Comments by "" (@titteryenot4524) on "Channel 4 News"
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If my next-door neighbour repressed and oppressed me for 75 years (after evicting me from my home), just because they could (ie. massive military support from elsewhere), then did you honestly think that at some point I wouldn’t punch back? Last time I checked, in a fist-fight, both fighters are allowed to throw punches. That doesn’t mean that what Hamas did on October 7th was justified, but it was hardly unpredictable. As Isaac Asimov said: I remember how it was in 1948 when Israel was being established and all my Jewish friends were ecstatic. I was not. I said: what are we doing? We are establishing ourselves in a ghetto, in a small corner of a vast Muslim sea. The Muslims will never forget nor forgive, and Israel, as long as it exists, will be embattled. Until a 2-state solution that is just for both parties is implemented, this nightmare will never end.
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Frankly, Israel should be surprised by none of this. I don’t particularly support any side here, but what can be observed is a 75-year-long ongoing fight whereby one side has been throwing its weight around considerably more than the other side (if the year on year casualty figures are anything to go by), yet when the other side finds the capability to strike back, the opponent is somehow surprised, as if that were just not cricket, old boy! Last time I checked, in a boxing match both sides were allowed to throw punches. In these kinds of seemingly intractable situations, I always flip it: how would the Israelis feel if the boot were on the other foot and it was they who were living in the conditions the average Palestinian is (and has been for decades) living in? They’d be fighting back. Fighting for dignity and freedom. A 2-state solution is the only way here. Of course, with this, the nitty-gritty will be who gets custody of the car and who gets custody of the cat.
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‘Total victory’? Get a grip, Benji.
If my next-door neighbour repressed and oppressed me for 75 years (after evicting me from my home), just because they could (i.e. massive military support from elsewhere), then did you honestly think that at some point I wouldn’t punch back? Last time I checked, in a fist-fight, both fighters are allowed to throw punches. That doesn’t mean that what Hamas did on October 7th was justified, but it was hardly unpredictable. As Isaac Asimov said: I remember how it was in 1948 when Israel was being established and all my Jewish friends were ecstatic. I was not. I said: what are we doing? We are establishing ourselves in a ghetto, in a small corner of a vast Muslim sea. The Muslims will never forget nor forgive, and Israel, as long as it exists, will be embattled. Until a 2-state solution that is just for both parties is implemented, this nightmare will never end.
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If my next-door neighbour repressed and oppressed me for 75 years (after evicting me from my home), just because they could (i.e. massive military support from elsewhere), then did you honestly think that at some point I wouldn’t punch back? Last time I checked, in a fist-fight, both fighters are allowed to throw punches. That doesn’t mean that what Hamas did on October 7th was justified, but it was hardly unpredictable. As Isaac Asimov said: I remember how it was in 1948 when Israel was being established and all my Jewish friends were ecstatic. I was not. I said: what are we doing? We are establishing ourselves in a ghetto, in a small corner of a vast Muslim sea. The Muslims will never forget nor forgive, and Israel, as long as it exists, will be embattled. Until a 2-state solution that is just for both parties is implemented, this nightmare will never end.
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I am frequently asked if I have visited Israel, whereas yet, it is simply assumed that I have. Well, I don’t travel. I really don’t, and if I did, I probably wouldn’t visit Israel. I remember how it was in 1948 when Israel was being established and all my Jewish friends were ecstatic. I was not. I said: what are we doing? We are establishing ourselves in a ghetto, in a small corner of a vast Muslim sea. The Muslims will never forget nor forgive, and Israel, as long as it exists, will be embattled. I was laughed at, but I was right. I can’t help but feel that the Jews didn’t really have the right to appropriate a territory only because 2000 years ago, people they consider their ancestors, were living there. History moves on and you can’t really turn it back. (Isaac Asimov)
Of course, history has proved Asimov right. However, now that we’re here, if Israel has a right to exist as a state (and it does IMO), then so does Palestine. Until this is acknowledged by the relevant parties and properly implemented (with justice and freedom and dignity for both sides), this nightmare will be doomed to be repeated on a loop ad infinitum into eternity.
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If my next-door neighbour repressed and oppressed me for 75 years, just because they could (ie. massive military support from elsewhere), then did you honestly think that at some point I wouldn’t punch back? Last time I checked, in a boxing match, both fighters are allowed to throw punches. That doesn’t mean that what Hamas did was justified, but it was hardly unpredictable, given the history. Until a 2-state solution that is just for both parties is implemented, this nightmare will never end. This is just obvious to anyone without intrinsic skin in this game. Of course, even in a 2-state solution, there will still be Hamasesque groups wanting the destruction of Israel, but that doesn’t invalidate the basic principle for the vast majority of ordinary Palestinians.
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Personally, I have no intrinsic issue with the existence of Israel; however, you don’t need to be Nostradamus to see that it was obvious that it would be more or less permanently targeted from day 1 after its 1948 creation, due to the way it was done and where it is. Isaac Asimov nailed this: I remember how it was in 1948 when Israel was being established and all my Jewish friends were ecstatic, I was not. I said: what are we doing? We are establishing ourselves in a ghetto, in a small corner of a vast Muslim sea. The Muslims will never forget nor forgive, and Israel, as long as it exists, will be embattled. I was laughed at, but I was right. I can’t help but feel that the Jews didn’t really have the right to appropriate a territory only because 2000 years ago, people they consider their ancestors were living there. History moves on and you can’t really turn it back.
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As ever with these things, this boils down to the human tribal mentality linked to race (majority South Slavic Serbs v majority Kosovan Albanians), religion (majority Eastern Orthodox Christianity v majority Muslim) and language (majority Serbian v majority Albanian). When I consider who I am, my ‘ethnicity’ is next to meaningless. An accident of birth. Equally, I care not a jot about anyone else’s ethnicity when I judge another human being. As an agnostic, I see all organised religion as manmade and, essentially, a human control mechanism along with a comforting fairy tale to shore up the human fear of death. Yes, my language is fairly key to my identity but, as someone who speaks 3 other languages, the only reason English takes precedence is another accident of birth. All told, ethnicity, organised religion and language have so much to answer for when it comes to human internecine conflict.
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As this nightmare continues well into a 2nd month (and who knows how many more months after that), Israel should be surprised by none of what happened on October 7th, in much the same way Palestinians should be surprised by none of Israel’s response. Of course, what Hamas did was the definition of evil but it was hardly unpredictable. I genuinely don’t particularly support any side here (lapsed Catholic agnostic), but what can be observed (by any impartial neutral) is a 75-year-long ongoing fight whereby one side has been throwing its weight around considerably more than the other side (if the year on year casualty figures are anything to go by), yet when the other side finds the capability to strike back, the opponent is somehow surprised, as if that were just not cricket, old boy! Last time I checked, in a boxing match both sides are allowed to throw punches. In these kinds of seemingly intractable situations, I always flip it: how would the Israelis feel if the boot were on the other foot and it was they who were living in the conditions the average Palestinian is (and has been for decades) living in? They’d be fighting back. Fighting for dignity and freedom. A 2-state solution is the only way here. Of course, with this, the nitty-gritty will be who gets custody of the car and who gets custody of the cat.
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I am frequently asked if I have visited Israel, whereas yet, it is simply assumed that I have. Well, I don’t travel. I really don’t, and if I did, I probably wouldn’t visit Israel. I remember how it was in 1948 when Israel was being established and all my Jewish friends were ecstatic. I was not. I said: what are we doing? We are establishing ourselves in a ghetto, in a small corner of a vast Muslim sea. The Muslims will never forget nor forgive, and Israel, as long as it exists, will be embattled. I was laughed at, but I was right. I can’t help but feel that the Jews didn’t really have the right to appropriate a territory only because 2000 years ago, people they consider their ancestors, were living there. History moves on and you can’t really turn it back. (Isaac Asimov)
Of course, history has proved Asimov right. However, now that we’re here, if Israel has a right to exist as a state (and it does IMO), then so does Palestine. Until this is acknowledged by the relevant parties and properly implemented (with justice and freedom and dignity for both sides), this nightmare will be doomed to be repeated on a loop ad infinitum into eternity.
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I am frequently asked if I have visited Israel, whereas yet, it is simply assumed that I have. Well, I don’t travel. I really don’t, and if I did, I probably wouldn’t visit Israel. I remember how it was in 1948 when Israel was being established and all my Jewish friends were ecstatic. I was not. I said: what are we doing? We are establishing ourselves in a ghetto, in a small corner of a vast Muslim sea. The Muslims will never forget nor forgive, and Israel, as long as it exists, will be embattled. I was laughed at, but I was right. I can’t help but feel that the Jews didn’t really have the right to appropriate a territory only because 2000 years ago, people they consider their ancestors, were living there. History moves on and you can’t really turn it back. (Isaac Asimov)
Of course, history has proved Asimov right. However, now that we’re here, if Israel has a right to exist as a state (and it does IMO), then so does Palestine. Until this is acknowledged by the relevant parties and properly implemented (with justice and freedom and dignity for both sides), this nightmare will be doomed to be repeated on a loop ad infinitum into eternity.
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I’m struck by how the Russia/Ukraine thing is so desperate and pointless, given the shared cultural/linguistic heritage between the two. It’s akin to England bombing Scotland for the latter having the temerity to vote for self-determination and existence as a sovereign state. That stupid. That pointless. That mad. But then I, an agnostic, think of the Bible. The first murder? Cain and Abel. Brothers. It’s an old, sad, sorry song. Also, If you look at a map of Europe, and you look at the extent of the NATO countries to 1997, they extend as far east as Germany. After 1997, NATO expanded like a cancerous growth (as Putin sees it), to encompass 14 other nations, geographically extending as far east as Estonia and Latvia (crucially, from Putin’s point of view, ex-USSR components.) Now look at Ukraine on this map. A further incursion east, by a state with a majority looking west, not east. A further former ex-USSR component eating into (as Putin sees it) the motherland Russia. Now, I’m no supporter of Putin. He’s wrong to aggressively invade a sovereign, self-governing territory, in my opinion. However, this notwithstanding, I can fully see how, just by looking at a map and the physical geography, Putin might feel threatened and a little boxed in. It’s akin to Canada and Mexico joining a Russia-led alliance and not expecting the USA to take aggressive action. But then the double-standards modus operandi of the west was always hiding in plain sight. Does any of this justify his behaviour? Not a jot.
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Never got the “hate what another human does when it comes to their sexual preferences” memo. Makes utterly no sense. I tend to dislike people for their ideas, their beliefs, their opinions, their dress-sense, and not something over which they have utterly no say or control. It’s like dissing people with a different skin colour. Pointless. Not only pointless, but totally stupid and moronic, as no one chooses their skin colour, just as no one chooses their sexuality. But here’s the clincher for me: even if we did choose our skin colour and sexuality, it still wouldn’t bother me one iota that some random has a different skin colour or sexuality. The sooner we can move beyond this primitive nonsense as a species, the better. To me, being homophobic is a bit like feeling resentful of someone digging Uranus because you’re not an astronomer! 🔭
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I am frequently asked if I have visited Israel, whereas yet, it is simply assumed that I have. Well, I don’t travel. I really don’t, and if I did, I probably wouldn’t visit Israel. I remember how it was in 1948 when Israel was being established and all my Jewish friends were ecstatic. I was not. I said: what are we doing? We are establishing ourselves in a ghetto, in a small corner of a vast Muslim sea. The Muslims will never forget nor forgive, and Israel, as long as it exists, will be embattled. I was laughed at, but I was right. I can’t help but feel that the Jews didn’t really have the right to appropriate a territory only because 2000 years ago, people they consider their ancestors, were living there. History moves on and you can’t really turn it back. (Isaac Asimov)
Of course, history has proved Asimov right. However, now that we’re here, if Israel has a right to exist as a state (and it does IMO), then so does Palestine. Until this is acknowledged by the relevant parties and properly implemented (with justice and freedom and dignity for both sides), this nightmare will be doomed to be repeated on a loop ad infinitum into eternity.
