General News Thread

[leicsmac]

Just now, danny. said:

Not that I can remember or find anything through a Google search this morning. Loads of references to calling leavers fascists though. I never mentioned communism. 

Try "EUSSR" or similar. 

 

To add to the points above, I have to repeat that reasoned and nuanced discussion is important but it is also a fact that quite a few smart people are smart enough to dress up their intent in just enough obfuscation to say "that's not what I said" when challenged, but the same intent is clear enough. 

 

Having such obfuscation and delaying tactics is one the reasons some truly vital matters that cost lives are either not being focused on or are being permitted to be focused on by those whose intent is entirely selfish, short term and destructive. 

[foxes1988]

3 hours ago, Tommy G said:

There are a lot of people, certainly that I know, who are “right wing” but aren’t racist, Union Jack shagging or freedom of speech warriors. It’s frustrating that you get put in the far right bucket immediately if you aren’t in camp Starmer - it has got easier in the past 12 months because Starmer and Labour have become so universally unpopular. 

I think that's social media and our divisive politics as much as anything else. Somehow now Starmer and Farage are both 'fascist authoritarian leaders'.  

 

Right are equally as guilty of this as the left.

[danny.]

Cool, banned from replying on the thread again. Laughable 

Edited 6 January by danny.

[leicsmac]

Anyhow, in other news:

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c70lw9x581no

 

South Korea's President Lee Jae Myung has called for a "new phase" in ties with China as he met its leader Xi Jinping in Beijing on Monday.

Regional security and lifting Beijing's unofficial ban on Korean pop culture is high on Lee's agenda, as he continues his four-day trip in China. He is set to meet China's Premier Li Qiang and the chairman of parliament, Zhao Leji on Tuesday.

It marks the first visit by a South Korean leader since 2019. Bilateral ties had soured under Lee's predecessor, impeached ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol, who was very critical of China.

Xi, meanwhile, has appeared keen to shore up ties with South Korea amid a diplomatic row between China and Japan.

South Korea is a US security ally - like Japan - but also relies on China for trade. Experts say Lee is expected to keep walking a diplomatic tightrope between Beijing and Tokyo.

 

Korea looking to balance things a bit more in terms of diplomacy, then. 

[Finnegan]

6 minutes ago, danny. said:

Cool, banned from replying on the thread again. Laughable 

 

If it makes you feel any better, its everyone. All posts have to be approved. 

 

I had to approve my own post to reply a minute ago

 

#sorrymark

 

Edit: although this one didn't. I have no idea why. Is it because I said Tr*mp or H*tler?

 

Edited 6 January by Finnegan

[CornwallFox]

5 hours ago, danny. said:

Not that I can remember or find anything through a Google search this morning. Loads of references to calling leavers fascists though. I never mentioned communism. 

There's a sort of Americanisation on the right where you hear a lot about socialists/commies/libs/woke/snowflakes etc

Edited 6 January by CornwallFox

[leicsmac]

Stephen Miller doubling down on the Greenland rhetoric and saying that nations shouldn't have given up their colonies after World War II.

 

Seems the resemblance to Goebbels isn't just physical, then. 

[foxes1988]

5 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Stephen Miller doubling down on the Greenland rhetoric and saying that nations shouldn't have given up their colonies after World War II.

 

Seems the resemblance to Goebbels isn't just physical, then. 

American Empire obviously exempt

[st albans fox]

10 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Stephen Miller doubling down on the Greenland rhetoric and saying that nations shouldn't have given up their colonies after World War II.

 

Seems the resemblance to Goebbels isn't just physical, then. 

Would have saved a lot of lives ………

just saying 😉

[leicsmac]

19 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Would have saved a lot of lives ………

just saying 😉

Well, that's a point of view, certainly. 

[Trav Le Bleu]

1 hour ago, Finnegan said:

 

If it makes you feel any better, its everyone. All posts have to be approved. 

 

I had to approve my own post to reply a minute ago

 

#sorrymark

 

Edit: although this one didn't. I have no idea why. Is it because I said Tr*mp or H*tler?

