leicsmac

The argument is as follows: Any of the alternatives (apart from possibly the Tories) will at least give a chance to prevent the likely collapse of human civilisation by actually treating issues regarding the biosphere with something approaching the seriousness they deserve. Every other policy concern has less human (and other) lives at stake as a consequence and therefore strictly pragmatically is of lesser importance. But hey, if the future beyond line of sight both spatially and temporally doesn't concern a person, that's their prerogative.

An accidental consequence to fit a problem that didn't and doesn't exist in the first place. I'm sorry, but this is still ridiculous and unnecessary no matter which way someone slices it.

Sounds like something out of "The Thick of It".

If additional defence of Greenland were his only ambition here, it could have been achieved much more easily and with much less bother than this method. Please, put away even the inference that was the original intent or that the outcome justifies what's happened here. Edit: to say nothing of the fact that additional "defence" of that area is entirely unproven in necessity and therefore ridiculously unwarranted anyway.

I'm inclined to think the opposite is true, for reasons elaborated upon upstream. What a world indeed. Sadly, given what we know about the man, also a predictable one. Which makes the decision to give him power again and also to apologise for him either in the US or here, given the consequences, all the more absurd.

... what was it that Lenin said about decades happening in weeks? And, I fear, in terms of natural events (that may also have corollaries in a very human response to them) we've seen nothing yet there.

I think this all just adds to the idea that the next GE outcome is pure roulette at this point in time, and there's still over three years to go.

Gotta try, even though I do know what you mean.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg7vdpy1l2vo Interesting piece from the Beeb about a schism within the Afghan Taliban.

"The world is a fine place and worth fighting for. I agree with the second part."

I think what you mean is "at what point is it a confirmed conspiracy rather just Internet theory?" because if it becomes true it's still a conspiracy... but to answer the question, I reckon it hits that mark when there's statistical proof, that takes the form of empirical evidence from sources known and agreed to be trustworthy, that the party thought to benefit from the conspiracy are benefitting from it in a statistically significant fashion (eg. on a consistent repeated basis, over time). Yes, that burden of proof is pretty high, but given the significance of what is being theorised, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Well, that's certainly an interestingly conspiratorial way of framing the matter.

See above, think my reply there covers this. I will add though that (again like others), the actions of some Maccabi fans goes a little bit beyond some controversial songs.

Ain't that the damn truth.

Which is a point I haven't personally argued against. My point, in return, is that, with all that in mind, police departments in the UK shouldn't let the above make them treat that fanbase with kid gloves the next time they have a tie against an UK team.

With respect, these posts make it seem like the Maccabi fans are entirely blameless (despite the wallpaper and cracks statement about them being "no angels"), in spite of empirical evidence to the contrary. Yes, this was a screw up. But I'm also hoping some common ground can be found and hold both that belief and the belief that local fuzz need to be aware of problematic elements within the Maccabi fanbase and (this is the important part) act accordingly to address it when they next roll into town, rather than being afraid of doing so because of what's happened here.

Which is all firstly fair to comment, and secondly does little to address the veracity of Maccabis recent history with unrest. Like I said (or at least inferred) above, the ban certainly appears to be heavy-handed in this case but that doesn't mean a problem doesn't exist, that this was discriminatory all the way through and that local police departments shouldn't treat them similarly to other clubs with possibly problematic fan sections in the future. Hooligans are hooligans, if they've demonstrated that they are so. Where they're from and what their ideology is for doing it shouldn't be relevant.

I'd actually disagree with this to a degree, I reckon comparatively to a lot of places the UK is actually pretty sensible in terms of organised religion and its place in political policymaking in a way a lot of other places aren't. At least at the present time. Sure, there's a certain amount of bark, but thankfully precious little bite.

A more than cursory glance shows the reporting of what the Maccabi fans got up to in Amsterdam. I mean, all of the sources talking about it could be lying or exaggerating, but... Add to that the local derby incident with Hapoel last November, and I'm not sure it's a massive stretch to say there might be an issue there.

What a bloody mess. That being said, should the response instead have been typical of away fans where there might be an element of trouble ala Napoli etc, given that Maccabi fans causing bother is still a matter of record?

When it comes to the very large and very small in terms of physics, direct empiricism through repeated observation (which is what most science relies upon) does become very difficult. That being said, enough indirect observational evidence is usually good enough to confirm a hypothesis in such areas - at least until a more refined one comes along. Ah, a classic. It's only when I saw the outcome matrix for that problem that I really understood exactly why it's best to take the offer to switch.

The Living Daylights, yes.

It's a serious question, and one I had myself once upon a time. To expand on the salient point made above, at the moment of universal expansion ("big bang"), the speed of expansion of matter was faster than light, which means the universe as we know it now has a larger area than light can travel in the time of its existence. Also and because of that, there is matter heading away from us (and other matter) at relative speeds beyond the speed of light, which means, as Danny said above, we'll never see them because the light from their matter will never reach us. The reason we theorise such an area has to exist is because the speed of expansion of the "visible" universe (driven by gravity) is much, much faster than can be explained by the amount of matter in that "visible" universe alone. Running that speed of expansion through a few formulas, and assuming that the rest of the universe has similar matter density to what we can see in the visible one, we come up with a number in the region of 150 million light years in diameter at the time. The above all being said, when you are dealing with distances so vast that general relativity becomes a factor and time doesn't function in the same way as it does here in Earth, things do get very confusing and counterintuitive.

The Reagan administration started bin Laden out with weapons and funding just so he could give the USSR a headache in Afghanistan.

Much appreciated, but I know I talk as much shite as anyone else terminally online.