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I am frequently asked if I have visited Israel, whereas yet, it is simply assumed that I have. Well, I don’t travel. I really don’t, and if I did, I probably wouldn’t visit Israel. I remember how it was in 1948 when Israel was being established and all my Jewish friends were ecstatic. I was not. I said: what are we doing? We are establishing ourselves in a ghetto, in a small corner of a vast Muslim sea. The Muslims will never forget nor forgive, and Israel, as long as it exists, will be embattled. I was laughed at, but I was right. I can’t help but feel that the Jews didn’t really have the right to appropriate a territory only because 2000 years ago, people they consider their ancestors, were living there. History moves on and you can’t really turn it back. (Isaac Asimov)
Of course, history has proved Asimov right. However, now that we’re here, if Israel has a right to exist as a state (and it probably does IMO), then so does Palestine. Until this is acknowledged by the relevant parties and properly implemented (with justice and freedom and dignity for both sides), this nightmare will be doomed to be repeated on a loop ad infinitum into eternity.
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Looks like we might have an imminent ‘hostage currency’ situation. In 2011, Israel released more than 1,000 Palestinians in exchange for 1 Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. A few days ago Hamas were demanding the release of 6,000 Palestinians detained in Israel’s jails for the release of the 150 or so Israeli captives. At the 2011 hostage currency rate 150 Israelis would be equal to 900,000 Palestinians! Judging by the past exchanges, if I were Israel, at this point, I might be liable to take the 6,000 for 150 offer, as comparatively it seems like a good deal.
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Fully with Rowling on this matter. Surely the key thing in this whole debate is the preference and rights of biological females as it's they who are potentially having their private spaces occupied by biological men. My guess (but it’s a guess based on extensive experience) would be that the vast majority of women (i.e. with cervix) wouldn’t want biological men in their private spaces, regardless of whether these men self-identify as ‘women’, and even if they have fully transitioned through physical/chemical castration. Put it this way: if I were a young mum taking her pre-teen child to the public swimming pool, would I want biological men (regardless of their trans status) sharing the changing rooms with me? Answer: no. This does not mean I’m ‘anti-trans’; it means I am pro-protecting safe spaces for biological women. I don’t care how you self-identify, just as long as your chosen identity doesn’t adversely affect my life. The analogy would be with organised religion: I’m agnostic; believe in and worship what you want, but when this unfavourably impinges on my life, that’s when my hackles are raised. Religion should be a private matter and not pervade the public sphere and potentially adversely affect the lives of others. With trans women, they can do what they want within the law, express themselves how they want, call themselves what they want (and I will honour this), but if the majority of biological females don’t want them actually physically invading their private spaces, this wish should be honoured in practice.
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As this nightmare continues well into a 2nd month (and who knows how many more months after that), Israel should be surprised by none of what happened on October 7th, in much the same way Palestinians should be surprised by none of Israel’s response. Of course, what Hamas did was the definition of evil but it was hardly unpredictable. I genuinely don’t particularly support any side here (lapsed Catholic agnostic), but what can be observed (by any impartial neutral) is a 75-year-long ongoing fight whereby one side has been throwing its weight around considerably more than the other side (if the year-on-year casualty figures are anything to go by), yet when the other side finds the capability to genuinely strike back, the opponent is somehow surprised, as if that were just not cricket, old boy! Last time I checked, in a fist-fight both sides are allowed to throw punches. In these kinds of seemingly intractable situations, I always flip it: how would the Israelis feel if the boot were on the other foot and it was they who were living in the conditions the average Palestinian is (and has been for decades) living in? They’d be fighting back. Fighting for dignity and freedom. A 2-state solution is the only way here. Of course, with this, the nitty-gritty will be who gets custody of the car and who gets custody of the cat.
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@3:37 “You know, I have friends who are aristocrats, I have friends who are upper-class, I have friends who are working-class … well, not working-class .” (My emphasis) And that, dear Reader, is why if Sunak becomes PM, he stands not a chance of holding those working-class northern seats the Tories won under Bozo; as, for all Johnson’s posho privilege, he had a disjointed, buffoonish charisma that cut through to ex-Labour voters, that Sunak can only dream of having. Labour, for all their current lacklustre lack of identity and policy, must be genuinely looking on and thinking … “yep, we just might.”
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Russia, the biggest country by landmass, twice the size of Canada, the second biggest; given this, why can’t those ‘Russians’ in Ukraine just move to Russia, if they are unhappy? Ukraine is a sovereign territory. Has been since 1991. Up until 2014, it seems ethnic Russians were ok with living in Ukraine, co-existing with non-ethnic Russian Ukrainians, much like the Flemish share what we call Belgium with the Walloons. My feeling about all this, and it’s just a guess, is that even the ethnic Russians in Ukraine would be quite happy to live in a sovereign, self-governing Ukraine. My strong feeling about all this, is that since at least 2014, Russia (Putin, mainly) has stirred the pot and played on potential ethnic tensions that actually weren’t really that strong. Again, I have no proof, but my instinct, having closely observed this for nine weeks, is that this is actually about one man more than anything. Putin just couldn’t get over the ‘greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th Century’ (his words), that is, the dissolution of the USSR, and as he is about to pop his clogs, he was impelled to take his revenge for this before he does shuffle off this mortal coil. We should not underestimate just how much this really is one man’s war, and on that score, it just bespeaks how primitive we still are as a species, when we don’t have mechanisms in place to deal with these outlying, power-tripping fuckwits.
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Surely the key thing in this whole debate is the preference and rights of biological females as it's they who are potentially having their private spaces occupied. My guess (but it’s a guess based on extensive experience) would be that the vast majority of women (ie with cervix) wouldn’t want biological men in their private spaces, regardless of whether these men self-identify as “women”, and even if they have fully transitioned through physical/chemical castration. Put it this way: if I were a young mum taking her pre-teen child to the public swimming pool, would I want biological men (regardless of their trans status) sharing the changing rooms with me? Answer: no. This does not mean I’m “anti-trans”; it means I am pro-protecting safe spaces for biological women. I don’t care how you self-identify, just as long as your chosen identity doesn’t adversely affect my life. The analogy would be with organised religion: I’m agnostic; believe in and worship what you want, but when this unfavourably impinges on my life, that’s when my hackles are raised. Religion should be a private matter and not pervade the public sphere and potentially adversely affect the lives of others. With trans people, they can do what they want within the law, express themselves how they want, call themselves what they want (and I will honour this), but if the majority of biological females don’t want them actually physically invading their private spaces, this wish should be honoured in practice.
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Reform are just speaking to those who think immigration is out of control. When you get Labour and the Tories admitting immigration is out of control you can be sure immigration is out of control. The ‘gay’ thing always bemuses me. Never got the ‘hate what another human does when it comes to their sexual orientation’ memo. Makes utterly no sense. I tend to dislike people for their ideas, their beliefs, their opinions, their dress-sense, and not something over which they have utterly no say or control. It’s like dissing people with a different skin colour. Pointless. Not only pointless, but totally stupid and moronic, as no one chooses their skin colour, just as no one chooses their sexuality. But here’s the clincher for me: even if we did choose our skin colour and sexuality, it still wouldn’t bother me one iota that some random has a different skin colour or sexuality. The sooner we can move beyond this primitive nonsense as a species, the better. If it’s consenting adults, it’s quite simply no one else’s business what they get up to. To me, being homophobic is a bit like feeling resentful of someone digging Uranus because you’re not an astronomer! 🔭
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Of 54 African nations, as we speak, only 1 is classified as a ‘full democracy’: Mauritius. The rest are flawed democracies, hybrid democracies incorporating strongly authoritarian anti-democratic elements, or outright dictatorships. The truth is that too much of Africa is still mired in tribalism and too few States have made the requisite efforts to bring their countries into the sunny uplands of the least worst way of politically organising human affairs. The key here has to be education. Of the salient things functioning democracies need to embrace in order to have any chance of working, such as participation, free and fair elections, representation, accountability, transparency, responsiveness, pluralism, and the rule of law, far too few African nations tick even half of these boxes. Until they do, chiefly through education, Africa will remain benighted and doomed to anti-democratic trouble and strife.
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As ever, with these things, this is really a question of priorities. People use the argument that France shouldn’t have given so much aid to Ukraine, but to date, that has been about $300 million - a drop in the ocean, when compared to the billions pensions cost per year. The other thing to factor in here is that France is 3rd in a list of OECD countries in terms of the proportion of its GDP pensions take up, at 14%. For comparison, the UK is 5%. Pushing back the retirement age by two years and extending the pay-in period would yield an additional 17.7 billion euros ($19.0 billion) in annual pension contributions, allowing the system to break even by 2027. Economically, Macron’s measure makes sense, but the way it has been done is awful and undemocratic, and the only reason he bypassed a vote was he knew it would be voted down. After Denmark, France is the second highest taxed country in Europe, but my own proposal would be to raise the tax threshold for the top band earners in France, and let the middle and lower income workers retire at 62 after a life of work. After all, the rich can retire at any point they want! The less rich don’t have the luxury of that choice.
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Imo Musk wasn’t far wrong with the UK ‘heading for Civil war’ comment if it doesn’t get a grip on Muslim immigration and the political class will ignore this one at their peril. The key issue for many European people isn’t immigration per se (most people I know have no particular problem with strictly controlled legal immigration); it’s mass Islamic immigration that is the problem for many, including many left of centre voters. Just a couple of weeks ago, we had an Islamic dude wanting a Scottish island all to himself and his followers as an ‘Islamic caliphate’. Seriously, I’m old enough to remember when stories like this would’ve been an April Fool’s joke! As a secular agnostic, I’m constantly amazed at just how carefree western, secular, liberal democracies are when it comes to importing an ideology diametrically opposed to liberal democracy. Islam is political (‘Islam is politics or it is nothing.’ ~ Ayatollah Khomeini). It wants control of the reins. At the current rate, the UK is projected to be 17% Islamic in 2 decades. Sweden, astonishingly, is projected to be 30% Islamic by 2050. A full third of Swedes will be Muslims. With numbers like that, Europe can expect some interesting times ahead.
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Why do so many other developed nations not have America’s baleful gun culture? Germany, the UK, Japan, for example, don’t seem to have this terrible issue with gun crime, and yet there is relative peace in terms of general society, and certainly mass killings are rare. America needs to seriously look at its Second Amendment. There are only three countries that have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms: Mexico, Guatemala, and the United States. Although Mexico and Guatemala both have a constitutional right to bear arms, the US is in a league of its own simply because it is the only country without restrictions on gun ownership in its constitution. After the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791, it inspired other countries around the world to provide their citizens with the right to own guns. However, only 15 constitutions (in nine countries) ever included an explicit right to bear arms. They are Bolivia, Costa Rica, Colombia, Honduras, Nicaragua, Liberia, Guatemala, Mexico, and the US. All of those countries, excluding Mexico, the US, and Guatemala, have since rescinded the constitutional right to bear arms. So, America is the outlier here in terms of citizens’ rights to bear arms. Does it want to continue this, and put up with its horrible mass killings? Or does it want to consider repealing the Second Amendment, thereby allowing the average American citizen to breathe that much easier in the ‘land of the free’?
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Reform are just speaking to those who think immigration is out of control. When you get Labour and the Tories admitting immigration is out of control you can be sure immigration is out of control. The ‘gay’ thing always bemuses me. Never got the ‘hate what another human does when it comes to their sexual orientation’ memo. Makes utterly no sense. I tend to dislike people for their ideas, their beliefs, their opinions, their dress-sense, and not something over which they have utterly no say or control. It’s like dissing people with a different skin colour. Pointless. Not only pointless, but totally stupid and moronic, as no one chooses their skin colour, just as no one chooses their sexuality. But here’s the clincher for me: even if we did choose our skin colour and sexuality, it still wouldn’t bother me one iota that some random has a different skin colour or sexuality. The sooner we can move beyond this primitive nonsense as a species, the better. If it’s consenting adults, it’s quite simply no one else’s business what they get up to. To me, being homophobic is a bit like feeling resentful of someone digging Uranus because you’re not an astronomer! 🔭
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The first thing that strikes anyone without skin in the game of this conflict, is how easy it is to solve. The essential point is a simple one. Two peoples of roughly equal size have a claim to the same land. The solution is, obviously, to create two states side by side. However, those who do have a tendentious, non-objective point of view, namely the rabid rabbis and the mad mullahs and the pervervid priests, have served to scupper any chances of solution, obvious to everyone else. But the exclusive claims to god-given authority, made by hysterical clerics on both sides and further stoked by Armageddon-minded wacko Christians who hope to bring on the Apocalypse tout de suite (preceded by the death or conversion of all Jews), have made the situation insufferable, literally and metaphorically, and put the whole of humanity in the position of hostage to a squabble that now features the threat of nuclear conflagration. The moral of this sad, sorry tale, full of sound and fury, is that organised religion has so much to answer for, we may be here until the seas run dry and rocks melt in the hot middle-eastern sun, before it can claim any kind of alibi.