 

It's cos you're Welsh.

[Finnegan]

1 minute ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

It's cos you're Welsh.

 

MODS 

[WigstonWanderer]

18 hours ago, Zear0 said:

 

Is that a declaration of war against everyone north of the equator? 

 

I have a horrible feeling that this raid in Venezuela will restore Trump’s popularity, at least in the short term. It was certainly an audacious and well executed operation, whether you approve of it or not, and I can imagine it going down well in a dog eat dog kind of society that seems characteristic of a good deal of the US.

 

It would be incredibly naive to suppose that Trump cares anything for the people of Venezuela and that this was done in any way to help them.

 

It seems likely that the post war “rules based order” is at an end and we are going back 100 years or more to big power politics. The post war era wasn’t perfect and big power politics never really went away, but at least those powers had to pay lip-service to the rules, and the result has been international trade in mainly peaceful times that has raised billions from abject poverty, albeit with detrimental environmental effects that have yet to be addressed. I think we should all mourn its passing.

 

The future is less certain now than at any time during my life, with the possible exception of the nuclear threat during the sixties. Those of us not living in a power bloc may have to choose our autocracy at some point, or more likely have it thrust upon us.

 

 

[leicsmac]

Oh, and exactly five years ago we all stood rather taken aback at the US trying for violent regime change in its own backyard, rather than someone else's.

 

And, five years later, those coup engineers are succeeding in their objectives through media manipulation and savvy manner where an attempt to take the Capital with almost all of Congress in failed. 

[WigstonWanderer]

3 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Stephen Miller doubling down on the Greenland rhetoric and saying that nations shouldn't have given up their colonies after World War II.

 

Seems the resemblance to Goebbels isn't just physical, then. 

That guy is seriously frightening 

[leicsmac]

4 minutes ago, WigstonWanderer said:

That guy is seriously frightening 

The mentality that he embodies, that is unfortunately shared by quite a few people, is the more frightening thing, I think.

[bovril]

I think a lot of people are still kind of stuck in the discourse of late 2016 when obviously the accusations of fascism against Trump seemed a little silly and unhinged, and the regime wasn't really that much worse than Obama's or especially Bush's in terms of foreign policy. Determinedly dying on that hill is strange now though when the US government seems to be gleefully trying to come across as the most evil in the western world since, well, you know... 

[Lionator]

4 hours ago, WigstonWanderer said:

I have a horrible feeling that this raid in Venezuela will restore Trump’s popularity, at least in the short term. It was certainly an audacious and well executed operation, whether you approve of it or not, and I can imagine it going down well in a dog eat dog kind of society that seems characteristic of a good deal of the US.

 

It would be incredibly naive to suppose that Trump cares anything for the people of Venezuela and that this was done in any way to help them.

 

It seems likely that the post war “rules based order” is at an end and we are going back 100 years or more to big power politics. The post war era wasn’t perfect and big power politics never really went away, but at least those powers had to pay lip-service to the rules, and the result has been international trade in mainly peaceful times that has raised billions from abject poverty, albeit with detrimental environmental effects that have yet to be addressed. I think we should all mourn its passing.

 

The future is less certain now than at any time during my life, with the possible exception of the nuclear threat during the sixties. Those of us not living in a power bloc may have to choose our autocracy at some point, or more likely have it thrust upon us.

 

 

Like always with Trump though, you actually have to ask has anything changed? He’s got rid of Maduro but then put his deputy in charge, so the same government just with a more subservient leader, like with Solemni in Iran. Often with Trump, these are just publicity stunts. Ask yourself if the democrats win in 2028 can any of this be undone, pretty much everything can be right now. 

[MC Prussian]

Berlin power grid partially out of service after a left-wing extremist attack, tens of thousands of households affected.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/berlin-power-grid-attack-caused-by-extreme-leftists-officials-say-2026-01-04/
 

Power should be back on by Thursday. Hopefully.

If you've ever been to Berlin in Winter, you know how piercing cold it can be.

