buctootim

They dont care until there is a crisis directly affecting Britain THEN there is lots anger and wailing and asking how this could happen.

I went to a flower and fruit farm in Thailand that specialised in 'exotic' non native species. Through use of air conditioning and sunlight filters - they grew second rate roses and strawberries at prices way higher than you'd pay in Britain. I'm sure though they could grow fantastic orchids and papaya at prices much cheaper than we could here. Someone should gently use a mallet to explain to Leadsom how and why trade came about.

Lol. Even the cruises which list it as a highlight only spend two days there out of 21

Never been, don't know much about it but there are more than two options. Quite a few cruise companies go there now - large and small expensive and not https://www.adventure-life.com/falkland-islands https://www.rolcruise.co.uk/cruise-destinations/falkland-islands https://www.pocruises.com/ports/port-stanley-falkland-islands?s_kwcid=AL!13500!3!659144334677!!!g!!&campaignid=695709501&adgroupid=34454047805&utm_source=google&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAtt2tBhBDEiwALZuhAIugf_UBEf6FnJAjATfXNFisADWx-59kBFD5gDFT1XjaBcTYz2xjnRoCOfAQAvD_BwE

Yep thats my long shot option, just behind starting a nuclear holocaust.

A lot could happen. Trump could easily get disbarred from standing by the courts, go bankrupt, say / do something especially dumb that torpedoes himself, drop dead / become disabled or simply read the runes and withdraw gracefully. I reckon if Trump was out of the running Biden would be more likely to step down too, and anyhow he is just as likely to keel over. I reckon its only something like 50:50 of it being Biden v Trump. Ive got £50 on Haley at 50/1. Gavin Newson would be a really good pick for the Democrats.

Trumps support is very gradually ebbing away. Can't help thinking that somehow come the election the P{resident isnt going to be either Biden or Trump.

Interestingly Fox News seem to be soft pedalling on Trump this time around. Tucker Carlson going was part of that realignment. Im pretty sure they'd prefer almost any Republican apart from him to win, but they are also limited by the fact their viewers are pretty much the same demographic as Trump's supporters.

More than 100 of Trumps former staffers - people he picked and worked for him have come out and said he isn't fit for office. Only three people who worked for him are still supporting. If that fact doesn't tell you what you need to know, nothing will

Not sure thats true. Israel and Palestine is about two separate peoples who hate each other, both with a legitimate claim to the same land. No one really has a complete answer. Ukraine is just about some short, big ego guy who wants to rebuild an Empire. When he goes the problem pretty much goes.

My partner is almost certainly on the autistic spectrum and has ADD (the attention deficit without the hyperactivity). She's intelligent and high performing as a doctor but normal interaction in life wipes her out and she takes hours or days to recover. Basically a lot of people with what used to be call high functioning Aspergers are good at masking - acting normal - but find it exhausting and can only keep it up for a limited amount of time without long recovery periods. Women are generally better at masking than men. Maybe its not more common now, its just more socially acceptable to 'have it' so people dont mask as much, or in the case of young kids haven't learnt how to yet. She and her sisters think their mum is 'difficult' and selfish but I think she is just the same as her daughter, but not as good at masking.

There were some good interviews yesterday with captured jihadis saying basically they were used and lied to and ended up being forced to do things against their beliefs. Obviously it was IDF propaganda and the interviewees were probably trying to save their own skins, but they seemed sincere and broken in some cases.

It's not quite that simple though. Christians and Jews are considered to believe in the same one God as Muslims and are therefore not infidels and protected according to moderates. But there are various holy texts like the Hadiths which contradict the Koran. The Hadiths were written by a whole host of different 'witnesses' (according to what I've been told, I've no idea of the details) so you can a;lways find something to justify what you want to do anyway. Combine that with the fact that many Jihadis are functionally illiterate and only know what someone wants them to believe and you've got a hot mess.

China is willing to cooperate with US and manage differences according to Xi. I wonder if that means pressuring Russia. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-willing-cooperate-with-us-manage-differences-xi-2023-10-25/

I did that with mine. Was cheaper to get it in Yorkshire and have it delivered than buy it locally.

It was a clever masterstroke by a right wing coalition of Reform, UKIP and Britain First to elect Labour. None of them could have done it alone but together they triumphed.

Mainstream media outlets are influenced / pressured in all kinds of ways. In an age when they are funded by clickbait their editorial lines are often influenced by what is already trending on SM. If SM is full of fake profiles generated by botfarms are setting the news agenda then the funders have achieved their aim. The old spoof #freepalpatine has been picked up by thousands of bot accounts in the past few days and pushing pro Palestinian narratives. That has at least shown what a huge manipulation problem is out there. None of this is to take sides, I don't know the answers. After all truth is the first casualty of war etc..

I havent watched it but will now, thanks. My dad's family are from West Belfast and they grew up not having the vote. Only property owners could vote and if you had five houses you could vote five times. Since the Catholics were largely excluded from jobs in most employers they tended to be poorer and not own houses, so democratic change wasnt really an option. Anyhow my real point is that it took me 50 years to get my head around how the troubles came about. Every time I thought I'd grasped the history it turned out there was another incident that happened 20 or a hundred years previously. I ended up with the Viking invasion and the Dál Riata (Irish settlement of Scotland) but I'm sure there are layers before that. That's why I havent really posted on the Israel / Palestine thread.

How do you know that?

https://x.com/AmbJohnBolton/status/1711458954910261517?s=20