leicsmac

Nah, the Aussies are nothing if not ruthless. If they were ready, they wouldn't play mind games, they would throw them in there in search of the most crushing Roman triumph possible.

Then I would suggest that is no worse than what the other leading parties have in their locker on the matter policy wise at the present time. But I guess that's a consequence of a single or few issues viewed as "more important" taking the all the oxygen out of the room in terms of policy decisions and public consciousness.

Interesting counterpoints.

Quite apart from the inference of gender preference here, having such a screening programme makes sense from a practical perspective, regardless of the demographic of the recipients. Yes, excellent news. Declining biodiversity is an issue that too few people appear to truly care about but which affects everyone.

Firefly.

Or at least qualify such insults.

Appreciate the insight, thank you. Certainly seems to still be a wild card, then.

Throwing more money at it won't help public services. Further cuts in the name of "waste" won't help public services. So what, exactly, will help public services? For some, this is a matter for which they don't have the luxury of the town hall discussion. They rely on these services for their lives, health and sanity.

Yep. Fantastic works. And that, should things continue in the mindset that a lot of people currently have, would be the best case scenario.

A managed and legislated plateau with a rough decade or two while age demographics reset back to something more sustainable is likely the best bad option on this one.

And there lies the big struggle: between that mindset and that of tbf self-interested, tribal one who sees it simply as a tool to further the power of him and his. That struggle has always been there, with every new advancement. But this one has the potential to be a true world-changer, either way.

That may well be true, which ties in rather neatly with the current chat on the AI Thread. Social structure adapts, or it doesn't survive.

Patently so, but the economic and upheaval of so many "first world" countries hitting that bar at roughly the same time will be felt everywhere.

That kind of plateau still results in the aforementioned age demographic crisis as the number of people above 65 will still end up disproportionate to the number of children coming into the workforce to support them. At least in the short term, anyway.

Well, that's pretty simple to me. Either society reorganises drastically in the way it is required to, or society collapses. And that will be a global thing, migration is an adjacent matter here.

Saw this earlier. An accurate summation of the current state?

That, unfortunately, is a massive problem, and not one limited to just this one topic. Every single instance of perception being valued over fact incurs a debt to the truth. And, sooner or later, that debt is collected.

I've heard this a few times before, and it always sounds like a cop-out to avoid taking responsibility for all the grotesque things that will happen if a party like Reform takes power. "But, but, the other guys were doing bad things, I didn't have any choice but to vote for these guys who are doing worse things to vulnerable people... it's not my fault..." Yes. Yes it is. People should at least have the basic honesty of purpose to admit their own self interest about that.

This is an interesting dilemma. It's also a painful one, because as far as I can see, there are no good options to deal with it. Either the UK looks to do its part to limit world population growth by disincentivising people having more children, in which case there will be a serious demographic crisis sooner rather than later, or the government does what it did yesterday to encourage population growth, in which case we continue to contribute to a problem of increasing population and decreasing finite resources until Darwin steps in and sorts it out. Brutally. I'm hoping that someone smarter than me can come up with a third option there.

Good people are doing their best and we're seeing some success stories as a result. Be that as it may, however, the trend of biodiversity is overwhelmingly still heading in one direction.

Yes. The political has become ever more personal over the last decade or so. And that means a lot to those with ideologies like Badenoch, because making things personal gives them reason to appeal to self interest, which of course is what they're all about.

I'm still looking for a good explanation as to how laissez-faire economics would lead to decreased inequality and thus a better society when it has shown us the Gilded Age and the 1980s, among other times.

And regrettably to add to the ecological trouble, the decision to further open the North Sea to exploitation. (Unless it can be proven that whatever is extracted is not used in any direct power generation/emission causing capacity whatsoever.)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3r7xr94ln8o US President Donald Trump has defended special envoy Steve Witkoff as doing the "standard thing" after a leaked recording appeared to show him advising a Russian official on how to appeal to the president. Yes. Standard.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1e48e5p8dlo The UK point of view of the ongoing sixth big mass extinction event.