[WigstonWanderer]

1 hour ago, Lionator said:

Like always with Trump though, you actually have to ask has anything changed? He’s got rid of Maduro but then put his deputy in charge, so the same government just with a more subservient leader, like with Solemni in Iran. Often with Trump, these are just publicity stunts. Ask yourself if the democrats win in 2028 can any of this be undone, pretty much everything can be right now. 

I think he’s shifted the Overton Window so far that it is highly unlikely that Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again. The post war period is an exception in history, where the norm is the exercise of raw power. It took the trauma of the Second World War, and collective realisation of both the horrors of modern warfare and the cruelty possible when apparently ordinary people turn a blind eye to the persecution of minorities.

 

There seems to be a significant minority now that has forgotten all this and is once again turning to “strong men” for a solution to the unfairnesses that they perceive around them. I’m sure this goes much deeper than Trump who is a charismatic symptom of the age, along with Farage and the like.

 

If repeated, such a calamity (world war) is unlikely to arrive at such a relatively benign solution. Rather it would wipe out civilisation as we know it. I know this all sounds dramatic but I feel something qualitative has really shifted, mostly in the last 10 years, probably longer (GFC? Reagan and Thatcher? Nixon?).

[leicsmac]

26 minutes ago, MC Prussian said:

Berlin power grid partially out of service after a left-wing extremist attack, tens of thousands of households affected.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/berlin-power-grid-attack-caused-by-extreme-leftists-officials-say-2026-01-04/
 

Power should be back on by Thursday. Hopefully.

If you've ever been to Berlin in Winter, you know how piercing cold it can be.

Goodness, Luddism is so annoying. 

 

Transitioning to carbon neutral methods of generating energy while maintaining at least current quality and comfort of life through tech advances is possible and should be the goal. 

 

Mindlessness of either the short term self interested "the Earth is ours to exploit" or the extreme end of the "return to nature" type won't end well. 

 

16 minutes ago, WigstonWanderer said:

I think he’s shifted the Overton Window so far that it is highly unlikely that Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again. The post war period is an exception in history, where the norm is the exercise of raw power. It took the trauma of the Second World War, and collective realisation of both the horrors of modern warfare and the cruelty possible when apparently ordinary people turn a blind eye to the persecution of minorities.

 

There seems to be a significant minority now that has forgotten all this and is once again turning to “strong men” for a solution to the unfairnesses that they perceive around them. I’m sure this goes much deeper than Trump who is a charismatic symptom of the age, along with Farage and the like.

 

If repeated, such a calamity (world war) is unlikely to arrive at such a relatively benign solution. Rather it would wipe out civilisation as we know it. I know this all sounds dramatic but I feel something qualitative has really shifted, mostly in the last 10 years, probably longer (GFC? Reagan and Thatcher? Nixon?).

It's not dramatic, in fact it's an increasing nonzero possibility that grows higher with every day that vital resources decline and nationalist Might Makes Right mentality continues to ascend again. 

 

I'm not sure if people can't see it, or are just in denial about it, but we face an imminent and critical civilisational threat- not just to the idea of "Western civilisation" (whatever that means) that Trump and his ilk feel should be prioritised, but to all civilisation. And the idea that one type of civilisation is superior to another and that superiority should be enforced, is the key thing driving that threat, either from the ignorance or the malice of those involved. 

 

Either there is simply human civilisation, or there is no civilisation. The future and the challenges it will give to us will not accept it any other way. 

[Wymsey]

Didn't Trump initially say that there were no fatalities during the raid?..

[Trav Le Bleu]

17 minutes ago, Wymsey said:

Didn't Trump initially say that there were no fatalities during the raid?..

He did.

 

There were.

[Md9]

22 minutes ago, Wymsey said:

Didn't Trump initially say that there were no fatalities during the raid?..

At this point anything he says is the complete opposite he lies every time he talks . Isn’t there at least 80 dead confirmed? 

[Trav Le Bleu]

On 05/01/2026 at 19:25, Zear0 said:

 

Is that a declaration of war against everyone north of the equator? 

 

Do they mean west-east or north-south?

 

As someone who understands maps, they're quite welcome to a hemisphere whose dividing line runs through the middle of the Atlantic.