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This is heartbreaking. Hope Odesa doesn’t get completely mashed. One of the tragedies of war, aside from the obvious human cost, is the loss of beautiful old cities and towns, which once gone, are never to return and are invariably replaced with horrendous modern architectural monstrosities (eg. Marseille, Le Havre, Hamburg, Portsmouth, Rotterdam, Berlin, etc.). Odesa is one of Ukraine’s gems. Please let the war gods spare it.
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Given Rochdale is 36% Muslim, it was inevitable Galloway would win. The real issue here is Islam. Galloway is a friend to Islam. 3:24 Look at the people surrounding him here. If you’re not a friend to Islam, and you make it public, this can cause you trouble. If I were a famous public figure and publicly slagged off Jesus, or Yaweh, or Krishna, or Buddha, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it’s very likely nothing would happen to me. If I publicly castigated Muhammad, it’s quite likely there’d be a backlash and I’d be watching my back for the rest of my life. That’s the difference. Just ask Salman Rushdie. For some reason, certain prevalent strands of Islam can’t take honest criticism, when it’s just a bunch of manmade ideas like all the rest.
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What’s happening in France can be correlated with Brexit and Trump. Instead of looking at this in terms of traditional left versus right, David Goodheart’s thesis of two distinct ‘tribes’, the ‘anywheres’ and the ‘somewheres’, with irreconcilable differences may be applicable here. Brexiteers, Trumpeteers and Le Penistas fall into the ‘somewhere’ camp and they may be seen as rooted in geographical identity - the Scottish farmer; working-class Geordie; Cornish housewife - who find rapid changes to the modern world unsettling; are socially conservative; are likely to be older and less well educated and less mobile. This manifests in supporting anti-mass-immigration policies; strong support for the Armed Forces; suspicion of the EU, and more widely ‘other’ cultures; strong support for strict law enforcement (including the death penalty) and a general authoritarianism, with the notion that the primary job of Britain’s leaders is to put British interests first. ‘Anywheres’ are footloose; often urban; university educated; socially liberal; egalitarian and meritocratic in their attitudes to race, sexuality, and gender; are able to migrate and integrate comfortably into other places; are often strong supporters of the EU and globalisation; are lighter in their attachments to larger group identities, including national ones, valuing autonomy and self-realisation before stability, community and tradition. What’s happening in France may be seen as a battle between the Anywheres and the Somewheres just as Brexit and Trump’s election may be seen in these terms.
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This episode goes right to the heart of free-speech and its limits. Personally, as a free-speech absolutist, I have no issue with what Clarkson said but recognise law prohibits speech which, for example, incites murder, violence or terrorism; stirs up racial hatred, or hatred to other groups; causes fear of violence, alarm or distress, constitutes harassment or is defamatory or malicious. Clarkson’s words are clearly an incitement to violence on another, notwithstanding the jokey, blokey Clarkson tone cloaking those words. The fact Clarkson himself appears to think he crossed a line suggests he probably did. However, when all is said and done here, as usual George Orwell hit the nail on the head when he said: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
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2 militaries in Sudan vying for power. What could possibly go wrong? Of 54 African nations, as we speak, only 1 is classified as a ‘full democracy’: Mauritius. The rest are flawed democracies, hybrid democracies incorporating strongly authoritarian anti-democratic elements, or outright dictatorships. The truth is that too much of Africa is still mired in tribalism and too few States have made the requisite efforts to bring their countries into the sunny uplands of the least worst way of politically organising human affairs. The key here has to be education. Of the salient things functioning democracies need to embrace in order to have any chance of working, such as participation, free and fair elections, representation, accountability, transparency, responsiveness, pluralism, and the rule of law, far too few African nations tick even half of these boxes. Until they do, chiefly through education, Africa will remain benighted and doomed to anti-democratic trouble and strife.
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What’s happening in France can be correlated with Brexit and Trump. Instead of looking at this in terms of traditional left versus right, David Goodheart’s thesis of two distinct ‘tribes’, the ‘Anywheres’ and the ‘Somewheres’, with irreconcilable differences may be applicable here. Brexiteers, Trumpeteers and Le Penistas fall into the ‘somewhere’ camp and they may be seen as rooted in geographical identity - the Scottish farmer; working-class Geordie; Cornish housewife - who find rapid changes to the modern world unsettling; are socially conservative; are likely to be older and less well educated and less mobile. This manifests in supporting anti-mass-immigration policies; strong support for the Armed Forces; suspicion of the EU, and more widely ‘other’ cultures; strong support for strict law enforcement (including the death penalty) and a general authoritarianism, with the notion that the primary job of Britain’s leaders is to put British interests first. ‘Anywheres’ are footloose; often urban; university educated; socially liberal; egalitarian and meritocratic in their attitudes to race, sexuality, and gender; are able to migrate and integrate comfortably into other places; are often strong supporters of the EU and globalisation; are lighter in their attachments to larger group identities, including national ones, valuing autonomy and self-realisation before stability, community and tradition. What’s happening in France may be seen as a battle between the Anywheres and the Somewheres just as Brexit and Trump’s election may be seen in these terms. Melenchon’s core base appears to be a curious mixture of the two: ‘Somewheres’ and ‘Anywheres’; traditional left-leaning working-class folk rooted in their specific communities, and a more metropolitan strain, found in the big cities, and while left-leaning, also more likely to fall into the ‘Anywhere’ tribe, principally due to a higher-level of education.
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Aside from being a simple battle for national self-determination in the face of an autocratic aggressor (notwithstanding the very real intra-Ukrainian tensions), this whole war has been a very real question to every single one of us. It’s directly asking us to make a choice about whether we uphold basic non-negotiable liberal values such as individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), pluralistic liberal democracy, secularism, the rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion or, alternatively, we uphold illiberal values such as violation of individual rights (including violation of civil and human rights), illiberal autocracy, abuse of the law, economic and political servitude beholden to dictatorship, little to no freedom of speech, censorship of the press and media more widely, and lack of freedom to worship the Gods of your choice or no God at all. Given this binary choice I, for one, know which side I’m backing.
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3:00 Why is Britain so intent on creating little enclaves within the wider culture, as here, where this could be Pakistan or Bangladesh? Immigration per se isn’t necessarily the problem - most people I know have no particular problem with strictly controlled legal immigration - it’s Islamic immigration that is the problem for many, including many left of centre voters. As a secular agnostic, I’m constantly amazed at just how carefree western, secular, liberal democracies (particularly Britain, France and Germany) are when it comes to importing an ideology diametrically opposed to liberal democracy. Islam is political (‘Islam is politics or it is nothing.’ ~ Ayatollah Khomeini). It wants control of the reins. At the current rate, the UK is projected to be 17% Islamic in 2 decades. Sweden, astonishingly, is projected to be 30% Islamic. A full third of Swedes will be Muslims. With numbers like that, Europe can expect some interesting times ahead.
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Amongst other things, Farage is back to appeal to those who have concerns about mass immigration. However, the issue for many people isn’t immigration per se (most people I know have no particular problem with strictly controlled legal immigration); it’s Islamic immigration that is the problem for many, including many left of centre voters. As a secular agnostic, I’m constantly amazed at just how carefree western, secular, liberal democracies are when it comes to importing an ideology diametrically opposed to liberal democracy. Islam is political (‘Islam is politics or it is nothing.’ ~ Ayatollah Khomeini). It wants control of the reins. At the current rate, the UK is projected to be 17% Islamic in 2 decades. Sweden, astonishingly, is projected to be 30% Islamic. A full third of Swedes will be Muslims. With numbers like that, Europe can expect some interesting times ahead.
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Poland: 1,200,000
Hungary:192,000
Romania: 143,000
Slovakia: 140,000
Czech Republic: 100,000
Moldova: 83,000
Germany: 30,000
France: 3,000
Ireland: 2,200
UK: 300
Shame on Britain!
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In this whole wider immigration debate, there’s a subtle difference between ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘multiethnicism’. I have a problem with the former if it means each separate cultural group living their own lives parallel and separate from the broad main national culture, which I really only see in a cohort of Muslims. However, I have zero issue with multiethnicism. The colour of your skin bothers me not a jot; it’s only your ideas I care about, and the ideas tend to come into play with ‘multiculturalism’ and separate cultures living side by side. I tend to see only a lack of integration in a cohort of Muslims. I don’t see it in Chinese/Indians/Poles/ etc. Another thing I would say is that I have lived for long stretches in several places around the world and in every single one of these places only 3 things was asked of me: speak the language, pay taxes and don’t break the law. Now, obviously, I wasn’t living in these places permanently, but tbh, that’s all I really ask of those who come here. Most do these things and as they produce generations, these generations tend to meld with the whole. It’s only a rump of Muslims who want none of this.
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I’ve always found it interesting when Europeans who consider themselves ‘indigenous’ to this continent and more entitled thereby compared to other less-entitled, ‘non-indigenous’ folk, suddenly go silent when America is mentioned, or Australia, or New Zealand, or Mexico, or Peru, or Brazil; for by their logic no European who arrived post-1519 in Mexico, post-1524 in Peru, post-1500 in Brazil, post-1620 in America, and no European who arrived after 1606 in Australia and in New Zealand after 1642 has more entitlement than the ‘indigenous’ Aborigines, or those who were inhabiting these lands for thousands of years before Europeans aggressively pitched up. Not to mention all the African and Indian nonsense that went on as Europeans arrived and belligerently imposed their ways. No, somehow it’s ok that European settlers moved to these places and brutally subjugated (and in millions of cases, enslaved) those already settled there, but when non-Europeans arrive in Europe, to work, to seek a better life in most cases, somehow that’s just not on. Hypocrisy and double-standards doesn’t begin to cover it, and those who moan about immigration into Europe have not a leg to stand on when a few non-Europeans pitch up in their backyard to play.
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As ever with these things, this boils down to the human tribal mentality linked to race (Azerbaijani Azeris v Armenians), religion (Islam v Christianity) and language (Azerbaijani v Armenian). When I consider who I am, my ‘ethnicity’ is next to meaningless. An accident of birth. Equally, I care not a jot about anyone else’s ethnicity when I judge another human being. As an agnostic, I see all organised religion as manmade and, essentially, a human control mechanism along with a comforting fairy tale to shore up the human fear of death. Yes, my language is fairly key to my identity but, as someone who speaks 3 other languages, the only reason English takes precedence is another accident of birth. All told, ethnicity, organised religion and language have so much to answer for when it comes to human internecine conflict.
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Russia, the biggest country by landmass, twice the size of Canada, the second biggest; given this, why can’t those ‘Russians’ in Ukraine just move to Russia, if they are unhappy? Ukraine is a sovereign territory. Has been since 1991. Up until 2014, it seems ethnic Russians were ok with living in Ukraine, co-existing with non-ethnic Russian Ukrainians, much like the Flemish share what we call Belgium with the Walloons. My feeling about all this, and it’s just a guess, is that even the ethnic Russians in Ukraine would be quite happy to live in a sovereign, self-governing Ukraine. My strong feeling about all this, is that since at least 2014, Russia (Putin, mainly) has stirred the pot and played on potential ethnic tensions that actually weren’t really that strong. Again, I have no proof, but my instinct, having closely observed this for nine weeks, is that this is actually about one man more than anything. Putin just couldn’t get over the ‘greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th Century’ (his words), that is, the dissolution of the USSR, and as he is about to pop his clogs, he was impelled to take his revenge for this before he does shuffle off this mortal coil. We should not underestimate just how much this really is one man’s war, and on that score, it just bespeaks how primitive we still are as a species, when we don’t have mechanisms in place to deal with these outlying, power-tripping fuckwits.
