has been around 0.35°C per decade, depending on the dataset, compared with just under 0.2°C per decade on average from 1970 to 2015. This recent rate is higher than in any previous decade since the beginning of instrumental records in 1880. We live in interesting times. Which will only get more interesting.

Well, at the moment I can offer some argument to the contrary, but certainly not much and not at all convincing, given what's going on. That being said, no one should sit back and accept that we're always going to be like this either (with all the dire consequences that entails), because that just makes failure as a species a guarantee rather than a likelihood. Rage against the dying of the light. Always.

Also, the amount of internet commentary I'm seeing about this all being part of a larger perverse "Great Game" where there has to be winners and losers is horrifying. That very attitude - that there has to be hierarchy and violence is the only way to enforce it - is the reason why all this starts and continues, and why so many innocent people suffer and die needlessly. Our species can do better - has to do better - than behaving like viruses with more sophisticated toys.

Quite right. But to clarify on my original point, just the entire reliance on oil in the way this administration chooses to will lead to no good end for anyone, as it will continue to contribute to a problem that will result in vastly depleted vital resources and therefore more conflict over them in the near future.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz6evlwl68do The Liberal Democrats want Sir Keir Starmer to prevent the King visiting the United States next month over Donald Trump's criticism of the British response on Iran. The monarch and Queen Camilla are set to meet the US president for a state visit at the end of April. But Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said the visit should not go ahead, as it would hand a "huge diplomatic coup" to Trump during US-Israeli strikes on Iran. The conflict has strained transatlantic ties, after Sir Keir initially refused to allow American planes to use British bases to launch bombing raids on the country. Think there's an argument to be made either way here; at the present time the King shouldn't go on general principle, but he's also one of the few men that Trump cannot (or at least will not) talk down to and might listen to reason on.

Purely for the record, though, such continued reliance on and exploitation of oil does remain psychotically short sighted and self interested and that kind of thing perhaps shouldn't be framed in any light but a negative one.

Absolutely. Everyone is the same in the eyes of the Pale Rider. It's rather unfortunate that some organised religions haven’t got that particular memo, though.

India are going to make 250+ here I think which NZ will not chase. They've got the most in form bats in the tournament here, but home advantage has played its part as it does elsewhere.

In order to give India the best possible chance of winning, it was never going to be any other way, sadly.

He and others seem perfectly fine with saying the quiet part out loud right now because they think no one will do anything significant about it. Let's hope that they are wrong.

This is the thing, though. Some people have no sense of empathy, of contrition, of shame or of humility. Some people see killing kids of a different skin colour as just the price of doing business, or at worst, a desirable means to their end of ethnostates where the dominant rule is their own demographic. These people do not have honour to be appealed to, and will not relinquish their power just because a few kids who mean nothing to them were killed. The only way forward is for their power, of any kind, to be neutralised by others. I think he's actually near the point where he can actually say that and not get fatal blowback from talking heads in the press and elsewhere now, thankfully. He's pretty much always been this way since his first term. It's just that over time, the mask has slipped more and more. I take very little pleasure in being almost entirely vindicated on my view on the man and his backers from the start. Starmer should just let him get on with it, to a degree anyway. To paraphrase Napoleon, never interrupt your opponent when he's making a mistake. And, thankfully, Trump finally has done something so odious that enough people do think it's a mistake.

The weapon that caused the explosion was US in origin. (Unless that is somehow still subject to dispute.) The result of the explosion has been widely reported. That seems like enough proof of both incompetence and consequences of incompetence in this case to me.

The whole point of the above is that proof of malice is not needed when sufficiently advanced incompetence produces the same effect here. This event, given what is known about how it happened, is indefensible and unjustifiable within any context of this particular conflict and I'm not sure why anyone would try.

Yeah, a "but we didn't mean to" coupled with an apparent lack of any kind of contrition or humility isn't really a good look.

And in that case, I might redirect you to the ideas of both Hanlons Razor and Grays Law above.

Hanlon's Razor and Grays Law: "never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to incompetence, but any sufficiently advanced incompetence is in effect indistinguishable from malice".