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According to the Human Freedom Index, which measures personal and economic freedom in 165 countries, representing 98.1% of the global population, using 82 indicators across 12 categories, Iran comes 5th last, with only Myanmar, Sudan, Yemen and Syria scoring worse. In 2021, Switzerland topped the Index at 9.01, followed by New Zealand and Denmark; the global average score was 7.12. Iran scored 4.03. Regions like North America and Western Europe score highest in freedom, whereas the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia rank lowest, with women's freedoms notably restricted. Venezuela, Egypt, Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Iraq made up the top 10 of those countries with least freedom. Aside from outliers like Myanmar and Venezuela, 8 of these countries have one thing in common: Islam.
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@utopiandreamer04 How does your ‘pacifist state’ argument explain the UK, France, Spain, Italy, all of Scandinavia, Australia, Canada, Indonesia, China, Belgium, Vietnam, Israel, Morocco, Bulgaria, Austria, Greece, Ireland etc etc etc., all of which have homicide rates consistently about 4x less than that of the US, whilst simultaneously not being ‘pacifist’ states?
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Whenever the topic of climate change/global warming comes up, as someone neither particularly right nor particularly left politically, I despair at how tribalised and polarised this debate becomes with each camp ensconced in their respective corners, equally convinced that their case is watertight. As ever with these things (and the reason I’m a centrist in almost everything), the truth lies somewhere in the middle. One of the most reasoned and balanced paragraphs I have ever read about this topic is the following from Stephen Pinker:
If the emission of greenhouse gases continues, the Earth’s average temperature will rise to at least 1.5°C above the preindustrial level by the end of the 21st century, and perhaps to 4°C above that level or more. That will cause more frequent and more severe heat waves, more floods in wet regions, more droughts in dry regions, heavier storms, more severe hurricanes, lower crop yields in warm regions, the extinction of more species, the loss of coral reefs (because the oceans will be both warmer and more acidic), and an average rise in sea level of between 0.7 metres and 1.2 metres from both the melting of land ice and the expansion of seawater. (Sea level has already risen almost eight inches since 1870, and the rate of the rise appears to be accelerating.) Low-lying areas would be flooded, island nations would disappear beneath the waves, large stretches of farmland would no longer be arable, and millions of people would be displaced. The effects could get still worse in the 22nd century and beyond, and in theory could trigger upheavals such as a diversion of the Gulf Stream (which would turn Europe into Siberia) or a collapse of the Antarctic ice sheets. A rise of 2°C is considered the most that the world could reasonably adapt to, and a rise of 4°C, in the words of a 2012 World Bank report, “simply must not be allowed to occur.”
The planet is warming. Fact. Humans (according to the overwhelming scientific consensus) are the principal cause of this warming over the past couple of centuries through fossil fuel burning. Now, given this, and given the consequences eloquently outlined by Pinker, we have to collectively decide whether we want to continue on this trajectory or not. For me, given the data, and given the projected consequences contingent upon that data, it makes utter sense to phase out fossil fuels. With this caveat: we must do it sensibly. They will be needed for some time to come as the transition to renewables is made. Who knows? Given that we are currently in an interglacial period, 500 years down the line when we have stopped using fossil fuels, the planet might start a rapid cooling trend leading to that ever-promised next Ice Age, and there might be a desperate clamour to start burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible!
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It’s interesting that there were apparently only 3 signatories to the SNP’s financial accounts: Sturgeon, her “husband” and the financial treasurer guy. Now, with the best will in the world, one (perhaps all ) of these 3 has to know what happened to that missing £600,000 of donated money. My guess is that Sturgeon herself is clean here, as while I’m certainly no fan, I don’t think she would hoodwink us on this one if she were consciously complicit in something financially underhand. This leaves her “hubby” and the other guy. Or perhaps some other random got unauthorised access somehow to the SNP’s bank account. Who knows? The fact her hubby had to top-up the SNP coffers with his “own money” after the £600,000 had gone missing is fishy. It’s all as murky as the depths of Loch Ness. The SNP first loses 30,000 Party members (and a full 42% of membership since 2019). Then it “loses” £600,000 down the back of the sofa. To paraphrase the great Oscar: to lose 30,000 members may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose £600,000 looks like carelessness. 🛋 💰 🙈
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@aleksandars764 I kinda think if the Palestinians were offered their own state including the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the majority would accept. Tbh, given that Israel didn’t exist until 1948, I don’t think this is too demanding. After all, Israel took the Golan Heights from Syria and, tbf, it has enough to be getting on with. I suppose my basic point is rather simple, this will not end without a 2 state solution: Israel and Palestine within safe, secure borders. It seems everyone else can see this, aside from Israelis and Palestinians!
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Whenever the topic of climate change/global warming comes up, as someone neither particularly right nor particularly left politically, I despair at how tribalised and polarised this debate becomes with each camp ensconced in their respective corners, equally convinced that their case is watertight. As ever with these things (and the reason I’m a centrist in almost everything), the truth lies somewhere in the middle. One of the most reasoned and balanced paragraphs I have ever read about this topic is the following from Stephen Pinker:
If the emission of greenhouse gases continues, the Earth’s average temperature will rise to at least 1.5°C above the preindustrial level by the end of the 21st century, and perhaps to 4°C above that level or more. That will cause more frequent and more severe heat waves, more floods in wet regions, more droughts in dry regions, heavier storms, more severe hurricanes, lower crop yields in warm regions, the extinction of more species, the loss of coral reefs (because the oceans will be both warmer and more acidic), and an average rise in sea level of between 0.7 metres and 1.2 metres from both the melting of land ice and the expansion of seawater. (Sea level has already risen almost eight inches since 1870, and the rate of the rise appears to be accelerating.) Low-lying areas would be flooded, island nations would disappear beneath the waves, large stretches of farmland would no longer be arable, and millions of people would be displaced. The effects could get still worse in the 22nd century and beyond, and in theory could trigger upheavals such as a diversion of the Gulf Stream (which would turn Europe into Siberia) or a collapse of the Antarctic ice sheets. A rise of 2°C is considered the most that the world could reasonably adapt to, and a rise of 4°C, in the words of a 2012 World Bank report, “simply must not be allowed to occur.”
The planet is warming. Fact. Humans (according to the overwhelming scientific consensus) are the principal cause of this warming over the past couple of centuries through fossil fuel burning. Now, given this, and given the consequences eloquently outlined by Pinker, we have to collectively decide whether we want to continue on this trajectory or not. For me, given the data, and given the projected consequences contingent upon that data, it makes utter sense to phase out fossil fuels. With this caveat: we must do it sensibly. They will be needed for some time to come as the transition to renewables is made. Who knows? Given that we are currently in an inter-glacial period, 500 years down the line when we have stopped using fossil fuels, the planet might start a rapid cooling trend leading to that ever-promised next Ice Age, and there might be a desperate clamour to start burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible!
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As ever with these things, this boils down to the human tribal mentality linked to race (Azerbaijani Azeris v Armenians), religion (Islam v Christianity) and language (Azerbaijani v Armenian). When I consider who I am, my ‘ethnicity’ is next to meaningless. An accident of birth. Equally, I care not a jot about anyone else’s ethnicity when I judge another human being. As an agnostic, I see all organised religion as manmade and, essentially, a human control mechanism along with a comforting fairy tale to shore up the human fear of death. Yes, my language is fairly key to my identity but, as someone who speaks 3 other languages, the only reason English takes precedence is another accident of birth. All told, ethnicity, organised religion and language have so much to answer for when it comes to human internecine conflict.
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The first thing that strikes anyone without skin in the game of this conflict, is how easy it is to solve. The essential point is a simple one: two peoples of roughly equal size have a claim to the same land. The solution is, obviously, to create two states side by side. However, those who do have a tendentious, non-objective point of view, namely the rabid rabbis and the mad mullahs and the pervervid priests, have served to scupper any chances of solution, obvious to everyone else. But the exclusive claims to god-given authority, made by hysterical clerics on both sides and further stoked by Armageddon-minded wacko Christians who hope to bring on the Apocalypse tout de suite (preceded by the death or conversion of all Jews), have made the situation insufferable, literally and metaphorically, and put the whole of humanity in the position of hostage to a squabble that now features the threat of nuclear conflagration. The moral of this sad, sorry tale, full of sound and fury, is that organised religion has so much to answer for, we may be here until the seas run dry and rocks melt in the hot middle-eastern sun, before it can claim any kind of alibi.
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We’re basically already there as there is a large lag effect in the climate and global warming situation. However, in this debate I do wish people would stop talking about ‘climate change’. The climate has been ‘changing’ for about 4 billion years when this 3rd rock from the sun emerged. The real issue is ‘global warming’, and how much humankind is complicit in this warming. That the planet is warming, and warming rather alarmingly rapidly, is indubitable. What’s not quite as indubitable is how much human activity is contributing to this. On balance, having looked at the evidence, I happen to think that humans are significantly contributing to global warming through fossil fuel burning. Given this, it makes utter sense to phase out fossil fuels. With this caveat: we must do it sensibly. They will be needed for some time to come as the transition to renewables is made. Who knows? Given that we are currently in an inter-glacial period, 500 years down the line when we have stopped using fossil fuels, the planet might start a rapid cooling trend leading to that ever-promised next Ice Age, and there might be a desperate clamour to start burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible!
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The biggest mistake Putin has made here was to arrogantly assume a majority of Ukrainians would simply roll over and have their stomachs tickled by the Russians as they rolled in with their tanks. This is the kind of tone-deafness you get when no one has been able to say ‘no’ to one man for 22 years. In a very real sense, the cause of this war rests squarely on Putin’s shoulders and his mad, misguided designs for a greater mother Russia largely conforming to the old USSR. This is why if Putin succeeds in subjugating Ukraine, then Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania should be very afraid. The good news for them (but not the Ukrainians) is that it looks like because of Putin’s arrogance he may be bogged down in Ukraine for years to come, and even if Russia does subjugate Ukraine, that will only be the beginning, as internal resistance to Russia will be immense. Putin’s 5 main demands: 1. Neutral Ukraine with concomitant commitment never to join NATO. 2. Ukraine disarmed. 3. Protection for Russian language in Ukraine. 4. DeNazification of Ukraine. 5. Crimea formally identified as Russian along with other parts of east Ukraine, including the Donbas … for me, these should be seriously considered by Ukraine, to save what very probably will be the utter destruction of the country and the loss of a large proportion of Ukrainians. If and when Russia can move into some kind of post-Putin democracy, then some of these things may be looked at again. Part of me thinks we should humour this nuclear-armed (blackmail? Perhaps) dictator until he has shuffled off this mortal coil.
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@onlineonlineaccount2368 According to UN estimates from mid-2020, the most common countries of birth of the foreign born population in France were: Algeria (1,637,000), Morocco (1,060,000), Portugal (640,000), Tunisia (445,000), Turkey (340,000), Italy (326,000), Spain (282,000), Germany (203,000), United Kingdom (170,000), Belgium (164,000).
Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria were all in the top 5 making your statement about the largest amount of French immigrants being from the EU utter poppycock!
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The biggest mistake Putin has made here was to arrogantly assume a majority of Ukrainians would simply roll over and have their stomachs tickled by the Russians as they rolled in with their tanks. This is the kind of tone-deafness you get when no one has been able to say ‘no’ to one man for 22 years. In a very real sense, the cause of this war rests squarely on Putin’s shoulders and his mad, misguided designs for a greater mother Russia largely conforming to the old USSR. This is why if Putin succeeds in subjugating Ukraine, then Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania should be very afraid. The good news for them (but not the Ukrainians) is that it looks like because of Putin’s arrogance he may be bogged down in Ukraine for years to come, and even if Russia does subjugate Ukraine, that will only be the beginning, as internal resistance to Russia will be immense. Putin’s 5 main demands: 1. Neutral Ukraine with concomitant commitment never to join NATO. 2. Ukraine disarmed. 3. Protection for Russian language in Ukraine. 4. DeNazification of Ukraine. 5. Crimea formally identified as Russian along with other parts of east Ukraine, including the Donbas … for me, these should be seriously considered by Ukraine, to save what very probably will be the utter destruction of the country and the loss of a large proportion of Ukrainians. If and when Russia can move into some kind of post-Putin democracy, then some of these things may be looked at again. Part of me thinks we should humour this nuclear-armed (blackmail? Appeasement? Perhaps) dictator until he has shuffled off this mortal coil.
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Amongst other things, Farage is back to appeal to those who have concerns about mass immigration. However, the issue for many people isn’t immigration per se (most people I know have no particular problem with strictly controlled legal immigration); it’s Islamic immigration that is the problem for many, including many left of centre voters. As a secular agnostic, I’m constantly amazed at just how carefree western, secular, liberal democracies are when it comes to importing an ideology diametrically opposed to liberal democracy. Islam is political (‘Islam is politics or it is nothing.’ ~ Ayatollah Khomeini). It wants control of the reins. At the current rate, the UK is projected to be 17% Islamic in 2 decades. Sweden, astonishingly, is projected to be 30% Islamic. A full third of Swedes will be Muslims. With numbers like that, Europe can expect some interesting times ahead.
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I once visited Australia. The people were bluff, hearty and to the point. There were strongly evident, often openly-voiced, undercurrents of racism and homophobia. I was severely disappointed by the endless expanse of barren nothingness. No real mountains to speak of. When you’ve seen one beach you’ve seen them all. There was also a palpable kind of unconcealed disdain for the life of the mind - even more than in the darker corners of Blighty. I realised why so many of the best Aussies, those with any real culture , for want of a better word, leave. Humphries was one such. Too good for his birth-land, too bright, too clever, he had to get out. And now he’s checked-out. Farewell, Barry.
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And all this nonsense because men decided to draw lines on maps to arbitrarily designate this area as against that area. Never got nationalism, which is essentially just tribalism on steroids that requires you to put your societal overlords’ agendas over your own. For one thing no one has any say where they are born so to take some kind of weird, unearned pride in a random accident of birth is irrational. For another thing, we are artificially programmed to believe that we are to have more loyalty to anyone else that was born in the same artificial territory as we are, but again this is just irrational and stupid, for human beings are incredibly complex and automatically liking and feeling solidarity with this or that human solely according to the idea that they happened to be plopped out by their mother in the same spot on Earth is a moronic notion when really considered. I like/dislike human beings for a whole host of reasons, their opinions, their ideas, their dress sense, the way they treat others etc. but the idea that I should like them and feel loyalty to them on a random accident of birth, something over which none of us have any say, isn’t (and shouldn’t be) on my radar.
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@andrewgreen5892 I would generally agree with most of that. However, as a lifelong agnostic, I have very little time for any organised religion. However, the thing that should be said is that I feel zero threat from any organised religion, bar one. If I were a public figure and publicly castigated Jesus, or Moses, or Krishna, or Buddha, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it’s very likely nothing would happen to me. If I publicly slagged off Muhammad, it’s quite likely there’d be a backlash and I’d be watching my back for the rest of my life. That’s the difference. Just ask Salman Rushdie or the Batley teacher who, btw, didn’t even criticise Muhammad; he just showed a damn picture! Imagine living in a society where certain people are so offended by a cartoon, they threaten death to the person who showed it! If certain people are so ‘offended’ by a cartoon, then it’s time to question the belief, not the cartoon. It seems Islam is so trigger-sensitive it can’t take honest criticism, when it’s just a bunch of manmade ideas like all the rest. Never let anyone tell you it’s ‘racist’ or a ‘hate-crime’ to criticise Islam. Islam is a belief-system held by people of multifarious races. Islam seems to think it’s entitled to a free pass when it comes to scrutiny. If Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Spaghettiism, etc. are subject to criticism, then Islam is too.
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The first thing that strikes anyone without skin in the game of this conflict, is how easy it is to solve. The essential point is a simple one: two peoples of roughly equal size have a claim to the same land. The solution is, obviously, to create two States side by side. However, those who do have a tendentious, non-objective point of view, namely the rabid rabbis and the mad mullahs and the perfervid priests, have served to scupper any chances of solution, obvious to everyone else. But the exclusive claims to god-given authority, made by hysterical clerics on both sides and further stoked by Armageddon-minded wacko Christians who hope to bring on the Apocalypse tout de suite (preceded by the death or conversion of all Jews), have made the situation insufferable, literally and metaphorically, and put the whole of humanity in the position of hostage to a squabble that now features the threat of nuclear conflagration. The moral of this sad, sorry tale, full of sound and fury, is that organised religion has so much to answer for, we may be here until the seas run dry and rocks melt in the hot middle-eastern sun, before it can claim any kind of alibi.
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Putin: “But, brother, we are fellow Slavs, speak the same language, you must be with me, no?”
Ukrainian: “‘Brother’ is overstating it. Cousins, at best, is how I would put it. Yes, I speak your language, but you don’t speak mine, and no, I must go where my conscience dictates, not where you dictate. Understand this and we can get along.”
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@HOLLASOUNDS Not sure the war ‘is going as Putin intended’ given the quite bad losses on the Russian side. Moreover, it looks like his fourth-rate, unmotivated army is going to have an issue keeping Ukraine if and when they take the country. Putin has been a one man party for 22 years such that literally no one near him has been able to say ‘no’, and those who do, get divorced (just ask his ex-wife). While the west isn’t totally free of culpability here, Putin, for me, exemplifies the dictum: power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely . Putin’s mind has been addled as it hasn’t had a healthy challenge to it with fresh ideas for 22 years. Also, a large part of what he’s doing here is simply belated cold revenge for the USSR’s loss in the Cold War. Quite frankly, I’m surprised it has taken him this long to actually move on Ukraine after the initial move in 2014, and very likely the ex-USSR Baltic states will be next if he gets his way in Ukraine.
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@DianeMonahan I am frequently asked if I have visited Israel, whereas yet, it is simply assumed that I have. Well, I don’t travel. I really don’t, and if I did, I probably wouldn’t visit Israel. I remember how it was in 1948 when Israel was being established and all my Jewish friends were ecstatic. I was not. I said: what are we doing? We are establishing ourselves in a ghetto, in a small corner of a vast Muslim sea. The Muslims will never forget nor forgive, and Israel, as long as it exists, will be embattled. I was laughed at, but I was right. I can’t help but feel that the Jews didn’t really have the right to appropriate a territory only because 2000 years ago, people they consider their ancestors, were living there. History moves on and you can’t really turn it back. (Isaac Asimov)
Think about this a little, Diane. There’s a lot of truth in it.👍
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@Ibn_Abdulaziz I’ll leave you with this. I first read it when I was 18 and I’ve not encountered a better chunk of wisdom since. It’s by Walt Whitman: This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.
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I am frequently asked if I have visited Israel, whereas yet, it is simply assumed that I have. Well, I don’t travel. I really don’t, and if I did, I probably wouldn’t visit Israel. I remember how it was in 1948 when Israel was being established and all my Jewish friends were ecstatic, I was not. I said: what are we doing? We are establishing ourselves in a ghetto, in a small corner of a vast Muslim sea. The Muslims will never forget nor forgive, and Israel, as long as it exists, will be embattled. I was laughed at, but I was right. I can’t help but feel that the Jews didn’t really have the right to appropriate a territory only because 2000 years ago, people they consider their ancestors, were living there. History moves on and you can’t really turn it back. (Isaac Asimov)
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@EvsEntps You may poke fun at the Irish Republicans for being so anti-English but to be fair, as far as I can see, the Irish have rather a lot to be angry about with the English historically. First they endured the Scottish Plantations over 100 years which involved the confiscation of Irish-owned land by the English Crown and the colonisation of land by British (mainly Scottish) Protestant settlers into a Catholic territory. Unsurprisingly, the Irish fought back. Two Desmond Rebellions (1569-73;1579-83) to fight against the extension of English governance over the province. Battle of Clontibret (1595) fought against the British. Ditto Battle of the Yellow Ford (1598). The Nine Years’ War (1593-1603) fought English rule in Ireland. The 1641 Rebellion occurred when Irish Catholics were being threatened by the expansion of the anti-Catholic English Parliament and Scottish Planters and they rebelled against English and Protestant domination. The 1798 Irish Rebellion was a major uprising against British rule in Ireland. The Irish wanted an end to anti-Catholic discrimination, greater Irish self-governance and to roll back the Plantations. The 1803 Rebellion of Irish Republicans was against, you’ve guessed it, British rule in Ireland. I think you can spot a theme here. The famous 1916 Easter Rising had the aim of establishing an independent Irish Republic, with the hope of finally ending British colonial rule. And so on, right up to the 1960s when the Civil Rights movement challenged the inequalities and discrimination against ethnic Irish Catholics perpetrated by the Ulster Protestant community. So, with this snapshot of Irish history, I return to my OP that began this whole thread: if the British had kept their nose out of other people’s business, then none of this would have obtained.
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@rehan2118 That’s not my point; my point is that humans are tribal, birds of a feather etc etc. Sunak has quite literally nothing in common with your average voter in Newcastle, or Barnsley, or Gosport, for that matter. For all the UK being a Parliamentary Democracy (lol), and not a Presidential system, we all know that most (all?) Brits do place quite a high emphasis on the leader of the party they vote for (notwithstanding all the policy issues). It’s the basic pub test: The Conservatives won seats in hitherto unthinkable places (for the Tories) at the last election. Why? Well, in large part (but certainly not wholly), they warmed to Johnson, and yes, for all his faults (perhaps because of them), many could imagine shooting the breeze with him over a swift half. Sunak, however, has none of this going for him. I deeply doubt that many of those who voted Tory last time will vote Tory next time if Sunak is PM. Or Truss, come to that, as she is hardly much more ‘relatable’ than Sunak. Hence why Labour may have a genuine chance, notwithstanding their bland, undefined presence as we speak.
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Lovely Islam at it again. As a lifelong agnostic, I have very little time for any organised religion. However, the thing that should be said is that I feel zero threat from any organised religion, bar one. If I were a public figure and publicly castigated Jesus, or Moses, or Krishna, or Buddha, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it’s very likely nothing would happen to me. If I publicly slagged off Muhammad, it’s quite likely there’d be a backlash and I’d be watching my back for the rest of my life. That’s the difference. Just ask Salman Rushdie or the Batley teacher who, btw, didn’t even criticise Muhammad; he just showed a damn picture! Imagine living in a society where certain people are so offended by a cartoon, they threaten death to the person who showed it! If certain people are so ‘offended’ by a cartoon, then it’s time to question the belief, not the cartoon. It seems Islam is so trigger-sensitive it can’t take honest criticism, when it’s just a bunch of manmade ideas like all the rest. Never let anyone tell you it’s ‘racist’ or a ‘hate-crime’ to criticise Islam. Islam is a belief-system held by people of multifarious races. Islam seems to think it’s entitled to a free pass when it comes to scrutiny. If Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Spaghettiism, etc. are subject to criticism, then Islam is too.
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@TRUEBIOLOGYMATTERS Frankly, I can’t quite believe you are operating under the theory that the Earth is flat. I work with science in these matters and the overwhelming credible scientific evidence points to a spinning ellipsoid Earth.
1. Watch a ship sail off to sea
Without being in the sky, it is impossible to see the curvature of the Earth. However, you can always see a demonstration of this if you visit a harbour or any place with a wide-open view of the water.
If you are able to watch a ship sail off to sea, watch its mast and flag as it fades off into the distance. You will notice that, in fact, it does not "fade off into the distance" at all; instead, you will see its mast and flag appear to slowly sink. The ship sailed beyond the point at which you would see it. Just to be sure, bring a pair of binoculars with you so that you can see even farther off into the distance.
It's as if you're watching it go over to the other side of a hill. This phenomenon can only be explained by a sphere-shaped planet.
2. Watch a lunar eclipse
Solar eclipses get all the attention, but if you are able to catch a glimpse of a lunar eclipse, you can see evidence that the Earth is, indeed, round. Here's how it works: Earth passes between the moon and sun, so that the sun projects Earth’s shadow onto the Moon in the night sky. You've probably seen a partial lunar eclipse without even noticing it; if the moon looks orange, that's a sign of a lunar eclipse. If you've ever seen a total lunar eclipse, you probably noticed that the shadow did not look like this. A round shadow crossed over a round object. This does not sound like a thing that would happen if we were on a plane with all of the celestial bodies simply hovering overhead—or, perhaps more asinine, if the sun were orbiting Earth and not vice versa.
3. Climb a tree
Imagine a vast plane with but one tree smack in the middle. If the earth were flat, your vision would extend exactly as far while standing at the base of the tree as it would when at the top of the tree. However, the farther you climb, the farther your line of sight will extend to the horizon. That's because parts of Earth that were concealed from view by its curvature are now revealed because your position has changed. Back to the vast plane. The naked eye can see objects that are millions of miles away in space. Theoretically, with a clear line of sight on a clear night, one would also be able to see bright lights from far-away cities. That this is not possible is further evidence of a round, not flat, Earth
4. Travel through, or even within, different time zones
According to a 2008 paper in Applied Optics by David K. Lynch, the curvature of the earth becomes somewhat visible at an elevation of 35,000 feet (with a >60° field of view) and more easily visible at an elevation of 50,000 feet. So if you're on the right commercial flight, you might be able to see the curvature of the earth with your own two eyes.
In the event that you're not high enough, though, you can still experience the curvature of the earth another way. For example, if you were to fly all the way around the world, you'd find that it would be nighttime in part of the world and daytime in another part. In that way, the existence of time zones itself is proof that the Earth is round.
Taken another way, you wouldn't even need to travel through different time zones. Time zones are wide enough that you will see the sun rising and/or setting later in the western part of a time zone than in the eastern part. According to the Farmers' Almanac, the sun will rise and set roughly four minutes later for every 70 miles you drive from east to west. If you wanted to combine this experiment with the previous one, you could note how much more of Earth you can see when you begin your ascent into the air than you can while you are sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off.
5. Watch a sunset
Pick a nice spot from which you can watch a sunset (we'll call this point A). Ideally, you'd have a clear horizon in front of you, and behind you would be some sort of elevated point that you can quickly access (a hill, a building with at least two floors, or perhaps the aforementioned tree; we'll call this point B).
Watch the sunset from point A, and once the sun is out of sight, hurry on over to point B. With the added elevation provided by point B, you should be able to see the sun above the horizon. If Earth were flat, the sun would not be visible at any elevation once it had set. Because Earth is round, the sun will come back into your line of sight.
If you don't have a hill, you could even try lying on your stomach to watch the sunset and then standing up to get a higher line of sight.
6. Measure shadows across the country
Pick two locations that are some distance apart (at least a couple hundred miles from each other and on the same meridian). Grab two sticks or dowels (or other objects) of equal length, two tape measures, and a friend. Each of you will take one stick/dowel/object and one tape measure to your location, stick the object into the ground, and measure the shadow. (For accuracy, you should both take your measurements at the same time of day.)
On a flat Earth, the shadow that is cast by each would be of the same length. However, if you and your friend compare notes, you'll find that one shadow was longer than the other. That's because, due to the curvature of Earth, the sun will hit one part of Earth at one angle and another part of Earth at a different angle even at the same time of day.
This experiment has been around since about 240 B.C., when Greek mathematician Eratosthenes compared the shadows cast in both Syene—now Aswan, Egypt—and Alexandria on the summer solstice. Eratosthenes had learned of a well in Syene where once a year on the summer solstice, the sun would illuminate the entire bottom of the well and tall buildings and other objects would not cast a shadow. However, he noticed that shadows were being cast on the summer solstice in Alexandria, so he measured the angle of the shadow and found it to be an angle of about 7.2°.
7. Google "International Space Station photos"
Seriously, just look at some of the amazing photos you’ll find. There appears to be quite the curvature there.
Now if you’d like to provide evidence to back your flat-Earth theory, I’d be grateful.
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The key issue for many European people isn’t immigration per se (most people I know have no particular problem with strictly controlled legal immigration); it’s mass Islamic immigration that is the problem for many, including many left of centre voters. Just a couple of weeks ago, we had an Islamic dude wanting a Scottish island all to himself and his followers as an ‘Islamic caliphate’. Seriously, I’m old enough to remember when stories like this would’ve been an April Fool’s joke! As a secular agnostic, I’m constantly amazed at just how carefree western, secular, liberal democracies are when it comes to importing an ideology diametrically opposed to liberal democracy. Islam is political (‘Islam is politics or it is nothing.’ ~ Ayatollah Khomeini). It wants control of the reins. At the current rate, the UK is projected to be 17% Islamic in 2 decades. Sweden, astonishingly, is projected to be 30% Islamic by 2050. A full third of Swedes will be Muslims. With numbers like that, Europe can expect some interesting times ahead.
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Huh? 🤔 Have you read your Koran lately? You must have a different, bowdlerised copy to mine which says: (9:5) “And when the forbidden months have passed, kill the idolaters wherever you find them and take them prisoners, and beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they repent and observe Prayer and pay the Zakat, then leave their way free. Surely, Allah is Most Forgiving, Merciful.”
Now call me “modern”, but I refuse to put one ounce of my faith and mental energy in a book which explicitly tells me to “kill the idolaters”.
The sooner humanity can get beyond these primitive, barbaric texts penned by men thousands of years ago, the better.
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Although Russia is an aggressor for sure here, it’s hardly been unprovoked, and this is really a Civil War (particularly from Putin’s point of view). NATO reneging on its agreement not to expand post 1989 has provoked Putin. Casual flouting of 2014 Minsk agreements not to aggress against pro-Russian Ukrainians in the east, leading to the loss of about 14,000 has provoked Putin. The 2014 coup having much evidence (surprise! surprise!) of the paw prints of the CIA\USA has provoked Putin. Zelensky has publicly expressed a desire to acquire nuclear weapons, understandably spooking Moscow and thereby provoking Putin. There’s also the stench of corrupt family Biden deals with Ukraine, as well, which might explain sleepy Joe’s reluctance to get directly involved here. For now. Add to this Putin’s statement that the dissolution of the Soviet Empire was the ‘most tragic geopolitical event of the 20th century’, along with his belief in the greater mother Russia project and bringing the recalcitrant (as he sees them) Ukrainians back into the Slavic familial bosom and you have a perfect storm in which Putin feels justified in rolling his tanks into another sovereign, self-governing territory. He’s deluded in doing this, of course, as most Ukrainians want nothing to do with him, and rightly so. None of the above makes what Putin is doing right, but it makes it a little more understandable from Putin’s/Russia’s point of view.
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That the planet is warming and warming rather alarmingly quickly in historical terms is clear. Even anecdotally, without the data, this is obvious. The issue here is that for the past 200/300 years we have hitched our economies to fossil fuel burning but I do wish people would stop talking about climate change .The climate has changed for about 4 billion years when this 3rd rock from the sun emerged. The real issue is global warming and how much humankind is complicit in this warming. That the planet is warming, and warming rather alarmingly rapidly, is indubitable. What’s not quite as indubitable is how much human activity is contributing to this. On balance, having looked at the evidence, I happen to think that humans are significantly contributing to global warming through fossil fuel burning. Given this, it makes utter sense to phase out fossil fuels. With this caveat: we must do it sensibly. They will be needed for some time to come as the transition to renewables is made. Who knows? Given that we are currently in an interglacial period, 500 years down the line when we have stopped using fossil fuels, the planet might start a rapid cooling trend leading to that ever-promised next Ice Age, and there might be a desperate clamour to start burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible!
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@Gorbyrev I’ve just checked Jacobabad’s weather for the next fortnight and here are the forecast temps: 46°, 48°, 48°, 47°, 47°, 46°, 49°, 49°, 48°, 49°, 48°, 49°, 51°. Now I don’t know about you Mark, but if humans through fossil-fuel burning activity are significantly contributing to the warming of the planet (as 99% of the scientific consensus is agreed upon), doesn’t it behove us to decrease this fossil fuel use? As I said, add another 3°, possibly 5° at this rate and by the end of the century you’re talking temperature norms of 55° in certain latitudes! Not to mention the huge sea-ice melt which is currently predicted to raise sea levels by at least a metre by 2100. I’m with you on technological solutions to human issues, but surely we can act a bit before we have to take these technological solutions and literally fry and drown huge swathes of this planet out of human liveable existence.
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@Ashleii I agree they are not debating the finer points of scripture. But they are arguing the toss coming from 2 specific religious traditions, which appear totally incompatible, and this is carried forward and manifested in each ‘side’ seeing each other as the ‘enemy’, something which wouldn’t happen if they didn’t self-identify as ‘Hindu’ and ‘Muslim’. Proof? I’ve read several comments in various threads from ex-Muslims commenting on how ashamed and embarrassed they are for their former faith, and what these idiots are doing in its name. In other words, if this isn’t a fundamentally Hindu/Muslim clash (it is, of course), then I’m not sure what it is. Yes, frustrated young men. But we’re not getting gangs of frustrated agnostics, or Jews, or Buddhists, or practising Christians causing ‘gang’ trouble, as you call it, under these rubrics. No, it’s ‘Hindus’ and ‘Muslims’ specifically we are dealing with here, men who self-identify as Hindu and Muslim and this nonsense is, in a very real way, underpinned by organised religion.
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@UCIM11fNcUvvGLnxcBy3Dy8w Didn’t realise you were Muslim. Cool. Lol@atheist gangs😂Pretty sure these gangs who are atheist are not fighting in the name of atheism! A little ridiculous to suggest this methinks. Look, I, an agnostic, have no issue with the concept and practice of freedom of worship, and am pro-controlled immigration, but I do think Britain has a serious issue with ghettoisation, as certain communities don’t mix with other communities, and this non-mixing is done on an ideological/cultural/religious basis. I don’t not mix with anyone based on colour, creed, sexuality, gender or anything really. I will judge you, as Luther King said, on the content of your character; my issue is these self-identified cultures we have imported who are not able to do the same it seems. No, they see a label and act accordingly. They don’t see the person. And so, we see this playing out in Leicester. I fear this will only get worse if we don’t address it. Interesting you’re a Muslim. Didn’t realise. In my experience of non-indigenous cultures Britain has imported, the vast, vast majority seem integrated and getting on with their lives. Like you. Like millions of others. However, I need to say that I have detected over the years a minority of your religion unable and/or unwilling to make the requisite effort to integrate as fully as 99% of others (as you say) do.
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Personally, I find this pretty repulsive, too, but 2 things to point out. Life expectancy in the 7th century was about 30. Moreover, even today in some countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Libya, Iran, Pakistan, and Qatar, there is no age of consent but people must be married. The tradition Mohammed followed in Saudi in the 7th century doesn’t appear to be all that different from today.
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@graphosxp You are completely missing my point. Given that America and her partners have the most egregious record of meddling in the affairs of other sovereign territories, regardless of whether these territories wanted this or not, we cannot be surprised if Putin/Russia moves on a neighbouring country giving strong signals it wants to ally itself with the West and not Russia. Our double standards here are staggering. As far as I can see, Putin is only doing what the West has done for the past 250 years and more. If Putin agreed a deal with Canada and/or Mexico to install weapons on their soil directly targeting America, I doubt very much that America wouldn’t act, and very probably violently, based on its past record. Therefore, why are we surprised when Putin does what most every other place on this planet would’ve done, given what was transpiring in Ukraine and their direction facing West: that is, acting in his own perceived self-interest? It goes without saying that what Putin is doing is wrong, but it’s understandable, even if you are not Putin.
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My main issue is not with Peterson himself (I agree with much of what he says, leaving aside the God nonsense, which he himself almost guiltily, shamefacedly promulgates when asked about), no, my main issue is with the nauseating, sycophantic fanboys (and occasional girl) who leap to even the teeniest, tiniest criticism of him and his ideas like a pack of rabid dogs for hire. It’s hilarious and sick-inducing simultaneously; almost as if they have been hypnotised into believing Peterson cannot possibly be wrong about anything , and anyone who suggests he is, must be shot-down, silenced. Ironically, the very thing they claim ‘woke’ culture does to Peterson himself. All very bizarre.😳
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Ah, that old desperate tune, ‘nationalism’, causing all the trouble again. When will we, as a species, get beyond random, arbitrary accidents of birth as key markers of our identity? Along with organised religion, nationalism is the greatest self-destructive, baleful blight we ever had the misfortune to invent as a species. Other civilisations from galaxies far, far away look at us and weep for us. We are primitive children in the kindergarten of the Universe. One day, we shall graduate to adulthood, and a certain maturity and look back in time at how silly we were. As it is, we have murder, mayhem, internecine destruction all on an accident of birth or an imagined daddy in the sky. Really?
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@trr4488 No. What I’m saying is that Putin sees Ukraine as blood-brothers. He’s hurt that they, mainly, are looking West and not North. He’s gone in there for 2 main reasons as I see it: 1. The historical/cultural one of bring back Ukraine into the embrace of mother Russia. 2. He’s simply protecting his borders. If Ukraine joins NATO, and it seems to want to, on a majority, then clearly having a Ukraine in NATO affects his defensive situation. I will repeat this: if Mexico agreed a pact with Russia, allowing the latter to install missiles on the US/Mexico border, directly targeting Washington DC, do you honestly think America would just sit back and let that happen? No, of course they wouldn’t. They’d initially ask for the missiles to be removed, and if that didn’t happen, they’d invade a sovereign, self-governing territory in order to remove these weapons themselves. My main point here being, that the double standards of the West are staggering. America, and her partners have invaded and/or overturned more democratically-elected governments that Putin can only dream of. Just think about this a little before blundering in on a ‘let’s trash the evil Vlad the Mad’ mission.
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@AMpufnstuf France, Belgium, all of Scandinavia, UK, Ireland, Australia, China, Greece, Syria, Taiwan, Portugal, New Zealand, Spain, Netherlands, Croatia, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Morocco, Israel, Canada, to name a few, all consistently have a homicide rate at 4x lower than that of America. Most, if not all of these countries, have stricter gun laws than the US. Coincidence?
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@AMpufnstuf The idea that an 18-year-old could walk into a store and buy weapons of war designed and marketed to kill, no questions asked, it seems to me, just violates common sense. If people want to legally own guns, then strict vetting, mental health checks, the type of gun owned, should all be strictly monitored. You know something, I have lived in 6 countries, including a year spent in America; I have never felt more ‘edgy’ and nervous for my personal safety anywhere, more than I did in the US. Restricting access to legal firearms obviously won’t solve everything overnight, and contrary to your jibe, I’m no utopian, but that this guy in Texas can buy a gun as easily as he can buy a candy bar, it seems, with few, if any, questions asked, seems to me, plain insanity.
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@mikeatcora It’s just a scientific fact that the planet has warmed by just over a degree these past 250 years, pal. I’m old. As a kid, we had bitter winters with lying snow almost every year. In the last 30 years, I can count on the fingers of one hand the winters we have had where snow fell and lied for weeks on end. I live on the 55th parallel North. So, even anecdotally folks can see this 🌍 is warming. They don’t actually need the stats to verify this. The issue here is the complicity, or otherwise, of humans in all this. On balance, having looked at the evidence, I happen to think that humans are significantly contributing to global warming through fossil fuel burning. Given this, it makes utter sense to phase out fossil fuels. With this caveat: we must do it sensibly. They will be needed for some time to come as the transition to renewables is made. Who knows? Given that we are currently in an inter-glacial period, 500 years down the line when we have stopped using fossil fuels, the planet might start a rapid cooling trend leading to that ever-promised next Ice Age, and there might be a desperate clamour to start burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible!
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@harry hale What? She’s a journalist. ‘So you’re saying that’, to me is simply a stock phrase a curious journalist would use to probe their subject. My main issue here is not Peterson himself, it’s the online bullies who pile in to trash and traduce the (very often) female journalist in a staggeringly misogynistic manner. Too many Peterson fanboys, take any criticism of his ideas as a free pass to weigh in, in the most ugly manner. If you don’t believe me, take a cursory look here and at other interviews (Helen Lewis) and you will see what I mean. Peterson quite simply doesn’t have an original thought in his head. His 12 rules stuff is cookie-cutter level embarrassing in its jejune thinking. It’s the type of stuff I could scribble on the back of a cigarette packet in a toilet break. He states everything oh so portentously as if he’s the first person to ever think of, say, ‘equality of opportunity’ or, say, ‘let’s try to keep ideology out of debates’, both ideas I happen to agree with, incidentally. He attracts a type of fan(boy) as vicious and bullying and nasty as I have ever encountered on the Internet.😳
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@ayoolukoga9829 Richard Dawkins summed up the horrendous monster that is the Old Testament God better than anyone I have ever read on the subject: The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. You want me to believe in that God? No thanks.
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@loudorchen183 Yeah. That’s me. I’d rather follow other ‘teachers’ than the barbaric monster that is the God of the Old Testament. Dawkins nailed him when he wrote: The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. You’re asking me to use this creep as a ‘teacher’?! Get real. I have enough brains to see that this is man made claptrap to instil fear into illiterate unthinking morons.
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@默-c1r Where did I say newspapers were ‘compelled’ to publish his articles? Yeah, that’s right; I didn’t. My point is quite simple: I, personally, would uphold the right of anyone to say absolutely anything . My personal line is drawn where you lift a finger and touch me. ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones etc.’ I repeat: I accept others have different lines drawn in different places. To me, Clarkson’s words were crude, crass, childish, worryingly obsessive on his part, but all this notwithstanding, I wouldn’t have prevented him from saying them. I understand that commercial operations like the Sun newspaper are going to have different views on this as they have different considerations to me, a private citizen.
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@默-c1r Anywhere. Say what you want. Anywhere. In public. In private. Sure, there may be consequences contingent on living in a society (as with Clarkson and the Sun here), but my basic rule is that I allow anyone to say anything, anywhere. For the last time: I understand others have different views and draw the line elsewhere. I also understand that I have to toe-the-line myself and not slander/libel others if I don’t want to face the consequences, but unless I become a hermit, I shall just have to live with this. However, none of this alters my own basic, personal position: I allow anyone to say anything. Now, can we just end this now, as it’s becoming mighty tedious? K, ty.👍
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@davidwatson2399 Yeah, but if you look into this a little more, it can make you think. There are many vested interests whose funding relies on the thesis of manmade global warming. Now, as I say, the scientific consensus seems to say that manmade warming is significant here but The United States government has spent enormous sums on global warming/climate change issues, including science research, although the ocean of funding is so large, fed by so many rivers of tax dollars, that it's hard to tally it all up. Now, if my funding relied on the theory that current global warming is primarily human driven, I might be inclined to promulgate that very theory. Just sayin’.
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@adrianthoroughgood1191 My caveat stems from human agendas; we are very good, as a species, at creating agendas to suit our ends, but in this case, as about 95% of climate scientists are in agreement that this 1 Celsius rise is principally attributable to human activity, I can go with this. Actually, even anecdotally it’s quite easy to see that this planet is warming, without actual statistics to prove this. For example, I live on the 55th parallel, and as a youngster we had guaranteed weeks of snow every winter; in the past 25 years or so, I can count on the fingers of one hand just how many ‘proper’ snowy winters we’ve had. So, anecdotal evidence in this case is quite powerful.
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@Richard_L_Y Russia is an aggressor for sure here, it’s hardly been unprovoked, and this is really a Civil War (particularly from Putin’s point of view). NATO reneging on its agreement not to expand post 1989 has provoked Putin. Casual flouting of 2014 Minsk agreements not to aggress against pro-Russian Ukrainians in the east, leading to the loss of about 14,000 has provoked Putin. The 2014 coup having much evidence (surprise! surprise!) of the paw prints of the CIA\USA has provoked Putin. Zelensky has publicly expressed a desire to acquire nuclear weapons, understandably spooking Moscow and thereby provoking Putin. There’s also the stench of corrupt family Biden deals with Ukraine, as well, which might explain sleepy Joe’s reluctance to get directly involved here. For now. Add to this Putin’s statement that the dissolution of the Soviet Empire was the ‘most tragic geopolitical event of the 20th century’, along with his belief in the greater mother Russia project and bringing the recalcitrant (as he sees them) Ukrainians back into the Slavic familial bosom and you have a perfect storm in which Putin feels justified in rolling his tanks into another sovereign, self-governing territory. He’s deluded in doing this, of course, as most Ukrainians want nothing to do with him, and rightly so. None of the above makes what Putin is doing right, but it makes it a little more understandable from Putin/Russia’s point of view.
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So, why do no other comparable nations have this homicide issue to the same extent? I would say that why they don’t, is because they limit access to legal guns. This 18 year-old freak would, arguably, not have done this if he were not able to walk into a gun store and buy one, no questions asked, no vetting, nothing. If you make guns so free and easy, you are going to get people being free and easy with guns. Other nations recognise this, and legislate for this. America doesn’t. Why? The archaic, primitive 2nd Amendment. No other nation on Earth allows its citizens this kind of legal access to deadly weapons. They don’t allow this for a very good reason.
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@rutgerb Essentially Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia all decided to join NATO’s gang and not Putin’s/Russia’s gang. Now, I’m 100% for the right for to self-determine and decide to join NATO; all I’m saying is, if I were Putin, ex-KGB, a Cold War relic, then I would feel this like a betrayal, that’s all. However, I would like to think I wouldn’t be as nakedly evil as Putin appears to be and invade a neighbouring sovereign, self-governing territory. As far as I can see, a big part of why he has done this is because Ukraine has been strongly flirting with the West for about 3 decades.
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Given that America and her partners have the most egregious record of meddling in the affairs of other sovereign territories, regardless of whether these territories wanted this or not, we cannot be surprised if Putin/Russia moves on a neighbouring country giving strong signals it wants to ally itself with the West and not Russia. Our double standards here are staggering. As far as I can see, Putin is only doing what the West has done for the past 250 years and more. If Putin agreed a deal with Canada and/or Mexico to install weapons on their soil directly targeting America, I doubt very much that America wouldn’t act, and very probably violently, based on its past record. Therefore, why are we surprised when Putin does what most every other place on this planet would’ve done, given what was transpiring in Ukraine and their direction facing West: that is, acting in his own perceived self-interest? It goes without saying that what Putin is doing is wrong, but it’s understandable, even if you are not Putin.
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@emm_arr Just in case you were blowing your second cousin twice removed first time round, I will repeat what I said at the beginning of this thread (word to the wise: take that engorged, veiny monstrosity out of your mouth and look up. 👀) Given that America and her partners have the most egregious record of meddling in the affairs of other sovereign territories, regardless of whether these territories wanted this or not, we cannot be surprised if Putin/Russia moves on a neighbouring country giving strong signals it wants to ally itself with the West and not Russia. Our double standards here are staggering. As far as I can see, Putin is only doing what the West has done for the past 250 years and more. If Putin agreed a deal with Canada and/or Mexico to install weapons on their soil directly targeting America, I doubt very much that America wouldn’t act, and very probably violently, based on its past record. Therefore, why are we surprised when Putin does what most every other place on this planet would’ve done, given what was transpiring in Ukraine and their direction facing West: that is, acting in his own perceived self-interest? It goes without saying that what Putin is doing is wrong, but it’s understandable, even if you are not Putin.
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@@TOM-TOM-TOM I’m going to repeat this, Tommo, in the hope you actually read it this time: When you create an artificial state by stealing land from others and thereby dispossessing them and then proceed to oppress them for decades on end, do you really expect no blowback? It was inevitable Israel’s neighbours were going to have a problem with its 1948 creation. It’s a bit like some random pitching up in my back garden one day and then proceeding to take over the whole house! Isaac Asimov nailed this:
I remember how it was in 1948 when Israel was being established and all my Jewish friends were ecstatic, I was not. I said: what are we doing? We are establishing ourselves in a ghetto, in a small corner of a vast Muslim sea. The Muslims will never forget nor forgive, and Israel, as long as it exists, will be embattled. I was laughed at, but I was right. I can’t help but feel that the Jews didn’t really have the right to appropriate a territory only because 2000 years ago, people they consider their ancestors, were living there. History moves on and you can’t really turn it back.
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What are you on about? Jesus was a troublemaker, instigator of conflict, and a frequent disrupter of unity. He made a whip to forcefully drive moneychangers (bankers) out of the Temple, over-turning their tables (John 3:15). His disciples went out without a money belt, bag or sandals, and lacked nothing. But now, they are to bring a money belt and bag; and if they lack a sword , they are to “sell their cloak and purchase one” (Luke 22:35-36). Jesus the so-called pacifist instructing his followers to buy a sword? A pacifist? Really? It would be akin to him today advising the purchasing of a gun. This Jesus explicitly warns his disciples that he did not come to bring peace to Earth, but division (Luke 12:51). Not peace, but a sword! Because of him, son will turn against father, daughter against mother, and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law. Even a person’s enemy will be a member of one’s own household (Matt. 10:34-36).
I fear your Jesus is a little PG in this debate. 🗡
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@High_Lord_Of_Terra As a lifelong agnostic, I have very little time for any organised religion. However, the thing that should be said is that I feel zero personal threat from any organised religion, bar one. If I were a public figure and publicly castigated Jesus, or Moses, or Krishna, or Buddha, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it’s very likely nothing would happen to me. If I publicly lambasted Muhammad, it’s quite likely there’d be a backlash and I’d be watching my back for the rest of my life. That’s the difference. Just ask Salman Rushdie. It seems Islam is so trigger-sensitive it can’t take honest criticism, when it’s just a bunch of manmade ideas like all the rest. Never let anyone tell you it’s ‘racist’ or a ‘hate-crime’ to criticise Islam. Islam is a belief-system held by people of multifarious races. Islam seems to think it’s entitled to a free pass when it comes to scrutiny. If Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Spaghettiism, etc. are subject to criticism, then Islam is too.
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@djadam21 Adam, you would do well to read and digest these words, for as someone with no skin in the game here (lapsed Catholic agnostic), for me they are pretty much spot-on: I am frequently asked if I have visited Israel, whereas yet, it is simply assumed that I have. Well, I don’t travel. I really don’t, and if I did, I probably wouldn’t visit Israel. I remember how it was in 1948 when Israel was being established and all my Jewish friends were ecstatic, I was not. I said: what are we doing? We are establishing ourselves in a ghetto, in a small corner of a vast Muslim sea. The Muslims will never forget nor forgive, and Israel, as long as it exists, will be embattled. I was laughed at, but I was right. I can’t help but feel that the Jews didn’t really have the right to appropriate a territory only because 2000 years ago, people they consider their ancestors, were living there. History moves on and you can’t really turn it back. (Isaac Asimov)
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@TRUEBIOLOGYMATTERS An even simpler way to prove this, more or less, is that as we speak 622 people have gone into space. Now, I’ve got to tell you, if I’d been one of those astronauts, and I’d got up there and lo! I found out and saw that the Earth were flat, I would not have been able to keep that a secret, no matter how many non-disclosures I had signed. On this basis, I quite simply don’t buy that 622 human beings have gone into orbit and not one of them would not have come back with the news that the Earth isn’t round if indeed it isn’t. On a personal level, I have seen for myself the effect of the curvature of the Earth on several occasions by following the procedure outlined in number 5 in my previous post. Sunset. Sun goes down. Sprint up a hill at top speed and when you get to the top, the sun has reappeared above the horizon. So, yes, the Earth is almost 100% not flat in my mind. I’m as sure of this as I’m sure of my own name.
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Hey, Johnny baby, which of the following, if any, do you disavow? Liberals generally support individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion . If you are for these eminently sensible values can I politely suggest that you are the very ‘pinko liberal’ you affect to disdain! Ta da!
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Alert: Jordan Peterson is seen with woman. Cue the misogynistic fanboys leaping to their hero’s defence. ‘Oh, Jordy, gobble, gobble, yes, Jordy, gobble gobble, three bags full, gobble, gobble, we’ll protect you from that horrid womanhood, gobble, gobble. Do you still want me, Jordy? Gobble, gobble.’🥸
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This fella, with his unsubstantiated, (and unable to be substantiated), unverified nothings about an invisible sky God, loses all my respect for anything else he happens to say, God-themed, or otherwise. I try to stay objective and fair, but when someone, anyone, tells me they’re at the behest of this or that deity high (pie?) in the sky, and they are unable to provide a scintilla of credible evidence to shore up the extraordinary claim (see Sagan), then why should I consider anything they happen to tell me worthy of my time? As Nietzsche posited: Is man one of God’s blunders or is God one of man’s blunders? Well?😳
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As someone once said, if liberals won’t enforce borders, fascists will. The vast majority of people I’m aware of, including myself, have no issue with controlled, legal immigration. Where the issue becomes problematic for many, again including myself, is when there appears to be absolutely no control over the influx of potentially illegal immigrants, which is what we have seen over the past 5 years with the Channel boat crossings, with 764 in 2018, 1,900 in 2019, 8,404 in 2020, 28,526 in 2021, 45,756 in 2022 and on this trajectory, we could see 70,000 this year. Of course, not all these people will be illegal economic migrants, as a proportion will be genuine refugees and asylum seekers. However, this notwithstanding, the immigration issue, as it stands, appears utterly chaotic and out of control and is categorically no different than having a random individual (illegal migrant) breaking into your house and demanding they stay, and you have no real way of evicting them. Of course, if that individual were desperate and genuinely fearing for their life and general safety (asylum seeker), most people would take pity and provide support, but even then this has to be done in a controlled manner. Whether one likes it or not, in the world as we have established it these past few centuries, borders matter. Sovereign territories, like sovereign householders, should absolutely have the right to refuse entry to illegal entrants. For example, for the life of me I cannot understand why we are accepting of so many people from an intrinsically safe European country like Albania. If you’re a genuine refugee, legality and basic humanity tells us these people should be humanely processed and if in fear of their lives, granted asylum. However, with illegal economic migrants, it’s also in their interest to claim refugee status: in other words, a key component of going some way to resolving this issue is to hire more staff to process the applications. Another component would be to go to source, that is to the gangs organising all this. There should be much greater emphasis placed on breaking up these networks . Imo, giving the French £500 million quid is throwing good money after bad. Letting migrants leave French shores is so many fewer migrants France itself has to deal with, so it’s folly to assume they are going to be on the case in this regard. Sending illegal migrants elsewhere is also invidious. Can you imagine the uproar there would be if it were the other way, and if Rwanda, for example, chose to send tens of thousands of its illegal migrants to the UK? There would be rioting in the streets. Migration is not going to go away. Given this, there should be binding agreements between European nations whereby they intake mutually-agreed quotas. The whole issue is a tangled web. One final thing: we need to scotch this fallacy that the UK takes more than its fair share of refugees. In 2021 there were 148,200 asylum applications in Germany, 103,800 applications in France, 62,100 in Spain, 43,900 in Italy and 37,562 in the UK.
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@Tamarlane389 My point? Well, since you so kindly ask: As a lifelong agnostic, I have very little time for any organised religion. However, the thing that should be said is that I feel zero threat from any organised religion, bar one. If I were a public figure and publicly castigated Jesus, or Moses, or Krishna, or Buddha, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it’s very likely nothing would happen to me. If I publicly slagged off Muhammad, it’s quite likely there’d be a backlash and I’d be watching my back for the rest of my life. That’s the difference. Just ask Salman Rushdie or the Batley teacher who, btw, didn’t even criticise Muhammad; he just showed a damn picture! Imagine living in a society where certain people are so offended by a cartoon, they threaten death to the person who showed it! If certain people are so ‘offended’ by a cartoon, then it’s time to question the belief, not the cartoon. It seems Islam is so trigger-sensitive it can’t take honest criticism, when it’s just a bunch of manmade ideas like all the rest. Never let anyone tell you it’s ‘racist’ or a ‘hate-crime’ to criticise Islam. Islam is a belief-system held by people of multifarious races. Islam seems to think it’s entitled to a free pass when it comes to scrutiny. If Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Spaghettiism, etc. are subject to criticism, then Islam is too.
I suppose that’s more or less my point, petal. 🙄
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@ambirat I think you may have missed my main point, so for the hard of observing: if LA were wiped from the map tomorrow, it wouldn’t be missed architecturally-speaking and could be rebuilt without guilt. If, say, Prague, or York, or Granada, or Florence, or Budapest etc., were wiped from the map, they very definitely would be missed. Irreplaceable. LA can be re-created because there was nothing there to lose in the first place! 👍
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@TashaCreatesStuff Ok, a few nice houses. Put it this way, and once again, losing LA in a fire is, by and large, not the same as losing, say, Seville or Marrakesh, or Rome, or Dubrovnik or etc etc. My point? LA is, essentially, one of the uglier urban spots on the planet, notwithstanding one or two pretty houses.
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@Shekhinah74 The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. (Richard Dawkins)
The brutal irony of this situation is that both sides believe in the same manmade, invented invisible sky daddy! Once you write this stuff down, and get a critical mass to buy into it, it’s very hard for humanity to shake, alas.
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@jenjones90 Ah, you’re twisting the debate now. This was originally about the visual merits of certain places. The economics of a place is a different matter. I lived in Sicily for a year back in the 1990s and the quality of life (sunny, relaxed, healthy, surrounded by beauty everywhere) was much better than the grey, grim treadmill stress of the UK. Yes, some of the attitudes vis-a-vis women were a bit hidebound, but this didn’t ruin or unbalance the overwhelming positives when compared to the UK. Also, many of these attitudes you mention exist in France and Spain, too, and I have lived in both those places, too. When you weigh up the pros and cons of life in France, Spain or Italy versus life in the UK, for me, the Latin countries win out every time, notwithstanding their evident deficiencies and social/economic issues.
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@jenjones90 Just for the record, and in the interests of balance, the UK has some high-points, aesthetically: my hometown, Edinburgh, is up there in any list of most beautiful European cities; Durham is a delight; Bath is beautiful; Chester’s charming; it ain’t all bad! However, I’m afraid that when it comes to natural beauty the UK once again cannot hold a candle to the likes of France, Spain or Italy. Even the Highlands of Scotland (massively overrated imo) are no match for the Italian Alps, or Dolomites or Apennines. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but most everyone I meet with whom I discuss these things would concur with the aforementioned opinions.
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🦠 ‘Viral fist fights’? ‘And in the blue corner, weighing in at less than a micro gram, undefeated in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, with a record of several thousand knockouts, iiiiiitttttt’sssss Extraordinary , Exceptional Ebola Viiiiiirrrrrruuuussss.’ ‘And in the red corner, weighing in at a millionth of a gram, with a record of several hundred thousand knockouts, still undefeated in China, iiiiiiiiittttttttt’ssssss, Calamitous, Crushing COVID-19 Viiiiiiiirrrrrruuuuussss.’ 🥊
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This came through on the wires from Kepler- 452b. I thought I’d pass it on.
“The trouble humanity has, and has always had, is one of self-definition. Before ‘human being’, first and foremost, you seem to want to put this or that random accident of birth, or this or that imagined daddy in the sky. Individually, this is not an issue. However, when you band together with others on the basis of random accidents of birth and imagined daddies in the sky, the trouble starts. One of your wise ones, Nietzsche, looked at this in the eye and called it: In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. With an outlier like Putin, you need to develop a workable system of removing such dictators from positions of power. In the kindergarten, the staff don’t allow a single bully to ride roughshod over others as whim dictates. Why, then, do you allow this as adults?”👽
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Well said. Dawkins saw this clearly: The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. I’ve never understood what possesses thinking people to subscribe to this God. It’s utterly bizarre. It can only be put down to an industrial-level brainwashing.👀
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🇧🇷 In the great GOAT debate, just for the record, Pelé didn’t officially score 1,283 goals. Pelé did score 1,283 goals, but 526 goals came in unofficial friendlies and tour games. He even counted games he played for the Sixth Coast Guard in the military competition. He officially scored 757 goals in 812 games. Moreover, strictly speaking, Pelé didn’t really ‘win’ 3 World Cups; he won 2 and a bit. Yes, he was a member of three World Cup-winning teams, but he sat out the large majority of the 1962 World Cup. All that said, he was still a terrific player, right up there in my top 5. Picking a number 1 is always an invidious task, and always depends on where and when you were born, but if I had to, yes, I’d probably pick Pelé. Just. However, if Mbappé stays healthy and motivated, I wouldn’t be surprised to be sitting here saying he’s the GOAT in 10 years’ time! ⚽️
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